There are lots of kids going around the subdivision knocking on people’s doors tonight. My dad just bought a thousand pesos-worth of candies to dole out. You know, I did dress up in demon costumes in school. But I never did anything sort of trick or treating my whole life. Sometimes I think that’s sad. But I’m okay with that, it’s not that I missed a lot. Many Filipinos didn’t experience having gone trick or treating when they were kids anyway.

My site is featured here. Hehe…

We had our publications cluster night yesterday after the last day of classes before our semestral break. It was not that eventful, but that’s okay. There were game activities, but since very few members attended, it was quite boring. Or maybe the games were just boring in the first place. There was even a basketball tournament among the publications organizations. As expected, the writers of Hilites Magazine came in last place. Haha. There was also some water fight. Almost everybody was soaking wet after that. I didn’t sleep over at school, I asked my dad to pick me up at 11.

Another Mexican film was lent to me by one of my classmates. This is supposedly Mexico’s biggest and most controversial award-winning film starring Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Gael Garcia Bernal. El Crimen del Padre Amaro; it’s about the story of a young ambitious priest who becomes hopelessly attracted to one of his lovely pious parishioners and his many ‘crimes’. Aside from that, it also dares to expose the Catholic Church leadership’s hypocrisy through its exposition of its connivance with feudal drug lords and politicians.

I don’t like it that much. It’s saturated with too many unnecessary subplots. If the producers wanted to bash the Church that much, they should have taken it one film at a time. It lacked focus. But, it deserves credit for being melodramatic. I like that.

If only the characters spoke Filipino and if I was a little more ignorant than I am, I would have easily thought the setting was here in the Philippines.

Bikoy’s rating: 8.5/10

Businessmen, that elitist clique in Makati, also belittled FPJ as did a number of trapos, obviously to scare the movie actor into deciding against running. There is even a text brigade using God for their selfish ends. They are texting the people to pray to God to make FPJ see the light and decide not to run…. All that arm twisting may just anger him — just like the hero he plays in the movies who finally gets fed up with all the badgering by the bad guys that he turns around and wreaks vengeance on them. Baka mainis ‘yan, sige kayo. Like mild-mannered Bruce Banner being picked on, there is an implied plea in FPJ’s silence: “Please don’t make me angry. I get terrible when I’m angry.” When he gets angry, he may just run, even if he doesn’t intend to, just to spite those hecklers.

Neal Cruz. Phil. Daily Inquirer. October 27, 2003

Just what I said. Besides, he may not have the experience, but he has the personality. I’m not saying that it’s the only rational basis of one’s election. But he is a good and moral man. In a government culture that breeds corruption in all its forms, he can serve as a long-awaited relief. He’s not totally dumb anyway, he manages his own film production company. And besides, a president never works alone. He knows well that he’d do better by appointing intellectual technocrats in his cabinet. And he doesn’t have hoards of relatives who can abuse his power. If I am just eligible to vote, Poe would be one of the candidates I’d consider voting for. Many people are tired of politicians.

I had a terrible dream while having my afternoon siesta. My pregnant wife, who I can’t identify (I wonder who she is. I wonder if she’s even my wife), gave birth while we were walking on some street with open drainages at the sides. I didn’t know what to do. Someone who came down from a pedicab, and helped her give birth… sitting down. The baby came out, and it was dead. I woke up crying.

I remember another quite similar dream. I was a politician, campaigning on stage at some multi-purpose hall in the provinces. My wife (I can’t identify who my wife was as well) was assassinated. She died. And I woke up crying too.

God, I hope these don’t mean anything.

My mom is from the government. So she knows a whole lot about how the government works — from experience and from coffee table talks among some government executives. She has a lot of insider stories that would last investigative journalism shows in TV months of programming. It’s a good thing I went with her to Bulacan, we talked about government and politics the whole time on the road. From the elections next year and the years before, discussing the issues behind the proclaimed candidates for president and how election culture works, to corruption among legislators and government officials, to her frustrations on all these things. Her pep talk on solutions, nationalism and political will swooned me. Our government needs more people like my mom. She wants to change a lot of things. But see, for many competent, nationalistic and idealistic government officials, implementing drastic changes is equal to being changed from your position in the beaurocracy. They have no choice else be unemployed.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
-Edmond Burke

When I, together with the other applicants for the AFS Japan exchange student program, was tasked to write on-the-spot an essay answering the question, “What can you contribute to your country 10 years from now?” I knew exactly what I wanted to write down. Actually, I still don’t know what I’m going to be ten years from now. But hopefully I can do a good deal of contribution to my country by staying here till then. No offense intended for those who have fled the Philippines out of hopelessness. Nobody can blame the millions of Filipinos who have permanently left the country in search for a better life. But I think I can do a great deal of contribution by being the last one to jump out of this sinking ship.

Everything seems to be daunting, but the drastic solutions are not impossible.

In one of the food stalls at our cafeteria, they give you these food stubs after you pay, which you show and return to the counter to receive the meal that you ordered. Last Monday, I paid for and received food at a certain food stall, but was not asked for my food stub. If I was myself that time, I would’ve returned it and ignored the personnels’ negligence. But peer pressure did me and I kept the food stub, good for another use. My conscience strangled me for hours so I just gave away the food stub to one of my classmates to relieve me of some of the baggage.

Okay, now some people have some stocked light mud ready to be slung at me at their convenience. In a group of people where personalities are used to pursue arguments, my credibilty has gone down a couple of notches.

Today we had one of our most physically strenuous CAT sessions. But it’s not that bad. The training is so much lighter than that of the NCO course (where I lasted more than a month). And it’s so much more fun having the whole batch sympathizing with your exhaustion.