Being personal for a change

Finally, I met Jester-in-Exile and some of the younger writers over at FilipinoVoices. I also met Manolo Quezon at the Philippine Blog Awards 2008. It's really nice meeting fellow bloggers and it was just my second time to do so.

I'm not supposed to reveal who I was but there's an itch to connect with those whom I consider as colleagues. And it is equally nice to know that Jester, Marochim and even their common friend, Maya, are all young people attending the University of the Philippines-Diliman. I told myself, there is still hope since my alma mater is still producing such fine young specimens of brilliance with a conscience.

Sometimes I think that it is time for me to rest my pen and pursue family interests. Because whenever I don my activist robe, I sacrifice my family. Truly, the time I'm spending with my family now, I consider the best of my life. For most of my young life, I spent pursuing causes which either nearly destroyed my professional career or put my life in extreme danger. The last four years are ones I consider stable since I'm blessed with jobs that provide me financial comfort. Yet, I'm still not that financially stable and it's just 3 years before I reach 40.

My contemporaries are enjoying the prime of their careers. Mike Defensor, a classmate of mine, has his own companies and enjoying the fruits of his collaboration with Gloria. Same as Miro Quimbo and even Bong Bongolan. My batchmates at the University are now either here, practicing law or abroad with their families. I heard that I can only count with my fingers the number of classmates I have here, still living a tough life in this patch of earth, called home.

The ones we've beaten during our active university life are now political heavyweights. Alan Peter Cayetano, who lost his campaign against Angelo Jimenez for the UP Student Council plum post, is now a Senator defending his political patron, Senate president Manny Villar. Those who still hold the torch for the masses, they are those who still continue the struggle.

Sometimes I think that those years studying Marx, Engels, etc. are just worthless years since I'm not even using them in my job. My job requires me to think like Guy Kawasaki or a Nora Ephron or do the things that Charlie Agatep or Dante Ang or Babes Romualdes did in their prime. If I think like Marx, i'll go wreck the establishment and probably de-construct it the way many people want it to be. But, would it be the best thing to do?

And sometimes, I blame myself for going back here. My years working in Singapore, I consider, truly the most memorable years of my life. Probably, I should not have left Singapore. It could have been great studying another Masters over at Nanyang Business School. Yet, I chose to raise a family instead of pursuing my intellectual interests.

I told Marochim that I tried to write lifestyle pieces. But I can't. My soul lives and breathes politics. But, irony of ironies, I'm not directly involved in politics, just doing polemics. And I'm doing it just here, in the blogosphere. My years doing political work is probably over. I'm too out of touch and too far of reach by those who are still working for a Truly Just and Humane Philippine society.

And I'm probably doing okey, since my peers nominated me for the Best Blog in the Social, Historical and Political Commentary division. I lost eventually to a guy whose passion is to write about birds. Well, I could have wrote something about the Philippine eagle and probably, won? Like what the Rebel Pixel said, it's not the award, it's the peer recognition.

I long for the day when I can (a) make money out of a business which I have a passion about (b) not report to a boss (c) directly work for the liberation of the country from tyranny and (d) raise my family while building a country. Someday, I'll do it. I'll plunge myself into the entrepreneurial world and make history.