Rant.
May mga hari na walang kapangyarihan
meron ding alipin na mas malaya pa sa karamihan
may mga sundalo na sarili ang kalaban
at may pinapaslang na nabubuhay nang walang hangganan.
Magkabilaan by Joey Ayala.
Sometimes it reaches a point when I'm tired.
It's exhausting. The same things keep happening
and there's no way to stop it.
Belief and heart can only take me so far.
Civil unrest shouldn't feel this normal.
When it's old news and it's tiring
I start wondering if I should give up.
Then I remember that this is who I am.
This is who I'll ever amount to be.
It's not something I can change, not something
I want to change.
I'm embracing it, taking pride in it.
This is an important part of my identity.
It's not a bad thing, being Filipino.
There's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
More than three hundred years of being someone else's colony
and still fucking standing (slouching, really).
We fuck ourselves up so often, taking occasional breaks
to allow other people to fuck us over.
It's become a national pastime.
Then we laugh at ourselves.
And we make it normal.
It doesn't matter. This changes nothing. The tyrants may play
a demented trip-to-Jerusalem
or statue-dance
with multiple partners.
I know
the familiar tingling feeling
that comes from my skin and blood and bones,
knowing I'm part of a
proud people.
Without ideology
without politics
without class
If you strip us down to the bare essentials
we are the brown-skinned sons of god.
Part of a community
with a singular history and culture.
And identity.
If you don't feel that it must be very lonely being you.
Pumanig ka, pumanig ka
wag na ipagpaliban pa
ang di makapagpasya ay maiipit sa gitna.
meron ding alipin na mas malaya pa sa karamihan
may mga sundalo na sarili ang kalaban
at may pinapaslang na nabubuhay nang walang hangganan.
Magkabilaan by Joey Ayala.
Sometimes it reaches a point when I'm tired.
It's exhausting. The same things keep happening
and there's no way to stop it.
Belief and heart can only take me so far.
Civil unrest shouldn't feel this normal.
When it's old news and it's tiring
I start wondering if I should give up.
Then I remember that this is who I am.
This is who I'll ever amount to be.
It's not something I can change, not something
I want to change.
I'm embracing it, taking pride in it.
This is an important part of my identity.
It's not a bad thing, being Filipino.
There's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
More than three hundred years of being someone else's colony
and still fucking standing (slouching, really).
We fuck ourselves up so often, taking occasional breaks
to allow other people to fuck us over.
It's become a national pastime.
Then we laugh at ourselves.
And we make it normal.
It doesn't matter. This changes nothing. The tyrants may play
a demented trip-to-Jerusalem
or statue-dance
with multiple partners.
I know
the familiar tingling feeling
that comes from my skin and blood and bones,
knowing I'm part of a
proud people.
Without ideology
without politics
without class
If you strip us down to the bare essentials
we are the brown-skinned sons of god.
Part of a community
with a singular history and culture.
And identity.
If you don't feel that it must be very lonely being you.
Pumanig ka, pumanig ka
wag na ipagpaliban pa
ang di makapagpasya ay maiipit sa gitna.