Ornithopobia

While riding the jeep home today, two women and a little girl boarded with two trolleys of dyed chicks. Which would have been fun, except that I suffer from ornithophobia. Terribly. It's actually even difficult to write this post but it was the most atypical thing that happened today. I can't even write the word b$%d... it sends shivers down my spine.

I was sitting near the back of the jeep when we approached them. I didn't even see the chicks at first. Just the eyes of the lady trying to read the destination card of the jeep. I did see the familiar trolley though and that's when I got nervous. When it looked like the lady was about to board, I even thought of disembarking and finding another ride but she lifted her trolley onto the jeep and pushed it in front of me, trapping me. I turned away as nonchalantly as I could but I thought I would hyperventilate or vomit at the thought of those creatures just centimeters from my bare shin. Thankfully, she pushed the trolley to the front of the jeep but just when I thought I could make a run for it, the second lady began lifting the second trolley on board.

The ride home was nerve-wracking as worst case scenarios played in my head in the midst of incessant chirping. I didn't realise that I was practically sitting on my neighbour's lap trying to lean away from the little animals...

I really hate my fear. Why couldn't I have been scared of something like spiders instead?

On flutterbies, I mean butterflies

My friend D, who is currently at a crossroad, has asked the universe for a butterfly.

Should she encounter a butterfly within the week, this will be her sign to pursue a track that she is excited yet anxious about. However, another friend of hers chided her for being too vague and urged her to make her sign more specific by, oh say asking for a pink butterfly. So a pink butterfly it became. Yesterday, D saw a white butterfly (which she has never seen before) and is now even more confused.

Don't test the universe. She's way ahead of you, D. :)

Palestine

When I worked as a news writer for a TV channel, an editor called my attention to the use of the word 'Palestine' in a story about the Middle East peace process. "There's no such thing as Palestine. Palestine doesn't exist. Say 'Palestinians' na lang," the editor told me. And I felt sad...

on storing urine along taft

This afternoon while smoking a cigarette at the Vito Cruz LRT station, I noticed a guy urinating in the corner by the stairs. Even if it is a common occurence in this country, one can't help but feel offended. Or perhaps we should be offended because it is a common occurence? Anyway, after he finished his business, I realised that he had urinated in a plastic bottle whose lid he was casually tightening as he walked past me. He was of middle age, reasonably well dressed with a polo and slacks but with a mid-day haggard air. The golden liquid tipped back and forth in the bottle as he walked just a few steps to one of those little kiosks along Taft. (I eyed him only because of curiousity and worry that he might offer the bottle to some unsuspecting victim). He then bent over to store the bottle in a little wooden desk, on top of an antique typewriter (is that redundant?), as if he was filing away a folder. I wonder why he stores his urine? Is the urine some secret ingredient in a magic potion? Does he sell it to drug addicts? Was he just embarrased about having to do his business publicly? Was he making the best of the lack of facilities in his place of work? Oh questions, questions.

Hanjin

A Korean foreman was killed at the Hanjin dock in Subic. He is the first Korean fatality to be reported after a string of Filipino workers have been killed in recent years throwing the spotlight on Hanjin's safety record. It will be interesting to see what sort of measures the Korean run firm will implement in the wake of this incident, whether the death of a national will incite them to more serious action.

On Getting Hit By A Hearse

A couple of months ago I almost got hit by a hearse.

I was riding to the beach on my uncle's scooter, trying to overtake the procession when the hearse suddenly veered into my path as it turned into the cemetary. I steered sharply to the right and felt the bike begin to lose control but thankfully managed to correct the imbalance as I swerved around the hearse which had jerked to a halt.

With my adrenaline pumping, I sped away, not daring to look back at the shocked driver or the disrupted procession. It was only when I had shakily parked the bike and sat down with a cigarette that I realised the irony of what could have happened. And after two cigarettes, I was able to chuckle about it.

I remember a friend telling me that if she ever died by choking on a chicken bone, she would kill herself. Life is absurd enough, must our deaths be too?

journalism and literature

They say that journalism is literature in a hurry. In our Literary History class, we have learned the role journalism and the printing press played in the development of Philippine literature. I know several reporters who are writers and several writers who are journalists.

Graduating with a degree in literature, I naturally looked for jobs that centered around the written word. I found being a reporter exciting and challenging, particularly with the beats I was assigned. I also make a distinction between being a reporter and being a journalist. I would not say that every reporter is a journalist. I consider myself as only having been a reporter.

Weaned on literature though, the requisite who, what, where, when, why and how felt stifling. I found my editor's constant reminders that the public have short attention spans and as such, we should cater to this perceived laziness, presumptious and offensive.

On Sketching

I got into sketching sometime last year when my brother needed some help with a school project. I remember my first attempt at a self-portrait. It was interesting to see oneself as a creation of shades and lines and to realise more acutely that you cast shadows. It was in rendering a two-dimensional image of myself that I became more cognizant of myself as a three dimensional figure, a series of bumps and surfaces.

I have been practicing my sketching with the help of a book of portraits by the National Geographic photographer who shot the famous picture of an Afghani girl with mesmerising eyes. I have also found that I cannot draw happy, smiling people. I wonder if it is because drawing, like writing, is such an internal exercise... I cannot seem to find a connection with such a positive, fleeting emotion yet.

the president's premonition

One rainy day in September 1978, President Marcos had a premonition. With his son and daughter flying from Laoag to Manila on separate planes, something made the strongman shake and place a call to his children's security detail. Within minutes a game of musical chairs ensued as, breaking protocol, the presidential children were transferred onto a single plane.

My father, a member of the Presidential Security Group, moved to the other plane which crashed into a pond in Paranaque, beheading a mother who was watching television as it plowed through a row of houses.

Four months later, I was born.

This is the story I have been told about my Daddy Efren's death. I have seen pictures of the President and the First Lady at the funeral, both looking very somber. In one picture, the President is looking at my then three year old brother with a mixture of sadness and amusement as pregnant mom looks down at the casket.

surfing as a mode of decentralisation

Mang Jojo and Mang Abe are cousins who grew up in San Juan, La Union. Mang Jojo is a full-time surf instructor who dabbles in cockfighting while Mang Abe also teaches surfing part-time and moonlights as a company driver to make ends meet. For an hour of surf lessons, they get P150-200. They have the life I want.

On weekends and holidays, Manilenos troop up north to the small coastal barangay that has made its mark as "the surfing capital of the Philippines". With the surfing boom, other provinces have emerged as popular destinations, casting the spotlight on the locals who have been blessed to be born by the sea.

Geography results in these locals being the best surfers in the country and at the same time washing them in an automatic aura of "cool" particularly for Manila girls wanting to complete their carefully self-constructed bohemian images or for Manila boys wanting alternative credibility. Whatever the reason though, the surfing culture in the Philippines is at least one example of decentralisation and "power" shifting to the provinces and the locals.

I think it would be interesting to explore this aspect of the gaining popularity of surfing in the country, particularly with an eye towards regional awareness and development.

bubble gang to malacanang

I met a guy the other day who used to work as a writer for the Bubble Gang and who now works in spin control for Malacanang. That seems so impossible and yet so fitting at the same time. I suppose that would be similar to a writer for MadTV suddenly becoming the mouthpiece for U.S. Pres. George W. Bush (who incidentally is spending his last few hours in the White House before Obama is sworn in).

That would make an interesting story. Absurd but true. That seems to be the overwhelming character of Philippine life.

blah blah blah

I have a theory that provincial airconditioned buses are so cold so that people will better appreciate the Philippine sun. It is quite a funny sight to see people dressed in winter gear disembarking from a bus in a tropical climate.

There are lots of stories to tell about LU, especially the local surfing community. There are those that have been fortunate to grow up next to the water, and there are those that have settled here from far away. I think it's an interesting history to explore and document.

I would like to travel the coastal perimeter of the country, looking for waves. Explorers have always interested me. (I'm currently reading Wilfred Thessiger's Arabian Sands) and perhaps this could be a little travelogue project.

Filipino lives are cheap.

I was reading some of my older posts and am interested in exploring an observation that crystallized thanks to the Sulpicio tragedy. Filipino lives are cheap. Victims of accidents or disasters are treated shockingly disrespectfully. Burdened with poverty and injustice in life, most Filipinos cannot even afford to be treated with dignity in death. I remember watching another video of another fire, The Station club fire, in Rhode Island. Firemen retrieving the bodies made sure that their grisly operation was shielded from public eyes with blankets held high by some of their peers. With the Ozone fire meantime, rescuers simply carried the bodies away in full view of relatives and spectators, practically parading the charred remains of the victims for all to see and gasp at.

Santika

Bangkok welcomed 2009 in tragedy. A fire in a popular nightclub claimed the lives of young revellers, whose smiles were illuminated by the glow of sparkling lights just minutes before a wayward spark ignited their hellish end. I have been watching videos of the incident, feeding a morbid appetite within me to know their last thoughts. There are images of young women stumbling out of the burning building before collapsing, people in a tangle of limbs and fear reaching desperately for rescuers through bars; and shrouded bodies neatly lined on the parking lot. One video which contained a warning, showed a sea of barely distinguishable bodies after the fire was contained. A flashlight scans the area, catching the outline of a foot here, an arm there in the mound of bodies. Panning right, the beam of light exposes a knot of three women hopelessly entangled in each other. Their hair has been completely burned off and their faces are frozen in their last emotion. One's eyes spell fear, confusion and helplessness while another is caught seemingly in mid-scream.

Hours before, these girls were applying makeup and squeezing into deliberately chosen outfits to celebrate the last night of the year.