For those who stood up and believed: Stay the course
The events of the past weeks were shocking, and that’s an underestimation. The years of disinformation have become ingrained in this country’s soul that it brought back a rule that we once deposed. It was a victory for all we protested against, and all the Bible told us not to do. It’s beyond my imagination and beyond my grasp.
There is consolation in knowing many I know continue to put up a good fight — a fight that I believed in for a long time. I refused to believe this is our end, or that whatever hope we left is gone. The moral arc of the universe got longer. The day of reckoning was not yesterday, but will surely come.
But that’s all behind us now. This will be a circuitous and rollercoaster ride from here on. Maybe we maintain our silent mourning or persist in our loud protestations. We could write essays and still feel at a loss for words. We want to cry but tears have become wanting. We could feel the hatred that no clenched fist could sum up. We could hug each other and say our prayers and still find no peace in our hearts — the questions that linger and the anger that does not die.
As much as possible, I always relate how topics in our field would be perceived by the layman — the common tao. To us scholars, it’s easy to understand. But to people outside our profession, their perception is based on what they are accustomed to. In all we do, we remember the people who made our education possible.
And so, when decades of disinformation made possible the restoration of the family the Filipino people ousted 36 years ago, we face an existential crisis: what is the point of years of education when it can be falsely claimed? What is the point of exams, of toiling day and night when the rich and powerful can easily breeze through the upper echelons of power? It’s maddening.
I cannot claim to know what my students feel now but they are not the only ones who lost. There is solidarity in knowing that no matter how deep our sorrow is, we are not alone.
But I do beg that they stay the course.
Make the events of the past weeks a reminder that resting on laurels is not an option. Sure, rest if we must, feel tired, feel the loss of hope.
May we find our way through the long fight greater than ourselves. It’s always about standing and believing in the collective good over and above our individual whims.
As we usually say: Padayon.
EDWARD JOSEPH H. MAGUINDAYAO
University of the Philippines
