In the sixties, when I was in high school, there was an American girl classmate with braces, and using my simple English knowledge, I had asked her: "what country do you come from," when actually I wanted to ask what state she was from. But I caught myself and repeated my question using the word, state instead of country. Then she responded: "I was about to say, God, doesn't she know until now where I come from?" Although it was a sincere response, I felt sensitive about it and had thought then that she was insulting me. But I just kept quiet.
Since then, I sought to read more books in this foreign language, not really deciding to be a writer. Actually my first passion was drama, like my older sister, Vangie who was really a good actress. I only became a writer when I as invited to go to Amsterdam to attend and present my Super 8mm documentaries at the First International Conference of Women in Film and Video (1981). I wrote and submitted a critique of the experimental-drama filmmaker, Gabriel Rocha which got published in the magazine of the Independent Filmmakers' Cooperative, of which I was a member.
But upon returning to the Philippines, I had discovered that the English language I was writing in had a British not American flavor. Magazine and newspaper writings hewed more to the American English rather than the former. Because of this, as I got also influenced by these writings, my own style altered. Am I regretting this? Not really because my aim is to communicate. American English is straight to the point, with less frills.
I wrote for the printed media then because I wanted to propagate feminism, the idea that women have to be assertive not only at home but also in the larger society. I told myself, "Wilhelmina, Independent Filmmaking is a myth." When my work with the women supporting Cory resulted in her being catapulted to the highest post of the land, a homemaker turned president, I retreated to the audio-visual arts again, producing the tv magazine program, Halina Kabaro, week after week for 19 episodes, using the Pilipino language and eventually winning the Catholic Mass Media award in 1987.
But Cory's administration suffered setbacks with the machos in the military wanting to take over the reins of power. So I found myself drawn again to the print media, wrting in English. Later on, I discovered that I liked writing longer articles, features that delved on issues which could be analyzed, interpreted, criticized and synthesized with other issues.
To date, I still write but this time for the internet. I keep this blog everyday, hoping and expecting that many people would be reading my writings and appreciate my ideas about our society, our country and the movements that are being conducted here. These egg me to continue writing in English although I know that it is only the intelligentsia that I could be writing for and not the masses, the majority who are lowly-educated.
Maybe when there would no longer be those who would shake up the democratic foundations of our country, I would be writing continuously in Pilipino, as in the writing of literary histories, those who speak and write in their native language not in foreign languages, merit the attention of the people. But our writings would still be read as they could provide the readers with knowledge on how a particular group of people, the writers, had engaged themselves in those core issues that affected, if not diverted their interests from what their hearts wanted to do, to the more pressing problems of hammering on the need for creating a humane society. Here writing becomes a duty, not just a passion and interest.
Kuno Acrylic Painting
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