Forbidden Memory: Reflection on Trauma, Memory, and the Question of Justice
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Abstract
This article examines the film Forbidden Memory (Philippines, 2016) as an act (and art) of political work and activism through its radical memory work documenting collective trauma in pursuit of social justice. Directed by Gutierrez “Teng” Mangansakan III, the film revisits the tragic events of September 1974 when men, women, and children were killed in the southern provinces of Mindanao. Known as the Malisbong Massacre, the plot was sanctioned by President Ferdinand Marcos as part of the counter-insurgency campaign during the early years of Martial Law. Despite the extent and severity of the collective trauma and loss experienced by the predominantly Muslim community, this episode is mainly absent in the broader national narrative of the country. Taking inspiration from Alison Landsberg’s (2004) notion of “prosthetic memory” and Walter Benjamin’s (2003) contention that the work of memory goes beyond mere interweaving of facts and events that are buried in the past,
but an active work of finding the truth, and that cinema serves as a mass cultural technology that conjures political and historical consciousness, this article explores the ways in which Forbidden Memory performs radical memory work amid collective forgetting and exclusion. Foregrounding both the emotional and painful testimonies of victims (ordinary people) and the landscape of trauma (ordinary sites), the film navigates incoherent and, at times, contradicting personal stories yet offers a compelling glimpse into labyrinthine public memories interpellated by the power that structures Philippine society. In doing so, it affords survivors a platform to share their stories and prompts the audience to seek a deeper understanding of the truth and legacy of Martial Law and what justice would be like for those who survived.
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