The sun is finally out. Wet laundry should dry out soon and I will wash the diving buoy again so salt deposits would not eat into the zippers again. I drove Twin A to school for her volleyball training and went to the mom-and-pop stores to buy ingredients for the sukiyaki I will cook for lunch/dinner.

Since I was already at the Korean grocery store (which has since expanded), I picked up freshly made gimbap and Maxim hazelnut coffee for breakfast.

I’m on editing duty today so I should do everything to motivate me to work.

My editing test for the job I was applying for will be next week and I decided to chop it into 90 min bits. However, I have several coverages in Makati, Pasay, and Ortigas next week so scheduling is bit of a pain.

I have to get cracking on those edits now. 💪

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Since I can’t freeze opened tofu again, I decided to make braised tofu with gochujang because I don’t have gochugaru (it went bad because ai wasn’t using it). I can store this in the fridge for a day or two. However, the sukiyaki for lunch won’t make it for dinner (my girls liked it so they ate a lot), I guess  the braised tofu will be for dinner, together with leftover pork adobo I cooked last night.

This day has been cozy, so far.

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There’s a special place in hell for those uncouth Neanderthals who shoot Philippine Eagles for sport.

Fly free, Mangayon! I weep for you.

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I just posted here the places that my girls are most familiar with that had been ravaged by the horrendous southwest monsoon (habagat) rains. I think the flooding is worse now compared to Ondoy in 2009 because Bulacan and Rizal are more devastated compared to the disaster 15 years ago. Ah well, Ondoy has more rainfall volume compared to the habagat now that is enhanced by Typhoon Carina (international name: Gaemi). 455 mm in 2009  vs 217 mm yesterday.

I’m just so relieved that I’m not in Metro Manila anymore. Some friends told me that they were already running out of food supplies because they couldn’t go out. It has been raining non-stop in the Metro the whole weekend, so I was told.

I would have volunteered at the community pantry in Maginhawa or donated there because so many people had lost their homes, pets, and everything else. Again, the out- of-whack weather we’ve been having devastates the most vulnerable in our society. Climate change hits the poor the hardest. Farmers lose their crops yearly to extreme weather conditions and to the local logistical nightmare, which claims as much as 60% of all the food crops being transported from farms to market.

And yet Filipinos can still smile through it all.

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I hadn’t been productive the past two days and it bugs me. However, it seems like I was powerless to stop myself from procrastinating and I don’t know why. Maybe I am ready to quit, I don’t know…

Something is wrong with me. I find that it’s a struggle to finish tasks that I’ve been putting off, like as simple as throwing away the condiments  that came free with our Grab orders that were just on the dining table. I always told myself, I will do it after I wash the dishes or some other chore.

But I never got around to doing that.

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Power was going off and on yesterday so I had to turn on my pc several times. Work got disrupted. Today is much worse as the NDRRMC issued a red alert for Metro Manila and CaLaBarZon area. Some friends on social media had been posting that flood waters have entered their homes, the first time in years. Reminiscent of “Ondoy” in 2009—the time we had to evacuate Pasig-Cainta and camp out in my sister’s condo in Mandaluyong.

All my interview requests have not come back to me yet. Why do they even bother sending me press releases if they don’t want to have more in-depth coverage?!

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For the nth time, I’m so thankful that I’m no longer in Metro Manila.

Yes, this is like Ondoy that engulfed Metro Manila in 2009.

Well of course you can do without them but it’s convenient to have them. I bought this 30m rope that I can use to tie the diving buoy to a boat or weights to anchor it. It has been helpful when my mom was snorkeling two days ago. It was a chaotic affair, with so many boats and all, but we easily found our boat because of this rope. The weights (2 kg each) helped secure the rope.

Once the horrible southwestern monsoon rains have subsided, I will start booking a weekend stay in Anilao to practice freediving. I always end up taking care of others that I couldn’t do my own thing.

It will take two months of waiting though. The habagat season will start in a few days and until Sept then the violent typhoons will start saying hello in Oct-Dec. I have to time it well.

My mom and sister braved the strong waves this morning but the sea grew more violent so they had to content themselves with dipping in the swimming pool. Good thing they have decent pools here.

We are now sandwiched between two typhoons and a low pressure area, which have been sucking the southwest monsoon upwards, hence the violent waves we’ve been having.

The weather is worse in Southern Luzon and Metro Manila today. I hope our flight won’t be cancelled.

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I have another call with my boss in a few minutes then I will be whisked away to the airport and fly back to Manila. I guess its bedlam out there due to the typhoon. 😩 Long drive ahead of me.

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The spark is gone. I no longer want to come back here. I don’t know where to go; everywhere the coral reefs are dying. I don’t know if Apo Reef, the second largest contiguous reef barrier in the world next to Great Barrier in Australia, has escaped this disaster. It takes a decade to 12 years before a reef can recover without disturbance (like a strong typhoon) or re-bleaching. With rising ocean water temperatures, it’s hard to say if they would be able to recover at all.

So I brought seven of my people to various places in Bohol to erase old memories and create new ones. We did the reverse trip by starting with the ATV driving in between the Chocolate Hills.

I initially drove the motorbike ATV but I changed places with my sister at the 1st pit stop so she can enjoy driving alone while I drive with my mom.

The new thing here is the 2nd pit stop where you can climb one of the hills and take in the view from the top.

I didn’t climb because my thighs are killing me after battling with the waves yesterday to keep my mom from drifting into the big blue open sea. I said I’ll just try climbing the old Chocolate Hills lookout.

But… No. Look at this monstrosity below.

I brought my kids to Chocolate Hills so that they can see for themselves this geological phenomenon.

We visited the Bohol Tarsier Conservation Center so my kids and nephews can see in person the world’s smallest primate. They’re 3-6 inches tall and are very sensitive to everything.

We then proceeded to Loboc for the river cruise because we’re famished.

The last time I/we did the river cruise was in 2019 and it was called Loay River Cruise (different operator). The landing for the Loboc River Cruise is just across the Loboc church and is very much new and improved compared to the 2003 version.

My sister and I said this kind of tour is for the balikbayan and foreigners. But for us locals, we just want to have lunch while going around some parts of the island.

We stopped by the butterfly whatever, which was just a sorry kind of zoo. We should have skipped this one.

We stopped by Baclayon church for my mom’s benefit. It is a Sunday after all.

I don’t remember going inside a museum in 2019 so it felt like this museum is new to me.

Then I showed to my family the site of the Blood Compact between Bool’s (old name of Bohol) Rajah Sikatuna and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the conquistador. The monument has been moved from the main highway to a few meters down at the back and they made a park so it can accommodate more cars instead of having them clogging the highway.

It was a full day and my kids and nephews enjoyed it.

To cap the day, I went soundtripping by the beach for an hour until evening fell.

Just like the other major diving spots in this country, Balicasag island didn’t escape the massive coral bleaching of the past 4 years. The entire coral ridge is dead. Dead. Deader than dead. No more fish. It’s grey. It’s a graveyard.

I want to cry. Climate change is killing everything.

We skipped the dolphin watching thing because it was such a waste of time, plus it was already late. The sun was already beating down on us when we left the resort.

It was a very rushed affair compared to our trip in 2003 and in 2019. This time, there’s a queue for boatmen and it’s strictly 1 hr: 30 mins for sea turtle swimming and coral snorkeling/diving. Can’t extend because there is still a long queue of tourists waiting for their turn to be ferried by our boatmen.

Compared to 5 years ago, swimming with the turtles now is super chaotic because you bump into so many boats. Same with the coral snorkeling.

Over-tourism is ugly.

Climate change is uglier.

I no longer know how to express this grief. It hurts so much. A scuba diving friend reacted to my Instagram post about the coral bleaching. She said the same thing is happening to Danjugan Island marine sanctuary in Negros Occidental, the coral bleaching has become a problem and the pawikan are getting sick and dying.

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I wasn’t able to practice diving deeper because I was assisting my 74-year-old mom. I was tugging my diving buoy that she was holding on to while she snorkled. The waves were strong since it was high tide, so she was constantly being swept away to the open sea. I had to fight back and keep her in place.

I guess I need to go back to Anilao to do my thing before we go to Coron, Palawan…

But then, I don’t think things are better there. Even the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is dead. My sister did scuba diving there and she said the house reef in Eaglepoint Resort in Anilao was much better than that. That’s how bad the coral bleaching there is.

My heart is breaking.

As Joey Ayala sang:

Karaniwang tao, saan ka tatakbo

Kapag nawasak iisang mundo?