Bandilang Itim

Written by Libre, a survivor of Typhoon Odette.

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On December 2021, Super Typhoon Odette traumatized over a million Filipinos in the Visayas and Mindanao region. There was nothing Merry in Christmas, nothing Happy in the New Year. There was only darkness, loneliness, and misery for the thousands who have lost their homes, loved ones, and access to needs.

A time without electricity and connectivity.

A time of helplessness and hopelessness.

We were cut off from the world and it felt like an eternity.

Aftermath Scenes

In daylight, there seemed to be an endless queue for drinking water, washing water, and gasoline. Some had to travel far to find other sources of water and needs, such as: tarpaulines, radios, flashlights, fans, etc. Some had to risk exposing all their things outside to dry it all up, while a family member rebuilds their house.

At night, it’s hard for us to sleep for how can we when we know it’s when robberies, and possibly murders, happen? Stores — big and small — have been ransacked. Some people had to deal with the deafening noise of generators; they’re living near rich houses, hospitals, and other big establishments.

Some wished for the sun so they can get their needs and fix what they can. Others wished for the rain so they can get water and escape the heat. We saw our surroundings almost wiped out. Plants and trees have become bald, bent, and broken. Power and Telecommunication posts have fallen down or broken into two. Water pipes in many places have been severely damaged.

It’s as if we have been transported to another place. Our neighborhood has become foreign to us. And it’s all the more heartbreaking to see hanging handwritten signs: ‘WE NEED HELP PLS :(’

Aftermath Rage

We witnessed people organizing to provide drinking/washing water, charging stations, and information on active banks, stores, and signal spots. On the other hand, there were those who were selling overpriced needs. A bottle of water, not even a liter, was selling for Php 60. A liter of gasoline rose up to Php 100, and etc. And of course, Politicians. Plastering their faces on water tanks and taking pictures of people receiving goods without their fucking consent. All for their fucking show and greed. Mga Pakitang Tao!

There was absolutely no way to contact for thousands of people to get in contact with their outside Visayas/Mindanao. We had to listen to radios for news and updates, but they mostly only broadcast reports outside our area. There was barely anything in ours. It’s maddening. It’s as if no one cares about us.

But what’s even worse and utterly frustrating is when radio broadcasters try to gives us a voice and ends it with the line: ‘MAGAMPO LANG TA SA GINOO.’ (Dasal lang tayo sa Diyos/ Let’s just pray to God).

Repeatedly so.

Now there is the one line, among the many, that has stunted us, Filipinos, for decades.

The Church, its God and Religious Morality

I say to you mga kababayan: God is man-made.

The Church, it’s God and Religious Morality, has contributed to stunting the Spirits of the Filipinos. It has brought us nothing but misery, self-hate, misogyny, unhealthy relationships, and ultimately, blind obedience to authority.

There is no Christian God. Jesus Christ is not coming back ever. The Bible is a well-written fiction. Heaven, Hell, and Limbo are imaginary; therefore empty threats. Religious Morality is a lie.

The Christian God, combined with Religious Morality, is a religious device used by the church to manipulate us into submission. Into blind faith and obedience. They use it to keep our rage and spirit in their control.

The Holy Bible is a drama. The Church is the center for Spectacles. It’s encouraged in the Bible to join the drama, for the readers to decide their roles into the show called living because it’s yet to be finished; therefore we can say that the Christian Communities are live-action role players or LARPers.

It’s no different from people participating in cosplay conventions or live-action role plays to have fun through living out a fictional world together with other fans.

Notice that the masses are scripted? From what the priest says down to what our responses should be. At the start of it, we live as Adams and Eves who have sinned and have been cast out of Eden. Then we participate in the Last Supper, where the body and blood of Christ cleanses our sins. Like I said, live-action role play.

During the mass, we are also spoonfed. Come to think of it, there’s no answer and question portion! All we had to do is listen, accept whatever comes out of the priest’s mouth as true, and live it out. It’s that easy! Oh, bring the children too. Teach them young, you see. For as children, in our innocence and need for guidance, we tend to believe more. Poison them young.

Right from when we were still young, we are told to not question or doubt God and his Will because it’s a sin and then we are threatened with hell and karma. Children get spooked easy, you know it.

We are also forbidden to engage in sexual acts of nature. No masturbation. No pre-marital sex. Yes to forced monogamy or marriage. Did you ever wonder why?

Oh, I’ll tell you why: Sex is a strong force within us. It inspires creativity, freedom, and imagination within us.((The Element of Sex in Life by Emma Goldman)) By suppressing our sexual nature, we’re not able to overcome antisocial impulses, which results to sexual ills, such as: Pedophilia, Rape, etc;((Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich)) but not to be confused with Neurodivergence. Authority and Sexual Repression are linked. Therefore by being sexually repressed, we also become miserable enough to fucking helplessly submit not only to their power, but also to others.

I also want to point out a reality that has been going on for a long time now: Priests were, and still are, forbidden to get involved with women because they have demonized them. Being sexually repressed, these priests, having failed to overcome their antisocial impulses, are now involved in sexual abusing and organizing sex slavery on nuns, young men, and children.

Back to Authority and Sexual Repression: Notice when a partner sexually deprives the other, the other will do anything at all, from throwing the garbage to cleaning the house. We will cover more of this later.

As a consequence: When we, Filipinos, get into a relationship we can’t help but think of marriage as the end goal; without considering if we are compatible with the person in the mind, sex, and spirit. We become ‘melodramatic’. The church, in effect, has contributed to this ride-or-die mindset in a relationship, that no matter how toxic it has become, we try to save the it.

And did you know that as long as marriage as an institution exists, so will prostitution? Prostitutes have been supplied for married men centuries ago, and now to married women as well. It serves as their outlet for lust. For the Wife must be akin to Mary, the good girls. And for good girls to exist, there must be bad girls. Good and bad, that’s how Religious Morality works.

Prostitution has also been defended by the likes of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In fact, a lot of churches before have owned brothels.

Religious Morality is absolute. But for Morality to work, the church must impose their standards of good to them and their followers, and their standards of bad to others, especially those who are against them.

The Church knows exactly what they are doing because they fear the free spirit within us. The free spirit who rages at the face of injustice, tyranny, and force. They fear it so much that they took a massive effort for millenias — you read that right, for over 2,000 years — to shut it out, costing millions of lives. And they poison us right to when we are most vulnerable: in our childhood.

If you’re thinking the question: What did people believe before?

Oh, ancient people did believe in gods. They made gods because they are still yet to know the reason behind phenomena such as lightning, storms, and other natural disasters. But when they did, they were able to let them go — they unmade them. This has happened for tens of thousands of years, until Christianity got us stuck with their God.

I say: A God that humans have the difficulty of letting go, is essentially a tool of manipulation. Indeed, I am also referring to Allah, Buddha, and the other gods remaining in the present.

The Government, it’s Laws and Enforcers

See it’s like playing domino: When the Church falls, so will the Government, and the rest follows.

The Government needs the Church to stay in power. When the government tries to separate itself from the church — don’t get fooled, mga kababayan. Remember that it’s only a facade, among many that is.

Without the Church, no one will take their Laws and Money seriously as in the present. The people in the ancient times specifically the Wendats, laugh at the face of their leader; someone who plays chief.((Chapter 2 in The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow)) The chiefs are also the ‘poorest’ of them for they are expected to give away their wealth to the needy and to take care of them.

In ancient times, they follow these chiefs only as it pleases them. Nothing more. They have experimented on different social and economical concepts as it suits them best, depending on the season. Going back and forth, from having a chief to none. For more than tens of thousands of years, they were careful and protected their freedom with all their mind and might. It was hard for anyone to force someone to submit to them. They were not the ‘savages’, we are: The Modern Humans.

Money is only valid through belief. That is the power of belief, which has been used against us. Money is only made through loans and compound interests. When a Filipino goes to a bank to loan or borrow money, the bank does not get money from their vaults, no. Money is being made as you pay the loan. They write down the amount on their paper, and when that is paid; there, you have ‘new’ fucking money. Fucking magic, right? Edi wow.

The Government needs the Church to make us stupid, to dumb us down. To numb our minds, to silence our free spirit, and ultimately, to bend us into submission. With the control of our imagination, freedom, and sex slipping through our fingers, the government there and then, forces us into submission.

If the line: “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW” was actually true, the government itself will have been behind the bars right at the start. The Law only applies to the us, the commoners, the Filipinos. Never to them and the rich.

Capitalism, the Rich and the Poor

They use their Laws and its enforcers to protect themselves and the rich. Notice most laws are property laws and most crimes are property crimes? Exactly. There is a reason why Governments or States around the world incorporated the Roman Law to their own Legal Systems.

The Roman Law have made tweaks regarding private property that makes the fucking rich very, very happy.

Let me illustrate:

People in the ancient times has a different concept of property or ownership.((The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow)) When a clan is acknowledge as the ‘owner’ of an animal specie, they are expected to take good fucking care of it. To protect, nourish, and flourish it. But never to kill it.

Now in the Roman Law, a property is not a private property not until the ‘owner’ has the fucking right to destroy it.

With that, the government and the rich are legally allowed to destroy, kill, and be reckless with their private property. They have been made free from the responsibility of taking care of it. So that is when us, Filipinos, the common people, are the ones who fucking forced and paid to take care of their shit for them.

They take lands, houses, and other things from us, and then make us pay them.

How can we feed ourselves, when we aren’t allowed to plant our food?

How can we get a house of our own, when we can’t get ourselves lands and gain access to resources?

We have been made to be dependent of the whims of the Rich.

We have no choice other than for our parents to fucking pay our education, only for us to end up as moneymakers for the rich, who sits there all clean and shiny while taking away the lion’s share of our earnings and forbidding us to enjoy what we have made for them.

We have no choice but to pay rent to the landlords, who fucking use our money to renovate and maintain their ‘extra’ house and land.

We have no choice but commit crimes to fellow humans to feed our family, live as comfortably as we can, while they fucking increase the prices of everything and make our wages/salary stay the same.

They don’t give a flying shit about us — from whom they squeeze their blood money from.

All people in power never did.

They leave us to fucking starve, shiver, and die.

Our Rotten Education System

Damn straight, another culprit.

The Education System is machinery of the Government. Any school, college, or university must be ‘approved’ by the Department of Education (DepEd) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

We are being trained from kindergarten to college to study 8 hours a day; but with homeworks, it’s actually over 8 hours. We are forced to study different subjects every hour and go home with homework with tight, fucking deadlines. All to train us to work tasks that are not part of our jobs in a fast-paced environment.

Let me ask you then:

How much do you remember from your previous school years?

Were we really there to be the best version of what we can be or the best employee (teamplayer) for a company?

Were we really there so we can achieve our dreams or actually achieve our bosses’ dreams?

Were we really there to build ourselves a bright future or build the bright future of another?

After more than 2 decades of studying or dare I say: training. We start looking for jobs. And when we do work for exactly 8 hours or more. We also barely have holidays — just like in our school years — doing different and plenty of tasks in a fast-paced environment.

But we’ve become used to it right? Exactly, it’s not a coincidence.

Now let’s go back in our early school years. Notice the differences between the Values Education (Christian Living) and Science class?

God made Earth for 7 days and the Big Bang Theory. Adam and Even are our parents and the Human Evolution. Animals talk human tongue and animals don’t.

There’s a reason why we have come to overlook these differences. It was important to us to get good grades for our parents or to just get done with it.

So we say to ourselves: This is Values Education class. This is Science class. Over and over and over and over until it spills in the other aspects of our lives. Yes, unknowingly… we have learned to contain. And that’s exactly what the Education System is also doing.

We have been forced to hinder our brain, our imagination, and silence our spirit to the fucking point that we are now having a difficult time connecting things that are actually interlinked.

The Education System is not for everyone. It’s hard and it sucks because it’s government machinery to supress our critical thinking, and imagination. They don’t want our peculiarities and free spirit. No, they want us to be the best employees and law-abiding citizens there is, for them — the government and the rich.

It’s why people who excel in school are highly rewarded. They get into big companies or ‘achieve success’ at a faster pace, with ease. They are the ‘perfect’ products of the Education machinery.

I say, it’s also a factor that answers the question: Bright man unta pero nganong regilyoso pa kaayo? (Ang talino naman, per bakit ang regilyoso niya? / They’re intelligent, but why are they still so religious?)

Because they are those who have been forced to learn to contain enough to the point that they can no longer see the whys and hows of the things that are interlinked. Here I shall include the Centrists, Liberals, NatDems, and the other so-called leftists who defend the status quo.

Filipino Traits and Values

Hardworking, patient, smiling even when miserable, will do any fucking work at a fucking low pay, etc. These are among the so called Filipino Traits and Values that have been instilled to us. It’s also something we ought to be proud of.

The ever classic Pinoy Pride.

It’s not. These values and traits aren’t unique to us, Filipinos. Other people from other countries, far and wide, have been taught the same. And these have been TWISTED, even advertised to foreign investors and the rich, and NOT to our benefit.

In the Odette aftermath, people have posted and shared the words: ‘Sige lang, Pinoy baya ta.’ (Okay lang, pinoy tayo/ It’s okay, we are Filipinos) referring to Filipino resiliency.

They’re trying to give comfort or calm down those who are already raging, complaining and losing hope. Maybe, just maybe, there was no ill-intent.

But I say otherwise: It’s not without harm. It’s fucking poisonous.

I could not say it better than someone (who shall remain anonymous):

Resiliency has become a tool of manipulation. It is an outfit of pretension incapacitated people are being forced to wear to persuade others and themselves that tragedies are normal occurrences they should naturally overcome… The masses are goaded to embrace resilience through the machinations of religion, controlled historical accounts to enforce faith and patriotism, and the very government sings servitude when its quota is to reap the benefits of power. Resiliency, a thing that used to be a positive defense mechanism, is now a false shell people retreat to when to face reality with nothing but themselves to fight it.

An Appeal to the Filipinos

Now instead of listening to those dangerous live-action role players on the radios and social media: How about we hold the Power Stations, TelCos,and Government accountable for their inefficiency and incompetence?

Not only when we’re struck by merciless natural calamities.

Because the Government, TelCo and Power Stations have stolen millions, if not billions worth of hard-earned money from Filipinos for decades!

Billions of blood money from your grandchildren, children, siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, and mga kababayan; for us, Filipinos, like the rest of the world, have been forced to sacrifice our freedom, dreams, energy, and life for the Rich’s greed.

And have we ever benefited from it? Barely.

Now the government and companies say they’re here to serve us, right?

Well, they’re the ugliest liars.

But let’s just say they mean what they say… sure, there are things that do take time. But January is coming to an end, it’s been over a month now. No surprise that they have the nerve to tell us to be patient, to be understanding when there are still so many people in need of help.

In my area, they even have to sent us our bill when they haven’t fixed anything here yet. Comical shitheads.

They pocket more blood money and sleep soundly throughout the night while there are people who still can’t work to pay their bills, to have food on the their table, to sustain themselves with other needs, and to keep up with their future plans.

There’s absolutely no other reason for these damn tyrants to rest on Sundays, not hire more experts (no shortage of it), not give emergency funds, and not have initiatives for faster operations than their own damning greed.

First World countries, like Japan, have fixed damage this bad, and worse, at a faster pace; although Japan has accumulated wealth as being a former Imperial power and having benefited greatly from the growth of international Capital after WII. . The Philippines is a Third World country; and like the rest of the Third World countries, our wealth has been stolen by invaders, our leaders got lured into urbanization loans and got betrayed by the fucking International Monetary Fund (IMF).((Debt by David Graeber)) through loans and compound interests that have soared so fucking high that us, Filipinos, and the future generations have been paying and will continue to do so.

Still it begs the question: Where has our money gone?

I am against all hierarchies, let’s be very clear about that. I’m only illustrating that our rage is all the more justified.

Break the Status Quo.
Embrace your peculiarities.
Unchain your free spirit.
Rage, and let them feel it.
Hold them all accountable.

Abolish the State, it’s laws and enforcers.
Abolish the Church, it’s god and morality.
Abolish Capitalism, take back what’s ours.

Unlearn everything by questioning everything.

Long Live Anarchy!

Resources

• The Holy Bible
• The Modern World
• Philippine Law Books
• Philippine Education System
• The Element of Sex in Life by Emma Goldman
• Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich
• Chapter 2 in The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
• The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
• Debt by David Graeber
• Law and Authority by Peter Kropotkin
• ABCs of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman
• You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn
• Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber