Reflections on the Human Emotions

The role of the emotions in human life is very central. The emotions determined the intimate psychological state of a person. They drive a person to act or inhibit him. They unite persons or cause divisions. When we possess things that we value very much or when evils we fear the most are present, these things bring about very strong emotions. The subjective experience of happiness is very closely related to the way we are aware of the state of our appetites.

In general, we must give a positive value to emotions: they reinforce our tendencies. It is important to say this because there are people who give a negative value to the emotions (Kant and Hegel). These people think that having emotions is proper of weaklings. They think that emotions, because they belong to the sense part of man, are a lowering of what is properly human (which they think is the spirit). To intend that man lives without emotions will end up dehumanizing him. It is kind of stoicism. A man without emotions is dysfuntional.

There is, however, the opposite extreme that tends to give the emotions excessive value. This view gives the emotions the role of completely determining human behavior, making them the criteria for human acts and ends in themselves. This position is called sentimentalism. This is a very common view nowadays especially when it comes to love.

Why is sentimentalism not an adequate and prudent position? The reason is because man’s dominion over his emotions is not total and certain. It is a part of the human psyche that is not always docile to the reason and will because it does not fully belong to that realm. This is a principal characteristic of the emotions: it is like a domesticated cat — it can be tame but it can sometimes go crazy. Aristotle talked about a “political dominion” of the reason over the emotions. The emotions are like free citizens who can be taught to direct their actions towards the service of the city. They need to learn to do this. They may do so but sometimes they might do the contrary. We all have the experience that to dominate an emotion is not the same are commanding our arm to rise.

The emotions can go with or against what a person wants. We cannot control them completely if we have not been determined to do so and have been exerting the effort to do so. The lack of harmony in the emotions can produce psychological, behavioral and moral disorders. The fear of making mistakes can cause inhibition. The fear of gaining weight can cause anorexia.

The appearance or disappearance of the emotions is not totally voluntary. For instance, to “fall in love” is something that more often than not “happens” to a person rather than him willing it to happen. A person does not usually give himself the “order” to fall in love. But at the same time, a person has to control his affectivity. If he already loves a woman, let’s say, his wife, he should control his affections for other women. The same is true with moral pains, for instance, frustration. If it comes, it is something we cannot control, but we cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by it.

One of the great achievements of Plato was to show how the emotions cooperate with the appetites and the will. His practical philosophy, explained in the Republic and Laws, is a study about the best manner of educating man, so that he attains harmony among the different powers of his soul. According to Plato, a great part of this education is to know how to channel and have dominion over the emotions.

The emotions are the great companions of man in his life. The emotions will always remain like little kids. If a person allows them free rein, they can get lost or hurt. The virtue that enables a person to master the emotions is called sophrosyne: moderation, temperance, calm, self-control.

The emotions are irrational in their origin but they can be harmonized with reason. They cannot be ‘rationalized’ except partially only. But in fact, they always accompany our thoughts and intentions. This irrational character of the emotions is the basic reason why not everything in human life is exact and clear cut. There is a very wide margin for imagination and mystery, for the unforeseen and irrationality. Whoever wants to have everything in life well ordered and planned will lose spontaneity and freshness that is a trait of people who give room to the emotions and imagination.

The emotions provide us immediate ‘values’ especially when it has to do with persons. The emotions evoke positive or negative reactions to persons, places or things. This spontaneous evaluations determine our behavior and lead us to go in one direction or in another.

The emotions reinforce our convictions and give our convictions more driving force. When we “feel” strongly about an issue, we become more identified with it and we act in a more determined manner with regard to the issue. For instance, if we are so affected by the freeze in the salary increase, chances are we will not take this event sitting down.

Whoever wants something done passionately will do it better than a person who is not passionate about it. We also have to see what it is we are passionate about. If a person becomes passionate about cars or I-pods, this attitude is rather superficial. A professor who is passionate about his subject matter will be more identified with his teaching and will be a better teacher than a professor who simply mouths his lessons. A lover who is passionate is capable of doing the unthinkable.

To have passion in doing things gives more meaning to life and activities, at least from a biographical point of view. Whoever is passionate about his noble activity and shows the others how passionate he is becomes a model that is very attractive. A passionate person is able to give his life more unity. The passion unites his mind, will, plans, activities, everything in his life. He directs this difference aspects of his life to what he is passionate about. The opposite of being passionate is being indifferent. Indifference makes a person lose the zest for life.

The variety of emotional make-ups in persons produces the variety of characters. A great part of a personality depends on the emotions that a person allows to prevail in him.

a)          The passionate person puts passion and intensity in everything that he does, even if what it is about does not deserve much attention.

b)          The sentimental person lets himself get carried away by the emotions; he allows them to dominate him and so he is shifting and unstable.

c)          The cerebral person is cold and cannot understand the language of the heart; he may even appear inhuman.

d)          The serene person is the one whose emotions take long in coming; since they are more reflective, they are more coherent and less talkative.

e)          The indifferent person is the one who does not have emotions; he does not care, he does not move; he does not goals or ambitions; he does not love.

From what has been said so far, it is clear that a person will be better off if he achieves due proportion between his emotions, reality and the subsequent behavior. It is advisable to avoid extremes: the sentimental and the cerebral. This demands that we be realistic. Self-deception can be present at the root of frustrations: for example when someone overestimates his capabilities or when someone just knows a beloved person only superficially. We can have very strong beliefs and impressions about ourselves and about things. But reality continues to be reality and the realization of the truth can come as a shock.

Errors regarding self estimation can give rise to false expectations and frustrations. A correct perception and estimation of oneself and of reality contributes to balanced and correct reactions. A person who is realistic realizes that he can make mistakes and fail, but he also knows that problems can be solved and he also knows his own capacity to solve his problems. He knows that he can move on. He knows that as long as there is life there is hope.

When a person realizes that he has made an erroneous estimation of the object of his emotion, he usually falls into anger, desire for revenge, despondency or discouragement. A person might have loved too much an object that does not deserve that much love.

Some rules can be brought up in this connection:

a)           Not all things deserve the high degree of emotions we might have about them: too much love, anger, fear, appreciation, etc.

b)          On the other hand, there are other realities that deserve better reactions on our part than what we have towards them. We have to be careful about our first impressions.

c)           When our evaluations and reactions are very sentimental, we have to correct ourselves and rectify. We cannot allow ourselves to be lead by our emotions.

How should we judge our emotions? We can look at the psychic alterations they produce and the behavior they give rise to. An emotion can be volcanic and intense, but such emotions may subside very soon. In this case the emotion may be judged as superficial.

Deep emotions do not disappear that quickly and at times these emotions are not easily apparent. It is possible to be profoundly affected by something without being too “emotional” about it: for instance, love for one’s spouse or fear of impending danger.

One’s behavior can also be a good indicator of one’s emotional states (at times an even better indicator than one’s interior states). When a man avoids his wife and does not pay attention to her, we cannot conclude that there is nothing wrong between him and his wife. When a person tell you he appreciates you but later on, he treats you with indifference, then he is deceiving you. Love and hatred are manifested in one’s actions, more than in one’s words.

Not all emotions have the same value. There is a kind of hierarchy among them. Part of training the emotions is to know how to put order into them and be objective when assessing them. It can happen that one’s fears are unfounded or one’s passions are not reasonable. There are emotions whose objective importance is very little. One should know how to be a little be more detached from the object of the emotion or to practice a little irony with oneself.

Sentimentalism can lead to sadness and failure. To have as criteria for a decision that of having emotions about it is to make our behavior depend on our emotional states. It is a kind of slavery. The emotions have ups and downs: they are fleeting and unstable, especially in some persons. A person should rather behave following the truth as known by the mind and what is good as grasped by the will.

When a person allows himself to be ruled by the emotions, it will be hard for him to achieve excellence. It is different to be passionate about something. To be ruled by emotions is to be ruled by something shifting and unstable. It is to remain a child. Childishness and irresponsibility, delayed adolescence are very common phenomena nowadays.

One’s emotional states are important for one’s behavior, but we should not exaggerate their importance. To give in to sentimentalism produces instability and insecurity in a person’s life.

How are the emotions manifested? One must learn how to manifest the emotions. Though many persons learn to do this spontaneously, not everyone learns to do so. Emotions are manifested in one’s behavior and also in one’s speech. The manifestation of the emotion must be in harmony with the other aspects of a person’s life: his goals, convictions, environment,…There must be some proportion between one’s emotions and the other dimensions of human life.

We discover the importance of gestures in the manifestation of emotions. Gestures are the language of the emotions. There are facial gestures: laughing, crying, smiling, frowning, … There are bodily gestures: standing up, bowing the head, lying prostrate on the ground, closing the fist,… Usually, a person who is rich in gestures is also rich in his emotional life. There are some peoples who communicate very much through gestures: the Italians, for example. We know these people to be sentimental people. The English, on the other hand, are not very given to gestures and they are known to be more serene and unperturbed.

Art is the most sublime way of expressing the emotions. And among the forms of art, music has a privileged position among the channels for expressing emotions. Music has an enormous capacity to evoke and awaken the emotions. One might be unaware of it, but while listening to music, one’s interior state gets altered. Music empowers, accompanies and expresses the emotions. One sings when one is happy. But also when one is sad. Boredom is uniformity, while creativity is symphonic. When a person interiorizes music it is expressed in a song. Singing is perhaps the most beautiful way of manifesting our emotions.

Dynamics of the Emotions

Let us now try to relate all the faculties of the soul. The dynamics of human life, its development, its perfection depend on the harmony that should exist among all the dimensions of the human psyche: the intelligence, the will and the emotions. In this context, by 'harmony' we mean two things: fullness of one's development and interior balance and proportion between each part and the unity of the whole.

The sensitive appetites and the will, aided by the emotions, are orientated towards biological and non-biological ends. For there to be fulfillment in a person, there ought to be coordination among the three: appetites, will and emotions-a coordination that should be steered by reason in such a way that there be no conflicts among them. A successful life, which is the fullness of development of all the human dimensions, requires the harmony of the soul. What takes place in man is a dynamic equilibrium where each faculty accompanies the others empowering and helping each other. A life that is too cerebral and despises the emotional is not harmonious. A life that is given to voluntarism, and not paying attention to reason is not harmonious either. Giving in always to the emotions is also an imbalance in life. There must be equilibrium, harmony and clarity. These are the defining characteristics of classical beauty: the beautiful life.

The best way of achieving this beautiful life is to give to reason the task of taking the command of the other dimensions of human life. The reason is that the intelligence is our superior and distinctive faculty. Reason enables us to be aware of the end and thus is able to give meaning to a person’s entire life. If reason does not reign over a person’s faculties, the appetites and emotions tend to take over his actions producing an imbalance. The balance and measure in a person’s appetites and emotions are provided by reason. These lower faculties do not measure themselves.

There are two ways of understanding the harmony of the soul: from the outside and from within.

Considered from an external point of view, there is balance and harmony in the soul when there is an objective, a goal that unifies all of a person’s faculties. When a person has a predominant goal, an ambition in life, this objective gives direction and meaning to all of his actions, plans, thoughts, desires. When he achieves his goal, he is fulfilled and happy.

Considered from an internal point of view, there is balance and harmony in the soul when a person is reconciled with his own subconscious or what can also be called the “passive synthesis”. Freud thought that the subconscious is that part of the human psyche that is hidden, unconscious and anarchic such that it determines a person’s behavior without his awareness. It is rather the totality of a person’s biological, genetic, psychological and cultural traits, that a person carries with him as he goes through his life. There can exist harmony between the conscious states and the subconscious. This is what all normal persons achieve by means of an adequate process of education.

Nonetheless, the increasing number of psychological disorders in our times just goes to show that this adequate process of education is sometimes lacking. And when it is, there is lack of harmony in the soul and the person ends up getting sick. Psychological balance and harmony depend very much on the adequate control of the appetites and the emotions and the integration of the subconscious into the conscious life of the person.

How does one achieve control over the emotions? One can answer in three ways:

1) One can give a technical answer. Emotional states and the psychic states in general can be controlled through medicine, psychiatry and techniques for mental relaxation. Medicine seeks physical well-being. If we give too much importance to psychiatry we will tend to think that any human problem can be solved through it. People tend to think that the human person is simply a machine that needs some repairs from time to time. Many psychic illnesses have organic bases greater than what was thought of before. Psychiatry more and more depends on biochemistry. The pharmaceutical industry has grown very much in the field of psychiatric drugs. This is the basic reason why people are abandoning the psychoanalytic theories of Freud. His psychiatric techniques do not depend on drugs and their results are long in coming.

Despite the enormous capabilities of modern medicine we must go beyond the merely technical and take into account the personal dimensions. Man is not a machine. He may have personal problems that cannot be cured by pills because their solutions require the intervention of the will and of personal freedom. The internal dispositions of a person cannot be changed by external factors exclusively. In order to cure a person of a psychological illness you have to cure his soul. For this other methods are necessary and the fundamental element of these methods is dialogue. The illnesses of the soul can be cured by the help of drugs and sleep; but also by friendship, the experience of love, the contemplation of the truth, and the fostering of relations with God. The patient must be aware of his own interior kingdom and become the lord of it. The purely technical solution is not suficient to achieve the harmony of the soul.

2) A second solution is to affirm that the control of the emotions is purely a question of the mind and the will. It is enough to have a powerful mind and a resolute will to keep the emotions under control. The philosophers of the enlightenment thought that the problems of man could be solved through rational and abstract science that will enable us to deduce in a logical manner the solutions to man's moral, psychological and social problems. It is a vision of man that tends to undervalue the affectivity, the emotions, of anything that has to do with the body.

In the realm of morality, this position easily leads to rigorist dualism. These people think that to achieve interior harmony by simply fulfilling one's duty, by doing what has to be done. The realm of the senses, they say, should be subject to reason and this, in turn, provides the rules for moral living independent of the sentiments.

There is another extreme one can fall into: voluntarism -- giving to the will the role of putting order and harmony into man's life and faculties. Nietzsche thought that the superior man is the one who is capable of completely dominating his appetites and achieve inner harmony by sheer will power.

These two positions are untenable and ineffective because they are unrealistic. To want to do things on the basis of duty or sheer will power will convince only those who are inflexible, voluntarists, fools and fanatics. We must try to "humanize" the world. Moral behavior, the use of reason, the influence of the will are all valid principles as long as they are principles taken in the context of a real person who is also made of flesh and blood. A person is not a pure spirit or an angel. We are pleased with a smile and a warm handshake. We appreciate a love that is manifested in deeds. To make people act, we have to motivate them and make them happy.

The search for harmony in a person's life must take into account freedom and human weakness. It must regard the reality of the human person.

3) The third possible answer to the question about the harmony of the human soul is that given by classical humanism and Christianity. The answer is the education of the will, the emotions and the appetites.

A person may or may not achieve this education. Christianity tells us that there is a certain disorder in human nature and that is original sin.  This disorder explains why a person falls into a vice if he is not careful or he does not struggle. Inner harmony is attained when a person directs his powers towards a goal that is given by right reason.

Reason gives us the ends for which we act. If we train our powers once and again to reach our right ends we acquire virtue and inner harmony.

What is the norm of this inner harmony? It is moderation. One has to achieve the appropriate emotions, in the adequate manifestations and intensities with respect to the object and circumstances, avoiding excess or defect.

And so, cowardice is excessive fear that can inhibit a person from acting. Rashness is not to fear at all, even when it should be present. Bravery is the middle point: it is to overcome baseless fear at the same time being reasonably careful.

A choleric person is one who gets angry at anything at the least provocation. An indifferent person is one who does not care about any situation. Just indignation is the middle ground: it is to get angry reasonably when there is just cause.

Shamelessness is not being ashamed of anything. Shyness is being ashamed even when one should not be (stage fright). Modesty is to be ashamed in a reasonable way of things one should be ashamed of.

The good life comes about when a person educates his emotions. When the middle ground is attained, the emotions are in harmony with the rest of a person's faculties. The emotions can even help the acts of the other powers, making life beautiful. We usually admire balanced and mature persons, lords of their own lives and rich in emotions.

The science of right acting is ethics. An important part of ethics is the science of educating the emotions. Rationalism and voluntarism have presented ethics as a set of abstract norms that are general and rigoristic.

The vision we have is this: the ethical person must learn to optimize the emotions and appetites, i.e. he must train them to reach their maximum strength and intensity, harmonizing them with his other faculties.

What is beautiful shows balance and harmony. It is complete, not lacking any element that ought to be present. Its parts are orderly in relation to the whole.

Ethics is the way for a person to live a fully human life. To achieve inner balance and harmony is the only way to be truly happy. And the quickest way to attain this is by educating the emotions. And this is part of ethics. To be happy, one has to live ethically. Ethics is not a set of prohibitions but it is the way for a man to be truly a man.

Review Questions in Moral Theology

1. Pork Barrell refers to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) that lawmakers receive every year for projects that they deem important. While the congressmen receive P70 million, the senators receive P200 million. Both amounts are from the public fund. that is, taxpayers' money. Some of the PDAFs go to NGOs, LGUs, barangays and other pet projects initiated for the good of their constituents.

Congressman A spent P150 million from his own pocket in the recently concluded national May elections. Elected to the Congress, he now wants to recover the amount he spent during the elections by taking P30 million from his pork barrell for the next 5 years. Moreover, he wants to keep P20 million a year for those constituents who would ask him for financial assistance: for tuition fees for their children, for funeral expenses of departed relatives, for the jobless to have something to live on, etc.

Question: 1) Is congressman A justified in doing this? Explain your answer by evaluating the morality of what he wants to do.

2. Wanting to increase her star power that has gone done and to reinvent herself from being sweet to sexy, Miley Cyrus performed a number in the recent Music Video Awards with Robin Thicke that shocked many people. In the middle of the song, she stripped down to her flesh colored undies and danced raunchily. Her twerking set a record in Twitter and she is being talked about again because of her infamous dance number.

Questions: 1) Evaluate the morality of her act.

                   2) Did she cause a scandal? Explain.

3. Desperate to pass a difficult subject in the first term, Susan studied hard for the term exam. Still lacking in confidence, she decided to write down in a small piece of paper some of the things she needs to know by memory. She was afraid of mental block. She knew that she run the risk of being caught but then she dismissed the thought by telling herself to be extra careful. When her conscience started bothering her, she calmed it down by telling herself that she will simply go to confession after the term exam. God will understand, she said. Susan is your best friend and she tells you of her plan.

Questions: 1) What will you tell Susan? What advise will you tell her?

                   2) Evaluate the morality of her action.

4. On March 10, 1993, Michael Griffin murdered Dr. David Gunn, a physician who performed abortion. Griffin waited outside Dr. Gunn's clinic and shot him 3 times in the back after yelling to him "DON'T KILL ANY MORE BABIES!"

Question: 1) Was it justifiable to kill Dr. Gunn in order to stop more abortions? Explain.

5. Sybil was 2 months pregnant with her first baby when she became ill with lupus, a rare sickness that requires dialysis and steroid treatment. Her doctor informed her that such treatment will endanger not only the health but also the life of the baby in her womb. She was advised to interrupt her pregnancy so that she could receive treatment right away. If she were to choose to delay her treatment in order to save her baby, her life and that of her baby may be in very serious danger. She could die while giving birth.

Being good Catholics, Sybil and her husband George considered 3 possible options carefully in their prayer. First, for Sybil to be treated of her sickness even if it would endanger the health and even the life of her baby; Second, for Sybil to follow the suggestion of her physician, that is, to interrupt her pregnancy; Third, for Sybil not to receive treatment, carry on with her pregnancy and receive treatment only after the birth of her first child.

Questions: 1) Which of these 3 options is acceptable from the moral point of view?

                   2) Is the principle of double effect applicable in any of the options? Which one? Explain.

6. In many countries, same sex marriage is now legal. In some, it is in the process of being legalized. Some say that those who do not approve of same sex marriage should not work against its legalization because doing so would mean intolerant discrimination.

Question: 1) What do you think? Explain.

7. Elizabeth is 15 years old, in 3^rd year high school and in full adolescent blossoming. Aside from the teenager’s angst, peer pressure has a lot of influence on her behaviour. She wants so much to fit in, to be accepted, to belong to a barkada. She does not want to be left without a group. Hence, she dresses in the same way as her friends dress. She watches what her friends watch. She likes listening to the same music that her friends listen to and goes to the same parties where her friends go to, afraid of missing out and being left out.

In one party, her friends were taking drugs and drinking alcohol. Elizabeth knew that it is bad to do these but she is afraid that if she does not do what her friends do, she will be asked to leave the barkada. She took drugs and drank alcohol too, like her friends.

Question: 1) Is Elizabeth fully responsible for her actions? Explain.

8. Lawrence is an OFW languishing in jail in the Middle East awaiting his execution. He incurred death penalty for having stabbed his Arab employer who tried to sexually abuse him. He pleaded not guilty saying that there was no other way to stop his Arab employer who was bigger and stronger than him from doing what he intended to do except by stabbing him to death. The Arab court however found him guilty of homicide and sentenced him to death.

Questions: 1) Make a moral evaluation of Lawrence’s act.

                    2) Was he morally responsible or not for what he has done? Explain.

9. Ebony has been failing her quizzes in Religion. Her CS (class standing) just prior to the Term Exam is 70. She knows that she should not only pass the term exam in order to pass the first term: she needs to get a high score in the term exam. Fortunately, for the term exam, her best friend Ivory, a consistent awardee in school, was seated just beside her in the classroom. Ivory has always been there for her and has never said no to any request Ebony asked of her. And so, shortly before the term exam in Religion, Ebony asked Ivory not to cover her test paper so she could take a look at her answers. In her desire to help her best friend, Ivory did as Ebony requested and both of them scored high in the term exam. Ebony passed the term and resolved to study harder for the second term.

Questions: 1) Give a moral evaluation of Ivory’s action.

                   2) If you were Ivory, would you do the same? Explain.

10. In 2011, there was an uprising against President Assad of Syria who has been in power since 2000. He succeeded his father who led Syria for 30 years prior to his death.

The domestic and international community initially saw him as a reformer, but when he ordered a mass crackdown and military operations on pro rebel protesters during the Arab Spring movement of 2011, calls for his resignation increased, eventually leading to open rebellion and outright civil war.

The international community has been monitoring the situation in Syria with great concern. The rebels have since gained strength and have managed to take hold of some major cities, closing in to the capital Damascus. The Syrian government however has also managed to neutralize the rebel grounds, keeping them away from the capital city.

Last August 21, more than 2000 people, including women and children, died in East Damascus. It was discovered, after careful examination of the bodies of the dead, that chemical weapons were used against the rebels. There was uproar in the international community. France and the US are planning to strike the government forces of Syria to stop the mass killing. Other countries refused to join the two countries.

Questions: 1. Is it moral to use chemical weapons to stop the Syrian rebels? Explain.

                   2. If you were the president of the Philippines, would you side with the US and France? Why?

Lorenzo

The Script of Lorenzo: Katha nina…sa tulong ni…

by Paul A. Dumol

          It was seven years ago (2007) when Christopher de Leon called and asked whether I would be interested in writing a play on Lorenzo Ruiz. I demurred because I had already written a play on a similar topic—Saint Felipe de Jesus, the protomartyr of Mexico who died with the first group of martyrs in Japan. I asked whether he would accept work from two former students whom I would supervise. Christopher agreed, I contacted Joem Antonio and Chris Vallez, and the writing team of Lorenzo was born.

          Joem did the research. He used Fr. Fidel Villaroel’s book on Lorenzo Ruiz based on the documents submitted for Lorenzo’s beatification. We quickly realized there was much material on the saint’s trial and martyrdom, but hardly anything else. There was a little on his flight from Manila, but absolutely nothing on the one year of imprisonment in Okinawa. I proposed we make the play into a musical, as that would allow us to produce a work of decent length with little material, and Joem and Chris and later Christopher de Leon agreed.

          We decided to write three acts: obviously, one set in Nagasaki which would be act 3, and another set in Manila which would be act 1. Act 2 would be the yearlong imprisonment in Okinawa. Joem was charged with making an outline for act 3 and Chris for act 1. I would do act 2.

          Joem’s act 3 followed Villaroel’s book closely, particularly in two details not known to most Filipinos. The first has to do with Lorenzo’s initial hesitation with regard to the faith. Even before he was interrogated, he asked the Japanese interrogator whether he would be released if he recanted. The interrogator replied that Lorenzo himself should ask that of the judge. At this moment, the interrogator was called outside by the judge. When the interrogator returned, Lorenzo informed him to forget about his earlier question: he was ready to profess the Catholic faith steadfastly. Villaroel asks what brought about this change? Villaroel surmises that Lorenzo witnessed the torture of Fray Antonio and this moved him to follow the friar’s example: This is what the audience will see in act 3. The second detail has to do with one of the missionaries who recanted, but who subsequently returned to the faith and died a martyr. Villaroel speculates that he might have returned to the faith because of the example of his companions, but above all of Lorenzo, because this particular missionary was a layman like Lorenzo: This is also what the audience will see in act 3.

I thought of making act 2 into a Rashomon, with the five missionaries with whom Lorenzo was jailed in Okinawa guessing what Lorenzo’s motive was for fleeing Manila. Surviving documents are not clear at all on the matter, so we felt free to take a stand. We would give credence to the rumor that he had murdered someone in Manila, who would have to be a Spaniard on the basis of Lorenzo’s testimony that he had a quarrel with a Spaniard. We presented this to Christopher who accepted our stand: I think he liked the implication that even sinners can become saints. Afterwards, the writing team discussed the possible motivations for Lorenzo’s murder of the Spaniard. I take all the blame for the conjecture which is presented at the end of act 2.

          The task of writing the libretto fell on both Chris and Joem: Chris would write acts 1 and 2; Joem, act 3. After both came up with their respective parts, it became clear that only one of them should write the libretto: Their respective voices were too different from one another. We decided on Chris who had prior experience in writing poetry in Tagalog.

          Chris did a marvellous job. He lovingly crafted every verse in the script, which originally (if my memory serves me right) did not contain a line of prose in the dialogue. The idea was to have everything in verse, both song and speech. Chris counted every syllable and chose every rhyme and from the start worked on different verse forms per act: Japanese verse forms for act 2 (tanka and haiku?), the pasyon for act 3. I do not now recall the verse forms he used for act 1. These verse forms set to music will not show up in the songs, but they are there for anyone who reads the script. There are passages of beauty in the libretto which make one hope he will one day take a break from his usual subject matter of moony males and estrous females and write the modern Tagalog verse play.

          As the drafts evolved we presented them to Christopher. Christopher had two contributions to the final draft: first, the consistent focus on Lorenzo and, second, a greater role for Lorenzo’s wife. Our first version began with the focus on the five missionaries in act 1 and gradually shifted that focus in acts 2 and 3 to Lorenzo. Christopher didn’t like that; that meant rewriting act 1 and adding something to act 2 to give Lorenzo a bigger role than just sitting mysteriously in the darkness while everyone speculated on his past. We added a personal conflict that produced two great songs from Ryan. As for the wife, Christopher’s suggestion meant more appearances for her, counterpointing the narrative at crucial points.

          The final draft of the musical was finished within a year. After Christopher’s approval, I passed it on to Nonon. This was now 2008. Nonon liked it, but asked for the inclusion of a twenty-first century character, an OFW, with a devotion to Lorenzo Ruiz, the patron saint of OFWs. That, of course, meant a major change in the conceptualization of the script. I went back to the team, but by this time Joem played a lesser role. Chris and I discussed possible stories in which the musical would be embedded; I think we agreed the OFW was to be the author of the musical and would have three scenes, each introducing an act of the musical. I believe we also agreed he was to be interviewed by a reporter. All the stories passed through Christopher and had to have his approval. One story in particular, which Christopher quickly rejected, would probably have our friends hooting.

          Chris produced a number of drafts, but none was satisfactory. The problem was to come up with a story that would neither eclipse nor “misrepresent” the musical. Chris was busy at the time with other projects as well, and at a certain point, when the deadline we had set for ourselves approached, I decided to write the three scenes myself that are now part of Lorenzo.

Nonon’s suggestion was a stroke of genius. I don’t know if what I gave him was what he had in mind, but certainly the three scenes set more than four centuries later change the complexion of the whole work. Laurence the OFW comments on each of the acts, explaining them, and his comments reveal how his personal story has become enmeshed in the story of Lorenzo. (It is not Lorenzo’s story that is embedded in his; it is his that is embedded in Lorenzo’s.) The resulting work has an emotional intensity the musical in isolation did not have. I do not mean that the musical by itself is flat; on the contrary, Lorenzo’s story by itself (and I refer above all to act 3) is moving, but over and above Lorenzo’s story, there is now the story of a contemporary character from which emerges another sort of emotional intensity. Laurence embodies what is often claimed of Hamlet: how each generation must make the stories of the past their own.

          The addition of Laurence charges the musical with luminosity, with transparency, transforming the story of Lorenzo Ruiz into talinghaga—or integumentum, as my Master would say. The three scenes of Laurence suggested the “crossovers” to be found (at the time of this writing) in acts 2 and 3 of Lorenzo, when Laurence enters the imaginary world he has created for Lorenzo. If the audience follows the story of Laurence and does not treat his scenes like entr’actes, those crossovers, but especially the first, could rival the climactic scenes of act 3 in intensity. The more discerning among my Dante students will detect the fingerprints of the Master in the back-and-forth between Laurence the artist and Lorenzo the character. Grazie, maestro!

          In 2009 Ryan agreed to write the music of Lorenzo. It was to be a rock musical, he said, not pop, because the emotions were too intense for pop. (Later he would backtrack, entertaining doubts that some of the music he had written was rock. By then he had fallen in love with the material, enough for him to propose making Lorenzo into an opera, that is, with everything sung and nothing recited. Nonon, however, did not agree, wisely concerned that we would come up with a five-hour opus.) I edited the final version of Lorenzo. That meant reshaping some of Chris’s songs to make them more like songs instead of poems—with refrains and recurring lines. My personal rule was not to change any lines Chris wrote, although I might change their position in the work. Occasionally, however, I found it necessary to actually change a word or verse: this was when I thought Chris had failed to capture a particular point we had agreed on. I believe this happened in two places: (1) Fray Antonio’s song in act 2 when he counsels Lorenzo on forgiveness and (2) Lorenzo’s song in act 3 when he distinguishes between inner and outer fidelity to the faith. There are theological points there which I felt should not be fuzzy. In the beginning, I would clear every change I made in the script with Chris, but towards the end of that third year, as deadlines approached and Chris was busy on other projects, I think I was remiss on this point. That would explain Chris’s look of consternation in one reading when the words in a song did not look familiar to him. (Sorry, Chris! But I never changed entire stanzas; just a word or two and the occasional verse.)

It was then when I decided to make Lorenzo’s trip to Japan expressionistic with the pilot of the sampan and the five missionaries in skull masks. That was the year Michael Jackson died, so this was probably the inspiration of Nonon’s remark, “Why don’t you make them Michael Jackson masks?” Indeed. And so the character denominated in the script as “ang nakamaskara ng bungo” took shape. He appears in black in act 1 as the pilot of the sampan: he is Death (of the Body); he appears in act 2 in red and wrestles with Lorenzo, hip-hop style: he is the Death of the Soul; and he appears in act 3 in white resuscitating the unconscious Lorenzo: he is Death to Life. At the end of the musical he leads the six martyrs in a “Dance of the Living,” a sort of reverse Thriller. This was the last twist that the script went through before Nonon started rehearsals. I should warn the reader of these notes, however, that I have not to date (the beginning of August) seen a single rehearsal or costume design. For all I know, Michael Jackson will not appear. But he might in a future production.

          This first run of Lorenzo, however, is meant to be an “off-Broadway” run, to bring out the glitches in the production and script before the “Broadway” run in the CCP July of next year (2014). Already, we have started experimenting with different endings.

Director's Notes

by Nonon Padilla

I first approached Peta to do a co-production of LORENZO when it was finally decided to set a date and venue for the production. Maribel Legarda, the artistic director of Peta, said their schedule had long been decided on and had already been announced.

     I then asked CB Garucho, Peta’s Chair if they had a free slot within the year when we could rent the theater and rehearsal spaces. The only time they could offer were 2 weeks in October right before All Saints’ Day.

     The dates were not attractive, marketing-wise, making it impossible to sell the shows to schools during term break.

     Fortunately Gabby Fernandez of Saint Benilde, had been wooing me to teach in their School of Design. They had been planning to offer a full theater program, which they have long been eager to launch. I declined the teaching position but accepted becoming a consultant to their program (which to this day, has been stalled at the CHED for further scrutiny, and a ton of bureaucratic paperwork.)

     I broached the idea of doing a co-prod with Saint Benilde, and Gabby immediately grabbed the suggestion, exclaiming,“Yes, with open arms, we can host the production, and offer its facilities on the condition that our students apprentice in the production and do hands-on training!”

     Done!

     Prior to this we have had three musical previews to test the music by inviting potential producers to cocktails. Christopher and Paul gave brief spiels on the history and background of the project. Mr, C and his singers then played and sang highlight passages and arias of the opera.

     Looking for money for a theater production is eternally difficult in this country, and only the persistence of Paul had kept the flames alive. Christopher de Leon, the producer and the one who commissioned Paul to write the script, could not attend to it immediately, having been waylaid by his political pursuits in the last May elections.

     The project really had its jump-start when Paul invited Francis Sebastian of Metro Bank to help finance the whole enterprise. Enthused after hearing the music, Francis gave the go signal (after a series of meetings-lunches at Seryna, the Japanese restaurant in Japan Town) not quite knowing what he was really getting involved in, but warmed by Ryan’s beautiful music, most attractively sung by his talented group of singers.

     From the very first time that we heard Ryan’s music, all those who listened ended up moved and drenched in tears. (Music pa lang yon, ha!)

     Paul, in his notes, recounted comprehensively the process of writing the text. So me and my big mouth! Little did I know that my simple suggestion to add a contemporary angle to the narrative would trigger a creative frisson, a leap and somersault, prompting Paul and his team of writers, Juan Ekis and Joem Antonio, to “go to town” and write a really sophisticated drama on the first Pinoy saint. Exciting and challenging as it is, it is also awesomely deep in its poetic approach. The conversion of one historical figure from the 17^th century Manila, from accidental tourist, criminal, renegade, and fugitive into a martyr in Nagasaki is embedded in a contemporary narrative concerning an OFW condemned to death for murdering his employer and awaiting execution by beheading in a middle-east prison.

     Paul in his notes, has hinted on the source of his inspiration-Dante’s poetics, Dante being the supreme poet of poets worldwide.

     Enter Gino Gonzales, our production designer, who upon reading the script decided to use the balikbayan box as a metaphor for the sets. To me it was supercalifragilistiexpialidociously serendipitous! The structure of Paul’s and his team of writers’ drama is akin to a Russian matrioshka, a box within a box, within a box, with layers of reality ever deepening into spiritual and dramatic depths. Indeed the story telling is Conradian (as in Heart of Darkness) In this instance, it is both a journey into darkness and an escape into the light.

     I would like to take this opportunity to thank (Alvin, fill in the benilde staff) and a prayer for Brother Andrew who was the visionary of this new school for the arts. Bless his gourmet soul in heaven!

     Here now, is the Pinoy divina comediya!