I Am Buraot

During the entire course of my life I have faced the most formidable things there can be: choices. I have had to face it, not once, not twice, but so many times I could hardly remember.

Why do we have to choose? Why do we have to ponder deeply, and waste so much time, effort and precious energy to such a lamentable task?

Why can’t we just be the fabled Filipino slacker and wait for the apple to fall off a tree and straight into our mouth? Why can’t we let things go on its natural course and wait? Continue Reading…

Conclusion

(Previously… Skirmishes In and Out of Sea)

Yes, I was pissed with his article. But I don’t blame Chip Tsao. He who loves to write satire, though his love of it that does not guarantee that he’s good at it, just wanted to make a point.

The way I understood, as I try to grasp the essence of his piece, is that it is mainly about the disputed Spratlys and not about the Filipina maids. It was more of his country’s bullying smaller nations, and less of the plight of thousands of underpaid but well-educated Flipina domestic helpers.

Like what my journalist friend said when I reacted violently to Chip Tsao’s satirical piece, we Filipinos had our own brand of stereotyping ourselves. And we are not less guilty… Continue Reading…

Third Part of a Series

(Previously… The Crude Awakening)

The group of islands called the Spratlys was first occupied by the colonial French at the time when it ruled Indochina. During the Second World War, the Japanese used it as a submarine base. After the world war, the French had it back but eventually had another with occupied Vietnam. While in 1946 the Chinese communist forces occupied the largest of the islands. Continue Reading…

Second Part of a Series

(Previously… Arrogance and Ignorance on the Spratlys Islands)

At least 6 countries, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, have filed separate sovereign claims on all or part of the Spratlys.

For years, the Philippines and the other small ASEAN member countries claiming the group of small Islands in the South Pacific (or at least parts thereof), have suffered insults from the mighty and powerful Chinese. Continue Reading…

First Part of a Series

I wasn’t keen on reacting to satirical pieces made by journalists as long as it is made with class. A joke sometimes creates something more meaningful than just a dose of laughter. It is art imitating life and thus the creator had nothing to do but become the messenger of what he or she sees.

It is the collective burden of the readers and the society as a whole to distinctively see the social irony that was wrapped in silly soliloquy. Continue Reading…

I don’t wanna think about it. Of what am I doing here…

My reason for being here, and what brought me here. Despite endless hurdles, I took whatever this extraterrestrial journey had to offer. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know how. Backtrack as I wanted to, I am already here, contemplating these quandary of sorts.

My mind is in its agonizing predicament to free itself from this comforting numbness, this deafening silence of empty space, brought about by such self-inflicted scientific but masochistic qualms.

I don’t wanna feel the guilt. Of remembering what became of me…. Continue Reading…

February 25…. I was a tank.

With armored skin no bullet can ever pass through, I faced them. Them people I so loved. Them people who so loved me. Them people I so cherished and vowed to protect. Them people who were the reasons for my cold, pathetic and egotistical existence.

Yea, I faced them. But not in the usual way. Instead of facing the battlefield together, with them on my side, I now confront them. One by one.. piece by piece… body by body.. mind by mind… soul by soul… heart by heart.

I can’t dare move myself away from where I lie. Continue Reading…