A Work Back in 2004

More Doodles

The one on the right is a messed-up cabinet hook
while the one on the left
is a tomato-flavored tortilla chip (yeah, right).

I think I've caught the flu. Ergh.

The No Excuse Dare

Here's a tiny doodle I did recently during a very boring meeting. It's part of a standing dare between me and Ina, which should take effect after this is uploaded now.

The drawing wasn't meant to represent anything in particular. It looks like a clenched form trying to burst out in all directions, like a dismembered fist.

Go Satur, Go!

Those lunatics who want to strip Satur Ocampo of freedom, political clout and dignity by dragging him into jail better think twice, thrice even. If this government thinks it can easily get away with doing another Crispin Beltran, it's gravely mistaken. I wager people aren't going to be that cowed or indifferent this time around. We aren't going to pushovers for ever.

Funny how the government gave the go signal for his arrest right after the SWS survey proclaimed Bayan Muna as the party list expected to top the upcoming polls. They now want Satur to be thrown into some dingy, far-flung jail in Leyte for obviously-concocted murder charges. The Inquirer report, I think, effectively exposed the bungled weekend raid on the Ocampo home for what it is: a crude act of harassment, shorn of all credibility, legality, logic, or justice.

People are not going to take this sitting down. Certainly not the hundreds of thousands of Bayan Muna supporters who have generally remained unfazed and undaunted despite being surveilled, harassed, demonized, and even targetted for assassination by this godforsaken government.

Unlike Ka Bel, I did not have the chance to personally know Ka Satur. Heck, the guy doesn't even know me. But he has my wholehearted respect for being what he is: a sterling freedom fighter and an exemplary public servant, certainly a hundred cuts above all these morally-bankrupt racketeers masquerading as solons and government officials. It's them who rightfully deserve to be jailed and not Satur.

It absolutely pisses me off to read about how these purported "law-enforcers" (okay, okay i get the joke) are hunting Satur down like dogs chasing after game. It only reminds me of how Ka Bel was "invited for questioning", held hostage by armed CIDG agents, sent to Camp Crame, arrested and jailed on such marvelously pathetic and nonsensical grounds. Ka Bel and his lawyer Romeo Capulong engaged in all the necessary legal actions, in good faith like the honorable men that they are. One year later, he remains detained without having been proven guilty of any crime. And we expect Satur to get fair treatment under the folds of the law?

Satur has every right to bide his time, dodge and defy that good-for-nothing scrap of paper that this government calls a warrant. It's only right that he stands against whimsical and pseudo-legal procedures of a bullish and politically-insecure administration. Go Ka Satur! We'll stand by you and Ka Bel whatever it takes.

http://www.bayanmuna.net/

The Picture That Alston Did Not Want To See

This is a photograph of our friend Isaias Manano, Jr, as shown by his own mother to United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston during his visit to the Philippines last February. For being the Secretary-General of Anakpawis in Mindoro Oriental and for many other reasons that do not make sense, Isaias was shot dead by an suspected military assassin while walking home last April 28, 2004.

Alston reportedly did not want to see this photograph. Well, neither did we. But we did not have the option to please ask that this photograph be taken away from our eyes, to beg off and ask to be shielded from this sight because it was an unbearable one indeed.

Almost four years have passed since Isaias was murdered. At the time of his death, the number of activists murdered by the government was pegged at 62. Now, the number of extrajudical killings has risen to over 800. The vermin suspected of masterminding the killings are now eyeing a seat in Congress. Military agents prowling the provinces and rural communities where people such as Isaias worked are now being deployed to slum areas in the cities in time for the 2007 elections. Alston, as a duly-acknowledged UN Special Procedures representative, did issue his official statement , only to be preempted and disrespectfully dissed by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales as an unwelcome muchacho "brainwashed" by the Philippine Left. Later today, President Arroyo signs the Anti-Terror Bill into law.

If all these aren't symptoms of a government gone mad, then I don't know what this is. It's like seeing Isaias die over and over again.

Remembering Braveheart
May 23, 2004

"BNARIL C ISAIAS. PATAY NA." I received this text message from a friend at 10:30 p.m. on April 28 and slumped into numb shock. The airconditioning in the fast food chain that humid night sunk into a sickening chill. Isaias was gone, the dissident exile from Mindoro who tirelessly trekked around in his cap, rubber slippers, and hunched, lean frame. Isaias, who risked sojourns throughout numerous sites of struggle, armed only with a guitar, the strongest of principles, and the humblest of words. [Continue]

Moving and Removing

February 25: We're moving out again, my husband and I. It's past midnight, the pick-up truck arrives tomorrow dawn but we're barely halfway through with packing up stuff. We should be panicking by now but for some reason, are going through our chores breezily while listening in random rotation to a whimsical mess of New Wave, J-Pop, progressive rock, Aimee Mann, and whateverelseisonthemp3player and editing work-related stuff in between.

Times like these remind me of the time when I was a kid, when my little nuclear family would change houses and neighborhoods every other year or so. It was because of this that I came to associate my childhood past not really with a single location, but with a litany of sites and journeys and people I've met across the way. That, and lots of cardboard boxes and packing tape.

It's a busy week ahead, the calm before another monsoon. But temporary solace surprisingly resides in strange comforts. I wish I could suspend and extend these crazy, transitory spells of time where, ironically, all things are again simple and clean and quiet, when one world ends where another begins.