a yellow thread of woes

Victims and martyred Filipinos have proved no-fail and fatal fodder for countless local campaigns - political and religious, personal or accidental. Any cause justifies trotting out this penultimate card, the sacrificial lamb. 

That's what hundreds of years of colonization and the Catholic Church have bestowed on its loyal subjects - martyrs, martyrdom, martyrology. A future heavenly promise of a better afterlife to trump the current hellacious reality of an oppressive down trodden existence. 

Providing a growing menu consisting of enthusiastic descriptions and ghoulish persecutions as various and horrid as can be invented by the human mind, inspired by a herd of raging demons. Or devilishly devised by Duterte driven trolls and minions, as we have today.

NYC Pride 2021

“Love Lies Sleeping” by Elizabeth Bishop (written 1936, published 1938)

Earliest morning switching all the tracks

that cross the sky from cinder star to star,

coupling the ends of streets

to trains of light,

now draw us into daylight in our beds;

and clear away what presses on the brain:

put out the neon shapes

that float and swell and glare

Lincoln Center

down the gray avenue between the eyes

in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.

Hang-over moons, wane, wane!

From the window I see

a place of belonging

I have moved between islands and countries, counties and states a dozen times in my adult life. As often as every year or two in the past dozen years. It is always hard and so much is expended. 

Far more taxing than the physical and logistical effort is the social, emotional and mental adjustment in a new environment. Uprooted and displaced before new roots ad connections can be created once more. 

our home island mountains of Negros

As the economy changes - aggravated by this global pandemic - isolation and quarantine have revealed that many tasks can be performed remotely. Sheltering in place has given us the space to redefine ourselves and explore more geographic flexibility. 

Life has been paused from its wild and greedy rampage and destruction. Going against the status quo set up by governments and big industries, for some it's just the impetus needed to consider other options. 

500 year old fiction

June 12 this year is the 123rd Anniversary of the Declaration of Philippine Independence. With the theme, “Kalayaan 2021: Diwa ng Kalayaan sa Pagkakaisa at Paghilom ng Bayan” (Spirit of Freedom in Unity and National Healing). It's been made more contentious by two other events.

It's also the year-long celebration that marks the Spanish and Filipino encounter in 1521. The 500th Anniversary has considerably divergent tales. As well as the year leading up to another presidential election come May 9, 2022.

image courtesy of nqc.gov.ph

Filipinos are immensely proud of our history of rebellion and revolution. Every Filipino child is raised knowing by heart the tale of Lapu-Lapu, the Mactan leader and hero who repelled and killed Magellan the foreign villain. 

Our local perspective proudly retells how we successfully fought off a foreign invader and foiled the attempt to subjugate and colonize us. This forms a strong and solid foundation for our national pride and identity - who we were before we were colonized. 

fair or not

Fairest is a memoir about a precocious albino child, a sun child or anak araw from a rural Philippine village - the struggle and journey of self acceptance and discovery an artist and activist questioning the boundaries of gender.

From a childhood of parental neglect and abuse, to the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship - Talusan found love and comfort in a devoted grandmother who saw promise and potential where others gawked in awe and no consideration for this apparition they beheld.

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Easily passing for white raised more questionable concerns for Talusan as an immigrant to the United States. An academic scholarship to Harvard opened access to elite circles of privilege while requiring Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and personal place in the gay community.