When commitment spells harassment

Participating politically in the Philippines especially if you are a writer is like swimming in a sea of crocodiles. Yes, everywhere I go, ever since I started writing not only about women's oppression, I have been harassed from my home up to the places I go to. At home, my things are tampered with. My room is intruded and my things get disorganized. No matter how hard I try to put order, by labelling my things, they simply get chaotic again. The labels are removed; my articles placed elsewhere. And the most important documents I need for the moment suddenly disappear from my table. On the road, I meet people seemingly planted to create havoc as I pass by. Today, 25 July, my deceased father's birthday, a woman with plenty of goods to sell on her shoulders blocked my path. When I said, "Excuse me" to mean, let me pass, she said "Aba oobaho," meaning "Yes bad odor." I knew then that she was planted because the military and police intelligence have this bad habit of letting scavengers with carts pass my house as I go out of the gate; of making people both men and women carrying plastic bags of waste go out; of making trucks of Leonel Waste Managing Co., pass by the same streets I am supposed to go through, etcetera, etcetera. Are these done because I am relating with the people of Smokey Mountain that huge pile of garbage with plenty of scavengers. Not only is this their form of harassment. Even dogs are used, especially black and white. Because I have related with the Black and white movement to oust Gloria Arroyo, the illegitimate president of the Philippines, the military has made it their business to make people pass me by as they are dressed in black and white; of making dogs colored b and w be in the vicinity of the place that I will pass through.

Even tv and radio programs like M., , an announcer over a national tv, joins the fray by presenting news at that exact time I am listening over the radio. Or maybe it is his traffic engineer doing that, but as radio manager, he surely has a hand on it. Right now, I am listening and watching partially the tv news with him in it. He reported an item about dogs.

You see, as a committed media practitioner, we are called watchdogs. And they have done those things to literally insult us.

Worst of all, are those men who brush my left chest -- sexual harassment to the hilt, whether I ride a bus, a jeep, stand by a street talking to a vendor, etc. etc. The act is so repetitive that I suspect now that this has been made deliberate.
And so, I think that the administration of this illegitimate president is making these moves because they are paranoid about their powers being taken away.

Anyway, I am listing this down to remind those who are entering politics to be on their guard against hoping for a red carpet welcome. There are a lot of sacrifices.

Also, I think that we should make the military write its history now. Everyday the military should keep track of all their sins against the Filipino people -- how they harassed, sexually, physically and emotionally the critics. In this manner, they would be able to compare their acts with their predecessors. And future soldiers will know whom to emulate and whom to denigrate as "protectors of the people and the country."