Achieving Happiness

There are those who say and insist that we accept the ban on rallies (or CPR as it’s coyly termed — calibrated preemptive response) and protests and make do with the other means and ways by which we can express our disgust and outrage against this illegitimate and corrupt government.

They say we can always write what we feel, what we think and send letters to newspapers, fax and email and text. Magkasya na lamang daw tayo sa ganitong mga porma ng pagpapayahag. This is what you call democratic space?

This?!

This is my blog space, and I don’t know who the heck reads my rants and ramblings or whether any of this makes any difference. All I know is that when I’m angry or upset, or when some spirit of mischief or glee moves me I tap-tap-tap away on the keyboard and the words flow happy, bitter, melancholy or deliriously outraged.

Clearly, these people who say that we should accept the limits the government is imposing on our political and democratic rights — the barbed wire fences the government keeps building around the so-called democratic space– have never really had their rights abused or violated.

I’m trying very hard to be fair and understand how their minds work (class background, cultural influences, education etc ek-ek), but for the life of me I still can’t help but be frustrated and infuriated.

If you lack the physical courage to oppose, the moral fibre to denounce and the intellectual ability to comprehend these boundaries the government are setting on the exercise of civil liberties and democratic rights, then utang na loob, surrender your own rights and don’t makethe rest of us commit ours to the police, the military and to Malacanang.

These people who accept this worsening state of things, this intensifying political repression don’t know how it is to day in, day-out fight for the very right to live.

Digmaan sa iba’t-ibang antas ang dala ng bawat araw para sa masang anakpawis ng bayang ito. Digmaan para makakain, mabuhay, at magtaguyod ng pamilya.

In the factories - especially in the export processing zones and enclaves - workers are forced to launch strikes in defense of their economic welfare.

For instance, cccupational health and safety standards mean jack shit for many companies, and most companies don’t even have clinics for their workers. The violations to OHS are countless, but never has a single capitalist been charged for undermining the health and safety of their workers. Collective bargaining agreements are more often than not spat upon by managements, and the DOLE aids and abets them in this.

Last September 21, seven people were seriously injured and scores were hurt when the demolition teams attempted to demolish the houses along McArthur Highway onwards to SM Marilao. The demolition crew armed with crowbars, steel mallets and other implements attacked residents who tried to stop the operations by establishing a barricade.

The residents were, are, determined to stop the demolitions being conducted by the Department of Public Works and Highways-District II, Bulacan for road widening purposes and in preparation for the anomalous and anti-poor NorthRail project.

In the provinces, farmers continue to be driven out of their homes, their small patch of land taken from them by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Everyday is a life and death struggle against the military, the landlords, and the multinational and transnational corporations which want to tear and dig up the land for mining, or convert arable agricultural land to plantations for export cash crops.

Sabihin mo nga kung magkakasya ka sa pagsusulat kung nakikipag-usap ka pa lang, nagmamaka-awa ka na nga para sa iyong pamilya, para sa iyong dampang bahay, para sa iyong ipinundar na mga hamak na ari-arian, tinututukan ka ng baril.

O mas malala, binubuksan mo pa lang ang iyong bibig para magsalita at tumutol, binaril ka na.

Gaano karaming Pilipino ba ang nakapagbabasa ng Inquirer, o may telepono sa bahay, may computer, fax modem, internet connection o kahit celphone man lamang?

Umaabot ba sa berdugo at kriminal na gobyerno ang mga hiyaw ng galit at hinagpis na kumakawala sa dibdib ng bawat manggawang dinahas sa piketlayn, magsasakang pinalayas sa kanyang lupain, maralitang lungsod o kanayunan na ipinagtabuyan mula sa kanyang barong-barong o maliit na kahong sementong tinitirhan?

How convenient it is for these civil society voices that they don’t even have to leave the comfort of their own homes to placate their so-called social consciences to feebly denounce the govenrment’s rising tyranny! All they have to do is turn on their high-tech desktops, laptops or Palm pilot, and write a scathing letter to the editor or column or commentary and voila! - they have done their duty to society for the day.

Do they really know what the face of poverty looks like? Do they have the slightest idea how it feels to be genuinely hungry — to feel that empty ache in your belly, that hollowness that eventually develops into white wailing wall of pain?

Can they even begin to fathom the despair and desperation of not having money to buy medicine for a delirious child? The frustration of wanting to continue one’s formal education, but to be unable to fork out the funds for tuition, for the books, not even for the school uniform?

Do they know how it feels to be beaten up by truncheon-wielding security guards or police? To be kicked in the head by soldiers? To see the mangled body of a friend or loved one - a bloody and twisted mess of shattered bone, bullet-ridden flesh?

Hindi nila alam! Kaya’t napakadali sa kanilang isuko ang kanilang karapatan dahil hindi pa nila talaga kahit kailan naramdaman kung paano pagkaitan nito, o kapag ito’y nilapastangan!

Sabi nila, the pen is mightier than the sword. Tingin ko, depende kung ano ang sinusulat ng pen na yan, at kung para kanino. Kahit kailan, mas idol ko si Bonifacio kaysa kay Rizal (although of course I also admire Rizal!). Si Gat Andres na naging makata din, nakapagsulong ng rebolusyon at daan-libong Pilipino ang tumugon sa kanyang panawagan. Nang sya’y sumigaw na "Maghimagsik!", tumalima ang masa. Hanggang ngayon, mayorya ng mga Pilipino hindi pa rin nababasa ang Noli at El Fili (sayang sayang sayang).

Sana sumama na lang si Rizal kay Gat Andres.

Sinong bumabasa ng column mo? Ng blog ko? Kayo-kayo? Tayo-tayo na nagdedebate sa internet?  Nagpapatalinuhan sa mga talk shows? Nag-aaway sa radyo? Mga sagot nyo sa krisis na kayo-kayo lang ang nag-isip, pero di sapul sa kailangan ng mamamayan?

Kilala nyo nga ba ang mamamayan?

Yes, the celphone is a weapon, and so is the internet, the written word emailed, faxed, snail-mailed; but they are NOT enough. I can speak, and I will not give up my right to raise my voice. To physically show my outrage by raising my fist and marching alongside other Filipinos who, more than I, have deeper, greater reason to cry out in anger and demand that this inhumane government to yield.

Wala pang kontradiksyong panlipunan na nabigyang solusyon nang pabor sa masa sa pamamagitan ng patext-text o pa-email-email lang. #

1.T Mr. Bunye and his boss: crackdown pala sa mga rally,ha? Tignan natin. Do the phrases "civil liberties"and "democratic rights" mean anything to you? What about "freedom of assembly," freedom of expression" and "right to political dissent?"

See you in EDSA, Ayala, Mendiola. See you in every street and corner of the Metropolis and in the regions, provinces where Filipinos are loudly denouncing your worsening militarism and political repression.

It will be like trying to stop the tide. Or steam rising. The pressure builds…

2. Katawan pa ba ni former dictator Ferdinand Marcos yun, or is the ‘body’ inside the glass crypt actually made of (a)Styropor; (b) wax; (c) sculpted sponge; (d) mashed potatoes; (e) hollow and constructed from kraft paper glued together like say, a pinata. Paper mache?

Hey, Mrs. Marcos — pick a cemetery and please plant your husband’s body already. It’s been more than a decade, for crying out loud. And the more I see of you on the tv and read about you and your pleas; hear your declarations that it’s you and your family who have been persecuted all these years and that it’s your rights which have been violated, well, the more I want to succumb to the Dark Side and massacre a family. Specifically what remains of yours (I’m off my meds today, harharhar. Seriously, doesn’t it make you want to destroy millions of shoes with your bare hands and throw the pointy hells at the eyes of some widow with a poufy hairdo?)

3. Norberto Gonzales is either an Oscar-calibre actor or he’s a liar. Take your pick. But since he hasn’t won any trophies as a thespian, it’s most likely the latter. And no, he can’t possibly get a heart-attack — how can he hasn’t any heart. His liver and the bile it produces, however, are a different matter all together.

Fess up, Mr. Banana eater. Who gave you the moolah to pay Venable LLP? Whose money did you squander? Who are you protecting with your silence?
Pardon my French, but you are so full of bullcrap. Most of the time you’re mouthing off against progressive partylists and accusing them of wasting taxpayers’ funds for rallies and demonstrations (which, by the way are not true. Kung tutoo yun e di ang lalaki pa sana ng mga rally. The funds go to public hospitals and scholarships of college kids, you dink), now you’re hyperventilating at the idea of naming names and expenses.

Could be jueteng money. 

4. Filipinos would much rather do the Macarena than the Cha cha. Macarena stands for Macapagal Resign Now. The only people eager to the do the Cha cha are those who want to pepetuate themselves in political power and secure their economic interests. They want their own provincial or regional republics. centralized funds to which they have easier access. Less auditing problems. Who wants to cha cha? The well-dressed thieves in government and their partners in the private sector and the foreign finance and trade circles.

C’mon, who believes that line that amending the Constitution and changing the system of government from presidential to federal will eradicate corruption?!  The same people will still be in power under their proposed federal government. Are we getting rid of all the has-beens and recycled officials in government? Dismantling the political dynasties? Disqualifying big businessmen, landlords and former military men from running for public office?  Fat freaking chance.

What’s more, the same neoliberal, pro-globalization policies will still be in place and worse, these will be expanded.

These cha cha proponents in Congress and the Malacanang sychopants  just want to legalize their theft and their stranglehold on their posts. In the meantime, the transnationals and the international finance institutions (IFIs) and investors will be having a field day extracting the lifeblood of this country — resources, labor and manpower, everything they can get their greedy claws on. A 100% liberalized economy. Then in a few years all that’s left Filipinos will be the shirts on their backs.

Or not even that.

5.Martial law. Interesting concept. I’ve heard so many stories (personal accounts, narratives from the oldies from SELDA, Karapatan and the peasant and labor organizers) about the dark days of the dictatorship that it is as if I have lived through them myself. But damn if I’m not going to contribute anything to the effort to stop them from returning. Getting my door broken down in the middle of the night and being dragged off to Crame or Aguinaldo isn’t my cup of tea.

Repeat after me - suspension.of.habeas.corpus. illegal.detention.torture.forced.disappearance.execution.  Nightmares on a sunny afternoon.

There’s this really cool thing Dumbledore told Harry just a few hours before he (Dumbledore) was killed. It’s about tyrants fearing the very people they oppress because sooner or later the oppressed will rise up and fight back.

6. Boycott all Neste products. May dugo ang Nescafe. May dugo sa Nestle ice cream. May dugo sa Maggi instant mami. Sumisipsip kayo ng dugo pag kumain kayo ng Fox’s Candy. May dugo sa Raisinets. Sa Nestle KitKat. May dugo sa Carnation milk. Sa Milo. Sa Coffeemate. Basta may tatak Nestle, basa ng dugo ng manggagawa.  Don’t buy Nestle products. Sa mata ng mga bata, ang ginagawa ng Nestle ay hindi kailanman tama. Sige na, wag bumili ng Nestle.

Sa alala ni Ka Ding Fortuna at sa ngalan ng daan-daang manggagawang Pilipino na patuloy na dinadahas at pinagsasamantalahan ng Nestle, WAG BUMILI NG NESTLE PRODUCTS.

My friends in high school, or even those in College, were surprised when they found out that I’d become an activist. I suppose it’s because I never looked like anyone who’d be interested in engaging in the social debate, much less marching in rallies and demonstrations where the military came out in full-battle gear to ‘keep chaos at bay.’

Generally, I was a bleeding heart, a pacifist. Someone who wanted peace all around – harmony between all peoples of all races and religions and all that. Then, I thought that wars were the results of serious, complicated misunderstandings between the leaders of nations. Then, I believed that through sincere negotiations, conflicts could be settled; and with the help of continuous prayer, people would be guided into understanding each other better, and essentially overcome tendencies of cruelty and selfishness. The concept of class struggle was alien to me: some people were rich, some people were poor, but it wasn’t as if there was a direct relationship between the state of one group and the other. It was cosmic bad luck which we all had to help one another to lick.

I went to the university known for being liberal and even progressive (in truth? It’s quite reactionary only it carries pretenses of being liberal). I had a clear cut idea of what I wanted to do: get good grades, join the student publication, graduate and then embark on a career as a professional journalist/fiction writer.

I joined the student paper, and there I was bombarded with various ideas and world views. It was the height of the debate between the so-called rejectionists and the re-affirmists, and I was among those caught in the middle. What was to reject? And what was it that I was supposed to re-affirm? I didn’t understand what was going on, and no one really bothered to explain.

But outside the ivory tower that was the office of the student publication, militant student organizations were busy organizing support teams for deployment to the picketlines put up by striking workers of Henry Sy’s department stores. By then I had sat in on some of their discussions on the national situation, as well as on the meaning of national democracy and socialism. I found it exhilarating that there were people no older than myself who spoke so knowledgeably about social realities, and who presented alternatives to the social ills as if they had seen the future and it was bright for the Filipino poor.

That’s how it started, I suppose. I made close friends with some members of the militant groups –- they were not robots, they were young people who chose to abandon self-serving pursuits in favor of ideals greater than themselves.

 I borrowed their books, and they explained to me what I had difficulty understanding. In rallies they made sure I didn’t get lost. They shared with me their experiences in various picketlines, in the palay fields of  Central Luzon  or the copra plantations of Southern Tagalog. Sometimes, though, I would also hear stories of how heavy an M-16 was, or what bayawak meat tastes like, and how comfortable it is to sleep under the stars in a hammock outside a peasant’s hut in Mindanao.

 From them I learned what the words “pagkamulat” meant, and “kamalayan.” Also, I learned from them the meaning of the word “Kasama.”

 The content of the poetry, fiction and other writing assignments I turned in to my professors radically altered. Where before I wrote about Isaac Asimov and his contribution to the science fiction genre, I wrote critiques of Jose Maria Sison’s essays compiled in his book “Struggle for National Democracy.” When before I reviewed plays with focus on the internal turmoil suffered by the protagonists, I found myself delving more into the social context that birthed the conflict between the characters. I understood Bertholt Brecht like I had never before.

 What does the Kilusan mean to me? My facility with language is not enough to enable me to explain. Chances are I’ll come off sounding like some looney convert to some crackpot religious sect, but I’ll risk it.

 Before I became activist, my dreams were mostly for myself with the occasional intent of being socially relevant. I’d thought of joining Amnesty International, or the International Red Cross, Green Peace. This as I wrote for the country’s top newspaper, or even as a correspondent for international wires.

But when I became activist, I saw how shallow and self-serving my ambitions were. I also felt a bit embarrassed for myself because till then I had believed that I was an individual who cared about what really went on in the world. Turned out I didn’t. There was so much I didn’t know, and the realization struck me like a shot in the gut. The Philippines wasn’t heaven, and the government wasn’t there to guide the people towards better lives.

 
Whenever I hear or read anything negative about the Kilusan, I can’t help but get riled up. A slur against the Kilusan, against other comrades I take to be an attack against myself. I am certain that most comrades feel this way, too. We live and breathe our respective lives within the same context of struggle; united by the same principles and inspired by the same ideals and dreams. It shouldn’t be surprising that we should also feel the same fury (at varying levels, the factors determining this being age and emotional and political maturity) at anything and anyone who maligns the movement and its members.

I ‘m turning 30 years old soon, and 13 years I have spent as a national democrat. It surprises even myself that I find it already difficult to remember what sort of person I was before I joined the movement. I remember bits and pieces of what I was like, the dreams I used to dream; but mostly, these memories pale in comparison with the memories I have accumulated as a member of the movement. These memories – of rallies and meetings and educational discussions; and - as a journalist and writer - of being warmly welcomed into the homes of workers and peasants; of meeting members of the New People’s Army (NPA) for the first time – these memories and my perception of them form the tapestry of my character, influence my personality, and make me affirm daily that the Kilusan is where I want to be.

Of course, this does not mean that I have thrown off all that I was before I joined the movement. Unlike what the ideologues of the former Siglaya and the guardians of the cultural status quo say, the Kilusan never demanded that its members become stereotypes and to lose their individuality.

I still read what I want to read (comic books, children’s books, European contemporary fiction and punk-anarchist novels, etc), listen to the music I feel like singing along or even dancing to (The Smiths, U2, Sting, Coldplay, Nirvana, the Beatles and 60s music), and watch plays or movies whose trailers or reviews whet my curiousity (anything starring Colin Firth, Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett and Kristin Scott-Thomas).

But the music, literature and culture produced by the artists of the Kilusan have, however,become more important to me. Words that describe the humanity of comrades, melodies that approximate the beat and rhythm of their lives, and images of their daily sacrifices and contribution to the cause, these affect my emotions and thoughts in a way that is both tender and fierce. In a way that I can never be affected by the books and music created outside the movement.

All that I have learned of art, literature, culture and beauty has been enriched by my involvement in the Kilusan. There is the recognized duty to use all that is serviceable and admirable in the dominant culture and transform them into something that will help the people free and empower themselves. Even as I read Rainer Maria Rilke or Nietszche and Oscar Wilde, I am well aware of how wrong they are in saying that art is for arts’ sake, and that the souls of poets and writers should only heed the voice of the muses and not be influenced by the weariness of the world.

  Psychic Income

The detractors of the Kilusan say that revolution is obsolete, that the theories that guide it have been exposed as hollow and wrong; and that those who insist in being communist at these day and age are fools.

I am no ideologue. Sometimes when I read discussion guides, or hand-outs I have to read them out loud to understand what they mean (lalo na pag malalim ang Filipino, harhar). Neither do I claim to be adept at theoretical discourse.

But what little I have read of what Marx, Lenin, Mao and Jose Ma. Sison have written, I understand. And I believe in. Everyday I see how correct revolution is – in the sunken eyes of streetchildren begging for alms; in the exhaustion of workers who brave the evening traffic; in the newsreports of how many farmers have been evicted from their land or have been killed in their efforts to defend their right to till it.

It can never be wrong to fight against those who exploit for profit. In a country, in a world where less than 5% of the population control the world’s resources while the rest live in dire poverty, hunger and disease, the struggle for justice can never be passe. There is no expiry date on Revolution. It is as necessary as air.

For me, and for thousands of other young activists, joining the Movement is one of the most important decisions of my life. That’s the main reason why I have always been open to my parents about who I am, what I have become, and what I do. I want them to know the Kilusan through me, and perhaps even love and respect it because of how it has helped me, shaped me, their own daughter.

These days I cannot see beyond the Kilusan. The people who mean the most to me outside my blood family are all in the movement. My role models are the likes of Rafael Baylosis, Edgar Jopson and Lorena Barros; but daily I derive inspiration from reports of victorious local mass struggles in the factories, and by tactical wins in broad campaigns such as that denouncing the corruption of the incumbent illegitimate presidency .

Reports of successful campaigns and protests in the provinces launched by the progressive and militant people’s organizations are also cause for jubilation. All the greatest challenges, the most profound realizations and the most intense of experiences I have had I found in the movement. Sure, there isn’t any money here (har-har), but the psychic income is beyond what transnational companies can ever accumulate in all their voracious years.

History will not be beautiful.

Unsparing, relentless and brutal

It will describe

The bloodied mornings

The silenced evenings

The rivers of tears

And the ravaged plain

What horror has been unleashed

That sunrise, that sunset

By monsters proclaiming righteousness.

But history will be just.

It will not neglect to bear witness

To the joyous mornings

The serene evenings

The ocean of victory

Nourishing a liberated land

What force has been unleashed

That sunrise, that sunset

By a people who wrote history with their own hands.#

Pauwi na kami kanina nang pumasok ang text: "Ikondena ang pagpaslang kay Ka Ding Fortuna, tagapangulo ng unyon ng Nestle-Philippines, tagapangulo ng PAMANTIK-KMU, at tagapangulo ng Anakpawis Southern Tagalog. Binaril sya dalawang beses sa dibdib. Ginawa ang pamamaril sa Sagara, Brgy. Paciano, Canlubang, Laguna. Pinatay sa alas-6 ngayong gabi."

Itatak ang araw na ito sa kasaysayan ng pakikibaka ng uring manggagawang Pilipino at sambayanan: Setyembre 22, 2005, Huwebes. Dumanak ang dugo ng isang dakilang lider manggagawa at lider-mamamayan. Nadagdagan na naman ang mahabang listahan ng mga martir ng Kilusang Mapagpalaya.

Nadagdagan na naman ang mahabang listahan ng utang na dugo ng naghaharing sistema at ng berdugong gobyernong kumakatawan dito.

Matagal ko nang kilala si Ka Fort. Anim na taon ako sa KMU, 3 taon sa Bayan Muna, at 2 taon na sa Anakpawis. Sa buong panahon na yan, nakasalamuha, nakatrabaho, at nakilala ko siya bilang isang mahusay na Kasama, mabait at magiliw, masipag at matalas. Lider manggagawa talaga, at lider ng mamamayan.

Kahit minsan binibiro namin sya sa laki ng kanyang mga salamin na kapag kanyang suot ay nagmimistula syang kwago.

Matibay na nanindigan si Ka Fort laban sa mga di-makataong patakaran ng management ng transnasyunal na kumpanya ng Nestle at sa pakikipagkutsabahan nito sa Department of Labor and Employment sa ilalim ni Patricia Sto. Tomas. Itinaas nya kasama ng kanya kapwa unyunista ang mga isyung pang-unyon sa antas pambansa sa pamamagitan ng pagbira sa cheap and exploited labor policy ng gobyerno– ang pagpapatupad ng no strike policy sa mga engklabo bilang pang-akit sa mga dyuhang investor; ang assumption of jurisdiction orders, ang burukrata kapitalismo ng mga bulok na opisyales tulad ni Sto. Tomas.

Mabait at masayahin si Ka Fort. Nuong panahong inaasikaso namin ang photo-exhibit kaugnay sa welga sa Nestle (kung saan napakaraming litrato ng mga manggagawang binobomba ng tubig at pinabato ng tear gas ng mga security guards at bayarang maton ng Nestle), kitang-kita ang kanyang sense of humor. Nagpapatawa sya habang tinuturo isa-isa ang mga litrato ("O ayan, sa puntong yan na malakas yung water cannon naglabas na kami ng shampoo at sabon…") ("Nakakawili ding mapalo sa ulo. Pag nakailan ka na, tumitigas ang bungo mo at di mo na mararamdaman…") ,

Masipag syang magtext at magbigay ng update tungkol sa mga developments sa welga sa Nestle at sa mga aksyon ng unyon upang isulong ang kaso nila sa DOLE. Mahusay syang magsalita — matapang at buhay na buhay syang naglarawan ng pakikibaka sa piketlayn ng Nestle at sa kalagayan ng iba pang mga unyong may mga isinusulong ding laban sa Timog Katagalugan.

Pinagtulungan namin ang pagfile sa Affidavit of Opposition sa appointment ni Sto. Tomas sa DOLE. (Kasuklam-suklam na ahensya na pinamumunuan ng kasuklam-suklam na opisyales!) Pinag-tulungan namin ang privileged speech ni Ka Bel kaugnay sa kalagayan ng welga sa Nestle at ang pagtraydor ni Sto. Tomas sa mga manggagawa sa mga negosasyon. Matagumpay ang forum na isinagawa sa Mitra Building sa konggreso tungkol sa assumption of jurisdiction (umalingawngaw ang sigaw na "Uring Manggagawa, Hukbong Mapagpalaya!" sa loob ng gusali, at walang nagawa ang mga security guards o kahit ang mga dumadaang kongresman).

Taas kamao kaming lahat sa staff ni Ka Bel sa husay ng mga manggagawa at lider mula sa Timog Katagalugan. Huwaran sila para sa aming mga batang aktibista.

Huling pag-uusap namin ni Ka Fort ay tungkol sa kanyang pag-aasikaso ang scholarship ng kanyang anak.

And now Ka Fort is dead. Felled by bullets of an assasin most likely hired by the Nestle management or the Southern Tagalog command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Two fatal shots to the chest.

As of this writing we still don’t know the full details surrounding  his brutal murder.

As of this writing we are all still weeping in anguish and anger.

How to assuage this grief? Nevermind staunching the flow of tears because they are tears of anger and outrage; but the grief is something I wish I could stop feeling.

I hate feeling helpless. I hate being powerless at the face of such injustice and brutality. All I can do is to write and pour out this overwhelming sadness and anger, while out there, the Nestle management and executives are probably sitting down to or finishing an expensive dinner and reacting with little care or concern to reports that the president of the union which has been such a thorn on their side has been killed.

Or maybe they’re celebrating?

Right now I am trying to take comfort in the lines of a poem by Ka Amado V. Hernandez "Isang araw ang luha mo’y maiibsan, matutuyo, at ang iyong tanikala’y lalagutin ng punglo…"

May araw rin silang lahat. Silang nagsasamantala, silang pumapatay sa ating mga ama’t ina, mga kapatid at sinisinta, mga kaibigan at Kasama. Ang mga naglalamay sa dilim ng kasalukuyang kalagayang panlipunan ay sila ring unang makakakita ng liwanag.

Pula ang kulay ng hustisya. Singpula ng dugo ng mga Kasama na pinaslang ng mga kaaway.

Ka Fort, ang aming pinakamataaas na pagpupugay: Mahal na Kasama, Lider Proletaryo.#

A couch potato’s review written months back:

I watched Constantine last night. It starred Keanu Reeves as John Constantine– seer and exorcist.

It was with a  level  of apprehension that  I went to the theater with my friends to see the film. For those who are comic book freaks, John Constantine, aka the "Hellblazer" is an icon of  sorts — the British bloke with the dry wit, cutting one-liners, the infamous ash gray trench coat (matching  the ash  that keeps  falling from John’s endless series of coffin nails he never stops smoking despite the emphysema) and the seemingly harmless religious artifacts that become deadly weapons in his callused hands. John is one of my all-time favorite comic book characters along with Shade the Changing Man and Dream.

So imagine my shock when I heard that it was Keanu Reeves (of Bill and Ted fame, and lately, of  the Matrix Revolutions) who would play John. Keanu! Juice ko pineapple, he looks nothing like John. He’s too damn clean and pleasant looking. And he’s American. John is British, and in the comic books (by DC and DC Vertigo) he always looks like he’s been to hell and back: mussed up dirty-blond hair, scruffy, scraggly facial hair, eyebags. Not surprising because he has been through hell and back. Literally.

To cut a long story short, Mr. Reeves did a surprisingly okay job as John. Sure he lacked the timing when  it came to the delivery of John’s dry, brittle and often stinging, hilarious one-liners; and sure he  looked too beautiful for the role (Ewan McGregor would’ve fit the part physically. Remember him in Danny Boyle’s indie punk film "Trainspotting" where he played the ultimate druggie? Irvine Welsh, the author of the book of the same title the movie is based on must’ve clearly approved Ewan as Renton), but he WAS TRYING SO  HARD! In a good way. I guess he must have read all the Hellblazer books just to get the feel of  the character. He was brooding, he was secretive, he was quiet, and he smoked a darn lot.

Mr. Reeves shouldn’t be pilloried by Hellblazerheads because he did a passable job (he kept saying "asshole" in the movie instead of "arsehole" kasi nga American yung film, not Brit. But at least this American transformation wasn’t so painful as what happened to Alex Garland’s The Beach when it was made into a Hollywood film starring Leonardo de Caprio.

That one was awful.I feel a little ill thinking about it. The book was, well, it wasn’t bad at all. Comparisons to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies are rife, but really, Mr. Garland’s language and sensibilities did not come close. Pero di rin naman faaaaar.

Anyways, back to Hellblazer. The real reason I felt moved to write about this film was because of how it attempted to explain the existence  of evil and the motives of people committing evil or good  acts. About God, faith, religion and hypocrisy. Actually, the Hellblazer books are discourses on these topics, and they’re quite interesting (think Angels and Demons or the da Vinci Code books by Dan Brown illustrated and made darkerrrrrr and much lessssss commercial). The film doesn’t  overtly make  one think (unless one likes to think about metaphysical concepts  and try to explain the socio-political context wherein they’re created).

Being tibak, it’s easy to see how all the evil in this world is created. It doesn’t take the devil  or Lucifer to wreak havoc on this  planet — the exploiting classes are doing this already, using their IFIs and military powers and their trade agreements with equally greedy and treacherous puppet governments.

John wants to go to heaven when he dies, but he can’t and isn’t allowed because he keeps saving other souls because he wants to get something in return for all the effort: to get himself saved too. No offense to Catholics (was baptized Catholic myself too when I was 11. long story),  but  i’ve always wondered why the main incentive for going to church and for doing good was for you to be able to go to heaven yourself. Save others and do good so  you yourself can win a gatepass. Not doing good for  the sake of  it, and nevermind your own hide. I asked my mom about this (devout Catholic ex -colegialia) when  I was 17 , why it was this and the fear of going to hell prods Catholics to try being good and doing good.

Sabi nya I just interpret things wrongly.

I answered (very politely) that it’s what the priests alwasy preach about, and my religion  teachers always said (heck, even my yayas  warned me every night).

Tipong "Ina, pag salbahe ka,  pupunta kang impyerno. O magpakabakait ka and tumulong sa ibang tao para pupunta kang langit."

It got me to thinking, tibaks do the work ("trying to be good and do good") without really thinking what’s in it for  them in the long run. i mean, they sacrifice a whole freaking lot for the cause of salvation (in religious terms muna tayo) of this nation and  its people, and consequently, the world. Global class struggle. What do  they get in return? And do  they ever think of  themselves when they do the work?

John Constantine is not saintly, he’s not perfect, and he makes a lot of mistakes that sometimes lead to  tragedy); but he tries very hard; and even when he fulminates and lashes out against God, he still does his job and saves souls. Quite often, he forgets that he’s going to hell but  wants to go to heaven (because he had already committed suicide but he got sent to hell, but hell sent him back. long  story) and just helps people. Nevermind that he gets beaten up (the least of the  things he suffers on the job. Think Gladiators meets the Matrix meets the Ghostbusters), he just does the job and does  it well. kahit walang kapalit. With or without god, he helps people. Sabi nya, since God  knows everything anyways, even  if stops believing in His existence, He would still know who’s genuinely committing holy acts and who’s just acting. 

Sheesh. Am just thinking outloud. it’s Sunday afternoon and im a bit sick of writing resolutions etc so i thought  I’d relax and vent.#

1) Horrible, horrible thing. Okay, so am not referring to the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency today (and its grovelling subservience to the US government as seen in the illegitimate Philippine president’s shamelesss and pathetic expressions of loyalty, gratitude and allegiance to the Red, White and Blue’s so-called war against terrorism campaign at the recently held UN Summit).

My second-hand tape deck chewed up my R.E.M.’s Reveal album from way back 1991. My favorite song in it is Imitation of Life. Am devastated, really. The song suddenly stopped playing and I panicked. I pushed the stop/eject button and the cassette regurgitated spools of brown tape. Aaaaaaaaaargh.

Anyone reading this with a CD of Reveal, pahingi naman ng burned copy. Please? I really love that song.

At least the cassette didn’t eat the other REM album I was playing just before I popped Reveal. It was Out of Time which contains the walang kamatayang Losing my Religion (remember the video where Michael Stipe’s dancing like, well, like had a neurological problem and couldn’t quite control his limbs. Whatever. I love Michael Stipe) and Shiny, Happy People (o, I suppose you remember the time Michael was on Sesame Street and he bobbed and bopped around with various multi-colored, furry beasts with googly eyes and toothy grins and changed the lyrics of the song to, you-guessed-it-give-the-guy-a-lollipop! - Shiny, Happy Monsters).

Sometimes when am so exhausted and I feel like committing seppuku, I take out my old tapes and listen to songs that haven’t been played for at least a decade. Fine Young Cannibals.Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes. Fiona Apple. Nirvana. The 10,000 Maniacs. Everything But the Girl. Sting singing that heart breaking Ghost Story from A Brand New Day album. U2’s Stay.

Listening to their music helps me block out recent headaches and annoying concerns, nevermind that the amnesia is only temporary. REM’s At My Most Beautiful …

At my most beautiful

I play your messages just to hear your voice

You always listen carefully to awkward ryhmes

you always say your name as if I wouldn’t know it’s you

At your most beautiful…

I used to have a boyfriend who played bass guitar for a punk band. He worshipped the Cure, and he would often sing "Just Like Heaven" over and over and over, and I never got tired of hearing him sing it. Now, years after the relationship (which I remember with amusement and a measure of fondness, holy gee), whenever I hear the Cure I am reminded of how I was like as a 20-year old and how it felt to believe that to fall freely without worrying about the possibility that there wouldn’t be nets waiting at the bottom was waaaaay cool.

2)I pushed my wallet into a coma the other day when I went to Powerbooks. It was just too much for me– I had to get my own copies of the Tahanan series on three sibling dogs Pilantod, Ang Asong Tatlo ang Tuhod; BotBot, ang Asong Kulubot; and Jack, ang Asong Kaaway ng mga Bulaklak. They’re children’s books and I’ve wanted them for so long because of the artwork (the stories are also good, but there’s something lacking in the language. The stories read like the author thought them out in English, and then mechanically translated them to Filipino).The pages are sepia-tinged and everything’s rendered in pencil.

Again, a memory of a former boyfriend. I gave him copies of the said books when everything was still hunky-dory between us. When we broke up, I couldn’t very well ask for them back, could I? But I really, really wanted to, darnnit. Not because I wanted to be mean, but because, heck, I really loved those books, and he was never really into dogs anyways. Flashforward today, harharhar, I have my own copies.Yay for me!

I still have my old Adarnas (Pik Pak Boom, of them. I love dogs), Roald Dahls (not that he’s really just for kids) and a  beautiful hardbound, illustrated (in watercolors) book on Witches. Shel Silversteins, Enid Blytons and harharhar the pride of my bookshelf devoted to juvenile literature- Nick Joaquin’s Pop Stories for Groovy Kids.

My favorite of Sir Nick’s stories in the series are Elang Uling, Johnny Tinoso and the Proud Beauty, and Lilit Bulilit.

  3) Kakain na muna ako ng fishballs at kikiam. We just finished up a small photo-op gimmick on the GRP-Venable LLP Charter change lobby contract which, according to reports in the Manila Times, has already been scrapped. Norberto Gonzales must have swallowed an entire lapu-lapu fishbone when he first read the reports exposing the contract he signed on the sly along on behalf of Mrs. Arroyo. Now they’re backpedalling like crazy.

Am so hungry I could probably eat P30 worth of cheese sticks etc. 

Again, do a good deed and email inaalleco@yahoo.com an mp3 of Imitation of Life.

Ever had those days when you just can’t seem to make heads or tails of anything? You go to work or to school and all the input you receive the entire day doesn’t mean anything to you? How do you use the knowledge that a has to be be the semimajor axis of the orbit of one body about the other, P its period, m and 0MTn be the masses of the two bodies and G the constant of gravitation to come up with PP/aaa = (piG (m + n) to cope with the truth that each day the peso value depreciates, unemployment grows like Jack’s beanstalk, and that the incumbent illegitimate and corrupt government is shelling out $700,000 a month for a US-based lobby group for its Charter Change agenda?

On those days, it’s best to read the books of Douglas Coupland — brain candy, soul therapy, and how-to-cope-manuals between tree derivatives bound by airplane glue. (Please suspend disbelief. For people clumsily crossing the difficult border such as myself, the likes of Coupland, JD Salinger, Helen Fielding, Jun Cruz Reyes are my shrinks at varying times).

  In 1991, Coupland, a 30-year old intellectual from Vancouver, Canada came out with a book that detailed the lives/non-lives of twenty-somethings Andy, Claire, and Dag.

These three souls, weary of the consumerist culture that has dictated the directions of their lives, ditch their respective jobs in the cities and move to the middle of the desert just outside Palm Springs. There, in their run-down but still livable bungalows, the three of them weave and tell stories to each other about life, perceptions about life, and the complications that crammed even the crevices of both.

Within the central story - that of the friendship between the three - are other mini-fables: surrealist landscapes littered with spacemen; recluses who inhabit round libraries; and failed porno-stars with missing testicles. The book is “Generation X - Tales For an Accelerated Culture.”

Since the book’s initial publication and reprint (20 times or so in the last decade), the book has since become a sort of bible for the shin jin rui, or new people : members of a new generation searching for its own identity.

Containing 183 pages divided into 31 chapters interspersed with Lichtenstein drawings (after Roy Lichtenstein, the pop artist known for his painted enlargements of banal comic strips that transpose the simplified violence and sentimentality of pop culture into huge, almost abstract, images) and 90s hippie/techie/preppie argot -definitions, Generation X is a novel that has captured and described the essence of 90s living for a young First World people who have inherited a society characterized by massive but useless consumption, MTV, job ennui, virtual reality, and emotional angst.

As Andy, Claire, and Dag narrate bits and pieces of what they call their “small lives on the periphery,” they also reveal their cluelessness about what life is, and how exactly they should live it. Serving as each other’s cheering squad, they hold each other up against attacks of personal emptiness.

“We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there’s a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought that we’d have bowel movement again. Our systems have stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on Saturday night was enough. But now that we live in the desert, things are much, much better." -Generation X, page 11.

But Generation X is only the first of five Coupland books that run along the same theme - young lives exhausted by an exhausted society pumped full by dispensable, hyper-culture. His five other books, Shampoo Planet (1992), Life After God (1993) Microserfs (1995), Polaroids from the Dead (1996) and Girlfriend in a Coma (1998) also carry the same thesis that life is a continuing and difficult search for personal meaning — that it is the continued struggle to find reasons to get up in the mornings, get out that door, and cope with eveything that happens between your exit and your return the following evening.

What is interesting and compelling about Coupland’s books, however, is how clearly they situate themselves in the physical reality of the now: science and art, politics and economic form the pilLars of the stage wherein the lives of the characters are played out, with their interior journeys shaped by the macrocosmic developments in the world.

The last two decades of the 20th century has witnessed the birth and evolution of many a discovery in the areas of science, literature, religion, and economics. They also saw the unfolding of tragedies that will take centuries to erase from humanity’s collective memory. In the same decade that harbored the postulation that life exists in Mars, was also the discovery of the lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) — now officially called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or AIDS that continues to claim the lives of thousands on a daily basis.

At a time when the concepts of gender sensitivity and political correctness was being introduced in massive information campaigns, racism once again reared its ugly head, causing Serbs to butcher Croates, and Neonazis leading rallies in European state capitals.

It is against this international backdrop of history that Coupland tenders his stories. The Coupland books introduce the ideology of the fast-paced 90s - a systematic but slightly hay-wire set of principles that link perceptions of the world and the moral/immoral/amoral standards of the day; an ideology which takes off where the existentialist philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre finished.

If Heidegger interpreted 20th century existentialism and applied it to more personal problems–questions about how human beings should live, what they are, and the meaning of life and death, Coupland describes how the people of his generation and culture live, what they are, and how they realize the almost-meaninglessness of their lives, and even the more cryptic eventuality of death.

"Now - here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem be- yond being able to love. page 359, Life After God

And if Sartre developed his existentialism as an analysis of self-consciousness in relation to Being, Coupland, through his characters, analyzed the 90s psyche functioning continuously, but without deriving actual meaning from its formal function.

"I suppose there’s nothing wrong with my not having a life. So many people no longer have any lives that you really have to wonder if some new mode of existence is being created which is going to become so huge that it is no longer on the moral scale - simply the way people ARE. Maybe thinking you’re supposed to “have a life” is a stupid way of buying into an untenable 1950s narrative of what life *supposed* to be. How do we know that all these people with “no lives” aren’t really on the new frontier of human sentience and perceptions? " Microserfs, page 187

All six Coupland books — most particularly the treatise-like “Life After God” wherein various voices describe the inchoate dissatisfaction they experience in their lives, dissatisfaction they cannot pinpoint to any root cause — are discussions on the essential structures of individual experience.

Day-day events become scattered moments of either epiphany, or sudden personal devastation. Each narrative, though full of insights regarding various aspects of human existence, aim not really towards any specific or profound commentary on humanity, but perhaps towards the general direction of, perhaps, being able, in the words of American poet and communist Adrienne Rich: “To find in this uncertain world a stay that cannot be undermined.”

Generation X and the subsequent Coupland books have also birthed the label for an actual generation of First World youth who will inherit nations wracked by various crises - economic, political, and moral. In Shampoo Planet, 17-year old Tyler Johnson goes to Europe on money he has made from selling fake Ray-bans shades and Rolex watches.

His and his friends’ dreams all revolve around securing jobs where they are guaranteed pension plans and death benefits. In Microserfs, the central characters leave Bill Gate’s Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington and move to Palo Alto to put up their own computer outfit. Why exactly do they leave? One, because they want their creative energies freed from the brain-numbing routine of their coding jobs; and two, because they realize that giants like Microsoft, Apple, and IBM can no longer take care of their employees the way corporations of their stature used to only a decade ago (downsizing, massive retrenchment - the impact of capitalist technology on employees who become redundant; the effect of competition posed by cheap labor in third world coutries with brilliant workers such as, say India).

In all his books, Coupland creates characters who are perpetually seeking answers to the questions "who am I, and where the heck am I going?!" Within the characters’ respective spheres of existence are their families with whom they can feel no affinity (except an often vague or indifferent kind of love); their friends who are as equally, however secretly, bewildered by their own lack of direction; and finally their physical environment — the world at large which is threatened by the evils of ozone layer-depletion; non-recyclable materials, animal poaching; and the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe of global proportions. (Destruction cause by rapacious capitalist greed, ladies and gents.)

Coupland, to whom the term “slackers” ( a class of young individuals who are employed in jobs well below their intellectual capabilities) is attributed, is Canadian, but the settings of his novels are in the United States. Both Canada and US are superpowers - monopoly-capitalist states that have begun to lose their footholds on the world economy during the last decade, thus resulting in sudden leaps in the unemployment and social security dependency.

At the same time that technology has achieved a level of almost science fiction, standards of living for millions of American and Canadians have plummeted. And the young people, the inheritors of these First World societies, are not exempt from the effects. Through all his novels, Coupland alludes to these effects, and the affected: “And everybody’s so poor these days, too. It was so popular for decades to bash the middle class, and then suddenly, pffft, the middle class evaporated, and now Ben misses it dreadfully. Nonetheless, just because other people are poor doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try to hang on to one’s own wealth…Just when and how did the world become so polarized?” -Polaroids from the Dead page 47

Coupland is the Paul Zindel of the 90s. Zindel, author of such works as “My Darling, My Hamburger,” “Confessions of a Teenage Baboon,” “Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on my Eyeball”, as well as the award-winning one-act play “The Effect of Gamma rays on man-on-the-Moon Marigolds” described how late 70s and early 80s was like for the children of underemployed America. The issues Zindel brought out were adult as experienced by adolescents: teenage abortions, drug addiction, low self-esteem, awakenings into a world whose dark side was more than just the effect of a 30-minute eclipse.

Zindel’s portrayal of American youths and their coping mechanisms shattered the genre of typical young adult novels (the likes of Hardy Boys or Sweet Valley High were every conflict resolves itself in a pleasant and justi-in-time manner) and raged against the middle-class’ refusal to acknowledge the widening gap between the American dream and everyday reality. Coupland’s fiction, however, is more introspective. His works are case analyses of the formation of a subculture, that of Generation X - that is purely an unconscious but inevitable response to societal maldevelopments. He describes the workings in the in the interior lives of a generation, and how its belief systems evolve/mutate within the context of the here and now. #

Postscript: This omnibus review has not taken into consideration Douglas’ last three novels "Hey, Nostradamus!", "Miss Wyoming" and "My family is Psychotic." Hint, hint — I don’t have a copy of Nostradamus and Psychotic. Am not above begging for copies of said books, harhar. Please send copies to Room 602, South Wing, House of Representatives. Kahit pahiram lang.

Post-postscript: After all the whining and angst, what then?

Of course, for national democrats such as myself (bwaharhar, the most serious label on myself to date!), what’s the best kind of ideology and philosophy but the kind that does not stop at merely questioning the world or trying to define it but more importantly and in such a grand and profound way, change it, transform it for the good of the exploited majority. 

Up next (sana, kung tamaan ng inspirasyon): review of literature in the Movement.

The know-it-all columnists and so-called broadcast journalists — oh, yeah, and Sen. Joker Arroyo (what a disappointment) who are pro-GMA keep saying that the Filipino people are already suffering from People Power fatigue so they don’t join the protests.

What really gets my goat is this: in most cases the smarty-pants who say this are people who don’t really know what it’s like to join political rallies; they don’t know what really goes on during protests, and so they don’t really know what these expressions of protest and dissent mean for every Filipino who joins rallies; and what these collective actions imply for the evolution and growth of the public, national consciousness.

To be honest, it IS physically exhausting to attend rallies. Especially for someone who is as out of shape as I am. The heat is also often unebarable, and as I burn easily, am  often as brown as a well-toasted peanut with it’s skin still on.

But is this what constitutes "People Power fatigue?!"

How can one ever get tired of fighting for what’s right?

How does one forego the chance to be part of something bigger than ones’ self and to contribute to the effort to overhaul such a decayed and immoral system of government?

Do they have alternatives? If they do, I would like to hear them. They’d better  not say The Rule of Law because I’m sure as hell it doesn’t work when it’s being called upon to serve the interest of truth and justice. Look at what happened, what they did to the impeachment complaint. Listen to the drivel of the likes of Representatives Villafuerte, Pichay, Antonino and that clown masquerading as a lawmaker Waykurat Zamora (he thinks his antics of cleaning the session hall or making jokes of the serious plea for votes of conscience made by Rep. Edmundo Reyes are amusing. They’re not. They’re brainless and idiotic.) 

So much for the so-called Rule of Law.

Rallies are the collective expression of individual but united stand on political and economic issues. A strong show of force and power of people who have a message to the government and to the rest of society.

These days, I am more than ever determined to assert my political right to express my disgust against this corrupt and illegitimate government. I am sick, sick, sick of the oil price hikes, the high electricity rates, the massive unemployment, the high prices of basic goods. I an outraged by the total lack of respect for human and civil rights by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (PNP). I am disgusted by the lies of this adminsistration that things are looking for the country.

A friend of mine once told me that whenever I felt angry over the state of things in the Philippines, I should think about what’s going on in India or Iraq.

"Oh, yeah?," I retorted. "Do you think it comforts me to know that the situation in India or Iraq is worse? That there are also Indians dying like poisoned vermin in the gutters of Calcutta? That over 200 Iraqi children die daily because of malnutrition, the contaminated water, the lack of adequate healthcare — all a result of the US government’s series of military attacks and trade and service embargo?"

Pag dumadalo ako ng rally, naiisip ko, kontribusyon ko na ito sa pagbabago; sa laban hindi lang ng sambayanan kundi ng sandaigdigan laban sa pagsasamantala at pagpaslang ng mga malalaki at makapangyarihan. Pagnapagwagian na ang pakikibaka ng mamamayang Pilipino, mas mapalalakas ang internasyunal na paglaban para sa tunay na pagkakaisa, hustisya at pagkakapantay-pantay.

These are very concrete concepts to me — peace, democracy, justice. They’re not vague words implying unreachable ideals. I know what kind of country I want to live in, I know what kind of life I want for myself and for all Filipinos. Free healthcare, free education, adequate housing for everyone, fully-subsidized agriculture, industries run for the benefit of serving society and the welfare of the majority and not to serve the demon gods of greed and profit. These are dreams we are giving life to, dreams shared by millions.

(Let’s not mention Cuba, yet! I love Cuba. Do you know the Cuban government has a doctor for every 10 neighborhood blocks? Free heart surgeries! Dito, ultimo syringe may bayad sa PGH. P0.25 health subsidy for every Filipino.)

Ang pana-panahong pagtakas mula sa riyalidad ng lipunang ginagalawan ko ay madaling gawin. Magbasa ng nakaka-aliw na libro, manood ng sine, makinig sa isang bagong pop-song. Pero pagkatapos ipinid ang libro, pagtapos na ang palabas, pag napawi na ang huling nota ng kanta…

Pag di ka mulat sa pulitika at di ka organisadong aktibista, may excuse ka pa na wag makisangkot. Pero kung namulat ka na, mas wala kang dahilan para kumilos at gumampan. Personal na kahinaan na lang yun,e.You’d better have a good excuse to not get involved like, say, you need to earn money for your family. Pero kung tinatamad ka lang, ummm…

I have another friend, a lawyer, who, in his exhaustion one night texted me: "I wish there were three of me, and I would make all of me work for the Movement. One would do the writing and research , the other attend the meetings and court hearings; and the other join the rallies. The remaining me? He would sit under a tree and think up more things the other three can do for the Movement."

A worthy sentiment.

Madami pang rally. Madami pang protesta. Walang kapaguran sa paghahanap ng katarungan, sa paggigiit ng karapatan. #

There are many ways how a book can touch one’s life. A plot spun from gossamer and steel; characters that exasperate and beguile; conflict that drives one to weep or rage. The elements of the quintessential Story that leave the reader awake long after the last page has been read.

Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, the novellas of  Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose and Greg Brilliantes. These are some of the books that have made me immensely grateful that I can read.

I suffered through the agonies of their protagonists, celebrated their happiness, and despaired over their tragedies.  But in my entire history as a reader, there is no other book that has made me feel so mortal, so vulnerable and  disassembled as The God of Small Things.

I first read Arundhati Roy’s first novel and Booker Prize-winning work in 1997 when it first came out. Reading it was nothing short of a journey –towards an affirmation of certain truths internal and basic to myself, and the  realization that in this life, the precious and fragile things are often crushed under the weight of selfishness, malice and even mere apathy. 

The God of Small Things is a graceful and strong commentary regarding the social and political realities of the author’s native India; its history, and the cultural, religious traditions that both shape and maim its people.

I understood more about the caste system reading the novel than all the lectures I’ve heard on it in high school and college. How it divides the nation, how it separates those who love and the ones they choose to love; how it has resulted in the brutal killing of many who spoke out against it and the vicious oppression it brings.

These lessons in history, politics and culture Arundathi delivered (pointedly, painfully) through the careful weaving of the tragedy of the luminous young mother Ammu, her two-egg twins with the single, Siamese soul, eight-year olds Estha and Rahel, and the man they loved, the Untouchable Paravan Velutha.

Ammu is a woman and a daughter in a culture and society where the worth of women and daughters are measured by the monetary value of the dowries their fathers can give for them. Intelligent and strong willed, she is forced to live at the scornful tolerance of her family. She raises her twins by herself, having divorced an alcoholic husband.

It goes against all human understanding as to why barriers have to be formed to separate people from others. The laws of physics, geography and biology are more than enough to create distances between people; but other people still  — through specific perverse and self-serving motives -  contrived to build more barriers, create more laws that divide and make the distance even harder to breach.

Many philosophers since Plato have interpreted these laws and defined them in terms of religion, nature and race. Some have taken to give categorized them as the boon or bane of the gods or one single God. The German philospher Karl Marx, meanwhile, synthesized these laws for humanity and labeled them as elements of class struggle.

India possesses one of the most influential cultures in the history of civilization.

It would be an understatement to say that I was moved by their story. In truth, after reading it, putting the book down I felt my heart stop and weep. It was painful to read, because it was keenly beautiful, and because the story itself is pain-filled.

Arundhati’s language, the way she used it to evoke thought, image and emotion was already an important discovery for me, myself being a writer. But the ideas she pushed forward – about oneness, justice, the fragility of childhood and the strength of love that transcends class differences – has influenced, continues to influence the way I view and understand people, and how they live and love. #

When I was 15, a freshman in UP Diliman, I photocopied three versions, three English translations of Edmond Rostand’s French classic poetry-play "Cyrano de Bergerac." The best version was Brian Hooker’s which won the Pulitzer Prize (am not a fan of the Pulitzer, but this guy deserved all the prizes and honors he got for his translation). I was in love with the idea of Cyrano — swordsman extraordinaire, brilliant poet, firecely loyal friend to the oppressed and despairing, secret and silent lover of the beautiful Roxanne.

I would stay for hours in the main library reading and memorizing Cyrano’s lines, his words of adoration and unconsolable grief that he could never tell Roxanne because he feared she would find him and his big nose ugly and thus reject him.

It was a sweetly sad experience for me, falling in love with a play. I grieved for Cyrano, and when he died at curtain call, I was weeping with Roxanne. Pure unadulterated mush.

Wala lang. On this rainy night this girl’s thoughts run to romance literature. I know I should be focusing on writing stuff for Monday’s transport actions; but heck, I can’t fight off the urge to goof off and write nonsense when I feel it.

Anyways, a partial list of some of the best romance literature in no particular order but as they come to me:

1. Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte

2. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

3. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

4. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles

5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

6.Possession by A.S. Byatt

7.Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

8. Certain poems by George Gordon Lord Byron (Such as She Walks in Beauty Like the Night) and e.e. cummings (who doesn’t know somewhere i have never travelled gladly beyond).

9.The Princess Bride by William Goldman (graaaaabe — remember Wesley the farmboy telling Buttercup "As you wish?!")

10. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

Of course, strictly speaking, it doesn’t automatically mean that romantic stories end in bliss. For instance, most of these aforemetioned works had tragic conclusions. 

Thomas Hardy was a sadist. Read Tess and bleed.

In The English Patient, Almasy is only able to go back and keep his promise to Katharine after three years. Katharine died alone in a cold and dark  cave in the middle of the desert, and Almasy was unable to go back for her. As for The God of Small Things, in particular, hay, reading it is like stabbing yourself in the heart with a teeny-tiny but newly-sharpened fork every five minutes. The luminous Ammu and the beautiful Velutha with the leaf mark on his Paravan skin. The brutal murder perpetrated in front of Ammu’s two-egg twins.

Aaaaaargh!

I respect unhappy endings.In fact- despite the fact that right after turning the last page, reading the last paragraphs of tragic stories I want to maim and kill the author for giving me so much grief- I even prefer them. I dunno, maybe I’m really a masochist at the core of me; but really, there’s a certain fulfillment and satisfaction that come after reading something that has caused your world to oscillate wildly then crash. Because you survived. Because you learned something. Because the pain has made everything seem starkly brighter and clearer (pain makes everything stand out somehow; there’s a backdrop of pure white like lightning or a supernova), and when it has passed, you’re still whole. Changed, altered, but still there.

Sheesh. When I read something, it’s really like falling into a hole in the paper. (Like this insanely hilarious story by Woody Allen where Gustave Flaubert’s infamous Madame Bovary is transported to present day Manhattan).

Oh well. So much for mush. Unmushy work awaits!