FLORIDA (MindaNews / 29 August) — I’ve carried the urge to write about this for a very, very long time—the deep pains and frustrations I feel with current Philippine politics, and how profoundly it has affected how I view my world now in relation to those I hold closest to my heart. SO THIS IS A LONG READ.

As someone from Davao, Mindanao who has survived the bombing at the Davao Cathedral unscathed, who might have been stabbed one night in an alternate life, and who might have been a political detainee for more than one day if it were not for the intervention of a Jesuit priest—imagine how deeply hurt and angry I felt when I learned that my family, friends and comrades with whom I have stood arm-in-arm in this long struggle for peace and justice in the Philippines support the person known for giving birth to the Davao Death Squads (DDS).

In a way, I took it personally. My daughter’s friend was stabbed to death by the DDS, and it was in her arms when he took his last breath. Carter came to our house every night to cook dinner for two weeks, so he could eat—because they were less fortunate. It wasn’t unusual for my daughter to bring her less fortunate friends home to eat, or sometimes spend the night. That’s how I ended up “adopting” three girls for a year or two. I barely had the chance to know Carter before the DDS cut his life short. Rumors whispered that he sold drugs. No arrests. No trials. Just a life ended by 15 stab wounds.

It is hard to reconcile this, knowing that many of my friends who support Duterte are themselves artists, NGO workers, and cultural workers. Joey Ayala, of course, being one of them.

I’ve known Joey since the 1980s. To me, he has always been more than a musician—he has been a brother-(out-law), a mentor, a friend, a fellow traveler in the long struggle for peace, justice, and equity in a country that has spilled rivers of blood in the pursuit of these ideals. Not to mention that he gave me his Blueridge guitar back in 1995. I have witnessed how his songs have gathered individuals around social issues, how his lyrics have evoked passion and compassion, and how his music summoned the power of cultural integrity.

I can say the same for the songs of another Davao music icon Popong Landero. This is a man I have loved and respected deeply, having worked with him so closely for many years as a member of Kaliwat Theater Collective.

So when I learned about their support for Rodrigo Duterte, I could not understand the contradiction. How could these iconic musicians who sang about environmental and social issues give their blessing to a president under whose watch so many lives were taken without due process?

I know their sincerity, their capacity for empathy, their desire for change. I know them personally to be wonderful human beings full of love and compassion, and I am sure they did not support Duterte out of malice or indifference to suffering. Rather, it was faith in Duterte’s ardent and populist promises of immediate reform.

For people like us, who have long sung about justice and people’s struggles, it was exciting to finally find someone who we believed could upend the old political order—especially someone from our own tribe, so to speak—a fellow Dabawenyo. 

And Duterte spoke as though he was not beholden to the traditional elite. He presented himself as down-to-earth, blunt, and unpretentious. Never mind if he himself was the head honcho of Davao’s most powerful family oligarchy.

I used to believe that radical changes—and even bearing arms—are needed to change society. Especially when essentially nothing has changed through the decades—the poor have remained poor, and what few reforms there were could be easily co-opted, and then wiped out and replaced with the same old-same old as leaders change every 6 years or so. What needs to happen is to tear down the old structures that sustain corruption and oppression, and build new ones.

My understanding is that when people take up arms, it is usually a last resort—the cry of the oppressed, a desperate response to centuries or decades of poverty and exploitation. But when a President uses the state’s armed machinery to wield violence among the helpless, it is an instrument of power. It is not born of desperation to effect change but of a desire to control and render people into submission. Because why would the state choose violence when it has the courts, schools, media, and policy-making bodies at its disposal.

In the case of Duterte, what we mistook for radical honesty became a justification and normalization of state violence, abusive and vulgar rhetoric, and hostile discourse. What seemed like a promise of a break from the old ways turned out to be a continuation of decades-old war against dissenters, the red-tagged, and the latest addition to the usual suspects—the poor accused of drugs. Meanwhile, corruption continues to reign as allegations of gross misuse of public funds and unexplained wealth hound Duterte’s equally vicious and ambitious daughter Inday Sara.

In chasing the dream of change, Joey, Popong, and many of my friends may have overlooked—or chosen to turn a blind eye at the darker consequences of strongman politics, and the corruption allegations against familia Duterte.

And there lies the tragedy. We can sing of peace, justice, and true change, and yet misidentify their enemies.

I still do not understand, and I don’t think I ever will, but what I do know is that human beings are not always coherent or consistent. 

So where does that leave me as someone who is a big fan of Joey Ayala and Popong Landero’s music? Part of me wants to separate the art from the artist, to say: the songs still stand, they are still as beautiful as when I first heard them. They still reflect the truth, even if the person who wrote them—in my opinion—faltered. 

Another part of me resists that separation—because Joey is HIS songs, Popong Landero is HIS music, and the contradiction lives in both. Indeed, “magkabilaan ang mundo,” not just referring to this earth in which we live, but also to the world of inner landscapes that we carry within us as we negotiate and make decisions on how to live our lives every day. 

Maybe this is what it means to love both art and artist: not to deny the contradictions but to live with them. To keep listening, even when it hurts. To let the songs continue their work in me, while also letting the dissonance remind me that no individual, no matter how gifted, can be our pure moral compass. WE ARE ALL FALLIBLE.

And Joey, Popong and my DDS friends can look me straight in the eye and tell me that I am not the poster girl for morality, either—in whatever context that means.

With that, I would like to end with one of Popong’s most beautiful songs: “Buhay ay may saysay sa sangmaliwanag, kung MAY KARAPATAN at KALAYAAN, malayang kaisipan, malayang damdamin, biyayang ibinigay ng bathala.”

(Originally Geejay Arriola from Davao City, Geej Williams was a member of Kaliwat Theater Collective and Mebuyan band before she moved to Florida in 2011. Geej continues to perform as part of the band MoonStalker with her husband, and is cooking up an autobiographical monologue and an immigrant-themed music album, to be launched in 2026. Geej posted this on her social media account on 28 August, tagging both Joey and Popong. Geej gave MindaNews permission to publish this. She also gave the title for this piece.)