By OPINION | At Moment Of Temporary Defeat | by Simeon de Leon
I. Forget not the insight
Defeat is far better a teacher than success. Since success is a bratinella who drinks narcotic euphoria from the River Styx of Forgetfulness. Fear of failure is success’s own shadow, soon its doom.
Defeat on the other hand is a warrior’s scar, the register of pains, tears & blood shed during furious battles. Scar is an open eye that telescopes the arrival of the trembling victory. When wounded orphans, those brave daughters and sons will blast open the gates of the fortified City. To heal all wounded woes.
Poetically, the proverbial mole will borrow deeper to clip the festering diseased roots, the rotten radix of sufferings. And there in the quiet of the under earth, the patient mole grows to someday metamorphose on the surface as an absorbing, the ever judging new Leviathan.
II. The need for depth and breadth
Of course quite a number are familiar with the formula of arouse, organize, mobilize (AOM). Perhaps many activists go though this AOM formula either sequentially or serially but at a sweeping pace. Or either as unconscious or half-conscious task done in a hurry, almost skipping over the arduous process of deepening. Many just joined as nominal members but are less potentially serious activists.
So how to incubate nominal members to become serious activists ? Only through the all-around cultivation and deepening member’s experiences of his/her ideological-philosophical consciousness. This all-around development of serious activists demands from the organizer to invest dedicated time of accompaniment. This is no part-time job.
Not long ago, I was able to ask around if serious sessions of TALAMBUHAY (autobiographical narration) are still being observed by activists’ groups. I was curious because those belonging to the early generation of activists mentioned TALAMBUHAY sessions as their sublime experience. For these veterans activist character was founded ideologically solid during such sessions. Yet answers to questions I raised were vague, no module was shown to me as proof of existence and no experiences were personally shared by anyone.
Thus up to now, I still maintain the significance of practical sessions of Talambuhay. The need is to fashion the more solid activist’s character at the ideological-philosophical realm. Starting members activists must collectively cultivate themselves into active agents of history. This cannot be accomplished on leisurely pace but should like a fervent religious observance.
III. I can’t clap with the soles of my feet
Candidates Kiko, Bam, partylists Akbayan and Mamamayang Liberal (ML) won in 2025 midterm elections, yet I can’t clap with the soles of my feet in uproarious jubilation. Why? Probably because I hintly detected what was uncanny, I sniffed a faint foul odour of political maneuvers. In the floral word, a scientific magazine recognizes, “some plants lure pollinators not with sweet fragrances, but with the rank stench of decay”.
My suspicion on this uncanny “victory in the polls” intensified when the undersecretary of PCO, Clarissa “Claire” Angeles Castro-Seechung declared: “Marcos Jr. [is] ready to work with legit opposition, not ‘obstructionists’ ” (Source: https://www.inquirer.net/443665/palace-welcomes-legitimate-opposition-but-will-fight-obstructionists/). And who are “legit opposition” and “obstructionists” happened to be the expected roles in Bongbong Marcos’ play-book. Such state-of-affairs would be no real democracy but some sort of monarchy with its ever “loyal opposition”. The Marcosian brand of constitutional authoritanism, a throwback to today’s revolution a “democracy”!
The latest public disclosure is that the invitation of Lower House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Gomez Romualdez was accepted by both Akbayan’s Diokno and ML’s Leila de Lima (https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2060513/de-lima-diokno-to-join-house-team-prosecuting-vp-duterte) to join the administration’s Prosecuting Team. Now the “perfect balance” exists: the Ying of administration found its pair in the Yang of the opposition
Meanwhile the “obstructionists” who are perceived as subversives by the Marcosian state-of-affairs are covertly and overtly pushed out from the playing fields of electoral politics. They were and will still be hunted by the State’s repressive apparatus, the dreaded NTF-ELCAC.
To paraphrase as quote the opinion of a veteran activist I interviewed: “Those who advocate system change are “obstructionists”. While the so-called “oppositions” are reformists that hesitate to call for total overhaul of the system. The “oppositions” will play the role as “reserve horses” of the global imperialism. And undeniably, they had recieved active support from traditional politicians, a faction of the class in power.”
The playing fields of electoral politics are now set favorably to thin and fat lineage of political dynasties from the national down to the local levels. Thus the 2028 presidential elections may open the gates for the coming unwished for Götterdämmerung. # # #
