The Finicky Squid

The return of my Sunday reflection habit, #ThePersistenceOfAMustardSeed

Cross-posted from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/surviving-absurdity-together

May 10, 2026 | Sixth Sunday of Easter | Mothers’ Day

Philippine politics feels like everyone publicly flinging mud, semantics, and emotional damage at each other while ordinary people try to survive inflation, burnout, and adulthood. Official government communication sounds like internet clapbacks and meme culture. But at the same time, some political statements have become so absurd that you almost understand why people respond that way, which is… not exactly comforting either.

Res ipsa loquitur.

“As expected, because the entire administration is not working, especially the President,” [Vice President Sara] Duterte said in a mix of Filipino and English at The Hague in the Netherlands on May 7. “What you should be doing is focusing on your work. When you don’t focus on your work, that’s what happens, unemployment increases, we borrow more and more,” the Vice President said. Responding to Duterte’s remarks, Palace press officer Claire Castro said the vice president may not be updated on facts and may not have seen the president’s work on social media because “she admitted that she didn’t know how to use a computer.” “She said the President is not working. That’s sad,” Castro said. “[The vice president] admitted that she doesn’t know how to use a computer. She only uses the most expensive laptop. She only uses it for her Zoom. Again, she doesn’t know what’s going on, what the President is working on.”

This exchange stemmed from Duterte dismissing rumors that she threw a laptop at lawyer Michael Poa, spokesperson for her defense team in her impeachment case.

“I don’t use a laptop because I don’t know how to use a computer. For all documents, I just rely on my colleagues in the office. The only time I use a laptop is during Zoom meetings so the image looks better on Zoom,” she added. The vice president also said she personally bought her laptop because the government supposedly could not afford the type of unit she wanted. “I wouldn’t throw my laptop because it’s mine personally. If it gets damaged, I’d also be the one to spend money to buy a new one,” Duterte said.

🤦

I sometimes wonder if the people we mock as bobotante understand something the supposedly learned among us refuse to admit: that for many Filipinos, politics has long stopped feeling like public service and started feeling like a noontime variety show. When the system itself feels ridiculous, people stop asking who is morally best and start asking kung kaninong contest sila pipila at sasali, who might help them get through the day—even if it’s just “tatlong Lucky Me at tatlong kilong bigas.”

And maybe in their eyes, we are the bobotante: privileged people who speak about principles, due process, and democracy, yet when systems fail, we often still have ways to shield ourselves or leave, while they are the ones who bear the unfiltered brunt of those failures. Why can't we understand them?

Which is perhaps the more discomforting thought.

It has been 231 days or 33 weeks or 7 months & 19 days since the first #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch on September 21, 2025.

Today's Mass Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051026.cfm

The readings reminded me of something I realized over the years: you cannot place your ultimate trust in men, politics, or institutions. Not because the world is hopeless, but because human beings are flawed, absurd and fragile. Hope begins when we place our trust in God instead, and from there find others trying, imperfectly, to do good together.

As usual, the Feast topic this Sunday matched the Mass readings. The talk was about “community,” but the lesson that stayed with me was this: “Real love requires difficult conversations.”

Because you care for your sister or brother, you correct them to prevent harm from coming to them. But that is not a license to criticize everyone nang walang pakundangan. One of the guidelines flashed onscreen was: “Offer viewpoint with humility, saying, ‘I may be wrong.’”

Much of what is needed to build a truly lasting community is humility. And perhaps that is what is missing (aside from critical thinking) in so much of our public discourse now. Everyone wants to be a winner, so they resort to acting like monkeys riding unicycles, eating broken glass shards, or dancing on burning coals just for the sake of winning, when what we really need is more humility. More listening. More gratitude when people correct us out of concern rather than malice. More people trying, imperfectly, to tell each other the truth in love.

Perhaps this is how we survive the absurdity around us without turning into animals ourselves, and how we remain human inside this system: showing up in community even when life is hard. “Magmahal at magpamahal ka.”▪️

#ThePersistenceOfAMustardSeed

November 30 marks the start of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year: a fresh cycle, a new hope.

Cross-posted from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/a-new-liturgical-year

September 21 to November 30, 2025. Eleven Sundays.

In that span of time, I wrote nine pieces — some short, some long, some more like rants than essays. They became small markers between the first and second #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch. I did not always write a reflection on a Sunday; some days I simply shared a homily or a photo. They were my way of recording of the passage of time.

Has anything changed in these past ten weeks? I honestly do not know.

What I do know is that I tried my best to “remember as resistance.” I tried not to look away. But this doesn’t mean I want to live constantly sad or angry or exhausted. No one can survive on outrage alone.

People say the best revenge is a life well lived. I do not know if that fully applies here, but I do know that even in a country weighed down by corruption, there are still many things to be grateful for. Gratitude, however, does not mean complacency and joy does not mean comfort. We still have to move, act and speak with the steady conviction that the story is larger than what we see.

November 30 marks the start of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year: a fresh cycle, a new hope.

The Second Reading and the Gospel remind us to "awake from sleep," to "throw off the works of darkness," to "put on the armor of light" and to "conduct ourselves properly as in the day," for "at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

And so #ThePersistenceOfAMustardSeed begins again, no longer only about linking Sunday readings to politics and protest, but about faith as it unfolds in my own life through whatever joys, questions and ordinary moments each week brings.

May today's protests go well and may everyone be kept safe from harm.

November 9, 2025, San Pablo City, Philippines

7 weeks after the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch

This essay began as part of my Sunday reflection habit — small attempts to make sense of faith, travel, memory, and my country. I started writing it while Typhoon Uwan (International Name: Fung-Wong) was approaching. I shared it on Substack as my first post.

Amid the warnings of an impending big storm and my parents' urging to leave home early para maunahan ang bagyo before the roads to Metro Manila get blocked by flood or debris, I found myself listening to "Salita by Diyos, Salita ng Buhay" on YouTube. I had a migraine the day before and missed the 6:00 AM Mass.

The readings spoke about rivers and the sacredness of God's temples. The homilies, both online and later at actual Mass, didn't discuss the connections forming in my mind; perhaps it was because these thoughts about how human choices nurture or destroy the places we call home were triggered by memories from recent travels.

The First Reading spoke of a flowing river where “every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish.... Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail," while the Psalms talked about how "the waters of the river gladden the city of God..."

I remembered crossing the Mekong River in Vietnam exactly one week before. It is a huge, brown body of water that, according to our tour guide, blesses everyone who lives near it, its delta enriched by fertile soil where animals, fruits, herbs and vegetables thrive. I recalled the small twitch of envy I felt when I observed this; the scenery of this part of Vietnam brought back memories of tagging along Lola Tiya, my great grand aunt, to feed chickens in the bukid, making our way around fruit trees and termite mounds. It reminded me of childhood road trips across Laguna, Batangas and Quezon during the Holy Week, the mangrove paddle boat ride near the Underground River in Palawan and the Loboc River cruise and lunch in Bohol. Vietnam and the Philippines felt so similar but I found myself questioning, why was their fresh food cheaper and more abundant? How many of our poor would benefit if nutritious food were this accessible at home?

But the approaching storm brought to mind how the same nourishing river can become a raging one, fierce and untamed. The contrast reminded me how nature can sustain us when we work with it, and devastate us when we refuse to respect its rhythms.

This naturally led me to think of our country's flood control dilemma.

It is idiocy to think one can "contain" a river with flimsy fences. Aside from the use of durable, standard materials, innovative engineering favors nature-based solutions, including respecting the river's natural path and anticipating where water will overflow.

Alas, how can I expect those in charge of our country's flood control projects to respect nature when they cannot even respect their own souls?

The Second Reading and the Gospel talked about temples: how our human bodies are the Holy Spirit’s dwelling place and how Jesus' righteous anger spurred him to drive out the filth that was polluting His Father's house.

The image of a whip-wielding Jesus flipping money tables is easy to romanticize. One is tempted to connect it to the storm: frightening for its destruction yet welcome for the cleansing it will bring. Maybe this is how a system grounded in self-interest, one that dishonors nature and human life, begins to be dismantled. But these are the dark thoughts of someone safe from the wild winds and heavy rain.

And there are so, so many who are not.

With that sobering thought, I prayed for forgiveness. Perhaps someone out there will understand that I do not write from a place of superiority but from a place of horror, pity and aching helplessness. How and why have we allowed ourselves to be treated this way? How did a neighboring nation I grew up hearing was “poorer” than our country “overtake” us? I’m not claiming our histories are identical — each country carries its own wounds and turning points — but the divergence still stings.

I also prayed for a small and quiet change in all our hearts, na sana, sa kalagitnaan ng lahat ng ito ay mamulat tayo na, to borrow from Nora Aunor's character Elsa, "Tayo ang gumagawa ng himala. Tayo ang gumagawa ng mga sumpa at mga diyos."

In the middle of this storm, one predicted to be immense, I realized something:

The miracle we need is not for bad officials to suffer.

Because they will not.

They will continue untouched.

The miracle we need is for us, the people, especially the poor who carry the weight of every calamity, to see clearly that the officials who repeatedly fail us must be replaced, and replaced not by anyone loud or popular, but by the good people already in government.

Because they exist. They are there, the unseen minority.

Just because something is widespread does not make it right.

The majority is not always the truth.

Change starts within each of us, the redemption of a sentence that has been bastardized by politicians: "Ako mismo."

And perhaps, like any river after a storm, our country can find a clearer course again… if enough of us finally choose to flow toward what is true.▪️

November 3, 2025, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/thoughts-while-walking-through-the

The seeds for this reflection were planted a few days ago, when a fellow Filipino I met during the Cu Chi Tunnels tour asked me, “Why doesn’t the Philippines have a museum like the War Remnants Museum?”

At the time, I didn’t have an answer. I hadn’t been there yet. My only thought was that history is written by the victors. Vietnam won the war, so they got to tell their story. The narrative would have been different if the U.S. had won.

1. Timing

Now that I’m here, walking through the museum, I keep thinking about timing.

The U.S. invaded the Philippines in the early 1900s, long before they invented chemicals like Agent Orange. And yet I remember my college Philippine History class, when Prof. Mateo mentioned that the Philippines was where American soldiers first tested torture techniques they would later use in Vietnam — including water torture.

We were invaded at a time when photography wasn’t advanced. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War unfolded in the era of film, portable cameras and photojournalism, when images could travel across the world and shape public opinion. Newspapers and magazines could shock people into outrage. Photographs could push governments to retreat.

But images of the Philippine-American War do exist on the Internet. And that brings me back to the question my fellow tourist asked: why, indeed, do we not have a similar museum in our country?

I don’t even know what to feel.

Am I… thankful? That our war happened before these technologies and weapons existed? Because if the U.S. had invaded us in the 1960s, we might have suffered the same chemical horrors.

But then another thought hit me: what if Filipinos had won that war in the 1900s? Who would we be now?

I know these thoughts are jumbled. I’m not a historian. What little I know comes from fiction and essays. But this museum has left me spiraling through questions I didn’t expect to confront today.

2. Curation

The curators of this museum knew exactly what they were doing. They placed the suffering of the Vietnamese people on the second floor. And then on the third floor were the photographs about American soldiers.

Siyempre, dumaan muna ako sa second floor, so by the time I climbed to the third, naiinis na ako sa Americans. I had already absorbed the grief and trauma downstairs. The sequencing was deliberate, strategic.

In Pokémon terms: “It’s super effective.”

And then near the end were photos of the Vietnamese taken by a Japanese photographer. My irritation dissolved into sadness. I was just left feeling sorry for everyone — for the whole stupid war, and the madness of it all.

3. Other Questions

Then another thought surfaced: Bakit nga ba sobrang takot ang U.S. noon sa communism? Were they truly afraid of the ideology, or afraid of losing their position in the world order?

On the way here, I had been reading Ambeth Ocampo’s Martial Law essays. And suddenly, that line from an old song played in my head, “Ang lahat ng bagay ay magkaugnay; magkaugnay ang lahat.” He had kept asking: What could Marcos have been thinking during those years?

Looking at the exhibits today, perhaps Marcos was closely watching his neighbors — for instance, the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, an American-sponsored dictator. How much of our own history was shaped by events unfolding around us?

4. From History to Work

Later still, as I moved from room to room, my mind wandered to work—strange how that happens—and the irony that here I am, mentally side-eyeing Americans after reading about war histories, while earning my paycheck from a company headquartered in the U.S.

The world is funny like that. Nothing is black and white. Sometimes the thing you resent is also the thing that pays your bills. And sometimes the thing that feeds you carries its own complicated past.

5. The Importance of Storytelling

This museum made me think of the tangled relationship between the Philippines and the U.S., especially when seen beside Vietnam’s painful past.

So thank you to the curators of the War Remnants Museum, for reminding me that the way a story is told matters because the order in which we encounter information shapes the way we understand it.

I wonder how differently I would be thinking now if I had started from the third floor instead of the second.

And yes, I also wish we had a museum like this back home. ▪️

A candid snapshot of frustration during a confusing week of class suspensions and political noise.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/performative-measures

October 14, 2025 | Tuesday | 3 weeks and 2 days since the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch

Another day, another set of thoughts:

Naiinis ako sa mga nagsasabi na tiisin na lang daw ang current president kasi mas malala raw kung yung current VP ang pumalit.

Eh haller?!! Di ako nagpakasingle ng ganito katagal para lang ibaba ang standards ko dahil wala raw akong choice.

There’s always a choice.

And I choose to reject both.

Mabuhay ang mga single. 😘

Kidding aside, suspicious talaga itong pagsuspend sa face to face classes because of the spread of influenza like illnesses and to prepare for the next earthquake. Hello? Wala na po tayo sa COVID-19 era and base sa huli kong pagkakaalam tungkol sa earth science, never naman napredict ng tao kung kelan lilindol. At saka meron bang mga taong makakagawa ng agarang, pinag-aralang construction to strengthen classrooms and buildings should they find anything in the supposed ocular inspections? As if di namin alam na may mga bidding at kung anu-ano pang mga processes na kailangang maganap bago magkaroon ng aksyon. These are all 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 measures without any real substance.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders kung ayaw lang nilang — meaning our public officials — madaling magsama-sama ang mga kabataan and, by extension, their families para di mapag-usapan nang harapan ang mga nangyayari sa bansa; they’re really sabotaging education because a poorly educated public is easier to control; or they’re simply that misguided. 🤦

What we can realistically do, without sacrificing our youth’s education, is to teach and enact preventive measures such as 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙬𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨, 𝙫𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙫𝙞𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖 𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨, 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙮 “𝙜𝙤 𝙗𝙖𝙜𝙨.”

It’s been 3 weeks and 2 days since the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch. Some days, mapapa-”Haaay naku” ka na lang talaga. Pero laban lang!

Leaving you with this picture of the protests in South Korea last year following their ex-president's declaration of martial law. Parang ang saya ng mga rally nila doon with all the light sticks and K-pop music, like BTS’ “Fire,” being used as protest songs. 💜 I wonder kung kelan kaya magkakaganito rin sa Pilipinas?

P.S. from present-day me:

A quiet look at how gratitude can sharpen our vision when everything feels uncertain.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/what-now-lord

October 12, 2025 | 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time | 3 weeks since the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch

“What now, Lord?”

Hindi tulad ng mga nakaraang Linggo, walang mga nananaghoy na propeta sa mga pagbasa sa Misa ngayon. Ang meron ay mga kuwento ng mga taong may ketong: si Naaman na taga-Syria, at ang sampung mga ketongin. Medyo mahirap silang iugnay sa kalagayan ng ating bansa sa ngayon. Kaya nagpapasalamat ako sa pari ngayong umaga sapagkat napagtagpi-tagpi niya ang mga kuwentong ito sa kanyang sermon.

Nag-focus siya sa salitang “gratitude.” Pagpapasalamat.

Noong kuminis ang balat ni Naaman, humingi siya kay Elisha ng lupang iuuwi niya sa kanila, upang lagi niyang maalala na ang Panginoon ang nagpagaling sa kanya. Sa sampung mga ketongin na pinagaling ni Hesus, iisa lang ang bumalik upang magpuri sa Panginoon. Ano ang meron sa mga taong ito at nakita nila na ang tunay na dahilan ng kanilang paggaling ay ang Diyos?

Gratitude, which in turn stemmed from true sight. And this same true sight is what we need so we can find our way out of our country’s sticky mess. For it is with this sight that we can truly discern what is right and what is wrong.

Sa Feast naman, ang talk ay tungkol sa pagkakaroon ng plano ng Diyos para sa ating mga buhay kahit na di pa natin nakikita kung ano ang sinusubukan Niyang buuin. Minsan, natatakot tayo sa mga problemang dumarating o nagtatampo dahil sa mga di pa nasasagot na kahilingan. Ngunit baka ang mga ito pala ang paraan ng Diyos upang maipalabas Niya ang milagro sa ating mga buhay.

A brief meditation on anger, repentance, and the limits of our own understanding.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/what-if-someone-truly-repents

October 7, 2025 | Tuesday | 2 weeks and 2 days since the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch

“Nakita ng Diyos ang kanilang pagtalikod sa kasamaan kaya hindi na itinuloy ang paggunaw sa Ninive.”

It’s so easy to give in to anger and shout, “Kill all the corrupt!”

But this line from today’s first reading makes me pause.

What if someone truly repents?

The Lord works in mysterious ways. My small mind cannot fathom all the ways evil can be purged from the system, and one of them might be repentance and change of heart.

Will I be able to believe someone has truly repented and forgive them?

A reflection on choosing courage when fear and despair feel easier.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/the-persistence-of-a-mustard-seed

Today’s Mass readings and The Feast talk felt beautifully connected to each other, and to our country’s continuing struggle against corruption. Here are a few thoughts:

In the first reading, the prophet cries out,

“How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen!

I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene.

Why do you let me see ruin, and misery all around?”

It’s a lament that feels familiar especially in these times when injustice seems to thrive, and the cries of the people go unanswered.

But the second reading and the Gospel seem to whisper back:

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather of power, love, and self-control.”

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Faith even as small as a mustard seed can grow wild and uncontainable, like the mustard plant itself: invasive, unstoppable, spreading aggressively. When faith takes root like that, it casts out fear and replaces it with courage, love, and self-control, the very virtues we need to bear the hardships of our time, and to keep hoping for the fulfillment of the vision: a world where Love reigns.

But in real life, this is not easy. It’s one thing to read the words, another to live them out.

That’s why today’s Feast talk hit home with the reminder: “Do it afraid.” Because courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s choosing what’s right even when we’re scared.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”

As we move further from September 21 and the echoes of our protests fade from the headlines, it’s tempting to slip back into fear or despair and to think that our country is beyond hope. But today’s readings remind me otherwise: hope may look foolish, even naive, yet it is the seed that grows when everything else withers.

May we keep planting it, one act of courage at a time.

P.S. from present-day me:

A reflection written one week after the September 21, 2025 rallies, when exhaustion slowly gave way to hope.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/a-week-after-the-march-choosing-hope

Attending The Feast today gave me hope — hope na kaya ni Lord na maresolba ang mga problema ng ating bansa ngayon.

I needed that hope because this past week, I felt so sad and tired, worried over things beyond my control.

That's why it felt almost strange to type the first sentence because, my gosh, we’re talking about God. Of course kaya Niya. Pero iba ang kaalamang nasa utak lang, kumpara sa conviction na ramdam mo body, mind, and soul.

While we were singing, I felt it: that deep sense of assurance that God is moving, even here, even now.

But this doesn’t mean I’ll be complacent. Going back to what the first reading from the prophet Amos and the priest this morning said: “Woe to the complacent.”

Like what Howie Severino wrote, lahat tayo ay may personal stake in this, whether it be as simple as being simple; choosing not to aspire for extravagance as proof that you’ve “made it” or are living the “good life.”

Because the good life really means loving God and loving our neighbor.

As The Feast concluded its series on “The Good Life,” I was reminded that the good life isn’t about comfort; it’s about love.

And true love doesn’t always feel good because it sacrifices, it changes us, and it brings us closer to the One who can truly give us everything we desire, the Source of all that is good.

🙏 Please God, help me remember this whenever I start to feel hopeless.

P.S. from present-day me

This was my state of mind three days after the September 21, 2026 rallies, when the noise on social media made everything feel heavier.

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/pressure-cookers-protests-and-the

September 24, 2025 | Wednesday | Three days after the #BahaSaLuneta and #TrillionPesoMarch

Paraphrasing what someone on my FB timeline said: Last Sunday’s demonstrations were “allowed” to happen so that steam can be let off. Parang pressure cooker na para di sumabog dahil ang taas na ng pressure ay binuksan ang valve to let some steam off.

And I agreed with it.

Kasi talagang nagtataka ako; with how evil the people in this admin are, bakit hinayaang magkaroon ng rally at demonstration?

Nanggaling kasi tayo sa Duterte admin where speaking out got people sued or killed. Tunog conspiracy theory ito pero the current admin wants to distance themselves from that. Magmukhang humane. Pag pinagbawal mo kasi ang isang bagay, lalong gugustuhing gawin ng tao.

Kaya nakakakita ulit tayo ng spoofs sa TV at internet. (Hello to Bitoy’s Sara Dismaya.)

Kaya nakakapagsalita na ang mas maraming pari sa simbahan against corruption sa sermon nila.

Kasi pag pinagbawal pati ang mga ito, lalong mararamdaman ng mga tao ang pagsiil sa kanilang mga karapatan, tulad noong panahon ni Duterte na nawala ang pang-iispoof ng mga komedyante sa matanda.

(Remember Jose and Wally’s spoofs featuring “Dugong and Bato”? Search the internet and it takes a while before you could find them.)

Pero tingnan nyo rin. Walang nangsu-spoof sa mag-asawang nasa pinakataas. O sa pamilya ng pangalawang nasa itaas. We are living in an illusion of greater “freedom.”

Tinanong ako ng nanay ko last Sunday kung bakit hinayaan kaya ng presidente na magisa ang kanyang pinsan? Ang sabi ko’y di ko alam kung paano tumakbo ang utak ng taong baluktot ang pag-iisip. Ng taong pinalaki by a person who could say, “Perception is real, and the truth is not.” Pero ito ang hinala ko. Let the small fish go for the people to catch para madeflect na nanghuhuli sila ng mas malaking isda.

We are seeing greed and theft at the same or even greater scale as the older Marcos’ real “Yamashita Treasure” -- the reparations from the Japanese due to their World War 2 crimes plus other aids from the US and other institutions.

Nakakalungkot na dahil walang Julius Babao or Korina Sanchez committing faux pas and reporting this in a news magazine, “Wow, what an inspiration!” style, konti lang ang makakabasa nitong mga PCIJ report o makakakita ng posts ni JC Punongbayan about this part of our history.

And in the end, what we thought was a real protest will really just be us getting played once again, especially if we don’t remain vigilant. 😢

P.S. from present-day me:

Cross-posting from Substack: https://gillianabello.substack.com/p/when-scripture-meets-the-streets

September 21, 2025 | Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time | #BahaSaLuneta #TrillionPesoMarch

I’m glad that volunteers at church were giving away these ribbons.

Today’s Mass readings were uncannily fit for the events happening now—big rallies in Rizal Park called “Baha sa Luneta” and the “Trillion Peso March” at the EDSA Shrine and People Power Monument—to protest the blatant corruption in our government.

💟 1st Reading: Amos 8:4-7

“Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land...

The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!”

💟 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8

R: Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.

💟 2nd Reading: 1 Timothy 2:1-8

“First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity...”

💟 Gospel: Luke 16:1-13

“...The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?…”

Today’s Gospel reading was about the parable of the shrewd manager, where the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly - - “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”

As Fr. Migs Ramirez said in his Facebook reel, “Jesus is telling us, kung kaya ng masasama maging mautak sa paggawa ng mali, dapat kaya rin ng mabubuti na maging mautak sa paggawa ng kabutihan.”

Ika nga ng biyenan ni Lumen sa Surf detergent commercial, “Iba na ‘wais’ sa buhay.”

I pray that all the people going to the rallies today be kept safe from harm. Sana wala pong kampon ng kasamaan at kadiliman ang maghasik ng lagim ngayong araw na ito.🙏

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P.S. from present-day me:

This piece was written before I ever imagined starting a reflection series like “The Persistence of a Mustard Seed.” It was simply what I felt in the moment.

Sadly, while the protests in Luneta and EDSA were peaceful, the one in Mendiola turned violent. According to NPR, “a few hundred black-clad protesters threw rocks, bottles and firebombs at police near the presidential palace in Manila, injuring more than 100 officers. Criminal complaints have been filed against 97 protesters.”