55. Desaparecidos

In paragraph 54's discussion of the milieu of mass media of the mid-70s, which was about three years from the declaration of martial law, the role of media as an entertainer is underscored. Media fed us the feel good stories of World War II and gave us Dolphy. The Bulletin was like a memo from Malacanang. The only anguish allowed airtime is one for lost love and its variations; there was nothing about the martial law situation. We were all trained to be authority loving children, and Marcos was our hero. But Toym Imao, an artist born in 1968, would have his awakening when Marcos pulled out Voltes V from television, just four episodes before the series would end. That was 1978, and while I was a crazed Voltes V fanatic myself, my awakening would be much later. But Toym has taken it to heart, and his awakening of the manipulation of the media by the martial law regime  would lead him and his art to the realm of protest art. I caught Toym's art installation at the University of the Philippines this morning, and I was stunned by the expressions on the faces of images, so I decided to take a picture of them. The images represent the Desaparecidos, the missing persons whose loss is believed to have been sanctioned by the Philippine State. There were many of these reported disappearances during the martial law era, but we would not hear of them until much later when Ferdinand Marcos was deposed. Yet, the sad fact is these disappearances have not stopped. Labor leaders like Bert Olalia, media handlers like Bubby Dacer, whistle-blowers like Bentain, and activists like Jonas Burgos would vanish along with countless names of students and community leaders in the past twenty-nine years. In pursuit of its reform agenda this present administration has passed the "Anti-Desaparecidos Law." Yet, at least twenty persons have disappeared and believed to have been abducted by elements of the State, since the law was passed in 2012.  Toym Imao is now a celebrated international artist, and it is encouraging to know how far he has gone from the martial law milieu of state-controlled media that nurtured our generation's young minds.

54. My Media Diet in the Mid-70s

Afternoons in the 70s were spent listening to Victor Wood's radio show, "Mr. Lonely". The television was a scarce appliance and the transistor radio was our medium of communication and entertainment. My dad required us kids to take naps in the afternoon, and we would bore ourselves to sleep with AM radio drama shows. On Saturday nights, I would be in our neighbor's sala early evening to get the front seat for the 7:00 o'clock re-run of "Combat". I never quite understood the World War II tv series, but I've often wondered why Rick Jason and Vic Morrow were never on the lead at the same time. My earliest recollection of the show was when Vic Morrow, who starred as Sgt. Chip Saunders, got deaf after a bomb explosion, and there would be moments he would be oblivious to a German platoon coming at his blind side. And we would be at the edge of our seats, hoping he would not get caught. Combat did not have complicated plots for a five year old to follow; it was war, they shoot at each other, somebody dies, the end. The moral dilemmas that the characters faced in each episode would be lost in my young mind.  I would go home after the show, sleep, and the following day, I'd get hold of the Bulletin, and  peruse the movie pages. I'd analyze every movie ad, note the actors, and wonder if the title of the movie promised any fun. A title of a movie stands out from memory, "Kaming Matatapang ang Apog", which apparently was a Dolphy movie. The Bulletin had this two page movie spread and at the top half of the spread would be the names of the theaters in boxes with the movies showing on those theaters. On one particular Sunday morning, I noted there were a lot of theaters showing that Dolphy movie. It was also showing for many weeks. I was not allowed to watch movies then, because I was too young, and I didn't really mind as reading the movie pages was enough entertainment for me. In the Panorama Magazine that came with the Sunday Bulletin was a cartoon, and the memory escapes me if it was on the fifth page or the back page. But I'd look forward to being humored by that cartoon every week. Our neighbors, who were Baptists,  had Gospel Comics, which were written in Tagalog; I borrowed them one night, and I finished reading the New Testament in one week. Gospel Comics were the only graphic novels that my Mom allowed in the house. Apparently, it was the heyday of the Philippine comics industry, but my Mom censored them from the household as for some reason they had a reputation of being crass. Later, as I grew older, I would have access to comics, but I had to hide them from my Mom, who never took a liking for them. Looking back at all my diet of mass communications in the mid -70's, I would say it was lean by today's standards. I used up most of my time interacting personally with other kids, running, talking, laughing, brawling, and growing up before the mass media explosion that would characterize the 80s. It's probably the reason why I think I'm not as bright as my kids as when they were five in the early 2000s. But I'm not willing to concede that they had more fun.