One can often hear reproval against Filipino activists by their own countrymen. “Sumosobra” raw sila. That is: they go too far. Such individuals already have a predilection against militants regardless of what they specifically fight for even before they even turn on the television or read news online. The immediacy of their reaction makes it seem like it is their original conviction. The way that ideology operates, according to Žižek, is that it operates as knowledge that shapes our own perceptions without our consciousness of it: "unknown knowns," he calls it. This means that no matter what dissenters do, ideology always already and reflexively determines that whatever they do is already “sobra.”
Ideology determines what is and what is not sobra. Kahit sumosobra na ang sistema laban sa mga maralita, hindi sila puwede “sumobra” para mapaalam ang kanilang mga hinanakit. Whatever the middle-class (who never have to suffer the threat of eviction or homelessness) is doing is never sobra. Whatever activists do is.
The way that the state deprives the poor of what they need is never “sobra.” At the worst, whatever forms of repression that they throw at the dissenting masses is never sobra. Even if activists are unarmed, they are always “sobra.”
The way that the state deprives the poor of what they need is never “sobra.” At the worst, whatever forms of repression that they throw at the dissenting masses is never sobra. Even if activists are unarmed, they are always “sobra.”
Hindi sobra ang milyun-milyon na ginastos para sa debut ni Dian Serranilla. Ika niya nga, the “MOA Arena was the top choice because the venue met the venue met all the specifications needed for the stage and everything else.” In other words, sakto lang. Milyun-milyon na ginastos para sa event sa isang gabi ay sakto lang. Pag lumaban mga tibak para magkabahay na matitirhan nila ng maraming taon, sobra na.
Hindi lang “sakto” ang opposite ng “sobra,” pati “dapat.” Ayun sa gitang-uri, dapat magtrabaho para magkabahay. What belies this is libertarian ideology, making them the cousins of American Republicans. (It’s no wonder then that so many Filipino Americans are Republican.) The ideology goes: the state shouldn’t pay for the poor or the “lazy.” They should work to buy their own houses. (To add extrajudicial killings against the poor in this triad of “sakto,” “sobra,” at “dapat,” hindi raw sobra, para sa tagasuporta ng giyera kontra droga, na patayin ang mga mahihirap na kasangkot umano sa droga: dapat lang daw.)
In the Philippines, this is propped up by rags-to-riches stories of the poor making it big. Meanwhile, millions of other Filipinos break their backs every day, pero hindi nagiging sapat ang nakakayod nila para magkabahay. Thus, the opposing vision of the state that activists have is that it has to support the poor precisely because the system never affords them enough wages to privately purchase homes, let alone the hundreds of condos/investments appearing in the city.
Shouldn’t it appear then that “sakto” lang ang pinaglalaban ng mga aktibista? Hindi ba sumosobra ang mga kapitalista na hindi man lang sakto para mabuhay ang sinasahod sa mga empleyado nila, marami pa sa kanila contractual labor lang? Para sa kapitalista at sa mga gitnang-uri na tagasuporta nila, “sakto” lang na i-underpay ang mga trabahdor dahil “negosyo lang.”
We thus see that “sakto,” “sobra,” at “dapat” are never neutral. The middle- and upper-classes constantly struggle to control conceptions of these in order to present the social system where they thrive as just and the pleas of those they exploit as crossing the line. Ang sobra pinepresenta bilang sakto at ang dapat bilang sobra.
Photo credits:
Photo of Dian Seranilla from PEP.ph
Photo of Kadamay from inquirer.net
Photo of Dian Seranilla from PEP.ph
Photo of Kadamay from inquirer.net
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