Romeo Rosales and the Guilt of the Innocent
Reflections on Jessica Hagedorn’s ‘Dogeaters’
Jessica Hagedorn’s book, “Dogeaters”, is one of those novels that stay with you for a while. You ruminate on it, you think about it, you think about the parallelism between the novel and reality, it makes you imagine a time long gone and over to the passing of time and modernization. It portrays the Philippines only a decade and a smidge after the Second World War and the subsequent independence granted to the country by the United States in 1946. It paints a picture of the Filipino that is torn between fast-paced modernity, tradition, colonial mentalities from both American and Spanish colonizers, as well as the descent into madness the country underwent in its long affair with authoritarianism. The very title of the book, ‘Dogeaters’, is a reference to the depiction of Filipinos during the Philippine-American War where propaganda of our barbarity and incapability to govern ourselves was used by Americans to justify their colonizing mission — because we ate dogs, we must be barbaric and the white savior is the man for the job.
It narrativizes the Filipino obsession of the West and their constant need to be either validated or assimilated by them. It is a tour de force of language and a novel that paints a picture of the Filipino with all the dirt and disdain we feel for ourselves in parallel to the idolatry and worship that we have for the West. In the novel, the Filipino is both actor and receiver of justice and injustice, victim and perpetrator of the abuses they commit to themselves, and savior and traitor to their own blood. It was a novel that alludes to the years of the Marcos dictatorship but one that also feels eerily similar to the times Filipinos live in now.
As the novel does not present one continuous narrative, but rather using the late 50s as an anchor point to which the numerous stories, characters, and narratives intertwine and interact, there is no main character — only a cast of Filipinos in and out of rhythm with the times, the Filipino is the main character. One such character, for much of the novel, seemed a bit out of place with all the entanglements between characters that happen within the novel.
Romeo Rosales is an aspiring actor working as a waiter in Manila. He frequents movie theaters and makes love to his girlfriend all the while fantasizing about his favorite actresses during sex. He asks for a promotion from his boss and is shot down. He sings in music competitions and never wins. He writes to his mother about the good life he is living in the city and how wonderful his girlfriend, Trinidad Gamboa is. He is a liar. He scrapes by and lives on the delusional love of Trinidad, who supports his endeavors wholeheartedly, he loathes her but can’t cut ties for the financial stability she brings. His real name is Orlando Rosales — he has no politics, no ideology, his only ambition is to make it to the silver screen. He is shot and imprisoned for a crime we as readers know he didn’t commit. Torture is alluded to, his only crime is being a delusional dreamer and an asshole to Trinidad and a liar to his mother.
At around the final quarter of the book, opposition Senator Avila — an outspoken critic of the regime — is shot and Romeo, despite being worlds away during the assassination, is implicated and arrested. At this point, it is the only connection Romeo has to anyone in the book. He simply vanishes from the narrative and we are forced to imagine his fate at the closing of the story. He is accused of assassinating the Senator and being a communist rebel, evidence of his implication is planted and despite pleas of innocence from both Trinidad and his mother, he is taken away to a military camp where his torture is implied and alluded to.
His story in the novel is one of the most benign in the novel. There are no rigged pageants, no communist rebels, no drugs, no politics, no generals sleeping with actresses, it is simply the story of a person trying to make it big and exploiting those around him in order to reach his goal. His story does not intertwine with the other actors of the book. There is no relationship that ties him to the upper echelons of Manila society, nor to the army, nor to the communist rebels in the mountains, and yet his story serves as one of the more poignant narratives in the novel. It serves to prove his innocence of the crimes he is accused of committing. He is, by all means, a John Doe, someone who we pass by in the streets — interchangeable between one person to another, he is the Juan de la Cruz of the story, he is all of us.
We as readers know that he is innocent of the crimes he is accused of. We know that in the course of the novel, he was scraping by and trying hard to break out into the silver screen with his pompadour hairstyle and grand delusions about himself. We also know that during the time of the assassination he was elsewhere agonizing over the idea of severing ties with Trinidad. We don’t need to be told that he is innocent, we know he is. It is not startling, then, when he is found guilty by the courts and vanishes after the hearing.
One of the powers of the State is that of authority and legitimacy. In terms of knowledge and information, it has the power and authority to declare anything and still have weight to any statement it wishes to dole out. In democratic societies, this authority can be challenged by a free press that scrutinizes and criticizes the actions and words done by the government. It is further challenged by an active citizenry that can demand transparency and challenge the actions and information released by the government. Of course, this is all ideal, more often than not we find reality to be so far below the ideal.
In less than democratic societies, the state has a monopoly of information. What they say is Truth even if so much evidence points to the contrary. In the setting of the novel, the Philippines had already begun its mad descent into authoritarianism. The military and police presence is rampant and any dissenters are threatened with arrest, torture, disappearance, or death. Yet despite the innocence of Romeo, he is still found guilty and left to his fate at the hands of the military.
In these conditions, innocence doesn’t protect. The question is no longer if the rule of law will be upheld but rather, when will I get shot, arrested, tortured, or killed?
If innocence no longer protects, then everyone is guilty of something. We walk down the street wondering if we’re violating any laws, regulations, or ordinances, perhaps even to the extent of wondering if we look suspicious ourselves. Does it matter if we’re actually innocent if those who enforce the law can arrest on mere suspicion? If we look threatening enough, look like we’re hiding something, or even look at someone funny, if there are personal grievances between a person capable of bending the law and an innocent, does it still matter if anyone is actually innocent? If the State has the power to indiscriminately and with utter disregard of human and civil rights declare a person or groups of people as criminals, then what’s stopping them from silencing the whole population so their echo chamber can flow in perfect harmony?
If Romeo’s only crime was being a liar and an asshole — crimes that are not punishable by any law unless assholery was brought to harm someone — then what does that say about the circumstances by which he was condemned to his fate? While the nameless characters in the story can simply sigh at the arrest of the alleged assassin, there was no one to question the legitimacy or the rightness of such an arrest — whipping up charges and crimes become as whimsical as creating fiction with the state ratifying and giving legitimacy to a narrative. Paranoia, then, is a quiet and subtle means of control. Without having to say anything, the mere threat of harm is enough to keep one in check — as was perhaps the more or less fictional President and his cronies hoped would happen to Romeo’s Manila and Hagedorn’s Philippines.
As we are all Romeo, todos somos Juan y Juana de la Cruz-es, no matter where we are or who we are, we are all guilty until proven innocent as it is in the novel. However intentional or unintentional, Hagedorn’s novel is becoming somewhat prophetic in the world it portrayed. The Filipino seems to be subject to a cyclical turn of history where the fall of man is reenacted over and over again — innocence, temptation, fall, innocence, temptation, fall, over and over again ad infinitum.
As innocence no longer protects and those who enforce the law are at the whim of their bosses, as it is in the novel, who protects the people when the guns are pointed at the people themselves?
“It is then that the bullet hits him, and he falls. Stunned, Romeo is not sure why he has fallen… Romeo is afraid to look at the men too directly — he is sure that they are ready to use any excuse to shoot him again.”
“Orlando Rosales was shot down in the middle of a busy intersection, in broad daylight. He was taken immediately to Camp Dilidili, and no one was allowed to see him. His fiancee claimed he was an innocent man, on his way to see her for their regular lunch date. He had no known political affiliation, and since giving her testimony, his fiancee has disappeared.”
(Taken from Hagedorn’s Dogeaters.)
