I have so many things to be angry about these days, hence, the constant blogging. I do not have anybody to talk to in-person about these things these days and I can’t just constantly vent my anger on social media since I’m trying to avoid social media as it’s been adding to my anxiety.

This bullying by China is one of those things that’s eliciting so much rage inside me, which has attracted a lot of Chinese bots on my Twitter account. I don’t care if the CCP has been monitoring me. I don’t think I’m going back to Hong Kong soon.

‘Infuriating’, ‘heartbreaking’, says Robredo as Chinese ships chase Filipino vessel in West PH Sea

MANILA— Vice President Leni Robredo said Friday she was enraged and heartbroken that a Filipino vessel was driven out by Chinese ships inside the West Philippine Sea. 

“When you watch the video, nakakagalit, nakakadurog ng puso na nangyayari ‘yon (it’s infuriating and heartbreaking that it’s happening) within our territory,” she told ANC’s “Headstart”.

The statement of the Armed Forces of the Philippines infuriates me even further, that they issued it on this day 79 years ago when thousands of Filipino and American soldiers died defending that last bastion but eventually Bataan fell. When they were defending the country from the Japanese invaders…take note of the word, INVADERS. Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor) commemorates those who were lost during the Bataan Death March but the statement of the today’s soldiers completely annihilates the essence of the word valor. They are allowing Filipinos to be bullied 90 nautical miles off Palawan…IT’S CLEARLY FUCKING WITHIN OUR TERRITORY!

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was supposed to give a press conference earlier this week but it seemed like he was gagged; he said he is cancelling the briefing because he tested positive for COVID-19 but is asymptomatic. This administration conveniently uses COVID as an excuse whenever they 1) want to gag somebody; or 2) don’t want to face the media and be accountable to what was happening under their watch (I’m looking at you, PNP Chief Debold Siñas!).

We’re so fucked up. We exchanged our sovereignty for vaccines.

If I have a choice, I wouldn’t be taking that vaccine. But it’s Sophie’s choice—it’s between me surviving so my children can grow up with a responsible parent until they become adults or they lose their mother early either to COVID or lasting effects or complications from COVID (if I initially survive hospitalization or a similar set-up).

I remember growing up with so much rage inside me that I usually locked myself up in my room to write in my journal to release my pent-up fury. In elementary, I tinkered with the computer, that big beige box that only had a black screen with green or white texts. I had to boot from DOS using a floppy disk before powering up WordStar to write my journal entries that I saved in 5.25″ floppy disks. I was channeling my inner Doogie Howser.

Then I moved on to creating my notebook journals where I poured my soul. My mom said she was worried about me when I was in high school because I was always in my room and she thought I was turning into a some sort of wacko but she didn’t know that I needed solitude to be able to write. But come to think of it, because of this rage, I became a writer.

I wanted to buy my own typewriter then so I can write my manuscripts the old fashioned way. I was so in-love with the image of a writer, and later on of a journalist, hunched over a typewriter trying to beat the deadline. But I had to content myself with just using the communal computer at home to write my short stories and novellas that I distributed to friends. When I was in high schooI, I started publishing in a literature magazine of national circulation. I received letters from readers, even from abroad, who liked my stories. Then I started publishing my articles on the Philippine Daily Inquirer when I was in college. When I tell friends from PDI that I started as a lifestyle journo for their newspaper, they were surprised that I didn’t continue writing for them. I told them I tried applying for Inquirer Libre, the defunct tabloid that they used to distribute in the MRT, but the interviewers didn’t like me. I remember they laughed at the fact that I was a lifestyle writer and mentioned something unflattering about Tim Yap and his ilk (for the record, I didn’t hang out with them–they don’t even know I existed!). That unfortunate interview was a blessing because I went in a different direction–a much better direction, I should say.

So yeah, it was rage that started me into writing. Developing this craft is a lifetime occupation; it never stops. So when somebody asks me, when did you start writing? I would answer him/her, I started at 10 years old, when I was copying Doogie Howser, which was my favorite TV show when I was a kid. Neil Patrick Harris is still a favorite, 31 years later.