So I’ll start a revolution from my bed
‘Coz you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, the summertime’s in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out…

- Oasis, “Don’t Look Back In Anger”

I never thought how fighting for something you believe in - in this case, that GMA should be held accountable and responsible for her reckless actions as the President - can be a very personal experience.

Before our intervention got junked at Congress, I got the phone calls from the folks back home saying that I should seriously consider toning down my (admittedly) harsh words for The Government.  For the better part of the week, I’ve been seething, knowing that in the end, that intervention is going to get the royal screwjob.  Which it did; let’s not make any illusions framed or disguised in legalese.

I’ve had some time to reflect on our intervention getting junked.  To be honest, it still makes my blood boil to know about things like partisanship, politics, and the power of the almighty peso and pork barrel funds.  For the indignities that our nation is suffering - not the least of which was to face the threat of division, civil war, and the collapse of its very nationhood in the BJE MOA-AD fiasco - resistance is still necessary.

Yet no resistance can ever be successful without a hope for a better tomorrow.  More than that, no hope for a better tomorrow will ever shine so bright without the conviction that it will happen.  The most important thing is that conviction will not translate to anything without action.

As I write this riposte (or maybe eulogy) for the assassination of the intervention and the impeachment complaint, I realize that it doesn’t have to end here.  I don’t have to join that bandwagon that has given up hope for justice, fairness, and freedom.  I don’t have to join people who sit on their couches complaining about This Government and end up doing nothing about it.  I don’t have to have a facepalm moment and say, “Hmmm, maybe what I did was wrong.”  Or, “Hmmm, maybe I didn’t go about things the right way.”

I don’t have a lot of things to be proud of, but in that tally-board of Things That Marocharim Did Right, I think I can chalk this one up.  It doesn’t compensate for the many marks already present in Things That Marocharim Did Wrong, but doing something concrete for what you believe in is more than some other people do.  Like congressmen who make concrete waiting sheds, for example.

I respect the Moro right to self-determination, as I do respect the position of the honorable members of Congress who cannot, for understandable reasons, endorse our intervention against Mrs. Arroyo.  Just as they do respect the fact that I signed that document in good faith, with my convictions, self-respect, and integrity intact.  I cannot respect those who refused to read it, or obscured and buried the belief and convictions of citizens in legalese and procedural technicalities.  What my respect means to them, I do not know.

I thank Manolo Quezon, Ria Jose, Arbet Bernardo, Jeremy Gatdula, Richard Rivera, and Edwin Lacierda, for giving me the opportunity to stand with them in a fight we all can believe in and we can all be proud of.  Just as I hope that they have welcomed my signature in that document with open arms and an open mind, that even people like me have a say - and have a steadfast belief - in the power of the way things ought to be, not the way things already are. That hope - in the words of Angela Stuart-Santiago - does spring eternal.  No matter how audacious it is.

People will probably forget about the “monumental stand” we took just this week, only to have it buried.  But before all this is forgotten, I suppose we can all be rest assured that even the ordinary can do something so extraordinary.  People will long forget who we are, but what we did - at least I’m speaking for myself here - is something that we can all be proud of.  History may have amnesia, but pride and self-respect does not.

I can’t look back in anger now.  At least, not today… when I did sign and stand by Sally.

What you need is what they sellin’
Make you think that buying is rebellin’
From the theaters to malls on every shore,
The thin line between entertainment and war
The front line is everywhere, there’ll be no shelter here.

- Rage Against the Machine, “No Shelter”

Some degree of hope makes me think that the august and honorable members of Congress would consider our intervention, but I have the feeling that the way things are going, the intervention - and the possible impeachment of the person occupying the highest office in the land - will be junked.  The batting average for successful impeachments is quite low, and these days you wouldn’t expect anyone to go out to EDSA and, even just symbolically, stand up against the Regime.

Why aren’t we doing that, I do not know.  Maybe we’re just tired, maybe we’re weighed down by things that are smaller than we are.  Or maybe we’ve given up hope in what this country stands for, in what we - as a people - stand for.

I’m not a lawyer or a politician, but I think that Congress should accommodate the bloggers’ intervention.  The BJE MOA-AD was declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  That, at least to me, is the damning error (among many other things) that should - from any sane and rational perspective - make Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo impeachable.  Should Gloria Arroyo be guilty of the charge of violating the Constitution, then she should be removed from the Presidency.  The unconstitutionality of the BJE-MOA is an addition to the many impeachable acts that we’re trying the President for.

The Philippines is a country governed by laws, and not by technicalities.

Like I said before: it doesn’t matter if GMA has two years or two days left in her Presidency.  If she is found to be unfit to rule by virtue of a fair evaluation of evidence - or an admission of guilt - then the law doesn’t say that she doesn’t have to pay the price in the name of “stability” and “progress.”  I reiterate: justice, fairness, and freedom are not words or compromises, but are perspectives.

I don’t want to unfairly skew whatever decisions the House will make tomorrow (as if siguro nagbabasa sila ng blog), but I feel that debating on the technicalities of parliamentary procedure is not an act of protecting the Philippine interest.  I think that the interest of the Filipino people, whose country was divided in an act of deception and in a culpable violation of that one doctrine that binds us all, must be addressed.  Not because of technicalities, but because of merits; because of justice, fairness, and freedom.

Of course, I just have the gut feeling that there’s no shelter for those virtues here, when something as simple as citizenship - doing the right thing - escapes the grasp of some people.  I can only hope I’m wrong, and that tomorrow, Congress will stand up for something right, and be the shelter of justice that they’re supposed to be.

Else you know what Rage Against the Machine song I’ll be listening to.

Let’s digress from my “inspirational political messages” - that is, if you’re actually inspired by them - and talk about something rather important.  To me, that is.

Fresh off my move to Makayry Siry (that’s Makati City for you… although being 15 minutes away from work has its perks), Tonyo texted me at 1:30 AM.  I was kind of expecting another of his funny text messages when he had some rather interesting news: my Cebu Pacific Blogging Challenge entry won me a free trip to General Santos City, courtesy of Cebu Pacific.  After a phone call from my dad reminding me to tone down my rabid anti-Government views, I decided to check whether or not I actually won.

Guess what, I actually won.  For all intents and purposes of a deal: Marocharim knew the news first from TonyoCruz.com, via mobile.

Anyway, in Fist in the Air in the Land of Hypocrisy*, which is now rather ”famous” thanks to MLQ3’s latest Inquirer column (I guess I can do my dad a favor now), BrianB and TonGuE-tWisTeD both have comments about my hair.  BrianB, out of concern perhaps, wants me to cut my hair because I might get beat up by police.  TonGuE-tWisTeD, on the other hand, thinks that my hair is… let’s just quote him:

On the other hand, I would prefer his long hair. Well. long hair can also be kept decent-looking and formal. Let that symbolize and represent the youth, the proactive ones, not the apathetic gadgetdumbed bozos we’ve always crowed about.

Uh… ummm… yeah.  Ah… hmmm… my hair?  A symbol for the youth?

Ah… uh… ummm… hmmm…

Did I mention I won a free trip to General Santos City?

(Chee-rist, they’d better make up their minds about our intervention.)

As I was packing up my stuff this morning and sent off my last batch of laundry for pick-up tomorrow, I kind of had some time to think about why I’m leaving this place anyway.  It’s not because it’s UP and that I have the “UPian” attachment (where that term originated, I do not know), but everything about UP Diliman is self-contained.  I have everything I need right here.  Over the almost-year, I have discovered a lot of good places to eat, made friends with store owners and laundromat owners, and became a regular customer of places that offer cheap - and fast - wi-fi services.  I’ll get around that when I explore Makati, but I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Yet I think that the charm of Diliman is not to be found in the campus itself, but the peripheries.  I’ve lived in Diliman before, but it’s only now that I get to realize how people-friendly this place could be.  Granted that you hear the occasional stories of kids who drown in pools at the other neighborhood or drug runs at 2:00 in the morning, but it ain’t all that bad.

For my last few hours of being a resident of UP Diliman, I decided to go out the right way, and take one last UP Ikot ride.  I wanted to breathe in everything about Diliman… or I guess I didn’t, since I saw that tree in front of Benitez that I have long since avoided like the plague.

There, I could still see a girl and a boy talking.  It’s a mirage of three summers ago, I guess.  The boy had long hair and a cigarette in his mouth, the girl was wearing a pink shirt with a black bolero.  They were talking about a past meant to be forgotten, or things that are never meant to be.

I don’t know whether or not that boy and that girl will meet again.  Maybe one of these days.

The jeepney then made its way ’round the bend, until I realized the greater significance of this one last ride.  Perhaps I haven’t resolved some nagging thoughts over the years just yet; that my personal comfort zone was to forget, to let sleeping dogs lie, to let things settle before I go.  I guess that sucks, but I have packed bags waiting and a world to explore.

Where this takes me, I do not know; but like everything else in life, most things are just a short ride away.

(Just don’t make me take north-bound train rides at rush hour and we’ll be fine.)

Then I got my wings, and I never even knew it
When I was a worm, thought I wouldn’t get through it.

- Marilyn Manson, “Wormboy”

What do Marilyn Manson songs, the Catholic Church, and potted meat have in common?

Yesterday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on a priest who opened - literally - a can of worms.  One of the attendants in the San Carlos Seminary opened a can of Spam Lite Meatloaf and found that the potted meat was full of vermin.  Today, the reports mention that Hormel, makers of the potted meat, consider the unfortunate incident “rare.”  Not lightly fried and made into a sandwich ingredient - or whatever they do with the stuff at the Spam restaurant at SM Megamall (if it’s still open) - but rare.  Au jus, au naturale, straight off the can.

I kind of wonder if the priests and brothers in the seminary were thinking having Lobster Thermidor au crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots or aubergines garnished with truffle paté, brandy, and with a fried egg on top and Spam.  Certainly not worms.