Achieving Happiness

  How does that old cliche go? People who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Sure thing. I agree.

In real life, though, particularly in the Philippines, it’s people who mainly use their  their pens, their words, their voices who are being killed.

Do I have a problem with the AFP going after the NPA? No. They’re both armed groups, and it is a civil war after all, with one revolutionary army fighting a mercenary counterpart.

My problem is when civilians are being targetted. Non-combatants.

Do people deserve to be killed for their political beliefs? For dreams they carry in their hearts for a nation where the workers and the farmers will no longer be exploited, and there’s a fair chance of genuine economic progress to take root? Where the true history of the defenders of the poor since Andres Bonifacio’s time will be taught in school? Where the whims and habits and hobbies of the lazy rich will not be emulated, and a mass-oriented, scientific culture will be propagated (Nah, nah. Don’t fear George Orwell’s 1984 too much)?

The rich have dreams, but their dreams are mainly for themselves, and they’re such a teeny-weeny group of people and interests.

I prefer to share the dream of the poor majority. And dreams, while they are worth dying for, I would much rather live for them. So who lives? Whose dreams will survive the dreaming and become reality? Whose reality should we all be dreaming to create? 

Tell me of a dream a big businessman or a landowner has, and I will tell how certain it is that this dream excludes the poor majority. Big businessmen, landowners, and their families and connections have ruled the Philippines for centuries, and they sucked the lifeblood out of the poor  far too long. To them, the lives of workers and peasants count for nothing.

I want an alternative to this kind of set-up.

I want a society where it’s the poor and their genuine representatives who call the shots.

At dahil mangangarap na rin lang ako, pangangarapin ko na ang isang lipunan kung saan walang mga uring nagsasamantala. Kung saan walang malalaking tao, institusyon at kapangyarihan na sobrang hiwalay sa masa at mamamayan na magagawa ng mga ito na apakan at durugin ang mga simpleng pangarap ng mga karaniwang tao para sa pagkain, tirahan at tiyak na kinabukasan.

There’s a war out there, and there laws and principles guiding the conduct of war.  It would be naive and foolish to turn ones’ back on the reality of wars and liberation movements and how international law acknowledges their existence and thus there are guidelines.

Ginagalang ba ito ng gobyerno ng Pilipinas? Sa pagharap nito sa CPP-NPA-NDF?

How frustrating , people who know very little about the NPA and who they are, who comprises the People’s Army, can easily dismiss what the NPA stands for, fights for.

I can’t even begin to explain how I feel about the NPA. How I feel so much hope in the fact that a genuine army of the Filipino people exists, that this army is there to fight and defend the poor; that there is a different set of laws that govern the countryside, and that these laws are more fair, more just than anything that this incumbent adminstration and its predecessors can ever boast of implementing.

Trivia: Sino ang pinaka-bumubuo ng kasapian ng NPA? Mga tulad ko pa na peti-burgis? Hinde!

Saang uri at saray ng lipunan nagmumula ang pamunuan ng CPP-NDF kung aalamin talaga ng intelligence ng gobyernong Arroyo? Sa mga tulad ko na peti-burgis? Hinde rin!

Comparing the AFP and the NPA is like comparing the deep blue ocean with a fetid and polluted stream; or a starlit sky with a ceiling of blinding disco light, foul yellow-white.

And what’s wrong with revenge? Don’t tell me that eveything will be forgiven in heaven, and that the millions of Filipinos who suffer slow death by poverty, miseducation and poor health should continue to suffer in silence and forgive the arbiters of their pain and misery.

Kung lumapit ba ang 100 magsasaka sa panginoong lupa o asendero na kumamkam sa lupain ng probinsya, at sinabi ng mga magsasaka: sana’y ibigay mo na ang lupa sa amin dahil namamatay kami at ang aming mga pamilya sa gutom, ibibigay ba ng panginoong may lupa ang lupa?

I believe in revolutionary violence. In violences that cleanses the country, rights the ills done to the poor, justice meted out in blood, but the blood of the enemy, the exploiters and their supporters  and not the defenseless poor.  Not the blood of the farmers and peasants. Not the blood of the workers and the urban poor.

Isang masakit na katotohanan ng sangkatauhan na kailangang mag digmaan; at dahil riyalidad yan ng tunggalin ng pampulitika at pang-ekonomyang interes, mas mainam at mas tama na lumahok sa digmaan sa panig ng mga inaapi. Throughout history, it’s the ruling classes — the monarchy, the landed gentry, the business classes, the capitalists and the governments they fund- who have launched wars in the name of profit.

Pambala sa kanyon ang mahihirap. Kung mamamatay din lang sa digmaan, hindi ba’t mas mainam nang mamamatay sa isang digmaan kung saan pinaniniwaalan ko ang ipinaglalaban ko?

In the case of the NPA, land and economic independence and security; a justice system that’s not biased towards the rich and economic elite; a social system that upholds the interest of those who cultivate the land and run the factories.

May the dreams of the poor and exploited, those denied justice by the current ruling system come to pass; and may the dreams of the exploiters turn to waking nightmares that never end.

My dream is to read quietly in a corner in Luneta park,  look back upon the decades of strife in my country, and die knowing that the big businessmen and the landowners have been stripped of their power, wealth and influence. 

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 2:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.