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Affect and History in Ninotchka Rosca’s
State of War
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necessity to survive, and pledging one’s loyalty to a national ideal
embodied in the guerrilla resistance poses a new dilemma for the
people in the postcolonial Philippines. Yet, even as betrayals by
one’s intimate others prove excruciating and traumatic, betrayal is
not without its own affective capability. As Crystal Parikh observes:
“[I]f there is no recovering oneself from the trauma of betrayal,
there is nonetheless an ‘after’ to the act, a new world of meanings
and relations, brought into existence by betrayal, into which the
subject is thrown” (2009: 2). In the novel, Anna’s husband turns
out to be the biggest traitor of all, for not only does he breakdown
under physical torture and betray the guerrillas, he becomes one of
those who helps Amor run the Pain Machine by providing
scientific counsel. Again, Rosca emphasizes the act of betrayal not
just as a result of personal defect and weakness, but a nightmarish
repetition of the history of “the Philippines’ volatile cultural
pluralism” (Davis, 1999: 64). Manolo’s father, Jacobo Montreal,
aka Jake, betrays Luis Carlos while they are fighting the Japanese
with guerrilla forces in the jungle. In the end, Jake is killed by Luis
Carlos. The same pattern of betrayal and punishment/revenge
recurs in the relation between Anna and Manolo. In the chaos of
the festival, Anna reunites with Manolo only to realize his betrayal
not only of the guerrillas, but also of her and their bond of
intimacy. Responding to the pain of betrayal, Anna jumps to
violent action. She kills Manolo before she even has time to
contemplate the consequences of her violence. Rosca’s emphasis on
betrayal and revenge as a recurring motif throughout the history of
the Philippines seeks to highlight the fragility of the alliances
among different groups of people in a country that is constantly at
war with enemies from without and within. If we consider her
killing of Manolo as another kind of betrayal, the betrayal makes
possible the readjustment of her relationship with herself and the
nation as whole, for by killing Manolo, she manages to eradicate
that part of herself that remained an innocent girl outside politics
and public events, and to become the transmitter of memory and