THE (WILLING?) GLADIATORS

Inspired by no less than the famous Juan Luna I opted to use part of his award winning painting the SPOLIARIUM in this piece of art THE WRONG SACRIFICE to leave a significant imprint of our famous countryman's struggle into the minds of viewers and to drive a strong point by drawing their attention, especially my countrymen, on two things:

First is, Juan Luna, as an artist, intellectual and patriot, made an effort during his time to show what Filipinos can do in the Western culture-dominated age and region of the world. By using his talent and by winning prestigious awards he was able to raise the status of his countrymen from mere subjects of Spain at that time to equals in terms of human capabilities and intellect. His was not only a struggle for independence but for excellence as well.

In The Art of Juan Luna, Eric Torres wrote:

In Rome , Luna imbibed the classical spirit of Michelangelo and Raphael and worked hard---for eight months---on an immense canvas which measure roughly 4 x 7 meters. The painting, which now hangs in the hall of Flags, Department of Foreign Affairs, a gift from the Spanish government in 1958, is the Spoliarium. This was to be his entity at the Madrid Exposition of 1884.

It was an immediate sensation. It won not only the highest possible honor, the first of three Gold Medals, but also enthusiastic notice in the newspaper columns of Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. Many of the notices were extravagant raves. Here is a sampling taken at random:

"The largest work, the most frightful, the most discussed work of the Exposition."
"It is more than a painting, it is a book, a poem."
"It is something more than the mere mechanism of genius, of the art composition. . . Luna is a thinker."

"The superior qualities of Luna are: as an artist, his ambition to produce great designs; to subdue the multitude with the resources of the highest class in art; serious and rough, not with vile adulations from the pencil nor of color in beautiful lines; as a painter, his energetic style, broad and noble, truthful and on occasion fantastic."

"A giant of art, a kind of Hercules, that enters furiously leveling down all the gods with blows from his club, bringing in a new art, full of ideas and forms, carrying a Spartan soul and the brush of Michelangelo.
More than sixty years did Michelangelo study!
How many years did Luna study? Six! Let us wait."

Such adulation is a bit lavish, you say. But his was heady wine to the Filipinos in Europe.

Second is, more than a hundred and twenty years after Juan Luna painted the SPOLIARIUM as a statement against human rights abuses of the ancient times, his countrymen seems to be doing a lot of abhorrent things to their fellow Filipinos today that only the heartless citizens of ancient times could have done to helpless gladiators as objects of entertainment and spectacle.

By borrowing the images of gladiators in the painting the SPOLIARIUM, I wanted to highlight the ongoing senseless killings victimizing a number of people since the concept of frat brotherhood borrowed from the West was introduced here in the Philippines. And to think that these young men are students and promising leaders and would-be professionals of our country makes one feel sorry to the wasted lives. These talented, young people who are luckily standing above the rest by the privilege of having education in the country's premier universities die as victims in senseless frat conflicts.

Torres further wrote:

No wonder the Filipino community in Madrid went wild with joy. The double victory called for a celebration, and a banquet was held at the Café Inglés, to which were invited some European friends. On this occasion, Rizal delivered his speech extolling the two winners to such majestic heights that today it is difficult to criticize the works of Luna and Hidalgo without inviting the censure of conservative admirers of their kind of painting. Rizal interpreted the Spoliarium as a symbol of "our social, moral, and political life: humanity unredeemed, reason and aspiration in open fight with prejudice, fanaticism, and injustice."


On another occasion, Lopez-Jaena likewise read political implications in the Spoliarium, as follows: "For me, if there is something grand, something sublime, in the Spoliarium, it is because behind the canvas, behind the painted figures . . . there floats the living image of the Filipino people sighing its misfortune. Because. . . the Philippines is nothing more than a real Spoliarium with all its horrors."

Indeed, by what violent fratmen were doing all these years, "the Philippines is nothing more than a real Spoliarium with all its horrors."

Now the question remains... with the sick concept of brotherhood (as evidenced by violent hazings and rumbles resulting in deaths of fratmen and civilians or even policemen) borrowed from the West how many promising Lunas, Hidalgos or even Rizals, Mabinis and Bonifacios have died in those students that fell victims of frat violence?

The difference between those real gladiators depicted in Juan Luna's painting and the fratmen of today is that the former were helpless slaves fighting to the death to quench the thirst of the mob for bloodbath whereas the fratmen of today are willing warriors under oath to their brotherhood but sadly "enslaved" by the culture of violence to preserve the kind of questionable brotherhood that they have. Worst, they died in the time when the country is experiencing freedom and democracy and with all the moral and spiritual guidance of Christianity and Islam.

Questionable it is because, despite their noble intentions and the goodness of all their ideals and principles, they seem to have clearly deviated away from these moral and spiritual guidelines to police their ranks and weed out all those excesses what with the trail of rotten and bloody fruits that they have produced. In fact, with their constitutions surely espousing love for God, for country, and for family and fraternity there should have been full control over their wayward brods that start trouble especially because other fratmen are their countrymen too of which they are being trained and initiated to serve.

After the establishment of the first fraternity in the Philippines at the University of the Philippines there now exists a list of frat-related deaths. It is also very alarming that from 1990 to the year 2000 alone there were a total of 6 deaths in UP. With UP as the role model of other universities to which chapters of these fraternities were gradually established through the years and have inspired the formation of new Greek-lettered groups, there also exists a likewise alarming bloody trail of frat-related violence. The recent clashes in Mandaue City since January 2007 alone saw the death toll from frat-related violence to be rising, prompting this place to be called the frat war city.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Like a common malady, violence reaches into all cracks and fissures of society. Our families are torn or destroyed by violence. Fear of violence is paralyzing our communities, and the celebration of violence in much of the music and videogame industry is poisoning the hearts and minds of our children. Almost invariably, when the causes of violence are being discussed, one group blames the other: the federal government focuses blame for violence on the entertainment industry; the media shifts the blame onto the consumers; teachers and many members of the clergy try to hold parents responsible for the proclivity for violence among their children."

- Countering A "Culture Of Violence." Can It Be Done? by Viktoria Hertling

Read more:
The Art of Juan Luna by Eric Torres
The Debate About the Origins of Gladiatorial Games by Titus Pullo Lupus
Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research by Steven J. Kirsh
Gladiators: Heroes of the Roman Amphitheatre by Professor Kathleen Coleman
Roman Gladiatorial Games, Roger Dunkle author of site
Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome by Donald G. Kyle

Confronting a Culture of Violence, U. S. Bishops' Pastoral (Nov. 1994)