Emmanuel Garibay (b. 1962)
Pasaway
signed (lower right)
2014
oil on canvas
24" x 24" (61 cm x 61 cm)

Accompanied by a certificate issued by Canvas.PH
confirming the authenticity of this lot

EXHIBITED
UP Vargas Museum, Sa Ngalan ng Batas: Reflections of Philippine
law, culture, and society, Quezon City, October 4 - November 4, 2014

Pasaway (stubborn) is a continuing exploration of
Emmanuel Garibay's compelling ability as a storyteller
of the various ills of our times. The piece is part of his
2014 exhibition at the Vargas Museum titled Sa Ngalan
ng Batas, in which Garibay fosters the idea that "the legal
is not necessarily ethical."
In Pasaway, Garibay depicts a basketball player crossing
the street while he is fixated on his cell phone. Instead of
using the footbridge, the man engages in "jaywalking," a
manifestation of a lack of sustainable mobility. The setting
suggests the dreaded rush hour, where traffic jams,
people scrambling for miserly public transportation, and
private cars eating up our limited spaces are ubiquitous,
wearisome sights. An enforcer can be seen managing the
heavy flow of traffic.
Garibay critiques a metropolis designed for moving cars
(car-centric), possesses a rotten public transportation
system, and inhibits people's ease of mobility. Instead of
making our roads accessible and safe to everyone and
developing humanizing urban designs and sustainable
public transport for walkable, livable communities, those
in power perpetrate car-centric policies that favor foreign
car manufacturers. This is a manifestation of our semicolonial
and semi-feudal society and the hegemony of
neoliberal policies in lawmaking. Those in power shift
the blame to the already ill-treated masses who have
no choice but to bear the brunt of their inefficiency in
crafting policies that should uphold and protect the
people's general welfare. Indeed, those in power are
the real pasaway, the plague tormenting our nation, the
orchestrators of this hell on earth.
The only way to radically change this society hell-bent on
the self-serving interests of the ruling class is to collectively
mobilize in light of our shared struggles. We must reclaim
our cities, reclaim our streets, and reclaim our rights to
our living spaces. (A.M.)