“Wala na, finish na.”
They said May 9 would either be the light engulfing the darkness or the darkness drinking the last ounce of light.
Seeing the tabulated partial, unofficial votes of the recent 2022 elections was like being blindsided, punched in the stomach as they hit the final nail on democracy.
Local headlines and figures have reiterated that this has probably been the most emotional election yet. Even the world was left shocked by what we did to our own motherland. We remained silently immobile, journalists and anchors themselves stupefied, while others wore a grin from ear to ear.
It only seemed like yesterday when things were still festive and tolerable. But the tone is drastically different now. As if it has dawned upon us that we’ve entered a new world.
My multiple breakdowns were coped with a superflux of doomscrolling through Facebook and TikTok, where content changes within approximately ten to sixty seconds. One minute I’m watching an influencer dancing, then later I’m watching an edit of martial law paired with a Taylor Swift song, then edits reminiscing the pink rallies, then later I’m peering at real-war footage from Ukraine.
Studies have shown that our attention span shortens because of the type of content generated and fed to us. We have to force our brains to switch their focus every second or minute. Though online, we also must reactivate and deactivate ourselves in micromanaging the perplexity and speed of headlong events around us.
We clamored that our country has merely been reduced to a training ground or theater stage when it is so much much more. Our efforts looked so futile in curbing the restoration and expansion of more dictators, fascists, and enablers. They’re crawling back, and we were so close to at least ending the cycle. How would our activists, playwrights, writers, the victims, and survivors look at us now?
Respect the majority vote, we live in a democracy, they claimed. Is it still a democracy, after all the years of carefully-crafted layers of irregularities worked on their end — at the expense of the country’s future and the marginalized?
As they say, ang hirap mong mahalin Pilipinas. Perhaps being silent and not adding fuel to the fire are the solutions for an orderly and peaceful country. Is it better to put down our flag, hearts, and call it a night forever when our own people seem to give us more reasons to just give up?
Running out of political battery

(Photo by Larizza Lucas/TomasinoWeb)
What if I become apolitical?
If you squeeze out all the care and grit you have left with all your might and still don’t see the results of your effort in engaging in political affairs, you just might turn apolitical. Dictionaries define apolitical as the non-involvement, aversion, or disinterest in politics. Some have always been apolitical from the start, while others tragically become apolitical along the way.
As a HUMSS and AB Student, being apolitical is an impossible task, almost an unforgivable thing to do. How can you unspawn from the serious affairs of the world when you’re trained to do so?
With the imminence of the election period, some schools and universities have emphasized that they are non-partisan, neutral, and or apolitical. These enraged their students and alumni, questioning how dare they play it safe when they are meant to amplify their values into existing and real socio-political issues.
We employ our knowledge, facts, and insights as our own backpack everywhere we go. It would be a disappointment to our younger selves who started out with optimism, hope, and light in their eyes to change the world, only for us to crush those. And sometimes, that’s all we have left. But with draining conversations that heighten to heavy, personal battles within and outside the household — among the very people meant to guide us in thinking what is good and what is not — are they even worth the risk anymore?
I see friends and colleagues online argue with relatives and strangers in the comments about protests and grieving. Majority of these comments stem from baselessly accusing them as members of the NPA (National People’s Army). They unsolicitedly advise them to just study, understand it’s “God’s will,” and most of all, to just accept defeat. Additionally, activists, journalists, and leaders are bombarded with trolls harassing and sending death threats through their messages.
When we see these types of gaslighting and power-tripping scenarios, we wonder why we’re even fighting for them, even though it seems they would never fight for us back.
How long can we become the bigger persons? We tirelessly tried and tried countless times but what if we’ve reached that stage where we want nothing more to do with their stubborn and closed minds already?
They made it increasingly difficult for us to hold the culprits accountable. Why continue fighting in the political scene when all our good intentions are shunned and ridiculed? Why attempt to immerse ourselves in educating when standards are now reduced to faux manners, humility, and looks?
Maybe there’s an expiration date or battery limit to being political. It’s other people’s turn to try. Let’s leave it to the next generations. We did what we could.
Maybe the adults were right

(Photo by Nick Fewings/Unsplash)
When unfortunate things happen, memes also happen.
Getting a passport, racing to the airport, searching how to become a sheep in New Zealand, hiding from possible ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps), and finding an AFAM to bring to Canada, were uttered by distraught, coping Filipinos. To them, it’s pretty given that the way to evade more horrors is to just leave the country for good.
They are jokes to move on and feel less alone, sure, yet they may also sound self-centered and out-of-touch to a lot — especially to the optionless and the marginalized, those who don’t have the privilege of having a convenient escape plan. I know a lot of relatives and friends who say they will move and actually did for the better.
My younger self thought this was a tempting act but it wasn’t very nationalistic of them. But why invalidate their practical and valid choice and blame them? Maybe I am beginning to understand. After all, at least they’re suffering elsewhere rather than here, where almost unpreventable miseries are limitless.
I’m one of the people to show apparent dislike and cringe for the boomer, deepwoke, cheugy quotes about just chilling, living, loving, and laughing. How could they blatantly be in their ‘just vibes’ or ‘you only live once?’ bubbles when there are real problems existing? What is the privilege of being unbothered like; to remain resilient and nonchalant in brushing off idly real-life things that affect people?
But what if I withdraw my tears, stop sharing photos of rallies, stop watching historical documentaries, quit reading articles, and stop arguing and fact-checking with strangers whose ears seem closed for the rest of their lives; are these the ways for me to finally be untroubled and free?
Admittedly, at present, my family and I may not be urgently affected as others in terms of class and safety. But as someone in the journalism and writing field, I fear a future where books are hidden, torn, and where writers and readers disappear, akin to Fahrenheit 451. Maybe it’s time to resign or choose a different career — there are many safer ones out there. Why am I here if I lack the guts? By the looks of the future of press freedom at the hands of another dictator, I can buy some time to flee.
When things begin to look comfortable and great for a fleeting time, I can’t help but ask these: What if I stop caring when the world finally works and adjusts for me? Why penalize ourselves, for the mistakes of those who commit deliberate injustices? They can slumber soundly, uncaring, while we’re here, raging and using all our energy — so who is winning and losing?
More reasons to fight than not to fight

(Photo by Christine Annmarie Tapawan/TomasinoWeb)
We ask and ask what happened and what will happen to our country. We’ll forever be an unsolved case.
So we tell those people who unleashed more gates of hell: “Ginusto niyo ‘yan, mga bobo.” “Magdusa kayo.” “Kapag kayo umiyak, huwag kayong tatakbo sa amin.” “Sana mawala na kayo sa mundong ito.”
It was as if every word said dripped with anger and despair at the tip of our emotional impulses, and it’s almost understandable. Almost so vengeful that they should feel our bitterness, just as they were bitter toward us for thinking and fighting for good governance.
Of course, the hard-headed enablers, elitists, and ignorant trolls who had all access and privilege to research and history, reevaluate their misdeeds, but still have their backs turned on the good of all for selfish reasons have to pay the price. But why counterproductively other the masses at a time where they need us the most; the masses who were victimized into years of sly and deceitful disinformation and historical revisionism?
Certainly, to become approaching and still latch unto hope to those who unintentionally contributed to the mess is tough. But being more divisive and elitist shrinks the possibility for positive and inclusive change. To redirect those feelings of indignance and demand accountability to the larger institutions and people at play who caused this is what’s needed.
Dumbfounded, we look at the greedy and egotistical decisions of certain people, asking how thick-skinned they can be. Isn’t their conscience guilty? But I figured we have no right to ask this if we ourselves, will also betray our own conscience and the Filipinos by becoming apolitical.
Everything and anything we do is political. Trying to run away from it is also political in itself. Distancing oneself and choosing inaction from facts and event — to become impartial — is enabling more bad things to happen.
Villains should only exist in books. We have the power to lessen them in real life and not become them by siding with the oppressors. Farmers, peasants, activists, lawyers, and more continue to be abused, censored, overworked, underpaid, and neglected. We cannot look them in the eye and say we’re tired, for they never rested for us.
With more conflicts piling up, grieving and struggling seem like indications of us as sore losers. But it’s necessary. For they hold a hidden power in telling us that after the unrest, we always rise up. It’s hard, but we must continue or start somewhere.
It may seem like it but we didn’t choose the bad ending yet. More chapters are to come and it’s up to us to keep flipping and writing the pages. It has only just begun. Lifetimes are needed but amidst the clouding darkness looming over us, we must not let the ripples of hope, people, and leaders who continue to inspire us to do good and to love go astray.
In the words of bell hooks, “Love is profoundly political. Our deepest revolution will come when we understand this truth.”
The Philippines is and will continue to be easy to love, especially if we prove it is still worth fighting for and far from falling from grace.
Mikaela Gabrielle de Castro
Blogs Editor, Blogs Writer
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