An Open Letter

For all of you out there outside the ocean that frames my country, CNN has probably broadcasted the sensationalized version of things – brought to us by the network giant I was talking about in my last post.

Now here’s something from the inside, from someone who lives a stone throw away from the palace.

This blog is apolitical. APOLITICAL dammit! So will you politicians please for the love of your own souls please quit the grandstanding! Everyone in the country has enough troubles already for you to muddle waters with your ulterior motives. The majority mind you, is not with you, regardless of how you cry to the heavens. If you really had wanted the best of our people, if you really had the heart – we should have seen you over at Leyte, helping and comforting the victims of the landslide. But noooo, you just could not pass up the chance to use the People Power anniversary as a cover to stage your plans. Maybe you forgot in your pride that it was the common people who EDSA belonged to, not you. Yes you reaped power and glory, but it was the masses that turned it around. Why need to go to Fort Bonifacio to pray? Pray somewhere where there are no cameras and maybe God will hear you and make things better for us. Besides, it’s an open secret that politicians in power get rich from illegal logging. Why go there eh?

Perhaps you were expecting the EVAT law to be a backbreaking burden? Well it is. Then again our economy is growing stronger by the day, and so is our peso. Afraid of what happens if the country has a miraculous turn around? You ought to be, all of you have been in power at intervals after Pres. Marcos was deposed. You weren’t able to do a damned thing except grandstand. The country does not believe you anymore. Please accept that so we all can move on with our lives. If you really want what is best for us, work within the framework. Fight the battles in the House of Congress, show us your passion, not just of being correct, but of wanting what’s best for the country. Allow us to believe again. Allow us to hope for the better, not by your bickering, but by your galvanized actions in an understandable platform. Work like you obey the rules and find a solution without throwing tantrums like a spoiled child when you hit a corner.

Aren’t you wondering why the people with jobs, the dreaming, the hoping, the ones fighting silently for a better tomorrow through an honest life, the family building Filipinos are not out in the streets? Why the millions you keep insisting that are with you do not show up? It is simply because we do not want to. Granted that Pres Arroyo may not be manna from heaven, we have chosen you before and you have dismally failed. What else do you want? You are a self righteous and conceited rabble. We know by now how you change bed partners by necessity. The nation is not stupid you know. So please give up the game. If you really want to help us – THEN HELP US. Not yourselves.

On Life and Survival in a Third World Country

My country is beautiful. My countrymen are beautiful. Let me say that before I start the process of disassembling life here.

The game show tragedy, the stampede that killed almost a hundred and injured scores a few weeks ago was appaling to say the least; yet despite all the clamor for ABS-CBN's proverbial head on the platter, have we thought about what drove these people into such a frenzy?

Yes it was 20,000 PhP or roughly 400 USD. Let me ask you now, would you kill for it? Will you at the minimum, be willing to risk life and limb for it? Or ask a relative to do so? Then what,why, how?

Yes we are poor. There are a lot of us who work overseas to help our families. There are families who migrate in search of greener pastures. Those who have remained try to eke out a living, those unlucky toil to salvage self esteem and what is left of their pride.

We are a proud race. We may have been bound to slavery in the past and servitude in the present, but we have a quiet dignity in our suffering. We keep our humanity, and we keep our sense of self.

I could not help but shed a tear as I saw the footages on television. Then it turned to anger as I saw people unwilling to leave the scene, hoping to somehow still win the prize money for being one of first three hundred to enter.

How have we allowed it to go this far as a people, as a society? To be desperate and destitute enough for our compatriots to allow themselves to be debased in such a manner. No, my dear friends the fault does no necessarily lie with the network giant. It resides within what we as a nation have allowed ourselves to become, what we have allowed our leaders to steer us into.

The collective desperation is nothing new, there have been innumerable poor everywhere since the dawn of time. Hence the irresistable lure of fortune and wealth. There might even be some who will argue using the pyschology and mechanisms of mobs. Then again, why did it become a mob in the first place?

We need to address the growing sense of hopelessness that was centric to the issue. We as a nation and a people need to wake up and become more accountable.

I am no fan of the show nor the host, but hey, they were honestly trying to help. Before everyone goes asking for crucifixion, have you asked yourself what you have done for your neighbor lately?

I have tried to keep this blog apolitical - I failed.

An Annual Midmorning (Excerpts)

Here's something that's been stuck. It was supposed to be something dark and sick - keeps turning out cheesy.
I hope I made you laugh today at least.

Act 1 - The circle opens
January 2

So here it is anew, another year and his thirtieth on the planet. Andew finds himself torn on a myriad of issues sorrounding his life, the implacable dreamer and romantic still waiting and beginning to lose hope in setting out on that great adventure, the unmitigated coward shivering in the corner, telling himself that he is content in his bondage.

An aspect which pervades all aspects of his life, his version of Jeckyll and Hyde. It makes him hard to live with and love - and he can't give those who stayed to keep loving him credit that is due to them.

Intelligence? Introspection? What good did it ever do to him other than keep him wandering inside his head, mapping out labyrinths that get more convoluted with time.

January 6

Raindrops splash across the windshield in sheets, making lamposts and rearlights look hazy. He shudders, yet is unwilling to turn down the airconditioning.

"So", she said earlier, tone bordering somewhere between incredulity and exasperation, "Would you mind repeating what you just said?!"

"I am in love with you!" He blurts out, hating himself at the same time for sounding like a love drunk teen. She laughs, so much like bells tinkling, stitches her brows together and regards him speculatively.

"So you say dearie. Thank you?"

He stares at her, dumbfounded. Embarassing is an understatement. The scenario did not play out that way in his head. Why in Sam hill did he ever go through with it? Too late.

The brakes screech as he stomps on the pedals, muttering angrily under his breath at the idiot in front of him who did not have the decency to beat the red light.

This Cristine business is going to get him killed one of these days. There she was, still running around in his head, beckoning him to keep up, her black hair billowing in the wind. Andrew shakes his head, guns the gas, and fades into the rainy midmorning.