Writing well is the best revenge

IT was Feb. 25, 1986 and the Marcos family had just fled Malacañan Palace to go to Hawaii, with their stolen loot. They wisely avoided the fate of the Ceausescu family in Romania, who were all killed in cold blood by the angry Romanians.

But this was the Philippines, where the people are forgiving, willing to let the dictator and his family go, so that everything could begin again. I was attending Mass at EDSA that day, and in my knapsack was an acceptance letter to take a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at an American university, on scholarship. I did not know what to do.