Achieving Happiness

I am very careful not to step on any snails or slugs in Lamma.

These days when the weather is schizophrenic and will not make up its mind whether to be fair or foul, the gastropods are out in full force. On a normal morning when I’m rushing to the pier (mad hair, barely awake features, shoelaces still undone), I am slowed down  considerably by the snails, slugs and other slimy, crawly creatures that use the path as their own superhighway.  I step gingerly around them, avoiding to mutilate and crush them. They make their slow but dignified journey from one end of the greenery to the other.

Hundreds of other snails aren’t so lucky. Their shattered and crushed remains litter the pavement; some smashed to a gooey pulp under the wheels of bicycles, or the baby strollers, and more under the heavy feet of hurrying people.

Is it really too much to ask that people be careful and watch out for these spineless critters? Gad. Often I find myself actually stopping, stooping and picking them up, carrying them off the path and depositing them on the damp grass safely out of the way of unmindful feet and relentlessly moving metal. 

"Do you guys have a collective death wish or something?!’ I hissed as I went to and fro picking up the snails by their  shells. Honestly, can’t you stay in the grassy areas where people can’t step on yiu? Why do you have to cross the freaking path and risk certain gooey pulpification and gross messification?!"

Little did I know that there was a man,Chinese, in a business suit, behind me. It was too late when I realized he was there and when I turned to him, he looked startled and hurried past.

–

Raul Gonzales, murderer!

May 28, 3:30 pm,KennedyTown, in the rain.

—-

I saw a dolphin this morning. It was at the pier.

At first I thought it was a mere trick of the the light, or an illusion caused by the turbulent movement of the waves.

Then, I saw a dorsal fin cut cleanly through the water, then the rubbery gray head, and finally, the bottle-nose. Dolphin! It was feeding on the small fish and krill that gathered under the dock and in turn fed on the algae that grew and covered the wooden posts.

—

It is absolutely possible to write cheerful and innocuous entries. All I have to do is to not write about PEOPLE. Aaaaargh!

The earthquake in Indonesia has claimed, at last count, 6,500 lives but the figure is still climbing. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and are in very real real danger of falling seriously ill from illnesses directly the result of being exposed to the elements, lack of food, water and adequate sleep.

My friend Eni Lestari chairs the Indonesian organization of domestic workers here in Hong Kong and she’s also the spokesperson of the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB). They’re busy trying to gather relief funds for the survivors of the earthquake.

According to her, the government’s relief operations is a hairbreadth away from being totally chaotic. The system is disorganized and bureaucratic. Aid is not arriving quickly enough to the people who need it most; and when it does arrive, the relief workers demand too many requirements from the survivors: proof that their house was destroyed; IDs, etc.

It’s understandable that the government of Indonesia wants to make sure that the aid gets to the right people, but too much caution on their part is denying these same people much-needed, urgent help.

—-

My husband is off attending the graduation rites of an elementary school in an urban poor community in Quezon City. His organization AGHAM has been helping the children in the said community, giving them lessons and such.

There are moments when I think of my husband and I’m simply overwhelmed at the knowledge that I’m so lucky to have him. He doesn’t have a halo, but he’s such a sincerely good person, period. Things are often black and white to him when it comes to being an activist and practicing what we learn as such.

Here’s the essay I wrote  about us that came out in the Inquirer last year (and it’s also the essay that’s in our wedding invitation):

Opposites attract

First posted 05:04am (Mla time) May 04, 2005
By Ina Alleco R. Silverio
Inquirer News Service
Editor’s Note: Published on page E3 of the May 4, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I FIRST became aware of Kim through his posts in an e-group of media writers and liaison staff. The topics discussed were often heavy-politics, the economy and other issues affecting the country.

Kim, as far as I knew, was a physics teacher in UP Diliman and a member of Agham, an organization of patriotic scientists. He seldom posted anything personal. Mostly he’d forward essays on Einstein or reports on new discoveries in physics, or how the power industry in the country should be nationalized.

Sometimes, however, the members would veer a little off-course and post lighter entries. One time, I posted a story about the toys I had when I was growing up, and how I lost most of them when my dad gave them away to the kids in the squatter community near where we lived when I was in high school.

I came home one afternoon to find my bed empty. Little Anne was gone, Big Anne was gone, Mango the yellow mouse was gone, the rest of my dolls and stuffed toys had disappeared. I’ve had them since I was three, so imagine my devastation.

At the time I wrote the story, however, I said I had more or less gotten over the trauma of losing my first and oldest friends, and that all I wanted now was a stuffed toy chicken. "Matabang maputing manok na may matambok na pulang palong," was how I described it, if I remember correctly.

I really didn’t expect anyone to react to my post. But the next time I checked my e-mail, there was Kim’s response: "Nagtatahi si Mama ng stuffed toys…"

I suppose that’s where it all started. With an e-mail about a chicken. And the rest is, well, not history, but comedy. With a lot of love, activism, and teabags thrown in.

Reasons to marry

Three years ago, I wrote this in my journal after watching "Bridget Jones’s Diary" for the 11th time:

If I were to get married, it would be for the following reasons in no particular order, but am writing them as they occur to me just now: (1) I want someone to massage my feet every night; (2) I don’t know how to cook so it would be great to have someone cook for me on a regular basis; (3) Sometimes I fall asleep during movies and I need someone to tell me about the parts I missed; (4) I need someone to help me bathe my dog, Poofy; (5) It would be great to have someone who is almost always completely on my side, or at least who would love me even when I’m being a rotten brat; (6) I want a comfortable lap or sturdy shoulder to lay my head against while watching TV or looking for a falling star; (7) When I eat, I get full easily and often leave a portion of the plate uneaten, so I need someone to finish my food for me; (8) Waking up in the morning for work is often an ordeal, so I need someone who’s more compelling than three alarm clocks sounding off at the same time; (9) My mom doesn’t have a son, and it would be nice for her to have one; and (10) I’ve already met the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.

Differences

Yes, I’ve already met the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.

There are, of course, differences between us. He believes in simplicity, in starkness. He doesn’t need-much less want-material clutter in his life. He has 20 pieces of clothes, two pairs of shoes, a beat-up bag. Even his clothes are simple, ordinary, threadbare and faded.

He doesn’t require much to make him happy, as he finds happiness in ideas, in conversations with others about their views of the world, science and nature, history and art, politics and economics. He can trace the roots of socialism in history and the square roots of numerals with, say, 16 digits. He has the patience of a nanny and the maturity of a genuine diplomat.

Me? I like seeing my closet full (everything is ukay-ukay-bought, for sure, but clothes all the same). I like my books, my toys, my Magic 8-Ball, the fun but essentially useless and unimportant things that gather dust in my room. Things that only become important because I attach importance to them.

As for politics, it gives me a headache, makes me angry enough to want to smash windows. Discussions on the economy move me to despair and drive me to tears of anger and outrage against the exploiters and the thieves in government and the private sector.I am impatient, hotheaded and a brat.

We’re a lot different, but we’re also a lot alike. Inside, at least. Whenever we argue, it is never a competition as to who is right or wrong, but rather a process to arrive at an agreement or a compromise.

He is my best friend, and I am blown away by his humanity.

DOLE’s Patricia Sto. Tomas is saying that she wants to resign and move on to a less stressful environment.

Gad, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long while!

She should leave the government service completely. Her leadership in the DOLE has turned the already infamous agency into an even more viciously anti-worker, anti-poor institution. It’s simply unbelievable that after all the horror she has wreaked in the welfare and very lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers,  she can still face herself in the mirror every morning.

She will never be able to wash the blood off her hands - the blood of the Hacienda Luisita farmworkers massacred in 2004; or the blood of Ka Ding Fortuna, the president of the Nestle Union in Canlubang who was murdered by the military working in tandem with the Nestle management.

Like her boss Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Sto. Tomas is a bureaucrat without the slightest scruple against selling out the Philippines and Filipinos to most expolitative businesses and employers. 

It would take up more space than that available in this blog account to narrate the evil that this official has committed against the Filipino working class. I am filled with so much hatred for this…person who refuses to see how much damage her decisions on the hundreds of labor cases she has handled through the years. She wielded her authority like a killing knife, striking down the justified demands of workers for improved working conditions, employment benefits, humane treatment.

Sto. Tomas proved her mettle as a corrupt bureaucrat and an immoral and inhumane person when she assumed jurisdiction over the strikes at Hacienda Luisita and Nestle. Her decisions on these two strike cases alone will gone down in the history of the Philippine labor movement as among the most treacherous.

As for her entire record, it is steeped in blood. Single-handedly, with her sweeping signature she signed the virtual death warrants of workers who filed cases against their employers, corporations and their unfair labor practices and violation of countless labor and union laws. Daan-daan libong welgista at manggagawa ang nawalan ng trabaho, at nasira ang buong kabuhayan, at kasama nito ang kasalukuyan at posibleng kinabukasan ng kanilang mga anak.

A high school classmate emailed me recently if I didn’t think that there should be ‘balance’ in society. He was referring to activists and the very people and system they’re protesting against.

I had to restrain myself from issuing a passionate response (because I really don’t think he understood the depth of his question); but I thought about it.

Why is it that very people who call activists ‘unreasonable’ and ‘too demanding’ and ‘noisy’ stay essentially mum when it comes to the the day-to-day developments in the Philippines that expose that democracy, freedom and justice are but empty words?

It was freakin’ boring!

I watched The Da Vinci Code movie  in the hopes of seeing the Louvre and the other artwork described in the book; but all I saw were fleeting glimpses.

The only moment that I actually felt anything was the scene were the misled  albino monk Silas tightened his celise belt around his thigh — eeeeeweee.

Oh, okay, I’ll admit that I felt a little tingle in my tummy when Robert Langdon knelt down on top of the floor space above the inverted  pyramid. Mary Magdalene is an actual, historical figure, and if the theories about her, her nobility, and what has been done to her name and role in the life of Christ were true, then jeez….

On the whole, though, I was bored. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou also looked bored.

I love Sir Ian McKellen, though. ‘Can’t wait to see him again as Magneto in the third X-Men installment.

—

New US-RP military agreement.

Naknamputsa.

Eksakto naman at malapit na ang June 12- supposedly the Philippines’ Independence Day. So much for that.

GMA never ceases to disgust me. Now she’s proclaiming herself a proud saleswoman.

Is that anything to be proud of? Selling off your countries resources, industries and manpower to the highest bidders?!

As I was walking from the IFC towards Shun Tak (where Hong Hong News holds office on the 17th floor), I was wondering how come it is virtually impossible for me to just simply let go and relax.
I think it comes from reading the Philippine newspapers (kahit web editions) everyday. I’m so lucky that I don’t have ulcers. Magkaka-ulcer ka talaga sa mga balita, sa mga nangyayari sa Pilipinas.

There is no escaping reality.

Even when I’m with my husband, and even during my phone conversations, it’s inevitable that we talk politics, that we talk about issues; and inevitably, both us get all het up and frustrated. Change topic, please.

It’s a Saturday and it’s gloomy outside. The sky is ashen gray, and the air is moist and muggy. Hong Kong when it rains is a horrible place. Somehow it’s so unbearable the way the rain here falls — miserable showers that send people scurrying for cover, or hastening to open their umbrellas, and they all look so…harassed and inconvenienced. Unlike at home in the Philippines where people only look mildly annoyed when it rains.

Because rain is expected.

Because rain means colder weather.
Because rain means staying indoors to sleep.

Here in Hong Kong, it’s like people don’t sleep, and spend as much time as possible outside. Because their homes, their dwellings are such small, cramped spaces and staying inside soon causes claustrophobia, an increasingly worrying feeling of being throttled.

  Picture taken last Wednesday at the Jollibee branch in Central.

I love Jollibee! Takot ako kay Ronald McDonald mula nang makita ko yun estatwa niya sa Sta. Mesa. He had vertical irises!!! Alagad ni Voldemort, ngiiii.

Anyways, the event was their OFW VIP Club launch, and Jollibee was there! We were served breakfast of daing na bangus, crisp bacon, scrambled eggs, corned beef and orange juice. Ang sarap ng daing na bangus, grabe. Bukas  babangon ako ng maaga makapunta lang ulit sa Jollibee para mag-almusal.

—-

Am trolling the internet for story ideas for next issue, and it’s funny how I get excited at the idea of writing some article in such way that the readers of Hong Kong News (mostly domestic helpers) will like or find interesting.

I want to write a review of the Da Vinci Code book and movie; a feature the popular Pinoy bands in Lan Kwai Fong (they are so talented! Sobra); and a sor of critique on the best way to pack and prepare a balikbayan box.

We have a Kultura section now, and next to the Features section, it’s my favorite. When I was in the Philippine Collegian- oh, eons ago -I wrote for Feats but I secretly wanted to be part of Kult.   

I’m halfway through ‘Kafka on the Shore’ and Murakami’s inventiveness never fails to amaze me. He is so gracefully skillful at weaving reality with thread of fantasy, and the result is seamless.

Imagine an old man who is capable of talking to cats. He conducts his conversations in such a regular, normal way, and his topics are so innocous the same way the cats are ordinary in breed and classification (the way some people are ordinary. Of course, some people, like some felines in Murakami’s tale, are more unusual and less ordinary) that you begin to believe that there actually are people who can communicate in catspeak.

Imagine Alice in Wonderland happening in downtown Tokyo.

I wish I had the time and the patience to walk up to the Midlevels and buy that beautiful second-hand copy of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia whose owner is selling on AsiaExpat. Sure I’ve read it, but my copy’s in Manila and there are days when  I feel like rereading ‘The Silver Chair’ or ‘Prince Caspian’ again. Also, the edition I’m speaking of has color maps.

—-

The June Main edition of HK News is almost done, only the Local News section is yet to be completed. My friend reporter Chi turned to me an hour ago and asked, from out of the blue, " Ano ang mas malaki, alimasag o alimango, and what’s the difference?’

It was not only the questions I found funny (say ‘alimasag’ and ‘alimango’ a few times and they sound hilarious. At least to me they do Mababaw ang kaligayahan ko.This is one of the reasons why I said yes to my husband — he has a terrific sense of humor, and he makes me laugh), but how Chi asked them. He looked seriously befuddled, and his brow had a little crease in the middle.

—-

Journalists want protection, not guns
First posted 10:26am (Mla time) May 26, 2006, Inquirer
THE NATIONAL Union of Journalists of the Philippines has rejected the government’s suggestion that journalists and other media workers bear arms to protect themselves from assassins.

“We rejected it then, we reject it now. Such a suggestion is nothing but an abject admission that government is either unable or unwilling to protect us,” Jose Torres Jr., NUJP spokesperson, said in a statement e-mailed to media offices Thursday.

“We do not wish to add to the bloody mayhem that has claimed the lives of so many of our colleagues, of hundreds of activists and dissenters, of countless more ordinary citizens as government vainly seeks an explanation for a breakdown of law and order it has been unable to prevent or, as many are beginning to believe, actually abetted,” Torres said.

While acknowledging that citizens have a right to own and carry guns for self-defense, Torres said that arming journalists was not the solution to the continuing killings.

“We would like to point out that a number of our recently slain colleagues had, in fact, armed themselves, albeit in vain,” Torres said.

So ano, mag-armas na lang lahat ng kayang magdala ng armas?  Essentially, the government is admitting that it is incapable of protecting journalists and going after those who have perpetrated the media murders.

Malamang naman kasi, mga nasa gobyerno din ang nasa likod ng mga pamamaslang. Local officials in cahoots with businessmen and the corrupt police and military.

Ang hindi ko lang maiwasang maisip ay ito: Tinutulak talaga ng gobyerno na mag-armas ang mamamayan. There is a civil war, after all. 

Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales gave a mass this morning at the Hong Kong Cathedral in Caine Road. He was invited by First Pacific, a company partly-owned by PLDT’s Manny Pangilinan. I had to go because it was a show of,well, solidarity with the Filipinos in the company (these difficult sosyalan gatherings I fear).

I’m not an avid church goer. One could call me a lapsed Catholic, and I suppose that is really what I am. I have issues with the Catholic Church, and I separate faith from religion; belief from faith; and belief from objective thinking.

In any case, I sat there in one of the pews immersing myself once more in the old-age worshipping traditions of Roman Catholicism. I couldn’t remember many of the responses; most of the songs have become unfamiliar to me; but if the outside trappings of Catholicism and religious pratice have become slightly alien to me, the core of my understanding about the purest intents of Catholicism, Christianity were still there.

Then the Archbishop delivered his sermon, and I once more bid a permanent goodbye to traditional Church-going.

He equated Jesus’ struggle against his mortal weakness ( "this bitter cup…)and his ascent to full godliness with First Pacific’s fight to become a top corporation.

I kid you not. I feel my stomach turning as I think about it. My ears burn at the very memory of hearing him, seeing him comparing Jesus’ love for humanity with First Pacific’s campaign to defeat its competitors and serve its SHAREHOLDERS better.

I left the church (a beautiful piece of architecture, by the way) feeling more than just slightly disgusted. The rich members of the Filipino community here in Hong Kong made beso-beso and got into their cars to have lunch with Achbishop Rosales and Mrs. Corazon Aquino (who also attended the mass) at the five-star, Four Seasons Hotel in Connaught Road.

Where is God in all this?  I cannot, for the life of me, understand the purpose of this kind of religious worshipping among the elite and rich but to see it all as a chance to show off their clothes and display with smug pride that they’re in the in crowd.

I still feel ill.

—————-

I am so sleepy.

And annoyed with work.

I want to watch happy cartoons. In particular, I want to watch The Smurfs or Rainbow Brite.

I’m buying a ticket to The Da Vinci Code for this Saturday. I don’t expect to be pleased or amazed.

Either the Code or X-Men the Final Stand or whatever you call it.

I want to relax. I need to relax.

A-hah! Gym membership is only $500! Harharhar. 24-7 use of all Fitness First facilities. That’s something.

I need a hug. I miss my hubby. Aaaaargh.

I am still upset.

It’s hell dealing with a publisher who thinks that popularity is the main goal for any newspaper. I cringe.

What the hell am I freakin’ doing here?! Gad, everything I’ve learned and believed in since I’ve learned to believe in anything is severely being tested; and I have neither the patience nor the ability to tolerate anyone who’s views are so wretchedly in contrast with mine.

David, I want to say to his face, David, you are a major league bully who knows about journalism as much as a fish knows about the difference between cumulus or cirrus clouds. You dink.

Why do I hold back?
Gad, if I let go, I’m certainly going to get fired.

Not that it matters much to me. Getting fired would actually solve all my problems and I would be able to go back home to where my real work, my real goals in life are. I am not being defined by being editor in chief of a newspaper whose publisher is a Master of the Nazgul.

But I can’t get fired.

I can’t yet. I am much too angry still.

Ang pikon talo. And David will again turn this newspaper into a…gossip sheet. It kills me to think that Filipinos are being subjected to pap.

Sure, sure, I know that many Filipinos here like reading gossip, enjoy reading brainless articles. BUT ONLY BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY’VE BEEN GIVEN TO READ.

Can’t we up the ante just a little bit?!

The Philippines is in a perpetual state of war, and OFWS are soldiers sent far away to bring back more loot in the form of taxes for the government to squander. Five political activists are being killed every week by the AFP mercenaries. Oil prices are insane, and the real value of wages has been reduced to almost nothing.

Did I mention that five political activists are being killed every week? And domestic helpers are still being cheated of their hard-earned salaries via a wage levy, and there’s a war brewing between the US and Iran, and immigrants bare being booted out of America, but instead of making the newspaper report the truth and help heighten the awareness of its readers about social realities, my publisher wants me to devote an entire,four-page section to gossip. Aaaaaaaargh!

Why do I care so much?
Other people my age, from my own economic and cultural background seem to be just enjoying themselves and milking all fun they can get from life. Gad. I sound so bitter and angry. I am incapable of enjoying myself 100 percent because of all these…issues crowding in on me.

Can one walk through life with blinders? Like some prize horse?

Or maybe I can just ignore everything and everyone who upsets me. Give them the finger and then walk away. 

Here, David, talk to the hand. You wuss.

——-

An hour later. Am far from being done ranting. Especially since he’s here and walking around the office, surveying his domain, so to speak. 

I’m thinking so much about David that it’s like I’m in love with the guy. I am so angry that I keep making up dialogue in my head:

‘You know so little about the world, about people, and what truly matters in life. You, sir, are a capitalist!’ (I spit out the last word, like so much phlegm that’s choking me)

"How dare you tell me how to run the paper? You don’t know anything about Filipinos and the Philippines apart from making money out of both!"

"Shove it."

"You jerk."

And so on and so on.

Gad.

—-

Okay, I feel calmer now, and am capable of being objective.

Or at least I can try to be.

I am sorely tempted to corner this person and give him a lecturing. Or, if he could only be less of what he is (self-assured, confident, content with his place in the world and what he has), ask him: Ano ba ang kahulugan sa iyo ng buhay? Para saan ba sa iyo ang buhay mo? Saan nakalaan ang kabuuan ng iyong pagkatao?

A philosophical discussion would be so interesting. Dissecting the mind of a capitalist.

Pera lang ba talaga?
I’ve been an activist for 14 years, and still it’s so hard for me to accept that such people — people who have so much and are capable for accomplishing so many things for the good of humanity with their wealth and talent but don’t — exist. It’s so goddamn frustrating!

What is your passion? Do you believe in embracing something larger than yourself, being part of something that will outliveyou, survive the decay of your mortal flesh, doing something that will leave an indelible mark on the lives of people, and perhaps, affect history and its inevitable outcome?

How does one measure one’s self-worth? How does one define meaning for one’s existence? What is the greatest purpose for living?

People with money can do so much with their wealth. To help others, to contribute to society, to further causes that serve humanity. Gad. David has that chance, to help Filipinos here in Hong Kong by letting his newspaper be an instrument for their education, and building of political and social awarness; or even just helping them cope with the hardships of their daily life as domestic helpers.

David, dare I talk to you and would you listen?

I already know the answer. Sadly, it’s ‘No.’

I don’t feel too good today. Tired. I know it’s only Monday, but already its feels like Friday. Worked all weekend. Attending public functions and sosyalan gatherings (part of the territory, strange. Being an editor is almost akin to being a freakin’ public official. Barangay Pilipinas sa Hong Kong.) is so much work. It’s an effort to keep smiling and being pleasant, and you, dear reader if you are a real friend and know me, would know that it takes much effort for me to be sociable.

I am, by nature, a hermit. Or better, a hermit crab (because I’m often crabby. get it? The combination of hermit and crab? No? nevermind).

I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘Kafka by the Shore,’ and as always, I am awed at how even the translation reads so poetic.

I haven’t seen The Da Vinci Code, but in truth I’m not excited by it. I’ve read the book two years back, and the hype that surrounded it has, for me, already passed.

Do I believe that Jesus is really an ordinary mortal and that he married Mary Magdalene?

Let’s put it this way– I wouldn’t mind if this were the actual, historical case.

I grew up listening to my dad the former seminarian and history/sociology teacher that there are no real, verified and incontestable historic documents on Jesus, which isn’t the case with Buddha or the prophet Mohammed. Why? Because the Catholic Church is suppressing the truth and went about twisting and manipulating documented history.

Oh well.

Kung ano man ang kaso, Jesus is and has always been an image, an idea, a concept that has never been anything but pure goodness and light to me. Mortal or supernatural deity, let the historians and the religious leaders decide. I comfort myself with the fact that I try to be good, period. This is mainly what Jesus preached, anyways. To be good is to care for other people’s welfare, and to stand up against injustice and cruelty.  How banal that sounds, ano? Yet these things are so hard to do judging from the way things are in the world today.

There’s a report that DOJ secretary Siraulo Gonzales will be flying here on the 28th and be the guest speaker of the anniversary of regional organization of Ilonggos. It’s been confirmed that he has actually been invited, but it will still be verified if he will actually come.

Hmm. Mainit na salubong ang ihahatid dyan ng mga taga-United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL), tiyak yan. Maghahasik lang ng kasinungalingan ang lecheng Gonzales na yan. Kung wala nga lang siyang kasabay sa eroplano, I’d pray that it crashes. The man’s a lunatic, insisting that it’s okay to kill progressives because they’re quote unquote communists. Gago.Naniniwala siya sa summary execution sa mga kaso ng pampulitikang pagtutol.

Incidentally, it will also be UNIFIL’s 21st anniversary on May 28.

What do I make of the Filipino conquest of Mount Everest?
Let’s put it this way — I wish so much to be glad about it.

I am no end awed by the physical prowess of athletes — their grace and strength as they perform in their chosen sport; their determination to push the limits imposed by the inherent frailty of their bodies when pitted against the laws of physics, biology,and nature.

I watch Chinese gymnasts on the parallel bars, twisting and turning with the speed of half-seconds in mid-air, then dismounting with finely-balanced weight — like a poem ending on a word that appeared randomly chosen but in fact determined with precision for the rhyme or the meter or the mere beauty of the sudden profundity or music it creates in conjunction with other words.

I admire the Filipino who succeeded in climbing Mt. Everest. It is achievement, truly.

Don’t I wish that our achievements as a people would always be akin to conquering mountain tops!

The metaphor does not escape me,or others like me who believe in levelling symbolic mountains as massive, cold and heartless as Mt. Everest. Mountains that form seemingly immovable barriers between the kind of nation I want for myself, other Filipinos and for future generations.

Ten political activists in two weeks. The protectors of the mountain stand guard and destroy those who appear to threaten the unholy mountain.

—–

Whenever I talk to my husband, I consciously try to keep my voice from sounding too happy, nevermind that the happiness is because I am talking to the person I love most in the world. He worries that I will stay here and never go back to the Philippines.

He worries that because of the ease of life here compared to chaos of daily living back home will make me decide to move here permanently.

What a dink my husband is sometimes.

There is really nothing here for me but this newspaper which I’m trying so hard to make useful to Filipinos here. Everything and everyone I love and care about are back home, in the Philippines; and I have no intentions of settling permanently anywhere but there.

It’s a weird feeling, being a foreigner. To be a stranger in a place where everything will always be tinged with the unfamiliar.

Home is a place where you are never a stranger. I’ve never been to Cebu City or Palawan, Romblon or Catantuanes, but I know that these places will never be alien to me.

I walk from my flat in Lamma to the nearest store 5 minutes away, and no matter how often I go there, nevermind that I’ve memorized where the shelves for the juice boxes or the spaghetti bottles are, or that the store clerk smiles and affably nods at me as I pay for my purchases,  I will never feel comfortable going there.

—

Last night I talked with a group of resident Filipino artists, and I was glad for the opportunity to learn their sentiments about what’s going on back home. They’re trying to organize themselves into a fully-functional group; and some of them have quite progressive backgrounds. One was even a staff of the Collegian in the 80s, and a frontliner of the artist groups that made the effigies (the forebears of Ugat-Lahi, so to speak).

I got all their email and will regularly send them bits and pieces of reports from home. My ‘lolo’ from Kule (he called me ‘apo’) is particularly interested in ArkibongBayan, Pinoyweekly and Bulatlat.com.

These artists have professional day-jobs, executives and directors of graphics and advertising companies; and they seldom get a chance to talk to, say, people who have had college lives like they did (’sali-sali ng rali, makikipag-habulan sa pulis, mahuhuli sa LR…’). I’m urging them to create a painting, kahit maliit lang, basta  a genuine product of collective work, and then send it home as an expression of their solidarity with the campaign back home against political repression.

The Dixie Chicks have a new album out, and critics say that it’s the group’s best so far.

The Chicks went into hibernation for three years after a plunge in their popularity when their fanbase became outraged when lead singer Natalie Maines said she was ashamed to come from the same state as US Pres. George Bush. This was in 2003, and in reaction to Bush sending troops to Iraq and bombing the life out of the country.

During a March 10, 2003, concert in London, Natalie, a Texan, remarked, “we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” Two days later – just a week before Bush launched the Iraq invasion – she added, “I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world.”

After speaking out against Bush and the US war on Iraq, the Dixie Chicks received various death threats. Former fans held pickets in front of concert venues, and called the Chicks ‘traitors.’

The Chicks express their views and, well, assessment about  the incident through the single  Not Ready to Make Nice.

The following is from a review from the Miami Herald:

"Taking the Long Way is intensely personal, and the first of the Chicks’ seven albums to feature songs all co-written by the trio, but surprisingly it is not a partisan album. Not Ready to Make Nice is not anti-Bush, doesn’t comment on his policies, or name any individual. Rather, it addresses narrow-minded intolerance and hatred. Maines is unrepentant, It’s too late to make it right / I probably wouldn’t if I could, and she’s shocked at how low some would go:

It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger / And how in the world can the words that I said / Send somebody so over the edge / That they’d write me a letter / Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing / Or my life will be over.

Stung by the ban of their music on country radio, and unapologetically stubborn, the trio rips the threads out of the straitjacket parameters of Nashville and offers the barest hint of country through 66 minutes of music. Rubin enlists members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Heartbreakers, the Jayhawks, Semisonic and Bonnie Raitt for a gritty pop/rock flavor."

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Also, last night I saw a 60 Minutes feature on the Chicks, and it made me feel so proud to be, well, a fan because Natalie said "The music that’s important to me has always been the kind of music that stood for something… We write songs not so much because of what the radio stations will think, but more importantly because how we feel about the songs and what they’re about." 

At this juncture when 70% of the American people have already expressed alarm over the continuing war in Iraq and the rising number of casualties among the US soldiers, I suppose it must do the Dixie Chicks some feeling of vindication and comfort. 

"You must be wondering how, The boy next door turned out, Have a care, But don’t stare, Because he’s still there
Lamenting policewomen policemen silly women taxmen, Uniformed whores, They who wish to hurt you, Work within the law
This world is full, So full of crashing bores, And I must be one, ‘Cos no one ever turns to me to say
Take me in your arms, Take me in your arms, And love me

Take me in your arms and love me, Love me, love me, Take me in your arms and love me, Take me in your arms and love me
Would you do, Would you do, What you should do, Oh oh oh, Oh oh"

- Morrissey from You are the Quarry album, 2004

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It’s a definite sign that something’s not right in my internal world when I begin listening to Morrisey.

Miserabilist.

The publisher is on the warpath and wants the newspaper to be more ‘popular.’

Holy crap. Now I’m in a popularity contest and am expected to dress up the newspaper when all this time I’ve been working hard to make it a credible product of journalism.

The concept of popularity makes me want to chew nails and spit them out sharply honed. Guess in which and in whose direction I want to spit them out.

I wil admit, however, that this is something that I did foresee.

We’ve received feedback that the newspaper has become ’serious’ and has ‘deviated from its original format’ which is, please prepare your airline sick bags, ‘light and breezy reading which leaves readers with a smile on their face.’

Yes, you are excused. I myself almost threw up yesterday when I heard that description.

I will not yield to this.

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I actually feel as if my hands have been shackled; or I’ve been told to write using marshmallows or KandyKorn. I tell myself that this is nothing but a small obstacle I have to overcome (something Chi also has to deal with. And he’s also having a difficult time adjusting to this return to Journalism Lite. He’s also new here, he got here only a month before I did; and he’s a serious reporter who believes in advocacy journalism).

This will blow over. Stupid effing feedback. What’s wrong with being a serious newspaper? It’s like being told to be Julia Yap-Daza when she used to be editor in chief of the former Manila Standard. Utang na loob.