Excerpt from a poem by Pablo Tariman: I like the peace that comes with the prospect of dying./ But when you die young you pause and think of the possibilities of a more fruitful life ahead./ Then and now, you learn to appreciate the long and short of a borrowed life.

A total of 250 sites scattered throughout the country exalting the “lineage and achievements” of the Marcoses have been catalogued by the project “Have we honored the Marcoses enough?” of the Third World Studies Center at the University of the Philippines Diliman. The project falls under the Marcos Research Regime program, which documents the permanent sites, structures, and objects commemorating the Marcos and Romualdez families.

Whenever I’d complain aloud to Pablo about the financial challenges of being a freelance writer, he would quiet me down by saying, in his serious baritone voice, “It’s the only good thing we know how to do.”