Protest gain

My friends were buzzing me over the weekend. I thought it was for another round of hangouts but it turns out they were telling me that a number of protesters were being called out again. It was Labor Day, a day supposedly for workers to air out their grievances. Once a year, they only get this chance to be honored and speak out. Instead of getting the respect they deserve for working hard especially in this pandemic, they get thrown out of the streets.

The memories of what happened in UP last year filled my mind where amidst the strict adhering of the protocols, they were taken by authorities saying that they were going against quarantine guidelines. It was very disturbing then because some of them were my friends. I could still remember the screams, the words shouted, and the emotions that rolled all over the place.

The issue of whether or not the policemen were able to get inside the campus is not for me to answer for my eyesight could be wrong, but the turn of events are still so vivid to me. It disturbs me that it could possibly happen to anyone at any moment, any time. Why are there so many wrong notions about protests?

Back when I was still in school, I was told that protesting is a no-no and that I would lose all support if I did. But then I realized that protests are actually the fruit of everything that you learn in school. It is the synthesis of the different concepts on what is right and wrong. It doesn't even have to be in the streets and it could come in many forms. In fact, it has what changed history drastically. When there is resistance, there is a certain type of realization and an ideal state that is to be achieved.

I am obedient, but when I know that I've been treated wrongly and poorly this would really warrant a small kind of wrath. But that wrath translated into peaceful protests would really go a long away. Heck, we weren't educated to just be robots and followers but to be people who think well, who think for the better of the society that we are in.

You can't really blame the young for wanting more to what they are seeing today. They have been promised a better life but they don't feel that, they didn't get that. Of course, they have the right to ask for it because they somehow believed in those who are in power today. And we also live in a democracy, where we are free to speak our minds as long as we do not hurt anybody. That's the beauty of this. We are given so much freedom to tell and do, and to bet change on it would be a bonus.

So hopefully when you see somebody protesting, or is in the mood to do so, leave them alone. They have aspirations that need to be fulfilled. Join them, if you must.