Nakaka-insecure ang nuclear power

At ngayo'y nagagalit
Kung bakit ipinipilit
Na maitayo ang plantang nukleyar

A-minor, D-minor, E... These were the chords to the first song I learned to play on the guitar. I was about 10 or 11 and we sang this song, Plantang Nukleyar, at rallies denouncing the then planned operation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. We were young, members of my mother's youth theater group, Workshop for Creative Survival. It was 1984.

I wasn't objectively introduced to nuclear energy. The literature available to me then highlighted the dangers of nuclear plants in general and the BNPP in particular. Images of the dead and the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still linger in my head. Opposing the planned reopening of the BNPP with just the information I got from that introduction wouldn't be fair. But I've read up on the subject quite a lot more since.

It simply boils down to the pros and cons, and which outweighs the other, and in my opinion, the risks just overwhelmingly outweigh the supposed benefits.

Proponents, among them good friends, in fact, would point to the lower cost (supposedly), relative safety and reliability, environment-friendliness (again, supposedly) of nuclear energy. It's what a struggling economy like ours badly needs, we're being told, if we ever want to get out of this rut.


I have questions....
First let me share this. The check engine light went on in our car a couple of weeks ago, and we couldn't easily identify the cause. Possible causes ranged from simply having a gas cap that's not tightly shut enough, to something way more serious requiring having to take the engine apart. Then, a few days ago, with my wife driving, the car just stalled on a road going downhill. Luckily, just had the hand brakes adjusted and she was able to stop the car from rolling down that road at the end of which was a crowded satellite market. It's a 10-year old car, and the culprit, in the end, was one of the six ignition coils. It needed replacement. Again, the car's 10 years old, and that one part almost caused a major accident.

Gagana pa nga ba 'yan?

Photo by Jiru27 via Wikipedia

I'm apprehensive about restarting a plant that's been mothballed for over three decades. and we're not talking about an old electric fan in the closet here that the worst case scenario if it malfunctions is a short circuit that may fry your outlet. We're talking about a nuclear plant that can compromise the lives of millions of people.

Granted, the nuclear plant will be run not by someone like me whose engineering chops is limited to rewiring old electric fans and changing light bulbs, but by experts. That still does not address my anxiety over the plant's safety, and we'll go back to these so-called experts later and you'll probably understand why.

No Smoking within 50 feet

We see that sign on the back of tanker trucks transporting flammable materials. Can they really guarantee the aging facility's safety when the BNPP is situated next to an active volcano? Add to that the threat of earthquakes in a country that sits right along the Pacific Ring of Fire. The BNPP sits less than 10 kilometers away from a volcano, and within 40 kilometers of three known geologic faults.Would it withstand these geological hazards, this over 30-year old derelict?

Environment friendly?

Compare the emissions of a coal-fired power plant to that of a nuclear plant, and the latter wins the Ms. Envi-congeniality award, hands down. But running a nuclear plant requires mining uranium, and that process has never been known to be an environment-friendly undertaking.

And unlike most non-reusable refuse which can relatively be safely stored in sanitary landfills, nuclear waste disposal is a much more complicated and dangerous issue. Dealing with nuclear waste seems as complicated, if not even more so, than running the plant itself. in a country that continues to struggle with the implementation of its Ecological Solid Waste Management law, are we really capable of safely managing nuclear waste?

And nuclear energy is no renewable energy. You would think that in this age of climate change where renewable energy technology is fast becoming more affordable and reliable, we would be going for safer alternatives. So it's quite a surprise to hear advocates of nuclear power suddenly start demonizing renewable energy sources as unreliable. Maybe not as reliable, but I wouldn't go as far as declaring them unreliable. Sure, you get less power from the sun when it's overcast, you take a break from harnessing its power when it sets at the end of the day. But it's there, always, forever providing energy. Like oil, uranium is not renewable.

They're experts, I'm not

Again, we'll be told that the operation of the plant will be handled by experts. Who? Westinghouse. And according to a Fortune article, "With 71 plants operating in 12 countries, it has never had a major accident." That sure sounds reassuring. But looking back at how Westinghouse got this project, we can't help but doubt the integrity of not only the company but of the plant itself.

Westinghouse won this project under questionable circumstances. In that same Fortune article cited above, it tells us that Westinghouse is no stranger to questionable business practices and have been known and proven to have bribed their way into major projects in different countries. They were given the contract to build the plant with their original bid of $500M, and that figure, without any justification, ballooned to $2B. Many publications point to the Marcos' and their cronies' pockets as the reason.

Can we really trust Westinghouse?

Nakaka-insecure ang nuclear power

Nuclear power is immense, true. That is both its pro and con. In a country that continues to struggle against insurgencies and terrorism, a nuclear power plant is an invitation to a terrorist attack. Uranium and nuclear waste can get lost in transit, and fall into the wrong hands. Exaggeration? Not really considering the fact that our very own armed forces' weapons have been known to end up in rebel hands. We can't even stop laglag-bala in our airports.

Apples, oranges, accountability 

You would think that I would easily bring up Fukushima in making a case against the BNPP. But no, that would be apples and oranges, really. See, a lot of nuclear energy advocates point to the fact that "nobody has died due to exposure to radiation in Fukushima," as if that factoid alone should be sufficient enough to guarantee that nuclear energy is safe. But before we give that thumbs up to nuclear energy, let's not forget that radiation-borne diseases take a long time to take effect. Radiation attacks the body at the DNA level, it's a slow process. The effects of Chernobyl is still around 30 years since the accident.

And the former USSR and Japan are way ahead of us in nuclear technology - we're new to this game, and the fact is, the game is a dangerous one - are we sure we want newbies to start playing it? There are other games out there that are much safer. Part of the reason advocates of nuclear power can downplay the effects the accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima had on the environment and their people is both nations' technological know-how. We don't have that, and this is not to look down on our very own engineers. But the fact remains - nuclear energy is foreign to us. If we're willing to learn the ropes to be able to revive the BNPP, why don't we just exert the same effort and put in the same amount of resources in exploring much safer energy sources?

But, I admit the pros are there. It may be cheaper (we have yet to see that, actually, since the costs they're presenting to us mostly involves the cost of the projected amount of energy to be generated by the BNPP compared to the cost of energy currently being generated by existing power plants - it doesn't include projected costs relating to nuclear waste management), more reliable, and if they get their way and the BNPP is re-opened and operated and in my lifetime it runs without untoward incidents, remind me to applaud and thank the advocates at my deathbed.

I do want lower electricity costs. Damn, I had to beg the electric company's guy not to cut our electricity when I failed to pay our bill on time just a couple of months ago with a promise to pay up that very same day. We barely managed to beat the deadline that day. But not at the cost of living with the risks posed by the reviving the BNPP.

Right now, I still don't buy it. That song's chorus I mentioned in the beginning ends with...

Hindi plantang nukleyar ang sagot sa kahirapan

There are safer options out there.

Diapause and the allure of a Mexican holiday

Mayflies have a lifespan of 24 hours. It will experience high noon, or the middle of the night just once. Sunrise to sunrise, as the case may be, and one sunset in one's entire lifetime. There would be no other sunsets that it could compare the one it would chance upon with.

Once in a lifetime morning, and if it shines all day that day, it would have no knowledge of rain. Just those 24 hours, the lives of some are over within a few hours.

On certain days, 24 hours would be a video editing session, or maybe a dress rehearsal and fine tuning of the production design in time for the following day's opening night. Other times, that would be two carafes of coffee. a trip to and from the kids' school, three loads of laundry, a lunch of left overs, a trip to the market, another trip to and from the kids' school, a drink, an hour at the kitchen, a dinner, and a night's sleep, then wake up for the... if I were a mayfly, there would be no repeat of those two carafes of coffee.

Koi fish live up to over 200 years. Now I didn't know that. Those colorful fish we throw bread crumbs at at friends' garden ponds, restaurant frontages. That's about five times what I've experienced so far. You can take up medicine ten times and still have a hundred years of medical practice. At what point do they get bored? The first century? The hundred and seventy fifth birthday? It takes me about four to five months to stage a play from the time I come across an existing script that stimulates me to the time the cast takes the last curtain call up here. At twice a year, starting in my 20's. I could have the chance to stage 360 stories on stage.

Monarch butterflies live for just a few weeks month, a little over a month from the egg to the adult stage. They spend most of their lives not as butterflies... that happens only in the latter third or quarter of their life cycle. Now that's interesting.

Yeah, it's never too late.

I read too that monarchs can live up to as much as 10 times their expected lifespan... if they happen to enter diapause and take a winter vacation to Mexico.

Hm.

43, and so far so good. Mexico's too far right now, I'll be fine with a fine sunset, a fine one out of a lot more, I hope.

It's not a Monarch, but a pretty one nonetheless

Erasing Baguio from the map...

...or at least what Baguio is,was, all about.

That's what SM City Baguio, along with others like it who look at Baguio and only see a market, their bottom line. They're out to totally eradicate what's left of the city's former natural beauty, the quality of life that its residents were once privileged to live, its culture, its heritage. SM City Baguio is the ruin of the City of Baguio.

SM City Baguio announced recently that it's all-systems-go for their ill-conceived expansion plan - the Temporary Restraining Order issued by the Supreme Court in 2015 only covered the cutting and earth-balling of trees, they claimed, and not the total eradication of the hill that served as the birthplace of Baguio as a city.

The Manila Standard trumpeted the expansion project's features that will allegedly "help absorb the impact of climate change such as a Sky Park, a state-of-the-art sewerage treatment plant, and an underground rainwater catchment tank having a capacity of 7,432.54 cubic meters of water which could be used in mall operations." A man-made Sky Park in lieu of 182 trees that form one of the last remaining forest covers of the city's central business district that nature nurtured for decades in this age of climate change? I don't think so. Not surprisingly, anymore from this paper and writer, there was no mention of the protesters' justifications for their opposition to the project.

They forward their plan to build a state-of-the-art sewerage treatment plant and a rainwater catchment tank as if we should get on our knees and thank them for their beneficence, when these are among the least they can do when they built one the biggest mall in one of the smallest towns in terms of land area and resources in Northern Luzon. The city's residents still have to contend with rationed water, where did they think they should get their water to supply their over 300 stores. The city is still plagued by a garbage crisis, what exactly are they doing not to add to Baguio's burden?

So the Supreme Court has spoken, they said. Well, we can say this: the movement that has come to be known as Save 182 turned to our legal system to seek justice (a salute to our legal representatives led by Cheryl L. Daytec-Yañgot and Christopher Donaal), while SM City Baguio did all it can to find loopholes in it to perpetuate a crime against a city's, a people's constitutional right, its history, its heritage (thanks to their legal mercenaries at the ACCRA and Fortun law offices).

I've discussed this issue extensively in my previous posts, and after four years of struggling to save what's left of our beautiful city from corporate greed, do we now just raise our hands and accept defeat?

We may be facing a loss in the battle to save Luneta Hill, but the struggle to save Baguio from SM's insatiable greed, along others like it, along a corrupt bureaucracy and political system, must go on.

The future of Baguio depends on this struggle. Our quality of life, our lives, in fact, and those of our children's children, depend on it.

How many innocent lives is ok?

He can never be wrong and anybody who points out a flaw, a misstep, a misdirected, misguided initiative or course of action will be pilloried, threatened, even harmed either by him or his minions. It's only been seven weeks. It's only the beginning.

To the Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, etc., shut up. To the former US ambassador to the Philippines, "bakla!" for supporting the view of the Australian Ambassador Amanda Gorely that rape must not be trivialized (although I don't believe that being called gay is an insult, but we all know in what context the president said it).


The United Nations is "inutile,"and if it continues to call the world's attention to the supposed drug-related extra-judicial killings that have become this regime's focus.

The latest threat is that the president will pull this country out of the United Nations. The inutile United Nations. The same body that ruled in favor of the Republic of the Philippines in its dispute with the mighty People's Republic Of China, which this regime has been downplaying, almost to the point of totally disregarding the ruling. A quick browse though their website belies the president's branding of the United Nations. The beneficiaries of their various humanitarian projects in the country will probably disagree with the president.

I'm aware that illegal drugs is a concern, a major concern even, but I never believed it was this country's foremost concern. Corruption and poverty rank higher in my book - they cause way more misery, and deaths. In fact, I believe that alleviating poverty and combating corruption will make a much bigger dent in the war against drugs than killing with impunity.

His defenders ask, "why are you so concerned about the so-called human rights of criminals and ignore the rights of their victims?" They want the people to assume, of course, that all of the dead have been proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that they were in fact criminals. Who found them guilty? Only the person who pulled the trigger, emboldened and rendered immune from any responsibility, moral, legal, criminal or otherwise, by no less than the most powerful person in the country.

I'll digress, for there lies the problem - if a person in position sees that position as power instead of a responsibility, then we're in big, big trouble. Being in power means getting away with things, good or bad, and if history taught us anything, it's that it's usually getting away with bad, or murder. A policeman who's got the power, armed with a gun, is dangerous, scary. A policeman who's responsible for the safety of the people, for keeping the peace is very much different from the former.

In the meantime, what do we say about 20 year-old Jefferson Bunuan, the boy who dreamed of one day becoming a crime fighter himself?

Lourd de Veyra asked a good question on his Facebook account: "Nagtataka lang ako: bakit itong mga drug pusher na nanlalaban, may pambili ng shabu at baril... Pero walang pambili ng sapatos? Lahat naka-tsinelas." That's the sad reality about this war: the supposed bigger fish - police generals, mayors, governors, judges, big-time drug lords... they're merely named, and the foot soldiers are the only ones ending up dead.


The war on illegal drugs must continue. I've seen too many lives ruined, lost due to drugs. But not at the expense of the innocent, not at the expense of the rights of the rest of us. Would it be too much to ask our president to at least acknowledge the mistakes, reassess the approach and to be more careful and lessen the collateral damage?


How many innocent lives are we willing to lose before we acknowledge that there's something wrong?

Directing, acting and killing theater

Over coffee, the young filmmaker shared his experience working with student actors on a film project. He held open auditions, and most of those who came were from a local school-based theater group. He found his cast, so he started filming.

"I did not give them scripts, instead I described the scenes to them and asked them to improvise - dialogue, blocking and all. And I was turned off by the over-acting, that excessive flamboyance that usually comes with theater acting. So I had to kill that theater-style acting."

I said, what you needed to correct was bad acting, period. Not theater acting.

I get asked a lot which I preferred, acting or directing. Tough call, and can't say. They're closely related yet vastly different. As a director you tell several stories - the main story, the stories of each element that goes into your frame, or onto your stage. The story of the lighting, the props, the costumes, the scenery, the background, the foreground, etc., and all of these stories do a dance, sometimes in perfect unison other times in a beautifully orchestrated chaos, that tells the main story.

Back at that coffee table. First, my friend, don't expect professional acting from amateur actors. At least not until you did your part in molding them into the actors you want them to be. That's your job as a director particularly to a group of actors who have yet to fully learn and understand the art - and science - of acting. How much preparation did you do before placing them in front of your camera? How many rehearsals did you have to prepare for this or that scene? I asked a few more questions that he didn't have an answer to.

Now, when it comes to being an actor... you tell one story - your character's, and all its complexities. Where does Tonyo's passion come from? Which appealed to Caloy more when he agreed to take part in the heist, the loot or the adventure? What was going through Procopio's mind when he realized that, kneeling alongside his brother Andres, their hands tied behind their backs, rifles pointed at them, that everything could end at any moment, that next blink could be the last. He looks up at the sky, or his brother's face, the soldier's muddy shoes, and it could be the last thing he sees before.... nothing.

I don't try to capture a person's soul, that's just pretty talk. For nobody really understands what the soul is, where it is, why it is, where it is. I try to understand the character's mind, get inside that, be that, think the way he thinks for after all, we think therefore we are. It all springs from there, and everything else follows - the stance, the gait, the stare, the gesture. You think the way the character thinks and you desire the way he desires, aspire the way he aspires, despair the way he despairs, rejoice the way he rejoices. That to me is acting, whether on stage or in front of a camera.

Ahhh, how much I crave a story to tell.

Teka, teka, sandali lang po

Teka, teka
sandali lang po
pwede pong magtanong?
Papaano ko po mapapaalis
yung pangalan ko sa listahan niyo?


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Sa palagay ko po
ay nagkamali lang po
kung sino man ang napagtanungan niyo


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Hindi naman po tama yan
bakit po ako aamin
e hindi naman ako drug adik?


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Hindi rin po, hindi ako tulak
Peks man, talagang hindi po
At wala rin po akong kilalang nagtutulak


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Pero sabi niyo po, kung walang kasalanan
walang dapat ikatakot
e bakit po tinatakot niyo ko?


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Ibaba po ninyo ang baril niyo
hindi po ako nanlalaban
wala po akong kalaban-laban


Teka, teka
sandali lang po
Huwag po
parang awa niyo na po
huwag po


Teka, teka
huwag po
sandali lang po
huwag po

Thoughts on Davao, Duterte, the Death Squad and why I'm very, very afraid

I was curious about those smoke stacks spewing black smoke right by a busy city thoroughfare, so I asked the driver what it was. A power generator operated by Aboitiz, he said, adding that the region needed it to address its power shortage problem. I wondered though if that coal-powered plant couldn't be located somewhere else, but wondered too how much farther it would've had to be to affect the citizens of Davao significantly less.

Don't judge a city by its Ayala Mall, that wouldn't be a fair judgment, or a realistic visualization. Just as Binay wanted the rest of the country to have this image in their minds that the whole of Makati looks like Greenbelt - a bustling, highly urbanized district nestled amid trees and green open spaces, there are depressed areas there too... the rest of Baguio isn't like the Technohub, in the same way that the rest of Davao is not all Abreeza Mall. I happen to be visiting the city and staying somewhere near the rather swanky commercial center.

So if the Davao example is what convinced you that Duterte's promise isn't merely ampaw, hold on a sec...

In fairness, Davao's streets look cleaner than those of a lot of other cities', maybe it's the norm in the whole city, but I've learned from the Olongapo example where the main thoroughfares, where us, non-residents normally pass, are spotless but the inner streets show a different picture, that it could all be cosmetics. But let's say it isn't so, and I have no problem believing that.

(Update: looks like it isn't mere cosmetics, as on our way to the airport on our last day there, we passed the inner streets to avoid traffic, and they were clean. Bravo, Davao)

First, I felt afraid, not exactly petrified, but afraid. It's sad that all the good things about Davao are now connected to Duterte's tough guy, I have huge balls pronouncements. The streets are clean because if you litter... damn, I can't get the image of the Davao Death Squad and dead minors, guilty of petty crimes, or perhaps not even, out of my head. I know he will make you eat that cigarette if you happen to take a puff outside of that square, those designated smoking areas.

I made sure I was well inside that square when I smoked a cigarette in Davao because, well, it's the law and also because, well, I don't wanna eat a lit cigarette nor do I want to die.

One of my hosts joked, "it's really a beautiful city. If you're good, life is beautiful in Davao. If you're bad, life ends here in Davao."

Nervous laughter.

The fear was palpable. And I'd rather be inspired to not smoke in public, litter, jaywalk, etc., than to be afraid. I want to look up to our leaders, follow their lead because I respect them, not because I'm afraid of them.

On our way to the airport, I saw some gangster graffiti on the walls of an underpass, not sure if gangs are a serious problem in Davao, but I do believe the graffiti are the handiwork of minors. I wondered if any one of the vandals have fallen victim to the Davao Death Squad.

I read the other day how Duterte planned to eradicate, oh wait, he has since changed that to "suppress," crime in 6 months. The plan revolves around improving the lot of our police force in terms of salaries, equipment and legal protection and giving them marching orders to kill suspects who will resist arrest violently.

I arrive in Manila, turn on the TV and the news: a tricycle driver in Davao was killed by a policeman who thought the former was stealing his motorcycle. The tricycle driver was in fact just helping, lifting his bike that fell.

Correction: now I'm petrified.

Domogan vs. (Molintas vs. Claravall)

That's the way it's going down, the incumbent against two challengers. And at first glance, common sense tells us that the former has the upper hand. Again.

To win against Domogan, one must not only get all the opposition votes, he must also get a substantial number off of the incumbent numbers. In the last election, after several landslide loses, Molintas got to close the gap - from the usual 20,000 vote-margin down to just around 4,000.

In 2013, Mauricio Domogan garnered 49.5% of the total votes cast for Mayor, he almost won by majority vote while Molintas got 44.7%. The rest was split between Jun Labo (3,000+) and perennial contender Hernandez along with Puzon and Mina who got negligible numbers.

49.5 percent. That's a big number, and getting a huge slice of that would be the holy grail for the opposition. It's actually a 4-cornered fight, but given Hernandez's dismal showing in 2013 (666 votes), maybe his candidacy would hardly matter in the end.

My two centavos' worth, based on what I see, hear, feel and their respective performances in the candidates' forum held last month at the Baguio Convention Center :

DOMOGAN, The Incumbent

He's gunning for a third and final(?) term as Mayor. His battle cry is this: continue the good work he's doing. Depends on where one is coming from, the promise may be a pro or a con.

He's been trumpeting the city's increased revenue over the last over two decades with him at the helm in one way or another - from below 500M to 2B. Of course he won't mention that it stayed at half a billion for 15 years or so before making that huge leap to a billion in .ca. 2008. But never mind that, fact is, Baguio's economy is on the up, and for those directly benefiting from the boom, a promise of continuity will be attractive.

But at what cost, that so-called boom? The environment under Domogan's reign hardly got any attention. It seemed like when it came to a choice between commerce and environmental sustainability, his administration seemed to have always favored the former. The direction in which he took this city is dangerously unsustainable. When the Mt. Sto. Tomas issue erupted, I don't recall any strong words from him about the damage that his congressman wreaked on a forest reserve, compromising the water supply of thousands of citizens. Instead, what I remember most is his hands-off remarks, and how sure he was that Aliping will able to explain and defend himself in the "proper forum."

He has shown very little regard for the city's heritage too with the fencing of City Hall and his stubborn stand to turn the Melvin Jones into a concrete parking facility.

Yet, the fact remains, he got 49.5% of the votes the last time, and he will remain as the choice of the apathetic and the shortsighted.

MOLINTAS, closer and closer then...

...Claravall finally threw his hat in the ring. In 2013, if we were to tally all the non-Domogan votes, that would have been 50.5%. Never mind Hernandez's 666, but the rest would have been enough to unseat Domogan. This time. Molintas would have just needed to step up his previous efforts to IP a bit to close the gap, but currently, the opposition votes are now divided between him and 

Claravall.

What's he putting on the table? His track record as a champion of the oppressed, being a human rights lawyer. He is forwarding a platform that balances equitable development and environmental protection. He is knowledgeable about the issues afflicting Baguio today, and his pronouncements during the forum were backed with facts and legal realities.

From where I was sitting, he did very well in that forum, I must admit.

CLARAVALL, the dark horse (or breath of fresh air)

I have been hearing of the former judge's name being floated since the early 2000's, I concede that there was some clamor for him to run. He almost did in 2013, but backed down due to unresolved issues with the Molintas camp - who's right or wrong depends on who you are more inclined to believe.

I have been eagerly waiting for what the former judge will put on the table since he filed his candidacy last year. I must say that I went to that candidates' forum last February specifically to hear his voice, and frankly, I was not satisfied. He kept to making motherhood statements hardly backing up his answers with facts and a clear vision on how to get it done. When asked about certain problems that Baguio is faced with today, his answers mostly focused on why they should be solved and not much on how he intends to solve them.

I said, well, cut him some slack - it was his first salvo in front of a large audience. Perhaps he was nervous, rattled, etc. Although a friend pointed out, and quite rightly so, that for someone who's presided over countless cases in his sala, handing down decisions with a bang of a gavel in front of an audience - public speaking should be a walk in the park.

His battle cry - "Bangon, Baguio, Bangon!" This will definitely strike a chord among the concerned, the citizens who care about the city beyond their fenced and gated homes. But to those who are just happy to be in a secure job or see their businesses grow, those who only see the opportunities that Baguio has to offer today, those who equate condominiums, hotels, overpriced donuts and coffee as a sign of progress, the question may be, "bakit kailangang bumangon kung hindi naman nakatumba ang Baguio?"

But, Claravall seem to come across as a breath of fresh air, that's something Baguio needs right now. Couple that with a more solid platform and game plan, and he's golden.

IN THE END, politics is numbers

Addition, addition, addition, as Rey Bautista Sr. used to emphasize during his son, Peter Rey's campaigns. Everything you do must be aimed at adding to your numbers. Domogan's promise of continuity may not add to his current numbers, but it will keep the contented citizens on his side.

Molintas will most likely lose some of his votes to newcomer Claravall, the key for him is to work hard to keep that loss to a minimum, and hope that Claravall will bite significantly into Domogan's share of the electoral pie.

As for Claravall, he must be able to convince the unsatisfied that he is the right man who can turn things around in Baguio. He needs a big slice off of Molintas' 39,000+ votes and some of Domogan's 44k. As for my one vote, I need more how's because I already know the why's.

If it's going to be a tight race, 34%, or 29,697 is what's needed to bag the Mayoralty race, leaving 66 percent which hopefully will be divided equally among the other two opponents.

Hernandez's 666 votes may matter, after all.

And my 1 vote goes to... hmmm, perhaps I'll wait a while longer.

EDSA didn't fail us, we failed EDSA

The whole thing has been brewing for a few days already, and my mother has been in and out of the house. Been hearing about the goings on from adult conversations in the house and the rest of the neighborhood. Marcos cheated in the recently concluded snap elections. The minister of defense and the chief of the armed forces have resigned. People are gathering at EDSA to protect them, Cardinal Sin has called for more warm bodies.

That morning, my mother was talking to several grown-ups in the neighborhood (I was 12) - she was renting a jeepney to ferry whoever wanted to join her at EDSA. Next thing I knew, everyone was getting ready to go. I wanted to go with them, but this time my mother told me I couldn't for things could get ugly. Odd, for I have been to countless rallies with her - several times not only as a participant but also as a performer along with my friends who belonged to my mother's community theater group, the Workshop for Creative Survival.

When one Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, I was turning 10 the following month at the time, I remember being at all these rallies all over Metro Manila - I remember Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, Plaza Miranda, I remember WOMB (Women for the Ouster of Marcos and Boycott), Inang Laya, the smoke-filled (mostly courtesy of my mother's cigarettes) Hiraya Gallery mezzanine office where the cool people hung out (and where I was a child would alternately try to pick something from the conversations or just be amused by the animated characters around the table). That was where I, while doodling on Tito Bobi's desk overheard a story about a woman who was captured by the military, her vagina was carved out with a hunting knife by the same soldiers who gang-raped her earlier. The story was told by a photo journalist.

Back to February 25, 1986 - not this time, I watched that jeep full of Road 7, Project 6 residents leave with a heavy heart. Whatever was happening in EDSA, it was huge, I thought, and I wanted so much to be part of it.

It wasn't as easy to follow goings-on then as it is today. There were only five TV channels available - 2. 4, 7, 9 and 13. Broadcast was erratic. The radio was on too and almost everyone in the neighborhood was tuned in to Radio Veritas.

I remember getting scolded several years earlier for toying around with our stereo. After playing my Voltes V 45 vinyl a hundred times, I got bored and thought I'd put on whatever I could get my hands on in our collection of records. I picked out one with an interesting cover and put it on in full volume. Turned out to be one of those subversive recordings - it was Martial Law, and people have been arrested or made to disappear or killed for less. My grandmother immediately turned the stereo off.

I remember wondering about who Carpio was, and why every teenager in the neighborhood was afraid of him. "Pasok na tayo, Carpio na..." I would hear the "tambays" in the neighborhood say. Ahh, curfew.

Suddenly, there it was: Marcos Flees. It's over, and the real winner of that election, Corazon Aquino, would now sit as the first ever woman president of the Republic of the Philippines. I remember - I could literally feel the country's collective sigh of relief, a nation's victory over tyranny - I could now play that Inang Laya or any other album in our collection.

And my grandmother, along with myself and the rest of the family, could now sleep better at night not having to worry if my mother will make it back home after a rally or a play or whatever other activity she may be involved in that, during the Martial Law years, could be considered subversive.

Fast forward 30 years later, and Bongbong Marcos, unrepentant son of the tyrant that EDSA rid us of, is threatening to make it a step closer to being back in Malacanang. There are young people clamoring for the return to the "Golden Years" of Martial Law. Duterte proclaims without batting an eyelash: I am a dictator, so what? And a lot of us applauded him.

These days, Cory's being lambasted for her supposed lackluster performance as the first post-martial law president. Try hurdling six coup attempts while running a transition government.

The prevailing sentiment is this: EDSA, the People Power Revolution, did nothing to uplift the lives of Filipinos, that it failed us.

But, no, EDSA didn't fail us. It gave us what it was supposed to give us - freedom. It's what we did with that freedom that failed us. And if the current trends remain 'til election day this May, we're just about to fail ourselves again.

VANI: a better fighter, pound-for-pound, than Manny Pacquiao

Just like any other kid, he's made some bad decisions here and there. But like a man, so to speak, he owned up to them, learned from them, moved on and came out a better person every time.

I can't imagine him running for public office, taking an oath to serve his country, but showing up only for a few days while receiving a salary for three years. That would be wrong, and he won't do something like that.

He steps onto the ring not knowing who his opponent will be motivated only by his conviction that all men are created equal and all men must have equal rights, regardless of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation.

And these fights he fought not because he stood to earn millions in prize money, pay-per-view buys, endorsements, etc. Nah, he fights to defend his rights as a human being, he steps onto the ring not only to fight his fight but to fight for the rights of others like him. Now there's a real fighter.

And for that, Vani, my gay son, is a much better fighter, pound-for-pound, than Manny Pacquiao.

Related articles:
Are you gay?
Father and his gay son
Be and let be

I want to ride my bicycle (but the Mayor won't let me)

Just like many others, I too do double takes when a flashy coupe zooms by, yield to imposing "get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-run-you-over" SUVs and once in a while find myself daydreaming of driving one of those.

I personally drive a 25-year old mini van. A Toyota Liteace which just came out of a car hospital - for just like its owner, its joints needed some lubricating, get its bearings... repacked, re-greased, replaced. While in there, I thought it might as well get an oil change. It's running so well now and i'm very happy. it breezed through this morning's emission test. But in those daydreams, I find myself wanting to sell the van, add to it to get a car that's at least a few years younger, with an engine that's a bit bigger, stronger.

A prospect presented itself - a Chevrolet Trailblazer, just about a decade old, reasonably priced. Sell the van, then scrounge up more to cover the cost. What usually bursts the bubble for me is this - how much gas would that V6 engine eat up for every engine start, uphill climb, occasional trips to San Juan, La Union or Manila, and would our family's carbon footprint be justified?

I don't think so. See, it's not like the van's 1800-or-so cc cannot provide for our needs, or even my need as an artist who often does location shoots from way up north to a bit down south on various, often unforgiving terrain. The Liteace has taken us to highest point in our country's highway system, up to Sagada and Besao and even over that treacherous under-repair road to Batad, Ifugao last year. Sure the van came back home to Baguio with a few added "sound effects": more squeaks and thuds, but nothing the Manong down the road can't fix with an adjustable wrench, WD40 and few taps here and there.

An 1800, even with some 6 or 7 passengers on board, runs comfortably at 100 kph along the sleep-inducing TPLEX. That V6 can surely go much faster, but who needs 120, 130, eeeek, 160(!) when the country's superhighways pegs the limit at 100 kph anyway?

Besides, I can hardly afford to keep the van gassed up - which brings me closer to the title of this article (pardon the long intro and the digression/s)...

...see, climate change is upon us, believe it or not. Excessive man-caused carbon emissions at the top of the suspects list. And while the van sevices the whole family, a lot of times I find myself driving that van alone. Yes, that van that's designed to accommodate as many as 9-passengers, okay, maybe 7 more comfortably. Sometimes on long drives to the lowlands, more often to downtown Baguio. I cringe a little when I get caught, nay, WHENEVER I HELP CAUSE TRAFFIC in the city's Central Business District and realize how much space that van is taking up and how much carbon is spewed out onto the atmosphere to bring me, one person, to my destination. Destinations that, while may be quite physically challenging for my middle-aged knees to walk, are easily accessible by bicycle.

So the past few weeks, my SUV daydreams have been replaced by ones with me wearing a helmet pedaling to town. That's certainly more affordable than an SUV with a V6 engine, and I wouldn't have to sell the van. And in a city battling with worsening vehicular traffic and air pollution, a bike makes sense.

But the city government of Baguio, under the leadership of the Hon. Mauricio Domogan, Mayor of Baguio City, is the bubble-burster his time - bikes have just been banned not only along Session Road, but in the whole Central Business District.

While other cities have been doing all they can to accommodate and encourage cyclists to help mitigate vehicular traffic and lessen emissions, Baguio once again takes a step backward with this ban. Just like it does whenever the city condones environmental destruction in the name of development (read: commerce, and that isn't always equals development).

Ahhh, to borrow lines from Freddie - I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike... but Domogan won't let me.

Photo lifted from the comment of Jp Leung on a post on my page