Intimations of 'Encantadia'
By Noralyn Mustafa
Inquirer

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ILIGAN CITY FOR ME IS WHERE TO FIND THE breathtakingly beautiful Maria Cristina Falls, the "hidden" -- aptly named -- Tinago Falls, the underwater tunnel beneath an artificial lake that the usually noisy Inquirer Mindanao bunch once passed through in utter silence, and the Macaraeg-Macapagal ancestral house.

I visited that house twice, once before and once after Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became President. In both occasions, it was a painting, more than the interesting old photos (they always fascinate me as much as old houses), that made me stay there longer, not so much for any artistic merit in the work but more out of curiosity.

The painting -- if memory serves me right -- showed a young Gloria, garbed in virginal white clothing designed like the robe of a Greek goddess; and reclining on the grass in a sylvan setting straight out of "Encantadia," the very enchanting TV telefantasya of GMA-7.

Elsewhere in the living room was a photo that I suppose the artist used as the "model" for the painting. The photo shows GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) in a strapless green dress, in the same reclining pose.

Normally, I thought, one would expect that a presidential daughter's portrait would show her seated regally on one of the ornate chairs that abound in the Palace, with a fittingly significant wall in one of the halls as a background. But why the sylvan splendor?

Why would she have herself painted in such a setting? What fantasy was she trying to turn into a reality, even if only on canvass?

The painting -- and the questions -- would haunt me from time to time after that, until that afternoon I was going through my Inquirer files for the purpose of reviewing the events immediately before, during and immediately after the so-called Edsa II that unseated President Joseph Estrada and installed Ms Arroyo in the presidency.

I was shocked to notice how Ms Arroyo had aged in just a matter of five years. In the heady days of Edsa II and for a few months after that, she looked truly cute as a button, a very rare thing for a woman pushing 60. Just to make sure that my glasses were not fooling me, I got some recent issues of the Inquirer and made comparisons.

And then my thoughts went back to the painting in Iligan and I realized how, especially in the context of the more recent issue of Charter change, it has become Oscar Wilde's portrait of Dorian Gray in reverse.

Every evil act Dorian Gray would commit was promptly recorded on his portrait -- at the beginning, it showed a dashingly handsome aristocrat -- in the form of a facial distortion. As time went on, Dorian's face in the portrait became more grotesque, even as Dorian himself remained as young and as handsome as the day he posed for the portrait.

Back to GMA. When the proposed Constitution, as drafted by her own Consultative Commission (itself a violation of the present Constitution) and, in particular, the transitory provisions were exposed to the light of day, everything came together in one comprehensible picture.

Everything she did from the time she plotted President Erap's downfall -- all the duplicity, the lies, the bullheadedness in the face of unfavorable public opinion, the repression of all dissent, the clear violations of the Constitution -- have been catalyzed into the transitory provisions to allow her to rule, all-powerful and unopposed.

The transitory provisions of her Constitution would pave the way for the creation of her "Encantadia," where she would reign supreme -- and alone, as intimated by the painting; then reality would be bent according to her liking. In the painting she reclines, her body elongated by the magic of the kind artist's brush, an alteration that would have caused some complicated, disproportionate relations with the other elements in the picture, had she been in a standing posture.

Sadly and unfortunately for Ms Arroyo, reigning supreme isn't all there is to "Encantadia." Over and above the sangres, ruling them -- as, in fact, it does all true nobility -- is the concept of noblesse oblige, beautifully exemplified in "Encantadia" by my favorite character Danaya (perfectly played by the incredibly lovely Diana Zubiri) who would rather die by execution as ordered by her sister the reigning queen, rather than admit to the betrayal she was accused of, and of which she was innocent. Honor dictated that she could not lie to save her life.

Neither is "Encantadia" about bending reality. In the painting, Ms Arroyo is alone, but in the "Encantadia" outside the frame that she is forcing us to accept, there are people, millions of them, who cannot and will not conform to a setting and a situation according to her illusions.

Because they too have their own "Encantadia" in their minds, not according to an artist's concept, but one that conforms to the basic guarantees of a truly democratic state: freedom from hunger, freedom of expression, freedom to express dissent in peaceful assembly, the right to choose their leaders, and all other human rights agreed upon by all freedom-loving nations.

Unfortunately, too, even as it was the portrait of Dorian Gray that became uglier with his every wrongdoing; in life, the painting in Iligan will remain as fresh and beautiful as the day it was painted (paintings can even be retouched), while Ms Arroyo ages rapidly. And belying the contrived smiles that she frequently displays lately are the scowls and sneers that have been permanently etched on her face.

What price "Encantadia"? What price the glory of the presidency? And never forget "Sic transit gloria mundi!"

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