Thursday, October 20, 2005
Batas-Militar
Professor Simbulan gave a chilling account about Martial and I got scared for myself. Those dark years of martial rule must have put to the limit the extent of the human spirit and commitment for the cause of social liberation. I am hard-pressed then to assess myself on my preparedness to live the way those people lived then and offer my life for and to the people.
Can I really measure up in the face of bullets and rifles? In the face of torture and electrocuted genitals? I really do not know the answer to that. Can i really leave my charmed life, eating out during the weekends for a life which might leave me hungry at times as my other comrades in the student movement are experiencing oftentimes? Can I really join the guerillas in the hills and wage armed struggle against the regime especially when the prospect of an undeclared martial law is now coming to the fore? Can I leave my family and my girlfriend-comrade for the revolution? For the people whose class is not my own? I used to romanticize about the countryside, living with the peasants. Can i actually do that for the rest of my life? Leave a the prospect of a good life behind me? Can i actually send my kids to Ateneo for them to have a Jesuit education or in Poveda or Miriam if all i have is an allowance from the movement? Can I just live a normal life, as i have had when i was not an activist?
These are questions which i can only answer soon enough, when the circumstances are right and destiny is knocking on my doorstep. I can choose two paths, the normal life with money and prestige or the life in the road less travelled, dangerous, but complete and worthwhile. I do not have answers as of yet because doing so would be prejudicial to my future as I would never want to renege on my word when I finally decide on what to do with my life. Soon enough I will have to resolutely face my fears and these quesitons will indeed be answered. I can only hope that I choose the path of serving the people as there can never be a life more worthless than that of a revolutionary sell-out as Mike Defensor and many other activists before him who are the greatest reactionaries of our time.
This is why I love the life of Edgar Jopson so much. Ever since, he has always been my model on how the petty-bourgeois should conduct their lives in a meanigful way. He had a big corporate life ahead of him and a business empire to be inherited from his father, yet he turned his back from it all and lived the simple life and hard struggle together with the people. Did Edjop and Joy get to send their kids to good schools? I think so. They went to good girl schools and their son went to the Ateneo. But Edjop did pay a price for his struggle. He got shot in a raid in their safehouse and got killed. But he died a hero of people, and he will forever be one of the greatest figures of Martial Law and the student movement who rose out of their comfort zones to fight against the dictator and fight for and together with the people in their struggle for social justice and equality.
Can I really measure up in the face of bullets and rifles? In the face of torture and electrocuted genitals? I really do not know the answer to that. Can i really leave my charmed life, eating out during the weekends for a life which might leave me hungry at times as my other comrades in the student movement are experiencing oftentimes? Can I really join the guerillas in the hills and wage armed struggle against the regime especially when the prospect of an undeclared martial law is now coming to the fore? Can I leave my family and my girlfriend-comrade for the revolution? For the people whose class is not my own? I used to romanticize about the countryside, living with the peasants. Can i actually do that for the rest of my life? Leave a the prospect of a good life behind me? Can i actually send my kids to Ateneo for them to have a Jesuit education or in Poveda or Miriam if all i have is an allowance from the movement? Can I just live a normal life, as i have had when i was not an activist?
These are questions which i can only answer soon enough, when the circumstances are right and destiny is knocking on my doorstep. I can choose two paths, the normal life with money and prestige or the life in the road less travelled, dangerous, but complete and worthwhile. I do not have answers as of yet because doing so would be prejudicial to my future as I would never want to renege on my word when I finally decide on what to do with my life. Soon enough I will have to resolutely face my fears and these quesitons will indeed be answered. I can only hope that I choose the path of serving the people as there can never be a life more worthless than that of a revolutionary sell-out as Mike Defensor and many other activists before him who are the greatest reactionaries of our time.
This is why I love the life of Edgar Jopson so much. Ever since, he has always been my model on how the petty-bourgeois should conduct their lives in a meanigful way. He had a big corporate life ahead of him and a business empire to be inherited from his father, yet he turned his back from it all and lived the simple life and hard struggle together with the people. Did Edjop and Joy get to send their kids to good schools? I think so. They went to good girl schools and their son went to the Ateneo. But Edjop did pay a price for his struggle. He got shot in a raid in their safehouse and got killed. But he died a hero of people, and he will forever be one of the greatest figures of Martial Law and the student movement who rose out of their comfort zones to fight against the dictator and fight for and together with the people in their struggle for social justice and equality.
# posted by Terry Ridon : 11:37 AM
