However, this piece is not about the avalanche of doubt and ridicule that had buried Julian deep in the past few days, when it turned out that his story was far from plausible; nor is it about the incompetence of the news outlets that sang his praises without checking the facts – and that quickly unpublished their erroneous reports without the faintest mea culpa. 

While both these issues surely warrant reflection from us, what jumped out at me more was why the act of students hoarding scholarships – and, in relation, multiple internships and multiple orgs and accolades, accolades, accolades – has become something worth celebrating to begin with. Julian’s story, however false it may be, is a reflection of how young people today feel compelled to oversaturate themselves with accomplishments while still in school, fearful as they are that if they don’t, they don’t stand the slightest chance of getting into a decent college or job. 

And what bothers me so much is that, to a significant degree, it’s true: it seems that in recent years, it has become harder and harder to convince colleges and companies that you are what they’re looking for. A cursory glance on social media, such as local Reddit discussions, bares how difficult it is now to be accepted into anything decent, with HR or college admissions departments frowning upon even the slightest gaps between employment or schooling, or giving less leeway if you’re not from a well-known high school or one of the “Big 4” universities, or making the slightest flub in your cover letter or resume. 

A climate of extreme anxiety appears to have pervaded young people’s lives. Again, if you go on Reddit, issues such as the following are very hotly discussed: Can I become a professor in a top university if I come from a no-name school? Will HR recognize my online courses? I’m a fresh grad – should I start trying to upskill? If I resign, does that mean I’m a failure? To people who switched careers/fields, are you happier? Should I work abroad? What course should I take? Did I enter the wrong school? How do I avoid burnout?

Just scrolling through the topics alone gives me anxiety and makes me question every choice I’ve ever made – and I’ve been working for 16 years. 

Ultimately, despite it sounding so very cliché, I believe the culprit is social media. More specifically, the fault lies in the culture of comparison that we – yes, we, definitely me and definitely you – have created by allowing social media to be a platform of such unhinged, unchecked self-aggrandizement. Not only have we embraced the practice of 24/7 self-promotion, but we love patting each other on the back for it – and doing breathless news reports on those who go the extra, extra mile.  

I’m fairly sure the issues with discriminatory HR and college admissions departments were also happening during my time as a fresh grad in the ‘00s, and even way before that, but we have since created an environment where it is so much easier for these admissions departments to judge people unfairly or far too stringently, because we have imposed upon ourselves – especially upon the youth – higher and higher standards for what constitutes an “impressive” or even “competent” individual. (Sure, you have good grades…but you only have ONE org?!!!? Sure, you’ve worked at top companies for a decade…but you DON’T have a Masters???!!!)

Productivity is a lie

What fills me with a bit of relief, however, is the recent narrative I’ve been seeing among Gen Zs and millennials online about being kind and patient with yourself, and not equating your self-worth with your productivity – a sort of anti-capitalist mantra with a twist of Zen, recited calmly from our social media feeds. Below are a few examples:

Granted, this advice may appear cheesy or maudlin – too “granola” or “hippie dippie,” if you will – and no, it really isn’t anything new. Nonetheless, I find it it so important that this kind of thinking is making a resurgence, and being discovered and embraced by more young people, after years upon years of being bombarded online with Pomodoro Technique instructions and “30 under 30” lists and gushing profiles on the Julian Martirs of the world. 

Be no one, do nothing

But of course, a bunch of feel-good posts on your Newsfeed is far from the real solution. (Technically, dismantling capitalism is, but let’s go first with something relatively more implementable.) What can be a move in the right direction is encouraging the current youth and future generations – the ones who will soon be in positions of power, including heads of HR and college admissions departments and other such institutions – to reassess what it means to be a worthy student or a worthy employee, and then to go by these fairer and more realistic parameters once they have the power to decide on applicants’ fates. 

Does it really matter that this student was a member of three college orgs? Is it truly so important that they took on volunteer work in two other companies on top of their required internship? Does a 20-something with a Master’s degree from abroad really trump a 30-something who’s proven to be competent and trustworthy? If your employee has stayed in the same position – but has been doing their job exceptionally well – shouldn’t that already merit better pay over time?  

I know there are whole other dimensions to this issue that I haven’t touched; the class and/or regional divide, for instance, is also a crucial reason many young Filipinos overexert themselves in proving their worth, since the upper classes and/or Imperial Manila still hold sway over our quality of life. And those are problems that also need addressing. 

But for now, I just want to focus on the unending anxiety we have imposed on young people today, mainly because I myself – despite not being as young anymore – am also often overwhelmed with the feeling that I am not good enough, or have not done enough, or have dumbly missed out on opportunities, or will look back on my life with a crushing sense of regret. And I am – with medication, therapy, and yes, seeking solace in maudlin, self-care-themed social media posts here and there – am trying to disabuse myself of this way of thinking. And I don’t want to live in a world where everyone around me, especially young people who are only beginning to figure themselves out, will eventually have to go through this painful process of disabusing themselves, too. 

Cringey as it may be, I cannot help but point out how Julian’s last name, Martir, is so fitting given what he’s gone through and what he represents. It’s like people these days have to sacrifice every bit of what’s good in their lives – their comfort, their free time, their peace of mind – to feel like they are worth anything, to be the hero of their own narrative, to be immortalized in society as someone who did something.

But if everyone’s a martyr, then nobody is. So do yourself a favor and try to be the opposite of a sanctimonious sacrificial lamb: accepting that there is nobody you need to impress, not even yourself – or, better yet, knowing that the most exceptional, award-winning, go-down-in-the-annals-of-history kind of thing you can do in this anxiety-riddled world is to stop caring about what other people think. – Rappler.com

A thousand meters above sea level, Pampang, Kayapa, makes the visitor a neighbor to the mountains. They greet you when you open your window in the morning. A cloud hovers casually near their ridges. In a place like this, you begin to believe in the weight of whispered salutations and the virtues of irrigation water.

The village is reachable by bus from Cubao, and a jeep that will climb the winding highway for two hours. When I arrived in Pampang on Thursday afternoon, the jacaranda tree was starting to bloom. 

After the tiring commute, I met Soledad, one of the locals who offered her place as a homestay for runners doing the 50-kilometer and 100-kilometer foot race.

Solitude in Spanish is Soledad

A three-minute climb from the highway took me to a place I would call home for three nights. Soledad, or Ate Sol, the owner of the house, is a petite woman with hooded eyes and a gentle voice. She met me at the gate as I was trying to catch my breath.

Outside her house is a small coffee shop and a garden. The shelves in her kitchen are crammed with kettles, teapots, and French presses. There’s even a retro style manual coffee grinder with stainless frothing pitchers below it. Beans and grounds are in airtight jars. Cups are neatly lined up against the wall, and mugs hang from a wooden stand – some of them already collecting dust.

Adjacent to the kitchen is a garden where rows of plants relish the cold air. Paintings discarded by Baguio artists decorate her outdoor setup. On top of a bookshelf is an old photo of a younger Soledad wearing red lipstick. She is beaming.

The shop and the garden are both pandemic projects, she shared, when we were eating dinner that Thursday night. At the height of the lockdown, Ate Sol said the coffee shop became a respite for locals.

Back in my room, I started sorting my things and preparing for bed. From outside my window I could see pinpricks of light coming from houses across the other side. Two nights before, I was sobbing on a phone call with a friend, scared of going solo to a distant place for four days.

She only told me, frankly, there’s nothing to be anxious about. The whole point was to be at peace, I guess, with this silence pierced by dogs howling through the night.

When I woke up Friday morning, Ate Sol already had her first cup of coffee (and would take one or two more cups as the morning passed). For breakfast, she cooked slices of meatloaf and prepared salted eggs and kimchi. 

I took a walk after eating, carrying the camera a friend lent me. A white dog lounged beside the highway. Sacks of bananas awaited a delivery truck. An old woman wearing a bucket hat smiled at me. There was the occasional charm in the world’s indifference. In the clear light of day, I realized there’s nothing exceptional in my heartbreak that drove me to get coffee 300 kilometers away from home. 

But it’s not therapy nor self-love that brought me here. I wanted to know how long I could stand under the searing heat or torrential rain, how I could take the ugliness of truth. And then be done with it. Or go through it again. Wherever life takes me, in this ultramarathon or other lofty mountains in the future, I hope I have grace to endure.

Back at the homestay, other runners had arrived. I met them during dinner. Two runners from Davao, two firemen from Makati and one’s girlfriend, a Marine and his wife. Ate Sol served dinner – tinolang manok na pinikpikan and fresh vegetable dishes. Everyone was running the hundred kilometer distance, except for me and the road runner from Davao who would end up winning the race.

When bonking, eat ice cream

It was still dark when I went outside and walked to the school where the starting line was set up. I was wearing my vest carrying all my essentials (jacket, water, phone, whistle, first aid kit, three chocolate bars, rock salt, peanut butter sandwich, and one stick pack of endurance fuel). The second rule of the outdoors was to try to be as self-sufficient as possible. The first rule was to go home safe.

I turned my headlamp on. I walked down the flight of stairs to the main road. 

At exactly 4 am on Saturday, all 50K runners were released. There was a steep climb at the start, followed by a slightly flat course, and after almost two hours, the sun rose when I was running on a rolling ridge going to Ansipsip. It was biting cold up at Mt. Ugo, but the sky was clear. 

I had to stop to take it all in: the mountain range, the pine trees, the small, moving dots of runners going down Ugo. From there it was more or less a gentle downhill through a Spanish trail, lined with hundreds of white flowers, and which used to connect Pangasinan and Benguet during colonial times. 

I hit 30 kilometers when I got down to Kayapa Proper West. It was nearing lunch. One could tell with the heat even without looking at the watch. I devoured everything my stomach could take in at the aid stations: mangoes, pineapples, watermelons, chips, and soda. At the last station, I ate a chocolate popsicle in large bites like hanging on for dear life. The rest of the route, still 25 kilometers, was more of a mental exercise. Two more climbs. 

I was done by afternoon. It was funny because halfway through the race, everything hurt and I was mumbling profanities under my breath. When it was all over and my head finally cleared, everything seemed ridiculous. 

I thought I would hit the bed as soon as I washed up, but instead I went to the kitchen and asked for instant ramen. Ate Sol asked about the race while I was eating the noodles. How far did you go? What did you see? She was mildly surprised to learn we also had to go through Amelong Labeng, among others.

During dinner, I met the French woman and her husband whom I passed by the trails. Her husband, who was cramping earlier, four kilometers from the finish line, was looking better. We talked over adobong manok. They had a bottle of beer. (Where did they get that? I forgot to ask.) The three 100K runners were not yet back. Some would finish it later that night, others after midnight or the next morning. I got back on my bed and slept without a dream. 

The heart is a muscle

Hard things are almost always conquered by time. 

On Sunday morning, there was a palpable shift. The pine clad forests were safely at a distance again. The motions of hot assaults, long downhills, and the distance covered were ingrained in muscle memory. That morning the world felt lighter. 

I know my legs can take a pounding. My lungs and my heart, too. The wooden figure of an anito holding a spear and a kalasag sat quietly on the table by the window. Everybody gets one when they finish. It’s done and over. We’d do it all over again. 

By morning, everybody was back at Ate Sol’s place. Having finished and rested, everyone was in high spirits, sharing stories over a hearty meal and an abundance of brewed coffee.

Beauty, especially in its most unassuming form, finds a way to comfort. Even in the company of strangers. This is the gift that the mountains have always given me and everyone else who needs it. 

One of the runners offered a ride home back to Manila. I left Kayapa in the afternoon with their group, ate dinner along Kennon Road, and returned to the city by midnight. 

Back home, I messaged Ate Sol to say thank you for welcoming and looking after us the past days. She wished me blessings and said she hoped I could come back soon. The biggest relief for me was that as I hoped to come back, too, there was no desire to resist solitude. When it visits, I will greet it with open arms. – Rappler.com

Other Rappler Blogs you might have missed:

Unraveling the enigmatic, confounding Gen Z
Escaping to Magayon’s arms: A literary pilgrimage
New Year’s reflections: Losing weight is overrated

How could someone (Leila de Lima) with such a sterling record of competence, honesty and integrity that encompasses her entire life (see her Curriculum Vitae in leiladelima.ph) end up spending the past six years and counting, figuratively rotting in a Philippine National Police detention cell?  

The answer will reveal Philippine government officials both at their best and at their worst, but is, unfortunately, also a cautionary tale that shows how the worst can drag down the best.  

It all started in 2008 when our heroine was 49 years old. She was, at the time, already the head of her own law firm, and was recognized as one of the best election lawyers in the country, and did not need to bribe her way to win her cases. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s (GMA) asked her to head the fourth Commission on Human Rights (CHR). She accepted, although it meant a diminution of income. Why? It must have been a sense of obligation to the country which had given her all her chances and opportunities. It was pay-back time for her. She obviously did not join the government to make money, as a lot of government employees are wont to do.  

She served only two years (2008-2010) of her seven-year term, but during that time, she managed to energize the CHR on addressing cases of human rights violations, the most infamous of which was the Davao Death Squad (DDS) in Davao City, under then-Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who reportedly had links to this vigilante group. For doing her job well, she made her first powerful enemy.  

What is the evidence that she was doing her job well? Recognition from the private sector. GMA News TV recognized her as “Public Servant of the Year” in 2009; the San Beda College Alumni Association gave her the “Raul Roco Award for Public Service Excellence”; other awards of a similar nature were bestowed on by other groups. 

Her term was cut short because she had impressed another government official – Senator Noynoy Aquino, who, when he won the presidency in 2010, offered De Lima a Cabinet position, the Department of Justice. She accepted. Reader, what is notable, no, the word is amazing, about this appointment is that she was neither kakampi (ally), nor kaklase (classmate), nor kumadre (fellow sponsor in a wedding or baptism), nor kaibigan (friend) of Aquino – she was chosen on the basis of what she knew rather than on who she knew (his appointment of Conchita Carpio Morales as Ombudsman, and Grace Pulido Tan as Commission on Audit chair, were apparently made on the same basis. The three women were dubbed later as the “Three Furies” who were fearless in uprooting corruption in government. The Philippines got its highest anti-corruption score in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index during Aquino’s presidency).

It was in performing her duties as secretary of justice that De Lima again stepped on giant toes – like those of Senators Ramon Revilla, Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, and Juan Ponce Enrile, plus five former representatives (some dynastic), plus executives/employees of government corporations – 38 in all.  It was in regard to these cases that the sobriquet “Three Furies” was coined. To remind, Reader: Revilla and Estrada are back as senators (what does this tell you), and Juan Ponce Enrile, my neighbor, is now very much in the center of power.  

Another giant toe she stepped on was that of former President GMA (who was arrested and incarcerated on charges of electoral sabotage – I must tell you, Reader, that I was on GMA’s side on this issue).  

And think of the number of politicians she angered by her handling of the Maguindanao massacre case.

De Lima did what no other justice secretary before her ever did: conducted raids on the Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa with the objective of implementing long-needed reforms, like breaking the power of certain prisoners (I heard one of them, a convicted murderer, boast in court of his money-making activities that were allowed because he greased the palms of the authorities, including Leila de Lima – although in her case he had not one iota of evidence) who were treating the prison as their own private fiefdom, with access to every single item they desired, including cell phones, TVs, drugs, and women.  Bilibid has been described as “a fortress, not a prison”. De Lima changed all that — and gained the enmity of those prisoners. Maybe not giant toes, but pretty large ones anyway.

And when she was consulted by the president on the Philippine case against China in the Arbitral Court, she weighed in on Justice Antonio Carpio’s side, and made more enemies in the process .

But, while she was making all these enemies while doing an excellent job, she was also gaining more admirers among the Filipino people. The San Beda Law Alumni Association, selected her “Outstanding Bedan Law Alumni (sic)” two years in a row, Youthlead Philippines gave her a “Gawad Kadakilaan Para sa Paglilingkod sa Bayan” (Excellence in Public Service), the Philippine Daily Inquirer named her Filipino of the Year (along with the other two Furies), among others.  

She was elected to the Senate in 2016, by 14 million-plus votes.  

So too was Rodrigo Duterte, of Davao City and the Davao Death Squads, elected – as president of the Philippines.

And from the beginning of his incumbency, he turned  his wrath – he was still smarting from her daring to investigate him – against her. He was relentless in his desire to see her in prison (he publicly declared this), aided and abetted by his justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre, also (like Duterte and De Lima) a San Bedan. And by all who were desirous of getting into his good graces, in the legislative and judicial branches. Cheered on by the enemies she made in the process of serving her country well. 

They used every trick in the book. They used lawfare. They used intimidation and they used bribery. And they used out and out lies, and when these were found out, they shamelessly invented others. They used trolls and photoshopped pictures and videos to “prove” their case.    

With that kind of artillery, she was in detention within seven months of her election as senator.

The encomiums that had been heaped on her domestically were silenced – either because Filipinos began to believe the lies and calumnies constantly heaped upon her, or they were fearful of a vindictive leader, or, worst of all, they just didn’t care. In any case, when she ran for reelection last year, she lost. That, to me, is the most painful of all.      

But even as praises for her were stilled locally, they began to grow internationally, in recognition of what she had done for the Filipino people and for what was being done against her. The United Nations, parliamentarians all over the world, international media, all asking for justice for Leila de Lima, for her freedom. A reflection of the saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, among his kindred”? 

Duterte may no longer be President, but the prosecutors appointed by Aguirre to handle the De Lima cases are still there, and apparently are bent on delaying the resolution of the cases. The worst dragging down the best. – Rappler.com

Solita “Winnie” Monsod was the first National Economic and Development Authority secretary appointed after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. She is a professor emerita at the UP School of Economics where she taught starting 1983. She finished her degree in economics in UP and obtained her masters in economics at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a board director of Rappler Inc.

On the record, Revillame said that he hasn’t received word from management that Wowowin will be closing, and insists that the construction of the show’s studio is still continuing. He also said that Mhies On A Mission is on “pause,” but did not mention Gonzaga’s Toni.

ALLTV soft-launched in September 2022, and according to their official website, airs on Channel 2 on free TV, Channel 16 on free digital TV, Channel 35 on Sky and Cignal, Channel 32 on G Sat, Channel 23 on Cable Link, and Channel 2 as well on 18 other regional cable services. 

The station said then that they were targeting a grand launch in February 2023, but lacking viewership and the sponsors that come with an audience, the station, has instead seemingly suspended their three main offerings. Aside from these three, the station rebroadcasts CNN Philippines’ daily newscast and some drama shows from ABS-CBN. Pro-Marcos broadcaster Anthony Taberna is also under contract with ALLTV. 

ALLTV is under the company Advanced Media Broadcasting System (AMBS), headed by its president, Maribeth Tolentino, who in a Philstar.com interview in 2022 said that they want to “make people happy” with a network that “reaches the most Filipinos” because they have the “widest frequency” – as directed by its owner Manny Villar. 

Revillame also serves an influential role in the station. Tolentino, in an interview with PEP.ph, described the TV veteran’s role: “Consultant namin siya. How to go about this venture, siya ang unang nag-a-advise sa amin. So, ‘di ba, lahat ng negosyo, may consultant? So, saan ba siya magko-consult para sa negosyong ito? Sa programa, sa artista. Yun ang role sa amin ni Willie.”

(He’s our consultant. How to go about this venture, he’s the first one to advise us. So, don’t all businesses have a consultant? On what aspects do we consult him? On programs, on artists. That’s Willie’s role.) 

Forgetting recent history

Imploring his audience to set politics aside, Revillame forgets that ALLTV parent company AMBS’ acquisition of ABS-CBN’s frequencies had been deeply political, with the latter’s franchise renewal denied out of the former president Rodrigo Duterte’s vengeful streak and desire to acquire more power, if not directly for his family, but for his political network. 

Must Read

Villar’s ALLTV will live or die by its political past

Revillame reminds us in his spiel how he had been extremely trusting of the former president, contacting Senator Bong Go to attempt to provide Duterte P50 million in funds that could be used to help those affected by the pandemic. (According to Revillame, Go is said to have rejected the offer, saying that it wasn’t good for presidents to receive money from anyone.)

Fifty million isn’t chump change, but Revillame forgets the 11,000 employees who found themselves under the added pressure of having their jobs in jeopardy in the middle of the pandemic, with ABS-CBN’s shutdown in May 2020. In August 2020, ABS-CBN would cut 4,000 jobs. If all of these workers were earning minimum wage, just to illustrate, that’s about P44 million in lost monthly wages. 

That Revillame had been caught on camera chuckling, in an old episode segment with Harry Roque, as to the fate of ABS-CBN didn’t help his cause. Revillame would address that specific clip though on February 9, explaining that the short clip didn’t completely show what he would say later on in the same segment, as reported by Inquirer: “Malaki ang utang na loob ko sa istasyon na ‘yon dahil do’n ako nagsimula, do’n ako nakilala, nasa puso ko pa rin ‘yan.” (I am indebted to that network because I started and became known there; they still have a place in my heart.) 

Revillame comforts himself at the start of his spiel. “Basta hindi ka nagnanakaw. Basta hindi ka involved sa mga illegal, okay na ‘yun.” (As long as you’re not a thief. As long as you’re not involved with anything illegal, you’re okay.) Yet the host had somehow allied himself with the Marcoses in the last elections, whose matriarch Imelda, among other Marcos cases, was found guilty of seven counts of graft in 2018.

Revillame is quick to remind people of how much he gives out every month on Wowowin, all the while saying he’s not one that is nagbubuhat ng sariling bangko (tooting one’s own horn). “P200,000 a day.” “P5 million a month,” he says. A few hundred every year will get a taste of that money, and will certainly help them get by. But – and this is a can of worms for another day – Revillame should also express some awareness that he and his show also profits from a situation wherein people desperately need to be in a show for a one-in-a-thousand shot at winning money.

Revillame pleads to set aside politics, for it is convenient now, and perhaps strategic. What he appears to want is to court sympathy, and put the attention on him and shield the Villars – whose patriarch Manny he credits for helping him secure his Wil Tower building – from the humiliation of a present failure. 

Revillame on Tuesday, February 7, again on his show, and as reported by PEP.PH, further courted attention, in a diatribe against critics: “I-vlog niyo ako bukas! Pagtulung-tulungan niyo ako, hindi ako natatakot! Yun ang gusto niyo? Okay lang, sige! Tirahin niyo ako araw-araw, minu-minuto, I don’t care! Kayo ang may utang na loob sa akin! Hindi ako! Tandaan niyo yan sa buhay niyo!” 

(Vlog about me tomorrow. Gang up on me. I’m not scared. That’s what you want? That’s fine. Take a swipe at me everyday, I don’t care. You’re the ones who owe me, remember that.) 

One’s just deserts

Revillame is right that a new business should be given a chance, and failure shouldn’t equate to humiliation. But as Revillame should know, ALLTV, with its colorful history, isn’t just any new business. More than a TV station, ALLTV represents, in some parts, Duterte in all his petty tyrannical madness, and political allies conniving to consolidate more power. The former president himself had admitted to using his presidential powers to stop the renewal. He once said, “Kaya tinira ko talaga [ang ABS-CBN] (That’s why I really targeted them).” “I used the presidential powers to tell Congress that you are dealing with scoundrels and if you continue to kowtow with them, kawawa ang Pilipino (Filipinos should be pitied).”

The reaction of people to ALLTV’s failures stems from this history, and show hosts Revillame and Toni Gonzaga and their political affiliations – the former with Duterte and the latter with Marcos. His hypocrisy is to tell people that ABS-CBN is in his heart, while fervently supporting a political figure who had clearly targeted the station. His hyprocrisy is to attempt to deny the people some joy in seeing the bully and his cohorts experience a bit of turbulence. 

People are all too aware of ALLTV’s history, and its heavy baggage. And to begin with, even stations with decidedly less political history such as TV5 have had much trouble succeeding, facing problems of reach or producing shows that attract as big an audience as the two old stalwarts, ABS-CBN and GMA. – Rappler.com

On Saturday, February 4, its store along Panay Avenue in Quezon City will be accepting onions as payments for its household items. “Pay with sibuyas,” goes the campaign – one sibuyas for one item of your choice. 

The onions they will collect will be used for their community pantry. Remember the community pantries – those tables that sprouted on the sidewalks to feed hungry, jobless neighbors? The bayanihan spirit that came to symbolize the selflessness of communities while the Duterte government was busy bungling the ayuda system at the height of COVID-19?

So is JHC trying to be relevant? Riding on the frustration of homemakers over the skyrocketing prices of onions?

Only those who haven’t followed the Facebook and Instagram accounts of the country’s first Japanese discount store would cast doubt on its intentions. 

I don’t know who exactly are the people behind JHC, except that, according to the company website, they are “a group of highly energized entrepreneurs” who started the business “in an old warehouse in Quezon City” until it grew to nearly 200 stores across the country in two decades. 

I feel, though, like I’ve known them as kindred spirits. Yes, value for money and things Japanese, pink, and Sanrio are the reasons I go to JHC. But they’ve locked in my loyalty through their occasional and subtle statement posts that tell me they’re not just about making money.

Rather, this company knows that not turning one’s eyes away from the realities faced by Filipinos makes good business. 

Below are some of the JHC posts over the years that show a politically aware and socially involved community bargain shop.

People are dying, stay home!  

On April 17, 2020 – a month into what would become the world’s longest lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, JHC posted its logo, cleverly inserting “stay at” before the word “home.” 

That day, the health department had announced that 766 health workers had been infected by the coronavirus, and these frontliners were begging people to stay home to ease the load on overworked doctors and nurses and overcrowded hospitals. 

By that time, an estimated 4.5 billion people around the world had been confined due to the corona infection.

Frontliners first 

The extended lockdown in Metro Manila and other areas considered at high risk for COVID-19 was supposed to end on May 15, 2020. Around this time, test kits for suspected cases were scarce, and people were clamoring for the limited tests to be administered to the most exposed – the frontliners. 

But the media reported on government officials and their families bypassing the frontliners to get tested. 

How much can corruption buy?

On August 11, 2021, state auditors released their report on how the Department of Health mismanaged its P67-billion allotment to respond to the pandemic. The discovery of anomalous transactions with favored but unqualified suppliers of pandemic items also lingered during that month. (READ: Pharmally had P625,000 capital before bagging P8 billion in COVID-19 contracts)  

Look at JHC’s commentary on August 19:  

Pink Day 

After dilly-dallying, opposition leader and then-vice president Leni Robredo gave in to calls for her to run for president on October 7, 2021. “Lalaban tayo!” she said the day before the deadline for filing certificates of candidacy. 

On that day, JHC posted four photos to promote old products – all in pink: baking tools, mugs, spatula set, and water jugs. No words to accompany the posts, just letting the discerning followers see the theme, which happened to be the campaign color of you-know-who. 

Honesty should be easy 

On January 24, 2022, then-presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gave an exclusive interview to the religious network SMNI – the start of his series with hosts who were expected to ask friendly questions. He had been avoiding meaningful exchanges with journalists covering his campaign. 

From that media blitz, it became apparent that he was not keen on, for example, revealing his assets list, and that he was bent on skipping debates organized by media organizations.

So on January 25, JHC posted: “Transparency should never be an issue.” 

Clean = Pink 

On the eve of the start of the presidential campaign period in 2022, the store gave another hint of who their candidate was: a post featuring a rose-scented (“Rosas,” right?) liquid hand soap on a pink background.

“Lucky to be in clean hands,” said its February 8 post. 

Get out and vote! 

On Election Day, May 9, 2022, JHC reminded us what our elections commission and candidates and democracy believers would always say – even when your bet is bound to lose anyway: every vote counts. 

– Rappler.com

Every year we think, “This is definitely the year I get skinny.” We buy jeans a couple of sizes down and look at them longingly, thinking, “I will fit into this in the next few months.” We post promises on social media to hold ourselves accountable, sign contracts with our friends, make weight loss wagers with our family members who share the same genetic predisposition to fatness.

As someone who’s been clinically overweight for most of her adult life, I know what it’s like to be a slave to the scale, being afraid of the number it shows but also obsessing over it, and believing in my bones that if I just lost this amount of weight, all my problems would be solved.

At my heaviest, I was deeply insecure, but I masked it with a false sense of confidence and a lot of alcohol, always just feeling a little less pretty, a little less worthy than my clinically normal-sized friends.

And then, a surprising thing happened: I lost a ton of weight. It was just before I turned 30. My lower back pain was getting worse, and I was drunk and consequently hungover for most days of the week. I couldn’t go up a flight of stairs without feeling like my heart was about to give out. And I was being mistaken as pregnant all the freaking time. At some point I decided that something had to change, and so I quit drinking and signed up for a gym. 

I don’t know what my goal was when I started. Maybe I told the trainer at the gym that I wanted to lose weight by default, but inside, all I knew was that I wanted to feel better in my body. 

Eventually, I did. Week after week, I looked in the mirror and my belly had barely budged, but I felt stronger and bouncier. I could reach my toes when I bent over, and could take the stairs without feeling like dying. I slept longer and deeper. 

It was only after a few months that the scale reflected any change worth measuring, and when it did, it only showed me what I had already felt in my body weeks beforehand: I was getting healthier.

When people began to take notice of my weight loss, the compliments came in. “You’re so thin! Good job! What did you do? What’s your secret? “ Suddenly I was accomplished. Suddenly I was an expert in something. I drank it all in.

This only made me believe that weight loss was everything I had dreamt it to be. People liked me more now! They paid more attention! I was now considered attractive! They aren’t looking at me like a clumsy oaf who didn’t know how to do things! I rode the high for as long as I could, posting before-and-after “progress pics” on social media for even more validation.

Then the lockdown happened. Stuck alone in a shoebox apartment, I began to obsess over losing even more weight. It was, in my COVID-anxiety-filled brain, one good thing that could happen in the middle of all the bad things that were happening. So I weighed myself everyday. I did yoga morning, noon, and night. I obsessed over my food, and if the scale went up one day, I made sure to eat less the next day.

At the height of lockdown, I hit the lowest weight I had ever been, but that didn’t stop me from critiquing myself. In my eyes, my back wasn’t toned enough, my belly wasn’t flat enough, my butt wasn’t perky enough, etc, etc. Without the outside world flooding me with compliments, all I could see were flaws. 

As the world slowly opened up again, my weight crept back on. The gain went very slowly that I didn’t notice at first, but when I got to 10 pounds heavier, my confidence was shot. 

I was so terrified of being fat again that I was constantly anxious and stressed, beating myself up if I didn’t work out, and restricting food only to binge it back later. I had resorted to familiar habits of fat old me – making weight loss contracts and posting endless “Day 1s” on social media “for accountability.” I ate a lot of sundaes and cookies in secret, and not without a lot of guilt.

Fast forward to today and I had gained back all the weight I had lost and then some, thanks to a combination of binge eating, sporadic workouts, and going on medication that is notorious for weight gain. 

I cried a lot when I weighed myself recently and realized I was the heaviest I had ever been and nothing in my closet fit me anymore. When I got tired of moping, I bought new clothes and got back into a regular workout routine, and now I think I’ve come to terms with being heavy again. 

All of this is just to say that weight loss isn’t as great as society hypes it up to be. Yes, there are many health benefits that come with trimming down. Mobility improves, body pain goes away. We become less at risk for a bunch of diseases the closer our weight is to the normal range. 

But, contrary to what people tend to believe, losing weight doesn’t magically zap your problems away. In fact, it sometimes causes unnecessary stress and anxiety. Among a few people I know, their drastic weight loss was born out of grief and even depression.

And that “confidence” that supposedly comes with losing weight? It’s often just a high from people complimenting you all the time – a high that disappears once the compliments stop.

I don’t know what true confidence is or where it comes from. I just know I’ve been feeling closer to it lately – the more I go to the gym and am able to lift heavier or do more reps than I did the day before. I haven’t lost much weight – just a couple of kilos – but my strength and endurance have improved by a mile.

Losing weight shouldn’t be the ultimate goal – just a recognized byproduct of living a healthy life. In most cases, the numbers on the scale will go down if you eat right and move more. 

But pursuing that downward trend isn’t half as satisfying as working towards other signs of health: increased strength, more flexibility, higher energy, lower resting heart rate, better sleep, a better relationship with food, and, perhaps most overlooked, not being anxious over a silly little number on a scale. – Rappler.com

A recurring question in our work in Rappler’s video production team is this: Will Gen Z watch this?

Hi, I’m Beth Frondoso and I lead Rappler’s video production team. 

The latest study on the youth in the Philippines says a whopping 74% of respondents “watch videos for entertainment,” with 71% of those coming from the National Capital Region (NCR). Another telling data from the study says that 27% of the respondents look for news on social media platforms. That’s a solid one-third.

“The State of Filipino Youth” survey was done in 2021 among Filipinos aged 15-30, roughly those we call Gen Z (13-26 years old). They’re digital natives, the first post-analogue generation to grow up with a gadget in their tiny, chubby hands. That brings with it all the negative effects of increased screen time. 

As a generation, they are spending more time on devices than books. (You’d say it’s not really a big deal, since previous generations did spend more time on TV than books.) Screen time impacts their attention spans, vocabulary, academic performance, and arguably their mental health; Gen Z has the highest diagnosis of mental health conditions.

Still, it also brings with it all the advantages of knowing when to scroll, double click, long press, how to navigate a search engine, and this sixth sense of theirs – how to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Other data to mull over regarding Gen Z: there are fewer teen pregnancies (at least in developed countries), they are better at delayed gratification than their Gen X and late Boomer parents (I would say that’s about right looking at myself and my sons), and they supposedly consume less alcohol. (While I’m skeptical about the last one, there’s some anecdotal proof when my friends and I compare notes – we certainly consumed more booze when we were our kids’ age.)

Overall, sounds like an easy-to-figure-out generation, right? WRONG.

Let’s look at the traits that drive us crazy, as parents, and definitely, as managers.

This Christmas, a team member in Production did a tiktoky short video of Gen Z in the office and asked some Rappler staff: What do you want for Christmas? 

I expected the usual answers: gadgets, concert tickets, clothing items, but boy, was I in for a surprise. A third of the respondents gave this enigmatic reply: “Peace of mind.”

I was so thrown off that I became the inquisitor-incarnate in our exclusive g-chat thread: “What do you mean by ‘peace of mind?’ Are you guys stressed?” They said no. “How could ‘peace of mind’ dominate your Christmas wish?” (5/15 answered “peace of mind.”) They took pity on me and replied that it means they wanted demands on their attention to be “manageable” this Christmas, and for “things to not continue to pile up.” And they hastened to add, it’s not just about work but about “everything” in their lives.

For a minute, all I could think was this: They DO LIVE in another multiverse. For context, this is the first Christmas in a long time when we are not running on fumes to deliver year-end wraps. It’s the first Christmas after a brutal 10-year anniversary celebration in January 2022, as Rappler continued to battle legal cases. In other words, it is the first laid-back Christmas since the arrival of the real-life equivalent of Freddy Krueger in our journalistic existence – a foul-mouthed, misogynist ex-president that led the apocalypse of extrajudicial killings.

While I took the answer “peace of mind” to be a super-subtle hint that they were stretched in the workplace (we were on skeletal shifts for Christmas), I also marveled at the roundabout way this “I’m inundated” signal reached my radar. They had absolutely no intent to give feedback like normal whining adults. It just leaked out.

Leadership guru Simon Sinek captures the hair-pulling that managers experience with Gen Z. He says they are not at all good in dealing with stress and on top of that, are extremely conflict-averse. He adds they would rather ghost someone instead of doing a proper relationship break-up. They will quit rather than ask for a raise in the company. 

In another brainstorming session, we asked the Gen Z in our team to define what their generation likes. 

The reply was rather quick and succinct: Gen Z tends to not be issue-specific but rather, execution-specific. They like memes, especially those steeped in dark, dry, or self-deprecating humor.

Wow, I didn’t think it would take a PhD in stand-up comedy to get to these guys – but what could be more difficult than “dark, dry, or self-deprecating humor?”

To illustrate their point, they recalled a TikTok video that our business reporter Ralf Rivas produced. “Let’s ask Ralf to re-voice this,” was my verdict. 

The Gen Z in my team stopped me, all the while laughing at my cluelessness. I asked: You think this IS funny? They chorused, “Yes!” I protested, “But it’s awkward, cringey – and for a rap execution – woefully out of rhythm.” Silently, I reviewed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s freestyle-rapping in my head and wondered, “Isn’t that how it’s done?”

True enough, the comments on Ralf’s explanation of the Philippine peso were mostly sympathetic. One said, “Ayan kasi, hindi kayo nagbabasa.” (He is forced to do this because you don’t read.)

Gen Z likes, even admires, cringey and corny. They like things that are out of synch, unpolished, raw, hence, authentic and unfiltered. They reject over-burnished, big, elaborate, staged productions. 

Well-shot, well-composed photos and videos are passé. They like their digital images a bit blurry, even grainy – inscrutable and enigmatic for us who must live on another planet.

And while my kuwento might make you feel more detached from this generation, here are things that will endear them to you.

According to the survey above, Filipino Gen Z’s top aspiration is to help parents and siblings. They are very housetrained and church-going: 76% spend their time doing household chores while 54% do religious activity. Respect is their top Filipino value. Humility is their top individual value.

This younger generation is more activist but in a “citizen of the world” way, not really nationalist or patriotic, and they shun political if they can help it. They are passionate about climate change – think Greta Thunberg – and they can be counted on to be just as incensed as their Boomer parents about human rights. One of my guys summed it up this way, “We care too much.”

They tend to wear loose clothes – killing the bodycon trend – and are into the ukay culture not for money-saving reasons, but to reduce their environmental footprint. They are not irreverent and respect the institutions that reflect their values. A lot of them don’t want to go into corporate not because it’s not cool, but because it’s a place where they see themselves dying.

Which brings me back to the question: what video will appeal to them? Make it fun and funny – but forget the bells and whistles, do it raw, even cringey, and don’t hesitate to lay it out there. 

I tell myself, “Ha! Tall order. We’ve got a lot of unlearning to do.” – Rappler.com

“Magpapasko na pala, Tay. Sana gumaling na ako para maging masaya tayo (It’s almost Christmas, Dad. I hope I get well so we will be happy on Christmas),” she said. 

I felt guilty for not giving her the kind of attention that I should have given her when she had asked that I bring her to the doctor because she was not feeling well. That was weeks before she was first admitted to a hospital in General Santos City.

Since September, Guia has been in and out of the hospital for what doctors initially diagnosed as severe pneumonia.

The last time she was admitted was at the end of October. It was a grueling 12 days in the intensive care unit of a hospital where I had to rush her just before midnight on October 25. Forty-eight hours earlier, she was discharged from the same hospital.

Ordeal and fears

That night changed everything for Guia and our family. The promise of a full life and a bright future was engulfed in darkness.

At the emergency room, Guia’s condition was intensively monitored. It took time for the hospital staff to move her to the ICU because her blood pressure was too low, and, at times, nurses couldn’t hear any pulse.

It was also an ordeal for me – a father helplessly staring at his daughter gasping for breath despite her being on oxygen up to the wee hours.

There was silence but I sensed the tension and saw how the medical staff battled to keep her heart rate normal and revive her dropping blood oxygen level and faltering pulse rate.

At times, Guia’s screams punctuated the stillness of the night. It was painful to hear her say, “Tay, hindi ako makahinga (Dad, I can’t breathe)!”

My daughter was initially diagnosed to be suffering from septic shock or severe blood infection. 

About mid-morning the next day, the staff saw an opening – a bit of improvement in her blood pressure, and they rushed her to the ICU. That was after she tested negative for COVID-19.

Still sleepless, confused, and not having eaten anything since the night before, I pleaded to the staff to do anything to keep her alive after they asked me for my consent on the procedures they needed to perform.

I was told Guia had to be connected to a ventilator so that her lungs could relax and not collapse.

With the ventilator tube, Guia could not talk. I bought her a small whiteboard and a marking pen so we could communicate. We called it the “Marites board” on which she wrote everything she wanted to say to me, the nurses, and the doctors.

She went through more tests that showed she had an auto-immune disease, and doctors diagnosed her with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common type of lupus.

With this kind of disease, the body gets attacked by friendly fire. When an infection occurs, the immune system attacks its tissues, causing widespread inflammation and tissue damage in the affected organs, like the joints, skin, brain, lungs, kidneys, and blood vessels.

 I quivered at the thought that it was almost the same time in 2016 when we rushed Guia’s mother Gemma to a hospital. She never returned home alive due to cancer.

Guia’s doctors explained that while there is no cure for lupus, there are medical interventions and lifestyle changes that can be done to manage the disease.

“It can be managed. Many have grown old despite having the disease,” Dr. Emilia Juele Javier assured me.

Guia started looking up on the net about the disease and found out it was a “common ailment.” But most of the things she and I learned about SLE were not quite reassuring.

Lost

It’s been weeks since Guia was discharged from the hospital, and she has yet to regain her voice and strength. Her wobbly legs prevent her from climbing stairs, and she can only walk short distances.

The weeks of being in the hospital forced the dean’s lister to take a leave from school, and her promising online beverage business stopped. Without her voice, she couldn’t continue as the vocalist of Arya, a band from the Mindanao State University (MSU) in General Santos.

She used to write content and articles for online clients. She has not written any of that for weeks now.

Fear and uncertainty linger in the family. Exactly how she and the family will confront the challenges of the disease in the coming days, months, and years, remains blurry.

Since her days at the ICU, Guia has been afraid of being left alone, forcing me to be at her side almost 24 hours daily.

Like me, I can sense Guia feeling scared and confused about how we will be facing the challenges that are to come. She said it is disturbing to think that her ailment would turn into something disastrous.

Hope and prayers

Having incurable lupus is already scary by itself, not to mention the thought that the medication for the disease is daunting and costly.

But Guia has been keeping her spirits up by thinking about all the people who have been praying, caring, and helping her. She said the prayers that all will be well for her and those who work at the hospital, and the moral and financial support she got gave her a second lease on life. That is more than enough reason for her to be hopeful.

That arduous night of October 25 was something not one of us have thought about.

“I would rather hope for now. We worry about it later. After all, it is Christmas time, and I am still around,” she told us. – Rappler.com

Rommel Rebollido is a veteran journalist based in the Soccsksargen region. He regularly contributes stories for Rappler.

A sudden downpour here in the metro triggered a memory I had long suppressed. It’s a memory of decimated lands and a people neglected by their leaders.

This was December 16, 2021. The beginning of Simbang Gabi and five months before the 2022 general election. Typhoon Odette had made landfall.

A memory, but admittedly, a haze.

Now, I am writing from a dark terrace of a café in Mandaluyong City, thousands of miles from home. Today is a rainy Saturday morning. A year ago, one of the most powerful storms to hit the Philippines in a decade smashed several provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.

My young team of three reporters, including myself, covered this typhoon. For us journalists, there was no time to cry – even if we, like millions who call this region home, were not prepared. Our contact with our newsroom in Manila was intermittent. We were not sure where to get our supplies of food and water. 
But as journalists, we had one job: to get the story out into the world. There were only a few of us that could. 

This was the Philippines under former president Rodrigo Duterte: the repression against the media through threats, lawsuits, and death. Journalism, especially regional journalism, was a profession in dire straits.  The previously free and comprehensive disaster coverage of ABS-CBN’s regional networks was off the air. Journalists were facing their own storm as they tried to cover one. 

My team and I were about to cover our first major disaster assignment. And, unlike other disaster coverages, we would not have to parachute to this one as the storm was headed right for us. That a typhoon was brewing days before Odette made landfall, the residents we spoke with knew. But they did not know how bad it would get.  If broadcasts did reach people in the storm’s path, perhaps the severity of the storm got lost in the scientific jargon of disasters and did not translate well to the Cebuano-speaking communities on the ground.

The morning after landfall, hundreds of residents were scrambling, desperately in search of a hot meal, drinking water, and diesel to power their generators, if they had one. For the lucky who had stocked up, there was no guarantee supplies would be enough to last for their families. The return to normalcy was as uncertain as the electricity in the region. What was certain was that there were children who went nearly a day without a clean drink of water, people without enough food, and not enough information as to how long it would take for survivors to get help. 

From Our Archives

Typhoon Odette in Cebu: Queen City in ruins

Fast-forward a year later, I am in traffic-choked Metro Manila. The weather is calm, but the traffic of the holiday season in the capital region is anything but. This year, I tried to push myself to get in the holiday mood and dress up for our glam-themed Christmas party. 

But it is a new era in Bongbong Marcos’ Philippines. I am not sure if my foundation and concealer is enough to cover up the sorrow, or if the free-flowing booze at the party was enough distraction for me to forget that a year ago today, my home province was nearly destroyed.

As the inter-unit Christmas party competition kicked off, in my mind, I was back walking on the muddy and dark roads in Olango Island, a small fishing village island off of Mactan where almost all homes were destroyed or damaged. We crossed from Lapu-Lapu City on a small motor banca last New Year’s Eve, as all ports had been destroyed in the storm, to check for ourselves just how bad the damage was.  

I remember meeting Loida Inoc, a mother of seven, and how she lost Armand, her husband, when a tin roof blew off a neighbor’s house and smashed his head. I remember the farmers in south Cebu who lost all of their livestock and crops in the storm. I remember the residents of Manjuyod, Negros Oriental, who had to travel over 60 kilometers for water. 

When survivors have to wait weeks, even months, for help, I wonder if our leaders remember them. 

I remember the over 400 who died in that storm. While the number of dead may not seem like much compared to the 6,000 of 2013’s Super Typhoon Yolanda, one death is still one too many.

Things look normal on the surface nowadays, save for a few buildings where structural damage remains visible. But wounds continue to fester beneath the facade of normalcy in places where Odette struck.

It’s easy, then, for a nation, like me, to forget. We are a country of short memories, after all, as Odette and the 2022 election has shown us. Perhaps our forgetfulness is our resilience, and it’s our collective way of dealing with trauma.

But as we anticipate new storms ahead, both literal and political ones, we should not forget, and we must carry with us the lessons of the harshest storms we’ve already survived. – Rappler.com

When fellow author, filmmaker, and Ateneo de Naga University Press deputy director Kristian Sendon Cordero invited me to visit Naga City this April for the First Bikol Book Festival, I grabbed the chance to return to the city of my beleaguered childhood. It was a homecoming in many ways, and quite a fitting occasion to come full circle at a time when the country is once more reeling from political and economic discontent.

But the Naga City of memory has long been far removed from the Naga City of today – a bustling hub of trade and commerce. Where I remember stretches of flatlands as far as the eyes could see, three-star hotels now dotted these once quiet spaces, and shops of different wares the main roads. Watering holes, too, were quite inviting for a people who definitely know how to have fun. However, Bicol’s spirituality remains strong and unhinged where old cathedrals and churches stand as monuments to the people’s union with the divine.

The First Bikol Book Festival, spearheaded by Savage Mind Bookshop, the Ateneo de Naga University Press, and the National Book Development Board, hosted a 163.1 kilometer literary pilgrimage of the province – from Naga City to Gubat, Sorsogon – like nothing I have seen so far.

Our first stops included the gravesites of illustrious authors where we had a brief memorial for poets and fictionists Bienvenido N. Santos, Angela Manalang Gloria, and Delfin Españo Fresnosa. The life of Fresnosa was of keen interest to me as he was once a magazine editor, a fiction writer, and a member of the old writer’s group, The Veronicas, whose writings mirrored the desperate conditions of the masses.

We likewise launched the latest books of Gawad Balagtas 2022 awardee Niles Jordan Breis – his Valledor-winning novel, Kalatraban sa Alkawaraan, currently translated as Barking Dogs Never Die. The first book launch was held at the Casa Ver’amore in Tabaco City where poet Jaime Jesus Borlagdan also read his poems from his latest book Dios Mabalos.

At the Gubat Heritage Center in Sorsogon, my latest nonfiction book Shot Glass: Your Daily Swigs of Online Graffiti, and Tito Genoveva Valiente’s book, The Last Sacristan Mayor and the Most Expensive Mass for the Dead: Tales from Ticao, both by Ateneo de Naga University Press, were launched during the last leg of the festival.

No trip to Naga City would be fulfilling to a book lover like me without dropping by the region’s arts and culture hub, the Savage Mind Bookshop, where their Filipiniana literary collection, including the artworks of Luis Cabalquinto, can be found.  Thereafter, the literary pilgrimage brought us to the oldest printing press in the city, Cecilio Press, a “living sanctuary of Bikol letters producing novenas and prognosticos in satuyang tataramon.”

The stopover at Pili Parochial School saw me and my fellow authors in conversation with Bikolnon students. It was good to know that many of the students there are readers and followers of Rappler and our fact-check stories.

The trips were nonstop, taking breaks only for lunch or dinner. More than half the time we were on the road, drinking of the many sights and wonders to see. At Sabluyon Road leading to Tabaco, Albay, sometime 4 pm, we had to hit the brakes for a view that was to die for: Mt. Mayon (Daragang Magayon) in all its unshrouded beauty. The sun was near to setting when I snapped several photographs of the most beautiful yet active volcano.

One of the highlights of the trip to Gubat was a stopover to an elementary school in the middle of lush groves and forest where books were donated to children.

In Camalig, at a restaurant located at the foot of majestic Mayon, I had the honor of delivering a memorial speech on the life and works of fictionist Bienvenido N. Santos. The speech was a recollection of Bien’s days as an exile in the United States and the stories he produced which served as a profound exploration into the Filipino condition in foreign countries.

In “We Are All Exiles,” I noted that “Bien’s literary wizardry chooses the mundane – as meeting a long lost cousin, or choosing to travel to Chicago in the thick of winter, or that rather brief stay in New York – and turn these into stories of the human soul, the Filipino soul in exile, in particular, as it grappled to make sense of things in a foreign country. By using simple language, he weaves between the lines a complex thread of emotions – melancholy, to be exact – that begins to speak to the Filipino expat’s heart.

“That is why it’s easy to live in the stories he had crafted in the 1950s,” I said, “and bring the scent and feel of them to the here and now. Because those, too, were terrible times, as they grappled with the aftermath of the war. Like Bien, we all now live in a country that we barely recognize, let alone understand. We’re like émigrés, refugees, exiles in our own country of birth, all because our rights have been mangled, our dignity wiped out, and our identity lost for the sake of the greed of the few.”

I have always thought of myself as a proud adopted son of Naga City as much of my childhood experiences, to mention little of my seditious heart, were shaped there. It was in Naga City where I first met some of the most audacious and fearless fighters ever to defy the Marcos regime. Some of my own excursions into fiction writing, as with my first book The Distance of Rhymes and Other Tragedies, were based on the lives of these brave Bicolanos.

I may have forgotten the Bikolnon expletives I have learned from the rowdy children of Dimasalang Street, but the feel of resistance and the strokes of defiance I saw in its freedom-loving people never left me.

And it was at the First Bikol Book Festival where I learned that writing, as an act of defiance, is a pilgrimage of the heart. – Rappler.com

Joel Pablo Salud is the author of several books of political nonfiction. He currently saddles his pen as senior desk editor of Rappler.