I have an appointment with life

A Zen master I was reading today just reminded me that each of us has an appointment with life "in the present moment," not tomorrow but now. In meeting that appointment, may it be a journey of inner and outer peace.

The events since Wednesday have kept me engrossed with what's unfolding in France, the country that gave us the "natural, unalienable and sacred" Rights of Man and inspired members of our ilustrado class like Jose Rizal to question the legitimacy of the Spanish colonial government.

France's example in overthrowing the abusive aristocracy inspired similar revolutions elsewhere. Thoughts have been running through my head which tries to avoid complex political nuances. But the coldblooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo staff and a Muslim policeman doing his job made me sit up and cast aside my indifferent bystander stance.

One of the poignant images I saw and saved into my hard drive in recent days is this--pens and pencils shaped by mourners in France into the peace sign. I work with pen and pencil, too--seemingly harmless tools until they write, draw, shape ideas that can set other minds on fire. I've known what it was to work under an atmosphere of fear during the martial-law years. I marched with those who wanted the Marcos dictatorship unseated so democracy, especially free speech, could be restored.

So today, I say, even in my corner of the Eastern world, I am Charlie.

Open letter to President Pnoy about two decent, much-missed public servants

 Dear Mr. President Benigno Aquino Jr.,

This image of a smiling Jesse Robredo, the late Cabinet secretary for local government, is something I found a few minutes ago while searching the World Wide Web for a story peg. His photo takes away the bad taste in the mouth left by people in positions of responsibility who are not transparent with common or public funds entrusted to them and who recruit well-meaning other people to their cause but are unclear about where they will bring their followers. Daang matuwid is a phrase the Aquino administration is identified with. 

Mr. President, Justice Leila de Lima, I have a simple question: Why are there political prisoners like Ericson "Eric" Acosta still in our midst, especially in a democracy won hard by people older than Eric, people like this blogger who marched and marched  with hundreds of thousands of others, even millions, at the height of the anti-Marcos rallies? 

We were the ones who joined your mother's rallies and long after democracy was restored, helped oust Erap for the same reason of grand thievery. We didn't vote for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's officially sanctioned candidate, another aristocrat in the person of Gilbert Teodoro, your relative. A number of people like me voted for you--you represented for the cynical in me a fresh wind of change after a series of trapos (apt word for traditional politicians).

Ericson Acosta

Why is speaking out one's mind the way Eric did and working for the people like what Eric did rewarded with un-bailable imprisonment in Calbayog City, Samar, where he is thrown in a dark, dank cell along with petty criminals like estafadors and swindlers? And with serious charges against him like carrying firearms when all he had in his backpack was an old laptop?


We who hunger for truth, justice and an equitable way of life no longer want to wait till International Human Rights Day is observed and celebrated on Dec. 10, 2012, with the barest glimmer of hope that Eric Acosta and other political prisoners may be released. 

It will be a sad sad day when I risk what's left of my strength and have to put on my ratty-tatty t-shirt,  faded jeans and sneakers to march all over again with the same fervor that my generation did in the '70s and '80s as dictator Marcos clung more fiercely to power. Look closely at the late Secretary Robredo's photo and ask yourself the same questions this blogger asked.

Yours like Anne Frank in continuing to believe in the goodness in everyone's heart,
Babeth Lolarga

 
Images found in the World Wide Web

'Her pigeons now search the sky'

The quote is a paraphrase from one of Mila Aguilar's best-known poems, "Why Cage Pigeons?" It was written around the time she was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. If I remember the context of the poem right, she had given her son a pigeon for a pet, and he had asked her that question, "Why cage pigeons?"

Her latest collection of poems Chronicle of a Life Foretold, whose cover was designed by someone both dear to the poet and me, Grace de Jesus-Sievert, is now available at Popular Bookstore on Morato and Timog avenues, Quezon City.

Felicitations, Mila!