Some time has passed since the death of the Gomburza, yet the memory still clear and the wounds still fresh. My schoolmates wander around the playground, chasing each other with smiles on their faces. They do not see what I am beginning see, and who can blame them. At 11 years old, most children are under the bliss offered by ignorance. However, my eyes are opening prematurely and my ears becoming ripe. Even though I try to hold on to it, the bliss is quickly slipping away. The whispers have a resounding echo and are beginning to get louder and louder. Soon they will become too loud to ignore.
It makes me wonder about my place in the world I live in now. What if our colonizers can hear my thoughts and realize that my perceptions resonate with those of the unfortunate priests? Would I suffer the same fate as them and meet my end, despite the fact that I am only 11? What if I could be destined for a greatness that would pattern the ideas of the Gomburza, would the Spaniards choose to put out the flame before it burns into a raging fire? It is to my fortune that these thoughts would remain in the solitude of my mind. I can never take for granted the ability of the mind to speak, and yet not be heard. For now, this will have to serve as my refuge. They cannot catch me here.
Three lives ended on February 17, 1872, and yet I feel that an idea was born. As the Gomburza breathed their last, I breathed in my first scent of reality. As the scent traveled all over my body, I got a glimpse of the path I must take in life. No child should grow up in the Philippines that I am seeing right now. No child should grow under a long shadow that provides only fear and no safety. The deaths of the Gomburza will not go in vain. They will be remembered, one way or another.
-Pepe
(Gregory Lewis Choa, 070758)
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