Ladlad

Preface

PrefaceGathered together in this volume are poems, stories, essays and plays about the gay experience in the Philippines. This anthology interrogates our macho, conservative culture that still refuses to understand gays and accept the validity of their lives.

I still hear people saying, with nostalgia like glaucoma in their eyes, that in the past “there were lesser gays around.” But they have always been around: closet cases who married, sired children and lived so-called normal lives; straight-acting gays who ached for other men in the darkest places where society has driven them to be; and a whole spectrum in between. Their inner turmoil is shown in the poems of Jimmy I. Alcantara, Ronald Baytan, Ralph Semino Galan, and Nicolas B. Pichay, in the stories by Alcantara and Honorio Bartolome de Dios, and in the plays by Rodolfo Lana Jr. and Chris Martinez.

After the darkness, the light: coming out of the stifling closet that turns one into a mere shadow. To come out is to accept one’s s****l preference. It means saying to oneself, “Yes, I’m gay, and no matter how many rosaries I pray or girls I sleep with, I cannot change who I really am.” It means to hang loose, to keep cool, to live a life — finally.

Coming out is both marvellous and terrifying. Everything begins, again. The slate is clean, and with trembling hand you can now inscribe the memory and history, the desires and dreams, the very stories of your life. But what does coming out entail?

My friend Ted Nierras attended the Male & Gay Forum of Katlo last December 1992. Afterward, he put down into writing his comments, later published in Marge Holmes’ pioneering book called A different love: being gay in the Philippines.

“Coming out is a process rather than an event: I don’t simply, only once, come out; instead, I come out in various ways, in different situations, and I keep coming out all the time. I know that my gay friends have been influential, supportive, and caring of me as I continue in my process of coming out. Some of us are lucky to have family members and straight friends who are supportive and caring too; many of us, however, are not so fortunate. As gay people, we give and receive encouragement, advice, and support about being gay, and that sometimes, we also behave rudely towards each other without consideration, or we speak derisively of each other without understanding, but I believe that those are times when we falter, forget, and act like the intolerant straights around us.”

That closet reminds me of a coffin. In this anthology, the liberating act of coming out are found in “Boys who like boys,” a story by Vicente G. Groyon III, Earl Navarro’s “Ang H.P. at si Danny,” R. Fulleros Santos’ “Tagay sa patay,” Jerry Z. Torres’ “Coming out,” and in Juan Rufino G. Vigilar’s poems.

When we were compiling the anthology, talk went around gossip-mad Manila that we only wanted material that dealt with explicit s*x. Like people everywhere, gays talk about s*x, but as this anthology indicates, our concerns not only pivot around the s****l acrobatics one can do in bed (or the kitchen, or wherever).

Indeed, we also have homoerotic writing here, a dazzling celebration of the senses. The body electric runs full voltage in the work of Rands Sanchez Catalan, Manny Espinola, Jaime An Lim, R. Zamora Linmark, Murphy Red, Glenn Joseph Toscano, Aureaus Solito, and yes, in my work.

The bakla — they who cut our hair or do our manicure or pedicure — are the most visible amongst the gays. Here they are no longer clichés. Their lives’ “beautiful pain” is explored in Edzel Cardil’s “Par,” Miguel Castro’s “Lucy,” J. Neil C. Garcia’s cycle of poems called “Real men”, Alfredo I. Moran’s weird and wonderful “Ang lalaking ipinaglihi kay Marilyn Monroe”, the poem of V.E. Carmelo D. Nadera Jr. whose title sounds like a procession, “Siyam na diwata ng sine”, and the poem of Raul Regalado.

Neil Garcia’s essay is a series of letters to a friend, a young gay man trying to survive in the fabled but homophobic South. Michael L. Tan offers us a rigorous essay called “Sickness and sin: medical and religious stigmatization of homosexuality in the Philippines.” Ted Nierras also writes an exploratory essay called “This risky business of desire: theoretical notes for and against Filipino male gay identity politics.”

Yes, we have come, we are here, kapit-bisig if you want it — voices that have long been silenced, people who have long lived on the margins of pages, on the shadowlands of other people’s consciousness. Paraphrasing Salman Rushdie, now we are writing back to the center, in strokes bold, brave and beautiful.

Hindi ninyo na kami mabubura.

Such strokes in this landmark anthology would not have been possible without the boundless love of our family and friends. I would especially like to thank Tina Cuyugan, for nudging me over the edge; Marge Holmes, for her words and laughter of pure joy; Karina Africa-Bolasco, for her concern and patience that go over and beyond the call of duty; and for my mother, who knows everything but does not blink.

DANTON REMOTO

Loyola Heights, Quezon City

4 March 1994