JOURNALIST & EDITOR
This article is first published by The Diplomat.
Feliza Guy Benitez, 58, first came to Hong Kong in 1993 as a domestic worker. She was to be paid a monthly salary at 3,200 Hong Kong dollars ($413). She thought a contract of two years would be enough to help her family back home. But the family faced a series of financial problems, coaxing her to sign a new contract after another. READ MORE
A Filipino domestic worker in Hong Kong once dreamed to improve her family's house. After over two decades of working and getting involved in political activities, she dreamed something greater than for herself. Watch it HERE.
Poetry usually arrives before a perfect wave to surf.
I wrote poems before discovering that I could use them as lyrics to my songs.
This is a collection of the poems I've written from the time I tried to describe my first crush poetically until I attempted to capture special moments with words, Pablo Neruda style.
Your dusty tattered Mojo
Beneath your worn-out Levi's jeans
Topped with your white, unpressed Hanes
Perfect for your untangled silky
Pony-tailed hair
Enticing me
To listen to your stories
Not found on cable TV
Might be found on tabloid
And local news
But not as convincing as a fact
As how you reveal
Had it been on your rugged
But explicitly neat appearance
On your strict articulation
That impressed me much
Or on how your eyes revel your sight
As you speak of your punto de vista
That amused me and gave interest
In this naive, but confident mind
Sometimes, a river is not
enough
to water the seed we planted;
Sometimes, the sun is not
enough
to burn the fire we started;
Sometimes, the mountains are not
enough
to add weight to the "thing" we chose to carry,
which oftentimes we call relationship;
Sometimes, poetry is not
enough
to make a good love story;
Sometimes, I can never be
enough
for the one I chose to
love
and always end up
sorry;
But, I want you to know my
love
that you were always
enough
for me to live each day
happy.
The ocean ceases to be
what it had been for
the waiting shore---
A light years gap between
her and the hazy terrain
from afar, where
an unlaunched boat lingered,
like her, waiting;
Indifferent to her longing
that one day, its waves
will not just come and go...
The ocean ceases to be
what it had been for the cynical shore;
Now, it cradles the boat
that unleashed itself from
its deep anchor.
And, the waves still
come to the shore,
but, only to bring her
when they go with the boat...
In a journey to the abyss
where everything is unknown
except love.
Leave as much as you want to stay
Eat up all my preoccupation until nothing's left
As you take my brain, include my heart.
Race through my lungs until I stop breathing.
Seep through my veins until every strand is blue.
Clog my heart until it stops beating.
Leave as much as I want you to stay
Take away all of you that's left
in my heart, in my mind.
As you decide to leave, leave me a scar
like the tattoo on my calf.
Leave it black, black as my lungs.
As you leave, leave at once.
Never leave a couple of squirming worms
in my veins...
Because it doesn't matter now
If nothing's left as you leave.
A single memory that you've been here
is enough souvenir
like the tattoo on my calf
forever embedded in my skin.
Alon kang dumampi
sa pisngi ng dalampasigan ko.
Ang dagat na naghatid sa'yo
Ay s'ya ring susundo
sa paglisan mo.
Kasing saglit nang isang nakaw na halik
ang iyong pagdating at pag-alis...
Hinding-hindi kita sisisihin
sa pagguho ng kastilyong buhangin,
sa pagbulahaw sa tahimik na sa kaibuturan
ko'y humihimbing...
nang ika'y dumating.
Huwag mo rin sana akong sisisihin
kung sa paglisan mo'y iyong tatangayin
mumunting bato, sabay sa kumpas ng hangin.
Tila mga kamay na ayaw nang bumitaw
habang ikaw nama'y sa malayo nakatanaw.
Ganunpaman,
ikaw pa rin ay lilisan.
Subalit, hindi kita sisisihin dahil ika'y alon
at ako'y dalampasigan...
Sisisihin ko ang buwan
Tanging ang buwan lamang.
If your shadow is not cast
on my doorstep tonight,
If your eyes do not meet
mine tonight,
if your palms do not touch
mine tonight,
if your breathing is not
near my ear tonight...
then, tonight is not ours.
As the light slowly envelops the night,
and so our mystery ends...
I can see the gloomy afternoon sky.
My toenails are gray because of the coldness
Coming from somewhere
seeping through my veins telling me
something...
The air envelops me,
touching my skin like nobody
I'm nobody...
Nobody's...
Nothing but a piece of cold shit.
If this cold wind could dissolve
this melancholy
I'd like to be holy...
From this side of the window
Bring me somewhere
Not here.
The beach is not so calm and not so noisy...
The sand dances with the waves in
the rhythm of the leaves of coconut trees.
The feet slowly join the swaying of the
monsoon... Birds are not singing but
chanting, alarming the heaven to save
the soul once the body drowns...
Only the gasoline lamp in a used liquor bottle
Showed to the stars that we existed on that
Night, in the middle of the darkness at
the border of the hills and ocean...
Accompanied by the chanting of the waves
A few steps from our shabby kiosk
And the snoring of the damn tired fellow,
My voice of inebriation was the only evidence of life
amidst those "dead to the world"
in that small village of fisherfolk.
You listened intently
To my awkward story
of the quarrels and the beatings,
the circle around my eye turning
black from purple,
guilty and remorseful.
My jaws and your eardrums working
fighting against the cold breeze piercing
while you were meta-cognitively thinking
just to wet my lips of yearning
longing to salvage
from my cynical reasoning ...
When we emptied the long bottle of rum and my smoking was done,
our bodies curled oppositely on both ends of the bench.
The warmth of your feet on mine was not enough
so inside my head I whined for you to just spare me your arms.
... and then I heard your breathing
that was the lullaby for my intermittent sleeping.
A red flag looks like that of a communist party at a distance. It has a sickle and, instead of a hammer, a wine glass. It was the work of London-based Filipino artist Pio Abad.
Modern and contemporary art of Art Basel Hong Kong came in different forms and concepts that without looking at the artists’ names, one would not know which country they represent.
“What makes an artwork Filipino is because the artist is Filipino,” said exhibitor Rachel Rillo at Silverlens galleries of the Philippines and Singapore that featured Abad’s works.
Art is becoming global, she said, adding that the flag was a satire and a contemporary art dialogue, along with a Hermes scarf painting of the same artist.
Pio Abad's flag is a satire of a communist party flag, says Rachel Rillo of Silverlens.
Silverlens also displayed the works of Filipino artists Maria Taniguchi, Leslie De Chavez, Renato Orara, Bernardo Pacquing, Gregory Halili, Patricia Perez Eustaqiuo and Frank Callaghan, and Yee I-Lann from Malaysia.
Displaying at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on March 15-17 were over 230 galleries from 37 countries, half of which are found in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Their artworks varied in sizes, from huge canvases hanging from the ceiling to small used paint tube caps scattered like dots on white walls.
Artinformal, another gallery from the Philippines featured Nilo Ilarde’s “faulty landscape,” a collection of salvaged objects such as small paint tubes, tube caps, and brushes. On its fourth year at the international fair, the gallery chose Ilarde because his work was “highly conceptual with a very strong statement,” said its creative director, Tina Fernandez.
Nilo Ilarde's Faulty Landscape
The Drawing Room Gallery of the Philippines displayed Gaston Damag’s “Shadows of civilization,” using wooden sculptures that symbolize an Ifugao rice god called “bulol” as a proposal of art. “There’s no message at all. I don’t pretend. It’s all about art,” he explained.
The gallery tends to work with specific pool of artists, who are critical in the sense that their works are also a part of their daily life and cultural conditions, said its curator Siddharta Perez.
The three galleries have joined the art fair for several years and placed their artists in the map.
But, unlike Rillo, Fernandez cannot say that Filipino artists have reached global standards in terms of quality of works as they need to improve more. “Local artists should read up what’s happening around the world and attend fairs to see what’s out there,” she added.
On the other hand, an artist does not need to join international events to excel and be known globally, said Gaston Damag, who was on his second time to join the fair. In fact, it can be a disadvantage to be in “a typical commercial art fair,” he said.
“If you’re not careful, you can be eaten like a small piece of meat,” he said, adding that an artist has to hold a strong position to be less eaten by the commercial aspect of the fair.
Galleries from the Western countries aimed to expand their reach in the Asian region, such as the Richard Gray Gallery located in Chicago and New York.
“We made new clients each year,” said Paul Gray, one of the partners of the gallery.
Hong Kong is a sophisticated city, he said, but it does not have some of the things that make up a great art scene in Western cities. “But, it’s obvious that it’s moving in that direction,” he added.
Over 60,000 people from all over the world visited the fair.
Citing that most of the visitors were widely exposed to art and galleries, Rillo said Filipino art enthusiasts do not take much to be at par as they have an inkling of aesthetics.
However, Fernandez said Filipinos need more education to have deep understanding on art, especially the people in the government to give more focus on it.
She hopes that the government will make things easy for the private sector in facilitating and building more venues for art promotion. “Just make things easy for us,” she said, adding that they are being taxed on Philippine artworks brought back from international exhibitions.
First time to see Art Basel Hong Kong, Filipino private art collector Andrew Benedicion expressed his bias with the Art Fair Philippines, a major exhibition of modern and contemporary Philippine visual art.
Although the artworks in Art Basel were nice, he said, it is “very generic looking.” The lighting in the halls were bright and the white walls of every booth drenched the entire space, creating a sense of monotony.
Benedicion likes the gritty effect of the Philippines’ fair that was held inside a carpark with darker lighting.
This also explains why he still wants to collect Filipino artworks besides being a Filipino. It is the raw and gritty feel of Philippines contemporary art that appeals to him.