As citizens of one nation who are direct recipients of our government’s lapses and misguided decisions, we should never be contended with trusting our government. Trust, without criticizing the wrong ways of achieving and sustaining it, is mere idolatry.
President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa complex earlier this week. Out of the more than nine thousand word speech of Duterte he only mentioned the word ‘agriculture’ once.
The road leading home on June 9, 2019, was the longest one and the most difficult of all to understand. I am still trying to tell myself that it was over, that the nightmare I experienced that fateful day was nothing but just that: a bad dream.
Countless times in the past, has it been proven that even death cannot kill a beautiful mind and a compassionate heart? Witnesses to the truth of this are not a few among people who have been touched by the fine leadership qualities filled with kindness and simplicity of Joel Virador (JV as he was fondly called by family and friends) whose life was offered to the very least and voiceless among workers, peasants, professionals and every struggling Filipinos he had served most of his waking moments.
It was a dangerous decision, but this underscores the urgency of that task, which Kaylo readily took on. This decision may have cost him his life, but Kaylo believed in his people and in their capacity to be decisive and to take the fight into their own hands. He had come of age during such a time – during the 1994 pangayaw – and there was no reason to believe that they could not do it again.