FPJ, Asedillo, and Aguila

Most Filipinos love stories, telling them, listening to them, or watching them. Filipinos who do not enjoy movie watching are quite rare. I remember the moviehouses in the barrios where we used to go during summer vacations. Most of these had double programs. Your ticket bought you two movies to watch. A few had triple programs. We saved up for those triples, especially if they starred Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ). We came in before lunch and came out six or so hours later. My kuya (older brother) and I are FPJ fans. In grade school I saw my kuya, on two occasions, apply the FPJ rapid-punching technique on two bullies bigger and taller than him. The technique worked. I was 7 when I first went to see a movie by myself. It was FPJ’s Asedillo. It was the first movie I saw that painted a totally different picture of America, and Manuel Quezon, and the period of American occupation many among our elders, even today, longingly call “peacetime.” It was the movie that introduced me to the Sakdal uprising of the 1930s.

I was in high school when I saw Aguila. I consider it one of the best movies Philippine cinema has ever produced. Aside from FPJ, it had Christopher de Leon, Jay Ilagan, Sandy Andolong, Eddie Garcia, Johnny Delgado, Charo Santos, Amalia Fuentes, and a host of top caliber artists. Basil Valdez sung the theme song. The 3 ½ hour movie presents a stark portrait of Philippine society and offers at least four ways of dealing with its reality: join the underground, go to America, learn to deal with it, or live with the indigenous communities.

If you haven’t watched Aguila and Asedillo. Go and do so. Then you will know why those who call FPJ the Arnold Swarzenegger or the John Wayne of the Philippines don't know what they're talking about.

Making Sense of Mark's Ending 2

Take a single verse in the Bible, say John 11:35 (“Jesus wept”). Take five biblical scholars using the same method for interpreting scripture, say redaction criticism. And what do you have? Five different readings. There’s no such thing as a disinterested reading or reader. Interpretation is always perspectival and particular. Interpretation always involves choices. Take a popular telenovela, say Darna. Take five faithful followers of the show, including my 8-year-old son Ian, and ask them why nobody in the narrative recognizes Narda as Darna, and vice-versa. And what do you have? Five different reasons.

Take Mark’s ending, 16:8 which reads, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Check out your Bible. Most have a footnote on verse 8 that says ancient manuscripts end on this verse. Verses 9 to 20 are later additions—attempts of ancient communities to make sense of Mark’s ending. If you subscribe to the argument in synoptics studies that Mark was written first and both Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source document, then Matthew and Luke also provide endings that try to make sense of Mark’s. You find in your Bible then at least four or five different attempts at making sense of Mark 16:8.

Making Sense of Mark's Ending

Imagine you are part of the original audience of the Gospel of Mark. Christianity is about 30 or so years old. You are a second-generation believer. You believe, like many in your community, that Jesus is risen. You believe, like many in your community, that he appeared to Peter, and then to many others, and then to Paul. Then, this short gospel comes along. It's disturbing. It does not have any stories of the risen Christ appearing to his disciples. Moreover, it ends with women at the empty tomb silent and afraid.

You don't even shake the hands of the one who read the gospel. No one did in the whole congregation. Actually, even today, most people don't care about Mark. They'd rather read Matthew, Luke, and John. These gospels end right--like Walt Disney movies. Matthew ends with the Great Commission and the Risen Christ's promise of Immanuel. John has the "Do you love me" cycle, and a beach scene to boot. Luke has special effects, Jesus ascending to the heavens. Mark's ending sucks. It's worse than the ending of FPJ's Sigaw ng Digmaan. He dies. FPJ is not supposed to die in any of his movies. If he does, he's supposed to resurrect (like in Panday III), or be shot after the credits (like in Sierra Madre), or have a twin brother somewhere (like in Probinsiyano). Some fans reportedly almost tear down a moviehouse where Sigaw... was showing. Mark's ending: women at the empty tomb, silent and afraid...Crap!

Reading John inside a Jeepney

Jeepney hermeneutics is but one among many “Canaanite” readings. And it is a reading that (1) presupposes that the Bible is a “jeep,” an imperializing text, and that said jeep can be (2) transformed into a “jeepney.”

Let me offer a brief example using the Gospel of John. The connection of the Bible, its readers, and its institutions to Western imperialism do not call for special pleading. As Alan Lawson and Chris Tiffin insist: “Imperial relations may have been initially established by guns, guile, and disease, but they were maintained largely by textuality” (Lawson and Tiffin: 3). Simply put, the Bible was and is the key tool in the “textual takeover of the non-Western world” (Boehmer: 94). Yet, most commentaries and expositions on John available in Philippine seminaries take for granted or do not find problematic the gospel’s imperial rhetoric.

Spivey and Smith’s popular introductory text (Anatomy of the New Testament. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995) describes the Gospel as reminding its readers that faith is “walking by the light of Christ, and walking the way he walked… it is dependence on the source of life, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent” (203). Both argue that Christians have tended to read the other Gospels, indeed the whole New Testament, in the light of John’s christological and theological constructions (203). Dube points out that “Mission studies indicate that John’s Gospel has been the most influential text” (1998b: 132). Bart Ehrman’s The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), another popular textbook, applies five methods in its analysis of John: literary-historical, redaction, comparative, thematic, and socio-historical. All five approaches lead to one major conclusion: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life now.” Adele Reinhartz (Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John. New York: Continuum, 2001) resists John’s rhetoric because of its anti-Semitism. James Charlesworth (The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1995) using contemporary historical Jesus methodologies argues that Jesus’ beloved disciple was really Thomas and, contrary to feminist arguments, could never have been a woman.

“Imperializing texts take many forms and are written by a variety of people, even by the colonized, either collaborating with the dominant forces or yearning for the same power. Regardless of who writes imperializing texts, they are characterized by literary constructions, representations, and uses that authorize taking possession of foreign spaces and peoples” (Dube, 1996:41-42). The Gospel of John, according to Dube, may have been written by an oppressed minority group and among the colonized Jews. This setting does not automatically guarantee that it is an anti-imperial text. Post-colonial studies indicate that the colonized do not always resist their oppressors: they also collaborate and imitate the imperial power at various stages of their oppression (1998b: 119).

Why is John a “jeep”? Dube brings the following questions to the text (2000:57-58): Does the Gospel have an explicit stance for or against the political imperialism of its time? Does it encourage travel to distant and inhabited lands and how does it justify itself? How does the Gospel construct difference: is there dialogue and liberating interdependence, or is there condemnation and replacement of all that is foreign? Is the celebration of difference authentic or mere tokenism? Does the text employ representations to construct relationships of subordination and domination? Dube points out that the problem of reproducing imperial strategies of subjugation is also evident among interpreters (2000:26). As Kwok Pui-lan posits, “They operate more from a hermeneutics of consent than a hermeneutics of suspicion. They have not dealt adequately with the harsh reality that the Bible discloses a hierarchical social order in which slavery and male domination are seldom challenged” (42).

John’s imperial discourse pervades the whole gospel. The “Word” that became flesh (1.14) was with God and is, actually, God (1.1). All things came into being through him (1.3) and in him was life and the life was the light of all people (1.4). This “Word made flesh,” the one who came from heaven is above all (3:31) and thus greater than John the Baptist (1.20,3.30), Moses (1.17-18,3.13-15), Jacob (4.12), and even Abraham (8:58). This “Word made flesh” goes into Samaria and tells the woman by the well, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (4.22). This “Word made flesh” is “The Bread of Life” (6.35), “The Light of the World” (8.12), “The Resurrection and the Life” (11.25), and “The Way, the Truth, and the Life” (14.6). And if every one of the things that this “Word made flesh” did were written down, “the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21.24).

Dube points out that John’s Jesus, as savior of the world who is not of this world, shows a colonizing ideology that claims power over all other places and peoples of the earth (1998b: 132). Moreover Jesus’ followers receive a transference of power. Jesus tells them that they do not belong to the world because he has chosen them out of the world (15.19), and then he sends them out saying, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (20.21). In other worlds, Christians are not of this world yet they are sent into the world with the power to devalue and subordinate differences like John’s Jesus (Dube, 1998b: 130).

With rhetoric like this it is not surprising, as Ali Mazrui points out, that Christianity, the religion of the underdog, became an imperial religion (Dube, 2000:11). More than this, the gospel’s reception history is, on the whole, an expected response to its imperializing rhetoric. Back to my metaphor, the gospel is a jeep. And most of its interpretations, especially those available in seminary libraries in the Philippines, are jeeps.

All of the interpreters I have quoted above present legitimate readings. They are relevant to communities that find them relevant. But Good news is always relative. Interpretations that ignore or even perpetuate John’s imperial rhetoric are products of the hermeneutics of consent. Interpretations that challenge the gospel’s discourse are products of the hermeneutics of suspicion.

It is tempting to classify Reinhartz’ reading as an example of jeepney hermeneutics. She has problems with compliant readings of John. Hers is a resistant reading to the gospel’s constructions of representations and structures of relationships. Ehrman too raises the problem of anti-Semitism in his discussion. Both then find problematic the anti-Jewish sections of the narrative and argue for alternative, liberating readings. On the other hand, both completely ignore the imperial ideology of the gospel. Jeepney hermeneutics, as decolonizing interpretations, suspects both text and interpretation. Ehrman employs a hermeneutics of suspicion as far as John’s reception history is concerned. Unfortunately, he employs a hermeneutics of consent as far as the “source text” is concerned. The Bible remains authoritative, normative, archetypal, God’s special revelation, blameless. Those responsible for Christianity’s sins are the Bible’s interpreters.

Gomang Seratwa Ntloedibe-Kuswani cautions that an imperial ideology—that Christianity is the superior religion over all others and its God the real God—underpins the colonialist communication theory of “source text and receptor languages.” The Bible is the given and cannot be changed, languages, cultures, and peoples can and must be changed to make room for the Bible. Thus, even in translation work, there exists the colonizing ideology that renders receptors into slaves of the “source text” (80-81). Ntloedibe-Kuswani quotes Aloo Mojola who argues that translation is never neutral. It is an instrument of ideological and theological formation grounded on fidelity and faithfulness to the source text (81).

Spivey and Smith are faithful to the “source text.” And so is Charlesworth. He is totally indifferent to the inherent problems of the Johannine rhetoric and instead uses the narrative as a window to a historical past, a privileged past, in order to find a historical beloved disciple. Kwok Pui-lan, I might add, classifies past and contemporary historical Jesus quests as imperialistic in nature: the West’s need for the “noble savage.” Sugirtharajah’s comments are more pointed: “The whole enterprise serves as an example of how the dominant discourse holds on to its deep-rooted Eurocentric bias, namely the assertion that anything theologically worthwhile can only emanate from Greco-Judeo traditions… Eurocentrism works on a double premise. It looks to Greece for its intellectual and philosophical roots, and dips into its Judaic heritage for its religious origins” (1998b: 113).

Reading John inside a jeepney requires privileging Filipinos and their plight as modern-day “Canaanites,” insisting that the Bible informs, it does not define, life, and engaging the biblical text in search of the marginalized, the subaltern, the “Canaanite” characters—those whom Gandhi describes as “the ones who disappear because we never hear them speak. Those who only serve as medium for competing discourses to represent their claims.”

The paidarion, the lad of John 6:9, like the pais of Matthew 8:5-13 that I have argued as symbolic of Filipinos (2000:25-32; 2003), can also represent the continuing plight of Filipinos. Fred Atkinson, the first American General Superintendent of Education in the Philippines inaugurated over a century of racist public education in the islands when he remarked: "The Filipino people, taken as a body, are children and childlike, do not know what is best for them ... by the very fact of our superiority of civilization and our greater capacity for industrial activity we are bound to exercise over them a profound social influence"(Schirmer, 1987: 43-44). The child who offers the five loaves and two fish is absent from the Synoptics. Only in John is the source of the food identified. In the midst of a crisis involving adults, a child’s food is appropriated. The crisis is averted. Jesus is praised. The child disappears into the background from whence he came. He is never thanked. He is never mentioned again. The child gets one verse in the entire 21 chapters of the gospel. Filipinos, numbering over seven million, offer “loaves and fish” to countless peoples throughout the world as overseas contract workers. Many do not even get “one verse.” As De Quiros points out, “They do not figure in the narrative.”

The Samaritan woman is another character that can represent Filipinos. Dube, going against the traditional feminist reading of John 4, presents the woman at the well as illustrative of control-at-a-distance strategies of empire (1996: 37-60). I agree. Spain and America domesticated the mujer indigena for over four centuries and turned her into their most effective subject. Yet like the woman at the well, despite being told that her worship was wrong and she did not have to fetch anymore water because of what Jesus was offering her in terms of “correct worship” and “eternal springs of water,” still left her jar by the well.

Fernandez points out, “Though subjected to the most sophisticated political machinations and cultural genocide, the Filipino soul has never been totally crushed.”

“Useless” is a relative term. The tens of thousands of rusted military jeeps the US Army thought useless at the end of World War II in the Philippines, Filipinos found useful as raw materials for what was to become the most popular mode of public transportation in the islands, the jeepney. Paul’s letter to Philemon is explicit--that for a while, Onesimus was “useless.” I read that to mean that for a while he ceased being a tool to either Paul or to Philemon or even to Christ. For a while, Onesimus was not Paul’s child, not a part of Philemon’s household, nor Christ’s slave. For a while, Onesimus was free.

Dube’s reading complements mine. She explains why John is a “jeep” (to use my metaphor) by comparing and contrasting the Gospel with other imperializing texts like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the epic, Aeneid (1998b: 119). Dube refuses to read the biblical text in isolation from other works of literature and is thus able to argue that John’s colonizing ideology that claims power over other peoples and places on earth is not so different from other constructions in secular literature (1998b: 132). I, on the other hand, “fished” for characters that formed a totally different narrative. In other words, I took the “jeep” and transformed it into a “jeepney.”

(from Jeepney Hermeneutics: Beating Swords into Ploughshares)

Si Lazaro at ang Mayaman

Mula sa mga Igorot ng Cordillera hanggang sa mga Lumad sa Mindanao, hitik ang ating kasaysayan at kolektibong karanasan sa mga taong nag-alay ng buhay dahil sa pag-ibig sa kapwa, sa bayan, at sa Dios. Marami sa kanila ay mananampalataya-- mayroong humawak ng sandata upang ipagtanggol ang bayan, ang mga anak, ang buhay laban sa mga puwersang mapang-api at sakim; mayroong namang hindi. Si Andres Bonifacio ang pangunahing halimbawa ng unang grupo, si Jose Rizal naman ang sa pangalawa.

Maliwanag ang koneksyon ng mga kuwento ni Rizal sa kanyang pagkakabaril sa Bagumbayan bilang kaaway ng imperyong Kastila. Ang hindi maliwanag sa maraming Kristiyano ay ang koneksyon ng mga kuwento ni Jesus sa kanyang pagkakapako sa krus bilang kaaway ng imperyo ng Roma. Lumaki tayo sa mga parabola ni Jesus subalit ang nakagisnang interpretasyon ng karamihan sa atin, na galling sa mga paborito nating Amerikano at Europeong iskolar at komentaryo, ay makalangit ang mga kuwentong ito at walang koneksyon sa pang-araw-araw na buhay at pakikibaka ng mga tao. Hindi kasi tayo mahilig magbasa ng bibliya. Ang binabasa natin mga libro tungkol sa bibliya. Sa halip na basahin natin ang Lumang Tipan, ang alam na alam natin ang interpretasyon ni Bernhard Anderson. Sa halip na basahin natin ang Bagong Tipan, ang halos memorize na natin ang komentaryo ni Raymond Brown. Marami sa ating mga simbahan, Purpose Driven Life ang textbook!

Now if we read our bible and prayed everyday, unti-unti nating mapapansin na tuwing nagku-kuwento si Jesus, nagpupuyos sa galit ang mga lider ng relihiyon at politika. Kagaya ng mga prayle noong panahon ni Rizal. Sabi nga ng maraming eksperto sa kuwento, “myths are stories that create order, parables, on the otherhand, are stories that subvert order.” Parables are subversive speech. Ang parabola ay nagbabaligtad ng status quo. Ang mga kuwento ni Jesus, hindi tungkol sa langit, kundi tungkol sa kaharian ng Dios dito sa lupa. Ang mga kuwento ni Jesus ang mga bida yung mga kontrabida sa mata ng mga lider ng relihiyon at politika. Ang mga kuwento ni Jesus nangangako ng bagong umaga sa mga kapus-palad at inaapi, nagbibigay ng babala sa mga nasa-posisyon at sakim sa kapangyarihan. Ang mga kuwento ni Jesus ang dahilan kaya siya pinapatay.

Bakit ba napunta sa Hades ang mayaman na may mataas na tarangkahan sa parabola sa Lukas 16? Kung babasahin natin ang buong ebanghelyo, maliwanag ang sagot: hindi puwedeng maging bahagi ng kaharian ng Dios ang mayaman. Mula pa lang sa unang sermon ni Jesus sa sinagoga sa Nazareth sa Lukas 4 sinabi niya na siya ay sinugo para dalhin ang mabuting balita ng pagkalinga ng Dios sa mga mahihirap, sa mga inaalipin, sa mga bulag, at mga api. Unang sermon pa lang ni Jesus muntik na siyang mapatay, muntik na siyang ihulog sa bangin ng mga tinamaan niya.

Sa Lukas 6, mas matalim ang sermon niya—ang kaharian ng Dios ay para sa mahihirap, para sa mga nagugutom at mga umiiyak—hindi para sa mayayaman at mga busog. Sa Lukas 11, may parabola—tungkol sa mayamang hangal. Sa Lukas 18, may mayamang gustong sumunod kay Jesus pero umaatras. Alam na natin kung bakit. Kung susundin niya si Jesus ay mawawala lahat ng kayamanan niya. Ang kaisa-isang mayaman na sumunod kay Jesus sa Lukas, si Zakeyo sa kabanatang 19, pinamigay lahat ng kayamanan—kalahati para sa mahihirap at apat na ulit, 400% kabayaran sa lahat na kanyang niloko at ninakawan.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Ang pinakamayaman sa panahon ni Jesus ay ang mga puno ng relihiyon at politika. Sila ang proud na tawaging ama si Abraham. Sila ang mga love ni God. Sila na mamahalin ang suotin. Sila na nagpi-pista araw-araw. Sila yung siguradong-siguradong ligtas sila at pupunta sila sa kanlungan ni Amang Abraham. Sila na nakalimot na hindi mo puwedeng mahalin ang Dios kung hindi mo mahal ang kapwa mo. Sila na nakalimot na hindi ka puwedeng yumaman kung talagang mahal mo ang kapwa mo. Sila na kayang-kayang magpista araw-araw sa loob ng naggagandahang mga bahay, mga opisina, mga templo na protektado ng nagtataasang mga trangkahan at bakod, habang ang mga pulubi’y naghihintay ng mumo sa labas, habang nagugutom ang mas nakararami... Sa kuwento ni Jesus, sila ang pupunta sa impiyerno.

Sigurado akong maraming tumangis, maraming umiyak ng mamatay ang mayaman sa parabola ni Jesus. Mga kamag-anak, mga kaibigan, mga kasosyo sa relihiyon at politika, mga binayaran para umiyak… marami. Sigurado rin akong magarbo ang libing niya. Si Lazaro namatay sa kadukhaan. Ni walang karamay. Malamang mga asong kalye ang mga huling saksi sa mga huling hininga niya. Si Lazaro namatay, ni hindi nailibing, kagaya ng hindi mabilang na Lazaro sa mundo, mga Lazaro dito sa Pilipinas... namamatay dahil sa gutom, dahil sa malnutrition, dahil sa simpleng sakit na hindi malunasan dahil sa sobrang mahal na gamot…

Alam na natin kung bakit inihatid ng mga angel si Lazaro sa kanlungan ni Abraham. Basahing nating muli ang ebanghelyo ni Lukas: ang mabuting balita ng pag-ibig at pagkalinga ng Maykapal ay para sa mga dukha, para sa mga Lazaro. Lahat ng Lazaro sa mundo ihahatid ng mga angel sa kanlungan ni Abraham.

Ang pangalang Lazaro ay Griyego ng Hebreong Eliezer. Ang sabi ng kasulatan, si Lazaro ay dukha, pulubing nakahandusay sa may tarangkahan ng mayaman, umaasa sa mga mumo, kasama ang mga asong kalye na dinidilaan ang kanyang mga sugat. Maraming Lazaro sa mundo—walang maaasahan kundi ang Dios, walang matatawagan kundi ang Dios, walang karamay kundi ang Dios, walang tutulong kundi ang Dios. Iyan, mga kapatid, ang ibig sabihin ng Lazarus o Eliezer—siya na tutulungan ng Maykapal; siya na ang Dios lang ang pag-asa.

Kaya nga sa takdang panahon, nagkatawang tao ang Dios upang dinggin ang iyak nila na siya lang ang tanging pag-asa. Ang buong buhay ng ating Panginoong Jesus ay inihandog para sa kanila. Tayo naman ay tinawag at patuloy na hinahamon ng ating panginoon upang sundan ang kanyang mga yapak—sa paglilingkod, sa pakiki-isa, at sa pag-aalay ng buhay para sa mga Lazaro.

Ang hamon sa atin ay gumawa ng mga tulay ng kalayaan, ng pag-asa, ng hustiya, ng ginhawa, ng pagkakapantay-pantay. Subalit hindi madaling gumawa ng tulay. Lalong-lalo na, hindi maaaring gumawa ng tulay mula sa gitna—“no one builds a bridge from the middle.” Sinusuka ng Dios ang nasa gitna. We need to take sides. Alam natin yan. Napag-aralan na natin iyan—“preferential option for the poor.” Pero marami sa atin hindi natin yan ginagawa. Kailangan tayong pumili, sa mga Lazaro ba ng mundo o sa mga mayayaman?

Kilala ng mga mayayamang puno ng relihiyon at politika sa panahon ni Jesus kung sino si Lazaro o Eliezer. Maliwanag ang kuwento sa aklat ng Henesis. Siya ang tapat na katiwalang dayuhan ni Abraham; katiwalang muntik nang maging tagapagmana. Subalit para sa mayayaman sa panahon ni Jesus, sila lang ang mahal ng Dios, sila lang ang tagapagmana, sila lang ang puro ang dugo--silang mga anak ni Isaac. Hindi puwede ang mga anak ni Ishmael—mga bastardo sila; lalong hindi puwede ang mga anak ni Lazaro, anak sila sa labas, banyaga, hindi karapat-dapat. Maliwanag ang nasa parabola ni Jesus—dinala ng mga anghel sa kanlungan ni Amang Abraham si Lazaro.

Ang buong buhay at ministeryo ni Jesus ay tanging alay para sa mga Lazaro ng mundo--ang totoong tagapagmana ng kaharian ng Dios. Sana tayo rin. Dapat tayo rin.

Reading Matthew... part 3

Look at how the pais is described in Greek, "ho pais mou," "the servant who is mine." That child's body is under somebody else's control- whether it's his father, his owner, and, as I argue elsewhere, his pedophile. The centurion's act on the pais' behalf emphasizes the latter's marginalization. As far as the text is concerned, the pais cannot speak or seek his own healing. Yet, that child because he is "paralyzed," albeit momentarily, paralyzes not just his owner-who thus seeks help from Jesus-but also the imperial expansions (the goings and the comings) in Matthew. Throughout the gospel, characters come and go, border crossings are effected: magi from the East come seeking the king of the Jews (2:1-12); Joseph and his family flee into Egypt (2:13-15); Herod sends his death squads to Bethlehem to murder children (2:16-18); Joseph and his family go to Nazareth, from Egypt (2:19-23); Jesus goes to John the baptizer and is led by the Spirit into the wilderness (3:1-4:11); Jesus leaves Nazareth and makes his home in Capernaum (4:12); the centurion comes to Jesus and the latter is convinced of the imperial authority that effects goings and comings, of travel to distant lands, of control-at-a-distance (8:5-13). The disciples are systematically prepared for their commissioning (10:1-42); the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus (15:21-28); the heavy-laden come to Jesus (11:28). Jesus eventually sends out his disciples at the end (28:16-20). Everyone moves in the story, except the pais in Matthew 8:5-13. Yes, even for a brief moment, the pais revels in the "space" her "paralysis" brings. For about eight short verses, in the very long, twenty-eight chapter Matthean narrative, the pais is free of the centurion, the colonized is free of her colonizer.

Majority of Filipinos remain colonized subjects, a mental colony. Migrant Filipina domestic workers, numbering over 7 million, are the global servants of late capitalism. Tens of millions find themselves squatters in their own homeland. Those who have opted for "The Promise Land," the United States, find themselves treated as second-class citizens. Yet, despite all these, they have always resisted. The jeepney is the best symbol of resistance and decolonization for Filipinos. Now, they have another symbol--the pais in Matthew.

Reading Matthew... part 2

Interpretation, by definition, is always perspectival and particular. In other words, everything-including the supposedly objective historical-critical method-is reader response. My selective literary analysis of Matthew as imperializing text presupposes the reality of empire as backdrop to the construction of the narrative. Many Filipinos employ a similar assumption when engaging Filipino resistance literature: Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Francisco Baltazar's Florante at Laura, and Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart. My analysis does not equate the Gospel of Matthew with historical facts. What it does is argue that the Gospel is a narrative discourse constructed and framed by a particular historical setting, in this case the Roman Imperial occupation. Anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon and educator Paolo Freire show that dynamics leading to literary production exist not only between the colonizer and the colonized, but also between various interest groups of the colonized, some of which try to gain power to define national cultural identity, as well as to compete for the attention of their collective oppressor. My analysis argues that Matthew is not rejecting the imperialism of its time but is seeking its favor, or at least condoning it.
My reading also presupposes resistance, as reflected in what activist Salud Algabre and historian Reynaldo Ileto call "little traditions." Algabre and Ileto memorialize all those resistance fighters that have been victimized by the violence of institutionalized forgetting, a fate most of the unnamed children in Matthew share. These traditions coincide with the argument of postcolonial theorists that in the wake of imperial reality lies the inverted, deconstructing dynamic of resistance/fear, where the margins actually take the initiative, and the center is forced into a reactive position.
I agree with New Testament scholar Musa Dube who posits the following questions in order to measure whether Matthew is an imperializing text or not: Does the text offer an explicit stance for or against the political imperialism of its time? Does the narrative encourage travel to distant and inhabited lands and how does it justify such travel? How does the narrative construct difference? Is there dialogue and liberating interdependence? Or is there condemnation and replacement of all that is foreign and "other"? Is the celebration of difference authentic or mere tokenism? Does the text employ representations to construct relationships of subordination and domination?
Using these questions to analyze Matthew's rhetoric, Dube concludes that the implied author's stance toward the imperial powers of his time presents the imperial rule and its agents as holy and acceptable. Matthew constructs a politically un-subversive Jesus and encourages travel to distant and inhabited lands. The positive presentation of empire and the decision to take the word to the nations (28:16-20) is born within and as a result of stiff competition for power over the crowds (Israel) and the favor of the empire. In envisioning the mission to the nations, Matthew's model embodies imperialistic values and strategies. It does not seek relationships of liberating interdependence between nations, cultures, and genders. Rather, it upholds the superiority of some races and advocates the subjugation of differences by relegating other races to inferiority. Matthew's model employs gender representations to create relationships of subordination and domination by featuring the Canaanite woman (15:21-28) and the centurion (8:5-13) in contrasting stories foreshadowing the mission to the nations. Matthew's presentation of Pilate, his wife, the Roman soldiers at the trial, death, and resurrection of Jesus show a clear-cut pro-empire position (27:1-28:15).
The encounter between the centurion and Jesus, according to Dube, particularly highlights Matthew's stance toward the empire. Both men are presented as having authority that effect things simply by the power of their words (vv. 8-9). Dube continues: the paralleling of Jesus' authority with that of the centurion's has the effect of sanctifying imperial powers. Jesus pronounces the centurion's faith as surpassing the faith of everyone in Israel (v.10), a statement that contrasts the imperial agent with the colonized and exalts his righteousness above them. The passage casts imperial officials as holier beings and predicts that they, and other groups, will have more power. Such characterization not only disguises what imperial agents represent, institutions of exploitation and oppression, but also pronounces imperialism as holy and acceptable. A quick survey of the reception history of Matthew and centuries of Western colonization, euphemistically called "civilizing missions," in Asia, Africa, and Latin America shows that most interpreters followed the gospel's imperial rhetoric.
Back to my metaphor, the centurion is to Matthew as the 30-caliber machinegun mount is to the military jeep. To read Matthew inside a jeepney is to celebrate the fact that the first thing Filipinos did in their transformation of the military jeep is get rid of that machine gun mount. To read Matthew inside a jeepney is to remove our gaze from the centurion-and even Jesus who mimics the centurion-and focus it upon someone else. I suggest privileging the servant, pais in Greek, of 8:5-13.
The pais, whether I translate it son, daughter, girl, boy, servant, slave, or sex slave, is a child and he or she serves to remind flesh and blood readers that the reality of empire-in varying forms and degrees-is experienced by children and by those constructed as "children." Political sociologist Ashis Nandy, in Leela Gandhi's Postcolonial Theory, draws attention to the colonial use of homology between childhood and the state of being colonized.
Fred Atkinson, the first American General Superintendent of Education in the Philippines, inaugurated over a century of racist public education in the islands when he remarked: "The Filipino people, taken as a body, are children and childlike, do not know what is best for them ... by the very fact of our superiority of civilization and our greater capacity for industrial activity we are bound to exercise over them a profound social influence."
The pais reminds flesh and blood readers that children's oppression-of varying forms and degrees- is inscribed in the text because, despite the rhetoric that God's reign is for children (19:14) no child is ever named-except Jesus-or is given a voice in the gospel-except Herodias' daughter who says what her mother tells her to say. Yet like the Canaanite woman's daughter (15:21-28) and the pais, Herodias' daughter serves only as a medium through which competing discourses present their claims. The girl falls prey to manipulation by her mother and by Herod. We don't even get to hear the cries of the children who are massacred in 2:18, only their mothers'. Children are the primary victims of Matthew's "culture of silence." [To be continued]