august 10. your shirt hanged loosely as i tried to tucked it in a short shorts. It was close to midnight. All i saw was grills and stairs. I felt the dusts in my feet. Earlier, i told Ansoy how beautiful the moon was and our endless desires of painting walls and eating Oreos. I buried my face between my toes, trying to hide my tears and my fears. I know that was it. It was inevitable. I stopped listening instead lingered at the beauty of the moon. Only then that you started crying did i had the courage to walk away. There was no slammed doors and hiccups between water glasses just a bus ride. There are days where i still miss you. Still think about you. But one has to always struggle to find the courage to be happy.

the fixer.

the night was odd. no owls and crickets fiddling in the nearby grass tunnel. weird, my broken tube pen cap was gone. it served me well as lucky charm for months now. as i was halfway out the village gate, i realized i was wearing the wrong slippers. i hesitated to go back since i was too far along. so i stood there thinking how on earth did i muster enough courage to go out leaving the house door unlocked and my gut throbbing from pain. my sling bag snapped leaving me with Mefenamic scattered across the highway as i gallantly knotted by bag back together.

i wanted this. to feel pain. to not be numb.

i left none unanswered. he cant decide whether to be Catholic or Agnostic so he blanked them out. He's no genius. Neither am i. I go to rallies and educational discussions and he's on constant basketball practice and referee volleyball games.

He's no handy man. Cant repair pipes or unclog bathroom sinks. Wore tattered PNP shirts and loose briefs. He doesn't have an inkling how to fold his shirts. And the sight of crinkle meant laundry; at the very least he valiantly evens out the creases of his uniform.

He's not even close to being perfect. Our hands do not fit and his shoe's thrice bigger than mine. I look puny standing next to him.

But he's my fixer. He makes sure i always have a water or two every meal and randomly wakes me up for chocolates and C2. Mandates the need for proper education despite me wanting to work because of disbelief in the educational system. Sits beside me as i smoke cigars with a Beret on my head, trying to speak French. Or the perfectness of a faulty love affair because my head on his lap is like a surreal dream. Driving for hours looking for the perfect blue sky and watching it all rained down through a tinted glass but the feeling of him close makes it all worth wasting my time away. And nights under the full moon; hungry but happy.

i vaguely remember the last time i saw him. if he hailed me a taxi or i left with annoyance and bag on my shoulder. or if his hair was coagulate enough to outstand my distaste now that there was no tingkoy hanging from the back of it. i forgot how he looked at me. if his eyes were droopier as i remembered them or if there was animosity to it. but i am reminded of him standing outside Eco Edge in his blue superman and jersey shorts.

i remembered because when i looked back, he was already gone.

i don't miss it, i just want to remember everything. The taste of his livid lips, his apathetic eyes and the perfectly conned nose.

the night was odd. there were no pink sunsets, only half covered moon and strong breeze. i stood there still, waiting for an empty green tricycle. contemplating if i'll ever take the risk of being squeeze between two overweight men who smelled cigarettes and gluttony plastered on their faces. or if im better off alone with a tricycle driver whom looked like he never bathe for days.

The night was odd. The fierceness of the darkness and the brisk bite of cold on my cheek. I could feel the grief in it. My heart was loud as my breathe was quiet. All this vividness i could only read as melancholy. Not exhilaration.

My fixer was gone and none to hold my hand. The night was odd yet infinitely beautiful. Leaves confettied over the sidewalk and fences of hanging pitch purple aubergine. It was beautiful. I wanted to breathe everything. Eat it, take it inside me, make it part of me. I wanted not to forget them. Holding on to it for there might come a time when i would need their solace.

I know that there are many things i should have said, should have done. I just never took the time. But you were always in my mind. Always. This is me telling you everything. This is me apologizing. Because i know how not knowing hurts.

I buried my hands in the pockets of my coat. I know that this lift of fallen glory will someday bring me happiness.

what you feel only matters to you, its what you do to the people you say you love that matters.

Mama

It was 3am and i was restless. I found her trying out Papa's already torn plaid polo and baggy pants. It all made her looking like some tropical penguin. Only there's no tux, just buttonholes and shimmering belts on the side. She packed her bag with cookie krinkles, flashlights that doubles as cigar lighter and paper trails of money loans.

Her Lucca Bossi did justice to the room, obliterating the smell of cat poo and overcooked french toast. I told her she looked funny. She then shrugs me off with a nasty comment about my lack of hygiene and slammed the door in my face.

I hesitated to knock so i went outside.

I found Auntie Charles and my chest at gunpoint. She laughed saying it was for the lone surviving rat in her house. Her last resort. We talked for a while and pulled trigger a couple times trying to fill the basket with pellets before deciding to watch Leatherheads all over again.

An hour have passed and i resolved my boredom by knocking and twisting the knob, only to find out she double locked. It only meant she's stacking her money. That, or she's trying to figure out if which breast is bigger.

So i finally laid there, Pipi Poopip at my feet and the urgent necessity to sleep.

I was still half asleep when she left. But i still remember her wearing Papa's torn clothes and a goofy hat to hide her bad haircut.



She lets me break the dishes and still loves me. Thank you Ma :)

His Funeral.

I met Rose on her fathers funeral. She wasn't sad, just maybe strained from preparing everything and her mother's constant prodding over accommodating me among other guests. It made me somehow guilty of not actually wanting to be there. I hated the thought of obligatory small talks and awkward moments where we sit there and trace every member in the family tree. Being the second family, they were after all, considered derelicts. But they were persistent , trying to salvage every pride and hope on being accounted as family.

I didn't wanted to look but she led me to the coffin. I never really saw much of my uncle since they were on a constant feud with my mother, but on that instant he looked peaceful. He wasn't rawboned and lanky unlike other cancer patients. They did not had him powdered pale white. No lipstick, no hair gels. He smelled nice though like fresh tulips on summer days or if that's formaldehyde i never knew, i was too uneasy to ask.

His neatly pressed Barong Tagalog contrasted on his already decaying skin. He wore no shoes because they couldn't afford one. If i knew early on, i would have stolen a pair of black suede shoes from my father's vast collection of footwear. She said it didn't matter, her father would have been outraged over the frugality of his funeral anyway.

She recalled of him wanting to have something non-traditional - like burying him headlong on their empty vacant lot. No coffin. No flowers. No candles. No empty coffee cups. Just the family, their prayers and their acceptance of him dying. He thought he would have made a good fertilizer.

He never finished high school so he ended up working odd jobs just so he can put his kids through college. He was a farmer, a laborer, a construction worker, truck driver, bodyguard to a once famous politician, tricycle driver, and an ice cream vendor. He traveled half way round the country to sell a smuggled Indonesian bird to pay his daughter's graduation fees. Worked an all-nighter at a public market just to buy his wife a new electric fan. He was the type to walk around in flapping boots because buying a new one meant not giving his son allowance for two days. Those heroic days may not be the happiest days of his life but probably the most perfect in his eyes.

He had five children, one of which is a step son from his second wife. Regardless of whom should have the most authority, they were all there. Bullfrog eyes swelled from crying and weary from days and days of vigil.

Despite of what must be a tremendous despair and misery, Rose was beaming and nomadic. Offering Milo and cheap raspberry cookies, consoling her crying brother and traversing between medicating her mother, talking to me and finishing her marmalade sandwich.

I knew she wanted to cry but i didn't said anything. Her restlessness was probably her way of concealing her yearning to be with his father again.

She put down the tray and headed to his coffin. She stood there, neither talking nor crying. She looked at him as if he was the only person on the room. Oblivious of the chaos and the constant bellowing of men gambling. I wasn't sure if she felt the need to look at him in his last days but in that moment i knew it was much more than that.

to the departed (holocaust of globalization)

June 10, 2007. Fr. Giancarlo Bossi was seized by a 10-armed men while on his way to a mass in barangay Bulawan, at about 9:30 am. The military was quick in saying that the kidnapping was a handiwork of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

July 8, 2007 (sunday). Father Bossi was already in the premises of West Mindanao Command (WestMinCom)

July 9,2007. Father Bossi was "freed" early dawn of the said day in Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Lanao del Norte to former Mayor Hajarun Jamiri of Tuburan, Basilan, who allegedly negotiated for his release. He was transported to Camp Batalla in Boulevard of Zamboanga City in that same morning. On the same day the Marines entered Limbo Upas and then barangay Magcawa, in the town of Al-Barka.

July 10, 2007. "It was unusually eerie that day. Huts were abandoned. As the trek went deeper, there were lesser people. It was like they were expecting us", recalled by a survivor. The Marines entered barangay Guinanta from barangay Magcawa. They were guided by Councilor Abdulkahal Abdasal Kaharut of Al-Barka, one of the few most trusted men of Al-Barka Mayor Karam Jakilan. When the marines failed to locate the priest and his abductors (as expected), they decided to return to headquarters in Campo Uno at Lamitan City.

They were waylaid as to enter an MILF territory. A ten-hour battle ensued, from 10:00am to 6:00pm. Marines were badly outgunned: mortars wouldn't fire and ineffective air support. That would seem strange, if one just considers the amount of firearms being shipped to the armed forces' hands.

Five died and six wounded MILF forces. Twenty three marines also died and scored of them wounded. A 69 year old imam, Matarul Hakanul was found to be beheaded and organ riddled with bullets.

Dorong Tauh, a henchman of the mayor volunteered to do the beheading of the already dead Marines bodies. Dorong Tauh is an ex-Army from 54th EB. Ongga Abdullah Piasta, Basil Limbaga and Isa Limbaga joined him in beheading. They belonged to the group of Mayor Karam and not from MILF.

The so-called ambush and the consequent beheading were deliberate ploys in order to justify the continuing presence of government and US troops in the island. Next to Afghanistan, our country has become the second front in the deployment of the elite Special Operations Forces.

Its been two years after the barbaric murder. Nothing changed. Their hollow death was a sacrifice to those who wanted our resources. And to those who let imperialists take them. The US-led globalization has dragged the world to a series of crises and wars.

Only the people united globally and nationally against globalization can concertedly act to solve the crisis and stop the war. We must be consistent to stand against globalization, register our strongest protest against the war.

There can be no world peace without global economic justice! Globalization means war! Reject globalization, stop the war.


Let their death among others be the pretext to fight against Imperialism.

my 64 for Suu.

July 2006. It was a wedding. The setting was a guest house in Naypyidaw, the announced capital of Burma. The state-run media was mum about it - an attempt to show restraint. This time, they contained the situation before their impoverished masses will have the chance of a rare glimpse of the excesses of Burma’s ruling elite. Top generals and closest business associates clunk their glasses to toast while their lips twitch at the taste of expensive wines. The wedding itself cost around $300,000. The bride and groom were showered with gifts worth billions of Kyat including jewels, luxury cars, houses and deeds to valuable real estate - an estimate of staggering $50 million. The wedding of the year. The wedding of Thandar Shwe, the daughter of Senior General Than Shwe, the head of state of Myanmar.

July 1989. She was put under house arrest by The State Peace and Development Council, the military regime of Burma. She was offered freedom if she left Burma, but she refused.


May 3,2009. For some unknown reason, John William Yettaw, an American man, swan across Inya Lake to her House, uninvited. Ten days later, she was arrested for violating the terms of her house arrest because of the intrusion. She was taken to Insein Prison and was later put to a subsequent trial. Sooner than later, the junta will once again place her in detention, this time in a military base outside the city.

Friday, June 19, 2009. Today is her 64th birthday and 13th year of detention. She still remains under house arrest in Rangoon. She isn't allowed to see her family and friends. Her phone line is cut and her post is interrupted.

Your plight has shaken the understanding of freedom, demonstrating that many are kept silent merely for advocating truth towards progression. Happy 64th Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi! We anticipate the day you'll walk free and Burma of military oppression!!


"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

- Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, symbolises the struggle of Burma's people to be free.



Please change your profile photo to support Aung San Suu Kyi on her 64th Birthday, June 19th. Download the image here: http://www.facebook.com/aungsansuukyi or visit http://www.64forsuu.org

as summer fades.

Sometimes it's so much work to wake up and find meaning in the day. Sometimes my four cream walls just eat my soul. Sometimes I don't want to eat my eight dollar cereal. I just ponce around the kitchen in my pink kitten slippers cursing the pantry. I slip into my pajama pants as soon as I'm done and eat something involving cheese. I sit in front of the TV, each show sliding easily past the last, the hours dripping from the faucet. I wish the years would go quicker, as easily as the time spent in front of my god forsaken television.

Sometimes I wish I were beautiful. The kind where you roll out of bed and your hair is stuck and confused but somehow elegantly so. The kind of beauty where your eyes are so wide and enormous people stare for ages. The kind of beauty where you can't quite pinpoint exactly what it is that makes you gorgeous. No freckle out of place, no unsymmetrical lips, the perfect eyebrow arch. The kind of beauty that probably doesn't exist but you're convinced it's out there with everyone but you.

I download movies and television shows and I ignore my books, my beautiful revelry and imagination locked away because it takes much effort and ruins the ugliness of my reality. Somehow it's easier to realize TV is fake and illogical. But when I read a book I want what it entails, I want to have my life laid out like that, narrated. I want the excitement, happiness, struggle, and eventual success as laid out in a book.

I narrate my life, actually.

I noticed the draft first around my ankles. The windows must have been open behind me since as I scanned the bus and I couldn't see any open. There was an old lady to my left, her face as old as time. Her eyes were angry. I felt ashamed. I hate the bitterness that so often accompanies with age. There was a couple two seats in front of me. The girl, i reckon, was tired so she kept resting her head on his shoulder, fitting exactly in the nook between his shoulder and neck. He turned a little to kiss the top of her head. I can't wait for someone to love me enough to kiss the top of my head.

There was a boy, on the brink of puberty and trying to look cool. He got ugly white sneakers on and I see his foot tapping to the beat of his unknown music coursing through the cords to his gigantic headphones. The girl whose name I thought was Alex sat over on that side too, her perfect brown hair cascading down her back. She smiled as she gets off at the mall before my stop. I smiled back, my hair frizzy and damp from the heat of the summer. The weather which somehow, Alex had evaded.

I listened to my mp3 player while keeping watch over the snuggling couple ahead of me. Time seems impossibly slow here. I traced lazy circles out the windows with my eyes. Then it started to rain. The drizzle settles on the window; I could feel cold air wafting off it towards my flushed cheeks.

This year, summer is flushed cheeks and soaked pants' hems. It's rotting leaves in the empty fountain and the whistle of the wind out my window. It's steeping tea and cold tile floors. Its time here is just ending but to me it feels as if an entire universe has been born and is breathing its dying breath. The seventh of May and already my bones are cold are tired. It's Friday and I can't account for the rest of this week. Where has it gone? Did it flew down to the ground with the yellowing leaves last night?

Now I sit here melancholic and alone. Tired and cold with an ache in the corners of my skull. My room is bordering on tidy and I listen to the drawling music listlessly. I sit here my lips taught and my eyebrows knit. I sit here with the tension of the world building in my shoulder blades and sliding down my vertebrae. My throat closes and my mind follows suit. Slowly my body will call for sleep and I will reluctantly listen, but for now the music flows slowly and uneasily, like the thoughts in my mind and the feelings in my heart.