The Face of a Marcos Apologist: Mac Andre Arboleda's Second Solo Exhibit

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Mac Andre Arboleda's second solo exhibit "The Face of a Marcos Apologist" opens on July 21, 2018, Saturday, 6PM at Nomina Nuda, Los Baños, Laguna. The project, first released as a black-and-white zine under Asshulz, now presents itself in an exhibition setting with music by 帰宅します, Amado. 

About "The Face of a Marcos Apologist"

Selfies compatible to facial recognition system have been fed to an online portrait morphing software, resulting in the composite image the project calls “the average face of a Marcos apologist.” Mac Andre Arboleda selects data and puts them together in a singular space, allowing the viewer to pay closer attention to what would otherwise have been internet debris, and the smartphone self-portraits that have become the symbol of millennial narcissism and construction of personas on social media are transformed into artifacts of a moment in internet history: Publicity Asia’s 2016 Twitter contest #WinADateWithSandro that promised 12 best selfie submissions a date with the grandson of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The artist’s ‘curation’ through found images is an insistence on memorializing what is absent here, the unmemorialized. We are asked to suffer the pouting faces and casual poses and mull over their number and namelessness. The deluge of these ephemeral but persistent selfies instigated by a campaign to erase Marcos atrocities from public memory underscore the irony in view of the over 1600 individuals that were disappeared during the Marcos regime: the immediate face, an unwitting trace of the vanished one.

First released as a black-and-white zine, the images that comprise this project traverse from digital self-portraiture to social media to print, and finally to an exhibition setting, accumulating several contexts over being mere selfies as proof of adolescent desire—snapshots of oneself by oneself documenting current personal affairs but also intending to build up ideal selves in social networks, originally shared as nothing more than oblivious confessions of a crush. The pictures reveal much of how the owners of the selfies perceive themselves and wish themselves to be perceived, while also obscuring the nature of this desire, how it has taken root in them because and in spite of their milieus, and in the midst of the current push for historical fact-checking.

See the colegiala, the middle-aged woman, the gay boy, the high schooler in her uniform; see the bed selfie, the selfie in extreme close-up, the selfie in black and white, or the one with a virtual flower crown or with a superimposed quote. These faces in no way accurately represent any one social group, nor do they accurately sample the Philippine society at present. Instead, Arboleda’s project uncovers the convenient mask of immateriality to reveal a diverse demographic of those who continue to excuse the Marcos atrocities, suggesting that what is average in “the average face of a Marcos apologist” is not always physical or easily social, and that anyone is not fully exempt from the various tendencies to be complicit to the machinery of Marcos ‘revisionism’, regardless of degree and regardless how virtual or oblique the relationship, or how removed the love object is in terms of lineage or direct culpability, and regardless of all our imperfections, contradictions, and ‘innocent' longings.

The Face of a Marcos Apologist transforms these presences, perhaps knowable only in the cloud of online anonymity and comment section cacophony, into separate identities as they are encountered, experienced, and processed virtually. The artist presents us with the ‘average face’ of a Marcos apologist as proof of the intricacies of digital media’s intervention in personal desires and the construction of histories, making visible the faces of our material and virtual narratives so we see beyond faces. 

—Shaunnah Ysabel Cledera

The exhibit will run from July 21 to August 21, 2018. Visit the event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/250334245762723/

Nomina Nuda is a small nonprofit independent platform and exhibition space in Los Baños, Laguna dedicated to emerging artists and alternative art practices. Nomina Nuda is located at 9654 Diamond Street, Umali Subdivision, Batong Malake, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. For inquiries, contact nominanudaprojects@gmail.com

DOE Encourages More Women to Join the Energy Sector

Wazzup Pilipinas!

ENEREADY KIDS FOR THE FUTURE: ENEReady program participants head to the DOE laboratories to learn about the different scientific testing activities being conducted by the DOE. ENEReady encourages young Filipinos to pursue energy-related career paths in the future.

TAGUIG CITY - The Department of Energy (DOE), through its Consumer Welfare and Promotion Office, held the third ENEReady Program for the year with the Girl Scouts of the Philippines (GSP) on 11 July at the Energy Center in Bonifacio Global City.

The “Breaking Gender Stereotypes in the Energy Workforce” aimed to encourage the girl scouts to consider a career in the energy sector, which is generally associated with men.

Participants included 38 Grade 10 GSP students from the J. Nolasco, Lakan Dula, V. Mapa, and M. Araullo High Schools, as well as troupe leaders and officers from the GSP Headquarters.

  

EMPOWERING WOMEN

Discussions revolved around the concept of “gender stereotyping”, and how often it is unknowingly ingrained by elders into the minds of young children.

Gender stereotyping happens when pre-conceived ideas on the roles, attributes, behavior or activities of individuals based on their gender are established. These include the expectation that girls should play with dolls, while boys are to play with toy trucks. It may also include over-generalized statements such as “Engineering is a course for boys,” or “Girls shouldn’t be rough.”

PRACTICAL AND SHARING ACTIVITIES

A female board topnotcher and electrical engineer from the Manila Electric Company simulated the Power Supply Chain through a fun role-playing game called “The Sushi Challenge”.

Students were grouped into sushi producer/suppliers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers to give them an overview of how electricity is produced from its generation to consumption.

Male and female speakers from different disciplines of engineering also shared the experiences and challenges they encounter. These include withstanding different odors as animal and plant residues are converted to electricity, climbing mountains, exploring and drilling wells, as well as rigorous controlled trainings on the emergency procedures for reacting to and surviving a helicopter ditching into the sea.

To serve as inspiration for the participants to pursue courses in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM), the workshop also featured success stories of Filipino women in these fields.

MEASURING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

The culminating activity was a tour of the DOE’s Lightning and Appliance Testing Laboratory, where the children witnessed how energy efficiency is measured by the DOE personnel.

The workshop on Wednesday is the 13th ENEReady program held since its launch in 2016 and has reached out to more than 2,000 students to date.

WEATHERING CHALLENGES: Girl scouts listen intently to a lady speaker as she shares her experiences in a job predominantly associated with and held by men. The ENEReady activity which encourages young participants to pursue their ambitions without regard to gender stereotypes was held on 11 July.

DOE Audits Over 400 Batangas Oil Players for Safety and Standards Compliance

Wazzup Pilipinas!

LPG BARAKO: Inspectors from the Department of Energy and its partner agencies sweep through liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) establishments in Batangas this week to ensure that the products being sold are of the best quality, just like the province’s renowned coffee. 

BATANGAS – To ensure that local petroleum products adhere to the safety, quality and quantity standards, the Department of Energy (DOE) has inspected a total of 442 oil players across 30 towns in the province.

Spearheaded by the DOE’s Oil Industry Management Bureau (OIMB) – Retail Market Monitoring and Special Concerns Division in cooperation with partner offices and national agencies, the “Focused Inspection” (FI) ran from 9 to 13 July.

The FI is a mechanism for the DOE to guarantee that petroleum products, such as liquid fuels and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) being sold in the market are in accordance with international and national standards on quality and quantity. 

It takes an integrated approach to monitor Liquid Fuel Retail Outlets /Gasoline Stations and LPG establishments, with an intensive information dissemination component. 

Inspection findings showed that 198 gas stations have violated the “Revised Retail Rules,” while 156 LPG establishments have breached “LPG Industry Rules.”

Operating without a Certificate of Compliance is a common gas station violation. 

For LPG retailers on the other hand, offenses include operating without a Standards Compliance Certificate, selling cylinders that are non-compliant with Philippine National Standards, as well as a few cases of under filling. 

“The DOE stringently monitors businesses to ensure that our people are not short-changed on the petroleum products they purchase. This is very important because people pay with their hard earned money,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi emphasized.

Secretary Cusi also pointed out, “We empower consumers by upholding right quantity and quality petroleum products, while strengthening our collaboration with industry stakeholders for proper guidance on running an energy business.” 

Under the E-Power Mo Movement, the DOE-OIMB also conducted an information, education and communication (IEC) campaign on Thursday (12 July) with 150 stakeholders and consumers.

Discussions focused on the results of the monitoring/inspection activities, the overview of the Downstream Oil Industry and the regulatory frameworks of its sub-sectors, the Fire Code of the Philippines, and other related local government units’ (LGU) ordinances pertinent to the oil industry business.

The back-to-back FI and IEC is a joint initiative with the DOE’s Legal Services – Hearing Division; Energy Research and Testing Laboratory Services – Geo-scientific Research and Testing Laboratory; DOE Field Offices. Other partner offices include the City/Municipality’s Business Permits and Licensing Office and Treasurer’s Office; the Department of Trade and Industry - Bureau of Philippine Standards; the Department of Interior and Local Government - Bureau of Fire Protection; and the Philippine National Police.

Six teams were organized, with each unit executing its mandate relative to the operations of oil industry players on liquid fuels and LPG sub-sectors.

The DOE assures the public that it closely monitors the quality and quantity of petroleum products nationwide. 

GAS IN BATANGAS: The Department of Energy (DOE) inspects Batangas liquid fuels retailers to guarantee the correct quantity and quality of petroleum products sold in their outlets. The series of inspections this week were conducted to determine oil players’ compliance to the existing rules for the utmost protection of consumers.