every Trapo's spiked bed

Only the naive believe that the overthrow of JDV was motivated by altruistic or nationalistic reasons. There was hardly any pretense that this was being maneuvered for the sake of national interest.

all this fig leaves meant to disguise the naked greed of the congressmen, all the orations about "reform" and "change" were shibboleths, words long stripped of their real meaning, concepts long ago discarded as outmoded by the House. they were excuses which time and again the congressmen who rose to register their votes revealed as secondary. To what? their projects, their pork. of course, if they wont supersede what the arroyo admin wants, they can make it really hard for you - AND YOUR PORK BARREL!

its a cautionary tale about power. But De Venecia's fall is not the cause for public revulsion at what transpired in the House. Instead, its the sight of old and young leaders united by avarice and blinded by ambition. The baptism into congressional politics received by the 84 neophytes at the House makes it truly deserving of what was said by Arsenio Lacson of Ernseto Maceda, who ironically sat as witness to the Monday night rub out: "SO YOUNG, AND YET SO....." ALL OF THEM.

It was a sign that what the House has because will persist: a lapdog institution, with no sense of independence or integrity, heedless of its constitutional prerogatives. And of a unicameral pseudo-parliamentary system to come, ruled by ruthless First Family of political buccaneers. No one can have any illusions, at this point, that their appetite, always unbounded, is now out of control.

These are "TRAPO'S;" through and through, the word "trapo" or rag nowhere being more appropriate. Rag are the repository of dirt whose ultimate destination is the garbage dump, or should be. We've excoriated entertainers for polluting politics with their breath. Well, "trapos" are worse, far far worse. Entertainers stop being entertainers when they are elected into office. Traditional politicians stop being traditional when they are elected into office, only in the sense that they blaze new paths in crookedness, murderousness and ripping off the public. PRAY, HOW DOES PROSPERO NOGRALES REPRESENT AN IMPROVEMENT IN OUR LIVES IN PLACE OF DE VENECIA??

For us, public, they don't really care what we think, we are just viewers of their catastrophic actions. Jun Lozada was right, Pilipino does not simply constitute one family, it means one nation. And sometimes, its worth taking a risk for, for this country.

The trapo's trapo has fallen from his perch, but is there reason to hope that a statesman has been born in his place? Looking at Nograles, i say THERE'S NO HOPE.

They are the ones making spike at their beds, when will the people make them lie in it?

at the peak of your own shoes.

For seventeen years, i have been in constant search for the one, the one thing that would stamp my heart with massive contentment. No, no, no. I'm not in search for love; I'm looking for more substantial bliss. I'm entirely honest when i say until now, I'm still wondering what an ordinary bloke like me doing in this topsy-turvy world.

Most people don't realize that you are your own worst adjudicator. I find myself probably the most uncool person in this universe (or maybe just here in the Philippines. hehe). Unlike the majority of kiddos in my generation, I'm not entirely convinced with the Orwellian newspeak categories of cool, totally cool, and awesome. I'm obsessed with Snakes and Ladders, dictionaries, and Philosophy, and my Usb used to have a name, which - lets be honest is quite geeky.

On Saturdays, you will most probably find me either at a bookstore trying to look smart, or at our university's sprawling cafeteria eating maruya. And as much as i would not like to reveal this, my lone purpose every time i got to El Centro (or C5 look-alike bars in Davao or Cdo) is to drink drupes shake.

But you wouldn't know how unexciting i am until you have (or live) with me. But no, really, I'm not totally saying I'm the worst roommate. I don't know, Nikki seems to love me still despite the constant nagging she receives every time she comes home early morning. Hahahaha. She just detest seeing me cooked up reading all day, rather than our usual food tripping. I'm not different, i just digress.

You see, i sometimes forget that aside from the constant learning, life also hand you over trials and merriment which very much espouses individuality and keeps you true to one's self.

A professor once told us in class that, "If you're a shoemaker, be the best shoemaker there is. Don't try to be a doctor." One important lesson I've learned from the past years is that whoever you are, or whatever state in life may be, you can do something sizable. Think for a second how beautiful that is. And hey, you can actually change things even how ordinary you are.

T.S Eliot once wrote, "There is a very large number of people in the world today who believe that all ills are fundamentally economic." The glitch is that we tend to confuse ourselves by treating reality based on what is plainly negotiated - engrossing too much on ideologies, and forgetting that people are starving.Ironically, we humans choose to focus our binoculars on the bigger problems, which are really impossible to be solved instantaneously. History has taught us again and again that there is no other way to get out of an excruciating mess than by starting with our own selves, by being the best shoemaker in the world.

ashes

There she was, San Mig in one hand and under Sanchoisms.

In this state she began to wait for the warming of her hands, still holding a cigarette, scattering ashes on the floor. There is no stopping the prolonged coldness, but she just sits there, puffing, dragging and wishing that she were somebody else.

She runs her fingers through her hair, then smoothens the creases on her skirt, probing every fold of cloth or skin. In this state she begins to wait for the cigarette smoke to vanish.

Closing in on her infinite hands. Her fingers are the most delicate, whose paleness contrasts to that of the redness of her nail polish. Dashes of crimson floods her cuticles, like sunrise’s murder. In the early afternoon, her fingers are shaky, but still ultimately diligent at tapping excess ash. And excess coldness.

I would say her fingers are solemnly waiting for the return of warmth. Her fingers, her fingers are so godlike.

And in this state, he found himself stalking her hands, almost probing into every fold of her skin and stealing the smell of smoke permeating on her thumb and pointer. Infinitely, her fingers will shake, and tap away the last few remnants of his ashen memory.

why? because its always been you..

Dearest,

This is like getting an able hand severed; forgetting the keys to my room, words, my way to home, your face. I am once again unable to write and die little deaths.

This is like going back to kindergarten. At recess, I have to fight with the other children over who gets to have a go at the slide or the swing first, or who gets to seesaw with whom. I remember the play wounds, the way they bleed into horrible scars. Scars, the damage of which I carry (with pride?) to adulthood, the very things that make me remember that I was once happy and free, the things that make me regret being so reckless and criminal.

In more ways, this is like a sin so severe it is punishable by death or banishment to a world devoid of color, feeling, you. This is like drowning in guilt after getting drunk with it. How I love losing control over my body, my tongue, my senses, and how I kick myself moments after waking up with an atrocious migraine attack. I both love and hate it, like when I love waking up in mornings knowing you are here somewhere, and/or hating it because even if you are here, I still cannot reach you.

This is like riding a bus with no money for fare, or watching cheesy movies and blaming myself for being so mundane. This is like you telling me to wait, and me telling you that I’ve done all I could to have you even if I haven’t.

You are somebody else’s, and this is like death, not the kind of death I’m willing to do over and again. This is like the genocide in Auschwitz and Cambodia. This is agony without reason.

You are somebody else’s, and this is like getting my able hand severed with a butter knife. This is like forgetting my childhood. This is like everything I want to erase, every memory, every scar, every sin, every pain. This is like wanting to delete you like junk mail. This is everything I don’t want to have because I cannot afford to have them.

Remembrance. This is like being unable to write and die little deaths everyday for you. This is like saying I love you out loud, and wishing that you’ll hold my hand this morning and hereafter.

(This is like me making no sense at all because of you.)

I could have given you everything: the dorky smile, a bottle stopper, a piece of the sky. I could have given you the kind of love you need, and the mornings after when we decided to wait on each other. I could have given you no room to stop and think. I could have made you love me.

You could be here, holding my hand and telling me to stop being an ass (something that you always used to tell me because I am). You could be everything that I hoped for, that thing that will make me drown in the calm waves of wakefulness. You could have loved me.

They say I should forget, slay the memories that I have of you when you are at your most serene. Or maybe I should have just stopped waiting on you to tell me that the mornings, our mornings would be glorious because we have each other.

I’ve been remiss. I should forget you. Someday or in another morning.

Someday...

honesty hurts, sometimes.

Rays shriek through windowpanes, like canopies in my beguiled oculuses one misty morning. A crisp cheekiness anticipating a new day as I dwell onto the callousness of my breathing. I stood up watching leaves fall on their recuperating trees like witnessing the climax of an autumn tree emancipating its tiddler. Freedom – finally. Blue skies dance in some euphoric tune, annihilating the downpour of torrent bought upon the world yesterday. Birds move rapidly steaming out in little apertures of loud twittering channeling, welcoming the new day. Another splendiferous morning.

Yet, why am I desperately nostalgic? Sulked up, fraught with extreme unhappiness, almost nearly hopeless. Why do I sit all day waiting for rainy nights to come? Lurking in the darkness that conceals the room, looking out on raindrops thinking as if it were my tears.

I had it in me, the girl who once believed in fairy tales, thinking it like a rippled branch and smelled of spring flowers. The princes that’ll sweep me off my feet, the fairies that’ll subsidize my dispositions, and the girl who waited incessantly for butterflies believing it were some magical fantasy that cascades stardust and glittering golden powder. My ceaseless dream – imagination unrestricted by reality.

Then the worse came, I grew up. Awaken by the voices of unpleasantly stern reality. Truth hurts. The adroit thoughts of fairy godmothers vouching magic wands in your purportedly gleaming white ball dress, the effervescent notion of fortune cabbaging with tooth fairies, the easiness of their impalpable benignity that makes my heart beat as loud as my breath was quiet.

The battering and beating now was lost – no more heart. All I have now is this thing inside my chest that pumps blood. Now tell me, if living is a process, then how does one arrive anywhere except by just such painful routes?

Perverted furious politicians in white barongs now supersede princes. Tickling crocodiles are replaced with perpetual endangering of whales. And coiled unborn fetus in lucid mayonnaise jars now supplants Peter Pan.

The harshness of reality stashes away the child in you. There’s no room for fairy tales in life, only actuality.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Whoever said these is probably in his state of mental numbness. Lies hurt too, but reality – honesty, hurts even more.