Dahil Sa Iyo: The performative power of Imelda's song

Abstract

In “Dahil Sa Iyo: The Performative Power of Imelda's Song,” Christine Bacareza Balance articulates the role of musical performance in the shaping of the “spectacular politics” of the former Philippine first lady. The article argues against depoliticized aesthetic and critical practices that attempt to separate art from politics. Instead, the article suggests that it was the deployment of musical art forms in Marcos’ performance of self that could bolster the execution of the Marcos’ political agenda, characterized by corruption, extra-juridical violence, and human rights abuse. Thus, the article concludes with a turn to artistic renderings of Marcos, arguing that such performances map the relationship between US imperialism, Filipino history, and the intimate sphere of Filipino America.

Keywords:

• Asian American Studies
• Filipino American Studies
• Music and Sound
• Imelda Marcos

Acknowledgements

Much gratitude goes to Joshua Chambers-Letson and my anonymous reader for their critical and editorial feedback. My heartful thanks to the following for lending their ears and intellectual support: Florante Aguilar, Mike Atienza, Lucy San Pablo Burns, Robert Diaz, Jessica Hagedorn, Sonjia Hyon, Allan Isaac, R. Zamora Linmark, Martin Manalansan, Angel Shaw, Rolando Tolentino, Karen Tongson, and Alexandra Vazquez. Versions of this essay were presented through the University of California Berkeley Gender and Women's Studies speaker series and the University of California San Diego Graduate Studies Consortium colloquium; special thanks to John Blanco, Trinh Minh-ha, Jason Magobo Perez, and Thea Quiray Tagle for their insightful comments. Any mistakes or omissions in this piece are my own.

Notes

1. Hagedorn 2003, Act 2, sc. 10, “The Palace Interview,” p. 94.

2. 24 Oras 2009.

3. See Lico 2003.

4. Salaverria and Aning 2009.

5. Lee 2009.

6. Byrne 2007.

7. Ng 2005.

8. See Ramona Diaz's documentary, Imelda: The Movie (2003); Jessica Hagedorn's novel, Dogeaters (1991) and its play adaptation, Sachi Oyama's Imelda: The Musical (most recently produced by Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Julia Miles Theater, New York, 22 September–18 October 2009), and David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's forthcoming concept album, Here Lies Love.

9. Ellison 1988. For more on Imelda Marcos’ biography, see Bonner1987; Mijares1976; and Pedrosa 1969 – among others.

10. Ibid., 21.

11. Emmet 2005, 376.

12. Imelda Marcos first made this claim in a 1987 Playboy interview (1987) and most recently in Diaz's (2003) documentary, Imelda.

13. Dramatized in the Marcos-authorized biopic, Iginuhit ng Tadhana [“Destined by Fate”]: The Ferdinand E. Marcos story (Anonymous 1965).

14. Roces 1998.

15. Ellison 1988, 55.

16. Tolentino 2009.

17. As she describes in a 1980 Los Angeles Times interview, “I am my little people's star and slave. When I go out into the barrios, I get dressed because I know my little people want to see a star. Other presidents' wives have gone to the barrios wearing house dresses and slippers. That's not what people want to see. People want someone they can love, someone to set an example.”

18. During his presidency, Marcos even went so far as to commission portrait paintings of himself as Malakas (Strong) and Imelda as Maganda (Beautiful), a Philippine folkloric version of Adam and Eve.

19. According to Katherine Ellison, the fresh-faced first lady was such a hit with the West that her visage appeared on the August 1965 cover of Life magazine and the inside pages of that year's Parade magazine issues.

20. Rafael 2000, 125.

21. Isaac 2008.

22. Flores 2005, 2.

23. Bhabha, Homi. “Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse.” The Location of Culture. London, New York: Routledge, 1990.

24. As told in Diaz's (2003) Imelda.

25. The tanned bachelor was rumored in celebrity circles and tabloid newspapers to be carrying on an affair with the former first lady. Hamilton maintains that his relationship with Imelda was close “but platonic.”

26. Sylvia La Torre (b. 1933) is the daughter of kundiman and opera singer Leonora Reyes and famed director Olive La Torre. She entered her first singing competition at the age of five at the Savoy Theater in downtown Manila. A child actor during the 1940s, she starred in films and regularly appeared in stage shows at the Life Theater and Manila Grand Opera House. Trained at the University of Santo Tomas' Conservatory of Music, she recorded her first song, “Si Petit Mon Amour” in 1950. Soon after, La Torre starred in the radio program, Edong Pangarap (Edong the Dreamer) (later retitled: Sebya, Mahal Kita or Sebya, I Love You), popularizing the role of “Ibyang.” With her signature high soprano voice, she recorded hundreds of songs – from kundiman to balitaw to novelty songs – garnering her the title, “Queen of Kundiman.” Pilita Garrido Corrales (b. 1939) is a Cebuano-born Filipina singer. Receiving her musical training at a finishing school in Spain, she began her career as a recording artist in Australia – becoming the first woman to top the charts with a local hit. Returning to the Philippines during the mid-1960s, she performed in stage shows at the Manila Grand Opera House and with international recording artists such as the Beatles, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Julie Andres as well as hosted her own radio program, La Taverna, playing guitar and singing Spanish songs. Starring in 12 films (mostly musicals), Corrales also hosted An Evening with Pilita, an ABS-CBN television program from 1965 to 1972. She has recorded more than 50 albums and 100 songs in Spanish, Cebuano, Tagalog, and English, working with Filipino composers and interpreting Filipino classics for younger audiences since the 1970s, lending to her moniker, “Asia's Queen of Songs.”

27. I am currently working on a book chapter that looks at Filipino America's use of cover songs and the ways that YouTube catapults them upon the international stage, namely in the examples of Charice Pempengco, Arnel Pineda, and Rin on the Rox. A San Francisco-based Filipino American arts organization, Kulintang Arts, has also been shifting an artistic ear towards these musical traditions in their recent showcase, underCOVER: an evening of cover jams to benefit Typhoon Ondoy victims (15 October 2009; Bayanihan Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA), and their commissioned performance of vocalist Jen Soriano's piece, Viajeras : A Song Cycle in Tribute to Filipino Overseas Musicians (26 April 2009, Bayanihan Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA), which chronicles her father's career as an OPA (overseas performing artist) within a larger Filipino diasporic musical tradition.

28. See Molina 1978; Maceda 1998; and director Benito Bautista's film-in-progress, Harana (New Art Media, San Francisco, CA).

29. Ileto 1979.

30. For more on rituals of suffering and the interstices of life and death in provincial Philippines, see Fenella Cannell's detailed ethnography, “Saints and the Dead” (1999).

31. See Ileto1979; Fernandez 1996; and Tiongson 1999.

32. See both Manalansan 2003 and Tolentino 2001.

33. A riff on Crying Ladies, the title of a 2003 Philippine comedic film (Melly 2003) that chronicles the mishaps and misfortunes of three professional mourners (Sharon Cuneta, Hilda Koronel, and Angel Aquino) who are hired by a young Chinese-Filipino son (Eric Quizon) to cry at his father's traditional Chinese funeral. A winner at the Metro Manila Film Festival and official foreign film entry to the Academy Awards, the film captures and pokes fun at both the performative approach and affective excess of crying in Filipino culture.

34. Lutz 2001, 19.

35. From Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Random House 2009).

36. See Swartz 1998.

37. Hagedorn 2003, Act 1, sc. 11: “Girl Talk,” p. 42.

38. Ibid.

39. According to musician and haranista researcher, Florante Aguilar (pers. commun., 30 April 2009), kundimans as we know them today mark a compositional shift from their “primordial form” to the more Westernized style (akin to an Italian aria) found in the compositions of twentieth-century Philippine composers such as Nicanor Sta. Ana Abelardo and Bonifacio Abdon and made famous by the operatic singing styles of Sylvia de la Torre, Honorata “Atang” dela Rama, and others. While Aguilar notes that “Dahil Sa Iyo” (as well as “Matud Nila”) are not kundimans in the strictest musicological sense of the genre (i.e. they follow a 4/4, not traditional 3/4, time), they are still considered “kundimanin” since “there is a bit of the kundiman spirit in them.” Aguilar, Florante. “Re: kundiman resources.”

40. See Pilita Corrales’ Philippine Love Songs (recorded in 1970). Sylvia de la Torre recorded a version of the class in 1957 but the first appearance of this song is by the Mabuhay Singers as recorded in the 1938 film, Bituing Marikit.

41. This relationship of brotherhood references the term “little brown brothers,” a term coined by William Howard Taft to describe the Filipinos and the need for the US’ direct involvement in the educational, governmental, and political affairs of the island nation during the Philippine “Lodge” committee hearings in Congress. An abridged version of the oral testimony can be found in Graff 1969.

42. Hila 1994, 119.

43. Verse 1: Ang Bayan Kong Pilipinas/ Nag-alay ng ganda't dilag/At sa kanyang yumi at ganda/Dayuhan ay nahalina/ Bayan Ko, binihag ka/ Nasadlak sa dusa. Chorus: Ibon mang may layang lumipad/ Kulungin mo at umiiyak/ Bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag/ Ang di/ magnasang makaalpas!/ Pilipinas kong minumutya/ Pugad ng luha ko't dalita/ Aking adhika/ Makita kang sakdal laya/ Lupain ng ginto't bulaklak/ Pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad (trans. Verse One: My country the Philippines/ Land of gold and flowers/ With love in her palms/ She offers beauty and virtue/ And of her modesty and beauty/ The foreigner was attracted/ O, my country, you were enslaved/ Mired in hardship/Even birds that are free to fly/ Cage them and they cry/ Much more a beautiful country/ Shall long to be free/ Philippines my beloved/ Cradle of my tears and poverty/ I'll aspire/ To see you truly free.)

44. Tadiar 2009.

45. Maceda 2007.

46. The global reach of the song is highlighted by an anonymous reviewer's commentary (after the news of singer/songwriter Paul Anka's first concert in Manila) in a 1961 Billboard Music Week upcoming events section: “In general, Filipino songs and compositions become popular only in the Philippines. But an exception to this rule is the now well-known Filipino composition entitled ‘Dahil sa Iyo’, which in English is “Because of You.” Contrary to mistaken belief, ‘Dahil sa Iyo’ is not a folk song and does not belong to the public domain, but is very much private property and duly copyrighted according to law. The composer is Miguel Velarde, Jr. Aside from the fact that this song has been translated into English and is popular in the night club circuit abroad, such as in Japan, Australia, and the United States, this song has been recorded by several companies” (Anonymous 1961).

47. Cole 2008. This clip has 75,882 views to date (not to mention a few from yours truly).

48. Nat King Cole's “Music – The Universal Language,” as quoted in Haskins 1984, 143.

49. Sparked by the name of a Traditional Medicinal herbal tea, I understand the theoretical image of “smooth moves” as touching upon a certain Filipino historical and contemporary condition of ‘being-in-the-world.” It is a way of being that, one might figure, extends from the Filipino cultural tradition of ‘pakikisama’ (roughly translated to “smooth social interaction”) while also referencing a distinct Filipino American sense of style crafted in response to the racist discourses of primitivism and second-class citizenship. This concept finds its strongest hold in the images of and writings on the manongs (uncles), a generation of Filipino migrant farm and service laborers in the 1930s and 1940s. An iconic crew within the canon of Filipino American history, this bachelor society was deemed a sexual threat by early twentieth-century journalists and nativists because of their fashionable dress (McIntosh suits) and self-presentation, superior dancing skills, command of the English language, and “Latin lover” image. These traits were often credited to Spanish colonization rather than the ongoing US imperial presence in the Philippines. Nonetheless, modern-day Filipino Americans still glamorize the manongs’ “smooth moves.” For more in-depth discussions and photos, see Burns 2008; Cordova 1983; Espana-Maram 2006. For contemporary examples of this idealization in Filipino American popular culture, see Black Eyed Peas – Bebot: Generation One (Ginelsa 2006) and The Fall of the I-Hotel (Choy 1983).

50. Campomanes 1992.

51. Ileto 2005.

52. From David Byrne's personal blog (Byrne n.d.).

53. See Manalansan's (2003) introduction, “Points of Departure,” in Global Divas for more on this “imaginative topography” as the collapse between geographical space and cultural imaginings.