twenty-three years later (and 10 days too late)

I. Simply. Can't. Write. Anymore.

I missed writing on my birthday because I was surrounded by friends who went to great lengths to give me a "surprise" birthday party.

That I knew about it days beforehand due to the slip-ups of my sister didn't diminish the fact that I really enjoyed and appreciated the fake kidnapping, the cute pig hats and costumes, that irritating song, those darned photos, and the warm company they gave me that night.

Thanks guys! You know who you are. Special thanks goes to the big fat mastermind behind that operation. Hehehe. I love you dear.

I missed writing for much of the past year for a lot of reasons.

School work took up much of my time and also drained me of any drive to write (for leisure, that is). It really is ironic that it took a course about writing to remove much of the fun I had before with writing. Work kind of does that I think; before Journalism I was writing because I wanted to and because I enjoyed it. Now I'm writing mostly because I have to and that's what is expected of me.

Procrastination and laziness also kept me from putting my thoughts to paper. Sitting here in front of the computer, I have three choices: blog, Facebook, or computer games. Two of those things I do religiously. One I have all but forgotten. It's simply too easy to just laze around and do nothing productive at all.

There is also the lack of inspiration. What the hell do I write about? Who cares about what happens in my everyday life? Why should I put my innermost thoughts out on the Internet for everyone to see? Why should I write about issues and current events which happen again and again and again? It's frustrating.

I wouldn't want to consider myself burned out, but I sure feel like it. Nothing new comes out of my mind. I find it hard to do the things I enjoyed doing before. It's too easy to be distracted or to put off things I should be doing (here my thesis says "hi!"). Every day seems like a chore, another 24 hours to live through instead of to live for.

It's not just writing anymore. Everything seems like another obstacle, a problem, or a source of stress. Things like my surprise birthday party seem like islands of happiness in a sea of gloom. Islands which are fast becoming a rarity.

Twenty-three years later and here I am. Quarter-life crisis? I hope not.

this has to stop

You know that something is wrong with your country when 52 people are massacred in broad daylight.

The images that came out of Maguindanao show bodies strewn around a grassy field among battered vehicles. A shallow grave nearby contains even more of the victims of the worst political killing the country has ever seen.

You know that something is really wrong with your country when those 52 people included unarmed women and members of the news media.

With each passing day, more fingers point to the powerful Ampatuan family as the people behind the killing of the wife, sisters, and other relatives of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, along with the lawyers and journalists who accompanied them as they made their way to the provincial election office in Shariff Aguak to file a certificate of candidacy for the coming elections.

Something is terribly wrong in a country where no one is spared and no atrocity is too much in a person's quest for power.

Horrifying. Barbaric. Brutal. Despicable. One cannot run out of words to describe the Maguindanao massacre. But words are not enough anymore. Statements and days of mourning are not enough to convey the outrage of a shocked and incensed people.

We must have justice - justice as swift and as unmerciful as the brutal attack on the women and journalists in Maguindanao.

We must find out who was behind the atrocity and have them pay for their crimes to the fullest extent of the law. No one should be exempted. No one should be above the law. No one should be untouchable, even though they may be the ones in power.

Everyone should be held accountable - the government of Maguindanao, the police, the militia, and the military personnel in the area should be investigated thoroughly and made to answer for the massacre. Their failure in protecting the people they were supposed to serve and protect is close to being a crime in itself.

Declaring a state of emergency in Maguindanao is a too little and too late. None of this would have happened if the government had been doing its job in Mindanao properly. None of this would have happened if the security forces in the area had been doing their jobs properly.

The national government should step in and go after the perpetrators of this heinous crime, as the local government of Maguindanao has obviously failed in its duties.

None of this would have happened if we had never tolerated the excesses and the abuses of the people in power. We as a people are as much to blame as we have allowed a culture of impunity to perpetuate itself in our country. We let it happen.

Truth be told, political killings are not new in this country. Media killings are not new. But this is just too much. 52 people dead. Maybe more. All in one day. All in one place. All because of an election.

The violence has gone on far too long. It has to stop. All of this has to stop. All of this will stop if we do something about it. All of this will stop if we start to care.

the name of the blame

*This is my second paper for my Journalism 103 (opinion writing) class.

Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.

And that was before tropical storm “Ondoy” came.

On the day that over 400 millimeters of rain came pouring from the sky, the mess became a catastrophe. What we left mismanaged and damaged came back to haunt us all.

We stared in awe at the sheer volume of the rising flood waters and asked where all that water came from, knowing all too well that the denuded mountains and hills in the distance held the answer.

We watched helplessly as the homes, factories, and shopping centers of a poorly – if at all – planned metropolis sank in the middle of natural flood plains between the Marikina and Pasig rivers.

We waited desperately for help to come in the midst of the storm, only to be frustrated by news of rescue teams blocked by congested roads and suffering from a lack of equipment.

When the rain finally stopped we picked through huge piles of garbage. Our own trash, disgorged by the very waterways we turned into latrines, plus the debris from all the destroyed buildings and the mud and silt from the mountains, covered all the streets.

Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.

This is after tropical storm “Ondoy” left.

In the days after the storm, thousands of volunteers picked up the pieces and gave food and supplies to those ravaged by the floods. Unfortunately, such a picture of one nation and one people engaged in bayanihan was not meant to last.

That fleeting moment of national unity was quickly overshadowed by politicians, personalities, and people all pointing fingers and blaming each other for the disaster that brought the capital to its knees.

Critics slammed the national government’s feeble disaster-response capability, even though the blocked roads prevented the rescue teams from getting to where they were needed most.

They scored the weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), for not warning the people about the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”, even though the tools for doing so were not available.

They blamed the managers of the metropolis’ drainage system for not opening the pumps out of the city, even though doing so would have entailed pumping water into already full rivers.

But these critics need not look far for those who are ultimately to blame for last month’s deluge. They only have to look in front of them, behind them, beside them, around them, within them, for the cause of the disaster.

Yes. We are all to blame.

Our mad rush to build a city caused us to irresponsibly put houses and infrastructure in hazardous areas. Urban planning took a back seat to profit-making.

Our disregard for proper waste management filled our drains, our creeks, and our rivers with garbage that so congested the waterways that the water had nowhere to go but into our living rooms.

Our disrespect for the law led us to tolerate squatters who blocked the main drainage channels out of the city and added to the congestion of our waterways.

Our greed led us to strip the mountains bare of trees and plants, leaving our watersheds without any cover at all from the rains.

Our ignorance kept us from preparing for the inevitable, with money going into worthless endeavors such as junkets abroad instead of proper disaster response equipment, adequate warning systems, and Doppler radars which could have warned us of the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”.

At the end of it all, we are left with what we have sown.

Now, let us plant new seeds in the mud left by this disaster. Let us learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them in the future, lest we suffer another “Ondoy”.

four days after "ondoy"

You don't see things like this everyday. Sure, one can tune in to CNN or any other news channel or log on to the Internet to see scenes of nature's wrath, but I wasn't really prepared to see and experience a disaster area firsthand and right where I lived.

It was the smell - that heavy, putrid stench that hung in the air - that made it all real. There were piles of garbage scattered everywhere. Brown, sticky mud still lined the roads - in some places, it still covered everything.

If it wasn't muddy, it was dusty. The silt deposited by the flood had dried in some places, and passing vehicles churned the caked mud into a fine dust that flew everywhere. Trucks of every shape and size were coming and going, while there were a lot of damaged cars along the road.

Aside from the cars, every house or establishment we passed had furniture and appliances outside. Sofas, tables, chairs, television sets - all broken or damaged by the flood waters.

That was what I and a couple of friends went through as we walked home from Riverbanks yesterday evening. The flyover into Marikina was damaged during the storm, so there was no public transportation plying the road from Barangka to the Marikina Bridge.

There were people everywhere. Some, just like us, walking down the street on the way home. Quite a few people were waiting for a jeep or taxi to pass by. Some were cleaning their houses and furniture. Many were walking out of the area with their things on their backs.

Provident Village was full of people and trucks. Soldiers and police were scattered here and there. There was a steady stream of refugees, some barefoot, walking out of the worst-hit place in the entire city. We watched a truck try to drag a muddy car out of the village. The car's bumper came off, undoing the chain tying the two together. It was already dark, so I did not want to risk going further into the subdivision.

As we neared the Marikina Bridge, we passed one van carrying relief goods. One van. The white L300 was being mobbed by residents shouting "May stub kami! May stub kami!" ("We have stubs!) over and over again. We quickened our pace, fearing a looming confrontation - there were stories circulating about relief trucks that had been attacked by hungry and angry people.

An old woman on the bridge muttered "Hindi nga nalunod, mamamatay naman sa gutom" (We did not drown, but we're going to die of hunger).

Relief goods in the area were scarce. The main sources of food and supplies were either closed or running out of stock. Riverbanks, a major supermarket and mall which we had visited earlier in the day, was like a ghost town. In the mall, the stores were eerily empty and quiet. The glass walls of Jollibee, Nutri Options, and Tropical Hut lay shattered on the mud-covered floor.

One security guard remarked on the flood that brought the once bustling shopping center to its knees. "Lagpas tao tubig dito" (The water went higher than a person here), he said. And indeed, the water line on the walls showed the flood going up to more than six feet.

The river bank itself was a sea of brown mud. Silt and garbage covered what was supposed to be green grass. The vine-covered gazebo across the Marikina River was smashed; pieces of it had broken off leaving an empty shell.

I remember hanging out there with my friends once. Our conversation touched on how high the river got during flooding. Right there and then, as we walked through the remains of the park, we knew.

A friend, who couldn't take the smell anymore, told us "Amoy bangkay naman dito" (It smells like a corpse here). Until then I had kept all thoughts of death out of my mind, choosing instead to focus on the disaster and the people who needed help. I didn't want to think that she was right, that there were dead bodies around, but looking again at the as yet untouched and uncleaned Riverbanks park, I wasn't so sure anymore.

It was sad and depressing all throughout. While one of the reasons why I took up Journalism was so that I could go to and see disaster areas and war zones, I had never planned on seeing one right in my own backyard.

While walking through Marikina - from Riverbanks, to Barangka, past Provident, across the Marikina Bridge, to Bayan - I couldn't help but think about how fragile life was. The once busy city was totally shut down, its people trying to get back up from the devastation of the flood wreaked by "Ondoy".

However, dark and devastating the aftermath of the disaster may be, there is always something that gives hope and light to the survivors of the catastrophe. Foremost of all are the many volunteer relief efforts that have sprung up all over the metropolis in the wake of "Ondoy".

Before going around Marikina, my friends and I tried to help out in some of the relief centers nearest to us. While it was quite frustrating that we couldn't find any places where we could join in, it was heartening to see that this was because all of them were overflowing with people doing what they could to help their countrymen.

The University of the Philippines' Church of the Risen Lord, Cubao Expo, Ateneo de Manila University: all were filled with volunteers - mostly from the youth - loading and unloading trucks and packing relief goods.

It was a very encouraging sight indeed, to see Filipinos working to provide relief for fellow Filipinos. For all the devastation "Ondoy" has wrought on our country, on our cities, on our people, it still did do one good thing. The storm brought out the best in our nation. It brought out the best in us.

You don't see things like this everyday.

back home

MANILA - Cebu Pacific Flight 5J 679 landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 3:55 AM, a few minutes ahead of schedule. Ground temperature was 26 degrees, a far cry from the 30 degrees which greeted us at Pudong International Airport just a few short days ago.

And THAT was three days ago. Hahaha. I've been bumming around ever since I got back home from Shanghai. I had a lot of catching up to do - with my family, my friends, with Plurk, Facebook, Multiply, Blogger, the History Channel, CNN, Farmtown, Sword of the Stars, Call of Duty 4 - hence the lack of updates since Friday.

Honestly, I have a bit of a hangover. I miss Shanghai. I miss the dorm, the bar, the food, the free Wi-Fi, the company. I miss the parks and the subway. I miss the feeling of adventure. But I missed home more, and now I'm back. I've got a lot to do - papers, blogs, exams, reports, changes.

Better start now.

***
I've got a huge backlog of blog posts and pictures about Shanghai. Will post them in the days to come.

jitters

By this time tomorrow, I'll be unpacking my bags at our hostel in Shanghai. That is, assuming that I even get to our hostel in Shanghai. Hahaha. I'm scared. I'm excited. I can't sleep.

All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go. Hahaha. I've got more than enough clothes for my six-day trip. Talk about overkill - I'm even bringing my nebulizer along with me. Too bad my dad didn't allow me to bring the laptop; I'll just have to borrow one when I get there.

Maybe I should try to sleep now. I've got a big day ahead. Hahaha.

rewrite

Second day, 30 minutes late. Damned traffic. I've forgotten how Katipunan Avenue gets clogged up in the morning thanks to the children going to Ateneo and Miriam.

Of course I should have left home earlier. Come on, leaving at 8:20 for an 8:30 class? I have got to shake off my summer hangover. It was a good thing that our professor did not make a big deal out of my barging into the room out of breath and very late.

Journalism 103. Opinion writing. The course I've been dying to take since Day One of my stint at the College of Mass Communication. You may have seen that some, if not all, of my old Blogspot blog entries just popped out of nowhere. I was just trying out Multiply's cross-posting feature so that I could somehow revive my old blog and now this happens. Crap.

Anyway, you may notice that I was once very opinionated. That was why I got into writing in the first place: to have my say on the issues of the day. Before I just wrote what I thought without thinking much about everything else - well, except grammar, but looking back now I fear I was a bit careless in my writing.

I hope that taking a class in opinion writing will help me communicate my thoughts better. I'll be writing even more thanks to that class, with a daily blog posting assignment, and writing exercises every meeting. Oops. Hahaha. But if I want to restore my discipline and my love of writing, it's a good start.

We didn't meet for my other class of the day, Journalism 112. Reporting on the environment is not really my forte, but as I said yesterday, it's nice to learn something new once in a while.

A College Assembly had been called so classes in the afternoon were suspended. The draft 2009 Code of Student Conduct was discussed by the CMC Student Council and representatives from the University Student Council. I'll probably have more on that in the coming days, but all I can say for now is that I'm glad that my term as the head of UP AstroSoc is ending tomorrow.

Hahaha. Just kidding.

On a more serious note, there's already at least one case of swine flu in UP Diliman. I'll have to be more careful. This pandemic could cost me my Shanghai trip in July. Damn.

realizations

Tinatamad nanaman ako.

Lagi naman e.

Hahahaha.

Three weeks before the semester ends, and 'Im still in a sluggish mood. I can't get myself to start working. Deadlines are drawing near and I have yet to start on anything.

I just don't have the drive to get on with everything I have to do. I feel drained and incomplete. There is something missing; I just don't know what it is.

Hahahaha.

Tinatamad ka lang talaga.

Pero bakit?

What's wrong? I really have no idea. I have lists of things to do, yet I can't even start to do them. It's like something is holding me back. Something is muddling my brain and keeping me from thinking. Something has tied up my hands, keeping me from writing or typing.

It's frustrating. Immensely frustrating.

I want to work. I want to turn out perfect work. I want to finish my assignments. I want to pass perfect assignments. I want to be perfect. I want to be the best.

Maybe that's what's missing. I don't feel like I'm good at what I do anymore.

Weird right? But it's completely true. In the past I felt like I could do anything. Anything. I felt invincible. I felt alive. I could do a job and pass it with confidence thinking "I am the best".

And everything came back with the highest grades. Or with the greatest praise. Or at least with a special mention. I was driven by the expectation that I would be the best, or at least among the best.

I felt that I was special. Now I don't feel so special anymore.

So much so that I don't feel like doing what I should be doing. So much so that I don't feel like giving my all in my work. So much so that I just want to ignore everything and retreat into my own little world.

Failure after costly failure. Defeat after defeat. Mistakes. Stress. Complaints. Backstabbing. Loss of confidence. Disrespect. The little things. They all eat at me.
And now I don't feel so special anymore.

I feel like I'm a minor player, or not even a player at all. Irrelevant. Easily dismissed. I may hold a position, but I feel like I'm easily ignored. I may get good grades, but "good" just does not feel, well, good.

I don't feel good. I feel bad. Hahaha. Really bad.

I want something more out of my life. I want to be more than what I am right now. I want to be the best that I can be.

And ranting about failure and not feeling special is not the answer to that.

Looking back at what I wrote, reviewing the words that I used, seeing my thoughts out in the open... Am I really that pathetic? Have I sunk so low that I would moan about not feeling special?

Writing really is the best stress reliever. How could I have let myself forget that? Hahaha. Let's start there. I should start writing more. Again. I have the brains. I have the talent. I have the means and the time. Now I must regain the will.

I let my pride be broken and battered by the words of others. I let myself be affected by a string of failures not entirely of my own doing. I let myself down, plain and simple, by letting the people and events around me define who I was. No more.

I will be me again. The old me. The me who didn't take crap from anyone. The me who didn't care what other people said or thought about him. The me who strived for perfection. The me who defined himself by his own terms and by his own standards.

Yes. Enough self pity. Enough wallowing in the mud. Enough crying over spilled milk. Enough living in the past. Enough cliches.

It's about time I retook the initiative. Carpe diem. Carpe nocte.

Seize the day and the night. Take every opportunity to be the best. No more settling for mediocrity. No more "para lang maipasa" or "para lang may nagawa".

I am setting high expectations for myself here. Hahaha. But they can be attained. They will be reached.

I will be me again.

defending the osr

It's almost a month later and I still can't get over the UP Lantern Parade. The fireworks display at the end was the best I've ever seen - even better than those at Ayala during the Millennium celebration eight years ago.

I still remember laughing out loud when a marching band playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" came after a long line of protesters carrying banners screaming "Defend the OSR". The irony was really amusing.

Back then, I had absolutely no idea why we have to defend the Office of the Student Regent. Back then, I was annoyed at having activists screaming and chanting during one of the most festive days of the year.

Now that I know why, I'm even more annoyed.

The protesters were right. We have to defend the OSR. However, I believe that we have to defend the OSR from those who are crying "Defend the OSR".

Why?

The campaign being spearheaded by STAND-UP is misleading at best, blatant disinformation at worst. There is no threat to the Office of the Student Regent stemming from the passage of the UP Charter last year.

What the 2008 Charter calls for is a referendum on the rules for the selection of the Student Regent. This is what the "Defend the OSR" campaign is all about. They are telling us to vote "yes" in the referendum two weeks from now - a vote that, if successful, will institutionalize the existing Codified Rules for Student Regent Selection (CRSRS).

A "no" vote in that referendum will not lead to the abolition of the Office of the Student Regent. The OSR is a part of the UP Charter and as the Charter is a law (Republic Act 9500) passed by the Philippine Congress, it cannot be removed by a mere student referendum. A "no" vote will, in effect, open up the CRSRS to review and possible amendment.

And that is what I believe to be the "threat" that the "Defend the OSR" campaign is calling us to "defend" against.

The two other major political parties in UP, ALYANSA and KAISA, are calling for amendments to the CRSRS. These amendments include having a minimum academic requirement for would-be Student Regents, the inclusion of the duties and responsibilities of the Student Regent, the removal of KASAMA sa UP from the CRSRS as secretariat, and the revision of the Student Regent selection process which would give every UP college one vote each.

So what is the threat here?

A minimum academic requirement that would prevent the likes of a Joseph Estrada from leading and representing the UP students at the Board of Regents?

The definition of what the Student Regent can and should do for his or her constituents?

The removal of a partisan political body from a position wherein it could influence or even control who can become Student Regent?

The democratization of a selection process that today gives disproportionate votes to each UP unit?

I don't see any threats here, other than the removal of certain advantages from a certain political movement we all know and love. But that is just me speculating.

This referendum gives us the perfect excuse and opportunity to review and amend the CRSRS to further professionalize and democratize the Office of the Student Regent. Now what could be wrong with that?

Those in the "Defend the OSR" camp say that a failure of the referendum will lead to the abolition of the OSR or at least open up the OSR to a Malacanang appointee. If the referendum fails, the sitting SR will remain until a replacement is selected.

However, that replacement will have to be chosen by the students in accordance with rules and qualifications approved in a referendum by the students as written and enforced in the UP Charter. A failure of the referendum will leave current SR Shahana Abdulwahid as SR until her replacement is selected by the UP students. Her replacement will have to wait until another referendum is held to ratify the CRSRS or an amended version of it.

The bottom line here is that there can be no Malacanang appointee or abolition of the OSR. The "Defend the OSR" people are only using this bogey as a scare tactic, plain and simple. And what they are doing is blatant disinformation. They are being dishonest with us.

They are lying to us.

Yes, we should defend the Office of the Student Regent. The Student Regent represents us and fights for us at the Board of Regents. It is our sole voice in the highest policy-making body of the University of the Philippines.

We should defend the OSR from those who would use it for their own partisan ends. We should fight for its professionalization. We should call for the further democratization of the SR selection process.

If the referendum for the ratification of the CRSRS scheduled on January 26-29, 2009 asks me whether or not I want to keep the Codified Rules for Student Regent Selection as flawed as they are right now,

I will vote no.