In our household, talking about politics over dinner is a normal occurrence. Probably because my parents work for a newspaper (and my dad came from UP Diliman) and us children were brought up with Scholastican ideals. So it was no surprise that the five of us took part in the Million People March that happened in Luneta just hours ago.

This may not be my first protest, but the amount of people in the streets still overwhelms me. Thousands of people in white shirts flooded the highway and Quirino Grandstand. Flyers were given out, banners and posters were raised up high, costumes and jingles were seen and heard throughout the entire place. Cries of "Makibaka! 'Wag magbaboy!" was the chant of choice of the people. I even saw a few of my college professors in the protest.

Different people from different classes, cities, and possibly everything different were present. And the sentiments were all pretty much the same: We're tired of being taken advantage of and it's time the government did something about it. The fact that even with the President's speech last Friday about abolishing the pork barrel, the people still pushed through with the march, says something about the whole situation.

But now that we're done with the first step, what's next?

And every person I asked answered the same thing: Wait for it. The next step is coming and we need you until the end.

I went to SM Aura Premier with my parents and sisters last Saturday. The place was fine, given that some of the stores and restaurants were still not open. Anyway, being such book lovers, we went to National Book Store just to take a look inside (it was pretty small, by the way). Since my youngest sister is on a Trese streak (totally recommending this, especially to graphic novel readers), I went with her to the Philippine Fiction section in the bookstore to buy the latest one. When I saw Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and The Hunger Games trilogy translated into Filipino, I cringed.

But that's the million-dollar question: Why did I cringe? Books were translated all the time so the citizens of that nation could understand the story if they couldn't fully understand English. So why should the Filipino translations be any different? Harry Potter has been translated into several languages—the same goes for the other bestsellers. If anything, these were translated because they wanted the others—the people who could not understand English as well as some of us do—to enjoy the story as much as we do. This could be the same for the people who decided to translate these bestsellers.

I admit, I prefer the original English ones over the Filipino translations. It might be because I'm far too used to reading my books in English that seeing the Filipino ones got me cringing. Even the Philippine literature that I do read are in English (save for the ones like the works of Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio). However, I do applaud the publishing company that decided to do this. In doing so, the masses who are more inclined to Filipino could enjoy the same stories that most of us enjoy.

Now to get back to Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado.