I'm doing this on a dare, and besides, it's fun! I've been called gay before, so I might as well embrace it a little. Enough to gush over 10 guys who are just so damn easy on the eye.

Continue reading "10 Guys That Make Me Gay" »

There's a reason why Richard Gomez, the pretty, athletic, granola James Bond that he is, should run for senator. Of course, he's exercising his right to do so, being that, despite the awful shame in his bid, this is still a democracy. And, if everyone around him is talking him up to do it, then by all means, let the man run.

But let him lose, too. Because that would make his run worth it. Running, and losing, would validate not only the audacity and absurdity of his enterprise (to some, maybe not, seeing that FPJ, of similar ilk, also ran for office) but of the administration's -- and the entire political circus' -- downright silliness. Gomez losing could mark a turning point in our electorate's consciousness: that, quite possibly, the elections are not just about popularity. I may be too idealistic here, but if you're reading this blog, chances are, you're smart enough not to vote for him.

For one, I'm willing, with all due respect, to wager that Gomez isn't too bright. He may be charismatic -- sometimes that's all you need -- but I think Gomez will get hosed in a debate with Edu Manzano any day. And that's saying a lot about Edu Manzano.

I digress. With the exception of very few, such as Herbert Bautista and Vilma Santos, actors-turned-politicians hardly accomplish anything -- scandalous, or otherwise. For one, they tend not to be opinionated, which requires, at the bare minimum, a desire to read. They tend to indulge in legislating sports, or the entertainment industry (none of them I wish to diminish here), and seem to never have the noggin for things like tax reform and the current account balance. (On the other hand, Gomez would probably do a good job playing a senator.)

On the campaign trail, I would think it's just as easy to belittle Gomez as it is for Gomez to shine in the spotlight. And he will, and everyone will be watching. I can see it now: Lucy Torres, in her Sunsilkiness, will take the stage, gush about her TVidol-turned-husband, and watch him melt the crowd. Just don't make him sing. Please lang.

So, when he loses, it might just be the resounding death knell for all those actors thinking about running. Gomez meets the first cut in becoming a viable candidate. When the voters go out there, and punish him for his ambition, they send a message that even lawyers, crooked until proven otherwise, can make better lawmakers. My hope is that the Filipino will. And even make Willie Revillame think twice.

Now, about those news anchors...

I've made up my mind about 2007: this is about as good as it gets. That said, I still lurked around to see what other people thought would happen in 2007. Some are plain annoying, merely stating the obvious. Pat Robertson predicts mass killing -- now that's Nostradamic.

In my lurking I found a blogger hamed Jepoy, who in his blog (designed to look like a Star Trek TNG dashboard) has a picture of himself in a strange superhero costume (Enteng Kabisote anyone?).

Needless to say, his predictions are remarkably troublesome. Not because they are morbid or fantastic (nothing impossible about any of them), but because they exhibit the kind of discrimination that scares me the most -- a prejudice, proudly worn, stitched together with class-based hate.

Among his predictions, he writes:

2. More Filipino idiots will be online, and would be jumping into international message boards showing how stupid they aer [sic], dragging us with them.

7. And the poorest of the poor will contribute largely to the continued growth of our population due to the fact that they have way tooo much time on their hands for their favorite pastime *bleeep* We should consider to export these whiners as human slaves to other countries. We'll definitely earn a lot since our country will have less useless whiners around.

9. More Filipino artist will confess that they are ghey.

In these three statements, he's managed to diss on the illiterate, the poor, and the homosexuals, not to mention showing contempt for his own race. I am troubled not only with the candidness of his bigotry, as he seems unashamed to hide his lack of upbringing, but at the fact that his predictions read more like mono-maniacal chest-thumping than a fearless look into a crystal ball. None of them are staggeringly original. He predicts massive cheating in this years election. Yeah-duh.

This blogger seems to agree with all this:

With twenty million Filipinos going online in 2007, he’s probably right. This is why I’m brutal to n00bs, especially n00bs in Philippine business.

Unpredictably scary people I'd never want to meet. This, or any year.

Dear Readers,

Today, for show and tell, I brought my gout to class. It sucks to have gout, like a big mountain of ass.

I found out, after several heavy interrogations, that I have a rich family history of gout. Both sides have it, and developed it at an early age, and now I am reaping what my forefathers (and mothers) sowed. No more sardines for you!

For those of you who do not know what gout is, look it up. That's what Google is for.

The picture actually shows it in remission (and some nice, healthy hangnails). Gout is treated three ways. First, there's the Cruise missile Allopurinol, which lowers the uric acid, which when there's too much in your system, acid crystals form in your joints, that is, gout. Second, they send in the "bunkerbusters" -- the Colchicine, which is dope that's been around as for long as people can scream "gonorrhea!" It melts the acid crystals, I've been told. Finally, there's the "shock and awe" part of the treatment, which are the painkillers. I was given Cox-2 inhibitors, which I've been told will work well on the pain, but can kill me later of a massive heart attack.

All that aside, I couldn't take the Cox-2 stuff because I'm allergic to it. So I had to deal with the pain. One patient said it was like "walking on your eyeballs." That's not funny, dick.

So, the part where Gene Hackman appears and says, "Sonny, this will get worse before it gets better," is now upon me. Colchicine gave me severe diarrhea. I know what diarrhea is, now I know what "severe friggin diarrhea" is. The manfuacturers label never paints an accurate picture of the godawful truth.

Now, I don't want to get into the details, but I found out how clockwork the human body is: I had to take a dump every 26 minutes! Fascinating if this was the Discovery Channel, but the few steps I had to take to the bathroom, hobbling painfully with my gout-ridden toe, was like the best episode of "Chaotic."

On the upside, my three days in bed gave me a chance to catch up with "Battlestar Galactica," Joss Whedon's "Firefly" and took in a few Miyazawa shorts.

Tags: Philippines, gout, Colchicine

This is my mom's dog. My brother and I called him, for no honest reason, "Todnih".

Not to be circumspect, but we did think this through. We led with the fact that we've had some really crappy names for our dogs -- like Whitey, Boomer and a female dog named Duke. (We did have a Cujo, and he really killed.) So we felt it was time for something more creative.

The real reason of course was to get a laugh. Everytime my mom would call out to feed the dog, she would yell "Todnih!!!" and everyone would be rolling on the floor (see picture) near tears. Poor mom. Of course, someone's going to get us back you know.

Tags: Philippines, dog+name

I have a very tidy and simple (and grossly generalizing) explanation for everything that ails our country -- from matters of civility, to government and politics, to business big and small, to driving on EDSA and all that engenders the systemic corruption of our social, moral and political functions.

This idea is not original -- I paraphrase freely from a friend of mine, an American political scientist who has lived in Manila and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Part One

Filipino men are insecure. They womanize incorrigibly to prove their vitality (and their moral weakness). They are contentious, prone to display, pretentious and arrogant only to prove that they are better over another man. In short, they are posers. They will cut, duck and weave through traffic to prove that they are faster and more wily. They will buy the biggest cars, the biggest guns and hire the biggest goons.

Even in the U.S. Filipinos engage in this pomp -- I have a bigger car, I have a wider screen. To what end? And, if someone gets ahead of them, they do everything to crush them. In a country so want of genuine nationalism, it's the brute individual and his divine self-righteous agenda that prevails.

Part Two

Filipino men are lazy. They will, given the chance, shirk off work more often than not. They will also ignore the law if it's easier, and around here it almost always is. They feel entitled not to wash the dishes, not to cook, not to pretty much do anything at home. Yes, they do often are the breadwinners, but even in the two-income households, the Filipina works more than the Filipino. That said, even if they are the sole breadwinners, that doesn't entitle you to treat your spouse as a housekeeper.

Part Three

There is no middle class. They've all left for the United States. What's left are the rich people who will do anything to maintain status quo, the idiots in government, and the impoverished who will remain illiterate who are manipulated constantly for their voting power to perpetuate the corruption and lunacy further. If most everyone who can do something right for the Philippines -- the software engineers, the doctors, the nurses, the scientists, an entire generation -- have left, we're simply adding to the populations of people who have no interest or no power to change status quo.

Tags: Philippines

Never happened before, but someone pointed out to me that the blog, which I haven't really paid attention to that much lately, is now numero uno when searching for "bulletproof vest" in Google. The same for Yahoo search. Is it because of my IP address, and that it comes from the Philippines? Anyone out there outside the country who can verify this?

Seems like blogging = SEO.

I tried hard to construct a proportionate response, but I have to admit I've never been in this spot before, so, proceeding without precedent, I have this story to tell:

As I loitered around National Bookstore waiting for my ride, I ran into a poster for a book, called "Hello, Garci? Political Humor in The Cellphone Age." I tracked it down to see it shelved two covers wide on the eye level shelf in the humor category.

I glanced at the cover: author, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Here's the cover:

As I thumb through the first few pages -- I saw something that almost made my heart fall:

Of course, I was shocked. The acknowledgement goes on to say:

The contributions of these Web humorists round out this collection. Our thanks go to all of them and to the anonymous artist who did the komiks in the first chapter of this book. This series of comic strips show Gloria as Darna, but uses real photographs instead of drawings. It was passed on to us by email and although we did use our investigative skills, we failed to trace the author.

If you don't know it yet, these komiks are from my blog.

Several things bother me about this:

1. Had they done the Google search I had inserted at the end of my komiks, keyword "bulletproof vest," they would have found me. So much for investigative journalism when the answer's right at your nose.

2. It would have been all okay, I guess, had the PCIJ asked for permission. But, not knowing the author, and without gaining permission from the author, they publish it anyway. It's the first chapter of the book and the only part of the book that was printed in color (other than the cover).

3. On top of that, they placed an all rights reserved copyright on the book. Now, that's just really dumb. I couldn't even copyright the komiks myself because none of the photographs I used were permitted.

4. They, on the other hand, credit this copycat at Retzwerx who has a few one cell, really corny comics printed sporadically in the book. I don't even want a link on my blog for this donkey.

My question now is, and I hope Sassy's reading, what do I do? The PCIJ should know full well about copyright laws, and sadly, they disregard this to make a quick buck. Shouldn't I get some of that?

By the way, if any of you have this book, I'd gladly sign it for you.

As I slowly settle into a routine, there are many things that I think I’ll never get used to. Chief amongst them is the “kulbit culture” so predominant in Filipino conversations. I probably never noticed it until I had a discussion with my cousin about his diet of psyllium husk while he ate lechon. When making a point, or starting a new subtopic, he would put down his fork (I sat to his left) and, in a manner more similar to flicking a switch, poke me in the shoulder.

I wondered first whether he thought he didn’t have my attention, which, with all the poking, he did. Then I realized that the flicking was pervasive enough to be a mindless habit -- which he of course thought was harmless. So I asked him, tapping him back incessantly, “Why are you always poking me?” He grinned back, mouth glistening with pork.

Indeed, it is viewed as harmless. When I did my rounds at my new job, people I’d never met before in my life were tapping my arm across the table (again, as if to catch my attention when it was duly given them), tapping me on my arm, patting me on my shoulder, all sorts. In fact, when I told a friend about my observations, she thought it was very strange; yet as soon as we moved to another conversation, she flicked my arm to make a point. “Aha!” I beamed.

There are deeper nuances: I’ve observed that people hardly ever flick you with one finger. That inadvertently might be viewed as rude. Flicking with three fingers in an upward motion -- the index, middle and ring finger -- and catching the flickee with the ring and middle finger, is a welcome motion. A sort of physical “hey!”; nothing wrong with it, except that it is annoying.

When engaged in a kulbit conversation, you would invariably encounter a tandem of physical gestures, switching from elbow and arm flicks to pat on the shoulder -- the two gestures are interchangeable: It doesn’t matter whether the flicker is about to start a sentence, end one, or is making a point more dramatic.

I am, as my friends know, a “touchy” person. I grew up a hugger, and hug everyone. Yet in this kulbit culture, those two or three fingers seem to penetrate a personal sphere that I’ve yet to make permeable. My elbows seldom get touched, and to poke them is really extraordinary. To get poked after every sentence is just plain annoying.

I had fun making comics from my personal pictures, and my brother said "gawa ka para kay GMA!"

And, so I did. I had fun making it. I could use some comments, like a title, and some ideas for the next one. (Click on the image to launch this edition.)

10. Eating a banana before a Trigonometry test, and the joy of finding out it doesn't help at all.

9. Getting a room with a window to the lobby, so you can see what everyone else is wearing on a Friday.

8. Every girl in a skirt.

7. The Intramural Games, where we're allowed to pick on somebody *not* our own size.

6. Three words: Bovine Artificial Insemination.

5. That back then, we didn't need cellphones, cable or the Internet. We had better things to do.

4. And, back then, everyone pretty much knew what kind of music the other person was listening to. Like The Cure.

3. Always having money for food.

2. In this order: Ms. Edquiban, Mrs. Advincula, Ms. Lomibao, Ms. Argosino and Mr. Gabriel Amora Tabinga.

1. How easy it was to hook up with your best friends: just come to class.

I woke up Monday morning to terrible incapacitating back pain. It was those darn plates I had to haul for this wedding we attended the other day. So I called out and managed to find my way to the ER at Jefferson, where this Xena-type NP attended to me.

I really couldn't support my upper body without experiencing excruciating spasms across my back. After a series of tests and a cup full of pee, they got to my allergies: no aspirin, no morphine, no ibuprofen, no shellfish (and no pineapple, but they really weren't planning on giving me pineapple; shellfish, apparently, is important because if they ever give me dye for a scan, I might be allergic to the iodine in the die). So Valerie gave me Oxycontin -- opium to the developing world -- and ordered some chest xrays.

After about 15 minutes, no allergies had appeared and my back pain was reduced substantially. Only trouble was I felt like hurling for three hours. That afternoon when I took my second dose, I ended up with a mixing bowl full of regugitated swiss cheese, crackers and some coffee. When I started reading about Oxycontin, this painkiller I wasn't allergic to, I found out more about its addictive properties (Rush Limbaugh): it seems that it's one of few painkillers that increases it's painkilling effect as you up the dosage. Most painkillers will reach a threshold of effectivity; percocet won't. In the meantime, I'm not worried about addiction, unless I want to be throwing up every hour.

I was wondering aloud (lately, the only way I know how) yesterday about the different street names given to firecrackers in the Philippines. The watusi probably gets its name from the fact that the small harmless pyrotechnic is thrown about -- dances around -- at random before it extinguishes, although my friends and I have managed to make a pillbox out of small pieces of crushed watusis.

The five-star, and at one time there was a dud called the one-star, appears to have gotten its name from a ratings scale akin to the Richter, where the five-star is 5 times louder than the one-star. I tend to believe that they made the five-star first, and made a weaker version to complete the scale. Quite a marketing achievement if you think about it.

The "bawang" gets its name from its shape and packaging. Indeed, it looks like a bulb of garlic but at one time I actually thought it was designed to smell like garlic when it exploded. I never liked the packaging myself, because, if you take the time to analyze it, it's all meant to disguise the fact that it's just paper with very little explosive in it.

My favorite of course is the "pla-pla" so named because it resembles the shape of the saltwater fish with the same name. This sucker can bust a hole in a 10-gauge galvanized iron barrel, I know. And it gives off one heck of a bang (not as strong as a homemade calburo cannon fashioned from an old iron septic pipe). I like the power it gives you when you hold it in your hand, there it is, P 80.00 of pure thunder.

The Superlolo, which by far has the funniest name, is one old man that packs a punch: it has about the same amount of powder as a "kwitis" and it's tightly packed into a small convenient package. Could it be it's name comes from the whole "wala ka sa Lolo ko!" drivel? I don't know. (I know somewhere out there someone's painted the triangle-shaped "Superlolo" purple and called it Viagra.)

Kwitis and baby rockets (bottle rockets here) are seldom fooled around with anymore, unless you line them up across a piece of wire by the dozen and light them up with a flaming roll of newspaper. There's plenty of joy seeing them all race up to the sky in a streak of lightning. Run for cover though because the spent rockets hurtle back to earth just as fast.

The "pailaw" I could never get (it doesn't really explode, it just disassembles into a few more pieces) but the concept of the Kwiton -- a truly mighty rocket -- I do get. It's P 120.00 of pure testosterone on a bamboo stick. You can feel the ground vibrate as it takes off, and in fact it takes off like the Saturn rocket: split seconds of bursting flames and smoke, the rocket shimmies and shakes before thrust cancels weight and gravity and, in a blink of an eye, the Kwiton is aloft. Proud to finally fulfill it's designers purpose: to leave earth with a payload enough to blow up a small home. When it finally does deliver its awesome firepower, the explosion is immense and the timbre deep.

What puzzles me the most is "Og". Has anyone heard of this firecracker? It's slightly larger than a 5-star but smaller than a Superlolo. What puzzles me is how it got its name. If anyone out there knows, please post a comment. Otherwise, I'll be wondering aloud again.

Last weekend, we trailed through Perkiomen. Breathtaking in the Fall. Pics from local peeps.

I'm picking up from where my brother left off and his call for entries for the "Near-Perfect Indie Song" (which I thought Firehose's Understanding or GBV's Bulldog Skin fitted the bill. Since I'm a really "sensitive" guy (see Neocolours entry), I thought that I'd hurl this one out:

Admit to it, folks, there's a "love song" out there that really chokes you up. You're not that cool. So here are 30, a first draft, in no particular order:

I urge you to plug in your favorite (if I missed it and if you dare).

1. "Kanlungan" Buklod

2. "Time After Time" Cyndi Lauper

3. "Sa Kanya" Ogie Alcasid

4. "66" Afghan Whigs

5. "Elsewhere" Sarah McLachlan

6. "Missin' You" John Waite

7. "Here, There and Everywhere" The Beatles

8. "For No One" The Beatles

9. "Stay" The Blue Nile

10. "No Ordinary Morning" Chicane

11. "A Letter to Elise" The Cure

12. "The Heart of the Matter" Don Henley

13. "Two Star" Everything But The Girl

14. "Shadow on a Harvest Moon" Everything But The Girl

15. "Ngayon at Kailanman" Basil Valdez

16. "Last Supper" Howard Jones

17. "I Would Die 4 U" Prince

18. "Inconsolable" Jonatha Brooke and The Story

19. "Fly Away Home" Mary Chapin Carpenter

20. "Girlfriend" Matthew Sweet

21. "Sometimes Always" The Jesus and Mary Chain

22. "Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond

23. "Tuloy Pa Rin" Neocolours

24. "And I Love You So" Perry Como

25. "All Mixed Up" Red House Painters

26. "Kung Kailangan Mo Ako" Rey Valera

27. "To Turn You On" Roxy Music

28. "In Your Eyes" Peter Gabriel

29. "Ask" The Smiths

30. "Suddenly" Soraya

Ayos ba?

My students and my colleagues all call me "Benito", which is fine, because not only is that my given name, but it's a lot more formal than my nickname, "Happy". That name has always carried with it a laugh, which is great to melt the ice, but on occasion a stigma that I'm someone you can never take too seriously. That too is okay, until you're introduced to Vice Presidents at Citibank or the Country Manager of Credit Suisse Private Banking. My former boss would call me "Happy" but would introduce me as "Benito" when we're in business circles.

So now, since my wife calls me by another name (the sound emitted by a certain farm animal), and all but a few friends in Philly call me "Benito", "Happy" seems to be fading fast.

I guess this is when I start to miss it.

From the PDI, no less:

Student killed after concert project of Vilma Santos Posted: 10:52 PM (Manila Time) | Apr. 27, 2004 By Mei Magsino Inquirer News Service

SAN JOSE, Batangas -- A college student who watched a band concert in Lipa's Plaza Independencia on Thursday night was killed on his way home from the concert, a project of Lipa City Mayor Vilma Santos.

San Jose police said Rey Vallenas, 17, a second year Associate Computer Technology student of Lipa City Public College was with six of his classmates when they boarded a jeepney bound for Cuenca, Batangas, at about 11 p.m. Thursday night.

But the jeepney driver then shouted that his brakes were not working. The vehicle was already near the Pinagtung-Ulan bridge in this town when the jeepney swerved and Vallenas shouted to his classmates that they should jump out of the jeepney.

Vallenas, who was sitting beside the driver, jumped out, but his leg was caught. He also didn't see that the jeepney that was already out of control was going toward him. His chest was crushed when the jeepney ran over him. He died at the Mary Mediatrix Medical Center in Lipa City.

Ghastly. Now, how on this blessed earth is Rey's death connected in any way to Vilma Santos other than through your mind-bending extrapolation. Let's see, Vilma caused the brakes to stop working? Besides the real story here is: how come the students of Lipa City Public College were required to attend this politcal rally? Now that's twisted.

I've been waking up to hives in various places all over my body. Some the size of pencil erasers, some the size of quarters, occasionally the size of a very large piece of salami. I get it on my back, my arms, and some parts of the body that take more than three words to identify.

I don't remember getting hives like this with such frequency in my allergy-tainted history. I am allergic to all sorts of things, which often complicates the most simple of matters. For example, I am allergic to pineapple. Yes, pineapple. For those of you unfamiliar with the Philippines, we are as pineapple as Columbia is to coffee (and other useful crops). In fact, I've always wondered why natural selection did not take of my allergy to pineapple, having been surrounded by so much of the plant.

There was indeed one party, Filipino of course, where there was pineapple in the pizza, the spaghetti and the punch. I had water and some crackers, although I do know that this was some sick joke from the birthday celebrant.

Shellfish (or sea critters) is another intolerable food. That includes shrimp (although to a lesser extent), crab and lobster. Sometimes, too much bagoong gets me too. Again, having been born in a country of 7,100 islands (and my ancestors of the same descent), there must have been some grand celestial error somewhere.

I am also allergic to most painkillers known to man except acetaminophen, paracetamol and vodka. I am most allergic to aspirin and morphine-based drugs, which causes several disfiguring catastrophes and an incapacity to excrete bodily fluids. This also makes me a nightmare patient: I have been given drugs that I'm allergic to which would be then complemented by cortisone and benadryl, my drug of choice.

Which brings me back to my hives, which go away when benedryl is taken. I read up on it and I discovered that it can be caused by literally anything: sudden heat, sudden cold, perspiration, dust, even lupus, ADHD, ED, blinding light, stress, male pattern baldness, a fear of death, soap, out-of-body experiences, alien abduction, and horror of horrors, television.

I would in fact need to investigate hence the cause of my hives, which will be, I imagine, a long drawn out process of elimination. It could also be impossible: spring is turning, so that is suspect, but how do I control "springnessness" to determine if that was the cause? What if I was allergic to freshly-ground coffee? I'd surely die!

Dear Filipino,

I've been getting a lot of letters addressed to you in my email that I decided to send you one myself.

I wanted to tell you that never in my entire life have I been embarassed to be you. Never.

But recently, I cannot hold my head up high when I read about how you are compelled to send Fernando Poe Jr., a man of good honor but unqualified character and experience, to the highest, most important office in the country.

The country will not survive him, if the dollar exchange rate is to be any indication. I've heard some of you foolishly disregard the peso-dollar exchange as an important indicator -- remember, when the peso shrinks, it decreases the value of what you do, what you earn, and what your children will earn. The same amount of work you put in in an hour 10 years ago is now 25% less valuable. That means you, my Filipino, are unfortunately, becoming increasingly worthless. And why? Because it looks like that this May, you will send FPJ to Malacanang.

Yet, I am willing to overlook the fact that I, who has 10 more years of education than he does, would find it ridiculous to run for any government office. Not because I cannot, but because you, my Filipino, who has fought tyranny for centuries, who was one of the first countries in Asia to declare independence from colonists, who once was only second to Japan in Asia in countrywide development, who has thrown out despots without a drop of blood, you who are brilliant even in the darkness of poverty, deserve so much more. Much more.

Continue reading "Letter to The Filipino People" »

was left almost speechless after listening to some phone in comments at DZBB (Thanks, Me-Anne!) from FPJ supporters defending their candidate's citizenship, lack of education, lack of government office experience and his sincerity in running for office. I've done my best to remember and translate here:

On Citizenship

Caller: You see, it doesn't matter whether FPJ is Filipino or not. His heart is with the Filipino people.
Host: Well, it's this way: it's in the Constitution that the President must be Filipino.
Caller: Oh, yeah? Well, who wrote that Constitution! It's the rich and greedy people who have been controlling this country for centuries.
Host: That's not true.
Caller: You know, they are attacking FPJ's citizenship because they are afraid of him. He is a very strong candidate.
Host: But that is not to say that he is or is not Filipino.
Caller: It matters only if he will not serve the Filipino people.

On Education and Experience

Caller: How can we judge FPJ's lack of education when if we look at our selves, we have not accomplished what he has.
Host: He has accomplished a lot for movies and film. This is the country we are talking about. That's very different.
Caller: It's not different for FPJ. He will apply the same courage and strength he has shown ever since he was a kid who decided he would work and help his family instead of going to school.
Host: But wouldn't you want someone who is at least a college graduate to lead the country?
Caller: You know, those "educated" people, I never understand them anyway. It's too serious. When they call on debates, it's all talk, and they never get anything done. They only show if one candidate is smarter than the other.
(Me: Exactly!)
Host: But isn't that what's good for the country?
Caller: The Bible says do not judge others. Let's not judge FPJ yet.

On Sincerity

Caller: No one asked FPJ to run. He asked the Filipino people if they wanted him to become president and we said yes. He is offering his help. He doesn't need money. He is a billionaire.
Host: But what of the rumors that Erap and his allies just talked him into running?
Caller: Those are just rumors. FPJ is honest about wanting to help the country. He has worked hard all his life, and has remained quiet and now is the time for a hero (bayani) to come out of the ashes and save our country. He is offering his help.

I had wanted to do a list like this for a while. And, while I work on some copy for a friend's food business, I found it fit to churn it out. There are no rules here (you'll see what I mean), so here goes:

10. Pandesal Nothing like sweet, freshly baked pandesal in the morning. Nothing like having to get up early because it's your turn to go to the bakeshop and buy pandesal. Drawback: never tastes as good a day after.

9. Sisig The best is served in Pilo, with chicaron and gata. Oh boy! I'd rank this dish higher but it's so bad for your arteries that you'll get dizzy after eating it.

8. Kesong Puti The ones made in Los Banos (DTRI) are soft and chewy, like young soft-ripened cheese. In fact, it is exactly that. I like this best fried with #10.

7. San Miguel Beer Super Dry The best friggin beer. Not too strong and bitter. No aftertaste, and, because you get it in the Philippines, it's cheap as piss.

6. Champorado with Tapa I could be wrong (not to mention chichi) here, but the best champorado I've ever had was at the old Fashion Cafe in Makati. Dark, bitter and warm. The tapa was just the right tenderness and no cartilage sticking to the teeth. Invigorating!

5. Biko Stick-to-the-teeth rice cake. I keep confusing this with kalamay, or cassava cake, but the former uses ground rice and the latter uses, er, cassave. Best warm with coffee. They should serve this in Starbucks. Never said no to it on the buffet table.

4. Ensaymada If you have not had Cunanan Ensaymada, you have not lived. You have to have to try it. They only sell it by phone (orders) and you have to pick it up yourself in their secret little bakeshop in Valle Verde (5 I think). I don't have their number now, but this stuff is soooooo good, it costs almost U$ 2.00 each. It's a bit crunchy outside, sticky and melting inside, with lots of queso de bola sprinkled on top. Yummie!!

3. Green Mango with Bagoong I don't eat green mangoes unless they're in a shake, or with bagoong. It's the chips and dip for the Filipino TV viewer. And, if you're lucky, you have someone else to peel it for you. The crunch, and the transformation from sour to salty is just unbelievably scrumptious.

2. Balut With salt, nothing beats the many-textured symphony that is crammed in one little egg. There's the "fetus juice": savory! There's the hard, calcinated part. I eat that. There's the yoke, soft and nourishing. And the chick, with soft bones and feathers, occasionally with an eye staring back at you. Dead as fred. Pinch of salt and it tastes like nothing else on earth.

1. Chicken Adobo For so many reasons, this is tops for me. It's got all the tastes that I love about Filipino food and, if you take the skin off, it's really low fat. Read more about adobo here.

Everyone I know knows I am proud to have gone to UPRHS. Not only the friends I have made and kept all these years, but the images of long unfinished cement corridors, wobbly ceiling fans, antique sewing machines, rusted out bannisters, foul urinals and creaking floorboards make me feel I am a proud graduate from that adolescent petri dish: hardened, willing, and far-sighted.

But there was a time when, remembering Peter's denial, I would be somewhat ashamed to say "Rural" as part of my school's name, except maybe if I were back in Los Banos.

The deal is that most people in the Philippines would think of "Rural" as, well, "rural". That is, backward and agricultural. "Classless philistines" would be the superlative. In fact, taking into account how I've come into contact with graduates of more "prestigious" schools, like Ateneo High or Xavier, this would be their honest impression. Even if it did have "UP", which is the state school's prestigious monogram, as a prefix.

This "stigma" also has one other side: that there is another school, UPIS, which is in Diliman (the largest of the state campuses). There is no such thing as a UPIS-UPRHS rivalry when I was in high school, because they always had the best facilities, the best students, the best basketball team. We were, well, sun-burnt castaways from the farthest regions in the Philippines. We were smart, articulate and intelligent, but sometimes with bad hygiene. Most of all, I believed we suffered from the notion that because we go to a "Rural" high school, we lacked sophistication. In laymen's terms, we were simply not cool.

Then when I left for graduate school, everything about how I felt about being a UPRHS graduate changed. First, you realize that high school in an agricultural setting was hella good. Sure, we don't have band practice, and none of us were jocks or cheerleaders, but how many have seriously -- at the ripe age of 13 -- artificially inseminated a full-grown cow? What about taking part in the foreplay of a 1,200 lb carabao? Nostalgia aside, when compared with other schools, I would never exchange those memories for anything. And these are unique to UPRHS, and, most of all, a direct result of it being "rural". And that's way cool.

Now what mattered most, and what continues to be forthright is this: UPRHS, set in idyllic Los Banos, and surrounded by a community with the highest PhDs per capita than anywhere else in the Philippines, cultured unique values of self-worth, academic achievement (among 10 very good friends I made in that school, 5 have all gone to take graduate degrees in the United States, 3 of whom now have PhDs), and humility. Along with the usual virtues one picks up in a good high school (like coming home on time and never bringing booze to a school party), there is a small sense of paradise that came with going to a school where the nearest mall is 3 hours away and the best place to hang out is in the field under the stars.

That aspect too is unique to "rural".

I went to visit the old school, now gone the way of weeds and disrepair. And even in that state, I no longer think about "rural" as a stigma, but, among many ways, as a nice little "did you know?" aspect that I take with me everywhere I go. I don't know anyone who went to that school and regret having gone there. Because maybe they too now understand what "rural" means.

(Photo from UP Horticultural Society)

That was what me and my high school friends (and some times featuring my brother) called our little raggedy high school band. We played straight out of school in our uniforms, amping two guitars in my mom's stereo, and bumming a snare and a bass drum from the school music room. We'd just tear through stuff together for hours (or until our voices were coarse). Dyno's drum kit was a few cymbals hanging from the ceiling and a bass drum resting on a pile of pillows.

My brother, in at least one recording, sang a blood-curdling version of Lupang Hinirang. That version, captured on mono playback, still exists.

Our first stint was the Junior-Senior prom, and we did Seona Dancing's "More to Lose" What can I say? It was the 80's and we were listening to XB and NU. It was either that, or "Inside Out" by The Mighty Lemondrops. Seona Dancing (or "Fade" by Medium if you listened to RT) won out because it had an "extended version"

If memory serves me right, we killed that night.

Well, maybe not. But we lived to play a second time (yes, no violent protests) and we scored pretty well with The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". I got a stitch on my brow from the ensuing party. And the words "strange as angels" are three of the most unforgettable string of letters that have ever left my mouth.

I wore a tie that night. A clip-on. Since we were about to embarass ourselves, I guess you might as well stoop as low as you can.

Now, why do I bring this up? Because those certainly were the days. And, had we this little gem, we would have gotten somewhere with our Fra Lippo Lippi covers.