Ka-Blog!

Pom and I spent New Year’s Eve here in the city.  I had no desire to go through another 15-hour drive in crawling traffic back to Manila again, along with tens of thousands of motorists so soon.  Besides, what little money we had Pom blew on real nice gifts for me and for my godchildren who have grown too many for my frayed pockets.  But I can’t blame myself for having many friends; I blame the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in the Philippines for being condom-phobes when its clout should be spent more railing against widespread human rights violations in the country.

Instead of observing the New Year rituals at our little rented apartment or at my mother’s house a few steps away we drove ourselves to the CERV dorm come midnight of the 31^st and spent it with my in-laws.  We thought there would be less smoke because the subdivision has less people, thus less firecrackers and smoke.  How wrong we were.  I guess people at gated communities had more money to burn.  The firecracker smoke was as thick as the sitting president’s sense of shame.  It was foggy and the soupy air wouldn’t let go of the smoke.  It was hard to breathe.

I am thinking of all the money burnt because of this useless and stupid Chinese superstition. I am thinking of how many classrooms we could build, how many trees we could plant, or how many medicines we could buy for our projects with the money wasted. I am thinking of the damage to the city’s air quality.  I am thinking how stupid this country is for not outlawing pedestrian firecrackers.

Driving through the city the next day I noticed how the smoke cleared marvelously.  News reports said there were less firecrackers lit up this time because of the crisis.  This is how it is with Filipinos sometimes.It would take a crisis of monstrous proportions to make us sober up a bit.  Still, I think there was too much paputok for anyone’s good.

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A dear friend turned up to “celebrate” with us.  This was unexpected.  Not that we don’t want him hanging out with us but we were sad to have him.  His in-laws did not want him to see his estranged wife and their two kids.  He also failed to see them last Christmas.

This friend committed some stupid mistakes in the past that jeopardized his marriage and his relations with his in-laws.  It all started when he started earning some and things were apparently dandy.  But he did not have a good handle on things and he let them slip away.

Now, he is paying for those mistakes in a cruel way.  To send gifts for the kids over the holidays he had to ask another friend to do it for him.

If my friend is my brother-in-law I could have kicked him in the groin.  But he is genuinely repentant and is desperate to set things straight—unlike one of my brothers in law.  The latter I would love to kick in the groin but I’ll try not to kill my friend.  I think he deserves one last chance.

My friend is part Chinese.  He insisted on buying and lighting firecrackers to drive away bad luck.  I did not want him to (because it stresses Panda too much) but I let him.  In exchange I forced him to take some sip of the wine.  He became gigglier after that but there was no joy in his eyes.  I am pulling my hair off sometimes because of all my problems and troubles, but this is one problem I can never be able to bear with as much courage as my friend does.

Positive wishes are nothing more than good intentions.  But I wish for a better year for him.

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Instead of resolutions (because it is stupid to have them when you know you can’t stick to them anyway), let me write down my top ten wishes for the year:

1. Please, do not let this year pass with gloria still in the palace.
2. Please, no cha-cha.
3. Please, make Barack a better American president than the outgoing one (because the imperialist US government is doubly insufferable when we have the likes of Dubya at the top).
4. Please, do not let the imperialist-controlled global economy affect the Philippine country too much (because you can’t squeeze any thing more from an emaciated cow ‘cept blood).
5. A stop to all the human rights violations and justice to all victims of state HRVs.
6. Good health to all my loved ones and friends.
7. More happiness in the family.
8. Fiscal health.
9. An approved break (to give me one chance to do the things I want to do for myself).
10. World Peace.