Year 2004-2005

Zombies Of Heroics and Histrionics

Sometimes I get so dramatic with my articles only because (I'd like to think) only a few read me. That's why I prefer not to 'link' or join any grouping of bloggers in the internet (not that I belong to any particular mindset, mind you)- my isolation frees me from censoring my writing. I also base my writing on the countries that read me. And I always draw from my life as a Pinoy in composing my sentences here and there. I am still surprised at the number of hits on my site but then, I don't know, I'd like to think no one reads me except myself. Which means, why shouldn't I just confine my writing in notebooks inside my drawers? But then, at the same time, I'd like to imagine people reading me, because we as humans are actors on a stage, always imagining an audience. Oh well, as long as nobody writes me back and tells me I'm breaking the law by writing what I write I'd continue. Besides, blogging is self-publishing without censorship and editing. I find it very pure and liberating. So Beatnik. And I love that.

I've been writing lately about the recent crisis in the Philippines.

Ramon and I had lunch today and he said, "The country is so surreal it becomes a zombie movie." He said this as he raised his eyes from reading Morikami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle. He's now half-way the novel, reading it steadfastly and fast while sucking the straw from his chilled chocolate mocha. He continued:



There was a time a barrio existed in the Pacific populated by people who used to be so alive until one day, multitudes of fish swarmed the coast to their delight. The fish themselves jumped into their fishing nets and bit their hooks even without the baits. The people concluded the fish were a gift of God and they feasted right there and then, eating fish left and right, day and night, and many many more days after that. And then, they all turned into zombies. Well, not all of them really.

Many from foreign lands have focused their eyes on these barrio people whose peculiarity was so puzzling. How can a people so easily be turned brain-dead when they were so alive and so intelligent before?

It turned out it was not the fish that turned them zombies, it was themselves. The fish were just a decoy. Later on, the foreign observers discovered how they turned into zombies: The first ruler of the land removed their freedoms and they were forced to learn only things the ruler wanted them to learn. No one could question the ruler's decisions lest he wanted to die. For twenty years the people moved according to prescribed and programmed movements, like robots. They were fed with lies and grand ideals emanating from the ruler. These people became blind followers, marching wherever they were told to go. They had to always be quiet and not bad-mouth the ruling class. Until one day, a zombie accidentally woke up and started to question the ruler. The ruler hastily shot him. But it was a wrong shot, it was the flick that unzombied the zombies. In one particular year their hypnotist ruler vanished and they were back into being alive and intelligent again.

But it was short-lived because it was their misfortune not to know how to act with independent, functioning minds. For twenty years their minds were locked-up. For the past twenty years they looked up to one ruler.

For the next twenty years they kept on searchng for a single ruler.

The poor zombies claimed independence but deep inside they were looking for someone to tell them what to do, how to act, what to think, what not to think. This unfortunately, is a trait of zombies that was easily manipulated. They lost perspective. They did not know how to distinguish heroism from heroics, they could not tell the difference between real sense and histrionics. So that, when the zombies heard a screaming sound: Fight! Lets all gather together! Lets kill the Devil, they all gathered thinking that by re-living their first release from zombie-ness they could be unzombied again. True they were unzombied but they had to go through it again and again, like some form of therapy (everytime there is a new ruler) to unzombie themselves. And so many zombies of heroics and histrionics took advantage of this: Even the college drop-outs who could not pass Trigonometry became philosophers in newspapers so long as they re-kindled the fire of the "First Unzombie-ness". So they went on and on, thinking becasue they were read they must truly be heroes in the Zombieland. The other zombies gathered together in the name of different things, like Zombies of Morality (You fuck you're a sinner- I fuck I'm a Saint); Zombies of the Prayer (I pray for you asshole because You cannot pray for yourself); Zombies of the Senate and Congress (You don't give us what we want, we investigate you); Zombies of Business ( You protect my ass I give you money); Zombies of Jueteng (You protect my ass, I give you Balato); Zombies of Literature(You give me Award, I give you Award); Zombies of Mutual Admiration Society (You do good...and so do you...oh no you do good really...but you do good too...really...etcetera for eternity); Zombies of Entertainment Industry(Ha?); Zombies OFW (How much is the dollar rate now? When I go home, I'll show 'em...); Zombies of Youth (When I grow up I want to be an American Idol, otherwise, I want to be a member of the Zombies of -----); and so on and so forth.

But on the 20th anniversary of "The First Unzombie-ness" the most powerful of the Zombies gathered together to plot a coup. They invited all the Zombies of whatever persuasion they could gather and discussed how to topple the new ruler. All of them need to be unzombied again, they said, they just can feel it. Their power as The Heroes of Zombie-ness is wavering, fracturing, and all the Zombies no longer see 'the light'. These powerful Zombies are no longer capable of appointing the new ruler and the ruler they got now doesn't want to give them what they want. They gathered as a prelude to Unzombie-ness. And this time, they'd do it with such force.

But, the ruler they want to topple is a Zombie who is smarter than them. And the other Zombies in this Zombie-land are now awakening. And the other Zombies who went abroad to work saw the true light. And the many Zombies of lowland and hinterlands are just becoming humans again, alive and thinking. It took them twenty years but by golly - how smart they became. How intelligent.

On the day the Zombies of Power and Ruling Class called on all the Zombies to protect the Spirit of Unzombie-ness, some zombies shrugged them off, others went on playing sports, others went on business as usual, others made fun of them, others looked at them and found them un-attractive, others played mah-jong, others went shopping, others went blogging, others watched the world wrestling championship match.

The Zombies are about to write volumes and volumes of explanation for this, volumes and volumes of threats and counter-threats, volumes and volumes of analysis of what happened to the Zombieland ....

But they too, are slowly waking up.


-- the zombie does what everybody's doing. In a stampede, everybody kicks and shoves at the same time to the deaths of the weak --