So I’m typing here using my very pink Logitech keyboard and my phone to blog about how terrible it is that there is a system-wide Converge blackout here in QC. I’m using my Smart data just as my phone is on fire due to multiple calls, which I will write about later.

First off, I drove to Msi-ECS this afternoon for a Lenovo repair. This company also accepts gadgets (laptops, tablets) from other brands like HP, Asus, Acer, Dell, etc).

The service was quick since I called them up on Friday for scheduling and pre-fill up of data sheet.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on emailing and instant messaging people. I can’t believe that it takes hours to do these things.

Then the group that I had been helping during the height of the lockdowns in 2020 had asked for assistance again as the Aetas of Capas, Tarlac have no means of livelihood due to the pandemic and the children would be having face-to-face classes now. The teachers are asking for white shirts for the children as they have no clothes to wear to school.

I began my messaging and call brigade to mobilize my connections. So now they have been sending financial support and another friend said she can have the shirts made in Taytay T-shirt factories for only PHP 40 each. My mom’s friends are sending books and other people are sending school supplies.

I will ask my corporate connections for donations in kind (probably through their own foundations) for school materials or food supplements for these kids, whose families were displaced by the Clark Development Corp.

Sixteen years ago, I’ve written about the Aetas’ dire situation (in Morong, Bataan), especially when it comes to their education or the lack thereof. Sixteen years have passed and it hasn’t changed much.

It’s about time that I make that long-delayed trip to Tarlac and meet this community of indigenous people that I had been helping remotely. I will ask a friend for book donations as well. My reporter-friend and I will arrange a trip together since he was the one who helped distribute the milk powder that I solicited from a food conglomerate way back in 2020.

This is the reason why I can’t leave the Philippines. I have the means to help them and make a difference, in my own little way. I can also write about their plight for one of the broadsheets since I’m friends with most of their editors, as I had been doing in the past. The indigenous peoples of this country are the most forgotten/neglected groups in this impoverished country. They don’t have voices and only a few of us can lend ours.

As I said in my essay, Love Letter to Myself, we need to work at the bottom of the pyramid to be able to spark change.

And oh, my crazy cats have destroyed the screen on my bedroom window because they’re chasing birds outside my window. 🙄