We decided to have dinner outside before driving back to QC. After the chaos in Metro Manila roads today, I was surprised that it only took me 1.5 hrs to drive from my hometown to our apartment.
My cats were frantically meowing at us by the door when we arrived. It was like Kimchi was scolding us for being away too long. I gave the kitties their treats and I unpacked my stuff in my room with them. They didn’t want me out of their sight.
My Shopee buys also greeted me by the door 😂
My mom also gave me a beautiful Yakan weave table runner that can double as a piano cover. It was a gift to her but she said she doesn’t have any use for it so she passed it down to me.
A good friend of mine from my former TV network told me not to use this as a piano cover because my cats would luuuuuuuuurve to get their claws on it. He estimated that this would cost PHP 6,000- PHP 8,000 given the intricate design. He was in Zamboanga covering Leni Robredo’s campaign and while he was there, he bought a Yakan weave but the cheaper ones.
OK, I will just have it framed.
I’ve been gifted a couple of times with ethnic woven fabrics like this but I used them as piano covers, which I shouldn’t have. Over time these table runners/wall hangers get destroyed, especially now that I have cats.
As I have blogged here before, I was given by my undergrad college a malong from Zamboanga for being their guest speaker earlier this month. Now this feels richer/silkier compared to my Davao malongs so I won’t use this as a beach cover/mat. Because this made of better cloth than my Davao malongs, I can fold this smaller and stash this in my carry-on bag when I travel.
Oh well, back to the usual chaos of Metro Manila. I will need to bring the car tomorrow to the autoshop for the final buffing and polishing.
I will quit caring about this job. I think I’m burning out.
Today was a shitty day. I don’t have the strength to write about it. It’s just…😡
I’ll just tune out after six. That’s it. I’ve been pushing myself too far and hard the past few months. I shouldn’t. Even if I’m out there to prove something, what will it bring me? Nothing. I don’t get gold coins for being extra.
So that’s it. I log on in the morning, do my job, then log off at 6 pm.
This is laughable. It has become a “blockbuster hit” because Imee Marcos bought all the tickets and gave them away to schools and government agencies.
Damn.
“It’s clear that they were trying to evoke sympathy, that we were supposed to feel sorry for them,” said Miguel Reyes, a University of the Philippines researcher who has studied the Marcos regime and the family…
…The film’s release comes just a month before the country marks the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Marcos’ martial law next month, which will likely put the old regime’s brutal legacy in focus.
All the more we need to educate the public about the crimes the Marcoses committed and brought the country down on its knees.
My children are better than most of the adults in this country. They had been researching on their own about the Manila Film Center tragedy, Archimedes Trajano, and Boyet and Primitivo Mijares. They did it without prodding from me. They did it on their own volition; they were curious why I am so against the Marcoses. They were watching video clips. These are just some of the thousands of stories that are out there to tell the truth about this family.
This crappy movie was just bizarre.
To continue with today’s theme—shit—here we have a story about sewerage woes in UK beaches.
This is the reason I never went back to Boracay. My last trip there was in 2009 and that trip wasn’t enjoyable because of this above ⬆. People who go there to see and be seen don’t realize they are swimming in their own crap. My mom (who is an expert on this) said the mere presence of algal bloom on the shores of Boracay every summer is indicative of the high nutrient content (i.e. sewerage). This is the same reason she never went back.
For an underwater enthusiast like me, there are much better alternatives to Boracay. However, people flock there to see and be seen. To party. To have sex (in the case of my gay friend K). To be able to say, yeah, we are in Boracay, like it was a badge of honor.
No thank you. I don’t want to swim in sewerage water.
I was tempted by my friend B to stay with her last summer because of the kite surfing part. But naahhhh. I was better off diving in Anilao.
To cap off this day, here’s some reality check:
And all I can say is when you’re 40, you no longer give a crap and you dig an underground lair for yourself and be content like a mole.
I have to say that today’s lunch (and extended to dinner) was the best Hainanese chicken rice I’ve done so far. I know now the secret to the yummiest rice—I bought the secret from Fairprice 🤣 For years I struggled with cooking the rice that matches the the the taste of the rice served by the various vendors I patronize in Singapore. It turns out it can be achieved through a packet. OMG, I have wracked my brain for years…
But the chicken itself is a different story. I experimented for years and it was a lot of trial and error. The best technique for me is not to cook a whole chicken if I won’t do it in a huge stock pot and hang the chicken on poultry hooks while it is being poached in liquid with aromatics and its own chicken fat. If I didn’t do it this way, I always end up with a bloody chicken or an overcooked chicken. I instead chop the chicken into manageable sizes, season as usual, then poach it. This way I end up with perfectly cooked skin and inside.
The soup is lovely. My girls and Ate C enjoyed the dish that 1) Ate C had to cook rice again; 2) Twin I went for seconds or thirds even. The ginger sauce/paste I bought from Monterey Community Market and Lee Kum Kee Hoisin sauce completed the dish. *chef’s kiss*
Tomorrow I want to make Nasi Goreng and Nasi Lemak. I need to do a big vegetable shop and I can buy from the veggie shop in UP the lemongrass and pandan that enhance the flavors of Nasi Lemak.
I’m not yet that brave when it comes to cooking Laksa. Rendang I can manage but it does require slow cooking.
Another option for tomorrow is kolo mee, which is basically pancitcanton for us in the Philippines. Mee or Mi is the Hokkien/Minnan/Fookien/Fujian word for “noodles”. The Filipino Chinese here call noodle soup mami, which became a generic term but it is actually Ma-Mi, which is a noodle soup dish popularized by a Chinese migrant whose last name is Ma. If I’m not mistaken, he was the founder of Ma Mon Luk in various Chinese enclaves here in Metro Manila.
In Batangas, where my family comes from, we have lomi, which are bigger noodles with thicker soup compared to mami.
The word pancit came from the Fookien words biang shi/biang sik, which refers to food that can be eaten with the hand/flat food. Traditionally, we have dry noodles that were served on banana leaves and we eat it by shoving the noodles into our mouth through a folded banana leaf, kinda like what you do with nan bread or tacos–only you don’t eat the banana leaf. I had this kind of pancit habhab in Quezon province when I went there during one Pahiyas Festival. I remember buying big packs of pancit habhab to bring home because the one I tasted in Lucban, Quezon was delicious.
My daughter, Twin I, said, mommy, why do you know such things??? I told her I am a walking encyclopedia of useless facts. I love reading and researching such things and for some reason I retain them.
That’s also the reason why I can recall deals and so many facts about the companies in the Philippines, their history, who is not in good terms with whom…the tension between the Chinese Filipino tycoons and the old guard Spanish families and that’s why we had two stock exchanges before (Manila Ex and the Makati Ex), which was stupid, really.
I’m the trivia girl. It serves me very well in my job right now.
I woke up before 7 am since I had a lot of work piling up on me. However, I got distracted by a lot of keyboards on my desk so…I cleaned them. As in I took them apart and cleaned them with Wipeout and each keycap was brushed… The Miniso bluetooth keyboard will be given to my younger sister while I roadtest the 61-key mechanical keyboard for today.
I just ordered new keycaps for the latter. Just because. Maybe I should change the switches to cherry or buy a sound dampener…Let’s see if the blue switches would grow on me.
Then I attended our weekly bureau chief-commercial team calls while I cleaned the keyboards…and it’s non-stop editing and admin work from thereon. It’s already 10:17 pm and I’m still not done with the edits.
I worked at our office on my last day in Singapore and managed to still meet my colleague friend at the last minute she came into our office. She helped me load my luggage when my Grab Car arrived at our building’s driveway.
I was so tired when I arrived in Manila and I had to pick up my car at ParkNFly and drive for 1.5 hrs to my hometown. I even had to tweak my speech and slept at around 4 am.
So sleeeepppyyyyyyy.
The sablay is an indigenous clothing material worn like a sash on formal occasions. Woven into this garment are the baybayin (indigenous script) for UP, which in Tagalog is pronounced as U-Pa.
We were the last batch of UP graduates who had worn the mortar and toga for graduation. The batches that came after us had to wear the sablay, which I prefer because it’s not as hot and it looks more elegant. When I was conferred with my master’s degree, I had the chance to wear the sablay but I just borrowed it because I thought I will no longer wear it.
How wonderfully wrong I was.
Who would have thought that I would be speaking before graduating students 22 years after?
During my time, only the honor graduates were given the privilege to wear this pin.
But I was not allowed to wear the sablay when I was there because I was wearing black. LOL. I already forgotten the dress code.
I was a bit afraid that my speech was too…blunt. Very me. Too much of an activist. But then the Chancellor said the same thing. The class valedictorian (first summa cum laude of the college) said the same thing. Some parents have liked my speech. Faculty members thanked me for saying it. Some parents had their photos taken with me instead of being offended.
My mom was proud of me and sent a copy of my speech to her friends. She said my dad in heaven would have been so proud for standing up again for what is right.
College of xxx Testimonial
3 August 2022
Chancellor xxx, Dean xxxx, colleagues, staff, and the graduates. Magandang umaga, maupay na aga, maayong buntag sa inyong tanan.
Any foreign students here? Can I speak in Tagalog?
First of all, palakpakan natin ang mga guro natin na ginapang din ang paggraduate nyo. Ramdam ko ang hirap nila dahil nagturo din ako ng ilang semesters sa UP Diliman, sa College of Mass Communication. Sobrang hirap magturo. Natutulog ako literal na napapaligiran ng chinechekan na mga test papers at articles na ginegradean. In the end hindi kinaya ng katawang lupa ko so tumigil na muna ako magpanggap. So ang tagumpay ng mga magsisipagtapos ngayon ay tagumpay din ng mga guro ninyo.
I just came from a 10-day trip, visiting my regional headquarters in Singapore—which is technically my office—which I haven’t seen for three years. I was busy networking and talking for days to people from all over Asia, Europe and North America about the global economy and where we’re headed in the next 12 months.
I manage reporters from all around Southeast Asia, edit stories from all around Asia Pacific, and literally run alongside the president of Hitachi and CEO of Cargill to get exclusives from them. Pre-Covid, I hop from one city to another because of my job. I report about mergers and acquisitions, billion-dollar deals even before such news hit Bloomberg and Reuters.
Sounds glamorous, right?
But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about an ugly and inconvenient truth.
What I do now is soooo far from where I had been 22 years ago, when I was just like you, trying my best to look adult, which Gen Z people call adulting, but basically still bewildered as to what I would be doing for the rest of my life. I was getting out of my comfort zone. Tambay lang naman ako ng DevCom lobby nun eh—ay mali, ng BioSci pala para sumilay.
At that time, I also wanted to kick myself because I was only 0.05 away from being a cum laude graduate at that time. All I had was a pin from being a Natatanging Pahinungod.
But little did I know that moment at the CDC testimonial in April 2000 would chart the road I that will be treading for more than two decades.
You see, I did not become cum laude because I failed my SocSci 2 course. I kept walking out of that class because my teacher kept on exulting the greatness of Ferdinand Marcos Sr, how brilliant he was, every chance that she got. Yeah, we would be talking about Machiavelli’s the “end justifies the means” then she would interject that Martial Law was necessary at that time. You could only imagine my eye rolls and probably my eyeballs were already in a different dimension whenever she did this.
She said there was no human rights violation during his 20-year reign. I kept walking out of that class and I was sitting in front. Eh maldita ako. I made sure I showed my displeasure on my face. I kept raising my hand to dispute her claims, like that the people wanted a plebiscite as shown in newspaper pictures. And I’m a newspaper person…hello! I told her that was a sham photo; my mom said it was a moment when people were asked who wanted free rice. Of course, the hungry poor people raised their hands and said, “Ako! Ako! (Me, me!)”. Et voila! The photo was used to spin and twist truth.
Sounds familiar, right?
As for her claims about human rights violation? I told her that my uncle, Nick Atienza (then chairperson of the Kabataang Makabayan) suffered one of the most horrible tortures at Fort Bonifacio but lived to tell the tale. That shut her up.
As a footnote, former BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo later told me that Nick was just three cells away from him and every night he could hear the military henchmen torturing my uncle and his screams of pain. Tinotroso nila siya sa pader, yun ang term na ginamit ni Gov Diwa. He said he wondered how Nick even survived.
Anyway, I told my adviser that time that I was in trouble, and I needed to drop SocSci 2. She said dropping would cost me my Latin honors. So I stuck with it.
So long story short, that teacher gave me a 4 and wanted me to take a remedial exam, which I told the Social Science Dept Chair at that time, the late Dwight Diestro, that this was very wrong because I passed all her exams. Instead subjecting myself to the mercy of that horrible human being of a teacher—who reminded me now of Dolores Umbridge—I decided to take SocSci2 AGAIN. And that that didn’t make things better.
I told my parents about this problem, but instead of getting admonished, my father told me one of the most important lessons in my life:
It’s better to not get honors for standing up for the truth instead of accepting lies just to get good grades. It’s difficult to go against the system even if you are right; remember that you must be brave because this is always a lonely fight.
Yes, Latin honors can get you through the doors easier and I congratulate you for your hard work. I was once there. You get the plum entry positions and can demand a better entry salary if you can. At that time, I was frustrated. I could not tell prospective employers that I was 0.05 away from being cum laude. You don’t say that in job interviews. It’s either you are a UP cum laude or not. That is that.
But you know, it will only matter in your first job. Integrity will be with you for the rest of your life and it is the most important thing that you shouldn’t lose, whether you land in mainstream media, development work, or other communication ventures.
And I tell you 22 years after, that moment at the CDC testimonial still resonates with me. What being a Natatanging Pahinungod means; and it turned out to be more important to me than that Latin honors. Because my fight for the people at the grassroots continues to this day. Pahinungod = to offer oneself. This is not outreach where you come from a different place to reach out to those who are at a lower level than you. Because pahinungod is being with them, opening up yourself to them.
Ang trabaho ko ay ang ipaglaban ang nasa laylayan at ang puno ng aking pagkatao. As a journalist, as a parent, as daughter, sister, friend, as a Filipino.
My fight for those without voices and for the truth have been my guiding principle in my entire career as a local journalist and as a journalist for Asia Pacific. It’s a lonely fight. It’s a dangerous fight.
I was trolled for speaking out against a government agency that harbored well-known “mother” trolls that keep farms. My trade organization didn’t fight for me even when I took up the cudgels for some of their officials who were being treated unfairly by that government agency. I was told that some government officials didn’t want to attend the business conference organized by that trade group because we (specifically me) were anti-Duterte. I was later kicked out of that trade organization since I am a liability.
I wrote an essay about how the Marcoses brought down the country’s economy by cronyism and it went viral, which exposed me to more online harassment and threats of rape and whatnot.
But I stood my ground. I always remember what my father told me when I failed SocSci 2: Fighting the system is a lonely fight. Fighting for the truth is inconvenient.
In this age of “history is chismis” and “6.1% inflation is not high”, we communicators must always fight for the truth. There’s this artista na itago na lang natin sa pangalang Giselle who graduated magna cum laude from CMC who is now trying to spin the truth, participating in historical revisionism. Did she forget the things that were taught to her by her alma mater? Or because the truth is inconvenient?
We in CDC are equipped with the right tools (such as research skills) to bring out the truth and give voices to the powerless. Tayong graduates ng CDC ay may may kakayahan na makatulong sa mga nasa laylayan. How to communicate with them and for them to facilitate change. Because we are at the forefront.
Ano nga sabi ng isang senador? That Development Communication is irrelevant daw, outdated daw. Mali sya. She’s very wrong. More than ever Devcom is needed now, this moment of 6.1% inflation, of rising interest rates, of supply chain disruptions, of economic downturn that would hammer especially those who are at the bottom of the pyramid.
We can be agents of change for development. Di ba yun naman ang essence ng Devcom? Pero ang pagbabago hindi lang dapat nasa gitna, kung hindi dapat isasama natin ang laylayan. Ang pagtatrabaho para sa pagbabago ay mula sa baba at sa taas at magtatagpo sa gitna. Pagtulong at pagsama sa laylayan. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Hindi yung, “Let me educate you.” Kungdi let’s educate ourselves about the plight of those who were misinformed, who believed the lies fed to them because they no longer had anything else to believe in. It’s not us teaching them because we were more educated but it’s also about them teaching us. You know, if you remember our FGD days…Always remember that it is strategic communication and not merely information dissemination. And we bring that to the table to effect change.
I also challenge the CDC to fight disinformation and misinformation. To fight against the red-tagging of people like me who speak the truth. I was waiting for CDC to come out with the statement against one of its natatanging alumni who was fond of red-tagging us and the rest of the University.
I told you, it will never be convenient. We are up against a smooth and powerful machinery. Misinformation and disinformation are being used to serve the interests of the powers that may be.
Opposition voices are being shut down, one by one, as we have seen in the 1970s and in recent weeks and months. The cogs are turning. The doors are being closed on the faces of journalists like me. Eventually, on the faces everyone.
Where are you in this? Will you accept the lies to get good grades? Or stand up for the truth and be inconvenienced?
Yan ang hamon ko sa inyo.
Padayon!
###
Probably my best friend or my Greek-letter organization sister told the admin that I don’t have any UP apparel that I can wear when I watch the UAAP, especially during UP Men’s Basketball games.
They also gave me a beautiful woven malong, a traditional Filipino-Bangsamoro wrap-around skirt, from Zamboanga. I have two malongs already from Davao and they are very versatile. Usually I use them as a wrap when I get cold or as a beach towel where I can sit. Never as a skirt yet because I don’t know how to securely wrap it around myself.
One of the most fascinating indigenous dances I watched is the Sambi sa Malong performed by the Bayanihan Dance Troupe. Very complicated dance, like the singkil.
AAAAAAAAND I’m still working. Damn it. I just had a story published a few minutes ago.
I didn’t want to think about what to serve my kids for brunch so I opted for the easiest, which is omurice with leftwovers combined to make fried rice. We’re supposed to go to the health center of a nearby barangay for my 2nd booster shot later in the day.
Surprisingly it was easier to book Grab today. Probably because our destinations are all nearby.
Unfortunately for the girls, the booster shots for their age group haven’t been approved yet. So they just had to settle for a trip to the salon to fix their disastrous haircuts.
We had an early dinner at the nearby Vietnamese restaurant because I was feeling sick after the booster and was not in the mood to cook.
I took a nap after this as I was already aching all over, my head was pounding and that my eyelids were ready to shut. I thought the booster #2 would be easier. Nope, I was still feeling sick despite having 4 vax shots now.
Meanwhile, my journalist group chat has been discussing that the Imelda Marcos-style living is back in Malacanang, without any regard for the citizens who are suffering from high prices and struggling with high transportation costs or the lack of means of transportation.
It will be a very long 6 years.
Right now I’m not in the mood to be sociable and I just want to shut myself in my room. The girls are going to be fetched by their dad in a few minutes. I’m so irritated with the world today. People think that just because you’re responding to them, they can just take you for granted.
I’m tired of it. It happens again and again. So no, I choose myself this time. Goodbye.