A tragic little story and a lesson

I feel so sad. Our newly-adopted kitten, Neko, has been missing since this morning. Gani woke up to find Neko gone and the door of our laundry area ominously open. Apparently, we forgot to lock it after arriving home from an exhausting day at the SONA rally. While we were sound asleep, Neko must have ventured outside and slipped while navigating the window. The steep drop below runs up to several storeys, perhaps low enough for a kitten to survive the fall. Or perhaps not.

We tried searching for Neko downstairs, but didn't find anything, not even a tiny paw print. Neko has such a tiny, croaky, pipsqueak meow that it would have been impossible to hear him even from a few meters away. He has been with us for only two days, not long enough to find his way back to our place. And there's no way to protect him from all sorts of imaginable predators: rats, stray dogs, kids, rain, and wheels.

I remember Neko's last night with us: he was snuggling up on the sofa and nuzzling his head on our chins. He kept clambering up onto my lap while I was typing, a pesky, papansin ginger tabby kitty who would tirelessly scamper after our feet whenever we walked across the room, thinking that they were toys.

Now I just want to mope around, sob my heart out, and wallow in bitter misery until the weekend sets in. But putting things into perspective can be sobering in a mortifying sort of way: all around activists are being abducted and killed by this wretched government, and here I am, lamenting over a missing cat. As much as I'd like to shed earnest tears for our lost Neko, I realize that dissecting this event at length runs the risk of bordering on the absurd, something conceptually similar to this story posted in gmanews.tv: Dog given to Shaina as Valentine's gift is dead.

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]

Tribute to Dr. Aloysius Baes

Here's a short tribute to an extraordinary scientist and an exemplary environmental advocate, Dr. Aloysius Baes, reposted from www.bulatlat.com. This article was compiled from various testmonies, written and spoken, during two parangal (tribute) held for Ochie last December 23 and January. In the picture [below] is his mother, speaking of her son's life before a full audience at the Aldaba Hall in the Univeristy of the Philippines.

Dr. Aloysius Baes: Scientist, Composer and Revolutionary Par Excellence

Heroes are known not by how they died, but by how they lived in the service of the people to the very end. Dr. Aloysius "Ochie" Baes, 58, former Rapu-Rapu Fact-Finding Commissioner and environmentalist, consistently embodied this principle until he died.

His passing away at the National Kidney Institute last Dec. 21 merited an obituary in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, but there was definitely more to Ochie, as friends and colleagues called him, than what could be immediately said in a few concise lines.

A scientist by profession and an activist by choice, Ochie exemplified the best of what the iskolar ng bayan (people’s scholar) could offer to the country and to the world. At the tributes held last Dec. 23 and Jan. 29 at the Baes residence in Laguna and the Aldaba Hall in the University of the Philippines, Quezon City , respectively, Ochie's family, friends, colleagues and comrades were all brought together by narratives of his short but multi-faceted life: As a son and brother, student activist and revolutionary, Martial Law survivor, chemist and professor, commissioner, consultant, writer, poet, composer, musician, environmental advocate and scientist for the people.

Famous warrior

Dr. Aloysius Baes used to kid friends about the origins of his first name, claiming in jest that he was named after a mighty Greek god and - if still incredulous - a Nobel Prize winner who discovered a new chemical element.

The truth was that “Aloysius” is a variation of the name “Louis” which means “famous warrior.” Later, this name would exemplify much of what Ochie would become as a student leader and as a scientist.

Ochie was the eldest in a brood of four boys and one girl, a Boy Scout and proverbial “Mama's boy” born into a traditional, middle-class family. His parents had a piano at home and shared their love of music with the parish and with their children. Little did they then realize that this gift of the arts fostered upon their children would much later on reverberate in the hearts of countless activists. [Read the rest here].