Kimberly dela Cruz and Hannah Reyes Morales Capture the Filipino Strongman
2023 World Press photographs
By Dondie Casanova
This is a winning entry for the special book prize in the fifth Art & Market ‘Fresh Take’ writing contest. For the full list of winners and prizes, click here.
Earlier this year, I attended the public forum for the 2023 World Press Photo contest at the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde. I was initially researching queer femininity in Filipino art. In the forum, the photojournalists Kimberly dela Cruz and Hannah Reyes Morales talked about their photojournalistic work with communities, in light of the threats to press freedom in the Philippines as reported by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Focusing on the two photosets by dela Cruz and Morales, these images that capture the Filipino society seemingly substantiate the looming masculine figure propagating the following stories in the country today.
Hannah Reyes Morales; Members of the Golden Gays prepare for one of their weekly drag shows in Manila, Philippines. The image is part of ‘Home for the Golden Gays’ (2022), a photo-essay initially published in The New York Times. Image courtesy of the artist.
Morales, with the help of the Home for the Golden Gays (HGG), a non-profit organisation providing housing and support to elderly LGBTQIA people, talked about a sense of warmth and community throughout the process of photo-documentation. ‘Home for the Golden Gays’ (2022) follows the members in a regular week of their lives. The photographs are tender and joyous, as they show queer people taking pride in their femme expression. Portraits of lolas—a term of endearment that means “grandmother”—on and off drag are showcased, with brightly coloured gowns, exaggerated makeup, and shiny accessories. The members of the HGG have been abandoned by their families and removed from their homes for the mere fact of their queerness. The femme-ness in these photos are defiant and strong, betraying the background they are set against.
Hannah Reyes Morales; a portrait of Odessa Jones during one of the drag shows by The Golden Gays. The image is part of ‘Home for the Golden Gays’ (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
In one of the photos at HGG drag show venues, a showgirl with the stage name Odessa Jones stands tall in her gold-chain embellished black dress and cream-coloured stiletto heels. Behind her are discoloured cream walls and orange stackable chairs. These are far from the sensational images of drag as seen on televised competitions and social media. Photographs of their current living conditions are no different. A photograph of Al Enriquez preparing for work shows the lived reality behind the glamour of each show. Dimly lit corridors and living quarters that can barely fit their performance clothes are snapshots of their modest home that is in a state of disrepair.
Hannah Reyes Morales; a photograph of Al Enriquez in The Golden Gays residence. The image is part of ‘Home for the Golden Gays’ (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
Displacement is evident when one looks at the periphery of the picture planes in ‘Home for the Golden Gays’. It is difficult to disregard such prejudice placed upon the queer femme, especially in the Philippines, where the feminine is seen as inferior. It makes one ask what it is about the femme that can seem threatening, and who gets to dictate the validity of their existence at the convergence of the masculine and feminine. Such a dilemma is reified by the absence of laws that protect the LGBTQIA community in the country.
Kimberly dela Cruz; Marianito Libo-on surveys the room where his son Jomar was killed moments before, in Quezon City, the Philippines. Jomar Libo-on was shot in front of his family by five masked men who barged into his home. The image is part of ‘Death of A Nation’ (2022), a photo-essay that “documents the Philippines’ drugs offensive from its outset, capturing its broadening focus and the continued impact on families involved”. Image courtesy of the artist.
In dela Cruz’s work, ‘Death of a Nation’ (2022), photographs documenting the extrajudicial killings (EJK) within the regime of past president Rodrigo Duterte parallels the institutional disenfranchisement of the queer community. The photo series slowly moves away from the inherent gore of the corpses and blood across crime scenes set in homes and streets. The explicit thus turns into the implicit, as grief and loneliness, markers commonly attributed to softness, become evidence of violence. Mourning widowers clutching urns at a chapel, faded photographs of the dead, and a worried woman clutching documents to bring for her testimony at court. These are the remains that narrate the persistence of violence that arose from the Philippine “War on Drugs” since Duterte assumed office in June 2016.
Kimberly dela Cruz; Nestor and Alma Hilbano watch the evening news, in Quezon City, the Philippines. The policeman being interviewed on the television was part of a police operation where the Hilbano’s son was killed three years prior. The image is part of ‘Death of A Nation’ (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
In one of the photos from ‘Death of a Nation’, a man and a woman sit on a wooden couch, their bodies turned toward the television screen, partially obscured by the desk fan that ventilates their small ramshackle home. The evening news is playing, and a police officer in uniform is narrating the events of an operation wherein their son was killed three years prior. Stories told by the families of EJK victims share the same plot—deaths from an encounter, an unending call for justice, doubled down by a policeman allegedly investigating the events surrounding the transpired events.
Kimberly dela Cruz; Men shield their faces from the media with clothing. This is a common scene amongst people after being arrested. These men have been caught in a food factory that police claimed to be a drug den, in Pandacan, Manila, the Philippines. The image is part of ‘Death of A Nation’ (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
The police—considered as both the implementers and the personification of the judiciary system—become arbiters of morality, dictating the delineation in the gray zones between guilty and innocent. Filipino mass media have portrayed them to be masculine by default, strong of build, sound of mind, and reliable in character. However, the other men in dela Cruz’s work do not look directly at the camera. Rather, they are de-identified by hiding behind the shirts on their backs, as if they are excluded from this masculine ideal to which Filipinos are drawn. The delineation that separates the culpable from the blameless is set by the same people who judge the weak from the strong.
The Filipino Strongman is the pervasive character in our collective consciousness. The vision of a male protector in Filipino films from the 1960s to the 1990s, popularised by actors Robin Padilla and Fernando Poe Jr., sees its resurgence on the silver screen today. The rugged, the inexcusably male, and the womaniser amalgamate into this persona that is believed to carry a nation forward amidst a trying time in Philippine morality and economy. This branding device is thus used by Duterte—and to a lesser extent current president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. —to validate the existence of such a character. Notably, both Padilla and Poe engaged in politics, with the former being a Senator and the latter placing a strong bid for the 2004 presidential elections.
Nostalgia is a key factor in the perpetuation of the patriarchal archetype. The romanticisation of a great family man with the capability of steadfastness is rooted even in proverbs calling the father the “Haligi ng Tahanan” (“Foundation of the Home”). These ascribed gender roles are carried out on a larger scale in our patriotism, so much so that any threat to masculinity becomes a threat to both the family and the state. Femininity in any form thus becomes a symbol of softness, and therefore inferiority.
If male politicians want to posit themselves as the Filipino Strongman, the 2023 World Press photographs by Morales and dela Cruz are anti-portraits complicating his image. He is not only of testosterone-fueled valour, but also of abject exclusion. These photojournalistic images document the Strongman’s countrymen, narrating his absenteeism from his duty to protect them.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of A&M.
About the writer
Dondie Casanova (b. 1993; Manila, Philippines) is an art writer and doctor. They won the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize in Art Criticism in 2022 and have contributed writing to ArtAsiaPacific. Their writing practice revolves around institutional and infrastructural affronts of sociopolitical systems on the environment and queerness. Outside of writing, they are currently a medical resident in the Philippine General Hospital. With their background in Public Health and Medicine, they seek an intersectionality of art and design with medical practice.
