Ouido-ing my way to an EP

I was maybe around 9 or so, biking around Project 6, Quezon City, when I heard the sound of someone playing the piano coming from one of the apartments in a row along Road 3. The door was open, and from the road I saw her and I walked my BMX closer to get a better look at how her fingers moved on the keyboard. She noticed me, stopped playing, smiled and asked if I wanted to try it. I was shy as a child, but at that moment I found myself getting off my bike and walking in. She stood up from the bench, I sat down and just looked at the keys.

Her name was Cecil, and she was a piano teacher. She showed me a simple finger exercise, then asked me to try it out and for the first time in my life I played the piano. She said she liked the way my fingers moved and asked if I would be interested in taking piano lessons. I said I’d be back, I’d ask my mom.

My mother said yes, we bought that blue Michael Aaron Grade One Piano Book, and for the next few weeks, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I sat down with Ate Cecil and learned the basics of playing the piano and on Saturdays, since we didn’t have a piano at home, she let me practice for free for a couple of hours. To be able to practice at home, I drew piano keys on our window sill and I would go through the exercises on it and just imagined the sound in my head.

My favorite pieces were “Sandman’s Lullaby,” “The Birdling’s Serenade,” and “The Swing.” One Saturday, I was left alone in their living room to practice and I lifted the bench cover and browsed through the other piano pieces and chanced upon a Grade 2 version of the swing. I tried to play it and like that version better and on my next session with Ate Cecil, I showed off. She smiled but reminded me to be patient and not just jump to more advance pieces just because I could sort of read the notes and play them. She pointed out that my fingering was wrong, I played certain bars inaccurately, etc.
I breezed through the first half of the book, and struggled when we got to the sharps and flats. I never got to finish the learning all the pieces in the book.


I don’t remember exactly why anymore, but I stopped going to Ate Cecil’s. Maybe it was because I got busy with the Workshop for Creative Survival, where I got introduced to theater with my mother as my teacher. I didn’t even get to learn how to play chords. Although in that workshop, I learned how to play basic guitar chords.

Years later, I was an assistant stage manager at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In the play, “Larawan” (a Filipino translation of Nick Joaquin’s “Portrait of an Artist as a Filipino”), and in one of the scenes, Tony Javier played by Ricky Davao, was supposed to play the piano. Ricky wasn’t a pianist, so we had a second piano on the opposite side of the wall from where the piano was onstage where a pianist, Ian Eballe, played what Tony Javier was supposed to play with Ricky going through the motion of playing onstage, finger-sync-ing “A Tisket, A Tasket.” There was a piano in the conference room which served as Tanghalang Pilipino’s rehearsal space, and one afternoon Ian saw me tinkering with it. He suggested I learned the piece in case, for one reason or another, he couldn’t make it to a show. But the piece was just too complicated for me. But I did ask him to teach me basic piano chords, and with that limited knowledge, I learned to play basic chord progressions. Piano sheet music for songs would usually have the chords at the top of the staff, and I was amused that I could play basic piano accompaniment to some Broadway songs in the books stacked inside the piano bench at the conference room. John Arcilla and I must have tested everyone’s patience that time we were both obsessed with “What I did for love,” that’s all the sound that came out of the conference room whenever there were no rehearsals.

With those basic chords I learned from Ian, I started playing around with my own melodies. A couple of years later, working at an advertising production house, a co-worker who was also a roommate heard playing around with a Casiotone, and asked if I could set a poem he wrote for his girlfriend to music. I tried and was able to come up with a basic chord progression for it, but didn’t get to really finish it.

Then I moved to Baguio, and moved by the scene at our balcony one afternoon where an invisible group of gong payers gently filled the air with their music just as fog was slowly rolling in and covered the mountains, I started to write down the following lyrics to capture the moment:
“Unti-unting binabalot ng ulap ang kabundukan, tila be isang batang sa pagtulog ay kinukumutan...”
But the moment called for more than just words, I felt, so armed with a guitar with a couple of strings missing and those basic guitar chords I learned as a young boy, I started composing a melody for the words. And that was the first song I ever completed: “Sa Saliw ng mga Gangsa.”

I don’t sing, though, and since I’ve forgotten how to read notes, and much less write. So whenever I compose, the only way I could preserve the composition is to memorize it or do a rough recording so I could teach it to the singers and musicians I choose to collaborate with.

I have since dared to compose more musical pieces - background music to my plays, songs that evolve into a sung-through musical, etc.

In 2009, the people behind the Baguio Flower Festival invited me to screen the documentary I made on the history of Baguio City. My first thought was who would sit in front of a screen for an hour or so to watch a documentary at the of Session Road while a trade fair and everything that came with it went on? I thought of spicing the screening up a bit by performing songs after each segment of the documentary. The songs would either introduce a segment, or sort of sum it up or be a commentary in the end.

The first song I composed for that screening was “Kafagway,” a song that paints a picture of how I fell in love with this city, and ended up calling it my home.

A segment in the documentary talked about Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Baguio, and for it, I wrote a song called “Ano’ng Plano?” while the song “Kasaysayan o Titulo” was inspired by the story of Mateo Cariño, the Ibaloi who owned much of where the center of Baguio now stands and how the American government in the Philippines appropriated his family’s land to realize their dream of a hill station.

Later on, I adapted the basic concept of that screening and turned it into a theatrical performance, adding more songs into the repertoire, “Mithiin,” a song that was originally the theme song of the opposition which hoped to bring change to Baguio in 2004, and “Welcome to Baguio City (ca. 09 AD).”

These songs found their way into the multimedia monograph, “Kafagway: Sa Saliw ng mga Gangsa,” which is currently on exhibit at Cafe By The Ruins Dua.

An EP of these songs have also been released and may now be streamed/downloaded on Spotify.
PS. - the EP would not have been possible without the invaluable contribution of the following:
Ethan Andrew Ventura, the musical director I’ve been collaborating with for the past 12 years who arranged much of my compositions during that period, and from whom I’ve learned so much... he calls me “kuya” but he’s a mentor to me.

The Open Space artists who’ve been singing my songs through the years, and especially those who were part of this EP - Jeff Coronado, Eu Arcilla Caburao, Roman Ordoña, Jose Ball, Caesar.. thank you for keeping the fire burning.

And to my sons, Leon Karlos and Aeneas, whose contribution to this effort is as invaluable as they are inspiring.

And last but most importantly, my wife, RL (Alta Montagna), who, after being sneered at by a colleague with whom I shared my dream of composing music decades ago, encouraged me to give music a chance and was the first to believe that I could, in fact, compose...

A multimedia monograph?

So about a year since Celestina and I casually agreed to schedule an exhibit at the Cafe by the Ruins (Dua), Kelly Ramos’, curator, call came: she needed the title, poster design and write-up for the exhibit. I admit, when that call came, I had nothing yet.

Well, what it was going to be about, that I was sure of: Baguio.

At first I planned to do a straightforward photo exhibit. But when I started putting together the images that I thought merited a space on the wall, I couldn’t help but want to share the stories that went with the images so I started putting together pieces I’ve written in the last two decades or so. A couple of weeks before the scheduled opening, what I had was a collection of images, essays and song lyrics. Then, after listening to a previous recording of one of those songs, I thought of doing a recording of the rest and include that in the work.

What is it? Wikipedia defines a monograph as “a specialist work of writing on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author, and usually on a scholarly subject.” That’s kinda close. But I had images and music that went with it so I thought that a “multimedia monograph” would be the closest I’d get to describing what Kafagway: Sa Saliw ng mga Gangsa was.

There’s a poem inspired by an invisible cañao that developed into a song; commentaries on the current state of the city; letters to two mentors who have been huge influences on my being an artist; a photo of a blessed tree that I chanced upon across a valley in Loakan, and another one in the rain at the top of Kennon Road; there’s an image of a man walking home at dusk; among other stories of the last 25 years.

Although this may be considered as my first solo exhibition, this wasn’t exactly a solo work. For the recording, I collaborated with local artists: Ethan Andrew Ventura arranged and did the instrumentation on four of the six songs in the compilation which featured Eu Arcilla Caburao, Roman Ordoña, Joselito Balleta (Jose Ball), Caesar Salcedo, Jeff Coronado and my sons Leon Karlos Altomonte and Aeneas Altomonte.

At the opening of the exhibit last October 31, 2018, we performed those songs live to a crowd of mostly fellow artists and Baguio lovers.

The limited edition of 25 monographs, individually signed and annotated, are currently available at Cafe By The Ruins Dua, Upper Session Road, Baguio City and the exhibit will run until the end of this year.

Don't smile for me

I don't want you to just look far into the distance, I'd like for you to look at and actually see something. 

I stopped doing weddings when couples stopped getting married and started staging weddings.

I remember my first wedding gig - I was a back-up videographer/photographer. The groom's father, who was obviously having issues with the fact that his favorite son was naturally being overshadowed by the bride, hired us even if they already had a whole crew from Manila doing the same thing. "That group was hired by the bride, and they might just focus too much on the bride and her family. I want my family to be featured in the video and in photos too."

That set-up worked out well for me. People, particularly the bride and groom, weren't posing nor performing for me. I documented the wedding from afar, from the sidelines, for the crew from Manila made sure I knew who the "real" videographers were and would not hold a pose for me. As soon as they got their shots, they immediately dismissed the subjects to make sure that I didn't get to shoot my own frames or footage.

Stolen shots, they call them, and they were all I was able to get and that's exactly how shooting that wedding felt - I was stealing moments. But from those stolen moments - of the father's silhouette on the balcony waiting for his son to finish dressing up, of the son coming out of the room (a quick steady shot then a quick pan back to the father) and the tears welling up in the father's eyes, a bride's unguarded moment walking out to the garden on her way to a pre-wedding shoot with her bridesmaids... woven together and they told a pretty nice story. They, both the groom's and the bride's families, ended up distributing the video we made instead. But in these days of pre-nups and post-nups and what-nots, I lost interest in telling a staged story. Wedding clients didn't want the photographers to simply capture the ceremony as it unraveled, these days most couples primarily perform for the cameras which make for contrived walks down the aisle, first kisses and first dances, etc.

I'd like to shoot a kiss that happened, one that was motivated by an impulse, an attraction, a desire to express a feeling and not the one that was done for my camera lens. I'd like to take photos that capture beautiful moments, and not moments staged to get the perfect picture. I love the grain in under-exposed photos, the imperfections of an imperfectly framed photo that tell stories, I want that smile that's brought about by a happy thought, and not because the photographer said, "smile."

But these days, there are hardly clients for such photos.

Death and taxes

I made the mistake of commenting on an article written by one Peter Wallace, a naturalized Filipino and a staunch advocate of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, or TRAIN, a gift the Duterte administration gave to Filipinos last Christmas. Naturally, the supporters of the president having the strongest presence on the Philippine Wide Web, it didn't take long for the comment to be commented on, with one saying: "binasa mo ba yung sinabi ni Wallace o talagang ignorante ka lang?"

He was correct on both points, I did read the article and yes, I am somehow ignorant.

The article mentioned above is mainly a response to critiques of his position on TRAIN, perhaps a lot coming from ignoramuses such as me who are feeling the pinch of higher prices of gas and many other basic commodities, to whom he says, "Let’s put the blame where the blame lies: international price movements and traders using TRAIN as an excuse to raise prices when they can."

Here's my ignorante two-centavos' worth: True, the whole world is suffering from higher prices of petroleum products, not just us, thanks to among other things the resulting global political and economic instability of Trumpism. But while a price increase of a mere few US cents is just that to other countries, local gas price increases are essentially higher because of the peso's poor performance, which as of this writing trades at PHP52.50 - USD1. Currency experts may debunk that ignorante argument, but while local gas prices went up bu a mere 20 US-cents, it meant a whopping 10-pesos per liter increase from last year's prices.

Here's my ignorante layman's calculation. Our family averages 25 kilometers per day in our car, or 750 kilometers a month. Our car uses an average of 8 liters, city driving, per kilometer. So that's about 94 liters of gasoline per month. With an increase of Php10.00, we're spending P940.00 extra pesos monthly. Mr. Wallace, that's a lot of bigas. I haven't included my work's transportation needs there - I do a lot work out of town lugging equipment and a lot of times have no choice but to bring a car. So throw in a couple of hundreds of kilometers in there, or a dozen or two extra liters of gasoline.

Add to that the few extra centavos and pesos that we've had to pay for all the other commodities which prices have recently gone up.

In Baguio, taxi fare recently went up. What was once a 80-peso cab ride from downtown to our place now costs P120.00. Wow, sosyal, naka-taxi... magjeep kasi kayo. Sure, but in a lot of places up here, at certain hours of the day, one has no choice but to take a taxi. A lot of those working the graveyard shift in call centers have no choice but to take a taxi.

That's just gas and transportation.

Wallace, by his own account, came to the Philippines to do business back in the 70's. My problem with Mr. Wallace's justifications is that these are made from a capitalist's point of view. We pay the same extra P10.00 price increase in gasoline, but he has more ten pesos-es than I do, and the rest of his ten pesos-es in banks, trust funds, stocks and what-nots earn him more ten pesos-es, while most of us only have the ten pesos-es we get every 15 days to get by.

But the money generated by TRAIN will be used to fund the government's Build, Build, Build program and other basic social services, Wallace argues, which would spur economic activity and growth. I'm patriotic enough, I believe, that I'm willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. But Mr. Wallace himself admitted that the bureaucracy is a mess. Corruption is still rampant despite the president's broken promise of eradicating it in months. The Commission on Audit has been busy flagging this and that department, government agency, personnel for various questionable transactions. How much of the funds generated by this tax will actually go to pubic hospitals, farm-to-market roads, school buildings and how much of it will be spent on projects like Cesar Montano's Buhay Carinderia project or SocGen Calida's questionable allowances?

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but why does it seem like we were better off economically without the TRAIN under the previous administration? Not too long ago, we amazed the world for having a stable currency, a stronger, resilient economy. Didn't Duterte himself said during the campaign that the problem with the Aquino administration was that it had so much money but didn't spend enough?

My comment on that social media link to Mr. Wallace's article said:

It may not be solely because of Train, but it's everything about the regime put together: misdirected initiatives, impunity, disregard for the rule of law, human rights violations, lack of a concrete policy on various issues and areas of governance, nepotism, cronyism, etc. etc., ad nauseam... = instability, loss of investor confidence, a weakened economy/currency, a weakened republic...

I still stand by that.

Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying, "... in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Looking at the drug war and TRAIN, it's just so true.

Tara, Kuya! (Magic hour, cycling and that wonderful lightness of being)

I had previously backed out of joining a mass ride to the area some weeks back - I just couldn't imagine myself being able to make my way back on a bike along Loakan from the airport area back to South Drive. But the other day, I found myself making my way down that very area, confident that I would be able to make that slow climb back up, no matter how slow.

Past the Camp John Hay entrance, Scout Barrio, that dip before going back up towards Voice of America, and there I was in Loakan. I stop to take a couple of photos of the magic hour light on the road.

I stopped to catch my breath. I stopped to take all that calm in, disturbed every now and then momentarily by a passing car, then it comes back. I took a sip from my water bottle, and then I start pedaling my way back.

It's a gentle ascent, not as treacherous as I once thought it would be. I struggled a little until I was back in the Voice of America area where the road goes into a downhill, flat for several meters before going into an uphill again. I decided, no, I had no choice but to rest my legs for a while before shifting to a heavier gear so I can push the bike faster right before the downhill. And then I heard the unmistakable cadence of someone pedaling a bike right behind me.

In a flash he was right beside me, slowed down and turned to face me with a big smile on his face, then he said with a sideways flick of his head in the direction of the approaching downhill, "Tara, kuya!"

And off he went, arms tucked in close to his crouched body, head down and I watched him zoom down the road...

I finally accepted Sigurd's offer to lend me one of his bicycles to get me started. He was out of the country at the time, but has arranged for someone to wait for me at their house to pick up the bike. I don't know much about bike brands - I know what a BMX is, I had one as a kid, and the ones that are bigger than those and have thicker wheels with straight handle bars are mountain bikes, and that the ones with thinner wheels and handle bars curved downwards that look like reverse bull horns are racers or roadbikes. That's all I knew. The lady pointed to a green bike. It was a green mountain bike. It looked really nice.

We were still staying in Mines View then, down Modesta Street that's so steep most taxi drivers refuse to go down there when it's raining and the road's wet for fear that they won't be able to get out. It took a few more days before I finally donned that helmet and took that bike out for a ride.

There was no way I could ride it out of Modesta riding it, so I pushed it up to the main road and by the time we (the bike and I) got to the top I was already panting and sweating heavily. I didn't look forward to a leisurely ride that first time. The first and last time I biked around Baguio was almost two decades ago - I and my wife, on borrowed bicycles, had to stop around five or six times to make it from the Teachers' Camp bridge on Leonard Wood to the corner of Brent Road (a mere elevation gain of under 30 meters).

Down I went Gibraltar Road, then from the Pacdal Circle I turned left towards Baguio Country Club then up Outlook Drive, supposedly down towards Pacdal Circle again via Mansion House... but wanting to strain a bit less, made a right turn towards Wright Park to just ride around the flat road around the lagoon instead. The image of the climb back up to Mines View via Outlook Drive (elevation gain: just under 40 meters in a less than one-kilometer distance) was not encouraging.

I tore a ligament (MCL) in my right knee some years back, and since I couldn't afford the surgery to repair it nor was I willing to undergo a full year's rehabilitation program, I just took the advice of both my doctor and some friends that the next best thing I could do was to strengthen the muscles in the knee to compensate for the damaged ligament. Biking, they said, was the best option to do that.

I didn't have a bike, so I ran. While I enjoyed running, every now and then I would take a wrong step and hurt my injured knee. So one day, I sent Sigurd, an avid biker who had a bike to spare, a message and I finally went for it.

So after a few rounds around the lagoon I started to feel like a child on a rented trike in Burnham Park, so I decided it was time to make that climb up to Mines View.

That first time and a couple more times after that, I had to stop three times. Then that time when I only had to stop once. Then one day, I finally made it in one go. But I knew I still had a long way to go before this thing, cycling, stops being an excruciating undertaking.

 
Then I was inundated by work, and the rains came, and I stopped again. Then we moved to a new house - down in Tuding, Itogon Benguet. That was over a year ago. I didn't get on that bike again until a few months after we moved - our place was over a hundred meters lower in elevation than my starting point on Outlook Drive when we were in Mines View, and if it took me a few attempts to conquer Mines View in one go, I didn't even believe I could ever climb out of Tuding on a bike. So when I finally got on the bike again, I pushed it and walked the one and a half-kilometer distance from our house to Outlook Drive. The need to walk that far before getting on the bike, not to mention how tired I got after that I hardly had the strength to go very far anymore, was discouraging, so I stopped again.

Then several weeks ago, I gave it another a go. I got on the bike and pedaled my way up the road - one and a half kilometers, elevation gain of a over a hundred meters = five stops, including walking the bike up certain areas that was just too steep for my middle-aged legs. I kept on trying. One day there was no more walking, and there were fewer rest stops.

And then it happened, unbelievably - I conquered the Baguio-Itogon Road from Tuding to Outlook Drive in one go, no walking, no stops, and I didn't finish up my bottle of water during the climb. I'm far from being an Indurain, but I was so proud of myself. That was a feat, and it was encouraging. On my next bike ride, when I got to the top without stopping again, I felt that I had more energy to keep on climbing so I turned towards Mines View and climbed the extra 40 meters or so of elevation gain and nailed it.

The next couple of weeks had me planning out routes around town. I also started biking to meetings and other errands I needed to do in town. I loved the workout riding gave me, and the freedom that came with being the engine of the means of transportation that brought me to where I needed to go. Parking was not a problem - you lean it against a railing, padlock the chain, done.

I got an odometer to track the distances I covered and the time it took me to cover those distances. I also got a rear rack for luggage so I could bring with me small things I needed for work - notepad, pen, phone, an extra shirt. One time I found myself in the middle of town towards noon and realized there was no lunch at home, so I went to the satellite market on Engineer's Hill to buy grilled fish and some vegetables, tied the bags securely on the rack and made it back home in time to steam the veggies and cook some rice.

About a week ago, after checking the weather forecast which said some 30% chance of 1mm rain, I decided to go for a ride. I was gonna farther than I've ever gone since I started riding again. From the usual 15-kilometer average that my South Drive-Loakan-Camp John Hay route covered, I planned to cover around 25 kilometers from Tuding to Bunrham Park to Naguillian Road up Quezon Hill down Tacay towards Pinsao on to Trancoville then up Leonard Wood then back to Tuding.

It started raining when I got to rotunda at the top of Kennon Road, so I stopped under the flyover to let it pass. 1mm only, Accuweather said. It'll pass. It did let up after a few minutes so I rode on only to get drenched as I got to Burnham Park. I stopped at the Melvin Jones Grandstand for a while and when it stopped raining again, I was so sure that that was it, so up I went towards the Baguio City Hall, then to Naguillian Road and then the climb up Quezon Hill. Again, the rain started as I was nearing the top of the climb, so I took shelter in a waiting shed and only continued riding down Tacay Road when the downpour slowed down to a drizzle. I reminded myself to get fenders/splash guards as I felt the sprinkling of water coming from the tires on to my legs and my face. I stopped for a while again somewhere in Trancoville, and then again under the Teachers' Camp bridge as rain had become much stronger making it difficult to see. I watched the torrent of muddy waters rushing down the creek, obviously, Accuweather got its forecast very wrong that day. It was already getting dark, and while the rain has slowed down a bit, it didn't look like it was gonna stop soon, so I got back on the bike and just rode in the rain.

Forgot to turn on the tracking app when I left, so the first 7-8 kilometers of the ride wasn't recorded 

It was just me, on a bike, the cold wind and rain in my face, water splashing against my legs, I was drenched and water squeezed out of my shoes when I pushed hard against the pedal, the twilight and a faint hint of some sunlight shining somewhere far, but not here, here everything was blurred out by the rain, I hear my breathing, and the rhythm I played on the pedals...

"Tara, kuya!" With that smile on his face, what I heard was come on, let's fly together! You can do it! I found myself shouting back to the rider, "Go ahead!," I thought I'd take my time. But watching him zoom down that road made me pedal a little harder and soon I was zooming down myself, found myself tucking my arms close to my body too, crouching lower... it was exhilarating. When we reached the bottom of the downhill where it plateaus for several meters before going into a climb again, the rider looked back and flicked his head towards the uphill road ahead and started pedaling hard, I slowed down. Really, not yet, not today, I thought... go ahead.

I looked to my right and part of the Camp John Hay unspoiled yet by hotels, tacky white mansions and call center buildings glowed in the magic hour light. I pulled over to the side to take a sip of water, and take it all in...

A bend in the road and the rider was gone from view, and I thought that maybe, one of these days, I'll join one of those group rides that this club regularly organizes. But for now, I'm liking the solitude that riding offers and the freedom that comes with that solitude. For an hour or two, there are no deadlines, no graphic layouts to finish, voice-overs to record, papers to write, scripts to be re-written, clogged drainage pipes to de-clog, bills to be paid, meetings to get to on time... no distress... no heartaches... no roles I haven't had the chance to portray, nor stories I never get around to telling... just this beautiful liberating dance between me and the bike on Baguio's winding roads where my mind flies.

And then the ride ends, but before it does, I play this one song on my earphones... at just the right moment so it serves as the final soundtrack to the final stretch of a beautiful moment...

...then that last downhill ride from Outlook Drive down to Tuding, that's when I truly soar.

I stop at our gate, get off the bike, and heave a happy sigh... I hope it shines tomorrow.

A different end game

We need a branding campaign to boost the nation's identity, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar declared. Exactly what he meant by "nation's identity," I don't know, and that in itself is a serious concern.

But the truth is, they've been engaged in that campaign for a while now. Rodrigo Duterte clinching the presidency is a result of cunning, if morally questionable, branding. Or propaganda, it's a very thin line.

The Product: Duterte

The Branding Journal (www.thebrandingjournal.com) says, “Broadly, a product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas” (Kotler & Keller, 2015).

The product was a tough guy whose claim to fame or infamy was ridding the streets of Davao City of petty criminals allegedly, or perhaps quite obviously, through extra-judicial means. The product had so many features, and each one could be viewed in more ways than one. For example, the product could be a mayor willing to do whatever it takes to go after criminals, or a thug that has little or no regard for the law.

The product brought peace, order and progress to a city. The product is an offensive, insensitive, tactless, rude, crude, misogynistic sociopath.

The product needed polishing, it needed branding.

The Brand: The Messiah with a clenched fist

“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association).

Change is coming, the slogan went. The branding campaign went into overdrive in the last few months of 2015. At around that time, while the country wasn't perfect, it was making headlines all over the world for having one of the soundest economic policies in the world, for jailing three senators for plunder, etc. A tough-guy had no place in that current picture, a new picture had to be drawn where the product, a killing machine, could be of use at all. Corruption can't be the main campaign line - politicians, corrupt or otherwise, can fight back. Kidnappers and the criminal activity was so 1999. Guns do not solve poverty... but wait...

Speaking of poor people... 

They've got a product but there was no real need for it. The need has to be created. Drugs... we're a country that's drug-infested. Oh, we're not? But that's because the current administration then was glossing over the problem. The branding can bloat the numbers, one, two three million maybe more Filipinos are drug addicts. Drug addiction equals unthinkably heinous crimes (although the plunder of untold billions of pesos from the nation's coffers remains, in my book, as the most heinous crime ever committed against us). You get rid of the drug addicts, you get rid of crime, just like Davao. Never mind that the peso is at its strongest, jobs are pouring in, more and more Filipinos are enjoying unprecedented opportunities to move forward in life. Everybody hates, or at least looks down on or couldn't care less about drug-addicts. Drug addicts don't like drug addicts. That's a portrait that needed to be painted - not of the Filipino with a brighter future ahead, but of the drug-dependent who steals, murders, rapes.

Who will believe that? Let's see...

Float the idea on social media, using the same formula that made Eat Bulaga and Willy Revillame endure and stay relevant - inanity and vulgarity, but entertaining.

Why not on mass media? Because it remains a mainly one-way communication stream, let's engage the market in a real-time conversation and focus our energy and resources on social media. And just like the salacious Hayden Kho videos, the idea did easily spread all over social media like wild fire, and soon the mainstream media had no other choice but to join the bandwagon. From being Asia's strongest economy, we have become a drug-infested country, and in that picture, the product Duterte, that clenched fist pointed at you, fits perfectly.

And the product has by the latter part of 2015 become relevant.

"Paano kong manalo? - Dolphy"

Is he really running or not? For weeks, nobody knew for sure, but looking back at how things played out the Duterte camp knew. But to further engage the audience, another element was added: suspense. After withdrawing his candidacy for Mayor and eventually submitting his Certificate of Candidacy for president, the questions surrounding his candidacy just added to the tension that gripped his avid supporters. It wasn't final yet, a petition was filed questioning the move and Comelec had yet to validate his candidacy, to which the product said: "I really don't know why I was brought into this crossroad. Whatever decision that Comelec [makes] about my candidacy, I will accept it." That was probably the last time I saw any hint of humility, or respect, in this product.

Comelec upheld its validity. The branding was working it's now time to take it to the next level.

The snowball effect was dizzying, but not totally unexpected. His supporters were intoxicated, much like throngs who line up for massacre and pito-pito movies, by promises of a bloodbath, foul language, misogyny that at one point one would think went way too far when he seemed to have implied that while looking at the cadaver of a woman who was brutally gang-raped, tortured and killed, he rued not being the first to sexually assault her. But just like a drunk emboldened by alcohol in his system or an addict under the influence of drugs, the throngs seemed to have lost their mind, or at least their sense morality, or decency or self-respect, even - that remark by the product earned applause from both men and women, and children, in the live audience and shared and defended on the internet.

Still, I kept an eye out for a glimmer of hope, a hint of a good plan for the country and its people. But he stuck to the script - kill. To other issues, he only had amusing one-liners such as the promise to "ride a jet ski while bringing the Philippine flag" when asked about his stand on our territorial dispute with China. He later dismissed the quip as a joke.

But the remark he made about wishing he was the first in line in the gang rape of Australian lay missioner Jaqueline Hamill? If ever I entertained thoughts of actually voting for this product, after that remark, my mind was made up.

The product's rise was not lost on political opportunists, and soon the dogs, eyes filled with lust, panting with their tongues hanging out, were flocking to his side some got in easily simply by ass-licking, but others, especially those with a bigger agenda, say those who did not relish the idea of carrying a surname that is synonymous with tyranny and corruption, may have had to do and offer more to the altar of Duterte.

Tapos na ang boksing

Even before the official campaign period started, it seemed like it was a done deal, Duterte was the next in line for Malacanang. What started out as a showdown between Roxas and Binay and became a three-way race when Poe jumped in was now becoming a no-contest. Mainstream media seemed to be simply echoing what was going on social media which was flooded with Dutertisms and fake news which worked like a charm for the product. Surveys showed the product pulling away from the rest of the pack.

His running mate, an erstwhile vice presidential hopeful with no president, was Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, although that didn't seem to be case on the campaign trail.

The product didn't see anything wrong with proclaiming his true choice for the vice presidency: Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., son of the ousted dictator whose name he shares, a senator with a plunder charge hanging over his head and a name that needed re-branding badly. It was appalling to watch Cayetano simply swallowing all that in-your-face humiliation, but even he knew that he had a sure winner as an official running mate that even if there was no way he would win the vice presidency, his political future was assured.

Looking back, the official Duterte-Cayetano ticket worked in favor of Robredo though I think that had Marcos officially run with Duterte, had he been seen hand in hand on stage with the product, he would have edged Robredo. But perhaps running under the party that played a significant role in the ouster of his father would have been too much, or too crass.

Even if Marcos has won as senator in the previous national election, I thought he had no chance at winning the vice presidency. But the main product's popularity and acceptability seemed to have rubbed off on him, and towards the homestretch he was neck and neck with administration candidate Lenny Robredo, who eventually won with a mere two hundred thousand votes or so, which is not the subject of an ongoing electoral protest filed by Marcos.

Up until election day, though, I still had no idea what Duterte's agenda was. FVR envisioned a newly industrialized country with Pilipinas 2000, PNoy a clean, honorable, decent and dignified government with Tuwid na Daan, even Marcos had Bagong Lipunan... so other than dead drug offenders in the streets, what bigger picture of the Philippines was on his mind? Which leads me to think that it's not about the country and serving the people, this product is just about power.

Step 1 - the war on drugs

I think even some of his most avid supporters were shocked by the manner in which this war was launched: just days after being sworn in, the killings started. They fell like flies, mostly poor people, some suspected drug offenders, most accused of resisting arrest and fighting back, others totally innocent people, many of them minors, in cases of mistaken identity or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It felt as if police districts were acting like jeepney drivers eager or even forced to take in as many passengers as possible in order to survive that it didn't matter if they were picking up passengers within prohibited zones, just that in their case, they weren't after passengers, they needed bodies, dead bodies.

The product was not interested in arresting and prosecuting drug offenders, it needed dead bodies - one, to satisfy his supporters' bloodlust, who weren't acting differently from addicts only they have become addicted to images of dead people covered in newspapers with a sign that says they're guilty simply because the one who pulled the trigger said so. And two, to instill fear in the hearts of those who weren't part of the 16 million.

Dead bodies strengthened his hold on his supporters, dead bodies to make everybody else afraid. The stage is set.

Senator Leila De Lima of the Legislature, fierce critic of the product - jailed on questionable charges. Chief Justice Sereno of the Judiciary, Aquino appointee, is now being impeached. They're getting in the way of the product, who wants absolute power.

And Lenny Robredo? She's in the way of the Marcos agenda - re-branding of that name.

I grew up being taught that Ferdinand Marcos was a hero, the guy on posters, calendars, on the covers of textbooks, a huge bust along a mountain highway, etc. And that Martial Law and Bagong Lipunan brought peace and order and progress to this country. Even if the reality of a plundered nation a disenfranchised people and painted a different picture - the textbooks in our school told a different story. And when he was ousted, the changes were swift. By the time summer passed and classes started in the school-year 1986-87, history books talked about the martial law era differently already, and Marcos was re-cast as a villain, along with members of his family.

That's the Marcos agenda - to be able to rewrite history, their family's history in particular. Even without Malcanang, they have made great steps forward in that direction already through social media.

The end game...

The branding was a success - a need that wasn't there before was created and marketed well and the people bought it. But branding is a work in progress, for fads fade, tastes change, and a product needs to be reinvented and repackaged and re-branded all the time to keep the market satisfied.

And this is why Andanar's announcement is alarming. The branding only succeeded in getting the 16 million the buy the product, and I have yet to hear of a non-believer being converted, and out the 16 million, many have shown dissatisfaction with the product. He speaks of our "nation's identity," and that, to me, means the main product needs another to go with it, complement it, make each one indispensable to the other. You've had success selling green mangoes, so before they get tired the sourness, introduce the bagoong. They're about to launch a new product, a new brand.

Marcos's agenda is simple - revision. That's what the family's all about. Never mind that there are other ways to re-brand the Marcos name, they can begin by acknowledging the fact that martial law under Marcos' presidency saw the plunder of our poor nation, the unjustified killing and torture of thousands, and returning all ill-gotten wealth back to the people. They do that, and Marcos' descendants can be given the chance to start from scratch, a clean slate if you will. But no, that's beyond Imelda and her children who grew up believing the lies, and believing that the only way to clear their name is to cover its history with lies.

Duterte's end game is simple - power. That's what he's all about. He will wield it, get drunk in it, hold on to it for as long as he can, for it's his one addiction. Fame and fortune? Secondary, perhaps. He's not there for those. Love of country? Far from it,a Bonifacio or a Rizal he is not and will never be. He's all about power - and every time he gets to exercise that power with impunity - burying a dictator in hallowed grounds, sending a critic to jail, ousting a rival, killing innocents and getting away with it, he gets more and more intoxicated by it, and craves it even more. And anything that shows him that his power is not absolute, that there is in fact a power higher than him horrifies and terrifies him, he fumbles as in the International Criminal Court's investigation of his crimes against humanity.

A true leader would have endeavored to unite a deeply divided nation after gaining power. But the product did not make any attempt to do that - his power was a result of that divisiveness. It doesn't matter that majority of the voters in our country, 60%, did not vote for him, as long as those 60% remain divided and the 40% who did vote for him remain united, his hold on power is solid.

Now, imagine if the 60% united... now that's an interesting product. United to fight tyranny and defend democracy and the rule of law... I like that branding.

Then the end game would be completely different.

The road to ecological hell is paved with good intentions

In a private community, Monterrazas Village in Tuding, Itogon, Benguet, homeowners/residents pay a 25,000-peso annual fee, and among the services provided by homeowners association is the regular collection of garbage twice a week.

Never had the chance to inquire where the collected waste are hauled to, and oddly, even after the municipal LGU announced that collection will be stopped indefinitely because of issues with the dump site, our garbage continued to be collected by the association's maintenance personnel, which just made me wonder even more where they haul the village's garbage to.

I couldn't help but notice though that in the last couple of weeks, we've had to endure the odor of burning plastic coming from neighboring areas. At different times of the day, tell-tale dark smoke could be seen wafting in different areas, and with it, the noxious odor.

Then the source came closer one day - just a few meters from our house, the caretakers of the village's clubhouse have been cleaning and burning tree and plant cuttings, dried leaves and cut grass along with whatever non-organic garbage they found in the area, mostly plastics. This time, thick, noxious smoke would enter our house and because there has been hardly any breeze, it would linger for hours. It got so bad that it was difficult to stay indoors in our own home, it hurt the eyes, the throat, the chest. The odor caused not only difficulty in breathing but dizziness too and we've had to turn on electric fans to clear the air - in vain though since the burning went on all day and sometimes into the night and the fans just couldn't keep up. It actually hurt my feelings, really, for how can one be so callous about the harm they're doing to other people?

So one afternoon, after of hours of trying to just grin and bear it, I walked up to where the burning was being done and talked to a man who was busy gathering even more plastic garbage and throwing them into the fire. I asked him if it was possible to at least not include the plastics. Though he agreed right there and then to put out the fire, a couple of hours later after sunset, the burning resumed.

We slept that night with the lingering smell of burning plastic.

The next day, I walked up to the head caretaker of the clubhouse and brought up my predicament with the plea for them not to burn plastics. I was surprised by his reaction - it seemed that because I and my family have been affected by their actions, have been enduring the noxious smoke for days already, and brought these to his attention, he got offended.

"Ano'ng magagawa ko e walang nagkokolekta ng basura namin?" I asked why doesn't the association collect their garbage, and he said that the conflict between the owners of the clubhouse and the association is none of my business - I didn't even know that the association did not own the clubhouse, much less that there was such a conflict between the two parties.

His stand was simple - he doesn't care if he's inconveniencing, endangering anyone, he will burn his plastic garbage because he has no other choice. Besides, he said, there are other people who do it. I told him that it seemed we've reached an impasse - he insists he has the right to burn plastics, and we can't continue to breathe in toxic smoke - I have no other choice but to bring it to the attention of the authorities, the police in particular, as burning plastic is not only a hazard, it is also illegal.

Go ahead, he said. So I did, and a few minutes later I was back at the clubhouse, three policemen with me this time.

I watched him defend his "right" to burn plastics to policemen, which made me realize: he really believes that there is nothing wrong with burning plastics. When I told him that my son, who was sick the past couple of days, couldn't properly get his much-needed rest because of the toxic fumes inside our house that came from his mound of burning plastic, he (and honestly I almost lost it and wanted to bury his face in his burning pile of plastic when I heard this) reply: "Ba't 'di mo dinala sa hospital anak mo?"

And I couldn't help but notice too how "petty" the policemen believed this issue was, even if essentially a crime was bring committed right in front of them - Section 49, Paragraph B of the law states that "Any person who violates Sec. 48, pars. 2 and 3 (The open burning of solid waste), shall, upon conviction be punished with a fine of not less than Three hundred pesos (P300.00) but not more than One thousand pesos (P1,000.00) or imprisonment of not less than one (1) day but to not more than fifteen (15) days, or both."

There lies the problem with RA 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Law of 2000. If, 18 years after it was enacted, towns, cities and provinces continue to fail to comply with the provisions of the law, and many of us still don't understand the implications of improper waste disposal or care about the harm we cause the environment and the people around us, then something's wrong somewhere.

Is it the law? RA 9003 is "AN ACT PROVIDING FOR AN ECOLOGICAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, CREATING THE NECESSARY INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS AND INCENTIVES, DECLARING CERTAIN ACTS PROHIBITED AND PROVIDING PENALTIES, APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES."

It is supposed to provide "a legal framework for the systematic comprehensive and ecological solid waste management program" for the country, which shall ensure the protection of public health and the environment."

It begs the questions...

Was the law a failure? 

The law clearly had only good intentions, and seemed to have provided ample time for LGUs and the public to comply - three years from the enactment of the law, LGUs must have been able to turn open dumps into controlled dumps, and in five years it must already have an Engineered Sanitary Landfill. It also provided for an education and information campaign enjoining the public and various government institutions to do their share: DECS, TESDA, CHED, DILG and PIA. Within a five-year period from the enactment of the law, RA 9003 said that "people must internalize the value of environmentally sound and sustainable solid waste disposal." But obviously, at least this caretaker couldn't still care less about the value of environmentally sound and sustainable waste disposal. Oh well.

How do you reach into the mind of the caretaker? How can you force, too, a family in an apartment building to start composting their biodegradable waste with no yard space? How does Baguio with hardly any land space available with the continuing residential population growth to build its own Engineered Sanitary Landfill? Sure, we don't need something that big if we implement zero waste efforts in every household, but that's easier said than done.

Or did we fail the law? 

In Baguio, city officials took the law for granted until the deadline for full compliance was up. Nothing significant was done until the LGU had no choice but to close the Irisan dumpsite or risk violating RA 9003 which resulted in mountains of garbage piling up in our streets. Only then did city hall started doing something, too little, too late. The public education and information campaign was a failure, which is the expected result if the ones doing the campaign themselves do not fully understand and appreciate the spirit of the law. Households were asked to segregate their garbage, only to see their segregated garbage dumped altogether in the same truck. If households segregated at all, for coming from simply having to take out all their garbage for collection, segregating them in to 3, 4 or was it 5?, different classifications which was what the LGU wanted them to do at first, wasn't easy.

Out in the streets roads, it's still commonplace to see plastic water bottles and wrappers being thrown out of car windows - cars, both local and from out of town. Pedestrians on their way home with their afternoon snacks don't find anything wrong with dumping their single use plastic cups and bags in the canal right in front of our house.

A lot of people believed then, and still do now, that waste disposal is solely the government's job and that all they need to do is take it out of their homes. And if it's not collected, it's not their problem anymore - they'll continue to dump even more garbage in various collection sites in the city's barangays, or wherever else is even more convenient, or in the case of the Monterrazas Clubhouse caretaker, burn it and the neighbors well-being, health be damned.

To date, no sustainable solution has been forwarded and instead, the city is spending huge sums of money to transport our waste to a far-flung sanitary landfill three provinces away.

More importantly, what do we do now?

While we've always preferred bringing our own bayong when going to market, our family have since doubled our efforts to reduce the waste we generate. We have since included used ice cream containers (for meats and fish and other wet product) and smaller reusable bags (for vegetables and other dry goods) to our "marketing gear" and at one time even launched a social campaign, "Huwag niyo na pong i-plastic." But even with much effort, we are still surprised at the amount of plastic and other residual non-biodegradable waste we end up with. Businesses don't care, once the consumer buys their product, the plastic waste that the product generates isn't their problem any more. The public doesn't care, once they've used the product and thrown out that plastic candy wrapper or detergent bag, it's not their problem anymore.

And as shown by the apparent ignorance (not to mention arrogance) of the Monterrazas Clubhouse caretaker, it seems that we've hardly made any move forward with regards to RA 9003 nearly two decades after it was enacted.

It's not too late and not really wrong to admit that we, all of us - the public, the government - went about this wrongly. Going back to square one is not a bad idea, in fact, I believe it's necessary.

This is a link to the full text of RA 9003.

Let's take this from the top, understanding and appreciating the need for an environment & people-friendly and safe waste management system, if the caretaker gets that, he may just stop arrogantly insisting on his right to burn plastics in his backyard.