If I Could Tell You
“You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone…” was a phrase that ex-Smiths singer Morrissey appropriated from a risible country hit by Brooks & Dunn for one of his recent singles. He prefaces it with this line: “You don’t like me but you love me, but either way you’re wrong… You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.” Like many times before, he appropriated the line and made it into his own, inserted it into his personal vocabulary just as he did lines from movies he liked, writers he read or words like “coma” and “shoplifter,” taking them from their original context and giving them a personal significance that somehow also resonated with others when he sang them.
Very often, the term “genius steals, talent borrows” is misused in the defense of plagiarism especially in the arts. (Of course, it’s curious to note that no one can actually lay claim to being the first person to say that line, although it’s been attributed to everyone from Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, Pablo Picasso, to Morrissey himself.) But at least we have the poet Eliot to explain what it actually means. When you steal something, you must completely own it. Not a copy but the genuine thing. The theft must be complete. It shouldn’t be taken on loan and, in fact, must never be returned—until somebody else steals it. That’s what makes everything so interesting, the way we cross-reference each other, allude to or make in-jokes in such a way that even those not privy to the original source will find it eminently enriching when they figure it out. That’s what makes pop culture, especially in the Philippines, so fascinating.
On the pages of the UNO issue you have before you are all manner of crimes and misdemeanors (albeit regrettably not all in the service of the arts) and we admit to being guilty of not assuming that our readers are ignorant, lazy or dumb. If they don’t get it, then we’re sure that they’ll be curious enough to find out. Open your TV, read a book, watch the news, read the updates on Twitter or just take a walk in the mall—you’ll figure it out. It isn’t snobbish to expect the UNO reader to know what’s been happening in the country the past year or so, whether it be Manny Pacquiao beating the crap out of Margarito, Charice appearing in the hit American TV show Glee. They know that when you turn the dial to 107.5 on your radio today it won’t be the Home of New Rock anymore, and that we have a president that we refer to as PNoy.
Need we mention that we also have not only one of the most beautiful but one of the most talented actresses working in the country today on the cover of this special double issue? Iza Calzado is more than just a gorgeous woman; she’s an actress of real depth. She currently appears in Beauty Queen, one of the most successful and entertaining teleseryes on local television. Mainly, it’s fun for us here at UNO because it’s camp, which isn’t really about being clever as much as it is being just familiar with Pinoy culture. (The late Joey Gosengfiao is in the pantheon of UNO heroes.) But it takes a clever, intelligent performer to pull that off, and Iza does it perfectly. (We can imagine Dina Bonnevie nodding in approval.) But we’ve also seen her in movies where she actually makes you forget all that beauty and just believe in that character she’s playing (even if they turn out to be monsters or ghosts). We can’t think of another person we’d rather have on the cover of what is essentially a compendium of not only the best of the best of 2010 but a historical document of this year. The quote of some dead German philosopher comes to mind: “There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.” (Google it to find out who.)
No other magazine on the stands, to our knowledge, can claim to be more exhaustive in its coverage of how crazy 2010 was—or of what may be in store for all of us in 2011. From a primer on the whole plagiarism pandemonium, to Manoling Morato’s POV on the unprecedented Lotto mania, to an insider analysis of the fraternity mentality via a Mike de Leon opus, made sadly relevant once again by the La Salle bombing: we faced down the tragic, the comic, the tragicomic, and everything in between (often, as the songs says, with a little—or in our case, a lot of—help from our friends, who luckily enough happen to be authorities in their respective fields). Some of these reminders, beyond being poignant or entertaining, are necessary: case in point, Pat Evangelista’s piece on the Ampatuan massacre. This will be the first time that the faces of all 58 people who were massacred in Ampatuan last year will see print together. The names of those who died on that day are part of the lexicon of our history now. Best learn what they mean, if only to know how to steal back some dignity, if not justice, from how that event redefined our country.
Even with all that, we can’t help but be nostalgic about the past. It will always be in our vocabulary. In every issue, we will continue to remain in the present but look forward to the future even if that means pillaging from the past. To quote a modern-day poet using the language of our country’s past colonizers: “Tuoyo fue el pasado el porvenir es mio…” And you won’t need to miss us because we’re not going anywhere. Expect more dispatches for you, our discerning reader.
Erwin T. Romulo
Editor-in-Chief
UNO Magazine
