Incredible. I'm proud of the fact that I just finished teaching Dawn Mabalon's introduction to the Debut film, and that my students are now reading Alison Titiangco's essay, "Pinayism."
j.
Posted by Jean Vengua at November 19, 2004 05:31 PMTelltale Signs/ The Blacklist Brouhaha
Philippine News, November 22, 2004
Did the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco draw up a “blacklist” of local Filipinos who were to be barred from attending the November 18 University of San Francisco (USF) convocation conferring an honorary doctorate on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?
The “blacklist” charge was leveled against the Philippine Consulate by a group of instructors at San Francisco State University and by the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective which disseminated their statements to the media and to various e-list groups in the Internet.
The charge first appeared in print in the Philippine News column of Emil Guillermo last week (“Scholars from USF Ceremony”, Amok, November 17, 2004) where Emil claimed that three professors from San Francisco State and their students were placed on a “barred roster.”
”I’ve learned that the list was put together by the Philippine Consulate with the help of the Philippine Secret Service, which feared the group’s agitation against GMA,” Emil wrote, basing his information on an anonymous “tipster”.
According to Dr. Dawn Mabalon, one of the professors on this “barred roster”, she was told that she and others were "disinvited" from the convocation because they were on "a list given to [the Philippine Consul] by the Philippine secret service." The press release of the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective stated that Dr. Mabalon’s statement led them to believe that “the blacklist was prepared by a U.S. government agency and was submitted to the Philippine representatives.”
According to the November 17, 2004 statement of the “barred” professors, Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, assistant professor of Asian American Studies at SF State, had accepted an invitation to attend the USF ceremony and was informed that the tickets would be “procured for her by a USF colleague”, who was later identified to be Lorraine Mallari, an instructor in the Philippine Studies Program at USF.
Tickets to the USF convocation were divided between USF and the Philippine Consulate with USF being allocated 1,150 and the balance of 650 provided to the Consulate.
On Wednesday, November 10, Dr. Tintiangco-Cubales claimed that she was informed that the Philippine Consulate had requested that her tickets be returned because she had been “identified”, along with San Francisco State University professors Danilo Begonia and Dawn B. Mabalon, as among those who might disrupt the ceremony.
Dr. Titiangco-Cubales then informed her colleague, Dr. Mabalon, who then called the Philippine Consulate and spoke with Vice Consul Anthony Mandap on Friday, November 12. According to Dr. Mabalon, “Vice Consul Mandap admitted that the consulate had concerns about SF State faculty and students, and told her that the Consulate had received information from anonymous sources at USF” that SF State professors and students were intending to rally against President Macapagal-Arroyo.
I spoke with Vice Consul “Anton” Mandap to get his side of the story. (In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that he is the husband of Philippine News staff writer, Mary Ann Mandap.)
Vice Consul Mandap told me that he spoke candidly and truthfully with Dr. Mabalon, confirming Ms. Mallari’s account that there indeed was a meeting at USF to discuss security concerns regarding the visit of President Macapagal-Arroyo. Both Vice Consul Mandap and Lorraine Mallari were present at that USF meeting which was also attended by representatives from the U.S. Secret Service. (“Contrary to Emil’s claim, there’s no such entity as the Philippine Secret Service,” Anton said.)
At the meeting, USF officials expressed concern that a group of students from San Francisco State would cause a disruption at the USF convocation.
The Consulate, according to Vice Consul Mandap, took the position that it was “not a problem” as there were sufficient safeguards in the ticket guidelines to discourage any planned disruption. “We can’t believe that any Filipino would cause a disruption in a church which was where the convocation was scheduled to be held,” the Vice Consul explained.
“There is no list of barred professors and students,” Vice Consul Mandap assured Dr. Mabalon, who speculated that his denial was based on “possibly fearing the kind of public backlash a list of this kind would elicit.”
Even though the Consulate’s allocation had already been gobbled up, Vice-Consul Mandap said that he still offered to obtain tickets for her and her colleagues but his offer was rejected by Dr. Mabalon who wants the Consulate to issue a “formal public apology” to her and her fellow professors.
In their press statement, the San Francisco State professors charged that the Consulate’s action “is a slap in the face to all of us who are community advocates, educators, and professionals… This exclusion from the event is not only embarrassing, it could also cause unreasonable risk of harm to our professional careers, personal reputations and work in the community.”
Vice Consul Mandap then contacted Ms. Mallari at USF to find out the source of the “blacklist” charge. According to him, Ms. Mallari said that she never used the term “blacklist” but acknowledged that she did tell Dr. Titiangco-Cubales that she was “identified” as a potential disruptor. She further acknowledged that it was not the Consulate people who expressed concerns about certain professors and students at SF State but certain officials at USF.
Though the Philippine Consulate did not draw up the “barred roster”, it is the Philippine government of President Macapagal-Arroyo that has been hammered in the press and in the Net.
"She's doing political profiling, just like Marcos did during martial law,” charged Jay Mendoza, the National Coordinator of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON). “She wants to silence any perceived voices of opposition…It reveals to the
American public the dark side of Arroyo---a side of her well known in the
Philippines, but not so well known here."
I asked Vice Consul Mandap why the Philippine Consulate wasn’t taking a more pro-active stance to explain its position and to clarify the fact that it does not have a black list.
“To those who doubt us, no explanation will be sufficient. To those who know us, no explanation is necessary,” the consul said.
Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com.