ouij

Watch Manny Pacquiao demolish Ricky Hatton. I had predicted a TKO in 9--I was totally stunned to watch Manny end it so emphatically in two rounds.

A longer essay on what Pacquiao means to the world later, I promise.

Nike Philippines strikes a patriotic note, setting some Pacquiao highlights to the national anthem:

Lupa ng araw ng luwalhati't pagsinta,
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo,
Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi,
Ang mamatay ng dahil sa 'yo.


in the English version, sung during the Commonwealth period:

Beautiful land of love, oh land of light,
In thine embrace 'tis rapture to lie;
But it is glory ever when thou art wronged
For us thy sons to suffer and die.

Last night, as we had finished dinner, I sat and talked with my mother and father about my plans. I had told them that I was hoping to get a job in the city, maybe buy a place there that I could afford. Since both my brothers would be going to school in the city by then, we might live together, or at least I could give my brothers a place to crash in the city, instead of having them get the long Metro or train ride back home.

The conversation turned to the state of the real estate market, and affordable places to live. As I ticked off neighborhoods that might be affordable, I ended up having to explain just why some of them were so affordable--including crime.

My father sighed, and told me a story:

I'll never live in a neighborhood like that again. When I was a small boy, we would be awakened in the middle of the night-- all of us, me, your aunts, all of us who lived in the back rooms of my aunt's house--we'd cluster on the other side while the menfolk went to the back to see what the matter was. You could hear the gunshots---boom, and then a pause, and another boom. My uncle would be peering out the window trying to see what was going on. Then there would be the answer.

"Mr. Amador is going after someone," my uncle would say. Mr. Amador was a policeman--so he was chasing someone. But it was dark, and we didn't know where the shots were coming from.



On another occasion, my father told me about the time two men were knifed to death on the corner. Apparently, they had been extorting money from a young student who had been boarding at my great-aunt's house. One night, the quiet student had enough, went home, got a knife, went out to the dark corner, and knifed them both to death. He came back, covered in blood. My great-uncle took the knife, hid it, and told him to clean himself off; out on the corner, the bodies had been discovered, and the police had begun to arrive. They never found the student--I suppose nobody really cared enough to find the murderer of two street-corner extortionists. The student apparently lived a quiet life, graduated, and became a pharmacist back in his home province.

It's stories like that that make me feel pretty unworthy. My grandparents worked hard to get out of that neighborhood into a better place. My father worked hard all through school, getting scholarships, and getting through college--all so that I could live as well as I have done, and have the opportunities I've had.

This sorbetero (ice-cream vendor) and kalesa (horse-and-buggy) traffic photocould have been taken in 1908, not 2008. Props to flickr user Lulot Ruiz:

I'm not a manga guy. The visual style really doesn't grab me--nor does the subject matter, most of the time. But I do love me some comic books. Lately, I've been getting into Filipino comic books, both as a way of staying connected to the 'pinas, but also as an alternative to the world-conquering Manga scene.

A while back, on my last trip to Manila, I was able to pick up the collected edition of Arnold Arre's graphic novel The Mythology Class. I was thoroughly impressed-- here was a beautifully drawn, witty, and very Filipino graphic novel.

The combination of late '90s Manila with pre-Spanish-Conquest folk mythology was fascinating. Although the subject matter was very Filipino--the book name-checks a lot of folk heroes (Lam-ang, Bathala, etc.) and villains (aswang, manananggal, etc.), it's mostly in English, which makes it more accessible to the non-Tagalog-speaking overseas Pinoy, as well as the curious outsider.

I didn't know it, but I'd blundered into a renaissance of Pinoy Komix. Komikeros were turning out mature, sophisticated works, both in English and Tagalog.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I've been able to find a few more Komix to tide me over until I can get back to the 'pinas and get caught up with that scene again.

Via rather entertaining review, I stumbled across Trese, an English-language crime/horror series.

The eponymous protagonist Alexandra Trese works as a kind of supernatural Sherlock Holmes in latter-day Metro Manila. Again, aswangs, mannangals, and tikbalangs make regular appearances.

The visual style owes much to Frank Miller and The Matrix--who wears double-breasted coats in tropical Manila?--but it's beautifully drawn:



And, best of all, the website has seven complete comic books for your delectation!

Five minutes of surreality from the Radioactive Sago Project. The song is "Astro," which is a jazz/spoken word cut about a brand of cheap smokes in the Philippines. More particularly, it's about how film stars advertise this sort of thing.

The video itself, however, is a five-minute parody of low-budget Tagalog movie dramas--poor boy, rich girl, and the rest of it. The subtitles are in English and are literal (word-for-word) renderings of what the Tagalog should be. To a Filipino audience, the effect is HILARIOUS.

Anyway, even if you can't get all the deep cultural stuff, dig the big-band sound, especially the killer horn section.

Dad on the corner of Adelina and España. His aunt, my great-aunt, lives around the corner.

Dad spent his very early childhood in this part of Manila. . . he still tells stories about the old neighborhood.

I’m back Stateside after my stint back home. Photos up soon.

At the moment, I’m living on the 13-hour jet lag and ripping my new CDs. Every trip home, I try to get mostly up-to-date with the OPM (Original Pinoy Music) scene:

• Hotdog, “Hotdog Greatest Hits”: An oldie but goodie, and Christmas gift from my aunt. Hotdog were one of the great pinoy pop groups of the ‘70s. Best track on the CD? Easily “Manila,” Hotdog’s ode to their hometown.

  Hinahanap-hanap kita, Manila
  Ang ingay mong kay sarap sa tenga!
  Mga jeepney mong nagliliparan,
  Mga babae mong nagagandahan
  Take me back in your arms, Manila and promise me you’ll never let go...

  Dad still sings this every so often.



• Orange and Lemons, “Strike Whilst the Iron is Hot” (bonus AVCD edition): A gift from a cousin. Straight-up OPM rock...not terribly hard, good singing. On a personal note, I was amused by the name. The LSE is right around the corner from St. Clement Danes, which is the first churchbell named in the famous “Oranges and Lemons” rhyme about the churchbells of London.



• 6CycleMind, “Panorama” and 6CycleMind, “Permission to Shine”: TWO by a single artist. Unusual for me...and snagged on a whim. I like 6CycleMind’s sound, though.



• Barbie Almalbis, “Parade”: What can I say? I <3 Barbie. Lots. This album also features her duet with The Speaks ("High"), which completes my SPX discography.



• Sponge Cola, “Transit”: Hard Pinoy rock at its best. “Bitiw” was EVERYWHERE on the radio while I was there. There are some English tracks, but as a rule, the Tagalog tracks are much better. (This is usually the case for OPM, anyway). I might try to snag the first album sometime, too.



• Various, “Hopia, Mami, Popcorn: The Best of Manila Sound”: A good collection, including a bunch of bands I missed. Radioactive Sago Project, Rocksteddy, Soapdish, and, yes, Kitchie Nadal. (*sigh*). errr... ahh... /me regains composure. Highlights: Kala, “Rock Baby Rock”--conclusive proof that disco/funk never died. And, carrying on the ’70s revival groove this post seems to be in, there’s Join The Club’s cover of Florante’s “Handog,” done in hard-rock, overdrive style.



• Various, “Kami n’APO Muna: Tribute to APO Hiking Society”: More ‘70s nostalgia! APO Hiking Society were massive superstars in the ’70s and ‘80s. I remember learning their songs from dad’s tapes when I was a kid. Anyway, this tribute album is another good way to get into the OPM scene of today through the lens of the OPM scene your dad probably left behind. Our version is the double-CD, with a “B-side” of the APO originals. Be prepared to be surprised---APO might not be as good as you remember them. Dad noted with amusement that Sugarfree’s cover of “Batang-bata Ka Pa” was better than the original--and Sugarfree was working with much more limited resources (production/orchestration/etc.) than APO was.



• Various, “Ultraelectromagnetic Jam: The Music of the Eraserheads” A bit of nostalgia of my own: The title of this tribute album is a play on the Eheads’ seminal “Ultraelectromagnetic Pop” album. All the Eheads hits you could have asked for--Alapaap, Overdrive, Pare Ko, Para sa Masa-- by a veritable who’s who of the OPM scene: 6CycleMind, Barbie, South Border, Sponge Cola.... and of course, the finale is “Para sa Masa,” by the whole bunch, all together. . . just when you think you’re going to raise your hands in one almighty, I-miss-the-‘90s group hug, in breaks Francis M with the pinoy hip-hop angle. Whoa. Oh well. Iba talaga ang magic ng Eheads, my cousin remarked to me. I could only nod my head.

Happy New Year from the 'pinas, everybody!

The paputok (fireworks/firecrakcers) weren't as loud this year as some years, but they were still impressive. Nothing in the world is like New Years' in Manila. Other cities might have bigger or more elaborate fireworks. Others still might bother to choreograph their displays to orchestras. But nothing will match the sheer chaos of an entire city seeming to explode with fireworks.

The first test firings started two days ago. By nightfall, there were small displays as people were sitting down to dinner. By eleven o'clock, all the various municipalities, shopping malls, and sundry corporations--not to mention the common people--were letting off firecrackers almost continuously. By the time midnight tolled and 2007 arrived, the racket was deafening. Everywhere we looked, there were fireworks. Everywhere we saw flashes and trails of acrid smoke. The super lolo and cinturon de Judas, though banned, made loud appearances, crackling through the night and rattling windows. Fountains and flares lit up the sky. Bigger mortars lobbed starbursts into the air. Somewhere, someone might have been firing into the air.

The newspapers, radio, and TV here were carrying the usual warnings from the police and hospitals about the dangers of amateur pyrotechnics. "Instead of fireworks, use trumpets and other noisemakers to scare away evil spirits," read one helpful tip printed in a newspaper. While we ourselves didn't let off any fireworks this year, it was satisfying to see that everybody else (it seems) did.

My ears are still ringing. When I get back (and get a chance to go over my photos), I'll run some new years' pictures.

Until then, Happy New Year!

This is just to say that I'm in Manila for the Christmas & New Year.

I love being home for Christmas.

WBC Super Featherweight champ Manny Pacquiao [Flame trunks in the clip above] is a national hero back in the Philippines. In a country that loves its boxers, he’s the first great Filipino champion of my generation. Here he is knocking out Erik Morales in the 3rd round of their third bout.

Watching Pacquiao box makes me want to cheer every time. Not only does it make me proud to be Filipino, but it brings me back to when I was a little kid watching boxing on TV with my Dad. There were some really great boxers back in those days--Sugar Ray Leonard, “Marvellous” Marvin Hagler, Tommy “the Hitman” Hearns, Hector “Macho” Camacho....the current generation of fighters just hasn’t measured up.

Over this Memorial Day weekend, I was able to speak to one of the few remaining Filipino veterans of the Second World War.

Mr. Guerrero [not his real name] is still handsome at 78; he walks slowly, but with the certainty and dignity that comes with his age. He joined a USAFFE guerilla unit at the age of 15, in 1943, towards the end of the war in the Pacific. He fought with the guerrillas until his unit was officially disbanded in September of 1945.

After the war, he was able to come to the United States to study. He spent four years at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kingsport, New York, and went on to become a merchant marine captain.

He receives veterans’ benefits through the Philippine Government, and is additionally entitled to medical treatment at the U.S. Veterans’ Hospital in Manila. He is seeking naturalization to the United States, in recognition of his wartime service to the United States. His case has been pending for many years, and is currently stuck in administrative limbo.

“I was here in 2000,” he told me. “Many of us [veterans] were there, demonstrating in front of the White House and Congress.” He raised his fist, miming protest. He shook his head“Pero alam mo naman...I suspect, with these Americans, they will wait until li-lima lang kaming natitira, tsaka na lang ibibigyan nila.” [But you know...I suspect with these Americans, they will wait until there are only five of us left alive, and only then will they grant the benefits.)

He went on. “When I joined the guerrillas, I didn’t think about benefits, or rewards, or anything like that. I joined because minamahal ko ang aking bansang Pilipinas!” (I loved my country, the Philippines!). He brings his hand over his heart, forcefully--beating his breast with pride. “If it were about rewards--I think I have more than enough. I was able to come here, and study here for four years, get my degree, become a Merchant Marine officer. That’s more than enough. I am seeking naturalization not because I want to come here, necessarily-- I am already old--but for my children, and for the help that it would give them. That’s all.”

Amusing. FedEx recently returned the penguins to New Orleans' aquarium.

I wonder how to send them some feedback, though; on their "unusal shipments" page, they brag about having delivered

The eight-ton statue of Filipino war hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal, who inspired the 1896 revolution against Spanish domination. . . shipped via FedEx from the Philippines to Spain.

. There's only one problem: Jose Rizal wasn't a war hero by any stretch of the imagination.

I guess that Americans never decided whether the Philippines were islands or canned goods

Spent the evening watching half of Lualhati Bautista's Dekada 70 (stars Vilma Santos and Christopher de Leon).

1. My Tagalog isn't nearly good enough...



2. VCD playback with Ubuntu and Mplayer works, but seems kludgy...takes a while (two, three, four, five? minutes) to get a VCD started...thereafter it plays straight through.



3. My pirate copy was of pretty good quality...but I might end up buying legit DVDs next time I'm back in Manila, just because of the variability of the pirate market. I already know DVD playback using libdvdcss is possible; Ogle even lets me use DVD menus.



4. The movie is pretty hard going for anyone who doesn't speak Tagalog...it's otherwise a very typical Filipino family drama: large bourgeois family, many sons (thus many possible conflicts), a lot of heated dialogue. There are also a few silly moments...and a few grim moments. The funeral of one of the son's friends--a leftist activist--has the dead boy's mother telling how the METROCOM (Metropolitan Command--the worst of Marcos' police goons) killed her boy, torturing him and then disemboweling him, and sending the body home with the guts in a separate container. Montage of the weeping mother and flashbacks to some METROCOM dungeon. Gut-wrenching.

My uncle runs a company in the Philippines whose main business is placing Filipino nurses in the United States. He was in town for some meetings, and this morning, over breakfast, he made a few interesting observations about the state of the immigrant labor market.

• The McCain-Kennedy immigration bill represents an immense opportunity. H1-B and H2-B visa quotas (the visa classifications given to those people who are hired to work in the USA) would rise from 60,000 to 400,000--and expand to all sorts of occupations, from medical professionals to agricultural laborers.
• The United States remains the biggest potential market for immigrant labor. A Filipino nurse working in the United States makes anywhere between $18.00 and $28.00 an hour. Assuming only a 40-hour workweek, and no overtime, that works out to anywhere between $2,880 and $4,480 per month. Other developed economies pay less--the UK, for instance, maxes out at around US$3,000 per month; the Caribbean economies, still less. But, in his words, If youre only making 10,000 [Philippine pesos] per month (~US$181.00), and suddenly you're making even 75,000 ($1,363--what a nurse might expect to make per month in Jamaica), that's a big difference!
• On outsourcing: The Indians' comparative advantage lies mainly in their ability to market their outsourcing capabilities. Philippine firms have a harder time because of their inability to market their services to American firms seeking outsourcing solutions. They just expect that all this outsourcing is going to fall in their lap! he said, despairingly.

We talked a lot about the sheer scale of America--how big the country was, how open, how easy it was to get land. This is a big deal in the Philippines, where land is both scarce and controlled by a very small minority. The constitution forbids foreign ownership of land, and the landed class are so rich from just their rents that there is little incentive to capital formation.

I have a new scanner!

Two more photos from this past Easter's trip to the Philippines.


"Mt. Mayon" Albay. The volcano's perfect cone dominates the countryside around it in Albay. You can see smoke and steam flowing from the crater--it has erupted in the past, and will probably erupt again soon. Olympus Stylus Epic 35; Kodak Gold 400


"Bangka," Donsol, Sorsogon. Donsol is a fishing town in Sorsogon. The waters around Donsol are feeding-grounds for hundreds of whale-sharks, or butanding. Eco-tourism associated with butanding watching has sprung up in Donsol. Fishermen take people out into the bay, looking for whale-sharks, and people can then go down and swim with these creatures. The butandingare some 8 meters long on average, and quite remarkable creatures. This was the boat we took. Olympus Stylus Epic 35, Kodak Gold 400

More from my most recent trip to the Philippines. These were all taken on Good Friday in the Bikol town of Tigaon. Comments as ever eagerly sought and welcomed.


"Agony in the Garden" Tigaon, Easter 2004. One of the icons in the Good Friday procession in Tigaon, illustrating various scenes in the Passion of Christ. Olympus D560

( the rest of the photostory is here )