Ka-Blog!

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!