Obituary for the Formerly Brilliant
For a long time I have felt like a child whose beloved parent has dementia. I have watched as the sharp, shining intellect I had admired and respected was corrupted, dulled, and reduced to smearing excrement on the walls.
This person I looked up to as a mentor, who introduced me to great works of literature and humanist thought, who supported my own attempts at writing and taught me that language is a weapon, who helped me through my constant ineptitude about money, who even shared my love of cats, is gone. The surrogate parent who offered me advice and comfort when my own mother died, is no longer with us.
I have always known of the racism, the elitism and attraction to fascism. I explained this to myself as examples of his independent thinking and charming political incorrectness. He had always flown the flag for free speech, and believing in free speech means defending the right of other people to say things you disagree with, even if they make you sick.
Over the years my explanations to myself have become more convoluted and illogical, but I wanted to believe that there wa a point to all that, some end game too complex and brilliant for my mediocre brain. Loyalty and gratitude had blinded me from speaking. I thought that if I shut up, surely this vicious insanity would end, and once again we would be sitting down to a meal at which he would bring his own rice, steaming in its cooker, declare his love of HBO’s Rome and Ciaran Hinds’s portrayal of Julius Caesar, and bemoan, hilariously, the demise of his hair follicles. I would ask him for the thousandth time why he has never published his own book when far inferior writers publish regularly.
Those days are gone. We are never going to do that joint lecture on Russian novels. But I will get around to finishing The Death of Virgil by the Viennese Jew Hermann Broch, a book he gave me, in which the dying writer ruminates on the malevolence of the society he had lionized.
He has one last thing to teach me: that loyalty has its limits. Mine ends when literature and history are twisted to justify the unjustifiable.
———–
I am not on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform. I write this blog and columns at InterAksyon and BusinessWorld. This year I am on sabbatical to write two novels.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 1st, 2016 at 14:10
I feel you, Madam. It’s like a betrayal when somebody you look up to shows himself up as an unprincipled apologist for a madman.
October 1st, 2016 at 14:43
It really is both sad and disturbing seeing how this person has spiralled downwards into insanity on social media. I’ve seen the various pronouncements in the last few months and could only shake my head that someone who supposedly has intelligence could become an apologist for the despicable. It’s indeed quite disappointing.
October 1st, 2016 at 15:36
These indeed are very divisive times. I hope that sobriety prevails before it’s too late.
October 1st, 2016 at 15:50
I know it’s hard on you but while I was engaging him this morning he said that he never justified Nazism.
October 1st, 2016 at 16:55
The Formerly Brilliant’s Twitter TL is so putrid you couldn’t take your eyes off it.
October 1st, 2016 at 17:29
Thanks for writing this. I think it speaks for a lot of us who are seeing the decay and feeling the pangs of disgust and sadness well up.
October 1st, 2016 at 18:44
since june i thought it’s obvious he’s applying for a job, and bordering on pandering to get a cabinet position. ibigay na lang kaya ang ptv4 o ibc13. subukan nyang palaguin ang dalawang channel na ito. kahit anong habang editorial maghapon, pwede rin.
October 1st, 2016 at 18:57
My condolences as well.
October 2nd, 2016 at 04:44
#IloveDUTERTE, #IloveJessicaZafra, #IloveMarcosFamily
#IloveJimParedes #IloveCarlosCeldran
batang martial law ako pero minsan ang sakit basahin mga nega article ex raissa robles at yung pinagkakalat ni senator hontiveros
kasalanan ko ba kung noong martial law eh maganda buhay ko at wala akong matandaan ng kanegahan nong time na yun maganda business namin at walang crime sa lugar namin napaka peaceful natatandaan ko pa after school nood lang ako ng mga old movies sa channel 9 ng Silveria ni dolphy at SuperGirl ni Ike Lozada yung may mga patay na bumangon takbo mga tao sa simbahan then eat bulaga(lets get physical dance contest) flordeluna Iskul Bukol See True etc puro magaganda natatandaan ko at wala akong matandaang gulo at may free klim milk pa nga tuwing sabado ng umaga sa plaza at sa school naman may libreng merienda everyday lugaw at ginataang mais at yung logo na BAGONG LIPUNAN kaka inspire maging honor noon dahil may mga gift pack pag graduation at I remember pag luluwas kami manila ang ganda ganda ng maynila at ang airport may balcony pa para makita pagsakay sa eroplano parang mga artista mga hinahatid sa airport noon at talagang well dress.
Paano naman kami Sen Hontiveros yung mga walang nega experience sa ML?
October 2nd, 2016 at 11:43
Thanks for speaking up, Jessica. I’m with you.
October 2nd, 2016 at 12:12
swanoepel: Thank you for your letter. I will answer this in greater detail later because it is too important and the reply needs to be thought out carefully.
This letter sums up the rift in our society. It is the dividing line between those who know or experienced repression, fear and poverty under martial law and those who remember or, being too young, hear of it only as an idyllic time. I think we should all answer swanoepel’s question in the respectful, carefully-considered way that we try to maintain on this blog. We are all in this together. We need personal stories, not big picture discussions of the economic and political stagnation of that period. Don’t just condemn torture, give real examples.
For starters, I will say that while no one in my immediate family was arrested as a dissenter, we were always hard up and struggling to remain in the middle class. Entertainment–Dolphy movies, Charlie’s Angels, etc–kept us entertained, uncomplaining and quiet so we wouldn’t notice our neighbors being taken away for criticizing the government and never being seen again. We wouldn’t notice that Marcos cronies were becoming obscenely rich even while the institutions they ran collapsed and went bankrupt. They were protected by the powers that be. You could say, “Well, that still happens,” but it started during martial law. Corruption was so successful, it became standard operating procedure.
To be continued. Help me out here.
October 2nd, 2016 at 17:44
Thanks for speaking out, Jessica. The guy in twitter and in the news have become a very different person from the mentor you’ve written about all there years.
I have martial law stories from my family. My mother and her sisters were in the Diliman commune in UP. They lost a lot of things in the dorms and had to leave to the province when they started teargassing the area. They were lucky enough to get away during martial law, make happy memories, and soon my mom went back to study in the provinces, where she met my dad.
Meanwhile, their cousin and her husband – student activists back then too – were less fortunate. Her cousin escaped prison when she had to give birth, while the husband was detained and tortured until Marcos was booted off. My mom’s best friend have a “desaparecidos” brother too – they arrested him at home and they never saw him again. Titas and titos went to People Power, while my parents stayed in the provices because nobody was there to babysit me.
Growing up, martial law and the crimes of the Marcoses were very real to my family, and until very recently I thought everybody felt the same way (except, I thought, if you’re Ilocano). It was hard for me to hear my that some of my best friends wanted to support BBM last election – I never imagined the rift being so wide. I try to take up as a duty to tell my family’s story, and to balance it out with some good (my mom would insist that the first Marcos term was ok), and hope that they would think about how real this was for a lot of people, and how it wounded a lot of families.
October 2nd, 2016 at 18:45
I was born during the Martial Law and belonged (and still do) to the middle class. My parents were former activists during their college years in the 1970s. But they didn’t end worse. As a matter of fact, my old man even joined the government because he felt then he (I don’t know with others of his kind) could make a difference under the New Society. For the record, I have relatives who are still hardcore Marcos fans/loyalists. However, in February 1986, he and my mom joined others in Edsa Revolt/Revolution because they had enough with the excesses with the royal family, especially the rampant corruption and the declining economy manifested in the 1980s. Yes, Marcos is the most intelligent, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
October 2nd, 2016 at 18:53
Not starting a fight but just because my family, your family, or whoever’s family did not have members who suffered during martial law does not negate the tens of thousands who were imprisoned and tortured, the thousands who were murdered, and the countless more who were never seen again. Just because martial law was smooth sailing for you and your family does not make the fact that it institutionalized cronyism, state-sponsored killings and tortures, and corruption.
October 2nd, 2016 at 19:07
Me too, our family never experienced hardship during martial law. Nakinabang pa kami, ika nga. Imelda was so gracious to have given us a Jeep for our livelihood; and during the 1986 election campaigns, it was used to “hakot” audiences in exchange for one sack of rice. Never mind that the “hakot” audiences were all of our neighbors including children because my Dad promised there was free food and snacks. My Dad went to Malacañang and had his picture taken with Marcos putting his hand on my Dad’s shoulder. My Dad had the picture enlarged and framed. I went to school with Sunkist oranges and Granny Smith apples as “baon” while my classmates looked on with envy. This was the time when having imported things was rare.
That being said, I’m anti-Marcos and I don’t support Duterte and his condoning of EJKs. We’re all human and to revel in your comfortable living while closing your eyes to the atrocities being committed against your neighbors is to be like a pro-Hitler German during the Nazi times. Napapatay na pati mga inosente, pero iniisip natin that they deserve it because (insert your excuses here).
Oo, nakinabang kami noong martial law. Pero naiisip ko na yung jeep na ibinigay sa amin, inagaw sa mga batang nagutom at namatay sa Negros. Oo, hindi magulo sa lugar namin. Pero naaalala ko kung paano ako sinaway ng lola ko from singing an anti-martial law ditty that I and my playmates were singing in all innocence. Bata pa lang kami pero na-censor na agad ang kadaldalan ko. #NeverAgain
Naaalala ko rin tuwing pumupunta kami ng Quezon province at kung gaano kahirap ang pagdaraanan para lang madalaw ang lolo at lola ko. Inaabot ng 10 hours yung 4 hours lang ngayon. Twenty years sila sa pwesto pero wala silang ginawa para sa probinsya ko. Kinakayod ng bao ang kalsada tuwing tag-ulan para lang may makadaan na sasakyan. Kung hindi nila kakayudin, magugutom sila dahil walang goods and services na makakarating. Considering na ang Coco Levy fund ang nagpayaman sa mga cronies nila. Mali pala ako, sa mga coconut farmers pala galing yung jeep namin kaya wala kaming utang na loob. Kapag naaalala ko yung paghihirap ng mga kaprobinsya ko, nabibwisit ako at malamang, high-pitched at garalgal na sa galit ang boses ko.
October 2nd, 2016 at 23:29
My family was apolitical during the Martial Law years and thus led relatively peaceful lives as ordinary citizens. My parents hated Cory because they had no regard for her political / leadership capabilities. During this year’s elections my mom was set to vote for Bongbong, citing the usual infrastructure / peace argument. I told her that if the Marcoses and their kind remained in power, we would probably have become what Venezuela is today. That it was likely that none of her kids would have opportunities to work for foreign companies and live a relatively comfortable middle class existence.
She ended up not voting for Bongbong.
My point to Swanoepel / everyone who shares his perspective is that things today would be much much worse if we continued on the trajectory Marcos set for this country. We should just count ourselves lucky that our families did not suffer during his reign of terror – but that is no excuse to go back to that type of setting / environment. #neveragain
To JZ – I am sorry for your loss but thank you for denouncing your ex-mentor’s behavior of late.
October 3rd, 2016 at 19:04
pinangananak din ako noong martial law. di rin mulat, napakabata pa para magkaroong ng buong opinyon, ika nga. pero napuna ko na at natatandaan pa ang mga kalburo ni imelda na masakit sa mata, mga pagkanta ni imelda ng dahil sa iyo sa tv, ang pag-interrupt ni makoy sa programa kapag may napakahabang speech sya na gustong ideliver, ang pagtanggal sa voltez v dahil nakulit sya ni polly sinobayun?, ang pasosyal na kasal ni irene, and picture ng buto’t balat na negros kids, ang mga kala-mo-kung-sinong PC, alam din ng lahat na basta-basta ka lang pwedeng damputin pag gusto nila, ang mga balita tungkol sa crony at gahamang si kokoy ay kalat sa ibang bansa, mahirap maghanap ng trabaho para sa tatay ko, kontrol ang tv / di pwedeng tirahin si macoy, napakahirap kumuha ng permit-permit pati linya ng telepono, maraming monopoly (iilang kumpanya lang ang kilala sa bawat industriya), sasayaw-sayaw si imelda kasama si hamilton (kailangan daw sya maganda para may aspiration ang mga pinoy). maski hind direktang tinatamaan ng mga ito, ang tanong ay tama ba ang ganitong setup para sa pinas? tama bang hayaan at lunukin lang ang mga ito dahil maalwan naman ang buhay.
elementary lang din ako noong pinatay si ninoy. nagtataka ako kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng mga yellow ribbon na nakatali sa labas nang mga bakuran nuong pauwi ako mula sa mababang paaralan ng caloocan. at nagtatanong ako kung bakit parang nagpupuyos na tahimik ang usapan ng mga tao. litaw naman daw kung sino ang nagpapatay. pati si alfie anido, kilala naman daw ng lahat kung sino ang pumatay. biglang dumami tuloy ang mga nag-aaral ng libro ni amado guerrero sa mga bahay-bahay at barung-barong (pero nanawa ako sa lenggwaheng “papet ng EU si ganito, paper ng EU si ganoon).
maski hindi tinamaan ang pamilya ko ng direkta, alam kong hindi fair at makatarungan ang lipunan ni makoy. manipis rin ang tsansa umangat. yun na lang siguro ang tignan.
paglaon mapapanood na natin ang we are the world paty ni bongbong habang ang gdp ng pinas ay bagsak. naghihirap ang mga pinoy kumpara sa mga kapitbahay sa asya. tapos ubod ng kapal pa itong si bongbong na isang singapore na raw tayo ngayon kung di sila napatalsik. ano ba namang kalokohan yan? nakapag-hire lang sya ng mga consultant na alamlkung pano magmanipula sa facebook, kala mo na kung sinong magaling, e nameke lang naman ng diploma ang ungas. wala talagang hustisya.
pero sa isang banda, grabe rin ang pagwawalang-bahala ng dalawang aquino na presidente. kasalanan din ng mga taga-suporta nila kaya ganito na lang kadali makalimot. madali lang naman ilagay ang totoong rehimeng marcos sa mga teksbuk. sana ihabol naman ito nang mabilis, maski kopyahin na lang ang nasa wikipedia.
October 3rd, 2016 at 19:48
turmukoy: Korek ka diyan. Sa pagmamadaling mag-“move on”, hindi natin pinag-iisipan ang mga pangyayari at ang mga ugat ng mga ito. Kaya sila nauulit. Hassle kasi ang mag-isip at magmuni-muni. Mag-shake hands na lang tayo, kalimutan ang lahat ng hidwaan at mag-party, tapos okay na! Hindeeeee.
October 3rd, 2016 at 21:33
“Compromise where you can. And where you can’t, don’t. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right, even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, ‘No. You move.'”~ Peggy Carter
October 3rd, 2016 at 22:10
Agreeing with a number who’ve posted here. My family didn’t directly lose anyone to Martial Law, though most definitely as with everyone else in the country, we all suffered other effects (economic downfall, for one).
Just because our family was lucky enough not to have lost someone doesn’t negate the fact that there were tens of thousands of others who did. It is foolish and selfish to negate such suffering just because there was no direct impact.
And believe me: there was impact beyond the violence to every single one of us despite all the denials of revisionists. Economic downfall, as noted above. We are still paying for all the debt the Marcoses put us through. Infrastructure that loyalists claim the Marcoses built? It was their job to do that – especially with 21 years of power. Plus, the money came from our taxes and/or foreign loans.
So this “utopia” others believe was nothing more than an illusion.
October 6th, 2016 at 17:12
I have been following him on the only social media i’m on for sometime now but lately I often find myself simultaneously confused, aghast and offended. The rants, the cursing, echoes that of our President who is without tact or class befitting the office which his kababayans thrust him into.
I cannot claim to know how you feel Ms Jessica but I feel a fraction of your crushing disappointment in the man. TIME had twice written an article about his colorful social media comments (complete with screenshots) and his behavior being touted as similar to our very popular and quotable President.
Thank you for settling this for me, I thought all this while he was just being sarcastic, or there’s a joke in there somewhere that I’m not getting. This is all very depressing. I have to watch Dr Strange trailers on repeat to cheer me up! ( maisingit lang!)
October 9th, 2016 at 06:50
It feels like losing your father (if he was a good one) or your favorite professor. There’s nothing you can do now. Every Filipino generation has its share of tough times. It’s our time now. Thank you for finally speaking your mind. It was inevitable but I’m glad you remained true to yourself.
October 11th, 2016 at 21:18
I wanted to ask you about this but it seemed too personal. You, one of the few I put on pedestal, put him on pedestal. I thought at first that he was just being sarcastic, but it was all too much. Thank you for speaking up your mind about this. I’m sorry you have lost such dear friend.
October 11th, 2016 at 21:22
catsesham: The moral of the story is: Don’t put anyone on a pedestal. Just because they gave you hundreds of books doesn’t mean they truly absorbed their contents.