In a phone conversation, one of the few times that our collective angst against life and all its harshness converge through miles of electric pulses, when telecommunication facilities will never suffice to accommodate the communion of our rage that spans seas and continents, you spoke, albeit light-heartedly, of how people actually choose poverty. That if only they were industrious, they wouldn’t be consigned to such abject misery.

I wanted to tell you how wrong you were, that people don’t choose to be hungry or jobless or, ultimately, oppressed, that the poverty you spoke of is not a state one chooses to be in but one that is imposed upon them by the few who benefit from such. I wanted to remind you that we content ourselves with listening to each other’s detached, weary voices, such as during that particular moment, because employment here is scarce, and you and Pa had to migrate to the US to do petty jobs because we don’t want to die of destitution.

Seething with rage, I wanted to ask if you deliberately made that remark to provoke me, and finally have the opportunity to prod me into joining you there. You’ve always believed that the battles I choose to wage are futile, that this “revolution” I used to talk about with such impenetrable conviction is the same one you fought for in your youth and, realizing it to be in vain, got tired of will never happen, ever. It’s been decades, you used to say, and yet, what now?

But I couldn’t ruin the mood of that discussion. I was, after all, the one who called you up. And so instead I blurted that perhaps you’re watching too much inspirational, “feel-good” TV shows. Remember how I opposed your suggestion of subscribing to The Filipino Channel in that cramped apartment you and Pa are renting in downtown New York? You shouldn’t be watching Korina Sanchez; do you really believe that diligently selling tinapa door-to-door can actually lift people from their dire conditions?

You only laughed, but still insisted that it’s actually possible. Not only with tinapa, but also with washing cars, or selling junk, or doing some family’s laundry. These are stories of hope, you said, and what right have I to stop you from dreaming? I wanted to scream at you, jolt you out of your comfortable, naïve notions. For moments I had to press the mute button; it wouldn’t help for you to hear me sobbing like a kid, fuming at how we got to this, and that, as with poverty, we never chose to be like this.

Happy birthday, Ma. # Philippine Collegian

<< back to home