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Love. It surprises me that to speak of Angela Manalang-Gloria, I would decide to start, not with Soledad or Querida, not even Revolt from Hymen, which were the poems that resonated with my much younger (rah-rah) feminist self. Instead here’s a poem about love, about what it means to take another person, and decide to keep him, and choose to engage and learn how to do it, without sacrificing self and dreams, body and mind, where womanhood and solitude and individuality remain important and valued, and because of that—instead of despite it—love is seen not just as possible, but already, as fact. For something written in 1940, all of it holds true in this present, and one appreciates this woman’s voice that spoke bravely about the stereotypes built against women, as she did about love and romance, individuality and relationships. I fall back on Manalang Gloria all the time, appreciating how across her poems what is captured is the complexity of woman in this country, not in terms of ideals, but in terms of what it’s like to be this breathing, living, loving, struggling being.
Jose Garcia Villa had dismissed Manalang Gloria’s work to be nothing more than “pretty verses” with “no passion, no drive, only feeble nostalgia.” One wonders what poems he was reading. #kawomenan #WomensMonth #WomensMonth2020 #womenpoets #womenwriters #writewomen #AngelaManalangGloria #feminism #feminismo #feminisms #feminismPH #pagkababae
Poem “To The Man I Married” from Songs Of Ourselves, edited by Edna Zapanta Manlapaz.
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Community. Spent the day at Binuangan in Obando Bulacan, one of many coastal communities that will be adversely affected by (read: whose people’s lives and livelihood will be sacrificed in the name of) #SanMiguel’s Aerotropolis: a reclamation project that will take over a reported 2,500 hectares of waters, which will mean an ecological disaster, but also flooding in the many heritage sites even in #Malolos, not to mention the aforementioned killing of community culture, livelihood, and heritage. In the “presentations” of San Miguel Corp and Silvertides to multi-sectoral and ecumenical groups, they said they’d assess the communities AFTER their project is approved; in one of those presentations, they actually say that NO COMMUNITIES will be affected. Here is a tiny bit of proof that the communities exist, that real people’s lives are tied to these waters, that relocation is NOT an answer to anything, and certainly not a solution. These communities live off the waters, and reclamation is a form of aggression that is akin to the wanton takeover of our seas. The stand should be clear: #NoToReclamation #SaveOurSeas.
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