Worth a Caveat, and a Term of Venery for the Composition: a Pride of Proclamations
Worth a Caveat, and a Term of Venery for the Composition: a Pride of Proclamations Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™ August 2, 2026 Let us begin, as one must in this climate of perpetual national self-diagnosis, with the necessary disclaimer. What follows is not a dismissal of infrastructure, nor a denial that geography still exerts its quiet tyranny, nor even a defense of maritime nostalgia. It is merely the observation—made with the weary affection one reserves for a relative who has once again arrived at the family reunion with a freshly printed manifesto—that the text under consideration is a perfect specimen of a certain contemporary Philippine cultural production: the grand, steel-and-destiny essay that mistakes volume for vision and urgency for insight. In the local art scene we have long specialized in comparing one shit work to another shit work; the exercise is not cruelty but hygiene. It keeps the air clear. So let us place this TARNA sermon beside its cousins on the gallery wal...
