Where the Personal Meets the Political

When Marvin B. Aceron introduced the pilot issue of the quarterly art and literature journal Santelmo in June 2022, he couldn't have envisioned that the small company of editors could keep it going for as long as it has.

- Alfred A. Yuson

For April 2025, Santelmo 12, "The Crossroads Issue," was recently promoted online, somewhat in hindsight, as the "Torchbearer of the Kakampink Movement"—"an incendiary collection of essays, poems, fiction, and political art from some of the country's fiercest voices."

In his latest Publisher's Note, titled "At the Crossroads, the Good Man Begins Again," Aceron writes:

"A good man is always a beginner. Life brings him, again and again, to the crossroads—not once, but many times. Sometimes the choice is clear. Sometimes the road ahead crumbles. Sometimes the hardest choice is whether to keep going, or to stop and begin something else.

He wakes with a plan, expecting the day to unfold as it did before—half-expecting it won't. He lays bricks on a wall he's been building for years. He does it carefully, methodically, with all he has. Still, the bricks may chip. The wall may tilt. The work may collapse. And then he must decide: rebuild the same wall, or turn, and build another.

He surveys what remains—what held, what failed. He may curse. He may rest his hands on his knees, unsure. But then he lifts his eyes. He smiles. And he begins again. From where he left off, or from the rubble. Or from a new place entirely.

This is the rhythm of his life: he starts, he stops, he questions, he chooses. And still—he begins. It's not about pride or stubbornness. It's not even about him. It's about what must be done, and the quiet courage it takes to ask: Is this still the right thing to do?

If he walks away, he walks not in defeat, but in trust—that another good man will come, or that his own strength is needed elsewhere. Either way, the work continues. A wall will rise, to shelter others from the wind, the cruelty of men, or the rushing sea.