fun

because all work and no play makes juan a dumb boy...

as simple as a few lines drawn on the ground, and the whole gang can have a grand time just jumping over them



as kids, we already have this fascination with movement. have big brother pull us on a makeshift sled, and we're all good...



but eventually our tastes catch up with the technology. and the fascination changes from movement, to the idea of control... that we're "driving" that car... that we're "in" that car...



soon enough, we're no longer satisfied with cars. we need to be driving spaceships and blasting away at invading aliens... in 3D...



but if we don't have those hi tech options, or on occasions when the weather doesn't want us to play, we find ways to improvise





even the company of a baby brother is enough...



and it's not just the kids... adults too can find the need to have fun, sometimes at the kids' expense



but we can't all have fun all the time. when our turn is up, we'll have to get off the seat and let somebody else drive the bike

flying away

because it'll take more than balloons before we can fly away...





pictures taken near the sto. nino church, cebu city, may 2010

degrees of value

an old photo from my archive: a stack of coins and text from thomas gray's ode on the death of favorite cat, drowned in a tub of goldfishes.



taken november 2009.

rainy days

wipe that fog off your eyes: the flowers are still there



carcar, october 2010

the making of a pot

it all begins with a lump of clay. to our unimagining eyes, it's a lifeless lump of clay. but the potter sees it differently: he sees the POSSIBILITY of clay.



the potter takes a small lump of it, rolls it...



and he places the lump on a wheel and he lets the wheel turn. he may or may not know what form that lump will take, but he lets the wheel turn.



the wheel spinning, the potter takes his hands to the clay, and the clay gives way.



so softness isn't always bad. softness can mean flexibility, the willingness to take new form...



the acceptance that we can be better than what we are now.



thus formed, the pot can now enter the oven that will give it the strength to be a pot...



... a pot that can say to the rest of us, 'yes, because i was once a lump of clay.'

photos taken in vigan, ilocos sur, may 2008

liquid courage

because all we need is some liquid courage...



compostela, cebu, may 2010

mobile home

near colon st., cebu city, march 2010

middle class dreams: jollibee as a symbol

just speculating here... but it seems to me that jollibee has become a symbol of sorts for filipino society: that you can afford that weekly trip with the kids for a chickenjoy meal means you've broken out of poverty, that a town opening its first jollibee branch is a sign of progress...



hiway, mandaue city, november 2010

toy stories

"it's rude to stare at people like that, spongebob"



****



sometimes, people are like wind up toys: they waste precious time waiting for somebody else to pick them up and wind up their springs...

****



"you don't really need to bang that drum to stand out... you just have to be a mouse..."

****

taken around downtown cebu city, march 2010

old school: the original maniniyot

i'd thought of them as an extinct species--the prevalence of digital photography should've wiped out their market share--but give churches, plazas and parks around the philippines a visit, and you should find a few of them still standing around, waiting for anybody with the itching need for a decent picture but unlucky (or should i say, lucky?) enough to not have a camera with them. probably not as plentiful as they were in the past, but there they are, the men who have played the part of the chronicler of our lives, arresting the fleeting shape of our memories and pressing them on paper.

i feel this is a project i can expand with more pictures, a project where the maniniyot's roles have been reversed: instead of being behind the camera, the maniniyots are now in front of the camera.













err... not so sure about this guy, though...



pictures taken around sto nino church, cebu, september 2006 and may 2010; magellan's cross, cebu, june 2006; at the plaza in front of the dalaguete church, april 2010; the plaza in front of ormoc city hall, february 2010; and at the luneta, manila, march 2010

the youth of the nation

"Ipataas ang agtang mong masayag Pilipinhong kabataan kalaumang mayad sa akong yutawhan" - Jose Rizal

hmmm... "ang agtang mong masayag" = "your shiny forehead"?



taken at carcar's plaza, june 2010

fences

are the fences there to protect us from him... or to protect him from us?



near colon st., cebu city, may 2010

growing old

so this is what it means to grow old: to sit beside open doors as if they were already closed, when chairs become prisons and we are reduced to becoming mere spectators of our lives...



but the greater tragedy is when some of us become too old too soon...

sitio cantipla, baranggay tabunan, cebu city, june 2010