Negative is good.
I was supposed to go out at 6 pm to do some grocery shopping but I was feeling sick. By 6:30 I was already in bed. 11 hrs later I woke up and did the test. Headache and feverish feeling gone but my body still aches. Throat is still scratchy too.
I can order grocery online but how can I continue with my LTO car registration today?
This was sent to me by my older sister as she warned us siblings about two recent attempted abduction cases in our small hometown. And to think I had allowed Twin A this weekend to walk alone to buy something just outside the campus.
The case above is one abduction attempt near the university campus.
This is the recent video of the interview with the victim, she was relating to the barangay officials how she avoided being forced into a white van.
This other one was yesterday:
This one is just today.
Before the pandemic, there was a spate of reports about white vans abducting children and these were linked to rape/organ harvesting. This can just be urban legends but there were reports of children’s corpses found along creeks without major organs.
According to the grapevine the kidnapped children/harvested organs are flown to China, given that the amount of money rich parents pay to save their only child (as a result of one-child policy before they loosened it) is astronomical. Although this has not been established yet, there are anecdotal evidence of organ harvesting happening in provinces before Covid.
The Philippines has an international reputation as one of the global hotspots for organ trafficking. In 2007, it was named as one of the organ-exporting countries in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report, along with India, Pakistan, China, Egypt and Colombia.
Channel News Asia: Kidney for sale: Inside Philippines’ illegal organ trade
Similar reports were published in Latin America, with adults being kidnapped and organs harvested. The United Nations has been after this grisly crime, but these reports are largely ignored as they are relegated to urban legend status.
Philippine Senate has investigated the alarming rate of child kidnappings related to organ harvesting but it has gone nowhere. It only died down a bit because of Covid but now they’re back.
I had been keeping my old phone and a basic smart phone in my drawer to give my girls after they take the entrance exams. But because of these alarming reports, I immediately gave the phones to the girls today so I can track them down (through a geo-location app) and have a means to call them, especially when I’m away. Well, that was the main reason why I was set to give them phones: they would soon be junior high schoolers and they would be commuting to school on their own. I’d rather have peace of mind that the girls have some kind of protection and I can monitor them than worry about the negative effects of mobile phones. They are already more mature now—a far cry from what they were when J met them in 2018. They are more responsible now and are easier to discipline. Without prodding from me, they had been doing study groups with their friends remotely and I can hear/watch them during some of their study sessions.
They also had been working hard on their review school.
I think it’s time that they can be given phones so I can call them every now and then. Or they can call me if something was amiss.
I will also buy them pepper sprays, stun guns, and whistles (as a high school classmate suggested) that they should always bring in their bags or pockets.
Meanwhile, it’s traditional for mainstream media to report about the problems of public school education every time the school year starts. I had produced special reports about these when I was still working for a newspaper. But I went beyond the usual classroom shortage and ill-equipped teachers. I focused on indigenous people and the lack of support from the national government and the malnutrition among Filipino school children. I also reported about the high worm infestation among school children in the Philippines and my research brought me to UNDP to talk/write about this.
I reported such things not to antagonize the Department of Education but to shed light on a systemic problem.
These journalists who shined on the misguided focus of Sara Duterte (bringing back ROTC instead of addressing the lack of facilities and learning resources, really???) are now getting attacked. It prompted me to defend them on Twitter.
Being a journalist in this country in the time of Duterte and Marcos is really a dangerous job. Not only security-wise but also our mental health hangs on a balance. Our jobs require us to be active on social media but then being on social media kills us softly.
And here we go again:
Marcos and his cronies are really out there to kill ABS-CBN.
It’s so stressful today. I wish I could just shut out the world and not read news but that’s impossible because I’m in the business of news production and I always have to be on top of all important news not only in the Philippines, but also in Asia. Like we have upcoming national elections in Malaysia while Softbank is set to exit Alibaba. I start the day reading general and business news (I have two subscriptions) and checking Twitter for breaking news.
By 12 noon I’m already a mass of nerves.
Thank goodness for my comical cats.
I’m about to check out from Lazada/Shopee some pepper sprays, stun guns, whistles, mechanical keyboards, and key caps 😂
This government has declared war on UP.
The previous administration has made all state universities and colleges (SUCs) free for all qualified students (which caused the closure of some private colleges due to low tuition/enrollment). This ballooned the student population of SUCs and yet look at what Marcos did to UP…
Just because the university chose not to invite the Marcos Jr to any graduation and did not confer him an honoris causa, which is traditionally given by the national university to a sitting president.
But why would UP even be forced to do that when it didn’t give Duterte any honorary degree during his six-year term?
Meanwhile, Philippine Star has thrown SHADE at Sara Duterte 🤣
I’m all for it, Philstar! 🙌
It’s so hard to work when it’s a bed weather kind of day. The typhoon passing through Luzon has caused class and work suspensions here (floods!) and going north of Metro Manila. The typhoon will exit Isabela province tomorrow morning. I just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. But edits have been calling to me…🥴
One of the primary reasons why we went home to my mom on a weekday (Friday) was I needed to apply for the UP-wide gate pass sticker. Which I only accomplished yesterday because the UP Police Force handling that closed early on Friday. It was so odd that I needed to leave my license by various UP gates whenever I go home. Like I was a stranger or something. Just because my old sticker expired—hello pandemic!
Anyway, I am finally chipping at my long to-do list.
After I have renewed my registration, I can breathe more easily.
I went to my car seat upholsterer this afternoon but his shop was closed. I don’t know if he’s still in business. 😥 I hope he is because it’s hard finding an OK vendor that is a bit cheaper than competitors located on the other side of EDSA (Kamuning St). Let me try tomorrow before or after I finish my business with LTO in Cubao.
I have so many things on my list and it’s so hard for a solo parent like me to to finish all those tasks because I carry the weight of the world i.e. there is no other adult whom I can rely on for small or big errands like this. That’s why a lot of things are delayed, like this car registration 😣 And I found that it’s not unique to me. One of my bffs who is finishing her PhD (and is in Europe now to submit her dissertation and tie loose ends) said her car’s registration has been pushed to the back burner given the bigger stuff that she needed to cross out on her list. She’s a solo parent too (her kids are with her mom in our hometown). There are things that we cannot delegate to other humans because they’re responsibilities another person (who is not your partner) finds annoying or cumbersome and he/she won’t do it for you unless you’re dying.
It’s exhausting to be in my shoes.
I talked to the travel agency yesterday that is supposed to arrange my S.Korea visa application (because I don’t have the time to do it myself). The agent that I talked to hasn’t come back to me yet. I’m running out of time because I’ll be super busy by next month.
If I can’t have anything concrete by next week, then I’ll just spend my holiday in Palawan—if there’s no typhoon.
We decided to have dinner outside before driving back to QC. After the chaos in Metro Manila roads today, I was surprised that it only took me 1.5 hrs to drive from my hometown to our apartment.
My cats were frantically meowing at us by the door when we arrived. It was like Kimchi was scolding us for being away too long. I gave the kitties their treats and I unpacked my stuff in my room with them. They didn’t want me out of their sight.
My Shopee buys also greeted me by the door 😂
My mom also gave me a beautiful Yakan weave table runner that can double as a piano cover. It was a gift to her but she said she doesn’t have any use for it so she passed it down to me.
A good friend of mine from my former TV network told me not to use this as a piano cover because my cats would luuuuuuuuurve to get their claws on it. He estimated that this would cost PHP 6,000- PHP 8,000 given the intricate design. He was in Zamboanga covering Leni Robredo’s campaign and while he was there, he bought a Yakan weave but the cheaper ones.
OK, I will just have it framed.
I’ve been gifted a couple of times with ethnic woven fabrics like this but I used them as piano covers, which I shouldn’t have. Over time these table runners/wall hangers get destroyed, especially now that I have cats.
As I have blogged here before, I was given by my undergrad college a malong from Zamboanga for being their guest speaker earlier this month. Now this feels richer/silkier compared to my Davao malongs so I won’t use this as a beach cover/mat. Because this made of better cloth than my Davao malongs, I can fold this smaller and stash this in my carry-on bag when I travel.
Oh well, back to the usual chaos of Metro Manila. I will need to bring the car tomorrow to the autoshop for the final buffing and polishing.
This is exactly why we’re moving out of Metro Manila. This carmageddon will never end.
I am currently working now in my future bedroom, my laptop propped on a portable table. I have sketched a new layout for my flat and added the measurements of the Pax cabinets I will be ordering from Ikea for my wardrobe. I hear the wind agitating the trees, amid the relatively peaceful environment, and it makes these photos above more horrifying for me.
I will be driving through this Bedlam tonight.
This morning I walked under a drizzle to buy beef at a much cheaper price compared to those sold in supermarkets in Manila because 1) the cow that was butchered was under the university R&D and extension office i.e. it is not meant for commercial sale (she just happened to have an accident, like a broken leg so she had to be culled); 2) it was a milking cow (hybrid Holstein), part of the cattle that the university keeps under the Institute of Animal Science to produce dairy products under its extension program.
After expending 160 kcal from my early morning walk, I gained it back by having breakfast. LOL.
I started the day early and worked in a better mood than usual. Monday.
I’m romanticizing life here now because I’m not yet living here again full-time. But so far my stress and anger from last week had ebbed and my early morning walks helped a lot in regulating my mood.
To be continued…
Was Ninoy a hero?
He was a spark.
His assassination was a miscalculation on the Marcoses’ part.
He knew he was going to be killed the moment he steps on Philippine soil. But I guess, it was a carefully calculated move on his part.
Primitivo Mijares knew he will be killed writing that book.
He was a spark.
Everyone who got imprisoned and/or killed were sparks.
And when you have multiple sparks then the gasoline tank tips over… You have hell.
Apparently that hell wasn’t enough to burn the Marcoses. Lucifer kicked them out because he will be without a throne if they lingered more.
So now we have them back.
Today we commemorate the assassination of Ninoy at the Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino International Airport). This government wants to change its name back to MIA as part of their historical revisionism. Those who are not poisoned by the Marcoses and their money remember.
At 6:30 am this morning my older sister and I walked to one of the subdivisions outside the university campus to buy food from the pop-up weekend market.
After taking our haul back home (burning around 175 kcal), we walked towards the heart of the campus to buy fresh milk and yoghurt again. I saw these mushroom chips but my goodness, this will make uric acid shoot through the roof.
My mother is quite ambitious. Once upon a time she was on an orchid shopping binge, buying all the orchids she fancied and had them mounted on driftwood to mimic the natural habitat of epiphytes. But then she’s really not a gardener so she just left it to the househelp to maintain it for her. However, gardening is not a priority in this household.
Even though this side of my mom’s property is not included in my future domain, I told my mom I am commandeering this garden because none of her 3 other children are exhibiting any interest in it. No one protested. They can’t even bothered by it. My sisters do not even like having animals to take care of.
I will plant a lot of roses, yellow bells, and other ornamental plants. Edible plants will be planted in between, like herbs and some salad greens.
The garden that will be legally mine will be this:
The following are part of my photo dump from yesterday:
