Safe Spaces and Quiet Rooms

 It’s March 4, and the air in the Metro is already thick with the kind of heat that makes you feel like you’re breathing through a wet towel. It’s the start of International Women’s Month, but the headlines aren’t celebrating; they’re echoing with the sound of a man in power reducing a woman to a "desire."

I spent the morning watching the news about Rep. Bong Suntay’s remarks regarding Anne Curtis. It’s a strange feeling, sitting here in my room—unemployed, barely holding onto my own sense of dignity—and watching someone with so much influence treat a person’s existence like a punchline for a lewd analogy. If an icon like her can be objectified in the halls of Congress, what chance do the millions of women navigating the MRT or the dark streets of this city have?

Depression makes you hyper-aware of how the world treats people it thinks it "owns." For me, it’s the feeling of being discarded by a system because I don’t have a job or a "purpose." But for the women of this city, it’s different. It’s a constant, aggressive surveillance—the "leering," the "remarks," the feeling that your safe space is only as wide as your own skin.

I’ve tried to write this post three times today. Each time, I stopped because I felt like a fraud. Who am I, a guy who can’t even fix his own life, to talk about the struggles of women? I felt like I was failing them by even trying to speak. I almost deleted the whole thing, just like I did back in January.

But then I thought about the women in my life—the ones who keep going even when the world is "nag-init" with disrespect. They don't have the luxury of giving up.

So, I’m hitting publish. This is my retry. To the women of the Metro who are tired of being looked at but never truly seen: I see you. I see the weight you carry in a city that often feels like it’s built to keep you uncomfortable.

The haze is still here, and the noise of the headlines is ugly, but maybe we can at least respect the space we’re all trying to survive in.

How are you finding your "safe space" in the middle of all this noise today?