Provenance: León Gallery, The ArtPH Online Auction 2020 (For the benefit of
orphaned babies at the Cribs Foundation and the residents of Alcala,
Cagayan in building a permanent evacuation center), Makati City,
12 December 2020, Lot 43

ABOUT THE WORK

The eminent social realist Mark Justiniani depicts in this work aptly titled Tungkod an image of a man donned in the traditional wardrobe of the men belonging to the native principalia in the 19th-century Philippines. He sits on an exquisite, cushioned chair reminiscent of the ones found in the homes of affluent Filipino clans. He is smoking a pipe while casually sitting, with his right hand holding a gold cane. His bearing connotes callousness, indifference, and apathy, qualities inherent to the ruling elite. Activist, author, scholar, and former UP professor, the late Edberto M. Villegas writes in his review of Dr. Dante Simbulan’s The Modern Principalia: “The principalia emerged from the economic class nurtured by the Spanish to serve the latter’s interests and further endowed with political power by the Americans to cow the restive masses after the Filipino-American War. They were mostly composed of mestizos, native and Chinese, the former sired by Spanish fathers and the latter, offspring of Chinese merchants who intermarried with native women members of the principalia. The mestizos grew in economic status in Philippine society as they acquired haciendas, with crops meant for exports to Spain and later to other Western countries.” "The descendants of this principalia are still lording it over the socioeconomic arena…This class interbreeds within itself, intermarrying within a limited circle of the so-called high society families. With this exclusiveness, the wealth of the principalia becomes more concentrated through time, as we have seen. This principalia has a highly Westernized outlook, now Americanized as befitting their U.S. patrons. They send their children to the same exclusive schools and have interlocking businesses in companies and banks. They have close connections with political leaders since members of their clan may be holding public offices themselves or have minions in government to protect their interests." In Justiniani's Tungkod, we can discern the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society borne from the brutal collaboration between the local compradors and bureaucrat capitalists (from whom the elite, the modern principalia, come) and their imperialist masters. Although we live at the mercy of the elite, we ultimately possess the power to engender revolutionary change by means of our shared struggles and aspirations. A dark, brooding atmosphere pervades the background, symbolizing "crisis generates resistance." Until their gold canes are slashed and their ivory towers forcibly overturned shall the oppressed arrive at genuine emancipation. (A.M.)