Rare Finds: Dara Bascara

Photo grabbed from Dara's FB account.

Are you familiar with the Iceberg Model? Wherein the surface is just a manifestation and/or materialization of the submerge part of the iceberg. With Dara Bascara, her surface is really amazing, a stunning beauty, appreciated from the both east and west hemispheres of this globe. But beyond what is seen from her, is much more complex yet still attractive and exquisite. Modelling is her productive hobby, but her life is more focus on her activism and studying Philosophy. Busy as ever, this fine young woman gave me a chance to interview her.

 

Q&A:

Modelling:

Q: Which do you prefer for a photoshoot, a good concept or a good pay? And why is that? 
A: I don't think modeling is the best way to introduce good concepts into society. As much as I enjoy modeling, my main motivation for doing it is its efficient financial lucrativeness. I can make in a day what it'll take others months to make. And because, if you subtract my traveling, I deliberately cultivate a (relatively) low maintenance lifestyle, the money I make from modeling is what gives me the freedom to devote my time and energy on things that matter.


Q: If you’re invited for a sexy and sensual photoshoot, and you get to choose who will be your partner, who would it be and why?

A: Barack Obama. I'd find it most amusing to objectify the most powerful man alive.

Q: Do you have frustrations as a model?

A: Sometimes it takes a long time before we get paid. 

Q: Have you turned down a job because it contradicts with your Philosophy?

A: There’s a colossal gap between the person that I am and the person that I want to be. Were I a better or wealthier person, I wouldn’t work in the modeling industry. If by 'philosophy' you mean some maxim, principle, or belief system that I try to live up to, then I've turned down Playboy and refused to join beauty pageants, even when the judges were asking me to join. But I've posed for Maxim, so I'm really just drawing a line, though, honestly, I’m probably just being inconsistent. Where I am consistent is that I’ve turned down plenty of jobs because they conflict with my academic schedule. I once turned down a small role in the film Rush because I couldn't make the filming dates work with my supervision schedule. I will not miss teaching a class or presenting at a conference for modeling — unless the money is really, really good. I don’t think modeling is a good or sustainable career. So, to return to your question, the objectification and commodification endemic to the type of commercial modeling that I do contradicts my feminist and anti-consumerist aspirations. 

Activism & Philosophy:

Q: Among the marginalized sectors in the Philippines, which sector do you prefer working for? Why?
A: The issue closest to my heart right now is probably the Philippine Government’s labor export policy, especially because one of their main exports is female domestic labor. It intersects two political issues that I am most passionate about: economics and gender. But you don't need to be knowledgable about gender or economics to appreciate this. Ask yourself why a mother would leave her own children to look after children not her own, live in a foreign land, in a strange culture, render herself vulnerable to unspeakable abuses given her confinement to a home not her own, and you should be able to get why I am care deeply about this. My heroines are the brave women behind the Filipino Domestic Workers Association. The organization, Migrante, has done a lot of good work fighting for the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers.

Q: If you’ll have one Philosopher (dead or alive) who will be your personal tutor, who would it be and why? Which work/s of him/her do you like most?

A: Karl Marx. He’s my favorite political philosopher because he believes in progress. He has a teleological theory. He thought that human societies evolve and should evolve. He rejected the idea that human beings are innately selfish and self-interested. He thought that human beings are selfish because they are born into a capitalist society, which conditions — even requires — them to be such. He focused on our unharnessed potential for community, our potential to see over and above individualistic interests for the good of the many.

I can't identify a single piece of his work that is my favorite. What I love about Marx is his method. It's this radical way of thinking, of rejecting a system in its entirety whilst providing tools to critique that system, alluding to a world that has not yet come into existence. Marx sparked my activist imagination. Whenever I look at the world, I simultaneously envision what it could be.

Q: After your PhD program, would you pursue another field or focus solely on activism?

A: I’ll continue working in the academe. I’ll always be an activist, but I don't think I can do activism full-time. I greatly admire people who are full time activists, but I’d find it too emotionally taxing and psychologically demanding.

Fill in the blanks:

My favorite drink is water. 
Technology could be a useful tool that could improve the predicament of people. 
PNoy is failing the Filipino people on an unforgivable scale. He needs to, at the very very least, redistribute the land to the farmers of the Cojuanco-Aquino controlled hacienda and deliver justice to the victims of the Hacienda Luisita massacre. 

I enjoy watching cute puppy videos.
Guys need to have something interesting going for them to catch my attention.

Q: Any message for aspiring beauty and brains like you?

A: We live in a world where appearances matter, more than it should. Physical beauty is an undeserved gift. There’s such a thing called the Halo Effect, a cognitive bias which makes people appraise good-looking people to be more intelligent and kinder than their less pretty counterparts. Use your gift wisely and resist its tendency towards corruption. Too many women with the gift of physical beauty have chosen its dark side, focusing excessively on their physical selves, at the expense of cultivating their other gifts and talents. Do not get caught in this trap. Develop your other gifts and skills, be knowledgeable about things that matter, and fight for a good cause. Your beautiful spirit will be a legacy that will outshine and outlast your transient physical beauty.

Closing Messages (Feel free to promote your advocacies)

I'll leave you with the invaluable life advice that the man who made a philosopher out of me gave me: Be good. But if you can't be good, be careful. But, really, please be good

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Author's Notes: Rare Finds will be a monthly article in my blog wherein I will feature rare personalities. This interview was conducted on January 2016. Thank you for reading. Thank you Dara!