We are inviting another surge. They’re opening everything up without the proper safety measures. Two years on, we still couldn’t get a proper contact tracing system and accessible testing. We are groping blindly in the dark and we just have to pray that our bodies would be healthy enough to withstand Covid. Even if you’re vaccinated, you can get infected again and again. One journo said the president of one of the Philippines’ largest conglomerates got infected thrice. He is still alive though.

And unvaccinated children are the perfect vectors.

By December-January, we will have another surge by the looks of it.

Meanwhile, an internal memo from CNN Philippines got leaked to Vera Files and got published. Well, good for the editorial team at the network for resisting the orders from the owners (or the real owner). But then the family that owns the network (in name only) is known to be a Marcos crony, but the rumored real owner is a beneficiary of the cronyism of the Marcoses. Very, very close associate of the late dictator.

Knowing some of the editors at CNN, I could very well picture in my head how they would have reacted. One of them took over the subject I used to teach in UP after I quit and I gave her some of my teaching materials and syllabus. Her reaction to this memo would have been priceless and I could hear the invectives she would have thrown around the newsroom.

Some founders of Vera Files are also teaching at my college.

However, CNN Philippines’ viewership is very limited because they’re an English-language channel. The people who should be reached by the truth are the C, D, E markets who comprise the bulk of the Philippine electorate.

Because it is in every dictator’s playbook, ABS-CBN–the one with the widest reach in the country and owned by the Lopezes, one of whom was imprisoned by Ferdinand Marcos–was killed on free TV last year. All the Filipinos can see/watch/hear now are the propaganda of the very Marcos-friendly GMA, the executives of which are Marcos allies. I remember writing the news about one case filed by Imee Marcos more than a decade ago before the SEC, claiming that the shares owned by the Duavits (Gilberto Duavit is the COO of GMA) were just “lent” by the Marcoses to them.

As I said, the real fight is not on social media but at the grassroots level. Those who want change must talk to the people on the streets, in the farms, in the far-flung barangays who do not have access to internet or even cellular phone signal.

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The crap that I’ve been buying have been arriving daily. I should stop buying stuff. I really need to get out.

Some of the good purchases I had were the watercolor sets and brushes so the girls would be able to put into practice the stuff they’re learning from Skillshare and Domestika. Twin A today was so busy painting. Good. She is off computer games, unlike her male cousin who has never taken his eyes off his Roblox game.

I told her if she practices and gets better at this, I will buy her the more expensive gouache paints so she can level up. She initially wanted to start with gouache painting but I told her she should start first with watercolors, learning how to control her brush, the water, and blending colors. I told her to always bring her sketch notebook and smaller watercolor pad with her so she can practice copying scenes around her so she can practice all the time. I told her I always had a notebook and pen with me in my bag while I was growing up so I can write during my idle moments–one way of practicing my craft. That habit has stuck with me until today. I have several notebooks with me all the time in my bag: one for work and another for my random musings when I don’t want to fiddle with my phone while waiting for my car to be washed, for my turn at the grocery store, or whatever.

I always knew from the beginning that her right brain is more dominant. However, she is overcome with insecurity as she is obscured by her twin, who is more of a left-brain child and articulate.

As a parent, I should nurture their talents and interests. If one is more introverted, I let her be. If one is more extroverted, as Twin I is, then I let her be. It’s about training them to be well-rounded people, with emphasis on their interests and talents.

The tricky balance here is how to keep nurturing them while I grow as a person and as a creative as well. Being a single parent is hard because I do not have anybody else to lean on and help me with the nurturing part. Everything is on me. If they fuck up, it’s 100% on me. I usually have to forego my own interests because their welfare is my priority. I salute mothers who have pulled back on their careers and interests for the sake of their children. It’s only when the children have flown out of the nest did these women pick up their lives. The sad thing here is many years have gone by and little time has been left for their own personal/professional/creative growth.

I wish their children have realized that before their moms became Mom, they were individuals who had their own desires, hopes, dreams.