COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF

Power to the People
by Conrado de Quiros (There's the Rub, PDI)

A FRIEND told me she had a conversation with a Malaysian recently, and her Malaysian friend teased her: "Why don't you just scrap elections altogether since they don't seem to work for you anyway?" My friend laughed at the joke, but was quite bothered by it. It did seem, she told me, that we were becoming something of a joke for our leaders having short shelf lives.

This reminded me again of a story an American friend, a journalist, told me some years back. This really happened, she assured me. On a trip to the hinterlands of Cambodia, she asked an old woman what she thought of a coming election. The old woman answered: "What can I say? We're having another one again. That means the last one didn't work."

I personally am not bothered by comments about this country making a joke out of its institutions. Or about us having developed a bloodlust we mount king-hunts, or queen-hunts, at every turn. At the very least, who the hell cares what others think of us? At the end of the day we, and not they, will have to live with the consequences of our actions, or the lack of them. Indeed, who the hell cares about the opinion of people who would do well to discover People Power themselves and oust leaders who rule with an iron fist and stay for as long as they want? And send opponents to jail on trumped-up charges, as Mahathir did to Anwar Ibrahim.
But it's more than that. What's weird about the perception, local or foreign, about this country making a travesty of its elections or its institutions is that the campaign to oust President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is in fact a staunch defense of this country's institutions, chief of them its elections. The campaign to oust Ms Arroyo is not a throwback to the move to oust Joseph Estrada, it is a throwback to the move to oust Marcos. Its only resemblance to the oust-Estrada campaign is that Ms Arroyo is accused as well of plunging the country into a gangster's paradise, one ruled by gambling lords, including her son, Mikey, and by people who like to murder journalists. Lest we forget, this country has become the second most corrupt in Asia and the most dangerous place for journalists in the world. That's worse than Estrada.

But the move to oust Ms Arroyo resembles the move to oust Ferdinand Marcos and not Estrada because of one fundamental thing. It is a move to oust a president who is not the president at all. The only one who can demand with any credibility that this country respect its institutions, chief of them elections, is Estrada -- and he does so to this day. He was at least clearly, decidedly, overwhelmingly elected President of the Philippines. Neither Marcos nor Gloria was, or is. Marcos at least after martial law: He was elected twice before that. After martial law, Marcos ruled by force; before martial law, Ms Arroyo rules by farce. Marcos ruled by decree, Ms Arroyo rules by Garci. Law was the last thing Marcos had on his side, but it was the first thing he kept invoking. So does Gloria. God must truly be merciful to be sparing with his thunderbolts.

To oust Ms Arroyo is to defend this country's democratic institutions, it is to defend the sacredness of its elections. It is to affirm in the most forceful way that no one is above the law, no one may mess around with the elections-much less so in the brazen way Ms Arroyo did with Garci -- and get away with it.

Indeed, even if Ms Arroyo had been voted into power, what of it? If she had committed the same crime as Estrada -- and her descent into ignominy has been arguably faster and steeper-then she deserves the same fate as Estrada.

So what if we have People Power III and IV and V and VI? If that is what it will take to stop candidates from raping the electoral will, then by all means let us have them. If that is what it will take to prevent public officials from pillaging the country's wealth, then by all means let us have them. If that is what it will take to remove every last scoundrel and every last act of villainy in public office, then by all means let us have them. People Power is the last resort of the poor and oppressed in this country. It is their only means of redress. It is their only source of restorative justice. This is a country where the media are routinely ignored and their members routinely decimated when they pry too deeply. This is a country where the courts are owned by the rich and powerful, and decisions are auctioned to the highest bidder. This is a country where the law enforcers are the law-breakers, where the lawmakers are the ass-lickers, where the leaders and their coteries are gangsters.

This is a country in fact where the only choices given to the citizens are to leave it or fight to reclaim it. I leave those who leave it to justify it -- to themselves as much as to others. I choose to fight.

In the profoundest sense of things, People Power is the staunchest defense of the institutions of democracy there is. It is not a genie that can be summoned at will from a magic lamp, and those who imagine it to be are free to come here and try it. The only occasions when People Power arose in this country were when the democratic institutions became so perverted, so removed from the public weal -- when the law has become an instrument of injustice in the hands of tyrants, when the courts have become an instrument of oppression in the hands of a Mafia, when elections have become a weapon to bludgeon the sovereign will in the hands of Gloria -- that there was no recourse but to move to cleanse them, to rise to restore them.

What are our institutions but the physical emanations or tangible embodiments of our democratic will? And what is People Power but the direct expression or restorative intervention of our sovereign will?

CELLPHONE SNIPPETS

I used to hate waiting (hmm, kinda profound, when you think about it). Senior year high school, my friends and I went stag to our grad ball and had the best time, and I was absolutely postitive that nothing could ruin my night. Until three hours later, when I was still at the hotel lobby (makeup, attitude and good mood gone), waiting for Mama to pick me up, or rather to wake up from her three-hour nap in the car, so she could pick me up. In a time when beepers reigned and landlines still had some use, I had nothing much to do but sit, wait, beep a hopelessly snoring mother, and write furiously on hotel tissue.

Okay, long intro. Just wanted to say thank goodness for mobile phones. Especially ones with large storage capacities and Notes feature. Because sometimes I just don't have tissue.


27 July
Jollibee
Market! Market!
alone, waiting for classmates en route to Pateros

Note 1
The problem with being socially aware is that it sometimes prevents you from doing or wanting something that, in the normal, ignorant plane of existence, you would naturally crave for. like living in a condo with all the creature comforts--in a land grabbed from the people by its very own goverment and sold for a ridiculously and dubiously low price to profit-hungry real estate giants.

How can one live peacefully amid such massive contradictions?

Postrcript. One could retaliate: well if you really had your mind and heart in the right place, you wouldn't even have to prevent yourself. You won't want it in the first place. Right?

Well, in a way, yes. But I'm not a hypocrite. I have my weaknesses. That Serendra being constructed right in front of Market!Market! is oh so tempting.

And yes, the government's rape of our land was orchestrated by that balding, bespectacled guy who JUST WON'T DIE. I hope somebody stuffs his tobacco up his ass so he'd blow up before he once again pulls the rug from under us, becomes Prime Minister and sells our country to the devil like he sold his soul. Whoa galit ata ako.


2
I don't want my future children to grow up in an environment where there is injustice, and find out that their parents are part of it in some way. I don't want to listen to their hearts breaking when they ask me why I did not do anything. I don't want to sigh and say to them, "anak, kayo na bahala, baguhin niyo ang dapat." No, I want to save them before they are born into the consciousness of this tired and sad world.

Parents shouldn't have to be the cause of their child's doubt and cynicism.

---

9 June
beach, Bay's Inn, Baler, Aurora
alone, waiting for everyone else to wake up and relishing the solitude

1
Waves rush to the shore with command and resolve. We are not to be dealt with lightly, they say. You obey, hearing their voice that crashes through and drowns your thoughts. There is peace in this surrender. Such peace. Such comfort, watching, feeling the waves and seeing God's hand. In this windy morning by the sea, life is perfect.

If I surrender to you now, would it be as beautiful? Would you hold me firmly as the waves do? Would you caress my soul in moments of quiet, like this? Would you declare your mighty presence to me? Would you feed my thirst for wonder? Would you be willing to crash into me, too, and surrender your strength? And would you be there to return, over and over again, tirelessly, with the same resolve and passion?

I will sit here, by the shore. I will hold your hand and embrace you as you come near. I will look at you and be forever amazed. And when you go, I will sit again, and wait. But tell me please, will you return?


2
The water curls and rises: anger building. Far away the water crashes from its height. Its greatness is terrifying. But nearing the shore--nearing me--it slowly subsides, its anger dissipating, until all that is left is the gentle foam that crawls towards my feet, as if to say, I am here, did you hear me cry?

I heard you. Come to me, I will run my fingers to sooth your pain.

NOTE TO THE CLUB

To answer Amie's question, er, demand...yes, Amietot, I am no longer the girl holding that SanMigLight for dear life at Giligan's. Hehehe. No longer torn, confused or in pain. I no longer have the questions I used to ask while carrying on my protracted emotional vacillation.

I have found my peace. My truth. Yebah, mabuhay si Larabebe.:D

When I dance again at Ice it will be sweet (wild, but sweet, haha), not frenzied and careless, and probably not with Charvie and Ajeet, nyehehe. When we have coffee at Starbucks at 1 am I will not feel lost. When we see each other again, it will STILL be a riot, but for less troubled reasons.

Pero Giligan's Club pa rin tayo shempre.;)

Miss you guys. Seryoso mga pips, kitakits.

COPY PASTE

ohmygoodness I can't believe I'm down to one post a month. Is this me? After all that has happened to me and the world lately?! The political crisis alone (egad!) is practically begging for an blog entry. And yet no one has heard anything from Lara.

Not that I don't have anything to say. Lots, in fact. But maybe, just maybe, i'm tired of speaking out. Maybe, this one time, I just want to keeps things to myself and a few select people (so as to decrease the amount of energy spent vehemently debating and/or loudly agreeing). Maybe they've said all I wanted to say, and my two cents' worth ain't really much anymore in a mountain of cents that is this political pandemonium. Maybe I know too much--mostly bad--that if I say something it won't be without incriminating myself or people I used to care about. Maybe I'm scared of admitting I, too, have been a hypocrite. Maybe I've seen, no, touched the grime and grease that cover our "august halls and hollowed corridors", that I just want to puke. Been there, done that, said this, over and over and over. Damn I've spoken and written miles and miles of words these past few years, that maybe now I just want to say "I told you so."

Maybe I have little faith left. Or maybe I have much of it left still, and choose to believe in its transcending power.

Haaay. I don't know. I really don't. Is this growing up? Growing out of old habits? I still believe what I believe, God knows I do. But now I'd rather just, well, repost.