And the Guevara family responded

I shared on FB the piece I wrote here yesterday and made it public. One of the family members thanked me for putting his family’s story to light and as of this moment this is being shared (now more than 450 likes and 390 shares).

Thank you, CallMeCreation.com, for sharing my family’s story. To add to this, we used to MANUFACTURE VolksWagen as well, long before China did. Take note: MANUFACTURE, not IMPORT. Sinira rin nina Marcos and his cronies yun. Not many are aware how much more damage Marcos caused while he was in power. Let us not let any of his children try to regain that. #MarcosNeverAgain#MarcosMagnanakaw

I knew about his family’s story because of one of my broadcasting courses. My father was also telling me about Radiowealth before. I remembered it when we retired that TV and replaced it with a Samsung, which was then a cheap copycat of Sony. But look at how South Korea grew into what it is now. Take note, we were very much ahead of S. Korea then. We could have been S. Korea now if not for Marcos’ greed.

As I mentioned here before, Manila was more modern than its neighbors before, with tranvias snaking Manila and neighboring towns. Escolta and other areas of Manila could be mistaken for any other cosmopolitan cities of Asia in the early late 19th to early 20th century.

It pains me that it’s only now that people learned about what I wrote about the Guevaras. Theirs is just one of the many devastating stories that the Marcoses produced.

But as Tricia Robredo–Leni’s medical doctor daughter–said, we should get out of our comfort zones and talk to communities, to those in the C,D, and E markets and tell them why this election is important. That they are just being misled to believe the lies by the Marcoses’ propaganda machinery. We shouldn’t be elitist and call those who are supporting BongBong Marcos as bobo (stupid); it was just their misfortune that the truth doesn’t reach them because we are confined to our echo chambers. As I said during my TV interview a few weeks ago, we are employing the wrong communication tactics to reach these low-income segments. Focused engagement at the grassroots level is the key and fact-checking shouldn’t be confined to online media because accessing information requires money. These low-income groups do not read newspapers because our periodicos are in English. It should reach TV and radio–the most accessible form of mass media that speak the poor’s language.

This is the role of journalists like me, put to light the truth that has long been buried by history revisionists. So people will learn and not commit the same mistakes. For people to take action.


YEY! My Kuratake Gansai Tambi finally arrived!

It comes in this green box. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Look at the lovely colors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Color swatch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I enjoyed making the color swatches here as I was able to test the brilliance/opaqueness/translucence of each color. The colors are easy to activate by minimal water. I can see why this is preferred by some manga artists. I’m looking forward to using this tonight. I feel giddy.

I can confine now the portable palette to urban sketching and use this for more serious coloring. I’m trying to do a Chinese botanical tonight but it’s kind of hard to finish the sketch.

Let’s see what I can do tonight.

Making information accessible to all

Today’s broadcast. Kimchi in the background sleeping so I had to blur my background LOL!

The interview went well and my mom (who watched) said I was able to explain the concepts clearly. I told her it is how I taught my students in UP when I was still teaching that’s why I was able to break it down well. The point is, fact-checking is a good initiative but it doesn’t reach the masses, especially the rural poor. The D and E markets make up the bulk of the Philippine electorate and most of them do not have access to the Internet and so they do not have means to pay for data, or even a smart phone. Fact-checking only happens online and it has yet to reach the TV and radio—still the most accessible form of mass media in the Philippines.

As I said, media literacy teaches consumers of media messages how to be critical of the information fed by these entities and be conscious of the political economy involved there. Media ownership and their biases affect the delivery of the message and the content.

A tabloid owned by the Romualdezes.

Like for example this tabloid; it is owned by the Romualdezes and everyone knows they are relatives of the Marcoses since Imelda is a Romualdez. It’s not surprising all the contents are anti-Leni Robredo and pro-Duterte. It features fake news (“hakot [crowd] for hire”) and all negative news about her campign/party.

Meanwhile, Manila Bulletin (which is known to support the establishment) tweeted an erroneous news because it echoed what Marcos’ team claimed. People on Twitter fact-checked the newspaper and said Las Pinas only has 600,000 citizens and how can half a million people—almost all of its citizens be at the rally?

Meanwhile, ABS-CBN published a third-party estimate of the number of people who actually attended the rally in Las Pinas, which in truth only reached 5,000

This is what I’m talking about why there is a need for media literacy. People should not be just mindless consumers of media. Misinformation and propaganda abound in traditional media and social media. Knowing how to be critical is important given democracy is at stake.

However, another hurdle to the critical thinking of consumers of mass media is the “echo chamber” effect that social media have on people, especially those who follow groups and “influencers/bloggers” who espouse disinformation and other lies (i.e. Thinking Pinoy, Mocha Uson, etc but of course I didn’t mention these names on air). I told the hosts this morning the challenge now is how to penetrate these echo chambers so the cycle of misinformation and propaganda can be broken. One of the things I said that could work are the methods employed in social marketing, especially the grassroots approach. I noted that this is one of the methods that the volunteers of one of the presidential candidates have been implementing such as door-to-door engagement of people on the ground, employing community participation in their information dissemination and marketing. Of course I cannot say it on air but we all understood each other that what I’m talking about was Leni. I told them about the AKAP principle (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice) and which form of communication could be more effective in this kind of social marketing that people must do during the campaign season and to fight misinformation and propaganda.

There were many points that I was able to share with them but it’s too long to write it down here.

This was shown live on the local cable TV channel and on FB Live.


Tomorrow I will be driving to Manila to attend an event and then probably work in Makati after. On Wednesday I would be having a call also with one of our Eastern European evacuee-reporter who will be put under my watch as they relocated to Southeast Asia. This would be challenging because of language barriers and the kind of market that he would be covering in the interim. This week is full of conferences and press briefings and I don’t know how I would be able to do much drawing in between.

Tonight I tried sketching cherry blossoms and a stray yellow bell or a similar flower to practice botanical watercoloring. It helps me control my brush and my heavy-handedness when it comes to coloring. Chinese botanical paintings are delicate so I need to do more of these. Drawing and painting tiny cherry blossoms are hard especially that I only devoted 5×8 inches of area in this watercolor paper.

Initial pencil sketch. Art and Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Art and Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I can do an entire series of this and give it to my mom. I put the one I did yesterday in one of my extra Ikea frames, so it would look neater to cover the watercolor smudges around the image. Hah. I can give this to my mom and the one on top when I go home maybe before Holy Week.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I should buy more frames. Hmmmm…

Muddled

I don’t know what’s wrong with me but it seems like I got my dates mixed up. The TV interview is not on the 21st but tomorrow morning! La idiota!

I have checked the broadcast rundown but it’s difficult to express myself in pure Taglaog when talking about media literacy, echo chambers, propaganda, and grass roots communication. I tend to code-switch on topics like this, especially that I used to talk about this in the classroom and the medium of instruction is English. When I give communication trainings and seminars, they were always in English. I know I’m bad but I find it hard to explain abstract topics like this in my own native language (*face palm*).

I better prepare notes/talking points in Tagalog or else I might get carried away explaining in English.


I took it easy today because I was only able to sleep at past 4 am today. Too much milktea maybe. Ever since caffeine was cut off from me by my shrink (because of alprazolam), I had become more sensitive to caffeine, even just from a simple milktea drink.

Anyway, I grilled some skewered pork in barbecue sauce for lunch. Just because.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

And my intention to be a good girl today flew out the window because I wasn’t able to go to UP and exercise and buy vegetables. I slept instead.

OK, I promise to wake up early tomorrow and work out indoors. *Really*

I was waxing the wooden floor of my bedroom when Twin I offered to take over and do it for me. My children are nice. I must be doing something good.

Ate C and I had been training them to do chores and they earn like 5 pesos for each. By the end of they week they have at least PHP 200 that they use to buy whatever. Twin I often buys milk tea while Twin A buys crafting stuff on Shopee. They hate doing the dishes but that’s the most number of chores they can do every week. They also carry shopping bags and put away groceries when I do my weekly shopping. Folding laundry and putting them away in closets. There are other chores that Ate C makes them do.

This is good training for them because when we transfer to my hometown, we won’t have any housekeeper anymore. Laundry would be done by each person. If you don’t do your own laundry, you won’t have anything to wear. I’ll just hire a weekly cleaner for general cleaning but it for the rest of the week would be “clean-as-you-go” style. Same with the ironing, I’ll just hire somebody to do the ironing for their school uniforms. Their mess would be confined to their room and it’s up to them if they want to live in a pigsty or not. As for the bathroom, I had always been cleaning the bathroom twice or thrice a week while I take a shower. For the cooking, I can batch cook or I’ll hire my mom’s cook to do it on a weekend and freeze them for the week.

That’s how we did it when our last stay-in housekeeper left when we were growing up. When I was in high school, we did our own laundry and we mostly kept our messes confined in our rooms. It’s only the public spaces that needed regular upkeep. We had a cook though because as I said before, cooking is not my mom’s thing.

This is why I chose to have a small unit (the size of a two-bedroom condo in Manila) so cleaning would be easier.


Updated. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had to completely dry the first layer and came back to this watercolor to do the second layer. The third layer should make the water grey and that should also fix hat awkward part above where it looked like a whale barfed on the water. The problem was I wasn’t able to mix the colors well. In my attempt to mimic impressionism, I ended up muddying the image (*face palm*). I will try to resurrect this on my third layer. I was attempting this technique below. I guess I’m really la idiota. I should have not completely covered the yellow with blue. It should have been in between and not over.

San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight. Heritage Images / Getty Images

I’ve always been drawn to Impressionists because there’s always something ethereal about their works. Juan Luna’s and Felix Hidalgo’s works are along the same lines that’s why they were the ones I remembered at the National Museum.

Anyway, a drawing a day helps me improve. I need to go to museums because my creativity is drying up.

I have cut some of my 300 gsm water color papers so I can concentrate on post-card sized drawings so I can attempt botanicals. When I was in Shanghai in 2003, I spent an entire afternoon looking and studying Chinese scroll paintings. It was the same thing I did in Taiwan in 2016.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Let’s see what I can come up with.

Update. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Well, ok. Not bad but messy. Art and phooto by CallMeCreation.com

Media literacy

My best friend, who is teaching in UP, has been consulting me about some TV guesting in a show where she is an executive producer. The topic was “fake news” and the elections then our conversation drifted to media literacy and society. Then she said my ideas were perfect for the show so she onboarded me as one of the guests just talking about it. It’s funny because I only have a master’s degree on this while she has a PhD. Hahaha! She says I’m on the ground as a media practitioner so I have real-world application.

As a half-assed academic (or former academic), I do have my moments. 😂

I will be on air on the 21st.


Cradling Kimchi while I worked. Photo by Twin I.

I’ve been surrounding myself again with things I love to lift my mood. Recalling the horrendous days when I unearthed a lot of information and relating to my shrink my feelings and the roller coaster ride I experienced the entire month of Feb had undone me this week. Because I had been suppressing them so I can function but out of necessity I had to dig for them again. I just wish it would just end now. I had been squishing my cats today as a stress reliever. I also watered and trimmed my plants, which are blooming again. Woooohooo!

Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This was supposed to be dying a few months ago but it has now bloomed again. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My variegated mini roses in bloom again. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Photo by CallMeCreation.com

After a day of editing, transcribing interviews, and writing an article, some quiet preoccupation is needed. Like tending to my plants or drawing.

Initial sketch. Panglao island, Bohol. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

Ok I just had a lengthy discussion with some editors this late at night because a company is threatening to sue us because my boss didn’t edit the story properly. It’s a long story but she really doesn’t edit and fact checks and stuff. My hands have always been tied because I cannot usurp my boss even though she’s effing up.

Sigh. I need to destress. I’ll start coloring this sketch above. Thank God for watercolor sketching.

UPDATE:

Thank God it’s Friday

Kimchi having a good stretch. Photo by CallMeCreation,com

After one week of drama, I’m a little bit better today. Writing down all those feelings and processing them helped me regain my confidence and self-worth. I should never lose sight of that. I may be fat and unglamorous, but at least I’m not a bimbo or a bitch. I think I’ll be fine in the coming weeks.

As part of my purging, I finally used the Dr. Jart face mask that J gave me from his trip to S.Korea in 2019, which I had been saving for some unidentified special occasion. Well, there’s no more reason to hold on to the only thing he deliberately gave me as a present. It’s done. It’s gone. And my girls facilitated the application. Actually, it was their idea to finally use it.

I finally gave up the pretense that I will be productive today. I just finished one edit today and the rest are admin tasks. Then I brought the girls to Centris for their Covid jabs.

Looks like party. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I expected more chaos since we’re talking about kids 5 years-11 years old but the QC admin did a great job of facilitating a sane vaccination program for children. There was some kind of entertainment, food, and giveaways so the children can be distracted. It took us 2 hrs since there were a lot of kids. At least the venue is airconditioned and had enough seats for both the children and parents/guardians.

We have to be back on March 4 for the second jab. Then we can go diving!!!

QC Memorial Park. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

After the vax, we went to Manila Seedling Bank (again!) to buy more plants/flowers. The girls had been inspired now that the front of our apartment is now pretty. Even our neighbors admired my flowers. It’s much more pleasant now within the compound and you tend to forget the mess that my neighboring unit has.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Don’t ask me how much I’ve spent on my plants–I think enough to buy me a brand new Nintendo Switch. I don’t know which hobby would benefit my mental health though.

Among the long-neglected chores I did today is to have my car washed after months of letting it get dirty. After dropping off the plants, I went to the car wash and distracted myself with a milkshake.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It was ok. Enough sugar to keep me going because I wasn’t able to compensate for the lack of sleep today. Even though I took alprazolam last night, I still woke up at around past 4 am and God knows at what time I fell back to sleep. I was so sleepy all day. I now took melatonin but only 3 mg. It’s not knocking me out yet. Maybe I should hike it to 10mg.

This is the consequence of having a hyperactive brain. Can’t stop thinking even at night, hence, the sleeplessness. I haven’t had deep sleep for a long, long time now.


Some friends from Philippine Star published this on Facebook and I tweeted it and tagged one editor of Philstar.com. “Hey, @xxx, who did this? (laughing emoji),” I tweeted. He tweeted back, “We’re still searching for the culprit.”

Then I posted this on IG and said “We’re the ones whose hearts are being broken all the time.” An ex-journo-turned-lawyer friend commented with a lot of laughing emojis. Ahhh, she is one of the many journo friends I had whose heart got trampled on. After the big split, she went to law school.

If she went to law school to heal, then maybe I should go for that CIIA exam instead of CFA. A colleague told me this is more relevant to our work (she’s preparing for her CFA level 2 exam) and investments in general if I want to jump into fund management. Or should I finally pursue my PhD? I was about to apply for graduate school in 2009 under a Reuters scholarship program in NYU and internship in Washington, D.C. I didn’t pursue it because my new (now ex-) husband then didn’t want to come with me. I knew if I left, I wouldn’t have any husband to come back to.

Maybe I should have pursued it then. But then my girls told me if I did, then I won’t have them. They have a point.

Halved

close up shot of white smoke
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Pexels.com

I’m in this very weird state since the middle of January where I feel like my soul is torn in half and one half lives in a different time zone. I still can’t get my body clock fixed so I only fall asleep when there’s already daylight peeking through my curtains. I work in weird time shifts. I know it’s impolite but I only get to reply to emails at night. I start editing in the afternoon; I catch on sleep at daytime. And I don’t even have caffeinated drinks at all.

This is utterly weird.

I don’t know if I’m keeping Mumbai or London time. Sometimes it’s worse, it’s like US Eastern time. This always makes me feel tired and unproductive.

Where is my other half wandering? I need to pull it back and keep myself whole.

And I’m also in this confusing stage right now where I suddenly want to postpone building my flat to stay here in Quezon City longer. I want to stay away from family. I don’t know why I’m in this funk. It’s like I’m missing something.


But things are changing. My girl, Twin I, is already a lady. She had her first menstrual period last week. Her way of thinking is also has matured and it’s like I’m already talking to an adult mini-me. I have to move so that my girls can have more independence without sacrificing their safety.

I don’t know, I’m really confused. I really have to get my other half back from wandering around so I can make logical decisions and not half-assed ones based on feelings. Screw feelings.


This entire weekend was stressful due to politics. I should refrain from opening my Facebook and Twitter accounts to avoid these stressors.

Because this coward, according to my industry grapevine, demanded advance questions before agreeing to a panel interview. All other presidential aspirants (except for Ka Leody de Guzman, who was not invited) were ok with the interview without knowing what questions would be asked. This ball-less coward wanted a codigo (cheat sheet) because he is stupid. He doesn’t even have a platform. And he would look doubly stupid on national TV for stammering his way out of an interview asking him about his platforms, issues thrown by detractors, and questions of how is he going to solve pressing issues once he becomes president.

Of course, this journo wouldn’t agree to such arrangement. Even I would have thrown a fit at such demand.

As expected social media exploded with this issue; Marcos trolls went on overdrive and they went tearing down Leni. It was so stressful.

As every one knows, Marcos has an army of social media trolls working to prop him up and erase history since 2014.

Twitter Removes Hundreds of Accounts Linked to Philippines’ Marcos Jr.

The Diplomat

I keep up with news through Twitter, FB for community news. Dang, I have to avoid them. I should just keep to my Nikkei subscription, and probably Financial Times and The Economist.