I wrote that three years ago and Elson, currently on exile in Canada to try and break the Carmelite Code, found that floating in cyberspace.
Thank you, too, Elson. It's good to be reminded every now and then. Now, especially, as I read what a former Filipino left on Manolo Quezon's blog tagboard a week ago. It says "Gail Ilagan – pessimist, anti-globalist, … communist".
That was in reaction to my saying that education in the Philippines has been intended for some time now to put out cheap exportable manpower to English speaking countries. Tinamaan 'ata yung mama. He sanctimoniously shared that fresh out of the Philippine educational system, he went to Europe and that his cheap labor there made him richer than the rest of us who act global but think local.
Like, we should care. Someday soon, he's coming back to put his money in an STL franchise or something like that.
As he did not bother to rebut any of my statements, I don't know which among his festering sores throbbed with sympathetic pain enough to render him bawling mad. All those choice terms ending in "-ist" that he appended to my name sounded suspiciously libelous.
There's no end to the desperate savagery of one who has dug in his heels in the mire of denial.
I say savage because the guy obviously does not care that branding a media practitioner a communist in these times is tantamount to spelling out her death sentence. Grave threat he's making there on my person.
Manolo, Manolo, Manolo. There are some things I want to say to you – like, maybe you can prime me when you'll be linking my article so I can brace myself for the threat to my life that could follow. I really don't mind having my readership go up – as it is sure to do every time you endorse my writings – or getting those congratulatory emails and text messages that say (gasp!) "MLQ3 is your fan!" Oh, wow. Fancy that
Nope, I'm not complaining, especially as some people I've lost touch with found me again through your blog. So, like, even if I'm sporting a different surname now they kind of know only one person who writes the way I do.
I'm sure though that you can appreciate that it's somewhat disturbing to realize I might be walking down the streets of DDS County blissfully unaware that I might already be a marked person because of the suspect intelligence about my person posted by an ignorant savage on your tag board. I can't check your tag board everyday! Time is a luxury as it is.
Fortunately for me, my pals left of center generally consider my views an embarrassment that should only be met with a studious pretense at not having heard. My friends right of center, on the other hand, pat me on the head and smile indulgently every time I so much as open my mouth to say something. My friends south and north allow me my say. If they don't, they're not my friends no more.
So who's afraid of Gail Ilagan? I know – the ones who wish her ill. That's okay then. They aren't here.
Not to heckle your reader, Manolo, but I really like the part where he says he likes you instead of me. He can dream of forming that mutual admiration society ( Dream, dream, dream when I like you). You, like my pal Elson, have better judgment, not to mention better taste. I say that because you, like Elson, obviously like the fact that I write what I write when I write.
So thank you. You measure my soul and don't find it wanting.
(Wayward and Fanciful is Gail Ilagan's column for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews. Ilagan teaches Social Justice, Family Sociology, Theories of Socialization and Psychology at the Ateneo de Davao University where she is also the associate editor of Tambara. You may send comments to gail.ilagan@gmail.com. "Send at the risk of a reply," she says.)
