never odd or even

"The highest officials go abroad on shopping sprees with the people’s money; why should their subalterns do less when the most powerful have secret bank accounts and other accoutrements of luxury for which they have robbed the people? And we are asked to support them, to believe them—they who have drained us of our blood, who have tortured us and raped us. More than these, we are supposed to love our bondage because it it our mark of allegiance to nation and therefore, to God. If in the past we had done it, it was because we did not know; we had been bound to them by a mistaken sense of loyalty, by gratitude because we felt then that we would not survive without their kindness, their patronage. But it is different now. Our eyes have been opened and certainly not by them, but by the fact that we can not be deceived forever. Now, we fling back to them the very sop they have drowned our protests with. Nationalism means us—for we are the nation and the vengeance we seek will never be satisfied till we have gotten measure for measure all that was stolen from us. I live in Tondo, I came from Cabugawan. I want not just the irrevocable end to my poverty, but justice as well."