In a few months, another batch of graduation photos enclosed in gilded frames will be hung in the sala of the Filipino home. It will glint and shine. Mothers will beam with pride, and fathers will feel relieved knowing that they have somehow secured a bright future for their children. 

As simple as this felicitous scene may be, it is not one easily attained by a big part of the population in the Philippines. Rather than spirits of enlightened and empowered youth, national news teems with stories of underfunding, inadequate teacher training, poor infrastructures, severe lack in educational materials, and the rampant corruption in the education bureaucracy to say the least.

Martsa is a powerful and thought-provoking exhibit showcasing the works of Jonathan Madeja, Lorebert Comision Maralita, and Mac Eparwa that shed light on these critical issues. Each artist chronicles and presents the different facets of this recurring transgression against Filipinos, and the burden it bestows upon generations of the marginalized.

In Karera, Maralita exposes the convoluted truth behind the system—that in hindsight, graduating from the race of education never benefited the Filipino. Instead, it plunges you into a new kind of race that serves the West as schools function to produce yes-men workers for companies and corporations. 

Jonathan Madeja conveys an overlapping message highlighting the shared memory of many public- school students where their teachers’ disciplinary tactics included putting a pile of books on the student’s head and hands with their arms outstretched. He likens this unproductive practice to the additional years of the K-12 curriculum that presently bears more burden than fruit for the disparaged. 

On the other hand, Mac Eparwa depicts allegorical scenes illustrating the feeble foundation of a country that is uninterested in the liberation offered by proper education. This casts a fog of ignorance and amnesia upon the minds of its citizens, incapacitating them from forging their own path that is brought about by knowing one’s self and the world around him.

In this exhibit, the three artists assert a single statement: if you want to see how much value a nation puts into their future, you should look at how they invest in the youth. After all, it has been said, “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.”