A hundred and sixteen years.

It's Independence Day here but I am not in any mood to celebrate with what my country has been doing with its freedom for 116 years. Maybe its because of my activist of a father, or the liberal university that I'm still in. I grew up with my father's own tales of college life under the Martial Law (/fashion/ tip: look up Imelda's sea of the shoes). Occasionally, he'll bring me to rallies, to meeting places and headquarters. Still, I remained to be hopeful about the government and everything around me, just as any kid would do. But just as kids would do, I eventually stopped believing in tooth fairies, and prince charmings, and Santa Claus.

Furthermore, beliefs continue crashing down when I entered college. The campus is infamous for turning believers to critical thinkers - religion, sexuality, politics. It's the university that most parents frown upon; the university that my mother actually warned me about. On my first semester, I took a class on being Filipino but we ended up questioning what it means. The following year, a class on art turned out to be a study on the society. History classes revealed the biases that my basic education text books had. Heroes turned into proud, selfish bigots. Dreams and shouts of long ago remained as they were: dreams, shouts of long ago. Despite it all, there are reasons to remain hopeful.

I've always wondered why my father quit school and a scholarship in a prestigious university. In our visit to his university one day, he repeated his answer to that same question asked by the college dean forty years ago, "I can't stay inside when my people out there needs me most".