to my surprise, watching news video of the greenhills mass for jun lozada, in particular the singing of bayan ko, brought goose pimples. what a rare sight. the church-going middle-class with fists raised, many with great gusto, some self-consciously, and a few who just wouldn’t, or couldn’t, yet. oh, and one who flashed the L (laban) sign instead. never mind, they’ll get around to it, once they’re mad enough, and engaged enough, in the struggle for nation.

so is this a triumph for the communist left, that the raised fist has become the signal, too, of middle-class resistance? i think not. i think it’s mostly just the appeal of that palaban posture — it feels right (never mind that it’s left) and feels appropriate to the situation, as in dramatic and fraught with tension. ideologically, however, the middle-class is more rejectionist (RJ) than reaffirmative (RA) of joma sison, which is a great divide.

so how do we tell them apart, the true leftists from the bourgeois middle-class? i’m not sure about RJs, but certainly RAs raise left fists, burgis churchgoers raise the right.

GMA: Resign Now! is the call of Action for Economic Reforms.

The Philippines is not lacking in laws and institutions against corruption and plunder . . .

“Much effort has been undertaken to address chronic corruption . . .

“Despite all this, what is missing is the simplest answer to the problem: Fighting corruption is a question of leadership.

“Since the leadership itself is brazenly engaged in  plunder, corruption remains unabated . . .

“The plunder exemplified by the ZTE-NBN deal goes all the way up to GMA . . .

“With GMA’s repeated betrayal of the public trust, she has no right to sit as President a minute longer.”

the problem is, it’s also true what anti-opposition (not necessarily pro-gma) forces are saying: replacing her with noli de castro or manny villar or mar roxas or loren legarda or chiz escudero or brother eddie or, even, fvr, or, even, god forbid, erap, will again mean a cosmetic, rather than deep-seated change. i don’t see any of them (or anyone on the horizon) capable of surprising us with a pro-filipino vision and pro-filipino program of government, much less someone with a handle on political currents local and global who truly believes in the filipino and has the charisma to inspire and unite us fractious filipinos into a creative whole, rising above our divided selves and finding common grounds and new, equitable, ways of relating and dealing and doing business with each other for each other.

but then mataas ang pangarap ko para sa bayan. someday, sana. hope springs eternal. meanwhile, really, it’s impossible not to be affected by jun lozada’s revelations, not because they’re so surprising, but just because they confirm our suspicions about every big government transaction, suspicions handed down, in my case, by my parents and grandparents.

so yes, gma, resign! to signal man lang that it’s not okay, how she’s using the power, not even if it were true that the economy was booming.

so yes, i’m even willing to settle for noli de castro. manny and mar and loren and chiz will just have to grin and bear it, for the sake of the whole.