A Formula for Rising From the Nadir of the Times
By Aida Rivera Ford
We live in absolutely horrendous times, and the only certainty we have is that when we think we have hit the very bottom — the nadir — we haven’t. The nadir is yet to be reached.
How do we rise above these trying times?
If we may turn to mythology, there’s a story that the Greeks passed on from pre-history:
The union of heaven and earth produced chaos. Eros or Love floated on chaos and with his arrows pierced and vivified all things. The ruling gods were the Titans, but even in those times there was a revolution and the Titans were displaced by a hierarchy of gods with separation of powers over dominions but with Zeus or Jupiter as the chief god.
The first men were descended from the Titans: They committed the sin of stealing from the gods — Prometheus stole fire (the symbol of technology) from the heavens and Epenitheus, his brother, was prodigal with gifts to animals. To punish them the ruling gods decided to give them as companion — the first woman. Her name was Pandora. (As you can see, even in ancient times, men blamed women for their own failings.)
The punishment to man was in the form of an intriguing box given for Pandora to guard: She could do everything but open this box. Well, what do you think Pandora did with the box? Of course — she opened it and as she did, out were released all the blessings as well as the evil into the world, never to be locked up again. So that’s how the Greeks account for the duality that is the lot of man. Only one thing remained at the bottom of the box: it was HOPE.
Now I’m sure that if there is a Filipino version to this story, something would be added at the bottom. Can you guess what that would be? Another word beginning with H — yes, Humor. The resiliency of Filipinos is best manifested by our ability to face up to the greatest shock with Humor. Other oriental people may take to mass suicide but Filipinos don’t seem to be in danger of that. For us, disappointment in love is the major cause of suicide. The reaction we observe of fellow-Filipinos with the means or opportunity is mass flight to other countries and/or mass dollar flight.
Well, humor alone or escapism will not solve the situation. Is there really hope for us? What can I say to you? One super-qualification I have is that I have a panoramic perspective of the Pandora’s box of life with the good and its disasters; its ideals and actualities; its moments of glory and its deep depression.
In youth, my generation had the experience of looking up to leaders like Quezon, Osmeña and Roxas; of being part of a system where the leaders made it possible for training of others to take over as leaders. I cannot say the same for the present system. Neither in bureaucracy nor in education.
My generation also had the experience of facing up to a World War with its patriotic fervor and its deprivation of freedom; with its high excitement in moments of risk and its fears and anxiety and tragedy; of loss of property and loved ones. (I lost a brother in Capaz and my father was in and out of the Kempetai.) But through all this there was hope that we would regain the freedom that we so palpably missed — the freedom to express ourselves without fear of repression or disappearing without a gasp or trace into the night.
In retrospect, the war was a crucible that crystallized values. What were the things one cannot do without? What are the things worth risking life and property for?
Then we had the experience of Rehabilitation: We took seriously the Back to the Farm movement advocated by Roxas and Osias. That’s how our family came to Davao. We plunged into abaca production and ramie relying on government promises of a steady market. What the experience taught us was that we should not rely on whatever pet project the government advocates. What succeeded in post-war Davao was hard work and endurance; private enterprise and the Chinese concept of setting aside working capital, never drawing on it for clothes, cars, expensive houses. What was meant for farming or business was kept intact. Only then could we compete with the Chinese — by emulating the Chinese way of life.
The experience of studying abroad gave me added insights on the Oriental nature of my own identity. By contrast and through what we miss do we gauge the Filipino in us. There is also that stimulus and challenge to show one’s worth I the face of so much impersonality and competition. I had the exhilaration of winning a major prize in fiction from the University of Michigan.
Then after getting married I had the experience of a sojourn in Korea, a war- torn country split artificially into the Communist North and the supposedly Democratic South. Korea in 1958 was as depressing as its coal-blackened buildings and the suicidal look on the faces of the people. The tyranny and corruption of the Syngman Rhee government was a byword and when a student revolution swept his government away overnight, he and his foreign wife fled to Honolulu but his adopted son and heirs following Korean custom, lay the blame on his father by family suicide within the President’s Palace. An attempt at democracy followed but the military became impatient with the slowness of democratic process and a military coup d’etat brought back dictatorship. I believe the dictatorship of President Park Sung Hee ended only with his assassination after lengthy Marcos-like term. When I revisited Korea in 1978, 20 years after my sojourn there, I saw tremendous progress, unusual change from an individualistic, pushy way of life to one of order and organization; from corruption as a way of life to a disciplined society. A Korean professor of history gives the credit to a real Christianization of Korea that had transformed itself into an agro-industrialized country. Instead of their importing finished products, Koreans have successfully competed with Japanese and Taiwanese and made a bid for standards acceptable in Western Countries. I saw samples of Korean products all over the US — something the Filipinos must learn — making the product equal the sample.
My experience in education — after graduating from Silliman University in 1949 with an A.B. English, cum laude, and being editor of the first two issued of Sands and Coral, I was one of the first teachers at the Mindanao Colleges in Davao City. After my marriage to Donald Ford in 1958, his assignment as USIS Director in Pusan, Korea allowed me to teach English and American Literature at the University Maryland Armed Forces School. Then it was back to Davao in 1964 where I taught at the University of Mindanao. In 1969, I was Chairman of Humanities at the Ateneo de Davao University where I directed a total of 10 Shakespearean plays. Then finally in 1980 I set up my own school — the Learning Center of the Arts under the guidance of the Father of Modern Art in the Philippines — Victorio C. Edades, now the Ford Academy of the Arts, Inc., which has produced an internationally known surreal artist.
I learned that teaching by example is still a very effective way in education. One can never inculcate a work ethic or a creative way of life by standing in the sidelines giving instructions. I learned that some enjoy working alone and some enjoy working in groups. But joy makes work light, whatever the obstructions are.
On that note, we enter the experience, of the Philippines being “Aquinized.” More and more in Marcos time, joy became an alien experience, but suddenly a new awesome phenomenon confronted us — the phenomenon of the parliament of the streets imposing its own discipline — a parliament of professionals and students and housewives and workers standing up for principle in peaceful manifestation of the worth of the human being — that is indeed beautiful. It was a fearsome thing too because someone could break the chain of peace. Today, the parliament of the streets is highly suspect because it is often manipulated by unprincipled elements.
Yet a time comes when a man or woman must give expression to the very deep — seated desire for beauty and truth and justice — the old verities that have motivated the great arts of the world — from Neolithic man’s attempt to express movement, energy and a moment in time in his cave-drawings of animals and men to the marvels of the monumental architecture of the Egyptians and the Mayans — to the glories of Greek architecture and sculpture, literature and philosophy to the Roman structures and the Gothic spires pointing straight up to heaven and then to the Renaissance focus on man again — In his God-given magnificence.
When I asked our Director of Arts, National Artist Victorio C. Edades, what works he considered most influential, he pointed to the works of da Vinci and Michaelangelo, Titian and Tintoretto, all Renaissance artists as the ones he considered most beautiful. Yet he is considered the Father of Modern Art in the Philippines because he broke away from the imitativeness of academic art which kept perpetuating the neo-classical tradition. Man has to keep expressing the truth of his times, and so through all modern “isms” — impressionism, fauvism, cubism, expressionism, abstract expressionism and surrealism or whatever new “isms” — “man keeps trying to render the invisible, visible.”
No amount of repressions can really keep an artist from expressing himself and so when the Nazis prohibited the exhibition of Picasso’s works, a coterie of Parisian artists continued painting underground. His “Guernica” is one of man’s strongest protest against inhumanity. Another Spaniard, Goya, and the Frenchman Delacroix made memorable statements for liberty through their paintings. So did Daumier who went in and out of jail, and the Mexican Diego Rivera. I’m not saying that art should be revolutionary. Art for the most part can be enjoyed for itself. The design does not have to mean something. But whatever the artist expresses of himself in painting or sculpture or architecture or music or literature, he must be true to himself.
We Filipinos have produced great artists and thinkers and yet there are times when we find ourselves sinking to the bottom.
What must we do to bring ourselves up from the nadir?
First we must face up to the problems of the times squarely, honestly, with humor if possible.
Second, we can learn from our mistakes and take a tip from countries or people who have sunk into deeper holes and resuscitated themselves.
Third, we must depend solely on ourselves and not depend on government assistance or initiative nor on outside loans. Old Filipino common sense tells us to borrow only what we can pay back; spend only what we can afford. If we see an opening out of the hold — let’s find a way to get everyone out without trampling each other to death. Let us stop the cycle of corruption by beginning with ourselves.
Fourth, when faced with oppression, let us have the courage to take a stance, singly or if one prefers in groups. Let us assert our humanity and the humanity o our fellowmen.
Last, when we reach the bottom line — let us not lose hope. We trust that our built-in moral and spiritual values will sustain us for the hard climb up.
