Tambay

Bakit nga ba, ika nga namin ng kaibigan kong itago nating sa pangalang Delilah, may mga lalaki talagang sadyang overstaying sa ating system? Hindi naman siguro nagkulang ang ating lipunan at lansangan sa pag censure ng pang-iistambay. Yung sari-sari store namin sa kanto, nakalagay “Bawal ang tambay dito” (Sa ibaba ng “you’re credit is good but we needs cash”). Sa food court sa SM North, nakalagay doon “please give way to eating customers”. Sa school ko naman dati, may malaking karatula na nakalagay, “Scholasticans do not loiter”.

Sa dinami-dami ng ganitong mga mensahe — in all variations and degrees of politeness — bakit bakit LORD bakit may mga tao — na ating itawag sa generic na katagang “ex” — deadset talagang manatili sa ating bloodstream. Parang mga manginginom sa bar na ninenego pa ang waitress na tatlong beses nang sinabing “last order na po”. Parang mga aktibista sa rally na kahit water cannon di magpapatinag.

At ang uncanny sa mga taong ito, parang mayroon talaga silang angking ESP na nalalaman nila kung kailan ang pinakaswak na oras para mag-text ng mga nakakagulumihanang mga mensahe. Pwede namang mag-text sila habang nanonood ka ng magandang sine, yun bang distracted ka na masyado. But no. Kailangan talaga habang umiinom ka sa isang dimly lit bar na may pang-mellow touch music sa background at nasa perfect limbo ng amats. Warm fuzzy feeling, at di pa gumagapang sa sahig (though never naman nangyari sa kin yun.)

Talaga namang sa ganitong millieu, may effect yung text na “I can’t get you out of my mind.” Syempre, isip isip ka ng irereply. Pangit naman ang dedma. Option A: “I’m in love with someone else.” Haller. OA ng slight. Di ka naman inaaya magpakasal. Option B: “Ako din naman, kung minsan.” Lalong haller. Isa lang ang kahihitnatnan ng ganyang uri ng reply — one night stand. Patweetums na booty call. Option C: “You’re twenty five minutes too late.” Oo, Option C ang inavail ko. Jologs kung jologs. Love radio ang moda. O di kaya pang-videoke machine sa terminal ng bus sa probinsya. At least hindi “quit playing games with my heart.” Baka sa sobrang laos ng backstreet boys, hindi makuha ang allusion at isipin talagang nasa state of emotional disequilibrium ako. Mahirap na.

At syempre hindi nagtapos dun. May light banter pa. Kaunti. Kung baga e ballet na halos di tumatapak ang toes sa sahig. Pahapyaw, pasaring, padancing dancing, pachancing chancing. (buti nalang hindi binabasa ng taong ito ang blog ko, hehehe.) Ganyan naman talaga di ba? May sporadic moments ng landian, tapos nawawala ulit, tapos bumabalik. Minsan, di mo napapansin kasi busy-busyhan ko, minsan sobra ka namang na-aaffect. Tulad ni Delilah. Nagtext siya sa dati niyang jowa ng harmless na “kumain ka na?” (although alam nating lahat na hindi harmless ang text na ganun…) Ang reply ng gago: “ikaw sana kakainin ko. (smiley face)” Ayun, nawindang na si Ate. At nag-generate ang simpleng text exchange na ito ng isang mahabang discussion at processing isang sabado ng hapon sa BarKo. Hindi naman ganun ka exag yung mga ex ko, wala namang kainang involved. Two weeks ago, nung Holy Week, may natanggap akong text: “You should write and write and write and write. To me, you are a lawyer last, a writer next and pretty first.” Tao lang naman po ako. May effect yon ng slight. Hindi lang pala slight. Sigh. Hehehe.

Earlier that day, nagcheck ako ng account balance ko sa BPI. Mukhang nagkamali ang banko kasi lumaki ang balance ko ng hindi ako nagdedeposit (hindi naman kalakihan ang nadagdag, pang ice cream lang). Tinanong ko ang kaibigan kong si Fay kung binabawi ba yon ng banko eventually, o nanalo na ba ako ng jackpot. Binabawi raw yung ng banko, sabi niya. Sayang, sabi ko. Kala ko makakashopping na ako at mag-eenjoy sa perang di ko kinita.

“Mas masarap mag-enjoy sa pinundar at pinaghirapan mo.” sabi ni Fay, na what do you know, ay isang teacher.

May koneksyon ba itong huling paragraph sa kabuuang kwento? Oo, ipilit niyo. Sige na. Tutal umabot na din naman kayo dito sa dulo.

Choices

Of late, family reunions have managed to make me feel like a “thank you girl” in a beauty pageant, with my life and the choices I have made placed on top of a petri-dish, shriveling under the unflinching scrutiny of suburban Alabang.

When I was little, my cousin and I loved to talk about our perfect wedding. It would be a grand fairy tale: poufy gowns, elegant guests sipping champagne in a yacht, fireworks, and the perfect man who would make our heart go giddy-yap. Then after the wedding, we would settle down in an exclusive village with picket fences and kiddy pools and meet up every weekend to exchange cookie recipes. We would have smart and beautiful kids who would be as close as we were.

She grew up to be every inch the princess she aspired to be (no, we both aspired to be). She wears designer clothes and eats in expensive restaurants, her english is genteel and pedigreed. She is a smart woman, and so her career is flourishing. She treats people with kindness, and so she is loved.

A few weeks ago, she told me giddily that her boyfriend had proposed to her. At Manila Pen. With a choir in the background. And with a huge rock beautiful enough to make even the most unmaterialistic tibak gasp.

I — the woman, the lawyer — smiled and gave her a big hug and asked excitedly about her plans, reflecting in my eyes the twinkle in hers. I — the little girl who played with barbie dolls and dreamed of poufy dresses in her future — bit my lip and drew blood that tasted like envy.

It’s not the wedding, strictly speaking. Or the ring. It’s not one particular thing. It’s maybe, maybe the “tidyness” of her life compared to mine. Her life is like a finished Sudoku puzzle with neat numbers and no erasures. Mine feels like a forest of crossed-outs and try-agains, with tiny numbers lining the sides, maybe-this-if-not-that. Trial-and-error. Trials and Errors.

Normally, I do feel pretty darn good about my life and where it has taken me so far. Cool friends, a job I love, a soul-issue I’ve found before turning thirty, a future that looks clearer and clearer by the day — these are the things that get me up in the morning. But being in Alabang, sitting with my bright and happy clan, always reminds me of the things I don’t have or the things I’m not. No fancy car, no Makati job with a fat paycheck, no insurance plan, no boyfriend named Brian who is a junior executive at a multinational company and calls his friends “dude” or “pare” with the soft “r”, no wedding proposals in Manila Pen with a violin playing playing in the background. Hell, no ANYTHING in Manila Pen.

Saturday night last weekend was another family reunion. It was another cousin’s passing-the-bar party — one of several parties thrown by her father, an RTC judge. Fortuitous, I thought. It so happened that I had to spend the whole day in the Paranaque /Alabang/Muntinlupa area that very day for an AKBAYAN campaign sortie. From 6am to 8pm, I was moving from one urban poor community to another, talking with our AKBAYAN members and preparing them for election day. I’ve lost count of the many sinampay lines I’ve had to dodge, the leers I’ve had to put up with from half-naked men drinking beer at 2pm, the crooked alleys I got lost in, and the times my heart got broken by little children with dirty hair and shy smiles. Exhaustion was something I would not allow myself: my male companions after all, were union workers who had no sleep as they worked the night shift only several hours before, my one female companion was seven months pregnant and relentlessly cheerful even after ten hours of leaflet distribution. They amaze me with their stamina; inspire me with their convictions.

I went to the party, bedraggled and hungry. I look around the room at my beautiful cousins, glowing with the glow of success and love and a comfortable life. Less than fifteen minutes away from the depressed areas I’ve been to, but a whole world apart. Then I knew that very moment that though I might have failed the little girl who dreamed of poufy dresses and and picket fences, I am living my life exactly as I want it. Messy and crazy and psychedelic, yes, but also, rich and purposeful and driven and inspired. I may not have dates in Manila Pen, but I have a good man who I can talk to about anything and everything (over beer in Matalino St. or lugaw at midnight in Timog), who kisses my worries away, and massages on demand the Cubao-corner-EDSA knots in my joints. And I probably won’t ever have that dream house in the suburbs with the pool for the kids, but last Saturday I realized I don’t want it anymore. I am where I want to be and there’s no turning back.

 

Two minutes of fame

“Sige na, naka-pearls ka naman eh…….. at memorize mo na yung platform natin,” so goes my good friend and AKBAYAN media officer Clang, the second part of her statement sounding more of an afterthought than anything else.

And so it came to pass that last Monday, 6pm, I had my very first live studio appearance at ANC and was interviewed by Ricky Carandang — owing largely to the fact that none of our leaders were available at the time and I happened to have a hearing that day so I was in a suit and not in my usual tanktop-shorts ensemble.

“Sheht, ayoko talaga, Clang”, I whined a few hours before. And it wasn’t one of those fakey-pakipot whines. I wasn’t scared of not knowing what to say. I know our platform by heart, having sat in countless meetings and sessions of refining-this and developing-that. It was your simple, garden-variety stage fright. I had been on TV only once before, interviewed in TV Patrol as counsel for Inday Garutay, and a mic was just shoved in front of my face the butterflies in my tummy did not really have time to spread their wings and fly. (Of course, TV patrol being TV Patrol, the whole barangay seemed to have seen me, including the gay parloristas in my neighborhood salon who gave me a free pedicure for championing their rights [the "championing their rights" part is, of course, my own conclusion]). In this TV appearance, I had lots of time to conjure scary scenarios in my head and bite my nails in panic and consternation.

But then, there really wasn’t much of a choice, so off I went with Clang to the ANC studio where I was immediately whisked off to the make-up room. Who was having his make-up applied when I got there? Jovito Palparan. He whose hand had slain hundreds of activists was meek putty under the hands of the no-nonsense but cheerful make-up artist who told him to “look up” and “look down”. I found myself wishing I brought my own make-up equipment. Now, I am forever connected to the Berdugo ng Mindoro by a dirty foundation sponge and Revlon Concealer in Natural Beige.

After the make-up part, I was then brought to the actual studio, where everyone was seated already and I was the only one they were waiting for. I stole a glance at the other guests. No one was below forty except, well, me and Ricky Carandang. To my right was the Bayan Muna chairperson, a solemn-looking professor with an assortment of notes in front of him. To my left was a guy in a really tight black shirt from ANAD (“I am wearing black because I mourn the decay of this country in the hands of the communists”, he thundered later on, during his spiel. “Eh ser, bakit po tight-fitting?“)

Then it started. One minute presentation for each speaker. Easy enough. I belong to a party with a concrete AND clear platform, plus indubitable achievements in its nine years of legislative participation, so I felt confident. Then the questions from the panelists. Tough and challenging, but nothing completely from left-field. And just when I was getting the hang of it and actually enjoying myself, tapos na. We removed the mics from our lapels and were asked to sign some sort of completion form. They gave all the panelists wrapped gifts. Mine was a book entitled “Dealing with Personal Bankruptcy.” (WTF?! I guest on your show and get a judgment on my life?!)

I went back to HQ, raring to shed off my blazer and grab a beer with my friends at Uncle Tats, a dingy bilyaran along Matalino Street. In the taxi on the way, I got a text from my dear, sweet Mommy: “Bakit di ka nakahikaw?!”

A Whole New Level of Ugly

Because frothing-in-the-mouth angry can be good sometimes, I’m going to go right ahead and say:

Bwakang Inang COMELEC yan!

Over the past several weeks, AKBAYAN has exposed party-list organizations that are actually fronts of the administration. It’s funny that an issue that has generated maximum media attention and has turned into a national controversy was brewed one hot afternoon in our HQ, by a bunch of five or so young people in jeans. We had heard rumors that some party-lists were being used as admin fronts. “Expose kaya tayo ng pekeng party list”, someone suggested. “Pano?” another one asked, slightly bored. “E di tingnan natin mga websites nila, o kuha tayo ng mga kopya ng finile nila sa COMELEC, tapos igoogle natin pangalan ng leaders at nominees.”

And that was all it took. That and either the sheer stupidity or a gargantuan sense of impunity by the party-list groups causing them to actually list the names of government officials in their official documents. Two-word advice for 2010: Use dummies.

The output was nothing short of amazing. It revealed the hand of officials from the Office of External Affairs, from the Philippine National Police, from the military. It revealed connections with Bert Gonzales, with Dante Ang and with Sigaw ng Bayan, group that pushed for the malacanang-based People’s Initiative that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. It also revealed that the brother of COMELEC Chair Benjamin Abalos was the party-list nominee of an organization purportedly representing tricycle drivers. As a result of AKBAYAN’s expose, the media launched a full-blown investigation, uncovering another practice, the sale of party-list seats for millions and millions of pesos.

Then COMELEC responded in the craziest, most stupid, most ridiculous way possible. It said (via a resolution still made invisible to the public) that party-lists are now BANNED from releasing the names of their nominees. If they had said that it is not compulsory for party-lists to declare their nominees, that would already have been wrong by Constitutional and logical standards. After all, we have rules and jurisprudence that say party-list nominees must comply with eligibility requirements and must belong to the sector he or she represents. How can one enforce that if the nominees are kept secret?

But banning party-lists from disclosing their nominees? It’s beyond wrong. It’s unthinkable.

This issue riles me so, not only because I play an active part in AKBAYAN’s 2007 campaign, but also because it is a debauchery of one of the very few mechanisms available to marginalized groups to be a part of governance and policy-making. The Party-list Law, while replete with many flaws, has at least succeeded in opening an elite congress to those who represent the interests of previously-voiceless sectors. Not shackled by the parochial concerns of district representatives and having no districts to ingratiate themselves to, party-lists have managed to elevate the debate in Congress and take on issues of national dimension. They also serve to protect the interests of the ordinary Filipinos not addressed by landed and wealthy legislators. AKBAYAN, for instance, espouses in its Constitution genuine representation and participation, so the bills that it passes are the result of a consolidated effort between the basic sector, an NGO for the technical expertise, and the Party’s legislative committee. The Right to Self-Organization Bill of AKBAYAN for instance, which was approved in both houses, was the product of a team of labor lawyers from Saligan, Rep. Mayong, and most importantly, labor leaders representing hundreds upon hundreds of workers. In the drafting of our rural development bills, no meetings take place without Ka Cenon, Ka Vic and Ka Nestor, actual farmers and fishermen who bring the wealth of their experiences to inform our legislation.

Which is why the very idea of administration-backed party lists insults us to the very core. The agenda is patent, of course: to put in stooges of GMA in Congress to foil another impeachment complaint. That in itself is disgusting. They’ve done that to district reps in the past, pouring money and machinery to the campaigns of local congressmen. But to steal a mechanism that belongs to the working people, the peasants, the urban poor, the women, the gays and lesbians; to co-opt what was envisioned as a beautiful principle to breathe life into democracy; and then to try to squirm out of it by violating the right of the people to an informed choice –

That’s a whole new level of ugly.

**** In light of this, please please visit and support AKBAYAN’s online campaign to “Bare the List”. Visit our blog at barethelist.wordpress.com

Love

For many years, my friend The Ballerina, had thought he was dead. She forgets now if she had been told that, or if it was an honest mistake owing to the fact that he had suffered a massive stroke in the late 1990’s or if it was something she had made herself believe. Maybe the last, more likely the last. We create convenient truths in our head, after all; and after a while, the yellow patina of time lends credence to such truths.

But there could be no mistaking what happened around fifteen years ago. She remembers with heartrending clarity the day he hurt her and she learned that evil was not an amorphous biblical concept but something that was real and painful and left bruises all over. He scared her into silence, and slipped off to Canada.

She healed her own wounds and picked up the pieces of the little-girl glasshouse he savagely destroyed. She danced and danced and danced and danced, twirling and whirling to the delight of the audience, slaying her demons with every pirouette and petit jete. She had friends who loved her, and because of that and through sheer dint of hard work, her life was falling into place and her dreams were within her reach. The only thing she longed for in her heart was to see him again and show herself to him, show him that he has not succeeded in snatching her soul. She needed her closure.

Last year, in an innocuous chat session in YM with a relative abroad, she found out that he was alive. He was alive, but had suffered a second stroke and was dying. All of a sudden, she felt her universe change. She could not sleep, afraid that he would come again and hurt her. The nightmares came every night. She felt naked and vulnerable. She found herself questioning her own recovery. Was it really a product of the strength of her faith and the tenacity of her spirit, or did she recover simply because she had thought he was dead and not coming back anymore? Over and above these apprehensions, however, she saw a means by which she could obtain justice. Maybe not of the legal kind, but of the karmic justice-of-the-universe kind. She wanted — no, needed — him to know that she had not forgotten. But also that she was okay.

And so she spoke to her lawyer-friend. The idea of filing a criminal case surfaced. It was impossible to put him behind bars, but it was a way of putting it on record. And that was important to her: to make her pain real, to put on official file the truth has she had known it and make the phantoms in her head a tangible reality. “But he might not find out”, the lawyer-friend warned, knowing that him finding out was also important to her. Even if extraordinary measures could be taken to make sure the notice from the court reaches Canada, the lawyer argued, well-meaning relatives at his death bed would probably hold it from him and spare him. She also had no intention of sullying his name before his family without giving him the benefit of rebuttal.

The lawyer friend came up with a novel idea, a tape recording. Sealed and with instructions that no one in the room would be present to hear it. It would not raise any suspicions and would simply be a farewell message from relatives in Manila. It was also hoped that upon seeing the name of The Ballerina as sender, he would know what it contained and insist on being alone in the room to listen to it. The tape was recorded, with the help of a few friends. And in recording the tape, the tears held back by many years of being “strong” and being “okay” burst like a dam. And she wept for the little girl,  the wounds that took so long to heal, all the time wasted, and the hundreds of broken pieces of an unretrievable world.

A few weeks later, the call came. It was him and he was begging to be forgiven. She promised herself throughout the years that she had been fantasizing about this moment that she would not cry. And she did not. It came out exactly as she had rehearsed it in her head for a whole lifetime. “My life has been good. My relationships are healthy. My friends love me. I am making a difference. am working with people who believe like I do in highest ideals of justice — justice for little girls, but also, justice for men accused of sins like yours so that they may have their day in court under impartial arbiters. Ideals are, after all, bigger than people. And they are bigger, far bigger, than small, weak men like you.”

“Forgive me,” he begged.

And she paused and breathed deeply. And in that pause, remembered how life has been kind to her. Remembered her mother, who held her during moments of darkness and pain. Remembered her beautiful friends, who love her uncoditionally. Remembered her favorite scents on earth: hot chocolate and brewed coffee, clean laundered sheets, the smell of the christmas air, the smell of birthday cakes– the smells of a life of love and hope and family. Remembered the gnarled ugly-beautiful hands of her favorite person holding hers and giving her calm. Remembered all the laughter, the smiles, the joys and triumphs of the past fifteen years, and how they held the implicit promise of a happy and love-filled life ahead. Remembered most of all the faith that has freed, nurtured and sustained her.

“I forgive you,” she said.  It was then that she realized, in giving him his peace, she has found hers.

Happy Easter.

What’s your bar story?

Because birds of the same feather flock together, I have the most self-absorbed set of friends — one of whom texted me a few minutes after the bar results came out: “Oh no, tapos na ang moment natin.” Hahaha. While it was certainly the weirdest thing to say in the midst of jubilation over friends and loved ones who passed the bar, it did get us waxing nostalgic about our own bar-passing moment last year.

I remember it super clearly. May meeting pa kami nung umaga sa office. Sat in the meeting for maybe an hour, but since my attempts at feigning interest and making significant COHERENT contributions to the discussion were largely unsuccessful, my wonderful boss Mayong shooed me out over my (feeble and fake) protestations. Went to UP Church for some quiet time. After which, I waited for my blockmate Bheng to pick me up at the UP Arcade parking lot, while staring at a vast expanse of nothing and thinking of the many times I cut class, the many times I came late, the far too many nights I spent at Sarah’s. Yari ka, Jae. Yari ka, Jae. Yari ka, Jae.

Then we drove to Gateway, where we met our other friends and all watched “Moments of Love” starring Iza Calzado and Dingdong Dantes. Because we are the kind of people who would actually line up for a Claudine Barretto starrer (Dubai, to be specific) and who could spend an entire dinner dissecting the Piolo-Judy Anne movie (the one set in Baguio, the one with the sex scene between Juday and Papa Piolo), for the next two hours, the bar was temporarily forgotten as we shed copious tears for two ill-fated lovers separated by time and connected by a rusty antique telephone.

Afterwards, we went to Oyster Boy (for the cheap beer and early opening time) to get drunk and wait for the results. My college friend JT, a reporter for GMA 7, called me up to tell me that the bar was his assignment for the day, and kept on calling me and my mom for newsflash reports. (27% ang passing rate, etc. etc..) Everytime the phone rang and his name flashed, all of us would shriek, thinking that the results were out, only to be informed “Magulo na dito, it’s raining kasi. Wala lang. Weather report. Ayaw mo nun, hehe.” Fuck. Gotta love my friends.

Nung gabi na, we were close to hysterical. Hysterical and drunk kids gorging on oysters and sloshing beer. Not a pretty sight. I texted my friend Enteng, who was at a meeting but promised to be with me, to go to Cubao na because the bar results would be out any minute.
Then the call came. “Middle name mo ba, Garcia?” I was asked by Bheng’s boyfriend Jeloy, who was speaking to someone from the Supreme Court. Then a few seconds after, JT called, shrieking even louder than me. On cue, Enteng texted me, “Nawawala ako. di ko mahanap yang Oyster Boy na yan. Sunduin mo ako sa harap ng Araneta coliseum.” I went to pick him up, and brought him to our happy table of young, new and drunk lawyers. After some time, we left my blockmates and went to a small bar in UP village together. I went home tired but happy — to a wonderful mom and sister who had a cake waiting for me.

Of all the congratulatory messages I got that night, the one message that I remember to this day, a year after, reads: “Waw, pumasa sa first take ang lasenggerang sexpot wild child.”

Sabi nga ng blockmate ko, our moment is over. And it’s time for a new batch of giddy, happy, fresh-off-the-oven lawyers to be inflicted on an unsuspecting world. Congratulations, Gemgem de la Cruz! Rozy Ramirez! Batch 2006 UP College of Law!

Cry, the Beloved Country(side)

2 p.m. April 2, 2007. Municipal Trial Court. San Francisco, Bondoc Peninsula, Quezon.

Court personnel: Criminal Case No. ____. People of the Philippines v. Edong Cantos. (not his real name).

Jae: Counsel for the Defense, your Honor. Same appearances.

Ugly opposing counsel: For the Prosecution, your Honor. Appearing for the private complainant, same appearances.

Judge: Continuation of hearing. Is the witness for the prosecution ready?

Ugly opposing counsel: Your Honor, there has been a development. I, together with the complainants, have conferred with the accused in this case. We have reached an agreement. In exchange for his future cooperation, my clients are willing to execute an affidavit of desistance.

Judge: Comment from the Defense Counsel?

No response.

Judge: Counsel, the prosecution has signified its intention to drop charges against your client. Any comment?

Jae: (ten-second pause). No Your Honor, no comment.

* * *

You want my comment, Judge? Ugly Opposing Counsel? You wanna hear it? You wanna know why I took so long to reply? You want to know the comment I dared not say in your small, hot courtroom in the middle of nowhere, ten hours away from Manila, for fear of losing my license barely ten months after getting it?

Here is my comment.

I knew about that “development”, Judge. It was whispered to me before the Court session started by the farmers I represent, the farmers of Sitio Nilantangan that Edong Cantos tilled, worked and forged hopes with. They told me that Edong had switched sides, and is now being groomed to testify on the side of the landlords against the peasants.

Hide your smirk, opposing counsel. “Conferred” indeed. Fancy language that hardly describes what you and the goons you represent did. Your men plied him with litson baboy and told him there was more of that where it came from. Edong told one of his farmer-friends that they promised him he would never go hungry again. How dare you. How dare you use his hunger as arsenal, when you caused that hunger?.You caused that hunger for three thousand farmers you have denied the right to land. You caused that hunger for twenty of their leaders that you sent to jail on various fabricated charges. You use as leverage against him a criminal case that you made up. And then to seal the deal, you threaten to hurt him if he doesn’t acquiesce or if he returns to his group of farmers. You knew he was illiterate, Counsel. Of that group, you knew he was the one who could not read or write. And you picked him out.

This wasn’ the first time you did that. You did that months before, to another farmer. You kidnapped him and forced him under duress to sign an affidavit against a farmer-leader. You did not succeed that time. He came back to us, and executed a criminal complaint against your men for Serious Illegal Detention and Obstruction of Justice. The witness whose house you ordered to be burned after he testified in court against your client? He filed a complaint for arson. What about that man whose arm your men lopped off with a bolo very recently? He can’t wait to recover and get back to community organizing. The sixty farmers you issued warrants against for qualified theft, they’re still around: angry, indignant, but always, always hopeful.

I represent brave people, Counsel. They who have the audacity to dream of a better world. They whose voices you cannot stifle. Who do you represent, Counsel? What kind of people?

Bumalik ka, Edong. Naniniwala kaming hindi mo kagustuhang sumama. Tinakot ka, binigyan ng panandaliang pamatid sa nangangalam na sikmura. Nauunawaan namin yon. Ngunit magtiwala tayo sa isa’t isa at sa lakas ng ating puwersa. Edong, lumabas na kamakailan lamang ang survey na hindi sa kanila ang lupang sinasakupan nila. May laban tayo. Kaunti nalang, Edong. Huwag tayong magpagamit sa kanila. Huwag nating hayaan na sirain nila ang ating hanay. Ituloy natin ang ating pakikibaka, ang ating pananalig, at ang ating pagpapanday para sa isang mas makatarungang lipunan at mas magandang bukas.

Hindi ako mangangakong hindi na tayo magugutom muli. O hindi na tayo mamumuhay sa takot, o binabaril ang bahay sa gabi. Ngunit tawirin natin ito, Edong. Gaya ng sabi ng paborito kong kanta, ihatid, itawid natin ang isa’t isa. Walang iwanan.

* * *

Which is not to say I’m not heartbroken. Texted Danny Carranza, a trusted friend and zealous Bondoc Pen/agrarian reform advocate, while the proceedings were going on. “Hindi yan ang una at hindi yan ang magiging huli,” he told me.

“Bata pa siguro ako, kaya sumasakit pa puso ko,” I replied.