trumped-up murder charges, put it well: “The writer cannot be a mere storyteller, he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely x-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils, he or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.” In fact, you had seen it clearly; you had finally apprehended your professor’s immeasurable value. In May 2003, for a news- paper report written on Malay’s passing by one of his former students, who had asked his other former students about their thoughts on the man, you said: “He gave the lie to the notion that radical thought is only for the young. In that sense, he was even more vigorous than many of the so-called angry young men who passed through his classroom, the ones who dropped the pretense early on.”
Malay proved the Hegelian idea of
“becomingness”—that ideas and
people are never static.
v v v
Rosario “Chato” A. Garcellano, a brilliant writer and perceptive editor, is currently the associate editor for readership of Philippine Daily Inquirer . A UP graduate of journalism, she has a long and distinguished career in the media. One of her published works, Mean Streets: Essays on the Knife Edge (1992), won the Book of the Year Award by the Manila Critics Circle.
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