I am a millennial Filipino-American. While the golden-albeit-orange-bridge, a four-headed mountain, and torch-bearing-iron-lady are at my vantage, my heritage traces Lusón clans of provident Ilôko, illustrious Kabalén, Bulákan literati, and indigenous Mangyán. My parents gave birth to me where the rivers Pasig and San Juan meet, deep within Her Royal Stateliness Mayníla’s bosom; when convergence of cultivated traditions and emerging technologies are at digital time’s threshold; in that historical period where the highest law of the land was just being inaugurated by the oldest Asian democracy it would rule. Irony, in this case, necessitated the mob to point blame and mount reverence. The mob triumphantly pointed Marcos on gold hidden, ill-gotten; and mounted Aquino with yellow ribbons – great colors alluding our three-stars-and-a-sun ornate.

I am a millennial Filipino-American. I read tales from the beast named Internet; consuming versions of truths and half-truths about people, places, things – imagining modern revolution, where the mob champed as one with canary shirts, sunflowers, dandelions, and doves; while praying, and proclaiming resistance against names, faces, factions, and individuals. Internet presented relics: footage that touched hearts and roused tear glands, pictures etching accounts of joy and victory, timeless music establishing its own genre, and literatures serving as rhetoric – triggered past seeing the opposition chief shot in broad daylight – videoed, broadcasted, YouTube-available. The corpse was not of a mere neighbor, peon, but of the brilliant Ninoy Aquino, the Senate wonder-boy, whose articulacy and appeal wowed the crowds the world over, who stunned people for kissing his Motherland’s soils while drenched in his own blood.

Likewise, I watched the poise and eloquence of a strongman; his wife in beauty, grace teeming full; the metropolitan monoliths; the machines; the rural, the rice, roads, and rails connecting each; republic banner dignified, presidential seal adamant, solon tactful, well-postured; audience listening keenly to the Utopian New Society-themed speech of the inviting Commander-in-Chief who fell to his, his men’s, and countrymen’s gambits.

Three decades since the dictator’s palace ransack, since the mob’s first walk and their heroine’s, Corazon, into the halls of great Malakanyáng, and Saligang Batas ratified, the millennial Filipino – is but critical for the crisis occurring still. Again, irony grins and seeks to point blame and mount reverence for the long-standing tradition of corruption, from the injurious fires of ignorance, miseducation, from the rule of greed and hunger for power – prevailing while we continue adoring-and-cussing, in manner cyclical, the same people, faces, factions adorned with velvet cloaks, pinyá Filipiniana, and scheming political charms.

Seemingly, afar from orient skies and seas, a Filipino-American enjoys the American blessings of destiny, for it is not anymore a helpless victim to Inang Báyan’s inefficient bureaucracy and bandwidth; bribery rooted even in grassroots echelon of public trust; bigotry of flawed market, banality of media, and the religions’ irrational footing as sacrosanct – ironically signified by current traffic flows of that cradled thoroughfare, where three decades ago, the gushing was of the mob, ousting undesired leadership. Seemingly.

Aware of overbreadth, I call myself a Filipino-American. Overbreadth, for, although “Filipino-American” unified the demography statistics, it has blurred the individuality of: the Filipino who lives in America; of the Filipino who was naturalized into American citizenry; of a natural-born American of Filipino ethnicity, vice versa. However, it is futility to remain within this discourse – for the goal is to have Filipino-Americans realize their obligations to history and posterity of our prodigious lineage, springing from our determination to fight oppression and embrace justice.

Since Lapu-Lapu’s and Sulayman’s seashore battles; of Silang, Dagohoy, and Kudarat in their settlements, Rizal and Ilustrádos in the academe; Bonifacio and Katipúnan in the battlefields; of Aguinaldo, Sakay, Malvar, and Quezon in office; of Laurel and Os-Rox, wartime; of Cory and the EDSA mob – voices of enlightened freedom clamor from our souls.

I am a Filipino-American – living in a land molded by Founding Fathers, where justice sits at an ordered stance. E Pluribus, followers were: Abraham Lincoln who stood tall in death as slaves carry him for opening tunnels towards liberty; MLK, Jr. whose martyrdom stirred people from nightmares clad with discrimination; Cesar-Chavez whose fruits of labor are seats of pivotal change; Larry Itliong and Phillip Vera Cruz who pillared migrant workers and their civil rights; and Barack Obama whose presidency is a reference in world history. Although I enjoy the blessings of American destiny – land of opportunity; nation of food aplenty; bastion of liberal education, global economy, and culture – it reflects well that America, another land of Filipino-American affection, experienced its own struggles. Thus, it understands if the Filipino-American decides to side with Inang Báyan across-the-Pacific.

I am a millennial Filipino-American – one among the mob-incarnate – one with those on EDSA in 1986 and 2001; one among Million People marching with revolutionary hashtags and selfies in August 2013 while simultaneously gazing at the Watawat by the Konsulado-Heneral near the dutiful Union Square; accepting blame and reverence for Inang Báyan’s continuing plagues, as democracy requires. My happenstances – liberty, life, love, luxury, and lore at a reasonable expense – are my weapons in combating her malady.

We, Filipino-Americans, shall heroically browse through EDSA-Revolution’s soul – not icons – to see it as a mere brink to a still upcoming era; its fullness will manifest only when Filipino-American tears, toils, and thoughts of heroism gear to engage education, expression, and emancipation anew to Inang Báyan. It still is an upcoming era for although we have the cures, we’ve yet to accept our ills; still unrealized dream, for warriors are asleep, unborn, or preparing; still a vision, for people can still see – and we will crusade before blindness, muteness, and numbness become inferred mottos of our nation’s insignia.

I am a millennial Filipino-American, one among modern swordsmen piercing evil systems by rendering knowledge and skills at the altar of our race; protesting through sharp thoughts, acts, and letters; passionate in extolling just, ruthless in bashing grafters; ceaselessly enthralled to spend digital time and space for my archipelago’s advancement – up to my last breath, wherever I breathe it on this Daigdig – in the name of my Lupang Hinirang, Pilipinas.

I am a millennial Filipino-American.

Ako ay Pilipino.

 

 

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This essay bagged Second Honorable Mention in the EDSA 30th Anniversary Essay-writing Contest organized by the Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc., Philippine Daily Inquirer Global, and ABS-CBN International.

Acknowledgements:

• Jonalee de Leon
• Samuel Evardone
• Kevin Dadal
• Darlene Mijares
• Mimi Pascual
• Cholo Gonzales
• Charlene Whang
• Rina Garcia – Chua