Bakolod, 2025

I told myself that this would be a chill holiday. Relaxed, stress-free.

In the midst of the Masskara madness, my feet brought me to quiet places. An old government building, a grid of dusty ancient streets, a refurbished ancestral house with no visitors.

I know nothing about this island; I wanted to learn. And so it seems the universe found ways to teach me lessons. In these places, I met Boy, Eli, Juan, and Caloy. In no particular order, one worked for the hacienderos, one is a ‘Negrense’ who cannot trace his roots, one is an offspring of a sugar baron, and one hails from a family of revolutionary cadres.

In sugar country, life is sweet. 

The heir talked proudly of his family’s legacies. "Here, have a look. Isn’t it pretty?’ The Negrense insists his family is native to the island: “They were already here when there were still railways for the sugar industry”.

The one who works for the haciendero family talks fondly of their masters: “There was no one here when they came, and so they bought the land” 

I threw them spicy questions:

“Aren’t your family settlers from Panay?”
“If you are native, how come the earliest memory of your family is tied with the azucareros?”
“If no one was here before the sugar barons arrived, then who sold them the land?”

In sugar country, life is sweet. Or so that’s what the people are made to believe. 

The one who came from a line of revolutionary cadres is an unassuming mid-thirties man in a dull crimson shirt. He spoke fondly of the sugar industry at first. I thought he drank the Kool-Aid too, and so I asked, “why did the elite launch a revolution against Spain? What’s in it for them?”

I was not sold on the first answer: “the hacienderos turned against their own because they learned to love the masses”. Until conversation branched out and I uncovered the reason for the futile answer.

Juan knew it was a lie. Not when the same elites who “liberated” the island are the same elites fattening their pockets at the expense of the poor. The same elites that antagonized the peasants who sought a more equitable share of the land they’re tilling. The conversation bled redder than the color of Juan’s shirt. At some point, we both tried to fight our tears as we shared about our stories: him, who came from a line of cadres through his family from the north. And me, who shared about the struggles of our people from this faraway island in the south. 

Juan said the revolution did not end. The people still remember, and there are many of them.

The sun came down, and I had to leave. So I thanked him for trusting me with his story and gently bade goodbye. 

He ran after me and said,

“Palawakin mo pa.”
“Ang alin, sir?”
“Ang iyong nalalaman. Palawakin mo pa.”

In the midst of the Masskara madness, there are quiet places in Bacolod. This is supposed to be a chill vacation, but Resistance does not rest.