Category Archives: current events

We’re so f*cked

Posted on by

This lockdown will never end and this Delta variant is just getting started. I’m scared for my children as no vaccine has been allowed for those aged 18 and below. Even if I’m already fully vaccinated, I can still carry the virus back home when I’m buying supplies outside. I haven’t gone out since Thursday last week or 8 days. My freezer is holding up so I really don’t have to buy meat but I have gone low on vegetables. I have to brave it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Dept of Health Secretary Duque is going straight to hell. He has to answer a lot of questions…missing funds, unpaid hazard pay and allowances to healthcare workers, missing PhilHealth money…He is Satan’s little worker. He’s going straight to hell.

According to Commission on Audit (COA), DOH spent PHP 700,000 (USD 13,868) for four laptops. I wonder what kind of rocket DOH was launching to require them to buy a laptop costing PHP 175,000 (USD 3,467) each.

When I was still reporting on national issues, I used COA reports during my slow news days to investigate how each line agency or Congress is spending its budget. I once wrote about congressmen spending most of their pork barrel on waiting sheds and basketball courts that do not exist. When I was doing the investigative reports on the Napoles pork barrel scam, I used COA reports to follow the money and I haunted the Securities and Exchange Commission to get the General Information Statements of the NGOs that were supposedly the recipients of the pork barrel funds.

PhilHealth not paying hospitals is already crippling the country’s healthcare system. A lot of hospitals are going belly-up and many more will become crippled and may have to close down if this goes on. I wrote a long-form article last year regarding this. As some of my sources said, private hospitals outside Metro Manila have bigger exposure to Philhealth compared to those in Metro Manila as the percentage of privately insured patients and out-of-pocket payers is higher in the country’s capital compared to the provinces. This is dangerous since there is a dearth of public and private hospitals in the provinces and if you have a raging pandemic, it’s like you have already doomed the population that lives outside Imperial Manila.

I was supposed to write something related to this for a local news outfit but the lockdowns and my lack of free time for other things outside my day job have hampered me from doing this. This kind of reportage requires old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism—it involves poring over voluminous public records and documents that could only be provided by sources. Clandestine meetings with sources. Working as an independent journalist on output-basis arrangement with a news agency is not feasible unless the journalist is under a grant. Investigative stories should be done by news outfits that can dedicate a team for this, which we did before. It’s expensive and a lot of work. The news desk will also be understaffed because it will lose people who can write and edit daily spot stories because these people will have to dedicate their waking hours to the project.

So I can’t blame newspapers, TV networks, and online news outfits for not being able to build and retain a special team to tackle stuff like this. They are caught up with the day-to-day production of news stories as they fight for eyeballs and ad revenues. And this country is not like Singapore where nothing happens–where trivial things get front page treatment. Our news cycle is faster than other markets–about two weeks max–because this country is just too fucked up, too many things happening. I remember going through and reporting on a civil war, major earthquake, and earth’s strongest typhoon on record, all of which happened in just three months.

So it is up to the special dedicated investigative journalists to put these corruption stories to the spotlight.

All The President’s Men and Spotlight will not happen if not for them.

International cat day and commodification of culture

Posted on by

I am not one to celebrate silly special days like this but in honor of my cats who give me joy especially during the darkest days, I am now recognizing this day just for them.

One presscon, Kimchi pulls this stunt. Photo by CallMeCreation

Here I was, a screencap of our Zoom press conference last week with my cat, Kimchi, in her weird sleeping position. During the first Q&A my background was blurred but it looked so unnatural that I had to revert to normal background. And now I have a cat acting out in the background.

Meanwhile, I posted this on social media the other day at the height of my despair that may have something to do with Nas Daily’s exploitation of Filipino indigenous culture.

There is a lot of them out there. They make vlogs about the Philippines–from the fake “I love the Philippines”-type of content to exaggerated reaction videos of anything Filipino/Philippines to exploit the Filipinos’ hunger for validation from foreigners, especially the white ones, by doing Pinoy-clickbaiting.

This happens more often to Filipinos because majority of us are English-speaking compared to other nationalities in Asia, thus, we are very accessible and ripe for this type of click-bait content.

And this feeds into Nas Daily’s strategy. After the controversy with Nas Daily’s exploitation of Apo Whang-od (making a Kalinga tattoo course in Nas Academy), Nas Daily lost 500,000 subscribers. That’s how big his Filipino audience is, or that may just be a fraction of his overall Filipino audience.

Nas Academy also lost some content providers like Catriona Gray and Panlasang Pinoy.

As a half-assed academic, I wanted to write a paper about this phenomenon of commodification of culture by so-called influencers viewed through the lens of neo-Marxism. Like there is this conflict between social equality and freedom. In this context, Apo Whang-od has the freedom to monetize her skill (if indeed she fully understood the alleged agreement between her and Nas Daily) but it is not for Nas Daily to exploit because the designs, technique, tools, rituals, and traditions belong to the Butbut tribe of Kalinga (conflict between individual freedom and social equality). There is a governing body that protects all things concerning our indigenous peoples–to make sure that social equality is protected–that Nas Daily bypassed.

Let’s see how this controversy will turn the tide regarding the exploitative vloggers.

Lockdown again

Posted on by

The strict enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) a.k.a. hard lockdown has started a few hours ago. Since I was busy with work, it was only this morning I was able to go to the barangay hall to apply for a quarantine pass.

But they sent me home because I didn’t bring a 1×1 photo for the pass, which they will make as an ID of sorts. Who the hell carries a 1×1 photo all the time?!

Good thing I always have a stash of photo papers at home. I printed 1×1 photos all over my A4 sized photo paper. I just don’t know how I will be able to use up all those when everything these days are digital 🤔

I went back to the barangay hall only to be told that I don’t need a quarantine pass because I can use my work ID. Drats. So I called up my househelp and told her to apply for her quarantine pass instead so both of us can go out.

While I was at it, I asked about the seal of authentication for my vaccine card. The barangay officer took my card and said the barangay captain will collate all those needing the authentication seal and have them stamped then they will return it to us. I just hope they do it soon.

Then I spent the rest of the morning and noon panic-buying. I bought a lot of meat from a Monterey Community Market, then shopped at Puregold for other food and household supplies we will need in the next 2-3 weeks. Then went to UP for vegetables.

My shopping cart. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Then added some essential stuff. For my sanity.

For mental health. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

In other news…

Carlos Paalam’s fight will be at 1 pm today. He can either win silver or gold.

Fighting!

There it goes

Posted on by

Filipinos are glued to their free tvs and internet streaming to watch the Olympics. Because we have nothing else to cheer us up during these dark days. We’re facing a hard lockdown in three days and beds are running out in NCR hospitals. We are looking for distractions that could allow us to leave the grim realities, even for a little bit.

We now have three medals in sports that really do not attract a lot of sponsorships (weightlifting and boxing). Our bet in men’s pole vaulting didn’t make the podium but that’s ok; EJ Obiena still ranks 6th in the world and that’s something because we had nothing before. Carlos Yulo, was near podium, finishing fourth overall in men’s gymnastics but that’s still ok; we didn’t have anything before. He came a long way.

Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial are assured of a bronze after shocking the world with their wins to reach the semis/final round. You know, boxing is a sport in the Philippines to get people out of poverty. They’re fighting with all they have because they had nothing to start with so they have nothing to lose. That’s how Manny Pacquiao fought his way out of literal hunger.

I was once interviewed by my journalist cousin who was writing for NBC at that time (or I cannot remember which outfit she was writing for) about Manny Pacquiao’s near-legend status in the Philippines and why his story and his wins resonated with all Filipinos and Southeast Asians. I can no longer find that article online.

Meanwhile, the RAM stick I ordered arrived the other day and added it to the laptop-turned-desktop to make everything faster. My daughter saw me once again operating on that 15.6″ laptop and asked what was I doing? I said, “Saving me at least PHP 500 of labor,” because I can do this simple task on my own.

It’s a Samsung DDR3 stick shipped from China that I bought for about PHP 1,500 on Lazada. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I think this machine will stay with me for a while, even after Windows 11. I think this is the only physical remnant of my relationship with J that is left with me. I still couldn’t bring myself to call it mine and I think I will always refer this to as the laptop that I hijacked from J. I didn’t know why I did what I did even though I knew I could buy my own. Maybe at the back of my mind I wanted a piece of him because I always knew he would leave sooner or later. He already left me twice to go back to his adopted country. He was also trying to get back to Singapore because he was applying for jobs there. It was just a matter of time, it was always weighing on my brain. I don’t know how long I will keep this but based on experience, I can keep machines running until they’re past 7 years old. This Acer Aspire E-573G is already 6 years old (released in August 2015) but is still working well.

(Tropical) Depression

Posted on by
Three tropical depressions.

So the rains just took a little breather this weekend but it seems like more will come in the next few days as we see we have three tropical depressions forming north and northeast. They look like they will be typhoons heading to Japan later this week, which may pull more southwest monsoon rains for us in Luzon and in Taiwan. Monsoon + lockdown = cabin fever.

Or extended lockdowns = joblessness/hunger. I need to keep my coffers available again for the community pantry.

Which spells trouble for us economically. As my economist brother posted on social media:

The purpose of the quarantine is to delay the surge so that the system, specifically the health care system can prepare itself. The question is, does the system have the resources it needs to prepare/recalibrate/upgrade? Can we expect additional health workers? Do we have enough vaccines for the planned intensified vaccination program? Have these vaccines been distributed or are they ready for distribution? Have we taken stock of the capability of our LGUs to vaccinate or intensify the vaccination drive? I HOPE THESE WERE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION BEFORE LAGUNA WAS PUT UNDER MECQ. REMEMBER QUARANTINE DOES NOT KILL THE VIRUS. BUT IT KILLS THE LOCAL ECONOMY AND THE LIVELIHOOD OF OUR PEOPLE.

Because this freaking government does not have any concrete plans at all. we’re 1.5 years into this crisis and yet we still don’t have plans. The healthcare sector is completely exhausted. There are no more nurses; hospitals are understaffed. Doctors are tired.

People are sinking into anxiety, anger, and/or depression because of this never-ending lockdowns while other countries with high vaccination rates are returning to normal. They’re opening Lion King on Broadway, while we scramble to get our shit together before we hunker down again and wait for another disaster.

So Filipinos are distracting themselves with the Olympics, with the stellar performances of our athletes, despite all odds. They’re serving as beacons in the dark days ahead.

Our boxer, Eumir Marcial just knocked out his opponent today, assuring him of at least a bronze medal. He’s up for silver in the next bout.

A genuine display of sportsmanship! 🥊 Philippines’ Eumir Marcial and Armenia’s Arman Darchinyan hug after the men’s boxing middleweight division at the #Tokyo2020#Olympics. 🙌 Read more: bit.ly/3ygA204. (📸: Luis Robayo/AFP)

Meanwhile, another woman in a “masculine” sport is gunning for gold. Nesthy Petecio will be facing off with her Japanese opponent in the finals. As Manny Pacquiao has proven, the Philippines is one country to beat in boxing.

Meanwhile, EJ Obiena is also up for gold in pole vaulting. These guys are so inspired now that they saw how Filipinos celebrated Margielyn Didal and Hidilyn Diaz the past few days.

Hoping for three golds. So at least my countrymen would have something to smile about in the coming days.

This reddit post has made the rounds on social media because of its universality among Filipinos. This is one of the most annoying attitudes I have encountered among those Filipinos who just happened to have stepped on foreign soil. I related to J this situation when he told me of his encounters with at least two Filipinos here in the Philippines who have distanced themselves from Philippines-based Filipinos and elevated themselves as superior to those who stayed here. One insisted he is a Singaporean (even if he’s really a Filipino) and he is just “forced” to be here because his company assigned him here because, well, he is Filipino! While the other one is a Fil-Am who grew up in the US and kept on insisting he is American and he disdains being identified as Filipino during his conversation with J.

As I told J, some of us chose to stay here because we can. Our families have means to stay here, meaning our parents didn’t have to go abroad to give us decent lives. Some of us stayed to help the country because if all the skilled manpower and the intelligentsia left, who would be there to help the oppressed and the voiceless build the country? Brain drain devastates a country. This is the primary reason why none in my immediate family left the country, even if we’re going to be a cesspit come 2022 elections.

And yet we get flak from those who just happened to have a whiff of foreign air. I have heard from my classmates, my sister (who tried to live in the US for a while) and other relatives and ex-in-laws stories about the Filipino communities in the US, the primary preoccupation of their members is to one-up each other. The reddit thread in the above post also talked about that toxic environment among Filipinos that some of them have all together avoided Filipinos or left the US to live back here. One high school classmate of mine told me about the toxic community she was forced to live with for a time when she was pursuing her master’s degree in the US. It was so toxic that she avoided all Filipinos within the state.

Third-world attitude in first-world country.

The week that was

Posted on by

Too many things happened the past week that I wasn’t able to write my thoughts about Hidilyn Diaz and Margielyn Didal making waves a the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Margielyn Didal of the Philippines in action at Tokyo Olympics 2020’s women street skateboarding finals at the Ariake Urban Sports Park, Tokyo, Japan on July 26, 2021. (Reuters/Toby Melville)

Margielyn was just a beautiful ray of sunshine in this dark, dark world. The Brazilians love her (and I’ve been seeing their tweets). She was just happy to be there competing and being friends with her competitors.

Meanwhile, that day was one of those days you just want to shut down and ignore the State of the Nation Address of Duterte. He was rambling for three hours, being his usual incoherent, unintelligible self. He even would not exert effort to read his prepared speech well. Then he would segue into one of his stream of consciousness that don’t make sense. When I caught him on TV (a rare moment that I watched TV, by accident), he was invoking China several times that I had hurled a string of invectives at the screen.

The irony later that day was that a woman–which Duterte looks lowly upon–earned the first gold medal for this country in a sport that as seen as masculine. And crushed China. How poetic.

This administration even demonized her when she asked on social media for private sector sponsorship for her bid in the Olympics because government support was not there. Then the DDS crucified her: how dare she challenge the government, the oh so benevolent Duterte! Then she was included by then-Presidential Spokesperson Panelo in the fictional matrix of destabilizers. Which the DDS trolls magnified and made Hidilyn fear for her life.

It gave me goosebumps. Kudos to you, Sgt. Diaz.

I had stayed with my cousin for three days and made sure her mom is stable before I went back home to attend to my household and work. My other cousin (the older one) finally arrived and they were able to make more arrangements in case my aunt turns for the worse. They were able to arrange for a priest administer the Anointment of the Sick (last rites) via video call (IATF protocol says no personal visits yet allowed? Or is this a parish decree? I don’t know) and funeral arrangement when the time comes.

Unfortunately, we will be going on a hard lockdown again a.k.a. enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) on August 6-20 so I don’t know how I would be able to go to my aunt when she…I was already assigned by my family as the first responder.

Speaking of lockdown, I did a lot of errands yesterday and today before everything shuts down. I contacted a plumber who charged me PHP 4,000 for changing faucets. And I had to redo all his work today because he did a bad job.

But it was a learning experience for me. I finally was able to do simple plumbing work like changing faucets.

Now that I know how to apply grout, I can chip away that dingy grout and apply a fresh one. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had to change this as well because the whole pipe assembly leading to the shower was leaking. The reason why water is not bursting outside the walls is because the broken joint or whatever was being held together by cement. But it’s just as matter of time eventually the thing will give way and I would have a huge problem. We changed the original separate faucet and shower setup to a dual faucet shower installation so we don’t have to open up the concrete walls to install new pipes. This is cheaper and easier.

Unfortunately, the one we installed yesterday was a lemon despite the its hefty price tag. I had it exchanged for a better one and installed this one myself.

I changed faucets! Achievement unlocked.

The rains won’t stop. No chance to ride the bike before ECQ. *Sigh*. So I need to buy that can of paint so I can finally refresh my closets and doors’ paint because Kimchi loooooooooved scratching that corner of my closet. I need to find something to do indoors. The rains would not stop. Soon the strong typhoons would come after August or September.

Looks like a typhoon forming northeast that sucks the southwest monsoon. The dark rain clouds over Luzon have dissipated a bit though.