151 DUTERTE’S VAGINA MONOLOGUE
(HOPE FOR THE FLOWERS)
Shoot the vagina, ad infinitum. An inky
business, cloudy and sinister as fake news. Trying very hard to focus attention
on his anti-women remarks to draw attention away from more important matters
such as the unprecedented foreign debt, Chinese investments, desecration of
democratic institutions, violation of the Constitution, extra-judicial killings
(EJKs) and corruption among his own men, and "owned" women. He needs
a monologue deeper than a vagina.
Bite this gambit, and lose all your teeth.
Bite the bullet instead. I mean biting in another sense, not something drastic,
something that reconnects people like him, so contemptuous of strong women, to
develop genuine appreciation and respect. He should at least understand how
women bloom, in keeping with his love affair with China, where once, “letting a
hundred flowers bloom”, became a national policy under Communist Party Chairman
Mao Zedong.
My friends say there is no hope in that
direction, which brings to mind a book I read a very long time ago, “Hope for the Flowers”, an allegorical
novel by Trina Paulus. It is a fable "partly about life, partly about
revolution and lots about hope – for adults and others including caterpillars
who can read". It is about two caterpillars, Yellow and Stripe, who
journeyed in search of meaning by attempting to climb to the top of a
caterpillar pillar only to discover “another destiny.”
In the story, Stripe hatches from an egg and begins his life by eating the leaf
around him. He realizes that there is more to life than just eating leaves, so
he endeavors to reach the sky. In his search, he joins other caterpillars
struggling to get up into the sky, stepping on each other to reach the top,
where he also meets Yellow attempting
to do the same. Yellow feels bad about having to “literally step on and climb
over all the other caterpillars who are also trying to reach the top of the
pillar.” They eventually decide to stop climbing and go back down the pillar.
They live together for a while until Stripe's curiosity and unrest overcome him
and he decides that he must get to the top of the pillar. Stripe leaves Yellow
focusing on his goal to reach the top, and eventually he succeeds. He finds
nothing at the top and he has not reached the sky. All he sees is a panorama of
other caterpillars stepping on each other. Meanwhile, Yellow continues to eat
and spin a cocoon. Eventually, she emerges from the cocoon transformed into a
butterfly and flies into the sky effortlessly. “She has found the real answer
to the feeling that there must be more to life than eating leaves, and who
caterpillars really are.” As she flew around the pillar, she saw Stripe
descending, telling the other caterpillars, there is nothing at the top, which
made them doubt his intentions. Yellow shows Stripe her empty cocoon, and he
realizes, he has to spin his own cocoon. “Yellow waits for him. Stripe emerges
transformed into a butterfly, and they fly off together.”
Yes, like Yellow and Stripe who found their
destiny through their own struggles, there is a manifest destiny for women, and
they do not need a Duterte monologue to awaken it. This is a potent bullet, a
bullet women can begin to bite, under this oppressive regime.
Awakening
her skin sings
feeling, smelling, hearing,
tasting, seeing, everything.
every pore becomes a door
opening, receiving, and closing
touched, before touching
she comes, she becomes.
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