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Disguise: Itak sa Puso ni Mang Juan

Delotavo’s interesting visual artwork reflects on the negative effects the Coca-Cola Company has brought about to a Third World country, the Philippines. Antipas Delotavo is a social realist who only considers things as they are and whose works reveal much about exploited workers. The painting shows the response of Mang Juan, a typical Filipino worker, to the upsurge of foreign colonialism and the aggressive injection of Western influence. Itak sa Puso ni Mang Juan is a feedback on the negative impacts of globalization or commercialization in the Philippines. As perceived, a dagger-like tail of the letter C in the company’s title is pointed at the heart of Mang Juan. This exposes the struggle of an average Filipino worker, the embodiment of the Filipino public or the masa, against the agonizing monopoly and economic control of international corporations, most of which are offering products and services that entice consumers to live life according to “wants”, and not “needs”.

Image result for itak sa puso ni mang juan
Artwork Courtesy: Antipas Delotavo

In his work, it may be seen that he emanated the natural colors of existing entities to instill on viewers that keen sense of familiarity over the subject and sequentially, to elicit points of view from different Filipino backgrounds. As for me, belonging to a financially unstable family, the big picture suggested here is that Coca-Cola’s presence in the country grants it the power to manipulate the economy, and eventually, the people’s lives – then centered on basic needs like food, shelter and water, being faced with or dueled by the company’s products like Coke, Royal and Sprite. Thus, it draws out the idea that art is an excavation of the artist’s imagination and that it comes along with the progression of society and history. Moreover, a connection becomes established between the viewer and the viewed since the latter signifies things Filipinos are accustomed to: the physical attributes of Mang Juan (skin and hair colors, façade, and dress code), the company’s title Coca-Cola, and the artwork’s identity (work label and author).

Mang Juan’s posture and stance, described by a side view, 45°-angled bowing head, an anxious and disturbed face, a passive slouching back, and a seemingly-weak right-hand holding his left elbow through his back, suggests his complete submission to the rules enforced by the dominion of the influential and selected few in this game of survival. One obeys his master, as the saying goes. The emergence of imperial tycoons and political dynasties strengthened economic ties whereby its effects seemed detrimental for most of the Filipino people.

The sparkles and flash of light observed in the painting symbolize the glamour associated with forgoing one thing for Coca-Cola. The artwork itself reflects market deception homogenized with the company’s bargain of introducing its satirically “commendable” products to the Filipino people. The company’s primal objective, to grant everyone access to self-fulfillment, manifests itself in the hazy “cloud-nine-like” feature in the work, as witnessed by character Mang Juan and the viewer.

Filipino artists like Delotavo and Habulan applied on their artworks the concept of déjà vu, where history kept on repeating itself, captured through preservation by art, depicting outrageous elite power-grabs and manipulations which dumped the larger bulk of burdens on the lowest sectors of the society, the labor force, pulling them down below the poverty line. Profit-oriented control of prices of goods, falsified media exposure of stocks downfall, irrational downgrade of wages, elevation of additional tax, and workers pullout, all followed a cyclic path still existing up to now. The artwork figuratively encases itself as an effect of continuous, unchanged processes caused by man himself, which then inspired more artists to use brushes, paint, and canvass to portray happenings in their time that would be history in time.

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