Why

1:30am, a couple of hours ago the editor sent me a text message saying he needs all articles in first thing tomorrow morning. He wants to go to press earlier tomorrow. I just had a long week… no, I’m still having, struggling through, it - it’s not over yet. Anyway, back to the slowly filling up page on my computer screen.

This is usually how I come up with my pieces here, at the last minute. I have tried writing my piece much earlier, sometimes I get hit by an idea a full five days before the deadline. But somehow no matter how hard I try to my thoughts down that far away from the deadline, I just can’t – I just always end up writing this weekly article a couple of hours before I really have to submit it (which means I am actually writing this down way too early).

I am stalling, I’m stumped. So I ask myself now, why do I do this? Never mind that my articles here are gratis, for like most of the things I do, I don’t do primarily for money anyway. Just like whenever I go onstage, or fiddle with the piano or guitar, or frame life in a still or moving camera, I just want to tell stories. And express how I feel about those stories.

I tell like it is, the way I see it, the way I feel it. Sometimes, in the process, I step on some toes, some sensitive toes. But then, though I do at times take a moment before clicking “send” to email my article in, and think whether a particular story really needs to be told. If it saw print, then I felt that it did. I do like writing about happy, positive stuff, too. But sometimes to show how bright something is, one has to illustrate what darkness is like.

You probably know how it feels to, say, see a really well-made movie, and you just can’t wait to tell your friends about it. Well, for me it doesn’t have to be something as grand as a Hollywood blockbuster. I am easily amazed by, and I wonder about almost everything around me. I can write about the number one festival in the whole country, or about an obscure talent competition tucked away in a corner at the park. I can write about who I believe is the best candidate for the presidency, or about the best vendor to get your boneless bangus from at the city market.

And, while I do listen to suggestions, advices, I’m sorry but, no, nobody can tell me what to write. Neither would I allow anybody to tell me what not to write. In one article I wrote where I apparently stepped on some conceited toes, those toes’ friend called me to ask me to retract what I said, even reminding me that those toes were connected to a fat ass that I’ll do better kissing. I’m sorry, ma’am, sir, but I do not live my life that way.

As Edmond Rostand said, through Cyrano de Bergerac, “Scratch the back of any swine / That roots up gold for me? / Tickle the horns / Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right / too proud to know his partners business / takes in the fee? No thank you!”

And, since I cannot possibly express it any better than he did, I quote Rostand further, “in a word, I am too proud to be a parasite… And if my nature wants the germ that grows / Towering to heaven like the mountain pine / Or, like the oak, sheltering multitudes - I stand, not high it may be - But, I stand alone!”

So why do I do this? Now, I click “send.”

Trash talk

Much has been said about the city’s garbage problem – including those coming from people who have political and personal agendas. I had to mention those because often, their pronouncements are tainted with exaggerations and half truths in order to advance their ulterior motives.

These people hardly mention that the garbage problem is closely related to the rapid population growth that Baguio underwent in the decades that followed the 1990 earthquake, straining the city’s carrying capacity to the limit.

They also don’t mention that a law, Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, was enacted in 2001, which gave us five years to put a waste management program in place and stop the usage of open dumpsites such as the one in Irisan. Hardly anything concrete was done in Baguio in the years that followed. Instead of responding to the law and preparing for the impending closure of the Irisan dumpsite, the city government then even spent money for its continued operation. The deadline lapsed, and the Irisan dumpsite, as the law mandated, and also owing to the dangers it posed, had to be closed. And here we are today, caught flatfooted.

While all fingers point to city hall these days, including mine, I’m glad to learn that things are moving and that programs have been put in place in the last three years. But the crafters of RA 9003 did see that these things can’t happen overnight, hence the five-year timetable. If only Baguio sprang into action back in 2001.

But here’s what we know. We know that we don’t have our own garbage disposal facilities in place in Baguio at the moment. We know that we had been hauling our garbage to another city more than a hundred kilometers away. We know that it costs a lot of money to do this. We know that the more garbage we produce, the more expensive it gets for the city to dispose of it.

But no, I don’t have groundbreaking brilliant ideas on how to address the garbage problem, let’s leave that to the experts, so-called and otherwise. But I believe that here in Baguio, while putting so much energy ranting and raving about it in various forums and media may rattle the powers-that-be into some positive action, I believe doing small seemingly small things in our own homes, can bring in more relevant and definite results.



REDUCE, REUSE, SEGREGATE, RECYCLE.

We can reduce the garbage we produce in small way, but if done by many, can make a difference. Try buying the basic ingredients for pinakbet at the market – the vendor will put those eggplants, okras, tomatoes, squash and amplaya in separate plastic bags. 5 plastic bags for the ingredients of an average home-cooked meal. Add two more for your rice (they usually use two for heavy items such as this), one more for the cooking oil, another for your bagoong, plus one or two big ones to put all those small ones in, you get the drift.

For an average of 10 plastic bags for each of, say, just about 5,000 market-goers everyday, that’s 50,000 plastic bags. Can you imagine what a trusty, almost forgotten bayong can do? Imagine what telling the vendor not to put those items in separate plastic bags would do.

And if you had to use plastic bags, reuse them, and all those other disposable items that are thrust upon us in this age of disposables. Bring those plastic bags with you on your next trip to the market, those plastic ice cream containers do well as flower pots.

And whatever just has to be thrown away, segregate. It will then be so much easier for the garbage to be collected. Recylable materials will be easier to gather. And if we are able to reuse, recycle and segregate, then we greatly reduce the garbage we produce. I’m sure there are hundreds, thousands of other ways we, in our own personal capacities, can do to help address the garbage crisis.

For the fact is, we can talk, rant and rave about it all we want, and that can probably help make our government act faster.

Or we can also start addressing the problem at the source – us.

Photos by Ramon David and Lisa Agoot

Dear John

I once wrote a piece for Cordillera Today's Lifestyle page called, “So you wanna be an actor?” In it, I talked about what I believe are the fundamental prerequisites to becoming a performing artist. I had to go back to it recently, if only to remind myself why I chose to be in this unforgiving field that is theater, after receiving a rather emotional and venomous retort online regarding the way local artists have once again been sidelined in what is now touted as the country’s number one festival. A certain John whom I don’t remember having ever met, who also asked not to have his comment deleted in the “interest of free speech,” invaded the rather cryptic conversation between me and a friend on the matter, and called it sourgraping.

I agree with him. But for different reasons.

Theater artists are the epitome of the term “starving artists.” They often start with a production with nothing more than sheer passion for the craft and the burning desire to tell a good story to an audience. That’s probably why theater continues to thrive despite the dismal situation it’s been in, it was never about money, not for most Baguio-based artists anyway.

In the almost 15 years since our first production here in Baguio, things barely changed: very talented local artists still play second fiddle to big name ones from Manila. The small increase in honoraria over the years is due more to inflation rather than improved circumstances. They are still virtually ignored by major local institutions, unless talents are needed and bringing name artists from elsewhere cannot be afforded. But year after year, all over Baguio – in a rehearsal hall in a school, at the basement of the Baguio Convention Center, out in the open in public parks, Baguio’s local theater artists come together come rain or shine, to pool talent, resources and passion for the craft together to come up with a presentation that they believe will not only entertain the audience, but hopefully change the way they look at the world around them forever.

On stage in a school auditorium or on the sidewalks of Session Road on a foggy afternoon, or on rare occasions when they can afford to pay rent at the Baguio Convention Center, they tell their stories. And it doesn’t matter whether they tell it in a theater filled to the brim with students, or to an intimate audience of 10 people, they will tell that story the same way: with utmost sincerity.

They choose their stories carefully, the intention is not merely to entertain and impress, but to compel, provoke, freeze a moment in time so that the audience can step out of life’s daily struggle for a while and step into the magical world of that art form that allows for real human interaction. In theater, you not only hear or see the actors, you feel what they are feeling for they are sincerely feeling it. You feel their pain because they are in pain. You share their joy because they are truly joyful inside. You fall in love because they have sincerely fallen in love. And all that happens not because they’ve put on great make-up or a fabulous set onstage, that happens because the artists’ passion and pure intentions have broken through the fourth wall of the theater to reach deep inside you right there in your seat, taking you out of the dark and onto the reality happening onstage and that, dear reader, is the wonderful experience, where artist, artwork and audience become one, that they call theater.

Contrary to popular belief, all those elements – the stage, the props and costumes, the make-up, the lights, the music, the poetry, they are not there to deceive, they are there to tell the truth. Or A truth. Every single thing on that space, that performance space, is there for a reason, a real reason – even a mere handkerchief sticking out of an actor’s front pocket is there to tell a story.
And so they never, ever dare to deceive their audience – whether they are Baguio’s or Manila’s 500, or 500 pupils from a public elementary school, or five ambulant vendors – they deserve nothing less than a performance that is a product of the artists’ utmost sincerity, passion and love for the craft.

And that, dear John, is the reason why we’re sourgraping. Not because we weren’t called on to save a production in shambles like they did last year, but because theater is a sacred art form, and since time immemorial, from the time the Greeks went onstage to pay tribute to Dionysus, to the time Macario Sakay staged senakulos to inspire his audience to rise up against the colonizers, legitimate theater artists have preserved the sanctity of the legitimate stage.

And because the Baguio audience deserve nothing less but a legitimate performance by legitimate artists on a legitimate stage.
 Whether the performance cost hundreds of thousands to put together, or nothing at all.

Congratulations, Baguio!

(article published in Cordillera Today last March 1, 2010)

By the time this sees print, the infamous concrete pine tree at the top of Session Road would have been felled already. The reactions we’ve heard so far were mostly praises, although there are still a few who actually continue to defend it and its creator. So what’s the big deal about the damned tree that made that has continually made it the topic of coffee shop and online talks, particularly during election time?

While on one side people are celebrating, on the other side they are trying to wash the hands of the root of that concrete monstrosity, some have even tried to direct the anger toward the current administration, even going as far as saying that it is them who are grandstanding, keeping it there to be used as political leverage in the coming elections. Maybe, maybe not, but while we do wonder why it took this long to finally rid the city of this blight, we must not forget the people who erected this monument to graft and corruption. We must remember that this concrete pine tree was just one, albeit the most prominent one being situated right at the top of the heart of the city, of a string of questionable “concretization” projects in the past. We are not talking about chump change here, the concrete tree alone cost more than a million pesos to build (perhaps enough money to do some substantial rehabilitation work at the Athletic Bowl without the need for foreign investors).

Approve without thinking, spend the people’s money without shame. And why? Who in his right mind would erect a concrete pine tree in the land of pine trees? What were its proponents thinking? Wasn’t there even one person in that circle who could’ve raised the alarm and said, “sir, that’s a stupid idea.” And in a city once famous for its natural beauty, who in his right mind would build something that is fake, a pathetic, ugly, repulsive imitation of a beautiful thing? Really, would anyone put up fake snow in Aspen or Styrofoam pyramids in Giza?
The concrete pine tree was the perfect epitome of a rotten political system – hard-earned taxpayers’ money being spent on something ugly, illogical, totally unnecessary, just so someone can satisfy his megalomaniacal tendencies. What a waste.

One actually cried foul over its demolition saying that getting rid of it is such a huge waste of taxpayers’ money. No sir, keeping it there and not doing anything about it just reminds us of how acquiescent we have become that our elected officials can commit such dastardly acts with impunity knowing that they can get away with it.

The money was already wasted when they built that thing, keeping it there is almost like a declaration that we don’t mind that the people’s money is wasted on useless pieces of (s)crap.
Now, an installation using river stones will be put in its place, the creation of local artist, Gilbert Gano, in collaboration with a group of architects and engineers. An artwork that aims to remind us of the historical significance of Session Road, and perhaps of the city’s entire glorious history. Now, that one makes sense. Knowing where this city came from and how it got to where it is now, perhaps we will be more vigilant in the future and never allow a concrete pine tree to be erected in Baguio ever again.

It’s a small step towards the right direction, a small one, yes, but a step forward nonetheless. And for that, congratulations, Baguio!

14, 100 reloaded and two love stories

February 14 was never really a special day for me and my wife – any given day can turn into Valentine’s Day in a beautiful city like Baguio. Here in Baguio, sometimes just walking hand in hand with your loved one to where you take your jeep to go home can turn into a most romantic stroll through afternoon sun-kissed flower gardens and trees. At times Mother Nature may even treat you to a dramatic display of fog gently rolling in, skimming just above the lake where other lovers in boats come in and out of view to tell their stories.

But, it is Valentine’s Day, and while I most probably won’t be wearing red, I thought I’d share with you an article I wrote last July as my wife, RL, and I celebrated our 14th year together, just weeks away from Baguio’s 100th, with a little alteration, to retell the story of two of my greatest loves. So here it is 14, 100, reloaded …

Our 14th year, no precious stones, no grand getaways, just an evening with friends, an evening of whisky and brandy and chicharon, at an exhibit opening and at table number one in Luisa’s on Session Road. A beer brought over from Rumours next door. Acquaintances slip in and out. Monsoon rains raging outside. “Really?” this paper’s editor-in-chief asked, in between brandy refills, “14 years? This calls for a toast!” And so we raised our glasses for the sixth or seventh or eighth time last night. We have been raising our glasses to Baguio, our dreams for Baguio and our resolve to realize those dreams, all night. In my mind, I’m writing a song…

Nung una kitang makilala, aking mahal, ang aking puso’y nabihag ng ‘yong kariktan. Magmula noon, ‘di ko na kayang mawalay sa’yo. Kafagway sa yakap mo ako’y hihimlay, pinapawi mo’ng lumbay na aking taglay… Kafagway. In my mind the word Kafagway and my wife’s name crossfade.
So there, it’s been 14 years since the day we decided to spend the rest of our lives together, and that life has been closely intertwined with Baguio's last 14 years, or perhaps the last one hundred. And then, another song…


“Halimuyak ng mga pino nariyan na, nagsasabing ako’y malapit na. Ilang sandal na lang, akin na’ng masisilayan – kabundukang nababalot ng dilaw at luntian. Patungo sa puso ng Cordillera, daang malapit sa mga ulap, puno ng talinhaga. Dugo at pawis ang gumuhit ng ‘yong kasaysayan, walang sawa kong tatahakin ang ‘yong kagandahan”
It’s been quite an adventure – we’ve lived in a rundown apartment tucked away in a corner in Campo Sioco (named after one of the fathers of the city), in a friend’s house in Mines View (which once offered a magnificent view of vestiges of Baguio’s gold rush in its early years), in Gen. Luna and Gen. Malvar streets (reminders of Baguio’s role in our nation’s struggle for independence). We now live on Asin Road, a stone’s throw away from the Ifugao carvers’ village, and just a little further down the road is Asin’s famous hot springs (which has drawn visitors since the time of the Spaniards). For 14 years we have walked the streets of Baguio, saw the construction of tall buildings and flyovers that ruined the beautiful skyline, the transformation of Camp John Hay and the deterioration of the Baguio Convention Center. Malls sprouting one after another in different parts of the city, the closing down of theaters along Session Road, a snatcher being chased by the police and young men hurting each other for no reason. And we told these stories to the community, my wife and I. We staged plays that we believed asked relevant questions, that provoked, inspired, painted the real picture. We made films that reminded all of us of the city’s beautiful history. We’ve tried to voice out the aspirations of the community, its heartaches, its dreams…


“Ang mithiin ng Baguio, isapuso mo, itaguyod mo, isulong mo
Ang kailangan ng Baguio, ikaw at ako.”
Here’s wishing you a special Valentine’s Day. As for me and my wife, we’ve got each other – her and I, and Baguio, that’s all we need for an all-year Valentine.

As for Baguio, well, what she needs is you and I.

Stop and smell the roses

Stalls selling RTW, miscellaneous export overruns, and shoes from Marikina. Big tents set up by telecom and cigarette companies and those nifty gift items they give away and amusing promotional gimmicks they come up with to grab the attention of passers-by. Rows and rows of food stalls selling shawarma, sweet corn-on-the-cob, and barbecue.Free rock concerts that hopefully won’t result in brawls between intoxicated under-aged members of rival gangs.

Sure, there’s the occasional stall actually selling plants and flowers, usually outnumbered by stalls selling plastic flowers and other fake plants.

Because of the way it has evolved through the years, these are the things that usually come to mind when you mention Panagbenga, or the Baguio Flower Festival. Sadly, it has ceased to be a celebration of Baguio’s natural beauty and has become a mere month-long tiangge. It seems like the only thing that somehow still relates to anything floral are the parades, and even those now showcase fake flowers made of plastic and crepe paper.

Add to that the sight of politicians, since according to the guidelines issued by the organizers, political parties will actually be allowed to participate in the float parade as long as they “don’t shake the hands of spectators so as not to disrupt the flow of the parade.” Great.

If this trend continues, then we might as well stop calling it the Bagiuo Flower Festival and call it simply, the Baguio Festival, or maybe The-Festival-That-Just-Happens-to-be-Held-in-Baguio.

A century and a half ago, when the Spaniards finally succeeded in conquering this part of the Cordilleras with the intention of getting their hands on the area’s riches, particularly gold, they were stunned by Benguet’s sheer beauty: its magnificent skyline, its healthful climate, the presence of plants, flowers and vegetables that do not grow elsewhere in the country, all of these made the colonizers turn their attention to the creation of a health resort, or a hill station in what was then known as Kafagway.

So you would think that a festival called Panagbenga would be a celebration of that distinct natural beauty that captivated our colonizers more than a hundred years ago - those sunflowers that begin to blanket the mountainsides in November, the roses that grow so succulently all year round, the marigolds, snapdragons, carnations, daisies, lilies that can be found all over Baguio.

Or maybe at least call attention to the simply beautiful but sadly slowly vanishing Benguet Lily, endemic to this part of the country, which dies when taken out of its natural environment (very much like the city itself).

Not so long ago, we took a walk around the city’s downtown area to take photos of whatever flowers we may find along the way, and were amazed by the number of different species, as shown in the photos, that can be found just within Baguio’s Central Business District.

Yup, they’re there, taken for granted, mostly unnoticed.

Which makes one think, why do they keep on coming up with “new, innovative ideas” that are supposed to make the festival better, when Panagbenga’s, or the Baguio Flower Festival’s supposed raison d’etre can be found all over the place? Stop and smell the roses that are right under your noses.

Children of Coroz

I first met the children of Coroz last November, 2009 when I joined the team of artists from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on a visit to three areas affected by last year’s devastating typhoons for art therapy sessions. We spent two days in Coroz, Tublay, Benguet and at the end of the second day, I knew I would be going back there some time soon. I did last Friday.

I needed help, so I broached the idea to members of our theater group, Open Space, and after getting the commitment of some of the members, my wife, RL, solicited the help of the Fernando & Rosa Bautista (FRB) Foundation through Ms. Kristine Bautista-Sameon, who almost immediately agreed to the proposal: a workshop that will introduce the children to the wonderful world of theater and hopes to help the community in Coroz put together their very own theater group.

In the more than 20 years that I have been in theater, I have been to countless workshops, both as a student and a facilitator. As a young boy of 10, I learned about props making in that very first workshop I attended at my mother’s Workshop for Creative Survival. In that workshop, we turned what mostly seemed like garbage into backdrops and hand props: a two-dimensional 10-foot by 30-foot landscape made of discarded computer printouts (some of which we recycled into notebooks and photo albums), a lion headdress made out of shredded newspapers, etc. I learned about group dynamics exercises in several teen theater workshops at the CCP and in one held by actors from the Royal Shakespeare Academy, I learned about method acting. Up north and in the mountains of Baguio and the Cordilleras, I have conducted creative dramatics workshops for children in Baguio, Kabayan, Banawe and Ilocos Norte. I would never forget that the boy from Laoag whom his mother described as having been very shy, even antisocial, all his life. I cast him as the lead performer in that workshop’s culminating activity and his mother couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched her son take center stage to tell his story. In Kabayan, the theater group that the Cordillera Green Network helped put together through its workshops, one of which I was fortunate enough to have been a part of, has been staging plays that are entertaining while at the same time thought-provoking and educational.

These experiences, and the countless possibilities it can open up in the individual, are what I wanted to share with the children of Coroz.

And so last Friday, with my wife, stage actress RL-Abella-Altomonte, fellow theater artists Ro Quintos, Jeff Coronado and Eunice Caburao, together with photographer Jojo Lamaria and whom I believe is my theater-bound 11 year-old son, Leon, at half-past eight in the morning, we were waiting along the highway somewhere in Tublay for the jeepney that was hired by the FRB Foundation to take us through that rugged dirt road to Coroz.

The FRB team, led by Ms. Sameon included social workers of the foundation, its scholar-barbers and cosmeticians who will be providing free haircuts to the children and bags and bags of goodies (clothes, food, etc.), soon arrived and another 30 minutes later, we were being welcomed by the excited elementary pupils at the school grounds.

After starting the day with morning snacks, the workshop proper began with warm-up exercises and vocalization. The day’s session aims to simply introduce them to theater, and we opened with a conversation about plays they’ve seen (they haven’t and most of them had no idea what a stage play is), their favorite movies, stories, etc.

We then introduced them to what I believe are the four major elements of theater – idea/story, space, artist, and last but not the least, audience. And then the fun began – group dynamics exercises to emphasize the concepts of collaboration and cooperation which are very important in a collaborative art form such as theater.

Before the morning was over, we had the kids going “onstage” and infront of an audience to tell their personal stories and dreams: most of them want to become teachers, nurses and policemen, several dream of becoming missionaries... one of them want to become the president of our country.

After lunch we brought out the paints and brushes and canvases and encouraged the pupils to imagine themselves as the persons they want to become, and how that person relates to the community – and two hours later the school grounds was covered with paintings of teachers in classrooms, policemen and nurses helping those in need, missionaries working with the community in building houses, and at the end of the day, after several free haircuts and after handing out gifts, we knew we would have to come back again soon.

And when we do, our next task would be: bring a whole performance to Coroz to show them what they themselves can do on their own some time in the near future – tell their very own stories.