“Let’s go!” kakampinks (co-volunteers for VP Leni’s team) nagged me to attend the PINK rally near our place.
“I am too old to survive the heat and the crowd,” I declined. “I’ll watch it online.”
“It’s not the same. You have to be there!”
They’re right, of course. There is no substitute for presence—for being there.
In any political campaign, presence is a must for candidates. And yet, the electorate has been repeatedly denied and deprived of the presence of a candidate for president and a candidate for VP during debates. These events would have been the venue for them to explain their platforms, and to showcase their astuteness, if any, to answer doubts about their qualifications.
The grace of watching rallies online is catching details in the crowd when the camera zooms in. The placards were mind-boggling! But one (perhaps because I write books for children), although crudely written on a used carton, touched my core and will remain in my heart.
(Rough translation: My child, when you grow up, you will read this. On March 20, 2022, I was here. I fought for your future and our country. I am standing by Leni, because she is on the side of truth; I am helping make truth prevail. Your father, Emil)
My list of adjectives to describe all the others, which VP Leni tries to read aloud in her sorties, is long. Let me lump them in one phrase: gracious words, vintage Pinoy.
There may not be another ennobling time in our history such as this, that's why I am documenting them. But I am unable to translate them all to English, without losing their flavor and essence.
On Valentine’s Day, people wear red and say it with flowers; on VP Leni-Kiko rallies, people wear pink and say it with placards.
Both occasions are about celebrating love—of being one, of being bound by shared emotions and hope for a rosy future.
What can be more powerful than an impassioned crowd saying it with placards?
Oops, I just saw a placard from the Naga rally yesterday and it seems like the placard of all placards in magnitude. How on earth did they do this?! Let me upload it—like a visual P.S. 
Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” Proverbs 16:24 ESV
2 comments:
I can’t say it any other way but to commend you these past week for documenting as much as anyone can remember what transpired these past weeks. Really I have nothing but admiration for your zeal in writing these blogs everyday. This is more than anyone can expect from a seasoned writer. Congratulations my friend, may our countrymen put them all to heart all the well wishes, the expressions of love, passion and dreams; personal and otherwise.
Yes, this may never come again. It's now or never. We need to get rid of or go around all the roadblocks. Thank you for your kind words, kakampink.
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