In the wide space of the archipelago of the Philippines, there lies a realm divided into two chambers. Two dichotomies that coexist to maintain balance—light and dark, creation and destruction, truth and noise. For a time, this fragile equilibrium sustained the illusion that even in chaos, harmony could still breathe. But lately, the scale has tipped. The noise has become thunder, and darkness has begun to nest in every corner of the internet.

Some are greater than the other—quite a cruel slap in the face, but that’s how it always works. Either way, the lower one tries its very best to push through though hard—excrutiatingly hard—notably that arbitrary clings to every corner. They are so resilient to the extent where they are deprived of their own rights by the hunger and greed of those in the higher altitude.

How pathetic that the lower ones’ armor against carnage is not even a tangible thing, not iron nor steel, not a wall nor a shelter, but merely a characteristic—fragile, intangible, unable to heal any deep-rooted wound. How hypocritical, how cruel, how convenient.

But the higher ones—you may ask—where are they? They are at a slumber party. Waltzing in golden halls where chandeliers never flicker, clinking glasses filled with imported comfort. Buying every luxury known to humanity, with apathy as their most loyal companion. A lavish lifestyle woven from the smallest pennies stripped from the calloused palms of those below—pennies so insignificant to them yet enough to patch the cracks in a leaking roof, enough to buy a day’s worth of rice, enough to keep a child from sleeping with hunger gnawing at the edges of their ribs.

Enough is Enough

So when too much is too much and enough is enough. The people, particularly the Iglesia ni Cristo, gathered around and gave their resounding call sufficient, its volume enough to reach the ears of those in the higher position, though filled with nasty coverings. A cry for transparency of this very nation begging for proper liquidation of where their hard-earned pennies go, of where the farmers’ sweat bid, of where the fishermen’s tears flush, of where the public workers’ blood drop, of where everything falls. This is not merely a query that grows from curiosity but of deep-rooted rage from the people that have enough of the manipulative hands of those higher than them. 

Make them Pay!

Accountability in its conventional sense has been nothing but a grotesque and disheveled joke to those in the higher ups, making the lower ones drown—catching them breathless from the very apathy of those bigger than them. Well, a time is not a time if it’s not flowing—flowing like the golden pennies from their pockets to selfish luxuries. And so, the lower ones bid a farewell to this, they seek accountability and mend it to be back in its original meaning, going back to what’s have been. Uncovering it from being long buried—unfathomanly deep—from elsewhere. The people, albeit little by little, have a movement to make the higher one pay. Pay from the debts of the past, pay from the gnawing blunders of yesterday.

Famished for Eternal

The lower ones have been starving forever not from the diamonds nor pearls but of justice that can remove the agitating sound from their empty and barren stomach—a noise driven by hunger like a predator seeking its prey. In this archipelago, justice systems have been impaired if not flawed. But with micro-effort, doing it collectively like the rally of INC members can ripple a macro-effect that can yet flourish into something more needed. A flourishing effect that can patch up the cracks of yesterday.

Learn from the Blunders

And somewhere between the cracks of hungerness, the lower one grasps the very basic right of their existence. And when they learn from the blunders of the past. It can yet mend the little broken shards into something new, something functional. Because mistakes that are repeated only mean one thing—cowardness persists. And when they learn, everything blossoms. 

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