Glorietta Blast

October 19, Friday, just when people in Makati were about to call it a TGIF day, a blast that ripped through Glorietta claimed 11 lives and over a hundred casualties.

I haven’t been posting a lot about the Philippines these days because I’m trying to find good things about it. Feel good stories, you know. The Philippine Peso has been getting stronger against the US Dollar lately, and then this.

God bless the casualties of the recent Glorietta blast. And God bless the Philippines.

$60 (Sports Voucher) Richer, Baby!

It’s just one of those times when the sports gods hear your call.

Last night was our corporate bowling tourney and I happen to be teamed with our big boss and our assistant director. Talk about pressure, huh.

I’ve played with our big boss before, and he usually average about 150+. Makes at least 3 strikes, you know. Big bosses like him are usually good. But not last night.

I even bowled against him once and made a strike on my first throw when he just made a spare. You know what he did after that? He threw 3 strikes in a row. That’s how good (and competitive) he is.

Ok, so I was playing with big boss and assistant director and were playing next to another group of assistant directors and managers who are really really really good.

But like I said, it wasn’t our big boss’ night. He wasn’t making his shots. So I just threw straight and strong to catch up with the other team’s score.

Good enough game to lose with a close shave against them. We totaled 982 points in three games. We were last night’s 2nd runner up. Just 75 points short from the team we were playing against, and 100 points from the 1st placers.

Our team won $80 of Delifrance voucher. Yum yum yum.

And not just that, I won the highest pin fall award with 399 points total. Wooo hooo. That’s $60 worth of sports voucher, baby!

When they announced this last night, I was surprised I got this award. All because I don’t want to make our big boss look bad, I threw the ball like hell, hoping we can catch up with the other team. In the end, I scored 399 points.

I guess it paid off.

I don’t win awards that often, you know. But I’ll be gladly taking this one =)

Songs For The Un-Heroes

No.. I don’t think “Un-Heroes” is a real word, but I’ll use it anyway.

Dick Israel, Max Alvarado, Romy Diaz, George Estregan jr, Bella Flores, Gladys Reyes.. these are just names of Filipino actors/actresses who always play roles that makes good guys really really really good. They put on their best acting to be the worst character you can ever imagine. And when you watch them, you’ll live to hate their guts. In short, they’re the bad guys. They’re the “kontrabida” (villains).

I use to watch them on TV shows and whenever I see them, my blood starts to boil of hatred for them. Especially during the 80’s from this hit afternoon soapie called “Yagit” (which is a slang for “poor people” and later on became a movie called “Mga Batang Yagit“). Believe me, they have the best cast of villains there. Imagine, 4 measly orphaned kids against adults who would do anything to rid of them, from having them poisoned, kidnapped, physically abused, etc.

Then there are action flicks of the late Fernando Poe jr (before his presidential campaigning days), where he’s always pitted against bad guys like Max Alvarado and Romy Diaz. Man, if you can see how evil these guys are, you’ll hate them.

But get this! Search for their names and you’ll have a hard time looking for info on them. Not even images.

During grade school days (especially in high school when it was our first time to have girl classmates), I tried so hard to be this goody-two-shoe-gentleman for, dunno, maybe because these were the years I’m suppose to form my self-identity.. or was just trying to impress others.

Sure, my teachers will praise me for being good. My peers loved being around me because I’m this sun-shiny kid. Their parents loved having me around with their children because I’m a good influence (and because I don’t slouch while their kids do and they tell their kids to stand/sit straight like me). But in the end, it wasn’t fun. I never ended up having “the girl” (literally and metaphorically speaking).

Till one fine day, I asked myself, what the h3ll’s wrong? Then I realized, all this good guy image is just ain’t me. Sure sure.. if you’d see me in person you’ll be thinking “my my my… that’s one pretty package” (ha ha ha, you don’t agree, go make your own blog). But underneath, this pretty package is not your typical good guy.

Just recently, I got this comment from an old friend of mine telling me that I’m an a$$h0le. Can you believe that? Half a world away and he told me I’m an a$$h0le. But that’s what I like about “real” friends. You can say the nastiest things to each other, yet still be friends.

Then my best buds always use this old comeback line on me, about “the one that got away”, just to make me shut up. Well, FU best buds, time to update your list of comeback lines. But I love my friends. Hope to see you soon, brahs.

There’s an old adage about the only thing that’s constant is change. And probably that’s what happened to me. I’ve changed. Life has been tough on me, and that caused me to change.

And I love watching movies. Love it, yes I do. I can stay home all day just watching flicks. And if you love watching flicks like I do, you know that good guys win, bad guys lose. But then again, think about this for a moment. Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the whole movie, you’ll know the good guy will get beat up, will be humiliated, will face hardships all because of one guy.. one particular guy. The BAD GUY.

So you can have that .01% of glory and write the final pages of the story your way. I’ll be the odd-man having fun 99.99% of the time.

Road Rage to Road Kill

Have you heard of this one?

Pasig road rage sparks shooting; 1 dead, another hurt

A couple got capped because of a road argument. Where’s the justice in that?

And we Filipinos talk about other races humiliating us. Hell, we even got the infamous Malu Fernandez to do that for them. We got people signing up for petitions because of a derogatory remark in the recent Desperate Housewives episode.

But that’s not the real problem, my fellow countrymen. It’s our miseducation about life, about living, about courage, about our nation, about religion, about our ownself.

Why don’t we just accept that we are not the best country in the whole world. There’s no argument in that. It’s plain and simple, accept that fact.

When we know what’s the problem with ourselves, then we know better how to address problems like this.. situations like this. So we really get into the root of it all, not just patch up our flaws.

We just have too much freedom. Too much freedom to think, to speak, to cheat, to put anyone in the government, to carry guns, to take other people’s lives even.

For what?

Let us mourn for our losses today. Hopefully, we’ll learn to make it better tomorrow.

It Only Hurts When It’s True

My my my.. aren’t we too sensitive these days.

Filipino Americans demand for apology from ABC and Desperate Housewives

To: ABC To the producers of “Desperate Housewives” and ABC:

We are writing to express concern and hurt about a racially-discriminatory comment made in an episode of Desperate Housewives on 9/30/07. In a scene in which Susan was told by her gynecologist that she might be hitting menopause, she replied, “Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

[Excerpt from petitiononline.com]

Well, let me know when someone gets fired (or resigns). Hahahaha.

What If For Just One Day…

This Sunday morning, I woke up earlier than expected because something in my body clock tells me that there’s a pickup game going on 8.30am and I have to dress up now. But, like I said, I woke up an hour early so I got up, walked half-awake to the living room and switched on the TV.

As I was channel surfing, I happen to stop for a while at NatGeo as they were showing this short documentary about a piece on some annual celebration in Vietnam. It was called Love Market in the Clouds

Imagine a place where – for one day a year – rules of marriage, fidelity and society are thrown out the window. Imagine a place where married couples are free to seek out old lovers with no consequences. What would you do? This mesmerizing concept is explored in Love Market In the Clouds, a documentary set in the rugged hills of Northern Vietnam, where a festival sanctioning illicit passion is a reality. Seen through the eyes of a pair of modern Vietnamese newlyweds, this vivid journey of discovery takes viewers into the rural landscape of Vietnam’s Hmong people to find out why its legendary Love Market offers a respite from toil and the promise of love.

[Program excerpt from moni-media.net]

It’s one of the documentaries of NatGeo’s TrueAsean(?)  series that they’re running this month and it was kinda cool. So I watched a bit. Then a bit turned into more until it was already past 8.30am and I need to get my arse down to play with the guys now.

As I do more research on this documentary (see, I can’t find it YET on wikipedia), the thought of having one day in a year.. just for a day, when you can throw all your notions about the sanctity of marriage and just tread on the what-ifs and inner desires without consequences, what would you do on that day?

This got me to thinking.. really? There’s a place in the world that let you do this kind of thing?

In this documentary, the celebration is tied up with this tradition (or thinking) about making this one-day event filled with good energy. Vibrant energy. Energy enough to give the tribe a good harvest for the year. The universal energy called love. And what better way to do this than to let everyone do whatever their heart desires.

Sad thing is, I wasn’t able to watch the whole show. But with just half of it, I’m pretty much intrigued with this Love Market.

I use to listen to an audio program about this guy, David DeAngelo, a dating guru, who speaks about how to help men with dating women. Wait, let me rephrase that, help men with low self-esteem date hot-hot-hot-hotttt-definitely-a-ten women. In this program, he dissects the nature of men and women, where as women wants to be pursued and men has to do the “hunting”. That’s how nature designed these two sexes.

If you think like this, you’ll say to yourself that men (and women) are truly designed to have sexual relationship with more than one partner. That’s just how we humans are.

But bundle in reason and accountability, and you now have a different ball game. Yes, reason and accountability. What makes us human can also kill us.

So, where does this lead us to now?

It just tells me that I don’t have to look forward to a day like this. Because for me (and I’m pretty sure half the world would also agree), this is pretty much a 24/7 thing. We always have a chance to do this, to go out there and pursue our inner desires, to get a glimpse of the what-ifs in our lives and live the way we want to. No law can prevent you from doing what you want when you want to. Nothing can, and no one can tell you what you can’t do.

It all boils down to just one thing.. your decision. You choose the life you want to live. That’s it, jack. Plain and simple.

And for me, it’ll always lead me back to one path. Into the arms of my loving wife.