Perhaps if I die in the mountains of Negros

Perhaps if I die in the mountains of Negros

my family will be the most surprised of all

not for the reason that I died,

but for the fact that it is somewhere else not home.

My cousins will not be writing long posts 

in memoriam,

but they will surely launch an online war 

against keyboard warriors who would leave 

laugh reacts to posts about me.

Perhaps if I die in the mountains of Negros,

my friends will wonder what on earth I was doing there

the same way they did 

when I visited Bacolod

out of the blue

to fill a quota just to reach that Mabuhay Miles elite status. 

My friends know I prefer the sea over the mountains

but they also know 

that my feet have a mind of their own

and they often bring me to places

I did not even intend to be 

until I am already there;

but my friends will recall 

my first trip to the island

and

my rants about the sugar barons

and the struggling peasants

even though I have only been there

for just three days.

Perhaps if I die in the mountains of Negros

some of my acquaintances

will embrace the thought, 

introduced by people who do not know me,

that I have took up arms and became 

a “terrorist”

after all, I have always complained about injustice,

spoke against oppression ,

(ColonialismZionismCapitalismImperalismChildrenDyingPeopleSufferingForTheBenefitOfTheUltra-richWhileTheViolentStateMachineryStandsByToKeepThisSystemRunning)

and encouraged everyday resistance.

These three things, 

after all,

make a terrorist.

They will forget

that we used to share a meal, a laugh, an afternoon;

forget 

what they knew about me;

forget that we,

actually,

share the same values;

and from then on, 

they will remember me

not from their memory

but from what others told them I am.

When I was younger, I had this ambition 

to review every brand of Filipino corned beef.

I will eventually be labeled one of them; 

it will either be a generic, brandless “kornbip”

but in bold, gleaming, red letters.

Perhaps if I die in the mountains of Negros

strangers will scour my social media accounts

and lose their way on my empty linkedin profile

and find their way in my travel albums.

Some will say that I have wasted my potential,

my experience; 

to have the privileges of mobility

and foreign education

only to die fighting for nothing.

They will not bother to verify

the factuality 

of their assumptions,

nor will they read or care

about the condolences and memorials

written by 

relatives with long military lineage

from my paternal grandmother’s side 

because that does not fit 

the narrative.

Should I die in the mountains of Negros,

the worst that I will lose is not my life

but my agency; 

as people whom I know not

would be drafting elaborate tales about me.

Like RJ and Alyssa

I will be branded

a brandless kornbip

terrorist

for dying where people die every day

just because 

I was expected to die somewhere else.