Engaging regional and national culture

September 23-28, 1991 (exactly 25 years ago) marked the Cebu Cultural Week at UP Cebu spearheaded by its Local Studies Committee which I headed and involved the faculty of the different divisions and my Fourth Year Social Studies Classes and the History I and 2 classes in college. The theme of the weeklong celebration was “Cebu’s Contributions to the National Culture” and each day had a particular topic ranging from History, Education, Media, Business, Arts, Sports. This was a precursor of the Central Visayas Studies Center which evolved in 1999.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Resil B. Mojares who offered four points for reflection on the Culrual Week theme. The first is that a characterization of the national culture must take into account the whole range of horizontal and vertical variations in the culture. “Horizontal” variation means the variations across geographies, across regions (north to south, east to west, highland-lowland, city-country).
“Vertical” variation means variations across classes, as in the distinctions between elite and popular or high brow and low brow. And then one must, in addition, set all these in the context of historical or temporal variation as well. “Historical variation provides a frame for an understanding not only of change across time but of the tensions in a culture which is necessarily constituted or dominant, subordinate, residual and emergent elements — elements that do not just lie passively together but are often in a state of active contradiction. “

The second point is that the characterization of national culture is, of necessity, something that is provisional. He said provisional for two reasons: the first stems from the incompleteness of present knowledge. There is still so much to learn about each other. Second, our knowledge is provisional because culture is not fixed and static but open and dynamic. New knowledge revises old knowledge: accumulation of new things. What we thought of as important before becomes less important. What was once primary has become secondary, or what was thought of as marginal has become quite central. Continuing reinterpretation is central not only to the study of culture but to our personal experience or practice of the culture.

The third point is that a national culture is something experienced and shared. A “national “ culture to be expansive and dynamic must not just be the simple aggregation of the cultures of a nation’s constituent regions. A national culture grows and expands out of the dialogue of these cultures (and out of the dialogue of the involving culture with cultures outside, the national boundaries.) This means exchange, learning from each other through study, translation, interaction — in short, through the free, fair, and active circulation of cultural goods between and among regions.

A national culture cannot be conceived as having an existence separate from regional culture One participates in the national culture through the regional and not outside of it. He stressed the value of local or regional studies. The study of regional culture leads us to two basic discoveries. First, it leads us to the discovery and appreciation of the particulars of the locality which we inhabit and these particulars are important. They give texture, immediacy and richness to a culture. Second, it leads us to the discovery and appreciation of how the locality can be comprehended only if we see it in relation to that larger cultural world of which it is effectively a part. Language provides us with a good example of how we can think about the relationship between regional and national culture. When we study Philippine language today we are struck not only by how they are different but how they are so alike.

Mojares concluded his reflections with the message that today we are beset by divisions, economic, cultural and political. “Yet, there is, as it were a circle drawn around us as a people. We see it as we look into the past, We also see it as we contemplate the present and the future. Within this circle we can see ourselves drawn together, rich in difference yet strong in the knowledge that we are bound together as one.”

Incidentally, on the third day of the Cebu Cultural Week (September 25) the theme was on the Media and a Kapihan sa UP Cebu was held with the topic “The Role of Cebu Media in Promoting Cebuano Culture”. After the Kapihan, the Women in Literary Arts (WILA) was formally launched at the Audio-Visual Room of UP Cebu where the exhibits on Cebu were held. To highlight the celebration of Cebu Cultural Week, UP Cebu started a program of recognizing individuals who made significant contributions in promoting Cebuano culture, namely Prof. Martino Abellana and Prof. Julian Jumalon for Painting; Dr. Redil Mojares for Literature; Monsignor Rodolfo Villanueva and Mr. Domingo “Minggoy” Lopez for Music; the CCC Theatre Workshop Company for Performing Arts; and Prof. Francisco Nemenzo, Sr. for Biological Sciences.