JAE FEVER

Ambitious. Delicious. Seditious.

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    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.

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Archive for May 8th, 2009

Manny! Manny!

Posted by Jae on May 8, 2009

Nasaan ba ang parada at sasama ako.

Last Sunday was the first time I saw a boxing match in the big screen and in real time. Hell, it was the first time I saw a boxing match, period. You must know that I am the worst person in the world to bring to a sports match. Any sports match (except perhaps Cheerleading.) I’m the bored daughter and sister who would roll her eyes when her father and brother would whoop it up with the neighbors during Anejo-Shell games. I’m the annoying girlfriend who always needs a primer on the rules before every game, and asks explanations for the self-evident (i.e., “what does it mean when the timer buzzes?”)

But Sunday was different. Manny Pacquiao is different. That left hook made me an instant fan of Pacquiao and an instant fan of boxing. IT WAS AMAZING, UNBELIEVABLE AND OVER TOO SOON. I found myself  screaming with the rest of the audience, pumping my fist in the air, running home after to catch the news, watching the reruns, and getting into nightly post-fight loud rowdy discussions with the manginginom boys (i.e., “lupit ni pacquiao! WASAK, wasak si hatton!”).

Other people can get their panties in a bunch and pompously pontificate about the Filipino people’s crisis of hope and how we latch on to false heroes to make us forget our poverty and desperation. I say Sunday’s match was nothing if not technical genius and rare human achievement. Please don’t dilute it with your angst.

And a word about the National Anthem hoopla. Sabi nga ng pinsan kong 16-year=old na nag-aaral sa Saint Scho: CHILLAX. People are screwing our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and raiding the national coffers as we speak, and Martin Nievera’s rendition of Lupang Hinirang is generating national outrage? I’m not a fan of Martin (ayoko ng masyadong participatory body parts when singing), but really, a “test case” against him?

Anyway, all annoying nega vibes aside, Manny’s back! Yay! No, he doesn’t make me proud to be Filipino because I’m already proud to be Filipino. And no, he doesn’t give me “hope”, because ehrm, in the work I do, I live on hope taken with a dash of Gin Calamansi.

But he made me mighty happy last Sunday, and he made a fan out of me. I think that’s good enough reason to go out this weekend, find a Manny Party, and tell him, YOU’RE DA MAN.

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