Rant all you can
I have never, like Sor Tessie, a distant aunt, stood in front of a army tank on EDSA more than 20 years ago. I have not experienced a night on the picket lines like my old friend Nina, who ran the risk of giving birth on the sidewalk rather than give up the fight for a group of laborers on strike. I have never attended a prayer rally or walked with uplifted fists in the streets with any group of protesters. A group of co-workers and I became one with the flood of humanity on EDSA once, in 2001, and as we walked past the Richmond Hotel a convoy of black Pajeros stopped in the hotel driveway and let out a diminutive lady in a yellow dress. She turned to us and waved. It was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
I find it embarrassing to think that the first and only time I decided to speak up for my country resulted in the coming into power of probably the most devious politican ever to sit as President of the Philippines. GMA, through her prowess as an economist has manipulated the face of capitalism so that it has become the opium of the middle class. Through the remittances of the country’s #1 export—Engr. Juan and Caregiver Juana, our OFWs—she has managed to gloat over a strong economy, lulling the income-earning pinoy into complacency. Add to that the income from the country’s #2 export—its minerals which are now being extracted with a vengeance by numerous foreign mining companies, and you get a mall-going, midnight-sale hunting, gimmick-going Johnny and Jhona. It is this complacency, when disrupted by heavy traffic on a working day, that keeps the middle-class pinoy from ever doing another EDSA.
GMA allows us the simplest freedom: we can complain. People in the media can rant against the corruption of her government, blogs can rant and rage against any public official with no fear of Marcos Martial Law style retaliation. She knows that as long as people are allowed to complain that is all we will ever do. There will be no marches that will cross the line at Mendiola, the man in the street will not walk with the Magdalo along the avenues of Makati, and he will not link arms with anyone else at the lobby of the Manila Peninsula to stand for what Senator Trillanes and General Danny Lim were trying to say last Thursday Nov. 29.
And what were they trying to say? They were telling us to look beyond the nips and tucks that GMA has made on the face of the Philippines and see the gangrenous flesh underneath. The diseased flesh must be excised to keep the healthy parts of the body from getting sick.
But I suppose we were too busy complaining about the traffic to hear them.
Ang dalaga *bow*
*mwah!*
The Inevitable
One of the things that Sam brought home recently is a copy of a slideshow presentation created in the year 2002. Made by the Philippine Center for Photojournalism under the direction of Alex Baluyut and titled “Tan-aw Mindanaw: Journey Across Time”, it contains photographs from as far back as pre-war days, and features commentary by Carolyn Arguillas.
One of the most noticeable points in the photographs is the over-abundance of trees in Mindanao in the olden days. Of course now those trees are gone, the way huge old trees fell by the sawmills that fed the paper mills.
And now that the trees are gone, the land is also being taken away—literally taken away—at an alarming speed by the various mines that have popped up like mushrooms in the provinces of Mindanao as well as other parts of the Philippines.
In a matter of years, our mountains will have become holes left behind by those who have hauled away all the gold and metals and minerals. These treasures, unlike trees, cannot be replaced, and do not regenerate after they have been dug up and taken away.
The mining companies say they provide jobs and foster commerce. And they do, for the time that they are operating. When they go away, as most people who have taken what they need and have no further use for the remains, what they leave behind will become a ghost town.
Taking a break
Having given up a few weekends for work I found myself at the end of last week with two days off in lieu of the Saturdays I worked. The most opportune time to take those days off was on the 30th and 31st of October, days which were conveniently sandwiched between the Barangay Elections and All Saints Day. This meant I could have an entire week off, with weekends on both ends. The prospect of nine whole days without work was something I had looked forward to with relish, and I even made a mental list of what I would do in those nine days.
1. Sleep for 8 hours each day. Enough sleep was something I had been foregoing for a long time now. I promised myself that I would literally get back all the sleep I had lost in the weeks preceding.
2. Go somewhere I’ve never been before. Now this was easy, as I almost never go anywhere anyway. Sam had asked me to accompany him to Kamuning in his quest to find the Four Seasons Haberdashery which sold (so he had been informed by his Brothers at JDML 305) masonic barong fabrics. I’ve never been to Kamuning. We found the Four Seasons with no problems, but I also discovered, much to my delight, the antique shops. I had no idea I was going to encounter something as interesting as this and I did not have my camera with me. I was in a memorabilia collector’s paradise and my greatest regret was not having enough money to splurge with. In the three stores Sam and I visited (the bigger ones were closed because of the holiday) I found framed photographs of Filipino actors from the 50s, clippings of Gloria Diaz when she won the Miss Universe crown in 1969, capiz windows from old houses that had been turned into dividers (found a set that was going for P3000), sets of wine glasses and dinner plates like my grandmother used to have. Now, after we have the house fixed up I am going to go back there and …
3. Spend time with Maia. I got to comb my daughter’s hair everyday. That’s about as much time I spend with her on a regular day, sometimes I am not even allowed that opportunity. Now I spent entire mornings with her, hours in the afternoon and in the evening. It’s not going to be until Christmas break that I can spend as much time with her again.
4. Quit taking sibutramine and stick to my new diet. Sibutramine works. I had been taking Reductil for the past month and a half and it has helped me cut my food intake in half and allowed me to get used to eating less. That is a difficult thing to do with no help when you have a husband who loves to eat well and co-workers who do as well, so I decided sibutramine was the way to go. After a month and a half my stomach felt duly trained and I stopped taking sibutramine, with the marvelous disappearance of the typical side-effects.
5. Exercise. Uhm … erm … does walking around Kamuning count? We did walk from the house to the BPI ATM terminal down at 611 (MIA Road), does that count too? I pass by the village gym with the shelves of bodybuilding supplements and the friendly trainers from Davao on my way to the bus stop, does that count three?
6. Cook at least one main meal a day. That’s something I almost never get to do on a working week, even on weekends I am guilty of opening a can of whatever and pouring it on pasta. This time I got to cook both lunch and dinner, with Ate Beng assisting only in the preparation of the ingredients. I also got to cook Kuya Maui’s scrambled eggs and hotdogs and his favorite sauce-less pasta which he smothers in cheese.
7. Go out of town at least once. This was one of the things I didn’t get to do, as we were unable to secure a vehicle for the trip to La Union for Undas, and were faced with the huge expense of bus fare plus hotel accommodations if all of us went. As it were, only Sam went to La Union with his brothers to visit Dad Toming’s grave for All Souls Day. Ate Beng and Maia and I lit candles for little Nico and everyone else here at home.
I am writing this on the last day of this long break, and it feels like although the break had indeed been long there were so many things I didn’t get to do. But then again, isn’t that the point of going on a break? To live a life of pure sloth—for a working stiff like me that is the ultimate luxury.
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