Siftings
‘Rizal Is My President’: The play as positive propaganda
Based on Napoleon G. Almonte’s book of the same title, subtitled “40 Leadership Tips from Jose Rizal” (OCCI & Kights of Rizal, 2009), the play as mounted by the UPV Community Theater under the directorship of UPVisayas Prof. Alfredo B. Diaz, is propaganda at its highest form, i.e., Propaganda as Art or Art as Propaganda. In this sense, Art is the highest form of propaganda because it aims to bring beauty and order into our lives. Propaganda per se is not bad.; it means advocacy with action for a belief or policy or doctrine. It is the motives for using propaganda that make it bad.
The said play aims to foster a positive critical attitude towards elections in general; and in a specific way, it points to the forthcoming national elections in 2010. In May next year, the country will again be choosing its government officials on the national and local levels, from a veritable horde of wannabes who will participate in a contest where the usual scenario will take place: vote-buying, bussing of voters to precincts, with intimidation, violence, dagdag-bawas, even bloodshed. A whole gamut of dishonest and scandalous acts just to get votes. Add to this the “collateral damage” of an automated elections where power outage could take place, and you have Failure of Elections. Result: the incumbent continues to sit in the Palace by the river.
The imagined scenario is enough to terrify.
But back to the play under discussion. It is a mixed genre, with elements of melodrama and comedy thrown in, a fantasy-cum-tragedy with songs (the nationalist kind); at times it uses techniques derived from voice choir, mime, dance and tableau to make its audience respond actively to the theme of the play which is: Vote wisely for the person most ideally qualified for the President of the Philippines. This is no less than the One who resembles the National Hero, with impeccable Moral Integrity and unquestionable Love and Devotion to the country as proven by his supreme sacrifice of giving up his life for his country’s freedom. For our present needs as a nation, we need a living candidate who can lead us out of the swamps of corruption and greed for power that we have been struggling to get out of these past decades.
The play boasts of our national heroes as characters: Bonifacio, Mabini, Aguinaldo, Antonio Luna, Del Pilar, Ninoy, Lopez-Jaena. On the flipside are the women: Gabriela Silang, Gregoria Bonifacio, Tandang Sora, Teresa Magbanua, Cory, Teodora Alonso and Rizal.s siblings. The cast includes alumni/alumnae from UPV’s theatre groups Teatro Amakan and TAGUCI, with some students and faculty from UPV and other schools in the city. Leading the cast is Dado Tan as Rizal, supported by professors Ruiben Gamala, Celia Parcon, Jesusa Libutaque, Lynn Alobba and Lourdes Zamora, with yours truly as Teodora Alonso; and Community Theatre members Dorothy Llariza, Crista Huyong, Grace Lobaton, Josephine Madlangbayan and a host of talented singer-actor-professionals like Christine Gaona-Trenas and Francis Habana make the play a showcase of Ilonnggo talent committed to the pursuit of art as propaganda.
This is a play with a difference and mounted in a non-traditional way. As part of the movement for social change spearheaded by the Organizational Change Consultants International Center for Learning; the Knights of Rizal, Metro Manila; and the Advocacy for Patriotic Leadership/ Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives, the play ( and the book) has gained a following among certain schools and campuses in Metro Manila. It is hoped that the same movement will take hold and gain momentum here in Iloilo City with the help of this play, to significantly influence positive results in next year’s electoral process.
It is a theatrical offering not for entertainment alone but mostly for illumination through realization of a moral purpose: To make the electoral process a clean, uncorrupted exercise of the human right to Suffrage. Years of dirty voting – as in payola for voters, dagdag-bawas, stealing/exchanging of ballot boxes, or worst of all, gunning down of precinct watchers ssuch as hapless underpaid public schoolteachers -have made elections in the Philippines a murderous travesty of the Right of Suffrage.
The above condition will go on and on unless we have the will to stop it. We have to make the difference in the 2010 elections. This is what we have to do: Throw away all thoughts of the bribe money you can get by selling your vote. Then go to you designated precinct and vote for the clean and qualified candidate who possesses the sterling qualities of moral uprightness and genuine love of country such as possessed by Jose Rizal, by carefully filling in the circle opposite his/her name in the ballot. When you are done casting your ballot, don’t stop there.
Boto mo i-patrol mo, please. Vigilance is the name of the ultimate game.