Accents
Thank you for reading
First and foremost, or above all (I'd like to be redundant with this intro), thank you for reading this columnist. A writer writes to be read. Right? So thank you for taking time out to spare precious moments on the nuggets of wisdom (?) flowing through my keyboard.
ACCENTS, the column, gushed from my laptop with commentaries on the passing show that is life. Issues had to be dissected by our very own designer scalpel. And words just streamed forth to express viewpoints for you, the reader, to mull over and finally decide.
As I sit back, eyes away from the computer, I see the evergreens swaying with the hovering air. Unlike other trees, their leaves have withstood the frosty chill. (Thank God for evergreens.) Reminiscence comes to this grandma, winter-stuck in mainland, U.S. of A. On this second day of the year, I look back to the output of 2007, hoping that to some readers — somewhere, sometime, somehow they have made a difference. To wit are my choice gems: (Wow! Okay, call them any crap you wish; nonetheless, they radiate with the core values and ethical standards this columnist believes in.)
On people we meet: In stunning significance or in passing minutiae, people we meet enrich our lives. (And to those who met up with me via the articles I had written, and sent in comments, enrichment was symbiotic.)
Speak it still once again: (A quote from A Brighter Day that encompasses all goodwill resolutions for 2008 and for every year thereafter.) Mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in work and deed. Keep a promise. Find the time. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate. Be kind; be gentle. Laugh a little. Laugh a little more. Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Have faith. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it still once again.
For dreams must live: All over America thousands upon thousands continue to march every Martin Luther King's Day because dreams must live—dreams for people like Martin Luther King, Jr. to espouse and safeguard because insidious injustice, iniquities, and inequalities continue to hold sway in many lives.
"We will not walk in fear…": Come the likes of Proclamation 1081, Marcos' Martial Law, or its copycat, Arroyo's 1017, are we going to cower in fear? I was in the US heartland during harsh February, and I wouldn't know how deeply we in the media were affected by 1017's chilling effect. If extreme punitive measures will chill us to the point of inaction, gag us in conformity, or stifle us in obeisance, then bid goodbye to freedom of expression, the sine qua non of our vocation. For life itself to have meaning, we must think, speak, write to uphold freedom of expression lest existence be damned.
Stop global warming: In many small ways, it is within us to help halt global warming. Firstly, cut down on consumables as much as possible. Know when less is more. I don't want to dwell on the philosophical underpinnings of that one for the moment, but I do believe that excess baggage in whatever form has a way of eating up into the body, mind, and spirit.
Servants of the people: Decades ago, before I was old enough to vote for my father (he was Oton mayor for twelve years), elections did not have the madness involving the dramatis personae with their arsenal of guns, goons and gold. I surmise the three G's must have come about with the Marcosian national leadership that was so flawed and criminal it made us the economic basket case of Asia.
I cannot reconcile the contrast between elections then and elections now. Gauging from the norms of GMRC (that appears in the report card of elementary pupils to stand for Good Manners and Right Conduct), have we deteriorated as a people? Money flooding from nouveau riche political patrons, votes for the highest bidder, charges and counter-charges of corrupt practices, the wheeling and dealing, intrigues ad infinitum, etc., etc. – all the political clichés that have turned the country's moral landscape to black. How naïve I was to believe that EDSA I and EDSA II would so cleanse us and bail us out of this morass.
South Carolinians celebrate People Power Day: We recalled our country's “proudest moment" when the world was amazed how Filipinos toppled a dictator through a nonviolent mass demonstration—the day when rosary beads, candies, cigarettes, and flowers were pitted against tanks and battalions of soldiers, and rose in triumphant glory.
Makibaka! Huwag Matakot!: The jargon of defiance surfaced from the recesses of the mind—memories of years past when the shroud of doom that was Martial Law smothered the homeland. The call to resist and desist all forms of repression took on a new life—even if only in the mind of us here on the other side of the globe—with news of the “creeping Martial Law" now obtaining in Bayan Ko. We are kept abreast of the blight brought about by a toxic body politic and a flawed governance that sap, corrode, and eat away whatever is left of the Pinoy idealism.
Arroyo is swollen with pride that under her regime the peso has strengthened. Strong economy, she and her minions keep bragging. Has the benefit of the strong peso trickled down to the masses? Has it increased the purchasing power of the average consumer? Ask Maria, Juana, and Ana if their shopping bags have gotten any heavier. Who is laughing their way to the bank but the corporate capitalists. To quote David Granger, editor of the prestigious Esquire magazine, himself quoting an unnamed songster, “The rich keep getting richer and the rest of us just keep getting old."
(These choice bits will continue, and to everyone, my wishes for a blessed New Year!)
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)