Montañez/Guillermo on the 1973 National Artist Awards. Something to keep in mind each time we read F. Sionil Jose.

The National Artist Award was an invention of Marcos’s martial law, a means to mobilize culture in the service of the New Society. Each time we see “National Artist” affixed to somebody’s name, we shouldn’t just think of the prestige but also what that prestige serves.

If the state that honors the artist is the same state that steals from, suppresses, and murders people, well.

This isn’t to say every single work by every single National Artist from the Marcos era onwards is cancelledt. It is to say instead of automatically thinking, National Artist pa naman, bakit ganyan? ay puwede rin isipin na National Artist e, kaya ayan.

Nasaan nga pala ang mga Duterte-era National Artists? May malinaw at publikong pahayag ba sila sa lahat ng nagaganap, kahit man lang sa usapin ng press freedom/freedom of expression?

Still wish we weren’t compelled to support the harm FSJ does with our tax money, though.