Cesna Anida: Pakilala ko po muna yung sarili ko since first time po nating mag-meet. So I am Cesna, and you can call me Ces, currently an MA Art Studies, major at Curatorial Studies in UP Diliman. So this class po that we are required to interview people who practice curatorship or curatorial practices in anyway in Art Studies 195, which is called Curatorship. Initially po I have a different plan kung sino po dapat yung i-interview-hin, then si Ms. Tessa po mentioned that there is a Martial Law Museum. And I was not aware and this was the first time I realized na meron and something “ding-ding” in my head. I need to do this. I need to change plans, since at first po it was contemporary museum that I was planning. But I realized I need to learn about this initiative that you have po here at Ateneo.
Miguel Paolo Rivera: I am Migual Rivera “Migs”, currently the coordinator of Ateneo Martial Law Museum, and I’ve been teaching for the Department of Political Science for five years. I was appointed as the coordinator last August of this year. AMLM is been in existence since 2017. I am the fourth director.
Cherie Audrey Alfiler: Hello, Cherie Audrey Alfiler from the Sociology and Anthropology Department and also from the Institute of Philippine Culture. Bale ang designation ko dito ay museum fellow, but my training is primarily at Anthropology, Social Science and Heritage Studies. Medyo mas heritage ang aking background and research.
CA: Why did the individuals and the institution behind Ateneo Martial Law Museum (AMLM) create it? What was the primary need the proponents wanted to address? Technically, paano po nabuild yung Ateneo Martial Law Museum and bakit po sya ginawa in first place, since it’s been so long already.
MPR: OK, the context really for the founders of Ateneo Martial Law Museum, the instigating event is the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, that sort of sent a chilling effect onto our institution and the realization that a lot of the memorial aspect of the Martial Law period is under develop, and that’s really the start, instigating event. Aside form that there was a need to educate the broader public on the, not just the facts, but on the discourses surrounding the martial law period in order to preserve for the future generations the lessons we have learned during that time and so how these can lesson apply to us now and in the future. Part of the commitment of Ateneo martial Law Museum is to deepen our knowledge of martial law period, in order to deepen our understanding of democratization, as we have implemented it and continue to implement it. And that’s really in broad stalks that’s why we have three pillars “Mag-aral”, “Magturo” at “Manindigan.” Mag-aral refers to our mission to educate. Mag-turo refers to our mission to educate the educators, and to form a knowledge based community around this particular field, this particular period. “Manindigan” is our support for the kinds of actions that needs to be done, in order to deepen our commitment to democratization. So that’s it essentially.
CA: So interesting po yung fact that despite what have happen there is still a need to teach the Filipinos about this because we are still not agreeing with the narrative. The fact that Ferdinand Marcos was buried at the Libangan ng mga Bayani. When I found out about it as well, I was angry because as a history student I could not understand how come that was possible. So Ms. Cherie is there anything you would like to add with that?
CAA: So far na-cover na man ni Migs.
CA: All right. So let’s move po sa second question which is according to the website, “the Martial Law Museum aims to be a comprehensive online learning resource,” therefore, as a digital learning resource, how did you come to call it a “museum?” It’s about the labels, technically.
MPR: We agreed that the naming convention is a bit unconventional. But the reason why we did this online, which I guess is at the heart of the question, why is it a museum. Why we are calling it a museum, because primarily when you are looking at Philippine society and a lot of societies globally as well, what do you find? That our current understanding of the museum as a physical site, if you take that understanding and then juxtaposed that understanding with the evolution of our discursive methods of knowledge production. What do you see? That the development of a physical site like a museum are quite slow. While the evolution of our discursive practices surrounding knowledge production they grew exponentially, they grow very rapidly. Right? So now there is a debate within our community on how these museums ought to respond to the rapid growth of our communicative method of knowledge production. And I think what the founders sort of thinking was that it is better to go straight online because that’s what people can access immediately, that is where people go to. People go online. It’s much easier to disseminate info that way. So the idea of building a online museum, was really our institutional response to the pressing need to get the information out as soon as possible. Kasi if you gonna wait for a physical site, for example, would have taken us years for us to do that. But the need for information and the need for discourse was immediate. In fact we were late, if you think about it because denialism “historical denialism” was not a phenomenon in 2017. It’s been a decades long problem. So ito yung iha-highlight ko bilang sagot. You have your usual curatorial institutions that now needs to respond to the rapid development in communication, so the response to our institution is to make it online right away.
CAA: OK, so coming from an Anthropological background as I mentioned, even within our disciplines the have been several debates, and I am sure even in art management and curation. To be called a museum it has to be connected to something tangible, that it has to contain artifacts. I think early issue especially recently that was brought about is why are we calling ourselves a museum, when you don’t have the physical structures for it. But even within disciplines that contestation of the absence of the tangible at this point at the museum operations, personally I would also contest, because the formats of the artifacts can be greatly varied. It’s not just bound to the tangible that even on our understanding of heritage, we have tangible and intangible heritage. In that sense, at this point what is curated and immediately available in the platform are the online learning resource, but it does not mean that those exhibits are no longer possible. We are also developing and updating the resources that we have at the moment, but even then the virtual-ness of the Martial Law Museum. Even the most built and tangible museum are also virtual in a sense that they recreating moments in the past o things you wanted to be remembered and that’s basically what we are trying to do. It’s just that what we are documenting right now are also embodied experiences, of memories that we are trying to recollect. And it might not meet the criteria of more conventional museums, but we would still consider the work that we do aligned with what museums and heritage institution does.
CA: Actually po I totally agree with that, and gusto po yung point ng historical memories in line nga sa pagiging digital ng everything. Isa po to sa challenges na kinakaharap ng curtorial practices, lalo na po ng nag-pandemic. Nakita yung struggle kung paano magiging relevant yung physical museums if the people can not go there, and how can you communicate this heritage, material man sya or non-material, if people cannot be physically there, and doon po natin makikita yung importance ng online museums. There is a need for the curatorial to access and to maximize the power of online and digial curatorship, which I believe Ateneo Martial Law Museum has been doing for sometime already. And maganda nga po yung point ni Ms. Cherie, tama these are historical memories and in a way they are cultural intangible material itself, and they are curated. They are arrange with thinking and philosophy behind it. I think yun young fourth question, ay hindi, nasa third pa lang pala tayo.
So pumapasok nga po dito yung nature ng curatorship or the curatorial. Our class defines curating in line with the general practice of curatorship as building exhibitions, such as AMLM, an online exhibition of educational sources about the Philippines Martial Law era. However, behind every exhibition is a critical reflection and discourse/s that constitutes it. We call this the curatorial practice. So with that in mind, in line po sa argument if AMLM is a museum or hindi, on my personal take, I would say it is a museum, because there is a curatorial practice po behind it.
So with that in mind, your team, how did the team arrange and curate the contents of AMLM? What was the philosophy for creating and choosing every resource inside it?
MPR: OK. So in terms of curatorial practice the way that I would answer that question. Number one as we’ve mentioned, we have a lot of disagreement if an online museum is a museum but if you look at the trajectory of online museums in the Philippines at general, one of its core capacities of going online is that it enables otherwise maligned or marginalized discourses, to become, or to have some form of institutionalizations, right? That is one of the uses of an online museum that, you know, voices that are being effaced or voices that are being maligned or marginalized can in themselves have this body of work behind them, that is number one. Number two, in terms of the curatorial process really is, the difficulty of dealing with the martial law period and also being a museum is that, sure it is an event of the past but it bears very heavy contemporary factors and we have to consider that. So what do we consider when we curate our materials, and what we consider when we curate for the future for AMLM. Its about the public need and the political need even for not just information but sort of explanation why things the way they are and where things are going in terms of our historical and political direction. So that is why for example there are a lot of emphasis in AMLM for educational materials because we need this for, the need is to bolster the capacity for educational institutions to teach our students the facts surrounding the martial law. So if you look for example at our articles and our materials they are not merely stagnant objects, that ok I just look at this. Kasi that is not curatorial that merely collecting, nangongolekta ka lang, right? So kami given that the need is education for example, nilagay na namin, okay this is the economic data surrounding martial law. If you are a teacher in a particular grade, for this particular high school level so on and so forth, this is how you will utilize it in your lessons. So the educative aspect to us is very important to us. So that’s a very specific part of our curatorial process because now given the intensity of the issue once again, more intense than it’s ever been for the past 10-20 years, there is now a need to engage the more general public, not just specialists. And not just even educators.
So doon naman pumapasok, the other aspect of the museum and future aspects of AMLM will come into play. So really our curatorial process is heavily influence by admittedly political developments because to say otherwise would be naïve. That the AMLM is insulated from the political developments is such a naïve statement. Any museum in fact that would say they are insulated from political matters is quite a naïve statement. Kami in our curatorial process aminado na kami, we kinda embraced that so to speak. And it’s not like it is always welcome since our political situation is very stressful. But we embraced it in a sense that we know that is what we are engaging with and that is our institutional context. So political developments and educational needs those are the factors we take into consideration, when we create.
Kasi nga we could have said “Mag-aral” at “Magturo,” we could have stop there pero the third pillar manindigan it is our call to that. You cannot simply disseminate information. There is no such thing as merely dissemination, even in the act of disseminating seemingly neutral the fact that there is a decision to disseminate that there is an already a sort of an argument. So the Manindigan aspect is an answer to that.
CA: Thank you Sir Migs to that answer. Wala akong ma-add. I agree! May questions po ako but it is more specific on how we, or the people narrate the martial law period. Pero later na po yon. So Ms. Cherie may i-aadd po ba kayo?
CAA: To add, I think we also have to firmly stand by that being an university, this is also something grounded on evidence, grounded on facts. It Is grounded on research and the expertise of the people that created the materials. Also, as you may have notice, Migs and I are not Martial Law experts, and we do not claim to be. Kahit si Smile, another research fellow din namin is also someone in our age group. So ang sasabihin ng iba wala naman kayo doon paano nyo nalaman yan. And we do not claim to be Martial Law experts, but being in Ateneo with access to experts in their respective fields who are also present during those times our task really is to coordinate, to prepare the exhibits and all. But we also ensure that we uphold the academic integrity of the materials that we produced. In a sense that it is really grounded not just on political agendas or what not, but this is something factual and expertly researched and quality materials.
CA: So may validity po sya. May process of validation. Nakikita ko po yung, “Manindigan” at it’s core factual po yung stand, yung ini-istand ng Martial Law Museum. Wala po akong add, solet’s move po sa fourth question. Ofr me exciting po yung fourth question since it talks about the contemporary situation natin right. And according nga po dito, it’s been several decades since Marco’s dictatorship ended, but we as a people, Filipino people, are still contesting what happened during this era. Currently, this is manifesting through the widespread misinformation on the internet regarding Martial Law and its proponent Ferdinand Marcos. Can you give a root-caused for this confusion and opposing views? What do you think is the best narrative angle or point-of-view to take in writing and presenting this historical narrative for the Filipino people to eventually agree to an encompassing history?
Ang pinangagalingan ko naman po kasi dito is nag-aaway pa tayo hanggang nagyon. Hindi tayo nag-agree in certain narratives. I believe po kasi, nations build their identity when they agree in their narratives collectively, and right now. For me kasi the Martial Law para kasi syang sugat na hindi tayo makaka-move-on as a country, kung hindi natin sya mahiheal properly. And until now di pa rin natin sya naheheal properly, kasi hindi pa rin tayo nag-aagree kung ano talaga yung nangyari. So para personal development lang din po sya pero sa context ng isang nasyon, yun po.
MPR: OK, the usual answer to that would that be of course the lack of education, as I mentioned before the development of discourse practices in the country out-paced, for example, our capacity to educate the public about the period so on and so forth. Those are the usual answers. But I will give my own personal answer as someone who studied political science, and someone who is representing the Ateneo Martial Law Museum. I think we have to recognize that there is an intimate link between our political system, and the way that we have deployed our mechanisms of memorialization and heritage. My argument is that we cannot take memorialization and the maintenance of cultural heritage, historical memory, as apolitical objects. They are subject to the whims and developments of our political system.
Unfortunately, the discourses about the Martial Law and it’s memorialization has been used as a political tool by differing forces in order to advantage their own political agendas. In other words, there is an intimate link in a lot of Philippine institutions, let’s give it a name, between Philippine institution and patronage politics. Kasi, you say, if we agree as a country on an interpretation on our history then we can start healing those wounds. But the problem is there are people who benefit on keeping that wound open. So that would be my primary explanation to why, aside from the usual explanation.
It is not as simple as, the part of the difficulty of our work, not just in terms of Martial Law but in memory work in general, is that memory is an individual experience but has social and collective elements. So it will always be subject to the movement of our political discourses. So we have to take that into account. Di lang sya, we just have to present the truth and the truth will set you free. It’s not just that, the facts are there. But the truth however is a sort of different matter altogether. The mere presentation of facts, the full extent of the kind of response that we need in order to combat historical denialism we have to acknowledge the fact that people appreciation of the facts are of course is situated in their own appreciation of political, social and cultural contexts and economic even. And if tat is being taken advantage of then really there will be an improper appreciation of our history.
So the way that I frame it is this, I’ve said this on other fora, for example. But people say, like, Maria Ressa would say, if you don’t have facts, you can not have truth, and if you do not have truth, you cannot have trust and if you do not have trust, you do not have a democracy. Ako, what she said was true, pero binabaliktad ko rin yon. Right now, people perceived that our democratic institution is brought about by the EDSA revolution, for example. Have not work in the way they expected it to be. So it creates a lot of democratic frustration. What happens? They lose trust on institutions, like the media, universities and so on and so forth. When they lose trust they gain this sentiment, that they can not trust these institutions and what would people do? They look for “facts”, let’s just call them “facts”, they look for not even information, they look for things. They look for things that would confirmed what they already experienced. So that is why it is easy to introduce denialist discourses to a very frustrated Filipino people. Kasi if you merely presented them the facts, it does not express their sentiment. Whether that sentiment is valid or manufactured, for example, the fact is the sentiment is there.
So it is not like people look for facts and they validate, not like us, not like people in universities, right? We have a questions and we process methods and then we validate. For ordinary people, and for us, in our own everyday because we are not just academics, we are also ordinary citizens. We also have our own affects, our own emotions that sometimes need to be justify. So we start to look for places where that particular emotion, that particular affect, that particular belief would be justified.
Take that as one element of this already long answer. What’s the second element there? We are also notoriously, not everyone, but in the Philippines it is more observable, we are very much embedded within our own social circles. The kind of information that we get, how should we call it, the kind of information that we get, we do not have a common body of discursive exchange. Where do we get our information from? We get it from our elders, our pastors, our priest, our workmates, so on and so forth. But as a nation it is very difficult for us to do that. And actually to be fair, it is very difficult to find things that are not like that because in other countries the same is happening. But here in our own society we had had notoriously, a very difficult time making that transition. That’s why in our political system there’s a lot of explanation on political dynasties, black voting, so on and so forth. Precisely because maybe, you can say weak state strong society that particular framework. If you are working on that, so you have these very strong social circles, that sort of stymie our capacity to have a broader discursive understanding that goes beyond the interpretation of our intimate social circles.
In other words, dissemination is not a top-down, well, well let me be careful here. You have this interest that spread this information, but where do they embed them? The embed them in these intimate social circles. They embed them in families, they embed them in churches, in congregations at the very barangay level, and then it spreads from there. Yung dati nating model ng information dissemination na media talking to everybody else medyo na ano na-we-weaken na ng counter attack na ito.
So I’ll stop there. So you have two elements for me. You the political systems which manipulates they way we memorialized not just our cultural heritage but everything else, our elections, our way we talk to each other and so on and so forth. And second, yun nga our deep embeddedness in these niches and our very rare capacity to go beyond these niches and to unite. I do not say incapacity, because we have proven we can go beyond it, eh. But we are very comfortable with our niches. So that would be my answer to this particular question. Apologies for the length but that would be my answer.
CA: No worries, Sir that is a really really good answer, and actually Sir, na-hit nyo po yung isa kong question in a way, when you were talking about political system. I was about to ask about a certain narrative that we have, particularly in the internet. It’s like Dilawan vs. the Marcoses the reds. Na dinidiscredit nila yung what happened during Martial Law because the Aquino’s are the people elevated during the EDSA revolution have done. So it was an interesting take, an interesting mechanism of narrative to discredit what Martial Law had done, and when I was listening, actually hindi, when I was reading the comments with that kind of narratives, I was thinking na maybe there is a need to make the narrative outside the dichotomy and instead of putting it in a “colored” way, political color, red, white or whatever. Maybe we should narrate Martial Law in a very moral way. I mean, in a moral take.
MPR: The way I would put it this, there’s nothing else than these interests would love is for us to frame it in a family versus family. But we all know for a fact that not what happened, and that is part of the misinformation. And that is part of the reason why, that is part of the techniques, or strategist that historical denialist use in order to spread misinformation. It is to frame it in these dichotomous terms, di ba? When the entire period and the lessons that we learned from that period are very complicated, because we are still dealing with them now, right?
CA: Thank you po, so Ma’am Cherie?
CAA: Ok so I may add, since nasagot naman n ani Migs yung first two questions that you have mentioned. What would be the best angle or point of view when presenting or writing, the plan actually by the school of Social Sciences as it transitioned, kasi originally the leadership of the museum was in another school, the Loyola Schools but now that it transitioned to the School of Social Sciences the plan really is to engaged using facts, and using humanistic insights, that was the vision also of the Dean. This is why we really strongly urge and also avoid limiting the discourse just in the binaries. Which side is one is in or one is in support of. But really its more of having conversation and dialogue that bridge those cultural divides rather than picking sides.
Personally, I would caution with the moralist framing because even morality can be something that can be polarizing. The question then would be whose morality is this? Is this the morality of religious sector or it is the morality of the middle class or elites or whomever? So we cannot also detached that there are perspectives that could be excluding in a way. The goal here and the constant reminder to us would be to engage and to dialogue, and not just to stick and even feed on our further divide, to avoid those discourses all together. Because what we really aimed to do is not to stick to those binaries but have a more not that simplistic sense of what the Martial Law was like coming from certain perspectives. But a more inclusive since this is an event that brings us all regardless of your political leanings, regardless if you are coming from certain region this was a collective experience that should not be divisive in the first place, because it has affected everyone. And even until now the effects of which is still felt to this day. In terms of debt, in terms of our ideas on democracy, our ideas on what activism should look like that was impacted by the early experience of the Martial Law. So we cannot detached it, or limit it in just one perspective or just one, it’s very challenging to have one best angle or best narrative for me. Ayun, yung ang akin. That’s why it is really something collectively worked on and multiple points of view as much as possible because we cannot cover everything if we look at it in one way.
CA: Ang dami po nating work, yun po yung nakita ko. Ang dami pa pong kaylangang gawin. So thank you, naliwanagan po ako doon sa answer nyo Ms. Cherie. Taman ga dapat nga inclusive sya after all this discourse, this event in our history have been dividing us for so many long. So we need to stop, in the way we present or narrate this story, or this subject, we need stop dividing ourselves more into group. Daming work.
So the next question po, given the nature of Ateneo Martial Law Museum, yung topic po mismo ng museum, subject pala, what is the most challenging part of coordinating or working in AMLM? By the way po pala, nakabasa po ako ng article against AMLM kaya ko po tinanong ‘tong tanong na’to. Wooh haters.
MPR: I have an idea what the article is, anyway, well it was mentioned part of it is the toxic political environment that made doing our work difficult for us as academics. It is really sad that these political forces have targeted the work of the academics of teachers essentially, that’s a despicable act of, I do not want to describe it, it’s a despicable act. So that’s one of the difficulties. Second, of course, just on the very practical base, it’s might a bit unconventional my answer but curatorial work, and memorialization work, is not very well appreciated in the country. So that means that a lot of the work that we do is out of shear love for the work and also the appreciation on how important it is for the future generations. In other words, it is not well compensated, right? Hence you have brain drain or you have otherwise perfectly good people go into the kinds of work that are inimical to the goals of memorialization and cultural heritage, because the other side pays a lot more.
In other words, academic work in general and so much so curatorial and memorialization work, needs to be more appreciated. And so a lot of other fields, right? It’s not just this kind of work that is underpaid and unappreciated a lot of things in this country are. But let just add this to one of those. So that’s the second difficulty.
The third difficulty of working in the martial law period, that’s got to be a different kind of politicization, which is not just the current politicization that we have, it’s not just the current political climate that we have but also that period is very political. Some of which are still relevant or deployed today. So you have to be able to parse through the varying interpretations of what had happened and be able to present it in the most truthful way that you can and that is part of the difficulty. Because it is not only the historical denialist that are interpretating the Martial Law in a specific way, but it is also the participants or those who have witness that particular period. They also have their own interpretation. Syempre, how doyou then make that interpretation relevant to the youth of today. Yun din yon eh, yung inter-generational discourse you also need to take care of that, and sometimes that is also very difficult, right? The language has change, the context has changed, right? The most basic way I could put it is a lot of information today and sentiments are distributed through memes, for example, but you cannot “meme” your way to memorialization or at least not yet. I have not seen anything of the sort. But that adaptation to current discursive practices are also a tough particular aspect of our work that why we need more people to do this. Because we need people who understand current communicative practices to work on the period. Because there are a lot of people who worked and who were there during that period who do not understand today’s communicative practices. And that bridge needs to be built, and is being built. So those are the three challenges that I see.
CA: Miss Cherie?
CAA: Comprehensive naman yung answer ni Migs, so siguro kung idadagdag ko lang, being a digital museum, since we are occupying a digital space that’s rapidly changing and is easily accessible it both offers opportunities and challenges being in that space. While it is accessible syempre yung access na na-poprovide at tsaka kung saan sya ginagamit ng mga tao hindi na natin alam. Hindi na natin mareregulate from our end, di ba? Kung saan man sya or kung papaano sya gusto i-present or gamitin or i-twist in some cases. Being it’s a really unregulated space in a sense so right now that’s also presents a lot of challenge.
CA: Iniisip ko nga po, gagawa po ba sila ng tik-tok account tapos irereach yung misinformation doon. Since binanggit ng ani Sir Migs, younger generation kasi, ako nga po millennial ako, I do not have tik-tok anymore, I do not want to engaged in that social platform because for me Im too old for that but those younger than me they all have it. And ang naririnig ko nga po doon naggagaling yung misinformation about what happened to Martial Law. So there’s a need for in that particular platform to present another type of narrative or mapresent yung factual facts, yung mga ganun, pong thoughts.
MPR: And it’s not just participation to these platforms ha, we also need people who understands how these things work because that is highly specialized, technical aspect of it. Ako Political Scientist, si Cherie Anthropologist, ikaw sa Curatorship, alanagna pati algorithm kaylangan pa nating aralin. Pero kaylangan pero we can’t just by a book and understand it right? We need people who are learned in these fields to collaborate with us and that is something that really should happen. Because you cannot expect university faculties to do everything, we are only university faculty members.
CA: Yes that’s tight, kaya po gaya ng sabi ko ang dami pa pong work, and maybe even in our lifetime we won’t be able to “clean” this, but still good work is good work.
Number six question, excited po ako dito. Are there any plans in the future to make the Ateneo Martial Law Museum a physical museum? So I am coming from the perspective na experiential kasi sya. Especially right now there is an influx in interest in art, in museums. I mean dati wala naman pong masyadong pumapansin ng museum museums pero right now you see it in Instagram. People would go to these museums, like National Museum, and mukang sikat na sikat sya. In Liza Soberano’s movie Alone Together naka-base sya a museum. So there is an influx of interest in museums and art in general. So I was thinking kung meron kayang plan to build a physical building for the Martial Law Museum.
MPR: I will give a controversial answer ha. The question is there a plan to build a physical museum. My answer is we want to challenge not the notion of physicality, we understand the importance of physicality, but notion of the structure of a museum as a consolidated building. That’s all I can really say right now, noh. That would be my answer. It’s not a no and also not a yes, but I think there’s definitely space for us to consider should museums be just one building that everything is there or are there ways to challenge even that notion. That very well established notion.
Hanggang doon lang ang masasagot ko. Apologies for that answer because it’s an academic answer.
CA: Ms. Cherie?
CAA: Nothing to add!
CA: Okay po! Thank you for that answer, hindi ko na po iintrigahin. So last question po, I believe hindi ko nastructure yung question na to properly, but I believe this is for other academics and even students like me who wants to launch an online museum or even, a more proper term is to coordinate or manage an online museum. Kasi hindi naman po kayo yung naglaunch so ang weird kung itanong ko yon. So any practical tips on how you balance it, you are both teaching then you are managing this.
MPR: When I was appointed as Coordinator of Martial Law Museum, I consulted with mentors within my own institutions, and one of the best thesis that I got was that for small offices, for small institution or for just group that are starting out you office really is as good as its champion. In other words talagang gagapangin mo yung trabaho kasi hindi ka katulad ng mas well-established na lugar na meron ng assistant and constant budget na meron ng ganito ganyan. Talagang mag-e-email sa tao isa-isa, itatrack mo kung nasan na lahat ng projects, walang ibang gagawa para sa’yo nung trabahong yon. That’s part of the difficulty but something you have to expect. So you have to be on top of the details kasi in other institutions that are more established yung iba nagiisip lang ng idea and other people will implement it for them. Pero tayong nagsisimula pa lang or di naman ganun kalaki, talagang ikaw mag-iisip, ikaw mag-rerespond, ikaw gagawa, ikaw magpa-follow through, ikaw magi-invite sa mga tao, ikaw talaga gagawa ng lahat. So you have to ensure methods of sustainability that is very important and it’s part of my frustration with a lot of the political movements of today. Mahilig tayong mag-launch, mahilig tayong magrelease ng ganito ganyan then after two-three years namamatay, it is not sustained. So you have to be able to ensure that when you, yourself have to move on, you know not just move on but to go to other projects that the system are in place already for the next generation, or the next set of leaders to really start working again. So that kind of sustainability is really needed.
Because a lot of the work that we do in this country is very personality base that, I am contradicting my first answer, when the champion has to go everything else starts from scratch, and that happens so many times. So ako, kami-kami nina Cherie when we are working on AMLM now that’s one of our top considerations. How do we make this, yung iba kasi iniisip basta magawa na lang natin eto ngayon tsaka na natin isipin yung papalit sa atin. Trabahuin mo na rin yan kasi otherwise wala kang sustainability. Meron pa ba akong other advice? You also need to have a steel disposition, it’s daunting work, its tiring work, its intimidating work. If you do not have a stomach for it get a team. Don’t quit na lang, get a team. Get people to work with you. So you can share those difficult burdens. Pero kung hindi mo pa rin kaya umalis ka na. But otherwise, get a team and get your communities involved. That’s my take on the matter.
CA: Nice po yung yung, gusto ko po yung first point nyo. It’s like setting up the next group or next generation for success, kasi sinet-up mo na for them, and iba na yung set of problems na poproblemahin nila since the systems are already there. And the seond one is more collaborative, of course. Ms. Cheria po?
CAA: First, we have so much to be thankful for from the earlier batches of people involved in the museums because they already did a lot of the foundation of the museums, and what you see right now what a product of generations of leadership I the AMLM. They should be properly credited for that too. But also the same amount of work and dedication to the project that they did that also somehow resonates with us that we have to continue this and that we also be forward looking in the tasks tat we might be engaged in the moment but also planning ahead because that’s the main purpose of museums it should be a lasting institution. Di ba? This is beyond individuals who are involve in it. So that include its sustainability moving forward. Involve as much stakeholders are possible because that is something we have recognized before, and also now we hope to revive as well that the interest to the AMLM, while it is timely, we should also tap as much stakeholders as possible because that also somehow increases their buy in. Na we have to continue this, we have to promote this, na we have to engage in this museum because we are already invested in it. So to make it inclusive, ayun nga nabanggit naming, coordinating talaga. As much as possible we bring in people, institutions that already done significant work or tasks really is to make this happen. Na hindi tayo hiwa-hiwalay ng efforts. Kasi kumbaga nasispread out. So if we really want to make an impression and a lasting one, we really have to involve. Siguro hindi lang naman, sa kahit anong industriya minsan may gatekeeping na nagaganap, di ba? Kaya humihingi rin kami ng tulng with a lot of different people and lots of different organizations. Because we really do need their help and expertise and their participation most of all cause this is not just our project this is a project of all of us. So ayun that’s it for me.
CA: So na-reflect ko po yung mga sinabi nyo sa last point or last question sa balak naming i-lauch na website, yung sustainability of it. So yung prof po naming she’s already thinking na dapat mapasa sya sa susunod na class. So she also mentions to us that when you practice you practice or curatorial projects dapat meron ka dapat na interest so hindi ka patalon-talon ng project so merong continuality in a sense. So kahit umais ka man doon nandoon ka pa rin in a sense sa institution na yon, it’s easier for you kasi meron kang specialization in a way.