[OPINION] Demigods and superheroes we don’t need

Even fantasies must serve the truth, not the other way around. Opinion

Art must have no room for limitations. It’s non-negotiable. As writer and father of two brilliant visual artists, I understand that. I understand, too, that images possess power – the power to seize the mind, steamrolling its husky tendencies to see and interpret a picture more than it should.

The Malakas and Maganda portraiture tells a self-made origin story where the first couple modeled as the first man and first woman of local lore. This puts them in a rather flustering position of being our own version of Adam and Eve. I get it. The dictator wanted to be thought of as strong, and the first lady beautiful. But representing the Filipino’s principal bloodline, as the fable suggests, is quite unsettling.

We all wear masks at one point in our lives, but none so tricky and sly as President Rodrigo Duterte’s political “burlesque” – posing as the country’s symbol of the poor complete with signature slippers,, and simple meals eaten with hands. While the image itself bears some striking resemblance to the simplicity of poor families depicted in some of our films, we know there is more to being poor than the standard claims of movie scripts or propaganda.

What we need is a human being – no different from you and me – but possessed of more than sufficient mettle and intelligence, vision and empathy, to understand what we are going through, one who will do whatever it takes to turn this country right side up.

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