A Snippet of My Thoughts this Holloween

On the scariest night of the year, this is what haunts me: 

 What if we’ve never met in 1998?

Elizabeth’s Eloquence of my Gloom

It’s been months since I couldn’t put down my rage and heartaches in writing. Perhaps it’s because I still held on to that illusion that maybe things could still be salvaged. Things could still be fixed. I couldn’t put those pent up feelings down in writing because I felt that bottling them within could still cure the pain. I THOUGHT WRONG.

Browsing through my friend’s online journal, I was glued to an entry that says it all.

Courage came to me first. Anger second.

The order does not matter because Hope came just in time.

There is still pain. It comes out in sporadic bursts — while driving to work, in the middle of class, while conversing with the closest of friends, or stepping out of the shower. The pain, however, is no longer brought about by loneliness or hurt or sadness. It is an offshoot of anger — of the realization that even the worst of my actions did not entitle me to the cruelty served. I, like any human being, deserved gentleness, compassion, and respect.

I may not have been worthy of love, but I certainly was valuable enough for its rubrics.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was served a slice of pizza with a big bite. She showed it to her daughter and said: “This is not love. Love is not a pizza slice with a big bite.” To which I continued: “Love is the entire pizza box. Never settle for anything less.”

Driving home that night this thought occurred to me: To the very hungry, that pizza slice with a big bite would have sufficed.

As God is my witness, I shall never go hungry again. May Anger and Courage always be on my side.

SOURCE: http://www.blogagotchi.com/golagatch/28412/Finally…Anger..html

Watching SCARFACE for the nth Time

You a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say “That’s the bad guy.’”

So? What do I make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide at a lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth, even when I lie.”

-Tony Montana, SCARFACE

Finally, CLARITY.

They were right about you.

They were wrong about me.

"What makes Noynoy most deserving today is this: He carries the mantle of People Power."

When I reached emancipation years ago, I was determined never to exercise my right of suffrage. Two national elections and one unelected president later, my determination wavered as President Aquino died on August 5 and Conrado de Quiros’ column today lit the fire of patriotism.

Theres The Rub
Masquerades

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 10/07/2009

I’ve gotten some very interesting and thoughtful feedback from readers. A particularly noteworthy one is from a reader who wonders how I have become the No. 1 propagandist for Noynoy Aquino, investing him with the properties of a messiah, when in fact, as Cory’s rule showed, his feet are probably made of clay.

I have absolutely no problem being the “No. 1 propagandist” for Noynoy for one simple reason: I egged him to run. I egged him to run for many reasons, not the least of them being that he is a decent person. He is by no means perfect, but it’s like what Winston Churchill said about democracy: It’s a horrible system, except that the rest are worse.

The “rest” in this case meaning the “mainstream” candidates. Arguably some others have more reformist agendas, or have a reasonable claim to them. Nicky Perlas, a good friend, is one of them. JC de los Reyes, the presidential bet of the Kapatiran party of another good friend, Nandy Pacheco, is probably another.

The reason I am supporting Noynoy rather than any one of them, or others like them, has little to do with Noynoy being more likely to win than them. Or conversely, and more directly, it has little to do with them having as much chance to win as hell freezing over, or as the crow turning white, to use a more local saying. I’ve never had problems plugging for the “unwinnable” but deserving candidate in the past, I won’t have problems plugging for the “unwinnable” but deserving candidate in the future.

I haven’t wavered there. I’ve always plugged for the candidate I thought was most deserving. It just so happens that that candidate is also the most “winnable” today. Which wasn’t so only yesterday: I did propose that Noynoy run when most everybody was still scoffing at the idea, thinking it to border on lunacy.

While at this, curiously no one accused me in the past of being the chief propagandist of Jovito Salonga and Raul Roco though I rooted for them with as much passion as, if not more so than, Noynoy. No one said I made Roco in particular out to be The Messiah. I guess the principle applies only when your bet is doing well.

What makes Noynoy most deserving today is this: He carries the mantle of People Power. I do not mean that in any fuzzy religious or mystical sense—though as I’ve kept saying too, I’m not knocking it; providential things have been happening of late. I mean that in the most practical sense. Not least, the threat of People Power makes Noynoy the one deterrent to cheating. How huge a deterrent depends on how huge Arroyo’s resolve is—and as we’ve seen in the past, it’s epic. No one could have lasted nine unelected years in power without exercising epic resolve. And chicanery.

Noynoy is the one and only candidate the public will mind being cheated. None of the other candidates may claim that. In the other cases, the cheating will probably be protested as just another show of official vileness, but that is all. Noynoy gets cheated and the public will take to the streets.

Far more importantly, look at what’s happened after Aug. 5. You’ve got to be dead not to feel the sea change that’s swept over the landscape. If Le Cirque had been exposed before Aug. 5, we might have vituperated against it but ended up just making text jokes. But it happened after August 5, and the result was an explosion heard from here to New York. Since then no new government perfidy has passed without violent public reaction, from the revelation of the houses of the Arroyo kids in San Francisco to the unraveling of the Arroyo government at the height of the “Ondoy” floods.

It’s the spirit of Edsa that has made that outrage possible, it is the spirit of Edsa that has made that defiance possible. It’s the spirit Cory resurrected by her death, it’s the spirit Noynoy keeps alive by running. What makes Noynoy the most deserving “candidate” today is that he is more than a candidate and the exercise is more than elections. The fact that he is busting the charts all over the place—not even Erap made that spectacular showing in 1998—must suggest that we must look at today’s election beyond the framework of elections. As I suggested at FMAP last week, the only way to see it is this:

It is an Edsa masquerading as an election.

None of it is to suggest that we may look at Noynoy as some kind of savior. I did say last August that we may regard Cory herself only as a source of inspiration, not as a source of salvation. Only we can save ourselves. But a good leader can inspire us to do that. A good leader can dare us to do that.

True enough, the Cory presidency had its share of problems, and the Noynoy presidency will have its share of problems. I myself have not forgotten the things I brought up during the Cory presidency, which was not just Hacienda Luisita but the human rights abuses during the anti-insurgency campaign (notably by the paramilitary groups), government’s dependence on the US (which led to its defense of the Clark and Subic bases), government’s refusal to negotiate, if not scrap, the fraudulent loans (indeed making debt payments, not education, the number one priority of the budget), and so on. I’ll leave for another column why I think the Noynoy presidency can surpass the Cory one. Suffice it to say here that by all means give criticism where criticism is due. It should help make that presidency better.

It’s not perfect. Nothing in life is. One thing I can say is that Cory did not find my stance a reason to regard me as an enemy. If there was one thing she hated in life, it was hypocrites. If there was one thing she believed till death, it was better honorable foes than dishonorable friends.

The mother knew how to listen. Maybe the son does too.

SOURCE: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091007-228755/Masquerades

Bleeding L♥VE in Red & White

I finally found someone to bleed dry for…

…to bleed dry with.   

 By Jonas Ybañez of SKINDEEP Tattoo, 5 October 2009

My Heart-healing Angels

As the song goes, “Wake me up when September ends…” 

That was how my month felt like when hell started as August ended.

I felt I was pulled in two opposite directions, dilemma being: must I give up or must I still chase pavements leading nowhere? Pain became a physical ache that even the strongest brandy could not pacify. There were no words to describe it. I thought it was the end of me.

Until they changed my mind…

My Heart-healing Angels

by CristeenQuezon photography

The kids in this photo, whom I adorably call “my popcorns”, are Izac and Anika. They are the primary cause should one day I’d commit the crime of kidnapping.

Effie and Bingbing are my fellow Inmaculadistas. We’ve known each other since grade school. One day, I shall write about them.

Big thanks to Atchie, Effie’s elder sister for this  fun photoshoot! It definitely relived childhood happiness…a silver lining of my gloomy September.