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characters, Anna and Guevarra, manage to beat the Machine using
its own logic, the former by having nothing to tell, no information
to give, even under intense pain; the latter for giving his real name
before the torture begins. Guevarra was the peasant boy Luis
Carlos rescued in the jungle while the latter was fighting alongside
the guerrilla forces during WWII. Guevarra grows up to become a
heroic fighter signifying the power of the peasants. Nonetheless,
Colonel Amor does not believe Guevarra tells the truth of his own
accord and insists on torturing him. Throughout the process,
Guevarra never changes his answers: therein lies his heroism. For
Anna, it is not the pain that creates horror and fear, but “the Loved
One’s prying and asking and peering into her live and Manolo’s
live, sifting through every minute, every second, of their existence.
It was exquisite rape, the colonel admitted when she told him this
truth; unlike his men, he preferred to fuck the soul” (Rosca, 1988:
67). Colonel Amor’s Romance Room thus displays the
transcendent power’s capability of simulating the operation of
immanent power. It seeks to creep into the fissures of everyday life,
turning every mundane detail into episodes of betrayal and mistrust,
making sour all the sweet memories of life. If the immanent power
works to create a sense of regularity and fitness for the subjects
while making sure the subject governs itself, the bad imitation of
transcendent power dissolves that general sense of well-being in
life while foreclosing any possibility of affective capability outside
the surveillance of the state.
Colonel Amor’s Romance Room displays the first level of
betrayal of the revolutionary ideals of Philippine independence, for
instead of protecting and reinstating national autonomy, it robs the
people of their chance to deconstruct and reconstruct their
identities by subjecting the nation to a terrorist regime. On the
other hand, it interferes with the private lives of the people,
turning them into sites of contesting feelings and survival instincts,
making betrayal a part of everyday lived experience. On the
personal level, betraying one’s family and loved ones out of the