6 Quotes & Sayings By Vj Campilan

V.J. Campilan had a tumultuous life. He was the first Filipino to earn a degree at the University of the Philippines, where he earned an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, before he turned to journalism under the tutelage of Ramon Agabon. He worked as a columnist for two newspapers in Manila before he became editor-in-chief of "Pilipino Star" magazine during the late 1950s Read more

He later became president of Equity Publishing Corporation which publishes "Pilipino Star" magazine. During this time, he also wrote for the "Philippine Free Press" and other publications. Mr.

Campilan was also an active member of the International Human Rights Commissions, where he served as vice chairman and member of the executive committee during 1972-1975.

1
You’re trying to look for rock bottom, to that part of yourself that could no longer feel pain. But there is no such thing as rock bottom. As long as there is left to destroy in you, you’d do it. We always feel the need to sink ourselves because we keep being intolerable, because if we’re suffering then maybe people would give us a break for all the shameful things we do. You think you could impose your own penance, but it never goes away, does it? That kind of deadening that’s worse than actual dying. V.J. Campilan
2
At night, with only the bedside lamp on, I would pretend to sleep and listened to Dad’s muffled crying in the semi-darkness, wishing that I could cry like him, that I could bring Stevan back from the dead by the strength of my tears. But they were regular tears carving the same slicing-hot trails down my cheeks, and in the end, I could not summon a distinct kind of grief for Stevan. Just the same grief that has gripped mankind for centuries, which time would inevitably ebb into a notch in one’s skin or a small limp in the way one walks or a bottled memory that would only resurface some nights. And soon, you’d struggle to remember how that person talked or how that person used to occupy a customized space in your life. And you don’t want to forget, but you don’t want to remember either, and there seemed to be no place where you could just exist. V.J. Campilan
3
You must think I don’t know what’s keeping you up at night. You must think we’re so different. But I know. Everyone knows despair. Isn’t that why people jump off bridges or drown themselves? Anything, really, to escape being human. V.J. Campilan
4
Do you know that you being here with that gun in your hand is more wondrous than the parting of the Red Sea? For someone like God, it would be easy to command the skies, the waters, the rocks. But to change a man’s heart, for a man to choose to come here and acknowledge his helplessness, now, that is the province of miracles. V.J. Campilan
5
Why come back to this empty house, and this Manila with a strange face; the one I never knew? All those lonely islands. They will keep afloat without me. V.J. Campilan