tingle & grief
Hey friends, thanks for opening! What a week this has been, no? For the first half of it, I was actually quite excited to share some book news with you, but then as we all know President Aquino passed away quite unexpectedly on Thursday, and it’s impossible not to say a few words, you know? So here we go.
Benigno S. Aquino III, 61
There’s probably not much I could add to the already fantastic roster of eulogies online. My favorites by far are by PNoy’s former speechwriter Gian Lao, PNoy was my Boss: A delayed dispatch from an ex-Palace speechwriter, by Rappler reporter Camille Elemia, Noynoy Aquino: ‘Camille, I’m not in good shape’, and by former Communications Undersecretary Manolo Quezon, The Impossible Dreamer.
Also particularly heart-tugging are Vice President Robredo’s eulogies, entwined as they were with her husband’s (also untimely) death in 2012.
I feel genuinely sad about PNoy’s passing; it feels a lot like that time LJM died, or those days around it. Like that feeling that something’s just gone, and it’s bigger than the person who’s just died, and nothing’s certainly the same.
Someone pointed out how we’re all prefacing our tributes for the guy with, “He’s not perfect but”–as if someone had to be perfect to deserve kind words in the first place. This is the world we live in now, and I hate it–of course, I do, because it’s the easiest thing to muster these days.
But the fact that there are kind words for the former President to begin with feels like a sort of push-back to today’s hate-addled world; reading tributes and stories about his work ethic and leadership only highlights the things that we have been sorely missing with the current president. It’s been five years, and it’s been too long.
My former boss at the paper liked to point out that people usually viewed their younger years with rose-tinted glasses. It’s only human: This is why, she explains, some people who were young during the Marcos dictatorship felt like it was a golden time–because to them, personally, it was. A golden time with fewer concerns, way before they had children, and debt, and illness, probably.
I’ve been examining my grief through this lens. Having spent my twenties working at the paper, I wonder if that’s what is happening to me: Am I simply romanticizing a younger time and conflating my personal circumstance with the actual quality of governance, quality of life?
I remember some people saying the second Aquino administration was lucky. At the time, it seemed that the worst was over, and they were poised to reap what the previous administration–the longest post-Edsa, 9 years in all–had sowed for them. Maybe that was right. But the fact of the matter is, what the guy could build on? He did build on. And looking back, I think he was also able to focus on presidential work because he was not busy attending to an impeachment attempt every single year and coup attempts in hotels every so often, or battling a slew of scandals and legislative inquiries.
Anyway, having spent much of my life in media under the Arroyo and Aquino administrations, I can say a couple of things: They are very different from each other, and are definitely worlds away from this one.
Perhaps one can point out it’s practically apples and oranges for me to compare the three; for instance, bulk of the Duterte administration, I have spent outside the paper. As such, I no longer have been following the news so religiously, or at least, not as intensely as I did when I monitored Arroyo and Aquino closely, following government updates every single day and writing about them every so often. More than anything, the decision to shift away from news was a matter of self-preservation; they say all jobs have their respective shit-sandwiches, but very early on in the Duterte administration, I knew in my heart that this was a shit-sandwich I would not be able to bear for much longer.
This privilege to disconnect from the news cycle every so often, especially where the President is concerned, has done my mental health wonders. But this also means that while I have examined the Arroyo and Aquino administrations up close–scrutinizing their SONA speeches, chronicling controversies and scandals, and on the whole just simply trying to do our part in fulfilling the classic media duty of being government watchdog–I only know the Duterte government as a plain citizen, perhaps in mere bold strokes.
They say the devil is in the details, but I’d like to think that even in their bolder, generic strokes, there is likewise a devilish pall upon the Duterte administration. I don’t doubt that the devil is likewise in the details here–in this hellish administration, which, faced with the option of building upon the gains of the Aquino administration, chose death and destruction and oh yes, patronage politics instead.
So yes, if you ask me, objectively, was I really that better off during the Aquino admin? My answer would have to be yes, but this is by no means a judgment of my personal situation–true I was younger then, considerably more energetic, but between then and now, I’d somehow managed to be a bit better off financially. I manage to hang on to my holidays and long weekends–things that were out of the question when I was with news. I have more time for hobbies. Before the pandemic, I actually had time for working out and feeding the community cats. Most importantly, I sleep at night without worrying about errors in writeups that have my name on them. (Some days there are still errors, but minus the byline, it makes things less… anxiety-inducing.) So you know, my personal life is better today, and it is because I am no longer in news.
But I do still think those years were a much bearable time. Had Duterte chosen to be more bearable as person and president, instead of perhaps deliberately making a spectacle of himself, his language, his crassness–maybe I would be writing this differently. Had he not chosen to quench his bloodthirst first thing, we wouldn’t have needed to count the dead and make a Kill List.
But it is what it is.
As people have also pointed out, a hallmark of a true leader is the quality of the people he leads. Good teams naturally gravitate around good leaders. It’s such a pity when the gains of a well-led team are squandered; I guess, more than anything, that’s what has really upset me the most about everything.
I don’t think I’ll muster enough sadness for when the other Presidents die–most especially the current one. But as Gang Badoy points out, as long as he makes decisions in my behalf, I can speak about him.
Commercial: Tingle Anthology now OUT
Finally. The much-anticipated Tingle Anthology of Filipina Lesbian Writing is FINALLY OUT. Copies are available on the Anvil’s online store on Shopee and Lazada for Php295, excluding shipping.
I remember getting wind of this project some years ago and thinking, Hmm, why not? I’d been looking for wlw stories written by Filipino writers, and now here it is! Nevertheless, I think I was more nervous than excited to contribute.
Anyway, happy to share two of my stories made it to the book–one of which is an excerpt from a longer story that was too long for the anthology haha. I hadn’t looked at it in years, but when I re-read it recently, it turned out to be one of those things I’d written that I still like even after a while! (Or maybe I’m just becoming kinder to myself as I get older lmao.) In any case, I should think about how I’m putting out that longer story–which I think also needs a couple of things written in here and there. Would anyone be interested in that, I wonder? Anyway, let me know?
Sigh this has been such a long post–thank you for reading and listening. As customary, sharing my favorite meme for the week:
https://twitter.com/Catshealdeprsn/status/1408073916652802059
Have a good weekend!
XO,
K