Kailangan nating magtanda: Isang pahayag

Napapaisip ako nang madalas tungkol sa mga balimbing na (bumalik sa) pangangampanya para sa mga mismong kinatawan na kanilang siniraan mula noong 2015 hanggang 2021: PNoy, Mar, Leni and Kiko. Dahil sa ginampanan nila upang magkaganito ang pamamahala ng ating bansa, hindi ko sila maituturing na kakampink. 

Walang pinag-iba ang pulpolitikong tulad nina FVRamos, Dick Gordon, Bayani Fernando, Grace Poe, Chiz Escudero, at ang mga tagapaghatid ng balita gaya nina Ted Failon, Arnold Claudio, atbp kina Enrile, Macapagal-Arroyo at Marcos. Lalong hindi ko rin maatim ang lahat ng kasapi ng Makabayan bloc, ang mga National Democrats na siyang unang kumampi kay Duterte at hanggang ngayon ay hindi pa rin natutong humingi ng tawad at magtrabaho upang itama ang kanilang pagkakamali na siyang nagdulot ng kaguluhang ito. 

Pinaglaruan nilang lahat ang buhay at niyurakan nila ang pagkatao hindi lang ng napakaraming ipinakulong at ipinapatay dahil sa huwad na "War on Drugs" ng administrasyong Rodrigo Duterte, kundi maging ang kanilang mga kamag-anak/angkan. Magalit po na ang magalit, pero ang aking mga binibitiwang salita ay buhat ng pinagdaanan nang aming pamilya nitong 6 na taon.

Ayaw kong ibahagi ang mapait na pagkulong ng aking kapatid; lingid lang po sa inyong kaalaman pero wala akong nakukuhang kasayahan o clout/prestihiyo kada pagkukumahog kong isulat o isalarawan ang kanyang nakakapanlumong pinagdaanan. Ngayon lang po ako nagsasalita, na may halong kaba at luha, dahil gusto kong matuto ang sambayanan mula sa aming karanasan. Nang-ibang bansa nga po ako upang makapagsimula muli, dahil sino nga ba ang gusto makipagtrabaho sa isang marketing communications professional (kahit na hindi naman ako napakagaling sa trabahong ito) na sirang-sira ang mabuting pangalan dahil sa paninirang ginawa ng pamahalaang ito? Hanggang sa kasalukuyan at hindi na ako makapagsulat at makapaglikha bilang libangan, dahil nabubuhay ako araw-araw nang hindi ko makakalimutan kung paano ako nabigong maipagtanggol ang aking kapatid gamit ang wika at ang mga salitang dati-rati ko nang sandata. 

Kaya, habang lalaban ako nang buong puso para kina Leni Robredo, Kiko Pangilinan, Team Tropa at sa kapakanan ng sambayanang Pilipino maski hindi sila kakampink, hindi ako makikipagkasundo sa mga balimbing na binanggit ko at sa kanilang mga tagasunod. Naniniwala ako sa pagmamana ng sumpa at kamalasan, kaya hanggang sa ang mga taksil ay magpakita nang tunay na pananagutan tungo sa paghahamig at paghihilom, hindi ko sila kayang pakisamahan at hindi ko kayang panagutan ang pakikisama sa mga nanghihikayat na tanggapin ang pakikipagsanib-pwersa sa kanila. Kailangan na talaga nating magtanda at matuto sa ating mga pagkakamali. Kung patuloy kayo sa pagboto sa mga taksil at/o sa pagsasawalang-bahala sa mga naranasan namin nitong mala-impyernong administrasyon, salamat na lang po sa lahat. 

Pagsasalin sa Ingles sa ilalim nitong cut / English translation after the cut. 

Rebuilding and Recreating

Re-creation - noun.

1. The act of making something anew
2. A thing being formed anew
3. The state of being remade

I haven't really been creating a lot of new material these past few years out of leisure or for the simple sake of creating. 

I went abroad because I wanted to start over, to begin again. 

Who knew it would be so difficult?

Express Memorare Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Figured that nothing would be lost if I posted this, so...

Express Memorare Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary

* Memorare must be recited nine (9) times in a row.

* Make the sign of the cross at every recitation.

* Mention your petition and recite the "Hail Mary" prayer at the end of each recited Memorare.

* Reprinting MUST be made immediately as the petition(s) is (are) answered.

Memorare: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help and sought your intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I hasten you, O Virgins of Virgins, my Mother. To you I come, before you I stand sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the world Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me.

(Special thanks to Eloisza for this one! )

Addendum to my previous entry, or the gal who tries to reclaim her life

Days after I was able to post this, we caught one of the four men who held me up.

His name is Pablito Manatad. He was supposed to be driving TYL 409 on 22 Dec but he was Badong/Man #1. He's from the Visayas but lives in Quezon City.

He is muscular and heavy-set but has a big gut. He also has a rose tattoo on his left shoulder/arm, and is apparently part of the mostly-Visayan Scorpion Gang that has connections all the way to Cavite.

He was caught because the taxi cab was caught for a traffic violation. The impounding police called us when they realised that the cab was the hold-up cab that they had had an alert released for. The drivers were asked to be there while the owner had to verify if it was a double plate since it was caught when the original was at the garage.

However, the others are still out there even if he has spilled their whereabouts. Please pray and share information about this unceasingly so that more people can defend themselves and even turn these crooks in. And please pray for myself and those of us who have chosen to fight back -- I am learning as early as now that it's a hard, long, lonely, tiring, uphill and costly battle, but if we want to change the system and empower others like ourselves, we will have to do what must be done.

Thank you very much.

Hold-up incident report (or, the gal who lived) [UPDATED WITH PHOTOS!]

I wish this were untrue, and I wish I could undo this, but it needs to be shared. 

At around 7:00 pm I withdrew money from Security Bank Annapolis GH branch, near my office. At 7:30-ish pm, I was hailing a cab. I only remember the cab being a beat-up white four-door sedan car with plate number TYL 409.

I can't recall who the driver was at the time and the name of the cab as written on the cab body outside sadly. I do now recall the locks were faulty, that the front windshield had the "cleanfuel" sticker (signifying it's using LPG gas power instead of gasoline), and black rubber at the back windows. The seats were all black leather and had the taxi information, which should be printed legibly, all blurry/erased. 

We made the turn from Annapolis, to EDSA, and then the U-turn under Ortigas flyover. We entered corner to White Plains, at Temple Drive, past People Power Monument. At a vacant lot nearby (before Meralco), and ironically while I was in the middle of texting my family my whereabouts, four men came in and they kicked him out of the cab.

A short description of the four (images here):

• Man 1 (guy by my right, "Badong"): Crew cut, chiseled face, somewhat pointy chin, small eyes, muscular build but slightly big stomach, with stubble, dark-skinned
• Man 2 (guy by my left): Dark-skinned, round face, chubby cheeks, bulging eyes, no beard/moustache, short hair parted at the middle, wearing blue long-sleeved Adidas sweater with white stripes at shoulders and sleeves, had a baseball cap that looked a lot like the red Air Asia cap with white text, pudgy arms and legs
• Man 3/”Boss”: Square face, flat cheeks, moustached stereotypical bad guy minus the big beard, dark-skinned, far-set bulging eyes, light moustache, beard, wearing blue long-sleeved Adidas sweater with white stripes at shoulders and sleeves, parang may white shirt sa loob, with grey beanie hat, had tubo, gravelly voice, muscular arms, pudgy legs 
• Man 4/Driver ("Bobot"): White cap, white shirt, circular glasses, features remind me of Brod Pete (a local comedian), thin, dark-skinned

I heard someone say “pasensya na (I’m sorry)” but I don’t recall who it is. I do recall the perpetrators drove me around EDSA from Ortigas Avenue to Quezon City, as far as the U-turn right before SM North. They kept threatening to bring me to Bulacan and rape me especially when I initially refused to give them my belongings. They took my ATM cards (Security Bank, BPI Express Teller), my Metrobank credit card, my black BlackBerry Torch 9800 with black Otter protective case, my personal Nokia phones (one is a pink 6020, the other is a black 2700 Classic), my Sony Cyber-shot silver T-100 digital camera, and my black Sony Vaio laptop. After “Boss” made some calls via mobile (they were very clever at keeping the numbers hidden), the gang dropped “Boss” off at Cubao walkway underpass, EDSA southbound at around 9:00 pm so he could withdraw money. He came back and tried to strangle, punch, slap, throw shoes/slippers at me when he couldn't get my credit card PIN out of me (it's fairly new and I don't memorize the PIN at all). They took turns trying to beat me up at some point, except for Driver because he was driving. I fought back, and they told me they would rape me because I wouldn't give them enough money (they needed PhP20,000 and even used Typhoon Sendong as a reason to hold me up). At around 10:00 pm they turned into NIA Road near BIR/PDEA in QC, and threw me out the cab. When Boss tried to hit me with a pipe/tubo, I vaguely remember clawing and kicking back, taking whatever was left of my things, and ran. I found myself at the QC Post Office security guard house (at the gate), and made phone calls to the QC PD, my mother's office, and my best friend's house as those were the only numbers I could contact. 

With my family finally arriving around 11:30 pm to almost midnight, I went to the QC Police Department at Kamuning/EDSA. We waited for a graying-haired 40-ish cop in a white undershirt and police uniform pants named SPO4 Patricio Sanoza (Sanyosa)  to whom I gave my statement, which is attached. I told him about what I recall about the cab, but he did not ask at all  about identifying the criminals.

My SIMs have all been blocked/disabled, as have my ATM and credit cards. Unfortunately they have switched off all phones so I am not sure if they can be traced at this point.  They are able to trace the ATM withdrawal transactions at Metrobank Valencia Hills though. I am cooperating with QCPD in catching the perpetrators.

  

The following day, a friend gave this information about the cab that held me up: 

Plate Number: TYL 409 / E#: 2E-3254892 / C#: EE110-8009918 / MV#: 138000000225318 / Col: Freedom White / Sticker#: 2011122773755 / MVType: Car / TradeName: / Make: Toyota/ Series: COROLLA XL M/T / YRModel: 2001 / MVClass: FOR - HIRE / Org: MARVIN SANTOS.. / OR#: 000201111852482 / CR#: 000000005541645 / BType:sEDAN - 4-DOOR / FRegDate: 09-25-2001 / LRegDate: 09-30-2011 / Fuel: GAS / Route: MARIKINA ANY PT TO LUZON / Franchise#: 96-945 / FEDate: 12-31-2007 / Total Apps: 0 /Total Alarms: 0 / Customer ID CO1378000031312 / Add: 10 MAYSAN ST. VALENZUELA 

  

Separately, I dropped by the QCPD Kamuning once more to get the official, correct copy of the police report I originally filed. There I met a woman named Donna Araujo who was held up on Christmas Day from Main Avenue in Cubao and dropped off at Balete Drive which is very similar to what happened to me. I am trying to get her assistance as she saw the name of the car, which is made purely of consonant letters.

Please stay safe everyone. Hope your Christmas is better than mine. I've seen posts where people blame me for not being vigilant -- excuse me, but I was held up right in the middle of sending my parents an SMS where I was riding, the point here is not whether or not I should've been vigilant but that they still ambushed me anyway even after acting towards my own self-preservation! 


And to these motherfuckers who hurt me and others like me, I hope and pray you lose everything you hold dear -- every body part, every item, every person, every business, every bit of cash, and every generation of your beloved families and clans -- as befits the punishment you have long tried to avoid. 

Links:

• My original Facebook post on this subject = https://www.facebook.com/ligayaharuka/posts/10150479183713815
• The ABS-CBN/Bandila news clip (December 23; easily viewed outside the Philippines via The Filipino Channel) = http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/metro-manila/12/23/11/cops-warn-modus-during-holidays
• The ABS-CBN text version of the same news (December 23) = http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/metro-manila/12/23/11/woman-attacked-robbed-inside-taxi
• NEW: I finally managed to scan the cartographic sketches I had asked a key contact (who must remain anonymous until this case is solved, I owe this man and the people who got me to him greatly as I cannot achieve this drawing style myself) make. Here they are: man 1, man 2, man 3 (minus the beanie, which I tried to describe and even draw but somehow didn't make it to the sketch), and man 4.

An important message.

After an emotionally draining Sunday and an energy-sapping two weeks, I found these among the email messages I've subscribed to. The fact that they were received in my inbox on the very same emotionally-draining Sunday is a bit chilling and disturbing, because I had hoped for something that did not lead me to where angels fear to tread. Emphasis mine.

This is your mission. To become what you were born to be. You were born to bless and heal and love in a very specific, fantastic way. I don't know about you, but it's really incredibly exciting just making it all come to pass.

Here we have one of the smartest people who ever lived, accepting the fact that he couldn't do anything alone. He understood that he could not know what he knew or do what he did without the help of others. Greatness happens when people get together and pool their strengths for each other's benefit. It happens when lessons are passed down and taken even further. Who do you know in your life that you could learn from? Do you have a hero? How can you build on the opportunities that are given to you? How will you pass your knowledge down to the coming generation? Learn your strengths and the strengths of the people around you. Find out how you can help each other achieve what you never could alone. Right now, you can be the one "seeing farther." Be the "giant with shoulders" for someone else. Either way, you'll be part of something big.

I love the gift of healing, but right now, with the way things are looking I can't even manage to heal myself. I'm so terribly drained that I just want to curl up in a corner and cry myself to sleep, but I can't get the rest and release I need. (For starters, I am wide awake.) I really, badly need a recharge. X_x Pwede po bang time-out muna, please? =_=

Conflicted/Word Vomit 2/? [To be transliterated in Tagalog]

Hmm, my thoughts have become disjointed and incoherent and are going EVERYWHERE. I guess it's because I think based on emotions? This makes it so much harder to write them down.

So let's see... where did I leave off?

Oh yes. Now changing an entire mindset, which is perhaps the domino which will start the whole betterment and positive development movement, is the hardest to do. Mental conditioning is difficult to effect especially in the adult years, and it doesn't take a scientist to see that.

The Filipino is notorious for having amnesia of both long-term and short-term memory. We take the proverbs "Forgive and forget" and "Start fresh, start clean" a little too seriously. This is one of the saddest things about being Filipino - we, as a nation, forget too soon the grievous sins committed against our people and our country, whether by foreign parties or (and this is where it gets worse) fellow Filipinos ourselves. For starters, we suffered exactly 333 years of tyranny under Spain; today, Instituto Cervantes and the Catholic Church are still around (as much as I believe wholeheartedly in Christ Jesus, it is very sad that many figures in the Church have done things contrary to His teachings through the ages), IBM's Philippine unit hires and trains Filipino call center agents for accounts based in Spain and Latin America, many land, labour and governance problems rooted in politicking Spanish exiles and their way of "running the country" continue to plague us today, and I haven't even mentioned the controversial "Filipinas" biscuits which were said to have tasted good, save for their Oreo-like premise of dark cookies with white filling. Have the Spanish insulares and naturalised Filipinos originally from Spain helped the Philippines? Not really - the capitalist Zobel de Ayala family, for instance, have contributed to the rapid, technologically-driven Western-style development of Makati City, but they have also popularised mall culture and San Miguel Beer to new heights. No-one had heard a peep from them the moment the Ondoy/Ketsana hit, and one friend who found herself stranded in one of the low-end Ayala malls in Taguig City told me that the Ayala personnel were extremely lacking in compassion at the height of the storm.

Oh, alright, I take back my hatred of San Miguel Beer, but then again, I was never a beer drinker as I find it too bitter.

This kind of mental condition could only be sheer stupidity at best. But that is how my brain is conditioned. There is no avoiding it; after all, while my late grandparents fought in their own ways during the Japanese occupation during World War II, I can only be described as a rabid J-Pop fan who is a virtual slave to gyaru fashion. Except I refuse to forget, or at least I grasp at straws and devise ways to keep everything in my memory.

Trust me, it's not fun to focus on the negative like this. But the Filipino likes focusing more on the happy and pretty things than the sad and ugly ones. I know I prefer sleeping in the car than staring the greasy-skinned child wearing tattered clothes begging me to please buy a sampaguita garland, and I know I will much rather read my magazines, newspapers and books in English than the longwinded vernacular.

Conflicted/Word Vomit 1/? [To be transliterated in Tagalog]

Wow, it's been a while since I was last here, hasn't it?

After the catastrophe that was Typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana), I've been thinking again. A lot.

And as we all know, the products of my thoughts will most likely be tiring to read as they are to write. Please bear with me; otherwise, you've been warned.

First, I regret sincerely that I was not more committed to the environmental effort. This was Mother Nature's epic bitching and ownage of the Filipino people, who I must admit have an attitude of being nice only when it works to our advantage. It used to be in our nature to live in total synchronicity with the environment's habits, but endless colonialisation and hurried industrialisation (the latter having been introduced to us by the Americans) have made myself and my countrymen inconsiderate of our surroundings and the other creatures that live in it.

Please note I am in no way generalizing the United States of America and its people, as well as the Philippines and her people. I am well aware that both countries have their own strengths, and that indolence and irresponsibility know no race, no religion and even no gender. It's just that... somehow, I wish we Filipinos were able to figure out what the Americans were so good at doing, and then do one better by surpassing them instead of just following their lead, or worse, bickering among ourselves. Those are two Filipino traits that peeve me - bickering and blaming, especially because we Filipinos are happy to always rely on other people to take on the tasks that we ourselves should be doing and are natural debaters when we find an opposing perspective. More on this later.

Anyway, it used to be that we in the Philippines had natural treasures, "likas na yaman", that we were very proud of as a people - tall, swaying coconut trees that reached to the sky, crystal-clear bodies of water, wide-eyed tarsiers on Chocolate Hills. After all, we have always been the Pearl of the Orient Seas. But the concern that many of us have these days is to be rich through any means possible - even if that entails making colleagues look bad in front of our bosses, cutting more trees to build more living (as opposed to livable) spaces, and throwing our trash just about anywhere because we're in a hurry to get to work. In fact, immediately after the onslaught of Ondoy in our metropolis, my friends retold in Facebook how the drivers who made public transportation possible were mindlessly throwing their trash outside their windows. It's a shame, considering I actually did join an environmentally-driven organisation. Of course, since I wasn't passionate about the cause (I've always been more civic-minded), I hardly got anything done. I did practise proper disposal and segregation of waste, but I've always been queasy around animals. Even now I'm not exactly a pet-friendly person. To be fair, my fast-paced working gal lifestyle doesn't allow for pets at all; I hardly even have time for myself these days. But I admit that privately, I always held much disapproval and disappointment for people who spend so much to groom and even dress their animals in human-like clothing when so many people outside were dying of hunger and lack of shelter and medicines. What's worse are those people who like keeping animals and yet do not take care of them responsibly - and make no mistake, we have a lot of them here.

I honestly think that many of my own people, myself included, really do not have a sense of responsibility. I do not bother to reduce the clutter of my own room because I am lazy, because I know that I can always rely on my mother, who prefers to see everything tidy, to clean everything up for me. (I'm very sorry Mum, I will get to that long-awaited clean-up once I'm done with this entry.) I do not lobby for more tree-lined parks and pedestrian lanes in Makati because I leave the planning for these to our city government, which has many staffers who admittedly do not have the foresight to see the benefits of these things. I do not complain about the massive logging in my mother's mountainous hometown of Rizal, Laguna, because again that's the provincial government's work; besides, we're based in Manila now, and there are some greedy relatives there who we'd rather not see.

It won't be easy, but I will have to change my mindset and make myself accountable for causing the floods brought by Ondoy to a certain extent.

PS this show of mercy and accountability to the environment will not be extended to mosquitos, flies and cockroaches though. They're disgusting and carry diseases on them no matter what they do. Ugh. XP