it is time for us all to decide who we are

have you asked of yourself what's the price you might pay? or is it simply a game for rich young boys to play? the color of the world is changing, day by day... red: the blood of angry men! black: the dark of ages past! red: a world about to dawn! black: the night that ends at last!"

i hear helicopters overhead. i hear tinny, furious shouts from loudspeakers in the distance. i hear my mobile beep messages asking me to stay at home (here, safe in my dorm room) or inviting me to take to the streets (not at EDSA this time, but at the Ayala-Paseo de Roxas intersection, a few minutes walk away.)

i heard that professor randy david was “detained” this morning. walking over to ninoy’s statue, i heard cory tell gloria to make the ultimate sacrifice and resign. walking among the crowd, i saw the poor and the marginalized.

i saw the farmers and the fishers and the workers (and a song from high school started to play in my mind: "is freedom a farmer with no land to farm? is freedom a fisher with no river to fish? is freedom a worker with no place to work? and yet they said, 'freedom is at hand!'"). i saw the students. i saw the women. i saw the religious. i saw the left, i saw the right. how i wish i could say that i didn’t see the politicians, but alas, they were also there.

i saw the scramble of some to make a living in the sea of hopeful/hopeless faces. i heard the shouts of anger and the whispers of frustration. i smelled the unwashed bodies. i tasted the tension of the struggle to be heard.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

i asked myself, "why?"
we were there because we had been forgotten by the very people who promised us liberation. we were there because we vowed that the spectre of martial law would never again haunt our waking dreams. we were there because we demanded our rights to peaceably assemble, to express our opinions, to equity.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

i asked myself, “where?”
where were the middle class? where were the upper class? there was a very light sprinkling, to be sure, but we were not enough to make a crucial difference. they weren’t there because they had a roof over their heads, because they could have three meals a day with snacks in between, because they could insulate themselves from the reality of poverty.

we were there for the same reason, but we were not the same.

looking up at ninoy, i was ashamed of my class.

i went home in the early evening knowing (deep down in my heart where the Silence resides) that ayala wasn’t going to be "people power three"--or people power four, depending on how you’re counting.

there will never be another people power. unless the people can be there for the same reason... and be the same.

twenty years of freedom

As nightfall does not come all at once,
neither does oppression.
In both instances,
there is a twilight
when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight
that we all must be aware of change in the air
however slight,
lest we become unwitting victims
of the darkness.
- Justice William O. Douglas

my country is celebrating twenty years of freedom today.

in 1986, a military coup gone awry led to the greatest manifestation of the filipino spirit: the people power revolution. as the world watched and waited on bated breath, filipinos linked arms and stood against tanks; flowers held in hands became shields against guns; whispered prayers became words of prophecy.

it was, perhaps, my country's finest hour. her shining moment in the midst of the gloom. her date with destiny.

democracy had risen phoenix-like from the ashes of tyranny. filipinos everywhere basked in the glow of rebirth and held their heads high and hope filled every heart.

but.
moments pass.
and
stars fade.
heads droop
and
hearts quail.
dreams are forgotten
and
hope extinguished.

after a rollercoaster-ride
through a twenty-year sine-wave with four presidents,
my country still toils under the yoke of oppression in a mask;
my people still dare to yearn for freedom in a dream.

nothing has changed.

the first post... mortem

i used to keep a blog.

before that--ten years ago, before the advent of fast internet access--i used to keep a written journal. and before that--another ten years back, when computer monitors were monochromatic--i used to keep a diary.

all three were really just ramblings. my take on life, love, and lots of other things. things that struck me and jarred me the core of my being. things that irritated the hell out of me, or irritated me out of hell. things that made me feel a at peace with myself and a oneness with the world around me.

all three were really just meant to help me keep my sanity. to help me think. to help me feel. to help me see. wait. that's not entirely really true. now that i think about it, and having the 20/20 vision that comes with hindsight (and age, and maturity, and wisdom), it was really to keep my insanity from showing. (they say that there's a very fine line between genius and madness. everyday, i find myself toeing that line...and crossing it so often that i have forgotten where i initially started and where i actually am.)

all three were private. classified. eyes-only. i wrote for myself, not for anyone else. i wrote because a thought had to be written down...before it could disappear forever into the void where unthought out thoughts die. i wrote because an emotion had to be unleashed...before it could begin to gnaw on the fabric of my persona or fill me full to bursting. i wrote because an inspiration had to expressed...before it became forgotten clutter in the realm of dreams.

my diary, my journal, my blog.
in their pages were my thoughts, my feelings, my life.

and then,
one day,
i just stopped.

i became cynical. skeptical. detached.

life still held beauty and meaning, i knew, because i still experienced and saw. but i could not feel the oneness. i stopped toeing the line, and started walking on it, neither here nor there and going nowhere. i withdrew into myself... like a rose that decided to unbloom. like the moon that waned before reaching its full.

i erased my blog. i put my journal in my special shoe box, together with old letters and cards and pictures... the shoe box of memories rarely remembered. i don’t even know where my diary is.

and i stopped writing.

and then,
one day,
barely three weeks ago,
i wanted to write again.

why?
because i glimpsed the evening star. in the sadness of the sunset.