academic wisdom from college

things i learned from school,
which i think are somehow applicable
to the events that are happening
in our country today.

1. the culture of corruption in the political system.
corruption is no longer just a disease
which could be cured by some political reforms.
we could replace our presidents every time
they fuck up. but it must also be
acknowledged, with a very open mind,
that corruption is a culture, even bigger
than any person who would sit
in the presidency or other government posts.
sooner or later, he or she would get consumed.

2. the mob is powerful. eventually, it will rule.
during the 1986 edsa revolution,
it was the mob who ruled. in the edsa II,
once again it was the mob who ruled.
the edsa III failed because the mob was
not representative of the entire filipino nation.

3. the philippine political system is a reflection
of the coutry's political party system.
in other states, the citizenry is informed
what the republican, democratic, communist,
socialist or labor parties stand for.
people vote for their leaders because they
believe in the platforms of their future leaders.
in our country, we are unfortunately blessed
with so many political butterflies.
we hear about lakas nucd or the nacionalista
party etc but we do not
necessarily know or understand
what they stand for. our parties
are identified by its candidates,
not by its principles or advocacies.

4. for archipelagic states like our country,
it is worthwhile to consider
a federal form of government.
so that each province or state could
better respond to the needs of its people
without having to depend on the allocations
or decisions or directives
of the national government.
and so that the voices of the many
provinces and ethnic minorities
are better represented. as in the cases
of edsa III, the oakwood rebellion
and the manila peninsula rebellion,
many filipinos are dissatisfied
with the actions undertaken by
influential personalities in the capital.
the people may have felt and condemns
the corruption of the arroyo government,
but the nation, as one, is not necessarily
sympathetic with the courses of action
by trillanes and company.

i am rambling on and on and on. hahahaha.

Wednesday

“If love turns into obsession, is it still love?” You asked.

It is ten minutes past nine in the evening, and the bar is unusually subdued compared to those other evenings since I’ve frequented this place these past two months or so. Except for a few couples - maybe acquaintances, scattered about in three tables, whose voices were drowned by the loud sound emanating from the television set showing this somewhat new foreign rock group disarmingly reviving Hendrix’s heydays - there were just the two of us over four empty bottles of beer. Tonight could have been a Saturday with the familiar faces and familiar pats at the back and the all too familiar greetings from college buddies. Tonight could have used a few show tunes or guitar riffs to fend off the heavy atmosphere that should excuse me from evading your question. It’s that question that my mind would rather refuse, or if I should answer it now, then positively or with an open-ended maybe for your benefit.

You signaled for another set of beer, without asking me if we are still staying for another more, before moving on to somewhere together, or in our individual places. I remember this local writer who, in one of her semi-popular writings, fondly recalls a Saturday night spent among supposed friends, and how should two bottles of beer create a benign aura in an otherwise solitary face. Your question shouldn’t have come as a surprise the way that it did because what was between us was anything but benign.

“If love turns into obsession, is it still love?” You seem to ask again, although you haven’t, only that your eyes bore into mine the same way that they bared me since the first night I knew you, after I extended my hand to reach yours as a gesture of clean friendship.

“Why do you ask?” I responded, as if asking back should suffice.

“Has it ever happened it you before? In your thirty years?”

“Huh?”

It’s a Wednesday alright, should this explain the unknown sobriety? The waiter approached our table bearing with him four bottles of beer with a bucket of ice cubes that seem to immediately turn to water despite the coldness of the summer evening.

It’s a Wednesday evening alright, the twenty-sixth of May, an evening bathed in a rush of cold air that screamed at my face when I cruised the highway on the way here to meet you after the two weeks that I went out of town for some school related stuff. Just about seven, there was only a soft drizzle left from a whole day of rain, which I just spent lazily at home. I was silently praising the rain that wouldn’t shy away from a brief and slight ray of light that once in a while reaches my forehead and my cheeks through my bedroom window.

The summer is almost gone, the evening’s telling me so, and in so many ways I felt strongly about the opening of the classes this coming June. Maybe not so much about the passion for the chosen profession, although there is solace in accepting the comforts of stability while I am in this line of work. Maybe the unquestioning comfort that sleep could provide after a whole day at school with students and another few hours spent for my master’s education. It’s the routine really that I’ve come to embrace unconditionally, and week nights are as typical as the other evenings the whole year through. So much unlike this Wednesday.

It’s Wednesday alright, I keep on reminding myself, and the supposedly cold evening rush that greeted me in the drive has nothing to do with the heaviness that we are inhaling now. After all it’s that kind of Wednesday that happens during my summer each year, and when the school opens, then my evenings might just be as unrecognizable as the rest of the week.

“Ron,” he speaks softly, in that manner that would only allow me to stare at the half-filled beer mug.

“I thought you wouldn’t come.”

“But I did, didn’t I?” Was the most that I could say after spending about an hour pretending to figure out the ultra modern songs that I’ve been hearing, while thoughtlessly mumbling in careless details the routine events that shaped my life these last two weeks. Not that it would matter at all, or if it should matter to you, although I know for sure that you’d listen to anything that I would say because I always see it in your eyes. Of course, I’ve promised us that we would make an effort to know each other more, and you’re doing that exactly now, nodding at the things that I’m saying, completely understanding without fault the dynamics and supposed complexities of my professional life. While you, your eyes digging mine, fully in control of your chain of thoughts, and never leaving me and my details.

“I arrived ahead of you, didn’t I?” And haven’t we talked a lot about me this past hour, over those wasted bottles of beer? Didn’t I interest you enough with the long hours I defied sleep just to finish all these papers, these demands of my job that were way too early for my age anyway but nevertheless important to feed my youth?

“Ron, you shouldn’t have come, you know. When I asked, it is not much of an asking but an invitation, you know that I’ll be around anyhow even if it is not now.” You asked, almost knowing the many reservations I have at the back of my mind. You reached across the table, to my hand, and your touch was too firm and fixed on its grasp. Your hair is loose on your forehead, with a deep sense of foreboding. Your face unshaved, seems roughed after all these weeks, and I could see circles under your eyes. Your jaw was loosened by the many thoughts in your eyes. Your mouth silent as I know that this moment is way beyond words. And your eyes, weighs the heaviness that we both knew while you continue holding my hand, with such intense force of masculinity that I haven’t experienced before, and I, powerless to move back from your grasp.

If I were strong enough, would I rather remove my hand from this union and feign interest to the beer mug to pacify my throat that has dried after I searched your face for the longest time? Should I rather reach out and search your face, not with my eyes this time, but with my hand that still carries with it the force of your touch?

If love turns into obsession, is it still love?

We never knew about the half-empty bottle that was left before you reached your hand to weigh me down. We never knew about the other couples, if they danced away the night, or if they resorted to the safety of their own rooms now that the drizzle has affirmed its longer presence until the morning after. We never knew how often we came back to same bar, the same room, or to be amongst the same subdued crowd. Such was the force of your submission. And such was the force of my fear.


03 June 2004

2004 Eyeball Memories

Your hands are unclean. You are just learning. You are not everything. You are the so-called chaos. You are. - Mocking Alanis (29 August 2004)

Dear Matt, it’s you that I’ve known longest.
On and off, for over two years,
we’ve sent each other’s anguish and hope –
in the middle of the day,
sometime in the evening
or early in the morning.
It doesn’t matter.
We never hesitated to let our feelings flow,
probably because it was just easy
to be unbiased and subjective to
the single person who could almost destroy you,
almost, but just couldn’t.
Because we don’t know each other.
We don’t know each others face.
And then we met,
and for some unknown reason,
we grew apart.
A few times, I still long for our earlier mystery.
Our lives, maybe, are less complicated now
and there’s less of that immature anguish,
perhaps no more glamorized version of our pain.
Still, it’s you that I’ve known longest,
it’s you that I am supposed to know best.

Dear Neil, you were the more perfect one,
the flawed survivor,
the good listener,
and the two hours I spent with you
over a cup of coffee
at some gas station
somewhere here in our city
was an honest and mature moment
any person should hope for.
In your thirty-one years,
you’ve proceeded to a different ground,
and days after our introduction,
I wore your skin
and stepped into your shoe,
thinking that maybe nine years from now
I would finally understand the flawed
but eternally forgivable constancies of living.
You spoke of calm acceptance of life as it is
whereas I fiercely embrace it
like sands that break away
from the strength of my grip.
But then I am just too young
not to take everything seriously,
too young to be pulled back
from flying dangerously,
too stubborn to follow
your calm acceptance to all things
that could no longer be changed within our lifetime.
You were the one that I hope I could love.

Dear Ray, you were synonymous with my failure.
I jumped into you without grace,
and I swam carelessly almost to my death
the moment that I touched your surface.
You were that turbulent undercurrent,
that brief kiss,
that warm embrace,
but before all that I believed
that you could be that soft place where I could fall.
Yet you were also the fellow
who don’t usually look at me in the eye
and I always feel the need
to press both my palms against your cheeks
so I would have at least ten seconds
of pure honesty with you,
risking the thought of knowing
from your eyes the depressing facts
of the honesty that I crave for
while I have you for a company.
When I was at the edge of my childish insanity,
softly you told me that what matters most in life
are how well I’ve lived,
how deeply I’ve loved,
and how well should I let go
of the things that I simply cannot have.
You were the single person
that I passionately loved, and obsessively,
it amazes me how I can’t also be the water
deep enough for you to also jump into.

Dear Jim, you would be the one nearest to me as a friend.
We’ve met only twice
and managed to communicate
in between and after.
After I gave you a lift,
after you stepped off my taxi,
you left me alone with my wits
though with a knowing smile in it.
Traveling the evening road,
I asked the thin air
why should your calling come in
before whoever, or you, or me, or us.
This is such a dark thought, I know,
but I know too that you wouldn’t be this good guy
that you are now
if not because of your unconditional answer to that call.
And you wouldn’t be that greater guy
that certainly you would become
if not because of that mighty assurance
that you will be taking your vows soon.
I see it all in your eyes,
despite the barrier of the glasses,
despite the dimness of the bar.
Liking you,
although you were someone that I couldn’t possibly have,
had given me peace.

Dear Pierre, you are most beautiful inside and out.
You arrived last,
when I was at the edge of my sadness,
and it was either I’d finally fall,
or I’d pull back my wits
to once again assume
the painless ordinary existence
that was indeed my comfort zone for years.
It was past two then,
and the early morning was too drunk
for our sobriety.
Still you’ve proceeded with your story
which made me want to love you,
though in all its pain and beauty,
it’s most dangerous for me to be in love with you.
Yeah, I want to love you
but I just can’t be in love with you.
I’d say these same words to you now if I could,
but I wouldn’t,
for sure you’d understand me differently.
Not that I would mind you knowing,
but you would,
and I wouldn’t want that to happen to us.
Not now.
Several evenings and weeks had passed by -
evenings spent over food and beer and nice little talks,
and during these times
it’s really quite sad that our comfortability with each other
also had its defenses
that came straight from your mouth.
If only those defenses
had rooted from your heart.
But I wouldn’t like to know
more than what your mouth had to say –
not even if I read you differently
through your eyes,
not even if your tenderness is killing me sweetly.
That parting handshake
during our first night out
was the most that I would like to remember of you.
You arrived last,
and I am still knowing you now.
You were most beautiful then,
you are just beautiful now,
and we could very well become good friends.
Let’s keep it at that.