When, in a drinking session, someone suddenly tells you, “your naivete is what I love the most about you” it makes you stop and think. Especially when you’ve been, of late, trying to pass yourself off to those who don’t know better as a world-wise twenty-something sophisticate, right at home in a generation that thinks cynicism is chic.
So I’m naïve.
I believe in being part of a struggle much bigger than yourself; daring to reach for a heaven far beyond your grasp; doing your part to assuage wounds wrought by many lifetimes of strife and knowing that it will take double that number of lifetimes to completely heal.
I can look every bully in the eye and I know I will not flinch. Very few things threaten me – probably more the result of the brashness of youth than the wisdom of years.
I think the best kind of job is not the job that gets you a fat paycheck or gives you generous car plan. It’s the job that makes you sleep well at night and eager to get up the next day. I love knowing that I’m working with the good guys – and drinking with them later at night.
I believe that the fire in my belly can quell the butterflies in my tummy, and that my phantoms are no match for my passions.
I maintain that the Left is right (but also that social justice is impossible without procedural due process).
I believe in love, purely and utterly: insisting on it, finding it, keeping it, allowing yourself to be swept off your feet by the violence of its current but at the same time rocked to gentle sleep in the constancy of its embrace.
I believe in the certainty and constancy of my friendships.
I believe I’m fabulous and beautiful, and if you don’t agree with me, that’s because you’re wrong.
I would say I believe in a Higher Being that holds everything together, and allows us to find that glint of light amidst hunger and cancer and injustice and oppression —-
But then, that’s not naivete anymore. That’s faith.
Last Saturday, we officially launched BUKLOD BAKOD in Calatagan, Batangas. Students and seminarians from La Salle and Ateneo joined hands with farmers from Barangays Baha and Talibayog in Calatagan to construct a fence around the perimeters of the property belonging to the farmers so as to protect it from the mining corporation bent on entering the land.
The week before, the corporation tried to bring in their equipment into the farmers’ territory. The first time, they tried to smuggle in their trucks while a medical mission was ongoing. The second time, they tried to do it under the cover of night. On both times, the farmers were able to stop them by coming out in throngs to guard the checkpoints.
We initially thought that they would try to stop our Buklod Bakod so day prior to the event, we conducted paralegal trainings in case of arrest, discussions on possible contingency measures. No such thing happened, buti nalang. Saturday felt like one big fiesta wherein the Ateneans, the La Sallians, the UP people (ehrmm, sige na nga, a.k.a Jae, Jonas, Jane, Me-Anne and Regie ), the CARP extension advocates and the farmers came together as one family in defense of agricultural land. At dahil sobrang dami at sobrang sarap ng pagkain na hinanda ng magsasaka, fiesta atmosphere talaga.
Nung natapos na lahat at pauwi na, narealize ko wala pala akong kahit isang pakong napukpok. Sinabi ko ito kay Jonas, in sadness and consternation. (In my defense, kasalanan ko bang madaming mga feeling macho na ayaw magpahiram ng martilyo? huhuhu.)
Ang sabi niya: “Di bale, nung inakala mong muntik nang mahulog ang billboard na pinapaskil natin, tumili ka naman.” Letch.
I have two other blog entries on Calatagan. This one (which I particularly like, and is in fact one of my favorite blog entries), and this one, which is about the case. A news report on Buklod Bakod may be found here.
This week, I’ve been called jaded by two different people on two VERY different issues. One was my boss, to whom I gave the advice that “if it’s not working, it’s not working” and that in relationships where you don’t feel appreciated, it’s better to cut your losses. She said that I had grown too cynical because of a past protracted and messy relationship that ate up two years of my life; I really think it only means I’m wiser and know my worth.
And then there’s this person in the circle I move around in who called me jaded and a pessimist for not believing in this particular track that a lot of people are excited about. I have no problem with bravado and taking risks, I don’t think quite a lot of people who know me would come up with the word “prudent” to describe me. All I’m saying is that we have to calculate the chances of success with the consequences of failure. I don’t mind taking a chance if the only consequence of failure is failure, but if such impacts on your other tracks or compromises the chances of success in other arenas, I think it needs to be re-thought.
But still.
I’m not used to being called jaded. And twice in one week too! I’m Little Miss Sunshine. I’m the Eternal Optimist. I’m a little teacup, short and stout. Like my Friendster account reads, At twenty eight, I love that it takes so little to make me happy. If you ask me at the end of the day what I am most proud of about my life, it’s nothing terribly big or fancy. It would be that after having gone through all that bad stuff that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy – I still can laugh at myself and sing off-key in the shower every morning.
A month ago, I transferred jobs. I left my old job that granted me some margin of income security and transferred to a work situation wherein I would be paid lower. Already, I am feeling the economic impact of such a decision (particularly now that my mom is having health problems) but I don’t regret it. It is scary feeling so financially-vulnerable, however, one must go where her heart leads her. In my case, this meant doing lawyering with greater emphasis on mass-movement participation.
Maybe the difference between now and before is that before, I would have shrugged off the paycheck difference. Now, I would think of ways to actively offset that difference but without taking too much of my time or taking me away from my work in agrarian reform. Maybe by selling stuff online, or getting writing rakets, or whatever. (Pag binentahan ko kayo, bili kayo ha. Hehe.)
In relationships, I still like to believe that I believe in love and contrary to my boss’s assessment, I am neither scarred nor jaded. I don’t think wanting to be appreciated and valued in the relationship and refusing to be dangled OR HAVE MY FRIENDS DANGLED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE PARTNERS, means being jaded. Being jaded for me means tacticizing, hiding your cards, going into a relationship like one goes into a negotiating table. I don’t play mind games and I never will. I don’t have rules as to how a relationship should play out — verily, it can be a common ground, a shared experience, to which two people can fluidly return from time to time — but it has to be founded not only on affection, but also on appreciation of the other person. Without that, one has to walk away. Cut and cut clean. Jaded ba yun?
Or then again, maybe I’m wrong about myself. Maybe I AM jaded. Ewan ko din. Maybe over the years and as a result of past experiences, I’ve changed without my knowing it. Maybe this whole indignation parade on being called jaded by two different people in a span of one week on two distinct and independent issues is really anger at being “found out”.
I hope not. I don’t want to be jaded. I want to be Jae-Alive. Forevermore.
Minsan talaga napapatanong ko sa aking sarili kung ano ba itong napasok kong trabaho. Eto ang schedule ko ng mga susunod na araw.
Thursday - Calatagan, Batangas
Friday - Lucena, Quezon
Saturday - Calatagan, Batangas
Monday - Lucena, Quezon
Simple lang naman ang tanong ko. Paano ba magcommute galing Calatagan papuntang Quezon, o di kaya Quezon papuntang Calatagan. Kasi 5 million na na tao ang napagtanungan ko niyan, wala pa din ako sagot. So mukhang ang mangyayari ay kada tapos ng araw ay uuwi akong QC, at kada simula ng araw ay lalakbay ako ulit pa-Southern Luzon. Walang sense di ba?
So kung sino may alam ng sagot, sabihin niyo na sa akin agad. Ililibre ko kayo ng buco pie.
p.s. haaaay, can i just say, ang happy ng meeting namin kanina sa BEST dean ng UP college of law. i heart marvic. *swoon*. kaya kahit na-wantutri na naman ako ng mga kids bumili ng UP law jacket (laaawrd, hindi po lahat ng atorni, mayaman! buti nalang maganda ang jacket at malamig sa bus na jac liner), good mood pa din ako.
Maybe it’s my inner wanderlust. Or maybe it has to do with that time in my life when so many body parts hurt all at the same time and I did not think I had a chance anymore to experience new things. But there’s something about going away that makes me… happy.
In my room I have a piggy bank that I call the Happy Box. Right now, my Happy Box is gathering coins by the day to save up for a trip to Panglao, Bohol in August. I don’t want to dip into my bank account savings, so the Happy Box is for taxi-rides foregone, expensive meals turned down, impulse purchases successfully walked away from. The piggy-bank method of saving is one I’ve had since I was a kid. Because I’m as giddy as a kid about that trip, I’ve been dropping coins and small change in the Happy Box as agressively as I did when I was a kid and wanted something badly.
I’m not a big fan of luxury items or jewelry (I don’t own a watch and I buy clothes from the ukay ukay) and I’m not like those people who upgrade their phones every six months, seeing as how my phone is a hand-me-down from my sister and the space key is busted. But I really have no problem saving for months to take a trip somewhere far, or saying yes to invitations to hie off to various parts of the Philippines that I’ve never been to before (and of course these invitations are usually text messages that go “davao, 2nd weekend of september. magbobook na kami. may promo, sama ka?” — thanks in no small measure to Cebu Pacific’s piso flights ).
This morning, while I was reaching for some law school books and notes for Monica and her bar review, I accidentally knocked over my Happy Box. It fell to the floor and broke into pieces. I was about to go down on my knees and began the arduous task of gathering the coins and the paper bills, when I saw that in the space in the shelf where the Happy Box was, there was a small envelope tucked in one of the dark crevices gathering cobwebs. I don’t remember seeing it before or putting it there. Inside the envelope was $100 with a post-it. It had the date March 30, 2006 and the word Congratulations.
That was date I passed the bar. I don’t know how it got there or where it came from, and will ask my Mom later if one of my Titas gave it to me and she absentmindedly put it on my shelf and forgot to tell me, but for the meantime, let me tell you that me and my Happy Box are mighty happy.
p.s. yippeee. my lawschool friends and i just bought tickets to camiguin. i’m so excited about that too. wow philippines na!!!
One rainy Friday morning, stricken with Upper Respiratory Tract Infection, I was shaken out of my slumber by Golda’s text message: “Sabi ng Multiply, Gus is your friend Jae’s Boyfriend!!!”
Jae, half-asleep, texted (or thinks she texted): “Kadiri.”
Because, like EVERYBODY except the brilliant lead counsel of Magkaisa Junk JPEPA knows by now, Gus is gay. Loud and Proud. And if we are to end up together, it would only be after the realization that there are no more good men around and we might as well be little old knitting lesbians together.
Several months ago, on February 14, 2008 to be specific, Arlene and I were drinking beer together in Treehouse. We bemoaned the fact that we haven’t received flowers in a long, long time from the guys we dated. Oh, we dated wonderful men, but they just didn’t give us flowers. I think it’s entirely possible that they thought that we weren’t the type of girls who wanted to receive flowers, that we were more practical, more level-headed than that. That flowers were for dainty princesses that giggle and faint. I’ve gotten a lot of presents over the last half a decade, most notably a huge marble table that now holds the coffee maker and airpot in our dining room, but not one single rose. Not one santan. Not one limp strand of sampaguita.
So a month after that Treehouse night with Arlene, or sometime around March, I was telling all this to Gus. Let me tell you about Gus. There was a period in our friendship when Gus didn’t talk to me for a lengthy period of time because I stopped seeing the guy he wanted for me, but not before screeching “what’s your fucking trip?!?!”. So when he told me that he had the perfect solution to my love life crisis (which wasn’t so much a crisis as it was a funk), I was both doubtful and curious.
And here it goes: According to him, I need to look for (be prepared for this) A FLOWER-GIVING CEBU-BASED FURNITURE DESIGNER/EXPORTER.
The explanation follows shortly:
A furniture exporter would be wealthy enough to support our family and would allow me to continue my alternative lawyering practice. Cebu-based, para daw malayo, para pwede pa daw ako rumampa sa Bondoc Pen and other conflict zones with minimum supervision and censure, but near enough to meet my wanton-female needs at least bi-monthly (again, I’m quoting Gus here). Furniture designer para may creative streak. Thanks to my zealous lobbying, Gus reluctantly agreed to add another criterion: that the furniture business empowers local rural communities. Basta no leftists. And when i timidly suggested that our house in Mandaue could be used for meetings with community organizers, Gus drew the line. No, Jae.
Of course, much to Gus’s disappointment, I have zero intention of traipsing around in the Megatrade Halls or checking in on PICC every so often for their OTOP (one town, one product) events for my hunky Cebu-based furniture exporter. Not only because I’m with someone right now and there’s no room in my life for imaginary cut-out dolls with or without cute Cebuano accents, but because it’s scary to put so much stock in formulas.
This is a really long-winded and meandering post, but really, I’m writing this because right now, I’m particularly scared of how uncertain and nebulous relationships are. One of my closest, closest friends just ended a relationship with her boyfriend of eight years. We were so sure that they’d end up together — the guy had been so much a part of our lives in many ways. That was jarring news, indeed. Earlier this year, Claudette and her boyfriend of ten years broke up as well. Her boyfriend was with us all time, practically saw us through law school. Drank with us through our shit. If you asked me last year what I thought forever looked like, I would point to their apartment in Bliss. Mori my College best friend broke up with his boyfriend, the one he called “The One”, the one who called him “The One”. And even though he will always be a catch with his gorgeous smile and buff body, a breakup is still a breakup.
Emman sent me a link to this song recently, he told me I should listen to it. Emman, with whom I have the craziest and most violent of fights, but who is always around whenever I need him and who comforts in a way that is as incoherent and silly as it is genuine.
The song is by Staind. “Everything Changes.” The lyrics, which Emman also sent, are here. Basta my favorite part is: “I am the mess you chose, the closet you cannot close, the devil in you I suppose, ’cause the wounds never heal”.
p.s. thanks for reading up to here. hehe. I know it doesn’t make much sense, top to bottom. If I can blame it on the antibiotics for the upper respiratory tract infection, why can’t you?
So goes my friend Gari via text one nondescript afternoon. It’s a no-brainer observation, certainly. My mom and I are spitting images of each other. I grew up getting used to comparisons between me and her by people who meet us, so I guess it comes as little surprise that I can relate more to her than I could to my Dad, and speak about her more often to friends. There’s always a story to tell about my Mom - she, the flamboyant, colorful, witty one with a penchant for drama and a flair for words.
Growing up, my dad was more of a silent and solid presence in my life. I remember when I was in second grade, I failed to make it to the track and field team for inter-school. (That was during a funky part of my life when I genuinely, honestly believed I was sporty) so I went home bawling my eyes out. I flew to the arms of my Mom, who hugged me and kissed me and told me I got a star in English and “honey, isn’t that so much better?”. In the background, my Dad was making a pot of hot chocolate, the thick native kind made with tablea from his home province Samar. Never had the sweet and slightly bitter blend of chocolate and cream and sugar taste so good. It told me I was home and safe - in the arms of people who believed that I could run like the wind.
In first year high school, I got kicked out of the Honors class for getting a line of 7 in Science. Again, I went home crying, my ego bruised and my heart broken. I knew it was my fault, I never really applied myself in school, but I had gotten so used to being in the honors class during my grade school years and was scared to death at the prospect of having to meet new friends from the other sections. Again, my mom was the one who fussed over me, and my dad was in the background, a hot mug of native chocolate in hand.
And it was like that, over and over. In third year high school when we lost the finals of the debate championship to Assumption, the hot chocolate was there too, in the same mug now chipped at the edges. It was there when we lost our beloved dog, Sparky, to old age; it was there when our family went through a financial crisis and we had to enroll in school on the strength of one promissory note after the other.
In first year college, when a musician with long hair and too many tattoos chased me with passion and then broke up with me because “you’re sixteen, you’re just a kid”, I wanted to ask for that cup of chocolate, but was too scared to have to explain why. At sixteen, I wasn’t supposed to have boyfriends, after all. I went to the kitchen and made myself my own cup. The result was a watery concoction that was too sweet and had brown lumps all over.
It’s four days since Father’s Day and this is a very delayed post. Nonetheless, here’s a shout-out to my beloved and wonderful Papa - silent, solid and steady; a comforting cup of chocolate on a rainy day. A thick, sweet, cholesterol-laden brew of fuzzy and unconditional love.
“It is a definite mix of high living and downhome charm. On one side, there are simple bamboo huts lining the riverside and carabaos lazily plodding and through sleepy roads, but on the other, there is a genteel pink Commonwealth period mansion xxx, a perfect marriage of heritage and natural charm. ____ is a place that is decadent in its simplicity, a place where adherence to past traditions gives me firm footing in the present. A place where I can be proud to be Filipino.”
I like reading copies for subdivision developments. Lalo na those that go by fancy-schmancy names like Hampton Estates, Cottonwood Heights, Southern Peak. Nakakaloka di ba? Nasa Canlubang, Laguna, may ‘ivory pillars reminiscent of old Greece”; sa Guagua, Pampanga, pwede ka pala mag”walk hand in hand through verdant hills and then have candlelit dinners at Italian gazebos”, at sa San Jose, Batangas, e may “board walk with the hip beat of artsy San Francisco”. Medyo masaya din naman mag-imagine. Lalo na kung nakatira ka sa Quezon City at sumasakay ng Project 2-3 jeep, umiinom sa Teachers’ Village, at nakikipagdate sa Trinoma.
Pero nung nabasa ko talaga yung description ng subdivision na ginagawa sa Quezon na tinype ko sa taas, napataaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambling talaga ako. Lumabas ito sa Inquirer ngayong araw lang. Di ko na sasabihin kung sino ang developer.
“Nipa huts on one side, Commonwealth mansion on the other???”
Ituloy na kaya natin –
And as I sip my buco juice — precious nectar from the tree of life, fruits of the labor of my tenants – I idly watch a row of peasants, backs bent and brows furrowed, tilling the land of my ancestors. I decide to go down my pink mansion and go around my estate. Children swarm around me, the children of my tenants. Soon, they will be my tenants too. Satisfied, I retire back to the comfort of my enclave, lie down in a hammock, and doze off to the quaint and charming sounds of rural living. As I wake up to the golden hues of the setting sun, I realize that though the world may spin and churn and change, my piece of it will remain the same….
…Or else.
Mamatay na ang dapat mamatay. Mga hampaslupa, agawlupa, AMOYLUPA. Down with Agrarian Reform! No to CARP extension!
Haha. So, who wants to hire me to write for your real estate company?
Akala ko ba sabi ninyo sundin natin ang batas, huwag kami maningil ng lagpas sa batas.
Nag-file kayo ng motion for extension of time to develop the property, DALAWANG TAON na expired yung Conversion Order ninyo. Sabi ng batas, dapat six months before the expiration.
Nagfile kayo ng appeal at kung anu-anong legal pleading, revoked na SEC registration ng korporasyon. May certificate kami galing SEC. Gusto niyo makita? Malinaw na malinaw. Madami akong absent nung law school, pero hindi ako absent nung araw na sinabi ng teacher namin na pag walang registration, walang juridical personality, hindi pwede maghabla.
Gusto niyo maextend ang Conversion Order ninyo, hindi ninyo naman sinubmit mga hinihingi sa inyong requirements sa ilalim ng batas. Walang development plan. Walang performance bond. Walang kopya ng papeles ng korporasyon.
Bukod dun, akala ko ba may moratorium on conversion?
Pakshet, nanalo pa din kayo.
*********************
So I’ve been told it’s part of the game. Over and over, I’ve been told. In law school we were taught by the best teachers never to love the law, but to love the idea of stretching it to its limits, even breaking those limits, in order to create windows and inroads for those have no voice. I have retained this message in my head, and have no reverence for the law, or respect for self-important (oftentimes pot-bellied) lawyers who brandish the law as if it were a scythe and who look at the legal profession as an exclusive brotherhood.
Be that as it may, nothing prepared me for the sheer heartbreak of a lost case - nay, a lost CLEAR case. Hindi ko sinasabing hindi ko maintindihan, hindi ko sinasabing hindi ko matanggap, sinasabi ko lang masakit. Masakit talaga. Sobra.
I remember when I decided to go into agrarian reform. It was in 2006, just two years ago, in Bondoc Peninsula, Quezon, where I joined an International Observers Mission. Prior to that, I knew nothing about agrarian reform, I was not in the least bit interested in farmers’ rights. I didn’t even want to go to the Observers’ Mission at first because I was recovering from an illness and had frequent visits to the hospital. I went anyway, because well, it was part of my work. And I do my work. So we met up with the farmers, and for three days, ate with them, walked with them, visited their leaders in jail, even sang songs with them.
And in that three days, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I guess some people would laugh at how affected I am because of the loss of one case in a medium-sized landholding in Batangas. I guess it does seem funny, especially if you saw me Thursday late at night, crying hard, over a decision of the Office of the President, stopping for a while to breathe for air, and then crying again over fear that the agrarian reform program would not be extended after June 10.
I’m not an AR old-timer, pasensya na if I still haven’t acquired the sophistication to insulate my heart from my work. Pasensya na if reversals make me cry, and withdrawn notices of coverage cut me deep. This doesn’t mean I’m frustrated and walking away. This doesn’t mean that I don’t agree that this is “part of the game” or that I don’t believe that there will be more defeats to follow.
This only means I’m a kid, two years out of law school, asking to be allowed to cry for her first lost agrarian reform case.
———————————-
* For a news story on the decision, click here. Note however that the handling NGO for this case is Task Force Mapalad(TFM) and not Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP). The article might have given that impression. Also, lack of SEC registration is not our only ground, but also other clear violations of the Conversion Order and Administrative Order 1, Series of 2002. I was only quoted on the issue of SEC registration.
), the CARP extension advocates and the farmers came together as one family in defense of agricultural land. At dahil sobrang dami at sobrang sarap ng pagkain na hinanda ng magsasaka, fiesta atmosphere talaga.
