One of my favorite Filipino American shirt companies just released their spring/summer collection around the theme of “No History, No Self”. The standout design is a skull version of the iconic Jose Rizal image with a unique Baybayin style saying “Walang kasaysayan Walang Sarili” literally translating to “No History No Self” in Tagalog. What’s also interesting is the usage of the X as the kudlit for the Da/Ra and La characters for the word Sarili. At 1st glance, one may confuse it as vowel cancellations (Virama) for the word above. What are your thoughts on this technique?

Here’s a description from their website:

Every where you look we are presented with sun and stars, Filipino this, Filipino that, and every variation of Pacman you can think on a tee as “Pinoy Pride”. No substance, no history. The lack of accessible Philippine curriculum in schools, studies, and products inspired our “Death of Philippine education” theme for our S/S collection. We took an iconic Philippine image in Jose Rizal, but with a skull. Babayin/alibata (first written script of the Philippines) in our own handwritten script font translated “No History, No Self”.

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