my earth is burning

like a great greek tragedy
only more accessible

the godfather trilogy
is one good part of this good break

so is nino rota's brucia la terra


Brucia la luna n'cielu // The moon is burning in the sky
E ju bruciu d'amuri // and I am burning with love
Focu ca si consuma // The fire that is consumed
Comu lu me cori // like my heart

L'anima chianci // My soul cries
Addulurata // Painfully

Non si da paci // I'm not at peace
Ma cchi mala nuttata // What a terrible night

Lu tempu passa // The time passes
Ma non agghiorna // but there is no dawn
Non c'e mai suli // There is no sunshine
S'idda non torna // if she doesn't return

Brucia la terra mia // My earth is burning
E abbrucia lu me cori // and my heart is burning
Cchi siti d'acqua idda // What she thirsts for water
E ju siti d'amuri // I thirst for love

Acu la cantu // Who will I sing
La me canzuni // my song to

Si no c'e nuddu // If there is no one
Ca s'a affacia // who shows herself
A lu barcuni // on the balcony

Brucia la luna n'cielu // The moon is burning in the sky
E ju bruciu d'amuri // and I am burning with love
Focu ca si consuma // The fire that is consumed
Comu lu me cori // like my heart



Acu la cantu la me canzuni

why not poo

this break is getting weirder every day.
in a fun, my-jaws-hurt kind of funny way.

so when you start arguing with yourself
when you should go poo
to maximize the time and so
you don't miss out on all the good things
you want to do (and have to do)

it's plain weird.


remember how johnny depp's willy wonka declared
weird
at the early part of the movie?
that kind of weird. it's sort of jolly and
amusing
only that is weird. which is okay of course.
save for the fact that it's weird
'cause you're not used to it.

but then again, isn't it great when
you never get used to it?

thanks sophie. have a break.
this break.

dear Diary oh dear

wow.

it's been three years since i, um
unilaterally
declared that this is our song.

three years too since things changed:
messages unanswered
gifts denied
dates that never happened.

it took an illegally downloaded song
from who-knows-where
to bring it all back.

damn how so much easier it was to be so crazy
three years ago.
dear no regrets
dear

it's just that it still hits me, you know.
this song.
and how you insisted we drove where traffic jams were expected
just so the ride lasted so long.


funny how it never really did.

some songs
some songs
and just like that you're in places where tingling feels right
and just like that it tingles in all the right places

maybe because it's 3am already
or maybe because ours was one of those
not-just-feels-good-not-just-feels-right-but-both-feel-good-feel-right kinds of things
you know... well

of course you don't. chances of you reading this are are as slim-pig slim as
the chances of me forgetting this song.


funny how
some songs
are harder to forget
than the things they remind you of.

some songs.

how i met your marathon

last year it was prison break
and grey's anatomy the year before that.

this year it's
how i met your mother.

i have a lot of catching up to do
but it's nice to watch a cute-sy funny show
(where people insist i'm one of the characters)
at your own pace.

now when will i get my hands on the first season of
mad about you
and will & grace.

2 books out of 6 done too.

it gets old

when you realize
it's not about you, it's about Him
and His birth and His being human too

you realize
you're old

and you take it back
and say you're older

and you forget about the presents and the food and the fireworks
even your own family for just a bit
and say wait

it ought to be about Him
but all these are part of Him too

and all the presents and all the food and all the fireworks and all the family
suddenly make so much more sense.

saying Merry Christmas to you
makes a good lot more sense too.

and knowing you ought to slow down and start a diet after all these
isn't such a bad idea.

nothing about Christmas ever was.

O Bayan Ko

a Ryan Cayabyab original
sung by Reuben Laurente, Lea Salonga, Rachelle Gerodias


Rony Fortich, the man behind Stages of Love
shared it on Facebook and I post it here
'cause it sent shivers down my spine.

Merry Christmas Bayan!

istyupid #3

Estrada on De Venecia's 1998 defeat: It was a blessing in disguise for him. Had he won he might have been the one impeached.




Wow. Applause. The whole series of statements is in itself istyupid (see Inquirer.net article, link here). WHY SHOULD ANYONE APOLOGIZE FOR SUCCESSFULLY OUSTING A BAD LEADER?

P.S. Same holds true for those who impeached me.

istyupid #3

Estrada on De Venecia's 1998 defeat: It was a blessing in disguise for him. Had he won he might have been the one impeached.


Wow. Applause. The whole series of statements is in itself istyupid (see Inquirer.net article, link here). WHY SHOULD ANYONE APOLOGIZE FOR SUCCESSFULLY OUSTING A BAD LEADER?

P.S. Same holds true for those who impeached me.

booked

leaving for cebu in less than a day
on "asia's most refreshing airline"
or what used to be asian spirit, zest air. woohoo

all other flights are booked.
let's just hope the rebranding will bring
asian spirit to greater heights. baduy.

i managed to finish alan greenspan's age of turbulence.
i honestly liked the autobiography part more than
the forecasting part. which proves that i'm more a chismoso
than an economist.

and on the week i was returning the book,
the rizal library (yet again) enlightened me
with a good counterpoint of a book (i hope):
adam smith's mistake.

this should be a good book-y break.
that mistake along with:

jfk: a reckless youth
thirty days: tony blair's battle
the osama bin laden i knew
the hitler myth

and a new version of
reenchanting the disenchanted.
the first version was a pretty interesting account of consumerism.


i'm guessing i can't read the osama book on the plane
so thirty days it is.

still more surprises

second night at aureli's just goofing around
with the learning circle boys and wii and shabu-shabu.

between jokes, i landed on TIME's list of
the best and the worst of 2008. link here

probably a good way to look back at the year that was
as we look forward to the new year.

and in one of those lists, i found this



to you who thought of this, goojob!
it just made us feel so good
in a strange strange way.

surprises still

just because.
below is sir bobbyguev's last prayer for 2008 as shared in class.

the lecture today on creation and the tree of knowledge and evil and that snake
was very very eye-opening.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Heaven is Here: Down is Up and Up is Down
by HORACIO DELA COSTA, S.J.

Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is 
the festival of surprise.

This is the night when shepherds wake to the 
songs of angels; when the Earth has a star for a satellite; when wise men go on 
a fool's errand, bringing gifts to a Prince they have not seen, in a country 
they do not know.

This is the night when one small donkey bears on its 
back the weight of the world's desire, and an ox plays host to the Lord of 
heaven.

This is the night when we are told to seek our King, not in a 
palace but in a stable.

Although we have stood here, year after 
year, as our fathers before us, the wonder has not faded, nor will it ever fade; 
the wonder of that moment when we push open the little door, and enter, and 
entering find in the arms of a Mother, who is a Virgin, a Baby Who is a 
God.

Chesterton has said it for all of us: the only way to view Christmas 
properly is to stand on one's head.

Was there ever a house more 
topsy-turvy than the House of Christmas, the cave where Christ was 
born?

For here, suddenly, in the very heart of Earth, is Heaven; down is 
up and up is down, the angels and the stars look down on God who made them 
and God looks up at the things He made.

There is no room in an 
inn for Him who made room, and to spare, for the Milky Way; and where God 
is homeless, all men are at home.

We were promised a Savior, but we never 
dreamed that God himself would come to save us.

We knew that He 
loved us, but we never dared to think that He loved us so much as to become 
like us.

But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we 
expect, but always something better than we hoped for.

We can only 
dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giving things too good 
to be false.

That is why our faith is a faith in the unexpected, a 
religion of surprise.

Now more than ever, living in times so troubled, 
facing a future so uncertain, we need such faith. We need it for ourselves, 
and we need it to give to others.

We must remind the world that if 
Christmas comes in the depth of winter,
it is that there may be an 
Easter in the spring.

because i got high

i had an immersionmate who was jokingly hoping weed would be part of our igorot community weekend. rice wine was the closest he could get to a euphoric high.

weeds, though, were what my tatay dani said was the cause for the rashes i currently am annoyingly experiencing, post-immersion.

and so if i could change everything that has happened in calisitan, nueva ecija, i would change only one--my not bringing of caladryl or any anti-itch stuff. apparently, off lotions only repel insects not plants. note to self.

high too were the hills. and i know other immersioners might have experienced longer walks than what i went through but i will not be ashamed to declare that i really had a hard time. i told the group i was pretty confident coming in, aware of my trekking experiences back in high school and as a boy scout. but maybe because i haven't been exercising the past few years or maybe because our house was literally another mountain away, i did have a hard time.

which only led to a conclusion: this should not be.

tatay danny and nanay emerlyn soriano had 6 kids. the oldest child was 13 years old while the youngest was but a month old.

after the program last saturday, which started at around 6pm while the sun was setting and ended around midnight, we had to walk home again. it took us almost an hour and we were very thankful the moon was shining bright. i was scared to bits and was half-hoping the program would last until dawn or later so we didn't have to walk home in the dark. but we did, with 5 small kids and a baby and a flashlight.

going home or back to the community center always reminded me of that two towers scene where the fellowship would walk on top of mountain ranges, that path right on top wherein falling on either side would be like hurting your self so many times over. a little slip would really go a long way.

it would be the same path three of the kids would go through twice a day to school and back home. tatay danny shares how his kids are rather anti-social for the sheer reason that their closest neighbors are a mountain away. but he would rather live here than in la union where he was from. he says he'd rather be here where water was free-flowing and where they own a piece of land.

which makes me doubt my conclusion. this should not be, yes. but maybe only for me because i was the only one having a hard time (truth is i was always the reason why treks would take an hour and half thanks to all the breaks i would request). the family seems happy and the kids they laugh a lot. or maybe because they have weird visitors who take forever to scale a mountain.

truth is i really don't know. all i'm sure of is that i'm real grateful tatay danny shared his story, his home, his experiences.

rehearsals for bluerep's stages of love has just started and i have several books lined up already but this christmas break would be filled with breaks just thinking about the soriano family and how nonoy, the month old baby, could live without fear of typhoid fever (something his kuyas and ates all went through) or without fear of falling of the tracks (a thought that made me shiver so much).

evsem or immersion or some conference up north, every time i'm on a bus and i realize we're approaching balintawak or north avenue or that last nlex tollgate, a heavy feeling of longing, almost a hunger pang, to go back and stay a little longer always overwhelms me and i try to overcome it with the thought that i still have so much time before me, that God works in weird surprising ways, that it is okay, that your bed is waiting.

no one really needs weed.

is back from immersion

and wonders if he should share the experience.






of course i will.
but a couple of papers first.

how to talk to girls

one of many movies i will definitely watch out for is
based on a book written by a
9-year-old.

alec greven wrote
"how to talk to girls"
for his school fair
and now they're being sold in bookstores
and soon it will be a movie.

fox, i think, just signed a deal to turn it into one.
you can read about him on the new york post, link here.

the headlines are filled with this corrupt guy from illinois (not obama),
those mumbai suspects arrested in pakistan or how cancer is surpassing heart disease as
the world's number one killer

so i was glad to read lines like:

control your hyperness (cut down on sugar if you need to).
girls always like the smartest boys.

AND
make sure you have good friends who don't try to take away the girl you like.

just some of the many handwritten lines of this 9-year-old.
i wonder what the movie would be like.

learning circles

i'm attempting to finish alan greenspan's age of turbulence
and so far it's a fascinating read.
he makes me want to read about presidents ford and reagan
and he liked ayn rand too.

this is more like a consolation really as i failed to get my own copy
of alain de botton's status anxiety. that book i immensely enjoyed thanks to gabe and his copy and to sir leland for suggesting it months months ago.

it's a slow sunday with me falling right in the middle of pensive and thoughtless.
the kind that makes you not want to bother with correct capitalization of letters in sentences.

yes, there is such a kind.
in fact it happens to me a lot.


woke up today with zero events listed on my phone
for the next five days. woohoo.
and i'm proud i can now sleep away from it too.

plus, the next listed event is an immersion for theology class
which i'm really really excited about ever since i heard there's such a thing as immersions
and even if i'll be missing strains carolling, yet again.

i never thought i'd enjoy theology class as much as i did last semester with father dacanay. saw our teacher bobby guev at mom&tina's last night (while the learning circle was preparing for the learning circle) and i saw his wife who i heard was a big part of that move to give a voice to women, the poor and the young in that whole reproductive health debate.

back in gradeschool, it always felt weird to bump on your teacher outside the classroom, outside school. anyway,

can't wait to tell the world about the learning circle!
but we should let it speak for itself first.


whatever that means.

cereal killer

what's better than having chocolatey cereal and milk in the morning?

having to drink the chocolatey-cereal-y milk after.

The Calatagan Farmers' Manifesto

below. the farmers have a voice too.
they'll be here this weekend! prayers please and let us walk with them if we can.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE,
A SACRIFICE TO ASSERT OUR RIGHTS
A Manifesto of the Calatagan Farmers
December 1, 2008 / San Sebastian Cathedral, Lipa City

Today, we shall begin another journey from our farms to the halls of power in Manila. It is a journey of three generations of farmers of Baha and Talibayog in Calatagan, Batangas. This journey is our quest to find justice in a society where the small, the poor and the dispossessed stand no chance against the wealthy and the powerful. We embark on this journey neither out of desperation nor hopelessness, on the contrary, we will take our first step filled with hope and conviction that our sacrifice will make the rightness of our claims over our land compelling and cannot be ignored. However, we know that we shall walk against the powers that be; we shall be confronted by the cruelty of the brute power of their wealth and influence.

We are no stranger to adversity. Forty years ago, the original agrarian reform beneficiaries among us defied and endured the cruelty of our former landlord. They have endured the constant threats to their lives, the fear instigated by armed goons sent by the family of Ceferino Ascue to force farmers to bend on their knees and submit themselves to his family’s whims and caprices. Despite the adversity and the danger brought about by the iron hands of the landlord and his kin, among the ranks of the farmers rose courageous leaders like Sixto dela Vega, who defied the threats from the landlord and defied their own fears and sacrificed even their own livelihood to assert their rights as agrarian reform beneficiaries. The land we now own, which were distributed to us in 1989 and 1990 under the government agrarian reform program, did not come in a silver platter. These lands were won through the courage and sacrifices of the elders among us.

For almost ten years since the land became ours, we have tilled and cultivated our land in peace. We have patiently made the land productive with our hands planting mangoes and other fruit trees, a variety of vegetables, corn and rice. We have raised livestock and farm animals.

The land did not fail us. We were able to complete our land amortizations. We were able to send our children to school. We were able to feed our families. We have built our homes in our farms and raised our families. We have built our lives around our land.

But greed can always find a way to undo the gains of agrarian reform and social justice. Unknown to us our former managed to sell the land that has already been ours for many years to Asturias Industries. Since then, Asturias has been trying to wrest the land from us by virtue of the Mineral Production Agreement (MPSA) they managed to secure from the DENR.

They have tried every trick in the book to take away our land, the land that we fought for, the land that we have made productive, the land that we depend so much on to live. We were cajoled, bribed, threatened and sued to give up our lands. Asturias preyed on the miseries of the farmers, waiting for them to get sick or have a family emergency or any situation that renders the farmers in deep financial need. Disguised as financial assistance, Asturias managed to purchase lands from the farmers who are in deep financial need. Claiming that the land has become “mineralized” and therefore “exempted” from agrarian reform, they seek to take away the gains of the farmers’ three decades of struggle.

Recently, in a public forum, Asturias revealed that it would not only be using our land for cement mining but also for industrial estate or ecotourism. They do not have legal instruments for this unmasked plan. But they intend to use their mining contract as a blanket authority to subvert our ownership and possession of our lands. Clearly, Asturias uses every influence and power at their disposal to undo what social justice has bestowed.

The Department of Agrarian Reform who is tasked to implement agrarian reform and who bestowed upon us the Emancipation Patents succumbed to Asturias. They turned their backs on the program they are mandated to implement; they turned their backs to the constitutional mandate that they were supposed to breathe life into. They betrayed the farmers they were supposed to serve, defend and support. The DAR shamelessly declared that they erred in distributing the lands to farmers. In doing so, they had to twist the facts and the law.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) pretended to be a neutral agency who is seeking to resolve the land problem in Calatagan. They even went on to create a task force to look into the issue. In the end, they reneged on their promises and have taken the position of Asturias. They ignored the mining company’s violations of the MPSA. They have ignored the rights of the farmers.

The Office of the President, the DAR and the DENR convinced us to negotiate with Ramon Ang and Asturias in order to settle the issue in what they call as a “win-win” fashion. We obliged and patiently embarked on a negotiation despite our doubts and our fears. We have made extensive consultations among members and we have come up with a proposition of what we collectively believe is a just settlement with Asturias. We were even willing to relocate some of our farms leaving our fruit-bearing trees and houses in order to arrive at a just resolution.

We entered into the negotiations knowing that the balance of power is tilted against us. But we trusted the government to defend our rights, and whatever legal grounds we have. In the middle of the negotiation process, the DENR Secretary and the Department of Agrarian Reform, in violation of the status quo agreement, issued statements and communications that further eroded whatever negotiating position we have. It has become clear, that to government, the resolution of our case is our capitulation of our rights as owners of the land and as agrarian reform beneficiaries. Their actions only made Ramon Ang and Asturias adamant on their hard line positions and deaf to our proposition.

Today, we will begin our walk to Manila not filled with desperation but with renewed conviction and hope. We will begin our sacrifice with renewed hope because our Archbishop believes in the rightness of our cause.

We will march with renewed conviction that we are the rightful owners of the land we till not only because we hold the titles to our land but because we also believe that we are stewards of God’s creation. We are obliged not only to develop our land into productive farms producing food for our communities but also to protect the land and sea from certain destruction and devastation.

We shall walk knowing that Ramon Ang and Asturias and those in government who believes more in converting our farms into a mining site, in converting the shores in Baha and Talibayog into an industrial zone and an eco-tourism zone will pull every string at their disposal to stop us from asserting our rights.

Our walk will be our testament to our conviction that government should put food production at the forefront and protect our farmlands. Our walk will be our testament to our conviction that the government should protect the rights of its citizens especially those who are poor against the maneuverings of the wealthy and the influential.

In our conviction to fight for and defend our land and our rights, ten farmers among us, representing the three generations of struggling farmers in Baha and Talibayog, will go on HUNGER STRIKE as soon as we arrive at the Department of Agrarian Reform. In foregoing food, we will defend our right to produce food. In their voluntary act of suffering from hunger, we will assert our conviction to fight hunger.

Pagkain muna bago semento!

Pagsasaka muna bago turismo!

Kaunlaran ng mamamayan hindi ng iilan.


- CALATAGAN FARMERS -
Pinag-isang Lakas ng Samahang Magsasaka at Mangingisda sa Barangay Baha (PLSMMB) * Samahan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda at Magsasaka sa Barangay Talibayog (SMMMT) * Samahan ng mga Mangingisda at Magsasaka sa Calatagan (SAMMACA) * Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Samahan sa Kanay