this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on July 16, 2002.
Moments before we march to Edsa to call for the ouster of our corrupt President, Joseph Estrada, Lisa comes to us, seriousness written all over her face. “If you are ever harassed, or arrested, or taken away by the police, here’s a number you can call,” she tells us.
I write the number on a piece of tissue paper and tuck it in my wallet. It gives me a tingle of danger to have the phone number of the Commission on Human Rights.
Lisa moves away, and I get down on the hot cement and trace her footsteps. She joins her friends with the megaphones and the banners painted in red.
She doesn’t know me. I lose myself in the crowd. I drown in the sea of ten thousand people. I keep close behind them and hear her voice cracking over the speakers.
In the underbelly of Edsa, I buy a book titled “Mao Zedong and Andres Bonifacio: The Real Heroes of the Philippine Revolution.” I hold my hand against the sun when I see her take the stage and speak out against Estrada.
At night I read the book and hide it under my pillow. I learn words and phrases like “revisionism,” “bureaucrat-capitalism,” “feudalism,” “neocolonialism,” “democratic socialism,” “American imperialism,” “bourgeois intellectualism” etc. They bounce in my head like flashes in the dark.
I’ve never seen Lisa wear anything but red. She has talked to me around four times already, but I wonder if she remembers. “Do you want to join the rally?” were the first words she ever spoke to me. She said it like she was asking for a date.
When classes begin, I can hear their shouts over chalk-dust air and see their banners floating like butterflies through the windows. I watch from the sides of my eyes and try to catch a sight of her.
When I sign their signature sheets protesting tuition increases, the war in Mindanao and the oil price hikes, I wonder if I could ever be as brave as she wants me to be. But then she’s already talking to someone else, asking if he wanted to join, and I feel a dark cloud of jealousy floating at the back of my head.
Taking the bus home, I can see angry words written on the walls: “Joma, salot ng bayan” and “Komunismo, kontra Kristo.” I pull down the curtains that line the bus windows and whisper her name to myself.
Articles in the Philippine Collegian written by Lisa Tangco join Mao Zedong and Andres Bonifacio, Marx and Sison under my pillow or under my bed.
I look at the posters on campus and wonder if it’s her hand on the brush, bold and red, painting the struggle, the revolution. I read on, drawn to her, wondering if I could ever summon the courage to cross the line and join her.
Then we would make love in countryside tents and read Lenin under the flashes of oppressive government mortars. We would dance naked in mountain hideouts and hold hands when we farm the fields, giving honor to the peasant movement. And when all people are equal, I would get down on my knees and ask her to marry me.
Lisa flashes by like lightning. They march down a road carrying paint cans. They mark the asphalt with bold, impassioned strokes. I watch from three floors up and see how the sun catches her hair.
I write her name in the dust that gathers on windshields. Under it, I write the word “ideology,” tracing out each letter carefully. Then, I’d wipe it away, suddenly frightened, suddenly looking over my shoulder to see if anyone saw me.
On Valentine’s Day–a red-letter day–I seal up all my feelings inside an envelope and feel clumsy and stupid but totally honest. I don’t sign what’s inside. I don’t want her to know who I am. My plan is to give it to her, and disappear from her sight forever.
Lisa struggles, for she fights for the people. I, too, struggle-to find that one spot inside of me that will change the world.
I find her friends manning a booth in another signature campaign calling for an across-the-board increase in workers’ wages. Some of them are down on the floor, painting banners, each brushstroke stark and heart-felt. Some are talking to people like me, explaining things, reading out from pamphlets that I recognize.
I sign quickly, and then ask if Lisa’s around. They look at me strangely, suspiciously. “Lisa’s not here,” someone finally says. “She had to go home to the province for a little while.”
Something in me feels dead. I jam the letter into my back pocket and start to walk away, hoping no one can see my eyes.
I am ready to disappear when suddenly someone comes up to me and touches my shoulder. I turn around to face him.
“Hey, are you going to join the rally?” he asks me. And I do. I join them on the floor, with their paint brushes that bleed red. In my sadness and with hands that should have been hers, I paint with bold strokes, painting the struggle, the revolution.
* * *
Here is Lisa, months later, on the cover of the Philippine Collegian. She is dead. She was gunned down in the mountains of Cagayan during an encounter between the New People’s Army and government troops. She had gone underground on that very same day I wrote her the letter, which I still keep, like a treasure, beside Mao and Bonifacio, Marx and Sison.
It is the fourth Monday of July, and the President is going to give the traditional State of the Nation Address. Moments before we march to Congress, her friends come to me. They look serious as they slip a piece of paper into my hand and whisper, “If you’re ever harassed, or arrested, or kidnapped by the police, call this number.” I hide the number deep inside my wallet, right beside that piece of tissue paper that I still keep.
Some days, I imagine seeing her, flashing by me, like a flame, like a fire. And I feel a deep emptiness inside. And in those days, I stare at her picture in the Collegian showing her almond eyes, her dark skin. I stare at it for a long time and feel lonely.
She never fought for me.
