Red Book: Back To The Philippines

We arrived in the Philippines shortly after the first quarter of the school year. We were only in Saudi for two years, but bear in mind that at the time I was only six. Given that most of my memories started at age three, that already accounts for more than half of my memory. Philippines became just as strange as Saudi Arabia.
The first priority when we got back was to reintegrate back our educations. My sister was enrolled back to her school before she left, and I was enrolled to a school right across hers. I had no problem passing the entrance exams. I already read, wrote, and did simple arithmetic at the time. Unforutunately, because I was advanced a year during preschool, I was a year short of the minimum age requirement of entering first grade at that time. It was then that I learned a lesson through my mom that I'd use a lot later on in my life: There are few problems that you cannot solve with a white lie (my age) and bags full of swiss chocolate (Toblerone).

Thankfully, there was this one kid, Francis I think, who had to leave for Australia or something. He left behind his books and a slot at the top section of first grade. The only thing I ever knew about him was that he sure loved to draw penises on pictures in his textbooks. I didn't quite get what was so awesome about helping out making the illustrations more anatomically correct - at least until I tried it. Anyway, even up until now I wonder if I did deserve to be in the top class, or if it's just because Francis left an opening that I got in. But at that time, I didn't really care. For the first time, I was in a real school that wasn't converted out of a small-scale office so it was an upgrade.

I was introduced to the class and most kids, some of them didn't really admit it until we were already in highschool, found me weird. And understandably. I had red hair back then. Read: RED. HAIR. I don't know if it's the water in Saudi, or the heat, or eating all those shawarmas, but my hair was troublemaker red. Thank goodness the polluted air of Manila happily worked on making it black in just a few months. I spoke English, hoping they'd understand me better, and it was the first time I realized that no, not all kids spoke and understood English. Specially not in the Philippines.

Speaking of firsts, that year was a great big bag of firsts for me. On the first day, my classmates were nice enough to teach me how to say "Putangina", but not what it meant, which I happily asked my mother after I got back from school. It was probably the shock of a lifetime, but looking back it was just a sign of bigger things to come.

After the first month, my parents were already called up by the teach for the first time. It most certaintly didn't become the last. I cut classes to play videogames during lunchtime. Age six. Yeah, you just know I'd grow up to be the rebel. It was crazy. I didn't even know what I was doing was illegal when I did it but I quickly learned that the easiest way to determine which is legal from not is that the illegal things get you beat up by your parents. Cutting classes? Illegal. Big time.

On an interesting note, our teacher Mrs. Miranda is still teaching to this day, 22 years later. How somebody does something over and over again every year and not get tired of it is a miracle of discipline becuase honestly, if I spent a day working on the learning of my younger self, I'd probably be in prison for homicide already. It's a good arrangement. I stay away from teaching and my ass, in turn, stays away from prison rape.

That same year my grandmother died. She was the only grandparent I can say I really knew. My two grandfathers passed away before I was even born, and, well I didn't really know much about my other grandmother.  It was the first time for me to experience death within the family. All I remember was that she went missing, and the last time anybody saw her was having her hair and nails done in a parlor - something she never really did before. My mom sometimes says it's because grandma had a feeling her time was up. I suppose it kind of makes sense. You're born naked and sticky and crying on your way into this world, the least you can do is make yourself presentable on the way out.

I took a few days off of school and we went to Quezon for a supposed birthday party. It was not until we arrived and I saw the casket that I learned that lola had died. My sister and cousins were crying. I couldn't find it in me to do so. Perhaps I was too young to cry. I sometimes think I should've. No that it'd change anything, but I feel that it would've been more proper.

The same way I shouldn't have skipped out on classes earlier that year.

But I guess that was what being six was like for me.

Not really knowing anything about the world, until you see the consequences later on.

This Is How I'll Remember It

It was the morning of Holy Thursday, my third day supposedly away from work, but as I saw it, it was the first real day of the long weekend for me. I was already on leave starting Tuesday earlier that week, but I had to work from home that time, and the following day I had to go to the office to get my "standby dude of the month" laptop plus a couple of official duties. Thursday, I told myself, that's the time it'd begin.

I woke up around 7:00AM, though I'd hardly qualify it as waking up given that I was mostly tossing, turning, and grunting while being nudged repeatedly by Anna who was already preparing for work and eating a slice of leftover pizza. Yes, work. On a Holy Thursday. American company, American clients, American schedule.  She had opted to stay the night due to the traffic from the mass exodus of vacationing Manileños the previous evening, and granted I had nothing better to do in the house, her company was always welcome - EXCEPT when she keeps on forcing me to wake up despite my (or what seemed to me as) rational bargaining for additional sleep time. She kept on nagging, and I kept on telling her she should just go to work and let me sleep.

By 7:45, Anna told me that she'd be leaving already. I laughed at her early departure since she usually left late whenever she'd go to work from my place. She gave me a kiss and told me she'd be able to go home earlier if she went to work earlier. I agreed and told her "ingat". Before I knew it, she was gone. I decided I've had enough sleep, and more importantly, realized that I was as prepared for the weekly 8am conference call with our American counterparts as the Trojans when the Greeks came out of the Horse. I had not sent out an agenda the night before (since I was supposed to be on vacation) and scrambled for anything that would've made me appear somewhat prepared.

I connected to the conference, I was the first person there. I had already set up the remote connection to my office PC and was reading my notes when I noticed that Anna's yellow earphones had been left behind. I decided to call her but just before I reached for my phone, I saw that hers was resting just beside mine. Nice try. I wondered if Anna had already realized what had happened.

Five minutes before the start of the conference, I opened the balcony door and looked at the street below me. I wondered if she'd ridden the taxi already. If she did, she'd probably have to go back for the phone after work, which would mean she'd have to take another taxi ride back, and make her trip home even that much more of a hassle.

Thens something caught my eye.

At the edge of Taft Avenue, in front of our building, bystanders, a few security guards, and the usual pedicab hawkers were rerouting traffic from the lane that was directly under the LRT. I figured, there must've been a stalled vehicle. Or maybe, an accident. It occured to me that it could've been Anna. But Anna already had left, right? I went back inside, still with the gruesome thought lingering in my head. No, I shrugged it off. Why would she cross the road when she always got a taxi in front of the entrance? I thought about calling her again. Again, I remembered her cellphone was still with me. I thought of sending her an email instead. Maybe later, I still had a conference call to do.

And then the door bell rang. I laughed a bit. She went back for her phone, Jet. See? She's not as forgetful as you think. I looked at the door and it was already swinging open. Anna wasn't there. A guard was standing where my mind thought she'd be. My heart stopped.

"Sir, nakabukas po yung pinto nyo."

I sighed of relief. It's not about the accident downstairs. She left the door half ajar and opening the balcony door caused the wind to push the main door open. Makes sense. I thanked the guard and rushed for the door. But the guard wasn't going anywhere.

"Sir, taga dito po ba si Anna Manarang?" the usually smiling guard said with a stern look.

My heart started racing. "Oo, taga dito sya, bakit?"

"May nangyari ho kasi sa baba. Pumunta na lang daw po kayo ASAP."

My heart started racing, and I guess it's true, that at moments of great distress, time seems to slow down. Without thinking too much, I grabbed my phone, my wallet, Anna's phone, and my car keys. I hung up the phone, closed the doors and darted for the elevator, which was, as though conspiring to help me, already waiting for me, whereas normally it took many minutes to get to my floor since I live in the uppermost part of the condo. Getting from my chair to the ground floor felt like one swift, dreamlike motion. Or perhaps I wasn't just paying attention. My mind kept on playing out all the possibilities.

And then I remembered one thing.

The previous night, while Anna and I were trying to talk each other to sleep, we veered to the topic of what to do if ever something happened to one of us. I kept on telling Anna that if something were to happen to me, that she should just move on. And then she got pissed. And then I can't remember too much of what we talked about. Becuase hey, sleep talk isn't exactly courtroom testimonial-grade talk.

And then now it was this. I was racing from the lobby to the entrance. I turned left and I saw on the road a scene that keeps on repeating in my head even to this day.

Anna had been the reason for the commotion I had seen from upstairs minutes earlier. Anna, who just a few minutes ago had been cheerily saying she'd be going to work. Anna who just the previous night was idlly playing with Draw Something until she fell asleep.

She was there. Lying on the pavement. Not moving. Several policemen were already on the scene, as were our condos guards, and the pedicab people. I rushed to her, called out her name with a broken, hoarse voice, bereft of strength that I simply could not muster. The twenty meters that I had to dash felt like a kilometer. When I got to her, I knelt, in disbelief.

For the first time in a very long time, I called out to a God that I only conversed with every Sunday.

I shouted Anna's name again. "Are you okay?!" I shouted. Anna opened her eyes, albeit weakly. She very slightly said "No" although the only reason I knew is because I read her weak lips. Her forehead had blood, as did her arms. She was lying on her shoulder and one of her legs was twisted in a very irregular angle. I rose up and asked one of the guards to call an ambulance. "Tumawag na ho" he said. It's fucking Holy Thursday, I thought, why couldn't it come sooner?

I went back to Anna. She looked slightly more conscious. A voice behind me, and I do not know who, gave me a briefing of what had happened. A motorbike had hit her while crossing the road, and then told me that the guy who did it was standing behind me. I looked at the man, in his late thirties. I swear I wanted to tear that man apart, were it not for the fact that he looked as terrified as me. I asked for his license and ID, in case he had a last minute burst of gall to run away. Turns out one of the guards already had the cards. I took a shot of them with my phone. I went back to Anna and assured her with lines I would repeat over and over again for the rest of the day.

Stay with me.

I love you.

Try to stay awake.

Conserve your energy.

Don't move too much.

I'm with you now.

I'll be here.

Shortly after, the policemen arrived, took over for the guards and started asking questions. I demanded to know where the ambulance was. I called mom first, thinking she might be in my sisters' condo. She was in Cavite. I explained to her the situation. As usual, she coolly told me to relax, get a taxi, and have her lifted to Manila Ortopedic Hospital, where my uncle had been previously sent due to another injury caused by the same godforsaken transport. I consulted one of the policemen and told me it'd be too risky at this point. He asked Anna to wink if she could get up or even just move her back or neck or leg. She shook her head instead. The policeman told me had there been a fracture, or a spine injury, moving around and transport with no restraints would worsen the injuries. I recalled rudimentary first aid, and understood.

Anna spoke after a few minutes, asking me to call her boss. What the fuck, right? You get into an accident and the first thing you want to call is call the boss? Must've been the shock I suppose, or she's probably just that dedicated to her goddamn job. I called her dad first instead. Normally a very stoic person, he sounded surprised to hear my voice instead coming from  her daughter's cellphone. I told him the essentials. She's conscious. The guy who hit her is apprehended. The ambulance is one the way. I told him the hospital would be Phil Orthopedic. He thanked me and told me to keep him updated.

The ambulance still wasn't coming. My mother called again. Asked me where I was and what I was doing. I told her the ambulance is still on the way, and that there might be fractures so we're not moving her. My mom insisted. if there's a fracture, she told me, there's nothing that can be done about it anyway. If she moved sooner, the sooner she'd get treatment. I looked at Anna. She had a point as well. If she was dying right at that moment, and the reason she couldn't have been saved was because I was adamant about waiting for an ambulance that wouldn't come, I will never forgive myself.

For the mean time, I texted Anna's boss. He replied okay and to keep him updated.  Anna started speaking again. She looked like she was indeed getting weaker, and said she wanted to sleep. I yelled at her, as loud as I could. DO. NOT. FALL. ASLEEP. And silently cursed at the traffic that was keeping the ambulance away from us.

A guard from La Salle dropped by and asked if she was from La Salle. No, I told him and he went away. The police investigator came and started asking for details. I gave them as accurately as I could, though for the life of me I just couldn't remember her home address. I gave mine instead. They gave me instructions on what would happen next. The investigator would go to the hospital for more details, so I just need to tell them where we'd be going. I started gathering her belongings. Her shoes had flung pretty far, but her bag was beside her, intact, albeit with scratches on it.

I kissed Anna. She was cold, and sweating. No fever, at least, I told myself. Her pulse was regular, somewhat slow. People were starting to gather, and the traffic was slowly building up, though, not as much since La Salle was still on holiday, was was the rest of Metro Manila. I looked around and found the two slices of pizza she told me she'd be brining to work. They were resting on top of the island's wall. The plastic had torn, and the pizzas were mangled and dirty - a silent evidence of the tragedy that morning.

I kept on following up on the ambulance, repeating to Anna any words that may have an effect on her. We've been through worse before, I told her, remember that last stage of Resident Evil? I tried to joke. That was fucked up, wasn't it? She smiled for the first time. I thought she'd be in more pain of she laughed so I stopped and just kissed her again.

The ambulance that took forever to arrive finally came, sirens blaring. On a darker note, part of me always wondered what it'd be like to be riding those things, but I've always wished to never have to know. The ambulance belonged to the Philippine Red Cross. Thank you Dick Gordon, I thought to myself. The crew of four hopped out of the thing like the Ninja Fucking Turtles. Like clockwork, one of them started talking to the police, the other two started assessing Anna's condition. The last one, the driver, came to me and asked where she need to be taken. Philippine Ortho, I told him. He discussed with the other guy if it's possible, and said yeah, since this bones may be broken, that'd make sense.

Moving Anna, even with experienced medics around, was gut-wrenching, heart-rending. She screamed in pain when they put a hard splint on her left leg. I was with Anna when she was loaded into the ambulance. At the last minute, the driver asked me again if I wanted to go Phil Ortho. He said it might be traffic.

Alternatives were Ospital ng Maynila, PGH, and Manila Doctors. I thought, since it's Holy Thursday, staffing will be minimal. Going to a public hospital may prolong her wait for medical attention, so I went for Manila Doctors.I told the policemen of the change and thanked them for their help. And off to the hospital we went.

The medics ripped her pants to check for more wounds, during which I heard Anna mumble that those where her only decent pants. They used her bag to prop her right leg, which just wouldn't straighten. I remembered that her bag contained her phone. I called her dad using mine instead. Thankfully I still had his number from a time when Anna had to text him.

My mother called again when we were already in the ambulance. I got scolded for not going to Phil Ortho, even after reasoning out the traffic. She told me it'd cost us, and that if she were to be transferred to the Phil Ortho later in the day, she'd be put in the low priority triage.

Regarding the choice of hospital, as of writing, a lot of people question my logic at the time, some of them I sincerely believe have good points, others, I believe are just parotting third-hand experiences and would've probably done worse, they just didn't know how being put on the spot was like. In hindsight, I believe I acted to the best of my ability given the knowledge I had at hand. I knew Anna had Medicard provided for by her company. I knew it was honored in Manila Doctors, since I already had gone there when I was still using the Medicard brand some 8 years ago. I knew all hospitals were understaffed, and the least understaffed choice within the vicinity was Manila Doctors, I thought, and this is the part where I was assuming, worst case scenario, Anna could be transferred to another hospital after being administered emergency care. I have no regrets.

We arrived at Madocs in under ten minutes. I had no idea how fast the ambulance passed through the normally traffic areas of Quirino, Pedro Gil, and Padre Faura, but it was like we were there in a flash. I hopped off, ran towards the nearest doctor who wasn't attending to Anna and asked if there was an Ortopedic on duty. I was told yes. In that case, I thought, she should stay here instead of moving to Phil. Orthopedic. Later on, I thought, I'd just bring the possibility up to the parents.

I ran back to Anna's side. Surprisingly, I saw at least three other cases that involved broken appendages in the emergency room. I thought that was the probably reason why the Orthopedic doctor was already on duty. I later learned that the actual ortho was NOT on duty, and was in a goddamn Visita Iglesia out of town, and the resident doctor had to perform initial diagnosis by consulting that doctor. Crazy.

Anna was given pain killers, and had most of her wounds cleaned, medicated, and sealed. After a short while, she was taken to XRay, where, and I shit you not, only one radiologist was on duty. Now I don't want to sound condescending on Anna or the radiologist's part, but the radiologist looked half my body mass. And I personally admit, I cannot lift Anna without injuring her and/or myself. And now he had to move Anna to the XRay table. It was a mess. I just had to help out. While xraying her abdomen, I was told to lower her pants to prevent the zipper from showing up. The pants were too tight and since her left leg was bent, I couldnt without risking Anna going bananas from the pain. I asked for scissors instead. We'll just cut away the whole section of pants. The radiologist gave me a pair of scissors that felt more blunt than a plastic breadknife. In the end, he relented and just had the xray done even with the zipper blocking parts of the image. I saw the preview and sighed of relief to see that there was no tearing inside her. He then moved on to the leg, which he said would be sent to the ortho for analysis. We then moved Anna back to her bed, which felt like a murderously painful ordeal for Anna (understandably so). I swore to myself I'd start bodybuilding as soon as I could.

Anna's parents and sister arrived shortly after, along with a woman who clained to be the wife of the guy who was riding the bike that hit Anna, and a guy who I thought was the guy who hit Anna (he was the brother, as it turns out, and looks eerily like him). Anna went back to the emergency room, and for the first time since 8 that morning, I was away from her. I sat at the waiting room with her mom, her dad, her sister, and the two relatives of the offender. We had a lot of small talk. I assured Anna's mother that she was a fighter, and that she was a lot more mature now than when I first knew her. We talked about a lot of things, most of them relating to Anna, if only to pass time.

I also got to talk to the wife of the guy who hit Anna. They were both pawnbrokers for a large pawnshop chain, and turns out he was on the way to work when Anna got hit. From what Anna told me and the investigators, the guy was going really fast. I told his wife that there's this called the phenomenon of Holiday Speeding, where vehicles start travelling faster and more recklessly during the holidays, becuase they're not used to decongested roads, and their reaction times tend to be slower relative to their speed because of that. The wife insisted that's not the case, I told her no driver is excempted from that rule, but I realized it won't help their case and changed topic instead. They told me they'd pay for everything and that they wont run away. The husband is of course, in jail at the moment, so yeah, nobody will be running away.

My mother called again and told me of the possible expenses. I can't detail much, but I recall her examples racking up amounts ranging from 150k to 300k, in different hospitals. I knew Manila Doctors belongs to the league of uberexpensive hospitals so I started doubting my decision at that point, and feeling sorry for the motorcycle owner. There was no way a pawnshop employee would be able to shoulder something like that.

I apologized in advance to Anna's parents for having her brought there. They knew what costs I was talking about, but told me I had nothing to worry about because I was panicking at that time. For what it was worth, I told them about her medicard. At the least, I knew that it could shoulder about 150k worth of bills at least, if it was the same with what I was using. I said the same to the wife of the offender.

After a while I got to talk to Anna again. She was crying, but definitely in a better, more stable condition. I apologized to her for not keeping her for a few minutes more, for not having done better. She assured me and thanked me for my support. At that point I felt like crying like a goddamn baby already, but I tried to keep the facade up.

I realized that I had closed the condo unit without taking my home keys with me. I was locked out of my own place. Also, that I basically was wearing my sleeping clothes, short pants that had a huge gaping hole in the crotch, but already sewn beforehand, and my room slippers. I called my sisters if they had spare keys and told them I'd be dropping by to get them. My sister sounded like she was scolding me, asking too many questions, some of them asking why I didn't send her to Phil Ortho I felt like I really just didn't have enough time for such deliberations - I only asked for the keys after all.

Anna was to be confined, the doctor told us. There were no fractures found in any of the injured parts her body but she had to remain for observation. It was like a breeze of relief for me. I told them I'd be going back later that day so I could be the night watch. Her family had rushed so quickly they did not have time to bring any clothes or comforts. For the moment, I thought, things were finally shaping up better than I had expected. After we got her settled in, I finally gave my farewell to both Anna and her family. They thanked me and told me to keep safe.

I headed straight for my sisters' condo after, clutching only my car keys, wallet, and cellphone. I took the taxi back and nearly fell asleep. I was already two in the afternoon, and I realized I haven't had a morsel of food, or a minute's of rest. Either would've been so nice.

I got up to the unit and was offered food. Since it was Holy Thursday, my sisters were eating noodles delivered from a Japanese restaurant that didnt'really celebrate holy weeks. I told them I'd just eat it at home, since I really needed to go back. I was thirsty so I went for one of the few remaining bottles of water in the supply. My sister told me that if I were to drink that, they'd run out of water, so I placed the bottle back. I'd just get my own when I get back to the condo. She told me I should buy more, since she couldn't lift the water herself since she had just undergone an operation two weeks before. I told her okay,  I'd have somebody bring the water up before I go back to the hospital. I figured that'd be the cue for a change of topic. Nobody asked me anything remotely related about the incident I was only beggining to walk away from, but I brushed that aside. I just wanted to get some rest. I asked if they were going to Cavite that weekend, as was tradition. Nobody had told me of the plans, so I thought, maybe they could go home I could just catch up. My sister, and I really am understating this, replied "Eh pano kami uuwi, wala naman magddrive?"  in a tone that I know is her condescending, accusatory voice.

Perhaps it was the stress, or the enervation, or the waning shock, but I just lost it at that point. I told her "Nangyari na nga yung nangyari, sinisisi mo pa rin ako kaya di makakauwi? Shet." She told me what the hell was wrong with me, "na kaninang umaga pa ako nagtataas ng boses" I told her she was the one who was talking like I'm the one with the problem. I don't know for sure about my personal stature that morning, but during our earlier conversation I was pretty sure I was still in a very urgent mood, and any tone I may have had was because I was in a pretty fucked up situation.  She went on to drone about how I never treat people properly whenever I am in need. Truly felt like a wTF moment. I realized that the longer I argued back, the more energy I'd have to further spend on something I couldn't afford at the moment. I told her "I dont need this right now." She didnt stop. I took the keys from my younger sister - what I actually just wanted in the first place, and ran out, saying in one breath "walang kwenta".

My sister ran after me even as I rode the elevator, throwing out cusses that rent my battered soul so helplessly. It was uncharacteristic of her to hit me while I was so down, and yet there she was, literally verbally abusing me, on top of her lungs, and within earshot of all neighbors. Janine quietly guided us back to the condo. I felt I shouldn't, but the amount of hurtful words said about me and Anna, compelled me to come back and give her a dose of her own medicine. I tried to be as civil as I could. I told her I was under so much stress. She told me she's been through worse. I told her I never did the same thing whenever she was. She was simply unstoppable, incorrigible. At one point, we made Janine recall the exact events that happened. I pointed out how she had the gall to order me to buy water, to refuse me water, without ever asking how I was, how Anna was. And that it was her who was berating me for being shitty to people who was doing favors. I simply could not accept how this was happening on the very same day that represented the lowest point of my recent life. I walked out again after realizing there was just nothing to fix what had been broken that day.
 
I got home, I saw my computer, still connected to my office workstation, carrying my food. That was the only time that it all sunk in. The accident. The mad rush to get aid. The problematic costs. The fight. It felt like a huge dam of stress building on top of me just burst and crushed me under a torrent of depression. That was probably the first time I cried on my own. I called my sister again. I tried to apologize for my voice, tried explained my part but sensing so hint of remorse, affection, or sympathy on the other end I just ended up having anger get ahead of me, with my sister answering with a stone cold voice that she has done nothing wrong and will never ever apologize for anything. I realized I was talking to an idiot, and was being an idiot in the process. There's this long standing tradition in the family of nobody every saying sorry to anything or anybody. I learned a long time ago that that was a stupid tradition to begin with. Nobody has apparently moved on. So when she asked "what is it that you wanted to tell me by calling?" I told her nothing. I asked if she had anything else to say, and she said nothing as well. I hung up, realizing that I had just gone past my limit.

A voice at the back of my head told me that we become the people that we hate. And that the person who I had just fought with, once upon a time, had described to me the person she hated the most. with the very same words that could've been used to her today. I thought of myself, and realized that I would also come to hate her eventually, and that the only way I could avoid a similar situation was either to forgive or forget. There's something about that situation, me being in my low of lows, that just made me resolve that there will be no forgiveness this time, only forget. And that if in the future there there will be any reconciliation, it will most certainly never begin with me. We are both adults now, and right now I knew where my priorities lay.

Times like this, you see who are the people you can count on, and who are only there to count you out while lying on the mat.

I finally ate my food, cleaned the house, packed clothes and ammenities for two days, took a bath, and rested for half an hour before heading back to the hospital. But not before I bought the water for my sisters. Fight or not, I  already said my promise. Packing a heavy bag, a laptop, and then with some 250 pesos worth of water (heavier than you think), I had to bring it up myself, since I realized that the condos are practically empty due to the long weekend and the last thing I need is to have some stranger bring water to my sisters and realize there's only two women staying in that condo. My lower scoliosis started acting up again, but that was, at the moment, the least of my worries. I brought the water up, my sister opened up for me, wordlessly. I dropped the water, waited a moment to hear if there's anything that she'd say, nothing. So I went back and figured, my resolve was not misplaced.

I took the taxi back to the hospital and tried to put up my cheeriest mood on the way. It was five in the afternoon, barely ten hours since the start of the ordeal. Anna greeted me with a worn out smile. I could only give her half as much. But I realized that the worst just had to be over.

And every step after that could only move us forward.

This is how I'll remember that day.

Phases of a Field Trip

Field trips are about as much of a part in a student's early life as the uneasy experience of having one of his classmates soil his pants (in the sense that it's a yearly thing). And though the nature of field trips tend to change every year (i.e. sometimes somebody gets left behind in a forest, other times somebody vomits, etc), the natural phase by which the school activity occurs is pretty straightforward. This post is about that natural cycle.

0. The night before. This is when packing happens. Excitement usually causes the student to not sleep properly, which grossly affects his chances of being left behind by the bus, or spending half of the field trip knocked out, when his classmates will take funny pictures of him as though some cosmic law dictates that they should, even at risk of being murdered by the victim upon waking up.

1. Morning. Finding a seatmate phase - Finding a seatmate is very important, granted that the teacher is not a control freak who insists that seating should be done by class number, in which case the enjoyment of the trip depends on whether or not the student is chummy with kids whose surnames are alphabetically close to his. In case otherwise where the students are free to choose their 'mates, here are some factors that are considered:

- Whether or not the seatmate has motion sickness. Because seriously, fuck vomiters.
- Whether or not the seatmate brings a lot of snacks, if possible, imported ones. Fuck Humpy Dumpy.
- Whether or not the seatmate has a funny smell, is the class weirdo, or oppositely, the captain of awesomeness

After those things are considered, a seat is sought. Windows generally are given to students who seem like they've never been anywhere outside school or ridden a bus before. The far back part of the bus are for the "awesome" rowdy crowd who'll probably end up dead/in prison/pregnant before they hit 20. The front of the bus is reserved for teacher's pets, those who enjoy seeing the boobs of their teacher bounce as the bus travels in rough roads, and people who do not know the pecking order of this sort of thing. The middle part is reserved for the more normal kids who just want to sleep/much on chips/enjoy not being inside a classroom on a weekday.

2. Morning. Start of trip. - Prayers are in order, unless you're inside some pagan, God-hating school. If you hit the jackpot in having a Saint for a teacher, you will be saying the rosary for the first thirty minutes, which as much as I respect people's beliefs, is really a buzzkill to a kid who'd rather crack jokes about passing vehicles. Baons are revealed to people, carefully, as though one is playing poker, so as to not reveal one's entire loot. Classmates can smell quality junk food from an entire bus's length so it's wise to reserve some for later. After a good few minutes of travel time, the bus already smells like cheese flavoured chips.

3. Prelunch. - If there were no stopovers, chances are the people who munched and drank a lot of snacks right after departure are now holding a "who can hold their pee for the longest while being jeered by pretty much everybody in the bus" contest. Super excited people who couldnt sleep the previous night are, unsurprisingly, asleep.

4. Lunch - Here's the pecking order of a typical field trip lunch:

 A) Kids with fast food for lunch
 B) Kids with neatly prepared food for lunch
 C) Kids with canned goods and rice wrapped in plastic
 D) Kids with Nilaga for lunch (with matching ice cold sebo)
 E) Kids with money, but likely wont find any store because the teacher decided everybody should have lunch in     the middle of a goddamn forest.
 F) Poor kids who will go from table to table to ask for scraps

5. After Lunch - Everybody's asleep. The people who slept the entire morning will be left to themselves to find some form of entertainment, possibly by seeking revenge by taking pictures of people who abused them earlier.

6. Cocacola Bottling Plant - For some reason, every trip involves a vist to a cocacola bottling plant, as though there's more to making coke than providing a bottle, cleaning the bottle, filling bottle with coke from a magical tube that never gets explained, and then the sealing of the bottle. The only good part here is that coke is drink all you can. (for alternatives, see UP Botanical Garden, Bahay ni Rizal, Science Centrum)

7. Completely unplanned urine stop - Because nobody ever considers that exposing kids to bottomless coke and peer pressure will cause their bladders to increase to twice the allowable size from overconsumption. The bus driver has no choice, unless he feels that the bus needs to smell a lot funkier.

8. Return trip - Kids who have previously hoarded up snacks are now panicking to get rid of their stocks. Bags of junkfood are opened and passed around the bus, further increasing the smell of cheese to slightly intolerable levels. The sugar rush of drinking coke and eating candies will be taking toll, leaving kids in a hazy state of morbid stupor. Singalongs are known to break out during this phase, in the same way inmates try to sing about not being inmates when being transfered from one prison to another.

9. Pasalubong - Almost always the final part of the trip that doesn't involve going home just yet. The bus parks at a pasalubong store where they have arrangements with the owner so they can get freebies, cash. Kids buy pasalubongs ever so thoughtfully, after which they forget why they bought pasalubongs in the first place and consume half of what they bought, with the other half left to be mishandled, mangled, and misplaced so that it looks like a well-intended roadkill by the time it reaches the recepients (usually the sundo)

10. Trip home - The part where the bus gets stuck in traffic, some of the kids beg to be dropped off somewhere nearer to their place, during which they'd have to plow through the filthy, crowded bus just to get to the exit while toting their oversized bags and plastic filled with pasalubong. Eventually the bus reaches school, the kids disperse into the night and leave behind enough spilled junk food to make the bus look like somebody detonated a cheese-curls filled IED inside the bus.

This is also probably the last time a class headcount is done, and the teacher realizes that the count's off by one, and that some fat kid got left behind in the pasalubong store because he's too slow in deciding whether to get turones de mani or turones de casuy, neither of which matters because all pasalubongs in the entire Philippines are actually made in Bulacan. 


The END.

Baryang Magiliw - A Review of Philippine Coins

When I was younger, money was very different - the money that I could get my hands on, anyway. The five and ten peso coins did not exist, which was a problem, because bills were much much more fragile than coins. In the hands of a child, the bills were practically wooden ships in a perfect storm of destruction. Banko central probably takes note of the number of five and ten peso bills that get destroyed every year, and 3 quarters of those would be attributed to "left in the pockets of a gradeschool student's shorts and then machine washed" and "crumpled beyond recognition by grubby little oilstained hands"

On the other (grubby) hand, we had the two peso coin. It was awesome. Like, the pinnacle of modern currencies. Hot-blooded and bare chested Bonifacio solo'ed that coin, until he moved up a notched and started bunking with Apolinario Mabini in the 10 peso bill, and then later in the 10 peso coin. I'd say it's tantamount to a barkada dick move, hanging out with a friend with a higher face value just because. Well, I don't blame Andres Bonifacio hanging out with Mabini. Who'd he bunk up with? Aguinaldo? History says that guy had him shot, twice probably. Putting them in the same coin would be like a spanish-era Tom and Jerry commemorative. Funny, but morbid.

haters gonna hate


The two peso coin was decagonal in shape. What was that? You thought it was octagonal? Well, welcome to the club. It was heavy, and its shaped gave it sharp angles. If you didn't consider how much candy it could give you, you could think it was designed to be a child's perfect throwing weapon, like a minor denomination ninja star or something.

Actually the same can be said about most of our coins before. They were heavy, and pitched at the right force,

they can do some mighty damage. They're twice as light now, probably adjusted so on humanitarian grounds and on

the pleas of the thousands of coin-flinging victims all over the country. I remember before when the newer, lighter coins came out, people went batshit insane about how the coins are so small we'd start losing them. We probably did, but the Department of Jeans, Shorts, and Paldas is happy to report that the number of busted pockets per capita has drastically gone down after a bag of coins stopped being as heavy as .50 rifle rounds.

Thinking about it, the weight probably has something to do with our perceived value of two pesos. Back then, like when you went christmas carolling and the house gave you a 2 peso coin instead of having the dog chase you for two blocks, you felt like you had a lot on hand, and that's because you DID. The coin is heavy, large, and you'd see Bonifacio's stern face staring at you from his decagonal frame, as though he's alive. "Where the fuck is the rest of my body," he'd probably say. And that made it feel even more important.

But no. Nowadays, you get two one peso coins with Rizal's face in it. Rizal in case you didn't know, is a richboy kid who barely spoke Tagalog, loved everything Spanish, went against independence and the revolution. If Rizal were alive today, he'd be that crazy hipster who makes Starbucks his second home and  keeps on advocating we should have stayed an American colony. And you get two lousy coins with his face on instead of the 2 peso coin.

I say, let's remove the one peso coin instead and reinstate the 2 peso coin, remove Bonifacio from the Baryang Walang Hagdan and place him back where he belongs. What can 1 peso buy nowadays anyway? Then just so we don't look like heartless bastards, let's bunk Rizal with Aguinaldo, and maybe he'll have him shot again, which might not be such a bad thing because hey, free holiday.

Let's just hope he does it sometime after Easter Sunday, holiday economics and all.    

Pambansang Laro Ng Pilipinas

Bakit nga ba SIPA ang pambansang laro ng Pilipinas? Wala akong kakilala na naglalaro ng SIPA. Di ko napapanood sa TV ang sipa. Sa totoo lang di pa ako nakakakita ng totoong laro ng sipa bukod sa PE namin nung highschool.

Talaga bang may sport na sipa? O kathang isip lang natin yun? Bakit walang binebentang bolang ratan sa mga sports shop?

Ang sipa lang na alam ko, yung larong pambata na ang gamit e tingga at balat ng kendi. Kung medyo sosyal, yung may parang straw pa na wig, ewan ko kung ano tawag dun. Tassle? Dapat ata yun na lang nag pambansang laro natin. Isipin mo, pag televised sya, pati yung sipa, may sponsor na - nakadisplay dun sa balat ng kendi.

Kung sa dami nang mga sport natin na TOTOONG nilalaro, bakit di na lang antin palitan ang sipa? Eto ang ibang possible suggestions sa national game/sport natin:

1. Patintero Professional League

2. Ultimate Trumpo Championship

3. Putangina Mo Piko Tayo Federation

4. Henry Sy's Chinese Garter Open 2011

5. Pambansang Palakasan ng Inuman

6. Ewan. Matulog na lang tayong lahat.

Anything but Classes

There's this interesting theory relating age and perception of time, in that the younger you are, the longer a unit of time appears to you. Like an adult's perception of a jailtime in years, would be relatively equivalent to a child's afternoon inside a classroom. (I am not shitting you, you can google "age and perception of time" and find medical papers on this issue). But whether or not this is the reason as to why, the 8 hours of classroom-based instruction felt like Reclusion Perpetua doesn't really matter. What mattered was that it did felt like Reclusion Perpetua, and that as kids we'd grovel for any hint of excuse so we don't have to stay glued to our seats, which at the time might as well been filled with spikes.

Luckily, during certain points of the year, we had these school events, which were still boring as fuck, but was a vast improvement from what we felt was destroying our souls - the four walls of the classroom. Here are some of those events:

First Friday Mass - The most common reason why we shouldn't be inside the classroom learning stuff, is that we're hearing mass as a school. The mass lasts for only an hour and it's pretty standard affairs, unless the ever colorful theater club decides to do a production number after the gospel which showcases their "diversity" by portraying a play with an all-girl characterization. (hint: I'm from an all boys school) I remember only two instances when this event broke my expectations - when our teacher thought every song in the mass should be given the DEATHMETAL treatment which turned out so epic, I bet Jesus reconsidered for a moment the ROCK by which he built the Church upon. The other time was when our class had to be placed next to a class of students from an all girls school across the street (that was awesome too).

Living Rosarhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify - The Living Rosary, and I apologize for what insult I may cause by being honest, is the most boring event in the list, and I sometimes contemplate that somewhat, being stuck inside the classroom is better than this. It's like saying the rosary, but for an entire half day. Each hail mary is represented by some poor student rep who has to stand in the middle of the campus, under the heat of the scorching sun. Lots of intermissions happen in between prayers and at some point, people forget what the hell it is that they're doing. It's like the woodstock of Roman Catholicism. Best part of it is when they launch a set of balloons shaped like a rosary, for reasons which escape me to this day.

Mini fair/Mission Sunday - The only bad thing about these fairs is that they rarely ever happen on a school day. So instead of being saved from classes, you're forced to slice off a chunk of your weekend for these activities. I've covered in lengthy detail how much these fairs suck in another article, which can be read here: http://redkinoko.blogspot.com/2011/01/school-fairs-suck.html

Intramurals - I still don't know why they're called intramurals. Intramurals literally means "inside the walls", which is pretty much everything that we do in school. Why can't we just call it "sports fest" like normal people? Anyway, there are only three sports in my school - basketball, volleyball, and tug of war. The last of the three is taken so seriously, I remember one teacher feeding her players ever so generously right before a match so they can gain more "traction". It's crazy. Also, does chess count as a sport? No? Good. I hate chess.

Recognition Day - The time of the year where people recognize each other, because other days, they don't even know people's names. I don't really have a lot of stories for this event, other than during our batch, the clubs had this internal arrangement of giving awards to other clubs in exchange for receiving awards in return. There was like a black market of awards that flourished weeks before the event, so much so that by the end of the recognition day, the presidents of the Science club and Theater club were so loaded with awards and trophies they had to take the taxi home because they wouldn't have been able to haul their "awards" otherwise. Me? I got me a gold, a silver, and a bronze. Just for the heck of it.

Fire drills - For a school where the windows are made of wood, the flooring is wood, and two out of five buildings are made of ACTUAL wood, we rarely had this sort of thing. Matter of fact, I stayed there for ten years and can only recall two drills, one of which we were required to arrange ourselves alphabetically, which arguably took longer than just walking out of the fucking door, since we are arranged randomly inside the class room. (imagine in an actual fire you're yelling "WHO GOES NEXT AFTER TRINIDAD? HURRY MY LEG HAS CAUGHT FIRE")

Actual fires - The funny part is that this happens more often than the fire drill. If it's not our canteen catching fire, it's the incinerator placed conspicuously beside our oldest wooden building which also used to house the gradeschool library. And it happens again and again. You'd think we're a fireman training university or something. Still, whatever lets us keep away from regular boring classes is most welcome.

Rainy Day Blues

As a kid there were only two things that could make my weekday morning exciting: aliens invading the earth and the possibility of cancelled classes. Between the two, the former is less likely, but the latter is less likely to happen as it should be.

I don't care what people say. Kids nowadays have it easy when it comes to announcement of classes. Sure, the decision still gets delayed, depending whether or not the magical tarot cards of the Dep Ed secretary align with the planets, but things like that are just meant to stay the same.

What's important now is that people are actually paying attention, or at least seem like they're exerting effort to pay attention to whether or not kids should be commuting when half of the roads on the way to school has turned into a cholera-powered version of Splash Island.

Back then it was much crazier. The Dep Ed secretary seemed like the grand old man of Mt. Banahaw, who, if could not be found, is actually soundly sleeping to the tune of the falling rain. (and we all know how tempting this becomes during rainy season)

There was no internet yet, so we all had to rely on amazingly distracted AM newscasters who kept on changing topics every 0.5 seconds. One minute you're listening to them look for the DepEd secretary, and then the next, they're telling everybody tuning in, including the hapless kids of course, of a grissly murder that involves intestines being used as ornamental accessories.

To make it worse, at times, you'd get two different radio stations saying different things. Dude A will tell you NCR has no classes (YAY), but in another station, Parañaque, where I went to school, is leaving the decision up to the school principal. Which is which? It's like googling for "will masturbation kill me", whichever answer you prefer, you can find it if you look for it hard enough.

Speaking of "leaving the decision up to the school", it has got to be the worst possible call of Dep Ed next to "make the kids scoop out the floodwater", because quite frankly, I wouldn't trust the same school that makes kids eat canteen food containing weaponized-grades of household bacteria to decide what's safe for students.

To make matters worse, the only way for you to reach the school is by calling the office number, which is, of course in an office, which is, of course, open during.. and I bet you wouldn't really expect this. OFFICE HOURS. You could call the guard, sure, but the best he can give you is whether or not the school gates look like the entry to the Atoll in Waterworld, and whether or not a no flippers no entry policy will be enforced.

So worst case scenario is, half of the known world has already cancelled classes, your neighbors are busy inflating their emergency rafts and bringing up their gargantuan television sets up stilts, and you're hoping for a miracle that wading into the floods to go to school will not give you gangrene, because everybody knows kids who have rotting flesh on them will never hear the end of jokes - the worst thing a kid can contemplate.

SO yeah, you go to school anyway, walk, ride, wade or even swim like you're breaking out of alcatraz and school is your only way out, and then halfway through- or worse, the moment you arrive, you, together with other students who look like they just went through a Pista de San Juan Bautista will find a nice piece of paper the size of a mobilephone sim card saying "Classes cancelled", signed by the principal, and tacked on the most convenient location - i.e. the top of your school tower.

So you brave the weather, accept your fate and try to go home. Half of your day is spent on begging strangers to take you anywhere the water is not waist deep and the wind doesnt rape your wet body. Against all odds and common reasoning, instead of finding yourself a dead corpse in some creek, you get home soaked to the pancreas.

Finally.

Thirty minutes later, it's sunny as fuck and nothing has happened, amd you're left to enjoy the rest of your surprise holiday with a burning fever and foot infection.

Some days.

Red Book - The Real Filipinos

Sometimes in our lives, we are given the privilege to witness extraordinary things but we do not do not realize how significant they really are until much later in our lifetimes. Some things simply do not sparkle unless viewed from hindsight, where they show their true nature and become golden. This post is about one those events, written for posterity, that never will come the day that I forget when I saw what it meant to be real Filipinos.

When I was about five and living in Saudi Arabia, I distinctly recall having a couple stay with my family for a short while. They were tad older than my folks, but they were a pleasant lot. We lived in a small apartment of two bedrooms, only slightly larger than the first floor of our house in the Philippines so I remember being slightly pissed at the idea that they would occupy the room of me and my sister. On the other hand, the lady taught my mom how to cook pizza and cheesecake, and I got to sleep with mom and dad again. After a couple of weeks, we brought them someplace in Riyadh (we lived in Al-Khobar) and I got to eat at McDonald's, and that for me was the highlight of the trip.

That was my version of the story, from the point of view of a five year old, a good twenty-two years ago.

As I grew up and pieced together things from my sister, my parents, and later understanding of other much more subtle things that I remember, the picture that emerged was entirely different.

One night, my dad was in a public long distance call center. International direct calls used to be very limited back then so we had to visit these places just to place calls to the Philippines. It was then that another Filipino approached him. I do not know what exactly the man said but he told my dad that he was familied like he was, and hoped my dad would understand his situation and help out.

As it turned out the man my father was talking to had run away from their employing family who withheld their passports and put them on the police search list for runaways. They needed a place to stay. My dad, hearing the man's plight gave our address, and soon enough, the next day, they arrived at our place.

First, note that this man is a total stranger to my father, who has the whole family living in the address that he just gave away. And while I can say that living in Saudi brings out the best in Filipinos, I cannot say that there are also bad apples that tend to act desperately if not criminally in the face of hard life there. Second, we are not talking about the United States, or the Philippines. Saudi Arabia has unforgiving laws, be it towards criminals, or even those who seek to harbor them. Knowing these things, my dad agreed.

Throughout the stay, we did our best to help them become accommodated. My dad had to work so this left our mom, my sister and me to the company of our guests. Tita Cory and her husband, whose name eludes everybody in my family, also tried hard to make themselves useful. Part of the help they gave was the cooking lessons that Tita Cory gave my mom, which to this day I'm still grateful for (Mom's pizza and cheesecake are still the best).

All is not well though, and at the time, although I did not know it because she hid it from us kids, Tita Cory was already languishing at their plight, being stuck in a stranger's household and not being able to send money back to the Philippines to help her children and family. Being outlaws, they could not even go outside our house that had no windows (for insulation) and almost zero means of entertainment. (It was the late 80s, cable was not yet mainstream, betamax availability was few and far in between and the internet did not yet exist in Saudi). I could guess the boredom amplified the stress of hiding. My mother told me Tita Cory cried a lot, and if ever there's anything my dad has a soft spot for, it's crying women.

The problem with returning back to the Philippines is that you can't do it without a passport. And even if you do have it, you can't simply walk into an airport with your name on the hitlist of the police. The only ticket you're getting is one straight to jail. The only way out is through the Philippine Embassy, which we did not have in Al Khobar. It's in Riyadh, which is 389 kilometers away from Al Khobar. To put that distance in perspective, that's the distance between Manila and northern Ilocos Sur. The road between the two cities is a highway cutting across a swath of desert land, patrolled by police and laced with checkpoints where they check foreigners for documents. In short, just moving from one city to another was already very risky business.

My dad knew just letting them stay with us was already pushing our luck, and that the trip was no trivial matter considering he was also working full time on two jobs. He went around our building to bring the matter to his closest friends to see who could help. Understandably, nobody would agree to help. Who wouldn't say no to something that would jeopardize both their safety and livelihood for people they did not even know?

That said, my dad knew that if there was anybody who could do something about it it would have to be him. So one morning, we all woke up, got into dad's company car, and went for the long trip to Riyadh. Before we left, I noticed that there was money in my pocket. I gave it to my mother and as it turns out, it was tita Cory's small way of thanking us for our cooperativeness. We returned the money anyway, knowing she'd probably need it more than I do. (This part my mom told me, as I could no longer remember it ever happening)

I remembered sitting on somebody's lap. I don't remember who though. But at the time, I didn't know how dangerous what we were doing was. Hiding the folks was one danger, being on the road with them where one patrol or checkpoint could expose how we were helping undocumented aliens was completely another. My mom told me that one possible reason why my dad brought me and my sister along is that Saudis tend to have a weakness when it comes to children, and they become lax in their checks. Me? I was just happy to tag along. I was five and bored, so I was just enjoying the trip.

Thankfully we never got to test the child-weakness theory of my dad. As though the hand of God was at work, that day, there was not a single checkpoint on the road on the way to Riyadh. I don't remember ever dropping them off but I do remember Tita Cory was teary eyed when we were within the city already. Funny how her face at that specific time was the only one I ever remember of her. I remember eating at McDonald's afterwards, which at the time only existed in Riyadh. As a side note, if ever you think going a block or two for Mickey D's is a bitch, try three hundred kilometers.

On our way back, the significance of the act of God seemed more apparent as the places where there were no checkpoints before were now filled with police. Had we not been at the right place at the right time, Lord only knows what would have happened.

As an epilogue, I later learned that the couple, through the help of the embassy, was able to return the Philippines. Later on they both went back to work this time in a cruise ship, where Tita Cory became a chef. My parents and the couple exchanged few and brief correspondences and pasalubong packages a few years after the incident but sadly we've not heard of them ever since.

My parents risked livelihood and life to save a couple of strangers who for all practical reasons given our situation could have been ignored. People say that Filipinos are generally hospitable for their generous treatment of their guests. That's probably true, but I also think that the real hospitality, the nobler and less practiced, and less publicized one is the hospitality that moves us to help out and accommodate strangers, the value that turns us into Samaritans in face of great risks to ourselves and our loved ones to do something inherently altruistic and human.

That day I saw a glimpse of the real kind of hospitality.

The real Pinoy spirit.

That day I saw Real Filipinos.

Red Book - Teacher Talk

If there's anything to be scared about in school, it's the teachers. Sure some of your classmates might beat you up in one of the fights, but that's more of a temporary thing. If there's anything I learned about kids early in life, it's that kids have the attention span of a particularly forgetful goldfish. One day you're burying fists in each other's faces, the next day you're sharing coke from a single straw. No, that's not really what's to be scared about.

It's the teachers.

In the land called school, they're the judge, juror, executioner, and occasionally the object of your prepubic lust.

You read that last one right.

I know, I know. I went to an all-boys school. Try to understand.

Cross me and you're going to wish you get this before I get you.

A teacher is not legally allowed to beat up a kid in class. We're not barbaric. What are we, South Korea? No, the worst physical thing a teacher can do is to vent out at other inanimate things incapable of filing assault and battery charges in Bantay Bata 163 such as the blackboard, the cleaning closet, Mark the retard...

Here are other things they usually do without having to resort to manhandling:

1. Throw chalk at you with the precision of a Barret M107 sniper rifle. Years of practice have enabled the more seasoned teachers to reclassify these harmless writing implements into precision strike munitions. 

2. Throw shoes at you. I have no idea on this one, but for some reason it's something that occurs often enough for me to remember. 

3. Make obscene remarks about how they will fong your internal organs. (as immortalized by our Drafting teacher's "babarukahin ko ang bituka mo" the meaning of which eludes me to this day)

4. Throw your notebook on the floor and treat it as though it's the progenitor of the bubonic plague. 

5. Pull your sideburns. I have strong belief that this is the equivalent of capital punishment in the education system. I cannot think of anything more painful, short of an in-classroom crucifiction followed by a 4-chapter nonstop reading of Noli Me Tangere. But that's too inhuman already. Nobody should endure Noli any longer than a chapter every two days.

So to recap, they can do anything EXCEPT lay hands on you, which is very rarely employed and even then, they're done secretively by some teachers who learned how to teach lessons by watching instructional videos from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. For the rest, they have to delegate things to the only people on earth who can, legally and backed by the 1986 National Constitution, beat your ass black and blue.

Your parents.

If a teacher deems you too unruly for her tastes, she'd issue a demand to see your parents. That's when shit just crumbles. First, you have to tell your parents. Parents, being busy people, absolutely hate having to leave whatever it is that they are doing, just to apologize to a bunch of strangers who they are already paying four times a year to keep you out of the house. They're busy, but never too busy to beat you up. 

Strike one.

Of course, when the teachers meet up with the parents, they will mention anything BUT you. I assume the teachers are probably sick of talking to and about adrenaline-junkie children all day and would kill to talk to normal adults. So they'll talk on and on about life, the works, and how they met their husbands 30 years ago, which of course your PARENT are not interested in, but cannot skip because they are in school specifically to ensure that you don't end up out-of-school, which means they'll have to put up with you longer than they already do. At the end of the session the teacher sells the PARENT everything from underwear to life insurance to house and lots. PARENTS HATE THIS. So the first thing they do after they see you again, at the privacy at your own home, they will beat you up for having to put up with all that. Again. 

Strike two.

So in a way, teachers still have the power to manhandle you. But like syndicate bosses, instead of laying hands on you in a personal way, they have bouncers to do the ass kicking for them. At the same time, they earn commission from whatever they manage to sell in the process. It's a win-win situation - for them at least.

As a separate note to our non-Filipino/non-Asian readers, beating an offspring is still the norm in our country. While this maybe reported as unethical by a lot of western countries, we maintain a liberal position on the issue and only limited by the "no blood no foul" rule, end even so, it's more of a guideline than an actual law. Try it sometime. I doubt any kid will have the guts to bring a gun to school knowing that getting caught dead or alive will still mean having to answer to their parents and God-given rights to give a healthy dose of behaviour-corrective physical therapy.

Going back, one of the more noteworthy things about our teachers is that unlike most progressive schools in the country nowadays where the teachers are young and don't stay very long, our teachers have been around for a lot longer than most infrastructures in town. And I wish I was making this up, but my doctor, who is probably no less than 25 years older than me had the same FIRST GRADE teacher as me. The teacher who was pulling my sideburns had, 25 years ago, been pulling my doctor's sideburns as well. We made jokes about how Homer, author of Odyssey went blind because of doing homework for our History teacher, and we half believed that the only reason it can't be true is because they were probably living in different continents at that time. Some of these teachers are so timeless, they're probably still doing what they do best right at this minute. Like right now.

These are the few, the grand, the seasoned people who have for years honed their skills in teaching and disciplining the worst kinds of student to the extent that some feats they perform, when not taken in the context of school, can be mistaken for superpowers. Here are some of those things:

1. They can hurl things at amazingly accurate trajectories. Nevermind that half of our teachers are over sixty. If they can lift it, sure as hell they can chuck it at anybody's direction with an accuracy that would put our SWAT teams to shame. As mentioned above, the only way to avoid getting hit by anything is to avoid putting teachers in a situation where throwing something is the most convenient option they have at disciplining you.

2. Teachers have an amazing ability to recall names of students, even if they handle 5 classes a year with fifty students each. They'd still remember a student from 1991 who happened to have exceptionally horrible handwriting 20 years later. It's like talking with a living breathing google. Once you put it out there, they'll be able to pull it out years later, in the most embarrassing manner possible. Whereas, by comparison, I can't even remember the name of the guy at work I talked to earlier. What I do believe is that he's my boss. (I think)

3. Teachers can read your mind. I'm not saying all teachers can read your mind. Some of them, most of them the younger ones who haven't suffered the continuous onslaught of puberty-related evils, are just plain clueless. The rest, the veterans, can read your mind like it's morning paper headline on a bright sunny day. The only reason why you think they never seem to listen is that they don't care, and most of the time, what's on your mind isn't worthy of exiting it through any orifice of your body anyway. If there's still doubt in your mind, try cheating. If there's some brilliant plan you're thinking of, chances are there's somebody who's tried to do it already 5, 10 years ago. It's still old hat, no matter what. Speaking of which,

4. Once there was a teacher who said to us that she could hear the voice of God speaking to her during exams to tell her who was cheating. While I'd love to say how much implausible that may be, and I shit you not, this teacher CAN catch cheaters better than Angela Lansbury catches murderers in Murder She Wrote. For the teacher's case, you didn't even need to commit the act. The moment your mind formulates a plan, the teacher's eyes are already glued on you, like a hungry hawk waiting for the poor mouse to make a move. If we had ombudsmans at par with my teacher, the instant politicians meet the eyes of madame teacher, they'd be pleading guilty to 10 years of prison already. Teachers can sniff dishonesty, fear, and body odor beyond normal human limits.

If Professor X were among our teachers in gradeschool/highschool, the only thing that would probably make him stand out is that he's got slightly less hair than his male colleagues. Other than that, he'd be joe ordinary.

One day I'm going to have kids. And they'd probably have to put up with teachers like that too. The odds of them meeting the very same teachers with me if they got to the same school are reasonable enough and they'd get their sideburns pulled by third generation punishment. I'd say it'll be all good, and maybe someday when their patilyas are no longer hurting so bad, we'd have a good laugh about it.

At least maybe until the teachers summon me.

School Fairs Suck

Mission Fair, School Fair, Mini Fair. We have a lot of names for this particular school activity, but no matter what it's called, it mostly sucks. The only reason why I have so many fond memories of it is because when I got to experienced it, I was young, gullible, and easily amused. Even then, I wouldn't really have it any other way, because hey, if it took me away from having to put up with reading books, wearing uniforms and eating shitty cantee - oh wait - scratch that one. In any case, anything that breaks the monotony of school life, be it a fair, a program, or the occasional threat of one of our antediluvian wooden buildings burning down due to embers coming from the canteen chimney, it's always more than welcome.

Minifairs are held once a year in our school, almost always under the premise that any income generated from the fair will be donated to the funds of our adopted missionary institutions. Everybody is welcome to put up their own booths for generating money from both students and visitors alike. For students in an all-boys school this is also an opportunity to convince ourselves that there are women in this world who aren't as old as our parents and teachers. (Something I did not fully understand until college) It's almost like visiting hours for a prison - except unlike prison visitation hours, mini fairs don't happen every day. To ensure the fair has constant population, students are required to attend at the threat of teacher-related retribution, and are not allowed to leave for a set amount of hours. Again, like prison. I'm not saying our school IS prison, but I bet if we annexed paranaque city jail we wouldn't least feel different.

Here are some of the things that are worth noting about minifairs in our school:

Chits - Chits are like the equivalent of Disney Dollars - they're the official currency of the mini fair. I don't know who it was that thought of it, but he or she should be commended for thinking of "chits". Bloody GENIUS.There are moneychangers at the entrance of the fairgrounds that exchange your money into flimsy token representatives of the money you should be holding in your hand. They are usually constructed with special paper that cannot be counterfeited since they're so easy to ruin, merely looking at them the wrong way can disintegrate them. So yeah, they're basically Disney Dollars, except you are not in Disneyland, and the chits are only valid for the one or two days that the fair is occurring. Come end of the weekend, your chits magically turn into bullchit. It's a one-way investment that's rigged to make you lose money. The basic idea of chits is - trap the population of a congressional district into an enclosed space half the size of a football field, and then refuse to accept Philippine pesos in any booth so people either use your currency or have them starve/get bored to death. Money comes in and it never comes out. Kim Jong Il and that Jew from The Merchant of Venice would be so proud.

Raffles - no minifair would be complete without raffles where nobody ever wins. I was in the school for ten years and never have I seen anybody even remotely related to me win anything. Not even a goddamn toaster. I figured the winners are actually also from the fair committee who, after claiming the prize, secretly return it back to the prize stash for next years fair. That damn toaster is probably older than me too. The raffle tickets are very cheap, but they are given as a whole booklet to every student who are then forced to SELL THEM TO EVERYBODY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Think about it. Each class in school has 40 kids. There are five sections for every level, six in gradeschool, four in highschool. that's 40 x 5 x 10 = 2000 children with 50 tickets each. 100,000 tickets all in all. The population of the entire CITY OF PARANAQUE - and this includes the farflung areas who couldn't give a shit about our school - during the 90s is pegged at about 400000. That means if the children of our school wanted to avoid having to buy our own tickets, we will have to sell a ticket to 1 out of four citizens of Parañaque, including Septuagenarians, retards, homeless people, and babies. YES IM MAD GOD DAMN IT. GIVE ME A MINUTE.

...

Okay, let's get a move on before I pop a nerve.

Food - The food is probably the reason why people buy chits. You can always starve yourself of entertainment, but not of food. To ensure that you're bound to go hungry, jail booths and "jailers" are put in place so the majority of people will be in constant tension and occassionally have to run. Apart from that, all students are required to do field demonstrations. We'll get to both of those in a moment. Back to food. Now food in minifairs is food when there is no minifair. The same shady-looking canteener who wouldn't look out of place in Tales from the Crypt is the same person cooking minifair food. The only difference is that prices are jacked up a notch, on the premise that "it's all for the mission". I can't help but think that the "mission" is a mission to strip you of any material belonging so we can all live like John The Baptist or something. To make things worse, since everything is traded by chits, it's not unusual to find that some store booths start running out of chits for change. So what do they do? They shift the currency to CANDY, as though it holds some sort of magical monetary value. Yeah, that's what children need. Less money, more sugar. Because really, fuck capitalism.

There are other guest food providers like Pizza Hut and Jollibee, but of course, they also have jacked up their prices. When you are a kid given a paltry allowance everyday, as is most of the kids back then, being able to afford a Chickenjoy is a sign of affluence. Being able to buy Chickenjoy DURING a fair when the prices are exoribtantly higher shows you have enough money to not give a shit. It's the ultimate symbol of luxury, the equivalent of overpriced cocaine for kids.

Program - Since we're not in a war and it's technically illegal for schools to detain non-students, the organizers are forced to prepare a program beforehand to "entice" outsiders to come into the school and pay the entrance fee. (Yes, they actually forced you to pay to enter school during fairs, even though you're a student, even though most of the time you're also helping out with some booths.) Anyway, my experiences came at about the time cable tv was just starting to take hold of people's attentions, so this wasn't so hard. All they had to do was invite "stars". By stars I mean not the A-listers, by stars I mean, "people who might or might not have appeared on TV on more than one occasion, and is probably related to one of the organizers by sheer luck". Still, their performances and mere appearance are more than enough to attract people.

Apart from the stars, students of all levels in gradeschool are also encouraged to do "field demonstration" which is something sort of an organized dance - which is kind of a misnomer considering all dances are supposed to be organized in one way or another. For FD's, organized means you have students of an entire level doing the same action formed in lines like the military, under the heat of the sun, forced to show the fruits of the labor of practicing for several weeks in lieu of actual academic work (which is okay too, I guess) to the parents, who for some reason always act bewelidered at the idea that their son can actually dance like everyody else in their level, or for the case of my parents, at the idea that their son cannot dance, period.

Thinking about it, Minifairs are just like longer versions of recess for us children, in the sense that it keeps us away from the classrooms, and that the amount of what we get from the experience depends on how far our allowances will go.

Okay, I've written a fairly long entry already, but I still haven't gone over the types of "booths" you can actually enjoy. Let's leave that for part 2.

Red Book - What School Was Like

(note: this is just an overview. There are a lot of seperate posts on the topics covered here, and I tried my best to include them all under the same tag, for your reference)

See, my school wasn't exactly one of those high end educational institutions that had their own swimming pools, airconditioned classrooms, or covered basketball courts. What we had on campus was our own quadrangle which I've always thought as oddly named because the vacant space in the middle of our campus had more than four sides. It served as our basketball court, playground, and marshalling field. How we made use of the vacant space was up to our imagination. Occasionally, it will rain so hard that the only drain in the middle of our campus gets clogged so our quadrangle turns into a makeshift swimming pool - or rather puddle, which we kids took advantage of by running around getting our shoes and clothes wet, for reasons I still cannot recall, but back then it felt like such a brilliant idea.

So yeah, there wasn't much recreation to go around, which is probably why I have assloads of memories of us playing the usual games of taguan, cops and robbers, agawan base, patintero, and "suntukan hanggang may umiyak". But then again, if you've been keeping tabs, I spent my preschool and first grade in a school fit into a single floor of a particularly rundown building built by people from an alternate dimension where windows don't exist. Any classroom setup that let me see the outside world every now and then, and did not contain refugees from the Gulf War was an upgrade.

One thing worth noting about our school is that while other schools like to claim they were built on top of cemeteries, WW2 concentration camps, and vampire lodgings, ours was the real fucking deal. Everytime somebody tried to dig around, bones would turn up. That kind of explains why we never have gardening class, and why there's always that weird guy from Funeraria Jose gleefully standing by whenever there's construction going on.

Our school looked like a fort, with three buildings and the nearby church forming concentric walls that protect the quadrangle from the prying eyes of the outside world. Each building was a about three floors, with the lower grade classes on the lower floors and the higher grades on the higher floors. This was designed on the basis that younger children have not yet learned to avoid hauling packs of books everyday by finding improvised lockers, since lockers seem to be tools of satan in the view of our teachers, and having to climb three stories everyday with such a load would turn them into vegetables by the time they hit fourth grade.

As for facilities, we had a library which housed materials that haven't been updated since 1982 (this was still the case up until 1999, seven years after the cold war ended). We had a canteen, crewed by the living dea - err - our dear canteeners. We also had a media room, which still had those fancy slide projectors that haven't been in production since the Vietnam war. It wasn't really until two years before I graduated that the school wised up and started upgrading their equipment. By the time I left, we had a library that had data on the last two administrations, working internet, and a science laboratory that no longer looked like it was bought second hand from a mad scientist (although the preserved fetuses were still around. Who the fuck uses those anyway? It's not like we need to see dead babies to study biology.) We also had a music room, which had no music instruments save for a vertical piano which I've always wanted to use but could never do so because we weren't allowed to touch it or even look at it directly.

Interestingly enough, there's only one music teacher for the entire school, teaching 6 gradeschool levels, 4 highschool levels, at 5 sections per level on the average, containing about 45 students per class. You do the math.

The tuition fee was lower than average, but it was still well above public school education. The place was founded and run by Belgian missionaries, which may sound good Chocolate-wise, but trust me, there is no chocolates involved other than what my mom used to bribe my teachers so they won't snap one day and just strangle me to death instead of sending me to the principals office. These bribery cases are more often than one might think, since it's more of something that's bound to happen at least once per school year (yes, I was quite the little tool back then). But I digress.

Red Book - Childhood Chow

Back then, if there's one thing I sucked at more than Math, Art, Science and pretty much all school subjects in general, it's the ability to not lose my lunch kit. From the first grade up until senior highschool, I probably lost enough Tupperwares and Colemans to send the children of a house-to-house salesman to a college somewhere in England. After a while my mom kind of wised up and thought it more cost effective if I just bought food in school for lunch. This post is my recollection of the places where I spent those lunches in (whenever I hadn't unwisely spent/saved my lunchmoney for other things stupid kids waste money on).

Chirlay - Chirlay sold affordable tapsilog, longsilog, and tocilog meals. From what I recall, at one point in time, the franchise was successful enough to have two branches. The branch where we ate, however, was a bit more special due to its location. While the place itself was decently clean, it was situated strategically beside the Parañaque river, which gladly gave us the entertainment of guessing what kind of dead animal was floating by (it seems we saw at least one everytime we tried) or what kind of garbage was nearby basing solely on the putrid smell emanating from the waterway. The damn place was beside something that was less of a body of water than an open canal so that was kind of expected. The tapa was good though, and when you're a kid looking for a decent budget eatin', that's about all that matters.


Ka Pabeng - On the grounds of bang for buck, Ka Pabeng has to be the cheapest. Even as late as 1999, Ka Pabeng offered a heaven of a lunch for a paltry 35 pesos. You get one viand, which is often touted as catering-quality, a cup of sopas (albeit the sopas tasted like water with macaroni bits - which my friend Chris fondly called "sagmaw" or water used for washing rice), and unlimited rice. Read that. Unlimited RICE. They'd serve a plateful of rice on your table and everybody around you could get their fill. When the plate goes empty, they replace it with more. If you were early enough, that rice could also be fried rice. I'm not sure you remember for your case, but if you're adolescent, it seems that your body requires you enough calories to run a steam locomotive. Giving a teenager unlimited rice is like throwing water into a nuclear meltdown. It will help, but you're going to need assloads. I'm not sure if this place is still around, or if teenagers like me have cleaned the place up. You never bet against the appetite of a teenager. Never.

Palengke TakeOut - Admittedly the shop does not have any name, and this is about as close as a name as I can give it. Located on one of the aisles of the old La Huerta fleamarket, the PTO offers meals packed into one styrofoam, which in my humble opinion, is a generous amount of serving already - and at the vice-friendly price of less than 25 pesos. PTO proved essential during those times that you needed to take your lunch somewhere away from school due to lunchbreak play practices, newspaper collection drives, and simulated prison breaks. Best item on their list is the everpresent spaghetti which includes half a tasty slice. The sauce doesnt taste like spaghetti sauce any more than the bread tastes like garlic bread, and the color seems to be caused by Achuete, but for some reason I really liked it.

Minute Burger/Burger Machine - You know something that's surprising about Burger machine and minute burger? Their bulilit burger back in 1998 costs about 10 pesos for two pieces. This is at about the same time as when a regular yum costs 15 pesos. Now the regular yum costs about 40 pesos, while the bulilit burger is 20 a pair. It's still damn cheap - as it was back then, which greatly enabled us to save money for other shit like playing computer games at rental shops until our eyes turned red from exhaustion.

Bahay ni Mrs. Andrade - One of the more seasonal places where we ate - our grade five adviser managed to convinced us to eat at her house, which was a stone's throw away from our school. Even then, we knew she was a widow and that it'd help boost her household income, and she knew what exactly we undernourished kids needed - academic leverage. It was the ultimate combomeal. You got food on your table, and plus points on your exams. If you're a kid struggling with grades like me, that's what a real happy meal is all about. Of course there's always that weird vibe of having to eat inside a stranger's house complete with the literal teacher's pet DOG whose only wish in life is to TEAR THE HUMANITY OUT OF YOU with its MONSTROUS CANINE TEETH. But then again, the embotido of Mrs. Andrade was barking awesome so it was a well-offset risk.

Sol-Anne's - Back in the early ninety's, two women Sol and Anne decided to stop working for hotel establishments and just start their bakery for god knows what reason. This became what was to be known as Sol-Anne's. The meals in Sol Anne's was anything but cheap. Even in 1996, a meal there would fetch you 40-60 pesos, and the servings was just enough. The cheapest meal we knew there was the Lumpiang Ubod with rice, which is probably the best vegetarian meal that my young finicky self accepted, not counting cheese curls and other junkfood. For its price though, you get treated to really awesome tasting food, and sightings of lots of Paulinians (students from the all-girls school across ours). Even to this day, if you ask me where to find the best tasting versions of certain viands, I'd point that place out. Even after they relocated to somewhere further, I gladly walked fifteen minutes just to get dem good eatin.

Airport City Mall - This has to be the ultimate dining experience for me back in highschool. Airport City Mall is not a restaurant. It's a freaking mall. It's also worth noting that it's situated 1.5 kilometers away from school, whereas every other entry in this list is no more than 200 meters away. In exchange of course, at my time ACM was the only place there was a Jollibee, a decent arcade, a cinema, and cheap shit merchandise. Its very existence was like a gauntlet thrown at the faces students. Adding to the difficulty of distance, jeeps only passed by the place when they're going towards it. Going back means walking about 300 meters before you can ride a jeep. It was always a dare to go there, at risk of being late, to reap eating regular Yum and playing arcade. The only safe way you could go there without cutting classes was to rely on the "shortened period" system which is so complex that I'd rather not explain here. Short version of it is you get to have a lunch longer than one hour so you get more time to go there. But not us of course. We beat the game, managed to go there, eat lunch at Jollibee, play an entire playthrough of Soul Edge, and run back to school with just enough time to catch our breaths before the school bell rang. It's a power lunch story I'd be so proud to share even to my grandkids one day - but they'd probably be able to play arcade from their brains with their neural implants, and tell me I'm just making shit up to sound like I had it hard. At which point, by the powers bestowed by the Republic to aging people, bitchslap them until they start believing in my story and in the Second Coming at the same time.

But I digress.

You're probably wondering why, for all the horrors and complaints that I have on these establishments, I still end up eating there anyway. The answer is quite simple - the better known alternative, which is staying in school and eating canteen food, is still far worse in my opinion. We've always thought that the only difference between our all-boys school and prison is that at the end of the day we got to go home, while they on the other hand got to eat better.

Filipino Street Foods: A Review

Filipino Street Foods is the perfect storm of the traditional values of cheapness, empowerment, and playing chicken with Death himself, just because. Street food was life's answer to what probably was a common question for every kid like me who did not bring lunch to school: "How do I enable myself to spend money to buy usless shit like cheapass plastic figurines and fake trading cards AND not starve to death in the long run?" Thanks to street foods, I managed to complete my childhood, indulging in child-versions of adult gambling problems, and still survive on my meager allowance for almost 10 years. If I could account for how much streetfood I ate back then, I suppose it'd be around 30% of my bodymass. That said, I suppose I have enough experience and expertise to do this review, because if I ate more than I probably have, I'd be dead from dysentery already.


Scramble - Scramble is one of the more fancy dessert-drinks of my childhood, just above "iron-enriched" icetubig (a.k.a refrigerated rustwater) and slightly below the level of Sago-gulaman-ipis (which is usually a few pesos more expensive). It's the Zagu before people knew Zagu, and it went for cheap. Back in 1991 it was 1 peso for the sachet size, 2 pesos for the cup, which is often reserved for elitist asshole kids who'd grow up ordering Starbucks Macchiato Aformente Venti to compensate for their shirveled gonads. I never really knew what made them pink, which kind of reminded me of eggs laid by snails. Not that I'm suggesting anything. I'm just saying. Scramble is awesome, specially with brown cow. But it's like sex with a snowman (or woman, depending on whether you are sexually confident enough to not mind) - twenty seconds after you stick your straw in, you realize you're just fucking with nothing but lots of ice.

Fishballs - Fishballs are like the staple food when it comes to "tusok-tusok" (in english "fuck utensils"). Whether or not fishballs actually contain fish has been an enduring question over the centuries, as the constitution of the average fishball is 40% air, 50% oil (that will be drained the moment you dip it in the sauce) and 10% lardy substance of ailen origin. Sauces come in three different flavours: sweet, spicy, and sweaty, the availabilty of the last one depending on whether or not it's been a terribly hot day for the vendor.

As a matter of trivia that is of no value to me or you or the enrichment of this article, cholera, hepatitis, amoebiasis and typhoid (in the order that my friends acquired the disease over the years) are often acquired not through the fishball itself but in the dipping bottle of the sauces, because sometimes the water used for the sauces is no different from the water that gets stuck in the gutter after raining for a while, also some assholes dip their fishballs again after taking a bite. Assholes.

Dirty delicious - honestly, I still don't know what they are called. Dirty delicious are like the poor man's meatballs, with barely a hint of meat. They're supposedly ground up meat, some veggies, and lots of flour then deep fried. Dirty Delicious is here for the sole fact that it actually manged to outcheapen the fishballs. At the time fishballs were 25 cents a pop, dirty delicious was 8 pieces a PESO. It's that fucking cheap. Like, when was the last time you actually were able to get anything more than 5 pieces for a peso? I can't even buy that much bond paper on the same coin. Anyway, don't get wrong. It's here because it's also delicious. I don't know what they put in the balls. I'd say cocaine, but the pricetag suggests some cheaper alternative, like paint thinner.

Bopis - Bopis is supposedly cow/pig innards. The most awesome thing about bopis is that unlike Fishballs and dirty delicious, it's actually meat youre eating - although the low price makes you think twice about what what kind you're eating. None the matter, bopis is likewise addicting, and practically dangerous since animal innards aren't served often on the menu for a reason - they're hard to clean properly and even harder to sterilize for human consumption. Nonetheless, fuck yeah. Note that the bopis you eat as a meal, the ground up kind that looks like half cooked sisig, is not the same bopis that gets fried with the stick. The latter, though cheaper, is infinitely more delicious. There are two kinds of bopis on a stick. The first kind is the short stick type, which comes cheaper but with smaller pieces of meat, and then the longer stick type which costs three times more but has more meat, and presumably, less dubiousness. I like surprises though, so personally I prefer the short stick.

Kikiam/Squidball - I'm grouping these two together because they're almost always sold in the same stall. Nowadays though, they're also sold with fishballs. Anyway Kikiam and squidballs are like signature brands for street foods, because they're more expensive than the usual and *gasp* the squidball sometimes remotely tastes like actual squid. (I swear, there was this one time, I took a bit and actually tasted a piece of squid. It was either that or my gums were falling off). What kikiam is made of is also a big mystery for me, and even the Chinese who supposedly introduced us to the turd-shaped snack hundreds of years ago, along with Taho and counterfeit DVDs.


Closing remarks:

I won't cover ihaw-ihaw foods here anymore since they're already an article on their own. Maybe some other time.
As a word of caution, I'd like to say that these foods are eaten with a good dose of risk - kind of like playing hopscotch with Death and Hepatitis. If you eat them with abandon, it's only a matter of time before something fucks up your digestive system and force it to shoot vomit out of your mouth at highway speeds and make you shit half of your intestinal track in 3 seconds flat. The reason why I was able to endure eating these things is that I've always been a dirty kid, and I was constantly exposed to dirty food. Let's just say my tolerance for these things are higher than average. If possible, stay away. But then again, it's not like we Filipinos ever let trivial things like amoebiasis get the better of our stubborn recklessness now, do we?