Alamat ng kawayan buod

Hello! Sorry this took me so long. I’m here to try to answer the question of ALAMAT’s advocacy being performative or not. Buckle up because this is... very lengthy. (That’s why it took me so long to post it.) Please do not screenshot my post and share it on other platforms; I have extreme anxiety.
First off, let’s define the word “performative.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “(disapproving) made or done for show (as to bolster one’s own image or make a positive impression on others).” This definition is undoubtedly what is being meant when some people call ALAMAT’s advocacy performative.
So… what is their advocacy? This was their mission statement before:
“Sa pamamagitan ng musika, layunin ng ALAMAT ang ipagdiwang ang ating pagka-Pilipino at maitanim sa puso’t isipan ng mga kabataang Pinoy na hindi kailangan hubarin ang ating kultura’t pagkakakilanlan para lamang umangat at makilala sa pandaigdigang entablado.”
(Through music, ALAMAT’s mission is to celebrate our Filipino identity and to instill in the hearts and minds of the Filipino youth that we do not need to discard our culture and heritage in order to succeed and be recognized on the world stage.)
This is found in the description of their newer videos: “Alamat is a 6-member sing-rap-dance boy group from the Philippines that combines both traditional and modern Philippine cultural elements with Western/global influences in the various facets of their music, including dance, fashion, and iconography.”
I believe their newer statement is more in line with what they’re actually doing and puts less pressure on them. Their thing has always been taking precolonial cultural elements and modernizing them, and using indigenous elements but adding Western influences. It’s never been about “pure” representations, but infusing postcolonial, Westernized Filipino culture with precolonial or indigenous elements.
When some people call their advocacy performative, they are trying to say that:
1. ALAMAT’s concept of multiculturalism and embracing indigenous Philippine culture(s) is purely a gimmick. The members do not care about it, and neither does the creative director. Is that true? Let’s investigate:
I believe that it is possible for the members not to care about it if they were all pale-skinned, mestizo guys from Manila. However, all of them are probinsyanos, not all of them fit the dominant Eurocentric/East Asian-centric beauty standards, and most of them speak a different language (not Tagalog) as their mother tongue.
The director mentioned before that he specifically chose members who were short, because the industry favors taller men (despite the fact that the average height in the Philippines is considerably shorter than other countries’). Tomas alone is, in more than one way, the exact kind of person who can’t not care about ALAMAT’s advocacy: he is the shortest member, standing at around 5’5”, he’s moreno, and he’s a Bicolano speaker who has an accent when speaking in Tagalog. He talked about it here, all the way back in August 2021 pa. He said that he often got rejected in the acting industry because of his Bicolano accent.
Mo is visibly and proudly Blasian, Tomas is a short, moreno Bicolano, and Taneo is moreno and Indigenous on his father’s side. Even the members who fit the hegemonic beauty standards more — Jao with his tisoy/chinito looks, Alas with his pale skin and chinito looks, R-Ji who is fairly tall for a Filipino guy and has classically tisoy facial features a la Kyle Echarri — would struggle to fit in the industry for other reasons. Alas mentioned in the same interview as that one (more on that later) that he was often bullied for being Bisaya.
Hollywood actor Alex Mallari Jr. (Ginny & Georgia, The Adam Project) even Tweeted before that he wouldn’t be able to find acting work in the Philippines because he’s Kapampangan and moreno. (I can’t find the Tweet anymore because he deleted his account, sadly.)
The Philippine entertainment industry is highly colorist, highly favors Eurocentric and East Asian looks, and strongly discriminates against people from the probinsya, especially those whose first language isn’t Tagalog. My point here is that I would believe that these guys do not genuinely care about the advocacy/concept if they were the type of guys who could easily succeed in the industry without thinking about those things. But they are not.
Mo did a (really beautiful) interview with Mixed Asian Media, an independent online zine, not some prestigious, high-profile publication, in September 2023. He spoke about his mixed Black and Filipino identity. It is clear that this advocacy of promoting Filipino multiculturalism is highly personal to the members.
I’m not gonna lie — I think one of the main reasons that they have a reputation for “not being able to talk about their advocacy properly” is that a lot of people have unreasonable expectations regarding their speaking skills. They are young entertainers who simply have lived experiences that make the concept highly relevant to them. They are not academics and they are not diplomats. Not to mention that some of them aren’t confident when they speak in English or Tagalog.
They do explain their own emotional investment in the concept as well as they should reasonably be expected to explain it (“I care about it because I know how discrimination/lack of representation has affected me and the impact it’s had on people around me as well, so what we do makes me feel less insecure about my own cultural identity”).
You’ve got the members passionately speaking out about their own experiences (like here) and you’ve got academics for the more formal explanations. It’s not like they don’t invite academics to their platform, you know? An Akeanon professor who has published many relevant sociolinguistics studies spoke on one of their videos and they literally had a historian on their channel during their debut era.
As for their creative director, promoting multilingualism and multiculturalism has been this guy’s thing even before ALAMAT came to be. I know a lot of people aren’t huge fans of his, but we need to acknowledge that. I don’t get this idea that he’s just using this concept to make a quick buck because the Filipino entertainment industry and society still vastly favor Tagalog-centrism. Doing this concept was and is a risk.
He wrote the script for 2 Cool 2 Be 4Gotten (2016) and it features the Kapampangan language, even though it’s not directly related to the plot at all. Beauty Gonzalez was speaking in her native language, Cebuano Bisaya, in The Third Party (2016), even though it has no relevance to the plot or setting (a woman in Manila has to live with her bisexual ex and his boyfriend). His 2018 film, Bakwit Boys, heavily features the Kapampangan culture and language, inspired by his own upbringing.
As I’ve mentioned before, a few years ago, I found a research paper that included his blog post from 2007. To my amusement, he was credited simply as a “Filipino blogger,” but yeah… even in 2007, he was already speaking up about the discrimination against Bisaya folks, even though he himself is Kapampangan and not Bisaya.
2) They are only using Indigenous aesthetics, but don’t care about Indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Likewise, they use aesthetics from non-Tagalog cultures but don’t uplift non-Tagalog people.
To be honest, I believe that much of this is answered by the stuff above. However, putting aside the members’ own ethnic and cultural backgrounds, they definitely do work with and feature a lot of Indigenous and non-Tagalog talents on their platform. Some examples:

• They featured various Indigenous/non-Tagalog language speakers (besides the members) on one of their languages comparison video: https://youtu.be/KU0iUX6d7Ys
• They highlighted an Aeta tribe in “ABKD” and worked closely with them.
• A Maranao performer did a solo at their Pasulong album launch: https://youtu.be/oBTkIp7fu3Q?t=2675
• “say u love me” was co-written by Jin Chan, a Bisaya artist from Davao.
• “Day & Night” was co-written and co-composed by Therese Villarante-Langit, a Vispop artist who wrote Vispop songs like “My Morena Girl” (probably the most recognizable one).
• They also consistently give proper credit to the sources of their indigenous textiles. For example, you can easily find credits for Hanap Habi and Kandama Collective in the “Dagundong” MV description. They have worked with Hanap Habi and Kandama Collective for a long time now. Hanap Habi supports Indigenous female weavers in Benguet and Kandama Collective is owned by Victor Baguilat Jr., who is Ifugao.

Aside from that, they also publicly supported Indigenous rights at UP Fair this year:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNEQHkOa8AAvC9h?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNEQHl6asAAUqrC?format=jpg&name=large
Predebut, Alas was also a youth coordinator for Let's Do It Philippines in Davao, which he talked about in their broadcast channel. LDIP is a grassroots coalition for environmental action, and he stated that his team helped Indigenous folks in Mindanao solve environmental issues.
Of course, there are always ways for the advocacy to be represented better. I myself have a major criticism of their MVs:
Their leading ladies are usually still very mestiza or chinita. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with having a mestiza/chinita leading lady. However, in “ABKD,” they show a young Aeta girl whose self-esteem is damaged by Eurocentric beauty standards and colorism. Yet their music videos often reinforce this beauty standard by almost always casting mestiza/fair-skinned chinita women as romantic leads. This beauty standard has an even greater impact on Filipina girls/women than men.
It’s sad, TBH, that “Maharani” is probably their only MV with naturalistic color grading among the ones that feature a romance storyline. Probably because Jhoanna is the only leading lady they’ve gotten so far* who actually registers as morena on-screen even without a filter that makes her look darker:
https://dryedmangoez.com/images/dryedmangoez/MUSICMONDAY012723.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GM-a-eabsAA3xkU?format=jpg&name=large
* I am aware that they featured Lyca Gairanod in their “ILY ILY” MV, but she was shown as the members’ classmate/sister(? unclear which), not in a romantic context.
I really hope they get morena leading ladies in upcoming MVs, especially after the “ABKD” MV condemned colorist beauty standards that damage the self-esteem of young girls especially. I know for a fact that Viva has morena talents, so even if they wanted to keep it in-house, they can still do better. Morena girls deserve to be shown as worthy of love. I hope the group features a more visually diverse set of leading ladies, as a part of their advocacy.
But yeah. Their advocacy is not perfect, but what we see indicates that the members’ and the creative team’s intentions are sincere. There are ways for it to be better, but they are definitely not performative and have already done so much great work in the few years that they have been a group.

Here is my budots remix of Alamat’s “Maharani”! Thank you sa mga nagshare ng remix ko 💖
🔗: https://youtu.be/TguSClKy5GU?si=RGi_aK-9NUWkT6j2

First of all, happy 400K listeners to ALAMAT!!! Deserve na deserve ito ng 6inoos! Here's to 500K monthly listeners naman and consistent rise to 1M! Their concept is really one of the best and I'm always rooting for them because it really is their mission to incorporate Filipino culture in all aspects of their idol identity. Tbh they're so underrated despite having a no skip discography and THEIR CONCEPT ITSELF??? I don't understand how not everyone is in awe whenever they see this group which is literally so distinctly Pinoy that you can hear it in their sounds and see it in their choreography which are INSPIRED BY OR INCORPORATES our ETHNIC DANCES. Like???? First time I've heard of them, (and I'm so new to PPOP) I was LITERALLY MINDBLOWN. I'm glad their fanbase is growing steadily. They're among one of the gems in PPOP.
Now onto my next discussion...ALAMAT is known for being very diverse, and this diversity even extend to their beauty. That's why they don't have an official visual position because there is no one standard for Filipino beauty. However, I recently saw a tweet that promoted their face cards to casuals. I looked at the quote retweets and all I can say is that...I was kind of not surprised sa mga comments.
To be fair, the pictures used objectively did not have good makeup, which by the way also happens once or twice everytime may ganap sila and that's another issue na, but also mostly nagfocus yung tweet on showing their "sexy" side which I think runs contrary to what was trying to be shown. I mean, when we say face cards, we're not supposed to be looking at their body right? Also, personally, I don't want to see people's abs, muscles, or curves right away especially when starting to get into a group. In my opinion, that's inviting sexualization or being a bit superficial. Mas okay na yung visual na lang sana ipakita. Now because of that, naq-question tuloy ang kanilang face cards when these boys are literally very great in terms of beauty, not just the ethnicity feels but the type talaga...may cute, boy-next-door, euroasian, chinito, pretty boy, princely, etc.
Kaya mga magiliw, please use these photos or any other ones that highlight their beauty! Please! Hindi ko rin mahanap yung sa latest Wishbus nila pero lahat sila dun blooming so suggest ko na gamitin din yun. The boys are so pretty and handsome, huwag natin igatekeep. Let's keep rising!!!
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