The remains of the birthday.

"What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Rabbit-rabbit

That is, as they say, the croak of an American frog, whereas the Pinoy frog would say Kokak. Jeez, what a corny way to start the obligatory new year post. Napaka-echoserang palaka naman eh year of the rabbit nga. Which means, people will copulate more this year? A ballooning population from an already ballooning and burgeoning one? The RH pundits better get their acts together because the moral pundits would unleash their hidden powers and strengths and illogical and impractical wisdom. I should put quotation on wisdom. Bigla kong nasingit ang RH tuloy, and the way that this sentence is going you might say it's a cheapskate segue, because I'm going to say that the bottom half of the year has got me working with something related to RH. But no, that was just coincidental, or no, consequential? Or rather spontaneous. There I go again with spontaneity. It reminded me again of Jack Kerouac and his concept of spontaneous prose, which is like blogging actually. Mas enjoy kung bigla na lang dadaloy ang mga salita galing sa iyong brain transferred my neurons to your kinetic fingers and you find yourself typing more rigorously and faster than you can think of the next sentence. Perhaps what I'm really saying is that I should record my thoughts more. That's what you get from receiving tons of notebooks and planners and organizers. Which is not to say it's a bad thing. The notebooks are swell. There's this one notebuk cum planner which has the word PARIS Depuis 1968 in it and has this really cool stamp logo and really vintage look with a miniaturized Eiffel in one of the pages. The pages tell me to write. And maybe write more.

No surprises

When I realized that I left my laptop charger on top of a table inside a municipal gym somewhere in Davao del Sur, it was already too late. Or maybe not really that late; the vehicle could turn back, amidst the drizzle, and allow myself to realize once more how disoriented I am. I should be alarmed. I know a charger costs that much enough for me to surrender one more time my desire to buy a new pair rubber shoes, a pair that has eluded me for more than a year now, hell, like forever. How destitute, yes. But I wasn’t alarmed. And I am even more alarmed that I wasn’t surprised I wasn’t alarmed at all, enough to just shrug it off and tell my companion if she can just check with the people there tomorrow if they’ve seen the stupid charger. I checked at a computer store and found out that a universal laptop charger costs 2,700. The Adidas shoes I’ve been eyeing since 1939 costs 2,995. So there, goodbye Adidas. Waking up the next day, my sister pointed out that the stupid charger is sitting comfortably atop the DVD player, one of the most reliable, cheap things I’ve bought. In my mind - Oh - and I wasn’t surprised at all. My usual self would have attributed it to some craptastic supernatural shit. But I took it and put it in the bag as if it was some lost pen I’ve stopped searching and caring for.

I didn’t event surprise myself smoking a joint, something I haven’t done in, what, like an eternity? I had three joints (not marijuana, as the am-slang would usually put it) for the past two weeks and don’t plan to go back at lighting one, but lately I saw what used to be my favorite brand and felt an inexplicable itch. It’s as if the joint and my lips are meant to make some forbidden kind of love. It’s obscene I know, but again, didn’t bother myself at all. Is this from reading too much Ellis? Obviously not because the characters in an Ellis book are either usually drugged out, boozed out of fucked up. I am not some Clay Easton or Victor Ward (Glamorama I am reading now; Less Than Zero I just finished), and don’t aspire to be, but the disaffection kind of transcends from the pages of the book to my own version of fucked-up reality. A few days back, or maybe a week ago, I caught myself staring blankly at the wooden stairs. Or maybe I didn’t really catch myself at all. The distance between the steps, the spaces between the cacophonies of neighborhood sounds, are solar systems, eternities away. You know, it’s really kind of dangerous. The plunge into those unknown eternities can pull you into oblivion that you need to have some kind of earthly force to pull you back. It’s like spacing out from too much dope only ten times scarier, I think, though I haven’t really spaced out because of dope, though, for the nth time, I think it wouldn’t even surprise me at all.

The kids are alright.

Sometimes, I really think my eight-year old half-brother has this split personality. When his temper flies off, he becomes this uncontrollable dynamo of rage, sometimes spitting, wishing us dead, wishing he was never born, or that he was not born having us as elders. He says this with eyes that pierce like Damien the satanic child from the Omen series. I don’t know where he gets this stuff; I hope he doesn’t comprehend just how big and hurtful those words are. Just this afternoon, we had a nasty bout which turned me into the usual monster he thinks I am when I get angry. I spat the curse, which I always, always regret. I didn’t were coming off my eyes, it was just a useless moment of pouring out, a recital of an uncalled for litany of personal hurts for an unintended, inappropriate young and unmindful audience.

As do kids of their age, they get annoying and brutish. His brother, only one year older than he is, is also not an exception. They get into unapologetic fights that really wear me out. They are lovable kids. In fact, they are reasons why I still wanted to stay with my incapable father and stepmother-I want to make sure that at least they do good, even though influence from other gala kids outside and the miserable upbringing is hard to shake off. I love these kids even when they really push the button off me they think I’m just a useless kuya, who sometimes won’t give in to their little whims that I think are just too much for their age. I want to teach them prudence, good manners, which I think we three siblings have always had despite the consequences that would have made us do otherwise. I want to stress to them that we are poor, and that I’m just a struggling nobody wanting to prove something out of the misery of life, and that they should be thankful they have food to eat and that they are able to go to school, in uniforms and all, even though it’s just a public school that never really cared how much they learn, or if ever they learn at all. But then I realize, was I made to comprehend all these realities when I was their age?

I never had a kuya, and even up to now I still wonder what it must feel like having someone to be always at your rescue, rather than the one always being depended upon. It seems like childhood was light-years away. Maybe this is why I get so grumpy at their ADHD-ish behavior. For I cannot remember the time when I bullied other kids. I can’t remember the time that getting into trouble is always no big deal as getting an earful from mama or the proverbial belt-slap from my father. I and my 21-year old brother never really had a genuine bond with him after mama died ten years ago. Perhaps the falling away took some of the familial intimacy or tenderness. Not concern, because I always have been, on their welfare. Now sleeping, with teeth that have been unkempt, bodies frail and thin but surprisingly agile, especially when it comes to play, I feel sorry for being such an ass. How am I to rear kids their age? When not in their usual boxing bouts, the kids are sweet, just hard-headed. Which I think, I often am.

Must be the clouds in my eyes.

It was as if Elton John was breathing in my neck last week, like a devilish whisper the automatically sets your mind into some kind of trance. Daniel is leaving tonight on a plane/I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain. Oh now, I know where this is headed – Spain. You know, like a vamos por todos, etc. No, but honestly, you know those times that a song is just so stuck in your head it feels like the notes have been imprinted in your cranium? It’s not even a last song syndrome (LSS) but a last-sung syndrome. As I can remember, the last Elton John I heard before I was suddenly humming Daniel in a soundless jeep, was Your Song, the proverbial piece of my officemate who incessantly thinks he is Ewan McGregor looking for Sabine, while singing it in the videoke. But really, you know when it hounds you and follows you like dirt in your sweaty skin. As if I’m gonna get through with it already, when I traveled this week to an adjacent city, the oldies guitarist in one of the rooftop grills we ate at suddenly belch an oh-so familiar tune. God it looks like Daniel/Must be the clouds in my eyes. I dunno, I’m not really leaving for Spain right now, nor even flying on an airplane. Oh I know, I have to add this to my videoke repertoire next session. I think I may be getting it now. It’s really hits me probably on the leaving part. I’m like on a letting-go-moving-on mode right now. And waka waka couldn’t be any more timing. I think with the WC coinciding, things are looking good in the near future, not that I equate soccer with anything going on right now but maybe there is. Must be the clouds in my eyes.

Two Months.

Sometimes we feel the need to take note the absence, the loss. It comes all so sudden, the urgency to fill the gaps, as if it bridges the then and now by the inconsequential details that we pile up feverishly like stones and sand in the shore we know would crumble into unimportance amidst the roiling waves. But we do it anyway. We recall what has been, how it has been, but then realize again that there is nothing but loss – we lost all of it to time. But then, it also reveals ourselves, and we’d like to think we’ve triumphed somehow. But we know there will still be waves to brave, lapses to fill. And time, how pockets are sewn not to accommodate you like coins.

that Coen moment.

When I think about it now, I'm scared to think of it as ominous --- me staring at the blank switched-off screen of our puny TV set. I can see myself reflected in the tube but I can't see my face. It's like that scene from the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. After taking a gulp of a cold milk bottle, the character of Tommy Lee Jones, a sheriff out on a tricky pursuit of a deranged killer, sits down in the sofa and stares at a blank TV screen. It plays out perfectly now in my mind. It evokes dread. There it is. Dread is more like it. I feel dreadful today. I turned off the TV long enough after an AI rerun on a local channel, but I just sat there in a monobloc chair that could be falling off any minute nonplussed at the many minutes that passed. I was kind of in a blank state. Before AI, Glee was on a rampage. I put it on the cheap bootlegged DVD player hoping to bring a jovial spirit to an already ruined day. I had a fight with father, perhaps one of the nastiest fight, because I spewed forth English words that would make our neighbors squirm with disgust, in case they heard it. Oh it wasn’t at all expletives, but they were sure to hurt. Well I was hurt. So it would make sense that the words that would come out of my mouth would be hurtful. It’s inappropriate not just because the familial norm requires that no parent gets a verbal lashing from his offspring, but also because it’s inappropriate for me to speak in a different language when our socio-economic status does not require us to do so. It’s just not right. Even if I went to college, graduated and have work which gave me a language advantage and that I find myself able to express my disgust and hurt in words I deemed fit, it’s not right. It would put people off. Cutting the drift off that may probably lead to morbid thoughts of pulling out an Anton Chigurh magnum and blowing my brains off, I looked up and saw a cross-stitched image of Jesus. Below it was a prayer frame that like me, like our fragmented familial relationships, withstood the many movings-on and stayed; it managed to stay, like a reminder. I knew it was the wisdom prayer, in which you ask God to grant you wisdom, discernment and serenity upon things you cannot change or control. I should know; I always seem to catch myself muttering the prayer nowadays. I knew that prayer frame, though I can’t see the words as clearly as when I had 20/20 vision. But no amount or delusional fits of musical fantasy from a gayish TV show I find to be wholesomely and amusingly escapist would abate the feeling of dread. I regretted it of course; and everything has been said. But I’m a good son. And they just don’t find it in their hearts to know it.

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.

Mothers

I was two years old when the EDSA revolution took place. But unfortunately, I was too young to actually take part in it; hell I don't even remember where I was that time. And so I was able to learn about it by the books, just like everybody who were born after that historic event. I resorted to texting some of my friends in Manila and my colleagues who were there if they attended the wake or witnessed the cortege to get a feel of their experience. I would've wanted to be there.

The last time I remembered shedding a tear while something historic was happening on national TV was when the late Pope John Paul II came to the Philippines. I was so young that time but I remembered this figure waving to the multitudes of people who were as equally moved as I am. Though try as I may, I wasn't really able to explain why I cried. I just did.

I cried during the necrological services but mostly due to Kris' speech. That prodigal daughter whose elitist, puerile tendencies I've felt were such shameless loathsome acts for someone whose parents were national icons not only of democracy but of simplicity. But she was true; she was sincere as she could ever be in that farewell speech. For how can you fault a grieving daughter who can't find the words to say goodbye to her mother? It hit me when she said that they're gonna be okay, but then not. For how can anyone say they are truly, completely okay when a part them has been taken away forever.

My mom died 14 years ago of breast cancer when cure and even prevention were not only rare but costly. Her birthday was August 5, the day of Cory's burial. And so I remember the loss, the pain; revived by the beautiful eulogies. Despite being so young at that time, Mama's parting words to me at her deathbed reverberates up to this moment. How can you truly say you will be okay, when you go back to the loss and still feel the same pain, the same emptiness?

Photo from Nat Garcia (AFP/Getty Images) courtesy of foreignpolicy blog.

The female horse.

Either the combination of vodka and gin or barrels of pulang kabayo would in no time unearth demons of bygone years. Fuck that female horse, eh? Guys, since when did we last saw each other? I hope this will turn out to be an extinguished episode in a telenovela that never should have been aired. Let's just drink and be wasted.

Book binge.

Back to the dull daily drudgery. Wait, was that an alliteration? Does that even count? Coz I'm hounded by figures of speech for weeks now. It's like guilt. Counting the official LOA yesterday and the extended 2-day stay in Manila, I was out of the office for 10 days. If my official 1 day trip had been scheduled earlier, I could have planned for a trip to the North, which I have silently longed for the past couple of years. But then, I had spent whatever was intended for that trip on my brother’s graduation, so the longed-for trip was remotely possible unless I start an early Holy Week sojourn and self-flagellation. And so I just gallivanted the polluted, labyrinthine metropolis and tripped on the MRT courtesy of the humongous ass of Mr. Ginormico. I was stuck at home during the long break and surprised myself with an unquenchable gusto for reading. Well, not that I read less, in fact, I read everyday, even managing a single or two pages of my current reading despite exhaustion or self-imposed sluggishness. But Holy Thursday, I just grabbed the remainders of a hardbound I was reading and just read like nuts. When it becomes monotonous and I feel a certain kind of stupor that can only be attributed to hours of reading, I will start on another book, then repeat the process until I end up book-hopping with Smith (Zadie), Perrotta, Niffeneger, Yates, DeLillo, Ellis. Even at the airport, while waiting on the packed flight to Davao, avoiding the unavoidable traffic that would have mounted to unbelievable proportions, I had three hours idling away with Tom Perrotta. Surprising also that I haven’t spent the time catching up on the bootleg films I’ve amassed for the previous month, which was the more likely thing I would’ve done. Along with watching tons of films, I could live on an everyday book binge. It's one of those things that I know I can do for the rest of my life, every single day, and not regret about it, if only it is possible. Well it technically you can do that, cross off every single title in the list of 1001 books to read before you die, which I found an online version of (I just dunno if it's the same one as that voluminous version I found at NBS). If only life was book-simple and as always fascinating and adventuresome as reading. But then it isn't. And so we settle for the more interesting lives of distressed men, young and old, the enchanting women, lustful and devious, the loonies, misfits of this generation and bygone eras, even hobbits, elves and giants-as if we too have lived theirs.

Doppelgangers and lobsters

Third consecutive night of staying late at the office. Sorta big thing tomorrow, by office approximations. Last night, I logged out around 230am. At midnight, I saw our guard's doppelganger. Might be my astigmatism. Second time I saw something like it though. I told my colleague before she has one and she jumped at me. Friday night I was with 2 guy colleagues here also and out of the blue I plugged in Smashing Pumpkins and crazily mimicked Billy Corgan's voice doing Butterfly With Bullet Wings. "Despite of my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage." Junee freaked out with the freakish precision. Then I did Gary V's Di Bale na Lang. Hay. Stress and the boundaries of insanity it pushes you to.

Anyway, I caught this short story by Woody Allen in The New Yorker in the light of the Madoff hullabaloo and its whirlwind of entanglements. The story is hilarious though, about fucked-up clients who ended up as lobsters to exact their revenge on the crazy sonofabitch by pincering his nose.

When at a loss for words...

...give them that look on your face.

Which way forward?

The d(D)eck of the Marco Polo here in Davao was filled to the brim not just with prominence but with ideas and opinions of notable guests. I watched the taped-as-live ANC Special called Mindanao: The Way Forward along with my colleagues because Chairman was there.

Like the guests, we had midnight dinner. The production crew should have anticipated that cramming in a pool of prominent legal experts, local government officials, civil society and private sector representatives, the military, the media and noted Mindanao academicians would render a three-and-a-half hour shooting. I enjoyed Tony Velasquez though because he kept on joking. I hope they include his Facebook-Friendster joke.

From this recent update, ANC has decided to cut the special into two parts, which was originally just 90 minutes. The discussions were lively; full of insights both fresh and hackneyed (guess which belongs to which, haha). Though reading from the ANC segment outline, which constantly prods out-of-the-box insights, I guess I found them really kulang, but let’s see how it turns out.

Mindanao: The Way Forward airs tonight on ANC 730 pm and tomorrow, Saturday same time.

Beerday.

Strangest birthday I think. Last Friday, I caught a last full show screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The story of a man who grows young as he grows old. The film, as you may know, is almost three hours long, so when the clock struck 12 and I became 25 I was still there inside the dark room with strangers. The only thing that was inside my stomach the whole time that night was popcorn and an orange juice. Though I wasn't hungry, I stopped by a semi-Chinese food chain in front of our office building and ate siomai before going home. Punctuating my midnight meal was the whir of the aircon and the chatter of the food attendants and cashier. The parking lot was empty and I can hear the faint noise of a man belting out from the nearby piano bar. A sense of eerieness befell me.

The next day I lost 1 thousand pesos. Cleaning my drawer I found it stuck between two ties. I put it inside my wallet. I went out for the thermal therapy which I have been doing for about three weeks. I bought a book and went home. When I counted my money, the 1 thousand was gone.

Moo-re booze

What, was it like three years since graduation and my chica classmates look so hot? There's the Mutya mom who four months ago gave birth to her firstborn and no ounce of fat anywhere, the Miss Ponds and Bea-Alonzo look alike who seemed to me added little bulk but was nonetheless pretty and the erstwhile experimental lesbian who manages to look like someone from a cover of Vogue. I know I've violated my vow not to attend reunions but nevertheless, after constant prodding from another classmate, it was my text that would make everybody remember and actually go. Jeez, guys, been three years, might as well pass the organizing scepter to someone else. Gosh, we look and sound so friggin' naive back then and look at us now talking about serious shit, work, sex, blowjobs, cunnilunguses, more work, more sex, more booze, our pet projects, documentaries, acting stints, marriages, failed relationships, giving birth, losing weight, gaining weight, the hilarity of it all. 'Twas great to see you guys, and I guess see you next time, when we already know what to do and where to go after being spent and wasted.

Moo-year

Feck yeah. Who would've thought, of all people, I'd outlast the tambays and tricycle drivers in our area for what will seem to be an annual new year boozefest and shameless videoke numbers. Gosh, I feel like I'm slowly becoming a voracious social drinker, if there ever is such a term. I mean some people drink daily -- a bottle of beer or two -- which is healthy I guess, and some drink perhaps every week when they go parties or bars and be tipsy and all that, but I drink only on occasion and gulp down a fucking barrel of various liquor. Is there some kind of a social alcoholism disorder shit? It makes me think of the "I have a drinking problem?" scene of the great John Malkovich in Burn After Reading. But what the hell, it was a great welcome. People went out and trooped to the streets, made noises, tricycle drivers, bicyclists, and drunkards dragging pieces of torn GI sheets, kids running amok while coins are being thrown in every direction. I am actually sensing a great vibe but much of it is uncertainty and anxiety, again, which is I think pretty normal. Shit, I really should start enjoying my friggin life, I need to plan some major changes, like really. Whatever the fuck that is.

One stupid question though, can the ox be considered a variation of a cow? And I guess yeah, Happy New Year to you, too.

Death viewed on a precipice.

I'm going to have a major headache, or flu, or I'm just gonna be bogged down by stupor now, I think, because of the extremest of temperatures I subjected myself into today coming from the highlands of about 15 or so degrees and going off the private bus with a searing Christmas heat of the friggin city. And I’m so sweating right now, vintage James Dean on my shirt is practically licking the sweat falling off my man-boobs.

There was some major joint party that the office has to attend to in those highlands and thank God the scenery made up for it, which was kind of what I expected in a way or I really wouldn't be going. One time I was standing on a precipice -- but there was some kind of wooden fence on it -- and I really feel so one with nature looking at the mountain range, I feel like jumping. I feel like those fancy pieces of colored silk cloths attached on the poles all over the place looking so dandy, fluttering in the cold wind that could chuck an anemometer.

But of course I’m not gonna jump or else I’m gonna ruin the merriment of 100 fucking people because some jerk decided to end his life. And it’s not like I’m gonna die or something when I jump off -- maybe a broken limb or or some ribs, maybe a cracked cranium, I guess -- which is gonna piss them off anyway. My being jaded with life is not so much as death hovering above me like imaginary vultures or so ominous its familiar like the Fishers of Six Feet Under operating a funeral service business in their own house.

Nor does it anything to do, really, with Six Feet Under, which I’m watching again coz it’s the Christmas break (season 2 now) and I dunno if this is going to be an annual thing or something and SFU is not really the type of viewing for the season, but what can I do, I really get a kick out of this show, especially if you learn not to really take it so seriously. Like scenes where children, 30-something children at least, slap the hell out of their loudmouth pathetic mothers and just walk out, snap, like that.

Plus, like me, you could really learn a thing or two, or replenish elementary general information you thought you once knew like Hemingway writes while standing, or that aubergines are edible or weird things you never thought existed like death from autoerotic asphyxiation, which is really kind of funny, but then it’s really lethal, if you know anything about it. Really, that’s all, I just find the show fucking funny and no, it didn’t even occur to me to try that autoerotic asphyxiation shit.

Drunken tambukikoy

It’s hard to swallow those two words but what a way to start the end of the year by being just that --- drunken and tambukikoy.

I really hate this time of the year because practically every fucking person is out there parading in the malls, the streets, the bars, just about everywhere you can think of. And for someone like me who’s grown increasingly intolerant of crowds, developing a vertigo of sorts in the midst of a multitude of fucking people, yuletide is the perfect bane. Convenience is the last thing on earth and falling in lines is just about everything that you can do. Good thing though is that I have an excuse to stay at home and catch up on my reading, listen to more music, catch up on my DVD list and laze around. Okay, do some household chores. I’ll try to stay home more often and avoid reunions if I can because really it’s getting too tiring already. Plus the fact that I have a non-existent fucking bonus and non-existent savings which all the more extinguishes the possibility of me replacing my primitive un-classy phone or something that I could totally be happy about.

Miraculously though, last Friday, after the inter-division party (note: the office-wide is another thing, and yes, they come up with these sorts of parties in the office, part of the bureaucratic criteria I guess), I didn’t puked in the table when I could have already, after drinking 5 bottles of that beer which promises you that’s ITO ANG TAMA, probably the result of a drinking hiatus which spanned eons. I vomited at home, but that’s after bawling over my colleague’s propensity to buy chicken skin in the midst of drunkenness, a spilled hot choco which I called Milo and made the girl at the Jollibee (or was it McDo) drive-in counter scoff at me, urinating in the midst of a passageway of the drinking compound, and being too linguistically-abnormal and embarrassingly drunk to be accompanied home.

My colleague’s mother called me, when for the first time she saw me, tambukikoy, or tabachuy, or an adjective similarly-sounding and purporting as saying that I’ve actually grown to unbelievable proportions. Or maybe that’s too humble of me. Let’s just say I’ve completely forgotten my on-off ineffective and pretentious diet regimen so that instead of getting a little smaller, I continue to pig out. Who the hell cares? That fuckable chick who wants a six-pack-ab guy riding her? She can fondle herself like Eva Fonda who’s fuckably-yummy. If living a life means getting to eat what I want to then just fuck the rest.

Bordado as peace champion.

I didn’t even notice him when he descended the stairs of the Cotabato hotel. Maybe that was part of the lackluster foray he would have to embark in being a peace champion for Mindanao. An Inquirer writer questioned the cherubic adjective I used. Well, not really question as in the sense of validity because if it were I would automatically submit to him my rash choice of word. I said I wrote for the drama. Which is really true, I wanted to write at least for this one an article that is not newsy-turgid I wouldn’t even have the stomach to read it. But really, Robin Padilla did well and I didn’t expect him to be that down-to-earth and accommodating.

Visiting peace and development communities (PDCs) in South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao for the past weeks has been grueling but satisfying. Some of these stories are really inspiring I wonder they don’t make it in the news. Wait, I shouldn’t really wonder, because this is the perfect antithesis to whatever is published about Mindanao. But then hey, we’re right on track and I think we’re getting there.

Robin Padilla as ambassador for Peace in Mindanao.

Robin Padilla story-tells to elementary pupils of Broce Elementary School of Peace in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Shariff Kabunsuan.