IngliseraKuno

I wake up to mornings of light, 'chocnut-y' wisps of air from a veranda overlooking the Samal Island. From the veranda, I watch each morning, men who climb coconut trees to retrieve small 'catch basins' of some sort positioned to save drops of unfiltered coconut juice from the night before, a drink called 'tuba'. Smoking is a problem, I cannot just light a stick anywhere in Davao. They are very serious about the smoking ban. I attempted to several times (wink-wink) in our veranda, but only at night, as one colleague told me they have CCTV cameras all over the place, even atop the coconut trees. I laughed when he told me that, in the hope that he was joking. He said he was, but I do not want to risk getting caught and pay five thousand pesos as fine. We are in our third major conference this year, and it is just the first quarter. We are working on the lifeblood of our plans and programs for 2016,  this thing we call the budget. Truth be told, I have never re...

I had the privilege of discussing the agrarian reform program with trainees of the Philippine National Police a couple of days back,  stationed in a detachment in Ilocos Sur. The objective of the discussion, as I understood it, was to impart to the organization how they can help better implement the programs of government in the countryside. The invitation was intended for my boss, our Regional Director, who in turn delegated the task to me as he had a previous commitment. I have been so angry about the Mamasapano incident of late, so I took this task as an honor, to meet the young men and women of the peacekeeping force in the country. The detachment was accessible from the national road, but the interior route was quite steep and rough. I have been in worst places. A young trainee on a smoking break motioned to us to proceed where the venue of the discussion would take place. It was a makeshift classroom, with bamboo poles holding up a tent-like cover, with plastic chairs fac...

It's a lot like a hologram, the past couple of years. Lasers bring life to a three-dimensional picture of me, while I watch. That sounds really deep. And crazy.  Many concluded I am, on top of that, disillusioned, naive, and downright irresponsible. 'She's depressed', one said to another, about me. That's why I rant, I 'overshare', I take selfies more than the normal Filipino (that means a LOT more), I have a blog where 'never-before-told' stories are revealed. I talk a lot, about what I have in this confusingly-wired brain, as I am now, to no one special in particular. I have friends who listen, and friends who couldn't care less. I have a family who stretch their patience to the extreme. Other members, well, that is for them to know. And I don't want to find out.  Truth is, I have never been so in touch with reality my whole life than now. Like spirits who travel from bodies while on the verge of crossing over to death, I am outside, lo...

It was a two-week preparation, tension-filled, pesky me driving my staff nuts day after day to give me answers to questions impossible to answer right there and then, but I insisted and my staff scrambled to get me what I needed to know. Literally walking to and from hotels, venues, bus terminals, shops for souvenirs, calesa drivers, tourism offices, City of Vigan and Provincial Capitol offices, calling officials directly for travel arrangements. It did not help that while all these are going on, there are also colleagues who are watching in the background, sourgraping that the staff are doing great, enjoying every minute of torture I inflict upon them even up to midnight. Waiting for us to make a mistake so they can laugh at us, which is actually hurtful but I did not have time to waste and confront them. Whatever we accomplish, I thought, it was going to be the accomplishment of Region 1 and Ilocos Sur. Now that the management of the conference is over, I have the time to think a...