Political parasites

This guy is a partylist congressman, who is what I can call a political parasite/whore without any shame at all. I had interviewed him in the past a couple of times but I didn’t produce any story after those interviews because there was no substance at all. Such a waste of space.

Anyway, he has been spreading all over social media that he is freely giving away Ivermectin as cure for COVID-19. This idiot 1) wasted people’s money buying an anti-parasitic drug for animals that 2) could harm people taking it, especially with the wrong dosage. This is what the US FDA has to say about this:

Here’s What You Need to Know about Ivermectin

  • FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses).
  • Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm. 
  • If you have a prescription for ivermectin for an FDA-approved use, get it from a legitimate source and take it exactly as prescribed. 
  • Never use medications intended for animals on yourself. Ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans. 

What we need are vaccines, not anti-parasitics drugs for horses! I just want to hit his face with my classmate’s urn.


Meanwhile, I’m presenting my haul from the last two Lazada sale (3.3 and birthday sale)…I got 480 pcs of sticker tiles to make my ugly bathroom more tolerable. My landlady didn’t even fix the bathroom when we moved in. I refuse to spend so much for tiles to make my bathroom more presentable. Even this already cost me PHP 3,000.

I just have to solve the problem of the floor tiles. I don’t know if re-grouting will solve its dingy-ness or I should waste money for something that is not mine and have the floor re-tiled. I don’t think my landlady will be willing to shoulder an expense like that for aesthetic reasons. Maybe I should just buy more exchange traded funds (ETF). I bought it at PHP 100 per share last week and now it’s at PHP 98.35. I have to even out my portfolio.

So I have to hold out and make do with what I have and be satisfied with just repainting/refreshing the walls of the apartment. I should save up until I have my lot and tiny house constructed. My friend just told me the other day that there is a 150 sqm lot that is for sale somewhere in our hometown for PHP 1.6m, which is a bit expensive given its location. Maybe I should look around some more. I wish I can drive to Anilao and check out some lots…

Patience. Patience. No one is chasing me. A better option will come up.


Another friend asked me, are you still angry? I said, hmmmm somewhat. If my anger is triggered, then I will be a seething tiger and I’ll be in a bad mood for two days. But most of the days I try to bury it and try to move on. I just pray that he doesn’t catch COVID and his lover doesn’t mangle his home care if ever gets sick of it–he has an abnormally high risk of heart attack due to elevated LDL. If she turns out to be that young bitch, then I don’t know if she can handle 24/7 care of another person while she is still very much under the supervision of her parents.

Taking care of critically ill loved ones requires you to put brakes on your own life. Their needs come first before your own. I’ve had experience taking care and raising premature infants in the neonatal ICU (they allowed me to stay there for more than a month since I had two infants). My children battled sepsis, pneumonia, and a host of other things for more than a month and everyday I didn’t know if they would live or die. I was running around Metro Manila and Laguna looking for blood for transfusions. I diligently monitored their O2 sats and heartbeats every moment I could while watching various tubes sticking into their bodies that were barely bigger than my hand. I didn’t cry at that time; I could not afford to be emotional during those days. I learned how to be level-headed and be lucid in times of intense emotional moments. I’ve also nursed my parents, especially my father, when he was in and out of the hospital for years. I don’t know how I was able to do those things. I’ve schooled myself to be a highly functional individual and learned to compartmentalize so I could cope. That’s why when my father died, I was the only one who was functioning in my family even if I only had three hours of sleep that entire week. I facilitated the legal procedures, the paperwork, the arrangements for the wake, the housekeeping, the financials, the cremation, etc. Then I crashed after all was said and done. I crash only when I allow myself to crash.

So would you help if he gets sick, my friend asked. I said if I’m asked to, I will. But I just wish he’d just leave the country soon because he’s going to be safer elsewhere than here because this country is going to the dogs. You still love him, don’t you, my friend said. I told him, that’s already a given, I’ve already come into terms with that; you don’t easily pull a switch and that is that. Unlike J, who just–poof!–love is gone. I wondered if he really even loved me. Maybe it was just infatuation.

I am just waiting for the moment that I will become indifferent. It has been almost four months. Four fucking long months. I wish i could just fast-forward time and be done with it.

Vaccine “diplomacy”

So much for vaccine diplomacy. We should have had the 10 million Pfizer vaccines by now if DOH Sec Duque did not “forget” to sign the papers for their procurement. Some people in my industry say that the “dropping of the ball” happened to favor the China vaccines because no one in the country wanted to be vaccinated with it, based on polls. Now China dangles the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines as part of their vaccine diplomacy in exchange for this:

Over 200 Chinese ships spread out in West Philippine Sea reefs

Chinese vessels, believed to be crewed by Chinese maritime militia personnel, are seen at Whitsun Reef within the Philippine exclusive economic zone on Saturday [Philippine Coast Guard via Reuters]

The Philippine FDA hasn’t even approved the use of the Chinese vaccines for healthcare workers nor senior citizens nor those with co-morbidities and yet we have subjected our healthcare workers to these vaccines when there should have been better alternatives.

Given the blatant disregard for Philippine sovereignty and the evil Philippine president has already sold the country to China, Defense chief Delfin Lorenzana is breaking away from the stance of the Duterte administration and has given hostile statements against China for the second time. Usually whenever Lorenzana issues statements like these in the past, he comes back to recant his statement or divert the issue after probably being scolded from above. This time he can’t take it anymore and continues to be on the offensive.

Philippines’ defence chief says China intends to occupy more South China Sea areas

He is probably emboldened now that the US is visibly giving support now.

US, Philippines discuss Chinese ‘swarming’ in South China Sea


Meanwhile, I’ve learned from a veteran journo in my FB network, Quezon City has started the vaccination for senior citizens and residents with co-morbidities. I signed up via the Zuellig platform, which handles the database for QC. I learned that asthma is counted as one of the comorbidity, making me and my daughters high-risk residents. I just tried but I’m not counting on it since there are more vulnerable citizens in my area.

I hope my hometown is able to procure as well so that my mom, a senior citizen, and my brother (who has hypertension) can be vaccinated soon.


At the home front, I finished the curtains for the girls’ room and are now hanging there:

I’m quite proud of my handiwork. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m now finishing mine so that I can hang it in my room about three days from now. Sushi always accompanies me while I sew. She always sleeps at my feet or at my chair’s headrest.

My cats could not leave me alone. My girls are now protesting, “Mommy, why is that they always stay with you but not with us?!”

MY babies. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Hmmm, I should restain the floorboards with varnish. They get so much wear because of my rolling chair.

A little kindness goes a long way

We logged 15,310 new COVID-19 cases the other day and 14,000 yesterday, with a 24.2% positivity rate. If there’s mass testing, we may see that one in every four Filipinos is positive–it’s that high.

… If you have an extra mask please do give them, the brightening of their faces is so different whenever they receive one, and they wear it at once. They’re also scared of the virus but they don’t have any choice but to work. Not everyone has the capacity to buy a mask regularly…

Cheap face shields and masks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I started giving out free masks and face shields to Grab and FoodPanda drivers stationed at Robinsons Express near our apartment. It’s what the original poster said, the happiness and gratitude of these guys are different. It’s as if no one had been really kind to them all this time and when they do receive small acts of kindness like this, their reactions are unparalleled.

I have been giving packs of rice and veggies to jeep drivers and barkers near my apartment since lockdowns started last year. Also solicited donations and facilitated the delivery of milk to an indigenous tribe in the north last year. I felt I was too blessed and needed to share the blessings for those who are in need.

Thankfully, I haven’t contracted the virus whenever I buy and distribute these goods. I know God will not let something happen to me but of course I am careful, I just don’t leave it to Him.

If we can just be kind to one another, we can at least ease the burden of our most vulnerable brethren. Love our brothers just as Christ loved us that he died on the cross. That is the essence of Christianity.

I don’t know what to think anymore

It’s the height of incompetence and arrogance of this government that has brought us to this situation. Yesterday we logged 15,310 new COVID-19 cases. Severe patients are already in tents and countless more are being turned away by hospitals because they could no longer cope and have no more facilities to take them in. Even corridors are filled with intubated patients. They don’t have enough ventilators.

I pray that none of my loved ones get infected.

Lord, have mercy on us. Especially the poor and vulnerable.


My veggies to save my sanity. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My lettuce are doing fine after i transplanted them to a bigger pot. My pechay are slowly pushing their way up. I haven’t seen what happened to my kale. Probably it’s too hot for them to germinate.

My container garden. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have to transplant some unidentified plants are crowding the pots. My okra plant is thriving at the back, so is my gabi (yam). The bell pepper is growing nicely, so are the several bird’s eye chilis (siling labuyo).

I think I’m going to try microgreens. I’m inspired by this video.

Tomorrow I will put on my gardening gloves and start propagating again. I no longer know what to do with my hands. I no longer know what to think.

When will you pivot?

I was chatting on WhatsApp last night with a colleague who just left my company last week. She told me about how she couldn’t take her manager anymore and she tolerated that abusive creature for four years before my colleague has finally called it quits. She’s supposed to have started her therapy today. I told her it’s smart of her to seek counseling after the shit she went through with her boss, whom I don’t have to directly deal with, thankfully.

This colleague also sensed that I’m almost at the end of my tether and she told me to jump before things get worse. With the way things how the new owner is running our company, it looks like things aren’t going to get better. I told her I will just have get my shit together first and get out of this funk before I could pivot. It’s hard to think straight with the lockdowns, the entire shit that is the pandemic, and this heartbreak. I need to be level-headed about this and make sure it’s not just the anger and grief that are doing the thinking for me. It’s also hard to make the jump when almost all companies are laying off people.

The right time will come, I told her. In the meantime, I need to do everything I can to stay sane.


Relief goods for a friend. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have so much love to give but I no longer have the right to give it to the person I wanted to receive it so I channel it elsewhere. So I cooked for a friend whom I call a condominium-stranded individual (I’ve patterned it after the government’s term, locally stranded individual) and sent the food via Grab this afternoon. I knew that ordering food via Grab by tomorrow will be difficult because traditionally businesses shut down during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. This is to give appreciation to this friend who always checked on me if I slept well and pulled myself out of my bed during the darkest days. He said he knows the road I’m traveling on now very well because he has been on this road when he broke up with his boyfriend some time ago. Days after J and I broke up, this friend took me out to lunch to cheer me up. Then last February, we had lunch again somewhere near Tomas Morato just to see how I am progressing because I’ve been shutting myself out of the world. In March, days before the cases started spiking, we dined al fresco in Makati with some friends in the industry just to check on each other. We all work for competing newswire agencies but it has never been a hindrance to our friendship that has been blossoming for 15 years now. We don’t see each other often but they’re there when I need them the most. Right after J and I talked in his condo for the last time in December, I drove straight to one of those friends’ house in Parañaque because I couldn’t face going home to the apartment that I used to share with J without going through some debriefing. I needed somebody to talk to, to make sense of what just happened. This friend is deathly afraid of Covid but she let me in her home and offered her spare bedroom for me to sleep in that night because it seemed like I was in no condition to drive all the way to QC. I declined and told her I need to go home that night because I’m just delaying the inevitable. I needed to be alone.

I have so much love to give. So I send it to people who do not reject it.

My muslin curtain. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I already finished one panel that is 2.5 yards long and 60″ wide. I’m already on my 2nd one. Well technically I already finished two panels but the other one is much shorter because that panel will be used for that section above my aircon.

Handstitches. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m even surprised at how my hand stitches look even and dainty. I sew my curtains while watching Youtube videos of small homes and alternative living setups, to make my brain occupied and not overthink about somebody.

In search of sunshine

Fruits and vegetables along CP Garcia Ave. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So yeah, despite having a really bad night waking up at dawn because of a dream, I managed to ride my bike this morning to buy fresh vegetables because we’re already running low on supply. I wasn’t able to buy from my suki inside UP because the university is in a total lockdown since Monday. So my bike trip last week Thursday was my last ride there. God knows when they will open again. 🚲

Breakfast and lunch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

That workout this morning wasn’t much but it made me hungry. It was freaking hot outside!!! Made myself ham sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. I’m still not losing weight.

Folded folding bikes of my girls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It’s a sad sight. My girls’ folded bikes are a reminder that it will be a long time before we can ride out again. Everything is depressing right now. I’m searching for places where I could catch some sunshine to make this dark world brighter.

As I told a colleague, this is the worst time to be nursing a broken heart because I can’t see my friends, can’t escape to anywhere (the four-day Anilao trip is cancelled indefinitely), can’t do anything but be stuck in this room with his ghost. I can’t watch movies because that too reminds me of the moments we watched movies together on iPad or on the TV screen in his Airbnb apartments. Gardening is gardening. Sewing curtains make my hands busy but it doesn’t make my mind occupied. It actually encourages introspection, which is the last thing I need right now. I don’t want to be overthinking the entire lockdown or else it will drive me mad.

Maybe I need to rescue another cat 🐈