The Last March
signed and dated 1972 (lower right)
acrylic on paper
28" x 20 1/2" (71 cm x 52 cm)

PROVENANCE The Luz Gallery
EXHIBITED The Luz Gallery, Larawan: 1972 Paintings by Bencab, Makati City, October 12 - 31, 1972
LITERATURE Flores, Patrick D. BenCab: Filipino Artist. Benguet: BenCab Art Foundation, Inc., 2019. Full-color illustration and photo caption on page 67, with accompanying text on page 66.
Another rarity from Benedicto Cabrera's landmark Larawan exhibition at The Luz Gallery in 1972 is this work titled The Last March. The distinct iconography of Bencab's Larawan works instigated stirring conversations surrounding the Philippines' colonial past and its consequences and challenges to the present-day Filipinos, confined within their spoken and unspoken aspirations of liberty, democracy, and sovereignty. Through this revolutionary series of works, Bencab emerged as one of the foremost luminaries influencing the genesis of social realist art in the Philippines. Starting with that seminal Larawan show, Bencab delved deep into the history of the Philippine-American War (1899 - 1902) and the numerous atrocities committed by the US. Thus, Bencab shows the inherent ironies imbibed in their "Manifest Destiny" and "benevolent assimilation." In an April 1978 interview with Cid Reyes published in the 50th anniversary two-volume book on the artist, Bencab shares the inspiration behind the Larawan works that depicted the struggles of the Filipinos during that war. "You must remember that I was doing these paintings around 1971-1972, which was the time when the Vietnam War was reaching its climax," Bencab says. "Also, I remember seeing this film on television here in London about the Philippine-American War, and the whole thing was so much like the Vietnam War: we had—or they had—their own Lt. Calley and a version of My Lai in the Balangiga massacre in Samar. This film sent goose pimples all over me. And it is the idea of our helplessness, which angers me and which I try to express in my paintings." During the Philippine-American War, the United States committed a multitude of well-documented barbarities against the Filipino people. Notably, the 1901 Battle of Balangiga captured the historical interest of Bencab. In that conflict, the people of Balangiga orchestrated an attack against the American forces. The Americans retaliated afterward, with General Jacob Smith giving his infamous order to "kill everyone over ten": "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me...The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness." In The Last March, Bencab presents an intriguing picture of a man—likely a captive Filipino soldier or perhaps, an ordinary civilian—with his back turned from the viewer. A red circle The fist Larawan exhibition poster from 1972 at the Luz Gallery resembling a bull's eye is embedded in the man's upper body. Below him is a grid with a band of images depicting American soldiers dressed in the M1883 military uniforms of the US forces during the Philippine-American War. Here, Bencab shows the man en route to his execution—hence the work's title—with the band of ruthless soldiers about to seal his fate. "Could he be one of those massacred by the Americans in Balangiga?" is a compelling thought Bencab enkindles. In rendering the work as a juxtaposition between two subjects, Bencab presents the oppressive context borne from the imbalance in power dynamics between the conqueror and the subjugated; the oppressor and the oppressed; the imperialist and the enslaved. Bencab powerfully captures the irony of the United States' imperialist agenda. The United States forcefully violated the Filipino people's inherent right to self-determination. With this, it contradicted its own colonial past. It abandoned its ideals enshrined in its Declaration of Independence: "that all men are created equal…with certain unalienable Rights… To secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…." Thus, the United States had, and still has, no right to subjugate other peoples. In these challenging times for our democracy and sovereignty, we are called to take a continuous, relentless march towards genuine liberty and overthrow the yoke of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism—or let our nation be subjugated again by the socio-political ills upheld by the re-emergence of the "new society," where it would mark an oppressive end—the last march—for us again. (A.M.)