my courage and my shame

The rain just started to condense the thick metro soup further when I skipped into a cab. It was a race for me, scurrying from the drudgery of the white walled work of a previous script. The smell of steaming asphalt, not yet foul, but quickly gagging in this part of town, trailed me somewhat as I fidgeted in my seat fumbling with the seatbelt. But it disappeared against the torrent of pine-in-a-wet-bundle-of-taxicab-rags kind of smell. I was off to the MRT, trying to outpace a rush hour with a completely unfair head start. An hour in fact. But the rallies were on. The Filipino mind knew traffic will be close behind.

It was in Edsa, the news informed, with couple of thousands. This day, however, far different from every other inconvenient bastard son of hassle, I was not at all ticked off. This was a show of outrage I myself desired but could not express beyond my own soulful, hollow, internal scream. It needed a medium, if not for anything else but my own longing for a ravaging of all things un-good. The cheats, the liars, the unjust, and all their familiars…I want vengeance upon them for every perceived malevolent unfairness. I want to embrace them all. Embrace. And never again let loose.

But I’m too much of a sissy today. Thankfully, much less than that of the day prior. So I do my math, geometric progression…I pray. Keep on. Keep on. Just a few more days to diminish my own hesitation so that I find the wherewithal to damn them all and go…march to where the wrong does not thrive. Soon I know, as the days go by, more and more of my cowardly counsel will abandon their cause, and I will run into the streets.

Then the cabbie did me one better. Turns out, he was in Edsa 3. a buddy of that tragic guy Lumbao (was it? I’ll change it when I get the right name). He cried out my shame for me. Not in the way of a raving oration of a distorted mind. He was sober. And wise.

He told of bygone days when they'd battle in the streets, weathering all challenges, human or natural. this rain, he said, is nothing. they'd fight gill-faced if they needed to. but it sad, he says, that the street will not be full this time. perhaps a little more of that Machiavellian loss of patrimony, or manifest oppression, and more will be so inclined to drop what they’re doing and march on. but now, ano nga naman daw magagwa ng mga taxi driver at manggagawa. di na nga makabili ang limang piso, pagnagrally pa sila, gutom na talaga sila. isang araw ding kita yun.

He begged me not to think ill of those not yet in the gutter. because their spirit is. but the failure of "she, the short one" is her own insurance against street revolution. fail the people enough to get them hungry. hungry enough to afford them an ascetic's chance to win a long distance race. And she'd have secured herself her seat by virtue of her driving people down to their destitute circumstance.

but the cabbie says, just wait awhile. pag wala ng makain, lalabas din yan. and from what I see, give it a couple of weeks; and we'd be reminded again of our own poverty, our inability to acquire our own dreams. perhaps then, he said.

Of course, much depends on whether abs-cbn will allow it. I laughed. it’s true. seems too obvious in retrospect. whenever our so-called freedom of the press expresses itself by refusing its mandate, we somehow lose courage to do what is required.

Our media can encourage and inspire people to hurry to Edsa, comforted by the fact that you've seen on TV that there are people there...many, many people. less courage is required to goad you.

but the media can also take the inspiration away. so the masses of Edsa 3 have done their part. they've gone to war, true, seeking to save themselves from a future that has come to pass and proven them correct. but in our arrogance, us, with more food on our tables, more finesse in our moves, more brand in our clothes, we scoffed at them. we saw no sin in the refusal to broadcast, even cover, the events, the NEWS, which should have brought to our attention the bravado ongoing on the streets. It's become a tool by the same sinful class, the middle, my own, to justify its own wrongful acts on Edsa 2. but what can we do. they are in power. what are they in power for.

these days, we may fail still. because we are poorer. and the rich have designed that we remain so.

But I did find courage from this cabbie. and yes, I refuse to be embarrassed when I find myself in the streets when the occasion calls for it. other people have done it for me. unknowingly of course. but I must return the favor. some day. hopefully soon

today we die

Today we rest in peace. sure our lives will go on. but the nation's pulse just skipped a beat, it shuddered a sigh, withered in a momentous instant and died.
the president, our figure head, took rot too long ago. it stands now to speak too often. cunning even. but it is the rot that speaks. the office has just faded away.
our courts, supreme in its immense fallibility, but in its rationale it lost its heart, that in better times, with better men, can intuit our justice. in better times. with better men.
dont get me started with congress...its parts have risen to greater heights of glorious brilliance, but its sum...alas, finds a louder voice that celebrates the spasmic throes of impending doom. a final gurgling gasp.
and we, as a nation, just drunk ourselves to a stupor, not caring much for its blighted parts as we sat by with induced catatonia of far too much wine. jungle wine...with tiny bubbles.

where is the outrage? the cry!!!!

looking for positives

ok, i've been quite sick and now i got a relapse. although i kinda feel just a tad better. kinda explains my inability to get back into writing. and there have been a bunch to write about, but the subject matter is really overly dealt with in media by personalities equally dubious in reputation.

but let me just say this before i move on. yes the president should go. there have been audio tapes and audio tapes and denials. i dont get how the powers that be can think people can be that stupid. worse are the business groups who expressed a desire to maintain the status quo simply because there does not seem to be an alternative. very few remember the fact that our president, the symbol of our nationhood, is sitting in an office and is maligning its credibility every second it sits there. it matters not if the opposition has a self interest or the ex president wants to return. the bottom line is that any person, ex-president or not, opposition or otherwise, cannot sit in that office with a credibility less than decent.

but the lack of momentum in the movement to remove has not gained ground. mostly because the influence peddlers have put a premium on economics than national dignity. oh, we'll have the money all right. ratings will go up so we can take loans to line our politicians pockets.

so the filipino will essentially lose both the benefit of economics and the essential dignity of a people.

so, moving on. promised a friend i'll write about something more positive. so i'll try...

...

...

...

cant find a topic. damn!

maybe next time.

promise.

little white walls bore me

on the mrt ride home, as i absorbed the days decadent medium of microbes press upon me, i stare upon the cityscape at the same time rushing to me and being left behind, the disgust for the sweltering heat and stench thicken the air around me, as a series of thoughts plague me about my discomfiting predicament.

theres a lot of sad in realizing that when the world reaches its end and the question inevitably directs me as to what i have done in the life i have been given that i will have to speak the truth. more because there would be no point in lying but mostly because i have at the very least practiced the fortitude required to be honest. so i would have stammered, for sure, and admit to myself that there really cannot be anything great with having spent the rest of my time sitting in a room with four, albeit great, individuals punching away on a key pad trying to make life great for people with money who wish to be in a place that could provide them a template of their american dreams. whether these people care enough to make of their life something that would give the world what i wish i could give to it myself is highly doubtful and far far too unpredictable to make the foundation for a claim that my life has meaning.

Ulitimately, when one comes to that realization, the knees of your spirit buckle, and you stagger to find a way out. of course, its too short a time to say, but i would like to pretend i'm a smart enough guy to know what i want. or more precisely what i dont want. hopefully there is some advancement in this work but i'm pretty certain it wont be in a direction i would be completely comfortable with. but really, think about it. how great is a life where your social interaction's limited to a couple of guys boxed up in little white walls. and the web you play with denies you any social interaction that can make you grow. Its a marketing tool i understand, but it surely stunts the mind.

so thus, the dilemma creeps into the rot of your soul, to take the money or to go. i'll sleep on it. and pray that it somehow finds a way to resolve itself.

phone home

its been a while, but its been a crazy week. like being in a rubber tube floating on a pool on summer, taking in some sun and cool ... dirty water. the type where you're stuck there so you might as well have fun.

let me start with the cab. not the first cab i took but rather the last one. took a walk a couple of blocks from the office to spare myself from the sticky traffic i can never find myself accepting. its like having to take the world's demand for you to fail.and something about leaving your victory dependent on someone elses weakness never struck me as a good thing. so i walk. and when the metal crowds trickle down into open roads i hail a cab.

ugly, as usual, messy white cab with dirty blue covers. mustache man sweatng in the pits. but he was nice. no hints about how money was tough so give me a tip kinda deal. or "sa iba na lang boss traffic dun." he talked pleasantly and found me the best route to glorietta. i managed a decent conversation, my mouth ran as the traffic eased and i shut up when it clamped down. dizzy, it made me. but i was feeling melancholic anyway, for some reason i could not fathom. hollow chest, the kind with a ticklish feeling, mostly felt with slight anxiety about something which you know not what. fidgeted with my mobile as i bantered with the shallow conversation i was having.

the fare hit 50 and the driver was fine with it. he never hinted at anything. he reassured me with a laugh that it was fine. money was tough. how cooool is that!!!

dropped down glorietta 2. walked through the mall.....

and thus i parted with a really good phone.

the second didn’t whammy as much

a couple of days later, here i sit with the benefit of a little introspection, having just realized that the whammy that i thought was, isnt really after all.

see, i figured a good way to reboot my career was to take an LLM and resolved to make a better life outside. of course, i am not so naive as to believe that the rot in the pinoy civilization was exclusive, but i hoped that there may be better roads to somewhere where the bleakness could be less felt. i did send applications and it was with no small measure of pride and hope that my application was received by a rather cool university in an even cooler place. got conditional admissions and waited for the fellowship grants.

the months that followed i could not even begin to describe. the closest i could get to articulating the serene hopefulness of knowing that there could be a chance is the feeling you get on the night of an exam you barely studied when you hear that a storm was coming and signal number 2 was up. it wasnt 3 yet, but man the way the rain whipped into the dorm panes just made you know, KNOW, that the 3 was coming and thus a repreive.

for months i had that privilege. i prayed, yes. but it wasnt a st. jude matter. it was more like a conversation with mother mary. the type you felt you need not burden the heavens with too much since the rest of the world needed their attention far more urgently. i was going to have it. i knew.

i didnt get it.

it hurt me so much that day. i so wanted to leave, depart, bid adieu, vamoose. i could not stand the air i breathed each day i was a lawyer here. i felt so moldy inside and i thought i'd never see the disinfecting sunshine. i dont think i could stand the tedium of applying again.

i received the regret email and it was explained that a quarter of the grants had to be devoted to african nationals, and for the rest, a preference for women applicants was to be given. of course, only the filipino can really appreciate the rut we are in but yes, africa was far far more poor. never mind that i was poor as well, but i wasnt starving. as for the women, i thought it was right. i understood the advocacy somehow. it was like jumpstarting the balance in gender. sad, however, that in the philippines, the economics deals the same rotten hand to both and without preference for either.

but beggars cant be choosers. i guess i'll try again. what's a few more spores in my soul?

double whammy

Double whammy hit me today. Don’t know which is worse.

The first? Hits in the gut, where the damage is felt long after the pain of the actual punch. The kind that makes you feel that it didn’t hurt you, only to realize a while later that you can no longer go the distance you used to sprint to. That’s what happens when you lose a case you shouldn’t have. Much more when it’s personal and not a client’s.

Of course there’s solace in the fact that there’s really not much an honest man can do against a malicious fabrication. But it will be of record that the fabrications of my former employer (which arbiters should see through easy) have led to a decision which actually advises me to be gentler and more respectful of my “underlings” as I am a lawyer who must bear himself with utmost professionalism. In the case, you see, they’ve asked my former co-employees to harp on little things and blow them up to make it big. It would seem now that these co-employees of mine who I have always respected, eaten lunch with, joked around with and have shared our concerns, friends who I actually thought I had a great rapport with, now have attested that I was mayabang and abrasive to one fellow who used to pilfer a buck or two from office funds and therefore must have been mayabang to all leaving the conclusion that I must have been a bad bad man. Its no comfort that some have actually apologized, believing that they did not have too much choice. Life is hard and jobs are scarce. Besides if they can treat a lawyer like shit, how much more shit can the staff withstand?

The irony is that for all the faults I may have had (none of which were actually pointed out in the case, mind you) it was the boss who was an idiot slave driver and the other one without spine and both refused to pay the proper taxes and social security as well as engaged in soooooo many acts no lawyer should even entertain but actually do. To me, to their staff, and to society in general. So if it’s a point of being unprofessional, I guess I was the one who didn’t do what lawyers do. So I must have deserved the boot.

But what can I do? I find comfort in the fact that I did not succumb to the temptation to buy my victory as there was in fact an opportunity. And I have worked long enough in the firm to hear it being openly discussed how buying was not beyond the pale of proper conduct. So I leave my own dreams to take on what could have led to this decision. But to see and feel and absorb this kind of run of the mill injustice hurts me not today. Rather it will sear my soul sometime in the future when I find the courage to fight my battles in court again. Because I will not buy my client’s well-being, nor will I pay for his honor. Suffice it to say that I will not have client’s for long and I would have found myself al long way into becoming a quixotic icon of the law for insisting on maintaining my soul.

I will not compromise. My friends say I should. Sad.

To my mind that leaves me one real choice. To get out of here. To find a fresh start. To seek my place among the honest-for-the-most-part where I can actually relieve the misery that lawyering has very often fed on. So I tried.

That’s where I got the second whammy…

starting with cabs

Lately, my days have begun in dusty cabs wearing starched outfits with a backpack lazily slung over my groggy shoulders. The crispness of my attire belies the sappy mood you would feel too if you just woke up and forced to smell the smog. Well, not really instantly. Its starts with the hint of freshness that now seems to be a rare and distinct character of the UP Village, but the goodness fades almost instantly as one takes steps toward the kanto just behind the NHA where I take my cab. Reminds me of two-day-old lettuce. You know? Where it looks crisp but it limps into your sandwich the moment you touch it? That’s how the morning feels.

And I have to grin. Because a cab just halts by just as I wave it down. And at just that instant, in what I can only describe in legal terms as “estoppel,” I regret it already. The cab, a Nissan sentra of squarish make looks solid enough except for the series of black skid-like marks on the doors!!!! The kind that looks like “!!!!” leaning over to cheat on its neighbor. And the dent! Man, the bumper’s dent on the passenger side not even slightly. With stitch marks from some thick nylon. Frankencab, I think. I’ll tell you why it worries me but I’m sure you’ve already guessed what I feel about the cabby.

But I got to ride and I got to go. So I grin. Here goes. “Makati po. EDSA daan” Just hope the cab driver’s nice to let me sleep.

Aaaaand nope, he doesn’t. fuck it. I noticed this about cab drivers. But let me just deal with this one. They twitch around in their seats and twist an arm to look at their watch preparing to say, and if you’ve been in the metro long enough you know they’re going to say this, “boss, traffic dun,” in an attempt to dislodge you to pick another passenger. But today, I was lettuce, two days old, and I didn’t want to whither any further. I would have none of the excuses.

But he starts out nonchalantly, peppered lightly with descriptive words about someone’s mother, about how Makati sucks and how someone, he says someone, catches him and fines him for dropping off passengers just about anywhere. He pretends we’re buddies and takes the tone like “alam mo naman yun brod di ba?” Of course, I was no brod…

Now, tired old me, suspicious that this is either a con job to make me either pity the fool and give him a higher tip or he just realized he didn’t want to go the EDSA way for some fear of traffic, I just about said good bye to my morning nap to work and snapped back, “ba’t ka naman kasi nagbababa sa bawal…?”

“eh kasi…” so he rolls on some excuse about the sign not being in the right place and what not. I reassured him where I was going there was no such trap and tried to ignore him the rest of the way. I was tired of hearing this everyday and today I just tuned out. And he keeps on and on and on.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are decent cab drivers and I will write about them sometime. But today, he wasn’t on of them. Incessant chatter and a ridiculously heavy brake foot just got me this close to puking had I not been too tired for my gut muscles to tighten.

My point is this, to many the cab serves the very first social interaction one gets into his everyday metro life. He couldn’t do without it. And if only cabs can be less of a box of chocolates enough to send some sign of what the drive to work would be like, then stepping into the office would be one fine feeling. But noooooo, you get con men, you get old political ones, the occasional nice ones, the former stock broker turned cab driver, the smelly ones (eowww), the brakers, the swervers, the speeders, and very very often the ones who do not know the rules. All affect that precious hour drive from QC to Makati where they are free to disturb your peaceful catch-up nap by the talk or the fear of hitting something on the road.

Ahhh, if only. Work would be far far more pleasant.