New day

Woke up to a heavy downpour. It's half past five in the morning and power's out, and there's hardly any light outside that the trees swaying in the wind are giant silhouettes dancing to an eerie symphony of howling wands, rain bearing down on roofs, branches breaking, windows left unlocked slamming. The dance of the fallen, I thought. Nothing else is moving in the dim kitchen except me and the clock on the wall. I light a candle.

The 20th of September, 2014, the 13th typhoon of the year makes landfall. The neighbor's rooster crows a hopeful crow, the only reminder that this is still, despite the tempest, indeed a brand new day. You know, the first of the rest...

It is much brighter now, light finds a way through thick clouds. The porch is littered with leaves. Bamboos not strong enough to withstand the gusts, or flexible enough to bend in the wind, lay on the ground. I will clean up later when the rains slow down a bit.

But it is a new day. I've forgotten how fresh the air felt after a storm. The wind sweeps and the all that water washes away all that is yesterday's, and we're left with a clean slate. On this 41st year, a clean slate.

And there - today is, indeed, a good day and a good way to celebrate a birthday.  

Hula (or intuitive consultancy)

That's what I want to call what I do, really, she said to me when I asked her what method she uses as a "manghuhula," or fortune teller. Pick three cards, she asked me as she spread out a deck of tarot cards in front of me. I did. Don't you have any questions you want answers to? She asked. Hmmm, where do I start, but I decided to go for the one that I've really been wondering about:

What's it like for me for the rest of the year?

image from onepebblecab.blogspot.com

Drought's over, she said. Work's going to come pouring in, and these projects aren't going to be stressful, "easy" was the exact word she used. Money's going to come in.

Ahhh finally, I thought, hoping that, borrowing a line from the Indigo Girls, just because she said it that it's true.

At the end of that night's gig, I passed by an ATM machine to withdraw what ever little's there to buy something and I saw a P50.00 bill on the ground. I picked it up and looked around for someone who may have dropped it. Nobody. Finders-keepers.

The next day, a client for whom I wrote three articles 6 months ago and never heard from again suddenly emailed to let me know that he has deposited some money in my account. Not much, but hey, I wasn't expecting anything from that gig anymore.

Not, bad, Meng, not bad. I"m not going to spend that P50.00 bill and will just keep it in my wallet as a good luck charm.

Yeah, I believe in those.

If it's not on Facebook...

Bumped into someone who was involved with the protest against the expansion plan of SM City Baguio yesterday and he asked: "why did you leave our group?" What do you mean? I asked back. "Why did you stop?" Stop what? "Protesting against SM?"

So if it's not on Facebook, it doesn't exist? Or if you're not on Facebook, you're nowhere?

Nah, I never stopped believing that it's wrong to easily sacrifice the majority's welfare and future for the benefit of a few. I just stopped believing that ego-tripping, posting links and commenting on comments on Facebook will save the environment.

Sunday mornings

I love them. 

Now, pick that phone back up

“Put that phone down more often, really, and smell the flowers,” was the last thing I said two weeks ago in another post. I was referring to a lot of people’s obsession with taking a photo or video of everything and anything that’s going on around them instead of actually experiencing the spectacle.

But today’s smartphones aren’t all that bad. I finally had to give in and get one of those smartphones a few weeks ago when my Jurassic mobile phone finally conked out. I’m lucky to be getting into it quite late in the day since the prices of smartphones have gone down significantly with more and more players entering the lucrative market. I got one of the cheapest available ones out there and I love it, first and foremost because it’s locally made.

Internal memory’s very limited, so none of those high-maintenance social networking apps. But it can make and accept calls, text and multimedia messages, play music and videos, take photos and videos, and at P3,000, I can’t complain.

But the one thing I love most about it is that I can read e-books on it.

Yeah, yeah, I know how different the feel of a real book is, the smell of the paper and all that, but I can be in the bathroom, in a bus or jeep, in line at the bank, just about anywhere and I can whip up my phone and immerse myself in a story, a concept, a strange, wonderful, inspiring, scary universe.

Photo lifted from www.teleread.com

It sure beats browsing through all that dirty laundry being aired or self-serving postings on Facebook.

Gutenberg.org is currently my favorite website to visit with my smartphone. With close to 50,000 free e-books available, there are more than enough literary gems in there to last a lifetime. Currently, I have bookmarked pages in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

Knowledge has never been this easily accessible, all it takes is a tap and you can swipe your way through the world’s greatest literary treasures.

So if you’re not sending text messages or making a call but just have to pick that phone up – read a book.

First things first: an efficient, sustainable public transport system

The goal is to decongest, de-pollute the Central Business District and the city executive proposes to desecrate sacred grounds to build a parking building, some are proposing the SUMP concept, or the Sustainable Urban Mobility Program which would involve the pedestrianization of Session Road, instituting a traffic re-routing scheme, while the city’s representative in congress cannot pitch in his ideas at the moment because his busy trying to wriggle his way out of the Mt. Kabuyao mess he created.

There’s wisdom in both proposals. A parking facility will indeed free our roadsides in the CBD of cars. In the case of Session Road, that’s one added lane for vehicles and for the narrower side streets such as Assumption Rd. and Mabini Street, perhaps a wider sidewalk for pedestrians.

And the SUMP? It would definitely lessen the pollution along Session Road. Though I’m quite apprehensive about where all those cars passing the city’s main thoroughfare would be transferred, we might just be transferring the pollution to a different, nearby area and in this case, from an area lined with business establishments (Session Road) to an area surrounded by schools and hospitals (Gen. Luna Rd., Assumption Rd.).

The first proposal, I’ve discussed in this column at length and basically, my disagreement to it is premised on one thing: not at the Melvin Jones grounds.

As to the second proposal, I agree with the concept, but I would like to see a detailed timeline for its implementation. The presence of two major hospitals in the vicinity worries me. The re-routing scheme must be well thought out, tried out over a long period of time before being implemented.

Let's look at the more recent traffic re-routing scheme in the CBD that was implemented a few years ago. After a couple of months of relative efficiency, we are now experiencing some of the kinks of that scheme -we now experience bottle necks in certain choke points such as the area going to YMCA where vehicles coming from lower Session Road and the Baguio Cathedral converge on a single lane. Then there’s the increased air pollution in the UP Baguio area where most vehicles coming from Kennon Road, Marcos Highway, etc. en route to Session Road pass.

Which brings me to my own humble suggestion to help address the major issues, which are, again, congestion and pollution – a more efficient public transport system.

When we were living in San Luis Village, we wanted our children to take the jeep to school, but it’s almost impossible to do that in the morning where the jeeps arrive in our area already full. Simply allotting some seats for those along the way could have solved that, but no, the drivers would like to assure themselves of full capacity. We now live along Ambuklao Road, and the situation’s the same, just as when we were staying in the Gibraltar area. See, a public transport franchise isn’t just a license to do business, it’s also a mandate to serve the best interest of the riding public. And so we’re forced to bring our kids children to school by car.

Then city hall has this penchant for making things much better for private motorists too – PUVs are banned along Gen. Luna in the morning and two of our children go to school in that area. So even if we walk the extra mile and have the kids by the roadside very early to catch a jeepney ride, they would have to walk another extra mile to get to school. A jeep carries around 20 passengers, against a huge SUV that brings one pupil to school.

Alright, I’m fine with the banning of jeepneys along certain roads, in fact, I’m fine with having no jeepneys at all in the Central Business District. As long as an alternative is put in place – a vehicle that goes into a loop around town. Electric jeeps? Sure! How many mostly empty Trancoville and Aurora Hill jeeps do you see crawling, idling, stopping at “no loading/unloading” areas, creating bottle necks? Check out the area across the Baguio Cathedral or in front of Tiong San Harrison. How about all those jeeps going up Calderon? A scheme that would put all those jeeps at the perimeter and outside the CBD would significantly help decongest the area.

Have that – an efficient, sustainable public transport system and we do away with the need to bring one's private vehicle into the CBD, reducing their number on the road. Have that - and the Mayor  wouldn’t need to destroy a park for a parking building. Have that, and let’s talk pedestrianization.

Put that phone down

Photo from techpp.com

Common sight at most gatherings these days (be it a performance on stage, graduation ceremony, a spectacular sunset, a baby's first steps, etc.): people with their smart phones held up to record the spectacle.

I was at a nephew's wedding where my wife was ninang and I volunteered to take photos and I had to compete with dozens of guests and relatives for the best angle to take photos of important moments during the ceremony and the reception. During the entrance of the entourage, of the bride, when groom received the bride, when they sat down, when they stood up, when the priest blessed them, when they put on the rings, when they were pronounced man and wife and when they kissed as a married couple for the first time, they were there, with their arms stretched out, phone in hand... click.

This images would go in Facebook status updates and photo albums, or on Twitter or Instagram, and will be buried under the deluge of the next day's status updates and memes and viral videos and the occasional petition for world peace.

In the meantime, years from now, perhaps at the couple's 10th anniversary, the next family reunion, when they look back at that beautiful day, they won't remember exactly how the moment felt as much as they would remember how that phone felt in their hand and how the scene looked on their tiny LCD screen.

That's a lot of people's first impulse right now at anything worth remembering - look, a beautiful flower!, uh, oh, a car accident, a full moon!, a sunset, a sunrise, a nice plate of delicious food, heck, even intimate moments between a man and a woman and a man and a man and a woman and a woman... take a photo or a short video clip.

And years from now? They won't be able to relive that same moment in the same way as those they experienced with their senses - how it looked not through a screen but as seen by their eyes, how the aroma of that dish whetted their appetite, how it actually tasted, how the environment felt, how the music played in the air. They will be reliving the moment they took out that phone and took a photo of something or other.

Sure, there are moments that are worth capturing in a photo or video, but unforgettable moments are better experienced with the senses, and that's exactly what makes them unforgettable.

Put that phone down more often, really, and smell the flowers.