The radio on my cab going to Ortigas today was on DZXL 558, with one of the Tulfo brothers hosting. The topic of conversation was HB 5043, or the Reproductive Health Bill. His guests were Cong. Defensor, who is for the RH Bill, an archbishop and a representative from the Buhay Party-List, who were against it.
Here is what I remember of what they said:
Cong. Defensor only elaborated on the provisions of the bill, mainly government funding for population control programs, including contraceptives and prophylactics. He emphasized that the bill is still anti-abortion, despite its call for government-funded family planning methods.
The Archbishop (I didn't get his name, a very telling miss on my part) argued quite sensibly, I think, and "not as a Catholic," he said, for the risk of bloodying the hands of some unwitting user of a possibly abortive drug. Do we really want someone unknowingly committing the sin of abortion, he asked. Would we want such a burden on someone's shoulders?
The Buhay party-list rep echoed the point of the Archbishop, with less sense and wit.
These three were not simultaneous guests in the program, but were interviewed consecutively. After these phone-ins, Tulfo summarized the entire thing by saying that overpopulation is not a problem, because people are assets. See how our millions of OFWs save our economy with their remittances, he said. Look at China's population, he said, there's a whole lot more of them, and they're doing fine.
What is wrong with this picture? Wait, let me rephrase. Where do I start, with all that is wrong in this picture? And I am not even going to touch Tulfo's smirking remarks with a ten-foot pole.
So let me avoid tearing out my hair. This is my problem: Where is the woman's voice in all this?
Why were the guest all men? And with Tulfo leading the pack, sounding very smug and TNL, agreeing enthusiastically with his last two guests, while being lukewarm and not at all encouraging with the first, there was not a single female voice, nor a single statement for the female in that discussion.
Why this is important to me, is obvious, if you will simply dismiss me as a feminist. But consider my basic point, that the whole contraception issue should be a woman's decision. This is not a feminist statement, it is biological. If your reproductive system can't house a baby, then sorry, your inputs here are peripheral.
So again: Where is the woman's voice in all this?
This is what I am trying to say: The fact of pregnancy, and the question of abortion, is a female problem, by virtue of our biology. And if we choose to keep our reproductive organs, then we have to be given the right to decide what goes on, and what goes in there. Be it the consent to sex, the decision to avoid pregnancy, the fact of pregnancy, and the trial of letting it go. Sure, the last decision may be affected by what a guy has to say ("I'll marry you" more often than not standing for "I want the baby"), but it is the woman and her body who will go through the pregnancy--all nine months of it. Is it too much to ask that the decision be hers?
And for all the arguments and discussions and posters (See Notes below) on the RH Bill, has there been any on the basis of biology? And its lopsided possibilities, its general inevitability?
As an environmental science major, let me say that overpopulation is a problem. Put that with poverty, the inequitable distribution and access to wealth and resources, then you have the root of all our major environmental problems all over the world. Not to mention the general "history of inequity" of this country.
As someone who finished college--hell, high school even--let me say that education is a major factor in the decision-making that women go through before they consider sex and what they do about it and its consequences when the deed is done.
As someone who is not Catholic, let me say that I appreciate, and find beautiful, the collective act of looking after our souls.
But as a woman, let me say this: I am my body, too. Let me.
***
NOTES:
1. Click here for the full text of HB 5043. Here's another.
2. Oist, believe me, this is the most serious I've been tackling this issue. And I have to say, the most I've enjoyed is retelling the anti-RH Bill posters all over Iloilo City around December last year: No to HB 5043: No to abortion. Yes to life. No to free sex. (Yes to prostitution?)
3. Seriously, though, my point is not for or against the Bill. That's your decision.
4. What can I say? When the talk's of sex and the body, I get fired up.
5. "I am woman, hear me roar."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Games people play.
I. 20 Questions
1. Name the number. Number all the names.
2. Right or wrong?
3. Wrong, and write.
***
4. Boxers vs. briefs?
5. Briefer and briefer.
6. Briefed.
***
7. Let's play catch-up!
8. Catch up! The game began long ago.
9. Catch up? The game began long ago...
10. Catch, v.: To save?
11. Catch, n.: A trap.
***
11. Draw a straw.
12. Luck of the draw.
13. Thirteen.
***
14. And so it goes.
15. So how goes it?
16. ...
17. I drew the same blank, baby.
***
18. Neither here nor there.
19. Look elsewhere?
20. Time's up.
1. Name the number. Number all the names.
2. Right or wrong?
3. Wrong, and write.
***
4. Boxers vs. briefs?
5. Briefer and briefer.
6. Briefed.
***
7. Let's play catch-up!
8. Catch up! The game began long ago.
9. Catch up? The game began long ago...
10. Catch, v.: To save?
11. Catch, n.: A trap.
***
11. Draw a straw.
12. Luck of the draw.
13. Thirteen.
***
14. And so it goes.
15. So how goes it?
16. ...
17. I drew the same blank, baby.
***
18. Neither here nor there.
19. Look elsewhere?
20. Time's up.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The perfect is forgotten.
I never take afternoon naps, and I never sleep in the middle of a book.
Or I would have said that, before I did both at the same time, quite some time ago.
You had just left the house for work, and I picked up the book to pretend I didn't mind the alone. It was a good book, too, but far too close to home to sit well.
Or far too close to leaving, I should say. I was leaving.
So it seemed the perfect time to do what one doesn't usually do, so close to leaving. Fall in love, live in one house, go to work. Read books, take naps.
I didn't actually mean to take a nap. That was self defense. The book was on to something I would've appreciated not knowing at that time.
***
We had a schedule, you remember? You'd wake up at around 9, work on your thesis. I'd sleep til an hour later. Then we'd have coffee, and a bit of breakfast if you felt hungry enough to cook. Then you'd go back to work, and I would pretend to start packing my things. Then it was off to lunch, mostly at the school cafeteria, after which you'd be off to work. And so would I.
But I didn't have work that day, did I? Or perhaps I told you I didn't, hoping you wouldn't too. The weeks had trickled down to days--hours really--and I didn't feel like following the same schedule with so little time left. We had taken it for granted, all those weeks, and I wanted to tell you, Fuck the schedule.
But then you'd come home around 6, like you always did. And we'd have dinner and drinks with friends at that bar--what was it called again? No matter. We'd come home, make love, sleep. We couldn't fuck the schedule, we were too busy perfecting it.
How could we forget?
***
When I said I was pretending to pack my things, I really was packing my things. I would work at the kitchen table, near the window where I could smoke. Near the window that we never closed, despite the weather slowly turning to winter. I was typing up all the stuff I'd written in scattered notebooks across the two years, putting them in little files in my laptop.
Paper packs really tight, and heavy.
Computer files, on the other hand, weighed nothing. This is scientific fact. A laptop with as much free space as a clean slate weighed exactly the same as the same laptop packed to overflowing.
The same couldn't be said for my suitcase.
***
I couldn't carry everything home with me, as it was.
Most especially the book, since it was yours. So I was determined to finish it before I had to leave. I was lying in bed, that same afternoon I didn't mean to take a nap, just right after you gave me a kiss goodbye. I had opened it up to the last chapter, I think. I finished that book, I'm sure now, because I remember that last sentence. Then I fell asleep.
***
Or I forced myself to sleep. In any case, I remember waking up, thinking you'd come home. I thought I saw you at the bedroom door.
I got up and went down the stairs, but you weren't there. I was dreaming, godammit. I was dreaming and now I was awake, 2 long hours more to wait. I went to the kitchen and shove the 2 burners open, it was cold. It was 4PM, and only October, and it was friggin' cold. Colder I think for it being only summer a few weeks ago.
I sat down at the kitchen table for a cigarette, and that's when I notice it: The window was closed.
***
All this was quite some time ago. But sometimes, that window bothers me. Did you close it, or did I?
I had forgotten all this, to tell the truth. But I still have all those files in my laptop, and its memory, by God, far, far better than mine.
Or I would have said that, before I did both at the same time, quite some time ago.
You had just left the house for work, and I picked up the book to pretend I didn't mind the alone. It was a good book, too, but far too close to home to sit well.
Or far too close to leaving, I should say. I was leaving.
So it seemed the perfect time to do what one doesn't usually do, so close to leaving. Fall in love, live in one house, go to work. Read books, take naps.
I didn't actually mean to take a nap. That was self defense. The book was on to something I would've appreciated not knowing at that time.
***
We had a schedule, you remember? You'd wake up at around 9, work on your thesis. I'd sleep til an hour later. Then we'd have coffee, and a bit of breakfast if you felt hungry enough to cook. Then you'd go back to work, and I would pretend to start packing my things. Then it was off to lunch, mostly at the school cafeteria, after which you'd be off to work. And so would I.
But I didn't have work that day, did I? Or perhaps I told you I didn't, hoping you wouldn't too. The weeks had trickled down to days--hours really--and I didn't feel like following the same schedule with so little time left. We had taken it for granted, all those weeks, and I wanted to tell you, Fuck the schedule.
But then you'd come home around 6, like you always did. And we'd have dinner and drinks with friends at that bar--what was it called again? No matter. We'd come home, make love, sleep. We couldn't fuck the schedule, we were too busy perfecting it.
How could we forget?
***
When I said I was pretending to pack my things, I really was packing my things. I would work at the kitchen table, near the window where I could smoke. Near the window that we never closed, despite the weather slowly turning to winter. I was typing up all the stuff I'd written in scattered notebooks across the two years, putting them in little files in my laptop.
Paper packs really tight, and heavy.
Computer files, on the other hand, weighed nothing. This is scientific fact. A laptop with as much free space as a clean slate weighed exactly the same as the same laptop packed to overflowing.
The same couldn't be said for my suitcase.
***
I couldn't carry everything home with me, as it was.
Most especially the book, since it was yours. So I was determined to finish it before I had to leave. I was lying in bed, that same afternoon I didn't mean to take a nap, just right after you gave me a kiss goodbye. I had opened it up to the last chapter, I think. I finished that book, I'm sure now, because I remember that last sentence. Then I fell asleep.
***
Or I forced myself to sleep. In any case, I remember waking up, thinking you'd come home. I thought I saw you at the bedroom door.
I got up and went down the stairs, but you weren't there. I was dreaming, godammit. I was dreaming and now I was awake, 2 long hours more to wait. I went to the kitchen and shove the 2 burners open, it was cold. It was 4PM, and only October, and it was friggin' cold. Colder I think for it being only summer a few weeks ago.
I sat down at the kitchen table for a cigarette, and that's when I notice it: The window was closed.
***
All this was quite some time ago. But sometimes, that window bothers me. Did you close it, or did I?
I had forgotten all this, to tell the truth. But I still have all those files in my laptop, and its memory, by God, far, far better than mine.
Is writing. Is.
-Where is it?
-Here.
-Really? Where? I can't see it.
-It's just here.
-Is it sleeping?
-Maybe. C'mon! Wouldn't be answering if it were sleeping.
-Right. Maybe.
-You get some sleep.
-Right. Maybe.
-Here.
-Really? Where? I can't see it.
-It's just here.
-Is it sleeping?
-Maybe. C'mon! Wouldn't be answering if it were sleeping.
-Right. Maybe.
-You get some sleep.
-Right. Maybe.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
In The Night Orchard
In The Night Orchard
R. T. Smith
I know, because Paul has told me
a hundred times, that the deer
gliding tonight through tangleweed
and trashwood, then bounding across
Mount Atlas Road, are after his pears.
And who could blame them?
On the threshold of autumn, the Asian
imports, more amazing than any Seckle
or indigenous apple, start to ripen.
Then a passing crow will peck one open.
That's when the whitetails who bed
and gather beyond Matson's pasture
will catch the scent and begin to stir.
It's a dry time, and they go slowly mad
for sweetness. No fence can stop them.
The farmers like Paul will admit
it starts in hunger, but how suddenly
need goes to frenzy and sheer plunder.
When the blush-gold windfalls are gone
and the low boughs are stripped
of anything resembling bounty, bucks
will rise on their hind legs and clamber
up the trunks. Last week Cecil Emore
found one strangled in a fork,
his twisted antlers tangled as if
some hunter had hung him there
to cure. We all remember what it's like,
this driven season, this delirium
for something not yet given a name,
but the world turns us practical, tames
us to yearn for milder pleasures.
For Augustine, it was actual pears
that brought him out of the shadows
and over a wall, for Eve, the secret
inside what we now say was an apple.
Others have given up safety for less,
and I wonder, catching an eight-point
buck outlined on the ridge amid spruce,
if it's this moonstruck nature that renders
the ruminants beautiful, or if we stalk
them out of envy, not for the grace
of their gliding, but for the unadorned
instinct that draws them after dark
into trespass and the need to ruin
the sweetest thing they've ever known.
"In The Night Orchard" by R. T. Smith, from Brightwood. (c) Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
R. T. Smith
I know, because Paul has told me
a hundred times, that the deer
gliding tonight through tangleweed
and trashwood, then bounding across
Mount Atlas Road, are after his pears.
And who could blame them?
On the threshold of autumn, the Asian
imports, more amazing than any Seckle
or indigenous apple, start to ripen.
Then a passing crow will peck one open.
That's when the whitetails who bed
and gather beyond Matson's pasture
will catch the scent and begin to stir.
It's a dry time, and they go slowly mad
for sweetness. No fence can stop them.
The farmers like Paul will admit
it starts in hunger, but how suddenly
need goes to frenzy and sheer plunder.
When the blush-gold windfalls are gone
and the low boughs are stripped
of anything resembling bounty, bucks
will rise on their hind legs and clamber
up the trunks. Last week Cecil Emore
found one strangled in a fork,
his twisted antlers tangled as if
some hunter had hung him there
to cure. We all remember what it's like,
this driven season, this delirium
for something not yet given a name,
but the world turns us practical, tames
us to yearn for milder pleasures.
For Augustine, it was actual pears
that brought him out of the shadows
and over a wall, for Eve, the secret
inside what we now say was an apple.
Others have given up safety for less,
and I wonder, catching an eight-point
buck outlined on the ridge amid spruce,
if it's this moonstruck nature that renders
the ruminants beautiful, or if we stalk
them out of envy, not for the grace
of their gliding, but for the unadorned
instinct that draws them after dark
into trespass and the need to ruin
the sweetest thing they've ever known.
"In The Night Orchard" by R. T. Smith, from Brightwood. (c) Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
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