Courage

“To be yourself in a world which does its best, night and day, to make you just like everybody else is the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” – e.e. cummings

             Call me twisted but whenever I see out-and-out gays and lesbians, I see embodiments of courage. You see, these brethren of ours could have just hidden in the closet; but, no, they would rather suffer ostracism and indignation for being who they really are rather than nestle in their zones of comfort and safety.They could have just as easily acted out a different persona or pass themselves off as what they are not (magkunwari) in order to be easily assimilated into our intolerant society and be just like everybody else. But then again, they chose to “walk proudly in the light than die a slow death”. That’s courage.

                Courage is the link to our eventual progress and success as a species—quite a grandiose claim but I believe it is true.

Remember the many instances of courage in history and in our society without which we wouldn’t have propelled forward.

               Galileo and Nicolaus Copernicus had courage. They espoused ideas at a time when the prevailing mindset would have considered their ideas crazy and heretic. Without them we would still have maintained our paradigm of celestial hegemony—that is, that we are at the center of the vast universe. What humbugs we could all have been! Without them, we would have limited our desire for discovery to, literally, the corners of our world. We would not have acknowledged that we are just a tiny speck of dust and that there is so much more to see, explore and discover out there.

              

                    Fighting for your ideas not knowing if you are right, and despite colossal opposition—that’s courage. Einstein, too, had courage.He shook the scientific community when he challenged the then prevailing Newtonian physics as a way to explain the expanding universe. His idea of a time-space continuum, as opposed to Newton’s law of gravitation, is much better at explaining the celestial workings of the universe.

               

                Columbus was also the epitome of courage. When everybody else believed that the world was flat and unimaginable monsters inhabited the oceans, he went out to circumnavigate the world and discovered the New World.

                    Rosa Parks had courage. At a time when Blacks were discriminated and considered “slave material”, she didn’t give up her bus seat for a white man asserting that everybody should be treated equally. For a Black, and a woman at that, that was courage personified! Without her and all the others that came after her (e.g. Martin Luther King), we would all still be slaves (pun intended) to the idea that slavery is acceptable and that some groups of people are bound to be subservient to others.

                   So how are the above examples related to my assertion that out-and-out gays and lesbians are courage personified?

                    

                    The inference could not be missed. They (the gender-benders) are examples of people who refused to be shackled by societal norms, expectations and conventions. So do Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, Columbus, and Parks.

                   

                   Okay, the comparison is a little bit forced.

                But we don’t really know the roots of lesbianism or homosexuality, so why would we be quick to judge it and dismiss it as something that has to be curtailed?

                     Conversely, the presence of fear is what courage is not: fear of the unknown, fear of the “different”, fear of the unconventional, “fear” of people who may not necessarily be like you or me in terms of color, orientation, sexuality, beliefs, etc. This kind of fear breeds intolerance; intolerance breeds disrespect; disrespect breeds subjugation.

                   Courage is two sides of the same coin. Courage makes people assert their diversity. That same courage can also make us accept that diversity.

So next time you see gays and lesbians, have the courage (and tolerance) to accept such difference and diversity. Just like those courageous people in history who were originally seen as “different”, they might just lead us to positive surprises just around the corner in the byways of our development and progress as a species. You’ll never know.

(This piece was written November 25, 2004. I found it in my journal)

1 vs. 100 U.P. Centennial

1. Student number?
95-43497

2. College(s)?
School of Economics

3. Ano ang course mo?
B.S. Business Economics

4. Nag-shift ka ba o na-kickout?
I shifted from B.S. Economics to B.S. Business Economics. More or less same shit actually, just different names!

5. Saan ka kumuha ng UPCAT?
Sa isang testing center sa probinsya.

6. Favorite GE subjects?
Comm 1, Comm 2, Comm 3, Hum 2

7. Favorite PE?
Scrabble! Most of the P.E. subjects I took involve no physical activity. It's called P(hysical) E(ducation), right, not Physical Exertion.

8. Saan ka nag-aabang ng hot guy sa UP?
I invoke my right against self-incrimination pursuant to Art.I I I of the Constitution.

9. Favorite prof(s)?
Prof. Winnie Monsod, Prof. Randy David, Prof. De Los Santos, Prof. Diokno

10. Pinaka-ayaw na GE subject?
P.I. 100

11. Kumuha ka ba ng Wed or Sat classes?
Yah. I could not remember my sked now but I sure did at one point or another.

12. Nakapag-field trip ka ba?
Can't recall but I think Nada, Zilch, None.

13. Naging CS ka na ba or US sa UP?
What's that?! Funny thing is I went to U.P. on a full Government Scholarship as one of the top passers in the 1995 UPCAT but I never get to be CS or US. Duh!

14. Ano ang Org/Frat/Soro mo?
U.P. Daruma, U.P. Panaghigala---all provincial-based orgs

15. Saan ka tumatambay palagi?
Sa School of Econ Atrium

16. Dorm, Boarding house, o Bahay?
Kalayaan Dorm sa First year, Molave sa Second Year, Boarding Haus for the remaining years.

17. Kung walang UPCAT test at malaya kang nakapili ng kurso mo sa UP, ano yun?
J O U R N A L I S M! Ano fa?! It wasn't really about UPCAT but a wrong choice of course. napilitan eh!

18. Sino ang pinaka-una mong nakilala sa UP?
My dormmate who I didn't get along with initially but naging ok na rin eventually.

19. First play na napanood mo sa UP?
Inside U.P. I forgot. But I got to watch A Streetcar named Desire in Meralco Theater as a course requirement. In it were Dina Bonnevie, Raymond Bagatsing, Shielu Bharwani at the height of her popularity due to her Benadryl commercial. Raymond Bagatsing was (or still is) a stud!

20. Name the 5 most conyo orgs in UP?
Ecosoc, OBEM, JMA, JPIA, at anything else which was based in Econ or BA

21. Name 5 of the coolest orgs/frats/soro in UP
U.P. Daruma, U.P. Daruma, ad infinitum!

22. May frat/soro bang nag-recruit sa yo?
Madami. If they only knew. . . .!

23. Saan ka madalas mag-lunch?
Dorm, yucky yet cheap, in all sense of the word, food! then in my later years sa Econ canteen, to see the occassional artista and hot denizens of U.P.

24. Masaya ba sa UP?
U.P. will always be masaya but the real question is:Masaya ba ako sa U.P.? No! Call me if you need further explanations!

25. Nakasama ka na ba sa rally?
Nope! I don't believe in "street parliament". I am really apolitical.

26. Ilang beses ka bumoto sa Student Council?
Once lang yata.

27. Name at least 5 leftist groups in U.P.
I don't care. I am rightist, whatever that means.

28. Pinangarap mo rin bang mag-laude nung freshman ka?
Yah! ambisyoso, but in the Course I was then, I wasn't motivated enough to excel.

29. Kanino ka pinaka-patay sa UP?
My classmate in several subjects who was a Del Monte 202 model! Refreshing! Fits my body, fits my life! hahaha. . . .

30. Kung di ka UP, anong school ka?
U.P. pa rin cuz U.P. was the only school I took an exam for. Lucky for me nga! I did not think of any other school. At the time there were only two schools in the Philippines : U.P. and others!




U.P. Fight! ! !

Summer of Discontent

(This piece by the author, an award-winning and published part-time writer, was written a year ago. The sentiments in this piece still remain.)

It had been quite a long time, almost ten years. Although I had returned once in a while, all those homecomings may, at best, be described as sporadic, intermittent, and brief. This is the first time I had spent a month-long summer vacation (summer of 2006) in my home city since I first left to pursue college and then law school in Manila.

In my four years in college, I had gone home only twice---two Christmas vacations which were all too brief. Most of the time I was (of course) busy with regular classes and summer classes. Every Christmas vacation, I would grapple with the dilemma of going home or not. The prohibitive cost of transport (air transportation, because I don’t like riding in our dignified floating coffins, I mean, marine vessels) contributed to this. Most of the time, economics prevail. Now that I have recently graduated from law school (which took me six years), I can recall that during that span of time I went home also only twice--- for two quick Christmas vacations. In all those times that I had been home, I naturally spent them with my family since Christmas is said to be primarily for the family. I never had the chance to rediscover our city, and only a very limited time to catch up with old friends.

This is the first time that I had spent my summer in my home city. This is the first time, too, that I had spent it for an extended amount of time.

I had a hard time describing my experience. I felt like a stranger in a familiar place. It is . . . disorienting.

Where have all my friends, classmates, and schoolmates gone? What is that----a mall? Wow, our city now has a mall! What is that wide strip of cement called--- Boulevard or Baywalk (similar to the one in Manila)? Hmmm, this red and orange building looks pretty familiar (translation: Jollibee). Great, we now have a fast food chain; at least were not that behind.

When I was in high school I could fondly recall that whenever I stroll around our city, I see a familiar face every few minutes or so. As such, my face would go sore from constantly grinning. Or, my hand would always be ready to make a quick wave at an incoming acquaintance. Now, it would be very rare (yet a total delight) to see an old familiar face after several blocks or so. (I have two reactions to this “development”: it makes me sad that fewer people now know me and there are now fewer people I know----having lots of acquaintances in my home city makes me feel safe, secure, and---oh well, popular; simultaneously, knowing less and less people could mean that there are now more people in our place, that is, our city is “expanding” or growing/developing.)

I believe the situation I had experienced was not at all unique to me. I can just imagine that the same feeling was experienced, at one point or another, by people who, just like me, have to go to presumably “better” places in order to study or get an education. For some other people, though, it would mean going to presumably “better” places to get a job, to seek better opportunities and greener pasture, or to experience a better environment. (I could only ventilate the sentiments of people, i.e. students, like me. Those balikbayans, OFWs would probably experience the same thing, perhaps of deeper magnitude.) Students who had to study to far-flung places usually grapple with the reality that whenever they go back to their hometowns or home cities after a prolonged absence, they would feel like total strangers. Everything would be different. They would have to re-orient themselves about the location of certain streets, the grocery store, their favorite bakeshop, their favorite parlor/barber shop and favorite hairdresser/barber, the look of their neighbors, the addresses and location of their friends’ houses, etc. (I certainly experienced all these when I went back.)

It is quite sad that there are those, like me, who have to leave the localities in which they were born and probably the only ones they have known for most of their lives either to get an education, a job, or just to experience better standards of living. Most people in the provinces have to go to presumably “better” places, the hegemonic centers (in the Philippines, Manila or Cebu) since it is in the latter places where good schools and better job opportunities abound. Not to mention that these so-called hegemonic centers are also the centers of culture, arts, entertainment, industry, commerce, etc. Extrapolate this inference further and one can see the continuing picture of diaspora and discontent: people in the far-flung places or provinces going to the big cities; people (students and workers like nurses, doctors, engineers, and health professionals) in poor countries going to the industrialized “First World” nations to seek the same things: better opportunities, professional development, better education, or better standards of living.

It is not too presumptuous to conclude that people would have no need to seek “better” things in other places and to make great sacrifices in the process (in terms of family life, finances, adjustments, well-being, sadness) if only wealth were better distributed and people (almost) everywhere would have equal access to opportunities---be they in the provinces or big cities, in quote-unquote Third world countries or quote-unquote First world countries. (To digress a little: There are academicians who spurn the use of the discriminatory Third World/First World dichotomy which is a Western invention.) The reality of the situation, of course, is otherwise.

Oftentimes it is so heart-breaking to see so much inequality and imbalance in society. While certain places (or countries for that matter) would enjoy relative prosperity, others would forever remain in the backwaters of development. (I am not saying that my hometown/home city is such; but we are definitely a far cry from the so-called “hegemonic” centers.) While some places have become more advanced and relatively industrialized, others have remained sleepy, bucolic, and rustic. As such, inhabitants in these latter places are impelled to seek the “better” things elsewhere other than in their own. One cannot even begin to pinpoint the cause or causes. Should our government and its programs/policies be to blame? Should we point accusing fingers at the powers-that-be in the national (or world) stage? Or should we just accept the fact that it is an immutable economic principle and a fact of life that there will always be inequality and imbalance in society and the world?

Tough questions with no unequivocal answers.

For the time being though, my (and I believe, for many others out there) amorphous discontent remains.

 

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