Skip to main content

From not phantom voters

I am moving my blog from www.notphantomvoters.blogspot.com to this new name. People told me I should put my name and that year when I would be running again for elections. 2010. It seems so far, but it is less than 900 days away.

And as we speak, or as you read these words in cyberspace, alignments are moving. Standing shakily on soggy soil, political alliances in this country have never been firm, to begin with.

When I finally ran as an Independent Congressman in the elections for District 3 of QC, I got lots of offers: to run under this or that party, or to accept this or that set of "incentives" (read: bribes) for me not to run anymore, since I was the front runner in the surveys.

Like flakes of dandruff on my shoulders, I just brushed them away, ran, and lost. I thought I could return to my old life as a teacher, but no! As we speak now, or as you read this blog entry, I am getting calls and emails and text messages from this or that politician, asking for a meeting, an endorsement (the barangay elections next week), whatever.

For those running in 2010, the most important thing to remember is this: the campaigning has begun last may 15, one day after the elections.

Karla Maquiling has a good, blunt interview of me in www.pinoycentric.com regarding Philippine elections. Read it and pee -- with laughter.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A mansion of many languages

BY DANTON REMOTO, abs-sbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 1:00 AM REMOTE CONTROL In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said: “It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onio...

Five Poems by Danton Remoto

In the Graveyard Danton Remoto The walls round the graveyard Are ancient and cracked. The moss is too thick they look dark. The paint on my grandfather’s tomb Has the color of bone. Two yellow candles we lighted, Then we uttered our prayers. On my left, somebody’s skull Stares back at me: a black Nothingness in the eyes. The graveyard smells of dust Finer than the pore of one’s skin— Dust mixed with milk gone sour. We are about to depart When a black cat darts Across our path, quickly, With a rat still quivering In its mouth. * Immigration Border Crossing (From Sadao, Thailand to Bukit Changloon, Malaysia) Danton Remoto On their faces that betray No emotion You can read the unspoken Questions: Are you really A Filipino? Why is your skin Not the color of padi ? Your eyes, Why are they slanted Like the ones Who eat babi ? And your palms, Why are there no callouses Layered like th...

A lighted matchstick, a novel-in-progress

I am writing a novel based on what happened to me and to Ang Ladlad in the days before, during and after the last elections. I am having a grand time writing this. Let me caution you that this is fiction. Oh, yes, indeed. “Power is like a lighted matchstick. The closer your fingers are to it, the more you will get burnt.” --Tu Fu Chapter 1 The Commission on Independent Elections (CIE) was housed in a three-storey wooden building erected right after World War II. Its dark-brown paint was peeling off, and the musty interiors were hardly lit by bulbs filmed with dust. One hundred meters away to the north, the Manila Cathedral sat on raised ground. Its round gray dome could be seen from the Manila Bay, and the long central aisle towards the grand altar had already exhausted many old women who walked to the altar on their knees. In front of the cathedral was the plaza built by the Spaniards. When the wind from the bay began to blow, the fire trees would move like waves touching each other....