blood & gore

We Filipinos have been influenced by our Asian neighbors. Colonized for hundreds of years under the yoke of Spain. Occupied by the US and obsessed with all things American.

As mixed Chinese and Spanish mestizos with bloodlines and lineages still coursing through us - we are torn between the love that birthed us and the curse of our colonizers.

We reach past the birth of our nation. way back in time. Past our local creation narratives, imagining what might have been. To the spontaneous combustion that brought forth this land from the depths of our ranging seas.

Our heritage and history are long lost and largely mis-remembered or retold. Burned and buried in chaos and upheavals - natural or man-made. Attached to their loss or indifferent and ignorant, we hold these painful memories in our genes.

With a new generation of fascists on the rise in too many parts of the world, many protected by government clout and influence even - amnesty is declared over mass graves of countless genocides.

It is simpler for current leaders and legislation to sweep it under the rug in a haze of selective amnesia because if the truth were told no one could afford the cost of reparation.

None of these past atrocities can ever be undone but the fact that we sit and wait hoping enough time will pass to distance ourselves from it is counter productive and fatal for our future.

Forgive? Yes. Forget? No.

The Ghosts Spain Tries to Ignore - art by Marta Monteiro

In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world. ~ Federico García Lorca, “El Duende”

Listen to this lovely heart rending ode to our heroic masses by Luisa A. Igloria, Dear Federico.