Nawa’y nasa maayos kang kalagayan pagtanggap mo ng aking liham.

Hindi kita masisisi kung ika’y nawawalan na ng pag-asa dahil sa lumalalang estado ng pinakamamahal nating Pilipinas. Subali’t di mo maitatauwa na ang kasarinlang ipinaglaban ng ating mga bayani noong nakaraang mga himagsikan at demokrasyang tinatamasa natin ngayon na buong pusong ipinagbuwis ng buhay ni Ninoy ay di matatawaran ninuman. Pakaisipin mo sanang sila na hindi nakatamo ng kanilang mga hangarin ay hindi nawalan ng pag-asa hanggang sa huli.

Hindi pa hinihingi sa iyo ng pagkakataon na magpakabayani. Ang pagiging isang mabuting mamamayan ay malaking tulong na sa ikawawasto ng ating bayan. Nabanggit mong palagi kang bumoboto pag may pagkakataon. Sa susunod na taon ay botohan na naman. Pumili ka ng mga kandidatong sa iyong palagay ay nararapat dahil sa kanilang angking kakayahan at malasakit sa bayan. At kung may makita kang kalabisan tulad ng nangyari sa huling pagbisita ng pangulo sa Amerika’y huwag mong sarilinin.

May mga bagay na kahit pansarili ang maari ring makatulong. Pagbutihin mo ang paggawa ng iyong tungkulin sa trabaho. Isaalang-alang mo ang ikabubuti ng mas nakararami kahit na kinakailangan ikaw ang magparaya. Ipagdasal mong lagi tayong gabayan sa pang-araw-araw nating pamumuhay. At iba pang mga bagay tulad ng di pagkakalat sa daan at pagsunod sa batas trapiko na maliliit man kung ituring ay nakakatulong ding maisayos ang kapaligiran.

Matanda ka na Betson, ngunit kinailangan ko pang ipaalala sa iyo ang mga ito dahil nakakalimot ka na. Mag-umpisa ka sa sarili, sa maliliit na bagay. Ituwid mo ang iyong landasin bago ka maghangad ng isang maganda at maunlad na Pilipinas.

Lubos na sumasaiyo,

Lolo Pepe

p.s.

Magaling bang Darna si Marian? Di ko nagustuhan ang pagganap ni Angel, e.

The most interesting thing about being whisked to the future is the food. We are eating on the side of this street named Hidalgo, our backs exposed to passersby while we diners face the array of available dishes behind the glass. This is my sixth day in the future and so far I know words like echos, bad trip, and pork barrel. I have been subsisting on one meal a day, which isn’t new to me, but today is my first time to ask for tinola, hoping that after all these years people still make it.

The lady said not today. So I just settle for lumpia.

On TV Luningning dances wildly, like someone possessed, and the audience applauds. I’m thinking the Maria Claras of today are breezier, not much clothes to lug around, not much to wash after. They move more freely, and seem in control. No one can tell them to beat it. But after the show men still think they are purchases or stray kittens to bring home with them.

It seems everyone has pegged their hopes on TV game shows. Before it was just small stakes, on the perya, with just a few of your hard-earned coins with your friends. You had fun then. Now, everyone is screaming their glutathione-whitened heads off, and the next thing you know the game show host himself has replaced your 1 with a zero. Now, it’s Filipinos cheating their fellow countrymen.

The man who is in love with Luningning eyes my suit for the third time, tells me it’s a good-looking coat, with a smile. He then proceeds to slurp his soup, gobbles more of his rice and fried fish, then drinks his water. Again with a smile. Everything he does is easy and enjoyable that I begin to feel stuffy in my good-looking suit. He himself is just in a maroon camiseta with Jesus Christ’s face painted on, blue pants, and slippers.

“These days you’re lucky if you can pick up a peso off the street”, the man says, then gets up and leaves.

My face is all over those 1-Peso coins and I’m having a hard time figuring out if it’s a compliment that all my face can buy is a piece of candy, or a Stik-O—kid fare. The kids of the land have good eye-and-hand coordination these days. They know the terrain of their online games better than their own homes. There’s Google for all the answers they don’t know. Everything has been laid out for them. And yet they still find it hard to stay with a book to its very end.

Earlier someone had sold me pictures of naked women and men who I didn’t know at all. Something tells me they will do more than just pose in paper. They will move, grind, and be raw. There is no love to speak of. Only one-night stands and casual sex and casualties of the mind. When they bloom into a baby, there’s always a bottled potion for you to drink, sold right by the church. People in the raw, skinning themselves alive.

I’ve learned that the President is a woman. Good. Someone to lead the nation with a mother’s heart. But I also learn about Hello Garci, and abbreviations like ZTE-NBN and news of her multi-million dinner in New York with friends. At Kapitan Tiago’s house, the tinola I prepared was delicious, a sincere enough welcome dinner for Ibarra. This is the age where people think it is undignified to eat in an ordinary restaurant but find no qualms using the public’s fund.

At Dapitan I discovered and named a peculiar species of frog. Now they tell me about a new species, one with the ability to lie through its teeth. Echoserang frog, it’s called.

“How do I get to Bagumbayan?” I ask the lady as I hand her my money.

“This isn’t enough,” she snarls, “You and your friend ordered much more than this!”

It’s almost nightfall and I’m tired.

The link is: http://italy-jb02.blog.friendster.com/2009/08/the-preacher-in-me/

Thanks!

Where do you start when you have so much to say? After centuries of tyranny from without, we have managed to allow it to be replaced with tyranny from within. Oppression has and still takes many forms- a lot of them unchanged since my day. The illustrados of my generation, as is the middle class of today, were and are mostly scornful of the masses that have made their comfort and positions in life possible, though not as openly perhaps in these days. What else you one expect when it is considered an insult for one of the middle or upper classes to be compared with a maid or a driver? Even with all the modern conveniences that are now available to us, things have not really changed.

It is distressing how we are still stuck to outward appearances. Many would still rather be (or rather marry) white, than yellow, or brown. We no longer have the ability to understand subtext and satire, even while we are vicious at picking out typographical and grammatical errors online. It is unfortunate, as I liked the sort of humor that relied on satire and wordplay. How ill-fated Chip Tsao was to find himself in the middle of a barrage of arrows shot by the very people he was trying to point out (unfortunately only through implication, which few of us understand these days) were the equals, and not the inferiors of his countrymen?

Another point. Since I was shot at Bagumbayan, the education has had highs and lows. It is clearly in a rut. To see our motorists and pedestrians, is to lose your faith in their ability to comprehend simple road signs. Perhaps it is too much to expect they understand things that provoke thought or satire. What a pity that millions of young minds that could help this nation take its place in the world are being rotted by noontime variety shows and by a diploma mill instructional system.

While I had many enemies, I was not exactly popular with my peers. Lord knows that many of my so-called friends in Madrid thought me haughty. It surprises me that I am now considered to be the greatest hero our country has produced, even while some say it was only the Americans who have afforded me that status to achieve some colonial gain. I do not know. I never did set out to please anyone. I never did set out to be popular. All I ever did was to do what I thought was right. And what they did to me then, they will still do to anyone who tries what I did now.

However, it might have escaped most of us Filipinos that being a “free” and “democratic” people is in itself merely a Beginning. Freedom undeniably plays a big role in defining ourselves as a Nation, but what is this so-called “democracy” without a Destiny in mind? Oh yes, we can talk endlessly amongst ourselves about how liberty is still the best virtue in a country, but this liberty should be…for what end?

Better education for our people has always been what I’ve been pushing for. And why not? The whole Community of Nations can be compared to a big, vast classroom. Each country can be thought of as one student. And of course we know who the top students, the sobresalientes, of this Classroom of the World are. Where once they were called Great Nations, now they are designated as the First World Countries—nations which excel in industry and commerce, modern innovations and technology, both pure and applied sciences, even in athletics and military defense capabilities, just to name a few. More importantly, these First World Countries, or top students, shall we say, are able to give the best quality of life to their peoples. Sadly, if we are to think of the Philippines a student, we have always been ranked among the “mediocre” majority in a Classroom of the World.

This would be quite incongruous with the way we yearn for our own children to excel in their studies—to strive to be at the top rank. Why shouldn’t a Whole Nation be motivated with the same vigour to excel within the world community?

I have always written about the Great Nations around the world that I personally visited in countless journeys and sojourns. I have always longed to see the same operating principles that made them Great right here in our Motherland, to be experienced by all Filipinos. Yes, we Filipinos will fight for our freedoms, but we must also equally fight for a Destiny.

We keep blaming everyone, except ourselves. Until we as a people become deserving of a country that we envision, until we genuinely stake our future in this country and not anywhere else, we will continue to live with our self-inflicted malaise. It really is simple, if only you took to heart my essays a century ago… The true revolution can only happen within. A Filipino’s life must be about the pursuit of excellence in whatever field, about dignity and nobility. Mediocrity, shallowness and greed must not have a place in our life…If we can have every Filipino subscribe to this, we can be the people this country has been waiting for.

I hope when you celebrate my martyrdom, you remember that more than fighting foreign oppression, I was really laying down the template of a life worthy to be called a Filipino. Be a Filipino.

Heh.

The youth. I think us old timers owe ‘em an apology. Sorry, kids.

Oh and hey, here’s what I think about our national situation right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

That’s all, folks! Doctor J out!

http://makdleech.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/rizals-diary/

Just a couple of weeks ago, I had seen how you can be united. But should someone die for you to become one? Congratulations, you’ve come a long way in terms of your ways of life, but look at the cost. And I understand you, I really do. I know you don’t have anything at your table, and I also experienced that. When I just finished Noli, I almost threw it into the fire because I didn’t have any money to publish it. I ate just once a day, mostly bread and coffee, not unlike the kaninbaw you’re eating right now.

What everyone needs in these times of turmoil are the Maximo Violas of the world to give hope to people. But all will be waiting, and no one will become one. You see the problem?

The Filipinos will always be colonized: by Padre Damaso, by Americans, by commercialism, by pornography, by politicians, by selfish dreams. The situation and actors wil vary, but the play will remain the same.

So now what? The answer is simple. Start small. Dream. Make a difference. Register. Vote. Know your rights. Exercise your rights. Better yet, join The Good Ideas. Because when people think of better ways to improve our beautiful country, I will always be there. I am willing to die a million times for you, so I’ll see you on Whitespace.

**
P earl of the Orient, oh my grace-filled and exquisite home
I will forever live in your sweet promise of peace
N ay, no one can replace you in my heart until my life will cease
O nly you will be flourishing in this majestic throne
Y earning will I always be for your freedom until I receive Death’s kiss.

First and foremost, I cannot believe that tuyo is 140 pesos per kilo now. That is huge amount of money in my day! You know me, I like living on a budget.

What would I say about our country today? In viewing today’s society’s ills, I need to look no further than my own two novels. It seems to me that the circumstances are different, but the characters are the same. Sisa is the single mother call center agent who takes in all the unjust demands of the BPO industry to feed her children. The lack of sleep will hasten her madness. The friars have shed their habits and moved onto government. Basilio, by the grace of God, has still finished his studies but questions whether he should contribute to the betterment of the country or to move on to the seemingly greener pastures abroad. As for the rest, you’ve read the book (it’s required reading, so you have no excuse) so I need not go on and on about it. You will see the characters in the novels alive and well today.

I also know better than to tell you what to think, because everyone is thinking of the same thing. Everyone knows what the problems are.

My novels have been hearkened as the first work of literature that introduced a unified Filipino consciousness. If so, does this mean we are unified by our trials and misfortunes? Some would say so. It seems the same today. At the end of El Filibusterismo, Ibarra dies, the jewels are lost, the revolution aborted. If not for Father Florentino’s last words, the novel would have ended in a note of anguish and despair.

You may think that in my viewing of the country today, I would feel despair too. I know despair all too well. But despair is easy and comfortable, and I do like making things uncomfortable, myself.

No, I do not despair. Yes, despite the seemingly endless repetition of problems in society today.

As much as there is much to be criticized, I would not deprive the Filipino his credit where credit is due. I have been astounded and humbled by the leaps and bounds our people has taken to free themselves. They have proven that a peaceful revolution is possible. Today, I only see the Spanish in telenovelas. Masses are said in our native language. People can vote for their leaders. Women can work. There is free speech. Things that you take for granted today used to be an unimaginable possibility back then.

That is not to say that there isn’t more to be done. There are still shackles today, and they are made more cleverly in the webs of economics and politics. Our own countrymen and leaders have turned traitor on us, and they are all closing in on us.

Countrymen, we must be vigilant. We must not succumb to despair. We must not give up the ghost. If it is our country’s destiny to be shaped by hardship and struggle, so be it! History and my own experience has show me that the Filipino can rise up to the challenge. I would do no disservice to my country by claiming otherwise. I did not die by writing falsehood, I died by telling the truth. The Filipino’s spirit may be dampened, but it will never go out. It was not extinguished by the Spaniards, by our country’s failures in the past, and it will not go out today. Filipino, you have humbled me by accomplishing the seemingly impossible and have worked for the greater good: You can do it again.