>MARTIAL LAW BABIES…ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT?

For two days, my brother in law couldn’t stop talking and raving about a book he wants me and his kuya to read. He said it was good for us because both of us (T and I) are Martial Law Babies. He was all praises and all rave about the book that it got me curious. BIL couldn’t stop squirming that we must read it IMMEDIATELY (he gave us 24 hours to finish the book). The book actually a graphic novel by Arnold Arre entitled: Martial Law Babies. Here’s what I thought about it.

I can understand how excited BIL was about the book because for kids his generation, they would wonder and be at awe on how primitive we were back on those days. But personally, I didn’t feel the same. Yes I do love the novel but half of it I know and half of it I don’t. Because at the time which the book was set, I was still too young to even remember anything but the later part of the story I can then relate.

It’s about how the martial law babies were tagged as one. How the martial law molded our ways of acting and thinking, that each one of us took things differently but again somewhat the same.

As for me, the book rubs on the very obvious simplicity of the past. We were so easy to please that candy, cartoons, and mascots are enough to make us jump for joy. DO that to your children today and you might find yourself laughed at. It made me miss the little joys that we had. Remember the ice cream in a cup with the cute wooden spoon? I use to make my Tatay buy me 3 of each flavors (chocolate, ube and mango) and eat all of them in one sitting. As for the cartoons, I couldn’t relate much because I was never a TV person. I was always out playing tennis or out with friends playing hide and seek or whatever. Lastly, the drama at the end of the novel made me think that it is indeed true. We are all so clammed up with our thoughts and feelings that we fail to see the very obvious. Maybe the days made us think too much that we see everything as something we should try to resolve.

Try reading it. I’m sure you’ll learn so much from it. (Oh at this time, T was half done reading it…he got bored and played his old PC game instead.—well we don’t share the same reading passion so..)

Read it 🙂