chada lugar

i think that means t'was beautiful or something to that effect.

save for getting laid, i think i've done everything in cagayan de oro.
and illegal drugs, of course.
okay fine, i have not done everything in cagayan de oro, yet.
but it sure was quite a trip.

thanks to philip and his cousins all interesting, it was bukidnon and camiguin and an interesting makeshift street party complete with throw-at-the-creek-your-rhum-bottles. some of my best nights outside cebu.

today they revisit some election returns, ERs we call them, and continue encoding.
today i rest for a bit. mama complains of a thinner me with more zits.
i call it sleepless.

the barkada calls. tonight we drink.
i can't help but be guilty for not being in full sanggu mode just yet like cabrei but i take a pause and be in vaycay mode 'cause i sure need some. and want some. besides, the guidon has been bugging me with so many questions it doesn't feel like a real pause anyway. but they're good

and so am i.

lisnin to Panic! at the Disco. my brother thinks they're cool. they're videos are interesting and some lyrics are kapow.
sortof readin local dailies. local gov'ts here are interesting
feelin kinda kapow yet with the colds

some pics by shor:

screw coherence

i begin my tour of camiguin with the sight of you but you were all pressed to leave with people i hardly knew. and i never had the guts to approach you or make known to you that i was there a few feet from you. i'm sure you won't believe this but i sure was there on a pink polo shirt and blue board shorts and nothing else but my glasses. it sure is hard to restart what we never choose to end. you said it yourself, we always catch ourselves at the most unexpected places and knowing that somehow gave me the urge to greet you and say hi. but not a hi, probably 'cause we'd catch ourselves again anyway. probably 'cause you looked all too amused with the people you were with and i could not just disrupt that. probably 'cause it was all a mistake to begin with. my bad.

i'm sure too that you will never get to read this ever.
but this ain't just for you. it's for me too.
and that i may have the guts to at least say hi the next time.
but i'm happy you're happy
and i'm happy i'm happy
and i know
you're happy i'm happy.

these islands are our witness
these islands are the cause.

it gets deep

that pretty much sums up conversations with real good friends these days
or songs you listen to over and over
or that period between tipsy and wasted.

deep too were the waters between camiguin and white island.
and my childhood fear of open sea was still well within me.
but it was a swell of a time.

after days of new friends in cagayan de oro with student leaders all the five ateneos in the country has got to offer, here i am with a good classmate, his brother and cousin checking out islands for the first time with nothing but a few pesos, not a pair of clothing and just the right amount of gusto to last the day.

people are good.
even if you hardly knew them days before.
and in the fancy yet rowdy sense of coming together we all get to pat each other's backs and say: well done and here's to a great year ahead!

lisnin to divisoria traffic
sortof readin stacked-up mail
feelin kinda alive.

thank you hapsa, pao, chito, philip, philip's family and everyone everyone. seriously.

harsh headed

that nap gave me a witch of a nightmare.
four hours to my flight and i still have not packed.

and i here say goodbye to bantaybilang.

you see, i talk to myself.
in the mall, at the train station, on the way home.
and all this self-talk (which suddenly now is starting to have melody and rhythm, sometimes rhyme) that i'm proud of tends to push me to think further but at the same time slow down.

which is all good. but suddenly, all your wants and limits converge and you get lost.
in the seemingly convoluted and nightmarish simplicity of it all.

and you wake up to tell yourself that even with so clear a vision, your eyes remain subjective, relative and perhaps useless.


but i pray bantay does not end here.
to everyone who is a part of it,
i sure had a blast.
despite the quickies to remember.

and no, pao, they are not like your quickies.

lisnin to Maroon 5
sortof readin buklod presentation
feelin kinda squished. squish limit steph calls it

a quickie to remember

there are weeks when it seems a lot easier to be careless numb inhuman dead

HALALAN 2007

just got info from my brother that someone's looking for me in our village in cebu.
apparently this someone was asked to hand me a 100 pesos to convince me to use as guide his sample ballot and vote for the candidate he is supporting. make that "the candidate he is paid to support."

i am a registered voter.
























[find yours thru COMELEC's Precinct Finder]
i also intended to vote even if i still believe registering already makes it hard for cheaters to win.
but i am not voting later because i assessed that being here for bantaybilang would be more productive than being in cebu to vote.

i pray for the day i need not choose from either.

lisnin to ABS-CBN's election coverage. goojob
sortof readin PERC says RP not Asia's most corrupt
feelin kinda anxious and giddy

haphapBday my sister sam cosalan.
and of all the people whose birthday's got a liquor ban, it had to be you.
irony of ironies.

Cebu on the side

my tita and i are so bad at bargaining.
far worse than my mom. tihee

but we're satisfied.
and the giddy me is back all of a sudden.
not that my earlier concerns,
the not-funny-anymore questions
have faded away already.

i also am so bad at keeping time.
and vane is also so bad at staying away from jed.
she's moved to florida already and jed still manages to bump on her.

haha, see you soon neh, you missed this at noel's pad we love to crash:
































rog and i couldn't resist.
still thinking if i'm sidetripping to cebu again after cagayan de oro.

not funny anymore

it reaches a point when it isn't funny anymore.
when you come into grips

with the ones you said goodbye to
















and feel the almost-full repercussions of your decision.
from friends to places like cebu to the stage to a vice

add to those delusions of possibilities,
of the seeming chance to change that already-made decish.

irresistibly seeming at that.
we cope and pause
and suddenly whoever said
that you don't really love it if you've never thought of quitting it
sounds right for once

and for all the thought of quitting, of giving up,
of doing that final worldly farewell
you realize you love it damn so much.

and so the decish suddenly is so manageable.

lisnin to Justin Timberlake Live Performance at Victoria's Secret

sortof readin thoughts on pinoy bantay bayan as a student spinoff
feelin kinda emo. haha, look who's emo now.
whatever that means.
but seriously, from the VorCE mass this morning to the whoa-that's-cool-but-wait-
the-next-is-cooler-then-the display of fireworks that greeted me as soon as i got home, been meaning to shed tears.

if only to ease the disturbed.

season's greetings

posted in Blue Ballot

Season's greetings

by Karl Satinitigan
Sanggunian President

On a bus ride here in sunny Cebu, I would hear a young couple comment on every candidate whose poster we'd pass by. This would go on until the lady concluded: “Ngano mag-elections pa man ta uy nga sila-sila ra ma'y mandaug (Why bother with the elections when it's always the same people winning anyway).”

It's almost always true, especially for Cebu. But that's not what's so disappointing. What's more sad is the fact that a lot of us would really rather not bother with the elections.

Ever since I was born in 1987, we’ve been blessed with a venue called the elections. And elections in this country is a season in itself. Maybe in other countries too, but in the Philippines, there are interesting indicators that tell you this season's here:

1. You will notice a spike in ad spending—from Mr. Kiko’s noodles to some green leafy vegetable to some congressman flaunting his biofuel bill outside the campaign period. Add to that a mountain of print ads turned into wallpapers or tree ornaments. Make that “ugly and illegal tree ornaments.”

2. You will notice that your public market is under construction, including your access road, your footbridge, your waiting shed. Make that “finally under construction.” I remember thinking that I should not be so jaded and so posit that there’s a causal relationship between the two. Besides, maybe I was not just as observant as before.

3. You will notice people dying. I mean, people die all the time but I do not think dying for political reasons is remotely acceptable. I read how election-related violence this year was not as much as before (so far) but so what? An improved statistic does not raise the dead mayoralty candidate shot within Cebu Capitol premises or discount the possibility of having to jump off a car in the middle of Pasig City traffic.

4. Yes, a lot more are dying in Iraq or of AIDS but in my own country I call home, people are dying. Again, maybe positing a causal relationship is premature since all these are still under investigation. But come on: people are dying. No, people are dead. For so many reasons that include a thirst for power.

Worse, all these are not new, far older than us and they persist, and like the lady who notes how the same people keep on winning, we note how the same problems keep on coming back. We never learn to learn. Elections remain dirty, short-term and deadly violent. Elections remain as seasons all to themselves.

Maybe we can change that. Just maybe.

I remember telling myself how I should not look at Christmas as a season of love but as a reminder that it’s always, even after Christmas, the season of love. Maybe that’s too mushy an analogy but hey, I don’t think this election be a mere season in itself too.

It ought to be a reminder of a democracy we’re all counting on day by day. In fact, it is a reminder:

1. that anything illegal, those tree ornaments included, should not be tolerated;

2. that doing projects, lampposts included, is not a means to buy votes;

3. that people need not be dead to make sure who he believes in wins; and

4. that for every Serbisyo Eusebio I see in this city where I temporarily reside that I be humiliated of the fact that I allowed someone to label as his what is all ours.

This election too is ours and maybe we can start by admitting how nasty and gruesome it is. Then maybe we can all build on and figure out together a way to make this democracy work. Then maybe the conversations I hear while riding buses won’t be too much of a downer.

now printing

i finally figured out how to make the printer work
even without administrator privileges.

i'm supposed to be in the highschool covered courts already
but i still am printing ID templates.

but that's just but one of many things
finally working.

tummy still a bit upset after that party at sam's earlier.
had lotsa fun sam, thanks.
sanggunumans still are good good good.

lisnin to Robin Thicke - Lost Without You
sortof readin ID instructions
feelin kinda anxious of today.

musings of the misunderstood

to be yours
is but one way of saying
of caring
of proving

but it need not be
for reasons we both know
for this context
they call time

he asks
how does it feel
she replies
um, yeah

i know not what to say
just that it's good

to know
to note
to accept

how things go on
in a poem written
at 4 in the morning
close to dawn

to times when
rules rule.

another swap to my loo

i live a life where simple and complicated are synonymous.

swap to my loo

i'm a boy but now i'm a kuya.
-3yo miggy on why i should let him play with his golf club

another poem from sir jethro

magnanakaw

matagal ko nang dalangin
ang pagdating ng magnanakaw
ng mga panaginip
na manloloob sa aking isip,

upang sa susunod na paghimbing,
hindi na kita makikita
dahil limas na ang lahat kong alaala.
wala na akong sisisihin

pagkat tangay na rin niya
ang mga luha ng paggising.

the words after "for" are the words hardest to find

lisnin to anc
sortof readin bambi count to five
feelin kinda annoyed.

hunger management

this is starting to get real scary:
i'm hungry again.

just hours after eat-all-you-can mongolian thanks to ate mhir
add more hours and it was a huge chicken pork adobo meal at the cebu international airport
and just a few more hours and it was fiorgelatto and leftover deep dish

so it's ice cream at close to midnight.
i should be guilty and scared and ashamed

but allow me to seize it and be thankful.
i've had too many zero-appetite days already

sometimes
i just want to cut the crap and learn to act
to play the part.
fingers crossed for a role.

you gotta feed that hunger sometimes.
you just got to.

no matter the consequences.
sadly, no matter the consequences.

lisnin to My Baby Just Cares For Me
sortof readin Blue Ballot
feelin kinda blessed.

nurses rock.

when a lot of scihi graduates took up nursing,
i honestly thought: what a waste.
especially 'cause only some of them really love the course [or so i thought].
but when you hear how they'd shave this and that or put a catheter here and there or be on-call anytime anywhere,

they've just proven how huge they've contributed already.
me proud.

and though we do are getting old,
we still sure know how to party.

it is 4pm and i just woke up.
it is manila in a day.

lisnin to local radio stations
sortof readin opinion piece for the guidon
feelin kinda tired. oh what a saturday.

eternal sunshine

vodka with kahlua and orange juice.
a formo exclusive
and they call it eternal sunshine.

helps me cope with eternal heat.
and eternal unease.

cheers.
welcome back lani.

had a great time, baklayberx.
even if me still real sleepy with zero sleep
filled with kamikaze quesadilla and
zero network coverage

so much left to say

it's so easy to conclude that there is always so much left to say. always.
and in a world where anything from cardboard cribs to a lexus hybrid may be loved, you realize you're really better off doing what you really really want

'cause just about anything may be loved
anyway

which puts being loved outside the point
which makes boredom and powerlessness a choice
which makes the most unforgiving days worth our while
which turns collections of random stuff
into pieces that help us define the times

from nina simone to gui boratto

from thecoolhunter.com to del.icio.us
from aslop's master plan of middlehaven to trendwatching.com

and though boredom and powerless
forever remain choices we do make

let it not be said that we chose
love
as one of those
left unsaid.

lisnin to the music of Catie Curtis
sortof readin local dailies
feelin kinda satisfied.