The outpouring of heartfelt gestures for Leni Gerona Robredo VP Leni Robredo is unprecedented. I have witnessed how artworks and logos were made for our beloved 44th US President Barack Obama. Yet, this woman, this untiring guardian of Philippine democracy is fierce and fearless and magnetizes the same from fellow citizens/voters.
Leni Gerona Robredo VP Leni Robredo shows up in every part of the Philippines, climbs mountains, ferries out to the seas to reach towns and localities, rides the buses and tricycles motorcycles, and reaches out to folks of all income levels, dialects, and religions. Citizen supporters do the same and walked for hours just to get to her rallies, or even climb mountains, ascending for miles and hours just to reach the open parks in the provinces. No capricious road repairs, bridge closures, nor cancelled bus rental services can stop the people from coming to show her support.
She’s my President and I get to vote for her this coming May 9, 2022, or before, by going to the Philippine Consulate as I am a duly registered Philippine voter, dual citizen, as provided by law.
We get to write a new narrative of Philippine democracy: fearless, honest, fierce, transparent, quality-oriented just like this beloved and highly respected woman candidate. Never mind the trolls and negative angry haters, they are de minimis if we all come out to vote in massive numbers, guard these electronic ballots, the transmission, and make sure the rallying of votes reflect our collective majority votes, not the minority hackers and negative trollers!
Let me close with these quotes, posted by Gel Santos Relos Rene: “In 1986, the power of the people was manifested mostly on EDSA. In 2022, they are blooming all over the country – drawn to the streets and to a message of hope and change. If the song is the same, it’s because the fight is the same. The old demons wake the new angels, the villains call out for new heroes.” -Rodney Jaleco
Around me is pink. Even this poem about lugaw by Marvin B. Aceron got me crying. I recalled my mom and dad’s love story and how we lived in our first home, where my bedroom got flooded each time it rained. Imagine your bed rocking and floating. You then get to stand up to be shocked not just by the motion but the cold waters your legs and feet are being wrapped by. It shocked me to realize we were poor and that rains to this day bring out some angst in me. But, my parents persisted, struggled to make a decent living, and built their house. My dad ensured that it was made well, impervious to the floods on the streets that I felt privileged watching the floods outside, and I stayed dry inside the house.
Thank you Mom and Dad, for your sacrifices! Today, I pay homage to this poet, Marvin Aceron, who moved me and Leni Gerona Robredo VP Leni Robredo in catalyzing a movement of radical love in her unlikely political campaign, defying the societal odds of gravity favoring the moneyed, to genuine love of hundreds of thousands of volunteers who are moved by their love of Inang Bayan and the woman herself.
Come May 9, 2022, the Philippines will have a new narrative, where we the voters will turn and feel the pain of our realities but also, the promise of a new beginning, a full moonrise, and pink tomorrows of care, love, and hope of a righteous government that will serve the common good of its citizens.
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.”
Around me is pink. Even this poem about lugaw by Marvin B. Aceron got me crying. I recalled my mom and dad’s love story and how we lived in our first home, where my bedroom got flooded each time it rained. Imagine your bed rocking and floating. You then get to stand up to be shocked not just by the motion but the cold waters your legs and feet are being wrapped by. It shocked me to realize we were poor and that rains to this day bring out some angst in me. But, my parents persisted, struggled to make a decent living and built their house. My dad ensured that it was made well, impervious to the floods on the streets that I felt privileged watching the floods outside, that I stayed dry inside the house.
Thank you Mom and Dad for your sacrifices! Today, I pay homage to this poet, Marvin Aceron, who moved me and Leni Gerona RobredoVP Leni Robredo in catalyzing a movement of radical love in her unlikely political campaign, defying the societal odds of gravity favoring the moneyed, to genuine love of hundreds of thousands of volunteers who are moved by their love of Inang Bayan and the woman herself.
Come May 9, 2022, the Philippines will have a new narrative, where we the voters will turn and feel the pain of our realities but also, the promise of a new beginning, a full moonrise and pink tomorrows of care, love and hope of a righteous government that will serve the common good of its citizens.
47 years ago with only $200 in my pocket, with a California destination to be with my elder sister, Rose, I became a regulatory official for a state public health agency. I have been retired after 27 years of public service and I have been writing a column for 11 years for a community paper.
My eldest sister, Rose died 60 days of my mother in 2016. In 2016, I wrote a book called Even The Rainbow Has a Body, as a lifeline to bounce back from my two tragedies. The book cover was designed by Ysabel Grace Simon. She said, “Half of the face is what you inherit from your parents, the other half is what you make of your life.” She was just 18 yo at that time.
At 18yo, I was a lost immigrant yearning to be back home in the islands, Philippines, and had just migrated to America. The sting of racism pierced my being and rattled me to simply return. But, my eldest sister, Rose, her boyfriend then, my Kuya Eduardo Alcantara, and roommates distracted me from my pain with trips to Disneyland, bowling and movies.
Today, 47 years later, I just finished interviewing this 21 yo artist, an American of Filipino descent, whose love for the arts was lovingly nurtured by her global citizen parents, a practicing licensed NY and CA psychiatrist and a global director of IT in one of biggest universities in NY, as her hard work and the work ethic she has displayed to nurture her talents.
She is Ysabel Grace Simon, whose 9 portraits are on exhibit at #5thAvenue at the #PhilippineConsulateinNY, for the month of September. Her exhibit opened Sept. 5, Thursday.
I loved our interview this is the revelation – I prepared at least 10 questions which she answered through a free flowing discussion without me having to read half of them.
I asked her – how in the heavens could you have read my mind? It dawned on me #oldsouls can, particularly when God is at the center of both of our lives.
She encouraged me to visit her favorite, #neuegallerieny and its 5 star cafe. Only two rooms had exhibits as they were curating the fall exhibit for October, one of most stunning exhibit is #GustavKlimt #womaningold, a painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, painted in 1903 to 1907, inspired by 6th Century Byzantine, after Gustav visited the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. It is a painting created without modeling. It reflects richness, luxury, Japanese lacquer work, an epitome of refinement and nobility, while lavished in gold.
@neuegallerieny #womaningold #eventherainbowhasabody @ Neue Galerie New York
