Loooonganisa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a lousy morning.