Lupang Hinirang parties

We have a situation. Very serious. Very funny, but very serious (usually that’s how this country works).

The kids were at a rave, lights, boom-boom music, and suddenly, what happened? Lupang Hinirang. The national anthem. They sang it. God help us.

Now the internet is dying. The Facebook Supreme Court. The justices are all there. Fake names. “Bert TV Official.” “Real Pinoy 77.” “How dare they?” “This is illegal.” “Where is the respect?” Last week, they were SALN experts.

The anthem got loose, left the flagpole, the school program. It left the old men who prefer their patriotism in straight lines and found the kids.

The anthem sounded more alive in the wrong place than in many of the right ones.

But here is the tiny problem nobody wants to touch because it ruins the outrage. It was not a sing-or-fail Monday-morning hostage situation. They were free to forget. And still, the song found them. In a place designed for losing one’s senses, they chose the country.

Very awkward for the professional scolds, the “kids today know nothing” industry. Because the old fear was that young people would forget the anthem. Forget the words, the nation. Forget everything, which, by the way, we’re excellent at. We forget scandals, thieves, and we forget campaign promises. Alzheimer’s should run for office. Landslide.

Strange. Nobody panics when the anthem is played before speeches nobody believes. Or faint when officials solemnly stand beside the flag after robbing everything under it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to take everything. Please rise.” That’s allowed. That’s the official version of stealing. Stand straight, said the crooked man.

A man can stand still, hand on chest, eyes forward, and feel nothing. Another can sing badly, loudly, holding his beer, stupidly even, and mean every word.

Tell me, genius, which one is closer to love?

Maybe we confuse silence with respect, think love of country only counts if it looks bored and slightly constipated.

The law says the anthem must not be entertainment. Fair. A country needs standards, even if it misplaces them every election.

But what happens when entertainment is the only room where the young still gather, when the only place the anthem can reach them is a place the law would never bless?

The anthem was not born polite. Thank God. It came from trouble. Revolt. The people who were done kneeling and were trying, loudly and dangerously, to become free.

Then we dressed it up. Slowed it down. Combed its hair. Gave it rules. Good. Maybe necessary. But you cannot raise a song from revolution and then act surprised when it refuses to behave.

The crime may be bad taste. The evidence may be love.

Maybe they didn’t drag the anthem down to the party. Maybe for one strange moment, the party may have been pulled up to the anthem.

Maybe that is what scares the old guardians. The kids found it, turned up the volume, and reminded everybody that a song with revolution in its blood was never meant to be obedient.