Macapagal 49 akin to the sound heard while opening a music box, eventually building up to louder beats: “A bomb went off this morning—raining bodies on TV/They are blaming the insurgents, they are blocking off the streets/ And the smoke is rising slowly, from the barrel of a gun/The solution to disruption—Order 1081.” The sound of the voice becomes more urgent, while at the same time retaining a sense of calm. Another stanza illustrates a contrast of images: “Now the sunsets are incredible across Manila Bay/You can hear the bombers landing at the U.S. Air Force base/And somewhere in the distance, out beyond the setting sun/They will sign a proclamation—Order 1081.” The first line regarding the beauty of sunsets is contrasted with the sound of “bombers landing” at the US base—alluding to the hand of the US in the economic and political affairs of the Philippines. The song ends with a powerful image of vanity and fascism: “It’s amazing that the soldiers somehow all know how to dance/It’s amazing how the soldiers keep the creases in their pants/Now it’s safe to walk the streets at night—a new world has begun/Ev’rybody’s sleeping soundly— thanks to 1081.” What the song is able to demonstrate is the political function of sound and music. For Jacques Attali, music is essentially political. For instance, those in power may believe that “music, as an instrument of political pressure, must be tranquil, reassuring, and calm” (Ibid 7). In other words, music may be used to impose silence. Referring to music used as “programming” to set the mood for employees in an office, he writes: This music is not innocent. It is not just a way of drowning out the tedious noises of the workplace. It may be the herald of the general silence of men before the spectacle of commodities, men who will no longer speak except to conduct standardized commentary on them. It may herald the end of the isolable musical work, which will have been only a brief footnote in human history. This would mean the extermination of usage by exchange, the radical jamming of codes by the economic machine (Ibid 112). The interplay between calmness of music and urgency of words is sustained throughout the song. There is an eerie aspect to the way this song is performed, like a warning for the dark days following the proclamation of the order. In relation to Attali’s example, “Order 1081” may radically be read as this: The declaration of Martial law produced/programmed silence (“sleeping soundly”), as in the silencing of dissent, not in the serene sense that Imelda imagined it created.