Men Marching, 1

For the first time in my adult life in the United States, I took part in a Men's March, the 14th in the State of Hawai'i. The march was held at the State Capitol at noontime, today, October 9, the month designated celebrate the end of Domestic Violence, or sometimes called DV. 

I do not know much about marches like this one, and except for some hodge-podge marches I joined during the Filipino fiesta and other fiestas where my Cordillera dancing skills would be needed--my G-string proudly on my Ilokano-Cordillera body and nothing more--I confess my ignorance and I want absolution and forgiveness. 

The street dancing we did recently on Waikiki, with me acting as the secretary of Aguinaldo--who is that guy again who looked like me, according to my friend who was one of the organizers?--was one of those that gave me chicken skin early this year. Chicken skin is what they call the goose pimples over here, when you are touched and you promise yourself you will never forget the second and the minute and the hour of the event that touched you so. But by the following day, you could have forgotten everything especially when those who came to invade your privacy by taking your handsome pictures do not even have the courtesy of telling you, Hey, hey, this is your free copy of the picture I took of you when you were showing your butt!

But no. This march had nothing to with those things.  

I remembered that I was asked to take part of the silent march in honor of Erlinda Adviento early this year--and in that march, I had for company Senator Clarence Nishihara. And a TV station was there, and I was interviewed, and I was asked to recite a poem for Erlinda for the public to hear. No, the poem--that poem--inaugurated my public support to end DV. I wrote that poem for Erlinda as soon as I heard via email the news of her death. I sent the poem to a friend who sent me the email, and the friend sent it to many others until it reached the press, first by the Honolulu Advertiser, and then that TV station. 

In that silent march, we faced Beretania from the steps of the State Capitol. Some car drivers would honk at us in solidarity, and I would feel a tearing mechanism somewhere in my tear duck. I had my eye glasses for company. With the eyeglasses, I am certain I could not be caught tearing even if in my soul my tears were welling up. 

I marked that date right after Joe Bloom, director of Caritas Hawai'i, asked me in an email if I could lend my hand in the Men's March, and if I could speak from the perspective of the Filipino community. Months before, I took part in the Men's Voices, and there, I trained the GUMIL Hawai'i writers how to declaim a DV piece I put together from the hodge-podge of our work in the writing workshop I conducted for many Saturdays at the Philippine Consulate. There was where Joe Bloom saw me, and he remembered that perhaps, perhaps, here is a Filipino that could talk--and could talk a mouthful.

And so I said yes to the invite, right away, right away. I did not know anything about this bigger Men's March, so I googled and there, on cyberspace, I was deluged with all those events of Men's Marches everywhere. 

That did not deterred me from taking part. Backing out is not a phrase in my list of favorites. More importantly, this is an issue I believe in as I am enraged by all issues that involve social and individual injustice. I have seen so much social and individual injustice that now, I do not think I can ever tolerate it. 

I went ahead, more than an hour before the march. Parking space is an eternal problem in these parts, and if you would like to get a better parking, go to your appointment hours before. Never mind that the parking fee--with all those hungry metered parking posts giving all the flashes that are connected to a central parking center tucked somewhere in the city, the meters always asking for quarters every 15 minutes, or one cent per minute, and if you don't feed the meter, some traffic guy would come and insert in your windshield your parking citation. You do not put in the quarters, you get a parking ticket of about $30. 

The night before, I had not had the talk. No, nothing. I simply was playing footsie with my thoughts. I tried figuring out my mode of attack but I was not writing. Not a dot. 

For one thing, I did not even have an inkling of what I was to say. My three years of residency in Honolulu could have been enough, what with my weekly ration of banquets in hotels that bilked me of precious dollars that could have otherwise been used to help the poor like myself. 

But there are social obligations that you cannot do without--and these are one of them, especially when those people who are inviting are the same people who are helping you run your own Ilokano heritage program at the University. Which is not that many--the people who are in the know, the people who care to know. Some of those who help even have the temerity to tell on radio that they needed to be thanked all the time. Ha! And the help they gave was given long before I came in to run the program. So have them, these kinds over here, the social climbers and those who are in serious need of attention. 

So these thoughts came rushing as I tried to think what would I say.

I keep on, I keep on thinking, and other things caught my attention, like the ten books I borrowed but have been recalled and these had to be returned, right now, on that night before the strike of 12 midnight otherwise, you will have to be bilked with one dollar a day per book. 

No thoughts. I looked out the window. No thoughts. I opened my blog and there I wrote about seminary lives, the brutal and brutish seminary lives that I know.

I looked out the window again, and I remembered the poem I wrote for Erlinda Adviento. 

It was late, and the slopes of the Manoa mountains were dark. A tower glimmered somewhere in the north. I let the whirr of the aircon take hold of my thoughts.

I stood up. I lighted an incense stick, an opium. 

I remembered my seminary days. 

Ha, I told myself. I will talk from the deepest recesses of my heart. Which I did, today. 

Hon, HI

Oct 9/08

 

 

Domestic Violence, Men's March

Domestic Violence Is Not, Never the Way to Go

 A Solver Agcaoili

(Note: This is what I am going to say at the Men’s March to be held at the State Capitol, October 9, at noontime, in celebration of the Domestic Violence Month. I thank the organizers, specifically Joe Bloom, director of Caritas Hawai’i, for including me as one of the speakers. The Men's March Committee has been doing the men's march since 14 years ago. Many organizations will join the march, with speakers from the State House of Reps, the prosecutor's office, the Honolulu Advertiser, local community leaders, and the Domestic Violence Action Center.) 

I come before you wearing many hats.

Ever since that death that made my stomach churn—the death of Erlinda Adviento—things have never been the same for me.

As a poet, domestic violence has become for me the antithesis of the poetic: it snuffs out the life of words, it snuffs out the healing power of words, and it snuffs out the redeeming power of words. 

In death, there simply will no longer be a speaker. Word will be absent. 

In death, there simply will no longer be a listener. Word will be absent. 

Speaking and listening—the very heart of a healthy relationship—will simply not happen.

I tell you my story: I am a husband.  

I am a father of two daughters. I am a father of a son. 

Like every husband and father, I go through a lot but I pray that anger will not get hold of me, that rage will not get hold of me, that destruction will not overcome me. And I am here to say that domestic violence of whatever form is never ever the way to go in resolving domestic conflicts even if in life we have a good share of them, these conflicts that if we only know how to resolve them will make us stronger, wiser even. 

In that ping of a computer on that dark night that I first heard of Erlinda Adviento’s death via e-mail, I remembered my wife. I remembered my two daughters. I remembered my son. 

I looked out the window of my office in the stillness of that dark night, a late night, and in the silence, I could hear the weeping of children, the weeping of mothers, the weeping of women, and the weeping of those who loved the dead woman. 

I have not heard of Erlinda Adviento before—and she probably had not heard of me. But on that late and dark night I knew, I knew that the only way to get out of the cauldron of mixed emotions that gripped me was to translate these emotions into a creative rage, into a poem, a poem for this dead woman I do not know, a poem for all the other Erlinda Advientos that came before her and that came after her.  

In that poem is the covenant that I have with all people who go through hell because of domestic violence. 

In that poem I asked Erlinda and all the women why did you stay? 

But in that poem as well, I asked men—my manner of asking more and more and more of incomprehension and disbelief—the men like me, why, why did you hit? Why, why, why did you kill? Why, why did you use the gun to settle your domestic differences? 

In all these incidents, this epidemic of domestic violence, I think of my wife, and I tell myself, in a prayerful wish: domestic violence will not be our route to make peace, in our home as well as in our heart. 

I think of my two daughters, and I tell myself, in a prayerful wish: domestic violence will not get into your heart; it will not get into your homes; and it  will not blight the beautiful lives you lead. 

I think of my son as well, and I tell myself—and I tell him in a prayerful wish: domestic violence will not reside in your heart. You will not use those hands that I held with care when you were young, hands you used to hold onto me so you can hold onto the world and see for yourself the beauty of life. I tell him you are going to use those hands not to hit anyone but to take good care of everyone. 

I have witnessed enough of domestic violence and I do not want to become a witness to another one. 

For each death that I come to know on the papers, there is sorrow that builds up upon my chest, and the sorrow swells, and the sorrow becomes a volcano until I cannot write a poem any longer. 

All I want is the fundamental poetry of life. 

All I want is the hidden magic of words that come from the lips of people who know peace and quiet, people who know justice and love, people who know what care and kindness are all about. 

All I want is the magic of those words that will save us eventually from the hell that is domestic violence. 

All I want is the magic of those words that will reveal to us the surprises of what love can do to heal all of us, words that will teach us what gracious kindness can do to our communities so that we all become aware of our duty to take good care of others. 

I come here to speak as a Filipino as well: we all know that many of those who have died in the hands of their intimate partners, their lovers, their husbands, or their relatives are women of Filipino descent. Of those Filipinos, majority of them are Ilokanos. 

This reality hits me hard in the way every one of us is hit hard: why, why? What is the connection between being an Ilokano and Filipino and this ugly business of domestic violence? Pray, tell me, what?  

Deep within, this is what I know: we need to get educated to the challenges of putting an end to domestic violence—and Ilokano men and women must join hands to finally say, Stop the Violence. 

Our men also love—they know how to love, this I am sure. 

But our men are hitting their women—and some kill them as well. 

This abomination has nothing to do with our ethnolinguistic community; it has something to do with us as men; it has something to do with that lack that we have in our heart as men; and it has something to do with that lack that gnaws at our soul. Sure, we can blame society, but the blame game boomerangs on us. 

In the attempt to offer a healing covenant with our women, we need to name that lack in our heart, that void in our heart, that darkness in our heart and say, with finality, that domestic violence, indeed, is not the way to go. 

In our attempt to become one again with the community of women and children we have hurt, in the attempt to heal our hurts as well, we need to look at our soul again, and fill that lack that gnaws at our soul with a love that heals and that makes us whole again. 

This is our solemn vow now: to commit ourselves to ending this crime against our women and against our children and against ourselves. 

May all men grow in wisdom to know the difference between a loving heart and a violent one. 

Mahalo and good day.