"As the Clarion plays..."
A post-Bonifacio and pre-Rizal day message
By Kat Ulrike
"Unfinished business", these are the words concerned people ought to say in regards to the so-called "revoution" that started in 1896. That, amidst paper reforms, congress ruled by elites, edifices of glass and steel, and anything that provides a showcase of 'independence' the Philippines remains under the hands of those whose primary goal is to keep firm in their interests. Whether foreign or domestic oligarch trying to present as benevolent, the reality is so clear that independence being struggled centuries past has not been achieved especially those of land, bread, and social justice. And heroes like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, and Apolinario Mabini didn't struggle all for national liberation alone, but social as well.
It may sound strange to some to hear phrases like "unfinished revolution", or "continuous struggle" thinking that the Philippines of theirs had achieved its independence and thus nothing to say except to lean towards illusory progress brought by neoliberal west-east cooperation. But reality is quite very clear to see the Philippines of the present carries the pain of its past such as its feudal and colonial despotism, that Peasants in the countryside has to hear the tambuli, the clarion made out of carabao horn to unite and mobilise to vent grievances or to advance forward the social phase of that unfinished business, so are the workers, students, and urban professionals being pitted down by rising costs, fees, and taxes to satisfy the corrupt.
And that social phas has not been seriously conmenced by the so-called self-proclaimed benevolent elites amidst all the papers, the presentations, rhetorics, the bullshit being shown to the starving populace. Corrupt bureaucrats and oppressive landlords continue to thrive in the cities and in the countryside, while civil service ethics and land to the tiller was not realised as its laws, decrees concerning it be end circumvented if not entirely reduced into a mere scraps of paper; that commercial zones took place the once production-churning factories and the farms leaving everyone unemployed, and a culture that has to be cultivated be barraged by the single-fanged monster called 'west' and its wholsale westernisation. No wonder why agrarian revolts in the countryside, mass discontent in the cities brought by rising costs of commodities, loss of national and social consciousness continues as the system profits in its own subject's hardship and in pain.
But regardless of their shit, the people are now trying to awake from that enforced dream. The clarion, no matter how it was made of carabao horn blows its significant tones to awake and join in the marches, the statements of those whom are concerned had been distributed like hotcakes, the single spark that has been deemed to die has become a prairie fire difficult to end!
Again, it may sound strange of threatening, but clearly true. For as the clarion plays its militant tones, the once tired, dispossessed, repressed, sick, hungry are willing to rise and take anything to kill not just venting grievances that fell into the system's intentionally deaf ears. These people had been tired to words as what Juana Change said a while ago, they demand actions, if possible, they demand a surgical one to remove a tumor that is malignant, incurable; people can't just rely on worthless scraps of paper coming from those who even afford to babble words such as peace, land, and bread, knowing that these people on high aren't serious in these so-called committments as they focus on their interests. Remember, how come the lower-middle Bourgeois named Andres Bonifacio had disregard the reforms Ilustrados insisted in favor of the growing clamor of the hungry, dispossessed masses? How come Rizal had toyed with revolution (in which Bonifacio had seriously put into practise) citing the failure of reforms being junked by the reaction particularly those of the priests and of the elites? People who had once tried to think of peace and conciliation, such as those of the Ilustrados whom seriously heard the cries of the masses had enough of it, sensing the fact that the peace the system wanted was not a peace under justice, but those of death as evidenced by growing mass of hunger and pain made by the reaction centuries ago.
And even today it still continues to aggravate. Those who recognize reforms also recognize the need to take up arms to press forward the demands of the people as what Bonifacio or Mabini had stated, both the reaction and the counterreaction had afforded to joyride over it, yet with their intention to overturn the aspirations in favor of keeping their interests? The eyes of the people are wide opened, ears surroundly heard in order not to pursue their goals and press forward the true interest dofferent from the papers people on high has presented "to pacify". The lessons of EDSA I and II revolts somehow realise that in order to realise the supposed goals is to go beyond the parameters of "order", of strike the system not just its ringleaders as it was in Russia, China, Cuba of years past. Both the reaction and counterreaction has desperately trying to appease the people by any means just like earlier stated, but true to the word itself, especially those of the latter whose intention is to counter both the existing reaction and its effect, rather assails the protester rather than the system that incite them to protest despite using reform or reconciliation or any other progressive statement as its alibi.
They said they use the social media as means to organise, but social media, regardless of its contribution to organising the discontented people, is not a protest substitute. And although social media had also created certain events like the "million people march against pork barrel", how about Hacienda Luisita? 16000 peso national minimum wage increase? Or any other calls for land, bread and social justice? Well, to be frank and true would say that they rather sit on a chair, "spreading consciouness" than braving the heat and the sun.
No matter how the present order tries to repress, the wave of mass anger continue to flow over them. From not quite low to almost high, these waves made those whom trying to resist felt the growing fear coming from those whom are sick and tired of their repression. And although it may take years for the system to be destroyed, it weathers, erodes its so-called pride, strength, and instead unravels its obvious weakness the system has trying to hide over the way the sea waves spash over rocks time after time.
Yes, and everybody sees that scene most think rather as disastrous, meanacing, disorderly. But for sure one, two, three, amongst them wanted that way of breaking free than to stay conented, sedated by the illusions the system has presented to.