Barely four years ago when I was still an egoistic, belligerent campus journalist that I was in our school paper I repeatedly boasted to my friends and to myself that I would never leave the country for greener pastures abroad.

I kept insisting to myself and to others that it is a failure and a considered insult to the country if I would allow myself to serve foreign masters.

I was naive, short-sighted and somewhat eaten by the youthful pride and assurance my status-quo has offered me during those times. All I had to do was study and by it I thought I had everything under control.

Or so I thought.

It seems I needed to swallow everything I said back then. As of the moment I am typing away this ranting (if you allow me to call it that) inside my cubicle on one of the air-conditioned office floors here in Singapore. A sprawling metropolis no bigger than the land area of my home province Camarines Sur.

Here I serve foreign masters. Here I find myself on a very unique situation. Here I ask myself in two-fold questions like interviewing yourself on the mirror. Asking questions that you already know the answers long before you asked them. Here I am a question upon myself.

My decision of coming over here was caused of a myriad of reasons. I wouldn’t list them down here since I’m quite sure almost everyone already knows the reasons strewn across their lives in big blocked letters.

I had become a failure upon a failure of something. Don’t take it bitterly and I wouldn’t give in to the usual excuse of having to blame it to something else. Maybe this is what is wrong with us. We had made blaming others a national hobby. Look at how far we had come.

I had failed to finish my course since I was too bored with school. I was too excited to see the big wild world that I had neglected “some” necessary “lessons” from school. But to a certain point I can certainly say that not every square root or an inverted pi of some friggin’ thing would be needed to decide which detergent soap or brand of cooking oil you’d need to make the clothes cleaner or make your food taste better.

But still a diploma is still a diploma. A reality that many like me can’t escape. It is a pass in which would tell you where you can go and where you can’t. I’m sure I’m not the only one with such a situation to bear with but it’s the truth.

Putting it into context, my circle of friends can represent a microcosm of such phenomena within the current state of things back in our country. Almost all of my friends are self-made. They had treated school like a concentration camp, we were all eager to get out too soon. Upon our own failings we had managed to look back and ponder to the things we had missed, opportunities wasted, paths untaken.

But even so with the situation, I am in no doubt, that this group of people would always have their countries welfare at their hearts. Even the frailty and harshness of the present times has not affected our youthful eagerness to make change in whatever small way we can.

Some of them are full time reporters for a local newspaper, some as full-time regional news writer for this newspaper (PDI), some are enthusiastic young Graphic Designers, Photographers and Artists eager to make a mark in their chosen fields, and some has foregone a comfortable Law-degree course for a volunteer work up on the mountainous regions in the country. Others had to brave long nights of mosquito infested settlements somewhere in Mindoro. Some had volunteered to a far-flung area in dire need of nurses.

Some has to brave being young fathers and mothers and trying to stay in school at the same time.

I know they are not the squeaky-clean role models that can be paraded around or be given awards. I know we had our own brands and types of failures one after another but I certainly believe that we had not forgotten to repay the country we had tried to serve in our own little way for all these years.

And as for me, I am here a few thousand miles away from home braving my first Christmas outside the country. Though I would be missing the Medya Noche and the usual Simbang Gabi I know deep inside that I am here for a bigger reason and I am here to fulfill the promises I made before I left.

By March my sister would be graduating from college. She would be the first one among the family to be able to do it. It could have been me but I think, with her graduation I had managed to repay something back to my country that has given me so little yet so much.

(Allan Rey B. Camata, 23 is currently working in Singapore and plans to go back to school to finish his studies)

My handwriting was NOT very good. Ever since my elementary days I always hated the writing exercises meant to teach me the curvature of “B’s” and “S’s”. Sometimes I was the last one to go home before lunch break since the writing part of our English subject was about 30 minutes before we all go home for lunch. Usually I would sleep within the first 15 minutes of the period then wake up at around the last 10 minutes or so before it finishes. I would hurry up filling out the four to five pages of the exercise booklet since I would want to go home already. Much to the dismay of my teacher back then, I was used to the usual jokes calling my handwriting “kinayasan manok” or the manner in which the chicken scratches the ground leaving everything in havoc. I knew it was a joke from time to time but it left something in me that I still remembered right now. Till my high school days my handwriting did improve but I had resorted in the ALL CAPS style since my longhand was such a disgraceful thing to look at. My mother used to joke around asking me how would I able to convince the girl that I’d be writing love letters in the future to be my girl if I can’t even write her the words “I love you” in long beautiful longhand strokes. I told her, its better in ALL CAPS, no fuzz and it was straightforward. Just like the ads I was seeing at the sari-sari store at the neighborhood. “BAWAL ANG UTANG”.

When we had Calligraphy classes in my Chinese Language subjects it only made matters worst since complete hand control was needed to use the “Mo-Pit” or the Chinese Calligraphy Brush to write the big Chinese characters for Virtue, Fortitude, Love and Patience. Surely I remembered what they meant but I was really having a hard time creating the not-so-complex strokes needed to make them look like what they are supposed to look like. But I had always enjoyed doing the Calligraphy class since it would always mean someone’s ink bottle (which smells like a stocked unwashed socks for a month) would spill into someone’s polo. We would always be alert if someone started shouting and see the black ink all over his or her pristine white uniform, so much for character building.

We never had any computers at our home before. When I was in elementary I submitted my projects written in a typewriter. The only time that we were able to purchase our own PC I was already finishing high school. But I found writing my projects before using the typewriter more challenging since there are no auto correct options for misspelled words or a backspace to correct a mistyped word.  I miss the way how the keys would sound and the “ding” sound by the time it reaches the end of the page.  I would usually borrow it by the time my mother finished writing her own lesson plans and reports for school.

This was my first exposure to the white blank space called the Coupon Bond in which I thought was somehow related to James Bond or something, er, enough of that. Well, I knew back then that this blank white space would soon bring me to distant places and make me see worlds from far-far-away. I started to write.

This blog was setup by a good friend of mine Jeff Imperial. I’d be posting a link to his site soon once I get everything all tidied up. As always, we all have birthpains and surely this blog would surely have its fair share of it. Hope you stick around and let’s see where can our minds travel together.

Thanks for everyone who has been an inspiration for me to continue writing and who never faltered even when I was producing run-of-the-mill tirades. I owe so much to you guys.

Again. Let’s journey together and let’s get the party started.

…we’ll be together when we close our eyes…

Metropolis_Rico Blanco

An Alchemist.

they have all gone to someplace…

we may never find them again.

some say they already knew what’s going to happen

they have this place where they can stay undisturbed, at peace

yes there is such a place.

one place that humans can never go.

a place for fireflies only.

but i know you’re there somewhere.

a space that separates us

where fireflies only know

I’d be searching for it.

I’d be searching for you

All I have left is 82 dollars in my pocket. That would still need to stretch till the next 4weeks (barely a month)

what to buy? I have no freaking idea. Maybe a Dextrose pack so that I’ll just plug myself in.

I need ______, _______, ________, _________,

I’ll just shut up now.

So much for 82 dollars eh?

1. A day lost.
2. A birthday missed.
3. A kiss stolen.
4. A good coffee afternoon.
5. A life you got missed out.

Toto came back to Giancaldo a different man. The Cinema Paradiso lies unkempt and derelict. Alfredo has become older and more cynical. The town square seems the same but the people walking around have become strangers. His old car has become nesting coops for the chicken. His mama has white hair already and the most heartbreaking of all Elena is gone.

Sometimes I feel like Toto. I wish sometimes I have an Alfredo to tell me to forget Giancaldo, go far away. Never return. “I don’t want to hear you telling stories anymore,” Alfredo said to Toto, “I want other people talking about you”.

But it seems eventually I have to comeback. But I hope Home wouldn’t be like Giancaldo.

Or so it seems. As the planets aligned utter chaos ensued. Millions die. The last president of the U.S. was an African-American. A handful of rich blokes and lucky hitchhikers get saved. Large submarine like “ships” were built by the Chinese. The world as we know it got literally had its tables turned.

Just one question keeps nagging at me during the whole time especially as the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy swipes of the White House along with a humungous tsunami wave.

Shit! When all of these things were happening, what the hell happened to the Philippines?

Surely, the post-apocalyptic Hollywood appeal is still selling like freshly made pancakes right off the shelves. As far as I am concerned we enjoy every silly reason of having this world go KA-BOOM!

From major climate change (The Day After Tomorrow), from machines ruling the planet (Terminator franchise, The Matrix), unfriendly aliens (Independence Day, War of the Worlds) and falling stars (Deep Impact, Armageddon). Oh! By the way the Devil too got in the mix too (End of Days).

I think it’s behind our brains or some sort of fantasy of self-destruction that we seem to enjoy these movies. Or is humanity well aware that we are just little specks in the great schemes of things and we try to comfort ourselves that we indeed can survive.

Well that’s another story. I’ll leave that to you to think on.

But the question still lingers. What happens to the Philippines during these major fuck-ups? Would the Filipino people survive? Perhaps we will since as to the latest statistics there are over 8 to 11 million Filipinos working overseas. Surely we had taken the instructions “go and multiply” to the heart but then again that’s another story. We have been scattered all over the planet and surely the Ayala-Zobels or the Tans or Cojuangcos can surely have enough change to buy for themselves tickets for those “ships”.

I can only imagine. Surely we’d be fucked.

How does a third-world country like ours or smaller Pacific islands states like Fiji or Samoa get to deal with this doomsday scenario? But don’t worry I bet the G-8 would surely think of a way (yes, I am being sarcastic).

Would we have enough money to prepare for such disasters? How would we be able to ensure our people’s survival?

Would we send a delegation over there, a bunch of healthy Filipino girls and boys? Or by sheer luck politicos get the front row seats and the “masa” left to drown just like what happened during typhoon Ondoy?

Maybe we would still be busy bickering with each other about who should go, like we always seem to do.

Here’s a potential list of what you can do. You can expand it if you want to. This is no particular order or preference.

1. 1. Ayalas and Zobels
2. 2. Cojuangcos
3. 3. Tans
4. 4. Villars
5. 5. Arroyos
6. 6. Pacquaios
7. 7. your rich neighbor
8. 8. your ever smiling governor
9. 9. your ever friendly congressman
10. 10. Or maybe your barangay captain too (?)

Now where that does leaves you? Yes, you.

The boy or girl, straight or not who only worries about their Mafia or their farms on Facebook or their shout-outs in Twitter or what kind of detergent Kris Aquino uses to wash baby Jame’s lampin. And maybe just maybe, the guy who thought was your friend but ends up screwing your girlfriend.

What would happen to us?

Here are the possible scenarios:
(Same disclaimer as above)

The possibilities are endless. And true to the Filipino trait, we can really get creative on these things.

But just thinking aloud, maybe just maybe our own 2012 or at least a version of it already arrived long before we ever knew it.

This is now post-apocalyptic Philippines and it happened back in 2004.

2004 was our 2012. It was the time in which our whole future was stolen from us. Brought upon not by natural disasters like the alignment of planets but it was caused not by nature but of Man. (Well to be politically correct, I would mean a woman) I know you all know all too well who she is.

She stole our votes. Pretended she didn’t know it was wrong. Said sorry and lied through her teeth and went about killing activists and journalists like a deadly 8.9 earthquake that swallowed those people and disappeared from the face of the Earth never to be found again.

That was our 2012 and it is still until today.

In the movie one line really struck me (my apologies, I’d be rephrasing)

“It is when civilizations fail when humans stop caring for each other.”

As I ponder on this, indeed I asked myself.
When did we stop caring for each other?

Is it by the time your vote gets hacked and slashed? Telling yourself “Oh well, that happens all the time, no point of arguing. What can we do?”

Or is it by the time your favorite newspaper columnist or radio commentator gets gunned down in broad daylight on a busy city intersection by masked assassins riding motorbikes?

Maybe by the time a fellow university student gets kidnapped by unidentified men in the middle of the night never to be seen again?

When did you stop to care?

When would you start to care?

Is it by the time you end up on a torture room tied down on a metal bed with wires attached to you arms, feet, genitals and head? As a thousand volts of electricity pass through your body would you now start to care?

I can’t blame you if you can put it aside. Maybe by the time you finished reading this you would go back to your normal life attending to your Mafias, Restaurants and Farms in Facebook.

Well it sucks to be you.

Maybe by this time you’re contemplating on moving away from this page since it’s already getting boring and uncomfortable or you have your crush already online ready to chat you up. But before you do that let me ask you a question.

Is it too late now to start to care?

The answers I’ll leave to you. Think about it yourselves.
Maybe there is still a way to change all this. The list I may write down may further lengthen this write up already. I’ll leave the choices to you. Anyway we still have three more years before everything goes goo-goo.

What are you waiting for?
You already wasted three-minutes reading this.

Move your asses’ people!

The end is near.

Iyo garo talaga yan ang buhay kang sarong empleyado. Masakit, madrama. Pero sa paglipas kang mga aldaw na ang namamati mo dikit-dikit nang naghuhupa minabalik ang dating rason asin mga dating bagay na tinutubodan mo.

Minsan dai na.

Dai naging madali ang mga nakalipas na anum na bulan ko igdi. Ara-aldaw dai nawara sa isip ko ang aldaw na ako makaka puli na sa Naga, mahihiling ko na ang sakong mga tugang asin Ina. Mapagal talaga sa harayo ta imbes na sa pagpuli mo haling trabaho imbes na makakan ka na lang kaipuhan mo pang mag-sapna para sa sadiri mo. Minsan pati pag luto ning panira ika pa ma hilamon para may makakan ka. Minsan sa sobrang kapagalan, kape nalang saka tinapay. Kung suswertehon ka may ma alok saimong maki sama sa panira ninda. Dikit na maluto asin dikit na panira ligtas na ang pamangihan.

Minsan pag inabot ka kang higos maluto ka ning panira na maabot na para sa sarong simana o kaya man pag may dikit na sobra sa saimong kwarta makakan ka sa Kopitiam. Pero sa mga oras na ini lalo mong mamamati na harayo ka nangad sa harong. Igdi puro instik o indiano ang nagkakan. Mayong Kinalas o baduya o kaya dinuguan. Mayong libreng tisyu na pampahid sa malangsi mong kamot. Mayong maribok na radyo o kaya TV na nagpapalabas kang saimong paboritong teleserye o lokal na bareta.

Sa pagka-aga man mayong mapukaw saimo para magkakan. Ika ang matimpla kang saimong kape asin makaag kang palaman sa saimong tinapay. Ika man bahala mag sapna. Malas mo kung na udtuhan ka na magmata ta napasiram ang saimong turog. Mayong masabi saimo na “ingat sa biyahe” o “magkakan marhay nonoy”

Igdi ika ang hari, igdi ika man ang uripon.

Sa trabaho minsan pagmati mo ika ang pinaguulayan kang mga katrabaho mo ta sige sindang Cantonese or Tamil (Indian). Tapos sabay ma ngirisi sabay. Dai mo aram kung may tungay na nag sisirip sa dunggo mo or may muta ka pa sa mata. Pero minsan man ika man ang nakakabawi ta imbes tukduan mo ning “goodmorning” sa Filipino, tutukduan mong “mabata ang hangaw ko parong curry”.

Pagka banggui iyo ang pinaka masakit sa gabos. Igdi naghaharalo ang pagal asin ang kapungawan mo. Igdi ka magiging parahibi o uragon.

minsan mas nangagana ang pagiging parahibi.

Bahala na.

Dai pa tapos ang istorya…

May maabot pang Christmas, Bagong Taon, Valentines Day, Birthday ko, saka Graduation ni Ermana.

Hilingon ta kung kakayon ko pa.

Kurusugan na lang buot.

Pwede man ako magpuli amay.

Alab ng Puso
Kailanma’y hindi sumuko
Tagumpay!
Tagumpay!

But still its not been too long ago. Two years to be exact, if you can call it that long, since you saw each other closer than a few inches from each others faces. Breathing the same air. Exchanging silly promises and looking each other like well, a future in the making.

Every kiss that mattered. Every silly joke thrown unto the blue sky. Every butterfly you catch then set free. Every happy moment together. Well that’s it. They are now just mere memories.

Today every romantic movie you shun away. Everyone seems to be inlove you start to make frown faces at. When you drink coffee alone you don’t finish it once you remember it was what you used to order together. Then you tell you yourself, well I’m fine. Yes. You repeat that over and over again.

Your lost scribbles are revisited.