Paradise Revisited.
20 August 2004. 3:27 am.
a tropical island jungle paradise in which i sit and write is the paradise of which i wrote long ago that night / it’s strange, how history repeats itself and we find ourselves going through the same motions with older minds. with sympathy for loneliness / i must confess that i’ve forgiven myself for selfishness / but this time around, i search to find what was once lost within / in order to reflect without that which i have seen / me / the chinita/slash/espanola faced and multi-faceted mestiza who defines dreams in Filipino meanings / my observation lies herein.
here in manila they’ve worked hard to keep the poverty from your eyes / C-5 to Edsa, shantytowns adorn outskirts of town by water / sons and daughters of this country long to be whiter / a city park to camouflage corrugated steel villages alongside Pasig river / where families have rusting metal heaps of processing plants for next door neighbors / excrement both human and mechanical fouls river, source of life, and foundation of this metropolitan capital / i ask questions not meant to be rhetorical but they end up this way, left / right / unanswered, they only take me in full circle / what is the problem with a country whose main export is its people? / which leads to: why is it that the distribution of wealth here’s so unequal / which leads to: why does the gap between poor and rich increase so / which leads to: is it destined that our goal lie ever further from our reach / which leads to the lament i witness daily on the streets: kahit na, wala kong pera / kahit na, butasan ng bulsa / until now, i have no money / my pockets full of holes / the tighter we close our collective fist around this land / the faster grains of sand will dribble out / why is it really that daughters and sons of this country still long to be whiter / it’s been years since theories emerged on the colonial mentality / seems to me we should be over it by now / seems to me we should be over this by now / seems to me that it’s been taking forever for self-love or reciprocity or forward movement and/or unity / all political parties seem to do is foster hate / yet another byproduct, it’s just another waste to be dumped into Manila bay / makes me gasp for i cannot grasp it / sometimes there is nothing there / lack of air / loss of concentration loss of interpersonal relations cuts the oxygen to our brains / us fish can’t live in water dirtied by wasteful (acid) rains / with the pains of growing promoted in the guise of “development” / tell me, is a starbucks coffee on every block a marking-stone of progress / when little children in the street still sell culture hanging from young fingers / do i believe her when she tells me that the smell of life still lingers / to make you whiter by day / the city slides into the water by night when it thinks that no one’s looking / her shorelines quietly eroding
“and they say in this country we’ve long been fighting / and they say in this country the struggle’s surviving” but at what cost? What is referred to as “development” isn’t healthy. globalization never served this country / in fact it severed this country, further depressed the economy, forced the poor out in droves just to feed growing families / like schools of fish swept up in the capitalism net / filipinos are only principal / and life but a cycle of supply and demand to be met / so the C and D classes of poorer fish are bottled, canned, and exported while the upper middle is a little more literal about it.
It seems fitting and appropriate that fish exist in schools / so they pack the universities / resulting in fresh grads dumped en masse into the corporate swimming pool / annually their numbers grow but the number of jobs does not / therefore, to be corporate’s catch of the day is your only shot at success / so we float belly-up by the millions, text each other about it, and call it progress / but i’ll pause here to spare you the pitiful details / the entrails of my adolescent body spilling before me on the ground / in the sounds of everything entailed when at fifteen years old all you know is the division of human community in the form of third world poverty versus first world conundrums such as whether to put nirvana or puff daddy in your walkman and just walk off the excess consumption / and just walk off the excess consumption /
into the still-steaming entrails of our adolescent country spilling before us on the ground / slit have we been at the belly and throat / then gutted, greased, and fried to a crisp in a pan / like the milkfish we still choose to eat with our hands - the benefit of which is rapidity of consumption / deftly our bones, once removed, pick at teeth and are thrown / with other waste into overflowing gutters, onto soiled, sandy beaches. The streets are flooding with my people’s lifeblood and bones join the garbage adrift in the heat of a tropical sun / this pollution, like corruption, permeates the waters and chokes out all hope of a self-sustaining life
in tagalog, the word for bone - buto - is also the word for seed.
indeed, this fact seems to me revolutionary / but what good are our bones, these seeds, left unplanted, thrown out with the trash while our bodies and lands are dismantled to be consumed for simple profit / my disenchantment with systems of imperial domination is centuries old / so deeply entrenched are Filipinos in this capitalist hoochie system / gyres of history only widening since manila galleon / “my people are not painted savages and we’ll not stand for subordination” proclaimed an ancient pinoy prince who eventually fell from grace and turned coat on his own subjects / do you ever feel landless? i do / do you ever feel hopeless? i do. so much racism still in this decimated country / melanin complexes plague the masses / massive billboards advertise products to safely bleach one’s skin “what is the problem with Michael Jackson?” it’s The Filipino Within / a mindstate full of -isms / history of colonization / fertilizes self-hatred burgeoning in him / i bet if they had his money, people here would do the same / bleach their skin, straighten hair / to make your appearance fair / never wonder why western beauty standards are standard fare / economic laizzez faire standing in the way of what is fair / according to recent calculations, 80% of wealth owned by 2% of population / each holder of share in the ayala corporation blissfully unaware of the masses existence / scraping by at an eye level that’s just barely above sea level / and it’s getting so hard to tread water / here in manila, corrupt politicians and a more corrupt system work hard to keep the poverty out of mind / call it “development” but it hasn’t been healthy / perhaps we’ve developed blinders to the simplest form of truth / perhaps we’ve developed middle-aged conservative spread around our hips for with our bellies full we can afford to redistribute some of the wealth / perhaps we’ve again been enveloped in apathy when sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter / cuz rings shining up a shantytown might make it all fall down
and it’s getting so hard to tread water / sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter / never wonder why western beauty standards are standard fare / sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter, for rings shining up this shantytown might make it all fall down
and its getting hard to believe it’ll get better
either innocently enough or eminently corrupt has been the dementedness of our leading political entities / this, in combination with ABCD class mentalities plus the general feeling of melanin-complex inferiority / renders both core and fruit of our ecosystem polluted and hella fucking dirty so
i guess it’s no wonder
i can feel my people drowning
and it’s getting hard to believe it’ll get better
because it’s always harder to tread water later
or to filter the waste from these oil-slicked gills
perhaps we tired ourselves out in the beginning
seems to me we should be over it by now / seems to me we should be over this by now
right now i’m desperate to keep my head up
i can feel my people drowning.
Women's International Solidarity Affair in the Philippines = WISAP 2004. i didn't go on the expos. sayang. that's all i have to say. the first day of the conference was somewhat stressful but educational. the best part was seeing my friends from seattle here in the homeland. Joanne, Tene, May, Leah, Betty, Cherry. thank you all for your time and dedication to the anti-imperialist struggle. the second day (today) was much more dynamic. Ninotchka Rosca is the SHIT. an incredible writer/activist who is so very real. i was a little starstruck, i'll admit. a lot of what i already knew was confirmed - that imperialist globalization is the machine violating human rights, esp those of women, worldwide. but because of delgates from all over the globe, from fierce students to well-seasoned activists and feminists who have been commited to this work for the entirety of their adult lives, i see the workings of a movement against the machine - people power, or the third wave of feminism. i have facts and figures to back up arguments. i feel inspired to be an organizer, to mobilize the masses, but this is always easier said than done, right? on the real, after 6 weeks of absorbing desperate poverty on the same street as massive mansions and malls occupying 3/4 of visible area, i came to WISAP with a chip on my shoulder, my usual optimism hidden under layers of frustration with dirt and corruption in third world countries, propagated by the leaders of the first world. i felt like i was drowning with my people in this dirty system, for what, i kept asking, can really be done to overthrow such a racist, patriarchal, sexist system like that controlled by the imperialist policies of the US and its allies? but WISAP helped me with my question, also serving to reaffirm what i knew deep down - when it looks the darkest, that's when we need to work the hardest, to have a comprehensive progressive alliance against the machine. this conference, as one of my last experiences on this particular balikbayan experience, came to be like the single gold thread on the colorful duko, or bandanna, i'm now wearing to symbolize my commitment to the cause - that little glimmer of hope.
here on the left, it's easy to be hopeless
gotta keep that fist up
and work to cease this process
at any cost.
thanks for reading.
"In Solidarity we stand / Rock the world with women's hands" - WISAP 2004
R E G I M E C H A N G E N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4
a tropical island jungle paradise in which i sit and write is the paradise of which i wrote long ago that night / it’s strange, how history repeats itself and we find ourselves going through the same motions with older minds. with sympathy for loneliness / i must confess that i’ve forgiven myself for selfishness / but this time around, i search to find what was once lost within / in order to reflect without that which i have seen / me / the chinita/slash/espanola faced and multi-faceted mestiza who defines dreams in Filipino meanings / my observation lies herein.
here in manila they’ve worked hard to keep the poverty from your eyes / C-5 to Edsa, shantytowns adorn outskirts of town by water / sons and daughters of this country long to be whiter / a city park to camouflage corrugated steel villages alongside Pasig river / where families have rusting metal heaps of processing plants for next door neighbors / excrement both human and mechanical fouls river, source of life, and foundation of this metropolitan capital / i ask questions not meant to be rhetorical but they end up this way, left / right / unanswered, they only take me in full circle / what is the problem with a country whose main export is its people? / which leads to: why is it that the distribution of wealth here’s so unequal / which leads to: why does the gap between poor and rich increase so / which leads to: is it destined that our goal lie ever further from our reach / which leads to the lament i witness daily on the streets: kahit na, wala kong pera / kahit na, butasan ng bulsa / until now, i have no money / my pockets full of holes / the tighter we close our collective fist around this land / the faster grains of sand will dribble out / why is it really that daughters and sons of this country still long to be whiter / it’s been years since theories emerged on the colonial mentality / seems to me we should be over it by now / seems to me we should be over this by now / seems to me that it’s been taking forever for self-love or reciprocity or forward movement and/or unity / all political parties seem to do is foster hate / yet another byproduct, it’s just another waste to be dumped into Manila bay / makes me gasp for i cannot grasp it / sometimes there is nothing there / lack of air / loss of concentration loss of interpersonal relations cuts the oxygen to our brains / us fish can’t live in water dirtied by wasteful (acid) rains / with the pains of growing promoted in the guise of “development” / tell me, is a starbucks coffee on every block a marking-stone of progress / when little children in the street still sell culture hanging from young fingers / do i believe her when she tells me that the smell of life still lingers / to make you whiter by day / the city slides into the water by night when it thinks that no one’s looking / her shorelines quietly eroding
“and they say in this country we’ve long been fighting / and they say in this country the struggle’s surviving” but at what cost? What is referred to as “development” isn’t healthy. globalization never served this country / in fact it severed this country, further depressed the economy, forced the poor out in droves just to feed growing families / like schools of fish swept up in the capitalism net / filipinos are only principal / and life but a cycle of supply and demand to be met / so the C and D classes of poorer fish are bottled, canned, and exported while the upper middle is a little more literal about it.
It seems fitting and appropriate that fish exist in schools / so they pack the universities / resulting in fresh grads dumped en masse into the corporate swimming pool / annually their numbers grow but the number of jobs does not / therefore, to be corporate’s catch of the day is your only shot at success / so we float belly-up by the millions, text each other about it, and call it progress / but i’ll pause here to spare you the pitiful details / the entrails of my adolescent body spilling before me on the ground / in the sounds of everything entailed when at fifteen years old all you know is the division of human community in the form of third world poverty versus first world conundrums such as whether to put nirvana or puff daddy in your walkman and just walk off the excess consumption / and just walk off the excess consumption /
into the still-steaming entrails of our adolescent country spilling before us on the ground / slit have we been at the belly and throat / then gutted, greased, and fried to a crisp in a pan / like the milkfish we still choose to eat with our hands - the benefit of which is rapidity of consumption / deftly our bones, once removed, pick at teeth and are thrown / with other waste into overflowing gutters, onto soiled, sandy beaches. The streets are flooding with my people’s lifeblood and bones join the garbage adrift in the heat of a tropical sun / this pollution, like corruption, permeates the waters and chokes out all hope of a self-sustaining life
in tagalog, the word for bone - buto - is also the word for seed.
indeed, this fact seems to me revolutionary / but what good are our bones, these seeds, left unplanted, thrown out with the trash while our bodies and lands are dismantled to be consumed for simple profit / my disenchantment with systems of imperial domination is centuries old / so deeply entrenched are Filipinos in this capitalist hoochie system / gyres of history only widening since manila galleon / “my people are not painted savages and we’ll not stand for subordination” proclaimed an ancient pinoy prince who eventually fell from grace and turned coat on his own subjects / do you ever feel landless? i do / do you ever feel hopeless? i do. so much racism still in this decimated country / melanin complexes plague the masses / massive billboards advertise products to safely bleach one’s skin “what is the problem with Michael Jackson?” it’s The Filipino Within / a mindstate full of -isms / history of colonization / fertilizes self-hatred burgeoning in him / i bet if they had his money, people here would do the same / bleach their skin, straighten hair / to make your appearance fair / never wonder why western beauty standards are standard fare / economic laizzez faire standing in the way of what is fair / according to recent calculations, 80% of wealth owned by 2% of population / each holder of share in the ayala corporation blissfully unaware of the masses existence / scraping by at an eye level that’s just barely above sea level / and it’s getting so hard to tread water / here in manila, corrupt politicians and a more corrupt system work hard to keep the poverty out of mind / call it “development” but it hasn’t been healthy / perhaps we’ve developed blinders to the simplest form of truth / perhaps we’ve developed middle-aged conservative spread around our hips for with our bellies full we can afford to redistribute some of the wealth / perhaps we’ve again been enveloped in apathy when sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter / cuz rings shining up a shantytown might make it all fall down
and it’s getting so hard to tread water / sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter / never wonder why western beauty standards are standard fare / sons and daughters and this whole damn country long to be whiter, for rings shining up this shantytown might make it all fall down
and its getting hard to believe it’ll get better
either innocently enough or eminently corrupt has been the dementedness of our leading political entities / this, in combination with ABCD class mentalities plus the general feeling of melanin-complex inferiority / renders both core and fruit of our ecosystem polluted and hella fucking dirty so
i guess it’s no wonder
i can feel my people drowning
and it’s getting hard to believe it’ll get better
because it’s always harder to tread water later
or to filter the waste from these oil-slicked gills
perhaps we tired ourselves out in the beginning
seems to me we should be over it by now / seems to me we should be over this by now
right now i’m desperate to keep my head up
i can feel my people drowning.
Women's International Solidarity Affair in the Philippines = WISAP 2004. i didn't go on the expos. sayang. that's all i have to say. the first day of the conference was somewhat stressful but educational. the best part was seeing my friends from seattle here in the homeland. Joanne, Tene, May, Leah, Betty, Cherry. thank you all for your time and dedication to the anti-imperialist struggle. the second day (today) was much more dynamic. Ninotchka Rosca is the SHIT. an incredible writer/activist who is so very real. i was a little starstruck, i'll admit. a lot of what i already knew was confirmed - that imperialist globalization is the machine violating human rights, esp those of women, worldwide. but because of delgates from all over the globe, from fierce students to well-seasoned activists and feminists who have been commited to this work for the entirety of their adult lives, i see the workings of a movement against the machine - people power, or the third wave of feminism. i have facts and figures to back up arguments. i feel inspired to be an organizer, to mobilize the masses, but this is always easier said than done, right? on the real, after 6 weeks of absorbing desperate poverty on the same street as massive mansions and malls occupying 3/4 of visible area, i came to WISAP with a chip on my shoulder, my usual optimism hidden under layers of frustration with dirt and corruption in third world countries, propagated by the leaders of the first world. i felt like i was drowning with my people in this dirty system, for what, i kept asking, can really be done to overthrow such a racist, patriarchal, sexist system like that controlled by the imperialist policies of the US and its allies? but WISAP helped me with my question, also serving to reaffirm what i knew deep down - when it looks the darkest, that's when we need to work the hardest, to have a comprehensive progressive alliance against the machine. this conference, as one of my last experiences on this particular balikbayan experience, came to be like the single gold thread on the colorful duko, or bandanna, i'm now wearing to symbolize my commitment to the cause - that little glimmer of hope.
here on the left, it's easy to be hopeless
gotta keep that fist up
and work to cease this process
at any cost.
thanks for reading.
"In Solidarity we stand / Rock the world with women's hands" - WISAP 2004
R E G I M E C H A N G E N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4