Ka Bel goes back to Congress
Exhausting but completely triumphant day yesterday as Ka Bel was allowed by the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 under Judge Elmo Alameda to leave the confines of his detention room at the Philippine Heart Center and go to the House of Representatives and participate in the final session days of the 13th Congress.
Almost got mauled by the throng of reporters and photo-journalists who swarmed forward for interviews when Ka Bel got out of the PHC ambulance where we rode from the hospital; but it was funny all the same. Some photogs sustained scratches and one even tore his shirt.
Am grateful to the media for making all the coverage (and the well-wishes and congratulatory messages).
Kahit hindi pa kumpletong malaya si Ka Bel (and there may be chance that this issue will still drag for a longer while because the %^$&^% Department of Justice and the office of the solicitor general intends to file an appeal against the SC decision), it’ s still a good and happy thing that he was allowed to attend the closing session of congress.
Hundreds of friends, supporters and well-wishers were there and clapped long and hard when Ka Bel entered the session hall along with the other progressive lawmakers of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party.
Ka Bel and his wife Ka Osang have previously been reported in the media as being sorely tried thinking of where to get the money to pay their hospital bills. Kahit ilang beses silang ire-assure, they are still worried. Hay.
Am also tickled pink that ABS-CBN 2 and GMA7 used the short footage I took with my digital camera of Ka Bel and Ka Osang monkeying around and pretending to box each other and then hugging and laughing.
Befo
re we all left for congress, the nurse had to take Ka Bel’s blood pressure and it was rather high. All thoughout yesterday’s excitement, he had to take a total of 5 Catapress tablets to keep his blood pressure from shooting to the roof.
Longer entry later as I have to do more errands.
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Was shocked (and, sadly, not shocked at the same time) to read about the two farmers – rightful agrarian reform beneficiaries—being
shot dead by security guards at the
Hacienda Velez-Malaga in La Castellana, Negros Occidental. Farmers Alejandro
Garcisa and Ely Tupaz, both members of Task Force Mapalad and among its 57
members who were ‘awarded’ the right to till the land. The local police chief said that the shooting began
after guards stood in the way of some 50 farmers who were attempting to enter the five-hectare area where they were
installed by Department of Agrarian Reform in previous months.
Wala talagang nagbabago.
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The implementation of the First Party Rule will deny Bayan Muna one of its rightful seats in Congress. Pagkatapos igapang, ipaglaban ng daan-daang tagasuporta, ipagkakait ang isang opisina sa BM. It’s freaking unfair and my brain can’t wrap itself around this very dire possibility.
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I will not be Ka Bel’s chief of staff next 14th Congress. Much as I love Ka Bel and Anakpawis, am so…sick and tired (was thinking of some other, more graceful way of putting it, but it is what it is) of working in this arena that the thought of staying here day in, day out for another 3 years (!) makes the bile rise in my throat and I have to stop myself from hacking like Billy the Cat in those Burke Breathed ‘Bloom County’ cartoons.
I am filing an application with the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights and am hoping they’ll take me in again (I used to handle their radio program ‘Buhay Manggagawa’, from 1988 to 2002). I don’t want to be stuck inside an office for another three years.
Also, I want to be able to, well, write about other things. I mean, the same things, but not the same things.
To be truthful, I didn’t work hard at building a relationship with my erstwhile publisher in Hong Kong News because I didn’t want to be unable to leave. I returned to the Philippines because of Ka Bel, and now that the bad tide is turning and Ka Bel may well be released before the end of June, I’m thinking I could go off and do something else again.
