Show me da Manny!

Okay, I think I have to cave in to the much-ballyhooed win (which fight isn’t anyway?) and throw my slight disdain towards his minor bullshit-ness over the window. When you’ve got fame and power at your disposal, why not bullshit around right? To rub the already clichéd term more, Manny is really something—he’s unlike any Filipino not just in strength but in the ubiquitous charm. He’s a slap in the face to Filipino bourgeoisie. To the poor, he’s an icon of triumph; a testament to that elusive luck, which we Filipinos have grabbed onto so tight we forgot to do anything else. He’s “the great hope” as TIME magazine would put it.

I can very much recall my very first participation to the communal Filipino act (by now it should be some sort of a Filipino tradition—a kind of phenomena that depletes traffic flow in the streets and diminishes crime rate to almost nil) of watching a Pacquiao fight two years ago with complete strangers. It was in a department store and there was some exhibit of which I was a part in. It was a Sunday, as usually the case, and there was a large-enough TV with the Pacquiao fight. As long as it was on, it did not take more than five minutes for the entire vicinity to be filled with excited onlookers (I sat down on the floor for convenience), as if the TV is some kind of medium channeling a modern-day deity. During the Pacquiao-Hatton fight, I watched it with a room full of my colleagues, around 30 people. So imagine the fucking noise it created when Hatton was pummeled to an unconscious state in the second round. Everyone looked as if they won the championship themselves, a beaming smile and pair of delightfully-lit eyes.

The media is overflowing with words and the TV is replete with footage of the said communal act. For really, it does move mountains and Manny can move the nation into such state which we are so quick to call as unity—we are so damned united. We feel our brothers same excitement. We feel truly proud. We feel we are living like patriotic Filipinos rooting for their hero. Dare I say that never have we felt a sense of Filipino pride so strongly than with Manny’s bouts, especially to those whose idea of the EDSA revolution is that of the history books. This sense of unity is commendable, the sense of pride inevitable. How can you not be? I am proud.

But see, while Manny’s victories we claim as ours, while we unite as a nation and feel an overwhelming sense of pride, what of after? For what? We go to our daily goings-on, be bums, be corporate and bureaucratic slaves, be pessimists, be optimists, be friends, be enemies until the next Pacquiao fight. We wait for that glimmer of hope, that façade of victory we always wanted to have a taste of—but unlike Manny we seem to have lost the willpower, alright, the “firepower” and we go back mired in empty promises of relief from misery. If Manny so reflects our country, then it would be that, this country has always struggled but success (power) has always remained to be in the hands of the few. So, after the fight, we go back to being a country in disarray, our goals and ideals in shambles, prone to crime and corruption, wallowing in poverty, with a continuing exodus of people abroad, we go back to bitching about the traffic, until the next Pacquiao fight finds us in each other’s company again.

existentially beleaguered

They call it microblogging but for whatever purpose it may serve to other Facebook users but the ubiquitous box wherein you place your thoughts is for me the most easiest I can get to a rant, or an outlet. So thanks, Mr. Zuckerberg, whom I just read in GQ’s men of year as, what else, 2008’s “Boy Genius”. (Jon Hamm who’s terrific as Don Draper is on the cover.)

But back to the FB thought-box. So I was posting that I was kind of “existentially beleaguered”. Besieged was the first word, but mukhang OA. That mood kind of pervaded for around 2 weeks, which is actually kind of long already (sometimes a different thought would appear the next day, or even within a day as sometimes I post good quotes from books, novels, personalities and from wherever I get these pretentiously sensible crap. The thought posting is actually kind of fun, eliciting a plethora of reactions and what-have-yous from friends.

A colleague asked why was I “existentially beleaguered”. I can’t provide the answer, to my surprise, and I had been placing it for around 2 weeks. When I heard the first bout of Christmas songs wafting in the commercialized air of the yuletide, that’s when it hit me. I always get this mood, which is actually a shitty kind of mood to feel given that everybody’s all giddy-up for the season. I felt this last year, and just like the universe’s many inexplicable mysteries, I dunno why I give a shit. Or maybe I don’t really. I still like the Christmas songs though. But maybe I lost something, or what? Christmas is not for me, its for the corporate slugs and people who have fat pockets after the season because of humongous bonuses that seem to pile up their already humongous paychecks. I need to have some fun, right? I’m just fucking thinking too much probably.

The First Lines.

Yielding to a request from Heidi M, the world's great undiscovered photographer, I am finally posting the first lines of some of my favorite novels, starting with my most favorite seven, then randomly. I realized it's quite a lot, but I really liked these, for some reason or the other. The list is pretty gender-biased; the absence of a female writer except Alice Sebold. Some passages are not exactly one sentence, but I added as to what I deemed appropriate, or that which I feel would completely embody the thought of that passage, i.e. The Stand, American Gods. I encourage you to do it also. Kind of therapeutic while I compiled these in a small notebook yesterday afternoon.

“The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.” Lord of the Flies, William Golding

“ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.” – American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis

“My suffering left me sad and gloomy.” – Life of Pi, Yann Martel

"We were fractious and overpaid." – Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris

“The play—for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crêpe paper—was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.” – Atonement, Ian McEwan

"Later than usual, one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sublight thorugh a creeping fig that hung in the window, with a squadron of blue jays stomping around the roof.” – Vineland, Thomas Pynchon

“The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an empty auditorium.” – Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates ------
“In those days apartments were almost impossible to find in Manhattan, so I had to move to Brooklyn.” – Sophie’s Choice, William Styron

"I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

"The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said, “Why don’t you go back to sleep? We can ring you if he shows up.” – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carre

“So you’re all set for money, then?” the boy named Crow asks in his characteristic sluggish voice. – Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

“In eighteenth-century France, there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.” – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Suskind

“Mason City. To get to there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new. Or was new, the day we went up it.” – All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren

“My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me as Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name.” – Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

“The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.” – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke

““Sally.” A mutter. “Wake up now Sally.” A louder mutter. Lemme lone. He shook her harder. “Wake up. You got to wake up!” Charlie. Charlie’s voice. Calling her. For how long?” – The Stand, Stephen King

“She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teacher was my mother in disguise.” – Portnoy’s Complaint, Phillip Roth

“Charlie Croker, astride his favorite Tennessee walking horse, pulled his shoulders back to make sure he was erect in the saddle and took a deep breath… Ahh, that was the ticket…” – A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe

“Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. During our friendship he had rehearsed his death in many crashes, but this was his only true accident.” – Crash, JG Ballard

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – 1984, George Orwell

“Back in the late 1970s, when I was fifteen years old, I spent every penny I then had in the bank to fly across the continent in a 747 jet to Brandon, Manitoba, deep in the Canadian prairies, to witness a total eclipse of the sun.” – Generation X, Douglas Coupland

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.” – A Separate Peace, John Knowles

“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough, and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough, that his biggest problem was killing time.” American Gods, Neil Gaiman

Ganito kami sa Mindanao

Magulo dito. Sabi kasi ng national media, warzone daw ang Mindanao. Tanong pa ng isa sa isang presscon na nadaluhan ko: ang BJE ba ang solusyon sa “kultura ng baril” sa Mindanao? Huwat? Eh, halata namang wala siyang alam sa konteksto ng conflict sa rehiyong ito. Nakalimutan din ng The Imperial Manille na nandidito din ang Davao, Cagayan, Zamboanga, General Santos, Butuan, Surigao at iba pang mga emerging cities na promising ang mga potentials pagdating sa business and tourism. Marahil di din nito alam na kaya may nakakain pa sila sa taas eh dahil panay pa rin ang supply natin ng agricultural produce.

Siguro nga dahil they need to feed their own agenda, and Mindanao is an easy scapegoat. Sabi pa nga nung isang executive ng BPO ng minsang dumalaw sa isang conference dito sa Davao: di daw akalain ng ibang dayuhan na may BPO industry na palang natayo sa Mindanao, kala nila puro giyera, puro Abu Sayyaf.

Di nga naman tulad sa Makati, kung saan makakita ka ng mga professional at sophisticated-looking people who sashay and brandish their cigarettes outside high-rise buildings like the RCBC tower, at hindi mga baril. Talagang, what a sight of civilization and modernization it is.

Ganito raw kasi sila sa Makati. Yung lahat ng kailangan mo – edukasyon hanggang mga health benefits at welfare ng mga matatanda – ay sagot ni... Aba, kung kaya niyang gawin ‘yon eh di dapat ngang ihalal natin siya, by all means. Lalo na kung nung bata ka pa eh nagpapakain ka ng baboy habang kinukutya ka ng mga kalaro mo.

Ganito rin sana sa buong bansa… Naku, napaka-misguided at napaka-baluktot na logic. Hindi pwedeng i-replicate mo na lang ang Makati at gawin mong Makati ang buong bansa. Talagang hindi pwede yun. Hayaan nating ang Manila ay magpaka-Manila, ang Makati, magpaka-Makati. Ang bawat rehiyon sa bansa ay may kanya-kanyang strength, sa agricultura man or sa larangan ng industriya at services.

Op kors, hindi naman sasabihin ng ad na kaya dahil libre ang notbuk at Paracetamol sa Makati eh dun halos lahat ng malaking establishments –central financial district kung baga, parang Wall Street. Kahit na ba ang mga kompanyang ito ay may mga operation or yung mismong largely operating outside Metro Manila -ang iba sa liblib na parte ng Pilipinas kahit dun sa mga tinatawag naming conflict-affected areas. Mas nakakagulat kung sa laki ng revenues na pumapasok sa lungsod nila ay ‘di pa malilibre ang basic social service.

Kung gusto ng pagkakapantay-pantay, paigtingin at bigyang puwang ang local autonomy, coupled with greater transparency at accountability to its people. Sa isang banda, mukhang mahihirapan nga tayo sa huling ‘yon, dahil the katiwalian is deeply entrenched in the higher echelons of power. Pero subukan natin ang patakbuhin ng mabuti ang local autonomy. Patotohanan natin ang katagang decentralization, dahil magpasa-hanggang ngayon mukhang kakarampot lang ang natatamasa ng mga nasa kanayunan. Okay the term is too provincial, make it outside-Metro Manila. Diba, probinsya naman talaga ang tawag nila sa mga lugar outside their territory…

Let’s make local autonomy work. Decentralize. Look at the examples of Galing Pook and the untold stories of LGUs making it out on their own. Headline readers will be shocked that away from politics and crime, good things are actually happening on the ground. At siguro, tsaka natin masasabing, ganito kami sa Pilipinas, hindi lang yung Ganito kami sa Makati…

ZaNorte travels

The trip to the west coast road in Mindanao, practically covering most of the Zamboanga del Norte region is a favorite, maybe because it was the first. Some portions of the road are whack but the paving is gathering up speed so I hope to see travel next time minus the vehicle massage. A portion of the entire stretch of the west coast road remains problematic because of lawless elements. We weren't allowed to pass through it, which is not possible anyway because of its condition. We pass through some very far-flung areas, barefoot children marvel at the sight of muddied pick-up.

A fishing are nearing Dakak resort

Shot while standing in front of Rizal's Dapitan residence

A portion of the Zamboanga Peninsula, shot along the mountainous road in Baliguian town

A small village in the town of Siocon, ZDN

Nope, the world has not tilted to a degree. The tricycles in Pagadian are skillfully built
to match its inclined terrain.

Runway of the Dipolog airport

Students brave the difficulty and danger of transportation to get back home
in this sleepy town in Zamboanga del Norte.

A shore somewhere between the towns of Liloy and Labason, ZDN

This ship sails alone while the sun sets somewhere between Liloy and Labason, ZDN.

Dried fish lines up some of the streets in Pagadian. Don't miss to bring them home.

A man sits relaxed on a furniture seemingly newly-bought on top of tricycle. Somewhere in Midsayap.