Kamusta na, Malaya pa ba?

I sit here today thinking about what’s going on in the Philippines. How turbulent these times are.

Tomorrow is June 12.

Flags come out.

Parades maybe.

Social media will definitely fill up with posts that range from genuinely patriotic to… let’s say, performative.

Despite what the Philippine has come to, we’re still fine.

But today, the day before, or even the night before, I suggest listening to songs that display nationalism.

Songs from Ka Freddie, Yano, Popong Landero, Gary Granada, Joey Ayala, these artists…

Put the phone down and just listen.

Don’t do anything else.

Fully immerse yourself in the music.

Sit with the complicated parts.

Feel the love for this country that is inseparable from the frustration, the grief, the long and unresolved argument about what we’re even supposed to be.

These are those songs.

Some of them are old.

Some are newer.

All of them are worth a quiet night and a little honest attention.

Independence Day in Davao carries a specific weight that people outside Mindanao don’t always fully understand.

 This island has its own long and unresolved relationship with what Philippine nationhood means — the Lumad communities whose ancestral lands predate any flag, the Moro people whose resistance to colonial rule predates the revolution of 1896, the settlers who came from Visayas and Luzon and made this place home across generations.

When Gary Granada writes about the Filipino poor, about political prisoners, about ordinary people crushed by systems they didn’t design… he is writing from this island.

The resistance tradition in OPM has deep roots here even if the national narrative doesn’t always acknowledge it.

Celebrating June 12 from Davao means celebrating a complicated inheritance.

The struggle didn’t start in 1898 in Kawit, Cavite.

It started much earlier and it isn’t finished.

The songs above carry that truth without needing to explain it.

That’s what music does that speeches and press releases can’t.

I’m not the most overtly political person. I write about guitars and OPM and what’s happening in the local music scene.

But everytime Independence Day comes, I find myself thinking about the state of the nation.

I experience pride and grief and love and frustration, all at the same time, the way you feel about a place you know is capable of so much more than it’s currently doing.

That’s the Philippines.

That’s the song it’s been singing for 128 years.

Still unfinished.

Still worth listening to.

Tomorrow we celebrate our Independence.

Tonight we think.

Put on the playlist, make your coffee, and sit with it for a while.

The flags will still be there in the morning.

Kamusta na, Malaya pa ba?

Oh and tomorrow, Popong Landero and Yano are playing at Seattle’s Dream – Bern’s Theater w/ front acts, Prison Freedom and Taliban. This show is sponsored by FuelDreams, Jetti, AppNext, Donum Dei and FWD-BJI

And in the spirit of the Philippine Independence, it’s Free!

No entrance fee!

Party starts at 7PM all the way to 1AM