Today I did some minor carpentry jobs, mainly building Ikea furniture and repairing old study/computer desks of the kids. After a few hours, I was able to corral their overflowing stuff in neat drawers and gave a new lease on life to old furniture.
Some people (like J) just don’t appreciate domestic goddess and newsroom badassery rolled into one person. One day someone will.
Today is the 36th anniversary of first EDSA People Power revolution that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family from power and the country. It’s surprising that we are still allowed to commemorate this day given that how this Duterte administration panders to the Marcoses.
In 2011, while I was heavily pregnant with the girls, I fired up my my laptop and started writing. This essay is still very much true today. (I can’t remember if I had this published by my news outfit in 2012-2014).
25 YEARS AND COUNTING
I remember the radio blaring for 24 hours day after day. I could smell fear in the air. I was just six-going-seven at that time but I knew something earth-shaking was happening. My mother was glued to the only radio we had in the house then while my father was missing. I didn’t know where he was at that time but I just had an inkling that he was somewhere dangerous. That must have explained my mother’s anxiety at that time.
TV then was no good. A few days ago I watched on our mala-cabinet TV a bunch of people walking out of a hall. A big, big hall.
I had nightmares of those nights when Radyo Veritas invaded my sleep. There were so many voices. They were praying the rosary over and over.
Some weeks before that, my cousin Ina and I had a fight. She ran around their house shouting “Marcos! Marcos! Marcos pa rin!” I countered with “Marcos, imperyalista, diktador, tuta!” Typical response from a daughter of two tibak parents. I didn’t know what that exactly meant—but I knew it was bad. I thought it was worse than saying putanginamo. Marcos was a bad man. My cousin said she liked Marcos because she liked the color red. Marcos’ party colors then were blue and red, if I remember it correctly. I liked yellow because it was cheerful to look at. I held up my hand that formed the letter “L” over my head. A fight broke out and tears and snot were all over the place.
My sister K, a year younger than I am, was caught in the middle of two opposing forces that were tearing each other’s hair. She could not take my side because she just loved Imelda. Whenever the Madame is on the TV screen, K would come rushing in front of it and gaze at her. She loved the pomp, the glamour, and the beauty that this woman exuded. She admitted to me that even today she is still fascinated with the woman. Who wouldn’t be? Imelda is so out of touch with reality that you wonder where in the world did she get the idea that she had to be constantly beautiful to help the poor Filipinos feel good about themselves. Then there’s this thing about Apple computers transforming into pacman…Oh just watch Ramona Diaz’s docu film Imelda. But I have to admit that she is indeed handsome and charming. I couldn’t take my eyes off her when I saw her some years ago at Shangri-La mall, flanked by two body guards. Then I saw her in Congress while I was covering a budget hearing. The woman glided past us. No, she didn’t walk. She glided. Like a queen. So regal. So Imeldific.
A self-proclaimed queen that brought the country to its knees. Like Marie-Antoinette.
My family had been collecting copies of Malaya, Mr & Ms. and the occasional Time magazines at our backyard. We had no other periodico at that time. My father said everything else was a big fat lie. I didn’t understand it then. But it was there, at our backyard, where my romance with newspapers started.
Nerves were frayed that fateful February. We didn’t know where my father was exactly at that time. There was no way of contacting us. There was talk of tanks, soldiers, and guns. Is he dead? Is he alive? What is happening? Those were the things that ran through my head.
Then one day people came running out of their houses and spilled out in to the street. There was joyous chanting. K said there was a motorcade of some sort but she chose to stay at home that time. She was sulking. She was still rooting for the Madame. It’s funny how Imelda could mesmerize a five-year old kid.
It was only later I realized that my missing father was there somewhere with the thousands of Filipinos hand-in-hand facing down tanks and the nozzles of guns. It was only later that I realized that the Marcos-imperyalista-diktador-tuta had been rescued by the US government and whisked away to Hawaii.
Magkaisa. Kapit-bisig.
Everything had changed that day.
Well not so much.
The promise of change did not happen. Same oligarchs ruling their fiefdoms all over the country. Same poverty. Same patronage politics. We’re still the laggard of Asia.
I had been to the bukid, to Mendiola—everywhere—hoping change would soon come. As a young professional in November 2000, I had marched and slept on the streets of Mendiola with students to oust a corrupt president. I stormed EDSA after seeing that odious Tessie Oreta dancing in the background during the envelope opening brouhahaha in Senate in hopes of continuing the spirit of the first People Power. Hoping that this time true change may happen. It is the new generation’s responsibility of keeping the fire in the torch alive.
But change did not come.
I know I shouldn’t be hard on us. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Rome was not built in one day. But knowing that we are back to where we were before is tearing me apart. It pains me that people had become apathetic or ambivalent. We grew weary of People Power. Of EDSA. We had let a woman rob us right before our eyes. We had let her minions run free and plunder our country. We had let them desecrate the meaning of People Power.
You voted for a president because of a legacy he carries on his shoulders. That is indicative that Filipinos are still chasing that dream, that thing that has been eluding us for 25 years.
Change.
How could we have change when only the surface has been wiped out and replaced with cosmetically enhanced actors whose footprints have already graced the same stage they had been dancing on for years?
I wanted to tell our friends in the Middle East about the cautionary tale that is the Philippines. But I don’t want to be a party pooper. Let them have this euphoria, even for a moment.
How could I not feel this way when I know children somewhere in the mountains of Zambales could not go to school because of they do not have teachers? How could I not be jaded when students had to walk a whole day just to come to school? How could I not cry when I know people rushed to the provincial hospital of Samar had to buy their own cotton and their own syringe if they wanted to be treated without contracting other diseases? Or better yet they would rather risk the 2.5-hour travel to Tacloban in order for them to get decent medical attention. How could I not feel helpless when somebody dies everyday fighting the system, fighting for his right as a free citizen of this country, fighting to live?
I remember my boss telling me that maintaining news independence is an everyday struggle. You pick small battles and try to bring that to the table, day after day after day after day… You cannot stop. There is no room to be weary. The same goes for freedom and change. You have to fight for it everyday.
But I am a Filipino. I am resilient. I am patient. I have in my hands the power to change the world.
Because I am a Filipino.
I’m too emotionally exhausted at this hour to type what my friend (since elementary) have talked about. She’s the one who transferred to Singapore and is in a fucked up situation. She called me up while she’s on a cruise and told me how messed up she is. I didn’t mince words and told her, yeah, I forgot to tell you that the last time we talked.
Maybe when I can’t sleep tonight I’ll try to process and write this down.