I’m still figuring out my tongue-lashing for Congress.  For now, something personal.  - Marocharim

Robinson’s Galleria
8:47 PM

Years - yes, a long time - has passed since.  Many things have happened between us: alone, together.   I don’t know why you keep popping up like a bad nightmare, or perhaps, even a dream.  You’ve always been that to me, after all.

Long ago, I convinced myself that I might as well - and should very well - content myself with the memories.  Yet somehow, I can’t.  Perhaps I’m forever saddled with the memories of years ago until we get to talk again.  I always banked on the wisdom that if I let time pass by, the wounds will heal and that you’ll just vanish from my memory.  But the wounds never did heal, your memory never disappeared the way I wanted it to.  You lingered in the corner of my mind.  Lingered there, stayed there, until I can no longer ignore you anymore.  In a way, I banked on the foolishness of letting time pass by.

I didn’t talk to you for four years.  I was there, but I was never there.  I was the sun that stood still despite the clear blaring of the trumpets.  You were the red rope of Rahab that hung from the walls of Jericho, who stayed there despite the prophetic quake.

Pathetic, but true.  Wise, but foolish at the same time.  It makes me kind of wonder, but at the same time, it makes me want to holler.  For all those changes between us, I wasn’t witness to all of them the way I wanted to, the way I meant to from the very beginning.

You are the most beautiful never this side of the Milky Way.  Dare I say; I regretted every moment, and every minute, of it.  I seem to have forgotten… but things are never the way they seem.  Ever.

Wisdom, foolishness.  As Morpheus would say in The Matrix: fate, as it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Alone/together.  That’s what we were, that’s what we are, and that’s what we’ll always be… and you’re still there.

EDSA Shangri-La, 9:00 PM

It’s not a good way to start the week.  Here I am with a lot of things to write about, a lot of things going through my head, and a lot of guilt bearing down me like the avalanche that is my life.  Why, I do not know; maybe I’m just one for guilt trips every now and then.

I hope that everything’s OK for a friend of mine, but I’m no longer banking on anything good that will happen these days.  Not to my friend.  Not to me.  Not for this godforsaken country that I’m drinking mango smoothies and brownies for.  Ordinary brownies.  Nothing special.  A bit on the hot side.

Not that I’m a pessimistic emo-type self-mutilating boy named Sue, but for all intents and purposes, I’ve had it up to here.  “Whatever happens” has just become “whatever” for me today.  I feel more and more helpless as time goes on.  And on.  And m-effin’ on.  I’ve had enough.

Hand me the bluepill.  I need it.  Now.  More than ever.  More than two years ago.

Sabi mo, sana balang araw, huwag na akong magkaroon ng hinanakit sa Gobyerno.  Nanggugulo lang ako  Magtrabaho na lang ako, magsikap, at huwag ko nang batikusin ang pamahalaan o ang Pangulo.  Sa bagay, tama ka naman.  Di ko masisisi ang lahat ng ito sa Gobyerno, lalung-lalo na ang kondisyon ng kamay ko.  Tama ka.  Nanggugulo lamang ako. Nagtratrabaho, nagsisikap, ngunit nanggugulo pa rin.

Sana makita mo ang kondisyon ng mga kamay ko, at maranasan ang sakit na nadarama nito.  Mahirap maging manunulat.  Di ko ito sinisisi sa Gobyerno; tutal, kasalanan ko ito. Di kasi maayos ang posisyon ng mga kamay ko tuwing ako’y nagsusulat.  Kung sana hindi ko na iniintindi yun, di ko na sana binabalot ang mga kamay ko pagsapit ng gabi, para naman meron akong sariling problema na pwedeng-pwede akong umangal.  Na pwede akong mag-emo.

Pero ano nga ba naman ang sakit sa kamay kung nakikita mo ang pagdurusa ng kapwa mo Pilipino na mas malala pa ang dinaranas kaysa sa iyo?

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I won’t make some complicated and convoluted excuse for it: I am very showbiz.  Whenever I have nothing better to do, I keep abreast of local showbiz news, or ogle at billboards.  Some people chalk it up to repression, but I’ve been following local showbiz for so long now that I think (italicized, boldfaced, and underlined) I can have a career in being a showbiz intrigero.

I was talking with a friend the other day about how difficult it is to name ten Filipino male celebrities who would make it to a top ten list of crushables.  There are three problems with this scenario:

1. I’d have to be a girl or be gay to have an opinion on that (no offense).
2. You would automatically have an opinion that a male celebrity of any nationality is very probably gay (it’s easy to name ten local celebrities who have had the gay card played against them).
3. The bulk of our local male celebrities strike me to be dockworker macho (OMFG).

That idea got me thinking into making this week’s completely subjective X-List of my local celebrity crushes.  Pictures are linked as source… and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

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I was walking at a mall last night when I ran into an old friend.  Her walk was more of a trudge; the look of a woman who, in her prime, was dealt a heavy blow, knocked out and defeated.  Not too long ago, my friend had a spring in her step and a smile on her face.  That afternoon, she walked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.  When I asked her what happened, her answer was as good as my guess.

My friend lost her job.

You hear of rumors here and there that call centers and BPOs are laying off employees, but this was the first time I heard of a story that hit so close to home.  What made a call center job so tantalizing before was that when you needed a job, any given call center out there is always hiring.  These days, it’s not necessarily true: not only do you have to contend with looking for a job at the end of the year, but you also kind of wonder if call centers and BPOs still have openings.  What makes things worse for my friend - and perhaps any random call center employee out there - is that her career plans have so far led her to three or four call centers.

The Japanese have a saying for it: shikata ga nai, or “it cannot be helped.”  For everything that has been said about outsourcing - the unsustainable, unstable, and exploitative business and economic model as it is - you can only take your hat off to employees who put up with repetitive work, low pay, job insecurity, and workers’ rights.  At the end of the day, these are things that can be compromised, and have already been compromised.

And yet… shikata ga nai.

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So I’ll start a revolution from my bed
‘Coz you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, the summertime’s in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out…

- Oasis, “Don’t Look Back In Anger”

I never thought how fighting for something you believe in - in this case, that GMA should be held accountable and responsible for her reckless actions as the President - can be a very personal experience.

Before our intervention got junked at Congress, I got the phone calls from the folks back home saying that I should seriously consider toning down my (admittedly) harsh words for The Government.  For the better part of the week, I’ve been seething, knowing that in the end, that intervention is going to get the royal screwjob.  Which it did; let’s not make any illusions framed or disguised in legalese.

I’ve had some time to reflect on our intervention getting junked.  To be honest, it still makes my blood boil to know about things like partisanship, politics, and the power of the almighty peso and pork barrel funds.  For the indignities that our nation is suffering - not the least of which was to face the threat of division, civil war, and the collapse of its very nationhood in the BJE MOA-AD fiasco - resistance is still necessary.

Yet no resistance can ever be successful without a hope for a better tomorrow.  More than that, no hope for a better tomorrow will ever shine so bright without the conviction that it will happen.  The most important thing is that conviction will not translate to anything without action.

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What you need is what they sellin’
Make you think that buying is rebellin’
From the theaters to malls on every shore,
The thin line between entertainment and war
The front line is everywhere, there’ll be no shelter here.

- Rage Against the Machine, “No Shelter”

Some degree of hope makes me think that the august and honorable members of Congress would consider our intervention, but I have the feeling that the way things are going, the intervention - and the possible impeachment of the person occupying the highest office in the land - will be junked.  The batting average for successful impeachments is quite low, and these days you wouldn’t expect anyone to go out to EDSA and, even just symbolically, stand up against the Regime.

Why aren’t we doing that, I do not know.  Maybe we’re just tired, maybe we’re weighed down by things that are smaller than we are.  Or maybe we’ve given up hope in what this country stands for, in what we - as a people - stand for.

I’m not a lawyer or a politician, but I think that Congress should accommodate the bloggers’ intervention.  The BJE MOA-AD was declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  That, at least to me, is the damning error (among many other things) that should - from any sane and rational perspective - make Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo impeachable.  Should Gloria Arroyo be guilty of the charge of violating the Constitution, then she should be removed from the Presidency.  The unconstitutionality of the BJE-MOA is an addition to the many impeachable acts that we’re trying the President for.

The Philippines is a country governed by laws, and not by technicalities.

Like I said before: it doesn’t matter if GMA has two years or two days left in her Presidency.  If she is found to be unfit to rule by virtue of a fair evaluation of evidence - or an admission of guilt - then the law doesn’t say that she doesn’t have to pay the price in the name of “stability” and “progress.”  I reiterate: justice, fairness, and freedom are not words or compromises, but are perspectives.

I don’t want to unfairly skew whatever decisions the House will make tomorrow (as if siguro nagbabasa sila ng blog), but I feel that debating on the technicalities of parliamentary procedure is not an act of protecting the Philippine interest.  I think that the interest of the Filipino people, whose country was divided in an act of deception and in a culpable violation of that one doctrine that binds us all, must be addressed.  Not because of technicalities, but because of merits; because of justice, fairness, and freedom.

Of course, I just have the gut feeling that there’s no shelter for those virtues here, when something as simple as citizenship - doing the right thing - escapes the grasp of some people.  I can only hope I’m wrong, and that tomorrow, Congress will stand up for something right, and be the shelter of justice that they’re supposed to be.

Else you know what Rage Against the Machine song I’ll be listening to.

Today’s interesting bit of news is that Manny Villar is no longer Senate President.  He’s now replaced by Juan Ponce Enrile.  I’d like to talk about that, but I’ll reserve my venom until the impeachment trials.  And no, the fact that I’m not using posporo (Commando, to be exact) is not a political statement against Enrile.

Let’s digress from my “inspirational political messages” - that is, if you’re actually inspired by them - and talk about something rather important.  To me, that is.

Fresh off my move to Makayry Siry (that’s Makati City for you… although being 15 minutes away from work has its perks), Tonyo texted me at 1:30 AM.  I was kind of expecting another of his funny text messages when he had some rather interesting news: my Cebu Pacific Blogging Challenge entry won me a free trip to General Santos City, courtesy of Cebu Pacific.  After a phone call from my dad reminding me to tone down my rabid anti-Government views, I decided to check whether or not I actually won.

Guess what, I actually won.  For all intents and purposes of a deal: Marocharim knew the news first from TonyoCruz.com, via mobile.

Anyway, in Fist in the Air in the Land of Hypocrisy*, which is now rather ”famous” thanks to MLQ3’s latest Inquirer column (I guess I can do my dad a favor now), BrianB and TonGuE-tWisTeD both have comments about my hair.  BrianB, out of concern perhaps, wants me to cut my hair because I might get beat up by police.  TonGuE-tWisTeD, on the other hand, thinks that my hair is… let’s just quote him:

On the other hand, I would prefer his long hair. Well. long hair can also be kept decent-looking and formal. Let that symbolize and represent the youth, the proactive ones, not the apathetic gadgetdumbed bozos we’ve always crowed about.

Uh… ummm… yeah.  Ah… hmmm… my hair?  A symbol for the youth?

Ah… uh… ummm… hmmm…

Did I mention I won a free trip to General Santos City?

(Chee-rist, they’d better make up their minds about our intervention.)

Moving to Makati City is a good idea considering where I work, but somehow I kind of feel some remotely sentimental feelings about living nine months in UP Diliman.  Not that I’m going to miss hellish commutes from Ortigas to Philcoa, but somehow there’s something about this place that I just don’t want to leave yet.

As I was packing up my stuff this morning and sent off my last batch of laundry for pick-up tomorrow, I kind of had some time to think about why I’m leaving this place anyway.  It’s not because it’s UP and that I have the “UPian” attachment (where that term originated, I do not know), but everything about UP Diliman is self-contained.  I have everything I need right here.  Over the almost-year, I have discovered a lot of good places to eat, made friends with store owners and laundromat owners, and became a regular customer of places that offer cheap - and fast - wi-fi services.  I’ll get around that when I explore Makati, but I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Yet I think that the charm of Diliman is not to be found in the campus itself, but the peripheries.  I’ve lived in Diliman before, but it’s only now that I get to realize how people-friendly this place could be.  Granted that you hear the occasional stories of kids who drown in pools at the other neighborhood or drug runs at 2:00 in the morning, but it ain’t all that bad.

For my last few hours of being a resident of UP Diliman, I decided to go out the right way, and take one last UP Ikot ride.  I wanted to breathe in everything about Diliman… or I guess I didn’t, since I saw that tree in front of Benitez that I have long since avoided like the plague.

There, I could still see a girl and a boy talking.  It’s a mirage of three summers ago, I guess.  The boy had long hair and a cigarette in his mouth, the girl was wearing a pink shirt with a black bolero.  They were talking about a past meant to be forgotten, or things that are never meant to be.

I don’t know whether or not that boy and that girl will meet again.  Maybe one of these days.

The jeepney then made its way ’round the bend, until I realized the greater significance of this one last ride.  Perhaps I haven’t resolved some nagging thoughts over the years just yet; that my personal comfort zone was to forget, to let sleeping dogs lie, to let things settle before I go.  I guess that sucks, but I have packed bags waiting and a world to explore.

Where this takes me, I do not know; but like everything else in life, most things are just a short ride away.

(Just don’t make me take north-bound train rides at rush hour and we’ll be fine.)

Then I got my wings, and I never even knew it
When I was a worm, thought I wouldn’t get through it.

- Marilyn Manson, “Wormboy”

What do Marilyn Manson songs, the Catholic Church, and potted meat have in common?

Yesterday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on a priest who opened - literally - a can of worms.  One of the attendants in the San Carlos Seminary opened a can of Spam Lite Meatloaf and found that the potted meat was full of vermin.  Today, the reports mention that Hormel, makers of the potted meat, consider the unfortunate incident “rare.”  Not lightly fried and made into a sandwich ingredient - or whatever they do with the stuff at the Spam restaurant at SM Megamall (if it’s still open) - but rare.  Au jus, au naturale, straight off the can.

I kind of wonder if the priests and brothers in the seminary were thinking having Lobster Thermidor au crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots or aubergines garnished with truffle paté, brandy, and with a fried egg on top and Spam.  Certainly not worms.