An interesting read on advertising, politics, and borgeouise.

It all seems so easy. No obstacles, no pain, no sadness, no struggle, not even a drop of sweat. Halaman lang ang sagabal. Whoever thought hope and change would be this effortless—and beautiful?

http://viewerdiscretionisadvised.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/not-another-yellow-solidarity-of-the-bourgeoisie/

I broke a promise I made 20 years ago today.

The last time I voted was during Marcos' time when I left my ballot blank. The country's election was so corrupt and one sided I promised never to vote again in this country until such time its electoral system is reformed. Today I registered at the COMELEC with every intention to vote. The system never changed. The fact is election today has gotten worse. Our unpresident got her position by cheating -  that's how bad election in this country has become. And there is no sign this will change. The only hope, and the only reason why I registered is Nick Perlas.

Today is supposed to be the last registration day. COMELEC even announced it will never never extend. (Well, it extended the deadline, which invited comments from pundits and the masa... "They haven't gotten the necessary numbers of flying voters yet".

Long line at 6 in the morning. At 10 everybody knows they're in the line for the whole day. A COMELEC worker gives tips to first time registrants. Mother and child and queue. Puzzled registrants. Food hawker.

 

I am not concerned on reforms for the system, yet. I am not even concerned on the obvious cheating that will happen. This morning my concern was on the long line of registrants of which I was at the back end. I was there 5 plus in the morning and already the line was all the way to the back of the building ending one far block away at the Sto. Nino Church. Two hours later I found out, no, a lot of us found out, we were in the wrong line. We have to go to the correct line and start at the back all over again. No signs, nobody from the COMELEC to guide us.

Means this early, as early as the registration of voters, the system already is failing. You'll have an impossible time accessing their soooo sloooow site if you wanted to download the form. Frustrating? Not as frustrating as when finally you downloaded it, filled up the form and bring it to them, they won't accept it. For reasons only they know.

We stood in line 10 hours before we were able to finally register. Our IDs? They say we have to come back after two years.

 

last october 19 we attended the fundraising dinner for nick perlas.

i have been a prout student since 1982. since then i always believed this theory of a comprehensive economic and political neo-humanist system is the answer to the present social crisis. since then i have always looked for the man who could lead this country armed with this idea and with an invariable character - a moralist, spiritualist, a listener, and a fighter. for 25 years i've never meet one.

and then shiila introduced nick perlas to me. a sensible, sensitive man who thinks deeply and works hard. low profile. fought against the bataan nuclear installation, led the fight for the banning of 32 agro pesticides, wrote books on the environment, involved in civil fights, a farmer, a thinker, a doer and a believer in the cause.

i'm voting for him this election. i'm volunteering for his cause right now.

i just got my birthday present from naning -  a wireless camera flash remote controller unit complete with a strobe, a strobe to camera adaptor, and the wireless sender receiver! my shots already looked like some pro took them! look ... !

got the text, tita odette alcantara just died

shiila's brother, musician, storyteller and judo black belt, hamir

tapati at genre

 kevin, we love ponyo

 joey a, tapati and budoy, the original sigbin at cebu coliseum

govinda's jembee at genre

manorainjana, also known as bob margii/jack sparrot, jamming in the name of the lord

joey ayala and the bagong lumad at the cebu coliseum

Haven’t blogged in centuries! I was busy wrapping up the P2F project for UNEP, and have also been going back and forth to Manila for various assignments and volunteer work. There are tons of things we would like to share in the past two months. Let’s start with Dadi’s birthday in Subic.

On the 3rd week of September, before Typhoon Ondoy decided to drop by, Ate Roscel and her family went to the country for a brief, unplanned holiday. They took me, Dadi and Papa Lolo with them on a rare two-day getaway at Camayan Resort, Subic.  We had a blast at the beach, Ocean Adventure, Zoobic Zafari.

At the same time Dad was completing urgent assignments for the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, including their website and multimedia presentation needed for Martial Law Commemoration Program (Dadi’s birthday!).

So as usual, Dad brought his “laptop” with him, which was actually a PC with an LCD monitor. He worked nights and early mornings, and managed to enjoy some of our activities together and while finishing the project on time! I was mighty proud.
 
Everybody had a great time to enjoy nature in Subic (with monkeys along the hi-way, dense forests, humongous bats, coming face to face with tigers and Issa’s courageous encounter with the false killer whale and dolphins).

It was a rare time to bond with Pa and Ate Roscel’s family, while Toni was in Cebu, Kim was in Makati and Mommy was with Eggie’s family in Bicol for the Penafrancia Festival.

We went back to Antipolo blissfully tired. Later that week, we missed Ondoy by a few hours when we boarded the last flight to Cebu on the night of September 25. Precious!

 

margii shutterbugs

a rare opportunity with advocates for teacher's right,
senator allan peter cayetano and other dignified teachers

The Teachers' Dignity Coalition gave us the honor to be part of their national convention. Event collaterals, multimedia, documentations, photo/video, we were there for three days,

...in November, 2006, Beavan launched a year-long project in which he, his wife, his two-year-old daughter and his four-year-old dog

went off the grid and attempted to live in the middle of New York City with as little environmental impact as possible.

noimpactproject.org

I have always been an advocate for local language use. August is National Language Month and my favorite columnist decided to write his column the other day in Pilipino. Here you can see how a writer could easily and graphically show his true feelings using his mother tongue, more than he ever did writing in English the whole year- the reason why people should use their mother language. 

Basahin at damhin - May Araw din Kayo

In my career as a multimedia artist, I never lectured to more than 300 people. Our Toni just did it in Cebu City, in Sta Theresa College, an all girl Catholic institution that offers all levels of instruction from preparatory to college. He presented a 30 minute lecture on health and the environment, complete with flash slide.

His mom was soooo proud. Me? I felt some kind of professional jealousy. I know I should not, knowing it was me who thought of that idea in the first place. When Ma'am Irish Amores invited me to give a talk to their grade 5 and 6 pupils for the school's culminatng program for the Nutrition Month, I excitedly told her if it is possible to have instead an eleven year old boy present the lecture. She too became excited. Toni's mom remained cool, confident Toni WILL do it ... "easily", she added. 

She has her point as Toni already watched her once presenting a similar short lecture to his high school class. She was sure Toni has it in his young brain. If I could make the lecture simpler for an eleven year old to deliver and make the slide show a little livelier, hmmm, maybe it will work. With the idea and the outline that I'll make, I might even take credit for it!

But Toni grabbed all of it! The attention, the teasings, the questions, the interviews ...  it was all offered to Toni. Well, it's not that he doesn't deserve it. He actually did deserve it. His delivery was, as he put it himself, near perfect. His jokes right on target, his pauses, even his smiles and blushes! Did I tell you I was jealous?

There's one little blemish I found in his presentation, ha, ha: at the start, there was a one minute stage fright where he just stared and blushed and just stood there not knowing what to do. But realizing now, that's not a moment for me to declare victory over him. The audience felt it was cute of him to do so - to them, he became a real 11 year old boy instead of THE unreachable precocious god-angel from heaven.

Anyway, that day might be totally his. But in his whole life, I will always be his proud dad.