March 15, 2022

A day prior to #kakampinkwednesdays

100 poems, 67 poets, Millions mobilized in a Movement

There’s no stopping the momentum. Not even local officials who maliciously schedule the roads and bridges’ repairs to stop the folks from attending rallies. As if that would be enough to ‘cork in’ the people’s fervor. Nope, several thousands showed up.

Then, an article in a Romualdez-owned local newspaper red tagged the Vice President. Yet, she is the first to condemn the acts of Putin’s war, an avowed communist, against Ukraine. ‘I stand in admiration of the Ukrainian people’s courage and resilience, and am proud of their efforts to defend freedom and a rights-based order – ideals that the Filipino people share,’ says Vice President Leni Robredo

Not even a peep, not even a sound from Bongbong Marcos who reportedly is anti-communist yet, he was the first to make alliances with China. So, who is the communist supporter by his actions – isn’t that Marcos?

The passion of the people has been unleashed: thousands more gathered in Kidapawan, North Cotabato; in General Santos, in Isabela, and thousands more in each provincial rally. We even have 67 poets creating 100 pink poems for Leni Gerona Robredo in English, Tagalog and Waray. -@Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz

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Lastly, may I end this post with Jose Ma. Montelibano’s insights: “Boboy Yonzon could not have said it better. I guess it takes an artist to capture that which is beyond the mundane in the most difficult of times when fear and fakery have constricted minds and hearts. Artists have an uncanny ability to sense the divine ahead of others. Although I must say that recognizing the phenomenon called LENI at this point in the Ides of March 2022 is not a challenge anymore except for those pretending to be deaf and blind.

This is cultural. This is behavioral. And may I add, Boboy, this is spiritual, too. Because Filipinos cannot be separated from prayer and the spirit world at their deepest core.

When survey companies that had long been offering their services, not only to the politicians but especially to the corporate world, suddenly cannot report (I say report, because they cannot capture phenomenon well enough) the frenzy of volunteers for LENI when these volunteers are not less than a million Filipinos, I sense something frightening. Survey results seem to be following a script like actors in movies or teleseryes. It is as though results are already prepared to strictly adhere to numbers decided long before. Anyway, that is not the problem, it is only more provocation for the problem.

LENI is VIRAL. She was a wave that is now going TIDAL. LENI is not a BRAND, she is a SYMBOL, a noble symbol at that, the kind that people will go to war to protect, to obey. There will be no more EDSA in Metro Manila, there will be an EDSA everywhere in the Philippines – even in the so-called bailiwicks of warlord, of political dynasties. Because that is the nature of the game today.

I am so blessed to be witnessing this miracle because it will be so cleaning, more cleansing than the 1986 People Power having learned many of its lessons by now. ###

Irreversible momentum being carried by the youth for LENI.

A CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Atty. Maria Leonor Gerona Robredo may lose this coming presidential election, but she will never fade away. Unlike the likes of Grace Poe, Jojo Binay, and Gibo Teodoro who made themselves rare in public consciousness after their defeats, apparently nursing deep pain caused by the rejection of their personal dreams.

By Boboy Yonzon

There is nothing personal about Leni’s run. It is not for herself that she is out there slugging it out with the boys. You can sense that she has been pushed into enslavement to servitude. With courage, honor, and joy at that.

Judging from the fervor of the youth who are coming by the thousands to Leni’s rallies, they are speaking up. Loudly. Visibly. Emphatically. There is a profound subtext to the placard “Anak ng BBM Supporters for Leni.” They are carrying the fight.

The young may savor the Rivermaya or Ely Buendia but, sorry my chanteuse, they wouldn’t know Kuh Ledesma. And when Leni comes to view or the microphone, the crowd goes into frenzy and she is the rock star.

Old politicos from dynasties must be taking notes that there are indeed tremors on the ground. Even if they posture and lie to their rhinoceros faces that the attendees are paid 500 pesos each, they must admit that the genuinely ecstatic, enthusiastic, multi-sectoral and cross-sectional crowds are something that they covet. Nothing like those ever happens when they call. Bribe, hakot, and threaten as they customarily do.

Leni is catalyzing a movement that, by the design of faith, is pushing back a mountain of lies, if not omission. It is now making obvious what perceptible people have been trying to warn us against in recent years: that there is a sinister, institutional intent to make us forget the horrid Marcos years. Not by burning books, but by rewriting them.

Wonder no more why social studies and history, and even GMRC for a while, have been expunged from the academic curricula. DepEd and CHED are, by inference, complicit to this evil attempt to impose a national amnesia. And the despicable attempt to control our behavior by eclipsing the facts, the truth.

The militants among us who see Uncle Sam in every shadow may accuse the Americans for making us vocational robots with the imposition of a soul-less K-12, but we should point out to the homegrown rider that has been insinuated to make the next generation not notice a critical causal connection: that EDSA was the effect, ergo response, to the abuses of Martial Law. A rag tag team deposing of an empire.

Seething and scheming since 1986, the enemies of democracy and freedom have been successful in branding Dilawan as something bad and sickening. Why, they have even succeeded in projecting that being disente is abhorrent.

If the Liberal Party has appropriated the color yellow for themselves, then it has defaulted in its obligation to push back that counter-propaganda. Either it did not see it or it was too stumped to do something about the Marcos resbak. Leni was astute to see that there is a greater force outside of the traditional party.

Now, a nebulous, organic but powerful “Pink Guards” have risen and have taken the cudgels to rectify that error. Suddenly, we have people dictating the tempo and texture of a political campaign. They have thrust Leni Robredo to be its arrowhead against the big lie.

Political observers and even Leni herself have been astounded over the groundswell of volunteerism. Many observers have written about the phenomena of people spending, moving, and speaking without being dictated upon or being paid.

Yes, never in any nation’s history have citizens stood up individually, or by adhoc groupings. Lawyers for Leni. Artists for Leni. Former Government Executives for Leni. Doctors. Retired Armed Forces Chiefs. Tricycle drivers. Nuns and priests. Parlorlistas for Leni. And so on. We learned that Leni’s main communication team is deluged by volunteers and by a million suggested ideas. That is one happy but heady crisis.

I am rephrasing National Artist for Literature Rio Alma in saying that political is cultural. With a singular objective, a thousand and one flowers have blossomed. From visual artists, songwriters, poets, and, supremely, from everyone who believe that the country is worth fighting for.

Murals on fences, murals literally on the ground, t-shirt designs, original songs, pink lugaw, the clever stationary motorcade, and countless expressions that none of the other presidential candidates could inspire. San Anselmo Publications, which came out with the record-breaking 100 Pink Poems for Leni, is now coming out with One Million Hugot Lines for Leni.

Art historians may wish to document and come up with a milestone book on the impressive graphic designs done voluntarily by professionals, students, and the so-called “non-artists” in their statements for Leni. With a little more time and energy, the arc may form into a Philippine Renaissance – the true Golden Age.

It is cultural. It is behavioral. A people disillusioned, perhaps angry, at how trapos have been fooling them, do not need to gather at EDSA. They have demonstrated this in Naga, Iloilo, Cebu, Cavite, Sampaloc, and more centers. These are storms simultaneously precipitating and getting stronger.

Digital technology is detecting these patterns. On the people’s shoulders, Google Trend and Facebook suggest, Maria Leonor is leading by a mile. Netizens are pushing back the trolls. And considering the momentum, she will be here to stay.”