crying my filipino heart out

i feel like crying now that the SEA Games is over.

once more i will be swept under the rug of my monotonous everyday routine of work-home- work-mall- home.

for 9 whole days the philippines and the lives of us who live here took a standstill as we watched our national athletes win gold after gold and battle after battle. we cheered them to victory if not at the stands of the different venues of the games then at home in front of our televsion screens.

we took in sharp breaths when an athlete fell off her routine in gymnastics. we exhaled with rage when our boxer was seemingly denied the points he so deserved. we fanned ourselves while watching our players send attacks over teh net to the opponents side.

we felt for them.

we were hypnotised.

yes, even politics was at a lull.

i feel proud of what our athletes have achieved in the recently concluded biennial meet. i also feel a sense of identity with the whole opening and closing ceremonies of the tournament. those programs proved that we DO have an identity no matter how much we, who love to debate, keep questioning it.

in fact i am that very sense of pride drove me to compile all the sports pages of the daily newspapaer as a souvenir for when the meet was over- win or lose.

it drove me to research about the athletes with a passion that i last felt back during high school when i too was caught up in the PBA's gordon's gin fever in 1998 and never again felt for sports.

it drove me to post the lyrics of biyahe tayo and posible on this blog as well as post messages on the bulletin board on friendster.

it made me sing the national anthem under my breath as i walked to work early in the morning.

i tried to get my friends to be as enthuisiastic about the SEA Games as i was. unfortunately not all of them were inetersted to check out what i was talking about. they only started to care after the philippines was hailed the over champion.

i now realize, perhaps some deep longing in me was touched throughout that week. a longing to be like our athletes- to also give honor to this great nation despite teh turbulence we experience everyday. i too wanted that chance to prove that the Filipino is worth going the extra mile for, no matter how cynical we are as a people. an opportunity to say to the world- Ito kami! magaling, walang kinatatakutan.

after the parade of honor and the victory party the news about the games and the south east asian region's new found heroes will die down and in a few days it will seem as if nothing happened.

i want to shout out at time to stop so we can all bask in teh glory that is the republic of the philippines, the grandeur that is our athletes and that wonder that is the united Filipino spirit.

but life surely has to move on for all of us. we're all talking about Garci and the wiretaps again, arent we? soon enough we'd be expecting television networks to show images of the meager christmas meal or noche buena that our poverty-stricken kababayans have. but we would blink and celebrate the holidays just the same and welcome the new year and eventually go back to our mundane existence.

i will simply have to enjoy looking at shiela mae perez showing off her 3 gold medals for diving, which at the moment has overruled hogwarts as my desktop theme. i will simply have to continue singing the Posible theme under my breath. i will have to keep opening my mobile phone to see toni rivero's smile, a picture of her i took with the camera phone from the screen of the tv. i will simply have to enjoy it while the hype is in me and until i too move on..

i just wonder, when will it happen again that we can have a lull such as the week of the sea games? when will we again unite? when will we again feel identity an pride in being a Filipino?

siguro masasabi ko na lang- sana malapit na yun. at sana tumagal...