Exhilarating, Excruciating

Two words. Exhilarating and excruciating. Or make that exhilarating yet excruciating, which then becomes a whole phrase.

The wind and rain of the tropical storm went from almost every direction conceivable. We had to wakeup quite early, or very early, for we were to fetch a package from the province. Waiting for the bus to arrive, which was no less than a test of patience in itself, my brother and I knew the ordeal wasn't going to be easy.

We were right.

For one, the package to be delivered was, well, delivered by bus. Our father saw to it that the computer monitor was in our hands the soonest time possible. He had to request for the bus driver to take the package with him, or in his bus, whatever, to Quezon City all the way from Naga City. Of course, our father had to give the driver a few cash as a form of token for taking care of what could have been a time-consuming and gut-wrenching long distance travel, which I think it truly was. And so, after almost a full hour of waiting, perhaps even two, the bus finally arrived at EDSA-Kamuning. Needless to say, our clothes were almost wet all-over by the time we had in our hands the box that we waited for. Isang was merciless, not the least because the storm made certain we won't be coming home dry. Despite the jacket and the umbrella, the damp wind effortlessly brushed us from top to toe. The bus station had a roof wide enough to cover six buses lined side-by-side, but it was barely sufficient to provide the needed protection from the storm's onslaught. All things being equal, not one soul was spared then and there, even the inanimate ones. The cigarette I was smoking and the cup of warm coffee I was enjoying were easy victims. The first cigarette easily fell prey while the second was nowhere near fortunate enough, as it did for the third and fourth. I must have lost count.

For consolation, the experience was exhilarating, for rarely these past few years have I been able to bear witness to in full flesh this display of natural force. You get stuck in Quezon City right before rush hour kicks in and right at a time when you hope that PAGASA was wrong when it said that the rains aren't going to simply pass like a slight drizzle, you know very well that you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially so when all that you can do is to hold on to what little patience you have left and to wait for some thing to arrive. But it was exhilarating nonetheless. For someone who grew up in a province where Rosing and Monang are epic legends in their own uncanny ways, this is history all over again, or at least a faint semblance to it. For someone who trembles not at the news of an impending weather disturbance for having been exposed to more turbulent ones in earlier years, this is certainly not the worst of its kind, yet bad nonetheless.

But that's not the beef. The real shit is the second.

We had no other choice but to hail a taxi cab that will transport us back to our house in Balara with minimal interruptions. The weather showed no signs of taking a short break from its rampage. We cannot sacrifice the box for the sake of taking a cheaper but riskier route. You do otherwise and you risk as well the one thing you carry with you. Suffice it to say that my brother and I were able to convince one taxi driver to drop us off at this desolate, forsaken, and equally ridiculous place in the city. Which I like.

As soon as we hit East Avenue, I had the feeling that the man behind the steering wheel thinks that he is a god, or an immortal, a descendant of Zeus who is neither half-man nor half bacteria. He seized the wheel with not a hint of terseness in his face. Relaxed yet exuding that air of bravado, he swiftly changed gears as if he was in a hurry. Well, he appeared so. In fact, the music blasting out of the car speakers seemed to have fueled his senses, thumping his thumbs simultaneously with the classic beat. I did not know if his right foot was afflicted with the malady as well, for the car seemed to have been accelerating every time the music intensified to the point of climax.

We were literally cutting through one space to the next. For the driver, the small vacant stretch between our cab and the vehicle ahead of us was like a wide mile, giving him all the room to push on, overtake, and wait for another elbow room, then push on, overtake, and wait for another elbow room, repeating the same whole process throughout. We were not racing with time; it was still early and we were not going to an appointment. We were just about to go home. Neither were we racing with other cars. Or at least not me and my brother. The road was wet, splashing a jet of water at the sides each time one of the wheels zipped through shallow gaps filled with murky rainwater on the concrete pavement. The man cursed and cursed. He pounded the car horns with his bare fist as he did.

For all these, it was enough to force you to hope that there's a god, just in case the driver was demented enough to deliver us to fate or to kingdom come, whichever he preferred. At best, it was exhilarating just because I haven't had that feeling since roller coaster days, the types you see during town fiestas, rust and creeks and cracks and all. At worst, which I surmise it was all that throughout, it was excruciating, not the least because my brother and I almost felt like we were riding an ambulance and we were on an emergency of some sort that the driver only knew for himself. A tranquilizer could have served him best if he had one, and I would have been more than glad to stick it up his ass. We did not ask him.

I almost felt like a changed man after stepping out of that cab.

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So Far So Good

That sums up my first two weeks in law school. So far, almost everything has been doing well and good. So far, there's little reason to think that the struggles formidably presenting themselves are insurmountable. So far, there's little reason to tremble at the sight of lawyers who teach, presumably in a grand manner. So far, the expenses are within tolerable boundaries despite having already given birth to a widening hole in my wallet, the end to its continuing growth being nowhere near. So far, the almost sleepless nights of studying, of having to review for six hours or more during the most unholy hours of the evening just to come prepared to a two-hour class the following morning are not enough to pull down someone so eager and determined, begging for the madness to end altogether. All these in the face of the prospect of becoming a scintillate of the law which, all things waiting to be said and done, remains so far ahead.

So far so good. But that's not to say that nothing has gone wrong these past few days. Quite on the contrary, to say that life's a bitch is an understatement. It's a total whore if you ask me. You get pleasure, at least intellectually, which is also torture at the same time, and at the end of the day you have to pay, body and soul. It's a good thing that my knees are still intact knowing how they tend to wobble when the gods at Malcolm Hall dilute your sanity by throwing a whole series of questions at your direction. That, while standing up for almost the entire duration of the class for, when called to recite, you have neither privilege nor right to sit down unless your professor tells you so. In case you do or prefer to disobey, or sin maybe, no saint can save you. Hell will freeze over. That, while your humility is pounded all the more.

You have to survive on a daily basis. There is little room to think of the next day and the days to follow. Or in case you prefer to brave such daunting task, the certainty that your plans will ever meet the day when they ought to take shape is never guaranteed. The pile of readings for one subject in one day is equivalent to half a semester's worth of readings during my undergraduate years. Multiply the volume by three and you get the daily picture. Which is why it is in the prudent order of things for you to live the day and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Surely, tomorrow can wait; today can't. And for someone who is studying and working at the same time, or someone who is earning his wages just to send his self to law school, there's always a time for everything. Today is for today. Tomorrow is for tomorrow.

It's quite difficult to enter the portals of this institution. To hang in there for the next four or five years is another matter. To keep afloat is all the more tiresome made all the more difficult by the increasing level of academic difficulty.

But that is where the darker side of things end, at least as far as I know. The other side of the same coin balances the equation. Like yin and yang.

Of course, law school is half empty if not totally void without the brighter side to it. For one, you get to learn. A lot. I think that is precisely the point of studying. Turning into a lawyer is just an auxiliary consequence to the ordeal. You can hardly become a lawyer if you do not learn in the first place. You can hardly become a legal counsel if you do not learn the primordial elements of litigation in the first place. You just become no less than an employee of another, or someone who hangs a diploma on the wall for bragging rights. Although these things are not inherently bad, they do defeat the penultimate reason for studying the beauty and madness of law. Which goes without saying that depriving yourself of the opportunity to learn is to deprive yourself to share the best and worst of times with those who share the same interest. Which also leads us to the second side of law school.

It forges friendship. Each becomes a witness to the failures and triumphs of one another. Each becomes a living testament to the shameless and shameful consequences of each other's attempt at solving the riddles that professors are prone to unleash. Each becomes a benefactor to another's wisdom, much as each becomes a victim to another's mistake. The failure of one is part of the failure of another. The sweet success of one is another man's, or woman's, taste of ambrosia and nectar. Interdependency is the operative word. You have to survive but you have to do so with the help of others. When you stand alone, your troubles are doubled. To say the least, frailty and determination are parts and parcels of what these students collectively possess. And these are the same things that bind them as a single force. In some cases, they also separate them in varied ways, but that's something else.

I very well recall the time when I was still an undergraduate. That was the time when I could attend classes even without arming myself with an understanding of the lesson the night before. I could bluff my way around and nobody even cared, not even myself. After all, the real measure of learning is not the "uno" or "singko" that you get at the end of every semester. That is perhaps the worst yardstick mankind has ever made. But of course, it's better to have something than to have nothing to justify your continued stay in a school funded by the people's tax. Going back, that was the time when I still had ample time to do anything that I please. Today, I barely even have the time just to scratch my balls.

Be that as it may, two weeks have gone and I am yet to see the rest of how it is to be a law student worthy of the people's taxes. So far so good, some people put it. I concede that to be here is so good. But I admit as well that the end of all these is so far.

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Envy Them

At four minutes past eight in the evening, it is raining. Outside, our neighbors are caterwauling, which is the least bit of comfort one can receive after another day spent trying to understand what the law says in letter or in spirit. Take your pick. With microphone on one hand and beer on another, I hear that song again, but this time the lyrics are sung far worse than the nights that went before. From where I sit, I can see nobody dancing but I speculate the guy must be gyrating behind plain sight. With no Katrina wiping the sweat off the edges of his skin, what more had there been one, or a close semblance to one. I wonder why they do not hold singing contests in this forgotten artery of the metro. You really have to wonder, too, how idle times transform ordinary lives into something more or less than what you would expect. At the end of yet another hectic day, it's quite enough to reward yourself in your own liking.

No amount of deluge can uproot them from their seats. The videoke is one of the few remaining luxuries in a place where shades of poverty stare you right in the face. I can understand why the folks here do not mind spending long hours in front of the machine and trying to break the veins in their necks in the hope of perfectly seizing that ever elusive high note. Despite the bad weather, you've got to hand it to them, if not for the singing at least for the effort. Who in his sane mind would not want to relax after enduring the necessary troubles of the day? More to the point, who in his sane mind would not want to relax when confronted with the fact of life that tomorrow is another day that will bring much of the same difference?

They caterwaul, or shriek like cats desperate for supper or for a mate, some preferring the latter more than the former. They sing not because they want to sing like the sopranos of an ensemble. They sing not because they want to appease their neighbors, which is perhaps the worst reason they could ever give to justify the usual horrors set forth by tones and tunes that are yet to be explained by sound engineers. They sing not because they want to share their fleeting moments of nirvana, although one can say it might go with the entire ordeal as an unsolicited consolation. Simply, they sing because they want to. And there is no one in the world that can stop them from doing as they please.

Well, except maybe the police, but that's another story.

I do not recall now the first time I had the shot of pouncing upon the microphone like a child eager to land the first taste of candy. What I do recall is that every time my hands would clutch the microphone I feel different. If that is not weird or appalling enough, which is really not, wait until my mouth begins to let the words from the depths of my lungs freely escape. Freely. With no restraint, especially when beer has already taken hold of my senses. To this day, I've still taken it as a pearl of wisdom not to openly declare my intention to sing for no one has yet been able to stand my spirited cries over the microphone long enough. I can't sing well. Or maybe I just can't sing. God forbid, try me.

That being said, I'd rather play the instrument I am most familiar with, which is the guitar. Now this I remember very well. It was way back during the first year of my undergraduate studies when I first learned how to play the stringed instrument. Neither a strong inkling nor a deep curiosity urged me to pick it up the moment I first got acquainted with it. It was for the simple reason that I was the only one who has not yet been able to play the guitar in our dormitory's wing. It was short of being an outcast every time the night turned young and everybody else was strumming to their heart's content. Not wanting to be left behind by a wide mile, I took it a personal mission and challenge to learn the skill on my own. The long and short of the story is that it led me to where I am now. I have been in a band, and I believe I still am. I've tried almost every possible avenue for making the instrument talk and squeal and whisper and sound the way it should. While genuine passion for music knows no genre, I can say with confidence that I strongly feel for the blues.

But I must admit. Years before my fingers began to fret the "devil's music" to some, or the "slave's music" to others, I was the typical teenager whose eyes shimmered and ears rang whenever the radio jockey played Backstreet Boys, or Westlife, or Boyzone. I would scurry forth and find the nearest "song hits" which littered our house back then and, soon enough, I would sing along like a pious sheep in the congregation of habitual sinners. Looking back, I never imagined myself to eventually awaken from that slumber and wake-up one day finding myself singing, or playing, the blues. While there are tons of reasons to say that comparing Ronan Keating with Robert Johnson is like comparing oranges to apples, or white boys to black men, I do not find it less enticing or least appropriate to say that the blues is far deeper and soulful than anything I have ever heard in my life. With the exception, of course, of the woes of my beloved mother and father to whom I owe my life more than anybody else.

There's no telling when the rain will stop. A storm is on the brink of exploding mayhem and the folks from the house opposite the side of the road where our humble shack stands are busy trying to nail whatever score they may land. Will they get a perfect one? Perhaps. Or maybe not. Either way, they could only care less about being a wonderful or a wandering singer. They sing because they just want to. Never mind singing "en-didit mai wei" in place of the proper enunciation of the words. It all stands well enough. Never mind singing "da kirlis wespirs ob a gud prend" in place of the right way of saying it. It all stands good enough. Never mind singing all the wrong words when all that matters is singing. More so, never mind anything at all.

The voices are far from comforting the afflicted. They're everywhere near to doing the exact opposite, which is afflicting the comfortable. But still, I envy them.

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Freedom in Chains

Somewhere in the city, someone has to brave the callous deed of selling flesh and soul during the most unholy hours of the night. For men who have deprived themselves of morality or have endured a long dry spell, her meat is perfectly consumable, quenching the patrons' thirst as water is to mouth. To excite the libido and senses of her midnight riders and to satisfy their phallic ecstasy thereafter is to live for another day. She is free but the oppression that she has to swallow, literally if not figuratively, binds her to a mesh where escape is anywhere near impossible. You call her a whore and she calls men names that can sanctify even the least honorable of all mortals. Aware that the future awaiting her flickers like candle fire in the middle of a raging storm, her free will is as impotent as those who have tasted her skin firsthand. Not surprisingly, her hope grows more elusive today than yesterday and the days that went before.

Somewhere in the province, harvest season signals yet another time when there is dire want amid the plentiful bounties that flood the amber fields. Between months of toil and excruciating days of tending the crops, rest becomes an expensive commodity for those who labor at the mercy of their land owners and of the requisites of having to live a life among the lowly. They do not own the land that they till. If they do, someone who wields the scythe of power strips them off of their rightful claim, as if divorcing them entirely from the umbilical cord that has sustained their generation and the generations that came before them for countless decades. If they stand against the way of those who desire to own their little remaining parcels of land, the risks to life morph before their eyes like an unmistakable death prophet, staring them down while brandishing a crescent that wounds before it even dares to touch their very skinny skins. In these modern times, farmers who fight for their ways of living are by all means looking through the barrel of a warm gun.

Somewhere in a financial district, someone speaks an accent so foreign that others may find it difficult to understand how someone is a Filipino. Someone whose nocturnal lifestyle is a penitence for dreaming the dream eyes the horizon lines from the heights of a concrete tower, one that dwarfs the rest of the corporate neighborhood. With sleepy eyes, coffee on one hand and phone on the other, every call rings that fairly familiar tone of opportunity but not without facing ridicule, mockery, shame and all things that tend to dissolve human dignity with the strike of a word from the other end of the line. The promise of sudden wealth, though not in extremely gracious amounts, is alluring that some others are even tempted to seize that golden opportunity despite having totally alien undergraduate degrees. Some others, enthralled and enticed, simply fade from school to join the ranks and files of these "unseen" voices.

Somewhere, some students are eager to become nurses, so much so that they tend to gravitate towards any short and convenient route possible. The exponential growth in numbers of those who aspire to become nurses is testament to the idea, if not a fact, that the profession is quite rewarding. Green pastures abroad are fertile grounds for nurses to thrive. With a steady demand for health care workers on foreign shores, at least for now, the exodus of our nurses is nothing short of reminding us that ours is a country close to becoming barren—assuming we're not already there. It tells the story of how much some of us have gone to great lengths just to keep afloat in these troubling times. The thought is a boon much as it is a bane. It makes you want to laugh on one side of your face as much as it makes you want to cry on the other. It makes you want to rejoice as much as it compels you to grieve at the same time. It drives you mad while it forces you to remain inspired, clinging on to the sharp edges of hope no matter how tormenting the pain amplifies. You want to become a nurse and pack your bags, traveling to a distant land where you hope that the remittances you send back are enough signs of life for the ones you have left behind.

Somewhere along the banks of a decaying river, a shack stands proudly and defiantly. Inside its tattered walls and roof of wood and plastic, a family prepares for an anorexic supper. The limbs of the children look as though they have seen better days, like thin and lifeless twigs just waiting for gravity to thrust them to the ground. The father is sickly and so is the mother, but there can be no sane excuse for them to let a day pass without finding a way to earn a decent living. One man's garbage is another man's gold; they scavenge an Everest of debris and rubbish in the hopes of unearthing a precious find. His steadfast will is unshaken by the sheer weight of feeding eight mouths all at one time while her unbending determination to live through thin and thin, or thinner and thinnest, is untroubled by the daunting task of making sure that their children will survive at the least.

Somewhere along the banks of the same river, a swine oils herself with the fat of the people. The grease casts an ominous luster, foreboding dangers far greater than what the crippled and afflicted have seen in years. With the swipe of her pen, she can turn the tides to her favor. Conscripting a legion of men and women under her banner with the least amount of force, her sty becomes a fortress to be reckoned with. Along with her minions, she stuffs her cabals' mouths with treasures so they speak not, fills their ears with earthly wonders so they hear not, and blinds their eyes with the shimmer of gold so they see not. All these for the sake of her self-preservation, the lust for political power notwithstanding. She can, she did, she does, and she will do so as she pleases.

Somewhere in this country, laws are made not because of the crimes. Rather, crimes are committed because of the law, or the lack thereof. Representation is given whole new meanings, none of which are devoid of corrupt principles. Those who swore to uphold the law and live them are the first ones to swiftly break their creations. They tremble not at the sight of justice; they rejoice triumphantly at the signs of monumental injustice. They presume themselves to speak of the truth while, in the same breath, they lie straightly through the crevices of their teeth. They appear at the height of the exercise of the people's right to suffrage and disappear into oblivion thereafter, leaving little trace behind only to reappear when destiny in the form of certificate of having been elected into office summons their names. They change partners, marital or otherwise, more than they change clothes, some more than others. They contrive and connive, ever willing as they are to abuse the loopholes of the laws that hold together an archipelago, one that still and always remains on the brink of imploding from its own excesses.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not fooling around when he said that "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains". We are not as independent as we think we are. We are not as free as we presume ourselves to be. Escape from the woes in and of this country can only take you as far as your chains permit. We want to celebrate our independence, or what we think is a close semblance to it? By all means let us do so, but let us do so to the fullest extent if only to remind us that freedom in chains is no freedom at all. We can voice opposition against a tyrannical rule and ruler, but the forces of poverty and indecency throw us aback the moment we realize that the liberty that we know is far detached from what it truly is. We can raise our fists and shout in huge defiance against those who belittle the democracy, but the forces of politics and hunger in both body and soul drive us back to square one with every effort we make towards the culmination of our desires as a nation. We can strike with unprecedented force and push back the weight of those who con-ass themselves to cosmic levels, but we tend to lose our momentum and consistency the time we come to realize that the struggle of living in this wretched part of the Earth is already a hefty burden in itself.

And we call ourselves free?

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Selective Memory

I don't know what Prospero Nograles has been eating lately, but it seems his food has not been doing anything good for his memory. Presumably in defense of HR1109, he raises his concern that "[w]hen the Senate approved Joint Congressional Resolution 10, which proposes to change the present system of government to federal system, even the so-called civil society, our Church leaders and the traditionally noisy political personalities were nowhere in sight." He adds to his litany that "[t]hese personalities were eerily quiet and unconcerned when, in fact, the Joint Congressional Resolution has the same purpose, which is to amend the Constitution" which was "overwhelmingly signed by 15 senators". Perhaps unable to put a leash on his unwarranted eloquence, he then asks: "[i]s it because the House is an administration ally?"

Well, what else can be said? Your boss is widely untrusted these days you need not wonder why that distrust trickles down to every single vein in the House. Your grand mommy is immensely unpopular and simultaneously infamous these days you need not be dumbfounded why that public eye of discontent and that public sense of suspicion is berating you and your con-asses. That reveals a lot about the fate of political aspirants these coming elections, assuming we'll be having one, whose names are caught in a tangle with Gloria.

Gloria be thy name and thy kingdom will come plummeting like a shooting star fading in the distant velvet sky thereafter; like a ballot completely missing the box by a wide mile.

To be sure, though, it was Jose De Venecia Jr. who cast the first stone, contrary to the delusion of a prosperous representative who firmly believes that it was the Senate that first struck the proverbial iron while it was still hot. In fact, that happened at a time when Jose De Venecia Jr. was still wearing the political banner of the current administration—like a sheath of linen veiling the full glory of his body, or God knows what—as a symbol of his fidelity to the unholy alliance. Proof to his perception of what the country should be like at the time, De Venecia even envisioned "a French-style parliament in which a president is directly and nationally elected by the people". Towards the end of his flight of fantasy, it dawned upon him that his effort was an exercise in futility, thereafter punctuating the sober end of his dementia praecox with a gnash of the teeth from all opposing sides.

I do not know, too, who told Prospero Nograles that flimsy idea he is currently holding, but whoever that person is, she or he deserves a sanction in whatever form the liking of the Congressman from Davao will be. In any case, the Senate did not start Con-Ass, although some more than others are asses in their own mind-boggling ways. Some are womanizers more than others, pretentious with their zeal of fighting for the ultimate cause of women's justice, but that would be for another day of writing. Going back, Jose De Venecia did. The fellow who is now standing at the peak of madness, flanked from both sides by no less than the sheer weight of the political controversies that litter his face and name, staring down at the apostles of his former master or mistress from the height of insanity, and relentlessly pleading for mercy before the altar of public judgment, did. The guy from Pangasinan, whose ears give rise to the penultimum definition of genetic mutation for having grown a face and a body out of those massive ears, vast forehead notwithstanding, did.

I certainly do not know what Nograles has been devouring for food these days, but paying a visit to a physician might lend him a useful explanation. He is quick to forget things. He easily fails to recall that part of history which he himself bore witness to in full flesh.

The Congressman from Nueva Ecija, Rodolfo Antonino who is also a key proponent of HR 1109, believes that "there is a common agreement among everybody that there is really a need for charter change". He further states that "[w]e've gone through three presidents. The response has always been, 'It is not the right time.' When will be the right time?"

Well, for one thing, he is unmistakably wrong in believing that there is a common agreement among everybody that there is really a need for Cha-Cha, unless of course what he means by "everybody" is "everybody in the majority". Had he, too, grown so blind to be unable to see the protest of the people against any motive to alter the Constitution at this time? Had he, too, grown so deaf to be unable to hear the thundering collective voice of those who shout in defiance to any measure of toying around the Constitution like an onanist's dick? For someone who is presumed to be sensitive enough to see and hear the hostile responses of one's constituents so that, in the light of just principles, one may learn a lesson or two and pluck out a sensible act from all the madness and mayhem swirling around us, someone sure is an epic failure as a representative of the people.

And quite another. True, we've gone through three presidents. It is similarly true that the response has always been "it is not the right time". But asking when the right time will be while shamelessly advancing a perverted house resolution that has grown all signs of life overnight through the fury of ayes is patent proof of begging for it, "it" being the public approval. It is as if the fellow from Nueva Ecija is saying that "now is the right time" because the issue of charter change has already lingered for roughly eighteen years at the least. It's as if he is saying that now is the right time to do surgery with the Constitution because it's been quite a while since we've done a major operation with the fountainhead of the laws of the land.

Now is the right time? Now is the wrong time. You only have to call upon the name of the swine oiling herself with the people's fat to gather all the wrong reasons in the world. The pig's record speaks for itself. It's not Cha-Cha that we need. Supremely important is accountability, the one thing this administration has monumentally failed to commit itself with.

When you have all these people sitting atop the political hierarchy and playing around like foolhardy fools, they're quite enough to cause a pandemic problem on this side of the planet faster than A(H1N1).

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