Media groups skeptical over 2 new FOI bills — Page 4 Philippine Collegian Opisyal na lingguhang pahayagan ng mga mag-aaral ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas - Diliman 17 Enero 2011 Taon 89, Blg. 22
n uan o J y si an k di s, S in 6 a a r u nt Jes athal o L t k n de a on azo y r s oli y. Co m De Brg sa
n a g an n a lab p Lu nag pi
Litrato ni Chris Imperial
Pag guwardiya na ang nasa peligro, sa’n ka pa tatakbo? Balita Pahina 6
Between two evils Editorial Page 2
How to use 9gag like a boss Kultura Page 8
Waiting Terminal Cases Delfin Mercado Days turned into weeks. Still, nothing. I still ponder on how you do it – to suddenly disappear just like that. After the holiday celebrations, you were gone. You did not come when I asked you to accompany me during lunch, even if I knew it was both our free time. You disappeared, even in our favorite hauntings in the university grounds, or in the coffee shops and hole-in-the-wall eateries we frequent in Maginhawa by night. No text messages, no calls, no wall posts. After the thrill of spending the holidays, at last, with someone special, you left without notice. Until now, I still don’t get why. We never really quarrelled, and the time we spent together was always filled with laughter. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s why you left. Our short sojourn, after all, might just have been a dream. I wanted to call you. I wanted to ask you where you are and why you disappeared, in a suddenness so unexpected that it has become rather unwarranted. Clichéd as this may sound, I wanted to see you, to talk to you and tell you how much I miss you. Fourteen days – two weeks – is too long a wait. In your absence, the imagined you has resurfaced in my mind, conquering my thoughts and filling my head all day. “Be wary of the constructed and imagined identity of your lover,” a friend told me once, “for in the end the real one will return and ask, ‘Who do you love? Me or the concept of me?’” A series of what ifs and silly plans come to mind, and even if I caution myself not to play too much with the imagined you, most of the time I get defeated. Desires and expectations pile up as each day ends without you. I am becoming afraid. Afraid that I am no longer loving the real, corporeal you. Afraid that as your absence prolongs, I become more and more enamoured with an ideal you residing, brooding in my mind. Friends say that I should not think of you, that I should divert my attention to other things. But, I said, my mind is not the city traffic, which can be ordered around by lights and stops. No one can police my thoughts and tell me not to think of you. On odd sunny mornings, alone, I ponder if there is still time for waiting. But there is—time spent waiting elongates time itself. For in all waiting there is hope, and so we prolong the wait. I remember you mapping out on a piece of paper the relationship between waiting and hoping. You said they were concentric circles, with one overlapping the other. I disagreed, arguing that hoping is the larger circle, for it encompasses all waiting. Not all the time we spend hoping can be called waiting. But all the time we spend waiting, we hope. We hope for something to come. Or return. Yesterday I just could not resist not texting you any longer. I gathered up my courage and asked the proverbial “Kumusta?” “Doing good. You’ll see me tomorrow,” you replied. My heart leaped. And salvation is pretty damn beautiful. ●
visit us online: philippinecollegian.org