(This article also appears on the February 22, 2015 edition of the Bohol Tribune. This is the first of what is going to be my regular monthly column in the said newspaper.)
Writing for me has always been about taking a pause, and organizing the thoughts that run around my head. It Is a mental exercise that allows the flux of ideas, and then, reining them all in, coming up with my own perspective, stand, on specific issues. Over the years, this process has served me well, but as I sat facing my computer, trying to churn out a decent first entry to this column, I find my mind wildly whirring like a broken compass needle, unable to pinpoint with clarity the direction this first post, or this column, should be taking.
I have always enjoyed writing. I have kept blogs, microblogs and wrote journals, but more on a personal level. For friends, acquaintances, and stalkers. And the writing was almost always about the universal problem of emotional neediness. Very personal.
In more ways than one, accepting, and yes, presenting myself (in no particular order) to Ma’am Ardy*, to start contributing regularly to this newspaper, is uncharted waters for me. And of course there is pressure, because Ma’am Ardy is Ma’am Ardy, and this is a critical first step for me to re-establishing my ties with my home province, Bohol, twenty years after I symbolically left its shores in 1995, to pursue my University degree in Diliman.
Too many things have happened. And for sure, many more things will.
Since the last time I guest-wrote for the Bohol Tribune, a month ago, this country has swung from the spiritual high brought about by the religious fervor of the multi-day papal visit in mid January. Thereafter, in just a span of a few weeks, and following the tragic death of 44 PNP SAF personnel (by this time, everyone knows what this acronym means so I am not going to even spell this out anymore), the national mood has changed to murderous intent: many have started calling for an all-out war, and for abandoning the peace process, in Mindanao, altogether.
Internationally, we continue to be confronted with the ghastly images of the atrocities of hate and war. Just a few weeks back, I was transfixed, horrified, watching an edited video of the burning of the ISiS-captured Jordanian pilot. Ukraine remains to be a powder keg for Russia and the rest of the West, and China continues to flex its economic and military might in our backyard. This list can go on and on.
And don’t get me started on the natural calamities and extreme weather disturbances happening around the world, wreaking untold misery on the displaced! Nor the global pandemic risks that are made even more possible by the ease of travel across countries. Or the volatility of financial markets and economies around the world. Which economic sector is a bubble waiting to burst?
Layered atop all these events are the colorful personalities (including nationalities) that aggravate, or not, all the drama. One has to wonder, if PNoy behaved “more appropriately” in the handling of the PNP-SAF massacre, would the media narrative now be more focused on the real issue at hand, which is, should peace be pursued in Mindanao with the parties involved in the negotiations at this point? Instead, because we are a country and a culture that value appearances, and even more parties have an interest in Mr. Aquino’s ouster, calls are already being made for his resignation and impeachment. To be fair, the matter of accountability has to be established, first and foremost, but it is possible that had PNoy gone through the motions of appearances, the almost unanimous hatred he is getting now will not be as much. This is not to downplay the seriousness of the matter of Mindanao peace, or to reduce the equation to being just a PR mishandling! On the other hand, on the matter of the Jordanian military response to the burning of their own, and believe me, I personally think they are in the right with those air raids against ISIS military assets, I am still waiting for all the supposed human rights activists, who are usually up in arms over the civilian collateral damage that a similar retaliatory operation, say that of Israel’s IDF against Hamas or Hezbollah, usually causes.
I ask myself, has the World gone mad? To borrow a term from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, there seems to be no end to the World’s Breaking. Has it always been like this? Are we just blessed now, or cursed, to be getting updates, seconds after each disaster has happened, because of the technology that the likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg has given us?
All these combine to give us an age when everyone is a writer, everyone is a photographer and everyone has an opinion on everything. Unless you live inside a cave or a hermit deprived of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tinder, Grinder. and all those mobile applications that any three-year-old can operate, we all want to share to the world a piece of our minds.
There are many voices out there, all clamoring to be heard, all at risk of not being heard. And because the boy who cried wolf can now be an entire tribe, or even nation, effective and relevant communication has become even more difficult to attain.
And here lies the boon, and the burden, of being part of this newspaper. Because the people who go out of their way to pick up the Bohol Tribune at the news stands, by this very deliberate and conscious act, are signalling that they want something different from what is out there.
It is a comforting thought, and scary, for one such as myself. It is a mandate that in the Bohol Tribune - and perhaps a general truth all paid publications should live by - I must not speak up just to add to the cacophony of ideas and mindless discourse. One should always strive to contribute value, to provide an alternative perspective, not for the sake of doing so, but because there is an alternative perspective. And also to accept, that in some instances, the alternative is the status quo.
Only after undergoing such intellectual and critical rigor should voice be given to thoughts and shared to all. Only then, should anyone, myself most of all, have the license to really start Thinking Out Loud.
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*Ma'am Ardy Batoy, the managing editor of the Bohol Tribune.
