Musika at Bagong Lipunan: Pagbuo ng Lipunang Filipino, 1972–1986 by Raul Casantusan Navarro (review)

Music in the Philippines is a rare topic for scholarly research. Even more exceptional is a critical examination of music’s link to the historical and political issues of the country whence it comes. Raul Casantusan Navarro’s latest opus, Musika at Bagong Lipunan: Pagbuo ng Lipunang Filipino, 1972–1986, once again addresses the dearth of academic studies on an art form that is strongly associated with Filipinos. Navarro, a University of the Philippines College of Music alumnus and associate professor, reprises his work that granted him the National Book Award (History Category) in 2008, entitled Kolonyal na Patakaran at ang Nagbabagong Kamalayang Filipino: Musika sa Publikong Paaralan sa Pilipinas, 1898–1935 (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2007). Musika at Bagong Lipunan, also written in Filipino, similarly examines how music intersects with power, ideology, and social transformation.

But while the author’s previous study explored music’s role as a prime tool of imposing an American colonial worldview, the novelty of Navarro’s recent book is not only its focus on a frequently overlooked aspect of Philippine culture, but also its choice of an undeveloped area of inquiry on the Marcos dictatorship. Instead of providing another evaluation of martial law’s ramifications, Ferdinand or Imelda’s character, or their government policies and programs, Navarro’s research locates music’s crucial role in the political agenda of the First Couple and in the anti-Marcos struggle.

Many of the author’s most salient insights revolve around the theme of music’s instrumentality in consolidating power to control other people. Navarro reasons that the medium of sound as a means to induce Filipinos to support the Marcos administration was easier to disseminate and less affected by time, place, and environmental conditions than other art forms (96). His survey of government-sanctioned compositions during the 1970s and 1980s suggests that the regime created songs to charm and appease the people with lyrics consisting mostly of exaltations of local culture; metaphors of hope and patriotism; references to desired social conditions of progress and prosperity; and promoting virtues such as beauty, diligence, discipline, obedience, and peace. Some of these tunes were compiled and utilized as teaching materials for public schools. These selections included contributions from esteemed local composers like George Canseco, Felipe De Leon, Lucrecia Kasilag, and Lucio San Pedro.

Further highlighting music’s political value to the regime is Navarro’s accounting of institutions, organizations, facilities, programs, and incentives that were established during martial law. Examples he mentioned include the Philippine School for the Arts, National Arts Center, League of Filipino Composers, Philippine Society for Music Education, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Concert at the Park, Young Artists Foundation of the Philippines, and the National Music Competition for Young Artists. His descriptions reveal that these structural mechanisms were not entirely genuine initiatives to change Filipinos’ cultural sensibilities toward a high regard for their indigenous traditions and local talents. Rather, these musical endeavors were part of the broader social engineering project to realize Marcos’s vision of Bagong Lipunan (New Society). The book argues that music became an expression of this ideological construct, which concealed Marcos’s political ambition of perpetual rule and the country’s actual state of poverty and political persecution. The New Society pretended to be a patriotic program that would bring peace and order, institutional improvements, land and labor reforms, basic social services, and economic progress. The songs of the New Society served as the regime’s discourse that portrayed the fulfillment of these promises.

Navarro’s assessment fine-tunes and expands our understanding of music as a key element in the state’s cultural apparatus to maintain domination over its citizenry. Through commissioned hymns such as “Masagana 99” (Prosperous 99), “Tayo’y Magtanim” (Let Us Plant), “Magandang Pilipinas” (Beautiful Philippines), “Bagong Pagsilang” (Rebirth, also known as “March of the New Society”), “Bagong Lipunan” (also known as “Hymn of the New Society”), and “Isang...