inside, looking out

my existence these past few months has largely been limited to going to work, going home, going to work, going home, going to work, so on and so forth. even weekends and holidays, much to my frustration.

i work at IT park. and IT park, as most cebuanos know, is a place unto itself. it doesn't feel like cebu at all. echoes of effortlessly american sounding chatter bounce off the walls of the various high rises sprouting all over the place like grass. a porsche or bmw parked outside some trendy new bar or cafe is no longer such an extraordinary thing to behold. and strutting about in their power suits or fashionably casual outfits, specimens of the local subspecie of yuppie go about their day tapping away at their shiny new iPhones or hammering at their macbooks, while wide eyed envelope wielding job seekers stare at these curious creatures, in the hope that they too become part of the herd.

there is an air of possibility to the place. it feels like one huge launch pad, and we are all astronauts headed for the moon (or sinners going to hell, depending on how you look at it).

meanwhile, home is as it should be: home, a shell to retreat in, my own psychological space to shut out the rest of the world, a place away from all the cursing bosses and the horde of irate clients screaming for my head and the dozen or so ticking time bombs that is my job to juggle around before they explode: the projects that i have to manage.

so goes a typical day in the life of kenneth diaz: i go to work, a project explodes in my face, i go home. i go to work, an important client does her best impression of the queen bitch from hell, i go home. i go to work, the boss roars "what f*cking holiday is monday?", i go home.

it's been stressful, to say the least. but here's the thing with stress: when you feel like everything around you is falling apart, when all you get is one disappointment after another, then it becomes too easy to reach the conclusion that the universe has singled you out (and only you) for punishment, that your pain (and no one else's) is all there is to the world.

there's nothing like a quick trip outside to prove that all wrong, though.

2 weeks ago, i took friday off from work, and jumped on the chance to jog on one of my favorite routes, from our house all the way to the 2 mactan bridges.

i'd made good progress. i was now on the last stretch of my run on the 2nd mactan bridge when i saw something odd: a woman squatting on the road. you see, the 2nd mactan bridge has separate lanes for pedestrians, and she was squatting at the edge of the main road with the cars and trucks and buses zipping past her. she was wearing a brown blouse that had seen better days, a long green skirt, a piece of cloth wrapped around her head. and layed out in front of her, were 3 big grey sacks.

this i didn't really mind, until she stood up. for a split second her butt was exposed as she quickly raised her skirt to put her underwear back on. she had just taken a pee... on the side of the road... for all the world to see. she then stood up, dutifully put one sack on her head, took the other 2 sacks, one in each hand, and walked quietly along.

"yes, i am, apparently, still in the philippines," i thought.

i finish my jog and cool off, then head to one of the sari-sari stores near the park at the foot of the 2nd mactan bridge to buy myself some water.

at the sari-sari store, while sipping on a cold bottle of water and waiting for my change, an old man comes up beside me. you could almost read his life story written on his graying hair and his wrinkled face, but it was his eyes that spoke most eloquently: he had the saddest eyes in the world.

the tindera came back with my change, then she asked the old man, "unsa imo noy?" (can i help you sir?)

as if he too had a big grey sack resting on his head, the old man very slowly shook his head. the tindera shrugged and went away. the old man, with his one hand resting on the counter, stood there and eyed the inside of the store the same way moses, after 40 years in the desert, must have looked over the promised land that he'd been forbidden to enter, from the top of the mountain where he was going to die: so near and yet so far, far way.

i fled. i was still catching my breath after a rather punishing jog, and i wanted no part of it. so i fled.

i found an empty bench at the park, with a view of the bridge and the passing ships, and cooled off there. to my left was one bench with a couple, and to my right, another bench with 2 uniformed women who i couldn't help but hear chatting about the sad trajectory of their lives (involving unfaithful boyfriends, troubled siblings, and the neverending struggle for money). another pair of women approached them.

one was an old woman with a bandana, a walking stick on her right hand, and a plastic cup on her left, and she had milky white eyes that seemed to have given up on seeing. she was led by another woman, who led the blind woman by her arm (the one with the plastic cup), and directed the cup toward the 2 women seated on the bench. i heard the tinkle of coins dropping into the cup, and they proceeded to the next bench: mine.

the guide woman then directed the blind woman's cup in front of my face. i looked blankly at the cup, which now had 3 1-peso coins in it, looked at the blind woman, then looked at the guide. i noticed that she had an imperious look on her face, the look of one wanting to know if i had something to give or not, the look of one who did not have the time to plead, the look of a question demanding an answer.

i sat still. i only had enough coins for a jeepney ride home. i just stared at the guide woman, and she stared back.

seeing that i was a lost cause, she motioned to the blind woman, and they moved on to the next bench.

not long after, i also stood up, lingered a bit on the view, and went home... home, where i can shut out the world again... but not really, not anymore, after remembering that there is a world outside of the cursing bosses and irate clients and projects about to explode, that there is a world outside of my own frustrations and pains and heartbreaks, that there is a world outside of me.

to know that you are not alone is relief enough.

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

published on the inquirer january 13, 2011 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20110113-314144/World-outside

the walls have eyes

someone's watching...



street art near the corner of fr. rahmann st. and mango avenue, cebu city, october 2009.

sadly, this painting (no other word for it) of a woman with the most haunting eyes, is gone. it was already fading when i discovered it, the paint peeling off on some spots. this probably led to the street artist's decision to paint a new picture over it, one with a more youthful face, that of a smiling, and visibly happier, girl. i liked this one better though.

i think this painting's fate adds to the urgency of photographing street art, which is one of the city's redeeming features. compared to formal paintings, street art is ephemeral. formal paintings are shown in museums, encased behind glass, and put in climate controlled rooms with security cameras watching over them. every effort is made in their conservation.

in contrast to that, street art is exposed, not just to the elements, but to the ebb and flow of urban development. if the property owner decides to take down the wall where you painted your masterpiece, no matter how brilliant it is, no matter that it can rival even the mona lisa, your masterpiece goes with the wall.

so the photographer comes in, to tell the world that there was once a painting there, the face of a woman back from oblivion, staring at you, haunting you, with those eyes.



in case you're wondering, yes, that is my tripod's shadow.

liar liar

i lied.

but not in the same magnitude, or rather, hilarity, as miriam defensor santiago's lie. as some of you might remember (which is, in itself, a miracle, given the pinoy's typical amnesia regarding such matters), she announced publicly that "I will jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta if Estrada gets removed from power". to probably much of her enemies' rejoicing, things didn't turn out as she had anticipated. people power kicked erap out of malacanang after. she would have to jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta, as promised. later, when reporters found her skull intact, they asked miriam about her promise. in characteristic candor, she replied smiling: "i lied".

and my lie certainly wasn't in the same league as gloria macapagal arroyo's, when she said on rizal day 2002 (or, on rizal's grave, as conrado de quiros would unceasingly point out), that she, so as to not bring even more divisiveness to an already divided country, would not run for president on 2004. ladies and gentlemen, such is the sad state of our politics.

nonetheless, given the puniness of my lie compared to the immensity of both elected (or not) government officials' lies, we still cannot gloss over the fact: i lied.

it happened like this. even with my shampoo's packaging declaring it to be anti-dandruff, one saturday morning found me with a severe case of it. apparently, my shampoo wasn't working. so later in the afternoon, i rushed to our neighborhood grocery to buy me another shampoo.

now that i think about it, i guess you people didn't really need to know about my dandruff... so let's continue...

i got myself a bottle of another anti-dandruff shampoo, which was worth 99 pesos. before reaching the counter, i scanned the contents of my wallet and found just one 100 peso bill, the rest being 500 peso bills (which is not to say i have plenty of spare cash. most of it was for our electric bill and rent). the 100 peso bill would have been convenient, not just for me but also for the lady manning the grocery counter. but then, i thought, i might need some change. so i decided to just take one of my 500 peso bills. the lady in the counter scanned my bottle of shampoo on the barcode reader, then i handed her my money.

the lady frowned. she asked, 'wala kay 100 lang sir? (don't you have 100 pesos?)'. for a millisecond there, a part of me was saying 'maybe i should just admit it'. but it was too late. unwilling to wait for my conscience to enforce its decision, my neck muscles then acted independently and proceeded shaking my head to tell the lady 'no'.

the lady sighed in resignation. she opened her cash register and took her last two remaining 100 peso bills, took four of her last five remaining 50 peso bills (i noticed that there was just one left), then took a single peso coin to give me my exact change of 401 pesos. she practically had no more change left.

i *could* blame my neck muscles for the incident. but my conscience didn't see it that way, and then went on bothering me for the next 2 hours or so.

but had i been strictly honest, i would have told the lady, "yes ma'am, i do have a 100 peso bill in my wallet, but i need the change. so, no. sorry, here's 500 pesos, and please give me my change." but... damn it... that's plain rude. and the choices look stark: either you lie (or at least not tell the truth), or, you do tell the truth and then end up being a complete asshole.

for some reason, i feel like quoting the nationalist historian teodoro agoncillo, who once said, "those who are afraid to make enemies cannot be expected to tell the truth". or something like that. i think. which is not to say he was encouraging us all to be assholes. or that i'm using it as an excuse to lie. or am i? wait a sec... am i making sense here?

i could have just given the lady my last 100 peso bill. period. maybe it's not really an issue of telling the truth. it's an issue of self-sacrifice. not that i'm trying to sound noble here, but it now seems to boil down to this: "am i willing to suffer the minor inconvenience of not having change instead of bothering the lady in the counter in addition to lying to her?"

so i guess that's it. i would have avoided bothering the lady. i would have also avoided being bothered by my consciece. gloria arroyo would have avoided being so despised. and miriam... well, she can be very entertaining, so let's just leave it at that.

but then, had i not lied, i wouldn't have been able to write this piece at all. i guess lying still has its uses.

################

it took me one and a half months to finish this piece. i guess that's how long it took me to admit to myself that either way, even if i lie or i don't, i'm still being an asshole hahaha.

################

published in the philippine daily inquirer 3/14/2009 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090314-194116/Liars

the city mouse and the country mouse

i wake to the full volume shrieking from the house next door of, of all the music from all the musicians in all the world, air supply's greatest hits album... for the Nth time, where N is approaching infinity... at 6am in the friggin' morning. my cellphone alarm hadn't even rung yet. i get up, i grumble, i have no choice. then i remember, it's friday the 13th. a good sign. i zip through my bath, my breakfast, my dressing up: a zombie, a machine, a robot. then i step out of the house for my commute to work.

not yet 20 meters away from the door, there is a shrill beeping behind me: a habal2x driver in a hurry. but the already tiny street, made even tinier by the jeepney driver who considered our tiny street as free parking space, is just too tiny for the both of us to pass through comfortably. the driver has no choice but to let me pass first. i continue walking.

i pass through, the habal2x behind me, still beeping. it passes through, and the driver hits his breaks in front of me to block my path. he tells me he was blowing his horn. i tell him yes, i'm not deaf. he tells me maybe i am. i tell him to fuck off. he glares at me, i glare back, then he goes on his way, beeping away all the other pedestrians in his path. my words startle me; did i just say that? i continue walking.

the street is pockmarked with potholes and littered with dog shit and random pieces of trash. to the left, the smells of buwad (dried salted fish) frying and plastic burning mingling with the decay of dog shit. to the right, another house arrayed with giant speakers near its gates, this time pounding the eardrums of all residents within a 200 meter radius with that most infamous staple of mid 90s diskorals: the macarena. and walking toward me, a grimy woman dragging her own grimy son, who is bawling out with all his lungs, and the mother threatening the boy with a broom. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my neighborhood.

i finally emerge at the eskina, a tricycle waiting to transport me from the hell of my neighborhood to the hell of my office cubicle. i hop on. the driver, not yet satisfied with his passengers, waits, the tricycle's engine humming its impatience all the while.

a man emerges. his hair is wet, combed back and clean. he is wearing a clean blue polo, cleanly ironed jeans, and cracked leather shoes brushed clean. but on his astringent clean face is the bewildered look of a lost man.

in his right hand, a clear plastic envelope. in it, sheets of bond paper, and on the top sheet, a pasted 2x2 id picture, and in big black bold letters, the word 'BIODATA'. he approaches the driver.

in a singsong bisaya spoken in dalaguete and southern cebu, he asks if we were going to the highway. the driver tells him to hop on. he looks at the tricycle like it was some alien spacecraft, unsure of what to do. he takes his seat in the sidecar. the driver revs up his engine. off we go.

it's starting to get hot, and the traffic is running slow and heavy. with the driver deftly negotiating the obstacles of the road, we reach the highway. the bewildered man asks the driver to stop so he could get off. but it was a still a 'no stopping' zone, and a traffic policeman was standing in a discrete corner, a wolf waiting to pounce on its unsuspecting prey. the driver tells him, 'sa unahan' (a bit farther off). another 10 meters, and the bewildered man again asks the driver to stop so he could get off. the driver answers him again, 'sa unahan', his annoyance now ringing clear in his voice.

we finally reach our stop. all of us passengers get off. i hand my money to the driver, mutter under my breath a 'good luck' to the bewildered man, then proceed to the jeepney stop across the street. it takes me a full 20 minutes to get my ride. as our jeepney fights its way through the traffic on the highway, a metaphor for the sad realities of living in the city presents itself to me.

there laying on the highway, under the growing heat of the sun: the raw, bloody, mangled carcass of what had been a dog. and no one thinking it worth stopping for: the jeepneys and cars on their morning rush, the trucks and vans going on with their deliveries, the pedestrians on the street waiting in vain to get their ride, the cigarette vendor anticipating the traffic to slow down so he could peddle his goods, another traffic policeman sitting under the shade of the nearby bakery, idly watching the rest of the world on its senseless turning. and no one coming to clean the mess up.

our jeepney finally finds open road, and the driver steps on the gas. the wind in my face, i reflect over the dead dog. then i remember the bewildered man; i hope he doesn't end up as roadkill.

the necessity of storms

an old essay i sat on for a couple of weeks... took me some time to polish, but here it is... #################################

saturday morning dawned cold, wet, and windy. evening had been terrible. the storm signal no. 2 winds drove the rain to seep through the windows, drenching half my bed. the whole night my blanket and my pillows were all giving me moist reminders of my misery as the wind howled outside. some water had even engulfed part of the floor of my room, and i had to enlist the help of all the rags and old, torn t-shirts i could muster to stem the deluge. but at least, this morning, frank's worst had already passed us.

but then frank had not yet totally left. it was still too rainy and windy to make any trip outside comfortable. and my room, already a mess before frank came roaring, was now a disaster area. books stacked higgledy-piggledy to avoid getting wet, scattered stacks of yesterday's news, various pieces of plastic that used to hold old purchases, random papers and magazines. piled on my little table were receipts of long ago transactions, old electricity and credit card bills, empty deodorant and rubbing alcohol bottles, more pieces of plastic, expired mcdonald's coupons; in short, the beginnings of a mountain of garbage. to top it all off, soaked rags all over the floor, the curtains dripping wet, and on the corner of our roof, a loose iron sheet moaning its fragility.

and not just the state of my room, but also the state of my head; the rain had not just seeped through the windows to drench my bed, my pillows, my blanket, and my floor, it also flooded my brain, soaking my bones, drowning my lungs with helplessness. there i was reduced to a distraught shivering wreck, desperate to escape the disaster of my room, yet too scared to face what remained of frank outside. something had to be done: defy nature to escape my more immediate horrors, or fix my room. the answer was obvious.

as to how i allowed my room to reach this state of desperation, i can't really say. or maybe i'm just too ashamed to admit. this time, driven to the edge of insanity, i was forced to fight back one way or another. since i was no match against nature, it had to be my personal mess that i should confront.

first off, i had to wipe off all the water that had overrun the floor, then take out all the wet rags. my floor now reasonably dry, i turned my attention to the most visible mess: my books. after sorting them into three tidy stacks, it was on to sorting everything else: the magazines and the old newspapers, the old receipts and bills, the little pieces of plastic and trash, each in their own pile.

but sorting revealed a new problem: i had no more space. the contents of my crowded shelves were just groaning with the effects of overpopulation. a revolution was inevitable: i had to throw things out. now came the hard part.

first the old receipts and pieces of plastic, the expired mcdonald's coupons, and the empty plastic bottles, all had to go. these little pieces of trash were the easiest, yet, ultimately inconsequential: i still couldn't create enough space. i had to throw the old newspapers away.

i had to be careful though. some of the issues here had my articles printed on them, and some with memorable essays that i had formed an attachment to. an ardous hour of sorting and checking, separating what to keep from what had to be thrown away, and i was done. my trash can couldn't have been any happier.

i ponder over the contents my trash can, and over the stack of old newspapers. why is it that i hang on to all this trash for so long? why is it so hard to just... let go?

my room finally having achieved a semblance of order, my body sweating, my hands dusty, the tips of my fingernails blackened by the dirt that i scraped off the skin of my arms, and yet oddly, i felt clean: as clean as having taken a thousand baths, as clean as emptying my bowels of all literal and metaphorical shit, as clean as having all my sins forgiven. no wonder they say cleanliness is next to godliness: the act of cleaning up is, in itself, a religious experience.

i sat on my chair (which had also been cleared of its own share of chaos) and surveyed the restored glory of my personal sanctuary, then thought to myself: let frank blow what fury it has left my way, i no longer care. i had my room back. and it took a storm to make me look inside and clean up my own mess.

territorial integrity, or, a loner's dilemma: how to preserve one's solitude without becoming a complete asshole

my personal air space was invaded last saturday. you know, that implicitly declared perimeter surrounding our persons, which, when crossed by other parties, causes alarm bells to sound in our heads. THAT space. i was having my coffee in my favorite spot at bo's coffee club sm branch, committing my thoughts to paper, when this lady and her kid comes up to me, violates my borders, and disturbs my peace.

but before i continue, let me explain why that spot is my favorite piece of prime real estate at bo's coffee club sm branch. the spot isn't your usual cafe setup of 2 or 3 hard wood chairs surrounding a small coffee table. it's actually a complete sala set, with the table, a sofa, and 2 chairs, the sofa and the 2 chairs thick with foam and covered in leather. but what makes it really valuable is what makes prime real estate really valuable: location, location, location. it's situated near the entrance, with a cinematic view of the flow of humanity just strolling by the mall, making it an ideal spot for contemplation, and for spotting chicks. can you imagine it now? ok... let's continue...

so there i was having my coffee in my favorite spot, committing my thoughts to paper, when this lady and her kid comes up to me, violates my borders, and disturbs my peace. she looks at me, sees that i'm alone, then promptly plants her butt on the empty chair across me. THEN she asks me if i had companions. i say no. i ask her if she had other companions. she says she's just waiting for something. wrong answer. i look around and see at least 7 other vacant tables visible from my spot, with probably more at the back. but what really got my goat was that she never asked me if it was ok or not, to take that seat across me.

but she seemed like a nice enough lady, so i tried to be cool with it. i breathed in, put my pencil down, and stared at the people walking outside, hoping it would be quick. then her coffee arrives. wonderful.

apparently, she had some business with the coffee shop people, something about a broken fridge. one by one, the coffee shop people come and talk with her. i try glancing at the lady every now and then with a sad (not angry, not annoyed, not VERY sad, just a bit so) look on my face to try and communicate my discomfort as gently as possible. unfortunately, but with an uneasy look on her face, she tries to ignore me. she just sits there and crosses her arms over her chest in between sips of coffee and talks with the coffee shop people, while her little boy sits beside her playing with packets of sugar and creamer.

at last, the 'something' she was waiting for (another one of the coffee shop people) arrives. they talk for about 10 minutes, then they leave. but before doing so, she faces me and says 'thank you'. i nod. ahh finally... peace...

is it so much to ask to be left alone? ok, i admit, i am not a very friendly person. i do try NOT to be an asshole, i'm just NOT FRIENDLY. plus, i don't feel very comfortable around strangers. and i usually prefer to be alone.

and it IS perfectly within my right to demand to be left alone in my spot. i think i bought that right together with my coffee. true, i don't own a title over the place, but i do 'own' it, at least for the duration it takes me to finish my coffee.

on second thought, maybe i AM being an asshole. the lady wasn't really THAT rude. and she DID thank me for sharing my spot with her. some people may find my annoyance funny. you may actually be laughing at me right now. some people may not even find it an issue to share that empty seat in front of them. i am certainly NOT one of them though. maybe i'm just being too selfish, no?

is it really that big a sacrifice to share the untaken seat in front of me? it's not like i'm gloria arroyo allowing china and vietnam to explore philippine territory for oil. dude, for crying out loud, that chair is NOT the spratlys.

is it really possible to preserve one's solitude without becoming a complete asshole? hmmm... i guess it IS possible. but only if i climb on top of some mountain to eschew any human contact, and stay there for the rest of my life.

as i write my thoughts on paper, fate suddenly decides to test the resolve of my new found 'epiphany'. about 30 minutes after the lady with the kid left, 3 oriental looking people approach me, a man, a woman, and a teenage girl, probably father, mother, and daughter. i see that the cafe is almost full. the girl, in halting and thickly accented english (which is not to say it's 'bad' english, she was perfectly understandable), asks me if i had any 'friends'.

i almost burst out laughing. she probably meant 'companions', but it's a good question nonetheless. just when i admit on paper that i am not a friendly person, here goes someone asking me if i had 'friends'. how appropriate.

while assuming that she DID mean to say 'companions', i say no. she asks if it's ok that they take their seats there with me. i say yes. they take their seats. at least, this time, they asked.

five degrees of separation

three thugs on a motorcycle. a girl with a cellphone. a gunshot. a headline.

anyone who'd been following the local cebuano news the first week of march has probably heard of that tragic story, the robbery and murder of ruby jade ruba, a 20 year old nursing student, just 3 weeks shy of her graduation. all for a cellphone.

it was late wednesday afternoon i heard. i was chatting up my friends on the internet when my friend chick broke the news. he said that a batchmate of his brother's girlfriend had just been shot the other night, around capitol site. then came the rest of the story, how the victim was weeks away from graduating, that she was working on her term paper late that evening, that she was returning to her apartment with another friend when the robbers found her, that the robbers grabbed her cellphone, shot her, and then fled on a motorcycle. 'is she alive?', we asked. 'no, she died', he said.

emoticons showing a virtual shaking of our heads filled our chat window one by one. chatmate ryan expressed concern for his own girlfriend, who usually got off from work late in the evening, and whose office was near the scene of the crime.

i was pretty alarmed, too. the place was a quick walk away from my office, and much quicker of you were riding a motorcycle. and i also happen to go home late in the evening. i never knew the victim, but the fact that we were separated by a mere four degrees (she being the batchmate of the girlfriend of the brother of my friend) made it all seem so much closer to home. if it could happen to her, i see no reason why it could not happen to me also.

public shock and outrage followed when the news spread. mayor tomas osmeña announced a P30,000 reward to anyone who could help in solving the crime. several suspects were arrested, one of them claiming that he killed the victim so he could extort P50,000 from a truck driver.

then came the headlines morning of the following monday. police have caught 3 suspects who they could confidently say were involved in the crime, aivan barabat, mark anthony gabriel and karl marx carticiano, the first 2 having confessed to doing it. those 2 were also said to be members of the local chapter of the crips gang. the 3rd, who the first 2 suspects say was the driver of their getaway motorcycle, was arrested when he voluntarily came to the police station to deny any involvement. a 4th person was arrested, to whom the first 2 suspects say they sold the cellphone for P3,000. in a congratulatory pat on their collective backs for the quick resolution, police declared the case closed.

makes it all seem like P3,000 is worth nothing. makes it all seem like a life is worth nothing.

"Trip ra to. Gikan mi nag-inom. (It was just our trip after drinking)," the papers quoted them as saying.

from hongkong, my ofw friend tope had also been following the news that morning. after reading of that story, he told us over the same chat window of his shock over the discovery that he knew one of the accused, aivan barabat. he used to work as the 'boy' or 'alalay' in his old office.

that announcement finally drew the connection from victim to suspect, making the crime all the more tragic. victim - girlfriend of chick's bro - chick's bro - chick - tope - suspect. as far as we know, just five degrees separating them, five measly degrees, before the crime was committed. it may even have been smaller. and in a grim irony, the crime shrunk that separation from five degrees to just one: victim - suspect.

had that suspect known, would he have done it? had that suspect known, would it have mattered to him? had it occured to him that their prospective victim may be their friend's girlfriend or sister or mother or cousin, would he have done it?

makes you think, no? maybe that person sitting across you on the jeepney is a friend of a friend. or maybe the person asking you for directions could be your classmate's cousin. who knows, that person who you just saw drop his wallet is your neighbor's bestfriend. or the old jeepney driver who gave you five pesos more than the change you expected is your officemate's grandfather.

in his 'small world experiments', stanley milgram theorized that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by an average of 6 degrees. and to think, that was in 1967. technology today has probably shrunk our world even smaller than it was in 1967.

i am sensing that, at least here in cebu, it's much, much smaller than six degrees. the least we can all do is play a bit more nicely with each other.

########################

published in the philippine daily inquirer 4/12/2008
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080412-129894/Five-degrees-of-separation

not a cheerful giver

a family friend sent me a text message friday evening. his pregnant wife's blood pressure had shot up to 150/110. the doctors thought it more risky if the delivery was natural, so she had to give birth by caesarian section. the procedure was a success, but they were desperately short on cash, and asked for help. i just had a nice dinner, and was about to enter ayala center cinema 2 when i received the message.

i didn't reply immediately. i finished the movie and went home, mulling it over on the way. i got to bed still without reaching a decision. when i woke up, it was already morning. i thought, if i was going to help, i should do it now. and if i was going to give, it had to be substantial enough to be of real help to them.

so i decided to help anyway, but not without agonizing over it. in his present situation, i couldn't really expect him to repay me. and the amount i had decided on wasn't really that big, but it was big enough to hurt.

i am not writing this to praise myself, but to ask. while mulling it over in the morning, i thought of this passage from the Good Book that says we should not give reluctantly or out of compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. had i been reluctant? oh yes, very much. and i was going to give out of pity, and guilt, both of which i think fall under 'compulsion'. and i don't feel particularly cheerful about it either. so will God not love me for doing it?

am i so bad?

we met up a few hours later. the baby is a boy. and i'm going to be the godfather. which makes me sound like a gangster.

a quarter of a century, or, my attempts at spaceflight

i am now a quarter of a century old. aside from wondering where all the days have gone, i haven't quite decided yet if i should be happy or sad, or if i should give a fart about it. i'm not even sure if it's something worth remembering.

to mark the event, i bought a tub of ice cream, to add something a little fancy for dinner at home. but just family, no guests. no party, no pizza for the officemates, no night out drinking w/ buddies. a quarter century of existence has turned me into a grinch.

the morning of my birthday, curiosity struck me with a question: had there ever been anything important that occurred on my birthday? so while i struggled against insignificance, i did some research; i logged on to wikipedia.

from what i read, it seems i share the splendid company of movie stars on my birthday: charlton heston in 1924, buster keaton in 1895, susan sarandon in 1946, alicia silverstone in 1976, and rachael leigh cook in 1979. some writers too: anne rice in 1941 and alvin toffler in 1928. even an american president (rutherford hayes, 1822), a cartoon dog (snoopy, 1950), and a comic strip detective (dick tracy, 1931). not bad.

and on the 4th of october, 50 years ago, a 184 pound aluminum sphere called sputnik (russian for traveller) blasted into the skies on a soviet R-7 ballistic missile, becoming the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth. and so the space age began. nice.

then on the 4th of october, 25 years ago, a 6.13 pound baby boy came crashing into earth, me. but unlike sputnik, i've never really gotten off the ground. for all my dreaming and scheming, i, the eternal underachiever, haven't taken off yet. i'm still on earth, stuck in the same old life, the same old job, same old me. it's kinda tough, to be in the shadow of a satellite.

i look at everyone else, and their rocket launches into space all seem to be going quite well. and i'm still grounded, plagued with a lot of technical problems.

october 4, 1918 seems to be a more appropriate metaphor than october 4, 1957. on that day, according to wikipedia, "An explosion occurred killing more than 100 and destroying the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continued for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which are still being found in 2007." explosions. exactly.

plane crashes prove to be another fitting metaphor. my birthday seems to have an affinity for them. on october 4, 1960, "Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board after a bird strike." on october 4, 1975, "A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA's Mid-Atlantic promotion." on october 4, 1992, "An El Al Boeing 747-200F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 38 on the ground." on october 4, 2001, "A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed." this is too much.

but come to think of it, why on earth am i moping? when the americans learned that the soviets successfully sent sputnik into space, what did they do? well, yeah, they did get paranoid for a while, imagining that the soviets would soon be dropping bombs on them from space. but they eventually got back their composure and went to work. they kicked off their own space program. they created NASA. they guided the whole country in the moon's direction and said to themselves, that's where we're going. and off they went.

it wasn't without hitches of course. it started pretty badly. when the US tried to launch their first satellite on december 6, 1957, the vanguard rocket carrying it flew for a total of 2 seconds, traveled 4 feet into the air, and then boom. it became one of the most expensive fireworks displays in history. it also took rangers 1 to 6 before ranger 7 became the first unmanned american ship to land on the moon. the soviets must have had a great time laughing at the americans' expense.

and even more tragic, during a training exercise at the kennedy space center on january 27, 1967, a spark somewhere in the apollo 1 space capsule's 50 km of wiring caused a fire to break out inside. killed were the 3 astronauts on board: virgil grissom, ed white and roger chaffee. on the memorial plaque for the three men was written, 'ad astra per aspera'. a rough road leads to the stars.

yet like anyone who has ever fallen down, you have no other choice really, but to get up off your butt, dust your self off, and carry on. and on july 20, 1969, the eagle landed, and the apollo 11 astronauts neil armstrong and buzz aldrin set foot on the moon.

who knows, one day, i might go to the moon. or mars. or even the stars. but first, i have to find a way to get off the ground.

and i hope i don't crash.

another reason why i will never be a doctor or nurse

i eavesdrop on the neighboring tables while having my cappuccino. don't blame me, i can't help it. a sharpened sense of hearing is one of caffeine's side effects, and i can't just turn it off. so while having my caffeine fix last friday, i found myself listening to an interesting conversation.

seated on the table next to me were 3 nursing students. apparently, one of them was a senior, and he was dishing out advice to the other 2, on how to get scholarships, getting through nursing school, surviving their hospital training, and landing a job in the states. the topic of conversation then shifted to their patients.

they had one patient who discovered he had bladder cancer because he was peeing blood. there was another patient, a young girl, who got burned all over due to an unfortunate kitchen accident. they talked about body fluids coming out, IV fluids coming in, pain medication, all the gory details.

'so how's mr. X in room Y?', asked one about another patient. 'oh... he just died', answered the other. they pause for a few seconds, 'so how's the coffee?'

it's curious how numb those 3 nurses have become. i can imagine them looking at their patients like grease monkeys trying to fix a busted car engine. true, desensitizing your own feelings should be a requirement in any medical career, since not doing so would leave you too paralyzed with sadness over the rising body count, too crippled w/ despair over the pain and suffering you witness firsthand. it's tough, but someone's got to do it. which is another reason i can never be a doctor or a nurse: you have to kill off a certain part of your humanity to function properly.

a case in point (though rather extreme): the senior nurse in the conversation talked about a fellow nurse he worked with. they had this patient, an old man, who was too frail to even put on his medical gown. but the nurse, who never paid attention to the old man in his struggle with his gown, just went on with her measurements of the IV drip rate. this came to the attention of their supervising nurse, who chastised the robot nurse. the robot nurse then shrugged and answered, 'sige sir', then went on her way.

horror movies

while lining up for a ticket to the simpsons movie last saturday, i caught up with my friend chick & his girlfriend charo. they were buying tickets for a pinoy horror flick called 'ouija', which gives them a very good excuse to get entangled in each other's arms, i think. they then ask me if i wanted to go with them. thought about it, then decided to go with my original plan, since i didn't want to bother them in their... entanglement. anyway, i didn't have anyone to wrap my arms around in case it was me who got scared.

then it occurred to me, is there any other logical reason that people watch horror movies? what's so fun about scaring yourself? have we become so numb and bored with our comfortable lives that we crave that jolt of fear every now and then? or is it just a way of making us happy with our lives by saying to ourselves 'thank God that's not me', while watching people get chased by a madman wielding a chainsaw?

anyhow, if you really want to scare yourself, it's better if you watch al gore's documentary, 'an inconvenient truth'. it's not a horror movie, but think about it. what's scarier than stories of ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and serial killers? the truth.

and by the way, the simpsons movie is a work of genius. if you haven't seen it, get out of your seat now while it's still showing. watch it. watch it. watch it.

i've been tagged

stephen tagged me. i'm supposed to write 7 random facts about myself, then tag 7 other people to do the same. me thinks this tagging thing is an exercise in narcissism, started by a narcissist to bring out the hidden narcissist among his fellow netizens. but then, aren't we all? so here goes...

7 things about me

1.) i have 85 friendster 'friends' as of 1:53pm of july 17, 2007. yeah, it may be nothing compared to the hundreds you probably have already, but it's a big improvement over what i used to have. i only had 6 'friends' a few months ago, composed mainly of my college buddies. i'm a late bloomer.

i only started expanding my 'friends' list in the past 3 months or so, when i realized that i'd look pathetic with only 6 'friends'. so i began searching for the profiles of other friends, former classmates and officemates and sent them all 'friend' requests. looking at my rising number of 'friends', i patted myself in the back, thinking that i finally looked normal.

and then one day, this girl whom i didn't know, a 'friend' of a 'friend', sent me a 'friend' request, wanting me to be her 'friend' too. though i knew nothing about her, i thought, what the heck, it's only friendster, so i made her my 'friend' too.

my buddies seemed to do this a lot. when they see a profile with a pretty face, they'd also ask the chick to be their 'friend'. they actually had lots of 'friends' they didn't really know. one of them was even 'friends' with boybits victoria, the former pba player. so it occured to me: what's the point of having all these 'friends' when, beyond the trivial facts on your profile like one's favorite movies or favorite songs, you don't even know anything about them?

is it all about just wanting to not look like a loser?

2.) my bowels and i are scheduled to go first thing every morning the moment i get out of bed, unless something urgent disturbs me. and i prefer doing it in complete quiet and privacy. this is usually the time i do my meditation over the upcoming day. thus, i must have my peace. a number of good ideas have already hit me while sitting on the toilet bowl. there has to be something mentally stimulating about sitting on the toilet bowl, no?

it can also be pretty unnerving for me to know that someone is nearby when i'm taking a crap, that they can hear my crap drop into the toilet water. it bothers my conscience that i may have just ruined somebody else's appetite by grossing them out.

i've read somewhere that in some upscale offices they have separate toilets for the managers and another for the rank-and-file employees. i guess them managers don't want the perception of their superiority tarnished by the truth that, like us mere mortals, they too can be overtaken by the need to take a crap.

3.) i am more of a cat person than a dog person. i prefer the dignified charm of cats over the attention seeking neediness of dogs, who usually show their affections excessively, to the point of being self indulgent. and cats tend to be more confident in your affections toward them, unlike the insecurity of dogs who seem to keep on demanding that you prove it to them.

i like dogs mind you, and having both can be pretty handy around the house. it's like having the services of a pest control company (cats) and a home security system (dogs), and all you have to do is feed them everyday. but i like cats better. and besides, they're a lot less messy.

4.) i always take a nap on sunday afternoon. any deviation from this routine makes me cranky.

5.) "i am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar" - how soon is now by love spit love

i am extremely and chronically shy. when in parties, i am like a fish out of water, i have difficulty breathing. in the course of evolution, animals develop defensive adaptations when they enter such uncomfortable situations. moths, for instance, employ 'protective coloration', i.e. they try blending in with the surroundings by changing color. as for me, i try blending in with the furniture. but i can't really say that my technique is effective, as no one has yet mistaken me for a chair by sitting on me. maybe i look more like a cabinet than a chair? further research is required.

the tragedy of being shy is that some people can mistake one's shyness as aloofness or being 'hambugero'. this unfortunate judgement results in the shy people being avoided all the more, bringing them to even deeper isolation, a dillema that can be solved only by breaking out of one's shell.

6.) my facial hair grows a bit too fast for my diligence in shaving it. just give it a week's time and my beard can cover my face like weeds. and shaving can be a very tedious chore, seeing how my beard covers a big part of my face. so i'm wondering: do chicks in general dig guys with facial hair? or do they prefer the clean look?

7.) i hate wearing shoes. i only wear sandals/slippers, even to work (unless i'm at the gym or playing some sport). of all the things i am grateful for, one is the fact that our office dress code gives us the freedom to wear shorts and sandals.

you see, i want my feet to be able to breathe, to see the world, and not be "condemned to live in a shoe" as pablo neruda would put it. you'd be like an overly protective parent if you don't let your feet out once in a while, you know. and you wouldn't want to live in the dark all day would you?

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

now that i'm done, you people on the list below: you've been tagged! :)

kalen - http://kalentoledo.blogspot.com/
erik - http://erikbriones.blogspot.com/
lenin - http://aloofinmyhead.wordpress.com/
berty - http://forsakendemon.blogspot.com/
manuel - http://yours_and_mine.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/
dado - http://psychicimpulse.blogspot.com/
farrah - http://farrahdy.blogspot.com/

portrait of a family dinner at a japanese restaurant

i'm taking up a new hobby: observing people.

it's friday evening, and i still have an hour and a half before transformers the movie starts, so i'm off to dinner at rai rai ken ayala. i take up a table and notice that sitting across me was this family of four. so i decide to practice my new hobby and observe them for the duration of the dinner.

there was the father and the mother, both i think in their late 30s, and their 2 daughters, both of whom couldn't have been older than 7. the kids were playing w/ their chopsticks, w/c would be the natural thing kids do at a japanese restaurant. their table was also littered w/ the shredded chopstick wrappers. this upset and probably also embarrassed the mom, who was wearing an almost pained expression on her face while watching the kids at their antics. so to save her reputation, she proceeded scolding the kids, but very very quietly, so as to not attract everybody else's attention. the kids did settle down a bit, but continued playing w/ their chopsticks anyway, beating their plates like drums.

the more detached father, seeing what the kids were doing w/ their chopsticks, decided teaching the kids how to use them. i'm no expert at chopsticks, but i think he was holding it wrong. he crossed the sticks in his right hand like scissors, w/c would make controlling the chopsticks more difficult. a question to chopstick users: was the dad doing it wrong? or am i the one doing it wrong? anyhow, the kids couldn't seem to figure it out so the parents were forced to ask the waiter for a spoon and fork for both of the kids.

they ordered 3 bentos and a ramen. i think their plan was to have 1 bento each for the grown ups and have the kids split the 3rd bento, and they would all share the ramen. the grown ups' bentos arrived first, so the father, in his capacity as provider, distributed some of his own food to the kids. he already gave the kids some rice & teriyaki beef, then he took one whole tempura from his plate and gave it to the youngest. but the kid didn't look too interested in the tempura, maybe found it too big, so she gave it back to dad. the dad then passed the tempura to the older kid, who also gave it back to dad. already rejected twice, he then gave it to the mom, at w/c point the mom frowned at the extra serving of tempura on her plate. weird, nobody seemed to want the tempura. if not for the distance between their table and mine, i would have volunteered to assist them in the tempura's disposal. but the mom soon found a solution to the tempura dilemma. she split the thing in half, giving one piece to each kid, both of whom happily accepted. problem solved.

then the 3rd bento arrived, and the ramen. the dad tried distributing the ramen, but mom and the kids would only take the soup and only a little of the noodles. the kids couldn't finish the 3rd bento. the mom, who never lost the pained expression on her face since the start of the dinner, also didn't seem too keen on the leftovers. so it was all up to dad, who gamely started on what was left of the kids' bento, and then the ramen noodles. he soon cleaned everything out, leaving nothing to waste. that must be why most men tend to get fat when they become fathers (what we cebuanos call 'papa ug lawas'), they're the ones who have to clean up the kids' leftovers.

after seeing dad clean everything up, the mom, still wearing the pained expression on her face, calls the waiter and asks for the bill. the kids were now as well behaved as angels, their full tummies probably holding them down. hmmm... a thought, their must be a link between child obesity and hyperactivity. maybe the parents of obese kids overuse food as a solution to the kids' hyperactivity.

the bill soon arrived, and out came dad's wallet. he paid for the dinner in cash. the change promptly arrived, and i noticed that the dad took everything, not leaving any for a tip. i myself didn't leave a tip for my meal. are we filipinos really bad tippers in general? w/ the change now safely in the dad's pocket, they all stood up and left. the mom's face was now noticeably calmer, like she was relieved the dinner didn't turn out to be a disaster.

seeing no other interesting subject left in the restaurant, i finished what was left of my food, paid my bill, and left.

people watching

it is 3pm on a lazy saturday afternoon, and i am relaxing at bo's coffee club ayala, sipping a chocolate chip froccino. very disappointed with the chocolate chip froccino. the ice and the chocolate chips were too lumpy that sucking through the straw required the strength of a vacuum cleaner. the barrista probably wasn't in the mood to blend the darn thing well enough. i start thinking that maybe i should have gone to bigbucks for my caffeine fix. i can personally attest that bigbucks' coffee kicks bo's coffee's ass. and even better, i have an employee's discount at bigbucks. but the thing with bigbucks though, it's just that there aren't too many interesting people to watch there.

for example, to my right is a group of 4 office girl type chicks. they are talking very animatedly, like they haven't seen each other in a long time. maybe they were close college friends, this being one of those rare opporunities that they all weren't too busy to meet and catch up on each other. i find the one facing me cute, so i steal some looks at her every now & then. but then i notice a ring on her finger. damn. she's married.

to my left, is a young couple, about college age. they both look shy, this might be their first date. they talk in short and measured sentences, as if both are scared of saying something that might screw things up. both are looking quietly out the window. they only look at each other when they talk, then they promptly go back to looking out the window. the girl is pretty. the guy must feel very lucky to snag a date with her. i wish him luck.

after about 30 minutes, the young couple leaves. they are replaced by another couple, a filipina and a white guy. a most interesting specimen. the white guy is carrying a camera with him, taking pictures of his filipina date. he has a very tourist-y aura about him, like he just landed from the states. they order coffee, brownies, and ice cream. the filipina looks bored & uncomfortable. they don't talk very much. the white guy does most of the talking, while the filipina just smiles most of the time. i get a sense that they are still trying to form a connection. the white guy looks like your normal run-off-the-mill average looking white guy. but his filipina date is just... well... to put it more politely... exotic.

the question that's racing in my mind as i watch them is this: does he really find her attractive??? or is he just plain desperate? i so would've wanted ask him that, but i expected a punch to the gut to come after the question. we wouldn't want an international incident in our hands would we?

when we see such couples, we start forming conclusions based on our prejudices. we surmise that the filipina girl is poor, and the white guy middle aged and desperate. we guess that they found each other over the internet, maybe through social networking sites like friendster or dating sites like itzamatch.com, or maybe some random chat room over ym or msn. they continue chatting or exchanging emails in a span of a year or so, trying to form a virtual bond with each other. white guy eventually decides to come to the philippines so they can see each other in person. and now, here they are, right in front of me, having coffee.

a common judgement is that the relationship is one that is created out of convenience, with the hope that love will find its way into their hearts as the relationship runs its course. the filipina is usually condemned as a gold digger and the white guy as a poor pathetic sucker. such blanket judgements are wrong of course, but prejudice usually has some basis in truth. anyway, we're all trying to find love one way or another. that's just how it works for them. i can only hope that both are sincere.

while i was caught in my reverie, a weird man suddenly approaches. he asks me, quite rudely, if the other seat on my table was taken. i was too surprised to say anything, so i just stared at him. without waiting for my answer, he takes the other chair, swings it to the side, sits down, and takes a nap. i considered the act a violation of my personal air space, but what could i do? technically, table and chair weren't mine. and i couldn't just shoo him away. so i waited for him to open his eyes, then i gave him my best impression of the ghost rider's penance stare. luckily, he got the message, and moved to another spot. he wasn't so dumb after all.

suggestion to bigbucks management: you guys should be setting up a branch at ayala, or some other mall. at least the people won't be so boring.

balls

just wondering, why is it, of all the organs we have in the human body, that the testicles are most associated with courage? like, when you say "you must have balls to do that." or when you say, "that's a very ballsy move."

are there any chemical reactions that happen in the testicles to produce courage? or maybe, is it just because warriors of cave man society had a tendency to display their balls, maybe to attract prospective mates by advertising their virility?

for sure, the feminists will have something to say about that. if you follow the logic, since only men have testicles, then it means only men are capable of courage. which, of course, is like saying our politicians are not capable of cheating.

if i remember right, filipinos lost a major battle in the philippine american war thanks to that particular association. while preparing his defenses, general antonio luna learned that a subordinate he had just reprimanded dissed him, saying if he had the balls then he should come discipline him. naturally, the general, notorious for his short fuse, was furious. he took a part of his troops with him to face the subordinate, abandoning the rest. unfortunately, while the general was out proving his anatomy, the americans came and broke through the filipino defenses.

thus did 'balls' lead the revolution to its doom.

the art of farting

i farted. in public.

it happened in the gym. after a few minutes jogging at the treadmill, i went over to the water cooler for a drink. i was pondering the merits of hale's second album (it sucked. don't buy it.), and then BAM! it happened.

it may have been because of the kamote-q i had earlier for snacks. kamote has a very bad reputation of making one's tummy full of gas. consider yourself warned.

fortunately, none of the people there actually knew me, and none of them was directly near me when it happened. but nonetheless, it happened. i farted. in public. in public!!! and that fart brought with it my own embarassment.

those who have cared to think about farts have classified them into three categories. first, the loud and proud fart. this is more comparable to a dog whose bark is louder than it's bite. it announces its presence to the world ("hello! i am a fart. nice to meet you.") and then is gone. second, the silent but deadly fart. these ones are like assassins lurking in the shadows, or more appropriately, nerve gas. very hard to detect, you never really know that it's just floating there until it assaults your olfactory system and it's too late, you're a goner. and lastly, the wet and wild fart. don't even ask.

unluckily for me, it was the loud and proud kind of fart. well, not really loud in the booming kind of way. it was more like a sharp sound, made even sharper by my own shame. from the sound of it, it was as if my insides were full of air heaving mightily to get out, and my sphincter in a valiant yet futile attempt to stop it. but the fart sounded loud enough for me to hear even if i still had my earphones on, playing music at full volume.

for a moment, i considered fleeing from the scene of the crime. but that would only have confirmed my own guilt in front of everybody. just when my embarassment reached the intensity enough to tear myself apart, then my psychological defense mechanisms started kicking in.

phase one: denial. "no, they couldn't have heard it... but then i heard it! and i have my earphones on full volume! oh crap..."

phase two: delusion. "i'll just imagine it didn't happen. everything is all right with the world. tralalalala..." but my delusions were too flimsy to carry the weight of my embarassment: "shit... it's not working".

so on to phase three: defiance. "so what if they heard me fart? who cares if they make of fun of me? if they make fun of me, then i'll... i'll... aaaaarggghh!!!"

finally, phase four: acceptance.

so i farted. i would rather have the good air in and the bad air out. anyway, i think it's unhealthy to withhold your fart when your body deems it necessary to be withdrawn. better outside than in.

so i farted. to be human means to fart. i fart, therefore i am. i can think of it as a confirmation that i am normal. everybody farts, so why trouble myself? you and me, kings and queens, presidents and popes, and even angelic beings like angel locsin, angel aquino, and angelina jolie, we all fart. i remember michel de montaigne saying: "upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, on our asses."

so i farted. to live in denial of your ability to fart is to live in denial of your own body. and farting is, by design, part of the package. unless of course you're a mutant, or an alien, or a cyborg. chances are, you're not. so why do we keep demanding from ourselves that we not fart, when it is part of our nature to? again, montaigne: "it is not clever of man to tailor his obligations to the standards of a different kind of being", be it mutant, alien, or cyborg.

so i farted. we seem to live under the notion that we are and should be in total control of our bodies. but we don't, and we can't. mind doesn't always come over matter. we fart in the company of strangers. we stink, burp, feel the urge to piss or shit, or even get horny at moments we need it most not to. and yet that is the most natural thing that can happen to us. the least we can do is live with it, and not tear ourselves apart on the occasional rebellion of some of our body parts.

so i farted. at least i am here able to fart, and able to hear myself fart. so i cherish these days when i can still fart, and hear myself fart, for the day is coming when i will be no longer able to do that. and that day is coming for us all.

that last one really hit me. oh boy, was i happy i farted.

disclaimer: i am not encouraging everyone to take up the license to fart freely and proudly in public. that would be plain rude. and it certainly won't endear you to anyone.

and that is how i lived with the embarrassment of having farted in public.

the mayorship of mandaue is a family heirloom

they've started campaigning. in our little neighborhood's basketball court, they've setup this stage w/ loud speakers for maximum broadcast range. but they actually started way before the campaign period, when they proceeded polluting the streets with their names and their ugly faces.

the presentors seem to be alternating between entertainers and the campaign people. first a dance number, then a speaker comes on stage singing praises to this candidate and that, then a song number from someone who probably failed in his bid to enter star in a million or philippine idol, and then another speaker declaring his candidates as qualified for sainthood, and then another dance number, so on and so forth.

from what i'm hearing, these people are all running for positions in mandaue city hall. and they seem to be campaigning for jonkie ouano's team. yes, ouano, as in the incumbent teddy ouano's son. it's still early, so i haven't made my mind up yet as to who i'm voting for mayor. but one thing's for sure, i'm not voting for jonkie ouano.

i have this nagging suspicion that the ouanos consider the office of the mayor of the city of mandaue as some sort of family property to be passed on from one generation to another. jonkie's grandfather alfredo "pedong" ouano had already been mayor since the 80's (i think) through much of the 90's. and then jonkie's father thadeo "teddy" ouano took over in 1998. this being teddy's last term, he has now anointed his son as successor. so if he wins, jonkie will be the 3rd generation ouano to become mayor of mandaue.

and what makes my suspicions worse is that jonkie is practically a neophyte in mandaue city politics. he didn't even get himself elected as city councilor or vice mayor or even baranggay captain in mandaue. from out of nowhere, he just jumped straight to the position of mayor for no other foreseeable reason than that he is his father's son, just like his father before him. the other candidates are way more experienced than him, ading seno, for instance, having been teddy's vice mayor for his past 3 terms, and jonas cortes having experience in the city council.

the argument that teddy has been pushing to promote jonkie's candidacy is that jonkie can continue teddy's own programs. but that is, of course, premised on the fact that anyone else, or anyone not holding the surname ouano, can't do anything good for the city.

and when he says jonkie can continue *his* programs, then that also means that teddy won't be disappearing from the city hall picture anytime soon. those are *his* programs, so who better to manage it, right? at the very least, he'll stay on in his capacity as 'adviser'. at worst, he'll be a puppet master pulling the strings from behind. i think the framers of the 1987 constitution had a good reason when they institutionalized the idea of term limits.

my mother's 'suki' tricycle driver has also been campaigning for jonkie. he says: "why should we vote for someone new? anyone we'll be voting into office will still become corrupt anyway, so we might as well vote for what's tried and tested." right. brilliant. the logic is impeccable. after hearing him say that i so wanted to go and kick him in the head.

don't they all get it? that's what the vote is for you morons! it's supposed to make those we vote for feel accountable, that the position is not there for them to enrich themselves, but to make the city/town/baranggay/district/province/nation go forward. if we continue thinking that way, then we might as well tell the spaniards to enslave us all over again. ironically, the ones who say the same thing as our tricycle driver tend to be the ones who bellyache later on once the elections are over. and even scarier, i am finding even more and more people thinking the same way as him.

but of course, we live in the philippines, land of the free, free enough to limit our options between cheaters and thieves for our leaders. we live in the philippines, 'lupang hinirang, duyan ka ng magiting', 'magiting' enough to let the cheaters and thieves get away with it.

the opposition divided, i'm inclined to vote for the strongest and the most winnable of jonkie's opponents, but what makes the choice a lot more difficult is that those perceived to be winnable, jonas cortes and ading seno, themselves have had fathers or forefathers who also parked their butts on the mayor's chair.

mandaue may have gone far the past 100 years, but some things never change. still only those with noble blood have the right to the throne.

beer and the meaning of existence

published 04/21/07 in the blog plug section of sunstar cebu's weekend magazine

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my soul may just have died, i think, and it's all because of beer.

it happened like this. after months of unbroken sobriety, i finally had my first drink of beer last weekend. an officemate, marlon, was holding his despidida because he found another job in singapore, joining an already numerous group of former officemates working in the city state.

i actually had reservations on going. i knew alcohol would be involved (it always is on all of my officemates' despididas), and i just had a surgery 2 months ago. but my doctor did say that i could now go back to my old lifestyle, and my old lifestyle did include a measure of beer every now and then, especially on special occasions. so if he says it's ok, then nothing should go wrong with me (i hope). so off i went.

i didn't really drink that much in the party. the beer wasn't enough to make me puke on the street and turn my brain to mush, just enough to loosen us all up and make the party a jolly occasion. but i used to have a low regard for people who drink alcohol. the resulting euphoria was not real in the sense that it wasn't derived from thought and experience, but chemically induced. and following that, i saw no difference between beer drinkers and drug addicts. but discovering the joys of drinking later on, let's just say i've changed my position on that matter.

so the night wore on, and eventually the discussion reached the topic of the weird effects of alcohol.

alcohol has different, sometimes weird, sometimes funny effects on people. some become so jolly that when sufficiently soused they will laugh for no reason at all (that's me). some suddenly become all quiet. some start speaking gibberish like it was a foreign language. some get violent (w/c in bisaya is called 'mauy'). we have this office mate who is a quiet and mild mannered guy. but when he gets drunk, he's like bruce banner suddenly transforming to the incredible hulk, a green imposing mass of pure rage. some can even take a piss anywhere they feel the urge to do so (i remember another officemate...). it's like in that song by the eraserheads that goes: 'CR mo ang buong mundo'. thinking about all that, that's when it hit me.

it's a strange thing no, when your mood, and by extension, your outlook in life and your way of thinking, can so easily be altered by some substance or drug. it somehow runs against the proposition of man being a spiritual creature. how can there be a spirit, or a soul, or whatever you call it, that is supposed to be separate from the one's physical nature when it can be influenced by one chemical or other?

there are actually some religious groups, like the rastafarians, who commune with their deity by smoking marijuana. the oracles of ancient greece were known to be exposed to mind altering fumes, and the resulting gibberish from their mouths the priests interpreted to be messages from the gods, like in the movie 300.

we already have pills like uppers (to make us happy) and downers (to make us sad, or at least less happy), both easily prescribed by our friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. but imagine having a pill for, say, passion, or excitement, or romance, or contentment, or even peace of mind. do you feel depressed? take a pill! you've lost passion for your job? take a pill! you no longer love your wife of 40 years? take a pill! you feel that your life is a hassle and you want to end it all by jumping off a bridge? take a pill!

scientists are now beginning to understand the workings of the brain, albeit slowly. they've already mapped which parts of the brain function for emotion, and behavior, and sensation, and basic motion. and using an MRI to scan the brain, they can even read (sort of) what thoughts are going on in your head by measuring the blood flow in your brain. once science has fully understood the brain, the possibilities of what we can do scares me.

and when that time comes, the essence of humanity, of what it means to exist, is reduced to that of being a machine. we will be nothing more than living, breathing, thinking machines, no better than robots. it somehow robs us of a reason, of meaning, in our existence. we just happen to be here because we are here, period.

even sentience has a price, and it isn't cheap. my thoughts are beginning to scare me.

that must be why i get so envious of my cat miming every time i see her get her siesta. all she does is eat, sleep, and hunt for mice and roaches. and she doesn't have the facility to torture herself with thought. i'm starting to think we humans actually got the raw end of the deal.

but what do we do about it? do we despair over it and ruin our day?

i say, let's just swallow the possibility, believe whatever you want to believe, and get back to the business of living. we happen to be here, we might as well enjoy the ride.

some of you philosopher types may now be punching wholes in my line of thinking. but either way the debate ends up, soul or no soul, doesn't make our time here less precious. and the prospect of having no soul actually makes it even more so. if we have no soul, and it follows, no afterlife, then our time here is the only one we've got.

now, if they only had a pill for hangovers, then that would be really great...

The Bright Side of Surgery

published 4/12/2007 in the youngblood section of the philippine daily inquirer

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For the second time in my short life, I have to undergo surgery. Thinking about it depresses me greatly. So in the spirit of optimism, I'm trying to figure out if there is a bright side to surgery.

My doctor calls the procedure a "radical neck dissection". They'll be making a cut starting from below my left ear curving down to the base of my neck then back up to the other ear. Then they'll lift the skin off my neck and then remove bad lymph nodes they come across.

It occurs to me that the procedure makes me sound like a biology class experiment. I would be like that poor unsuspecting frog we plucked out from his happy corner of the marsh back in high school, for the education of future doctors and surgeons. That experiment had been an eye opening experience for me. It convinced me once and for all that I would never be a surgeon. Me wonders now how my surgeon did with his frog. I pray to God he did well.

To cheer me up, I try convincing myself that the procedure would be simple and straight forward. But when I first talked to my surgeon, he said the procedure would actually take twice as long (about 4 hours) and be more extensive than my first surgery. The word that caught my attention was "extensive". I never realized how an ordinary word can sound so scary. And 4 hours is long! The chances of things happening... I am totally screwed...

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After coming back to my surgeon for final scheduling, I received a nice shock about the risks involved. I had heard that as a side effect, the skin around my neck will lose sensation, maybe even for the rest of my life. When I asked if this was true, he said that was "part and parcel" of the procedure because some nerves were going to be severed when they lift the skin off my neck.

That was already bad enough by itself, really, but when I asked if there were other risks involved, he said that there was also the possibility during the operation (though uncommon) that the nerve allowing me to move my shoulders would also be severed. That hit me. What am i getting myself into? If the numbness was bad, this is a lot worse.

Am I scared? No, I'm not scared. Terrified? No, not terrified. Terrified can only describe half of how it feels (uhh... terrified x 2?). But f*ck it, I have no other choice. My only 2 options right now are a.) go through with the surgery and accept the risks or b.) not go through the surgery and face the possibility of me getting worse.

My mother has been telling me to take "herbal" supplements in the hope that it would act as cure. But let's face it, we really can't put our faith on those, especially when they start claiming that they can cure all deadly diseases known to man. That is clearly bullshit, money making schemes cleverly designed to hold our faith, give us hope, and take us for a ride, even if that ride is taking us straight to hell. Trusting solely on them is gambling with your health. I am not a gambler by nature. So it'll be the surgery then.

Then I asked if there were any more possible complications. My surgeon gave me a curious smile, and said no. I have this stinking feeling that he's hiding something. Maybe he just didn't think it wise to tell me lest I get too worried and call it off. Or maybe i'm just being paranoid.

As I sat there listening to my surgeon explain things, I wasn't even sure if I was hearing everything correctly. Part of me wanted to shout, to curse the world and to trash my surgeon's clinic. But another was slowly tugging me to a more passive yet highly curious state. I wondered what it would be like to shave with the numbness on my neck (No more sting when putting on aftershave! Yehey!). Or how to wear my backpack if I no longer have full control of my shoulders. Would that affect my game in basketball or pingpong? It's a defense mechanism, I think, a mental anaesthetic to numb our feelings lest the pain cause us to lose our sanity.

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Times like these make me evaluate the status of my faith, or can I really call it faith? I'm not even sure if I actually believe in what I say, so much more the Object of my faith. And now that my circumstances prevail upon me to call out and reignite my faith, I'm not even sure if it is right to do so.

You see, my motivations are suspect. Is it right to believe for the sake of my own sanity instead of believing purely for the sake of believing? Is it right to believe because it feels good to believe instead of believing because you are convinced of its truth? Is it right to believe simply because you fear the possible consequences of not believing, a.k.a. hell?

But that's what makes faith such a tricky thing. By its own Bible definition, faith, being "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", has an element of irrationality to it. You can believe (or say you believe) in something and either be considered a saint (if they agree with you) or a lunatic (if they disagree with you). Hmmm... saints & lunatics... same thing really.

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I've successfully kept the surgery a secret for some time now. And so far, only very few people know of it. After hearing of my 2 week leave of absence from work, officemates have been wondering where I would be going all that time. Speculations range from the benign ("You're going on vacation? Bring us pasalubong ha!") to the imprudent ("You're resigning? When's the despedida?") to the ridiculous yet highly imaginative ("You're getting married? Where will you be spending your honeymoon?"). Truly, man's imagination knows no bounds.

Upon hearing the truth, the default and inevitable follow up question is "Why?". But I hate answering all the questions, which usually leads to even more questions, so on and so forth, like I was some specimen under a microscope for analysis.

And there's always the chance that people will be looking at me differently, like I'm some side show freak; that the scar on my neck will become part of their definition of who I am.

But now that I think about it, what's the use keeping it secret? Assuming I do come out of it alive, people will eventually notice the scar anyway. I can't hide it forever. And I can't hide from it forever.

That's why, amidst the depression, fear, paranoia, doubt, and confusion, I need to find out if there really is a bright side to surgery, the proverbial silver lining in every cloud. Or if there is even a higher purpose to all this, real or imagined. I need to find a way to get through it with myself still intact. So far, I'm still figuring it out.

my first post for the year

not until 2 weeks after the fact did it really sink in: "holy crap, it's already 2007". and then the anxiety.

a sudden urge for iced green tea had sent me scampering to the neighborhood convenience store. after paying for a bottle, i took the first available seat in sight, opened the bottle and started sipping. one by one, cars stop by to refuel at the gasoline station outside as i ruminated over my drink. then the kids came.

there were 3 of them, 2 boys and a girl. they came into the store running and laughing, like everything was alright in the world. they played catch in between the shelves, got scolded for playing catch between the shelves, then picked some popsicles from the freezer and paid for them at the counter. then they went out of the store, still running and laughing like everything was alright in the world.

i watched their antics not without a bit of envy. i used to be like that, i thought. whatever happened to me? oh, right. i had to "grow up". oh, how far i have fallen. then it occurs to me: "holy crap, it's already 2007. yet i'm still wishing it were 1997".

friends seem to share the same anxiety. from our calculations, in a little over 5 years we'd be 30. and when you hit 30, a lot of things change. and even worse, when you're 30, you no longer have any excuse to even pretend to being a kid.

i finished my drink, got up, and went back home thinking: why would i wish to go back to being a kid again? is life really that bad? is at all really downhill from here?

i'm not going to advertise my troubles here again. we already have enough our own. and i don't think you'd need to know a litany of my own troubles just to confirm how shitty the world really is. you should already know that, unless you're a clam who's never gotten out of your shell.

and apart from our own troubles come society's demands. for every passing year, people tend to put more expectations on you; that you should be making this much money, that you should own the latest stuff, that you should be married already, or at least have a stable relationship, blablablablabla.

it sucks.

but as i remembered my friends' similar anxieties over the unassailable march of time, i felt a little better. just knowing they feel the same way at least confirms that i'm not alone in this.

just like that song from the musical avenue q that goes, "on avenue q, it sucks to be me, on avenue q, it sucks to be you, on avenue q, it sucks to be us, but not when we're together". i couldn't have put it better myself.

cheers to a better year.