Diwata sa kamangahan

We are defined, and we progress by the stories we tell each other. There is absolutely no ultimate proof of the nobility and worth of the Bisaya other than the stories the Bisaya tell of themselves. Whenever the Bisaya tell the story their own nobility and worth, that assertion becomes real. It takes on a value equal to the Bisaya’s own potential for nobility and worth. It makes the Bisaya behave over time in a noble sort of way as would validate his or her own sense of worth.

The opposite is also true, if the Bisaya accepts the word Bisaya as a word with the denigrating connotations of slave, domestic helper or even mongrel. Then all these too will come to pass. And the Bisaya can only really laugh at himself or herself, but perhaps not in a self-loving and dignified sort of way. Either way, the Bisaya becomes Bisaya by the truest sense of the word and by all the complete meanings he constructs into it.

Which is why it is important for the Bisaya to deconstruct the meaning of the word itself. The Bisaya is a mix of many things good and bad. We are not a mix of only those things that are native and local. We are a mix of many cultures and many places, not just Asian but also Western. This mix has admittedly been an historical burden. But given the tenets of post-modern awareness, its propensity for multi-influences, the Bisaya is by theory and practice absolutely current and , yes, absolutely fashionable, not at all baduy as some old fashioned purists claim.

To get a better picture of this, you might go to Mango Square where Budoy is doing an unprecedentedly huge mural he calls “Diwata sa Kamangahan”. Enter through the main door beside the National Book Store at Mango. This door leads to two stairways. Take the one going down into the atrium. This gives you the better vantage point of the lady holding a mango fruit in one hand, the other hand shaped in a manner as would have been familiar for the Buddha.

And one will of course ask: Who is this lady? Is she the Virgin Mary, a female Buddha, a minor Asian goddess? Whom does she represent? What could be the meaning of all these?

She is the product of Budoy’s imagination. She is a mix perhaps exemplary of the Bisaya’s collective imagining. She is beautiful in an historically listless sort of way. She might be Catholic, she might be native-pagan, she might be Buddhist or Hindu or even Taoist judging by the symbolic embellishments all about the work. She is a mix of all these. We will see what we want to see; Or see nothing at all. She is not religion. She is more fun than that.

And sweet like the mango fruit itself. For that might be the truest sense of the work. Think about it. She is an altar piece inside a cathedral-atrium of a building called Mango Square, which is not technically a square but a quadrangle. The building is on Mango Avenue but also not technically so since we enter through a side street. And Mango Avenue now comes officially by another name even if everyone still calls it Mango Avenue. But she is sweet with a Bisaya street-smart sweetness that we Bisaya love.

But if these words are an artistic critique then we are obliged to state here as well the negative side if there be any. To do this we have to remember that “mongrel” is usually a disparaging word for people inclined to “pure-breeds” or people inclined to describing themselves by factors like, 15 percent Chinese, 15 percent German or 15 percent whatever as if humans come also with papers to describe their pedigree, especially, just like dogs.

Budoy’s work is mongrel in that sense. Do not ask yourself if the lady is any percentage of a particular religion. Indeed she might even be a shape shifting b**** of the night as occasionally decorates Mango and its surroundings doing the “rampa” in the heat of night. But she is still beautiful that way. And perhaps even more so.

For the Bisaya “mongrel” dog is a survivor by any light, day or night. Just like Bisaya art and the Bisaya artist. You never even have to inoculate this breed for diseases like Parvo that in an instant would kill those cute expensive pure-breeds that abound. Now imagine a Bisaya as beautiful as the Pekingese or the Schnauzer or the miniature Spaniel. Why isn’t that possible? By Budoy’s vet and religion, it is!