It is really more fun here in the Philippines!

The Department of Tourism has recently released the newest tourism slogan for the Philippines. This is in partnership with BBDO Guerrero, one of the top advertising firms in the country.

Honestly, I liked the first one, Pilipinas Kay Ganda. It is very Filipino. It is humble, simple and direct to the point. However, it has SEO problems (people will be looking for Philippines, not Pilipinas) and many people said it looked like a rip-off from a in Poland.

This one is more simple and direct. It has more substance than Wow! Philippines and Pilipinas Kay Ganda put together. It makes one think less hard about why he is putting off his vacation in the Philippines. True, it has yet to be catchy like Malaysia’s. But for sure, the Department of Tourism and BBDO Guerrero put in a lot of effort in ensuring that the next logo is scandal-free. It has no SEO problems and is purely original.

Yes, it is!

I have met Sec. Mon Jimenez in person and from what I saw and heard during that one-hour session with the Tourism and Heritage Information NetworK in Cebu City, he is a man of dignity and substance. He wants only the best for the Philippines and will do everything in his power to carve this country in the “world tourism map”.

Kudos to all the effort of the DOT for the Philippines! Let us critique constructively to help our country move forward.

BOOM! New Year na.

Every year, my brother, Shaun, and cousin Remy (below photo) would spend thousands of pesos on firecrackers. They would scour Jaro Plaza for good firecracker discounts. They would look for the ones which “shook the Earth” like the pitcher-sized one (the name escapes me) which is illegal.

This year with my brother at sea, only my cousin went to the city. He told us he was not able to buy the pitcher-sized firecracker. These are just some of these which he was able to buy.

His role would also include igniting them and running away as fast as he can while ours would be to cover our ears and cringe. The dogs would be under the beds or in cracks far away from where the BOOM happens.

We hope to have more firecrackers next year. Yes, the illegal ones included .:D

Selfish me.

The people at home are teasing me. They said I’ve become more selfish. Hahaha!

What they said was entirely true. I was and still am selfish. I work too hard. I seldom spend time with them. I am even more stingy.

Father: “Ikaw, kung i-text ka Monday, Friday ka pa ga-reply.” Awts.
Mother: “Abi pagturog don, indi sagay pulaw. Ikaw lang da mamanggaranon eh.”
Brother: “Te, indi mo gid ko pagtaw-an ka dang ginakaon mo?”
Sister: “Binli man ya ayam.”

Translation:

Amay: Text back ASAP, you!
Iloy: Sleep now, pay later.
Utod nga lalaki: Im hungry too, you know.
Utod nga babaye: Arf!

Whew. That was hard. Hahah!
But honestly, yes. I am even more selfish that I’ve lost more weight from too much work. That’s why they are pressuring me to go home for the holidays and fatten up. (Execution date is near, siguro.)

But, as pissed as they are with how delicately I am handling myself, I am so glad to be able to go home. XD

Love writing.

I never thought I’d find myself writing professionally.

More often than not, I see a lot of errors in what I write. Sometimes, its within the data given to me. I misspell words or forget to include important contact details.

On certain occasions, I would find grammar mistakes after reading my work. I would confuse the purposes of dashes and hyphen and so on. I’m lucky if I detect them. If I can’t, online softwares or my boss will. Ouch.

Because of this, I fail to fully appreciate my outputs. I can see more faults than facts. More errors than essence. (Does this makes me a good copy editor then? XD)

But recently, I stumbled upon a blog (which URL and name escaped me) containing something like this: “Ten reasons to appreciate the writer in you.” I read until the bottom, but what caught my eye was the number 1 reason: Write, write, write. Forget about editing.

Then it hit me. I wasn’t there to edit. I was there to write. Writing is more challenging than editing. It is the reason millions of people are online/ reading print media. I was supposed to make a goldmine out of a single crap and sell it to a lot of people. This is the part where I should be free. I should be the one to add as many marshmallows and rainbows to my creation.

So I began doing just that. I wrote and wrote, and didn’t mind the technicalities for a while. But, I never forgot about editing. The crap will stay as such when it’s not polished. After writing, I did my best at editing. This time around, I am not as anxious.

I still have a few misspelled words, here and there. I still forget to include logos and some contact details. But this time around, I am happier with my work. It has more facts, more essence, more heart. Write like it’s your last. 🙂

Videoke sessions with people who used to be strangers.

I miss these people.

This videoke session happened over four months ago, and I am wondering if it will happen again. Some of them may not be the people whom I have known for more than a year, but it seemed that there is instant friendship between us. One that has a chance of lasting forever.

:)Hope we can have one of these again.

On madmen and mothers

I seldom tell my mother how things are with my life.

Most of the time, she bickers on and on about how the world may swallow me whole if I sleep with both eyes—metaphorically. I think she has the “mean-world syndrome”.

The mean world syndrome simply states that “we perceive the world as a dangerous one, often because of what we see on television”.

When I tell my mom something significant (read: scary), I usually am over it. So her words won’t eat me. See? I am not really unfair. I just do not want her to worry but at the same time, I want her to know how things are in my life. What I do tell her are the good things. But even when I do, she almost always kills the fun.

I usually tell my father first. He is more visionary and less pessimistic. Men are generally calm than women in the face of disaster. Think Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

My mother has “hen instincts”. While my father would prefer that I act on my own (like how he would when he is in my situation), my mother is like a fire extinguisher sign: Safety first.

One time while we were taking our afternoon nap, we woke up to her shouting all over the house. The front door and gate was open. And although our house is almost 15 meters away from the dirt road, she was saying stuff like: What do you do if a madman comes by and plunges a knife in your gut?

We say” Nay, we have 6 dogs.

And she’ll say: Dead, if the madman poisons them.

OK. End of discussion. We left her to bicker her way to the dirty kitchen while we wipe the saliva from the corners of our mouth. So much for an afternoon nap, yay.

Friends. (with or without benefits XD)

I met them years ago—some as far as my elementary years, the others during high school. We never had the exact same interests all at the same time, except in making fun of each other.

Some took related courses, some chose to venture on different fields. But, never once did we let the differences become hindrances to our common interests.

To the sameness. To the differences. I’m really glad we stayed the same. 

Isa Ka Aga

Isa ka aga,
timprano pa ko nagbugtaw.
Kalinong ka palibot,
waay gali tawo sa balay.
Insa ayhan?

Diin ayhan sanda nag-adto?

Nag-adto ko sa kusina, waay.
Nag-adto ko sa sala, waay.
Waay man sanda sa CR kag sa sulod aparador.

Diin sanda man?
Gin-miss call ko si Nanay,
nabilin na cell phone na.
Gintext ko si Tatay, pero na-send ko na ang message
kang nadumduman ko nga waay gali tana load.

Diin sanda man?

Nanghiram-os ko.
Alas otso na gali.
Naggwa ko sa balay.
Dali lang, daw may tawo sa unhan gate haw?
Daw kanami gid karakadlaw nanda
samtang gaduko-duko.
Si Nanay! Si Tatay!
Iririaw sanda nanday Nang Neneng
kag Nong Roger kag iban pa.
Naka-long sleeves sanda tanan
kag naka-kalo.
Tingala man ko.
June na gali.

(An informal review of) People Like Us

After digesting Sheldon’s law-saturatedRage of Angels, I am reading People Like Us.

Contrary to the previous one, People Like Us is an easy-read, with not much technical details, jargons and foreign cities and villages which the average human is not familiar with. In a nutshell, People Like Us is an excellent in-between read.

I got it from Booksale, on one of my “desperately-trying-to-save-money” trips to the mall. Fortunately for both Jen and I, there were no new (and cheap) Lourd de Veyras, Nick Joaquins and F. Sionil Joses. Aside from the usual Kikomachines, Paz Latorenas, Jose Lacabas and Bob Ongs, not a lot of books stole our interest. I was not as particulary fond of poetry as Jen so while she was leafing through some of the Philippine poets’ writings, I moved to the English fic lits.

After realizing that we weren’t buying anything from NBS, we decided to go to Booksale. There, I saw this P45 book.

It is a collection of weird and funny stories written by Latin author and dentist Javier Valdes. Most of them were about adventures, good neighbors vs. bad neighbors and the pleasures of unrequited love.

I particularly like Neighbors. This is a story about the Lotzanos and Casquivans, two families from the opposite poles (when it comes to lifestyle and beliefs).

The Lotzanos were the goody-goody type: Mrs. Lotzano is religious, her husband never looked at any woman aside from his wife, their two daughters are virgins and their only son is in a relationship with his girlfriend (whom he is also looking forward to marrying).

The Casquivans were the opposite. Although Mr. Casquivan is younger than Mr. Lotzano by more than ten years, his face showed an always-losing battle against alcohol and drugs. Mrs. Casquivan has her own world. Their only daughter has undergone abortion twice, and their two sons are into drugs and making women pregnant and, apparently, husband-less.

The story started and evolved around the building where the Lotzanos have lived for more than a year. When the Casquivans moved in, they brought with them misfortunes masked under miniature glories. The male Casquivans have gifted tongues and have, in ways more than one, tricked the female Lotzanos into drugs and sex. Mr. Casquivan lured Mr. Lotzano into gambling and forced him into bankruptcy.

In the end, none of them lived a straight life: Mrs. Lotzano committed suicide; Mr. Casquivan left his family and tried to make a living out of selling popcorn; Mr. Casquivan never recovered from alcoholism; the Lotzanos went in jail for drugs, sex and adultery; the female Casquivan was forced to fly to a new country and her brother disappeared. Only Ray Casquivan seemed to have a happy ending: he was able to lure a new girl into his pyramid scam.

Valdes’ stories are screaming with wit and humor in the most unexpected situations. Whereas I should empathize with a character’s misfortune, I found myself smiling and shaking my head. In a way, Valdes reminds me of Frederick Forsyth even if their style of writing is different.

Valdes’ style is not exceptional. His choice of topics were simple and mainstream. His description of the setting of the stories were brief, almost bare. But I love how he created a web of intricacies on the characters to come up with an interesting plot that will have the reader leaf through to pages to the end. Although the plot was typical, he was able to give a different perspective by making it too typical and leaving the ends hanging.

He writes with enjoyment and almost no element of sadness. This is something which I find a bit different about him. He seemed to miss out on the aftershock of every pregnancy or suicide. He chose not to dwell on them and instead, focused on how the story goes on even when one character suffers.

If you’re into easy reading and you’re my neighbor, I’d be glad to lend you this book since I doubt it if Booksale has another copy. Wehehe.