Artists for Social Change and Transformation: A Question of Role
By Bonifacio P. Ilagan

Paper written for the General Assembly of Artists' ARREST (Artists' Response to the Call for Social Change and Transformation), Saturday, 5 July, 2008, Freedom Bar, Anonas Street, Quezon City.


I am happy to join you today in the general assembly of the Artists' ARREST (Artists' Response to the Call for Social Change and Transformation). In these times, as you underscored in your invitation, we are all particularly called upon to perform our role as artists. As the great film director Lino Brocka would say, the artist is also a citizen.

The artist-as-citizen presupposes an awareness – better if it be a consciousness – of society. It is a frame of mind from which we as creators of art take off and bestow social value to our works. It is what acutely differentiates us from the rest of our tribe.

I have been asked to share with you my thoughts on the role of artists and writers in the midst of the raging political and economic crisis in our country. I think, in general terms, that there is no debate among us about what that role is: We need to create and disseminate art that does not merely mirror social reality but puts across a message, a call – as the name of our alliance declares -- for social change and transformation.

Having said that, let me point out a few things to help us clarify further the role of the artist-as-citizen in the movement for social change and transformation.

In the unity statement of our alliance, there is a long list of artists who had taken part in many social movements that grew out of the crises in Philippine history. As Artists’ ARREST conducts study sessions about these involvements, I hope we could spell out the critical points that differentiate one from another. That is to say, for instance, how to distinguish the artist-citizen Jose Rizal from the artist-citizen Andres Bonifacio; or the so-called seditious theater artists of the American era from the theater artists of the 1970s, or even the early Brocka from the later Brocka. The effort, I assure you, will enlighten us towards deepening our commitment for social change and transformation.

We need to learn from the lessons of these artists’ involvements and why we must stop our appreciation of artists’ activism from moving in concentric circles – because history does not and must not. In other words, let us be able to answer such questions as “What have the artists-as-citizens accomplished over the centuries and the years of our history?” and “What lessons may we derive from their various kinds of activism, that we may perform our role more effectively as artist-as-citizen in our own time?” In other words, how do we define and refine our standpoint, viewpoint, and method in the flux of time? This is the first point I wish to say.

My second point concerns our understanding of the crisis that we find ourselves in today. In urgent economic terms, the illustrations are rice, oil, unemployment, endless poverty. In urgent political terms, the illustrations are government illegitimacy, misrule, corruption. In urgent social terms, the breakdown of social institutions and values, anarchy, despair.

Let me digress a bit and take you back to 1986. Before that year, everybody but everybody said we were in crisis, and believed it wholeheartedly for the same economic, political and social evidences that I just mentioned. Then it happened – the amazing bloodless and nonviolent People Power Revolution, and the dictator was suddenly down and out. The whole nation rejoiced and concluded that the crisis was over. In fact – and this is a trivia relating to cultural work, foreign funding agencies closed down their windows for financial support to artists’ groups in the Philippines. Their reason was that the crisis was over. So now, they’d rather fund other tangible projects for development.

Many of us became of the same belief that the crisis was over. Democracy had been restored; it was time for collaboration. It has been some 22 years hence. Can we honestly say now that the crisis did fade away in 1986? I cannot. But, really, something somehow must have been resolved in that year when Marcos fled the land and Tita Cory took over the presidential palace.

I remember that in the 1970s, we tackled the burning issues of the day as much as we discussed the continuing crisis that our society has been thrown into by the forces of colonialism and neocolonialism. (Of course, some would frown at the sound of the isms and offer a paradigm shift – which is a good point to discuss in relation to social change and transformation.)

Which brings me back to my second point: The issues of today are so urgent, yes, and they have swollen to crisis proportions, yes, and they have to be addressed by all citizens, artists and nonartists alike. But in addressing them as such, let us look at them, as in playwriting, as a conflict within a bigger conflict. It means that as we try to resolve the urgent issues of the day, we must not lose sight of the fact that the struggle does not end at the end of the day. Resolving the minor conflicts in a play only takes the playwright nearer the bigger and more dramatic battle and resolution of the principal conflict, in the process, inducing more tension and a higher level of struggle.

Applying that to the dynamics of social change and transformation, it means that the artist-as-citizen must learn more than the technique of his art, but the politics and ideology of his commitment.

In this connection, may I say that as we artists-as-citizens create, our works only become relevant AND enduring only if and when they illuminate social reality beyond the parameters of the urgent and into the hopefulness of the militancy of the people’s movement.

My third point is about the end-all and the be-all of our creations. What is the use of it all when the people for whom we create are not affected in a manner that inspires them to act? All our works amount to nothing if they remain on canvass, on paper, on the screen or video monitor, on stage, or in CDs and tapes. But they will amount to everything if they leap from their medium and into the hearts and minds of the people. And then, ultimately, the people themselves must transform our art into a material force in their collective struggle to create the greatest work of art there could be.

Thank you so much.