Free Hugs

February 2009



My friend J muttered something under his breath. I knew he wanted to smash my head with the cartolina he was carrying, but he had agreed to this, and it was too late to take back his word.

I felt the same way. I wanted to smash my head with the cartolina I was carrying. But since this was my idea, backing out was not an option. “C’mon,” I told him amid the noise. “This is changing the world!”

With foolish grins, we made our way to the crowd. The gymnasium was half-packed with nearly five hundred students. They met us with different reactions upon seeing what was painted on the cardboards: FREE HUGS.

I first learned of the Free Hugs campaign while browsing YouTube’s most-viewed videos. An Australian who went by the name Juan Mann started it in Sydney in 2004. It then spurred similar activities in several cities around the world: Taipei, Tel Aviv, Paris, among others. I found the campaign inspiring. However, I considered it impossible to do in a laid-back place like ours, so it went out of my mind the moment I logged off the site.

It occurred to me again when the organization of my course decided to hold a concert-for-a-cause in school. Giving free hugs seemed fitting for the activity. As political science students, we wanted that the fund-raising concert would also serve as a social awareness campaign. So we asked the performing bands, which were non-professional and composed mostly of our schoolmates, to sing songs with a socio-political message. We also gathered pictures depicting poverty and the like and prepared slideshows of them. And we sold the tickets for only P10 each.

A recipe for disaster it was, but by sheer determination, we were able to wriggle through the school’s administrative red tape and have our little Woodstock staged. We dubbed it “Politics in Lyrics.”

When the big night arrived, all sorts of problem came up. The audience came late, but the bass guitar we rented came later, and the band members came latest. Thankfully, there was Free Hugs to attract and distract the students’ attention. And there was J, willing to take part in the crazy idea I had proposed. (I also asked two other guys, but they backed out at the last minute.)

It took a while before a girl rose from her seat and gave me a shy hug. I think she was the girlfriend of a lead vocalist. Dozens of girls followed suit. My friends also hugged me in exaggerated glee.

The date was October 26, 2007. No one has noticed it, but I have never talked about our Free Hugs campaign since the night it happened. When some schoolmates would tease me about it, I would just smile. I guess I got ashamed of what I did, especially after someone innocently asked, “What was that for?”

I answered, “Nothing,” and the subject was dropped. But in my mind I asked myself, “Indeed, what was it for? It was plainly silly.”

I am prompted to write about it now because lately I can’t help but look back wistfully at that night. It seems that a lot has changed in me from the time I stepped out of university. Gradually, the outside world has taught me that it is too big to change, that altruistic dreams are good only when you don’t have to fend for yourself. I feel that I can no longer go back to being the person that I was that evening—full of ideals and fervently believing in the words crudely printed in his black shirt (“I can make a difference”).

My schoolmates didn’t ask me what I felt while giving those hugs. Just the same, I wouldn’t know what to answer. Was it fun? Was it surprising? I’ll try to put it in words, but I believe to fully understand me, you have to be there. You have to see how a hug brings smile to the face. I remember that when a girl would come to me, she and I would smile to each other as if we were going to share something funny and stupid, but after the hug, our smiles could only express gladness and gratitude.

A hug is the most human gesture. It’s sweet—and more. It doesn’t just say “I like you” or “I care for you.” When received from a stranger, it says “You and I are not different from each other.” It fills you with hope, because you are reminded that men share a common fate, that struggles in life are not yours alone.

Of course, I wasn’t really thinking in such terms that night. I didn’t try to flesh out the reasons for what I was doing. It just felt right. All I knew was that in the internet videos I saw something in the faces of the people who received the hug, and I wanted to help spread it.

I don’t know if I’d be able to do it again. I’m afraid I’ve become self-absorbed and socially conforming. Maybe all I need is a hug. Don’t we all?