memory in our genes | history on our skin

Commissioned Art by Mahala Urra

The recent uproar over the exploitation of a tribal elder at the recent Manila FAME event has opened a whole can of worms. 

Read a BBC article on it - one of many that have since gone viral. 

Apo Whang Od Oggay herself may well disagree. 

Sleeping figure is celebrated Kalinga tatoo artist, Apo Whang Od

Xeng Zulueta Makeup Artist weighs in on her Facebook post: [read her full text here] 

"You can’t really exploit somebody who wants to be here. She loves all the photo ops, the Royal treatment, maybe hates manila food, and couldn’t stop gushing about meeting Coco Martin when I came to see her. She loves the limelight and loves all the attention. Magsitigil na kayo Kasi masaya yung Tao [You can all stop because the person is happy]."

She continues, "Shame on people with ulterior motives Pero when you see how happy she is, you’ll be more ashamed about your own maliciousness." (All caps hers - missing and not.) 

How do we even begin to address such righteous misguidedness? 

Shall we dissect the sanctimoneous entitlement that led to the ignorance of this clueless woman? 

What exactly has she lobbed on us that absolutely gets our gall?

How do we put an end to this blind and blunt ignorance?

Let us attempt to break this down so that folks like Xeng are stopped dead on their deaf and dumb tracks once and for all.

This begs the question, who in their right mind thinks it is okay to airlift a close to 100 year old who has rarely left her tribal land of Buscalan and cast her as the centerpiece exhibit for a show and tell at a Metro Manila trade show?

The whole tribe voted to have her attend the exhibit. Whang Od herself agreed to do it. Does that change things? Should it even compute into the equation?

Why get all hot and bothered when a photo of her asleep at said event makes waves?

As avid advocate and tireless journalist Nash Tysmans counters, the fact that we debate our own indegenous culture without bothering to educate or familiarize ourselves with its complex facets is truly a great loss.

When American military built their rest and recreational Camp John Hay in the Mountain Province of the Philippines, they may have sought to provide some respite for their war weary soldiers, but our local way of life was changed forever.

It may be all too easy to demonize them along with all other past colonizers and intruders on any verdant shore - wiping out nations, tribes, cultures, and peoples.

Filipinos have given up too much our customs and traditions, living rootless and adrift in uncertain times.

Compound this with a long history of corruption in a third world economy where money is king and too many are swayed by personal lack or loss.

For people whose history is written on our skin, whose memories are carried for generations in our genes, whose lives are passed on from elder to new born - cutting the link can prove fatal.

These lives have been disrupted enough. This is the heavy judgement passed.