The 89th Constellation

There’s something about looking up a starry sky on an unclouded night sky. The Dutch genius Van Gogh showed us how deep and profound the experience can be, showcased until now and hopefully forever by his timeless masterpiece. I can’t help making that connection when the Lady from Netherlands finally arrived home, she whose raised fist has become a burning emblazon on countless minds. Many if not all who are reading this are already aware to whom she threw her full support that moment of iconic gesture, a decision that reverberated loudly when she began to write and open up the flood gates of all the pent up rage for so long lauded as resilience. Her message was clear: FUCK RESILIENCE. It is an excellent companion word for bumper sticker slogans and propagandas trapped in an echo chamber of hyperbole and bombastic overkill. It goes hand in hand with another case in point: “DAANG MATUWID.” The notion and touch of pride in it must come to an end though. Indeed, fuck resilience.

Aye, it was a heavy waking moment for many, but she walked us through her mental processes, to the nuts and bolts of it, with understandable words and phrases peppered with colloquial jocundity, firmly holding and guiding, showing us where to sidestep to avoid tons of falling shit. It was bound to occur after all, tons of shit hurled to discredit, to bring disrepute and to malign. But it was too late. For when she has shown us what’s behind the curtain, the cluster fuck of pulleys, levers and ropes that they tried so hard to hide, there was no turning back. For with the unveiling of what turned out to be fabrication, deceit and lies, there were also the glimmers of what’s possible. And once you know what's possible, it's hard to go back.

But she is just one of them, who, in that pinnacle day, that ball bearing day in which a destiny of a nation turned when one Rodrigo Roa Duterte announced he will run for President, came like a great wild storm, primal and exhilarating. They led the charge in the battlefields of what has now evolved to be the most effective and far-reaching arena: Social Media. They came armed with keen and quick minds, dazzling smarts, shafts of wit, but most important of all, breathtaking sincerity. They harnessed words designed to resonate, rounding it up to its full expressive power. They are capable of self-deprecation, quicksilver charms and veins of whimsy. When they bring out the big guns, their capacity to inspire is electrifying. All in all, their collective energy, zeal and impact made so many of the Filipino people instinctively know they can’t possibly remain unchanged.

What a charge it was, a charge that runs till now. Easily, without breaking sweat, they went about shattering manipulation of thought by mainstream media. They bombard us with cold hard facts and distilled insights that unmasked the deceptive theatrics and nauseating vileness of the other side, and logically proved why, in this moment when the national psyche knows it stands in the cusp of momentous upheaval and awakening, these will no longer work. They did not just take the winds off their sails but shattered their uppity sense of entitlement with such aplomb. Almost everyone now knows how to endearingly tease with the word “pseudo-intellectual,” waving it to their haughty faces. The table has turned on whose being laughed at. The bamboozling and hoodwinking ends here, the masses cheers in unison, in fervent aspiration, for the cavalry have arrived. With booming roar, the hooves and glint of the intellectual armors and weaponry thundered to shatter misinformation, apathy, and the daze we got stuck onto. So many of us didn’t know then how long and deep our struggle has been, the disquiet brought by losing the notion of what we can achieve if we but have one uniting call. The kabilang kubol, in their confusion on the monotonous slaps of indignity thrown their way, are slowly but surely in the process of self-destructing, their nails broken to the quick on how else they’ll sell their shit to turn the tide. Aye they can still turn the tide, but only in their dreams. The fuckers who for so long fucked us up are now themselves feeling the crunch of getting well and truly shafted.

Krizette has called the muster, of the most prominent of them who I now consider figuratively and very close to literally as stars. Stars who are part of a constellation I will in all humility and reverence name later.

So when the Lady from Netherlands came with most of them (“The Lucky 13”) to visit the hardworking Mindanaoan, one can’t help but feel the sheer wattage of such a stellar troupe shaking the rafters of Malacanan. You can also imagine the surf of rock music, thumping and cheerful, that accompanied these Social Media’s brightest Rockstars as they paid homage to the man they placed up there in the consciousness of the Filipino folk. All of them shared a breather with the man whom they defended and whose vision and deeds they tirelessly shared and expounded so it will be easily understood by those who were for so long “resilient.” Whose legacy, as Atty Trixie said, must be accurately documented and safely preserved. We cheer that night as those the other side called “Paid Trolls” gathered to hail the force of nature who now sits and takes charge of the halls where the nation’s destiny will finally be redirected. They, the prominent scholars of this new era, made us feel giddy and drunk on the possibilities; God knows they deserve that night of vignettes and glimpses.

There are more of them, who, though not there physically, were very much present in spirit. Taken altogether, they brought a new kind of blood to shimmer from under our skins. They gifted us with the mental jolts, the click of all the important conduits of our heart, brain and soul. They hurled our way lifelines the emotional tugs of which are potent enough to change lives. They did all these in an intoxicating dance of intellects glittering brightly and complimenting each other. In their elements, there is grace and economy of precise gestures but breathtaking deluge of movements as well if called for by the stirring beat. When we started following them there was heaviness and thickness at first, freighted with an ominous sense this might somewhat be only temporary. But oh, how they splendidly vanquished our doubts, sending it eddying in spirals to darkness’ maw! It has become brighter, he sits in the Presidential Office now and an all-star cast has his back, warriors that were there from the start.

The degree of brightness of each one of them is up to us. Shaped by our own convictions and life experiences, we might favor one over the other. The difference is only in degree though, never in kind.

Someday, when great things has come to pass in the reshaping of a nation for so long shorn and shaven its full potential, allowing it at last to soar to heights it once thought elusive, we’ll all look back. The secret of starry nights is that it is magic in itself, a promise of spell binding beauty when darkness tries to swallow our part of the world. It is also when the most intimate and secret tendrils that curl through our minds become awash with the glow of starlight, some twining around the songs and tributes (or in this modern times, posts) that lifted our spirits. No wonder that the Greeks, on these warm and tender and diamond studded nights, named many constellations after their heroes. They didn’t forget the stars of course, immortalizing them with the characters worthy of the heroic standards of their days too. These twinkling lights deserve it, for theirs is the promise that after the dazzle of the sun flaming red then dying at the end of the day, the canvass of the night holds promise for a sight that is balm for soul.

And someday when the era of the Eagle of the South comes to an end, ushering forth a new Philippines where ‘hope’, ‘change’, and ‘awakening’ falls easy from everyone’s lips, when the despair that has shackled the powerless and the disinherited vanishes, the heroes of that period will be inevitably immortalized as well. And when, as a part of the poem by Walter de La Mare goes:” silence surged softly backward when the plunging hoofs were gone,” these warriors, whose selfless and courageous dedication in the forefront of the battles that won the war, will earn their rightful place. Ever so brightly will they blaze in the grand pantheon of stars marking a nation’s historic turning point. From there, they will grace the night sky above an archipelago of seven thousand one hundred seven islands given a chance of rebirth, all because one man took it upon himself to spend his twilight years to, in borrowing from the words of Sir Mark Lopez, “with uncanny and unorthodox ways, unburden a nation.”

And that is why all of them will make up the brilliance of a constellation that will bear the name:

“DUTERTUS.”

This piece was written as a tribute to the social media warriors by George Daniel Anos aka "The Rockstar," whose Facebook moniker is simply impossible to pronounce. According to him, the inspiration in writing this piece came whilst he was teaching Celestial Navigation. There are 88 constellations known and when a new star is discovered, astronomers just add it up to the nearest one. 88 constellations known, until now. To follow him and link to his profile, click on the image above.