by Jojo Soria de Veyra
SEVEN SONGS
There is a four-year course at the University of the Philippines called Developmental Communication. It's a mass communication course focusing on communication tools and techniques as media for the folk-development programs of government, NGOs, private foundations, etc. In short, that other "mass comm" that's almost against the profit-motivated "mainstream mass comm" designed for mainstream mass media -- the latter's job being to find out what the masses want so that the radio and tv stations and the newspapers may be able to service those needs for profit.
The seven Mike Hanopol songs I've listed here service a developmental need from above that's also from below (the concerns being derivative -- and acknowledged as so in Bayan ni Juan -- of "folk" wisdom). Mass media would seldom touch this aspect of the masses, loading the airwaves with the love songs hatched by show business' star system. It's artists in the music industry like Mike Hanopol who in the 1970s to the early '80s have (inadvertently?) filled the gap without sounding like a morning radio show for farmers. Hanopol's developmental rock used urban rock and roll as if knowing this would be acceptable to both urban and rural folk.
Hanopol's nationalistic songs like Awiting Pilipino and Tulungan Natin are pregnant with messages (developmental and folk-philosophical) that today's shouts like "hoy, Pinoy ako, buo ang aking loob" (by Bamboo, formerly of Rivermaya) can only sound as nothing more than empty bourgeois sloganeerings in comparison, as if needing Hanopol's Waray background to see the real score. Razorback's "akala mo cool ka, wala kang silbi" (Walang Silbi) is closer to Hanopol, being a Juan de la Cruz-influenced band (their Pepe the Hepe salutes Pepe Smith), seeming to echo the trademark adverse sermonizings of Hanopol's Kayabangan, Mister Kengkoy, and the radio hit Laki sa Layaw. (8/04)
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