Politics Schmolitics

Where were you in January 2001? I was there… I think most of us were.

I went there on my own. No one prodded me to go: I was moved into action by what we all saw on TV. It was January 18, and the envelope thingy and Tessie Oreta’s (I still do not want to refer to her as Aquino) dance had just happened. I rode the MRT to Ortigas station and walked to the EDSA Shrine to be one with the throng.

I only accidentally saw Rhu-Jade there while he was leading a group of PLM students (he was Student Council President at that time) to the rally. I also saw my high school classmate Amy, who was then already deeply involved with the left, organizing the program and giving instructions to her people. I saw and shook hands with Congressman Sandoval of Navotas, then Gen. Anglo Reyes walked in front of me while I was resting at the Shrine steps. That day at EDSA, I met old friends and met new acquaintances. That glorious day, I was fighting for what I believed in.

How quickly have things changed. How quickly have I sunk to this level of apathy from the height of idealism a mere six years ago.

I think part of the change was Rhu-Jade, when he temporarily left us, his friends, for his wife, then permanently, this country and everyone in it, for New York. There are only two people in my life I got to seriously speak politics and philosophy with: one is currently in Germany with her husband, and the other was Rhu-Jade. Back in college, we would go straight to their house at V. Luna after class, buy several bottles of Red Horse 500, drink, smoke, and talk. It’s has become the stuff of legend, how Jade and I and whoever else were with us would talk about God, particularly His nonexistence. But what people do not know is that we also talked about other stuff, other ideas. I strongly believe that I think the way I do today, that I believe the things I do now, because of those conversations.

I’m not saying that I’m disappointed with the conversations I have with people I drink with nowadays, that’s not it: I enjoy talking about business, girls, travel, and whatever it is that has occupied my thoughts in recent months. It’s not about the people I drink with, it’s about all of us, how the years have taken its toll on our idealism and priorities, how everyone has succumbed to change. Even Rhu-Jade has fallen victim to the ravages of circumstance and time: I’m sure that as soon as he got married and moved to New York, he had to change his priorities and way of thinking accordingly. I remember meeting him a few times before he left, and we did not talk the way we did years before. As we have begun to enter this stage of our lives, we have also begun to concern ourselves with other things: we do not have time to talk about God or politics when we have to think about things like our careers and our future.

But sometimes, I hunger for the good old days, for the conversations, arguments, and debates that Jade and I used to have. I don’t know what triggered this sentimental musing, as it could be one or all of many things that have happened recently: Hiram playing The Jerks songs when we traversing to Cinco Picos and Mark, Lope, Doti and I seeing the same band at 70s Bistro last Friday, Doti berating me on the same night because I have not registered to vote, the slew of killings that has been happening in recent weeks, the death of Julia Campbell, reading Conrado de Quiros’ past two articles, my dilemma whether to take my PhD in UP or some other university abroad, the coming elections and how it will shape coming events, having the time to watch the daily news since I quit my job at P&A… I don’t know why I have started to think like this again when I had already become snug and comfortable in the hole that I have dug for myself. What I do know is that things will unravel in the next few weeks, and I have become too tired of not doing anything since EDSA 2 that I know I will do whatever it is that needs to be done.

There’s one last thing that I want to say.

I am ashamed to be a part of this generation and social class who hates Erap and FPJ so much that we are willing to take every crap GMA feeds us, that no matter how clear it is that this President cheated in the last election, hell will freeze over before we let someone as “beneath” us as Noli de Castro take over. We know we are capable of enacting the change that this country needs, just as we have shown the world years ago, but we are too fucking arrogant and shortsighted to march into action.

Just remember, sooner or later, events will bring the fight right at our very doorsteps. The only question is, when that time comes, will we have the balls or even a decent shred of common sense to do something about it?

Blue Maroon

Back when we were seniors in high school, what many of us were primarily concerned with was what course to take in college. What university to enroll in never really became an issue: it was UP or bust. With this youthful arrogance, we did not deem it necessary to take any college entrance test other than UPCAT, a decision which an unfortunate few had come to regret later. And while others also took ACET (sorry my LaSallian friends, I don’t know anyone in our batch who even gave your alma mater a passing thought), those who did pass quickly forsook their Merit (does that come with two r’s?) Scholarships as soon as they found out that they were being welcomed by the open arms of the Oblation, be it at Diliman, Manila, or the fertile forests of Los Banos.

Suffice it to say, my first impression of the Ateneo in general and the Atenean in particular was not a very pleasant one. I had classmates in high school who came from Ateneo Elem, and we never really became fast friends. Many of them we considered to be “elitistas”: popular kids who would always prowl the front lobby of Pisay waiting for their rides home, while my friends and I were playing basketball, hanging out at the canteen, or terrorizing lower-batch girls in the Girl’s Dorm. While this socio-cultural divide had eventually been bridged in later years, my concept of the Atenean as the popular guy who had too much money and who got to hang out with all the pretty girls never totally went away.

College came and went (although it took its sweet ass time to do so). I got to know a few people who came from Ateneo High, and while some of them turned out to be quite cool, it still did not change my notion of the Atenean: these people were not really Blue Eagles anymore, they were true-blue Maroons. The only notable Atenean I knew at that time was Olsen Racela, and I hated his guts (and I think I still do).

The only time I got to meet and know true Ateneans was when I was taking my MBA at UP. As expected, we did not immediately hit it off in the beginning. And truth be told, I did not expect that I would be able to have any sort of congenial relationship with any of them during the course of the program: ten odd years after high school, and I still thought that Ateneans were from another world. I mean, they would not even ride a jeepney to go to Shopping Center from BA! But eventually I found out that they were not so different from you and me, that we all liked to drink a lot, that they did not get queasy from eating isaw and fishball, that sometimes I even had more cash than they did, that we were all maniacs and horny toads (Zab I’m not sure of since he always kept his dirty thoughts to himself), that when one really tried, one could have an intelligent conversation with them (HAHAHA, of course I’m only joking!). When graduation came, I surprisingly but pleasantly realized that some of my closest friends from the MBA turned out to be these Ateneans.

In the past few weeks, whenever I walk from my pad to the Ateneo campus for my class, I can’t help but ponder at how ironic it is that more than a decade after my first Atenean encounter, I would end up teaching the very persona that I have come to loathe in my youth. As I near the smoking pocket garden (yes my friends, you have to smoke in pocket gardens at the Ateneo) beside JGSOM, I can’t help but smile thinking how fortunate I am, a true-blue Maroon (if ten years in UP does not make me a true-blue Maroon I don’t know what will), to have the opportunity to know what it is really like to be an Atenean (I’m actually excited to get my Ateneo faculty ID, what a sellout!). I only have this to say to unbelievers: Ateneans can be quite cool, especially when you come across them in halls and they enthusiastically call you “Sir” with a smile brighter than the brightest April day.

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This is for you April. I can’t wait to see you again, raise my ice-cold San Mig Light for a toast and say, “Welcome back, my friend!”