1001th Blog Hit

You know how some people write to express their innermost feelings? To articulate their turmoil and anguish, in the hope that writing will lead to some form of expurgation, and hopefully, redemption? Freedom from drama. Drama in freedom. Cathartic cataclysms. Earthshaking rakenrol. Liberation, libog, let it be, let it be, let it be.

Not me.

I write because — gasp! — I want to be read. I get a kick out of it. A delicious, I’m-so-fucking-full-of-myself kick. Heehee. Maybe it’s sacrilegious for other people, those who wait for their Muse under the moonlight and write from the sacred spaces of their soul, that I actually find myself thinking: “Oh no, I better write something serious and analytical fast. Wrote two cheesy blogs in a row. They might think I’m shallow.” Then, I click the “blog hits” button two hours after: elated if there are new hits and better yet, new comments; worried if there aren’t. I am the complete opposite of the friend I was in a table with just last night, who told me that when she blogs, she just lets the words tumble free from within, unconscious of the reader — breathing deeply and freely and joyously in her parcel of internet real estate. Three cheers for that. She writes as a form of release. I as a form of… exhibitionism.

So yeah, sue me for being more Master Showman than Anne Frank. Laugh. Cackle. Chortle. I dont care if this says something about the depth and breadth of my real and documented achievements, but I AM tickled pink by the fact that I have — drumroll please — reached my 1000th bloghit a few hours ago, less than two months after my very first entry (entitled “My Very First Entry..”)

I don’t even remember what prodded me to open a blog. I think maybe it was that one afternoon when my friend Jonas, administrator of the beautiful Lagablab website, was showing off his extraordinary technical blog-administration acumen while rolling his eyes at my incompetence (HTML, what?!) Deciding that I havent done anything for the first time in a long, long while, I got me a wordpress account, typed merrily away. And never stopped again.

Twenty or so posts and 1000 bloghits (yuk, ang kulit, paulit-ulit) after, I’m totally hooked. I’ve been in love with writing since forever, and I’ve been an audience-whore for almost as long, and since I don’t really see book publishers making a beeline to my door, blogging is the delicious next-best-thing. Sometimes — and this is the first time Ill be making this confession — I actually pass up on gimiks or go home early from one so I can write a blog entry. How dorky.

And of course, accompanying my new blogwriting hobby is its logical partner: blog-hopping. I’ve come across blogs of total strangers (many not even from this country) that just take my breath away. I am very, very easily intimidated in the face of honest-to-goodness good writing, especially from unpublished writers my age. Also, because I nurse fantasies of being a domestic cooking goddess, I like food blogs with recipes and mouth-watering pictures. Sometimes, I do read the political blogs too, particularly those belonging to individuals of a different ideological persuasion. But it tires me so, and I have neither the stamina nor the patience to engage in blog wars with frothing-in-the-mouth activists. Even worse than that, however, to my mind, is the incoherent, im-a-poet-this-is-my-art-who-fucking-cares-if-noone-gets-it blog. “naked head over heels/crack jaw in hollywood/sack of bones and wedding leftovers/ wet thighs coughing like an old man/i listen to the river flow with abandon/and fly to the laughter of death where mermaids weep…. spastic/ cosmic/orgasmic/ orocan plastic na walastic.” You lost me at hello.

Seriously though, I’ve written more in the past two months than I have in four years of law school. That ought to be a good thing, I suppose. So ya know, Ill be sticking around this neck of the cyber-woods for while.

Mwah! Big hug to you all. Stay interested in me. Hahahaha.

The Panties that say: “Spank me, but only if you are a registered voter.”

Voting is sexy. Voting for AKBAYAN is even sexier.

SM Cubao Teens Department – P50.00 each. Bought 3 pieces. But of course. Hehehe.

Terrains of Memory, Provinces of Regret

The plane I rode last Friday took me back twenty two years. To a mystical time, to a mystical town, to a mystical old woman with snow-white hair and eyes that told you she knew all your heartbreaks. I was five years old again. It was one of those summers spent at Guimbal, Iloilo, sitting in a bamboo papag and watching children play, aching to join them. They spoke in a language — no, a melody — I could not understand, and thus created a world I could not enter. Gently, the old woman I called Lola Mama brought me back to the house. It was where she raised my Lolo and where my mother and her siblings spent their summers. With a fancy tortoise shell comb, she combed my hair and talked while she untangled my tangles. She spoke with the same melody, the same intonation as the children, but with her, I felt no alienation. I listened to her stories.

It was the beginning of many afternoons spent like that. She combing my hair and whispering in melodious Ilonggo; I, listening. Some of them were magical — like that time she explained the tiny grooves made on one side of the wall. Little elves, she cooed in my ear. Dwende. No, not ghosts, she was quick to clarify, but creatures of the netherworld, residing in the limbo of shadow and light. Some stories were scary — like the one of the shape-shifting aswang who preyed on children. One day, the story goes, a group of village drinkers shot the pig with a gun and wounded its leg. The next day, a woman with blazing angry eyes passed by their rowdy group. She had a nasty gash on her leg. Some stories were about the family — how my great-great grandfather tied his carabao every morning outside the schoolroom and from the window listened to the maestra teach Math and Spanish, how she met her husband as a sixteen-year-old wisp of a girl praying the pasyon, how she washed her long hair with gugo and coconut milk so that it gleamed under the sun. And best of all, she told stories about me and what I would be when I grew up, while I listened wide-eyed and bungi, with stubby fingers on fat cheeks. “Intelligent child, like her mother,” she would coo, combing my hair. Sometimes, she would joke: “Skin so brown, how long did you plant rice in the bukid today?” But always reminding me in soft murmurs, “Guapa gid, guapa…“.

That same summer I was invited to join the Santacruzan, as an angel who would hold Reyna Emperatriz’s train. How happy that made me! I felt my five-year-old heart pound with excitement and anticipation. My mother bought me a white gown and made me wings made of crepe paper. “No, no, no”, Lola Mama intoned, and withdrew to her room. The day before the Santacruzan, she came out of the room again, with wings made of real feathers. Snow-white, like the color of her hair.

After the procession, I told Lola Mama that one day I will be Reyna Emperatriz. Yes, she whispered. Come back, and I will make you a gown. Of feathers?, I asked. Of feathers and sequins and sunlight and moonbeams, she promised.

Eleven years later, I was sixteen and being called back to Guimbal. They needed someone for the sagala. Reyna Emperatriz. But I would have none of it. I was old and smug and self-important and on my way to The Best University in The Philippines to begin my Bright and Shining Future and had no time to get into a poufy and tacky gold and silver gown, trailed from behind by a fawning and perspiring bungi “angel” in wings made of feathers plucked out of a feather duster.

They told me you did sew the gown.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m back now. I love you. Goodbye.

* * *

On the plane ride home, I sat beside a man whose fingernail on his left hand was so long its length was twice that of his thumb’s. I looked away, and imagined his finger tracing a crimson river on the terrain of his lover’s skin. Or leaving a ribbon of blood on his child’s cheek. Then I realized that even if that were true, he would only be doing literally what the rest of us do metaphorically to those we love.

Take me back, take me back to Sarah’s

Not being in the mood for yet another inuman-all-you-can session, I decided to join my friends Perci and Jon for dinner at Likha Diwa, a veggie/new agey restaurant in Krus na Ligas, C.P. Garcia. Upon alighting the tricycle and walking a few steps, I suddenly felt Perci pulling my arm and screeching in my ear, “Hoy, sa Likha tayo! Bakit ka pumapasok sa Sarah’s?!” And that was when I noticed I had entered Sarah’s without even realizing it.

Hay. Sarah’s.

It’s not difficult to describe how Sarah’s looks like physically. It looks like the parking lot of a small house that woke up one morning and decided it wanted to be a beerhouse — with monoblock chairs, ice cold beer and not much else. Nope, not even a decent banyo, their lavatory being a makeshift stall at the back of the house that that you only find after navigating your way through lines of dripping sinampay, old automobile parts and a forlorn-looking dog. Not even nice and happy attendants, their concept of service limited to having a crabby looking girl in short shorts scream irately “kanino ba itong sisig?!” Not even good music, though a few bottles of beer and a healthy dose of optimism could turn that guitar-playing pimply-faced 21-year-old from Lib Sci into the next big hit in Indy Rock. Shabby chic, more shabby than chic.

But there’s something about Sarah’s that never quite leaves you (quite apart from the scent of isaw and uling and dog-pee) and never allows you to leave it completely. Anyone with even the slightest familiarity with frat dynamics in UP will tell you that Sarah’s isnt exactly the best place to be if you dont want to get caught in the cross-fire, and I’ve had maybe one or two unpleasant encounters there with drunken manyak strangers, but there’s something about Sarah’s that makes me feel comfy and happy. I remember, while studying for the bar, I would study in Likha Diwa the whole day, and then walk over to Sarah’s for San Mig Lights and then some with my B.I. friends, until maybe 2am. (I stayed at a boarding house during bar review, ostensibly so I could focus on reviewing, but, well…)

Yes, there’s something about Sarah’s. Maybe it’s because I’ve had some of the best, best conversations of my life while seated on one of their monoblock chairs — the type of conversation where you just talk and talk and talk and talk until you realize it’s closing time and the crabby girl in short shorts is giving you the evil eye. It could also be because some of the more important decisions of my life were made there (like enrolling in law school.) Or maybe amidst the many changes in my universe, both good and bad, Sarah’s is one of those things that remain constant. It’s reassuring to have something that’s always there: seeing me through College courses, random hassles, sweet victories, boyfriends, life-choices.

Over the past several months, Ive been frequenting BarKo, simply because of its proximity to our headquarters and because thats where we usually head off too. I like BarKo, of course, and appreciate having a CR that actually flushes. But there’s something about Sarah’s that makes the beer just a little bit colder, the night air just a little bit nippier, and the stars twinkle with just a little bit more magic.

Take me back, take me back to Sarah’s.

Bongga!

On my 27th birthday, I got my very very first ATORNI bag.
Skinny-little girl-with-a-penchant-for-melodrama pretending to be now a lawyer.

Wait. Scratch that. Too 1990’s American sitcom TV for my taste.

Gotta love the bag though.

“To be loved as to love with all my heart”

It’s been a loooong time since my last birthday party. For the past few years, I’ve spent my birthday just having a quiet dinner with a small circle of friends, talking about anything and everything and nothing. Last year was a deliberately muted birthday celebration, inasmuch as the bar results were about to come out in a few days. Spent my birthday eve fretting in a slouchy couch at a homey bar in Quezon City with a boy who took my hand and promised that it was going to be okay.

This year, I wanted a party. Those closest to me will know that it has been a tough and challenging year. Deep family issues, a massive financial crisis, health concerns, ghosts from unresolved childhood tragedies coming back to haunt me — to paraphrase Ely Buendia circa Eraserheads, I got by, with a smay-eel. I wanted to gather the people who saw me through the bad stuff and tell them I love them through beer and sisig and a videoke machine.

And they came. They all came. The friend living in Makati whose work at Ayala ended at 9pm and and who has a class for her Masteral degree at 8am the next day. The friend who had to catch a Cecil Licad concert in CCP that Friday night and whose car broke down in Roxas Blvd. The friend who drove to Tagaytay and back that day for a work-related trip. The friend who had a gig scheduled that same night at Conspiracy.

It was just so great to stand in the middle of the room and see the faces of 60-or-so people so familiar and dear to me. From my friends in debsoc (TJ was inappropriately-early, Mori was inappropriately-late — nothing much has changed since college, haha), to my law school friends (mga abugadong malakas tumawa at mas malakas kumain), to people from PEACE helping Bondoc Pen, to my super great AKBAYAN family, to other people who dont fall within these neat categories but all fit nicely in my heart (editor’s note: icky, please change phrase), salamat talaga ng marami.

Special thank you to Geh for wangling a good deal at Barko for me and for coordinating the party. And also to Mayong’s office and HQ for chipping in. Salamat, Arlene and Kit, for this happy surprise. Tinanggap ko talaga ito ng walang dramang pagpapakipot at pag-aalinlangan. Hehe. I dont want to start saying thank you for the individual gifts because if I acknowledge one, Ive to acknowledge all and Im afraid Id miss someone.

My birthday is not officially over, but I must say that this has truly been one of my more memorable birthdays. Spent my birthday eve with the most fantastic set of friends ever, a noisy and fun party that wound down around 2am. Today at noon, I had salmon sashimi with the boy who held my hand last year and promised me it was going to be okay. (Two of my favorite things in one go: my favorite food and my favorite person) Heard mass with Mama at 6pm, who told me that March 17, 1980 was one of the happiest days of her life. Had dinner at home with my two lolas who made me pancit with lots of chicken liver and no shrimp, just the way I like it. Looking forward to my sister’s birthday gift to me: a three-hour pampering session at the spa tomorrow.

There is one thing that happened today that makes me sad and made my eyes well up a little, as I was eating salmon sashimi with the boy. A scheduled implementation of a long-overdue but extremely difficult decision. But I will not think about it first. Tonight, when I close my eyes and pray, I will only say “thank you.”

Happy birthday to me.

To my cousin, on her prom night

After several weekends spent with you at the mall in my capacity as head (and only member) of your one-person Prom Committee, after all the eye-rolling, the hissy fits, the dress rehearsals, the giggles at the dressing room, the shopping for accessories, the helping-you-whine-to-your-parents, I wasnt really expecting to be surprised at our “final product”. But you, pretty girl, still managed to take my breath away. And as I look at you now — stick-on bra, soft curls and all– I wonder, are you ready for the world?

Listen to me, pretty girl, and listen hard. Just seven things that I wish someone had told me back then.

First. If you are to live fully and dance exuberantly, you must be prepared to trip every so often. Some of them will be ugly falls — gaping wounds, blood all over, the whole nine yards. In one of those falls, you will cry like you have never cried before. But you will be ok. And you will be able to dance again.

Second. Know the difference between spontaneous and reckless. Spontaneous is going to Tagaytay on a motorcycle with someone for a daytrip. Reckless is forgetting to wear a helmet, and deciding to spend the night. Spontaneous is cutting class. Reckless is skipping an exam. Spontaneous is one too many margaritas. Reckless is one too many margaritas and one bad boy.

Third. love your girlfriends (and gay friends).Because on Saturday nights when you want to wear your pointy fuck-me shoes and goddess earrings and strut your stuff, they’ll be there, shimmying with you. And on Tuesday afternoons when you feel like going to the UP chapel to bawl your heart out, theyll wait for you outside, give you as much time as you need, and then eat fishball and isaw with you while listening to you whine some more.

Fourth. Temper “fun fearless female” with “nice gracous girl” sometimes. This whole cosmo culture has conditioned us to believe that being a bitch will get us what we want — and to where we want to go — faster and that kindness is weakness. Open your soul and let the sunshine in. There’s just too little real goodwill going around.

Fifth. Change whatever you want about how you look, but don’t change your skin color. Consider it an extension of your glorious heritage, your rich culture. Brown is beautiful, don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. Besides, pasty-white looks gross on young girls and pasty-white is what you’ll get with all those skin whiteners.

Sixth. Define your spirituality according to your own terms. Community worship sometimes makes me claustrophobic. I pray everyday in the silence of my room, trusting that I have a God who listens. Nurture your faith in a manner that keeps you grounded, connected to the universe, and safe and sound at night.

Seventh. Drink ten glasses of water a day.

Dreaming (in vain) of summer….

 

Vote AKBAYAN. Make my summer-less summer worth it. Hehe.

 

Starstruck

So there I was on a Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and hung-over from a Friday night gimik, in pekpek shorts and a ratty old t-shirt with hair in a tangled mass, about to get the newspaper for the day, when I come face to face with — tantarantan tararatantan —- Starstruck Ultimate Survivor Mark Herras. (I swear, Im not making this up, because if I were, I would say Jericho Rosales or Cesar Montano.)

Backtrack. I live in New Manila, right smack in the heart of Manila’s old rich, for reasons born of anomaly rather than pedigree or ancestry. Annoying to keep yourself from getting run over by careening Volvos and Mercedes Benzes as you shuffle your way on foot to E. Rod to wait for a Project 2-3 jeepney. We live right next to a sprawling mansion with an expansive garden owned by an honest-to-goodness old-world Senora (her gardener’s name is Joselito and her mayordoma is Divina — no “Bhoyet”s for the old rich, it seems). The ambience of her house is perfect for shootings, and the proximity to the major networks makes it a done deal.

For the past four years that we’ve been living here, we’ve been spectators to one shooting after the other, and it’s been an endless source of both fascination and aggravation for us. They shot Daisy Siyete next door for one whole season, and it was kind of fun in the daytime, listening to the director bark out orders/reprimands to the cast. They also shot Love to Love here, and when Dingdong Dantes sat on the curb right outside our gate (right outside!), I admit to getting into a giggling fit with my sister. When our Manang was asked to become an extra for a scene (P500 bucks, for opening the gate), we all gathered around the TV to catch that episode of Baul ni Lola. And we were not above shrieking when we first saw the Liquor commercial that, for a fraction of a second, panned our house.

But it has its aggravations too. Like, for instance, trying to review for the bar while hearing “Ispageting pababa pababa ng pababa” ad nauseam and looking out your window, only to see scantily clad girls with fake boobs and faker smiles right outside, gyrating like there was no tomorrow. Every boy’s wet dream. Except I was a girl. A grumpy girl. With a bar exam coming up in a month.

Or the time my mom, a writer, was trying to meet a deadline and frantically pounding away at her computer. They were shooting that liquor commercial, and apparently hired a particularly dim talent. “Cut!” the director would shout. “Carlo, don’t look down!” And then another. And then another. Maybe twenty times in a row, twenty cuts, for the same reason. My Mom, Queen of Darkness senior, went to the window and screamed, “Carlo, DON’T LOOK DOWN!!!. Mahirap ba yon?!?!?!”

Or that other time when I was brought home in a taxi by the guy I was dating, and we kissed by the front gate (we had a drama-rama moment just a few hours before, so the kiss was a little in the province of “Hihintayin Kita Sa langit” or some such Dawn and Richard love opus where people don’t speak the way they do in real life.) Some wisecracking gaffer went “ay may shooting din pala dito.”

* * *

So back to Mark Herras. We made eye contact briefly. He was, okay, kind of cute. I looked away, pretended to yawn, turned my eyes to the Inquirer, and fake-furrowed my brows in intense concentration. I HAVE to read that they raided Satur’s house yesterday. And I HAVE to read it now.

Dream. Believe. Survive. Starstruck.

My tragedy, your election victory

I belong to an organization called Peace Advocates for Truth, Healing and Justice (PATH), a group made up of survivors of the CPP-NPA purges. (In law school, I did a paper on the Armed Left and interviewed Bobby Garcia, a purge survivor. He’s since been one of my super closest friends and knows all the nasty juicy trippy details of my life.) ANYWAY, I was asked to come up yesterday with PATH’s statement on the arrest of Satur Ocampo for his purported involvement in the purges. Here’s what I came up with:

Victim-centered and reform-oriented justice. This is the continued clamor of Peace Advocates towards Truth, Healing and Justice (PATH) in light of reports that a warrant of arrest has been issued against Satur Ocampo for his participation in the CPP-NPA Purges.

 

While the victims of the purges have long sought a just resolution to the issue and accountability from the perpetrators, the timing and manner of the government’s brand of “justice” renders it suspect and does grave disservice to the memories of the victims. We fear that the hate and paranoia that drive the government and its agencies to go against the leadership of CPP-NPA and Bayan Muna is of the same variety as the hate and paranoia that we have suffered from in the past and continue to rally against to this day.

The issue of the purges is one of paramount importance not only to us but to any democratic society that values human rights. To reduce it to a “card” to be brandished in games of political survival and one-upmanship is to devalue its lessons and recreate the culture of violence that precisely allowed the killings of the past to take place.

This is in no way to absolve the perpetrators of any liability. However, the victims deserve a credible ruling – one that has been reached through a process devoid of any other agenda but the truth. We call for due process for the accused, but continue to stand firm in our quest for justice and accountability.

 

I dont really plan on making a habit out of posting the stuff I write for my various advocacies in this blog, but Bob and I had quite a long discussion yesterday sa YM over it, and it did give me some pause. Over the past several months, government has been using the purges as a strategy to decimate the NDF/Bayan Muna ranks. Over the past several months as well, entirely out of our own efforts and initiatives, PATH has been able to locate grave sites (not in Leyte, but in Cebu) and exhume skeletal remains of purge victims. Some members of civil society have said, “ang pangit naman ng timing ng Cebu exhumation.” I remember flinching when a human rights lawyer actually told me, “parang sintunado kayo.” Isip-isip ko lang, tell that to the sister of Luz, gnashing her teeth and wailing loudlly upon seeing for the first time the condition of her sister’s remains — hogtied, gagged, stabbed, with a bullethole discovered in her stomach and huge slab of stone smashed against her face.

Exhume. Expose. Enrage. Though the heavens may fall.

But this Leyte thing, to my mind is a little different. Who filed the charges and when? To what end? Bobby and I asked ourselves the provocative question yesterday: does it matter? Does motive matter? Bobby said, “kung ang isang babaeng biktima ng domestic violence, gustong kumita ng pera kaya nagsampa ng kaso, ibig sabihin ba noon, invalid na yung kanyang claim?” Sabi ko naman,”kung ako na-rape na walang katarungang nakamit, tapos tumatakbong mayor yung nag-rape sa akin, tapos yung kalaban niyang tumatakbo din ay nilabas na rapist siya at pinakulong.. parang bad trip naman yon. I will not have my tragedy used as political capital.”

 

Ive been thinking about it and I realize, hindi ko alam. I don’t have the answers. Hard to navigate our way through this muck of historical wounds and current-day evils. The only thing Im sure of is that after this election fever, after this political olympiad, the slime-throwing and “rebel”-rousing, Aling Cion and Aling Lita, loved ones of Luz Aniasco, will still be grieving. And thousands of other victims’ families will still be waiting.