On the status quo of Filipino literature

Many of my book friends are complaining about the degrading Filipino literature in the international scene (as YA and teen romance books are invading the book shelves). I told them that it isn't degrading, it never got the attention. There are Filipino authors with international bestsellers. We have Miguel Syjuco and his 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize novel, Ilustrado. The book is available in my school's library. This man writes better than Dan Brown. We have Arlene Chai and her two novels, The Last Time I Saw Mother, and Eating Fire and Drinking Water. They were first published in the US and UK. It spread like wildfire afterwards. (I'm reading Eating Fire and Drinking Water now, and the Filipino touch is in every page of this book).

Now here's the catch. What these two authors have in common is that they are based outside the country. Miguel earned a master's degree in Columbia University. Arlene migrated in Australia. Their books got the attention since they are in the front line of the publishing business. We have writers here in the Philippines who write better than most published authors that continually suck our wallets with their books of low-bar narratives and silly one-liners. Check them in bookstores, mostly side-by-side with teen romance fiction that have funny titles.

Karl De Mesa (News of the Shaman)
Dean Francis Alfar (The Kite of Stars and Other Stories)
Eliza Victoria (A Bottle of Storm Clouds)
Ninotchka Rosca (Sugar & Salt)
Lualhati Bautista (Bata, Bata... Pa'no Ka Ginawa?)
Nick Joaquin (The Woman Who Had Two Navels)
Jessica Hagedorn (Dogeaters)
Melissa de la Cruz (Blue Bloods)
F. Sionil Jose (Dusk)
Samantha Sotto (Before Ever After)

I excluded Bob Ong and Eros Atalia. BO is a collective, I believe, not one person. Eros Atalia writes perversely well but he sticks on the Filipino medium. His short story "Ripol Epek" was damn epic nonetheless.

On pursuit of passion

I feel those students who come in classes late, confused, and pale; those who still don't know why they chose this program; those who are scared shitless of what will they be after college. I've been there. February of 2013, barely a month to end the semester, I ceased going to my classes. I neglected all academic duties I had. I dropped out of confusion. I feel you, kids. There is no such thing as Bachelor of Arts in Something I'm Good At, or Bachelor of Science in Things I Love Doing. It is more like choosing our factions or playing the hunger games. You are forced to be someone you're not. Those mornings of coming to school late and scarce of spirit, I feel that. It came to a point that I don't want to be educated anymore. I don't want to be fed and dictated. I don't want to get a job. I don't want anything but to learn. I did just that. I read about stuff not inclined with my program. I go out, meet people, talk to them, learn from them.

Separate yourself. Finish that program, get a job if you want to, but never abandon what your heart mostly desired. Don't worry, young ones. Tap yourself and whisper "I will fail. I will fall. I will get up." Carry on.

On being real

Forgive me for being me and saying weird stuff about you. Like when the time you happened to pass by me on the lobby and how I explicitly told you how beautiful you are. Like when I said how tempting your lips are, or when I said "Let's grow old together", or when I proposed like a douche I was. I meant all of that. That is who I am. One thing that I don't do is not being myself and not saying things that should be spoken and should be heard by the people I truly care. I won't miss a second of my life telling you how much your presence raptures all the hormones inside me and I want you to hear all of that. Because what if one day I'll be hit by a car? Or what if someone completely random kills me at gunpoint? Those words kept in me will be wasted and such beautiful words they are for you to hear. I won't let a chance slip by. I won't let a moment of not telling you how much you mean to me go into waste and be part of the list of my what-ifs or I-could-have-dones.

One day of not being myself is worth a whole life cut again and again. One day of not telling the simple pleasures of appreciation to people around me is a lifetime worth of regret. My hypothetical question of getting hit by a car or getting killed by a random suicidal may not mean anything to you unless they actually happen. What if they actually happen? I don't want my soul bugging me about the times that I didn't say the things I was supposed to say and make people happy, even how little it could be. I don't want to think, as I am recycled to a transparent state called spirit, that I had more things to regret than things to be proud of. I want to fly into the heavens with the memories of smiles I witnessed from the people I made happy. Your smiles at the top of it.

So don't think of me as horny when I ask you to kiss me more. Don't think of me as greedy when I ask you to be closer. Don't think of me as completely crazy when I say how humanly dashing your thumbs are, or your hips, or your nose and nostrils, or how scientifically magnificent the sound of your fart is.

If I ever get hit by a car or be killed at gunpoint, I won't have to say anything anymore. I said the words that I could've said the day I die to like, everyday that I lived. That's one less regret worth a lifetime of what-ifs and I-could-have-dones.