Photos by Kiko Cabuena
“Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.”—Susan Sontag
At Friday’s Gawad Cultural Center of the Philippines awards night, Jose F. Lacaba, popularly known as “Pete” and the honoree for literature, seemed like a ghost of his old robust self as CCP ushers escorted him up the stage of the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati. He insisted on climbing the steps while clutching the handle of a black umbrella that doubled as a cane. For a moment there, he hinted that he might not be able to read his acceptance speech because he had forgotten his eyeglasses.
What followed next left the audience gasping in awe for it was mindful that near the front row was the well-dressed and coiffed Irene Marcos-Araneta representing her brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. She earlier went on a nostalgia trip as she spoke of the CCP building on Roxas Boulevard that was founded and inaugurated by her mother, former First Lady Mrs. Imelda Marcos, to much fanfare in 1969.
Lacaba, who survived severe torture while he was a political prisoner during the martial law years, described the present as no better than the dark period under dictator President Marcos Sr., the present being still hospitable to continuing extra-judicial killings, red-tagging, imprisonment and involuntary disappearances of activists, workers, environmentalists, indigenous people, artists and journalists.
He said the award was a reminder to writers and journalists to continue the struggle for true democracy, freedom and social justice. He noted how the awards were being given on the eve of the anniversary of the declaration of martial law (Sept. 21, 1972), a period that shaped his consciousness and writings.
Apart from speaking truth to power, what Lacaba has done, now the talk of the town, is to shake the perfumed set in the audience out of its comfortable complacency. His speech was the night’s golpe de gulat, in a manner of speaking, that for a second shushed the audience in awestruck silence before a sector broke out cheering loudly for the man. In our eyes, he suddenly grew into a statesman who bore the truth in a holster.
Acceptance Speech of Jose F. Lacaba
Salamat sa CCP sa gawad na ito. Pagpugay sa kapwa honorees. Inaalay ko ang gawad na ito sa mga kapwa artista at peryodista, lalo ang mga kaibigan na pumanaw na, tulad nina Nick Joaquin, Bien Lumbera, Rolando Tinio, Lino Brocka, at Ishmael Bernal.
Sa panahong ito na patuloy ang EJK, red-tagging, pagpapakulong at pagdisappear ng mga aktibista, anakpawis, environmentalist, katutubo, artista, at peryodista, para sa akin, paalala ang gawad na ito na kailangan nating magpatuloy sa pakikibaka tungo sa demokrasya, kalayaan, at katarungang panlipunan. Pinapaliguan ng pabango ang malalansang mga programa ng diktador Marcos at ibinabalik ang palpak na mga programa gaya ng Masagana 99, na lalong nagpahirap sa magsasaka, at binabaluktot ng kasaysayan para sa ating kabataan.
Nagkataong bukas ang anibersaryo ng deklarasyon ng batas militar—ang panahong humubog sa aking kamalayan at panulat. Ginugunita ko ngayon ang aking pinaslang na kapatid na si Eman Lacaba, isang makatang isinabuhay ang pinakamatayog na responsibilidad ng manunulat at guro. Kaya naman nanawagan ako sa kapwa mga alagad ng sining na magsalita, makialam, at makibaka. Tandaan natin ang aral ng kasaysayan at makibaka para sa kinabukasan. Never again. Never forget
Advised that the preferred attire for the evening was Filipiniana, a good number of the men came in barong. For the women, the terno, once identified with the Imeldific One, came in variations on a theme. Even Mrs. Araneta was in a stylized baro’t saya, the saya in Leni Robredo magenta as though the wearer was being ironic. It was as though she were stating, wordlessly, so who’s the winner now?
Nearly everyone complied with the dress code. An exhibit summing up the body of works of the awardees was installed at the lobby just for the evening, and there guests had their chance for selfies and “group-fies” with the awardees and VIPs.
If one were to rate the acceptance speeches according to the communicator’s effectivity and succinctness, the next most effective was Julie Lluch’s. She received the Gawad for the visual arts category. Her humility was such that she said the award was a cause of “unease…the likelihood that I spend the rest of my artistic days trying to justify this award to myself!”
She said the award would “spur me on not to greater heights but to the lower depths where every artist worth her salt needs to plumb, descend into, so that she may touch, see, smell and feel the festering wounds of suffering humanity.”
She closed with this prayer: “That I may be as clay in the Potter’s Hands—inconsequential in itself—but in its Maker’s gentle grasp, may be transformed into a vessel of purest beauty to be used serviceably in the sacred altars of the Lord!”
Her prize and two-minute speech came after Lacaba’s storm and were a source of calmness. She referenced the biblical verse from Jeremiah 18:4-6: “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as he seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying… Cannot I do with you as this potter? Said the Lord, Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand…”
The other awardees are: Joey Ayala, music; Gener Caringal, dance; Mike de Leon, film and broadcast arts (but he declined the award which is now under CCP’s safekeeping); Gino Gonzales for design and allied arts and who memorably thanked even the individual seamstresses and janitorial staff in productions he had been involved in; the late Mario O’Hara, also for film and broadcast arts; Bohol’s Loboc Children’s Choir under founder-conductor Alma Taldo for spreading culture in the regions; Lea Salonga for theater and who pointed out how truth and discipline were her guiding principles during her career; and cultural worker-researcher Marilyn Gamboa.
Special honors were given to: the late violinist-conductor Oscar Yatco who helped in founding and guiding a national orchestra; the late art patrons Sen. Edgardo J. Angara and Zenaida “Nedy” R. Tantoco, the latter quoted in a video as quipping how difficult it was for producers who must tap friends for donations to the artistic cause.
