What lessons did I learn from the recent elections, where I ran as a Congressman of the third district of Quezon City and failed to slay the 12-year-old Defensor dynasty? Plenty, but let me tell you the things that I can do again, now that the election fever has subsided.
1. Wear what I want to wear. I can wear shirts in colors other than pink again. Pink became my signature color since late last year, since it signified the color of the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender movement. I like this color, yes, but now I can wear again the shirts I have hidden in my other closet simply because they are not pink.
2. Wear what I want to wear, part 2. I can wear my low-slung jeans again, my sandals, slippers. For more than six months, I endured the sight of myself in the mirror, wearing black leather shoes and well-pressed slacks in dark tones. I grew corns and bunions on my toes and had to make sure the slacks were wrinkle-free for the next day’s press conference, or TV interview, or the dreaded Comelec appearance.
3. Less press conferences, TV and radio interviews. After Comelec turned down Ang Ladlad’s accreditation as a party-list group, I found myself running from one TV station to another. Or being woken up at six in the morning by our feisty AM radio commentators, with salt in their language and pepper on their tongues. I love media — being a member of media myself — and media helped me bring the case of Ang Ladlad to a national audience, but I do not mind sleeping until seven in the morning, or spending less time in the frigid, cold studios of our TV stations.
4. Eat better. Since I was on the run, I would subsist on crackers and mineral water in between my media interviews. Or after a long, tiring day, my campaign staff and I would just crash onto the nearest 24-hour burger stall. I rarely ate burgers before and I never drank soda, but for months on end, I ate junk food and drank soda. I think of all the political aspirants in the last elections, only Loren Legarda and myself gained weight.
5. Eat without people staring at me. At one point, it got so bad that I never ate in the malls. I would eat, and would be instantly aware of people staring at me while I speared the morsel of chicken meat with my fork. I may be cheerful and all, but I would rather eat without people staring at my wide-opened mouth.
6. Shop without people pestering me. They are generally nice and cordial, but I had to answer thousands of questions. One of them would be this: “Hindi ba ikaw ang bakla sa TV? (Aren’t you the gay man on TV?).” I would say that is Boy Abunda, or Ricky Reyes. But they were unflappable: “Hindi, ikaw ’yung naka pink na barong! (No, you’re the one wearing the pink barong).” I would just smile, then mumble “Yes,” they would take my photo in their camera phones, I would smile again, and then I would slowly slink away.
7. Go around without a driver-bodyguard following me. When I revealed in the papers that somebody in the Comelec canteen offered instant accreditation to Ang Ladlad if we would pay them P500,000, my father instantly rang me up. I told my father I did not say the woman works in Comelec; I met her in the dingy canteen. I talked to her for a minute, did not get her name or cell phone number, and then quietly walked away because I had been told to avoid fixers. But my father, a former military man, was worried and gave me a bodyguard who followed me wherever I went, to my great dismay. Once or twice, I gave him the slip and took the LRT to buy shampoo and conditioner at Watsons. I felt so happy as the train left the dark cocoon of the Katipunan station and swam in the sunlight over Aurora Boulevard.
8. Read books again. A day after the elections, I began to read a book again — something I was not able to do when the campaign began. My cell phone began to ring and — lo and behold! — people from this and that side of the political fence, prominent people I do not even know personally were calling me up and setting meetings. “For what?” I would ask. “For 2010,” they would answer, “we want you to run with our party.”
The campaign for the 2010 elections began last May 15, 2007. Count me in.
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Comments can be sent to danton_ph@yahoo.com.