The noise of the elections is beginning to fade. The tarpaulins are curling on rusted wires. The slogans are now stories and the streets are quiet again. I should be relieved. I should be resting. God knows I need to. But I find myself restless, haunted by a voice that has been gone for fifteen years. I remember you, Doc.
It was in 2010 when I was just starting out. Young, unsure, trying to figure out who I was. You didn’t give me answers. You gave me something more dangerous: purpose. We sat in the heat, sharing halo-halo and mami, planning campaigns that felt more like revolutions. You always believed Palawan deserved better. That we could be better.
You didn’t ask us to be brave. You asked us to care. That was enough.
Many of the kids today never met you. Some of them were only toddlers when you were murdered.They didn’t hear your voice almost crack on air when you spoke of injustice. They didn’t see the crowd when you were laid to rest. They didn’t march with us when we chanted your name, asking for justice and why a good man had to die.
But they know the weight of silence. They know how it feels to grow up with broken promises. And they are beginning to answer back.
This election, they knocked on doors. They printed flyers. They stood in the streets under the sun and in the rain, asking strangers to believe in someone they barely knew.
They didn’t do it for money. They did it for someone. They did it for something. They did it for Joaquin. Your only son.
Joaquin didn’t just run for office. He carried your name like a torch. He stood up the way you used to. Soft but certain, brave but kind. The kids saw it. They heard it. In him, they heard you.
Your friend and comrade Bishop Pedro Arigo, saw it too.
“Palagay ko yung mga damdamin at kaisipan ni Gerry, namana ni Joaquin,” he said.
He saw in Joaquin not just a son, but a voice rising from silence. A fire catching again. A space being filled. The same space you left when you fell.
Doc, Joaquin fits the shoes you left behind. And the youth, finally, have someone to walk beside.
He didn’t make it to the top ten. But that’s not what mattered now. What mattered was he stood up, and the youth stood with him. They believed in his name because they believed in your story.
I watched them. A team of young volunteers. Sleep-deprived and exhausted. But never complained. They reminded me of us. Back then. When we thought we could change the world with nothing but faith and conviction.
The Philippines is still the same. To some extent, it has worsened. And so is Palawan. But somewhere in the middle of that, a group of young people decided to stay. To fight. Not because it was easy. But because it was right.
That was your lesson.
So here we are. Worn, weathered, older but never broken. Still telling stories. Still holding the line. Still passing the torch to those who come after, just like you did for us.
“Ang katotohanan ay ipinaglalaban. Ang mali ay hindi pwedeng baluktutin. Ang katotohanan ay matibay at hindi pwedeng mailiko. Kapag may katwiran, dapat ipaglaban,” you said. And we remember.
Doc, the kids are okay. Not perfect. Not unscarred. But they are rising. The hope did not die with you. They are marching with purpose, just like we did.
We carry the flame, Doc. Lit by your fight, kept alive by our promise.
Because you lived. Because you stood your ground. Because even in the face of death, you never surrendered.
And neither will we. Not now. Not ever.
