RESBAK!

ARTS & RESISTANCE AGAINST THE DRUG KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES

This exhibition and showcase coincides with CCNY’s Third 2024 Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference, April 17-19, 2024, which aims to explore the contested legacy of human rights in increasingly uncertain times.
RESBAK
RESBAK (RESpond and Break the Silence Against the Killings) is an interdisciplinary alliance of artists, media practitioners, and cultural workers. The primary goal of RESBAK is to advance social awareness with regards to the killings brought forth by the Duterte administration’s “war on drugs.” “Resbak” is also a slang term for gathering reinforcements to get even with someone who did something wrong. Through various art forms and platforms, RESBAK seeks to give voice to and empower the most vulnerable sectors targeted by the state-endorsed killings. 

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CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE
Economic inequality, racism, sexism, and multiple refugee crises have engendered and exacerbated the rise of political extremism.  Addressing such issues, as well as many others, the Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference aims to explore the contested legacy of human rights in increasingly uncertain times.  It seeks to foster dialogue and scholarship from a wide range of perspectives. Some conference presenters are scholars and activists who continue to view the human rights project as a moral and ethical challenge to power; others see it as an enabler of political and economic domination.
    The Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference participants seek to reassess the origins, foundations, and contemporary forms of human rights discourse, ideas, and practice today, seventy-five years on. The Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference is part of a larger initiative at The City College of New York, CUNY, shared between the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Division of Humanities and the Arts, and the President’s Office dedicated to human rights studies, public programming, and scholarship.

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SUNY/CUNY SOUTHEAST ASIA CONSORTIUM
The SUNY/CUNY SEAC is an interdisciplinary initiative to promote research, teaching, and related efforts around Southeast Asia and Southeast Asian Americans in New York’s public universities. The Southeast Asia Consortium (SEAC) aims to develop institutional infrastructure and robust connections across New York’s public university systems—the 64-campus, 370,000-student State University of New York (SUNY) and 25-campus, 270,000-student City University of New York (CUNY)—with the wider New York public and policy community, and with counterparts in Southeast Asia. The statewide SEAC links faculty, students, alumni, and surrounding communities.

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RESBAK!

ARTS & RESISTANCE AGAINST THE DRUG KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES


Rodrigo Duterte was voted to power in 2016 following a foul-mouthed campaign that rode on the promise of eradicating crime. A day after his inauguration, he guaranteed that his term will be "a bloody one." In his signature wild, irreverent, and dehumanizing rhetoric, Duterte’s first marching order as president was to incite as many people as possible to commit summary executions: "If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself.” As dead bodies, mostly from urban slums, began to pile up, it became increasingly clear that this was not a war against drugs as much as it was a war against the poor. 

The war against drugs is the modern Jim Crow, a legitimization of anti-poor sentiments, a smokescreen for longstanding class-based discrimination, a punitive measure for being poor, and the rationale for this brutal, dehumanizing, and murderous policy against the poor. And there is evidence to show for it. A 2017 study showed that: (1) police targeted the poor disproportionately, (2) many drug-related extrajudicial killings in urban slums directly implicate the police, (3) police officers categorically used paid assassins to carry out the summary executions. 

Against this backdrop, a group of artists and activists began to meet and work together toward the last quarter of 2016. The immediate objective was to expose and oppose the brutality of what was happening in the Philippines through creative means. With the realization that there was no existing artist collective that specifically registered its opposition to the anti-illegal drug campaign of the government, they decided to organize themselves. They settled on the name “RESpond and Break the Silence Against the Killings,” an acrostic that spells out the Filipino street slang “RESBAK” which means to retaliate or get even.

ABOUT RESBAK


*RESBAK (RESpond and Break the Silence Against the Killings) is an interdisciplinary alliance of artists, media practitioners, and cultural workers. The primary goal of RESBAK is to advance social awareness with regards to the killings brought forth by the Duterte administration’s “war on drugs.” Through various art forms and platforms, we seek to give voice to and empower the most vulnerable sectors targeted by the state-endorsed killings. “Resbak” is also a slang term for gathering reinforcements to get even with someone who did something wrong. Through various art forms and platforms, 

RESBAK seeks to give voice to and empower the most vulnerable sectors targeted by the state-endorsed killings. It held its first meeting on December 17, 2016 in the garage of Los Otros artist run space in Quezon City with 12 artists participating. Kiri Dalena, Isabelle Matutina, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, Pam Miras, Itos Ledesma, Jon Olarte, Leeroy New, Alvin Zafra, Mark Saludes, Gerone Centeno, Erwin Villareal, and Mic Zerda. Within this small group RESBAK began with the immediate idea of creating  activities that will help to make people care about the issue and to make it be known that a group of artists have banded together to oppose the state sanctioned dehumanization and extrajudicial killings of suspected drug users and pushers especially from the urban poor. 

The long term goal was to help the communities and families directly affected by the drug war. In the two years of its existence, RESBAK has now grown into a network over 100 artists and a handful of organizations (Daloy Dance Company, Sining Kadamay) driven by a volunteer-base of about 20 members who are currently engaged in the activities of RESBAK. The active members of RESBAK are Christina Lopez, Geo Santos, Karlo Erfe, Debs Bartolo, Joel Bermudez, Eli Hiller, Bea Mariano, Allie Escandor, Jason Moss, Jerilee Salvador, Lisa Ito, Antares Bartolome, Reli Salvador, Angel Romero, Alon Segarra, Emil Yap, Marianna Hao, Grace Garganta, Kat Medina, Jerome Suplemento, Michael Lacanilao, Maria Sol Taule, and Wynona Coleen Wong. Three members, Adjani Arumpac, JK Anicoche, and Dada Docot are currently based abroad. From the 12 founding members, six remain active: Kiri Dalena, Isabelle Matutina, Jon Olarte, Leeroy New, and Pam Miras.




THIS PROGRAM IS MADE POSSIBLE BYSUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium

WITH THE SUPPORT OFCity College University of New York
New York Southeast Asian Network
Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts
RESBAK © 2024