lucid interval of a mental pervert

bad news, good news!

2009-01-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

first, the bad news: THIS BLOG IS DEAD!

now, the good news: I HAVE A NEW BLOG!

if you're interested, catch me at http://kspy65.blogspot.com.

the crustacean diaspora in surigao del sur

2008-09-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

As a child, I always believed that crabs would never run out in Tago, my hometown in Surigao del Sur, even if they were peddled in the streets morning, noon and night.

Back then crabs were readily available that when a surprise visitor arrived minutes before lunch, my mother would tell our maid to boil water before leaving in haste. Just as the water began to bubble, she would be back with crabs dangling in her hand in one hefty bunch.

Then about three years ago, crab supply began to dwindle. Alarmed, Mayor Hermenegildo Pimentel Jr. investigated and learned that juvenile crabs—matchbox-sized crabs that swim or walk at the bottom of the muddy bay—are being transported on the sly to Zamboanga del Sur, Lanao del Norte and Capiz provinces. There, they are sold to fishpond operators. This explains why our crabs have become dearer, smaller, and rarer that we have to order them days in advance.

Realizing that Tago’s repute as Surigao del Sur’s crab capital was at stake, Mayor Pimentel met with crab gatherers and traders and pointed out to them that in effect they were selling crabs to extinction because if these crablets don’t reach maturity, who would create the next generation of crabs in the freshwaters of Tago?

He also stressed that this practice, if not stopped, would threaten the balance of ecology and Tago’s legitimate crab industry, and make losers in all of us. But these explanation proved too complex to be understood by crab gatherers who sell crablets at P10 each to survive.

“Three crablets already mean a kilo of rice for our family,” they said.

The municipal agriculturist reported that about 10,000 crablets are brought out of Tago weekly. If a crablet is left to mature in the wild, it would weigh an average of 900 grams. If a crab sells at P200 per kilogram, then each crab is worth P180. With 10,000 crablets, you have P1.8 million in foregone sales weekly or P93.6 million yearly.

Imagine what this amount would do to the economy of Tago, a third class municipality of 37,000 people with an internal revenue allotment of P45 million.

Aware of the problem’s enormity, the municipal council enacted in March 2006 an ordinance that prohibits the catching, selling, and gathering of crablets and berried mud crabs and stipulates a penalty of P1,500.00 or imprisonment of six months or both.

But it seemed that the ordinance, like its duplicate passed by the provincial board, lacked administrative feasibility because the crustacean diaspora continued, even metastasizing to other crab-rich towns like Hinatuan and Bislig.

Tagon-ons were quick to offer solutions. One was for the local government to buy these crablets at a competitive price, partner with nongovernment organizations, and go into innovative system of captive crab culture in pens among mangroves that abound in Tago.

Another idea, however, was so out-of-the-box that the mayor could only chuckle because it called for crabs to apply for exit visas. This way, they said, Tago could earn some bucks for itself.

Poverty being the overriding issue, everybody thought he’d never see the end of this dilemma. Then early this year, in what many believed at first to be mere attempt at sound bytes, Gov. Vicente Pimentel Jr. and Mayor Pimentel launched an offensive that both deploys the police to crack down on violators and dangles an attractive reward system for informants.

So far, the approach is getting positive results and gaining community support as thousands of crablets had been confiscated and returned to their natural habitat where they are expected to grow to adulthood, which means, having a carapace of at least 10 cm.

Crabs are back on the streets of Tago. And as supply increases steadily, Mayor Pimentel thinks of brokering a marketing agreement between crab gatherers and owners of hotels, resorts, and restaurants in Manila, Cebu and Davao.

“This way, the crab gatherers could earn good money,” he said.

But these changes aside, Mayor Pimentel remains on his guard. “The battle is far from over because I still receive reports of crablets going out of Tago,” he said.

But then he was quick to add that it’s now down to a level that doesn’t make him crabby.

(published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer;08/31/2008.)

chapter one of a new story

2008-02-12T17:32:00.001-08:00

LOOKING AT THE STARS

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

CHAPTER 1: THE END

No, he can’t be dead! Cynthia Orozco-Acevedo stared at the text message in her cell phone and thought of Jovanie just as the room began to spin. Later, when the initial frenzy had subsided, she couldn’t recall which came first---her tears or the trembling of her hands.

She sat on a chair, stunned. To her right was the bedroom where Lito, her husband, was sleeping with their only child Lancelot by his side. Lito had gone to bed early as he would leave for Cagayan de Oro the next day, but Cynthia now wanted to wake him and tell him about Jovanie. Lito knew Jovanie was her favorite because two years after he joined Tago District, she made him head teacher of Caras-an Elementary School.

The cell phone in her hand lit up, then a message alert tone. Cynthia pressed a button to read the text message. But in the puddle of her tears, the letters collided, and all she could make was that of Jovanie’s body being found in a rocky section of a secluded beach in Cagwait.

The room spun faster. Cynthia clasped the cellfone to keep it from slipping and went to wake Lito.

The yellow clock on the narra wall said 9:35. And somewhere, a dog barked.

they don't watch movies the way we did

2008-01-24T16:51:00.001-08:00

I’ve always loved movies. And I'm lucky to have parents---God bless their souls---who considered movies as a medium of learning.

Back in elementary, usually on a Monday, Mama and Papa would give us money, on top of our usual baon, to embark on a business selling popcorn to our classmates. And because we had sacks of corn from our farm, all we had to buy were cooking oil and the brown supot. Come Saturday, we'd account our money and go watch a movie in Tandag. And if the money was not enough, Mama and Papa would pay for the balance.

Then on the following Monday, the cycle began again.

Watching movies in movie houses has become a lost art, and it saddens me. It’s over 10 years now that Tandag's Timber City and Moonglow Cinemas had closed their doors to cineastes like me. I remember watching movies during the last dying years of Timber City Cinema, braving the heat and cigarette smoke, the scurrying rats the size of cats, and raindrops falling from the holey roof. During heavy rains, a puddle would form at the orchestra floor, in the space between the first row and the screen, and I would watch the movie unfold not onscreen but on the puddle’s reflection.

For me there’s no greater experience than watching movies the old fashion way. Time was when the thought alone of going to Tandag to watch a movie was enough to make me pee from excitement. And upon reaching either Timber City or Moonglow Cinema, I’d lose myself in a visual feast, gawking at the “Now Showing,” “Next,” and “Coming Soon” still pictures that were tacked on both sides of a large plywood. Swirls of smoke smelling of grilled bananas, popcorns, peanuts, and melted butter would fill my nose. Sliced mango and pineapple displayed on tables would seduce my eyes, and it would take a greater resolve on my part to hold on to my extra money---which my parents intended actually for my snacks----because I had decided to use it to buy Hiwaga Komiks at Chona’s Reading Center.

And when the metal gate of Timber City Cinema creaked open, I would run to the ticket booth ahead of the rest so that I would be the first one to enter the movie house and get to choose the prime seat, which was the balcony’s fourth row.

The music would play as people streamed inside. And once the light dimmed, I’d be ready to be transported to a world distant and unknown. But the moment the screen lit up, that was when my heart would quicken because I knew that the lady with a sword would emerge, like this--

or the lion would roar, like this---

or the globe would spin, like this---

And when the movie ended, I would again linger at the lobby, squinting my eyes from sudden exposure to light, to find out if every single still picture was shown in the movie. And if there were some that weren't, I’d feel shortchanged. I was too young then to know that still pictures are taken long before the film goes for final editing and that some stills don’t make it to the final cut.

Watching movies of yore needed focus and undivided attention. A little distraction here and there would mean missing a scene or a dialogue. And because unlike today’s technology where instant playback is possible, I had to “review” the movie, which meant another three hours of waiting because it was always a “double program.” When this happened, it was a painful choice between watching the movie all over again and missing the last trip to Tago. The latter would mean I had to walk with faith in my heart all the way home and make myself part of a live movie where Pitang lived, one that involved flying coffins and starred in by spooky creatures of the night.

The best movie days for me however dated back to the time when Tandag didn’t have movie houses yet and we had to wait for this panel---

Waiting for the Darigold panel was like waiting for Christ’s second coming: We didn’t know when, but we sure knew it would come!

And when the panel eventually arrived mostly during Friday afternoons, we would be restless inside our classroom because we couldn’t wait to go out and tail the Darigold panel as it went around Tago, announcing that a movie was going to be shown.

Chaos would seize every home but all activities ceased at 6 o’clock when everybody would carry either a stool or a bench and head for the town plaza. And there, underneath the acacia tree or at the rotunda where the medium-sized screen was placed, Jess Lapid would pump lead into Max Alvarado’s nose, and then Jess Lapid would whack Pacquito Diaz in the face with his smoking cuarenta'y cinco. As the famous bemustached, arc-browed villain puked blood and breathed his last, we would clap our hands until they turned red and sore.

For the whole week Tagon-ons would rave about the movie, and my friends and I would tell the movie to each other as though one of us hadn’t watched it.

Until this very day, my love affair with the cinema continues. But I wonder when will I get the hang of watching movies in the confines of my home or my room. The concept of home theatre doesn’t appeal to me, and that’s why I make it a point to watch movies every time I’m in the city. Never mind if there are not enough still pictures for me to gawk at, point is, I can relive every single experience I had when I was young.

You say I’m a sentimental fool? Then sue me!

mornings in the 70s

2008-01-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

In the 70s, waking up early was a pleasure because it meant joining Papa to buy either carabeef or pork in the market, a rickety building that stood where the present terminal is. The same building would press a woman to death when it collapsed from strong winds in 1978.

Near the left side facing the row of Bol-anon Stores was the meat section. It bustled with activity more than the stalls that sold tabaco in sugong, rice that formed a mound on wooden square boxes marked NGA, and supas like azucarada, rolling bayan, diyoy, binangkal placed inside cellophane bags that hung from tie wires.

My memory is a pastiche of faces and images: Tapingig, like a true war veteran, raising his bolo to chop meat; Nobing Pareja weighing entrails and extremities of beasts; Kulas Acevedo coaxing some tunes from his guitar while graceful smokes escaped from the Bowling Green tucked between his lips; dogs looking up, waiting for bloodstained manna to fall; the huge tree trunk that served as chopping board and whose top was dented from so much hammering; winged insects that ended their vigils in death inside the petromax that sat on an empty table.

I also remember the time when Papa and I would go to the tugbungan for this---

Fish then was sold not by the kilo but by tuhog (fish strung with a nipa midrib).

By the time we went home---with the sun still not out---people were already milling about at the intersection where Villamor Trading, Bert and Patring Yu’s Store, and Botica Curada were located. Many sat by the door of these stores that had yet to open while others stood and shared the day’s news. I would join all of them as we waited for this---

I couldn’t remember if that time there was a bakery in Tago. All I could remember was that pan de sal was brought from Tandag by a humungous, forest green delivery truck emblazoned on both sides with the word CASA. It was huge and tall, like a giant’s coffin.

As the Casa panel (until now it beats me why we call a delivery van a panel.) zipped past, I would run after it ahead of other kids until it stopped at the place where Alondoy now sells pudding. Always at this area!

I would position myself just an inch from the back door so that when it swung open, I’d lose myself in the aroma of oven-fresh bread. And even before I could open my eyes, people would crowd behind me, shouting a babel of monetary values to the man who put bread inside a brown bag made of pattern paper, securing it by twisting it at both ends. (I wonder why bakeries don’t pack bread like this anymore.)

I’d bring the pan de sal to our hovel of a home, which was where Curada’s garage now stands, and there I would open the brown pattern paper bag and engulf myself once more with the sweet aroma.

Waiting on the table was Mama’s tsokolate. Earlier she had put this heavenly concoction in a baterol where she twirled her grooved wooden boloniyo to make the tsokolate di mabugto, meaning thicker, sweeter, and creamier. Poison never tasted so good!

When we were done eating the pan de sal that we dunked into our tsokolate, I’d put the empty pattern paper bag over my head like a sailor’s cap, never really caring if the pan de sal’s pulbos blotched my face.

Ahh, to be a carefree kid in the 70s!

my first attempt at flash fiction

2007-06-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

-(Note: On my return flight from Manila to Davao last 2 June 2007, I saw this one-page spread congratulating the 25 Journalism Graduates of the Manila Times. The name of one of the graduates struck me and became my muse for this first attempt at flash fiction. Word count is placed at 690.)

SPAGHETTI '88

“Spaghetti’s here,” says the man outside.

In your mind you see her lay on the narrow table the food that she always brings. Until now it eludes you why she does this when she knows you have stopped eating it since the incident. Perhaps it's her way of letting you exorcise your demon.

You met her father on this generation’s luckiest day: 8-8-88! You were at your favorite restaurant when he asked if he could join you. You were actually done but good manners aside, you didn’t want to foist bad luck on him by leaving just when he was about to eat.

His tray carried only spaghetti.

Outside, the Dragon Dance that you came to watch had begun. But then he spoke and time lost its sense.

Soon after that, you dated. And because you hated spaghetti, he made you learn to love it. A year later, you named your daughter after it.

“You hear me? Spaghetti’s waiting for you,” the man outside says.

You glance at the cracked mirror one last time, tuck a wisp of gray hair behind your ear, and head for the hall.

She’s a sight in a white sundress and you wonder if she would wear white to her debut in September. Or if she would finally wear---after a long while---the smile that reminds you of him.

As you sit, she opens a Tupperware that contains pasta and another that contains the sauce. Something grumbles in the pit of your stomach.

She mixes the pasta and the sauce just as he taught her. Spurts hit your dress but you bother not to wipe them as they blend well with the orange you’re wearing.

She fills two plates with spaghetti. “Here,” she pushes one towards you.

You pick up the fork, jab the spaghetti, and twist it. Then as always, you stop and close your eyes: The knife felt cold in your hand as you watched furtively in the dark. As orgasm gripped him, you raised the knife. But then he turned as though he knew, and the knife brushed past his shoulder, into the mouth of the girl under him.

He rolled out of bed. But the sheets tangled at his feet and he fell to the floor. You lunged and straddled him, and then you stabbed him everywhere, twisting the knife each time. Blood squirted on your face but your hand went up and down until you could no longer see.

“Ma, are you alright?”

You open your eyes and see that your knuckles have turned white from gripping the fork.

“It’s been three years," she says, reaching for your hand.

You look at her. And all you can see is the scar on her lips.

translations and gabby marquez

2007-06-04T04:18:00.000-07:00

Fully Booked, at the Mall of Asia, is separated by a road from SM Department Store. When I entered it, there was but one customer at the corner stand, slyly tearing the cellophane that sealed The Buzz magazine.

Me (to the sales assistant): Do you have Dean Alfar's Salamanca?

SA: Sorry, Sir. Wala po.

Me: What about Vicente Groyon's Sky Over Dimas?

SA: Wala rin po, Sir.

Me: Any book then by a Filipino author?

He made me follow him to a shelf that carried, among other things: 100 Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera; and Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

I scratched my head.

Gabriel.

Garcia.

Marquez.

Oo nga naman!

***********************************

Translation is a tricky thing. This is why I don't read translated materials even how celebrated they have become. It's like this: No matter how the translator tries his best to be faithful to the original material, I just feel that something is lost in translation. Take this one, for instance.

Teacher: Juan, give me an example of a tag question.
Juan: Our teacher is beautiful, isn't she?
Teacher: Very good. Now, translate it to Filipino.
Juan: Ang aming guro ay maganda. Hindi naman, di ba?

There.

Inquirer prints my winning essay

2007-02-05T02:11:00.000-08:00

the philippine daily inquirer published my winning essay last 1 feb. 2007. i wonder why the editor didn't change the title for i myself found it awkward and a bit vague, that's why when i posted it here, the title has changed to "the pudding icon's concoction of lip-licking goodness."

it felt good, as though it was my first time. been quite a time that PDI published my article.

here's the link.

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lifestyle/lifestyle/view_article.php?article_id=46777

from doreen

2007-02-05T01:54:00.000-08:00

i know this is kinda late, but blame it all on techno glitch.

some of the goodies i received from the doreen gamboa fernandez food writing awards committee:

the glass trophy.

books intended to make a chef out of me.

more books, still.

and yes, mags.

the foodstuff that my niece claimed for me was such that it would take her and her siblings two months to consume.

tago in broad strokes

2006-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

no, it's no Mikimoto. a bamboo pole riddled with clams' remains.

the tago river in late afternoon.

one of the first things i "piloted."

a green portal to a great world beyond.

nature's mikimoto sapphires.

reminiscences

2006-12-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

We live on the waterfront, in the west end section of our town, and during certain times of the year, mostly in January, the saltwater floods our backyard and wilts everything in its wake.

Our house and the one across the street serve as border line from Tago’s ghetto. When I asked my father why the residential location, he said that when he acquired the lot from a priest, only a dilapidated church stood on what was once a cemetery; the peripheral area was waterlogged and the slum sprang only after years of accretion.

Our neighbors are wine and vinegar makers, nipa weavers, firewood gatherers, and fisherfolks who derive livelihood about 150 meters away, from a marsh dense with sani and bakhaw and a river teeming with marine life. It was in Tago River that I learned to swim on the sly, earning not a few welts from my father’s belt when he found out. It wouldn’t sound good, he said, for a lawyer and a teacher’s youngest son to drown in a river murky with human refuse. He was partly correct, but why would a child learning to float and dreaming to grow gills care?

I grew up shooting birds, playing hide and seek, tag, and siklot with slum kids. From them I also learned, among other things, to weave nipa shingles, to paddle a boat without shifting the paddle from this side and that, to haunt brooks for baits, to fish, and to crab. More often than not our maid would fetch me for lunch and then my mother would twist my ear because she couldn’t grasp why I liked playing not with my kin but with smelly kids in squalid homes. She didn’t know that from them I learned to appreciate the virtue of hardwork and the importance of food down to the last morsel. While my father had only to sign documents to earn money, theirs had to break their back with empty stomach just to get by.

Don’t ask me why but last week, after over 25 years, I went back to Tago River. Though they say that you can’t be at the same river twice because the water is always new as it continually flows, I saw the same Tago River of my youth. Things from my childhood were also there and I looked at each of them as though for the first time: the pungo, a palm fruit that yields nipa wine and vinegar and whose meat tastes like kaong; the sani whose leaves can be woven into nipa shingles; the uson, a lobster-like creature that burrows under a minute mud tower called bagal; the bobo and the panggal that trap fish and crabs.

The trip down memory lane would have been complete had I seen some karaykay---crab’s peanut-sized cousins that scuttle onshore, in colors that make me think God has grown tired of His crayons and tossed them in pieces.

We built, meters away from the river bank, a lantay and a table out of drifting bamboos. The sun was setting when we were done, and the blue green water glistened from where I sat. I shattered its stillness, creating ripples deep into a cache of memories that---though buried---remains vivid and alive.

krip's article

2006-12-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Krip Yuson, in his 04 december 2006 Kripotkin column in the Philippine Star, wrote about the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Awards night, saying i was one "plucky, lucky male" to be the sole male winner.

Krip was a judge along with punong-abala Micky Fenix, author Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Food magazine editor Norma Chikiamco, writer-editor Maya Besa Roxas who happens to be the late lamented Doreen Fernandez’s niece, Anvil Publishing director Karina Bolasco, chef and Meralco executive Mol Fernando. He ended his article with this: "And, not exactly to bring up the rear, as the only male to be honored with a writing distinction last week, is Romel Oribe of the DTI in Surigao del Sur. He also teaches public administration at a state university, and has been a writing fellow in the Iligan and Dumaguete workshops. His taste memory of his family’s afternoon merienda of cassava pudding with arnibal (syrup topping) inspired him to write about the town’s kakanin maker and her culinary technique.

Mabuhay ka, Romel! Thanks for holding up 1/19th of the sky. But wait till next year, when I submit "Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina Corned Beef (Albeit PureFoods, I Never Left You)."

Does anybody have krip's email add? I wanna thank him.

the pic i sent micky

2006-11-30T12:20:00.000-08:00

i emailed this pic---which i took last nite---to micky fenix, saying it's my first in five years.

now i can puke.

another update

2006-11-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

Two days after the november 27 awards night, I received this email from Micky Fenix.

Dear *insert my name here,*

We missed you during the Awards night. We had a very informal happy evening with the Manila Ladies Branch of the International Wine and Food Society.

As to your prizes, your cash (P1,000) can be sent by courier and so with the books and some magazines as well as your subscription. Please send me again your complete address.

Unfortunately, the products will be too heavy to send there.

Can you also send me your picture so I can include it in the press releases we are sending out with the essays.

Micky Fenix

still keeping my fingers crossed

2006-11-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

here's an update from the doreen gamboa fernandez's food writing awards committee:

"Will inform you later. Awarding is on November 27. Will you be able to come to Manila? If not, I will have to make arrangements re your prizes.

Micky Fenix"

just when you least expect it

2006-10-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

got this text from 09209523674 which reads:

"this is micky fenix of doreen gamboa fernandez food writing award. *insert my name here* you are a runner up. will email you for more info."

then the email reads:

Dear "insert my name here*,

Congratulations! You are a runner-up in this year's DGF Food Writing Award. Your "The Pudding Icon's Lip Licking Concoction" has made it to the honor roll.

The names of the winners will be published in the papers.

As to your prizes, please wait for word through this email as to where and when you can get them.

In case you have questions, please don't hesitate to call me at (02) 895-2021. Or use this email address.

Can you also please tell me more about yourself. What do you do for the DTI? And have you been writing long?

Michaela Fenix
-------

god is good!

wala lang

2006-09-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

as a lawyer's son, the following made me laugh.

People Really Said These Things In Court

Q: This myasthenia gravis - does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?

Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in the voodoo occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.

Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?

Q: Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?

Q: Did he kill you?

Q: How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?

Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?

Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?

Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?

Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.

wahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

the lure of badminton

2006-09-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

yup.

i've succumbed to it.

no regrets.

class reunion in a flash

2006-09-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

I received a text message last September 1 that made me go, “wow!” It said that a class reunion was set at 2:00 PM that day in Maa, Davao City at the mansion of the recently retired classmate.

Suddenly it's 1992 in Davao City. It was a scorching afternoon and I was in a classroom at the 2nd floor of the University of Southeastern Philippines for an orientation of the first batch of the Local Scholarship Program (LSP) of the Civil Service Commission. LSP, which continues up to this day,is a graduate program limited to government employees who’d go on leave for a full year with pay. It aims to professionalize the government sector.

As iskolar ng serbisyo sibil, we were groomed to be the new breed of future executives, the bureaucracy’s crème de la crème kuno.

The qualifying test must be tough because I was the only passer among the 80++ examinees in my province. [Allow me this one, ahem, important digression: Region-wide I ranked 5th in the exam and 1st in the interview, a fact that doubled the frustrations of my big bosses when it took me nine-oh-so-long-years to finish my thesis.] Region XI, to which my province then belonged, had 32 scholars out of over 400 takers, ranking it second to NCR in terms of passers.

Ours was a motley group, cutting across generational, professional, and facial spectra.

I wanted to take up Master in Business Administration at Ateneo de Davao University, but CSC, for practical reasons, made us all enroll in Master in Public Administration at USEP.

Thirteen years. Then from out of the blue, a text message. “Wow!” indeed.

And so meet up they did. Without me! Oh well, it wasn’t my fault that my province happens to be 2,500 kilometers away from Davao and that the text invite came 3 hours, 49 minutes and 11 seconds before the appointed time. Even if Harry Potter lent me both his Nimbus 2000 and Firebolt, I still wouldn’t have made it.

As it turned out, only six showed up. But the good thing is: it sparked off a special kind of connectivity. And best of all, another reunion is set in December, and this time, it’s gonna be grand!

Meanwhile somebody has set up a yahoogroup, and emails keep coming in. Text messages too. I’m not sure though if this can go on forever, the yahoogroup. What I’m sure of is that I have to get rid of a few love handles before the big day.

Either that or I’ll do a no-show.

what's in my lit morgue

2006-08-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

1. Manti-anak. one of the three stories i submitted for the dumaguete national writers' workshop. this story---which dr. edith tiempo called a fable---was earlier published on-line and whose exact same version was subsequently featured by ian casocot in his 'a critical survey of philippine literature.' it's now being rehashed to raise it a notch higher than a fable, at least.

2. Choices. a not so typical love triangle involving an ex-seminarian, his wife and his wife's best friend.

3. Oracion. a semi-biographical story of the fantastic genre.

4. Spirit of the Glass. a one-act play.

5. Mighty Andy. another semi-biographical story of the fantastic genre.

i look forward to resurrecting all of them so that i can have new birthings.

concoction of lip licking goodness

2006-08-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

In the 70s when I was a kid, summer afternoon naps were obligatory. And unlike my siblings who faked sleep, I dozed off easily, knowing that when I woke up, mother would send me to buy cassava pudding for merienda.

Clutching a one-peso bill, I would run to this old garage in the corner two blocks away that the sixtyish Iya Inggin had transformed into a makeshift work station-cum-snack bar. On one side, close to the wall of wooden sticks, were wrought iron chairs and two enamel tables. On the opposite side was the cooking area where firewood crackled under a vat steamer and a large wok. By the door was a table stacked with layers of pudding individually packed in cellophane and wrapped in Manila paper twisted around the edge in such a way that they looked like French empanadas.

Other than it being spotlessly clean, it wasn't a pretty structure; it didn’t even have a window and a floor under its nipa roof. But that people trooped to it like ants to sugar was a sweet testament to the sheer magic by which she prepared her concoction like no other.

I liked my pudding fresh from the mould, but only because I liked watching Iya Inggin fish one from a large planggana and trace the shape of the circular mould with the handle of a plastic fork before flipping the pudding into the cellophane with the caramelized side facing up. Then from a bowl using a golden spoon, she would scoop the arnibal---a deep brown syrupy topping made from the purest coconut milk and brown sugar---and twirl it into a small cellophane with an amazing sleight of wrinkly but dirt-free hand.

At home, before my parents and siblings each holding a fork and a saucer, I would transfer the pudding to a plate, section it with a knife, and pour and spread the arnibal on top. Then to the sound of metal clinking against china we’d devour it by munching the sweet, soft, sticky mixture, making it linger in our mouth before letting it slide down our throat. For always, it was lip licking good!

Pudding making involves an elaborate process that requires attention to details. The cassava must be fresh and average-sized for the pudding not to taste bitter and grainy. Meticulously peeled, the cassava must be washed five times in running water before it is grated. Pudding makers---if I may digress—now go to commercial electric grinders, but in the 70s when our town had yet no electricity, Iya Inggin grated the cassava on a punctured galvanized sheet with the Camay girl held at both sides by sticks. And every now and then---or so they said---Iya Inggin would deliberately scrape her hand and let the blood seep into the mixture, both to improve the pudding’s taste and to hook forever her customers!

The grated cassava is put inside a katsa flour sack and wrung dry. The process is repeated thrice for better pudding texture. In fact Iya Inggin had a contraption made from under whose fulcrum she placed the grated cassava before she and her housemate (she was a widow) mounted the wooden plank running across it like a see-saw.

The sapped cassava meat is then transferred to a large bowl where it is manually combed for pulps and crumbs. Mixed with other ingredients like sugar, coconut milk and vanilla, the hodgepodge is then poured into an 8-inch, brown sugar-sprinkled mould and steamed. When it turns opaque---the tell tale sign that it’s already done---the pudding is placed on a basin that contains just enough water to cool it without soaking.

Cooking pudding is admittedly elementary; but cooking the arnibal is tricky: too thin and it drips and messes up the pudding’s presentation; too thick and it can’t be spread. A pudding maker told me that the best way to cook arnibal is to stir it constantly over low fire until the right consistency is attained, that is, when it doesn’t trickle if twirled with a spoon.

It’s an immutable fact in our town of Tago in Surigao del Sur that only Iya Inggin could whip up a perfect arnibal to go with her perfect pudding. Patrician and a member of Tago’s beautiful elite, she reigned supreme, thus earning from me the title, the pudding icon!

There are at present six pudding makers in Tago. But since Iya Inggin’s death in 1997 when she brought her recipe and technique to the grave, I haven’t eaten something as heavenly!

Pudding addicts continue to troop to Tago like devotees. And they swear that it’s best to chill first the pudding before eating it. I agree, but still I like mine fresh from the mould. If only for the sweet memory.

my free press DREAM(S)

2006-08-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

after the iligan national writers' workshop, i set two hurdles for myself: the dumaguete national writers' workshop and the philippines free press. if you can really write passable prose, i told myself, then get in and get published.

get in and get published i did!

yes, i had the chronology memorized: i emailed my story to paolo manalo on 31 january 2006; got his email confirmation on 15 february; saw my story on the 25 february 2006 issue---all in a span of a little over 20 days!

just a li'l confession: i hoped for an artist's rendition of maybe anna, my protagonist, or the little mermaid to go with DREAMS. but no such luck. i just told myself that maybe the artist had a mound of things to do that he couldn't devote time to my story given the short notice. consuelo de bobo to the max, yes!

on the occassion of the philippines free press awards today, i'm posting the page on which DREAMS was printed.

you can't have 'em all

2006-08-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

okay, okay, that i understand, but does "all" have to include RESIZING THE PICS? i can't seem to get it right even if i follow the idiot instructions my friends told me. a friend from davao said it could be the server. grrrr!!!!

maybe i'll stop posting pics altogether. now na!

steph's ON WRITING

2006-08-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

though i've read this thrice online, still it feels like i'm reading it for the first time now that i'm holding it, its jacket silky and smooth to the touch. really, there's nothing like reading something in hardbound!

i'm no reader of steph's books, but now i wonder where to get a copy of Carrie.

Oppppsssss

2006-08-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

you've been marinating that story for over four years now, and in between these years, when inspiration strikes you, you delete adjectives and adverbs, rephrase sentences to make them active rather than passive, in other words, you've revised that story for over a million times; and when the opportunity presents itself, you decide to submit it through email, only to find out later that what you have attached is a draft!

what to do now?

just trying my luck

2006-07-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

this morning, i emailed a story for consideration by a literary giant. i was so into it these past months (okay, years!) that i decided to let go. below are the first few paragraphs of the story whose title must remain a secret. for now.
******

Torok ducks and Terya covers her face in reflex when it whizzes past and crashes on the table. Then to the sound of shattering glass, he dashes to the window and leaps into the night.

When she opens her eyes to the flickering light of the kerosene lamp, a cellophane bag lies tattered before her, its content of mushy excrete splatters the table like rotten squash. She vomits her dinner of sautéed frog.

Terya sits in a corner and breathes deeply. Surely this is not a prank, she tells herself, but who? Then she remembers: Two or three nights ago, as she was washing the dishes, a shadow moved furtively in the mangroves. She didn’t tell Torok about it because she thought it was just a pig rummaging for food below the outhouse. But now she’s convinced that it was indeed a crouching silhouette of a man that she saw. Still, why?

Her stomach starts acting up again when Torok pushes the door open. The veins in his temples tense like anay trails and any tighter, the skin of his jaw would tear apart. All at once she feels clammy and cold; the last time he was like this, over a hundred pigs lay dead on their tracks.

She closes the door on her way to the kitchen to get a rug.

“Let me do it,” Torok says when she returns. He takes the rug from her and proceeds to clean the table, unperturbed by the smell. In the vermillion light of the kerosene lamp, she observes that the years have not altered Torok much. He remains small and lean, just as he was eight years ago when she, at 24, married him. Though his face has become weather beaten, making him look older than his 40 years, his eyes have remained somnolent, still hinting at an internal conflict that for the longest time now she wishes to fathom but couldn’t. These small brown ovals were what attracted him to her the first time she met him at the fiesta where he sold gaffs. (It was her father, a cockfight aficionado like Torok, who introduced him to her.)

The lamp wavers and flaps its shadow on the wall. Done with the table, Torok wipes off the sweat running into his eyes before picking up the cellophane bag that he has earlier set aside. She squirms and wonders what he’d do with it as she watches him enter the small room.

Torok closes and bolts the door behind him. He puts the cellophane bag down and lets his eyes adjust to the darkness. From his pocket he takes out a match and fires a stick. A windowless room is revealed. Unlike the rest of the house, it has a ceiling and a double wall of woven bamboo, and all it contains are a small table, a chair, and a lamparilla made from a bottle of Kulafu. He lights the lamparilla before lifting carefully the top of the drawerless table, then from its bowel, he pulls out the tools of his trade. He replaces the table top, making sure it securely fits.

Needing only a small amount to work on, he rips a portion of the cellophane bag where the blob of shit is thicker. He has to be thorough and precise, and to be thorough and precise, he needs a lot of time. But the night being young, he is confident that before his fighting cocks crow for the third time, he would be through. And by noon tomorrow, just when the old church bell starts to peal, Barrio Unaban would mourn the death of its impertinent son!

thursday with the real morrie

2006-07-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

this. made. me. cry.

the harvest continues

2006-07-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

two friends, one from new york and the other from california, are on home visit, and they brought me a lot of surprises that include, among others, 17 joel osteen CDs, the DVD of the now famous ted koppel interview with the real morrie, a perry ellis cuff links in muted silver, a michael kors polo shirt, and the book below.

this book keeps me up all night, making me wish it can truly improve my craft!

thank god for all these blessings.

Tinuy-an Falls

2006-07-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Department of Tourism used Tinuy-an Falls in one of its campaign ads shown on CNN. Every year, a shipload of foreign bird watchers troops to this site to catch a glimpse of the smallest bird in the world.

And this is why you can't make me leave my province, my town. No, not even if you drag me.

another manna from chicago

2006-07-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

The goddess in chicago must be feeling particularly generous yesterday because this 1GB, 240 songs PC+Mac just fell into my lap. Measuring 3.5 inches by 1.5 inches by 2/10 inches, this Apple iPod nano is---

so sleek,

so slim,

so nice.

it's time to throw away my vinyls.

advice columns

2006-07-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

This kind of advice column makes me wish i had one.

******

Dear Prudie,

I can't believe I'm actually in this ridiculous situation. I am in my late 30s, dating a wonderful woman the same age. We've known each other for seven years, been best friends for five, and have dated for two of those. Why the wait? My girlfriend is a widow. She married her high-school sweetheart when she was 21 and he died in an accident less than a year later. Understandably, she has been hesitant to move forward with any commitment to another guy. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to marry this awesome woman, but I have been sensitive to her need to move slowly. I have tried to show her that I respect her love for her deceased husband and her slight sense of guilt in "moving on." When I finally thought the time was right, I asked her to marry me. She said that she wasn't quite ready and she wanted to hold off on marriage plans until her cat died. (Strange as it sounds, I felt it was a reasonable request since she and her husband got this cat together when they were married.) This cat, Pumpkin, was 16 when we made the agreement and seemed to be on his last legs. Prudie, that was almost three years ago. I hate to pressure my girlfriend to break our agreement, but this cat is a freak of nature that is ruining my chance at happiness! What to do?

—Non-Cat Lover

Dear Non-Cat,

Believe me, Pumpkin, who is now the equivalent of 80 in human years, has long since moved on. Your girlfriend did suffer a terrible loss when she was young, but that was heading toward two decades ago. Either she is truly stuck and needs some counseling, or she doesn't really want to marry you but enjoys your company and stringing you along. I have the feeling that once Pumpkin turns into a pumpkin, your girlfriend may enter an extended period of mourning over him that leaves her unable to contemplate marriage. While Pumpkin might have nine lives, you have only one, and you have to get going with it. Tell her you need her to set the date now, or you'll have to look for someone with less emotionally complicated pets.

—Prudie

*****

Ha-ha. Hmmmm, nice plot. or as stephen king would say, nice situation, one that could lead to an even nicer story.

of medals and graduation exercises

2006-06-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Exactly three months ago today, I spoke before the graduates of the National Science High School. Until now I refuse to believe that their choosing me as commencement speaker had something to do with the fact that I wrote the piece and trained their student who won first place in the quinquennial National Oratorical Contest sponsored by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. (Theme: “Modernizing Fishery and Agriculture through Quality Statistics”)

But this is not about the contest that as trainer made me 15 thou++ richer in prize money, nor is this about my speech which was shorter than the “Introduction of the Guest Speaker.” This is about medals and graduation exercises.

On my way to school as a kid in the 70s, I always slowed down every time I passed by the medium-sized, 2-storey House of the Baldemors. I remember it had a window in the second floor that opened wide to the street, revealing a wall that heaved from frames crammed with medals of the Baldemor kids who were either valedictorians or salutatorians.

The House of the Baldemors emboldened me to aspire for bigger things. During my time, medals were badges of honor as only the valedictorian, the salutatorian and the first honorable mention received them; us lesser mortals got mere ribbons. Thus I was aghast to see that over two-thirds of the Science High graduates got themselves medals for this and that! Don'g get me wrong: Of course I understand that it was their way of rewarding students, but these awards have to be carefully thought of because they could dilute the medal's importance or its sanctity even. I mean, how could one fully appreciate his/her medal when almost everybody has one, earned either as “band majorette of the year,” or as “number one solicitor of the year.” There was even an award for “general services.” Please don’t ask me what that meant.

Some awards were redundant. Take the student I trained: For the same event, she got five, count ‘em, five medals: one each for the intra-school, inter-school, provincial, regional and national competitions! The valedictorian received so many awards that all her family members, including a cousin who was just starting to walk, had to mount the stage nine times. By the time the last medal was awarded, the valedictorian was already drooping from the combined weight of the medals that I imagined her smelling of Efficacent to soothe an aching neck as she welcomed her guests during her “blow-out” that evening.

This award system, which obviously panders to parents and students, has to be evaluated because aside from trivializing the awards that really matter, it eats up a lot of time.

I waited for three hours just to deliver a 10-minute speech.

TAGO

2006-06-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

I live in Tago where crab is a delicacy, not a mentality. But since people automatically think of crabs every time they meet a Tagon-on, we have taken advantage of this type of “crab mentality” in landing jobs, scaling corporate ladders, clinching deals, winning contracts, if not hearts.

We’re also known to possess “crab eligibility,” most especially in the police force and the academe. A Tagon-on who once applied as policeman but was two inches shy of the minimum height requirement of 5’5” was summoned by the officer and was told to go home and do something about his deficiency. Back the following day, the Tagon-on had instantly grown to 5’8” as he stood on a sack full of crabs.

Crabs abound in Tago but they have now become so pricey because exporters outbid us, thus banishing crabs from our dining tables. But maybe it’s a good thing after all because my oncologist in Cebu said that most of his cancer patients come from Surigao del Sur, adding it must be our crab-rich diet.

Oh well, isn’t cancer the Latin word for crabs?

Tuesdays withe Morrie on Friday

2006-06-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

I borrowed a "circumcized*" DVD player from a friend to watch Tuesdays with Morrie on a Friday night.

And all I can say is this: Jack Lemmon was born to play Morrie. And if Morrie hadn't been born, then they would have to invent the role for Jack.

Jack was that good that when he said in the film, "Love or die," I believed him more than I believed Morrie himself when he said in the book, "Love or perish."

*one that could read both pirated and original DVDs

tender mercies in june

2006-06-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

June is harvest month; my friends have sent me a lot of goodies even without my asking them.

A friend who works with the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Manila sent me a Nokia 6680. She said it was given to her by Smart when she audited its books last May. Up to this day though, a lot of its features remain a mystery, partly because I'm still attached to my Sony Ericson Z100.

A high school batchmate who's now in Texas sent me a red Nike shirt and this sleek 4"x10," pewter gray tin box emblazoned with "Essentials of Style" containing wee sizes of eau de toilette like Tommy, Aramis (2), Estee Lauder and Clinique. I have to wear them somehow even if basically I'm not a scent person.

Another US-based friend has sent me three DVDs---Tuesdays with Morrie, My Fair Lady and South Pacific. Sadly my DVD player won't read them. All it said was: "Region Error." I need to have my player "circumcized."

The same friend called me last night saying she had already mailed Stephen King's "On Writing" and John Gardner's "The Art of Fiction." Months back, a kindred soul from Davao sent me a disc containing "On Writing" that she stole from Limewire.

But what really floored me was this: Our high school English teacher, who's now a chief nurse in a hospital in New York City, recently sent me some money through PNB amounting to PhP7,874. She said she heard that our batch is holding a grand reunion in July for our 25th Anniversary and that she wanted to contribute. Good! Then she said something much, much better: The Three Thou is yours!!!

A bit of backstory: I was not "close" to this teacher. And she's known to be a progeny of Silas Marner!

Baffled, I asked God last night: What have I done to deserve all this benevolence?

Nothing, God said, just update your blog!

Toink!

the philippines free press check

2006-06-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

i called free press yesterday to check my check and the girl on the phone said it's there already. i wonder how much did the philippines free press pay for a 3,757-word short story that had undergone 1,456,700 revisions!

actually it doesn't matter. i'll have the check laminated and framed!

problem is: manila's a long swim from where i sit.

yes, a new look

2006-06-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

that i have decided to change template doesn't mean more posts.

but i'll try.

it's as if you care!

ha-ha!

and so this is how it feels?

2006-02-16T21:27:00.000-08:00

Dear *insert my name here*:

I am pleased to inform you that your short story "Dreams" has been accepted and will appear in next week's (February 25, 2006) issue of our magazine, the Philippines Free Press.

Please send us more of your work.

Thank you for your continued support and patience.

Sincerely yours,

Paolo Manalo
Literary Editor

debt overload among government employees

2006-02-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

The joke among government workers that their net take home pay cannot take them home owes mainly to debt overload. Their loan deductions are such that some have to be plotted at the back of their payroll, making them describe their lives as “loan-loan kasakit,” a Visayan wordplay for pure misery.

What leads government workers to over-indebtedness? Bad economy, for sure, is one. But I’m more inclined to believe that this culture of debt is something promoted and abetted by a bureaucracy that is in itself debt-ridden.

Let me explain. Because the government cannot afford a decent wage increase, it does what it thinks is the next best thing---offer a slew of loan opportunities that civil servants in dire straits could not resist! The loan windows alone of Pag-IBIG and GSIS, if availed of simultaneously, are enough to put any worker in the red due to humongous amortizations.

Multiple availment has become the name of the game. Before, only GSIS offered salary loans to government employees, but now government financing institutions (GFIs) like Land Bank, PNB, Quedancor, and Small Business Corporation, not to mention enterprise banks (EBs), have followed suit! Just recently, the GSIS offered yet another P5,000-worth of emergency loan assistance to members who have become e-card holders.

The government of late has changed the rules on loan renewal from one year to six months. This mires the worker in deeper debt as he restructures his loan in shorter cycles and thus pays a new interest without enjoying rebates from the previous loan’s pre-paid interest.

For the government to argue that people at work are not compelled to access these loan facilities is to disregard the Pinoy culture of taking advantage of every (loan) opportunity that comes their way. And so just because the facility is there and everybody is accessing it, people also avail it even if they have no project in mind. Inevitably the proceeds go to the purchase of non-essentials like a new cell phone.

The government seems to realize the adverse effects of this compulsive loaning disorder because it now imposes a debt cap by having the Commission on Audit require all government workers to maintain a monthly minimum take home pay of P3,000.00. But trust these wage earners to subvert this COA policy by colluding with co-employees from the accounting department to window dress the payroll by not declaring some of their deductions. Given this, the certification by the disbursing officer on the borrower’s net take home pay required by GFIs and EBs is actually not worth the paper it’s printed on.

As with any vicious cycle, we’ll never see the end of this. And because I subscribe to the thesis that generally man works basically for money, I refuse to think of the impact that all this wreaks on bureaucratic efficiency and productivity.

Research says that over-indebtedness affects many aspects of life, and the anxiety it brings contributes to conditions such as heart attacks, insomnia, uncontrolled emotion and difficulty completing daily tasks. As debt spirals, other priorities like medical care fall by the wayside because people who lack the money to pay their regular bills are often reluctant to seek medical attention that they require. This leads to medical conditions that worsen over time, which could easily be overcome with early treatment.

Debt can be devastating, so we people at work should take the necessary steps towards debt-free living. We should identify how and why we got into debt overload. We should start by knowing where our money is leaking out, then prioritize our debts and settle them. Because regardless of what they say, debt elimination is still the best investment. Then and only then will payday feel like payday.

Two Thousand and Six

2006-01-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

a virgin snake, this mental pervert wonders what the dog has in store for him.

not so random thoughts in between not so lucid intervals

2005-12-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

Could it be the rains which started pouring heavily 12 days before December 24 that made this year’s Christmas celebration unexciting?

Why are there fewer ‘explosions’ this year? Could it be that ‘explosives’ have increased in prices, or people have gone totally broke as to not afford even a kawayan for kanyon?

Muslims don’t believe in Christmas like we Christians do, and yet they are the ones that make a killing with their Christmas decors and pyrotechnics!

Why does my friend insist that no matter what the Bible says, it is ALWAYS better to receive than to give?

How could my parents choose for me godparents (two are dead while one is serving time somewhere in Bicutan) who didn’t measure up? (Conversely: what bars me from visiting him in jail this Christmas and bringing him some cigarettes and Belgian Bites?)

I want to send my friends a nice, personalized Christmas cards but can’t, why?

It seems that all I have to do to draft my “2006 New Year’s Resolution” is to cut and paste my “2005 New Year’s Resolution.” I just have to make sure to change the '5' in '2005' to '6.'

Why was blogging invented?

what i received for christmas

2005-12-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

Black Hugo boss long sleeves (received in advance)
Floral Ermenegildo Zegna polo ((received in advance)
Maroon Tommy Bahama cardigan (received in advance)
Black Kenneth Cole polo
Lavender Liz Clairborne long sleeves
Clinique for Men stuff (received in advance)
Clinique bag with which to stuff the Clinique stuff (received in advance)
Champagne COACH bag (received in advance)
Humongous Finesse Shampoo (received in advance)
3 pieces Yardley soap (received in advance)
2 pieces Pen Toothbrush (received in advance)
Canon digital camera (received in advance)
Six pieces SM placemats in my favorite color--- cobalt blue
Two rolls of SM Christmas ribbons (cobalt blue and ecru)
Cobalt blue table top item
Personalized Christmas Card
Christmas Letters from my nieces
Five Mercury Drugstore Calendars
Plaque (actually Plate) of Recognition from my office
A car freshener
P20,000 extra bonus from my office
49 Christmas Text Messages

GOD IS GOOD!

Masticating on Armpits (not a poem)

2005-12-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

I met up with James for lunch
in my recent trip to Cebu.
Since you have health issues,
he texted, let’s try
Persian Palette, adding
it was at the lower
ground of Mango Square,
near the ‘original’
National Bookstore.

That I’m claustrophobic
and that I felt
I was inside a catacomb I
didn’t tell James. People started
coming in; I could
see it was a pretty popular
place, especially among foreigners.
Vegetarians, James said,
poring over the menu,
not looking up.

He made me
read the menu that
was too Latin, errr Persian,
for me. I let him order.

We talked.
About our jobs;
about the other Dumaguete
fellows; about the next
two weeks of the workshop
I was unfortunate not
to attend; about the real
reason why I cut short
my Dumaguete stint;
about what we’re writing
at present; about his impending
(im)migration to Canada.

Then it came,
the order. There was a spring
roll wrapper with faint
freckles that I was supposed
to dip into an oily sauce before
eating. Wanting
to be sure, I
requested James to do
a demonstration of ‘How To
Eat Something Persian.’

After so much prodding, I
tore a portion of the pallid
wrapper, smudged it
with some sauce and put
it into my mouth.

Armpits,
it felt like
I was eating sweaty
armpits!

Sorry James, I didn’t enjoy
the food, but only
because it was not
up this mental pervert’s
alley. (I had a little
serving of jaundiced
rice and nothing more.)

But for sure the
company, though brief,
was better. And it
mattered.

So much.

ATMs

2005-12-19T01:16:00.000-08:00

I don’t know with fellow promdis but ATMs do make me feel paranoid when I go out of town. Things like forgetting my PIN and the machine capturing my card make my heart throb like mad.

Of course I can save myself a lot of unnecessary palpitations by withdrawing enough cash in one single transaction rather than use the machine often. But then I have other fears!

I dread pickpockets so I shun wallets. (Besides I find lopsided derriere brought about by bulging wallets kitschy.) Instead I clasp in my palm a tiny purse into which I stuff my coins and bills that I fold into neat squares.

Ahhh but carrying cash during pre-ATM days was much simpler for a promdi like me. The day before leaving for Cebu where we studied, our mother would give us just enough money to see us through a day of land and a night of sea travel. The rest of the moolah was stashed either under our only sister’s bra (I’m not kidding!) or sewn inside the pocket of our eldest brother’s pantaloons where it was beyond the reach of pickpockets who didn’t have scissors for hands. Other times it was buried in a sack of rice that we carried all the way to Cebu You’re right, the first thing we did upon reaching our boarding house somewhere in Junquera Extension was to empty the sack and dig for cash in a mound of rice. (Let me digress. Dunno but Mama always insisted on sending us rice even if rice was much cheaper in Carbon. Perhaps she believed that eating nothing but homegrown rice would do us a lot of good, never mind if we had to spend a fortune for freight and handling.)

When all my five siblings graduated (I was the youngest), I was left to fend for myself. So I devised ingenious ways to stash my cash.

Flash forward/backward to 1990. It was my first year of employment and first official travel to Manila. I was at Rustan’s Cubao and I took fancy over a pair of oxblood Oleg Cassini shoes. Moments after I asked her for my size, the salesperson took the Oleg Cassini out of the box. From so much excitement, I took off my espadrilles so hastily that it was too late when I realized that bills dripped out of them while others clung to my bare feet like they grew out of my toes.

When she smiled sheepishly, I picked up the bills, trying hard to ignore the sympathetic winks Manuel Roxas, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena gave me.

Maxi to the Max

2005-12-19T01:12:00.000-08:00

I took time to watch ‘Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros’ in SM Cebu. We were few but then the multi-awarded film was already on its 3rd week.

“Maxi” was a good flick. As in “Magnifico,” Yamamoto exercised an admirable if rare emotional restraint in her script. Still I wished she didn’t go shattering stereotypes to the max. And I don’t mean Maxi.

i ‘heart’ PAL

2005-12-01T19:35:00.000-08:00

I always look forward to taking PAL flights because they never fail to throw me back to my childhood. Like in my recent trip to Manila and all other trips before that, we had a children’s party at 38,000 feet above sea level.

I’m not sure but I think this started when PAL was (partly) privatized and Lucio Tan took over. Back then party bags contained edibles labeled in a language written like cat scratches on our kitchen door. Now they contain, aside from the English alphabets on the label, the following: a pack of Bingo biscuit, a sachet of Happy peanuts and a cup cake. For drinks, I had choices between a mineral water and a juice which, I’d like to think, emanated from the same source only that the other had a pinch of food color in it. Coffee was out of the question for a child like me.

Had I been accepted as flight steward way back in 1993 when I applied (I was offered the position of a ground steward instead. Duh!), I would have donned a clown suit rather than the usual white uniform that has obviously seen better days.

while i was sleeping

2005-12-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

I just woke up one morning with my uric acid level bursting through the ceiling. and so this mental pervert, after years of imbibing nothing but toxins, now hobbles. Indeed, uric acid, just like life, begins (troubling you) at 40.

That this is temporary according to his internist is something that the mental pervert dismisses. He should know, after all lunacy and gout are just two of the genetic defects of his lineage. Plus of course the fact that he lives in a place where seafood comes dirt cheap.

Still life goes on for the mental pervert. But already he’s thinking what shade of cane goes well with his skin tone.

finally snapping out of it

2005-11-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

Exactly six months ago today, the mental pervert slipped into catatonia. And now that he’s finally snapping his way out of it, he feels like he was lobotomized.

For many, many days, lucid interval proved elusive. And when the “ber” months rolled in, the mental pervert all the more marinated himself in silence. For aren’t the “ber” months said to trigger SAD (sunlight affected depression?), making mental perverts flip during the holidays?

Like a felon visiting the crime scene after serving time for six months, the mental pervert is surprised that few still commented on some posts which this blog had already archived. But paranoid that he is, the mental pervert thinks these were posted by friends who texted him semi-regularly to egg him to post again. One comment got him thinking though that his thyroid cancer might have done a Tour de France. You know, from thyroid to lungs to testicles and back. Cancer spreads, yes, but does it have to follow a downward trajectory?

He’s not making sense, this much the mental pervert knows. But there's nothing odd about it, because if he does, then it can’t get much more pervert than that, right?

Happy Independence Day!

2005-06-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

The 4-day work week officially ends today and it feels like payday. Nah, let me correct that----Independence Day!

A Mental Pervert’s Trip To…

2005-05-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hell.

Two weeks ago I was in Manila and it was so oven hot I could have turned into a burnt cookie! Good thing the general assembly of union reps was held at PTA resort in San Fabian, Pangasinan where I only had to contend with flies so plenty I mistook them for finger food, and a roommate who snored like he had in his throat 38 jets on simultaneous take off!

Some pluses: I got to eat original tupig (what we have back home is pirated); I got to visit the Manaoag Church and genuflect in a way so clumsy only a Catholic-schooled but Protestant-raised kid knew how!

Some minuses: I had to enjoy nothing but miniature bangus every single meal (at home I don’t eat this bone-filled fare unless it’s at least a foot long) and videoke every single night; I was a no-show, as usual, because my social disease was at its acutest!

After three days in far Pangasinan, I was back in Manila on Friday the 13th. We were billeted at a house-hotel somewhere at the back of Barrio Fiesta in Makati Av, and later at a hostel somewhere down the road next to Airport Road.

The day after, I had to justify my trip so I checked on our producers who attended the International Food Exhibition at the World Trade Center before hitting Glorietta. After ransacking the bookstores, I spotted “Head in the Clouds” but I had problems with its screening schedule. And so I huffed and puffed to Greenbelt to catch “Nagising Sa Kamulatan;” I was told it was not showing anymore.

The next day I went to Megamall. Same route---from bookstores to moviehouses. The Siths had yet to have their Revenge and so instead I watched “Lagusan” (The Tunnel) by Gina Marissa Tagasa. I never knew this film existed until I saw its rather quite interesting black and white tarpaulin near the escalator. I am not sure now whether the blurb that the film had won this and that international awards referred to “Lagusan” or “Sa Kandungan Ng Langit” (Heaven’s Cradle), Tagasa’s earlier film.

Despite the teaser, I had my expectations kept to a bare minimum. After all I know Tagasa only as a scriptwriter and not as a filmmaker. Besides, it had Richard Reynoso in it! I need not say more about the latter except that his PAL stewardess wife is my townmate.

Now brace for a pseudo-mini review from a mental pervert. “Lagusan” was not earthshaking, but it was not bad either. In fact it had shining moments. Chris Villanueva, as usual, was good. Even Alex Vargas was more than passable. Also, the bit players held their own against veteran Gina Pareno. There was nothing strange though with Richard Reynoso as “The Stranger.” And he should have been allowed to sing his lines especially toward the end of the film when it became too “talky” and “preachy” for comfort because at least when he sings, one can see a hint of expression.

If only I knew the meaning of the word philosophical, then I would say “Lagusan” was a philosophical film. But since I don’t, I say it was “Somewhere in Time-meets-Ghost-meets-Itim- meets-Sixth Sense,” though not in a derogatory sense because it was actually a good pastiche/appropriation. I liked Tagasa’s script and direction, but not necessarily her story of redemption and reborn. No, not because of its “born again bent” but because of some gray areas which I will just keep to myself.

On my way out, I realized we were all of 15 inside the theater. Long live Philippine Cinema!

On the 17th, I flew home, home being the boondocks of Mindanao. When we deplaned, it started to rain. That was when I knew I was back in…

Heaven.

Dead Again

2005-04-28T12:10:00.000-07:00

For the second “twice,” the IYAS Creative Writing Workshop of La Salle Bacolod rejected my fellowship application. The scorecard: boom-bust-bust-boom-bust!

Now, if this is a pattern bestowed by the gods for this idiot’s discernment, does it mean this idiot has to forget about UP-Mindanao’s Writing Workshop in October?

The idiot doesn’t know. But just in case, he’ll start praying this early that lightning won’t strike twice in Davao, the way it did in Bacolod.

That this eventual rejection could have been avoided had he not accepted the emailed invite of Dr. Gloria G. Fuentes to apply for this year’s IYAS is not this idiot’s qualm. Her failure to extend the same courtesy of informing him of his rejection is! But only because until now, this idiot doesn't know who made it. Maybe the press release was published in the philippine star, in which case,he wouldn't know because he only reads the inquirer.

but then again, this idiot wasn't informed last year, so why raise hell now? 'nuf said.

the four-day work week: a joke

2005-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

The spiraling of crude oil prices to record highs prompts P/GMA to issue Administrative Order No.117 providing for adjusted official hours in selected offices in the executive branch from April to May 2005. This is government’s style of leading the way in energy conservation without jeopardizing the delivery of public service to mitigate the impact of the oil price increases on the its fiscal position and the country’s dollar reserves. Thus wage earners like us report to office from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM, Mondays through Fridays.

This drives me up the wall. Now I can’t stay out late at night because I have to be in by 7:30 AM; I can’t visit the wet market (one thing I really enjoy doing) because when I leave the office at 6:30 PM, all the premium fish species are already sold out!

All this because the government wants to conserve energy! But analyze this: before, our office came to life between the times when the janitress reported at 7:00 AM and went home at 5:00 PM. That’s a total of 50 hours a week. Now, our office comes to life between the times when the janitress reports at 6:00 AM and goes home at 6:30 PM. That’s a total of 50 hours a week. See?

It is said somewhere that a daily worker is only productive for two hours max in the morning and two hours max in the afternoon. This is like saying that government workers, under the new work scheme, do nothing for six hours!!!

And if you live in a place where government servicing ends invariably at 3:00 PM because most clients have to catch the last trip home, what do you do given that it’s still 3.5 hours away from calling it a day? Of course you surf the net, chat and, if hit by an inspiration, write fiction. Ehem.

Assuming the government saves a lot on this, it’s the employees who lose. Now with more time spent at home: they have to cook fancy food; watch TV the whole day, leaving the aircon on perpetual buzz.

My officemates who don’t go home regularly on weekends now do. While there’s no price for quality time with family, they now start to feel the financial implications of this scheme.

This early, everything's getting to be a drag.

what’s with writing workshops?

2005-03-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

“Writing workshops did me a lot of good, but it has also done a lot of harm. Cold formality in my writing is a ghost that continues to haunt me.” Timothy Montes
oOo

Lent was spent revising my stories for the March 31 deadline of IYAS Creative Writing Workshop which runs from 25 April to 1 May 2005 at the Balay Kalinungan of the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City.

Writing workshop is a cerebral intercourse with loads of sado-masochism thrown in. But why do we keep on coming back for more? Is it for the chance of meeting aspiring writers to establish and expand networks? Or is it for the opportunity of standing on the shoulders of literary giants? Or the chance of visiting a place on partial subsidy?

Thus far I have a 50% batting average: got accepted by Iligan, rejected by UP-Mindanao; got thrown out by La Salle-Bacolod, taken in by Dumaguete. In that order!

Until now I still have this feeling that I was accepted in Iligan in 2001 simply because Christine Godinez-Ortega, the workshop directress, must’ve found my name familiar, she and I being occasional essayists for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I submitted “The Memories I Keep” which I wrote in just four days after I accidentally stumbled into Iligan’s press release a week before deadline. It was the first “story” I wrote that heaven knows I now wish I hadn’t.

“Is this a story or an essay?” chorused most of the Iligan panelists and fellows. Chari Lucero recited some lines in “The Memories I Keep” like they were parts of a declamation piece, saying afterwards that my story could win hands down in the Worst Purple Prose Contest in the US. She even went on to ask me, rather quite sarcastically, if she be allowed to submit it herself! Then to my rescue Jaime An-Lim said: “But if anything, I like the title.” Bwahaha-huhuhuhu!

A year later, Merlie Alunan, who was made to write the critique-cum-introduction to the workshop’s output in book form, said that my story-essay-whatever “was a finely controlled narration….” Go figure!

I must’ve learned nothing from Iligan because the stories I submitted to UP-Mindanao that same year had more POVs than there were eyes on a pineapple and with shifts more jarring than its husk.

In 2004 I applied for both the IYAS and the Dumaguete Writing Workshops, submitting the same stories of course. With IYAS, I didn’t lose sleep after knowing that it had awarded only three slots for English fiction and that I was up against Kit Kwe and Peter Mayshelle. But the cynical me had a Hwaaaaaaaaat? moment after I was told I made it to Dumaguete. There must be a mistake somewhere, I said. Me and THE Dumaguete Writing Workshop? Oh my GU-lay, DE-licious!

As everybody knows, I lasted only for a week in Dumaguete that two of my three stories remained untouched by the panelists and fellows. While I told them that I was going home to vote to prevent FPJ from winning, I’d rather keep to myself the real reasons why I didn’t return. Having done that, I wonder if I can be called a Dumaguete fellow.

Dumaguete was really a waste because I could have learned more from Edith Tiempo, Krip Yuson, Cesar Aquino, Jimmy Abad, Butch Perez et al.

At the bienvenida dinner hosted by Dr. Edith Tiempo at her wonderful Montemar residence overlooking Dumaguete and Cebu, Atty. Yee asked me how my “Manti-anak” fared earlier that day. This was after he introduced himself, saying my name aloud and adding “in-the-flesh!”

“Dead on arrival,” I said. Actually Edith Tiempo called it a fable that she “quite enjoyed.”

“Never mind, your two other stories are good,” he said, wiping daintily the spotless china with the equally spotless napkin.

I nearly choked, “Com’on, you’re patronizing me.”

“Why should I?” he said, then raising his left brow higher than Montemar’s altitude, “Bakit? Kilala ba kita?”

Toink!

Dumaguete then, Bacolod now. Actually my sole target this year is to gun for UP-Mindanao in October. But then Dr. Gloria G. Fuentes, IYAS workshop directress, emailed me and five others (last year’s rejects?) to try again. Is this some kind of hint or what?

I’m submitting “Dreams” and “Choices” anew and I feel they’re now far better than when they were submitted last year. Thanks, in great part, to Faye, my fellow pugante, whose suggestions gushed like the thick sauce of the Scooby burgers we chomped in Dumaguete.

It’s a waiting game from here on.

the cuaresma of my youth

2005-03-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

back in the early ‘70s when I was a kid, cuaresma was observed with much solemnity and drama. The latter, of course, was literal because it meant just that---the drama or radio soap opera mostly about Christ’s passion.

Radio then was the ultimate entertainment as this was before television invaded our place. But I never listened to this drama at home even if our Maharani quadrosonic stereo boomed and we had 7Ms bourbon and soda cracker biscuits for snacks because just as the dragon statue would turn real to fulfill the seer’s prophesy that the king’s sole heir would be snatched by a monster that spewed fire, my father would send me to buy Chesterfield. Whew! The hazard of being the youngest in a brood of six!

And so I had to sneak into our poor neighbor and lose myself, along with other children, in a fascinating world purveyed by an Avegon transistor radio that whispered from weak batteries.

Earlier that week, our neighbor had these Eveready batteries alternately boiled and left under the sun for hours. And if the volume still wouldn’t improve, she would wrap them with cigarette foil. Thus my penitence would take the form of piecing together missed dialogues, enduring a cabal of smelly kids and jockeying for that place near the speakers that had Vilma Santos smiling in a face that seemed rounder than a satellite dish.

The solemn part was ensured by Lola Pinang, Mama’s aunt who lived with us until she died a virgin at 69. She would instruct our helpers to hoard enough clean rice, water and firewood as they were not allowed to do manual labor during the Holy Week.

We were not allowed to laugh from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday just as we were banned from playing and drawing lines on sand as we might cut Christ’s body. We had to walk slowly, on tiptoe if need be, as we might shake the house and the whole world and disturb the newly entombed Son of God.

Also we were shunned from using pointed objects to avoid getting cut or wounded because it would take a year to heal, a phenomenon my cousin swore was true.

On Good Friday, we were barred from taking a bath as this was the time when not-like-ours would go bathing in streams and rivers. More chilling was the fact that they could bathe in water stocked in pails and basins without touching it, causing incurable diseases should we have the misfortune of using it.

And Lola Pinang would add that since God was dead and therefore could not make them behave, the devil and all creatures of the netherworld would roam the earth to feed on us. Spooked, we would line up as soon as Jesus died so that she could whip us with pangyawan vine. With its bitter sap on our bodies, she said, we would be spared because the devil and its minions didn’t have a taste for something bitter.

That I stand 5’10” must be the result of Lola Pinang’s making me jump at the stroke of midnight when Jesus walked out of the sepulchre, exactly three days (or so the Bible said) after the guards had made ukay-ukay of His garments. She said the higher I jumped, the taller I’d become. My cousin, who’s now in the States, did the exact opposite because at 10, she was already 5’9”.

Somehow I feel sad that this traditional observance of cuaresma is now dead and buried. But sentimental fool that I am, I look forward to the day when it will be resurrected for all its worth. Meanwhile, I see people on Good Friday go to the beach to swim, dine and wine as sounds blared from their CD players. This makes me wish for all the bizarre things Lola Pinang said about cuaresma to come true, even just for once.

(this is an abridged version of the one published by the Inquirer.)

of gender sensitivity training, pranic healing and meryl streep

2005-03-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Few sleeps ago I attended a gender sensitivity training and discovered two non sequitors: (a) that 25 years ago Meryl Streep was beautiful in a fragile kind of way; and (b) that pranic healing is way too much for an adult with ADHA disorder like me.

All government agencies are mandated to be GAD-compliant, which means, all their workers must attend a gender sensitivity training. Since ours was the last batch, my boss literally had to drag me to the venue which was in another province.

I had my lids tightly shut as Speaker Aleli mouthed jargons like Economic Marginalization, Political Subordination, Multiple Burden, Gender Stereotyping, Violence Against Women, Personhood Development etc. I only sat up when the speaker said she’d be willing to do pranic healing for those who were interested. But first, she said, they had to view and review Kramer Vs. Kramer, a film pregnant (see? am no sexist!) with gender issues.

I first watched Kramer Vs. Kramer in 1981 (?) when I was a college freshie in Cebu. That far back, the movie was a blur, except for an image of a child, the subject of a custody case, falling from a climbing bar. I had no recollection that it was about a wife who, weary and disgusted with the inequities of family life, cut loose to find adventure and independence.

Now sitting before an LCD screen in a room that had suddenly turned dark, I wondered how could Meryl dominate the film when she was in it only about a third of the time. Dominate, as in, she made her every appearance haunting. (And to think this was before the French Lieutenant’s Woman, the film that forever endeared her to me.) Of course the Pinocchio-nosed Dustin Hoffman was all over the film but still it was Meryl that made a larger impression on me: the tentativeness she showed on the witness stand; the doleful glances she cast at Dustin at the restaurant where he threw wine glasses; the final scene inside the elevator where she asked Dustin, after 18 months of separation, how she looked—all these were testaments to the sheer magnitude of her talent and the utter perfection of her craft.

Watching Kramer Vs. Kramer for the second time left me transfixed. Beautiful in its poignancy, it’s an articulate thesis of letting go not being bitter but sweet.

Now, on to pranic healing. It was 8:30 PM and I was alone with Aleli in her room. She told me that pranic healing is a simple yet powerful and effective no-touch energy healing. It is based on the fundamental principle that the body is a "self-repairing" living entity that possesses the innate ability to heal itself and that the healing process is accelerated by increasing the life force or vital energy on the affected part of the physical body.

For prelims, she let me stand before her as she took out a pendulum (actually her necklace that had a huge pendant). It was supposed to tell me if my chakras or energies were depleted or not by swinging sideways, clockwise or counterclockwise. At once I regretted having told her earlier that I had thyroid cancer because just as she had made a connection between my throat and my sex chakras, the pendulum made the connection too. Hmmmmm. The pendulum went on to tell me that some of my chakras were fine (crown, third eye, solar plexus, navel, basic) while others were depleted (throat, heart and sex!). Throughout all these, I refused to think that her hand had a hand in the pendulum’s motion and that she was a juggler doing a mean trick with her yoyo.

Then she propped me on a monoblock. A pink basin that contained water and salt was set on the floor, by my feet. “This is where I toss aside bad energies, which the salt will purify,” she said. I took off my slippers as told and spread my feet, placed my hands--palms up--on my knees and closed my eyes.

A sense of déjà vu washed over me. Suddenly I was a child having trouble keeping his eyes closed because his mom forced him to sleep in the afternoons of long ago. For two hours the child’s eyes would remain shut, his mind flitting from one thought to another while faking a snore every now and then.

It wasn’t easy for me sitting still. I wanted to slit open my eyes but what if Aleli was making faces at me? Or worse, peering at my nose or my ears? I began to feel uncomfortable and so I prayed for the monoblock to collapse under my weight so that we could have a good laugh and break the sickening inertia, for fellow participants drinking outside to shout for fire, for Aleli to turn mute or for me to fart to the tune of Chupeta. But the gods intervened and nothing of that sort happened.

Ooooommmmm, ooooommmmm, ooooommmmmm, Aleli went, making it all the more hard for me to concentrate because by this time I was already either mentally blogging the experience or revising my stories in time for the deadline of La Salle Bacolod’s summer writing workshop.

When finally it was over after almost two hours, Aleli smiled at me. “You’re now clean of bad energies and cured of your cancer,” she said, matter of factly.

“Thank you.” I felt so tired doing nothing.

“How did you feel the whole time?”

"I felt so light,” I said, but it was not entirely true. Or false.

She wanted to shake my hand but I was already holding the basin on my way out; so she patted me on the back instead.

As the door closed, I felt so relieved. And that was when I laughed, guiltily.

the lighter side of having the Big C

2005-03-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

I have the Big C. But this is not about my on the spot realization of how transient life is nor is this about a quick makeover of my priorities and attitude in the face of a dreaded disease. I’m saving all that for my own version of “A Purpose Driven Life.”

Just because my friends tell me I have a great sense of humor doesn’t mean I can’t allow myself a few days of depression, cancer being its super mom. But surprisingly, I found out that depression is not for me. In fact, I was more depressed of not being depressed.

Okay, let me correct that. Not in the way others and I expected it to be. Maybe because my doctor said mine is not a terminal case; that it’s a “friendly” cancer. But still, who needs cancer for a friend?

I haven’t been hospitalized in all of my 30 plus summers such that when I was told to undergo thyroidectomy, I panicked. Going under the knife I can live with but catheter gives me the shakes. When I asked my doctor if I would be fitted with one, he deadpanned: “Only if your genitals are lodged in your throat.” Uh-okay.

Six weeks after my operation, I went back to Cebu for radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment. The amiable Dr. Bles Pono told me it was the most appropriate treatment for my thyroid condition. Most of the radiation would be absorbed by my thyroid gland and would decrease the function of the thyroid cells and inhibit their ability to grow. The RAI would remain in my body only temporarily and would be reduced with time. But to eliminate the possibility of radiation exposure to others, I had to be isolated for seven days.

At the briefing, I asked doc’s secretary for suggestions on what to do during my sequestration. She said I had three picks: slip into a coma; do time travel by self-hypnosis; or self destruct and do a phoenix after a week. My friends suggested reading books, writing an article, cross-stitching and yoga. The last one made me blink. If I had the gift for inaction and concentration of a tethered horse to do yoga, then I’d be this generation’s oldest living catatonic.

The thought of turning recluse for a week heightened my natural proclivity to pig out on food. If someone had only seen me seconds before I was admitted, he would think I was opening a convenience store, what with all those bottled water, tetra-packed juice, bakery products, chocolates and other chitcherias, to say nothing of toiletries.

After taking the RAI capsule on the very same day it was flown in from London (it’s imported and has a 24-hour shelf life!), I went straight to purgatory. No visitor was allowed; nurses were not to take my blood pressure, heart rate and all. With intercom and cable TV as my only links to the outside world, I turned into a monk. And that was when I knew that boredom is the family name of RAI treatment.

Let me digress just this once. The RAI treatment is very expensive, costing me a month and a half of my salary for that single capsule alone, such that when I checked out of the hospital, I felt how a piggy bank feels when a child empties it of his savings.

My room of 7mx5m was cramped with a bed, a table, a chair, a built in cabinet, a 3mx2m toilet and bathroom and a TV set that was perched close to the ceiling. It must have been management’s way of discouraging patients from squirreling it away and/or regulating its use because after a few minutes, I sure got a stiff neck from all that looking up that I had to turn it off.

I could have easily turned into a bed-potato (no couch there) and vegetate but I had a great task at hand: flush radiation off my system! I had a narrow latitude though because radiation leaves the body only through urine, saliva and sweat. Now, pray tell: how many gallons of the prescribed distilled water can I gulp for me to take a hundred leaks an hour? How do I sweat myself dry inside an aircon room? And what other ways to dribble saliva besides chewing gums?

With heightened creativity, I discovered many ways to jog and stick chewed out gums under my cot, making them look like rivets.

On my first day, after tuning in to HBO and shutting off the aircon (which made my room costly in the first place!), I started to jog and pumped sweat while Nicolas Cage pumped lead into his enemies. In the evening, with the TV running a persistent high fever from continued use which was my way of compensating for my having to pay the aircon even if it was off most of the time, I was practically living my worst nightmare as I jogged down imaginary Elm Street. The next day, as sounds blared from MTV, I jogged in the raw, unmindful of lascivious stares from Madonna, Britney and J Lo.

Given the room’s dimension and maze-like configuration, it was a bit restrictive but still I jogged the way of the ants. You know, doing it on all fours. But then I got this scary notion that a stroke of paranormal bad luck might actually turn me into one. Not that I have qualms turning into an ant (it doesn’t get cancer, right?) but being Baygon-sprayed to death is for me not exactly a cool way to call it quits.

I tried almost everything, all in the name of profuse sweating. From push-ups (I was not up to it!) to doing body contortions (too risky for my freshly sewn-up neck!) to crawling over and under my bed (my flabs got in the way!).

Looking back now, I don’t have the faintest idea how I survived the longest, most solitary week of my life. Except that I counted each passing day in terms of hospital billing.

I went home to my province without touching the pile of bestsellers I brought with me. And with enough foodstuff left, I threw three separate children’s parties.

After all those post-RAI scans, I was given a clean bill of health together with a list of do’s and don’t’s. But with cancer, you have to leave everything to God because you’ll never know what will happen next. Meanwhile, I can’t help feeling amused each time people ask me if I’m a terminal case because hello, aren’t we all coming to pass?

(note: six years after this was written, i'm still around. thank God for that!)

a promdi’s tutuban nightmare

2005-03-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

For a promdi like me, Manila will always be an outlandish territory, navigable only by asking questions from people busy enough to give you a wink. But kind was the hotel guard who told me, when asked about the LRT station nearest Tutuban, to get off at Doroteo Jose.

That settled, I went on a pilgrimage to the mecca of inveterate barats. And since the LRT’s PA system was off that day, I had to widen my eyes to the size of electric fans to read the station signage every time the train stopped. When finally I climbed down the Doroteo Jose station, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be my day.

First there was slight drizzle; second, the sidewalk was thickly lined with people whose eyes, like mine, sparkled with bargain prospects. Forty-five minutes later and 500 meters away from my original location, I was still prowling for a ride. And because it was easier to make Troy Montero admit to having an all male sex video than to get a ride, I, together with million other bargain freaks, decided to “walk with faith in my heart” all the way to Tutuban.

Lesson Number One: alight at either Bambang or Carriedo where, for the same fare, it’s easier to get a jeepney ride to Tutuban.

By the time I reached the railroad tracks, my legs were already on low bat. But Tutuban’s frenetic rhythm and bursting colors, the billowing smoke and assorted smell, and the babel of humans and machine had me instantly recharged. When I entered the Tutuban building, I almost fainted because there was simply too many people.

I tried to get ahead but I was hostage to the flow of human traffic. And just like them I just drifted along, but many times I had to make sure whether the person beside or in front of me was not a mannequin on the lam. I was particularly irked by a mother on whose hip a child clung, steadily wailing like he had sirens for lungs. When the mother looked that way, I popped a sedative into the child’s mouth like it was a vending machine.

Lesson Number Two: Don’t bring children because they could asphyxiate or cry their tonsils out from discomfort.

Dizzy, I took refuge at the National Bookstore but found it as crowded. Why do people go to the Philippine’s haggling capital just to visit the National Bookstore where prices are fixed and the same elsewhere? In the few times that I had successfully inched my way to a stall, I didn’t like what I saw. The prices were low, yes, but product quality was poor; and most signature brands were misspelled.

After zombie-walking for over three hours, I went home with nothing to show for my ordeal but a pair of yo-yo I bought at the sidewalk where I drew blood haggling. But what greater ordeal was there than to find out that the same yo-yo cost less at Uniwide?

Tutuban must have ingrained itself in the shoppers’ psyche because it creeps with people from all walks and stripes, making shopping not only a stretch but death defying because you could die from stroke or fatigue. Not to mention what this promdi belatedly realized that what you see in Tutuban is not necessarily what you get. Like the yo-yo he bought with much regret!

a promdi's MRT woes

2005-02-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

I used to fear speed; I remember shutting my eyes throughout my maiden flight and hypnotizing myself on my first MRT ride. In time though I had to lick my MRT fears if only to increase malling time when in Manila.

In my recent trip however, the MRT had come to mean endless queuing, thus giving me a reason to shun it anew. For instance: to get a passage card I had to line up; to enter the passenger bay, again I had to line up; yet again, I had to line up to exit. And mind you, the snaking lines crisscrossed each other on the limited space, baffling me as to which line led where.

One time during rush hour, I joined a queue that got me to the ticket booth longer than it took eternity to end. Then to my shock, the ticket girl said she was only accepting exact fares and that if I could please line up again in the next booth. Whaaaaat???!!!

Going to the tail end of another kilometric line, I grumbled: Why not let the makeshift stalls sell MRT cards like they do with cell cards? Promdi transients like me won’t mind paying extra for the hassle it will save us.

Finally clasping a smiling Ate Glo, I lined up and fed her to the machine. As I walked toward an area in the terminal, I saw mainly women passengers. I was about to ask where had all the men gone when a girl pointed to me the waiting area for male commuters. So the MRT had turned gender sensitive! I was quite impressed, but then I saw women milling about the male zone.

As the train wailed from a distance, everybody moved to the edge and poised to hurl himself inside once it stopped and the door hissed open. Sandwiched between warm bodies and forever wary of pickpockets, I had one hand clasping my cell phone and another, my wallet. As the crowd surged forward, I turned buoyant, letting the human tsunami wash me aboard where, packed like cigarettes, we traded sweats and breaths.

Certain after a while a pickpocket couldn’t do his trick no more than I could shift my weight, I put my hands on my face to ensure it wouldn’t get swapped in the hubbub. But I must say this: For all those times that I took the perpetually crammed MRT, no one ever reeked of underarm odor or screamed theft.

At Shaw Boulevard I got off, lined up, fed Ate Glo again to the machine and exited---- but where? Faced with stairs and walls, I was clueless on where to go and whom to follow because people went in all directions. Take it easy, I told myself, to get out of this station, I simply have to take the stairs going down, right? Wrong! At the Shaw Boulevard Station, first you have to go up twice then go down before you could get out of the terminal. Whew!

I then headed for SM Megamall in a polo shirt that was so crinkled it looked like a bull had used it for a diaper. I’m not complaining but what you gain in MRT time, you lose in poise and style.

Retracing my steps to the MRT terminal three hours later, I jiggled once in a while the coins in my pocket, the exact fare going home. But up there, I was astonished to see that the supposed express line for “exact fare only” was longer by half than the rest. Ha-ha. Extreme mind conditioning makes people funny!

It was 9 PM and the crowd hadn’t thinned out much. Thinking that about this time gender lines were no longer hallowed, I went to an area where the crowd was relatively sparse. But then the train arrived and the usual mad scramble ensued.

Elbowing my way inside, I latched my hand on the rail to gain space and balance. It was only later when I realized I was being bumped from all sides by fleshy orbs. I looked around and saw, pressed close to me, women in various stages of pregnancy. Coyly, a woman smiled and pointed to me a sign on the wall that read: FOR PREGNANT PASSENGERS ONLY.

As the MRT door swished and shut me out, I wished I had stuffed under my shirt everything that I bought.

GSIS eCard, anyone?

2005-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

As the GSIS eCard hoopla rages on, you, a GSIS member from Surigao del Sur (SDS), become a casualty of a system that all your friends think is a study in chaos. But first things first.

You understand that the GSIS needs to streamline its present system; you understand the GSIS when it says that the eCard is the way to go because it serves as your ID card in all your GSIS transactions; you understand that the eCard can be used as an ATM card and a debit/credit card to pay for goods and services at retailers or suppliers worldwide who accept it. What you don’t understand however is why you are subjected to these pointless troubles.

To get a GSIS eCard in Davao City, you need to have an enrolment form duly approved by your governor. When you leave, your eCard holder officemates warn you about the hellish experience and give you some survival tips. It’s already the first week of February and for sure the system has improved, you say.

You get off the bus in front of SM Davao at 4:00 in the morning. At the east wing, you see people milling about, others sitting on the gutter. You are correct in thinking that these people got there shortly after midnight. With them, you wait.

A mad scramble as the GSIS team arrives; hands jut, asking for priority numbers. Just when you have wormed your way, you’re told to go to the other side where Surigaonons are supposed to line up. You look around for some signages to guide you. Nada.

Using a megaphone, a man shouts for everybody to toe the line, but the crowd is deaf. Holding your priority number, you ask the megaphone man. It’s line five for SDS, he says. The lines criss-cross but you find your way and queue. Wanting to chat, you ask the woman in front of you if she’s from SDS. She says no. You scratch your head as she points you to the right SDS line which is two rows to your left. Going to the tail end of another long line, you look around for some signages. Again nada.

It’s past 6:00 AM; the lines snake from the SM door to the other corner. The man with the megaphone shouts some instructions but you can’t hear him.

SM does not open until 8:30 and so the crowd moves, shifts and grumbles. The sun comes out and you have nowhere to hide because the thin trees cast their shadows against the SM wall. Sweat beads at your temples and you feel your knees shake. Sitting on your heels, you secretly thank God for not giving you kidneys the size of lanzones, or else.

For hours you alternately hear nothing but complaints from restless people and the screams of the megaphone man repeating the same instructions.

When SM finally opens, the people are almost ballistic and the megaphone man has gone hoarse. Serves him right; instead of verbal instructions, a simple idiot board would have saved him and you some troubles.

All hell breaks loose at the SM entrance where the crowd is so dense that every square meter of floor space has 10 people in it. To you, it feels like crossing the Red Sea without Moses.

You try to get ahead but you’re helplessly stuck. As the human tsunami surges this way and that, you coast along without people realizing you are not moving under your own steam.

The situation turns death defying at the second level of SM where, on the narrow hallway, you are packed like cigarettes. Faced with the horrors of claustrophobia and asphyxia, you palpitate. People inch their way from opposite directions, ducking barricades, human and otherwise. There is plenty of shouting, mostly from the GSIS men. But above the din of irate voices, the megaphone man reigns supreme as he swears and screams.

You’re number 36, but it’s taking so long for you to get served, making you wonder if all that queuing early in the morning is for naught! Grumbling, you swap practical suggestions for a no-brainer systemic failure on the part of GSIS. It’s all a matter of providing process flow information through signages that people can read from a distance, others say. Ironically, GSIS hangs tarpaulin streamers that don’t help like the one that says, “Tapos na ang maligayang araw nila.” Again it makes you wonder if GSIS is referring to you and your tribulations.

Another hour passes before you enter a dungeon where you are to sit on conjoined chairs, the better to treat you to a slow game of musical chairs as you move nearer to being served by one of the unsmiling six encoders. From here, it’s a 2-hour waiting game for you.

As you sit there imbibing the funny smells of your fellow GSIS members, a thought hits you: What’s the point of all this?

You didn’t ask for the eCard system, the GSIS did. So it must be incumbent upon the GSIS to make everything a breeze to you. But no, the GSIS encumbers you with an awful system while robbing you and the national and local government units with precious resources. Quickly you do some Math.

The Civil Service Commission says that SDS has 8,842 filled up government positions. Because you are all given three days, on official time, to process your eCard in Davao City, the government loses man-hours valued at P7,957,800 (8,842x300x3 days), assuming an average daily wage of P300. And because you are made to bear the Tandag-Davao-Tandag bus fare of P600 and the cost of food and accommodation pegged at 300 a day, all of you must shell out a total of P13,263,000. In short, SDS incurs P21,220,800 just for its employees to have an eCard. Multiply this amount with the total number of provinces and cities and you end up with a figure neat enough to buy all the paintings of Juan Luna!

You are told that Mindanao has only Davao and Cagayan de Oro as processing centers because it’s risky to bring the equipment to the provinces. But as you sit there, you inventory the equipment: a computer set, a webcam and a smaller-than-a-fax-machine biometer designed to take your right and left index fingerprints. Why, you say to yourself, even SSS and LTO are using them in SDS.

It’s past noon and your stomach growls as you watch others nibble at some crackers. You stare at the tarpaulin that has the GSIS begging your indulgence for the inconvenience. Playing tricks, your mind changes the meaning of GSIS to “Great Suffering Inside SM.” In spite of your famished self, you grin.

By the time your photo is taken, you’re worn-down that you don’t recognize yourself on the computer monitor. You request for a reshoot and get none.

At two in the afternoon, you’re finally done. And on your way out, you see another GSIS tarpaulin that says: NOW YOU HAVE THE POWER! In reflex, you look at your eCard and get mocked by your worst photo ever. You run to the rest room. And there you puke.

(p.s. mental pervert intends to submit this to the philippine daily inquirer.)

cell phone as a weapon of sexual perversion ( R-18)

2005-02-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

Then: “Hon, what flavor is your condom?”
Now: “Hon, what model is your cell phone?”

You. Yes, you, Ethel Booba prototype. You have become paranoid---what will all this hoopla about sex videos. All too suddenly, you regret having egged him to replace his 3310. Or was it 5110?

Foreplay to you has taken on a new dimension. Now it’s you who undress him, making sure that no phone cam is wedged between his bushy armpits or tucked into his filthy navel or taped on his burgeoning love handles. As you grope him, you wonder if there’s a phone small enough to pass as cavities. Or in-grown toenails. Or tonsils.

He complains about all this fuss. You persist, nay, insist! Finally, you lie down beside him, only to bolt up after something that glints in the ceiling crosses your peripheral vision. A hidden phone cam? But you tone down just as fast, knowing there is no way he could stick it there because earlier you made sure to enter the room ahead of him.

You make love. And wriggle. And moan. And ever so excruciatingly, you open mouth. Then you remember your Fil-Am cousin telling you about this gum-thin cell phone. Like a frog zapping a mosquito, you shut your mouth in a snap. What if in the white heat of passion, he slips it into your mouth and you, in turn, swallow it? What if the next day, you watch in horror all your entrails, including a cirrhotic liver and a busted appendix, being dissected on national television in a show that has nothing to do with human anatomy?

You shudder. Whether from the burning thought or blinding orgasm, you don’t know. All you know is you need to go back to basics. Like buying him a fax, perhaps?

Opppsssss...

2005-02-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

Because lucid interval comes to a mental pervert few and far between, this blog also does.

a mental pervert decides to blog

2005-02-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

Now, this is perverse. Just when my pseudo-writer friends have stopped bugging me to blog, here I am. Indeed, only fools don’t change their mind.

I first toyed with the idea of calling this “Inspired Madness.” But I found it a tad too clichéd. I wanted something that would give my blog a kick, a punch. But it was something I couldn't quite pin down. So I slept on it. When I woke up, an idea snapped.

Lunacy fascinates me. Why, I don’t know. Is it for the fact that my mother's middle name is "Luna?" And/Or that my maternal lola died in a lickhouse in Manila?

Madness, what perfect alibi. When you're insane, you can write about anything without pain of libel or censure. (Don’t you smell Catch 22 here?) And even if you massacre every English composition rule there is, or even if your subject and your verb are the grammarian equivalents of Tom and Jerry, your stern English teachers can only salivate by the wayside, gritting their teeth because they can’t touch you with their ten-foot pole red of a pen. Really now, that’s utter freedom!

But then again, you have to have a sense of accountability in everything that you write, even just an iota, if only to show some respect to your voyeurs, I mean, readers. Besides, your carefree life as a mental pervert can also be boring, so you need a lucid interval, a psychotic break. Even if invariably you find the real world much, much more chaotic.

Lucid interval is that space of time between two fits of insanity, during which a person is completely restored to the perfect enjoyment of reason upon which the mind was previously cognizant. That, in a perfect way, is the essence of this blog.