[OPINION] My year that was

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. – Charles Dickens

I am sorry to begin with a cliché. Because sometimes cliches can be true.

Particularly on the national front, it is the worst of times. I never, never thought we would be up to at least 13,000 deaths in a drug war gone amok. I never believed that people would tolerate this with excuses like “it isn’t the President’s responsibility, it’s the rogue police or the drug syndicates.” Within a year, my faith that Filipinos are not capable of Pol Pot-style hatred against each other has vanished.

I was 29 years old when the Marcos dictatorship fell. The Christmas and New Year celebrations that year were glorious. My family, finally relieved of the fear that I and my husband would be detained, tortured or killed at anytime, were joyous. There were more Christmas lights in a metropolis finally relieved of political strife and division. That year and for several years after, when I traveled, people looked up to Filipinos. As history would show, the yellow revolution was the first of many “color revolutions” as nation after nation got rid of dictatorships in a wave of democratization that swept the world. Indeed up to now, South Koreans still use the color yellow in protest as a form of homage to the yellow revolution. I thought my children would never have to confront the same horrors that I, at that time, had spent more than half my life to end. I thought we had learned our collective lesson.

But today, Marcos is given a hero’s burial  and the political restoration of the family is almost complete. Young people everywhere have succumbed to outright lies about what Marcos did to our country. What is worse, Mindanao is under martial law and there is talk of revolutionary government. What is worse is that there is an attempt to return to Marcos governance where all the constitutional guarantees that would have checked the abuses are under threat – the courts, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the independent anti-corruption mechanisms. Hard-won watchdogs like the Office of the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission, put in place in the 1986 Constitution because the Marcoses were corrupt and abusive, are threatened too.

Indeed we are back in the time when presidential family and cronies can get away with anything – incompetence, fake news, implication in the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of shabu, prima facie evidence ill-gotten wealth, the suborning of witnesses – name it, they can get away with it.

My aunt, Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw, was imprisoned twice by Marcos. Today, I visit another woman senator, Leila de Lima in detention. Both were imprisoned on ridiculous charges merely because they dared criticize the sitting president.

These days, the hatred of women has returned with a vengeance, led by a President whose political arsenal is dominated by misogyny, slut shaming, and rape threats. Toxic masculinity floods the national scene. The President’s words are well documented, “kill, rape, kill, rape and putangina.”

Today too, fake news flows from official news outlets abetted by social media that has turned vicious and threatening. Never before has the critic been trolled and threatened so badly. Never before has the distinction between government supporter and government critic become so ignored that all the special protections given to the minority voice in a democracy have been stripped away.

What is worse is that Facebook, which sold us all on its good intentions and democratic potential, has been shown to have participated in the rise of demagoguery and authoritarianism in the Philippines and other countries worldwide. Capitalist greed lives on and refuses to die, stunting people these days at the very moment when they seek to reach out to others.

Instead of democratization, what we have is severe polarization. Our social commonalities are broken and instead of asking “why have our leaders led us to this,” we scream at each other as if it is our fault.

I, who have lived in and loved this country for so long, have become heart broken. 2017. A very bad year.

And yet.

And yet 2017 has been the best of times.

This year the millennials stayed woke. From the stealthy burial of Marcos, in the fight against extrajudicial killings, in the noise barrages against threats to democracy they have been out and about. They surprised the government and the Marcoses with the first huge protests against the burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. They have continued in various ways since then. And they are on the right side of history. They have refused the historical revisionism of the Marcos machine, protested every attempt at thwarting democracy, and stood against the mass murder of the drug war.

This year, yet another widow, who thwarted a boy named Ferdinand, has withstood all the assaults turned against her and remains staunch.

This year, protest art has re-awakened. And it is everywhere. From the street plays, to the school performances, to the theater and indie movies. In songs, dance, art and poetry.  It flows again from established artists and young upstarts.

This year, despite unending attempts to thwart good and accountable reporting, ethical media practitioners and ethical mainstream media outlets have flourished. This year, media have shown us what heroes can look like as journalists of all stripes continue to bring us the truth. They are at the front lines reporting the war in Marawi, the drugs war deaths, the corruption, the incompetence. Against fake accounts and bots, there remain real people giving out real information.

This very year, when things have turned so horrible, is also the year of the push back against this evil. Everywhere, people are reiterating their intense commitment to the right to life, to the equal treatment between rich and poor, to their allegiance to fair play, due process, and democracy. Everywhere too, the true sense of compassion of Pinoys calls for more humane treatment  even of the demonized drug addicts. It is compassion that has seared forever in the national psyche the picture of a poor young woman holding her bloody and dead husband in a forlorn street. It is our compassion that exploded upon the death of Kian delos Santos in a massive outpouring of grief.

This is the year when large swathes of the population said, “Threats and trolls and claims to popularity will not stop us from standing up for what is right.” Many have said, “I stand, even if alone, even at great threat, for what I believe is right.” And they were not alone.

And on a personal note.

This year, I turned 60. The age conscious may find that tragic but I have had a blast.

I am thankful for my senior citizen card and for every indication that there remains a strong current of respect for the elderly. This too is proof of our compassion and our commitment to each other.

But beyond the privileges, I am thankful for what age brings.

This old bird has risen to the challenge yet again. My knees hurt more and the rallies are increasingly difficult for me physically, but I am there. I have not forgotten the lessons of the anti-dictatorship struggle and bring to this new threat some very well-tested tactics and strategies. Only age will tell you which truths are long-standing. Only age will tell you whether the fire-in-the-belly that causes you to care comes only from the excess energy of youth or the wellspring of real passion that will be your life’s message. The Man may have all his power now, but this woman won’t give up. And as before, what I cannot overcome, I will undercome!

I look around me and there they are – most of the old birds are back on the street. The old camaraderie is back. A camaraderie born of common principle more than old ties. I have met many new friends this year who are older persons. These new but older comrades have enriched me.

This time, I am the older person stunned by the wonderfulness of the young. How beautiful their boundless energy. How inspiring their bravery to take the world and begin to make it their own. What wisdom is this that commits to the age-old principles when an apathetic life would probably be better in the shorter term? Sometimes I wish to apologize for giving them a world that is so horrible. For failing to make it better. But they do not care about these sentimental nonsense. The world is theirs as it is. And they are going to work it. And then I am assured that those things I care for deeply will live on and this is what matters more than the personal contribution I have made.

We are marching together, the old and the young. And because this movement is about love of the unknown other, we are learning together. The old teaches what it has tested through time. The youth retests and validates or rejects. Each one brings new and wondrous things to the table. This is what makes it a struggle and a movement. This oldie has come to realize that change comes from an undaunted creative force that plays and discovers. This is why the movement that will overcome is not the movement of lies, polarization, control and blood-letting. 

Proper aging inevitably brings the long view and that is always a hopeful one. All things change and this turn towards the worse will turn again towards the better. I know this. And I have been around long enough to know that this could happen in 2018.

Or change may not happen yet. But then I will meet this new year knowing that it is yet another year on the path towards a better me and a better nation. And, as it was in 2017, it will be a year of struggle in joy, laughter and solidarity. – Rappler.com

Sylvia Estrada Claudio is an old activist. She has been in social movements since she was 13 years old. And she loves the Philippines.