Baguio: in ruins and for sale

Thank you, Christine

Over pizza and beer at a little past midnight, we talked about how it's probably becoming some kind of a trend already to make one's presence felt with a power outage soon after one passes away: it happened when Santi went, it happened last night soon after Christine passed away.

Padma called last night just as we were having dinner - Christine was at the Notre Dame Hospital and wasn't doing well. I had to end the alread prolonged stand off between me Aeneas about slinky and how to take care of her properly and rush to the hospital.

It wasn't easy seeing her struggling with every breath, I closed my eyes and tried to picture her the way I knew her...

It took a while for me to get comfortable around Christine, I only met her when I moved to Baguio ten years ago. She wasn't really sociable - she wouldn't pretend to be anything she's not. It was only later that I would admire her sincerity: sitting at the Cafe by the Ruins' office laying out the menu. I remember us laughing it off when I made that typo error on one item in the menu - something that I think should've cost 70 pesos but I mistakenly typed 270 and yet that item still got ordered a lot. We joked about splitting the extra profits. I would be her computer geek for the next couple of years - how does one send an email? Make attachments? Open attachments? How to play the Baguio scandal video?

She'd try to watch all our plays, and I particularly remember the time when she brought Andre, who was I think about 7 or 8 years old then. The play was Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, a performance-art piece overflowing with cuss words and provocative scenes... when I saw her the next day at the Cafe, the first things she said was, "Gago ka talaga!" Said with a big smile on her face. Then she complained about having to spend all night explaining a lot of things that Andre saw in that performance that same night. I believe Christine Arvisu liked the show.

And then we had Leon. I was really touched by how much she loved Leon and the way she showed this - the way she took care of him when he's at her house, or when he spends the night there for an all-night PS2 binge with Andre. I loved bringing Leon to her, and Leon loved being around her: he just felt so welcome and at ease with Christine and in her home.

Yup, we became friends, I can say that now; we became really good friends, I believe that.

Thank you, Christine, for not saying hi when you didn't feel like it, and asking how we've been when you really meant it, when you sincerely wanted to know how we've been. Thank you for all the happy moments Leon and the rest of my children had with you and your family. Thanks for being a real friend, and being there for us no matter what, and for having us as your friends. Thanks for being a part of our lives. And thank you for showing us what courage was up until your last moment with us. And forgive us if we bothered you a bit too much last night by disturbing the beginning of your journey out there with our hugs, kisses, and words of love: though we knew it was time, it just wasn't easy to let go of a friend like you.

On our way home last night, after a few pizzas and a beer with Mitos and her kids at Volante figuring out if the power outage was city-wide or just downtown, but being so sure that the blackout was your way of letting us know that you're ok, that you're well on your way, peacefully, quietly, RL showed me a text message you sent her last month: Take care guys. Be happy.

We'll do all we can, Christine, thank you. And we love you too.

Take a walk

First, they applauded the it, until someone allegedly slipped on it and injured herself. So they distanced themselves from it, condemned it, threatened to destroy it, until it started getting good reactions from the community, so they started commending it again...

... until someone came up with a great idea: Replace those mosaics on the sidewalks of Session Road (brainchild and the work of concerned local artists who acted on their own since the city government wasn't doing anything for the longest time to patch up the holes on the sidewalks along Session Road) with our version of Hollywood's walk of fame and have hand-prints of famous showbiz personalities dot the sidewalks all over the Central Business District, beginning with, oh man - Mother Lily's. What does she have to do with Baguio except that some of her productions were shot and eventually, sadly inevitably, shown here? Educate me please.

Since apparently this idea is being endorsed by certain powers-that-be in the city (and we all know that when anything has the approval of the city's powers-that-be, no matter how stupid the idea is, be it a flyover at the BGH Rotunda or a concrete pine tree or a pay-parking ordinance it happens), here's another suggestion:

Why not also pay tribute to and include plaster casts of the faces of JDV; Raul Gonzalez; GMA; Dubya; certain current city officials whether appointed, career employees or elected; a lot of past city officials particularly those itching to make a come back to save face; Rogelio and Norma Tan... you get the drift.

(Oh, and don't forget to also include the faces of those who came up with this idea and are pushing for it).

This would surely make walking along Session Road a lot more interesting... but you better be a lot more careful when you do - you wouldn't wanna step on some shi*t.

Reclaiming Session Road

Dancers during last June's Independence Day Parade.

How can I?

So there we were. Ten years later, running around hours before the concert, hauling lighting and sound equipment 5 floors up to VOCAS, buying cases of beer to be sold at P40 each during the show so we can have free booze for ourselves at the end of the performance, xeroxing copies of the repertoire.

Ten years later we didn't have to rent everything we needed anymore - though our very own sound system still wasn't enough for the concert, we didn't need to rent lights: we had to make do with our dozen or so par 38's and 8-channel dimmer board.

Ten years later there are a lot of new faces, and a few old ones, but the last few months blurred the line between the two - everybody felt like everybody's old friend.

Ten years later, half of the cast came in an hour late for the 3pm call time, so our sound check started at 4:30. That's ok.

Ten years later, and a few days' rehearsals later, we were ready to begin, so I went up the stage and asked everyone to rise for the National Anthem. And then, the opening remarks...

Halfway through, someone interrupts my speech from the backrow, I looked for the culprit and found him seated at the steps, looking really wasted. Ferdie got up, excused himself for being rude, and came straight up on stage. I gave him a mic.

"F*ck you, I'm not a drug addict... sorry I had to interrupt you tonight... here's the situation: I need your money... I could have a knife up to your throat right now, but I don't wanna do that... the only difference between you and me is that you're on the ups and I'm on the downs, underneath it all we're exactly the same, we're both human beings... I am a human being... I say f*ck you, I'm not a drug addict..."

For a while the performers onstage were worried that I was gonna lose my temper and maybe just drag Ferdie off the stage, until they saw me mouthing the exact words Ferdie was saying. It was from "Grace of God", one of the monologues in "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll". Our very first production in Baguio, back in 1996.

Ferdie ends his bit, I continued with my speech. Ethan hands over the acoustic guitar to Arkhe who in turn hands it to me... we opened the show with one of the very first songs I composed, "Awit sa Bata," from the play about children's rights I wrote in 2000. We also did "Taguan" and "Dakila Ka" to my amatuerish guitar playing with the help of Ethan on his electric guitar.

And then there was the "Pangarap" suite... followed by "Once on this Island" and "Jesus Christ Superstar." For our encore, the group sang "Why We Tell The Story" from "Once on this Island." After ten years of telling stories, it felt really good singing that song.

Rewind performed a set of Reggae songs afterwards, and I just had to join them on the conggas, and in a moment everybody was on their feet dancing. Later the gongs came out and so did Kawayan who started a bonfire in the middle of the dance floor.

Ten years, a few cases of beer, countless bottles of GSM Blue, lots of handshakes and hugs and kisses... How can I possibly get out of this insane, noble, harsh, wonderful, magical, infinite world of artistic possibilites that is theater?

Opening remarks

The anniversary concert went really well... thought I'd tell the audience that night a brief story about Open Space... this is what I told them:

One night, more than ten years ago, actually, I was in Malate, standing in the middle of Remedios Circle, a few paces from the famous Penguin Café. I was with a good friend and a great actor, the late RJ Leyran. We were a few nights away from JC-Live, a benefit concert for Bahay Tuluyan, a shelter for streetchildren in Malate which was in danger of closing down at the time due to lack of funds. The concert featured music from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar to be performed by various artists like The Manila Youth Symphony Orchestra, the band Waling-waling, Pablo Molina, Bernardo Bernardo, Lolit Carbon, Jett Melencio, Raul Roxas, Paul Morales, and many more. We have convinced the artists to donate their time and talent for the cause, and, to be able to convince sponsors to support the event, we needed to be representing some kind of a group, a theater group, a performing arts group, a company. We needed a name. Standing there in the wide open space of Remedios Circle, it came to me… Open Space.

That was 1995. And even though the sponsors decided to ignore the event, a sign of things to come, the concert was a success… and Open Space began to officially exist.

A year later, I was in another café, 5 hours away from Manila, a few paces down the road from here… in Rumours café. My wife, RL, introduced me to one Ferdie Balanag, theater artist, director, actor, lighting designer… I mentioned to him a play I’ve been wanting to stage, a play called Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll – a series of monologues about present-day survivors – I described to him the characters in the play – a panhandler denying his drug addiction, a philandering yuppie, a has-been rock star trying to make a come back, a paranoid artist (aren’t we all?) - and we agreed to stage the play in Baguio.

In October of 1996, Ferdie and I would meet every single day in an abandoned school in Campo Sioco, sneaking past the building caretaker with our scripts, to rehearse the play. And Sex, Drugs Rock & Roll opened at the BCF Theater, and eventually had a run at the UPCB Theater, and I decided that here, in Baguio, is where Open Space Productions will take root and hopefully, bloom.

I envisioned a theater group that would explore all artistic possibilities in presenting an alternative form of entertainment that will consistently present relevant social and cultural issues. A theater group that would not be stuck to a particular genre – we staged whatever hit us right here – there was Craig Lucas’ “A Prelude to a Kiss”; the trilogy “Mga Ina ng Bayan”; we wrote our own plays, “Taguan, Habulan, Patintero”, “Manifest Destiny,” “Pangarap;” coming from doing intimate productions due to budget concerns, we became ambitious with the musical “Once on this Island,” and later, a dream play; “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

We have performed at the BCF Theater, at the UPCB Auditorium, at the SLU-CCA Theater, at the Dap-ayan of the University of Baguio, at the Griffiths Theater of Brent School, at the gallery of the Workshop for Creative Survival in Guisad, at the CAP auditorium (the one in CAP Building near the post office, and not the one in John Hay: at P100,000.00 a night, we can never afford to mount a play there), at the CCDC Theater in La Trinidad, more recently in Kabayan, Benguet, then down in Tayug, Lingayen and Dagupan, Pangasinan, in San Fernando, La Union, all the way to Candon and Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur. Once we found ourselves way down south in Daet, Camarines Norte. If we weren’t performing, we’re conducting workshops in some school in Baguio, or in Ilocos Norte, or for some community theater group in Ifugao or Benguet. We dipped our fingers in all sorts of things – we were introduced to multi-media and started incorporating this in our performances, and eventually even produced independent works on video. We tried various approaches to play production as in our experimental production of Rene Villanueva’s “Tonyo,” a multi-sensory theatrical performance that was designed for the visually-impaired.

And more than a hundred curtain calls later, here we are.

In those hundred or so curtain calls, through the years, we’ve worked with established artists, aspiring ones who’ve either moved on to Manila to pursue their theater careers there or work in a call center or have gone abroad in search of greener pastures, so to speak. Can’t blame them, being an independent theater group in Baguio is not easy. Our reputation, or reputations, precedes us – we’re the ones who hold open forums at the end of each show, the ones who’d stop a performance when the audience becomes unbearably noisy and rowdy, we’re the ones who opened a play an hour late at one time, half an hour in another, we’re the ones who had a lousy sound system, and, the one that perhaps sticks out above the rest – we’re the ones who are always broke. We owe this lights and sound provider, this and that artist, at times we pay in kind – a TV set to a guy we rented lights from, a watch to an actor we owed. Our house belongs to a much bigger family beyond me and my wife and our children – it’s a set and props construction space, a rehearsal venue, a photography studio, an editing room, and a lot of times, a halfway house for runaway artists.

The stories go on and on, and with all the struggles, the hurdles, we’re still here, after ten years. One might ask why.

As a line in “Why We Tell The Story,” a song from the musical, “Once on this Island” goes, “life is why, pain is why, love is why, grief is why, hope is why, faith is why, YOU are why....”

What it's all about...

In Kabayan, there’s no rush hour. Mornings are spent either taking walks or jogging around the school grounds. There’s a couple playing badminton right next to some young men playing 3 on 3 basketball. A policeman steps out the station and greets everyone good morning on his way to a few laps around the school. I’m having my first Camel of the day with a steaming cup of Kabayan coffee just outside the guesthouse, which is right across the school, beside the police station and a few paces from the municipal hall. A man asks for a light, I forgot my lighter inside so I hand him my lighted cigarette… he lights a fat joint.

The day before, we left Baguio a little after noon for the 4-hour drive to Kabayan in a rented Urvan packed with lighting and sound equipment, set pieces, props and costumes, cast and staff of 8. It was a good thing that the van only had a cassette instead of a CD player, the road to Kabayan wouldn’t allow a CD to play more than ten seconds of music without skipping. Towards sunset we were being welcomed by Kenneth at the municipal guesthouse: 2 rooms with 3 double-deck beds in each, one bathroom, a living room with bottomless jugs of coffee, a bathroom, a dining room that doubles as a workout gym for the policemen next door, and a kitchen. Men and women are supposed to stay in separate rooms, as the guesthouse rules dictate, but we decided that couples stay in one room and singles stay in the other… Freida stayed in our room even if Glen wasn’t with her.

We unloaded everything from the van and started setting up in the multi-purpose hall of the elementary school. We took a short break for dinner, and tried to finish the set-up that night so we can have the whole morning to see the town. We finished the set, positioned the props, prepared the costumes, put up the sound system and hung the lights. We were about to wire the par 38s when electricity was cut-off went out. Time to call it a night.

Not that the town emitted enough lights to obscure the sky at night like Baguio does, but the stars seemed a lot brighter when we stepped out of the hall. We spent the rest of the night drinking the carton of basi that a friend gave us.

The next morning, after that cigarette and cup of Kabayan coffee, we continued setting up. We finished with enough time to visit the museum and the cavern that held the skeletal remains of the town’s ancestors. We were back at the guesthouse by lunchtime, with enough to spare for a quick nap and a quick cold bath before the 1:30PM performance. An hour before the scheduled first show the students from the Kabayan National High School, a nice 3-kilometer walk away, started arriving.

This particular production has been touring the lowlands in the last couple of months – Lingayen, Candon, Sta. Maria – we’ve been performing it for mostly high school students and so we’ve had lots of practice performing to noisy audiences who were there because they were required by their teachers to watch, and just can’t wait for the show to be over. But we knew from the time Freida made her entrance from the back row onto the stage that this audience would be different. Not even the slapstick of Ethan and Lloyd was enough to stir up the wide-eyed students to make unnecessary noises. For the next 40 minutes or so, they sat there absorbing every word being said onstage and when the time to sing the National Anthem came at the end of the show, for the first time in a number of performances, the audience stood up promptly and sang with us.

The elementary students in the next show were no different from their manongs and manangs: they held on to every word, ever gesture, ever action on stage.

And I thought, this is what it’s all about.

With so much time to spare in the afternoon, but not enough to make a go back to Baguio without having to drive in the dark, we visited the Kabayan Youth Club’s library. We were shown the National Geographic documentary on the Kabayan mummies, which ended with a short lecture on the documentation process by Kenneth. A lot of us got excited by the library’s collection, but we couldn’t bring any of these books back with us, but that didn’t stop Boybi from borrowing Dune for the night. I went to bed with A Brief History of God and RL tried to go as far as she could with a Milan Kundera book.

Boybi didn’t get to finish Dune, he fell asleep at around 4AM with only a fourth of the book left.

I didn’t stay up that long on our second night, the 4-hour drive the previous day and the two performances earlier forced me to sleep early. I woke up to the smell of breakfast and coffee early the next morning; the teachers who’ve been taking care of us at the guesthouse came in early to cook to make sure that we’d be ready to go by 7AM.

After breakfast, with everything back in the now beat up rented Urvan, it was time for the long goodbyes. One teacher said that after watching the play, she realized that truly, the classroom can only offer so much, and art truly gives us a deeper understanding of the world around us. We promised to be back.

Nah, we begged them to have us back there again some time. This is what it’s all about.

Frank: A long goodbye

I met Bryan Powles in 2000, when good friend Lee Garrovillo, then an art teacher in Brent, invited me and fellow Baguio-based theater artist Ferdie to join an afternoon’s poetry reading session at the school’s newly constructed art center. In attendance were Brent students, parents and a few guests from Baguio’s art community, and Ferdie and I decided to read a couple of monologues from Eric Bogosian’s gritty and very provocative piece, “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.” I remember editing certain words on the spot so as to avoid offending the supposed conservative sensibilities of some of the parents and teachers present – “I used to love listening to rock whenever I AM HAPPY (get high).”

Bryan loved Bogosian’s “The Artist” and “Grace of God,” and invited Ferdie and I to do an impromptu performance a few days later at a school assembly. We did a sketch on teenage violence, and I was eventually invited to be an artist-in-residence in Brent for a few months. During my residency, I was to conduct a series of workshops for grades 3-12, and then stage a play at the end of the program. I was coming from staging “Cyrano de Bergerac” the previous year, which was almost ruined by my lead actor’s suspension after he was busted for smoking and drinking in his dorm room a few days before opening night. CJ DeRaedt took over the role and learned the part of Christian in a few record-breaking days.

Bryan and I decided that I will perform the whole “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” anthology of monologues as my residency’s culminating event. This was met with violent reactions and objections by some parents, particularly that year’s PTA president, who vowed to do all he can to stop the showing of the play. But Bryan, together with Lee and other Brent faculty members, plus all the senior high school students who were in my production staff as apprentices, were steadfast in their commitment to get the play to opening night. The Headmaster then, exhibiting his abilities in playing politics, tried to stay on the good side of both of the opposing groups – he started by calling me to his office to discuss the possibility of “editing the script” to address the reservations of those opposed to the production. I told him that whole it was ok to “bleep” certain words during that poetry reading session, I cannot allow the editing of the script for an actual performance. In the following weeks, Mr. Headmaster would try to several times to convince me to censor the play.

It was a stalemate for a while. In the meantime, rehearsals continued. It was decided that I would only do 1 performance in Brent – and I thought that it would be such a waste to perform a play you rehearsed for more than a month only once, so I decided that after the Brent show, I would do a full run at the BCF Theater.

The bickering went on and on and on: the pros were all over the campus posting posters and selling tickets, while the antis were all over the campus asking school officials to stop the performance and trying to convince students and other parents to boycott the performance if it actually pushed through. Bear in mind that none of those opposing the performance has actually read the play nor bothered to ask for a copy of the script at all. All these I and my apprentices were all over the campus gathering materials for our set and props – discarded toilet seats, tires, scaffoldings, etc.

At some point, the antis scored a victory – after sensing that the performance will go on despite their protestations, they asked the Head master to at least “change the title of the play.” The Headmaster asked me for a reaction, and I said, “so instead of ‘Sex, Drugs,

Rock & Roll,’ what do we call it, “Love-making, narcotics and some really loud music?”

In the end, the poster had this copy: An evening of theater with Karlo Marko Altomonte at the Griffiths Theater. And, as a sub-title, in much smaller print: featuring excerpts from the play, “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.”

A day before the performance, Mr. Headmaster showed up again at the theater, with a copy of the script in his hand – he said he tried editing it himself and wanted me to at least look at his bastardization of Bogosian’s script. So instead of the monologue “Dirt” opening with “Fuckin’ `ya shit, fuck, piss!,” he proposed something like “Darn it, it’s so dirty and messy around here!.” I didn’t even want to look at how he edited this line in another monologue: “I’ve got a looong, thick, well-shaped prick – the kind girls die for. You’re laughing? So what, fuck you!” I know what I’ve got and the ladies? Hell, they know a lot better than I do!.”

I told him that I’d rather take out whole monologues instead of alter lines from it. I volunteered to take out the one with the long, thick, well-shaped prick, altogether. NAd with it 3 other monologues, but “Dirt” will have to stay or forget about it. But Mr. Headmaster insisted on his “Darn-it-it’s-so-dirty-and-messy-around-here” opening lines.

I said ok. Yes. I’ll open the play evening’s performance with “Darn-it-it’s-so-dirty-and-messy-around-here.”

Opening night. It was a full-house, it turned out that all the brouhaha raised by the PTA officials piqued a lot of people’s curiosity and tickets sold like pirated DVD’s. A parent even said that when he first heard about the play, he wasn’t that much interested, he was not exactly a big theater fan. But when several parents and teachers approached him discouraging him from supporting the production, he got curious, and bought tickets for himself and his kids.

Anthem over, I was wrapped in garbage bags and carrying a plunger, all ready for “Dirt.” I peeped from the sides and saw Mr. Headmaster right there at the front row – looking so eager to hear his brilliant choice of words spoken on stage. I enter murmuring, almost inaudibly, my first few lines as the lights slowly faded in, and, just as the lights went to full intensity, I was standing right at Stage Center, I looked Mr. Headmaster in the eye and said, “Fuckin’ `ya shit, fuck, piss!”

A lot of those who watched that night eventually also watched the following performances at the BCF Theater – where I performed all the monologues. The PTA President who also headed the crusade to ban the performance was sent invitations to both performances, but he never came.

I and the graduating class of that school year, my staff, got close, and later that year they nominated me as their top pick to be their graduation speaker, which of course the Headmaster vetoed. Among those students was that year’s valedictorian, Mads, who up to know is still a devoted and much-treasured member of our group, Open Space Projects.

Bryan Powles invited me to Brent School again after that – to perform a monologue on Rizal’s life, and to direct the play, “An Actor’s Nightmare.”

I held auditions for “…Nightmare,” where I met a young man who has been watching me from the sidelines since I started my whole Brent episode, and who has been wanting to join my productions, but was too shy to approach me or anyone about it. I had two choices for the lead character. One was Bryan, who seemed to have a natural talent for acting, and the other was Frank, whose personality seemed to fit the lead character’s.

Frank was a shy young man, who, during the auditions, can barely be heard as he read excerpts from the script. But I saw in his eyes a strong desire, his determination, to bag that role – so strong it looked almost like a plea: he wanted to be given the chance. Later he would tell me that he admired the way I fought for and never waivered for what I believed in, and that he wished to be like me when his time comes. I was really flattered.

Also, in his eyes, there was a certain sadness, that seemed to show itself despite his effort to hide it. Told that there would be two performances, I cast both Bryan, for his innate talent, and Frank: I wanted to give him a chance, an opportunity to realize his potentials.

They both performed really well, but I was admittedly happier for Frank – watching him take that bow at the end of his performance, he scanned the whole auditorium with a look that seemed to scream out, “I can!.” He came to me right after the show and gave me a really big and strong hug and just looked at me, he couldn’t utter a word. He didn’t have to.

At the end of that school year, Bryan Powles, the hard-headed English Department Head, got in touch with me to ask for my help: Frank has been kicked out of the house by his father and had nowhere to go; he had only one year left before graduating. I volunteered to take him in, while Bryan raised funds to pay for his tuition for Frank’s last year in Brent.

We were living in this tiny apartment in Bakakeng then. It had three rooms: ours, Mama’s, and the helper’s. We had an attic, which served as a stockroom, I offered that to Frank.

Frank called me Sir, but it didn’t feel like the kind of Sir you use to address a teacher, it felt more like the kind you use to address a father you have so much respect for. I didn’t know Frank quite well until then, although he seemed like such a proper young man in school, I had no idea what he was like at home. I prepared myself for late night drinking binges on weekends, and sermons at the breakfast table while he nursed a nasty a hangover. I was really amazed, even embarrassed, to realize after a couple of weeks that Frank was Frank, in school or elsewhere.

A typical day with Frank in the house: I’ll wake up to find that Frank has prepared coffee and breakfast for everyone. He made sure that, if I came home late the night before and we didn’t get to talk, to ask me the next day how the previous day was and if there was anything I wanted him to do or anything he could do to help at all around the house. He would say goodbye to every single one in the house before leaving for school. On days that I’m home early, he’d arrive from school, greet everyone in the house, go straight up to the attic to change, and then join me for coffee to talk about how the day has been. He would then help out in the kitchen to prepare dinner. Right after dinner, if he’s now washing the dishes, he’d playing with Leon. After a while he’d apologize and excuse himself to start doing his homework. He’d ask me for help every now and then with his schoolwork.

He did go out with friends every now and then: but he made sure to ask for my permission, and he never failed to come home at the time he said he would.

I heard from Byran that he’s really been having trouble getting along with his parents. Many times I wanted to talk to Frank about his troubles with his parents, but I wasn’t sure if he really wanted to discuss it, so I never brought it up and instead just waited for him to say something about it if he felt like he needed to talk to someone about it. He did on occasion, but he didn’t say that much about it – but from what he did let out, I was able to paint a picture of what it’s like at home

After a few weeks, Bryan Powles informed me that he was able to secure enough support for Frank that would enable him to stay at the dormitory of Brent.

A long goodbye followed – Frank said he really loved staying with us, but at the same time he didn’t want to cause anyone anymore trouble. He promised to stay in touch. I was really glad.

He graduated that following year, and was introduced to Edgar, who ran an Eco-farm in Pangasinan. He worked for Edgar for a while, helping out with the delivery of bottled lemon grass tea, one of the farms products. He really seemed to enjoy being on his own, and earning his keep. I’d see him once in a while about town, a folder in hand that listed his itinerary for the day, and at times lugging boxes of the products. We’d always stop to talk a while, update each other with what’s happening in our respective lives. He said that he has decided to postpone college for a couple of years, until he’s earned enough to send himself to school. I was really impressed with Frank’s determination to overcome his personal hurdles.

A couple of months ago, while waiting for a cab in front of Brent where we picked up Leon after a soccer game, I saw Frank. I was really glad to see him, he looked really good, but together with that passion and kindness, and that certain sadness, in his eyes, I also saw weariness. In the last couple of years since that long goodbye, it was apparent that Frank has had to go through so much more. But, on the sunny side of Brent Road, we hugged and talked a while. He was finally able to save enough to enroll in college. He was really excited, and so proud, about it, and RL and I were really so happy for him. How I wished he were my son… I wanted to be even prouder than I was already for him. But then I thought, in way, he is. I told him that if he wouldn’t be very busy with school, and had some extra time on his hands, he might want to join me again in a production, be on stage again. We promised to keep in touch.

I was at an interview for some local TV talk show last night, the program aired right before the evening news. During a break, I heard a guy talking about the brother of a beauty queen from Baguio, some girl whose last name was Reiter, Riter, Rieter, who was found dead in his room an hour earlier. The neighbors heard a gunshot the night before, but didn’t think much of it. It turned out to be a suicide, and the young man wasn’t discovered until the day after. The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t much about it.

Later that evening, I was in a meeting in VOCAS, when RL forwarded this text from Grace Subido - “Hey karlo/rl. Grace Subido here. Hate to be the bearer of such sad news, but just heard that Frank Reiter killed himself. He’s at Paz daw. Thought you should know, he seemed happiest when he was with you guys.”

I was gonna run to Paz Funeral Parlor right away, but RL learned that his body is still awaiting autopsy – four hours after he was discovered in that room, they haven’t began the autopsy because they were still waiting for his parents.

I wanted to go see him right away, say goodbye right away, I wished there was some way to ask him why he did it, why taking his life served as the answer to whatever it was that bothered him.

Been thinking about him since I heard the news – I want to be angry at him for not considering other options, even simply running away from whatever drove him to point that gun to himself and pull the trigger.

I wish there was something I could’ve done to prevent this. For Frank, I would’ve been prepared to do anything. He had such great potential… such a waste of that potential, such a great waste.

When I see him later today, his eyes will be closed, those eyes that told so much will be forever closed now.

I will never forget Frank.

Loooonganisa

Oh My Gulay's chef, Marlon, got married yesterday at, where else, VOCAS. Officiated by Baguio Acting Mayor, Peter Rey Bautista, it was an intimate event, not too many people, just family and some close friends. Marlon asked me to take some pictures.

Got there 5 minutes before the 3pm scheduled start, and both the bride and groom weren't there yet. A couple of minutes later, Peter Rey walked in. I asked the waitress to offer coffee to him and his pal/aide/bodyguard. I was quite worried that he'd get bored waiting for the couple to be, afterall, he's still very young, and the young aren't exactly known for patience.

I walked up to him, and since I couldn't think of something to talk about that would be of interest to both of us, I asked him about something that at least he's knowledgeable about and has been bothering me since I got stranded on the wrong side of Session Road a few days ago: the longanisa brouhaha. Did it actually make it to the Guinnes Book of Records? "I don't know e, I think it might not make it kasi I think it had to be laid out in a straight line, and since it as done on Session Road, which was not long enough, the longest longanisa snaked up and down the road making it hard to make an accurate measurement," he said.

All that for nothing? Aw, come on. Holding up traffic and inconveniencing the public the whole morning must at least yield some substantial result - aside from having a longanisa sale that had this Ilocos pork sausage selling at half its normal price.

I was on my way to BHF Jewelry Shop that morning where I was supposed to return the LCD Projectpor we rented from Clint - one of his production assistants works there during the day. Right after passing Brent Road coming from Mines View, traffic has ground to a halt, and I had no idea why, until the driver said, "bwiset na longanisa pistibal, trapik tuloy." I got off and walked the last hundred meters or so to Session Road. The parade was in progress, and there it was in all its glory: the longest longanisa in the world held up by students parading down Session Road. And noone can cross the road, and BHF was on the other side of Session Road.

Stood there bored stiff (after staring at a few hundred meters of longanisa, it gets tends to get boring, not to mention unappetizing), I was getting impatient, until I saw what looked like the end of the parade. Waited it out a bit more until the last longanisa passed me by, followed by the main sponsor of the event, Mr. Alabanza of the famous Alabanza Meat Store, who I believe provided most of the butchered pigs, if not all, riding proud on an ATV. End of the parade, I asked the cope manning the cordon that prevented pedestrians from crossing if I could corss already, he said no. I asked why, when the parade was finished already. He just said, no, I can't cross yet. After walking the rest of the way to Session Road and hvaing waited more or less half an hour watching a pork sausage anaconda try to make its way to the Guinnes Book of Records, my patience was running low, and so, with then-arrest-me-if-you-have-to-but-I-really-have-to-get-to-the-other-side look in my eye, I ducked under the cordon and crossed the road, before the cop could approach me, abouit 30 other people followed me. So I made it to BHF, feeling so guilty at disrupting public order.

Mabel, Clint's produciton assistant, has been transfered to another branch. Damn it. I would have to talk all thew way back up to SM where Mabel has been reassigned.

And the Acting Mayor tells me yesterday that, nah, the feat might not make it to the Guinnes sBook of Records. All that hassle, all those pigs, for nothing? What a joke. A community, for lack of anything to be proud of, comes up with an idea so blah, mediocre - idiotic, even - spend so much time and energy and money for it, and then in the end, failure?

And that anaconda-longanisa feat was also supposed to be an event aimed at boosting tourism in the city. Duh. Does anyone actually think that having the longest longanisa in the world would make tourists troop back to Baguio? Tourists come to Baguio for the climate, the trees, the fresh air, the forests, the green covered mountains, the visitor-friendly atmosphere, the hospitable local community - all of which have been ignored, nay, ABUSED, by the city's powers that be for the longest time, and all they could think of to make for it to string up tons and tons of pork and parade it down Session Road and expose it to smog, dust and whatever else lurks in the heavily polluted downtown Baguio air?

I get to the SM branch of BHF Jewelry Shop. Mabel decided to take the day off a few minutes I got there.

What a lousy morning.

Pepe in VOCAS

Open Space Projects performs "PEPE" on September 20, Wednesday, 7:00pm, at the Victor Oteyza COmmunity Art Space (VOCAS), top floor of La Azotea Bldg., Session ROad, Baguio CIty.

Admission is free.

Death March

I didn't understand what was going on... One side of Session Road, hte on going down, was closed to traffic, usually done when there's a parade. It did feel like a holiday when I left the house. Then, peering through the policemen and the barricades, there it was, a parade. I turn right towards the cathedral and parked the car there instead, and decided to wait it out in some internet cafe.

Used the elevator going down Porta Vaga and out to Session Road to cross to Such & Such internet cafe, I met Martin with his kick-ass camera on his way up to his studio. Good morning.

Out on Session Road, there were some people lined up along Session Road, no animation today, the whole thing looked like a series of still photographs, minus the background music - even the people parading down Session Road couldn't manage to force a look of celebration on their faces. It was eerily quiet.

Like a death march.

I didn't catch the head of the parade, where I might have caught sight of the recently installed acting mayor of the city and the acting vice-mayor, and the acting top councilor, and the acting second top councilor... see, with the removal of the Honorable Braullio Yaranon, everybody moved a step up in a game of Charades, musical chairs, now eveyrbody's in an acting capacity.

It was a death march.

Rats

Purged this blog and decided to rest a bit from the rantings and ravings, but then...

The mayor’s suspension has been upheld, with finality so it seems. First issued by Malacañang, reversed or revised – I’m not so sure – by an interior undersecretary, and then eventually reaffirmed by the secretary himself. Mr. Braulio Yaranon committed grave abuse of authority, the pronouncement pronounced, when he issued an administrative order to take back the streets of Baguio from Jadewell, a pay parking firm, whose contract with the city is tainted with corruption, and later when he encouraged the people of the city not to honor Jadewell’s authority to collect parking fees from motorists.

This is one of those moments when one wishes that the national government laid off the locals' backs and let them run their own affairs, a time when one tends to give constitutional change a second look and give federalism a chance. It’s amazing that a cabinet secretary, appointed by a questionable president, can disregard the sentiments of the overwhelming voting majority of the city, and suspend him for his actions that the overwhelming majority of the city supports, on an issue that was among the main reasons the overwhelming majority voted for him in the first place.

So now, the cat’s been taken away by a lapdog, and the rats are out. Suddenly the council woke up on the issue with a resolution to cancel the contract due to the many violations they say Jadewell has committed. Those are the same reasons Yaranon and the overwhelming majority have been raving about and the council has been disregarding the past couple of years. If not for the obvious reasons that last year was still too far from next year’s local elections and Jadewell’s resources continue to flow into several bank accounts, it would have been admirable to see the city council taking such an apparent unpopular stand when the mayor was in the heat of battle against Jadewell. From a certain point of view, their stubborn defense of Jadewell may have looked like a perfect example of principled public service that doesn’t just give in to popular demands. But, elections are just around the corner, and taking unpopular stands at this point is a big political risk. And besides, the suspicion of some, according to news reports and local op-ed ramblings, is that Jadewell spent quite a considerable amount to secure that suspension order, if this is true, then the expense must have taken a considerable bite into the alleged local payola budget, and the once steadfast defenders of the Jadewell contract are now suddenly singing a different song, one that the people have been singing in a loud unified chorus for a long time now.

Poor Yaranon, with his suspension, believe you me that even the rats that got elected because of their association with him will now capitalize on that and disown him, even condemn him and his actions, and position themselves for next year’s election. It makes me puke that none of them have stood up to defend the old guy when if not for him, if not for the fact that they got elected only because they were in the same party with him, had their mugs posted alongside his, they'd still be beauty pageant contestants or bumming around.

The only welcome development that may arise from the suspension is that the flies that hover around Yaranon’s office will now dissipate. Those flies have been lording it over city hall since day one and fattening their pockets with every transaction with the mayor’s office they facilitate. But no reason to be happy about that either, since those taking over the reins bring with them their own opportunist flies who will also surely make a mockery of public service.

To the ones taking over, jaded as a lot of us in Baguio has become, please prove us wrong.

And the only people who are genuinely happy with the latest turn of events are the two pimps who prostituted the city during their reign.

Let’s hope the people of Baguio see through the charades. The people began a partial revolution when they booted out a corrupt regime in the last elections. Hopefully next year the revolution will be a complete one that will bring about a complete cleansing of city hall – from the mayor, to the vice mayor, to every member of the city council.

Presto!

That felt really good.