INSPIRATION

Inspiration is being filled with anticipation, at age 72, to physically join house-to-house campaigns and even wishing that it rains. To test, once and for all, how far one could go.

Never in my life have I seen Filipinos so moved, filled with positive energy propelled by hope. Therefore, I am moved.

With the Grand Rally in Macapagal Avenue a few days after my deadline, I am emboldened to predict at least 500,000 people in attendance. Inspired. Very much inspired. Raring to brave the hurdles thrown at them by fearful politicos, whose actions have become more puny and more pathetic each step.

Erase the murals? They will paint dozens more.

Suspend the bus rides? They will walk kilometers.

Close the roads? They will ride the bancas.

Send in the trolls? The thinking Filipinos are no longer afraid to go toe-to-toe to push back the lies and misinformation.

I seem to recall that, in 1986, days before the historic People Power Revolution, the Marcos oligarchs already knew they lost the Snap Elections. The talks in the coffee shops and the rumbles on the street were clear. They started to pack. Crates of cash and voluminous incriminating evidence.

Could there be a deja vu feeling – that there would be no coming “home” to Malacanang? After all. Nevermore?

Before, they underestimated the yellow widow and the anger of the people. This time, there is a much larger, enlightened, determined movement with a lady of rare destiny designated to inspire her countrymen out of the morass of God-cursing, women-slutting, double-talking, nation-selling, innocent lives-killing government.

These old trapos should take lessons from history that they attempt to rewrite. This is the beginning of their end.

The Leni Robredo rallies may seem like parties - with families in pink bearing gifts for the Vice President; companies giving free tocino meals, coffee, water, taho, lugaw, and such; the youth fashioning their own witty placards; rabid competing sports teams coming together to express oneness; Muslim imams and Catholic bishops issuing statements of support.

These are inspiration.

Artists drawing not just one Leni portrait.

Poets not just one poem.

Songwriters not just one song.

All for free. All welling from within.

I understand that there is a long line of bands and musicians volunteering their performances in Leni-KIko sorties, that the challenge to organizers has become the scheduling.

Never in the past elections have I seen so many celebrities openly endorsing a candidate – not unless they were paid, and handsomely at that. But here, we now see movie stars, beauty queens, popular singers and composers, and others who have resolved to face bashers and lay their successful careers on the line just to be able to speak freely.

Infectious

Inspiration could be infectious.

Local leaders are shifting alliances because their constituents are speaking louder. And not to forego the fact that, yes, there may no longer be a chance like this to correct the errors of the past, educators and former government officials are speaking up. Farmers are mounting the stage to draw the line. New voters are awakening their parents from the hypnosis of lies. Volunteers from other camps willing to admit their mistakes and defecting.

As she has expressed in an interview, Robredo is not taking any credit for these developments. She has just become a symbol, she submits. Her fate and that of a nation just so happen to meet in one crossroads, she says. But Leni is one calm person who accepts fate fully and yet would do everything in her mortal capacity to do what is best. I identify with that.

In those dark days, she spoke against the EJKs. She took a stand against the government’s capitulation to the Chinese. She was fired from the Cabinet. She was shamed. She was set up for further humiliation in the guise of making her in charge of the faltering drug war. She was accused of destroying the government (singlehandedly?). Still, she was a figure of fearlessness and principle. A Rock of Gibraltar. And people looking for their own courage quietly took note and became, now it shows, thankful.

Leni Robredo rallies may look like parties but make no mistake about it. The thwarting of hope may turn into a resolve to finally expunge this country of the malady, the cancer, the political oligarchs. It will be a nationwide force. Not just on EDSA. Not just middle class. Not just in this presidential election.