tattletale.

15 years after.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 07:37:00 +0000

i was just diagnosed with mood disorder.

yesterday, my psychiatrist told me that my condition belonged in that category and because i am predisposed to having it, the fact that my younger sister already has bipolar. he did not specifically say what i had, and there are at least nine specific conditions under this. All he said, in order to get me back in the line, he should be able to stabilize my moods first.

I told him the longest in my long-term plan is up to June of this year, because i would be taking the board exam. I didn't say my plans end in June and that i might be dead after; he was to jolly-looking to be told sad stories. so he went on and scribbled divalproex sodium (on extended release, in my case, Depakote ER) and olanzapine (Olavex). I mentioned i was on Zoloft and Epival 15 years ago. He said I was given Zoloft because i was depressed but this time, he said, olanzapine would address my problems with "racing thoughts at night" and help me get the sleep i want. The "racing thoughts", i said, was not there 15 years ago. So olanzapine, it is, he said -- "just to make sure you don't spiral downward to bipolar disoder."

That was disappointing. i repeatedly mentioned i was just having severe anxiety attacks, and therefore wanted to take only something to calm me down, not things to address my mood swings. i really thought i've gotten rid of the depression from 15 years ago, that now this is just pure anxiety and panic attacks. it's disappointing to be diagnosed with the same thing again.

My diagnosis in 2003 did not come as a surprise. the whole family was just recovering from my sister's bipolar breakdown, at Christmas, and so with all the perfect cocktail of stressors that is a known component of any a breakdown from mental illness, i was a perfect candidate. I was with my sister from the time she was rushed to the the small psych clinic in the middle of the rice paddies, so late in the night, to the time of her discharge late in the afternoon of December 24. I was her assigned caregiver from then on. It was justifiable for me to have a mental breakdown of my own. because, why not?

----

very few people knew about my condition. my mother knew because on the third night i was losing sleep, i asked her what to take to reclaim my sleep back. she gave me clonazepam, which she said i should start by taking "1/4 tab, before sleeping and that i could try to increase the next day when i feel 1/4 was not enough." i did not tell my psychiatrist that. Clonazepam did make me groggy but never gave me the deep sleep i wanted. when i woke up the next day, the resentment, the anger, the racing thoughts and the thoughts of suicide, they were still there.

when i walked out the clinic clutching the prescription, Rene was the first person i texted. He was also the first person i texted in June 2017 when i went home to Antique to have a breakdown. Though my family is always accepting of mental illness running in the family, it is still a difficult issue to open up with them, mainly because i did not have money to feed the illness. it would always mean at some point in time, i would be scraping somebody for money to get the pills. that is the saddest part of this.

my husband doesn't know. because i never told him, and i don't plan to. he already expressed his being a non-believer in the idea of mental illness and when i opened up the possibility of me having it, he just handed me the blame, that i wasn't trying harder to fight it off. If i fought harder, i would end up dead. But i guess people like him, who only see the world from their own view, will never understand mental illness, even when it happens to their relations, because of the belief that all of these are caused by our love for drama. what i am sure of is that, when the day comes my husband sees me hanging from our rafters, dead from a broken neck, he would simply say, "she was a coward," and give me to the cleaners.

Never memories

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 15:30:00 +0000

remember in June 2017
when you passed the exam
i couldn't wait to know the results

(but it turned out you were not even looking forward to me knowing the results)

because i thought it was important for you and that it is important that i also take pride in your success.

the website where the list of passers are published updates at least at mid morning, so noon was the best time to checked.
your name was not hard to find because it's within the first the first letters of the alphabet.
so immediately, i sent you a message. (if that message could bleed excitement your phone would be smothered in it.)

(but too late, it turned out to be a stupid, desperate-for-attention move.)

You informed me that my news is nothing but stale and your gave a flat reply, apparently forced.

"Yeah, I knew. Dolly already called me about it early today."

the reply was heavy with annoyance, impatience, irritation. like questioning my right to care about the news.
reading between the tone of displeasure, i told myself, it must be a wrong time to send the message. you were busy with work saving the city, making your name known; work that would lead to sure success, with your names plastered all over the city bulletin.

it hit me suddenly, that i was intruding in some private celebration that only you and your colleagues and friends should indulge in. I shouldn't have eavesdropped.

i'm sorry i had to intrude.

i'm even sorrier to have sent that congratulatory text. i was not even invited to be part of the congratulating clique.

how presumptuous of me.

and the rest of the afternoon fell silent without any messages from you, because what else is there to expect.
came dinner time and i needed a headcount, so i had to ask: "Are you coming home for dinner."

to which you flatly replied again, obviously crossed for being interrupted, to not wait up because you will be out the whole night celebrating your passing the exam with your friends because

"It's tradition to celebrate within our circle when somebody passes the exam,"

which is a new, novel thing to you: participating in traditions because our family never had any traditions to begin with. nobody bothered to start it. and if the elders had any, you hated them. so to be part of this radical tradition must be something very meaningful to you; to be finally part of a set of exceedingly intellectual, visionary, omnipotent, ever-supportive, vastly influential circle of known professionals. something i could never offer no matter how hard i would try.

that's comforting to know.
that you would rather make memories with your highly revered, intelligent, creative, wonderful, successful friends.
that with me, you would only want to make babies,
but never memories, Tatay,
never memories.

Walks

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 02:56:00 +0000

I walk. walked.

Create Routes
or Search for a route
from millions at MapMyFitness

go back home and write a fucking book

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 07:55:00 +0000

i should just go back to my hometown, in the farm.
build myself a fucking cabin
and write the fucking book.

and die without anyone knowing i even happened.

The participatory process as means to art-making

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:01:00 +0000

On 21st October 2017 I participated in the second installment of the art-writing workshops organized by VIVA Excon. It was facilitated by Ms. Lisa Ito, currently with the UP Diliman CFA and teaching art history and theory. Our groups was a good mix of artists, writers, and professionals from the field health and medicine (one was an ophthalmologist, another a nurse).

The workshop part had us attending a "re-enacted" version of the opening of the Sugidanon Ta, Hampang Ta exhibit of the Fine Arts department of the University of San Agustin. From there, we were supposed to write about it -- we were not given a specific "style" to writing art (review, feature article, etc), and I came up with something more academic than expected. But this exercise is quite inspiring to the point that I've made further research on the matter and is planning to make a full blown paper for this.

here is the product:

----------

The participatory process as means to art-making

“Sigudanon ‘Ta, Hampang ‘Ta” is an “attempt to adapt the concept of combining verbal literature and visual narratives,” according to the project description. The material was based on Dr. Alicia Magos’ published research on the Panay Bukidnon’s oral literature, the Suguidanon. This project was USA-FA’s initiative to infuse a research-based art practice and potentially establishing the FA students and faculty’s roles as scholars ‘by conducting researches along with collaborators.” For this project, I am assuming that the collaborators consist of the community of IPs who owns this intangible heritage, and the experts (in the name of Dr. Alice Magos) from where the materials were largely based on. Additionally, the information says that “the project discusses the critical aspect of Panay Bukidnon’s community life that offers insight in the heritage of Panayanon heartlands…and that it will explore the contemporary ideas with tradition and culture, transforming the intangible custom into intangible works of art.”

Thirteen artists produced collaborative works of seven 5 x 4 feet paintings, giving life to the seven multi-layered world of Suguidanon. Each artwork was meant be an independent visual narrative with themes reflecting the richness of the culture and tradition of the Panay Bukidnons. Each of the seven canvas were the artists’ own rendition of what they imagined the characters and the settings would have looked like. It is unclear as to how far they are allowed to produce their own rendition or if they were required to constantly consult with the experts in the process.

During the artists talk, one of the project proponents mentioned that the artists’ depiction of the characters were subjected to validation. Dr. Magos was invited to the opening and was particularly asked to critic each of the pieces. Dr. Magos’ comments mostly focused on the anachronism and cultural misrepresentation. In particular, the “costume” of Paiburong (and his brother) was more Southern Philippines than Panay Bukidnon; Bulawanon’s daughters were not supposed to have “bangs” (or any contemporary hairstyle for that matter) considering the period they are in; or that Makabagting’s nose ring was more African than Filipino. Much of these could have been prevented if the artists employed the participatory process from the project inception up to the production of their final work.

Participatory processes are methods commonly used in the field of Planning. Planning, on the other hand, is process which facilitates the achievement of a certain goal or objective. Participatory planning is known to be one of the more effective methods or processes of planning. In this particular case, representation and participation of the different sectors, fields and expertise forms an integral part of the process. Representation is imperative because planners usually deal with projects that are meant to serve the public, and what better way to ensure that projects are responsive to the public’s needs than to include the public in the planning process. It often goes by the name citizen participation, community participation, public involvement, etc., and it is meant to provide private groups or individuals an avenue to influence public decisions. It has been considered an important part of a democratic decision-making process. In cases where an IP community has a special stake in a certain project, employment of this process is all the more essential.

This is not to confuse participatory processes in art-making with participatory art, where although participation of the audience is necessary, such participation happens only at the end, when the piece of work is finally viewed by the public. Participatory process in a making of a project (i.e. art involving a community) requires engagement of stakeholders from the inception until the time the output or artwork is finally opened to the public.

“Sugidanon ‘Ta, Hampang ‘Ta,” project takes an already existing “body of work”, and translates it into another form that is more accessible for public consumption. I believe that in translation, it is important that the meanings are not lost during the process. Therefore more effort could have been devoted in what in planning process would be called analysis phase -- researching, profiling, and environmental scoping. This phase helps the proponent get the feel of the project he is working on. The analysis phase is where the engagement with the community would have begun, including engagement with the experts and analysis of the readings (secondary data), which are essential in coming up with the “alternatives” for what material, form, and style, etc., to produce. This does not benefit the proponent alone as participatory research enhances also the people’s/IP community’s awareness of their rights and strengthen their role in the mass production of their intangible heritage.

The outputs can be viewed two ways: as a final product where the artists failed to use to his advantage the methods of scoping and profiling to better equip himself with ideas, and use these ideas to develop the project that is the canvass; or we can view it as that the exhibition is not the end but a phase of the design process, where the initial draft of the output is presented and openly critiqued by everyone – experts, IP members, art enthusiasts, cultural workers, etc. during the exhibition, and the iterative process is employed to come up with a more coherent final output. However, considering that the monitoring component of the planning process is not at work here, it seems best to assume that we are dealing with the former. This is not to discount the efforts of the artists and the faculty, after all community projects, even planning itself, is a never-ending work in progress.

jerilee cameña

22 October 2017

References:

Dawn Chatty, Stephan Baas, Anja Fleig. 2003. Participatory Processes towards Co-Management of Natural Resources in Pastoral Areas of the Middle East. . Available online via UN-FAO: http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad424e/ad424e03.htm

Tikare, S., et al. 2001. Organizing Participatory Processes in the PRSP. Available online: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPCENG/1143240-1116506251485/20508873/Organizing+Partcipatory+Processes.pdf

Parker, Bob. 2002. Planning Analysis: The Theory of Citizen Participation. http://pages.uoregon.edu/rgp/PPPM613/class10theory.htm

Change the World. 2005. Participatory Processes Methods. Website: http://world-changers.org/participatory-process-methods#guidelines

if/when

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 16:06:00 +0000

When the laundry basket has been emptied
And all the clothes, linens have been folded;
When dinner's done and the table has been set;
When the floor's been swept and mopped clean
(spic and span, so clean and clear u can see your sad face's reflection from there);
When the school work is done and notes scanned;
The kids sleeping soundly in their neat beds;

I will kill myself.

books and discourse

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 06:20:00 +0000

during those difficult weeks i found comfort reading David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day.
though my condition made concentration difficult, i managed through it, reading one chapter at a time or until as far as the running thoughts take over my imagination.
every line in every chapter of that book i wanted to highlight. they seemed funniest, the further i go, the funnier they seemed. this is not to discount the fact that the book itself was a collection of stories so each chapter would certainly be a different comical anecdote.

"Nobody dies on a Wednesday--hadn't these people learned anything?"

- from the chapter Learning Curve in Me Talk Pretty One Day

every time i highlighted i yearn for my reading friends. the more i highlighted the more i wish i still had them around--or at least had news ones to share the joy with. but there were none. At the end of every funny quote, funny line smothered in bright neon pink highlighter is the loneliness of knowing the end is nigh. there was comfort in knowing that the book and i shared these moments--i almost died laughing inside. and that's all to it.

i am sick and tired of sharing stuff on facebook; of posting about stuff i read and wishing to interest somebody to a meaningful discussion, like before 15 or 20 years ago, with my reading friends: sitting on a bench under a cool canopy of the school yard tree raving like maniacs about how great a book was and showing to each other the parts of great interest in the book (highlighted of course--but with just a pen or a pencil (too poor to get neon highlighters), skimming through each one of them, one after another, page after page, like how we would in a literature class.

but now, there is none. nothing viable for discussion beyond the deliberate curation of what should be in the public profile of these personalities--these commenters.

the books people read and reduced to a quote or two, from a page of a book recently opened, and closed, replaced back in the shelf once the beautiful, endearing quote has been retyped and posted on a status in facebook. the books and reading materials have been reduced to accessories, none of it provides room for eager discourse or enthusiastic analysis (over-analysis at times) of the things that one did not quite comprehend.

"...there's a reason regular people don't appear on TV: we're boring."

- from the chapter Nutcracker.com in Me Talk Pretty One Day

Pieces for Gogol.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 13:33:00 +0000

He never tells me he doesn't want to remember.
Every time i ask him about things and memories about our old house he simply tells me, "I'm sorry Nanay, I've forgotten them all." He said all his memories of the past burned along with the house.

When he was five he told me he wants to marry me.

That I was the prettiest lady he's ever seen. No one, not even his father has even gotten close to telling the same things. He imagined if he married me we could stay forever as family and the time would not move and we would just remain like we are. He a five year-old and us young parents who refuse to get out of rental housing. Then he turned seven and went to formal school, got bullied, bullied somebody, had troubles with teachers, academics, and realized that no amount of wishing can stop time from turning, and him from growing up, and that pretty soon he would have to move out like we always told him to.

When he was still a toddler his father would often find him, upon waking up in the morning, silently staring out our bedroom window, like waiting for something or somebody. Like an old man waiting to find reasons for existing.

It didn't worry me at first then when it started happening regularly, I began to worry but just a bit. he seemed to young to be already neurotic, or even to be just thinking too much. Though i wasn't really sure if it was thinking that he was doing, or if he was just waiting for his morning pee to come.

That one time, just recently, he told us Jesus can be so cool with a long hair, he can even go to school with it or do anything he wants because he is the son of God. And how he gave us an "aha! i am so totally confused right now, mother" kind of smile when we told him, "what does it matter, you are the son of Keith!" because he couldn't make it to saying that his father is 'nothing' compared to God.

So he just goes on and says, "ah, why you keep telling me things too weird?"

and declares he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

sand

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 13 May 2015 20:33:00 +0000

the sun now sets at 21:12.

the first i was ever in a summer night on a summer solstice was 3 years ago, in June. I suffered from a terrible jetlag and loneliness that sleep was difficult. Thinking about it, it was probably the loneliness that made sleep so elusive. Only a day into that different world and i already felt lonely.

but work has to go on and in the morning, i still had to clock in, had usher people in and out of the tour bus, take their photos, take down notes, ask relevant question, pull my jacket tighter when the summer breeze blew, tell everyone 'i'm-really-easily-cold' when they gave me bewildered looks seeing me cringe at the summer breeze, try to be useful, try to appear important.

truth is, the moment i hit puberty, i have been thinking of disappearing in this world.
no, it never involved suicide,though i would admit i did have countless of suicidal thoughts, the worst of them was happened i gave birth to my eldest, and the latest was last in December of last year. I trace both to postpartum depression; which might be true of the former, the latter, something i had to concoct because i could not think of any reason. There are days when the best feeling i could think of was the feeling of disappearing. at that time, when the feeling hit me, all i wanted was to briefly disappear. Maybe rest is the most appropriate word--rest but i remain invisible, at least for a week. However, people who chased that brief moment of disappearance realize only far too late that suicide is permanent and they simply cannot just walk back in like that.

I was at the beach and i settled my 11-month old son on the sand. he squirmed when his feet touch the gritty wet, black, sand, still warm from the late afternoon sun. I thought that if i walked further up the water i can just disappear. i kissed him several times and when i was about to go, a tricycle revving its engine appeared. it was full of a bunch of noisy people, whom i surmised was a troop of super-extended family. my son wailed at the sound of the tricycle engine and i came to his rescue, picked him up from the sand and cuddled him on my lap. he held on the neckline of my shirt like so tight i could have stood up and let him and he would still be hanging there like a pendulum.

"Let's us get back home," i told him like he'd understood. I put on the baby carrier and packed him in and started our way back. he placed his small hand on my face and left a handprint of sand. he squealed. he was happy, i guess, that we are both making our way back.

- FIN -

Remembrance of things past.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 17:23:00 +0000

On the main door are Gogol’s artworks. The door is painted dark brown, worn and flaking on the edges.

Standing by the door, to the left is Gogol’s triple-colored desk of yellow, red and blue. It's made of plastic and his Dad has 10,000 things he didn't like about that table but it has to stay there because it was a gift from grandma. On that horrible-looking plastic table is the landline telephone and my collection of Granta. Underneath the table is the large toolbox that houses not tools but the archives of the negatives and the cameras that Keith and I have been using to take photos in the last four years. Next to the horrible-looking tri-colored table is the rickety computer table, to which Keith also has 10,000 things to complain about but chose not to because we had that for super cheap. On the rickety table is a flat screen monitor, a mouse and gazillion of little things that for some reason keeps on accumulating. Post-its, receipts, prescriptions, pens that don't write anymore, pencils with broken lead. Things that are without use. The flatscreen monitor is hooked to a CPU on a bamboo chair that has been repurposed as a shelf. A plastic box of my work documents is wedged in between that repurposed bamboo chair and a gray TV shelf, which also houses the defunct DVD player. Along with the DVD player are Keith’s dry seals – one for his architectural profession and the other for the plumbing profession. The architecture seal has a red band to make it easier to tell which is which.

In the past we used the levels of the TV shelf as temporary holders for our cameras, especially the ones that we often used – the minolta x700 (deceased), yashica t4 and minolta sr-t 101. At other times it contained the kids’ toys—the matchbox cars or their motley crew of little people (molded plastic toy soldiers mostly). The plastic box that contains my work files has a translucent white plastic cover, with the most exposed part showing signs of age, fading and sagging. On that box is where the living room electric fan sits. Sometimes it is the orange fan, sometimes it is the white-and-blue. we interchange them to avoid over-heating especially during summers.

Across the TV, desktop computer, fan and that blue plastic box is the bamboo sofa with a few missing parts. One was from a playful kick and the other was a result of being submerged in the flood waters for hours. We kept the sofa even after the flood because it is the most rational thing to do. Things that can be re-use, repurpose, upcycle we have to. Every thing deserves a second life.

Between the bamboo sofa and the TV is a blank space that we intentionally left like that, without a coffee table because it is where my father sleeps on days he is with us. Also, we use that space to spread the mattress and camp to watch TV or in-house movie night on weekends. The bamboo sofa also serves as the divider between our narrow dining room, which is nothing but an assortment of a green square plastic table and three green monobloc chairs. The dining table is sagging at the center and cutter/knife scars. If not for the persistent mud stains on the corners where brushes couldn't reach, no one could tell it also survived the flooding in 2008. Along with knick knacks in the house, the bamboo furniture, and the fridge, the table floated when the flood waters reached beyond one meter. We did clean the green table, thoroughly. Almost. I didn’t realize the oversight until after about three years past that flood year when I crawled under the table to get the ball that Gogol threw. Gogol was aiming for me but he hit the gray refrigerated beside the table instead. The ball bounced on the ricekeeper by the corner of the fridge and rolled under the green table.

i squatted to have a look and decided to make a go for it. I lay prone and slowly crawled towards the ball. When i reached the tabled, I looked up to make sure my head had enough clearance from the underside of the table and there I saw, cobwebs and brown spots that had clung to the plastic like a permanent fixture. I grabbed the ball, threw it back to Gogol.

"There are spots of mud here that we didn't clean," I announced as I crawled my way out.

But everyone seemed too busy to hear. I called out to Gogol to resume our play, telling myself I find time to crawl back under and scrub it clean.

When the sun rose the next day, I rushed to make coffee for Keith and myself on the little electric coffee maker, which would be the best possession we've ever have--at least in making sure that our day starts right.

The mud under the table clung and remained hidden, now completely forgotten.

Lessons from the Fire, Pt. 3

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 22:13:00 +0000

We lived at the 7th unit, sandwiched between the 6th that is occupied by senior university students and the 8th that is occupied by the caretaker, a retired government worker and his wife who seldom goes out of the house. We have been living in the unit for the last nine years. At first the apartment was just for my siblings, myself and my father who works in the city on weekdays. I was unmarried and pregnant, and it was expected that pretty soon my boyfriend would have to move in with us.

When our first son was born, Keith and I took over management of the house. We had to because our little family is the one already occupying most of the space. With a nanny and a kid whose space requirement is good enough for 10 people, taking over was the most logical thing for us to do. When it happened, nesting began. Pictures on the wall started appearing. Books started accumulating. Tools that are too many they should be inside a shed, started piling up in the little corner of our living room, right underneath the stairwell. I started accumulating my own things for the kitchen—a second hand oven, a waffle-maker, a blender and a cheapo mixer that my nanny used to ice our first son’s 7th birthday cake. When our son left toddlerhood, Keith and I found ourselves with just enough time to take on another interest. Our son was starting to enjoy being on his own more than being with us and the entertainment that comes with it. With new interests came the accumulation of cameras, then the art materials that came after we took an art class in the summer of 2012.

At some point, when the second son was born, Keith found himself some thousands of pesos away from buying what could have been the family's first Volkswagen beetle. He settled for a bike instead. Six weeks after I gave birth I found myself buying my very first mountain bike. It was a hard tail, red and white that is one size too big for me, but I rode it anyway. Then the riding got too comfortable albeit complicated. We realized we couldn't go riding the whole weekend and clean it in time to use for commuting to work the next day. There was no way but to hoard and our house found itself with more bikes that it can can store, some had to be kept outside, by the window, secured by chaining it to other bikes. The bigger ones were unofficially parked in the caretaker’s garage, along with his blue-green beetle that has seen better days. Our caretaker only offered his garage because he was so worried our bikes would get stolen. He has his own real-ugly-bike, way uglier than the ugly ones we had, but he treasured it so much that he knew exactly how it would feel to lose something that is logistically important.

Then the fire came. On February 28. The caretaker wasn’t there; he went to the other island to visit his family, bringing along his wife and things they would need for a weekend trip. He left his blue-green beetle and locked their unit. Meanwhile, everyone in our house was taking their afternoon nap—my sister coming home from a night duty as a nurse, my son resting from his fourth periodic exam and my husband, falling asleep beside our son. He was awaken by the sound of the water overflowing from the bathroom tub. Everything after that was just a blurry memory of him rushing to rouse my sister, turning off the main switch, dragging my bike with him but found it chained and calmly walking out the compound blanketed in thick brown smoke. Then minutes after, they found themselves by corner fruit stand, watching in horror as the red angry flames eat our history away. My son, clutching the pillow he slept on—the only thing he was able to bring out of the burning house, too young to comprehend, knew the fate of his iPad.

“What am I going to do now, my iPad is gone. My iPad is gone.”

Then that night he asked his aunt, “What will happen to Nanay [mother] now? Where will she sleep when she comes back? What will happen to us now?”

The image of his childhood home burning was too vivid it kept on running over and over again, on repeat, in his mind. The next day, he came down with a fever. On their way home coming from the drugstore, he asked to be brought to the compound. He said he just wants to see it again. He said when they left the scene yesterday the house was still standing. Little did he know it will be the last he could come close to it.

It was midday and there was nobody there when they reached the site. With a burning fever, he got out of the car, with him an unopened can of four-seasons juice he was supposed to take with his medicines. He stopped by the charred gate, securely locked by a new set of chains. He stared at the driveway, now quiet and peaceful with everything inside burned to pieces. In absence of the violent aftermath of the conflagration, that very midday where he stood by the gate could just be any hot, tropical midday with everyone napping inside their respective units.

The blackness of the charred walls and the beams, windows, doors that were turned to charcoal were enough to tell him it was time to go. I wish I knew what went on his mind as he stared at the driveway where he first learned to walk. All the eight years of his memories in what he considered home summarized into black soot and gray ashes.

After what seemed to be five minutes of forever, he briefly said, "Let's go," and got in the car.
He never spoke about the house again after that.

It was too painful that the pain refused to be felt. It took several days for the numbness to fade and for hurt to sink in. I wanted to say sorry for being absent because maybe if I was there it would have never happened. In the parallel universe where I chose to forego my chances to leave, life goes on and we are still living in the house that we learned to love despite the rat infestation, the obnoxious cockroaches and the holes on the roof that seem to just magically appear during thunderstorms in the middle of the night—the kind that refuse to show themselves up when the caretaker comes to check for maintenance.

In that parallel universe, Keith will continue working on his bike project and it will be completed, he will hand it to me and we will try how perfectly assembled it was, biking to the Cinematheque to watch a European movie or to the nearby biergarten for a radler fix. In the parallel universe, I will continue to worry about the Minolta x700 that is close to its end; worry where to get it fixed and worry if we will ever find another one that we will love as much. I will continue hoarding the books and Keith will beg me to stop buying until we get ourselves a bigger shelf or move to a bigger house.

But parallel universe exists in another universe that we would never see in our lifetime and things like this happens because it has to.

When the pain was gone and all that was left was emptiness, I requested Keith to visit the site. Maybe he could get a piece of what’s left of his drafting table. We could pour clear resin over it and make it a centerpiece for our new house. I wanted him to visit and scour the place for answers.

“We should just consider it gone,” he said calmly.

And I guess just need to move on.

Lessons from the Fire: Pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 18:49:00 +0000

There's a picture of a burning house on my screen.

I look closer and count the windows; one window, one unit.

One,

two,

three,

four,

five,

six,

seven.

I can’t find the eighth.

There is too much smoke.

I can't tell the eight from the seventh.

I count again.

the last unit in my count has the most smoke and the most blaze.

Maybe i got the counting wrong.

Maybe it is eighth that has the most smoke.

I stand up and move away from the computer then look at the picture again from two meters away.

It is the eighth for sure...

Oh my god.

nothing looks better. none of them will look better.

not the sixth, not the seventh, not the eighth.

Maybe it is not happening.
I count again. I can’t tell anymore.

Everything is wrapped in smoke.

Lessons from the Fire. Pt. 1

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 18:15:00 +0000

I clean the walls of the house.

It has been months since and the specks of golden oil have taken over the gloss that used to be enamel.

I wipe it with a dripping sponge, soaked in warm water with bleach and detergent.

I scrub and scrub. I carelessly scrub away the kid’s doodle.

It is a doodle of endless spirals in blue crayon.

In mid-action, I thought: Maybe I shouldn’t.

The dirty foamy water is dripping from my hands clutching the wet sponge, to the ends of my elbows, and finally to the red floor that has been coated with wax.

The water droplet glistens on the shiny red floor like a piece of broken glass.

I go back to scrubbing.

Maybe I should let it be.

I take the dry rag and wipe the suds off the wall.

The oil is gone, the creamy paint is now creamier and the blue doodle is now a dull, toned down version of the kid’s excited scrawls.

Feels like the old times. only much much colder.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:54:00 +0000

Malate.

very late at night.

alone, buying coffee and cigarettes at a 24/7 mom and pop store.

I have advance mathematics exam the next day that I was sure i'd fail.

though i've studied for two straight weeks. in advance.

so i drowned myself in cheap coffee and misery.

and from the wrought iron balcony

I watched the sun rise.

carabao-ing the jeepney

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 07:35:00 +0000

"Please move! i need space for one more! there is space for one more, i see it!" the jeepney dispatcher barked at the weary passengers.

So i barked back, "Am i gonna be charged 1-peso promo fare for this or what?"

the dispatcher forced a smile and said that nobody's paying one peso. there is still more room.

in this place where public transport remains to be the main mode of transportation of the working class, there is always more room for the 25th potential passenger of the 20-seater jeepney. never hang by the rear side of the jeepney. never mind if they had to take the scaffold seat called "extension", never mind if it is a lady carrying 5 bags of groceries and a child infant. there is always room for more somehow. and somebody's gonna volunteer to hold that infant child for another, all the time.

what is quite amusing though is that the passengers seem like it. they seem to welcome every more passenger that tries to get in, despite the apparent passenger overloading. i know, what were they thinking, right?

the dispatcher barks and like choreographed dancers, the seated passengers moves all-together in the same direction, squeezing their bodies into tiny balls along with their 10,000 kilos worth of groceries, making room for one more. and then another, and then another. and when there's none left, another would volunteer to her lap.

"let me take your child while you hold on to the rear rails of the jeepney."

WHAT? shit, no. why would a parent even do that?

and he does hands over his child. to a stranger. who then happily takes on her role as part time sitter-in-the-jeepney while others happily pitches in cooing the child who appears quite confused of all the attention she's suddenly getting, and for being on the lap of a stranger.

but in the months i have been here, riding through this chaotic choreography, everyday, for five days, 4 weeks in a month, 12 months in a year, i tried to make sense of all the bumping and the squeezing and the accommodating that every one seemed to be happily obliging themselves with, every one except me.

you see, in small communities people do help each other. because you see, in a community that has not had the paranoia that are cars and overspeeding, filling the jeepney to the brim is treated more like public service than business.

"Come, come, Inday. We have room for you! Don't wait for the next one or you're not gonna make it before dark!" says an over-concerned citizen to a student checking if there was still space. and the girl gets on the jeepney. a swing to the left, a swing to the right, a bark from the dispatcher and magically a space wide enough to accommodate 1 roberto's queen siopao appears, and off we go.

It's the same thing, the way they treated bikers and biking. if you're utilitarian (meaning non-fred speed, helmentless, non-cleated, non-stravafied, and definitely non-MAMIL), people don't give you shit. even if you are a girl. because bikes and work and farming are as normal, as necessary as shitting. you don't come to the toilet lycra'd and helmented. you bike and you work. or walk. bikes gets you everywhere and every one knows that. when they get to their farms they don't go bragging it all to facebook that they BIKED to work, because duh, it's as normal as shitting, y'know.

so jeeps. jeeps are treated like carabaos, the beast of burden. it seems that people in the country have not divorced themselves from the idea that a piece of metal junk like the jeepneys are nothing but motorized carabaos and carabaos are safe animals to ride on. y'know, like you just jump onto the back of the carabao and off you go. then you see a mate and you ask him to hop along and then off you two go, on the back of the carabao. and then you invite some more and off you all go until you feel that it's already cramped and you have to stop inviting people in, OR that the carabao suddenly grunted, a sign that he's had enough of the weight and you can stop telling people "come hop right in." yes, that's our jeepneys. And yes, they do grunt. the engines grunt when the load's too much. and people do not seem to mind, not even the driver because y'know, he has to get these people to where they're going.

so jeepneys. in the rurals. never dangerous. more like beast of burden carabaos always happy to serve its boss.

wednesday sunny day

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 06:07:00 +0000

Charlie: You can’t just torture someone ‘cause you think they’re guilty.

Frank: Oh, don’t give me that liberal bullshit!

Also, list: 2014 resolution

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 23:56:00 +0000

since we are on the topic of list, i'd like to share my new year's resolution, a list in itself.
as you can see, being a really good planner i did what every aspiring good planner should do: i made a very SMART list. SMART isn't just anything, it's the magic mnemonic for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. i could also make that better by making it SMARTER, adding evaluate and reevaluate but one year i think is too short to be smarter so i'd better stick to just being SMART.

1. Quit my job. I know. This one might not be very SMART and a little difficult to attain. There is a big possibility i'd fail in this but i'll keep the list handy just in case I forget. I've been trying to make up reasons why having a full-time job is the key to happiness but apparently it isn't. studies show that women/mothers are happier without a full-time job. It's true. Apparently, devoting one's life to motherhood keeps the depression at bay. Proof:

See! Women who quit their work are happier than billionaires! That makes me so depressed now. I'm totally doing life and motherhood wrong. Also, a mother without a job saves the household a lot of income since the mother can do what five nannies and 10 household helps can do. imagine all the savings.I couldn't sleep thinking of all those money that could have gone into my children's college fund. i'm so guilty now.

2. Eat more greens. Yeah, i was vegetarian for a while when i was still without children. then son came and all he wants to eat are abodo and pork chops. i felt compelled, even if i know it was very very wrong (just think of all the animals we are killed for this steak!), to serve him these pork, the meat dishes every time. Then i lost my mind and went on with the killing spree by eating the meats alongside my meat devourer son. But I've since "moved" (i am constantly moving, like a hummingbird, or like a bike because bikes need to constantly move so the rider does not fall) to my mother's house i was opportuned with the best things, like my mother's magic garden that sprouts all kinds of greens imaginable. With that, i have no other reason not to eat more greens. if only i could muster doing some actual picking but yes, that has to happen yet. maybe i should change it to "pick my own vegetables" or "bring more greens to the table" because "eat more greens" is just too presumptuous. it presumes i already have my greens at the table and that all i have to do is actually eat them. but i don't and i also rarely cook 'cause I like to spend my day doing nothing and that is why there is a big possibility of my children ending up wasted and that is why my dogs are dying of cancer.

3. Stop biking. Biking's totally made me crazy last year. i think it is the root of all evil so I'm gonna stop doing it for now and see where it gets me. so far i haven't touched that torture device for several weeks now and I have never felt this great in my life! Biking is evil. Biking is masochistic and people who love to see other people biking are sadist. biking makes for a sado-masochistic society! it makes total sense. People pedaling on two wheels are menace to society because they destroy the very thread that binds this society together, which is morality (because they are sado-masochistic). biking is immoral and it is my goal to shoot every fucker i see on bike. oh wait i don't own a gun. Maybe i should just run them over. but i don't know how to drive. I will ride a jeepney and pay the driver 10 times more than what he earns for every fucker on a bike he runs over. Yes, that is what i am gonna do.

4. Take care of my dogs. On my way home yesterday there was a dying dog in the middle of the road. he was hit by a speeding jeepney, 2 cars ahead of us. when we passed by the dying dog, a fresh pool of very red blood was just forming. i almost cried in the jeepney but i stopped myself because it's not right to be emotional in public. then i came home to find our family dog, the best dog in the world, lying by the stairs leading to the main door, wagging his tail like he was asking me to pet him. i never pet the dogs since i had children because both kids are weak in their lungs. but i didn't have my young son at that moment with me because i am an irresponsible mother and i left him with some stranger again, like i always do; i had the chance to come and pet our herniated favorite dog. I saw that one of his balls was slightly larger and misshapen (in addition to his hernia) so i touched it. it felt "lumpy" than the usual and it doesn't move when i poke it. I mean, the balls didn't move which is weird because balls are supposed to jiggle the way a water balloon jiggles when you poke them. But i could be wrong. how would i don't? i don;t have a fucking pair of balls. So i touched my dogs balls (wait, that doesn't seem to sound right) and it felt like there was an avocado stuck inside the scrotal bags. Then I concluded he has testicular cancer and he might die soon. I decided i could devote time to taking care of him. Well, probably after i quit my job. and run over the fuckers on bike.

5. Throw away my old eye make up. I already did. and bought new ones. so this is a success and for that i would like to end this post.

FIN.

Listing down and actually buying stuffs you're not supposed to consume

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 07:25:00 +0000

~~Listing down and actually buying stuffs you're not supposed to consume~~ ~~Stuffs you can consume if you throw away doctor's prescription~~ Forget it; you're the healthiest human alive.

so i said lists are cost-effective tools that can ultimately change your life for the better or for something worse-R--but mostly for the better unless you're afflicted with OCD and you continually obsess over the #4 that you failed to make to happen but then that is not my problem anymore. it's time you saw a shrink, i guess.

this is generally how my desktop stickies look like. these are my work lists. my daily things-to-do. that pay. I have a separate list for things-to-do-that-do-not-pay, and for things-to-do/buy-to-burn-all-the-money-i-earn-doing-the-list-of-things-to-do-that-pay. those buying lists are normally handwritten, haphazardly/impulsively and immediately thrown away to the land of forget-it-even-happened after it has been done, so i could get rid of the guilt ASAP.

since we were on the topic of buying, I would like to explain that i am not a shopper. i usually do not shop for my things. my mother does it for me--if she remembers so. So if i needed clothes or shoes or stuffs for very important things (read: work) i just dig into her closet and pay her for whatever's worth her things that I just declared mine. that's how our mother relationship works.

the buying part i am good at though is grocery shopping. i love shopping for food although this sort of belies me because i remain skinny as hell (but no, never underweight), despite the fact that I am practically an emotional grocery shopper. but it wasn't really like that. when i was poor I never went grocery shopping. I wait for my mother to bring me food from our plantation back in the mountains and that's what i fed my kid. if no food come then no eating was done. but that's like a long time ago. i am my own person now meaning i buy my own food and i have the purchasing capacity powerful enough to buy food from the imported canned goods section and not feel guilty about it (except for the poor local farmers whose produce i practically leave to rot for every can of non-local stuff i buy).

i like to buy "fresh" milk. pasteurized milk here is expensive. i mean, when i was poor i didn't buy them because i couldn't make them last for a month. it's not that i couldn't because in reality, they wouldn't. I bought powdered because i could stretch the shit out of it by super-diluting it with water and by dumping diabetic-inducing volumes of sugar and the thing is good to go. It could give me enough energy to last for a day even if i skipped lunch because i didn't have lunch money. So i now buy pasteurized liquid milk, because i now have more than just lunch money. these cartons of liquid milk only last like five days, max. however, while consuming so much of it, i wasn't aware that there is such a thing as adult lactose intolerance. but there is and that's what i've been starting to have since i've consumed these liquid GMOs. so i can't drink it anymore unless i super need it for my constipation. but i still buy it because i like buying milk. i could actually take it off my list but i couldn't. the temptation is just too hard to handle.

i also like to buy sausages with weird names, mostly words i can barely pronounce. they are also expensive. i can like buy 10-years worth of poor people's food with just 10 kilos of those unpronounceable sausages. but i like to buy them and i like to eat them. but i can not really eat them. i mean, i can eat them and forget about the results of my blood work. or i can just feed them to my children since they still have three decades ahead of them before they start worrying about blood work and shits. Actually they are never included in my list, at least not all the time, because there's no need to. i go on auto-pilot when i pass by the sausage freezer and then they just surprise me when i get home. (oh no, did i sleepwalk again to the frozen food section?)

and cheese. also expensive, even the run-of-the-mill mass-produced ones because basic filipino meals do not include italian cheeses so understandably, spending like 2-kilos-worth-of-fish on cheese for no reason (so just you could eat a french baguette margherita in the morning because just so) is just irresponsible. but my children love baguette margherita. but also, i am not supposed to keep on eating cheese. i once consumed a packet of grated parmesan while passing time looking after my sleeping infant child, the second of the 10 dozens infant children i am looking after. it's almost tragic. so, i am an emotional-parmesan-consumer kind of person. i have no life.

so by now you would know that what i am saying is, the capacity of the person to pay for things she wants to eat (possibly) increases as she gets older but the possibility of her actually consuming those things will continue to decrease as she ages. that's the saddest fact i just learned, experience-wise. So if i grocery-shop by my age, i shouldn't even be shopping in the big grocery stores. i should just start my own garden and harvest want i SHOULD be eating, the cost of it is nil. unless you find compulsion to buy your lot to do your hipster urban gardening. but that's another story.

sheesh.

i don't even know why i am talking about food. i'm not even a food blogger.

FIN.

your daily reposted gifs

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 05:59:00 +0000

today we will have something from it's always sunny...

Mac: No, your other left.
Charlie: My other left? I only have one left.

Mac: It’s just an expression. Just move it to the other direction.

Charlie: What would that expression be for? For someone with two lefts?

Mac: No, just move it the other way.

Charlie: Towards your left?

Mac: Your left and my left are the same left because we’re facing the same direction.

Charlie: Eh, we’re two different people so we can’t have the same left. It doesn’t make sense.

click on that whole thing there to see the source.

methodologically planning your life

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 07:01:00 +0000

Planning is a very easy, simple task that everyone almost always messes up. Classic example are new year's resolutions. we all know everyone practically fucks up their new year's resolution second week into the new year and most of it is a result of bad planning.

there are ways to make good plans. one can either be very academic and follow the procedures step by step (beginning of course with problem identification--problematizing--and ending with M & E) or amp it up some more by making very detailed gantt charts or pert cpm or shits that would require one to install a phone app or a software that would cost you an arm that would make it easier to derive figures and numbers and shits so everyone can start deciding whether it's a yes or a no.

or one could just make a list.

making a list is probably the most common since we all make lists. i personally make lists everyday--from to-do's to to-buys. it works half the time, still majority would end up doing badly at them but still at least people made the effort to get some nice steering done (yeah, power!). It helps people feel better about themselves--ourselves (because i am a people, too) at the end of the day. believe me, there's nothing more rewarding that knowing you DID TRY to exert control over your grocery shopping but lost the battle halfway through. (always,we must focus on the positive. yeah?)

so where am i? all right, the list.

i almost bought this book because it felt like me.
and would you believe there's even a page dedicated to grocery lists. heaven.

i've never felt more powerful than i did five years ago doing grocery than i do now. back when i still had to save up for that can SPAM so my child could have a taste of America. But now, i can just walk in and grab the hell out of the imported canned goods section anytime of the day, whenever i feel like it, especially when i feel the urge to replenish my stock of "food for emergency situation like flooding." It turned out my son despised the taste of America and would want to have nothing to do with SPAM; he could survive eating eggs until he sweat and smell of egg.

also i feel very successful now because i always buy my pork from the branded pork section and not from the generic section where pigs were made to sleep on their own urine before they were actually slaughtered so you pick the pork and you smell it and it smells like pig's urine. yep that's what it always is in the generic pork section. disgusting pigs.

but whatevs. most of the time i feel like a grocery-ing vegetarian because it's the hippest thing to do. i'd stack on so many organic herbs and spices and forget about them only to be reminded three days after by the foul smelling herby-spicy brown mush hidden in the fridge's crisper that would lead me to investigate but it'd be too disgusting to even check out and I end up throwing all the disgusting things away. now, that's really bad planning, because that's practically budget wasted. (but i don't care, i got money to burn, yeah? i feel powerful burning money, yeah?)

so you see, we do not always succeed at this listing things, even me, a self-proclaimed "planner."

okay this is enough. i'm tired. tomorrow i will write about how a list is inversely proportional with age (and assuming that income is directly proportional with age, what we will eventually have here, ladies and gentlemen is a tragic equation).

FIN.

today i am gonna be productive.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 02:13:00 +0000

from here: http://weiweipon.tumblr.com/post/66566094986/woooo-productivity

james franco gifs made me happy today

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 05:10:00 +0000

from hereS:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/24cd726f5f2acc0bc668c4f61bd48b07/tumblr_mxeozhSefQ1qhuc9do2_250.gif
http://31.media.tumblr.com/9f884bbaf8fe3c14562174f0676a563e/tumblr_mxeozhSefQ1qhuc9do6_250.gif

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 04:44:00 +0000

January is the most terrible-est month in the twelve months.
I just want to disappear. i want to quit my job and hide in my room and just be dead and then wake up when it is already summer. i am so sorry for my two boys for this month. it is all my fault.
I've made it out alive all these times so i might make it out alive this time.

image from: hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

The commute

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 05:45:00 +0000

The commute at 5:30 pm from work to where I have been living in the past eight months is chilly but almost always unremarkable except today because today the school girl to my right made me eat her hair. I have been subjecting my right face to rapid hair slaps in the last three Ben Howard songs and I don’t know if I should tell her that I would like to burn her hair down to its roots.

We just passed by the farming communities that borders Sibalom and San Jose. This is the stretch in the commute where the jeepney runs uninterrupted for half a Ben Howard song. Little soon the jeepney is gonna stop for another half a Ben Howard song to pick up some more passengers along the highway, mostly students coming from the public university nearby. More school girls with untied hair will be crammed inside by the driver or his conductor hoping to stretch their earnings to a few more pesos and then some before calling it a day.

Onwards, the jeepney is gonna speed up and it’s gonna be some more hair slapping, hair eating, especially when we get to the bridge. Yes, that great Sibalom bridge.

I correct myself—the commute home is always unremarkable until we get to the bridge. Country bridges with their shimmering snake-like rivers, and rivers with their gently swaying reeds with white, fuzzy flowers in full bloom are always magnificent under the long shadows of the *winter* sun. And this is exactly the kind that i get here. And every time, I look like a silly grade schooler peering outside the jeepney window to have a look at the horizon, where the edge of the river disappears and merges with the coast and shimmering Sulu Sea. i do that for about three to four lines of a Ben Howard song and snap back to reality because we would be at the bridge's end by then.

I came back here just as summer was giving way to the raging rainy season. My first attempt, in April, was foiled by the psychotic episodes of my relative, and I had official reasons, too, because the physical office I was to occupy remained yet to be a storage room. When my relative’s mental health improved, the office was finished in time to be put to good use. I officially relocated, bringing with me 5-month old son, my camera, a box of my 35mm film, my personal computer, my loves, my hates, my idiosyncrasies to this place. I cleaned the room I occupied almost a decade ago, when I was still without children. A month after I moved in, I brought my first groceries that included the required sensodyne because I couldn't bear to use my mother-given toothpaste anymore (I used it for a month and had sensations of my teeth falling off). I bought my own shampoo because the shampoo in the bathroom gave me dandruff so large i could make breakfast oatmeal out of them. I brought in my own *organic/artisanal* soap straight from the city because I was afraid of using orange papaya soap that my mother keeps in the bathroom for general use. When I was done with the inventory of my toiletries, I scrubbed clean an old plastic rack (that might have once contained shoes) and used it as a makeshift rack for my son’s clothes. The rickety wooden console table that belonged to my deceased grandmother I used as dresser and something to hold the baby’s amenities. Then came the Fridays of the week and I always ended up inside the public van, back to the city because I keep on missing my friends and the usual city buzz. I keep on missing smell. I miss the smog.

I keep on missing riding my bike to work. Somehow, in my 10 months of being here I never came to finally deciding to relocate my bigger bike, to bring the bike with me. If I probably did, I would never have had to endure eating someone else’s hair in the jeepney. My commutes would have never been unremarkable and I would probably have had enough time to catch the winter sun setting by the bridge crossing and I would have had a photo of it already. But it never happened and it probably never will, and for that, I would have to learn to either be patient inside the jeepney, or find courage to tell the school girl, “I would like to burn that hair of yours, to the roots.”

quality of life, HDIs and kids going to school on their own.

noreply@blogger.com (TABBY) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 08:19:00 +0000

When i'm ask to rate the quality of life in Iloilo City, I won't have my ratings influenced by how bad i think manila is. Iloilo is not Manila and if people do think we should be the next manila or we should follow manila's step to being a megacity, then use Manila's "quality of life" as baseline, the guage, to measuring Iloilo's.

Why Manila? manila is like the most unlivable place in the country, why compare?

why not compare it with the cities that rated highest in HDI?

where Norway is number 1, in UNDP's human development report for 2013...

and the Philippines is at 114, tied with Uzbekistan.

and if province were countries, Manila with 0.718 is almost at the same rank as the Russian Federation (0.719) while iloilo province is at the same ranking as Paraguay at 0.642.

or maybe at least aim for singapore (0.846)? because if we keep comparing ourselves to manila, we'd end up overestimating our "quality of life". numerous people actually gave Iloilo City an "8" (using the scale of 1-10, with 1 as the lowest and 10 as the highest) since it's "way way better than metro manila".

i gave it a "5" though. some said that's really very very low for a city that's working so hard to get its acts together. but i said that my kid cannot cycle from our house to the school. or make that my kid can;t even cycle without a peloton of guards from our house to the park, why would i give it an "8"?

right?