That season, I was supposed to stay in a place prescribed, not chosen, by somebody else for me. There were minutes about last Summer that I could vividly recall: the wonderful landscape of Naic, walking for miles breathing fresh air, eating freshly picked vegetables, learning what it was like to live like a farmer. When I look back at that Summer it sounded like a vacation of some sort, but there were parts of it I would remember with the most bitter taste: being forced to campaign for political candidates, being labeled a communist, being with communists, being there, face to face, with 20 or more armed men standing in the front line of a protest I did not have any actual business with. So the experience was soul-tearing from me--from being pulled away from home, from having to sleep on the floor, from doing my own laundry, to not being able to be online as long as I want, to seeing how ugly poverty in the rural areas is and to live said poverty, to mimicking the accent and pattern of speech of the locals. Soul-tearing because I had to be content with dried fish and dried fish and badly cooked fritatas and canned goods and vegetables whenever I was with the people's organization I was with; because I had to endure their ill-managed organization who planned and planned, but never followed one single plan; because I had to stay mum even when I hear people badmouthing other people; because I had to keep most of my opinions to myself; because most of the time the paranoia and the fear became so real I had pictured myself as if I was walking in dreamland, acting someone else's story, being in someone else's film. And I told myself it'll be over, it'll be over, even if the hand of fate decided to slap me with the most traumatic experience on the last day.
I am writing about last summer because it broke me. It shattered me. But it was not the kind of trauma that leaves you with little pieces of your life scattered and scrambled on the floor. It was the kind of experience that makes you whole, that confirms who you really are. But that would be reducing all of last Summer to pocket sized memories. It was certainly, much much more than that. I am writing about last summer in an attempt to sum it up, maybe even squeeze the moral story out of it. Make it sound like it was a pilgrimage. A chaotic one, at that.
It is easy to say "we were there", but the important part of it was knowing "why we were there". Being there was a requirement for my course, as part of our practicum we have to combine the theories we have learned in school and use it in actual application. In essence what we were supposed to do was to cooperate with NNARA-Youth (National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocations-Youth) and conduct a study in a chosen area for a particular social group. Since the paradigm we follow when studying development is nationalist and mass-oriented, the practicum areas usually fall into impoverished rural areas. The study never goes far beyond the agricultural sector, which includes peasants and fishermen, sometimes encompassing indigenous people communities. Some of the topics never gets old: land grabbing, land dispute, land reform, oppression, social justice, and so on. We always acknowledge the importance of the farmers in the economic system of the Philippines, especially since about 70% of the total population still rely in cultivating land for a living. But don't let me bore you about my course, leave the intellectual masturbation to me.
So we were assigned to KASAMA-TK (Katipunan ng mga Samahan ng mga Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan), who chose Naic to be their expansion area. The municipality of Naic in Cavite is the number one producer of palay in the province and industrialization and urbanization has yet to consume the farmlands. We'll be studying the situation of the peasants and the intricate details of palay production. I can now proudly explain how palay becomes rice without cheating by telling a myth or legend! It was actually a very enriching experience, suffice to say that I have learned to appreciate rice more than ever. I have learned not to take even a morsel for granted, now knowing the toil and sweat that farmers sacrificed to provide rice for the people. I have experienced to plant in actual rice paddies (Oh, the joy and fatigue that comes along with real farming. It would do even a level 50 Farmville click-fag farmer shame, hah!); I have traversed rice paddy borders or pilapils on barefoot(and now have a different personal spatial perception of the term 'near'); I have harvested string beans(sitaw, which they pronounce setaw) and bittergourd (ampalaya, which they call maragoso) and even helped in other farming tasks; I had my big toe wounded with a nasty splinter from burned cogon, and was not able to walk properly for a while; I chased goose, ducks, chickens, and now know how to call chickens (kruuukia, with the rolling rrr's)... all these and more while interviewing farmers and living with them. For the most part it was awesome to meet many people. We were always on the move, never staying in one house for too long. But there were people, lots and lots of welcoming and wary people who lived together in a weird camaraderie you won't find in any metropolis subdivision or condominium. In fact, my whole stay in Naic was a change in lifestyle. In some occasions I welcomed that change, but there were moments when I had to do work and I cannot savor the experience. There was work related to our required output, and there was work that was well, far beyond what was required.
The practicum began in Cavite, where four groups assigned to Southern Tagalog was briefed together. We were taught MKLRP (Maikling Kurso sa Lipunan at Rebolusyong Pilipino, available in Youtube), made to understand what Democratic Revolution is. Later in the course of our stay we were taught ARAK (Araling Aktibista, available in Padepaonline.com) in order to explain the life of activists. One would wonder why we had to be subject to such things, and, if you had some wits on you, you would ask, why were we really there and is that what we were really supposed to do? If you trace the alliances, KASAMA-TK is allied to KMP (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) which is allied to the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines), which is allied to, although not necessarily members of the NPA (New People's Army). If I had ever encountered real comrades during my stay, I never really know. Sure there were one or two sketchy people, those who did not reveal their name, those whose faces cannot be photographed, but they never claimed alliances to what the state labeled as insurgents. I think it was better that we, the students, did not know. But in some silent way, I knew. Quoting a former senior, it feels like being indoctrinated into the left. I overheard somebody critique us that we were being "highly intellectual". I did a double take, and found myself agreeing. But isn't that what scholars do? The practicum was meant to balance out our characteristics of being "highly intellectual" into "well-rounded" individuals. This, I expected, was the meaning behind praxis. I was to experience praxis using the lens of the revolutionary left, the progressive masses. I will, hopefully, at the end of the practicum, learn how theory and practice effectively combines and converges. Looking back, I know praxis did me well.
Somewhere in the first week of my practicum I got pulled out of my area to do research and statistics on four topics that KASAMA-TK and IBON Foundation were working on. They were updating the regional situationer for Southern Tagalog and needed help. We, as students who are taking our practicum under their gracious wings, should contribute to it. I was paired up with Erica, who, I found out later, is a backstabbing sob. We worked straight hours compiling data and updating tables, we needed it ready by the Peasant Summit that will be held over the weekend. We thought we needed it ready by the Peasant Summit that will be held over the weekend. This was statistics, and though I enjoy working and researching, I'd have to say it was the one of the things that turned me off from the organization. They never clarified that it was not at all too important to have everything done and finished before the summit, because, fuck lo and behold, come the day, I was not even asked where my work was. All they did was ask for a copy and hint that we can just work it out after a couple of more things was over and done with. So much for wasted energy.
But that was not the only time I got really pissed off. There was this whole thing about us going to Dasmariñas as soon as possible, with nary an explanation why. When we got there we were shoved with Anakpawis leaflets and Satur Ocampo and Liza Masa flyers to campaign within the vicinity of Robinsons and SM Dasma. Later they apologized that they had no time to ready their schedule - which, I would later come to accept and admit, they ready schedules but never follow it, and forever excuse themselves that people must learn to adapt, adapt, adapt to changes but this is just me ranting. So for one hellish week I submitted myself to campaigning Satur Ocampo and Liza Masa (and I honestly voted for them last election) but stood my ground and said I will not campaign any of their partylists because I already support another. We did everything campaign volunteers would do, only we were not volunteers. This was the part where I learned what oppression meant: what it was like to be sleep deprived and work day and night and not get enough rest, what it was like to do your best and still be found wanting, what it was like to be at your limit and cry to yourself and say this isn't fair but not be able to do anything about it. We attached banners to trees, walls, and fences; we posted posters and posters upon walls and walls of other people's posters and faces; we smiled and smiled more and screamed sweetly "vote for ____" and then we were called leftists, communists, attached to the stigma of the militant left. Once I asked if getting labeled as such might be a problem - because, come on, is there a commoner who thinks and openly accepts communism as the resolution to the problems of the state and society? - and I was answered that such a mindset is being liberal, that one should be open about something so simple, and if there would ever be a confrontation, that's the time when it should be resolved. Maybe it was really just me being liberal and close-minded and... so bourgeois. Maybe I just didn't jive with the way they did things - they really put the responsibility on our shoulders, send us off with a lecture, and expect us to do it heartily. When you didn't agree with them, you're liberal.
I'll tell you what liberal means, and how I learned its meaning from first hand experience. See, they constantly urged us to perform criticism and self-criticism in all that we do. This is done in groups, sometimes the team leaders facilitate one among themselves and then drop down the results and get feedback and then raise it up again. One big problem about this, especially one that I experienced, was that criticism from other people sometimes do not come from them directly. Passed from mouth to mouth it becomes something else entirely. It creates and proliferates rumors which are often not true. In the activist's lingo, rumor-mongering is a form of liberalism. Remember that backstabbing sob I mentioned earlier? I did not bother calling her liberal, because that is merely euphemism. I caught her, and more than once, criticizing other people behind their backs. Meanwhile, she's an activist, and as a way of life, she ain't supposed to be "liberal". But she, along with other people I've caught creating small groups, gossiped about someone who was gay, complained about why this person took a bath at this hour, discussed this person who did not want to join the rally. That, when they could have confronted the person through the C/SCs. But sometimes that doesn't happen, because we rarely get the time to gather together and really perform one big great talk because - oh I don't know - we were too tired from being overworked and too fatigued from not getting proper sleep. And sometimes simple trivial things blow up: a text message goes around saying how this person got drunk and got naked, which was not true at all. And while we're talking about attitude, during my course of stay, I have learned that even though we, as students, carry with us some form of attitude, the masses themselves have their own attitude (Not the ones in Naic, though. They were generally a kind and hospitable bunch). Take for example that unnamed guy who, maybe in jest, asked why I didn't want to eat, could it be that I couldn't bear to eat a poor man's food? Maybe I didn't need to eat anymore because I was healthy enough, or was it because I don't know how to eat monggo? I wanted to slap that guy for being so impolite, considering that he was part of the people's organization in Dasma. Seriously, the people in Naic had treated me better. I know I sound so negative about the PO, the activists I was with, but I had the right to. We were immersing ourselves in a foreign place, we have our own world views and yet they want us to understand, want us to adapt, want us to learn, want us to change. There were times I thought to myself what a snotty spoiled brat I was for being so insensitive and selfish and rude. But there were times I thought, and quite indignantly, that there were people among these POs who were also insensitive and selfish and rude. I believe in the concept of meeting halfway, but when you've done your very best to adapt, learn, understand, and change, and you still don't measure up, then maybe it's not for you. There was also this whole measure of excuses and explanations on their part: sorry we lack in man power we couldn't be there to guide you, sorry we cannot follow the schedule, sorry we can't do that, you have to learn to adjust; meanwhile, they smother us criticisms behind our backs. It was definitely ironic how they discourage liberalism when they themselves could not exercise it. And what they'd do is promise that they'll work on it, and change. Meanwhile, we are subliminally threatened that misdemeanor and conflict of beliefs might lead to a lower grade.
Due to circumstances beyond your control, you learn the meaning of the word tolerate.
I was once recruited into Kabataang Makabayan, which I never really continued, because of certain personal differences I had with some people. I am not sure why, but most activists I've come across with had some kind of close-minded perception akin to Catholics(We are your salvation), Jehova's Witness (We speak the truth), and Iglesia ni Cristo (We will come back until you join again). If you don't agree with going to rallies, you are treated like you committed a humanitarian sin; if you stick with your previous beliefs, they angrily tell you you're liberal, close-minded, and say you are contributing to the demise of society; if you sit like a rock and do nothing, you are part of the worsening malaise of the nation. Well, maybe I agree with the last part, but I say, I'll be my own cure, in my own way and my own terms. What do you do when someone comes up to you with a predicament you have heard yourself voiced over before? Rallies, in particular. What's up with people going to rallies? What's up with people not going to rallies? What's up with people who go to rallies go about and treat people who do not go to rallies like they were lepers of humanity? Pacifists, that's what they are. You know how big a hypocrite a person can be, when they say that they understand if you don't want to go to a rally, they'll just deduct points on your grade, and then later they recommend to have you pulled out of your area because they can't just work with you? This really happened, and I pity those involve who was not able to bridge and reach out to that person. They think they can bring change among the students, activist students among students, but how can they if they cannot even empathize with one person? When my friend came up to me and asked me "Why?", I thought she went to the wrong person. I have a different perception of rallies altogether, and although I may not always agree in the form of societal change militant and progressive groups push forward, I'm cool with joining rallies. But I've been there, I know what it felt like to be shunned and criticized for not believing in rallies. Up until now I hold on to that belief, and the experience I had talking with my friend got me grounded. Our alikeness was that people who go to rallies do not respect and value our beliefs. Our difference was that I have learned to respect people who go to rallies. There were many times that I felt like I was on a different wavelength than they are, and I believe that the fault there lies on their inability to properly reach out, and my resistance to their doctrines. They really do have an odd sense of alienating you. And that was exactly what I felt whenever I stayed with the POs.
Even if I have a terrible outlook on the dynamics of the people's organization I was with (They have 8 members, and I think they included two babies in that count, lol), I can pick out the experiences that made staying with them worthwhile. First, I was introduced to many kinds of books, leaflets, and journals that I didn't have any access to. These things taught me a lot about topics we've discussed in school such as globalization, agrarian reform, indigenous culture, foreign trade and many more. I was glad that they allowed us to peruse their materials, because there were materials that are not readily available to us. Being exposed to the research they've conducted, I discovered useful resources that can be used for research: there are government websites (some are useless), offices, and non-government organizations. Next, we became participants and organizers for activities like the Peasant Summit that was held in Bahay Daluyan, ICT Compound, STC. We became facilitators in focus group discussions, where we discussed the situation of different farming industries in Region IV. I have been a volunteer in a DOH Health Summit before, but this experience was greater than have ever expected. We were the secretariat, the facilitators, the staff... and we did a good job. It was not only a lesson in project management, it was also an eye-opener to the worsening situation of the peasants in other parts of the country. Our group in Naic was also able to hold our own Palay Forum as our culminating activity in our area, and once again we became our own facilitators and organizers. It was rewarding to know that we are able to make use of our abilities to create informative forums that will help the participants to become aware of their own plight and empower them to do something.
If there were things worth remembering because they bring good memories, there were also things worth remembering because they brought shocking experiences. It was the final assessment (the end of this more than one month torture, hurrah), and we went to Hacienda Yulo in Calamba, Laguna. One of the groups was assigned there, and they welcomed us in our area. Quite frankly, I have no previous knowledge of the situation of the peasants there. I only know that there was land dispute, the other bits and pieces were too vague for me to make my stand on the issue. But we were there. We were there the day we were supposed to go home, when they said that there was a mobile team on the way. We were there when they started barricading the road with long bamboos, and the people rallied in front. They were not going to let the developers take their land, they were not going to let the developers cut the coconut trees. Soon even the students joined the fray, and the landowner's representative shouted and agitated the crowd and ordered his men - police men and military men, armed in full battle gear to bring the barricades away. The men slid through the flank in the left of the field, and soon I found myself grabbing onto someone, anyone. God please don't let them hurt your people. It was development aggression at its raw power. Some men and women were in military uniform without name tags, all of them threatening the rallied people to move away, why do you put the women and the kids in front, this is illegal, get him get him get him. Being a naive student at the start of the rally, I diligently shot photos and videos as I was ordered. Later on I found myself grabbing my bag, securing my phone, my camera, and then I held onto someone, my classmates, the locals. I was there. In my entire experience of joining a protest, never have I been greatly affected. I did not know these people, have not been with them for 24 hours, yet there I was, standing amongst them - in what could be called the participation of the bourgeoisie class in the struggle of the peasants. Their struggles and causes aside, I saw how the landowner's man initially treated the people with aggression. Maybe he was that angry about the barricades, he had the temper of a constipated bull. He shouted and did his best to intimidate everybody. His mouth was a flowing fountain of sarcasm and threats I do not wish to remember. And then it happened. Unlike the blurred fast motion of my camera, I vividly remember what I saw, what I felt. I remember getting pushed, falling on my butt, holding onto a man (one of their leaders), holding onto Riki (one of my classmates), holding onto anyone else that the armed men were pulling away. And they were able to pull away people, and I watched two of our companions get beaten up, kicked, cuffed. It was so painful, more painful than my sprained ankle and my scraped knees and legs and throbbing arms. Some of the men had guns in their faces, and the barricades were now pulled away. Their vehicles have started to move forward. My classmates, stupid classmates, lied down on the street in hopes that doing so would stop the monstrous metallic beasts from charging. Of course it didn't, for the road was too wide to be covered by what? Three people? This was the part where I did a one-eighty. I have had my own share of participating, I had to salvage what's left of my cool. And besides, we can't all be passionate about protecting the land, we can't all be agitated. If we get hurt, get detained, at the worst case die, I don't think that's a good way to say "I served the masses". Rationally speaking, I disagreed with most of the hard-core activist students there, mainly because even the locals have given up lying on the road. And there was an order to stay safe, I'd be stupid to compromise myself. This was a confrontation that was on the losing side and there was no need to sacrifice more than what was needed. I am not in the liberty to elaborate on my opinions, as I hold onto my personal belief that I should not commit myself into things that I will later regret or not have the backbone to support. That said, I believe that protests and street parliamentarism can only do so much. Peaceful confrontation is such a questionable ideal to say the least, and this, all of what I saw in Calamba, Laguna. It was not for me. It was the kind of struggle I will never personally commit to, and never go back to again.
I was not prepared for it. Emotionally, physically, and most specially, ideologically. I was there when I saw how ugly poverty can get, how the state wields its power in favor of the rich few. I was there when they took Riki and Dave; when they came back, I personally poured oil in their cuffs and wiped their wounds and gave them water and gave my long sleeves for one of them to use. I couldn't live with something as horrible as that everyday. It was at the back of my mind to complain, to expose how careless it was on the part of KTK and NNARA-Youth to have brought us to Calamba, Laguna on the last day of our practicum, when they knew full well that there was an unconfirmed threat that armed men will be heading towards the place. They have exposed us to their doctrine, their way of life, their struggle (You probably get bonus points for joining the movement). They have irresponsibly exposed us to the ugliness of the peasant struggle in the rural areas and, in doing so, have traumatized those unprepared and, maybe, encouraged the selected few with such a life-threatening event. I should hold them liable for the emotional torture I continue to suffer, the psychological trauma that seeps into my unconscious. No one will ever turn my opinion positively against the struggle and the movement, most especially because I was there when I learned how these landless people continue to face the threat of militarization and development aggression. It was mean, ugly, unconceivable. But, I did a double-take before I lashed my tongue at them, even if they had placed us in a more than dangerous situation, it was not of their own making. They, I'm sure, did not want us to get caught up with what had happened. I knew it then, even if I was hard-pressed to deny what my heart told me that day: This was the culminating point of my practicum experience. This is feudalism, warlordism. It was the hard, cold, ugly truth hitting me in the face and no volume of books will ever be able to replace and sum up what I had experienced. I should not blame those who were, then-and-there, willing to offer their lives as (useless) sacrifices. It was their decision to act, to do something, albeit they were all emotionally-charged, short-sighted and stupid. It was their opinion that me calling our professors and informing them of our predicament was wrong. It was certainly their right to shout back at me for insisting that they stay put, calm down, stop shouting. I'm saying "they", because I am not in that circle. A thin thread of logic held me together that day, one that ever since, has had me by the throat, suffocating me.
I've been to the rural areas, some reflecting the worst dilemmas of Philippine development. I've seen the struggle of the mass movement, they have said themselves that they need help. And then what happens? I'd like to think that this hanging question was not a Hobson's choice.
There are things I'd rather do, rather become, than what they had asked of me. Than what I had seen I should be. I have lived their lives, yes. I have joined their struggle, yes. But I was born with my own struggle to face and my own life to live. Now, pity that, I was, and still am, that little petty bourgeois student I have been, and will be, forever.
