Impeachment What?

No matter how much media bombard everybody’s daily routine about the on-going impeachment, I just can’t see and feel everybody’s growing concern about it. And I am speaking from an average Juan’s standpoint. 

It has been a couple of weeks now since the commencement of the Corona case. It is the headline on most papers and the top stories on most news programs. Even the world of social network provide ample share of feeds. But I stopped monitoring it for a couple of reasons. Entirely, it is exhausting as it is painstakingly dragging. The way I see it, media is trying to shove down to everyone’s throat the national importance of the issue at hand. Yet the average Juan denies swallowing it and spits it back out, even.  Sure, there are opinions being aired out but that is a standard pattern of behavior for any citizen of any society. I am not saying that we should wreak havoc on the streets and spur violence for the sake of reacting to and against it. That is not the kind of involvement I want. Neither am I saying that we should stop living our lives and obsess ourselves with the case. Definitely, that is not my point.

What I am saying is that the masses just don’t care. Go out on the streets and ask any random person about what they think and feel regarding the issue and they’ll possibly answer you with a line or two starting with “ah, uhmm and well”. In worst case, might just give you a blank, almost spaced-out stare. Why? Because they know they have nothing to gain from it, regardless of the verdict.

Unless you sashay a maroon gown in the senate impeachment court, unless you are among the prosecution and defense teams, unless you are a news-hungry journalist AND unless you are a politician with vested political interest then you wouldn’t get what I’m ranting about. You busy your lives with the case while we busy our lives forever questioning when this country will ever see the light of day.

For me, this impeachment is nothing short of hypocrisy: thieves accusing other thieves, plunderers prosecuting their very own kind. Am I being judgmental? I don’t think I am. I just say what I think is true. And I’m confident that there are hundreds of thousands more that will agree with me than otherwise. Pity how my generation grew up living with this kind of callous and inept governance again and again. But we too, are calloused.  And I don’t need to elaborate why and how. So I don’t blame the average Juan if they don’t really care, because we just really can’t. 

In Memoriam

                                           

                                  “A few stolen moments is all that we share…”

                                               - Saving All My Love For You, 1985

                                                  Indeed, life is but a stolen moment.

                                  The world bids adieu to a voice that crossed generations.

                                               Your music will always be in our hearts.

                                                                  Yesterday an icon, 

                                                              Forevermore a legend. 

                                                               Death is only transitory. 

                                                            R.I.P. Whitney Houston

                                                                     1963-2012

It’s Never Too Late...

It never really is.

Especially, when I haven’t written anything for 2012.

Especially, when I promised myself to keep on writing.

A couple of weeks back, as we welcomed 2012 with open arms, I did want to write about new year. I was randomly blog-hopping and everyone wrote about it. Actually, more like doing a review (those top something-of-sort) - but just that. I was hoping to read something about what have we learnt from last year. Something really worth the read, something that’s reflective and enlightening. But I might have clicked and read the wrong pages as I failed to find anything. So I thought I’ll be the one to write about it. I started my first paragraph with the question: “What did we really learn from last year?” and continued on with what I thought was a substantial reply. I was so engrossed in finishing it then like a speeding bus on a highway about to run-over a cat, I stepped hard on the brake pedal  and  stopped writing. I read and re-read back, stared at the monitor for a couple of minutes and then I clicked…

               I realized I was not making any sense.  (Pardon me for being self-absorbed, but as far as I’m aware of, there are only a few times that I don’t make sense) I realized I haven’t learned anything – And that it scared me. So I shied myself away from that very thought and I haven’t been thinking of writing since. HOWEVER,  my absence from blogosphere has been haunting me lately like the bloody-red essays I had back in college. So here I am trying to come up with something sensible, which I doubt if I am.

So (by the way) at this point, I am giving myself THE (read THEE) benefit of the doubt. Realizations about what I learned from my last year might hit me later. I thought that I shouldn’t force myself to over-think and over-analyze the passing of time just because tradition (plus the ever-sensational media) tells us so. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Epiphany after all, comes at its own time. So here’s a better-late-than-never HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And...HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, TOO! Almost forgot that. 

P.S. I did a lot of things and rendezvoused to a couple of places. Excited to write about it soon. 

Sendong Aftermath

She sat on a dusty makeshift mat of cartons at the lower front of the stage. Wearing rumpled and unkempt clothing, she cradled her baby to sleep. Amid the heat, the noise and the number of random people busy passing her by, she had no choice. Just to her left, piled against the stage wall is her bag of clothes – perhaps what’s left of her belongings. I did not hear her name nor heard what went through the entire interview with my friend M, but I can see the grief and despair from her eyes. And it spoke much louder. A few moments through, she looked down at her baby and uttered no more. M rubbed her back to comfort her for a few minutes then stood up and came to where I was observing them from one corner of our school gymnasium. “What happened? That was too quick for an interview” – I asked M.  “I can’t do this anymore. They almost always cry and that’s not the problem. It’s just that I really feel sorry for them and I don’t know what to say to ease their burden, more so their situation. I CAN’T do anything. Let’s just stop this and get ourselves something to drink, I’m thirsty.” – M frustratingly answered me back with a look of sadness herself. I thought she was already good at this having been a journalist for a national paper doing stories of sort. Maybe this time, it’s a different case. Because she too, knows how it feels. M’s neighborhood wasn’t spared by the deluge and she perhaps experienced it for the first time in her life.

We made our way through the crowd and exited through the front gate. Leaving behind us, inside the evacuation center, were medical personnel and other volunteers attending to all of the two-thousand families displaced by tropical Storm Sendong. And there's more of them. My school gymnasium is just one among the sixteen evacuation centers in the city. As of recent count there were already a thousand dead bodies recovered, hundreds more that are still missing and thousands more families left without homes to return to. Overnight, the flooded residential areas turned into a muddy wasteland of trash and nothingness, ravaging and deluding houses, cars, properties and lives. No one was spared. Not the poor, not the rich. This was the wrath of nature that struck Northern Mindanao. And this is the first time it happened to us - to my hometown and to my very people. Although I was lucky that I was still in Manila that day and that my family and neighborhood was safe, still I cannot bear to just be at ease. After all, I grew up here. This place is part of who I am and it is such a pain seeing my home like this and knowing traumatic stories of unimaginable struggle and eventual loss. My heart bleeds for my people especially that it’s Christmas time. 

As of this writing, the President had already signed the declaration putting the country under a state of calamity. Help has been pouring in. And in behalf of the victims, we wish to convey our message of gratitude to everyone who has been sending in and giving any help whether in cash, in kind or even through prayers. We greatly appreciate everything and may it return to all of you a hundred fold. There’s still a lot of things that we need and a lot to fix. But more than anything else, there’s a lot of healing to be done. Please do continue to help our people recover from this life-crippling tragedy. Please do continue to help us stand up. Everybody deserves another chance. Everybody deserves a second walk at life. 

For those who wish to help

http://bit.ly/sendong-cdo

https://donate.unicef.ph/emergency-donation.php

http://www.redcross.org.ph/donatenow

http://www.facebook.com/notes/boggs-tanggol/how-to-help-bagyong-sendong-victims/10150431785163262 

Separation Anxiety (12/07/11)

              “Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn” 

                                                               – Burt Bacharach

I have been dilly-dallying on my resignation and I need to settle it fast. Seeing people in the office do it with such a breeze I thought it was just easy. I have long thought of this and I know I am decided but here I am having a hard time telling it to my boss. Should I break it gently or should I drop the bomb, ala strike-and-shock SWAT style? I don’t actually know. I guess I haven’t mustered up enough balls to do either. I feel like dancing the tango with this dilemma, gliding to but with sudden pauses in between. Honestly, I fear what lies ahead: Unemployment. It’s not like I can’t get another job but it’s actually the feeling of starting over again I fear most. No, it is the feeling of letting go I fear the most. And I have yet to admit it and I have yet to live with it. I know it is part of the decision. It is part of life. 

This is - and soon to be was, my first job and I have learned to love it over the four years and eight months, everything from the most beautiful and fun part of it down to the very worst. For the longest time I have identified myself with this job and now I am removing myself from it. This never really was my plan but I guess life made me detour from the road I did plan to take. I was supposed to take up master’s degree and then teach but I shunned the idea in exchange for independence. I thought if I’d continue studying, I’d still be under the support of my parents and I didn’t want that. I wanted to be free away from their responsibility on me as I was old and able enough. I wanted to be responsible for myself. And I got it. I lived with it and will live for it. Funny how with that decision, I was not afraid to let go of all the comforts of being under parental care. Maybe maturity does work wonders. 

But this time, it’s a different case and I’m at a different, older age. It’s not just the job I’m letting go but the life I have had over these years. And I would say that this was my first take, first step at life. This was my first slice, out from a whole lemon cake. I guess what pains me the most is letting go of the relationship I have with the people. For me, they’re never just office-mates. They’re FRIENDS. You spend almost the whole day with them, even after office hours, even on rest days. There’s a lot of them  that I haven’t really talked that much to, some others I would like to be friends with (and prove I’m not a snob contrary to my rep in the office) and people I haven’t really said anything to. I have always been the one to value friendship the most and it’s a pain that I might not see these people for a long time or maybe never will. I love and have been loved by them. I’ll definitely miss the chit-chats in between work, the morning and evening greetings, the rumors, the office fashion, the flirting, the bloopers and the list goes on and on. BUT I have to leave and I know this is the right and smart thing to do. Perhaps, the smartest decision I have made all these care-free years. I know I deserve this break. 

I’ll miss everything and everyone. And I HOPE they will miss me, too.