Another voice
Pity the poor Filipinas
Auberon Waugh
Manila
Journalists attending the second — and possibly last — Manila International Film Festival have been asking themselves whether perhaps they have been taken for a ride. With the horrible cynicism of their kind, they seem to have decided that the film festival is an elaborate Potemkin village, hiding all the poverty and squalor of a ruthless right-wing dictatorship which survives on tourist earnings from child pro- stitution, by silencing the opposition press and by the wholesale murder of political opponents, on the Argentinian model. These considerations have not deterred about 300 journalists — the biggest group coming from France, which boycotted the festival last year on political grounds — from accepting the free plane tickets, lux- ury hotel bookings and lavish hospitality provided. They preserve their integrity by making sceptical noises among themselves behind their hosts' backs.
I am certainly in no position to declare myself holier than they are, because I had accepted exactly the same invitation and would even now be being driven around in air-conditioned limousines, if the invitation had not been withdrawn as soon as the organisers learned that I was Taller's choice of film correspondent. This decision was taken by Mrs Margaret Gardner, interna- tional director of the American public rela- tions firm, Rogers and Cowan, which handles the festival's account. She is a mature American divorcee who refused to divulge her age when asked. Her reason was that only film critics were allowed to attend, but from the speed with which I secured ac- creditation from the Filipino authorities on arrival I must conclude that this restriction was imposed by Mrs Gardner rather than by the Philippine government. If she was frightened of bad publicity for the film festival, she had every reason to be nervous; it is a travesty and a farce. But foreign jour- nalists, living in the isolated, air- conditioned bubbles of the International Cultural Centre and Philippine Plaza Hotel, would be wrong to interpret the film festival as a deliberate attempt to hide the warts on President Marcos's face. I do not claim that his pleasant, slightly Chinese face — or even the more glamorous face of his energetic First Lady — is entirely free from metaphorical warts. But on the strength of two private visits to the country, I conclude that one of the more conspicuous warts on the face of his regime is the film festival itself, with the multi-million-dollar Interna- tional Cultural Complex which houses it.
President Marcos's government is stricter
in several respects than would be acceptable in Europe. It is also laxer than would be ac- ceptable in others. Not long ago he closed down Manila's equivalent of the New Statesman and arrested its editorial staff — a foolish and unnecessary thing to do. A few opponents of the regime have disap- peared, although not many and none at all by Argentinian standards. Some are murdered by gangsters or crooked policemen but many others — especially dissident priests who disappear with alarm- ing regularity — turn up elsewhere with a new floozie and the company's — or parish's — cash float in their briefcases. I do not believe that Ferdinand Marcos is a murderer, or that his government makes a habit of bumping off its opponents, although the military needs keeping in tighter control. On balance, I would say he is a benign and sensible ruler, certainly bet- ter than any likely replacement.
Although films are strictly censored on moral grounds, it is hard to understand why Filipinos should want to watch dirty films when there is so much real-life action all around them. Oddly enough, they do. Im- elda Marcos made a sporting attempt to finance the film festival by releasing previously banned Filipino porno films, and Cardinal Sin's objections may have been prompted as much by a desire to discredit the regime — through a humiliating finan- cial failure of the film festival — as by disapproval of dirty films. In launching the 'Festival for a Cause', Mrs Marcos an- nounced that profits would go to charity, but the rivalry between Church and State for welfare funds is extraordinarily bitter.
When one has recovered from laughing about his name, Cardinal Sin emerges as an astute, witty, formidable, highly intelligent, devious and almost insanely ambitious politician. If his efforts to undermine the regime are, on balance, reprehensible, the contribution made by the Catholic Church in the Philippines to education, health and general welfare is certainly not. So far as ac- tual religiosity is concerned, the Filipinos are strangely inscrutable. Taxi-drivers almost always address you through clinking rosaries and pictures of Jesus and Mary as they try to persuade you to abandon your journey in favour of a visit to a brothel.
In decribing the Filipinos as a cheerful, anarchistic people rather than a miserable and oppressed one, I must qualify this by pointing out the straits to which their cheer- fulness and anarchic temperament have reduced them. A respectable 22-year-old hostess in the Pistang Filipino restaurant told me that she worked from 8.30 in the
morning until 4.30 in the afternoon at her university course. Then she worked from 6.30 in the evening until 2.00 in the morning every day at the restaurant, in order to pay her own way at university and send money back for the education of her younger sisters in the provinces.
The same story is told by many of the bar girls and prostitutes of Del Pilar and A. Mabini streets. There are swarms of them working their way through university and supporting their families. Most are painful- ly thin and some have the cough which denotes tuberculosis. There is a theory among expatriate Australians that it is im- possible to have tuberculosis and venereal disease at the same time. 'If she coughs, her,' I was advised. Certainly, there is endless scope in Manila for the sort of vice exposure press story with which we are all familiar. Two journalists from Newsweek were arrested last week on libel charges after printing photographs of 'child pro- stitutes'„but on this occasion I fancy I believe the journalists rather than the girls. Even Pilger could scarcely get into trouble in Manila; but the Philippines Republic is not yet in the front line of Soviet efforts to dominate South-East Asia, and we have so far been spared the teams of radical jour- nalists, Sunday Times and BBC reporters who would not be averse to discrediting the regime. No doubt they will come one day.
When I describe these girls as taking to the life with remarkable cheerfulness, I must also qualify it by pointing out that they all want to leave the Philippines. By a new edict published last week, all Filipinos living abroad must remit at least half their wages to the Philippines or lose their passports. This is to assist the Republic's balance of payments problems, not helped by such extravagant gestures as the film festival. The measure is aimed chiefly at the 500,000 Filipino contract labourers in the Middle East, but even in Hong Kong there are apparently 18,000 Filipina maidser- vants, and our own small Filipino workforce, employed almost exclusively ifl low-paid jobs which the Britons do not want, will also be affected. Many of them are already remitting half their wages in this way, but a cruel feature is that they must now remit their wages mon- thly, through the Philippines National Bank, at an unfavourable rate of exchange and subject to delays in payment of up to a month. It would be a humane and sensible gesture if the Home Office allowed anY employed Philippine nationals who lose their passports in this way to remain.
I write of these things without much anger. For all the silliness and vanity of Mrs Marcos, the narrow-mindedness of her hus- band, they are not a wicked couple and are certainly doing their best. But I confess to a twinge of indignation that these thin, hard- working girls should also have to carry the not inconsiderable weight (I judge only from her photographs, having forgotten to ask her how much she weighed) of Mrs Gardner and her travesty of a film festival.
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