E D I T O R I A L - P U B L I C A T I O NExploring Filipino euphoria to the new politics: The 6th party concert
Phi shaped fireworks erupt at the opening ceremony of the Asigna concert
at the Philippine arenaI'm a Fil am and i just went back into the country just last year. As a person who moved to the states when i was young and having grew up in America, i am technically an American citizen but recently, the Filipino part of my genes inflamed with the passion to rediscover my heritage, it might had been due to the grip the patriotic propaganda of the Asigna government has on me. I always was excited by the new state of our country, especially since i keep on hearing about the Asigna party, what they had done and how good they were in leadership and moved by their "promotional campaigns" to return back to this once humble third world developing nation. I wanted to explore the new nation and see the new government and hopefully catch a glimpse of the man whom everyone knew as "Terten" or the "punong" (leader in tagalog), i wanted to see what makes him so special, so praised as a leader and what makes him such a big deal in the Filipino society, I had one chance of doing all this, at the 6th party concert. Critics would relate the yearly "party concerts" to the annual Nuremberg rallies done by the Nazis but for me, this is just exaggeration. This is different, and i had to see this.
It's a yearly celebration, fireworks kicked off the celebration of the Asigna party at the Ciudad de Victoria in Bulacan a few minutes before midnight Sunday. High profile officials along with their Filipino compatriots cheered as fireworks lit up the area, including the Philippine Arena where the celebration held this Sunday. Traffic remained tight in the surrounding roads with congested roads being a common sight miles around the arena as more and more guests come to visit the party concert, the largest political rally ever held in the country, a nationalist rally held yearly in order to underline the popularity of the ruling party over the Filipino bayan.
Tens of thousands of guests gather inside the arena to attend the party concertStepping inside the arena, the place was clearly crowded, officers, local coordinators, those officials with megaphones whose jobs were to direct their subordinates, KK agents and normal people of what to do told us that we were not allowed to seat unless we were told to.
Overhead, Dangan aerial surveillance airships were flying about while spotlights were being shown everywhere. The entire scenery was lit up enough to black out the stars in the night sky.
There were groups among the crowds that were clearly divided with people wearing different outfits according to their individual regional heritage. These groups were later revealed to us by some of the celebration's coordinators as performers for the later events in the concert. In the background, the hukbo bands continued to play Hukbo marching songs for a few minutes before they switched to playing local colonial background music. After a few minute wait, announcers then declared that the program has begun after which us the audience was finally allowed to be seated at our respective areas. Propaganda presentations were common sight afterwards, as projection per projection was fired in front of the crowds showing how our country was and is still progressive under the punong and how we were steadily on the path of creating a new empire, one that was to compensate for our societal setbacks as being former slaves of Europe and western bodies and would soon rise on the same sun as the Martinezist empire of Cuscatlan.
After which, the announcer then told us to settle down as the punong himself had arrived. Everyone was waiting. "The punong is coming!" One random person said to me as we all leaned from our seats to have a glimpse of our punong who had barely been making any real public appearances outside the conference rooms. It seemed that over the past few days he had been very busy with the political mumbo jumbo that must have been plaguing this nation both inside and out. Mostly out as the repeated threats of invasion, political coercion and political subordination from other countries had been intensifying in an ever increasing rate lately.
"Our leader! Our President! EEERRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNN TEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRTEEEEEEEENNNNNNN!!!!!!!" said the announcer in a way which one could hear from how one announces the name of a champ boxing contestant in those boxing matches. As the announcement was carried out, everyone in the arena simultaneously raised clenched fists in the air. The Filipino salute, reserved as a sign of euphoric approval or praise by crowds towards a single person.
Crowds in the concert giving clenched fist salutes to Terten"MABUHAY!" The announcer shouted before the crowd itself repeated the chant while they repeatedly pumped their clenched fists in the air. Of course, throughout the frenzy of raised fists, i myself couldn't really see the punong until a holographic projection which showed an size enhanced version of him was shown in mid air. As the crowds continued their chanting, the bespectacled president just waved back as he stepped unto the middle of the arena.
"MGA KABABAYAN!" His voice thundered through the speakers as he shouted enthusiastically. "MAKE SOME NOISE!!!" The crowd then made a loud cheer that echoed across the whole structure which could had been heard by people outside the arena. This was the power of the people, the power of the crowds and of course, the man who holds that power, is the man who holds the support of the crowd itself, the president, Terten himself, the bespectacled man with the smile under his thin whiskers under his nose, the familiar unchanging warm smile which one could relate to his official portrait appeals to all as the kind leader that everyone in this country badly needs. The two things in his face, the serious look and the warm and happy smile, two contradicting features yet telling as he projects the image of a serious yet compassionate man, again the man who is the rightful leader of the Filipino bayan, the Filipino community.
"TERTEN! TERTEN! TERTEN! TERTEN! TERTEN! TERTEN!" The crowd thundered as the marching bands played the brass instrumental version of the bayan's second anthem, the bagong lipunan hymn. As the crowd continued their cheers, Terten then proceeded to silence them all down as he was about to give one of those political speeches. He then cleared his throat before he began.
"With our brave hearts we vow from the first time we marched into Manila and claimed our rightful place over this country to begin the new revolution, those who undermine the Filipino people SHALL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE DAY! THIS HAS SHALL.....and shall always be the maxim in which we stand for!"
He then gave the clenched fist salute which everyone quickly responded back with the salute. I waited for him to speak more but it seemed that he was done speaking. This has got to be the shortest speech he has ever given to the public. As in average, his impromptu public speaking was as long as 3 to 4 minutes but this didn't even last a minute, not even half of it. Nevertheless, he was still good at stirring public emotion as everyone was cheering again, proudly waving Phi banners and Filipino flags for him.
A performance by LAziNg, President Terten's favourite bandIntermission number by intermission numbers followed by different bands. The highlight of this part of the concert was the performance that was done by the Hukbo personnel themselves. Partially in their combat uniform, they then began excellently choreographed dances on different songs. As this was something new, real military personnel being brought in front to perform in a rally that was supposed to project only nothing but the political power of the state, me and my acquaintances found this very humorous. We then came to the 'sexy dance' part of the dancing army men while "talk dirty" played in the background in which was the part the crowd literally lit up in a roar of applause and spontaneous cheering. Cheering and cheering, the crowd itself couldn't stop even after the performances had ended the euphoria.
As the concert ended, the president then stepped in the middle of the arena to give his closing remarks. Unlike before, he was not wearing his Asigna party uniform as he usually does, he instead was wearing casual clothes as if he was some random guy.
"Mga kapatid. I saved the best words for last and let me start by saying that all the performances were awesome! Da best!" He said as the crowd applauded lightly.
"Over the past few minutes this small part of our bayan, as there are only like- 15,000 of us now in this very arena yet we are still able to make a good show even with a remarkably low amount of people." The crowd then applauded again.
"Countries, other nations, other cliques beyond our community always brag about the number of people in their nation, the number of soldiers who march in their military shows yet they fail to show one thing. Credible presentation. Quality of performance over quantity of performers." The crowd the applauded again as they cheered for their own achievements.
"Gone are the days when we are the nation that everyone was laughing at. Gone are the days in which we were still a bullied nation. As today, we are no longer the victims of unkindly underestimation. We are not anymore 'those silly dumb monkeys who live in the sick man of southeast Asia'. As to those who still think that way, should have they seen what we have done over this concert, they would had thought twice before they went up to conclude we are still the same society and people as we were in the past. They would only be leaving thinking of what has happened to those people who were once embarrassed and made unfortunate by events in our history and the corruption the once was in this community. The achievements of our revolution, our our current actions and our perpetual unending determination to bring progress upon ourselves and to be resilient enough to keep on marching even though how hard the circumstances that we face may be, they would only be reviewing of what has happened to us over the past years during the days we had worked hard to be on the situation where we are right now to set an inspiration for their totally confused themselves."
As he said so, the crowd laughed. "Yes, of course. If one has forgotten about the principle of karma then one should send himself back into learning such basic things in low level education just so they could be thought not to mess with people who are unfortunate at one point as in the future, there will come a time that those certain people might be on the situation where he would finally be greater than the person who was previously taunting them.
My brothers....one of those once unfortunate people is the Filipino people!"
And indeed, as the program ended, we were still reviewing the events that happened in the ceremony, and we were left with the patriotic feeling glued to ourselves after that speech. Who else feels great enough to undermine us? Who dares now to laugh at us? Those were the main message of the concert which one should embed in their minds. This is the power of the Asigna party, they are the voice of the Filipino people.
Now i know.