Humanity as the eye and I of the storm

Originally published in Inquirer.net
NEW YORK CITY — Even as I write this, Typhoon Hagupit has just made its fourth landfall, this time targeting Batangas, after churning through the Visayas and the Bicol region. It first touched Philippine soil at the aptly named Dolores. Dolorous indeed have been the lives of those who live at the mouth of the typhoon corrida. While its status has been downgraded from the category of super typhoon, that is little consolation to the families of the 21 fatalities and the estimated million evacuees. Still, there is some solace to be had in the fact that Hagupit didn’t match Typhoon Yolanda’s outsized fury a little more than a year ago. Hagupit did however make memories of that historic landfall, with record-breaking velocity and storm surges, and at least 6,000 deaths, ever more vivid and from some accounts re-traumatized many Yolanda survivors.

By most accounts recovery efforts have been frustratingly slow, a long uphill battle. Stories of corruption and inefficiency abound, mixed in with narratives of resiliency and rehabilitation undertaken by the nonprofit sector, which theoretically should include the government, although to do so would be to beggar reality. Yolanda was seen then as a portent of other brutal storms to come—one of the inevitable and lamented legacies of climate change—and Hagupit seems to have emerged right on cue.

There has been another sort of commemoration, less concerned with the larger if rather detached picture of the unwelcome changes in Mother Nature, and more focused on the individuals who were right in the path of Yolanda. I refer to Agam: Filipino Narratives on Uncertainty and Climate Change, a book just published by the Philippine-based Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (www.ejeepney.org) “Agam” is a Tagalog word, meaning uncertainty, ambiguity, as well as meditation and reflection. According to the Introduction by Renato Redentor Constantino, ICSC’s executive director, it “also means a memory of the past, and the ability to think.” (If his name rings a bell, that is because this Renato is the grandson of the late Renato Constantino, the well-known leftist nationalist historian and author of several well-regarded books, including The Philippines: A Continuing Past and The Miseducation of the Filipino.) Definitely not a coffee table book (though its size nearly approximates it) and meant to be actually read, Agam is an anthology, made up of a series of photographs of Yolanda survivors, by Jose Enrique Soriano, and accompanying texts, by 24 poets and prose writers, almost all of them based in the Philippines.

Each of the contributing writers was sent one photo and asked to observe three rules: the length could not exceed a thousand words; the jargon of climate change was to be avoided at all costs; and, perhaps most importantly, the written text could not simply be a caption. The photo was to be used as a prompt, a catalyst, for a more personal and vivid imagining of the writer’s response to Yolanda. The languages in the book range from Tagalog and English to Ilocano and Waray, from Sama and Bicolano to Cebuano and Maguindanao, with English translations provided where needed.

Book review: Postcards from climate ground zero in ‘Agam’

Originally published in GMA News
For “Agam,” a collection of narratives about climate change, contributors were given a laundry list of words to avoid. “Global warming,” “adaptation,” “mitigation,” “mainstreaming” and, of course, “climate change” were just some of them. The result – as climate crusader Renato Redentor Constantino, one of the brains behind the book, said – is compelling.

Compelling, in a way, because this is essentially climate change talk without politics and propaganda. Even if you’re a staunch climate change denier, you’d have to be a real heartless individual to dismiss the suffering expressed in this book as propaganda.

Compelling, also, for the sense of foreboding one gets after the last page is turned.

For “Agam,” 24 contributors – artists, poets, journalists, anthropologists, scientists – try to see climate change from the eyes of those who may not have heard of or are familiar with the term. Incidentally, these are people whose livelihoods will be directly affected by the phenomenon – farmers, fishermen, the ordinary folk. It’s their day-to-day hopes and wonders and fears, scattered in 119 pages, divided in five sections (Plea, Looking Back, Foreboding, Hope and Testament), told in eight Filipino languages.

Not surprisingly, many used Yolanda as springboard for their narrative. In poet Padmapani L. Perez’s “Mothers Speak,” a mother begs the sea not to take her son the same way it took her husband. In “Sa Laylayan ng Bahaghari (Rainbow’s Edge)” by Palanca awardee Honorio Bartolome De Dios, a man addresses his bay, who has yet to be found after the storm. A wife’s search for her missing husband, meanwhile, is what Tacloban-born writer Daryll Delgado’s “Panawagan (Plea)” is all about.

Narratives that don’t tug at heartstrings, meanwhile, inspire analysis. In Constantino’s “Weather,” we are told that physicists have been seeing links between “mean temperature on the ground” and “heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere” as early as April 1896. In “Unnatural Disasters,” noted journalist Sheila Coronel points out that when post-disaster accounting is done, “the columns that show responsibility and blame are rarely filled up.” To bring the collection to a fitting close, UP Diliman Chancellor Dr. Michael L. Tan, in “Malayo Na,” asks the pertinent question, “Where are we headed for?”

And then there are the pictures. According to Constantino’s introduction to the book, the project began when they tapped retired photojournalist Jose Enrique Soriano to capture portraits of Filipinos facing climate change. Feeling up to the challenge, Soriano said he “went out, met and talked to people, and took their portraits.” It is from these snapshots that the writers based their narratives (each was assigned a photo).

As always, words and pictures make for a nice package. Paired together in this context, the book presents a very human face of the climate problem, which is just as loud a call for attention and understanding as the jargon-infested reports of climate experts. The people behind the project do not implore readers to go out on the streets and seek changes through threats and militancy; what they hope to accomplish through “Agam” is for readers to think more deeply about the problem, particularly its causes, so that long-term solutions can be proposed. Otherwise, the day will come when this collection will have the eerie effect of a suicide note.

“Agam” is published by the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC). The proceeds from the book will go to Re-Charge Tacloban, a project that funds the building of e-jeepneys and integrated solar sustainable transport facilities in the Yolanda-hit city.

In ‘Agam,’ words, photos bring climate change closer to home

Originally published by Rappler
When disaster strikes, nothing remains unchanged.

Help is arranged, then extended. Everyday heroes spring into action. In the process, reflections on roles come to pass. Using what skills you have, how can you best help a cause? As you look forward to the future, there is much to remember about the past.

A new book called Agam, recently launched in the Philippines, aims to create discussion, raise awareness, and call others to action with regard to climate change – all without saying those two words.

The book features 8 languages, 24 writers, and 26 images, and aims to call for action and create discourse about global warming.

And because this is a carefully curated literary anthology crafted by some of Philippine literature’s distinguished writers, each piece carries with it its own living, beating heart.

Premonition, memory

Agam-agam in Filipino means “foreboding” or “premonition,” which highlights a major theme in the discussion of climate change. The possibility of disaster has never been more threating, especially after the events of typhoon Yolanda.

Yet despite this uncertainty, there’s learning to be done – about the past, where we were, where we are today, which will be a memory come tomorrow.

And this is when the root word itself comes into the spotlight: “…it is agam, the root, that provides the very core and breadth that this book requires to capture the publication’s singular purpose, because apart from disquiet and doubt, agam also means a memory of the past, and the ability to think,” writes Renato Redentor “Red” Constantino in the book’s introduction.

No jargon

In 2011, the idea for Agam was conceived by Constantino, an environmental activist, and Regina Abuyuan, a journalist and editor, after looking at a photo exhibit in the senate that showed pictures post-disaster.
Around two years later, writers who joined the project were given prompts in the form of portraits by Jose Enrique Soriano, which were taken from around the Philippines.

These portraits, which showed Filipinos facing climate change, accompany the works in the book, part and parcel of the storytelling process of the entire project.

Getting involved

Prior to helping spearhead Agam, Constantino mainly worked with the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), and campaigned against climate change.

He said that he would often feel frustrated at the public’s lack of involvement with climate change. He said he wanted to veer away from wooden jargon and facts and figures. Constantino said he wanted an approach that would elicit more of a response. “We’d like the book to send a signal to the literary community. It’s time to get involved.”

He said that greater reflection and sustained action are needed to adequately respond to climate change. He also said he believed that action is an expression of citizenship, solidarity, and urgency.

He authored a piece in Agam titled “Weather.” Constantino said he used creative non-fiction as away to bring in the fact that this issue has been with the public for a long time. “The way I tackled it was to employ a bit of searching because it [“Weather”] doesn’t conclude things for the reader. It actually raises more questions [about climate change].”

He said that many pieces in the book talk about what was happening before and what is happening now. He said that like the title, Agam, there is a thread of uncertainty that faces all of us when concerned with the issue of climate change.

Abuyuan said that because of ICSC’s sideways approach to dealing with issues that she would like people to read the book and realize that climate change isn’t just about disasters. “It doesn’t happen to just a family in Tacloban, it can happen to you if you don’t do something about it now.”

“I think by telling good stories and not just making [Agam] about victimization, we might be able to learn something,” she said.

Don’t ignore signs

Abuyuan said that she feels that the meaning of the word “agam” is also spiritual. Abuyuan said she believed that to really understand the meaning of “agam,” a person would need to be more attuned to the world around them. “If you don’t care or don’t want to care about what’s happening around you then you probably won’t get it.”
She contributed a story to Agam entitled “One,” which is written from a dog’s point of view. The dog in “One” tries to keep her owners from the danger of Typhoon Yolanda, but the owners don’t listen. The lesson that Abuyuan said that the dog imparts is to listen and feel. To “taste,” “sniff,” and “see.”

“Don’t ignore signs,” Abuyuan said.

However, Soriano said that when taking the portraits used for the prompts that he had no real method to choosing subjects. Soriano said there was no agenda and that he simply let loose and went with people whom he just found interesting.

When asked if he saw a theme with the pictures Soriano said it was about ambiguity and uncertainty. “Everything is ambiguous, which I believe is what climate change is. It hits everyone… You could be some big ass guy in Makati or some poor schmuck in Tacloban and if it hits you, it hits you. There is no middle ground. That’s the nice thing about this project – ambiguity,” said Soriano.

Closer to home

Arnold Azurin, an anthropologist and writer, said that he used the photo prompts as a tool. “It’s the photos that are supposed to trigger us into mining our imagination. There is no storyboard.”

Azurin wrote a piece in Agam titled “Agayayos.” With this piece comes a subtitle: “From Ilocano, as water down a river, or blood in the veins, memories in a lifetime.”

Azurin said that after looking at his portrait prompt, he tried to express a world view using different memories. He said that Agayayos is a place; it’s the highest part of the highway before one reaches Vigan. Azurin said that it was used as a lookout point in ancient times for trading ships.

To contrast with the past, Azurin said he wrote how Agayayos is used now to see changes in weather. “You can see the changes of the weather in the landscape because it’s the highest point talaga.”

Azurin said that he noticed that a lot of the writers were extracting meaning from the portraits and putting that into their work. Comparably similar to how “things [to look out for with climate change] are embedded in the landscape.”

In Agam, different voices discuss perspectives on climate change, present thoughts and ideas in relatable ways, and bring the issue that much closer to home.

Only 1,000 copies of Agam were printed. It will be available in branches of Powerbooks and National Bookstore throughout the country.