We lost, baby

Since it started way past my daughter’s usual bedtime, she couldn’t keep her eyes open and she fell asleep about ten minutes into the game. That’s why she missed Slovakia’s first goal against Italy in last Thursday’s do-or-die match. The Italians played like amateurs the rest of the first half – no rhythm, no organization, it’s as if there were only 11 individual players and no team playing against the Slovakian Team. At halftime, after posting my disappointment and frustrations on both my Twitter and Facebook accounts, I carried my sleeping daughter to her room so as not to get disturbed by the occasional bursts of verbal cheers and jeers from me and her mother. My latest online status update at that point: “I don’t think I can stand another 45 minutes of torture.” They’ve been to the World Cup finals 16 out of 18 times, have won the Cup 4 times, the last time just four years earlier, watching them fumble in the first 45 minutes was just heartbreaking. The score stood at one to nil, things can still get better in the second half.

And then Slovakia scored a second goal in the second half. I gave up on Italy at that point. But then, by some miracle, they slowly found their game and finally scored a goal – 2 to 1, the score now stood. It’s wasn’t over, after all. And then that brief flash of brilliance turned out to be a fluke for soon after, Slovakia upped their lead once again with a goal. With just around 10 minutes left in the game, the defending champions were behind by 2 goals. It was already clear in the minutes that followed that the Italians would be leaving South Africa sooner than the whole world expected. And despite scoring a second goal, the Slovaks simply had the win and the right to move on to the round of 16 within reach – all they needed to do in the dying minutes was make those minutes die as fast as possible.

And then the referee blew the final whistle. One of Italy’s younger players dropped to the ground and cried his heart out, and a veteran walked over pull him back to his feet. He put his arm around the young player as they walked out of the stadium – the young man would probably have another chance to be part of a champion team four years from now, while the veteran knew that this was his last World Cup. Italy was only of the so-called big teams who everyone thought had realistic chances of making it to the top in this World Cup to be booted out in the eliminations. France was also sent home early, no thanks to their players who thought that their personal issues and attitudes were bigger than their country’s aspiration.

The next day, the whole of Italy mourned their team’s loss. "It was the darkest and most terrible day in the history of Italian football," according to the editorial of Italian newspaper, La Gazzetta.

Here, most Filipinos were intoxicated by the Game & win by the L.A. Lakers over the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association finals, which, to rest of the world, seemed more like an unwelcome TV commercial in a month-long main feature. Most Filipinos, when asked why they’re not into football, would say that the sport is boring since most games don’t go beyond having 2 to 3 goals made, some even end in a tie at zero. Unlike basketball, they say, where you are treated to a goal – a dunk, a triple, a fade-away, an impossible lay-up - every 24 seconds. But that’s the beauty of football, it is so easy to play but not too easy to score. Each goal requires so much to make – strategy, skill, stamina, speed, cunning, anticipation, improvisation – that not one involved takes it for granted. Not the players, not the coach, not even the people in the stands. And when a goal is finally made, unlike in basketball where you’re bombarded with anywhere between 40-60 goals in a game but hardly remember any one particular shot after, a soccer goal can stay in your head forever. It can push you into extreme sadness or elation, depression or excitement, depending on who kicked that ball in between those posts, every time the image of it pops into your head, hours, days, weeks, months or even years after it happened.

As my wife said our goodnights to the children, our daughter woke up as her mother tucked her in tighter under the blanket in her bed. “Who won?” she asked. “We lost, baby,” her mother said. Almost the whole family chose Italy as their top team in this World Cup (Our eldest chose England instead). She started crying that we decided that for that night, she could sleep with us in our bed.

I wonder how it would be like when the time comes when our own country would finally make it to the World Cup, and we’re actually rooting for our very own team? But that would take a while yet. See, we’re too busy waiting for Darwin’s law of natural selection to be repealed so that Filipinos would be genetically competitive in basketball, that we fail to realize that there is this one sport where we can actually really excel. Because in football, height doesn’t really matter, much less skin color. Its number one requirement is heart. And we’ve got plenty of that.

Overexposure

“If everybody knows everything, then nothing means anything. Everything’s a cliché. That’s why a stopped making art,” the “Artist” laments in Eric Bogosian’s performance-art piece, “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.”

In this digital age where everybody has access to perhaps all the knowledge the human race has accumulated, digitally stored as a series of ones and zeroes on hard drives and scattered out there all over the world wide web, everybody seems to know everything, or at least a lot of us act like we do.

In the realm of art, what does this mean?

The digital revolution has greatly affected one form of expression in particular – photography. Once the exclusive domain of those who have got the so-called “eye” and have access to the proper equipment, is now an open arena with everyone who has access to anything that can freeze life on frames at four megapixels or higher become self-proclaimed “photographers.” Well, it does literally mean someone who photographs, and since digital single lens reflex cameras have become cheaper, and since for peanuts any China-made phone now comes with a high-resolution camera, more and more people have become photographers. On the one hand, there’s a lot of good in this. Since there are a lot more people peering behind viewfinders and clicking away, more of life’s moments are captured, saved, printed or at least uploaded online for anyone to experience. No need to worry about the cost of film, developing the film, and printing the photographs. Flash, or SD or CF cards that can store thousands and thousands of high-resolution images have become cheaper.

In the early days of digital photography, it seemed like the new medium will take a while to replace film, it remained as toys to be played with by hobbyists and not serious pieces of equipment for professional practitioners. A couple of years later, as digital storage became more and more efficient with larger data being accommodated in much smaller gadgets, the digital format slowly caught up. But large format film made its last stand for a while since 6,7, or even 8-megapixel digital cameras still couldn’t match the quality of images taken with a large format film camera. And then in the blink of an eye, digital photography breached the 10-megapixel mark and has now all but totally doomed the film format to near-extinction.

Back in the days of film photography, photographers, seasoned and neophytes alike, composed each frame more meticulously, much more carefully, for in a regular roll of 35mm film, you only have 36 frames. And until you have that roll developed and printed, you don’t know if you had that picture right, and so you carefully measure the light and adjust aperture and shutter speed more cautiously. Now? Your CF card can hold thousands of high-resolution images, so you click away – and immediately, it’s there on that tiny frame behind your camera called the LCD screen, so you know if you took a good picture or not, and you instantly make the necessary adjustments until you get it right. It’s so easy it starts being taken for granted.

And now, everybody’s a photographer. And in the world of professional photography, one downside to this is, as the law of supply and demand dictates, when supply outnumber demand, the value of goods go down. It is almost impossible these days to make a living being a professional photographer. There’s just too many of them out there competing for a slice of that limited pie. Clients these days don’t go searching for the best photographer, faced with a smorgasbord of clickers, they now search for the lowest bidder. The competition gets tougher, and just like when all those shawarma joints started sprouting all over the country, each one lowered its price to attract more customers and eventually, they drove each other out of business. That’s almost what is happening now – photographers can hardly make a living out of their craft, there’s just too many of them out there, good ones, bad ones, real ones and wannabes and the sad thing is, people can hardly tell the difference.

And the other downside: just like most mass-produced thingamajigs, quality suffers. And there you have it: more and more photographers and photographs but less and less worthwhile photographers and photographs. There’s so many of them they start being taken for granted. And that’s the worst of it all – being taken for granted.

As a quote from that Disney flick, The Incredibles, goes: “and when everybody’s special? Guess what, nobody really is.”

And when everybody’s an artist? Guess what, nobody really is.

“And that’s why I stopped making art,” as one of the characters in Eric Bogosian’s play said.

As luck would have it

As we were loading the bags back in the car at the end of the day, my wife, RL, thought out loud: maybe when the car suddenly wouldn't start the previous morning, it was a sign.

So since the car won't start last Sunday, we asked a friend if we could rent her dad's cab for Gabriela's birthday party at a beach house in Binloc, Dagupan. On her way to our place with the cab, the neighborhood mechanic did his magic and managed to get the car to start. But since there were a lot of us - total of 11 kids, 14 or so adults, instead of the others having to commute down, we decided to just bring the cab too anyway.

Everyone got to work right away as soon as we got there - I stopped by the roadside market in Damortis to get something that can be cooked fast for lunch (I went for chicken adobo); kids immediately took off their clothes and put on sunblock, etc. We’ve been here too many times it’s almost like a second home.

Later that afternoon, after a quick dip in the water (which was deliciously warm), I went to the Dagupan market to get something to add to my daughter’s birthday pasta dinner - inihaw na karpa at bangus, ensaladang talong, kamatis, arosep at bagoong. In the meantime, my son Leon and his gang of friends fiddled with his Ipod and the little girls watched a movie on gab's laptop while waiting for the food to be ready. I took pictures in between fanning the inihaw and reheating the sauce.

While of course there were some drinks, there was really no heavy drinking later that night. But there was much storytelling, that after the kids already claimed their spaces on both the living and dining room floors for the night by 10pm, us grown-ups stayed up ‘til way past midnight. I went to bed at around 1am next to my wife who went to sleep an hour earlier. The rest stayed up until about 3am.

I could hardly understand everything our friend Rose was saying (it was barely 6am), but I did pick up the words "wallets", "found", "outside." I understood that we were robbed. I got up and the first thing I checked out was the area where I placed the laptop the night before. It was gone. RL's bag which was next to it that had both our wallets and our phones - gone. The next minute everyone was awaken by the commotion and we all looked around some more to see what else was missing. I got out and walked towards the beach hoping against hope to still see a couple of guys running away from the house with our stuff. I saw our friend, Tolits, instead, sprawled on the beach. My heart stopped, the first thing that came to my head was that he probably woke up to discover the house being robbed and the robbers stabbed him and dragged him away from the house. I hesitated for a while before calling out his name. He got up and I started to breathe again. He was gonna sleep in the tent for the night but when it got too hot, decided to just sleep right under the stars. He immediately went to the tent to get his phone, it was gone too.

The kids woke up because of the commotion, and RL broke the news to Gabriela. Silently, she cried.
The laptop was a Christmas gift from Grandma, so was Leon's Ipod. Never mind the phones, but I distinctly remember the day RL and I traveled down to Manila to finally buy a DSLR after a long time of putting away a little money every now and then to be able to do so, plus some additional money from a friend who thought it was worth lending us some additional cash for a decent camera. It wasn't really a high-end, pro-quality DLSR, but we did what we could with it. At least we didn't have to rent or borrow anymore everytime we needed a camera. With it, we've documented conventions, weddings, and lots and lots of performances... and even more picnics and roadtrips and rainy days in Baguio. That's gone too. Plus some cash that may be not much, but is worth millions when you don't have that much.

They must have sprayed us with some gas, they said, that's why nobody woke up. Whatever. But the worst thing those thieves did was not to walk away with all of the above. Those are easy to let go. What I can't forgive them for is breaking Gabriela's heart the morning after her birthday.

We stayed in the warm waters of Binloc the rest of the day, and just before sundown, God treated us to a magnificent show... while the last of the day's rays shone, the site of dark clouds and falling rain far in the distance was magnificent. And on the other side, a beautiful sun-kissed sky. I took a few pictures with Gabriela's pink Kodak point-and-shoot. Good they didn't take that one.

On our way home we passed by a terrible accident. People died. I tried to distract the children to look the other way so as not to see the bodies being laid down on the sidewalk.

We're so lucky, afterall. We're so, so lucky.

Scoopin’ ‘n Twistin’ ‘n Character Assassins

They say never the kick a man when he’s down, but they just won’t let up. The Mayor did not win his bid to be the city’s representative in congress, and in a recent press conference, tears fell as he was bidding goodbye to his office and the members of his staff. But on a local news program the story was that the Mayor cried because he lost in the election.

With this TV news program, it was like that during the whole campaign: while their features on this one particular candidate always told us about his vision, his platform - his promises should he win the election, with the other candidates it was always something negative. During the launching of the Mayor’s candidacy when not every single member of his ever growing clan showed up, the story was that his family was not in full support of his candidacy. They relentlessly pursued that angle practically during the whole campaign, earning them a few scathing words from one family member from whom they hoped to get a few sensational sound bites. This is the same outfit that instead of telling the world that despite Baguio’s precarious location it survived the onslaught of twin typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, told us that 90% of Baguio is in danger of landslides. And we wonder why the Ad Congress was cancelled last year. Well, we can’t expect much from a new program that in an interview with the actors playing Jesus and Judas in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, their reporter asked: what’s the significance of your roles in this play?

The Mayor is as rich as Manny Pacquiao, says one columnist of a reputable weekly. Where he got his figures (read: not data) only he knows. He enriched himself while in office, the same columnist said. He did nothing , nothing at all, about the garbage problem of Baguio, he added.

Yeah, yeah, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I guess especially those who write opinion columns. But still, one has to be responsible enough to draw the lines between hearsay, opinion, perception and actual facts. Sensational claims must still be backed by spectacular evidence.

For example, hearsay: there was vote buying in Baguio in the recent election. Fact: some camps relentlessly engaged in black propaganda.

Are we sourgraping? Perhaps. But not particularly because the candidate we were rooting for did not win, but because elections in Baguio have become what it is – the politics of money, character assassination and rotten journalism. Oops, a rash generalization, you say. Perhaps. But don’t we say also that an attack on a journalist thousands of kilometres away is an attack on every single journalist elsewhere?

Fact is, the above are not the kinds of politics and journalism Baguio knows. Baguio generally had peaceful and orderly elections, they say. Not entirely true – while in other places they killed politicians with bullets, here they did so with black propaganda and certain corrupted journalists.

The winners could’ve still emerged as winners and the losers as losers even if we didn’t have all of the above, but I guess we’ll never know now.

Maybe next time.

In black and white

I went there that morning fuming mad to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. The news spread like wildfire on the internet – the Athletic Bowl is being “sold” to the Koreans and online rabble-rousers claimed that: for a measly 10k a month, a Korean company would take possession of the sports complex where they plan to build a resort hotel, a commercial complex and a golf course. On the way there I was already composing the questions I would ask, the things I would say.

Afterall, I was among those who worked to get the guy elected.

I was the first to get there and soon the office was already filling up with members of the local media and other concerned citizens. And what would I say if I am once again asked to help him if he decides to run again.

After the usual greetings and handshaking, the first questions were fired. I looked around to see if anyone in the room would actually bring that issue up – and soon the question of the day was asked: what’s the deal with the Athletic Bowl issue. The man explained the whole thing and slowly my mood was already shifting from being angry to skeptical. I asked around for a copy of the actual Memorandum of Agreement - the resort hotel was actually a dormitory facility for athletes, the commercial complex would actually be some shops that would cater to the athlete’s needs and the golf course, well, it was actually a driving range.

And soon the call came: he’s running again, this time as representative of the city’s lone congressional district. I said yes.

As in the past two elections that we handled, we set up camp at the old house at the school’s parking lot. Several brainstorming session later, we decided that our main job would be to tell the people about the truth – the whole truth and nothing but. Sa totoo lang. And everything will be in black and white.

On the first day of the campaign, we gathered the volunteers (some of our staff members were really surprised to learn that the volunteers were indeed, VOLUNTEERS and not “professional campaigners). We started with a mass, then the candidate spoke briefly to thank everyone who came to show their support. We then explained our campaign strategy: simply, tell the truth. A lawyer friend then capped off the first day’s meeting with a lecture on COMELEC rules and guidelines, and urged everyone to strictly abide by these. No dirty tricks, no mudslinging. Bar none. That would eventually be the first thing on the agenda every single day: reminding everyone to obey the law. And at the end of the day, we’d gather one more time to make sure that nobody broke this primary rule.

In the last days of the campaign, black propaganda materials maligning the candidate started spreading around town. What do we do? The campaigners asked. Nothing, absolutely nothing. We reminded everyone that no matter what happens in this election, at least we can sleep soundly at night knowing that we did nothing wrong – legally and morally.

It’s been a long and tiring road and here we are now, about to decide what direction our city, our nation, would take.

I can sleep soundly now.

Look-see

The bad news is, good news isn’t news. Sadly, that’s the way it is. 90% of Baguio is allegedly landslide prone is news, but that Baguio has a not-so-bad-at-all 95% employment rate is not. A local tv crew has been hounding the relatives of a particular congressional candidate who happens to belong to a big prominent family because of rumors that his clan is not 100% behind his candidacy. Of course this news crew won’t show footages of one particular gathering where members of his clan showed up to reiterate their support for their candidate. They won’t even take footages in the first place. They would instead scour the city looking for that one kapamilya who could validate that rumor, at all cost, for that, my friend, is news.
The glass is either half-empty, or half-full. Never mind that the people are not informed of the real cause of our garbage crisis – a video clip or a photograph showing piles of uncollected garbage is enough to guarantee viewership or readership that of course results in higher advertising revenues. While agitating the people will only result in, well, agitation, educating the people as to what the real picture is can perhaps result in a better-informed populace who can now do their part in helping the city get over this crisis.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself have been a critic of so many things – from the rape of Session Road during Panagbenga to, yes, even the garbage issue. I am not a journalist, but I do believe that those who in the mass communication business have a responsibility to present the whole truth. Whether one is a news anchor or a news cameraman, whether you’re a two-bit columnist such as me or an editor-in-chief, whether you write for the city’s most read paper or a blogger.

Given what we are being fed by television, newspapers, radio and the internet, one can’t help but wonder why the population of Baguio keeps on growing. Why new businesses keep on opening up. Why tourists keep on coming. Think about it, why come to a city where they say nothing’s being done about the garbage problem, or where the traffic situation is unbearable, or where the pollution is at its worse, where the tourist attractions are dilapidated, or where the incidence of crime is horribly high? A lot of people claim to love Baguio, let’s do this for the love of Baguio, they always say, and then proceed to paint an ugly picture of the city for the whole world to see.

While we need to let the people know of the city’s problems, we also need to let them know of the good things about it. While there are times when showing the people how bad certain things are, we also need to let them know that there’s hope. The headlines seem to want us to believe that all’s lost, it’s hopeless. I don’t think so.

It’s true, there’s Session Road in Bloom where for a week Session Road is turned into an epitome of crass commercialism, and there’s Earth Day where it’s left to breathe and meditate quietly and beautifully. There are lip-synched pseudo-theater performances, and there are plays staged by local legitimate artists. We do have a garbage problem, but there are a lot of things that we as citizens can also do to ease the burden and help the government solve it. 95% of us are employed. We were spared even a single death during the last Dengue season. The damage that Ondoy and Pepeng wreaked in Baguio wasn’t as bad as in other places (considering that according to a local news report, 90% of the city is landslide-prone). El Niño’s here, but a gentle shower’s blessing the City of Pines as I write this.

We do see what we want to see, let’s look at things properly, and see the real picture.

To Poke or to Superpoke

I have been interviewed twice the past few weeks regarding the use of Facebook in this current election season. The questions were about the usual pros and cons, dos and don’ts.

Ahh, the many wonderful , and awful things about this crazy thing called Facebook.

Created by college boys initially to provide a platform for their schoolmates at Harvard to get together online, share stories and keep in touch with each other, it has evolved into the world’s biggest online community with reportedly 400 million users worldwide. Yup, it has a much bigger population than the Philippines.

While the uninitiated might think that Facebook is just for young people, the truth is that those in the 30-something and above age group have more going for them in Facebook more than anybody else. As a Time article pointed out, we middle-agers have gone through high school (that’s one group of long lost friends one might find in this virtual community), college (another one), most have gone through several jobs each bringing with it a new set of friends, acquaintances – and experiences to chat about, blog about, post pictures and videos of, and that’s why this particular demographic counts as among the biggest groups on Facebook, and the most active! After all, it was in our generation that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs changed the world. We’re the ones who were first to tinker with really floppy floppy disks, got to move that thing called a mouse around, went gaga over Windows 2.0, and so on and so forth – we know how to work this thing. We know how to create an e-mail address so we can log in to Facebook. We know how to access our email address book to find our friends. We know how to upload pictures from our digital cameras (and even tweak those snapshots in Photoshop first before publishing them). We know how to chat, we know how to poke… and to superpoke.

And so we poked and superpoked and we have found long lost friends including that classmate from elementary school who has apparently forgiven me for relentlessly teasing her all throughout 5th grade. Or maybe she just forgot that I did that. While in the past communication with loved ones abroad meant waiting for the mailman to deliver that letter once or twice a week, or month, we are now in contact with them every single hour of every single day. We even know that they have been playing Word Twist or Bejewelled all night.

Now the cons. Above all else, spamming: unsolicited material being shoved down your throat (or hard drive). A contact can tag you in a provocative photo which means if anybody out of the 400 million members comment on it or even just “like” it (which one does with by simply clicking a button labeled, “like,” and you will be notified. If you haven’t turned off your email notification option, 100 comments and/or people “liking it” would mean 100 emails in your inbox. Say, a friend lost her cellphone and informs everyone in her contact list of her new number, each “got it,” “how did you lose it?,” “here’s mine,” “hey, long time no see” reply would find its way both in your Facebook and e-mail inboxes.

Then there are the viruses: a post appears that links to supposedly, say, “the funniest video ever,” you click on it to view it, and the next window asks you to “allow” the application to access your profile – the next thing you know, you’ve just unwittingly sent a racy video to all of your friends in your contacts list.

As for those politicians utilizing this for their campaigns? Well, the pros are countless – Comelec has no idea how to regulate material online, so it’s basically a free-for-all out there. While television exposure is limited to 60 minutes for local candidates, you can post a three-hour epic depicting your greatness online if you want. 120-minute limit on radio? Well, go ahead and post a full symphonic version of your campaign jingle if you want. But, while your supporters can rave about how great you are on your “wall,” adversaries can infiltrate your contacts list and start badmouthing you right in your own Facebook page. They do that a lot, mostly perpetrated by those who cowardly hide under pseudonyms.

This is what, my 3rd, 4th, nth article about Facebook? We just can’t get enough of it. But if there’s one thing that Facebook, and all those other so-called networking sites, has shown us is its apparent power to influence people. In Baguio, it helped cancel a government contract; it helped bring down a stupid concrete pine tree; and it might just help elect the city’s next leaders.

So enjoy it, hate it, do whatever you want with and in it. Just be responsible enough and know that this virtual world is also governed by the laws of the real universe: cause and effect, any action brings a reaction, you get the drift.

So, you can be helping make this world a better place. Or you can just be adding to the mess we’re all in.

Taga-Baguio

The whole night we talked about nothing else but Baguio. Our newfound friend was Baguio-born and -raised, and in the last three decades since he left the city, he has only visited Baguio thrice.

I myself have been living here for 15 years, but as a child has been a regular visitor to this haven nestled up in the mountains of the Cordilleras. Talking about Baguio, sitting at the table by the sidewalk in Rumours on Session Road, as expected the conversation turned into a nostalgia trip for from where were sitting, we could get a vivid moving picture of what the city has become - a hundred and one years since Dean C. Worcester and Luke E. Wright informed the US Philippine Commission that yes, this rancherria was indeed the perfect site for a hill station.

We asked him, why do you keep coming back? He said, despite all the negativities being said about Baguio, there is still something about Baguio that makes one keep coming back. Or something like that.

He asked, after hearing about our adventures and misadventures, successes and disappointments in the past 15 years, why are you still here? I ended saying the same thing. And I add, my relationship with this city has become some kind of a marriage – for better or for worse. Perhaps, even ‘til death do us part.

Not so long ago, Baguio had fewer people, but we had more friends. One thing a lot of Baguio folks miss is walking down Session Road and surely bumping into someone you knew, for these days one can spend a whole day there surrounded only by strangers – strangers whom you see carelessly throwing a plastic cup, or a cigarette butt, or spitting just about anywhere. What do they care? They have no history with the city, and they have no idea about the history of this city.

That’s probably why we also can’t blame the seemingly prevailing xenophobia among the Baguio citizenry – a true Baguioite would do no harm to this beautiful city. There’s this thing that has been going around on the internet that lists the reasons that make one a true “taga-Baguio.”

Well, you’re “taga-Baguio” because you know that the people in Baguio are courteous, and that’s why you won’t drive around town like a maniac; that’s why you would stop at a pedestrian lane; that’s why you would let a car coming uphill pass. You know that this city was once the cleanest and greenest city in the country, that’s why you won’t dirty it, you won’t desecrate its beautiful surroundings, that’s why you won’t build anything that would scar the land, that’s why you won’t indiscriminately cut down trees. You know that Baguio was founded in this place particularly exactly because of its natural beauty, and so you know that if you are here you have to live your life in harmony with that natural beauty. You know that Baguio was a health resort, and that’s why you’ll do anything to keep its natural environment healthy; you will make sure that you won’t add to the already worsening air, water, land, noise and yes, moral, pollution.
And because you’re “taga-Baguio,” through thick and thin, through good and bad weather, through world wars and earthquakes and devastating storms… amidst criticisms and so-called “uglifications”… you’ll stand by Baguio, you won’t go out there to slander her, you’ll do something to make things better.

And that’s probably why that after 30 years, our newfound friend plans to return to the city of his birth. And that’s why we’re still here.

And Baguio will surely hurdle all these obstacles today – because its people won’t have it any other way.

Can't buy me love

Our theatre group, Open Space, merited a one liner in an article in a national daily about local talents. It’s been months since our last production (KAFAGWAY our musical on the history of Baguio was last performed at the Rose Garden, Burnham Park last December), so I decided to reprint here an article I wrote about the group some time ago hoping it will get us fired up enough to once again tell a story onstage.

CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) Complex – a sprawling haven for culture and the arts located along Roxas Boulevard that includes several world-class theaters, museums, galleries and home to the country’s supposed best arts and culture companies.

CCP Complex - Also a psychological condition that makes the afflicted believe that any artistic output that comes from beyond the boulevard and the breakwaters of Manila Bay is inferior.

I must admit I too once had the aforementioned condition, until I stage managed a production that toured the whole country for a whole month and got exposed to the artworks in the regions, from Baguio to Marawi. I knew then that I would get out of CCP soon after the tour. And I did. And I moved to Baguio , around (15) years ago.

Last night a colleague informed me of a group’s interest to feature our productions in a local institution that’s being re-packaged as a cultural and educational destination – they’re interested because it would be much more cost effective to hire a local group to stage a play rather than bring a whole production from Manila . Though I’d rather hear that they’re interested because they believe in what the local artists can deliver, beggars can’t be choosers. And this is among the reasons why I left Manila more than a decade ago to live in Baguio – I just couldn’t stand the arrogance of Manileños in their belief that the best things in this country can only be found in Manila , and everything that comes from beyond the toll gates of both the North and South Expressways are inferior. You patronize artists in the regions only when the budget can’t afford the Manila variety.

They probably haven’t heard the compositions of Ethan Andrew Ventura, and the way he plays his guitar. His work, setting Rizal’s Me Ultimo Adios to music, to me is a classic. Or perhaps they haven’t been to a jazz jam session at Overtones, one of many places in the city that houses exceptional local talents. Too bad, most of them never get to sit down and listen to Emerald Ventura, Ro Quintos, Jef Coronado, Cholo Virgo, Yoshi Capuyan, Arkhe Sorde Salcedo, Ramirr Grepo, Jenny Cariño, Sunshine Gutierrez, Mary Raquel, Ron Ruiz, Patchi Viray, SLU’s Glee Club, the reggae bands in Baguio, or the folk, rock and rock ones in nearby La Trinidad, and many others whose music can blow you away.

Perhaps they’ve never been to an exhibit by the Tahong Bundok group at the Baguio Convention Center – watercolors of a beautiful city that hypnotize, or an ongoing exhibit at the Café by the Ruins – coffee on paper, different shades of sepia that calms the spirit, or the photography of local lensmen on Multiply.com that can rival those that hang on Manila’s expensive gallery walls, or the VOCAS group’s multimedia explorations that challenge and provoke the mind.

They’ve never sat in a local writers’ group’s open mic session. They’ve never been to an SLU musical. They’ve never seen Tropang Paltok’s street theater performances. One pays good money to hear the now Manila-based Pinikpikan perform something one could normally hear for free at the steps of La Azotea or the Dap-ay of Café by the Ruins. Manila charges hundreds to thousands for what one could get into on less than a hundred bucks’ ticket price, or in most cases on a complimentary pass, as in most local theatrical presentations.

And the sad thing is, the community encourages the discrimination against local artists whenever it turns to Manila for most major artistic or cultural outputs in the city. But maybe that’s precisely the reason why the local artists continue to produce great art despite the situation: the main thing the fuels them is passion, and just like love, all the money in Manila can’t buy that.

Congratulations, Marko Angelo

Marko Angelo is my eldest son. And he just graduated high school. He was born 17 years ago, I was barely a grown up myself then. At 19, everything was happening so fast that the only thing I clearly remember about November 29, 1992 was that it was a blur. But one thing I will never forget is that first time I held him in my lanky arms and realization that hit me like a rock – I am a father.

A proud father. Nothing else in this world matters as much as my family. My proudest moments do not involve being onstage or in a movie or having a piece published or a photograph exhibited. I was proudest when my youngest, Aeneas, and younger daughter, Sofia, played their first memorized piano piece, or when my younger son, Leon, came up to me to give his opinion on my directorial concept for a play. Or everytime their Ate Sofia sits down with me to discuss the last book she read.

I had to hold back the tears when Leon won a literary contest and lost my voice cheering everytime he scored a goal (a total of 6!) in a soccer tournament. I was speechless when Marko told me that he’s starring in a school musical, and I could stay put in my seat watching Sofia in a play at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In one of our theatre group’s performance last year, I could hardly believe my eyes watching Aeneas and Gabriela performing a song live onstage with so much gusto and sincerity.

I was late for the graduation, the travel from Manila to Alabang took longer than expected. I stopped by my father’s house a few blocks from the school to change – Marko would never forgive me if I showed up in my usual jeans and sandals. Something with a collar and footwear that cover the whole feet, that’s all he’s asking for. When I got to the auditorium, they were about to call the graduates onstage already – just in time. Being late, I was seated at the balcony, so I had to change camera lenses to get a decent photo of him walking up that stage and standing proud on that podium. Just as I was locking in that lens, I heard it: “Marko Angelo Altomonte.” I looked up and there he was – looking so smart and proud in his toga. The ceremony was pretty sober, quiet, sedate, and as he bowed to the crowd, his hat fell and he fumbled with it for a moment before finally putting it back on. I had on this really big stupid smile that I was trying to hide behind my camera, and as I clicked away, I thought to myself – that’s my son.

They’re my children, all five of them. And I am proud of each one and of all of them. I am a lot of things, but the one thing I know that I really am is a father to five beautiful children.

Driving him back home after the ceremony, I asked him what his plans were for the evening. I didn’t really plan for anything as I didn’t want to get in the way of whatever plan he had, this was his evening. And though I wanted so much for him to say that he had nothing special planned so I could take him out to dinner and just sit down with him all night and congratulate him over and over again, I wasn’t really surprised and just smiled when he said that he and his classmates were going to a party. This was evening.

After a quick change of clothes, he was back in the car, and we were back on the road, and too soon he was getting off already at some café where him and his friends would be meeting up. Ahh, too soon.

What I didn’t get to tell him was that I was so proud of him and that I love him very much. That I wish him well as he now enters college to chart his own destiny; that whatever happens to always remember that I love him very much and I would always be there for him and would do all I can to make him happy.

Congratulations, Marko Angelo.

Why

1:30am, a couple of hours ago the editor sent me a text message saying he needs all articles in first thing tomorrow morning. He wants to go to press earlier tomorrow. I just had a long week… no, I’m still having, struggling through, it - it’s not over yet. Anyway, back to the slowly filling up page on my computer screen.

This is usually how I come up with my pieces here, at the last minute. I have tried writing my piece much earlier, sometimes I get hit by an idea a full five days before the deadline. But somehow no matter how hard I try to my thoughts down that far away from the deadline, I just can’t – I just always end up writing this weekly article a couple of hours before I really have to submit it (which means I am actually writing this down way too early).

I am stalling, I’m stumped. So I ask myself now, why do I do this? Never mind that my articles here are gratis, for like most of the things I do, I don’t do primarily for money anyway. Just like whenever I go onstage, or fiddle with the piano or guitar, or frame life in a still or moving camera, I just want to tell stories. And express how I feel about those stories.

I tell like it is, the way I see it, the way I feel it. Sometimes, in the process, I step on some toes, some sensitive toes. But then, though I do at times take a moment before clicking “send” to email my article in, and think whether a particular story really needs to be told. If it saw print, then I felt that it did. I do like writing about happy, positive stuff, too. But sometimes to show how bright something is, one has to illustrate what darkness is like.

You probably know how it feels to, say, see a really well-made movie, and you just can’t wait to tell your friends about it. Well, for me it doesn’t have to be something as grand as a Hollywood blockbuster. I am easily amazed by, and I wonder about almost everything around me. I can write about the number one festival in the whole country, or about an obscure talent competition tucked away in a corner at the park. I can write about who I believe is the best candidate for the presidency, or about the best vendor to get your boneless bangus from at the city market.

And, while I do listen to suggestions, advices, I’m sorry but, no, nobody can tell me what to write. Neither would I allow anybody to tell me what not to write. In one article I wrote where I apparently stepped on some conceited toes, those toes’ friend called me to ask me to retract what I said, even reminding me that those toes were connected to a fat ass that I’ll do better kissing. I’m sorry, ma’am, sir, but I do not live my life that way.

As Edmond Rostand said, through Cyrano de Bergerac, “Scratch the back of any swine / That roots up gold for me? / Tickle the horns / Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right / too proud to know his partners business / takes in the fee? No thank you!”

And, since I cannot possibly express it any better than he did, I quote Rostand further, “in a word, I am too proud to be a parasite… And if my nature wants the germ that grows / Towering to heaven like the mountain pine / Or, like the oak, sheltering multitudes - I stand, not high it may be - But, I stand alone!”

So why do I do this? Now, I click “send.”