Traitor

(I was trying to find a material about loyalty and love of country that I might use for a manual that I am writing for a project when I came across this write-up from my old, old journal. And oh my, this is already exactly five years ago this week. I was actually trying to suppress laughing when suddenly I remember trying to submit this essay at a national daily but did not because I didn't know then how to use Mr. Yahoo-mail . Haha. Wow, five years ago was like another dimension. Ah, the boundlessness of my youth! But after reading this again, I was glad I stayed true to my promises. I made the right choices. And since today's a Thursday, here's this throwback  :)

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Last week, our school suspended classes for three days in compliance to a CHEd Memorandum that came out with reasons apparently blamed on the typhoon “Ondoy” which has devastated many parts of the country, claimed many lives, and displaced thousands.

I took that opportunity to go home to my hometown in Villasis, Pangasinan, and was fascinated with the thought that it will be a long break to unwind from all the pressures of school and study. What I never knew was that it would also be a time to learn some intimidating lessons that I never thought would strike and disturb me more than the typhoon itself. It was the kind that profoundly reaffirmed me the cold reality that the world I’m living in now is no longer the same world I used to know, and that the convictions I so desperately held on to before have already changed into something deeper than what I can necessarily comprehend, or even try to understand.

(Google image)

One time during that weekend, just when another typhoon, “Pepeng” looms over the Philippine skies, I sluggishly went to clean up my room as it is a household custom which my folks are very enthusiastic to expect from me after being away from home for an indefinite period in the university. I would often do it gladly. Besides, it is not a task to take grudgingly but is actually a routine of making my room more habitable and less perilous to live in.

Mopping the floor, getting rid of overgrown spider webs from the four corners of the ceiling, and checking the jalousies for damages, evokes a sense of home and warmth of a family, and a feeling of tangible affection that many people in this world so dreadfully wish to experience. In a quiet whimper, it made me realize that I am blessed to have a home, and a room for myself; some people spend stormy days and nights in the streets, under bridges, in filthy slums, and who-knows-where.

Part of the general clean-up drive was conscientiously re-organizing and checking my growing collection of books and other academic possessions for an inventory—a habit that I don’t really enjoy but came to appreciate later when it allow me to smile at life a bit. Getting over my past stuffs does nothing really special, but somehow it reminds me of my outrageous past, including my frustrations, my mistakes, my secret longings, heartbreaks, and childhood miseries and teenage ramblings and misfortunes. Of course there were light and happy memories too, like when I finally passed my college algebra. See, it’s not that special, but it makes one to feel a little bit human, if only for a moment.

There were just so many stories preserved in them that inasmuch as I want to discard them, I could not because it actually pains me to lose something I have learned to value.

As I embark to dig more into some old and some already forgotten piles of my high school mementos, freebies, and other stuffs to which I refer to as “ancient possessions”, and that which I accumulated through the years of probing into existence, I unintentionally stumbled across an outdated high school Filipino textbook.

It was just an ordinary book that already is obsolete, and only boasts of being an “antique” material as a measure of its relevance. I remember acquiring it when I was in grade school  when at the height of the campaign for local elections politicians are forced to do charitable works and give whatever it is that they would think as a good reason for the people to vote for them.

Partly exhausted from and partly satisfied with the day’s almost complete job, I huddled over the floor to scan the book, whose scent reminds me of the university library, and is reminiscent of an ancient story I could not anymore remember.

As I flipped through the aged sheets, I chanced over a familiar page that bears a title of a likewise familiar story. It is a story about a graduating student torn between the decisions whether to stay and work in the country after graduation, or work abroad. I was deeply impressed and saluted the story’s main character when in the end he firmly defied his father’s wishes, and decided to stay and work in the country. Impressive, indeed.

At the bottom of the page where the story ended was a petty question that asks this in tagalong: You’ve just finished your course. If you will be given a chance to choose where to work, how will you rank the following? Easy I thought. Though I wasn’t surprised when I saw that I already provided an answer for it perhaps years ago, I deeply felt terrible about what I have written.

There were six options provided for the question. I ranked first the United States because I believed this is where everybody else would want to go to achieve their wildest dreams; I ranked Australia as second because I see in televisions and on magazines that it is a beautiful place to earn a living and spend good time; I chose Singapore as third because they said it is the cleanest city in Asia and has the most strict implementations of laws; and finally I chose Hong Kong because it is where most of Filipinos go and I have some relatives who work there and seem to enjoy life there, that’s why maybe it is good to follow them and have a family reunion there sometime.

Why I never ranked Japan is because it seems to me I could die learning Nihonggo. Why I never chose the Philippines—my own country—was something my guts could not take in. Would I even dare to choose it as an option when everywhere else in the world becomes inhospitable?

In a sudden vehemence, intensely and furiously powerful like typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, the horrible truth stormed violently and hit home: I am a traitor. I am betraying my country. The excruciating realization dawned upon me that what I did, and intends to do, was much more beyond the ravages and damages of the typhoon, and much more cataclysmic than their devastation that left many cities and provinces in shambles.

What threatening notion made me to answer what I have answered? I don’t want to remember. Fortunately, I can take comfort in knowing that I answered it during a time when my perspectives in life were still, I should say, immature, when my dreams were just based on the standards of the world instead of the standard of something sane and noble, and when my only fear is to fail the expectations of my parents and not the expectations of my country.

College awakened me to love my country, and aspire for my country. Which brings me to say I love my course for that reason. It taught me how to value being a Filipino, and that being a Filipino is not state of being poor, but a state of being privileged to prove to the world that despite our condition, we could still be better. It is crazy for some, but we learn in our discipline that we have the responsibility to give back something to our country to which we owe so many things.

And I don’t want to be a traitor to my own country simply for the reason that it’s hopeless to establish a decent life here. I don’t want to betray my country by looking away from it and go somewhere else to serve somebody else, or and to solve somebody else’s problems instead of fixing the problems of my own country. I don’t want to betray my country just because I’m afraid to take the responsibility to change it and make it better, or make it a little more humane. If we, the youth of this nation who are called to be the hope of the Fatherland, give up their ideals in exchange to a better yet mediocre life abroad, then what will happen? It’s terrible to imagine that this generation learns that the safest way to achieve success and get by in life is to give up country and invest time, talent, effort and dreams in a foreign land.

Not too long from now, I will finally graduate and receive my coveted diploma. And when the time comes that someone will give me an option asking where I intend to work, I will only choose the Philippines—the rest are just some of places for me to visit after I retire from my work here and have offered that “something” to my country and to God.

They will say it is too ideal, too corny. And since I can’t think of any other way to expend ideals and spend life—I intend to be corny, than be a traitor, for the rest my lifetime.

(Google image)