68 kg of rice. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Kgs and kgs of rice and other goods to share.Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The Maginhawa Community Pantry reopened today and there’s a very long queue. I arrived late in the afternoon because I was swamped with work. However, I managed to somehow get away and buy 68kg of rice divided into 2kg packs. Then I checked the supply the organizers have to see which is abundant and which items must be replenished. I will come back after wrapping up work for the week.
I was preparing for my morning live report when a man on a cart selling goods (on pic) passed by the pantry. He handed me a plastic bag with three packs of noodles.
Not knowing what to do with it (and I was busy preparing), referred him to a volunteer. 1/n pic.twitter.com/uXXinPKhui
UPDATE: I finally got in touch with the guy! His name is Alberto Calanza. They used to have a canteen in Technohub but was forced to stop business during the pandemic. So Mang Alberto resorted to selling goods! His children want to buy him a new cart.
The littlest of people, those who have next to nothing have the biggest heart. I’ve been reading and hearing about the generosity of Filipinos and it warms me and pains me at the same time. Prepandemic there are a lot of hungry people neglected by society and government. This pandemic created more of them.
Meanwhile, I am proud of my daughters. They’re good kids. They prodded me to take PHP 500 from their birthday money to spend on surgical masks to donate. I told them to keep the money and I will do the donation. They said, no Mommy. We still have money. We want to help.
I think because they have been aware of what I keep on doing while they were growing up. When they see their parent helping those who are in need regardless my emotional state and financial status, they pick it up. When they see me feeding homeless cats, they develop sympathy and then empathy. One night I called one of my girls to come out of the house with our plastic container of cat food and water for a kittykat near my bank. She was meowing loudly by the lamppost. I drove by our gate, picked up the food and water and drove back to the kittykat. After making sure she is fine (she was being looked after by the homeless man nearby), I went back home and tell the story to the girls.
Kindness to all humans and animals must be taught from the very beginning. No ifs and buts. I also emphasize to my girls that they should be polite to everybody, regardless of age and economic status, hence the constant use of “po” and “opo”. I always correct their manner of speaking.
Kindness and respect, generosity and empathy for all are basic things I’m teaching my girls. It will guide them all throughout their lives.
A lot of poor people who lined up early morning today are heartbroken. Jervis Manahan has been tweeting his conversations with them. This is truly heartbreaking. I was supposed to be there today to give rice packs but I waited until this got cleared up. The organizer of this community pantry called out the police for red-tagging her and the volunteerism that has been rising all around as people responded to the failures of this government. As you know, red-tagging means you can be shot anytime by the police and the military.
I don’t think I cried to my mother when my marriage was failing. But this morning I called up my mother and cried to her and said this is breaking my heart so much. A lot of hungry people out there who are left empty-handed. I told her this is like Marcos’ martial law all over again, when you can be killed by the government anytime. She said this is worse compared to the 1970s; Marcos was not as brazen as the demon in Malacañang right now…This is coming from a former activist who joined the Kabataang Makabayan in her youth.
This government wants to kill the little people.
It’s all concerned about its propaganda. When the propaganda is ruined, the government goes into offensive. This is the foundation of this government–no governance, all propaganda.
#OustDuterte #DutertePalpak
Scars are souvenirs you never lose The past is never far Did you lose yourself somewhere out there? Did you get to be a star? And don’t it make you sad to know that life Is more than who we are?
When sadness envelopes you, you get overwhelmed by all other things such as the things you try hard to suppress. It comes up, gurgling, then explodes like a geyser.
When the government fails the Filipinos, people power rises. Bayanihan at its finest.
Maginhawa community pantry. Photo from Facebook.
Filipinos are accepting and have big hearts. We do not hesitate helping our brethren, be it our fellow countrymen or foreigners (white Russians, European Jews, and Vietnamese refugees come to mind). A lot went hungry when the government started imposing lockdowns again without enough or no financial support to the most vulnerable. So kind-hearted souls started a community pantry, in Maginhawa St, Quezon City.
The sign says “Give only based on what you can afford. Get only based on what you need.” According to anecdotal reports, no one or only a few abused this honesty system. There may be one or two who brought sacks but most only got what their family needs. The queues were long but everyone was disciplined.
This community pantry concept spread like wildfire nationwide. ❤️ It is so heartwarming. When the government failed, ordinary Filipinos rose up to the occasion to make sure no one goes hungry.
Farmers and fisherfolk donated to the community pantry. Excess produce and catch were given to those in need.
Of course dirty politicians will mess up this pure-hearted endeavor.
What this FB post says is that the barangay captain in Los Baños has been demonizing the founders/organizers of the local community pantry because they refused to play politics. The barangay captain wanted them to move the donations to the barangay hall/office so it would look like it’s his initiative. Or the donated goods will be repacked with his name/seal in it. Because politics.
DDS trolls began red-tagging the efforts, saying this is a communist move to brainwash the people. Of course they will tarnish the movement because this is a slap on the face of the Duterte administration that failed the people. It proved that the demon in Malacañang doesn’t fucking care and is just concerned about image and obsessed with bringing down critics.
As part of my continued support to the less fortunate, I will buy rice packs tomorrow and bring these to various community pantries around me.
Because we can’t let anyone die of hunger while we are privileged to be able to stay at home and live comfortably.
Ever since I was a child, my hands were always busy doing something creative. I was a sickly child (darn you, asthma!) so there were long stretches of days being confined in our house and I had to find ways of amusing myself. I created villages out of cardboard and paper. I made paper dolls. I made notepads out of my parents’ scratch white papers. I picked out clean white pages of old notebooks and sewed the spines together to create new notebooks. I made watercolor paintings; they were not good but it helped me express myself. I remember when I was in 5th Grade that I was crocheting non-stop and was making crocheted pen holders that you can wear around your neck like a necklace. In those days, we often lost our pens and it’s annoying if we lose that one pen that writes perfectly. I sold those to my classmates and it did offset the cost of yarn.
In high school, I continued to draw but I concentrated on pencils. I copied the paintings from our art encyclopedia at home and I remember my favorite artist then was Rembrandt. Then I moved on to album cover art and my first one was the art on Guns N’ Roses’ album Use Your Illusion because it was one of the albums I and my guy friends were listening to back in 1993 (yes, I was one of the boys and that’s how I ended up forming a band right out of college with my high school classmates, but that’s for another blog entry).
One summer, my cousin who was taking up Fine Arts at UST taught me how to use graphite pencils properly, like how to shave the graphite to produce the powder to paint and blend the different grades. Later, I somehow lost interest in it so I concentrated on watercolors. I was happy with it even though I’m not good at it. I was always envious of people who were brilliant in drawing and painting. I remember I became friends with one boy (our common friend was a classmate) over art when I was 15 years old and was in Cebu competing in a national science contest for my research on fungi. He was really good at it but he didn’t pursue a career in the arts and instead ended up as a lawyer (yes, we’re still friends).
I was also into photography. In high school, I didn’t know the technical aspects of photography but I was always with a camera back then. I had so many photos of high school scenes that ended up in our year book. In college, I took up photography because I thought I wanted to be a photojournalist. Those were the days when we still used film so we were taught how to process our films and develop our photos in different formats. We used black and white films then (my favorite brand was Agfa) so we could concentrate on composition and exposure. I had to be judicious with the use of one film roll because black and white films were hard to purchase and chemicals for dark room processing weren’t cheap. So I had to remember which aperture and shutter speed to use under certain light conditions–I had to memorize all those combinations because light is tricky and it shifts. I could not rely on guesswork because I only had 24 shots or 36 shots at most.
I remember for action photography, I had to use my dog Kuting as my subject because I didn’t want to hang on trees to capture speeding cars. I wanted to have my own dark room then because I was so enamored of the entire process. My mom bought a Canon EOS Rebel II with 35-80 mm lens and 80-200mm lens because she knew I would be taking up photography. I went everywhere with that camera. Because of my keen interest in photography, my geologist uncle gave me his Nikon FM2 which he used in Antartica. That manual SLR is built like a tank and since it’s all manual, it does not have electronics that could freeze and malfunction. I also owned a Holga lomo camera just because. All of these babies were left in our old house and I wasn’t able to come back for them right after we moved to this apartment because the priority then was to remove ourselves from there as soon as possible. When I was able to sneak back into that house, all my cameras were gone. I think the girls’ dad took them with him to display in their museum of a house in their province (they’re hoarders).
When I became a field reporter, I always had a digital camera in my bag because you’ll never know what could happen. Which proved to be very true in my career. One of my incidental photos ended up on the front page of the newspaper I used to work for before. It occupied half of the front page that accompanied my big story the following day after I took the photo.
My first digital camera was an Olympus but I wasn’t happy with its color rendering. I moved on to a Fujifilm F30, which I loved to bits because of its film simulation settings and low light capability. Since owning that nifty camera, I’ve always bought Fujifilms. I didn’t invest in a DSLR because having owned an SLR that I lugged everywhere I went, I knew it was impractical for me to carry regularly with my laptop and go chasing sources down the hallways for interviews. I still have the Fujifilm XQ1 that I still use in my travels because an SLR is really impractical and cumbersome. A good compromise is a mirrorless camera (like any of the Fujifilm X series) that I can easily shove in my bag. A good focal length would be 35-55mm but it still looks too touristy–because I use my digicam mainly for travel–so the perfect lens would be a pancake lens…
But I digress…
I had/have so many creative outlets but I can’t say I’m brilliant in any of them. That’s why I’m envious of creative and talented people because they have a knack for it while I struggle to produce anything passable. I admire them and I hope that none of those creative people I’ve met lose their talent because they got sidelined (just like that artist-lawyer friend of mine and J).
Taken during my first Angono boat ridewith J about two years ago. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My pulse oximeter has finally arrived. I should make a Covid pack to prepare for home care just in case somebody gets infected and needs isolation. I should be getting the disposable and washable PPEs next.
I’m praying that I wouldn’t need all those things ever.
The situation is not easing up. Everyday my social media feeds are filled with people who express sorrow over a relative or a friend’s death because of COVID-19. Everyday. I’m getting tired and frustrated of saying condolence everyday.
My mom finally got her vaccine shot but I won’t feel at ease until she gets the second dose since protection comes seven days after the second shot. My second dose is scheduled on May 9. Seven days after that I would be confident of taking care of anybody who needs to be nursed back to health.
Meanwhile, one of my cats is in heat again. 🤦🏻♀️ After 3 weeks. I only had 3 hours of sleep because of her. She’s soooooooooo noisy doing her mating calls and rubbing herself all over, knocking down stuff. I finally rebooked their spaying, which was originally scheduled after Christmas. I wasn’t able to bring them to PAWS on their appointed date because I was still dead during those days 💔. Hopefully things will go well with their surgeries on the 28th. 🐈🐈
I went to Wilcon Home Depot after work to buy tiles, tile adhesive, and grout. I am finally biting the bullet and I’m going to have the bathroom floor re-tiled.
Why did it take me this long (almost 3 years)? Because having the bathroom re-tiled means four days of unusable bathroom (for showering) and that would piss off J so much and I would not hear the end of his complaints. Now that he’s no longer here, I can finally do this. I can devote more time to supervising the work since I have more free time now. When we were still together, 70% of my time was devoted to J, attending to his needs, especially when he was still in AirBnBs: driving back and forth, eating out, running errands for him/with him, doing chores, and keeping him company until dawn. When I’m not yet in his condo, he would be asking, “When/what time are you coming over?”
When he was here in the apartment, I had to make sure the disturbance to him was minimal. Any home repairs or improvement must be worked around his schedule.
That’s why when he suggested to have a sink and have another exhaust fan installed in the bathroom, I couldn’t commit because that also entails tile change. I needed to figure out the logistics and was determining whether my EQ can take the complaints that will surely come my way because he would not be able to shower in the bathroom for four days or do number 1 and 2 uncomfortably. The noise–the hammering to chip away the tiles–would also drive him mad. I was running the numbers in my head if I can afford to make him stay in a hotel while the bathroom is being fixed.
But then there were more immediate things that needed my attention like fixing the car. Then I had to drive him to where he wanted to go whenever he was having cabin fever. Before Covid, I also needed to be in the field for work while I ferry him to his meetings. Then every weekend we always had to do something or go somewhere.
I never came around to tackling the bathroom.
So now as part of my loving myself program, I’m going to indulge in a better bathroom, even if this apartment is not mine/I don’t have equity in it. If I can only fit a Japanese soaking tub in there, I would. I don’t like the tub in my mom’s house, the western style tub that wastes too much water. The hotels or ryokan I pick for my travels in Japan had to be 1) within walking distance of a train station or 2) have an in-house onsen or a deep soaking tub.
Bette Midler’s soaking tub. Photo by Architectural Digest.
So once I start building my cottage, I’m definitely going to install a very good water heater and a Japanese soaking tub.
This blog entry looks like it’s just a story about a bathroom. But it’s more of an example of how I accommodated J in my life. That he was a huge chunk of my life for 2.5 years.
