F.H. Batacan > Quotes

“We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Some things are better dealt within the cleansing light of transparency and openness rather than in the darkness of secrecy.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“We are all powerless in the face of evil. No, no, that's not true. We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf. Yes, that's it. The truly powerful man is the man who stands alone.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“My life can't just be interesting. It has to be meaningful.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“No use complaining about the world's freest press-we fought for it, we got it, now we have to live with the nonsense that it spews out.”
― F. H. Batacan

“And I think you know what happens when you don't let the sunlight into dark places.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“There are many ways to give witness to faith.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“The arctic atmosphere, necessary for the maintenance of broadcast equipment, is air-conditioner sterile, with occasional stray smells of brewed coffee and toner for photocopying machines.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“No sense complaining about the world's freest press--we fought for it, we got it, now we have to live with the nonsense that it spews out.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“That's the nature of any kind of rot. If you don't stop it, it keeps going. It will keep going until it destroys the very organism that feeds it.”
― F. H. Batacan

“I worry that all this secrecy, all this unwillingness to change, to evolve—to listen to reason—is eroding all that we stand for. Endangering everything that we have vowed to protect and defend.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“In a different kind of society—a better kind—he would have been in school, would have had a chance to play, would have had better food to eat and cleaner air to breathe. And if he still died the way he eventually did, society's guardians, its authorities and lawmen, would have left no stone unturned to find out who was responsible.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Her friends used to tell her it wasn't rape if the man was your husband. She didn't say anything, but inside she seethed; she wanted to take a knife to their faces.”
― F. H. Batacan

“Whenever he finds himself at a social occasion that brings him into contact with law enforcement officials, Saenz tentatively trots out his theory. It is quickly withdrawn when some police general smiles patronizingly and says, “You’ve been watching too many foreign movies, Father Saenz; there are no serial killers in the Philippines.” The reasons offered simultaneously amuse and anger Saenz. “Our neighborhoods are too congested, our neighbors too nosy, our families too tightly knit for secrets to be kept and allowed to fester. We have too many ways to blow off steam—the nightclub, the karaoke bar, the after-work drinking binges with our fun-loving barkada. We’re too Catholic, too God-fearing, too fearful of scandal.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“The compassion you seek is neither mine to give nor yours to ask for.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Sometimes he talks to her like she is a man. It does not matter. He does not touch her like she is one.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“We are all powerless in the face of evil. No, no, that’s not true. We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“In a different kind of society-a better kind-he would have been in school, would have had a chance to play, would have had a better food to eat and cleaner air to breathe. And if he still died the way he eventually did, society's guardians, its authorities and lawmen, would have left no stone unturned to find out who was responsible.”
― F. H. Batacan

“In his line of work, nobody ever calls in the dead of night. Still he forgives her for her
sudden departures.

His large, powerful body is always invincibly warm in this freezing room; he likes to turn up the air conditioning and have her burrow into his warmth. For a few moments she considers
staying here, her cheek against his chest, letting his heartbeat lull her back into warm, safe sleep. Then, very reluctantly, she sits
up.

She watches the outline of his body under the covers, and out of habit she reaches out and runs the soft, fleshy pad of her right thumb across the long, brown lashes of his left eye. The eye shuts tighter as the other one opens. Green flecked with gold, catching what little light there is in the room.

“Give me one good reason.”

She cannot think of anything to say.

“Thought not.”

The huge hands with their thick fingers come up behind her head and pull it against his chest. She breathes him in, the smell of soap and warm skin and cigarette smoke. She loves the smell of him, even if she is allergic to secondhand smoke. He cannot, will not stop smoking, and she has to take antihistamines before she sees him. Small sacrifices, like not being able to go out with him in broad daylight, the slight twinge of envy she feels seeing lovers walk through malls and parks with their arms locked around each other. His daylight hours do not belong to her, and neither do these nights; she steals them like a common thief from a wife and children whose faces and names she does not want to know.

Someday soon these sacrifices will not seem so small, and these nights will not be enough. She cannot bear the thought of that day coming, and yet somehow she cannot wait for it to come.”
― F. H. Batacan

“The truth, Ben. Sometimes it takes a while.”
― F. H. Batacan

“He learned quickly and well, how to project and promote himself, hot to make each small achievement seem much bigger than it really was, how to grab credit and deflect blame.”
― F. H. Batacan

“It's a way to ingratiate themselves to local voters, using the very facilities, equipment and services that the voters themselves have financed with their taxes.”
― F. H. Batacan

“You see, Ben? That's what happens when we forget why we're all here. When the little political games we play become more important than the job we're entrusted to do. You used to know the difference.”
― F. H. Batacan

“And neither of them can turn away. “And he said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.’” Mark 7:6–”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“I didn’t like it. I didn’t want any of it. I. Didn’t. Want. It.

How important it was to him to have said this, the one thing he could not say all those terrible, silent years. To have said it so clearly and unequivocally, with the last breath and strength of his life.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Mainly he just wanted to forget. High school was one very long, very bad dream.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Suspected of ties with the Communist New People’s Army, he disappeared after a lightning rally of farmers and students in Manila in the early 1970s and had not been heard from since. His family believed he had been rounded up by the Metrocom, along with a few other activists and students who had taken part in the rally. He was one of the thousands — fifteen hundred by one count, more than three thousand by another — who fell victim to salvaging. It was a term perverted by the regime’s goons to refer to the extrajudicial killings that had become a dirty open secret of the dictatorship.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Funnily enough, I worry for exactly the opposite reasons. I worry that all this secrecy, all this unwillingness to change, to evolve — to listen to reason — is eroding all that we stand for. Endangering everything that we have vowed to protect and defend.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Fast and furious through something she thought was love.”
― F. H. Batacan

“The Church in this great Catholic country of ours is the last great, unexamined mystery. And I think you know what happens when you don’t let the sunlight into dark places, Father.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles