untouchable

1

"Buong-buo ang loob ko ngayon, kailangan nating palayain ang sarili mula sa kasalukuyang situwasyon.

"Lalaban ako; lalaban tayo.

"Inihahain ko ang aking sarili bilang kandidato sa pagka-Pangulo sa halalan ng 2022."

You got home on your rented apartment not even an hour ago and yet, the first thing you did was watch VP Leni Robredo's live on her FB Page. You felt goosebumps all over your body when she uttered those words. Her conviction, her resolve, it manifests how great and capable of a leader she is and will be. The hope that has since been buried revived from within, spreading from the inside out. Your chin is trembling from the sudden whirlwind of emotions. You swallowed the forming lump on your throat and sighed in relief; the country now has a better chance of redeeming itself and defeating the big bad men at the same time. You no longer have to settle for a lesser evil.

Your candidate has (wo)man up and showed up again, and you will rally behind her no matter what. You shared her statements on all of your social media accounts with the hashtags - LetLeniLead2022 and LabanLeni2022. You even made it public, so all your loyalist and apologist friends and relatives could see and seethe.

Your family group chat is now exploding with messages, your parents (thankfully) expressing support for the Presidential candidate. They used to illogically hate the woman, due to rampant fake news and dis/misinformation everywhere. But when your father, who is a tricycle operator, actually experienced VP Leni's leadership thru her express vaccine program for all trike and jeep drivers, his opinion softened. He used to be D*S as well; and you aren't, you never were; it always caused some arguments during family dinner whenever you go home. That's why when you do return home, you don't open up any political topics on the table. Not worth the stress.

Though ever since he experienced VP Leni's project, and even met the woman briefly; excitedly telling you how kind and gorgeous the Vice President is; he also started to watch her own YouTube channel to know the servant leader better. It might've been 5 years late, but you're still happy for your father's political awakening.

Sometimes you'll see him defending VP Leni against the wild trolls on comments section, and you, of course, would support him by liking his comments and replying additional arguments.

He also slowly realized PDu*z incompetent leadership, when the pandemic first hit. Trike drivers were one of the most affected sectors during COVID, endangering their livelihoods. It angered him, how he was scammed by his 'too good to be true' promises, and vowed to himself he will never believe any more of the bullcrap that'll come out of that inutile's mouth.

When your father was converted, so did your mother. She's always been suspicious of D*terte, but the peer pressure was too strong back in 2016 so she followed the flow. She never really said she's a D*S, but she also didn't criticize him. Her words, "Wala naman akong alam, 'nak. Ano bang masasabi ko? Hayskul lang naman tinapos ko."

It's actually extinguishing your spirit about how the lower class can never thrive in life no matter what because of how broken the system is. It only serves the ruling class. Your parents may be uneducated, but they aren't stupid, they just weren't privileged enough to get better education. So you truly can't fault them for their "distorted" views since they're too busy putting food on the table and surviving another day to care for anything else.

But with their strong determination to at least get their children a better life than theirs, your parents doubled their efforts to get you to finish college. They even prohibited you from taking sidelines while studying so you could focus all your time on being a student. But you're Y/N: determined, hard-headed, and you're your parents' daughter. You took up part-time tutoring jobs on your downtime so you don't have to ask for more allowance. And by sheer will, you finished your degree. You're the first college graduate in your family, and you will eternally be grateful for your parents' efforts. So of course right after you graduated, you threw yourself into the real world so you could give back to them. Yes, it's not the children's responsibility to be the retirement plan for their parents, but you witnessed how yours broke their backs for you. The choice of not repaying their parents are for the entitled, and you're not. You aren't selfish enough to also just think about your own life while they continue to struggle.