At middle age, Filipino intellectuals who matured politically as part of the student protests of the 1960s and the remarkable revival of communism, have elided from a posture of unswerving militancy to more deliberative, less passionate, and self-critical encounters with power in society. Growing old, combined with the safety of some tenured post (a member of the professoriate, a pundit's niche in media, the NGO “sector”, or a corporate boardroom) are frequently the most immediate reasons for this political “moderation”. In certain cases, it is the fact that one is simply getting old, and this, combined with the debilitating allures of petit bourgeois comforts, have a way of tempering one's militancy. Yet, there are also the profound changes in the political scene, especially after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) lost its morally hegemonic position in 1986 and soon afterwards, despite its “reaffirmation” of Maoist principles, started acquiring the same vices that its class enemies have been notoriously known for. Lastly, on the broader social canvas, the diminution of one's political passion can likewise be the result of one's disappointment with “the masses” as they refuse to rally to the red flag, but instead gave their whole to conservative religiosity, and who, instead of acting as the makers of history, have decided to work abroad. Writing about one's present without taking these multiple contexts into consideration can thus be difficult and disheartening. The likely tendency for a lot of ageing former activists and progressive intellectuals is to minimize their radical past or not talk about it so as to avoid justifying contemporary compromises. A few even go to the deep end, disavowing any connections with that past and going to the extreme of becoming rabid defenders of reaction and conservatism. Then there are those who embellish the radical past as if to say that having “done my fair share” in the struggle, they now deserve to “slow down” or even “retire” from active politics. This is what has made this autobiographical essay profoundly difficult to write.