She was first introduced to me while we are at Mindanao State University’s Golf Course. She lived at Lanao for so many years now, and she never leave place and she never will. They said she’s beautiful but I actually can’t see the reason why. I mean, there’s nothing spectacular about her. She’s too common for my liking.
Whenever I go to golf course, she’s there. If I climb up on my apartment’s rooftop, she’s also there. It’s so hard for me to ignore her. Maybe she’s really beautiful and hey, people always take a selfie with her.
Then one faithful day, Marawi City has been siege. There’s fire, gunshots, bombs. There is Chaos. From that moment I really thought I can’t go back again and finish my studies. But God has plans, I went back and enrolled myself. Looking around, I saw her. She’s still there, still there immovable. Proving she’s worth her given name.
For all the bombs that disturb our classes, the gunshots that cause our hearts to beat in fear, each text messages threatening our lives, she’s there. She never leave, MSUjuans also stayed.
No wonder she’s a beauty. She isn’t just a bunch of soil and trees forming a sleeping lady. She is also a representation of peace. For all the things that happened, she stay still unalarmed of threats, lying strong on her bed.
For all the MSUjuans who stayed, and for all those people who stayed with us, we are like the Sleeping Lady. Through all the things that had happen, we stay still, we remain strong. We stick with our given name “Survivors”.
We are the sleeping lady. And as much as how proud I was for being one of those who stayed still and being linked to sleeping lady, “Bangon Marawi” phrase also gave an impact. For months we are all seeing this in social networking sites, printed on some shirts, and a slogan on events. Bangon! It means, getting up. Getting up from our downfall, that every failure there’s still hope we can still go on with life. But Bangon isn’t just for those who fall but also for those who sleep.
Bangon, people. Wake up from all those blinding norms we have, I don’t need to enumerate things. We all know what it is. We are given the chance to get up from our slumber and do things right. Bangon People
