Blabbing Freak.
Eloisa Francia/Lhouie.
Epiphanies in the shower. Alternate reality. Tirades and blabs.
Be warned, it's not always a fascinating sight.
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She’s been looking so long at those pictures of you, long enough for her to think they could be real, too long for her to hope they could bring you right in front of her.
She looks at them and it she’s taken back to that room adorned with nothing but a couple of curtains and a closet full of folding mattresses. She remembers that fateful day, where everything started. She smiles as she remember you holding her hand to sleep that night. It felt strangely unfamiliar and safe, like coming home to a place she’s never been to.
The surge of memories kick in. She attempts to capture the feeling, trying to hearken back how surprisingly great that summer turned into. She smiles.
She goes back to all the days you’ve been together. She tries to remember how everything felt. She wishes the remaining months to be over. She realizes things are going to be tough, and the only way to go through it is to go through it and prove all of her self-doubting wrong.
A sudden prick of reality reminds her of unpleasant thoughts - those she’s been trying to shove in a corner and avoid. She shakes her head in an effort to shrug the pain away, subconsciously knowing the thoughts are going to mock her and stay. She once said she’ll always be able to forgive albeit never forget and she meant every word until it happened to her. No, she has not completely forgiven just yet.
She recollects the good times, she tries to forget the ugly. She sits there, wondering if everything is going to be fine just like what you would always tell her whenever she needed assurance and comforting. She is tired.
She pictures the two of them together, getting all giggly and excited for the good times waiting ahead. She calls your name and talks to you, almost in a whisper, hoping that somehow the winds carry the words so your heart could feel them.
As she remember the last four years the two of you shared, the great times the both of you had, the detrimental effects of stupid decisions, the plans you made and the ones the two of you continue to build, her heart flutters the same way it did the first time you two kissed.
At least for tonight, she lets the control freak take the backseat. She may not admit it, not even to herself, but her heart understands why she chose to stay.
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The only way to bring back our government’s glory days is to show everyone we can look way past our biases, the sensationalism brought by the media, the vested interests of those in power and stick to the law we claim to uphold.
Brace yourselves everyone, the jungle’s taking over.
JUANA CHANGE - ANIMAL with subtitles (by soulahhh)
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This is in reaction to Stephen L. Monsanto’s letter titled, “Panamanian ‘rape’: lesson for young girls.” (Inquirer, 5/23/12) In that letter, Monsanto essentially opined that the girl who was allegedly raped by the Panamanian diplomat was at fault for having been affectionate to the latter and, in Monsanto’s words, “behaving like a floozie.” Such an opinion notoriously exemplifies the patriarchal view of Filipino society. Indeed, Monsanto’s letter serves as a lesson for all Filipinos about everything that is wrong in how we perceive gender relations.
Monsanto cited the CCTV clips, which showed the victim kissing the Panamanian, as making the case virtually winnable for the defense because these proved that it was the girl who initiated the encounter. In saying this, Monsanto only proved that he is a relic of a past when women were looked down upon severely. Maybe his arguments could have made sense 20 years ago when many judges still had to consider whether a rape victim was “a woman of loose morals” before they convicted the rapist. Thankfully, our society’s moral and judicial systems have improved since then.
Is it possible for a woman to kiss a man and yet refuse to have sex with him? Yes, it is. I know this from experience. Kissing and having sex are two very different things. The point is that, no matter how much a man thinks a woman likes him, when she tells him to stop, he has to stop. There is something very wrong with the macho mindset that sees any display of affection as a prelude to sex, whether or not a woman agrees.
I do not know what kind of legal education teaches that it is not rape if the woman kissed first, but what my professor in UP Law taught me is that if a woman, regardless of her personality or situation, refuses to have sex with a man and he still forces himself upon her, it is rape—pure and simple. Hence, even wives can be raped by their husbands; and, contrary to Monsanto’s insinuation, even prostitutes have the right to cry rape. Furthermore, even if the woman does not resist, so long as she has been deprived of her reason or consciousness, it is still rape.
A certain part of our culture still views women as second-class citizens. Some Filipinos still have the notion that it is a woman’s fault or that she deserves it, if she gets raped for not being a “Maria Clara” (which is, by the way, Jose Rizal’s technique of showing how oppressive colonial culture is to women). Such ideas should have no place in this (supposedly) modern society of ours. Why focus on teaching women to not dress too attractively or to not be too affectionate to men, when we should focus on teaching men to respect the rights of women and not violate them?
-EDWARD F. DAYOG, Research Director
Reproductive Health and Gender Advocates’ Movement (RH AGENDA)
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And yes, some precious egos will be bruised. To those who will be enlightened though, let me congratulate you. :)
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“We do not lack for people who did exceptionally brilliantly in law school, displaying erudition in all matters legal. We do not lack for people who topped the bar exams, along with toppling every bottle in the bar, and went on to found their own prodigious houses, or firms, the kind with red bricks for their façade, or its counterpart in these more tropical parts. We do not lack for people, particularly in both houses of Congress, who can perorate on the legal aspects of an issue and do so at the slightest provocation, or lack of it, loving not just the opportunity for exhibition but the sound of their own voices. We do not lack for law schools. We do not lack for law. We do not lack for lawyers. What we lack is justice.”
-Conrado de Quiros
Justice, Freedom, Equality, System. All pleasing to the ears but these words are useless unless we bring them to life.
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“Sabi nga ni Gil Scott-Heron, hindi isasatelebisyon ang rebolusyon.”
Nakakadala, nakakainis, nakakarindi at nakakagalit. Saludo, Sir!
“Remote Control” (rough cut / kinda’ unofficial music video) (by rojomalaya)
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It takes a really hard blow before we realize how short life is, how fast people can go and that anytime, we can die too. So we save so much for that perfect moment, that future we’ve been longing to have without the certainty of waking up tomorrow the moment we put ourselves to sleep at night.
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We don’t think we’re ready until we’re forced into the situation we’ve been trying to avoid and there’s no other option but to muster every inch of confidence we have and deal with it. Whew.
It may seem like I am not capable for now but if any, the past 22 years have taught me that there’s really no one I can turn to aside from my trusty self. I guess human nature forces us to survive and that’s what pushes us to drag ourselves out of bed every morning despite all the worries we’ve been carrying around.
I may be nervous, controlling and rusty at times but when push comes to shove and there’s nobody there, what else can I do but prove all of my self-doubting wrong?
Oh forget about cars and machine, it’s life we need a manual for.
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Things That Vanish in the Process
by Joel Toledo (written for the trees in Baguio)
Kids in the playground. Sun
that pushed out of their bodies
an assortment of glee. A river’s
nakedness. Kites.
This suspicion that decay is a way
to ripen some sadness in the leaves:
the same leaving that snaps
twigs and allows for litter, copper.
The throat. A vigorous descent
of shadow, which is also severance.
Narrative. Song.
(A love.)
Even that sickness called Consumption.
Much less everything. But not the tree,
never it, no matter
how dismantled.************************
People do not go to Baguio just so they can visit your mall, Mr. Sy. Cut the greed, karma has its playful way of getting even.
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Once there was a song that said “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” I beg to differ.
“Sorry,” among the likes of “I love you,” “Thank you” and “Please,” seem to have lost its value and meaning because of overuse. One can simply put it out there without meaning it, boosting his ego, thinking that while he does not believe he did anything wrong, he is willing to give you his not so precious apology in the name of chivalry - avoiding all possible confrontations.
The value of a person’s “sorry” has diminished from what used to be “I deeply and sincerely apologize, I will make up for it, and this will never happen again.” to “Here’s the sorry you wanted to hear, shut up and let’s move on - no, I don’t guarantee anything but I’ll be willing to say sorry again in case shit happens yet another time.” Times have changed indeed.
People can blame it on technology and its ability to pull us away from having an actual life, on the society’s pressure of what and how people are supposed to be, on the established ethics expected from people with degrees and diplomas - because being educated is a completely different matter - or people can simply stop doing stupid things that they know they will be sorry of. But of course, the element of being human and the vulnerability to err that comes with it is also another excuse.
So my point? I am sorry, I may not have one.
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“For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth and she who never procreated
I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And he is rejected my son
Always respect me
For I am the shameful and the magnificent one”-Hymn to Isis, third or fourth century B.C., discovered in Nag Hammadi
Today is International Women’s Day, so everyone and everywhere says. I am a woman and I completely agree that our existence should be celebrated - much as we should celebrate men and their presence too - that’s why I feel that a single day cannot just capsulize it all.
If humankind really cares and gives so much importance to women, why do we still have sex slaves, battered wives and rape victims from all around the planet? All these hype, pseudo-social awareness and oh, not to mention the consumerism, aren’t doing us any good. Stop the short-lived activism, we’ve been on this earth for more than two thousand years now, we’ll definitely have to work on our issues every single day and not just when the pressure of knowing kicks in, if we want to stand a chance.
Photo credits: DAKILA’s facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/dakila.philippines
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Photo reblogged from my name is AJ.
Why make Kony famous?
If the photo posted above isn’t enough to make you understand why, watch the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
Go click. Now.
(Source: invisible)
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Photoset reblogged from happiness is a warm gun
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“Up until then, travel and idea of going far away had just been a dream, and dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties, and when we are old, we can always blame other people - preferably our parents, our spouses or our children - for our failure to realize our dreams.”
-Maria, Eleven minutes by Paulo CoelhoHere’s the thing about worrying.
Worrying does not get us anywhere. We miss out on the good things in front of us because we choose to spend our time thinking of what’s waiting for us out there. We invest on things we might need later on in life without being sure we’re going to wake up the next morning. We live each day so we can go to work instead of going to work so we can live.
And the most frustrating part of it? We spend time ranting about our worries - in person, venting it out on friends or letting the world know through social networking sites and elsewhere (Ahem) - when we should be doing something about it instead.
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Photo: Lutang 2011, Eloisa Francia
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“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”
-Atticus Finch, To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
at sa muli nating pag-ahon.
