Thursday, March 14, 2019

Kangkungan (Swamp Patch, Mike De Leon)

2019 Kangkungan A Video by Mike De Leon from Citizen Jake on Vimeo.

Swamped

First the title: 'Kangkungan'--literally swamp (or water) spinach patch. A highly nutritious green that flourishes in canals and fishponds all over the Philippines, often sauteed with fermented shrimp paste and minced garlic. What's the significance?

Filmmaker Mike De Leon--one of the last surviving filmmakers from the great period of '70s Philippine cinema--breaks out of his self-imposed retirement again (he'd been inactive since Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero) came out recently with Citizen Jake) to release this short on the eve of the 1986 EDSA Revolt anniversary.


Starts off briskly enough: 'Countrymen this is the President of the Philippines:" quick montage of Duterte cussing flipping his finger yanking a woman onto his lap--basically using the man's own words and actions to describe himself.

After Duterte's words a precis of his actions: the massacre of thousands (some putting it at tens of thousands) for his war on drugs. The harassment silencing arrest of critics and political figures who oppose his agenda including Senator Leila de Lima, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, Sister Mary Fox, Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, and other human rights champions. The declaration of martial law in Mindanao--stage rehearsal De Leon darkly warns for a nationwide expansion. 

De Leon reserves his most withering contempt for Duterte's open and unapologetic support of the Marcoses--of ousted president Ferdinand Marcos' widow and children. One can question the filmmaker's priorities--isn't he flogging a long-dead horse?--till you realize, with a brief insert of son Bong Bong (yes that's his name and yes he's taken seriously as a possible presidential candidate) and daughter Imee that they're poised to make a comeback, re-establish a regime that (in terms of long-delayed vengeful malice) would make Duterte's demolition derby administration look like a Boy Scout jamboree. 

As De Leon looks to the future so does Duterte who is attempting to fill the senate--the last bastion as De Leon points out of political resistance--with folk singers, weeping police chiefs, personal assistants, anyone and everyone supportive of his cause regardless of qualifications, in a bid for 'absolute power.' To underline the last two words De Leon inserts a brief clip from his masterpiece Kisapmata of the murderous psychopath Sgt. Diosdado Carandang (Vic Silayan) yelling and brandishing a Colt .45 hand cannon. Some will remember the picture, in my book the most potent and sobering horror film to ever come out of the Philippines and yes I did just say that: a horror film. Watching it, one can only respond in horror. 

De Leon mentions Federalism--Duterte's plan to break up the central government into regions, on paper a way to distribute prosperity to outer provinces in practice a way to break up the aforementioned government so that political dynasties (like the Marcos clan and the relatively more freshly minted Duterte clan) can further consolidate their already considerable power.

De Leon saves mention of our humiliating subservience to a foreign power for last--possibly Duterte's saddest most damning legacy. If Trump is said to have sold the United States to Putin what more can we expect from a man who professes to hate America but apes (consciously or unconsciously)  its most ignominious chief executive? Here De Leon strikes a more melancholic note, cross-dissolving onscreen images of the heroes of 1890s--Apolinario Mabini, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio--as he mourns the sale of the country these heroes gave their lives for, comparing our nation at its very best with our nation at its lowest. The contrast is to say the least vertiginous.

Finally De Leon explains the title: stark white letters against a black screen intercut with shadowy black-and-white images remind us of the old idiom 'itinatapon sa kangkungan' (dumped in a swamp patch)--the convenient way of disposing a murder victim and what De Leon asserts Duterte is doing to the country.

Five minutes of exposition and lecture--presumably De Leon kept it at five because in this ADHD social-media world five minutes of straight talk is the longest he can expect any of us to sit still and listen--and no he doesn't tell us exactly who to vote for but does leave us with this suggestion: vote as if your lives depend on it. Because as this (on the surface in-your-face direct, under the surface witty and richly allusive) video so brilliantly explains, well, it does. 

First published in Businessworld 3.1.19    


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