It has been a long time since I’ve been to Powerplant at Rockwell Center. It only took me 1 hr and 25 mins to get here from my new home—which is not bad given that it was a Monday morning at rush hour.

I woke up really late, like 7 am when I needed to leave at 7:30 but I drove off already at past 8 am. I wasn’t able to cook for the girls so I left cash so they can eat out for lunch. I stopped at a gas station for more coffee on-the-go and gas, but I still arrived before the AGM started. My drive was surprisingly smooth, except for the fact that I was still familiarizing myself with the Vios so I had the engine die on me twice in the middle of a traffic jam because I didn’t floor the clutch pedal hard enough. It has been years since I drove that thing. And yep, none of my siblings drive an automatic transmission because we’re badass like that. When you always have to contend with floods and natural or man-made disasters regularly, you better have a stick-shift so that you can have your car fixed even in the middle of nowhere. I’m a veteran of Ondoy—that crazy tropical cyclone that submerged Metro Manila for weeks. A lot of AT cars were toast at that time but many MTs were fine, including my kei car, which I had used to plow through high water.

Anyway, I had lunch with fellow journos at Grace Park at One Rockwell after the AGM and we all worked at Starbucks at Powerplant after that. It seems like nothing has changed in my work routine except that I now need to pay for toll on expressways. And I have to do this again on Friday because our Manila reporter and I are meeting execs from a firm who we met in Singapore last month.

By chance, we met that friend who lives in Acqua (a condo very near Rockwell) who happened to be buying coffee where we were working. We went, “heeeyyyyy you from across the river!” We gossiped for a bit and laughed our butts off talking about her horrible ex-manager from a long time ago. She didn’t stay long, knowing we are trying to beat deadlines.

It’s nice to be part of civilization when I need to, but also nice to retire to a peaceful home environment in the province. It also took me 1 hr and 30 mins to get back home, even during rush hour (5:30 pm).

Today is all about the cats. I showed the kitties today their cat balcony, which was supposed to be a catio but was badly executed. Obviously, my contractor doesn’t have pets, especially cats.

My contractor and I were not able to understand each other because I wasn’t able to draw the plans on paper 🤦🏻‍♀️. Eventually, I would have to rectify this by adding a wire fence.

My stairs are nearly finished, probably this week it’s going to be fully painted. The tiles are done but are just covered now to save it from the spray paint. I’m still debating whether I should put a bistro table and chairs on that halfway landing or should I use that as a station for my garbage bins 🤔

After I have recovered from the cost of this build, I will have a huge canopy installed to protect this staircase from the rain. My contractor is already drawing plans. But it seems like the solar power system would be more urgent than this so my savings would have to be diverted to solar power installation.

This is the best time to do a bit of small item-shopping. At sunset. Not too hot and not too busy.

Tomorrow I need to drive to Makati to attend a stockholders meeting again. I will drive the Toyota Vios though because my big car’s plate number is banned on Mondays. 🙄

For a change, I woke up at 7 am but stayed in bed for two more hours before getting out of it. I was forced to because my cleaning lady arrived early to do our laundry and clean my tiny house.

It was already 5 pm when Twin I and I went out of the house to buy cat litter. That’s how lazy we are today.

Just as we left our compound, we encountered the Santacruzan to end at the church. So that’s where the marching band sound and firecrackers came from 😂 While I was getting ready to go out I could hear them, thinking that there was a funeral procession going out of the church. It totally escaped my mind that this is the Flores de Mayo season—the whole month of May celebrated by the Catholic Church as a devotion to the Virgin Mary. It culminates in the Santacruzan.

The tradition of the Santacruzan is a semi-religious one but it’s mostly a beauty pageant of sorts in the local barangays. In the olden days, it is the only time the conservative mamas are able to show off their beautiful hijas to the public.

It is said to be a commemoration of St. Helen’s search for the Holy Cross. The queen (a.k.a. Reina Emperatriz or empress) is the mother of Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor. So normally, the Reina Elena in the Santacruzan is accompanied by a boy in white, representing little Constantine. The Reina carries a small cross throughout the procession, which she will have blessed by the priest once they reach the church. More often than not, the one chosen to be the year’s Reina Elena is usually the prettiest girl in the barangay, but it has evolved into whoever is the daughter of the rich or politically connected.

I had been a sagala (a girl participant in the Santacruzan) with my younger sister as one of the angels when we were in elementary, years before we moved inside the university campus. In those days, we were deep in barangay activities—we were pretty social with our neighbors.

When I was in high school, we always had our summer vacations in our parents’ hometown in Batangas. One summer vacation, I was invited to be a sagala but I don’t remember accepting the invite because I didn’t know where to get the ball gown and I didn’t want to be fussed over since I think I would have been one of the reinas. I certainly didn’t want to be Reina Elena and be the center of attention. I didn’t know if I was invited because I was pretty or because I was a new face in town.

I also remember when we were kids, my father often brought us to my paternal grandma during Flores de Mayo so we all can offer flowers to the Virgin Mary. The old church (where I was baptized) had a procession of flower girls and my grandma (actually, both of my grandmas were devotees of the Virgin Mary) would join us in the procession of flowers.

It’s kinda sad that my girls didn’t get to grow up with these old traditions because they grew up in Metro Manila. When Twin I and I encountered the Santacruzan, she asked, what’s that?! Not that I want them to be steeped in Catholic traditions but I just want them to know about these as part of the colorful Filipino culture.

May is the month of festivals in the Philippines. There are a lot of fiestas celebrated this month, especially since it is was the last month of the dry season, a time of harvest and plenty. The last month before the rainy season starts. But because of climate change, the seasons have gone haywire and we have super typhoons ruining our fiestas.

Although it will not hit the huge landmass of the Philippines (just some islands in the northern Luzon e.g. Babuyan Islands), super typhoon Mawar will still wreak havoc in the country by sucking the southwest monsoon, thus, bringing heavy rains from the west into the northeast. This is why the humidity today is a killer. No rains but the entire day was overcast.

The rains might start tomorrow.

Here we are, having super typhoons early in the season and I haven’t gone diving. Or haven’t done anything that I planned on doing like camping or hiking. 😭 How can I have time for these when 1) there are so many things to keep in order in my tiny house and 2) I will be abroad again in a few weeks–in quick succession (BKK-SG-SG)?!

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Yesterday, I cooked Hainanese Chicken Rice upon the request of Twin I.

But it seems like I cooked too much. I recycled everything today and made a flavorful fried rice bonanza.

Is it easier to cook now? Well yeah, the range hood does a lot of wonders. Cooking is no longer like being in sauna like in the old apartment. I still lack counter space though because I have large kitchen appliances. I must somehow attach them onto the walls or hang them underneath the cabinets.

After my interview this morning with the CFO of the listed company I was targeting, I drove to Ikea this afternoon while listening to the monthly bureau chief call. The beauty of remote working.

My sis-in-law followed me to Ikea from our town and we became enablers of each other. I spent more than I should as a result. 🤣

I’ll just order the girls’ closet online and have it delivered. I already sweated so much lifting these two Alex drawers, so there’s no way I can lift a flat packed cabinet by myself. 😢

What the current administration has done has been taken from the playbook of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. My friends from ABS-CBN are grieving for their fellow workers who would be retrenched due to the closure of DZMM TeleRadyo, one of the casualties of ABS-CBN’s deal with Martin Romualdez’s Prime Media.

We’re just back to where we were 50 years ago.

Marcos Jr now controls the public narrative, with no opposition media left. Of course TV5 will not toe the line because First Pacific owns many businesses that are heavily regulated by the government: Meralco, Maynilad, PLDT, Metro Pacific Tollways, Philex Mining, PXP Energy…When my friend wrote an analytical piece on the Philippine government’s debt with the Chinese, his story was taken down upon the orders of Manny Pangilinan, chairman of PLDT, which owns my friend’s media outfit. He resigned after that, super pissed with what happened. He told me the higher ups told him that the concession of Maynilad at that time was still hanging in the balance and that Duterte has held them by the neck…

So no, TV5 will not toe the line.

The Internet is controlled by the trolls. I was just talking to an older ex-journalist who was one of the primary characters leading to the fold-up of Manila Times under Lisa Gokongwei. He wrote a story that implicated former President Estrada to the shady dealings on the PSE…as a result, the government then held hostage all the Gokongwei businesses, so Lisa had to kowtow and eventually had to close shop and sell Manila Times to an ally of Estrada. So anyway, I was talking to this friend and we talked about what happened to ABS-CBN x Prime Media. He said he initially thought about going back…but then he felt tired just thinking about being harassed by trolls. “I’m already old,” he said.

I said, I don’t blame you. I had been trolled when I criticized one government agency under Duterte. But I will never stop writing about the truth. Trolls are trolls, I said. (Hence, my viral post about the Marcoses).

Until when can I keep doing this when there is no strong opposition?

I had already given up on you, Philippines. But I still maintain this very toxic relationship with you.

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My body clock seems to have been reprogrammed to wake me up at 6:30 am since moving here, while in QC I usually wake up at 8 am. Didn’t cook today since my mom hosts lunch and dinner on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

There were a lot of gamu-gamo (termites with wings) last night, circling around lamps/light bulbs. I told the girls these will die eventually and just keep the screens shut. These flying termites usually come out of the woodwork when there will be a huge storm coming, signalling the end of the hot and dry season (a.k.a. called summer–which is a misnomer because we do not have have summers here).

True enough, I read the news that Guam was being battered by a super typhoon that is headed this way.

And just my luck, my Tuesday meeting (supposedly yesterday) was moved to tomorrow because the CFO had urgent matters to attend to. So tomorrow hopefully the typhoon will not yet make itself felt or else I would be driving along a very wet and slippery SLEX and Skyway. My sis in law will hitch a ride with me and she will do her thing while I do my interview. Then both of us will go to Ikea to buy organizing stuff for my kitchen and a closet for the girls.

Meanwhile, I will be sharing the bed again with my furry babies.