Idealism is one glorious
iridescent flame-
a magnet to young blood
swathe in innocence. How
with our simplicity,
our winged resistance-
singed and burned. Died
until our ashes will mix
in the wick, obliterated
by mediocrity and irrelevance.
Our lives wasted and fading
to wisps of smoke-
in a country where poverty is
a usual sight. Everyday
like cockroaches,
we swarmed the sewers of society
and its livid pavement. Of placards-
waving vituperatives.
Flaunting invectives for a change
we vaguely understand. We
solicit publicity.
We paraded wearing black
signifying protest. While
those frigid walls, we painted red
in grafitti seeking sympathy-
disguising under the mask
by being a pro-masses. A peasant.
A proletariat. Civil
disobedience. We clasped
our fist imitating Che.
We lined up first against
tear gases and waterbombs,
provoking a phalanx
of uniformed men.
Maximum tolerance. How
dangerous, how close
we have trodden
by knowing so little.
We advertise poverty
as a face to a cause,
bannering struggle for
autonomy, sugar-coated
manifesto of national democracy.
A sovereign common rule. Blindly
we morph
into mouthpieces. And fronted
as cynical puppets,
high decibeled in echolalia-
against powers in the high places.
Contending reasons
constricted within the bounds
of our manufactured rhetoric
on utopia. We are
pre-conditioned
to see the world
as our oyster. We read
in our books a twisted history
of our beginnings. Taking
a stand by that rostrum
endlessly kvetching
the capitalists.
We became subservient,
as willing subjects to-
a coward. Who
shielded himself in
the backdrop of its
Nordic friends.
An ailing lion,
such an imperialist-
remotely controlling
his serfdom, extending
influence. Like a poison
to the minds of the horde
of pseudo intellectual-
moth as we are.
Solitude Amidst the Maddening Crowd
I fully understood when I left the country that the battle grounds for the idealism I silently fought for when I was younger is no longer in the streets nor in our own land stained with sweat and blood of the youth, gone. Some out of the country, some ashes from being fearless testing their limits confronting the flames, and others just embracing their fate with open eyes.
I used to get in trouble a lot for showing freely my strong convictions, I never compromised them even if it cost me many chances of getting ahead and promotions. It is not easy to stand on things not popular especially in the kind of work environment we have in the Philippines but I can always look back with pride chosing the road less travelled and keep myself unstained, dignified.
Since I left the country, I promised myself to write only beautiful things to purify my jaded self from the hopeless realities of our homeland. I wrote my last subtle cries expressing my discontent and anguish in the article: Discovering Haiku while I was waiting. It’s a Haiku collection about the Filipino version of the modern-day exodus sewn with the tapestries of the agony of waiting which I wrote before I left the Philippines. Here are some of the pieces from the collection:
Vagrant birds fly west
Chasing sunset’s subdued light
Dense clouds clear behind.
~
Clear shallow puddles
Fishes feed in the harbor
Off seas, the fleet goes.
~
Rare pearl of south sea
Strewn on far off foreign shores
Conspicuous gems.
Since I left the country, I stopped reading and watching the news, too. The News has become the reality TV show of the thick-faced, shameless politicians that would do everything to get into the office, get into the primetime TV of the soap opera-like Philippine drama: them taking the more popular role of the story being the dignified “kontrabidas” and the masses, the willing martyr subject. A happy ending is far from sight – the story can go on and on as long as there are advertisers(AKA: Political financer) who are willing to buy the timeslot and squeezing futher the blood of the already anemic Filipino masses to get back their profits.
So where are we taking the battle? Where are the moths gone? To another kind of flame sparkling in the foreign lands attracting our youngbloods to die a different kind of death, endangering ourselves to get caught in a pitfall of a point with no return.
I just hope when we leave our country, we never forget our way back.
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
The Philippines is a country that i so dearly love. I can not see myself serving another nation…..i have kept that tender love of a moth for the fire…it is still burning inside me now as i write, in all honesty…i too know that a “happy ending” for this nation is far from sight as Jeques said…but i am doing the best i can to somehow give this LOVE a fight….
jeques,
i, too, had never losing hope for our motherland. i have been one of those who walk down the streets and voiced disappointment on the callousness and the shame of our government. the idealism we are fighting for, moth as we are, have waned throughout the years.
there is no one who can say that he is pure nationalistic. if that is so, we are only fooling ourselves, because the many years that we are colonized by the spanish and americans have deeply ingrained in us the western values. we are patronizers of their culture.
who would blame the youngblood if he decided to take a different kind of battle to the foreign lands; that is poverty. we all want to be alleviated of our misery while our government trumpets OFW as heroes.
but for millions of OFWs out there, the government has became vultures sucking the life out of us. we are truly the moths in the flame, undmindful of the risk and sacrifices just for our motherland, to keep it afloat from the global sinking sand.
this is also a battle that has to be waged, even by future generation of youngbloods, who might believe that there is no future in our motherland.
but thanks jeques, i hope that we will all come back to Philippines and try to make our lives better and serve the fellow countrymen, without the hypocrisy and greed for power, money or fame.
best of times,
marvin
zen,
t’was good to hear that you’ll give this love for the Philippines a good fight. everyone of us should be like you.
if we are to be stripped down to our barest essentials, we are Filipino to the core. that’s one fact that we cannot deny, no matter where we are.
thank you for your good comment.
best of times,
marvin