IngliseraKuno

Dear Mama, It's been a while since I talked to you. You have visited me lately, in my dreams. Maybe because I have forgotten to say hello to you and Papa in my prayers. Sorry about that. So how are you and Papa? I am sure you are both happy that you are together now. As for me, well, I have not been doing you proud lately, I guess. I am crisis, as usual. (I have been since Papa went, then you.) I am gliding through it quite well, though. If this happened two decades ago, I would probably have gone looney tunes. I made tough decisions lately, and I felt really terrible about them for a while. I have done my part for the longest time, I told myself, to console myself. So one day I woke up and decided to rid myself of the disappointment, the sadness and the guilt. A close friend of mine aptly told me to 'float', meantime. She meant a lot more than that, she knows everything there is to know about me. So I am 'floating', 'riding the tide', 'keeping myself to...

I was not really watching then, yet sound from the television could not be ignored. Everyone just had a great time being arrogant winners and sore losers from the NBA championships just concluded a year ago. The San Antonio Spurs won. I heard this man answer questions from the media about their win, I assumed their coach. He caught my attention when this sportswriter asked him a long, technical, heavy-worded, winding, intelligent-sounding question about basketball. To which he answered, 'I have no idea. I am not that smart.' He then proceeded to answer the next reporter's question.  I had to look up who the coach was, and learned his name is Gregg Popovich. I found myself smiling while looking at his photos, grey-haired, simply-clad, with eyes always in deep thought. He successfully gave the smart-ass reporter the middle finger with two short sentences: 'I have no idea. I am not that smart.' That, coming from a head coach of one of the best NBA teams ever, with a tr...

After the #PhilippineIndependenceDay festivities in Vigan, a meeting with my staff in between pan de sal and pancit, a late afternoon nap (I woke up in the middle of the night to start the day, yes, 5am is middle of the night for me), I set off the have late snacks and early dinner at Cafe Isabelita. It is located on a corner of V. De Los Reyes St., near the lovely Hotel Felicidad.  The local snacks available looked good, and were unknown to me, so those were reasons enough to try them out. I got to meet: 'kibin-kibin', which I was told was made of cassava; 'caratillos' which was rolled bread with 'kundol' filling; and 'sarapusop', fresh from the clay pot, boiled coconut, and wrapped in banana leaves, sprinkled with grated coconut (the dried and fried kind, I forget what we call it). The delicacies I paired with coffee. They were not overly sweet, just a tinge of, and they were not filling, like I expected. I was probably thinking of the rice-based, stic...

I am not privileged enough to take vacations abroad. The only place I have gone to outside of this country is Singapore (oh and Malaysia, since we could already take the bus from Singapore). So I take in all that I can when I am given the chance to see other parts of the Philippines. Even where I am assigned now (my work), each day I see something,; a woven cloth, a brick, a cobblestone, part of a roof, ruins, I say, 'wow'. I work in Vigan, this heritage city where one can be transported in time, way back when being Filipino meant being dark-skinned, riding calesas, wearing the baro't saya, handwoven baskets perched on top of black, curly locks, replaced by intricately crocheted headpieces when going to massive churches built by the Spaniards.  I have always been an 'old Filipino soul'. I have this thing for the old Filipino; houses with wide capiz windows where one can actually sit to get a view of the cobblestone streets, rocking chairs made of old wood, the s...

I woke up and said a prayer of thanks, as always then checked my phone, then browsed Facebook. I chanced upon this piece on Sen. Grace Poe, 'A Foundling Named Grace', by Gigi Grande of ABS-CBN. Now I post this without the benefit of any 'Google' searches, or without the legal background one should have to properly comment on the matter. I post this with what I feel must be, as a human being. Laws, as I see them, must be understood 'in the spirit in which they are written'. Putting together all of those which are considered and recognized in the crafting of laws: rights, welfare, common good, honor, dignity, respect; the brilliant minds who put these laws on paper had in mind, and this is presumptuous of me, fairness and justice. The law, supposedly says now, that Sen. Poe is not qualified to run for President of this country because she is not a 'natural-born Filipino'. She was abandoned in a church somewhere in Jaro, was found by a kindhearted woman, an...

We learned that Banaue is about a two-hour drive from Sagada, so we decided to go. Our butts were sore from travel all the way to Sagada, anyway, what's another two hours to see one of the wonders of the world, the BanaueRice Terraces? We were taught that long before, that in the Philippines, we have a 'wonder'.  En route to Banaue, we dropped by a view deck in Bontoc, to take shots of the terraces which already presented themselves as prelude to 'the terraces' in Banaue. The view was nice, but I was disturbed by the residential houses erected below the terraces. Still, the view was nice. The restrooms are clean by the viewdeck, surprisingly so, since many travellers stop there to answer the call of nature. Going farther Bontoc, we stopped by another view deck, a pocket garden of some sort, where we felt we were near the heavens. The sight of the clouds so near, nesting on the mountaintops, with the wind across our faces, lovely. Off we went for another hour or so o...