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.

Lechon Or Why I am considering Vegetarianism

I watched a pig prepared for lechon two nights ago. It is a slow death encouraged by a quick and deep stab to the jugular. I would ordinarily say that the pig squealed its life away but that is what pigs do. Squeal. It was more of a horrific squeal from hell. A hoarse high pitched trembling sound of animal fear and pain. I could not watch the moment of murder but I heard a sudden forceful thud as Bai thrust the knife in the pig's throat. From the sound of skin hitting skin, I imagine that he plunged the blade in completely as is also evidenced by the size and shape of the entry mark.

When the squealing abated, I rested easier thinking the pig was out of its misery but twice more, horrific sounds emanated from the creature as the blood drained out of its body into a waiting cauldron. At first loud and fighting and then low and gurgling. As if her cries riled the remaining blood in her body. Then the gurgling stopped.

Mang Jesse and Allan then carried the pig to what I shall call the staging ground. Simply a small open area of the house where I normally sit, smoke and watch the beach but now covered with tarpaulin. The boys then poured boiling water over the sow and used a spoon to deftly shear off the hair.

With the same hands used to deal the death blow, Bais carefully and expertly cut the animal open. Using light strokes with surgical precision down the pig from the throat to her last teat. Burying the knife even deeper and with both hands, Bai then sliced through the bones. "Slice" is perhaps the wrong word. Too clean for the snapping and breaking of defiant bone. I stopped counting after the fifth cup of blood was ladled out of the body and I wondered if the smell of blood is the smell of life or the smell of death. Either way, it is not sweet. Jesse, apparently in charge of the blood collection casually dipped his fingers into the cauldron and then licked them the way you would taste spaghetti sauce or hot fudge. "A dog's blood is the best," he nonchalantly told Allan.