I am listening to this seventies music , Friends of Distinction “Great Day”. I turn to my husband and sing the song “Aint it a… Read More »Enjoying Recovery
““Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later… Read More »What do people live for?
To the Noynoy supporters
Take time to read carefully from beginning to end including citations from columnists. This is about the grief and sense of loss (then road to acceptance) as the title suggest. This is not about you. Be happy your candidate won instead of making fun of people’s pain. Of course, you are entitled to get pissed (at the author of the Business World article I quoted) as we are entitled to our sadness. Remember that the quality of a victor shows in how he treats the defeated. thank you.
May 10 called upon #juanvote to close the day with our anecdotes of the historic first national automated election. Right before we went live, the breaking news of the Comelec hit us hard. The speed of the results just stunned us. Thirty-five (35%) of the votes were just transmitted. Noynoy Aquino took a lead.
I was restless that night, unable to sleep. Did I waste 9 months of my life to voters’ education when I could have ventured into more profitable endeavors? You might all know by now that I didn’t vote for Noynoy Aquino because he didn’t fit my critieria of competency, character, coherent platform and clear vision. The night before May 10, I told myself that no matter who the president will be and as long as it is a fair and clean election (unlike the Hello Garci scandal in 2004), I will support the new president whoever he/she may be.
Just like sudden death, the impact of the news was shocking. How could 40% of the voters ignore “several candidates far more qualified by a record of public achievement than Noynoy” ? As Rene Azurin expressly wrote
“Mr. Aquino, because he is famous and a celebrity, can claim authority over us without any demand to show prior proof that he is at all qualified to exercise it. That’s intrinsically unfair. Of course, this is not Mr. Aquino’s fault. It is our fault for allowing ourselves to fall — stupidly, let us admit — under the spell of celebrity.”
Anniversary dates stare out from the calendar. For most of us, the days of birth and death are the most prominent but so hard to acknowledge. The birthday that brought so much jubilation may now be but a fond and sometimes painfully wistful day of a “what might have been” memory. Then the lousiest day of the year, the day that is etched on some stone in the south of Manila, the day some of our sweetness left us forever. A reasonable amount of preparation in anticipation of this gloomy day and the empty sadness it brings doesn’t really help. We are aware about these death anniversary dates which I’d rather call the Angel date.
You see, our family members are more irritable, tempers fly and tears easily roll down. Then we remember that Luijoe’s death anniversary is nearing. Ah yes, even if we were prepared for it. It is like standing at the shores of despair looking out at the waves below the sunset that is so beautiful while signaling the end of the day. These waves of profound sadness can be relentless and the big one is coming on that date. This knowledge never seems capable of preventing the wave from smashing us into our lonely reality.
Edit – April 26– I am not happy that the segment producer did not ask permission for a reenactment of Luijoe’s death in a swimming pool. They even got a kid that had a similar face to Luijoe. Dramatic effect pa kasi…eh blogging in a cemetery was enough for me to satisfy their production values. Other than that, the episode was good.
Here I am in a cemetery, with a TV crew. A GMA 7 show wants to feature bloggers for this Saturday (Thanks to Brian Gorrell for the hype on blogs these days). Why should I do this? I asked the producer. It’s not normal routine to blog in a cemetery. Yeah sure, it’s better than a reenactment which is a definite no-no for me. Sure, I bring flowers, candles and my small chair but blogging? Never tried it but yes, I do bring my macbook everywhere with me. But the producer is persuasive, “Maybe you might consider blogging here”.