The songs of Gary Granada unfortunately continue to resonate with Filipinos dreaming of a better, even a bearable, government. We say unfortunately because many of these pieces have traversed from 20th to the 21st century, yet they remain compelling in the face of unchanging fortunes for the great majority of the country's citizens. Plagued with ecological, economic, religious-ideological and genders strife, these pieces offer clues to the fundamental historical and structural mechanisms that tie an entire archipelago down to its near hopeless social predicament.