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Aid operations went into full swing two days after “Ondoy” devastated Metro Manila and other parts of the northern Philippines as various organizations started distributing relief goods to calamity victims.

By RAYMUND VILLANUEVA
Bulatlat.com

http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/09/29/various-groups-launch-%E2%80%98ondoy%E2%80%99-relief-operations/

MANILA — Aid operations went into full swing two days after “Ondoy” devastated Metro Manila and other parts of the northern Philippines as various organizations started distributing relief goods to calamity victims.

Gabriela Women’s Party, the National Council of Churches of the Philippines, and ABS-CBN Foundation-Gawad Kapamilya distributed one thousand bags of rice, canned food, drinking water and other items to victims of Barangay Bagong Silangan in Quezon City Monday afternoon.

Led by GWP representative Luzviminda Ilagan and ABS-CBN contract stars Angel Locsin and Candy Pangilinan, the relief mission focused on families who lost members during last Saturday’s deluge. About 20 Bagong Silangan residents died, mostly children.

Samahan ng Maralitang Kababaihang Nagkakaisa (Samakana), a Gabriela member organization, coordinated the relief efforts, distributing numbered stubs to affected residents to facilitate the mission.

Meanwhile, the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) started receiving donations in their Quezon City headquarters Monday morning. Residents from the upscale Times Street neighbourhood as well as Center for Volunteerism in the Philippines (CERV-Philippines) volunteered to repack relief items into plastic bags for distribution on Tuesday.

CDRC Advocacy and Campaign officer Dakila Aquino said that they have already identified “priority areas” where they would be sending the relief goods that they have collected.

“As much as possible, we wanted to reach out to everyone but we have limited resources. We are in need of donations such as rice, dried fish, monggo beans, medicines, clothes and blankets,” Aquino said.

Kabataan Partylist also launched its relief drive, identifying four relief centers: its headquarters at #118-B Sct. Rallos in Quezon City, University of Student Council Office, Vinzons Hall, UP Diliman, College of Social Work and Community Development Sudent Council, UP Diliman and College of Arts and Sciences Student Council Office, UP Manila.

Even consumer advocacy group TXTPower has solicited donations for victims of Ondoy. As of 3:25 pm of Sept. 28, TXTPower received almost P600,000 monetary donations. All donations will be turned over to the Philippine National Red Cross.

Health advocacy groups formed the Samahang Oplan Sagip as a response to the disaster. It has been accepting donations in cash and in kind for the victims of the typhoon. Donations may be sent to the Council for Health and Development at #35 Examiner St. West Triangle, Quezon City with tel. nos. 929-81-09. Monetary donations may be deposited to the following accounts: Philippine National Bank Savings Account # 219-8303219 and Bank of Philippine Islands US $ account # 314 00 5391 with the swift code BPIPHMM. The group issues receipts when needed.

Meanwhile, Bayan Muna has canceled its anniversary celebration this Wednesday to give way to relief operations in Marikina on Sep. 30 and Montalban, Rizal on Oct. 1. They accept donations at their office located 45 K-7th St., Brgy. Kamias, Quezon City.

According to various data gathered by the CDRC, the number of families affected by Ondoy increased to 89,116 families or 448,454 persons.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported that 100 people died in the National Capital Region, CAR, and Region IV-A.

In Metro Manila, over 5,000 people from 45 barangays were evacuated after incessant rains caused heavy flooding in Manila, Marikina, Malabon, Muntinlupa, Makati, Pasay, Pasig, Valenzuela, San Juan and Quezon City. A total of 50 road sections were also left impassable to vehicles due to raging flood waters, leaving several commuters stranded.

The total cost of damage has already reached P108.9 million. The damage to infrastructure has reached P108.7 million; and to agriculture P212,537.

In Pasig, one of the hardest hit cities, subdivisions on Barangay Sta Lucia are still submerged in chest-deep waters. On Saturday night, two-storey houses were submerged, trapping thousands, including patients in a hospital.

“The waters were dark brown and thick like soup. It was unlike anything we have seen in these parts at all,” Sta. Lucia High School teacher Karen Villanueva said. She and her students escaped being trapped inside their inundated school by scaling walls and crossing roofs to reach a three-storey house near the school. Floodwaters only started to subside on Monday morning.

Victims complained of lost cellular phone signals when these were most needed. “Communication was very important for us during those times of distress. We were failed by the networks, particularly Globe,” one of the victims said.

They also assailed military and police choppers who did not give food and water to hungry and dehydrated victims who spent two chilly nights on house roofs. “We saw lots of helicopters hovering above our heads but gave no relief. Only a small private chopper gave us a couple of food bags,” one of them said.

Victims trapped inside their submerged houses only started coming out Monday morning. They walked from Sta Lucia to C5 Road to escape while residents who could not come home since Saturday trudged the other way.

After being trapped in his Makati office for two days, Arnold Dizon finally reached home Monday morning to find his elderly and ailing parents trapped inside their house for two days without electricity and were running low on food and drinking water.

Cries of relief were heard all over the inundated Marietta-Romeo Village as family members were reunited while some residents silently started cleaning their destroyed houses.

Roads leading to the place were blocked by vehicles of all sizes washed away by Ondoy’s raging waters.

In nine hours, “Ondoy” reportedly dumped rainwater equal to an entire month during a rainy season. While Hurricane Katrina poured 380 cm of water, Ondoy dumped 410 cm of rains causing the worst flooding in the Philippine capital in the last 40 years.

With climate change at hand, the country would be most likely to experience more Ondoy, Aquino underscored the need to push for the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Bill, a law that would empower the local government unit in addressing such calamity. (with reports from Janess Ann Ellao and Ronalyn Olea)

Because it wasn’t a story about multi-million peso properties in high-end areas in the United States, this story was buried in just about the most unimportant page of yesterday’s Inquirer:

1 dead in fight over stuffed toy

A fight over an old discarded stuffed toy left a scavenger dead and another wounded yesterday afternoon.  PO2 Norlan Margallo of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit identified the two as Jimson Navarro and Jun Flores, both residents of Payatas, Quezon City.  Margallo said Flores stabbed Navarro dead after an argument over the ownership of a stuffed bear which they found in the dump.  Witnesses said the two men grabbed the toy at the same time, both refusing to let go, as they argued over who got to keep it.  During the struggle, Flores punched Navarro in the face and then pulled out a knife which he used to stab the victim repeatedly.  Police said Navarro died on the spot while Flores fled brom the dump, bringing with him the stuffed toy. –Nancy Carvajal.

If you have been to a dump site and have seen how this people live you would not really be surprised.  To the scavengers a scrap, a piece of plastic or rusted metal is a step closer to a next meal, whenever that comes.  The stuffed bear they fought over must be for a child cruelly denied a toy by their poverty.  Obviously, an old and discarded toy is enough reason to kill another person who also claims it.

I am not justifying the killing.  What I am condemning is the grinding poverty that pushed these scavengers to such actions even when the president’s children acquire expensive houses without even declaring them, as required by law.

It’s not everyday one loses a friend.

Today is one such.

Fresh from a week-long video training gig in the Visayas I finally got to read a letter sent to me by this (now former) friend.  It was about his long-running quarrel with an officemate that I previously said was out of our hands to mediate.  My reply this morning was more of the same.

Within minutes of sending my second reply I received a riposte from the guy saying our office’s decision was gravely mistaken.  His anger was as obvious as my beer gut—huge.  He also wrote we need not be friends anymore.

I again wrote to him it was his decision and that I wish him luck.  His reply was: “There’s nothing to talk about anymore!!!” (Note the three exclamations points!)

Now, this guy I admired very much.  His name is in the legal and human rights books when he went up against Martial Law’s main bowwow, now Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.  He is also a major poet, which was why I became friends with him in the first place.  I am also ninong to one of his daughters and I am good friends with another daughter.

The stories this former friend bandies around about his number one enemy makes my close-cropped hair curl.  On the other hand, the things I heard about this former friend makes my close-cropped hair positively kinky.  What have they been doing in their past lives?

But that’s just it.  All these alleged things happened in a previous life.  Why should we be dragged into it?  Some other group has looked into it and has decided accordingly.  According to set processes and after judicious consideration of things, one was subsequently booted out of the organization and one remains to be in good standing.  Who am I to intervene, especially when I myself have doubts about a party’s intentions?

When I lose friends I sometimes ask myself if I was at fault.  This time I was surprised to realize I am not bothered at all.  In fact, this afternoon, I napped twice and then Pom and I went shopping.  Tonight, in lieu of dinner, I drank a couple of light beer while wolfing down a hundred pesos worth of isaw.  Suitably tipsy afterwards, I played with Panda.

A few months back, I wrote about knowing Cebu—its entrails, nooks, crannies and real face.http://www.facebook.com/raymund.villanueva?ref=name#/notes.php?id=1293317554&start=50&hash=fbf48670aaf915c65e2c26f87d2e4264

Following up on said training and workshop we are back for more advanced exercises that again required some of our teams to visit Cebu’s urban poor communities.

We visited Barangay Pasil in downtown Cebu this time.  This is just about the most feared community in all of Cebu and I wonder if any Osmena, Rama, Garcia, Lhuiller or Koreans have been to its innermost alleys and shanties.  It felt like Back of Matimco, Payatas, Estero de Magdalena, Veterans, Valenzuela all over again.  If you have been to communities like these, you know what I’m talking about.  If not, I won’t bother trying to tell you.It’s beyond words.

Three things struck me the most on this visit.

First, the alleyways have banks of computers lined against the dark walls.  You put a peso coin into the slots and you can have internet for six minutes.  For five pesos, the womenfolk can chat with dirty old foreign men looking for desperate Filipinas for thirty minutes.  This is the contemporary twist to Dingdong Avanzado’s 80s ditty “Tatlong Bentesingko”.

Second, they have drinking water stations that have coin slots as well.Put in a peso and you can fill a glass or a soda bottle.  The water they get from their taps is just no good.

Third, they have this street food called Tuslob-buwa.  They dip nipa-wrapped rice balls (puso) in vats of boiling pig’s brain with bits of liver for taste.  They do not pay for the dip.  They only pay for the puso, which is PhP2.50 each (less than 5 US cents).  This unique street food is definitely hepatitis-bait but is a popular way of staving off hunger pangs.

It’s been three days since I took pictures of these kids eating Tuslob-buwa in Barangay Pasil and I can’t get them off my mind.  How hungrily they ate those rice balls is seared so deeply in my mind that I have had two nightmares on this already.

http://www.facebook.com/raymund.villanueva?ref=name#/photo.php?pid=30604165&id=1293317554

And then yesterday, I read this: http://www.nypost.com/seven/08072009/gossip/pagesix/eat_and_drink_183333.htm

Looking out on the beautiful hills of Talamban from my room’s balcony, I am filled with so much love for our beloved President, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  Ate glo, we love her so much.  It’s okay that many Filipinas feel that dirty old foreign men are their only hope for deliverance just as long as she has finally met her US president to legitimize her presidency.  It’s okay that many children can only eat boiled pig’s brain as long as she has caviar.  It’s okay that we have to pay a peso for a sip of water just as long as she can have bottles of Krug.

Long live our President!  Mabuhay!

I woke up to a bad news today—Corazon Aquino, world democracy icon and former Philippine President, died at 3:18 this morning.

I first saw it on BBC.  Then I frantically punched the remote commander and, sure enough, ABS-CBN and GMA were at it again, trying to outdo each other’s spins on Cory.  Suddenly, an epiphany in Philippine broadcast journalism was happening before our very eyes—that closed mortuary gates and drawn windows require full coverage and running commentaries over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  Then, once in a while, they would put a reporter before the camera and ask the same questions that have been answered and reported on barely thirty minutes back.  As their version of a fast ball a reporter interviews Cory’s parish priest about the late President’s favourite church chair and makes her pitch to make her report be made part of the growing ammunition to the expected sob fest that is sure to follow.

When GMA managed to air gloria’s message about Cory’s passing first they made sure we know we got it from them first.  Methinks it’s akin to being Brutus’ first megaphone after Julius Ceasar has been butchered on the marble steps of the Roman Senate.  Big deal.

How sad.

I then woke up my wife and drove to the CERV office.  I had the compelling urge to smash Thor’s mallet on the screen and make myself to be a buffoon so we had to be outa there pronto.  I am only consoled by the fact that since I will be virtually cloistered in the next week or so I will be able to escape most of this inanity from our two biggest networks.  Cebu, here I come.

There are several questions for Cory I would gladly have given my left eye for.

1. What really happened and what were your thoughts right after the Mendiola Massacre?
2. Ditto the Hacienda Luisita Massacre?
3. Ditto the atrocities committed under Lambat Bitag I and II?
4. What and/or pushed you to recall Prof Jose Maria Sison’s Philippine passport forcing him to seek asylum in The Netherlands?
5. What was really the plan about the GRP-NDFP peace talks in 1986?
6. Why did you not use the inherent powers of your revolutionary/newly-established government to order a genuine and general agrarian reform that could have ended the ongoing civil war and pushed this country towards genuine development?
7. What made you risk your reputation to support the extension of the Military Bases Agreement with the imperialist United States when you know the people already wanted out?
8. Why did you not punish the soldiers who launched nine coups against you and nearly killed your only son?
9. What made you choose FVR over Mitra?
10. Did you pen a call to the Filipino people on what we should do against the next woman president after you who has turned to be as worse as the dictator Marcos?

These are questions that our networks are very hesitant to ask and seek answers to.  In fact, it took the CNN to ask the first probing questions about Cory’s legacy, which the ABS-CBN’s senior reporter deftly skirted around instead of answering directly.

I have always been critical of Cory.  The first nine questions gnaw at my mind when I think about her and her legacy.  I only started to like her some when she spoke out against gloria. (Finally, she admitted, she could no longer stand her as it reminds her too much of the satan she helped oust from power 23 years ago!)

Let me be Filipino in ending this piece: I am sad that Cory died, more so that most Filipinos wanted the other woman President to go first. Compared to our current Madam President Cory was all the saint the world makes her to be.

“My continued detention (until today) shows that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines is not serious in lifting the suspension of the Jasig. There is political pressure to keep me in jail. But they are no match against the mass movement who spared no effort in their support,” Principe said.

By RAYMUND B. VILLANUEVA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA — Political detainee Elizabeth Principe walked out of the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame at 4:25 in the afternoon of July 21, a full two weeks after the fourth and last of the criminal charges against her was dismissed by a Regional Trial Court in Nueva Vizcaya.

Wearing a blue blouse, smiling broadly and raising a clenched fist, Principe walked out of her jail accompanied by daughter Lorena Santos and welcomed at the gate by Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza.

On the day of her release, Principe started a hunger strike which was accompanied by a sympathy strike by all women detainees at the custodial center. The hunger strike subsequently spread throughout the center. She is the “mayora” (leader) of the women detainees at Camp Crame.

Principe revealed that her latest release order reached the PNP Custodial Center last July 14, which was forwarded to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group last July 15. Her release was approved by CIDG last July 20 but instead of releasing her, the PNP submitted the order to the Armed Forces of the Philippines “for comment.”

Elizabeth Principe and daughter Lorena Santos celebrate. View more pictures. (Photo by Raymund B. Villanueva / bulatlat.com)

Santos and Principe’s lawyers asked the PNP what legal basis was there to justify the move.

“I owe no debt of gratitude to this government for my release. I owe my freedom to the mass movement and my lawyers,” Principe said.

Visibly elated by her release, Principe said that she is happy that she is “happy to be back in the larger society.”

“After one year and seven months in detention, I am raring to rejoin the struggle against this unjust regime and social system,” she added.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees is again operational starting July 17.

“My continued detention (until today) shows that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines is not serious in lifting the suspension of the Jasig. There is political pressure to keep me in jail. But they are no match against the mass movement who spared no effort in their support,” she said.

Principe said her fellow political detainees at the custodial center asked her to work for their release as well. Still in detention are political prisoners Randall Echanis, Eduardo Serrano, Eduardo Sarmiento, Angelina, Ipong, Prospero Agudo, among others.

She said that she is ready to participate in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in her capacity as consultant for the latter.

“I now rejoin the movement to oust Gloria Arroyo,” Principe said. (With reports from Ronalyn Olea / bulatlat.com) http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/07/21/elizabeth-principe-%E2%80%98i-am-raring-to-rejoin-the-struggle-against-this-unjust-regime%E2%80%99/

After a huge lunch, followed by a delicious dessert, it took us some time to work up appetites for dinner at Kinabuhayan Café.  But dinner had to be served and we had no choice but to seat ourselves for another feast.

It was curry risotto with steamed chicken this time, sprinkled and topped with curry and alagao leaves.  An artfully sliced tomato filled with horse radish (malunggay) pesto decorated the plate.  Plus there were more chayote and carrot strings with sliced tomatoes on the side to cool down our tongues from the delightful assaults of the spicy rice.

I am no big fan of food wastage but here was one serving that totally defeated me.  I finished off the chicken to the bone and cleaned off the vegetables but I failed, despite best efforts, to chow down all the rice.  I wish I had Cris Balleta or Aya Santos’ legendary appetites for this kind of meal.  Too much; too good.

Jay was genuinely surprised when I told him earlier our trip was to celebrate Pom’s 33^rd birthday.  But he wasn’t too surprised to hurriedly bake a “pineapple upside down cake” for her.  If the cake was only half-decent I would still be touched for my wife.  But the cake was superlative.  So can I say I was doubly-touched?

While wolfing down generous slices of the cake and washing them down with this bed & breakfast’s legendary coffee, Jay re-entered the dining area bearing a gift for Pom.  It was inside a small Pandan box tied with abaca string.  The gift was an original Ugu Bigyan clay sculpture with his signature leaf design and relief.  (Bigyan’s workshop is 30 minutes away from here [by appointment] which is another good side trip to Kinabuhayan aside from the delights of Banahaw, San Pablo City’s seven lakes, and Casa San Pablo.)

Wait!  There’s more!  After dinner and retreating to our hut Jay gave us a white bignay wine with appropriate glasses.  Our favourite fruit wine!  And Jay wasn’t even told about this.

And just before calling it a night Jay allowed us to copy his classical guitar collection of traditional Filipino love songs from different regions in the country.  (These were the background music during our candle-lit dinner and we were the only guests.)

Little touches like these are making this trip memorable already.

Today is my wife’s 33^rd birthday.   We started celebrating when we spent the night in some-star hotel in the metro a few days prior.  It was a good if only for the extended hot water bath (lublob) we had but we missed Panda so much it felt a bit incomplete. There was even one time before dawn Pom looked under the sheets to check if Panda was there. That cracked me up.

For Pom’s actual birthday we drove exactly 100kms south of the metro to this little hideaway called Kinabuhayan Café near the Dolores (Quezon) Central Elementary School. This backyard affair has two dusty, cobwebby and termite-infested bamboo and nipa huts and three lean-tos in an overgrown garden of eclectic indigenous endemic and exotic plants.  It also features a small tree house and a main house that looks and feels like a small museum cum sports bar.  Each lean-to has a mosquito net and a mattress. The small property is also called home by three dogs and a pot-bellied pig called “Onion”.  The owner tried to go native but there seems to be no such rhyme or reason to things we now see around here. The huts had Roman blinds for minimal privacy and Japanese paper lanterns for lighting.  The bathroom features a huge boulder naturally shaped like a loveseat.  No concrete pavement here, just slates as stepping stones, rocks as ladders, and gravel as bathroom flooring. You can smoke without guilt while seated on the throne.  And the bowl flushes so well.  Being situated at the foot of Mt Banahaw I surmise that is spring water flushing my babies away.  And, dig this, while doing the number two there’s a loud chirping from inside the bathroom, as if cheering me on.  I don’t know if it’s a wild bird but it sure sounded like it.  All the while fruits rain from the green canopy above.  Sweet!

As I’m typing this Panda is fast asleep on my legs while I am parked on a hammock.

This crib’s proprietor is Jay Alcala Herrera, reportedly a cousin to the town mayor.  Jay is long-haired, tattooed, with spectacles and likes to speak in English. He seems cool, and so are his staffs.  Jay is a chef.  His meal presentation is better than the exclusive club I had lunch in last Wednesday on the top floor of a Makati skyscraper called the Tower Club.  The club served me too many courses to count with my stubby fingers. Kinabuhayan on the other hand served us a single-course lunch of pork grilled back ribs and mushroom risotto served with pancit-pancitan, stringed carrot and chayote and tomato salad drenched with vinaigrette.  There were garnishes like edible wildflowers and ferns which were picked right where we were.  The plates were served on a rickety bamboo table while we were seated on a bamboo bench on the middle of a burbling river.  Our feet were massaged by a lively current while we dug in with our claws.  All the while Jay was chatting us while chain smoking Marlboros and scolding his two Daschunds. The brook was about two kms away from Kinabuhayan but the property is still owned by Jay.  Back at the café we were served sweetened cassava cubes topped with cream that went very well with Jay’s famous coffee.  Masarap lahat!

We leave Kinabuhayan tomorrow.  We still have dinner and breakfast to look forward to but it already feels that the PhP1800/day/pax is already worth it (PhP600/meal/pax).  Call or text 09162215791.

Imelda Marcos turned 80 a few days ago and celebrated it at Hotel Sofitel.

Wait!  Don’t scoff just yet.  The party wasn’t imeldific at all.  The Sofitel is just a five-star hotel.  She had it built as the Philippine Plaza when she was still the Madame of Malacanang.  But that does not mean anything.  It is not a new palace built for the occasion.  This hotel is a dump compared to where Imelda had parties back in the old days.

Plus, Sofitel is right next door to the ill-fated Film Center where the remains of dozens of construction workers she ordered cemented over when it collapsed during construction lie buried.  How dreadful that our dear former First Lady held a party next to a mausoleum.

Plus, there were no B-class Hollywood actors present.  Some of the old perfumed set and martial law dogs were there but the rest have died or are still abroad enjoying their shares of the loot while the Madame has “No funds! No Funds!”  Not like the old days, indeed.

And while the food was lavish and the (no alcohol) drinks were free-flowing, those were sponsored by friends.

Don’t you people get it?  Imelda is already very poor and is under unjust persecution—for more than two decades already.  I think it is time to give her back her jewels, shoes, underwear and companies’ shares.

= = = = = =

After initially and vehemently denying our beloved President had a boob job while in a swine flu quarantine, Palace lips are now saying it’s true.

But it’s not true that it was a recent operation and that it’s leaky.

(Karengkeng ka ha, Madame.  Did you also get your areola and nipples fixed?)

But let me say this: The President is well within her right to have a proud set of mammary.  I don’t care if it was recently done.  And if, and only if, it is leaky, she is right in having it fixed by the most expensive doctors of the most expensive hospital in this poor country.  I do not want the likes of cosmetic surgeon Hayden Kho doing it.  As much as possible, I do not want Atty Lorelei Fajardo to lie to the people (even though we pay her to do it) when another Haydencam scandal breaks out.

In fact, I support the President, our genuine and kind chief executive, in her desire to have erect twins.  If we can’t have a tall President, it does not speak well of the Philippines to have saggy Chief Pair of Boobs.  Never mind that she is failing our economy and politics; never mind that her administration is responsible for thousands of deaths and hundreds of disappearances; never mind that she wants the Constitution changed; what is important is that the most important jugs in the country are not soggy to the feel.

Tuesday, congressmen gave themselves the right to convene into an assembly to change the Philippine constitution.  They shouted at the top of their lungs in the dead of the night to pass the resolution giving them the power to extend their term and the sitting president’s.

The next day, the same congressmen passed an agrarian bill that allows them to keep vast landholdings while 70 percent of the Filipino people remain landless.

Just today, the congressmen, along with their Senate brethren, are set to approve the so-called Right of Reply Bill that gives them the right to hug precious column inches and airtime whenever they feel like it.  When passed, they can dictate what should be written on newspapers and broadcast to radio and television sets, more so when they feel they have been treated unfairly in past reports.  Politicians believe they are treated unfairly in this country.

Meanwhile, these past three days, activists have been attacked, arrested and jailed protesting these bills.

Tomorrow, Congress’ second session goes into a recess.  Many congressmen will travel abroad flush with money given by Malacanang for voting favorably on these bills.