No looking back.

There’s no escaping the past. It caught up with me yesterday.

They named it. Angels 98 Class Reunion. Whaat? I thought I really could escape reunions. I really did. Seems I just can’t.

And so there I was. Nostalgic? Never.

Why then was I there? Because Munel was convincing. And maybe because I was curious, too. Maybe.

I was there but I really wasn’t.

No fair, everyone got considerably heavier except for Joanne. (BSAT Batch HS ‘98 Reunion.)

Just shoot him.

I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing this guy all over the place. I’m upset still that he’s a free man now. Crap! I don’t know why but I’m really flaming mad, which sucks because it’s so unnecessary, a waste of energy, a waste of time.

There’s a cancer support group in Bohol

A few days after I got back from Chairman Mao’s territory. My editor calls me for a LifestyleBohol shoot/interview. There, at the K of C church formation center, we met them. They’re women cancer (mostly breast cancer) survivors. Amazing. I know there’s quite a number cancer victims in Bohol, some fortunate enough to survive, some not but I never thought their number would amount to something that would entail a support group. Sitting down with the Bohol Cares, a cancer support group, hearing their stories of struggling (and surpassing) the fight against cancer and chemotherapy was revealing, inspiring.

I did China.

I damn sure did.

(I’m placing my China journal elsewhere, which should be published soon.)

No to Erap's Pardon

Fuck. Erap does not deserve the presidential pardon. Is it necessary? For GMA, politically, no! Unless she wants to stay in office forever. Such a disgrace. 

China flies to the moon

It's all over the news here. It's quite incredible. Who would've known? But it's inevitable, really. China is unstoppable, primed to conquer not only the world, but the universe. Be afraid, be very very afraid.

China-Bound

The Philippine delegation to the 10th China Senior Study and Research Program for International Young Cadres left Manila to Guangzhou via Southern China Airlines. At Guangzhou, we met with the rest of the delegation. We flew to Nanning where we were greeted by teachers from the China-Guangxi International Youth Exchange Institute.

Numb

Sketching calms me, it’s such an amnesiac, I wish, sometimes, its effects would last a little longer.

You don’t know me, I don’t know you

ballpoint pen

Inspired by the brave Burmese monks

Marker and ballpoint pen.

Free Burma

No to Erap Pardon!

This is absurd and quite unacceptable really.

WTF! He’s not yet even imprisoned ‘proper’ and now he gets to go scott-free! Rubbish!

Number 1: The judicial process has not been fully exhausted. There’s still the motion for reconsideration. And then there’s always the Supreme Court. Any talk of pardon is premature. Moot and crapademic.

Number 2: Talk of destabilization from the Erap camp is completely paranoiac! There’s no Estrada camp anymore. It will morph into the camp of whoever’s running this time around come 2010.

Number 3: Talk of destabilization from anyone, anyone at all at this time (where everybody’s preparing for 2010, it’s just a matter of tolerating GMA until then) runs along the ‘wag the dog’ crap. A diversion really from ZTE, et al.

Number 4: Lastly, a pardon for Estrada is simply wrong and a slap to the dignity (or what remains of it) of all Filipino. He is hands-down guilty (like most of people in power). He should remain so.

(Mangabroad na ta ani! Balik ta after 2010! Syeet!)

The ComicRelief new-comer in PDI is not exactly a comic relief.

It’s a love story, Carlo J. Caparas’ diario novela “To Love and to hold”.

And it’s too big. It spans a quarter of the page. And 7 comic strips were actually annihilated to give way to this Pinoy Comics returnee. Among them, “Divine Comedy”, which, I actually liked.

Mingaw na man nuon ang akong paboriting section sa PDI.

The guilty Erap now, the guilty Erap then

Erap has been guilty even before the SandiganBayan verdict was pronounced today. Did we not wave those big ‘GUILTY’ streamers during the height of EDSA 2? But now, 6 years after and finally a guilty court ruling? Where have all the rage and the furor gone?

We’ve mellowed down, I guess. And besides, these people, Erap’s buddies? Total sell-outs.


I would like to remember Edsa II. But then I get reminded that it was then that Gloria took over the reins of this nation and look where we are now.

I cheered while watching the WTO Twin Towers crumble.

I think I did. I may have even exclaimed: “Yes! World War 3!” (I didn’t know FoxNews existed ’til then.)

Fast forward 6 years, still no world war. But the world has changed forever. Thanks to the US and her beloved GW Bush, the world has become one unending freaky fright show. To think that that over-bloated event only killed about 3,000 people while on that day, elsewhere in the globe, 20,000++ women and children died of hunger.

And what about the points raised by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11? Very valid. I could even believe the theories of conspiracy theorists.

I think the world is even far better without the twin towers. Less carbon emission.

Cool Thang!

I’m cool.

And so, Tuff, Miriam’s goofy beau, gave me a Banaue cap from their last trip there.

Whaaaahhhh!

To think that I almost ripped the Baguio embroidery from my father’s mailbag pasalubong.

But, I was grateful, of course. Really, I was.

Remembering Ka Viktor

Although, it can be said nga kami-kami lang, the tribute for slain Boholano peasant leader Victor Olayvar in the eve of his death anniversary was an intimate cultural gathering of friends, supporters, comrades of Victor.

Interests and what-not

Last night someone verbally presumed my disinterest with certain things.

I must not expound on these ‘certain things’ lest this post becomes a lengthy exposition on First Day High: The Joys and Tribulations of the First Day of School of a First-Time Pre-school Teacher (Who Has Dreamed for this Day Since Forever) in a First World Locale from the Perspective of a Disinterested Disillusioned Third World Citizen Dreaming for a Socialist Philippines in the Near Future.

It’s not so much as it was not entirely true, it was more that someone merely presumed something about me. Made me think. For a millisecond (or longer), what people thought of me. What little people thought of me. (Or how highly they do.) It was a tiny jolt, immaterial, had it not struck at the right place, at the right time. But it’s not about this, even. What others think wouldn’t matter, in the end. Because really the bulb shone on me. Made me think further. Of things that do interest me. And those that don’t. Good thing, it was just a short flicker. For God knows I could fill thousands of pages with stuff that interest me.

People. Architecture. Films. Politics. Hollywood. Fashion. Music. Literature. Poetry. Comic Strip. Art. Travel. TV. Food. Technology. Nature. Sports. Celebrities. Counter-culture. Spirituality. Trivia. Mass Struggle. Chocolate. China. Japan. Social Development. Archaeology. Calligraphy. Photography. Wine. Education. New York Living. Manolo Blanik. The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Sports. Rem Koolhaas. SOM. Flipflops. Mindanao. Epiphanies. Hair-raising moments. Imperialist Manila. International Cuss Words.

I could be interested in anything and everything for all I know as I’m set to discover new things every second of each day. And I could not even bother thinking about those that don’t. These things, they will reveal themselves to me in time. Besides, this introspection is giving me a brain tumor, I could feel the slimy shit squirming inside my brain.

I'm sick, shit.

I was clobbered to near-death, yet lived to tell the tale. Or so I look like.

Sore eyes, it’s the worst of all illnesses. It’s filthy, irritating, and painful as hell. It is embarrassing, which makes it all the more discomforting. Medical scientists should really do something about this. This is a sickness that should’ve already been controlled ages ago, fuck AIDS. See, it also accounts for incoherence. And poetic surge, too. I wrote this poem, summer 2002.

piskat!

mura ka’g sabog
nasudlan ug dautang espiritu
naenkantuhan
vampire
na-knock-out ni Pacquiao

maayo pa unta
kahadlukan
gamhanan

kaysa’s gilikayan
gikahadlukan
nga katol
nagsakit
nagnana
ang mga mata

(nga puno’g muta)

Starstruck!

Parked right in front of the Fotomoments studio, we were simply floored. Me, I had to touch it, to believe it. And take pictures, siempre!

I didn’t attend my high school reunion.

Maybe, because I didn’t really invent the Post-it’s.

I was sort of forced, though, to again enter the premises of Bohol School of Arts and Trades (BSAT), now the Central Visayas State College of Arts, Forestry and Technology (CVSCAFT). Bohol Chronicle’s LifestyleBohol (where I’m usually working in) covered the event. More aptly, Sonieta, the section editor, covered the event. I was only there for the cover photo shoot.

Sonieta was popular back in her BSAT Days (Batch ‘98). And I think she genuinely had a the time of her life during those days, which was so long time ago. (hehe!)

My brother, Ryan, LifestyleBohol photographer, was a year ahead of me in BSAT. He took the photos for the BTS-BSAT-CVSAFT Centennary Celebration.

I was not exactly a wallflower. People knew me. But it’s really hard for me to dwell on the past, much more, travel back time basically with these reunions and all.

Sonieta (middle, in white, long-sleeved blouse) will always be happy to be back in BSAT.

Too bad for my grade school batch(Tagbilaran City Central Elementary School ‘94). They expect me to organize our reunion. I can’t. I just can’t.

(The LifestyleBohol Cover. Layout Design by moi!)

I'm a bum in the making

I’m a bum in the making, I think. Therefore, I am. This tandem is hilarious as hell, and their wit? Piercing! Ouch! (Comic strip published today in the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Suruy-suroy sa Pantalan

Wala’y lingaw. Tuff, our man from South of France wanted to take videos ’round the city for his video project. Tey and me tagged along.

Sandugo season. There’s a fair, locals usually call ’showcase’ (or shyukis) in the pier. Most people flock to the beer garden, where there’s live entertainment. Nightly shows are also staged with sponsoring organizations.

Even the sea people, the Badjaos from just across the waters, are drawn by the sweet scent of the nightly festive air.

We sipped beer while watching the sun retire behind the mountains.

Simply Amazing

Yes! I’ve finally connected my notebook pc to the internet via Smart’s 3G Internet.

This was really my only hope to have an internet connection at home since cable lines of phone, cable companies don’t reach our place. The only option was go wireless. Hence, this.

I’m so happy, no really,  I don’t even mind the super slow connection and that I’m here outside, at our front yard, just so I could have a 3G signal.

I’m just glad, I’m connected, finally.

Chilling Effect

So much has happened in the two months that I was gone.

The footages of the Pen Stand-off gives me goosebumps. I wish I was here to watch the events as it happened. It’d still be on TV, I know. But for the Philippines to be at the brink of a revolution, I must be there, here. It was too much already that I missed the failed coup attempt in February 2006 (I was also out of the country) and now this?

I must be destined to abandon my own country in its darkest times…

That. is. scary.