chasing storms, chasing questions, chasing answers

i blame it on the two cups of coffee and the cold baguio night. i can’t sleep. and damn it, it’s one of those few-and-far-in-between days in a year when i’ve literally got nothing to do and could probably attempt to sleep like a normal person. but as luck would have it, i felt all reflective tonight. plus add to that the realization (compounded with the sudden guilt) that i haven’t written anything here for months, so i’ve decided to pour out all the extra energy into rambling.

so the last few months has been intense, work-wise. since returning back from new york last august, i’ve literally been thrown around a spectrum of stories – some political, others enterprise, and the rest, well,  the usual general assignment stories you pray for in the afternoon shift. a live report here, a package over there. clocking in hours beyond the clock on a daily basis. nothing out of the ordinary.

but it all changed when typhoon ondoy came. actually, everything changed when ondoy came. ondoy, pepeng, ramil — three names we won’t be forgetting for a long time. so much has happened since then that no amount of summary on my part can do it justice. no bulletpoints, no addendum, no footnote, no venn diagram, no kindergarten stick figure – nothing can properly explain or illustrate how millions of lives were changed by those three names over the past few weeks.

it’s been more than a month and yet, i still can’t begin to fathom the gravity of what has happened. haven’t really had the time to sit back and think about the bigger picture. it’s one storm after another. it’s one story after the next. one province after another. i’ve been traveling around northern luzon for the past few weeks, chasing storms and chasing answers. but before answers, there are questions.

there are those questions i’ve been asked that are usually easy to respond to: when’s the next storm coming? when will it hit? how bad is the typhoon? how many lives were lost? answerable by statistics, forecasts and diagrams.

then there are the questions i ask authoritarian and establishment figures. why did it happen? who’s accountable? what are they doing to ensure it doesn’t happen again? questions answered oftentimes by bullshit. or worse, finger-pointing. with mud-slinging on the side.

it’s the questions that follow that are difficult. how will we recover? who will help us? is there anyone out there to save us?  these are the questions that surface when children are getting sick, when streets are still flooded a month after the fact. when work or any source of income is unavailable. when homes and houses have yet to be rebuilt. when relief centers are anything but a relief. when food is becoming scarce. when the air is thick with desperation and those who should be giving answers, aren’t.

there’s also a question that i’ve asked myself but have failed to answer. a question, that i think everyone, at one point, has tried to answer deep within their dark-forlorn heart of hearts: did i respond to the call of duty?

by duty, i mean as professionals or whatever role we play in this society. by duty, i mean as filipinos. and by duty, i mean as a human being made of carbon bits.

a question i’ve been thinking about since pepeng in pangasinan. the thought bubble popped into my cranium just as i was suspended fifty-feet in the air with solid concrete and shoulder-high flood below me, straddling a steel ladder turned makeshift-bridge, crossing two rooftops with a tripod on my back and a sweat beading down my neck. did i respond to the call of duty?

at that point, i thought so. now, i’m not quite sure. i mean, i had my life on the line just to get a story aired. when i made it to the live point and reported what i’ve seen and heard, i thought the job was done. i gave myself a good pat on the back, and felt that i responded to my duty as a journalist. i felt that i’ve done enough. i wanted to move on to a different area, latch onto another story, chase another storm.

but a conversation with another reporter changed that. two words left a lingering thought: parachute journalism. you bail when it’s done. you leave when you want the story to be done. you escape when shit is just about to hit the fan. sure, the story is over and life goes on. but for the people that you are leaving — the people you owe your job to, the people you are answerable to — the story is far from over. when the newscast ends, when the saints have marched in, and when the storm has passed — who will stay behind? duty is not a one-time thing. it’s a commitment.

a few weeks ago, during ondoy, social networking sites were flooded with pleas for help, calls for help, donations and response. everyone was gung-ho about lending a helping hand. relief volunteers were coming in droves. people probably felt what i felt after contributing to the cause. they gave themselves a good pat on the back for a job well done.

so the storm has passed. and reality has set in. status messages on social networking sites aren’t lighting up for rescue and relief like they used to. if there’s parachute journalism, is there such thing as parachute charity? parachute citizenry? parachute humanity?

the storm has passed. people, including myself, are chasing new things.

the storm has passed. who will stay behind?

saging nga lang ba ang may puso?

“hindi mo ako kapatid. carbonel and apelyido ko.”

it’s no surprise to friends and family members that i’m the biggest sucker for pinoy films. a fact i was reminded of a few nights ago. sitting on the front porch, with beer bottles and cigarettes to sustain the quiet brooklyn night, i rambled on in an endless discussion of pinoy films with a couple of friends. the discussion started with an observation as to why the common pinoy has developed an assumed distaste for pinoy film. they’d automatically dismiss artistic merits upon word of a pinoy film that you like, they’d call you cheap or bakya or baduy, and then they’d ultimately draw upon their hollywood counterparts for comparisons. 

they say is that most of the films, as a general knowledge and rule, are formulaic. for action films, for instance, all you need are above-the-title stars (FPJ, Bong Revilla, Lito Lapid, Ace Vergel) and  a revenge plot of some sorts wherein the hero loses something integral to his machismo (girlfriend usually of the Anjanette Abayari-type, some relative, and/or reputation). that’s enough to sustain ninenty-minutes of film bravura where the hero-turned-vigilante hunts down one-note masterminds who are usually of political stature and their bumbling goons (hello, Max Alvarado and Paquito Diaz). they’d usually end up at an empty warehouse, lot or factory where bullets fly but never land.

but can you really fault pinoy films for being formulaic? films in general are formulaic. 

as with everything else that’s wrong with the world, i blame it on the generation before us — the parents. i’ve heard of countless stories from friends that during their formative years, their parents would quickly shun them upon suggestions of watching an honest-to-goodness pinoy film. they say their parental units would scramble to their betamax-VHS-laser disc players or whatnot to abolish any cartridge that has any semblance of pinoy influence. they’d quickly change the channel with a mere glimpse of cinema one, switching it to any for of “higher” cinema — which they’d rank with the sole criteria that it’s in english. and for that matter, they’d rather have their children watch “higher” forms of cinema like ashton kutcher-classics like “dude where’s my car?’ or pre-academy jamie foxx in “booty call” than have their children endure baduy films like “himala” or “oro, plata, mata.”

my parents had that phase also. but growing up in the US, i learned one very distinct trait of migrant pinoys: they gravitate towards anything made back home. that includes over-priced pan de sals and choc-nuts from filipino stories, to hotdogs stuck on a foil-covered cabbaged in parties, and to, yes, pinoy films. that includes my parents. so when i was ten years old, in my desire to learn more about the language and culture of pinoys, my mom and dad encouraged me to watch these films. later on, i’d work a few summers at a video store owned by this old filipino couple by georgetown in DC, who had an arsenal of videos they’d rent out to the filipino community. at this time, i devoured pinoy movies and have loved them ever since.

the point of this entry, really, is that it just saddens me when i hear of filipinos who claim they’ve never watched a pinoy movie, or that “one more chance” was the first pinoy movie they’ve ever watched (and how they’d rattle on in embarrassment that their yayas forced them to watch it). it’s better to be baduy than to miss out on, what i think, are some the best films ever created by mankind.

on that quiet brooklyn night, i enjoyed the company of friends who were proud watchers of pinoy movies. we even ended up listing a couple of pinoy films that we loved. most of them are formula, most of them aren’t even that great. but for some reason, they hold a place in our cinematic heart of hearts.

firsts.

great art by the great jed segovia

Come to the ISO building now. She’s here, and we’ve got to interview her.”

It was late in the afternoon, five years ago. The sun was on full-dial. In between involuntarily passing out from exhaustion of having to endlessly endure college requirements from professors who enjoyed seeing Sophomores suffering from synaptic relapses from over-studying, I received that phone call.

“Who’s this? Who’s there now?,” I’d mumble, checking the clock resting on top of a pile of books I borrowed from the library but forgot to return. 

“Cory is here. We need reporters to interview her for a story. I’ve got a couple of them here but we need more.”

It was Jamie Santos, the Associate Editor of the college newspaper I worked for.

“Cory who?”

“Cory Aquino,” she said, her voice echoing disappointment with the my lack of first-name-only recognition. “Former President? Icon of democracy? Gave hope to millions of Filipinos suffering under the iron first of that dictator Marcos?”

“Oh, yeah. The lady who wears yellow a lot.”

Twenty minutes later, armed with a tape recorder I borrowed, I arrived at the ISO building. I was the design editor for the newspaper so I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. I wasn’t a reporter. I wasn’t even sure who Cory was. But the boss said I had to be there. Little did I know that it would be my first interview and would be the start of what-would-be a career in journalism.

The room was silent, with only the humming of low-hanging ceiling fans providing a soundtrack. Sitting quietly on a chair, in the middle of a group of entranced college journalists, wearing (to my surprise) an orange ensemble, she offered me a seat next to her. 

“Shall we begin?”

It was Cory Aquino. Growing up in the United States, I’d hear about Cory from my parents, aunts, uncles — stories I was too young to remember, stories not old enough to appreciate or understand at that point. I’d catch a glimpse of her in US history books — about a line or two mentioning a reluctant housewife who was chosen by her people to lead them against a regime. I had a sense that she was important to the Filipino people, which in turn, should make her important to me. But that connection to Cory never manifested itself back then. She was merely a character to a story, a minute detail I had to remember for a history exam.

But on that unceremonious afternoon, sitting in front of her, I wondered who Cory really was, and why she was important. Important enough for  my fellow college journalists in that room to be dazed in admiration, shaken up with feelings of unworthiness and luck, as if having tea with the Queen. Who is Cory?

That answer I’d have to wait for until after that interview, until after graduation, and not until I started working as a reporter with the rest of the grown-ups. Not until two weeks ago, when I was given assignments in New York and Boston and began unraveling Cory’s life in the United Stated that I’d get a chance to answer that question. But heaps of history books later, coupled with hours of stories and anecdotes from her closest friends, I realized that I’ve amassed more knowledge of Cory 101, but ultimately, will never really know her. 

More importantly though, I’ve realized why Cory was, and should be, important to the Filipino and to me — Cory was first.

Oftentimes, you’d hear people casually say in conversations that you never forget your first time. It’s true. History will serve the Filipino so that they may never forget their first Female president. The generation before us will have their memories, and will never forget the first time a housewife challenged a dictator, stood on a precipice, declaring freedom to a people that has long thirsted for it. And as a journalist, I certainly won’t forget my first interview and that it was with “that lady who wears yellow a lot”.

Cory Aquino was first. But now, at a time in our nation’s history where uncertainty and indecision continue to fester, Cory should not be remembered as such. Rather, she should be remembered as the one who paved the way, and gave the rest of us an opportunity so that we can be the second. 

To let her be an inspiration, and for us to follow her example that above all, our people and our nation should be the firsts. 

Former Senator Ninoy Aquino once said that “the Filipino is worth dying for.” Little did he know that his wife would prove him wrong. If anything, Cory’s exemplary life reveals that the Filipino is worth living for.

sidekicks. who wants to be my number two?

holy spanx batman! why are your eyebrows painted on your mask?

why would you want to be number two when you could be number one?

why would you choose to be robin dressed in all of his metrosexual glory and not be batman? sidekicks have it rough. they are perhaps the most underrated bunch of non-historical people in history. no one remembers them as much as the lead, and unfairly so. they don’t get as much accolades as the hero, not even a good ol’ pat-on-the-back for a job well done. no one notices them. who would? there’s a point in why they’re not called center-kicks.

but as mankind would have it, all heroes need a sidekick. for every paul simon, there’s an art garfunkel. for every mr. burns, there’s a loyal waylon smithers. there’s a berting labra for every fernando poe jr.

and i’ve always wondered why. if stars and heroes are as awesome as they make themselves to be, then why need help? what’s the use of a supporting crew? and more importantly, why aren’t sidekicks remembered as much as the heroes? 

i mean, c’mon. wham! would not woken you up before you go-goed without andrew ridgley shimmy-ing next to george michael. hobbit love would not have been fulfilled if it weren’t for samwise gamgee dancing single ladies so mr. frodo could put the ring on it. ricky ricardo wouldn’t have loved lucy as much if it weren’t for gal-pal ethel mertz. 

so last friday, i interviewed connie and rudy quiambao for my first assignment here in new york. they’ve been friends with the aquino family since 1981 during ninoy’s exile in the united states. and throughout the interview, they would share anecdotes of the former first family. stories that have never made it to the history books. rudy would laugh at memories of ninoy talking endlessly about basketball and the celtics. connie, a dentist by profession, blames herself for traumatizing the then nine year-old kris aquino who went to her clinic to get a tooth pulled out. the quimbaos recalled the days when the aquinos would always stay over at their house in queens, and how they felt embarrassed because of how small the rooms were. or how cory would always humbly assure them that it was okay. they were the ethel and fred mertz to cory and ninoy aquino’s lucy and ricky ricardo.

i asked them if it was difficult to be friends with one of the country’s most famous and highly-revered couple. how it was for them when they received the phone call that ninoy was shot dead at the tarmac. how it feels to watch the news and see cory battling colon cancer.

they said that watching cory’s health deteriorate with cancer kills them. they said they were shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of ninoy. and to my surprise, they said being friends with the aquinos was easy. they said that more than political figures and beacons of hope, cory and ninoy will always be the couple nextdoor — the nicest, warmest and most humble people you’ll ever meet.

and that was when i realized why every hero needs a sidekick: so that the rest of us remember heroes.

it’s funny how the dictionary define sidekicks as “close friends.” if we go by that definition then, connie and rudy are the aquino’s greatest sidekicks. they’ve stood by the aquinos for decades, through the rough, rock and roll times. they were there on the sidelines of history as it happened. no one knows them save for the heroes themselves. which is unfair but rightly so. sidekicks are, afterall, nothing special.

they are extraordinary.

xander harris, the perennial sidekick of  buffy, said it best: “they’ll never know how tough it is…to be the one who isn’t chosen. to live so near to the spotlight and never step in. but i know. i see more than anybody because nobody’s watching me.”

so why would you be number one when you could be number two?

___________

oh, and here’s the story that aired on balitang america if you’re interested in seeing more of the quiambaos: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/pinoy-migration/balitang-america/07/21/09/new-york-fil-ams-prayers-mrs-corazon-aquino

hours before new york, and i talk too much

asian man with some sort of instrument

so i’m heading to new york tomorrow.

when i was younger, sitting on my bedroom floor totally entraced by mtv’s total request live, i always envisioned what it would be like to live in new york. y’know, the way i’d live in an over-priced, under-repaired apartment in the city. how i’d argue with the landlord for missing rent and somehow maneuver his mind into thinking it was his fault why i couldn’t pay. or how i’d lay on a bed that creaks and folds covered with white sheets with traces of pee stains that form a constellation, with the chatter of the next-door neighboor i never bothered to get to know lulling me to sleep. or the way i’d walk around the city, armed with nothing but a nikon camera, a pack of cigarettes that were flattened inside my pants’ pocket, and a few dollars to try the city’s world-famous hotdogs. or how i’d non-chalantly eavesdrop on a conversation in an elevator about a pregnant secretary from new jersey who’s sleeping with the boss’ wife. or how i’d befriend a waitress in a hole-in-the-wall coffeeshop not named starbucks and we’d trade inside-jokes through coffee-stained napkins then i’d forget to pay so she’d call the police and they chase me, nypd-style. or the way i’d drink beer at the local pub with friends i’ve made from work, so we could talk about how great it was to live in new york and spit on bartenders. or how i’d get drunk and pass out in the middle of times square, next to a homeless man from guatemala who came to the city with an expired visa to meet up with a woman he’s chatted with over the internet, only to find out that she had a penis. or the way i’d push frail old chinese women around the subway on the way home. for kicks.

so i’m heading to new york tomorrow.

and i’ve got absolutely no clue what to do there.

yeah, i’m literate. for reals.

around the world in eighty days. i was nine, and that was the first “real” book i remember reading. a thousand mile-long departure from reading eggs falling off walls, red-hooded girls marching through the woods with a basket of contrabands for diabetics, and the world of pilipino funny komiks (mad props to combatron!).

i don’t even remember how i got my hands on the verne novel. can’t even recall half of what happened in those pages, save for wondering where the hell suez and yokohama were, and wanting to know more about phileas fogg’s so-called “reform club.” which, now that i think about it, might have been this secret society of some sorts that dealt with alcoholism, child slavery, and some sex addiction of sorts that lindsay lohan might enjoy becoming a member of.

what i do remember though was that after putting down the novel, i wanted more. this insatiable hunger to read developed, and from there, i went on misadventures with the hardy boys  (with its film adaptation surprisingly not having anything to do with frank and joe chasing clues but instead with a horny blonde secretary meeting the “hardy” boys), goosebumps books that i’d trade/barter with my elementary school friends, and classics like to kill a mocking bird or tuck everlasting. i remember my dad dropping me off in bookstores in the morning so he could do his errands, and feeling like minutes have only passed when he came to pick me up in the afternoon.

even in high school, i forged bravely on whitman’s words and shakespeare’s sonnets.  i flipped through fitzgerald’s great gatsby with fervor. drowned in woolf’s stream of consciousness to the lighthouse. imagined lost chapters of faulkner’s light in august. wanted a new citizenship after reading tan’s the joy luck club. i consumed every phrase and punctuation on every poem and prose i could get my hands on.

then college came and then suddenly, reading a book became mandatory. reading a book meant going to class, raising your hand, actively participating in discussions and making those who didn’t do the readings look like total dumbasses. reading a book meant not sleeping for days, rushing through paragraphs to beat deadlines. reading a book meant forsaking nights of alcohol-induced conversations with plenty of interesting people. reading a book meant not being able to join beer pongs.

so a parabolic slide quickly became a dramatic drop. i quickly found myself  not wanting to read. ever. there was a time, i even refused to read road signs to the disaster of unwilling passengers. (cue: evil laughter)

college ended but was quickly replaced with another reason not to read: work. there were the occassional book store visits, occassional book browsing. there are the rare times i’d get bored and i’d sit in a corner and finish a book. but those were few and far in-between. sometimes, on an impulse from the past, i’d buy ten or so books; but end up leaving heaps of them on the floor to collect and age dust, barely getting past the dedication pages.

i’d pencil in “read more” every year as a resolution but always end up not following through.

i went to borders with my eleven year-old brother today. he’s at that age when he’s developing his own personality, making his own choices. he’s got his own mind now and i can’t kidney-punch my way through him anymore to make him cry and follow my lead. it’s the first time we’ve been to a bookstore together and naturally, and in the most elderly and brotherly of fashion, i had this instant urge to show him the books i read when i was his age. we sat in a backpack-strewn aisle of the bookstore, and i started thumbing through pages of hardcore classics. memories rushed in and for hours, i talked non-stop about a bunch of boys stranded on an island who ended up eating each other (in a non-sexual way), magical asian people named cho chan and a black-and-white world with no mirrors.

there was a wide-eye wonder. more from me than from my brother. he decided the books i showed him were shit, dismissed every suggestion i made, and went on to buy a book called the lighting thief which i’ve never heard of.

i guess it was a matter of rediscovery. although i’ve forgotten, reading is an indelible part of me. i went home today with four books. something about astronomy and world affairs. another about egyptian history. and for the first time in a very long time, i wonder about things. about planet naming conventions and wars that changed the world.

not sure why but for the first time in a very long time, i genuinely want to read again. and hopefully, this time, i can stick it out until the very last page.

with this renewed spirit of reading, hook me up with a book.

let it begin with non-sensical things.

so here’s the thing:  six years ago, i started a blog. and a few months ago, it ended like a bad, bitter break-up – that sort of unresolved, unfinished relationship wherein you don’t know what’s wrong but suddenly you find yourself lacking interest or whatnot, feeling completely unattracted, feigning noises to appear everything is fine, then making  up excuses as to reason out why you don’t have time nor care enough to make “it” work, until one day, you just wake up and decide to call it quits for no reason at all. no phone call, not even a post-it to explain.  

then you find yourself one night in a seedy downtown bar going about your own “business”, drinking and blaming it on the jacks, joses and johns when suddenly – bam! – you realize you made a mistake. thought bubble pops up: tanga. inutil. bugarks. you should not have broken it off. 

so you try to patch things up but things, like before, just don’t work no matter how much you compromise. maybe you’re just not  that into it anymore.  things feel old and carbon-dated. you realize you’ve outgrown the damn thing. you just can’t go back.

and that’s why i’ve decided to leave the past for good. like a dog waiting for his master to return, but never will.

on to this new relationship, on with this new blog. this brand spankin’ new space in the intarnets will be about, in the most non-selfish way, me. or at least an abstraction of – the life and times of a television reporter sir/ma’am-ing my way through the news circuit, non-opinions about politics and current events, photos i capture of things i see in my day to day foolery, fighting midgets, weird historical sex rituals, and the overall wackiness of brewing up an epiphany.

basically, i just want to write again.

so for the two to three point five people who i assume will be reading this blog, best to end it here. and let’s see where this space takes me.