Friends

I shriek in public. I don’t have problems expressing myself. I can tell my stories with all the fancy gestures and sound effects. I can imitate all the characters in my stories--I do all of that exceptionally well when I’m with my closest friends.

I have three very beautiful girlfriends in college. Certified heartbreakers (yihee!), campus crushes, and very intelligent human beings—dangerous package indeed. Whenever I’m with any of them, I feel like I am a guy from nowhere. Well, I don’t look bad. They’re just exceptionally beautiful.

I miss a lot of our triumphant college moments. There was a time when we joined a debate tournament, just for fun, oozing with confidence that winning was next to our names. I don’t exactly remember winning in that round, but we were good! Even in simple class debates, we stood up for each other no matter what. We shared pains, laughters, narcissistic moments, etc.

Now, we barely meet. Exchanging text messages is even rare.

But whenever we meet, the old wisdom is there. Distance and time will find it hard to shake that bond. There’s that familiar connection, traces of ourselves that surface only when we see each other.

Call me nuts, but what am I going to do without my (fabulous) friends.

P.S. : Here at PhilRice, I also have fabulous friends. We call ourselves the FFF—Fabulous Friends of FilRice. Haha!

Victims

I just came back from ARMM. Scenes that I saw 2 years back were the same scenes that greeted me at Awang airport in Cotabato: soldiers in their type A uniform, endless checkpoints, military tanks, rebel camps, and helicopters flying so low I could almost see the pilot.

Then I saw the call for justice in Notre Dame of Midsayap for a girl who got killed for the same reason you probably have heard 3 or more decades ago. On my second day in Cotabato, classes were cancelled as a sign of protest for some operations mishaps by the military. A child was caught dead.

While doing the interview, I was surprised to see our farmer-cooperator in Maguindanao, referred to me as a successful farmer, sleeping in the makeshift classroom we built for the project. I learned later that his relatives were occupying his house, as they were displaced by war 2 weeks ago. Evacuation centers, distraught evacuees, lines for claiming relief goods did not escape my vision. They were everywhere.

I continued with my search for success stories. I saw hope, perseverance in the eyes of the farmers I interviewed. They all wanted to get out of the shackles of poverty that have long entrapped them.

I was teary eyed during my interviews. One of them that struck me was an MNLF commander in Lanao del Sur. He spoke flawless English, and called himself a genius when I asked him how he learned to use the computer. The man was in his 50s, and probably was tired of the seemed endless assaults between them and the military. He had high hopes that through rice farming their lives could change for the better. When we were about to leave, the man was close to tears saying, “I hope that you could help us spread the word.”[That we are here eager to help ourselves. We can do this, and that someone out there might help us in our quest].

As the plane took off on my way back to Manila, ARMM became smaller and smaller. Until I noticed that I was one with the clouds. Poverty is just down there. It will never haunt those who have positioned themselves at the tip of the social triangle.

I got numbed. I saw hope. I saw people eager to help themselves. But then, I have lots of fears. I can’t help but think when will the next bomb explode and blow these people away from their areas--the time when they, once again, have to run for their lives?

Now let me ask the same question posted perhaps by our grandparents during their tender years: When can ARMM people live peaceful lives?

Front cover

When work got so piled-up, and we don't know what to say we often resort to imagery or things that may represent how we feel.

I just want to say that I am still here.. that I am still existing though I am still chained and silenced by my own self.

Melo-dramatic at that. I missed the "being" in me.

The Necessity of Failure

I have read countless stories of success. From famous artists to academics and Nobel prize winners, I have always been inspired, hearing about how these people persevered, worked hard, and inevitably became successful in their respective fields.

Sometimes I daydream too about success and making a difference in the world. The dream of every idealistic youth. I am more of a seeker than a dreamer, but along the way I find myself passionately pursuing a cause, because I derive meaning from it that I cannot comprehend fully myself. This is the only path I know. My heart chose to see what my mind sometimes doesn't understand completely. I am an old soul and I chose to accept my destiny.

Learning that one should stand up after a fall is easier memorized than done. Only when I came face to face with it that I now understand why it is important to fail.

Failure is the real key to success. The devastating, crushing, and disappointing emotional struggle that failure brings breaks seeds. Take a catterpillar trapped in its pupa, patient and strong, until finally a butterfly unfolds. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory is not complete without a string of failures. It took Edison hundreds of bulbs before he can produce the right one that changed the world. Steve Jobs got booted out of his own company when he was staring out. And then there's the Alchemist. The story of success is actually about taking the right attitude about failure. No white without black, no happiness without sadness, no gain without pain, no sweetness without sorrow.

I was thinking about failure again the other day when a friend told me: "Be happy. It means you're being pointed in the right direction. If you are being opposed, it means you are being pushed towards a purpose."

Sometimes I chuckle at God's secret, mysterious ways.

Jaime in da city!

Astoria Hotel (while waiting for the start of a meeting)
J: Coffee please
(dating ang order. Aba may milk pa. OK to ah.Tapos yung nasa paligid ko nagbabasa ng diyaryo, basta lahat sila may binabasa kaya dapat may binabasa din ako. I put out my book. Ayan, mas maganda tong binabasa ko. When the meeting was about to start, I asked for the bill.
W: Sir (bigay ang bill).
J: (Kaloka, 80!!! Liit-liit na mug yun, kasi e, dinamihan ko gatas. Dalawang boxes na yun ng 3 in 1 ah. Hehehe) Here.

Marco Polo Hotel, Davao City (project review)
Friend 1: Ayan na paparating na ang mga Hapon!
Friend 2: Yeah, puyatan na to. Let’s fix ourselves muna. Punta tayo sa room natin.
J: OK. Magagamit na natin ang mga cards na to, slide lang daw to sa door.
Friend 1: Yeah!
(Pagdating sa room, inislide namin yung card and nabuksan na room pero napakadilim)
Friend 1: Oh no, ang dilim!
Friend 2: Cellphone para may ilaw!
J: Ayan may ilaw sa wakas! Shocks ang init.
(We were like that for about 5 min until nag CR ang kasama naming isa and accidentally nailagay ang card sa may lalagyan near the door at nagkailaw!)
All: Switch din pala! Hahaha!

MRT Station, rush hour
J: (What’s this card for? Paano kaya ginagamit to? Ah, tingnan ang mga nauna.
Ng ako na)
J: (Gee, bat ayaw pumasok?)
Friend: Jaime, hurry up heto na train
J: Yeah, anjan na ko. Please wait. (Ang nakita ko yung may red na arrow yung una sa pagpasok. Susmaryosep burado yung akin! Gasgas! Ano ba yan, tatalunin ko na lang to. Hehehe)

PBCom Tower, mag-aapply ng trabaho, nasa elevator

(Ting)
J: (Ang taas ko na, 16th floor! Pano pag lumindol, nagkasunog, naku wag naman sana. Then biglang napapunta sa ground floor. Takbo Jaime, takbo, baka bigla pang sumara! Hahaha!)

Airport
Welcome to NAIA!
J: (Asan kaya ang mga taxi dito. Ayun.)
Sa may labasan lang po yung may mga bus papuntang Cubao.
Driver: Naku hijo, mahal. 300
J: Wag na lang po.
(Kaya yun nilakad ko hanggang sa madaanan ko Nayong Filipino. Sabi siguro nung mga metro aides, ayan mas mabuti pa din kalagayan natin. Naman! Bitbit ko tatlong malalaking bags, may box pa ng A4 na bond paper laman durian)

Whew! You can't have it all.

Uncalled Endings

The longer time I stay here,

All the more I become far away from my friends

This real toxic work cushioned me in a wall that my eyes are the only organs that could witness

Those horrendous things happening to me

People are slowly drifting away or falling from my hands

I don’t want my irreplaceable gems

Morphed like pebbles and sands

Please…don’t leave my side

Tireless worker, I am, pounding 15 hours a day

Puffing from cigar an angry gesture in the air

All I want now is my friend’s presence

What my work have done is to build walls of separation

I want to take hold of my decision

That I will be in a place where my talents are in full use

But clear reasons not to stay abound my way

A work with no play-mates is morbid

Should I take the move to jump out of the ship?

Or simply let things the way they were

‘Coz I will learn how to be used to it

But no please no, I don’t want to drag myself just to do work

I am Christopher and I am me

I am searching for a place where I could best be me

Would this be the company near the onomatopoeic MRT

Or it’s just under the mango tree with Matell, Jaime and me