Beating the summer heat on a shoestring budget

WITH MY mother-in-law cooling her heels in Oas, with six boisterous kids constantly complaining how hot it is in Pacol, and a daughter looking for excuse to go swimming again -- with her Grandview friends across the street -- what's a harassed father to do?

Improvise, aside from maintaining a Jobian patience and a cheerful disposition in the toughest of situations. Just today, I tried the following with great success:

1. Cool melon-flavored milk. I hated milk when I was a kid. I think it was because my mother put in a little too much water during those difficult days of my childhood, diluting the milky flavor in the process. My kids too don't like it plain, except of course my last three who consume about a liter between them every night.

But put in ripe orange melon -- known as cantaloupe elsewhere -- and the situation changes. My standard mix, which I did again for breakfast, consists of one-half can of 370 ml evap, a quarter of diced melon, and enough water to fill to the brim the one-liter Nestea shaker. Add sugar and sweeten to taste, and voila! -- a milk drink everybody loves!

Always make sure there's a bowl of cracked ice on standby; they can push up the resulting glasses above six, just like how it is done in Jollibee or McDo, allowing older, bigger kids another serving.

2. Good old iced tea. For our lunch, I used that shaker this time to prepare iced tea, using a third of the 200-gram Lipton Honeymansi instead of Nestea. The trick is to add calamansi juice to the mix (squeezed from between 5-7 fruits), and enough sugar sweetener.

Together with the bowl of cracked ice (a must! to give justice to the name), I figure this concoction costed me less than P20, half of what I would have spent on a 1.5-liter Pepsi.

3. Mango-flavored milk. When I was preparing dinner, I was hoping to do another serving of what we had for breakfast, remembering quite clearly that there was still a quarter of the fruit left in the fridge. Unfortunately, Pep -- my melon-loving daughter -- already finished it for snack during the day. What I had was a kilo of ripe mangoes I bought at the corner of Penafrancia and Magsaysay on the way home, six pieces for P38.50.

So what the heck! Why don't I try a mango-flavored milk this time around? And you know what? I'm happy I did because the result was quite beyond expectation: a delicious mangoes-and-cream milk drink. The procedure was same as No. 1, except you use one-and-a-half of diced mangoes instead of one-quarter melon.

Together with bathing twice, one in the morning and another before bedtime, these affordable quenchers make the super-hot summer in Pacol much more tolerable.

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Late suggested readings

THE following are week late, but I am putting them forward just the same as suggested readings.

1. I did not realize Randy David was Ateneo de Naga University's commencement speaker last March 23 until I read his column last Sunday. (That's what you get for being a non-Atenean, which can cut both ways.) But I had a feeling his address, which tackled a subject close to home -- the Filipino family -- can be found at the Ateneo website, and it indeed is.

I think whenever this modern-day Filipino prophet speaks, we ought to pause and listen.

2. Want to know how things really are at the local level? Then check out this fine piece by Cristina Montiel and Agustin Rodriquez, which the PCIJ website currently banners as its lead article. The following paragraph, I think, sums up the predicament of elected local officials:

Rather than imagining and realizing the development possibilities of their localities, local government officials are caught in a Sisyphusian task. On one hand, they are hard-pressed to access resources for projects that demonstrate their capacity to deliver but do not effectively respond to the problem of poverty. On the other hand, they are politically obliged to mobilize partisan, fickle, and temporary support for higher-level officials. If they fail to deliver on either side, they lose both sides. Given the immensity of the task, who has time to govern -- much less govern with dynamism and creativity?

3. I only found out that Vic Nierva aka Makuapo ni Handiong has joined Vox Bikol's stable of columnists when its pre-Lenten issue came out a week ago. This should give Vox one of the deepest benches among local papers insofar as the op-ed page is concerned. But his second foray is a pleasant stunner, giving us an insider's take into the Abang Mabulo-Dato Arroyo tussle.

Vic, who teaches literature at UP and has recently spent time translating English poems into Bikol in his blog, should honestly consider coming out with an English translation of that piece this time around.

And Vox Bikol should really, really make its online presence felt pronto.

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Pigs, Photoshop and politics

ONE OF the better, truth-telling Hollywood movies I saw over the weekend is Jason Reitman's Thank You For Not Smoking, headlined by a powerful cast that included Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes and Maria Bello.

It's been lying there unplayed in my hard disk for some months now, courtesy of my brother Dennis aka Patty; my other brother Nelson aka Macky's raving endorsement finally spurred me to see it, and Ezekiel too when his Playstation 2 finally gave up. It was 90 minutes truly well spent.

This particular exchange during the Senate committee hearing scene between the anti-smoking Sen. Ortolan Finistirre (played by Macy), who proposes to slap the skulls-and-crossbone logo -- indicating poison -- on every cigarette pack, and his resource person Dr. Meisenbach is telling:

Sen. Finistirre: Why don't we just use words as we currently do? Something that describes the dangers of cigarette smoking?

Dr. Meisenbach: Well, the American public is not affected by masthead anymore. They need images. We've done studies which show that consumers react up to 80% more to imagery rather than words. The stats are there.

The way the ongoing electoral campaigns are shaping, not only did our politicians warm up to the idea, which marketing man Winston Marbella alluded to here, but some are indeed smarter than others when it comes to optimizing the visual media. In the words of Giancarlo Giannini's Rene Mathis, the Montenegro-based British agent in Casino Royale, "It's amazing what you can do with Photoshop these days, isn't it?

Locally, the tarpaulin streamers of Camarines Sur Gov. LRay Villafuerte easily stand out above the rest; they're far better than the airbrushed Manny Villar or Ralph Recto we have dotting the local landscape. Not content on capitalizing on the bevy of movie stars that have started to descend into the P300-million Camarines Sur Watersports Complex -- which his father Luis, Sr. promises to level back to ground in case his bet Eduardo Pilapil wins over his prodigal son -- LRay has also effectively leveraged his moviestar visage, and more.

While LRay in the flesh is as brown as you and me, the LRay on his streamer boasts of an almost caucasian white skin -- certainly not because of Eskinol or the milk content of Dove, but digitally enhanced by Photoshop or its rival picture editors. From afar, it even has the feel of a 3D-animation character, not quite unlike Cloud from the Final Fantasy series.

His father, while definitely outdone by his son in this department, has also taken advantage of what digital technology can offer. His posters and calendars feature an LRV that has a bright, shining and definitely younger face. If the House Speakership were to be decided on looks alone, he will soundly give JDV a beating.

Compare that with the conservative maroon motif of the F-100 tarpaulins that the Fuentebellas have set up all throughout the stretch of the road to Partido, starting from Anayan down to Nato where we recently went swimming, and the difference cannot be starker. No wonder, as Maryanne Moll pointed out in her comment to a recent post, the Villafuertes continue to loom large in the province.

But what takes the cake, to my mind, is the picture above, which is taken a few meters from LRay's walled abode along Maharlika Highway, about a kilometer from the Provincial Capitol. If Pigrolac ends up getting some party-list votes come May 14, I will not be surprised if these adverts are responsible.

If at all, they will not surely be sufficient to meet the minimum threshhold, not to mention the Comelec approval that Ladlad and other wannabe partylist groups failed to muster. Yet come to think about it, if Pigrolac becomes the default partylist for pigs, they will be in good company in the Lower House ruled by crocs.

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300 and Hollywood's entertaining lies

JUST finished my second serving of the controversial 300, which turns out to be the film version of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same title, which, in turn, is loosely based on the heroic stand of Spartan King Leonidas and his band of 300 warriors -- aided by more than 7,000 contingents from other Greek city-states -- against the invading Persian hordes of Xerxes.

The whole ruckus, abetted by the understandable outrage expressed by Iranians (who descended from the Persian empire of old) on how Zach Snyder's movie demonizes them and their heritage, stems from a misconception that 300 will do justice to history, the way its 1962 version, The 300 Spartans, at least tried to do. I had that expectation when I looked forward to this modern retelling, having seen that old movie many years back when Betamax was still king.

Of course, if you didn't know Frank Miller at all, it is very easy to fall into this trap. But after seeing 300 and Sin City, that black-and-white Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba et al-starrer, you will understand where Miller and Snyder is coming from. What they have done represents the convergence of good old moviemaking and videogaming, creating a world of make-believe that puts very little value on historical truths in the name of entertainment.

Check out this review from Rolling Stones, especially the 33 comments that came after, and you will see this point. Many of those who commented, and were rated useful by viewers, emphasized the computer-generated slam-bang action and their pure entertainment value, advising the few who raised valid points about historicity to see History channel instead. Why, even a Cambridge professor on Greek history who wrote a book on the Battle of Thermopylae, enjoyed 300, its spotty factual content notwithstanding. Never mind if the movie is actually one big Western propaganda that evokes the memories of Leni Riefenstahl.

While looking for Filipino movie reviews, I also chanced upon Tutubi's comment on Wyzemoro's entry on 300, leading me to his expanded take on the similarity between Leonidas and his band's heroism and that of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar on Tirad Pass. It was an important point that needs emphasizing and exploring, especially if you see it in the light of this entry by Torn and Frayed that questions, by way of the late National Artist Nick Joaquin, our common knowledge about the Filipino boy general's defense of Pasong Tirad.

I did not realize that Hollywood came up with its own take on Goyo's martyrdom, but it seems a movie was made based largely on a Chicago Tribune reporter's account of that event. But then again, it appears another instance of Hollywood's endless stream of entertaining lies that should always be taken with a grain of salt. Like the plausibility of Iran's two-week capture of 15 British sailors as a way of getting back at the English accent that dominates the movie currently demonizing them, which the world apparently loves.

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On names and nicknames

YESTERDAY afternoon, as has been our custom whenever the situation allows, we sent off my mother-in-law Corazon to her younger sister Pura and husband Miguel in their hometown in Tobog, Oas, Albay. We can afford to as the long holiday allows us to look after our kids ourselves for the whole day, freeing Mama from the formidable job of (grand)parenting them when we are at work.

The trip to Oas, our first after Reming, also marked the first time we brought Emilia Mikaela -- now more than three months old -- to our relatives, who I fondly call "the Tobognons." Only the five girls joined us, as their two elder brothers opted to stay in "Salaglada," which is how Budi called my hometown, Sagrada, Pili, when he was just learning to speak. The name stuck ever since.

Which highlights our family's penchant -- me, in particular -- to append unusual names to everyone in the family, some out of affection and the others for teasing, that would in time stick.

Mikaela, for instance, is variously called "Uling" (courtesy of her Lola Oas, who thought she was a tad darker than her siblings), "Buding" (mine, owing to her chubbiness and the round face that reminded me of Nanette Inventor's Doña Buding), and "Budina" (her mom's, who thinks she is our "babaeng Budi".)

Budi, of course, is Jack Ryan, called as such -- by me, I think -- after Lynn began calling Ezekiel "EK," which I quickly converted into Boke. If his older brother had a nickname, Jack too must have his own, and thus Budi was born.

I think Jack has grown to like his Indonesian-sounding nickname, so much so his Grandview friends and classmates call him as such. And it has brought forth a number of variants, depending on one's mood: Jack responds to such names as Budz when I am playful; Budino when I am angry; Budjack when his younger sisters are mad; or Adobo when he gets his mom's goat.

And it's not only our children. My brother Nelson, for instance, is more popularly known as Macky in Sagrada; our youngest Dennis is Patty. I can go on and on, but I won't; suffice it to say that behind every unusual or amusing nickname is a story worth telling to one's children and grandchildren when the time comes.

Our "Buding," three months and a week later.

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Staring poverty in the face

My column for this week's issue of Vox Bikol.

THE last working day for government agencies had me shuttling by FilCab van for what is supposed to be a quick trip to Legazpi. An unexpected power outage in the land of Mayon and the Tiwi Geothermal Plant stretched it by at least three hours.

As a result, my plan to get back to the office before 12 noon did not come to pass, forcing me to munch on a small Tortillos pouch, a handful of dried puto and a bottle of ice tea in what passed for lunch inside another van that would take me back to Naga.

While I was doing so, a crippled man in his early 40s suddenly popped in and earnestly began begging. “Puedi tabi manoy, manay makiolay nin dikit na tabang?” he repeatedly asked everyone inside the van, the frequency increasing with every passing moment that silence greeted his pleadings. I was not alone in pretending we did not hear him, as if he did not exist, choosing instead to look the other way, blankly staring into space.

But the more he was ignored, the more persistent he became. Moments later, after the van’s door closed and reopened again to accommodate a new passenger in the backseat, he began to directly address the lady seated to my right and later me. “Ika tabi ma’am, sir, pueding makiolay nin dikit na tabang?”

That episode kept playing back on my mind over and over again. It reminded me of a similar incident at City Hall, where a stocky woman in her 40s, from whom I would buy delectable steamed puto with bukayo fillings, suddenly appeared at our School Board office one afternoon.

Instantly, I knew it was for a different reason. “Did I somehow forget to pay the puto I got from you?” I asked her, as there were times I was out of cash and she would still sell me her wares on credit. No, she said; but can I give her another job as the putomaker from whom she would get her goods wholesale suddenly closed shop? Politely, I told her my work is not to give jobs to people, and referred her to the Metro PESO office which is just outside and from which the School Board unit only shares our small space.

In situations like these -- when poverty stares you in the face -- everything you learned in school and from books you have read, including the theories why poverty and depravation exist, start flying out of the window, seemingly inadequate in explaining why life must remain miserable for vulnerable segments of society when man has made tremendous advances in science and technology.

Management theory, for one, advises us to avoid owning other people’s problems because we might end up unnecessarily bearing a burden that to these people is no burden at all. Modern theories on poverty put the blame on existing societal structures that prevent people from fully realizing their capabilities. Free marketeers argue it is because of market failure, especially the market is not as free as it should be. Politicians point their fingers on the system, proposing instead a different one, which is claimed to have brought progress and prosperity elsewhere, as the “magic pill” that will solve all our problems.

But clearly, something remains amiss, and episodes that force you to stare poverty in the face serve as a grim reminder that it is a fact of life for many of our fellowmen, no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise. And being so inured to this evil makes us fail to consider the possibility that the solution to this problem does not really lie in our hands, but in somebody far greater than us.

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Tearing down the barriers to blogging

A FIRESTORM of sorts erupted in the aftermath of the first-ever Philippine Blog Awards, which Benito blogged about here and here. I don't know what triggered it, but Abe Olandres, the country's most popular blogger, came up with a quite defensive take on blogging, pronouncing that it is a privilege, not a right.

The money quote:

It is not for everybody. It is only for those who have internet access. It is only for those who have enough time on their hands. It is only for those who have something to write or say.

I don't know with you, but I will have to disagree with Yuga here, and agree with Benito -- for a slightly different reason.

Yes, the lack of internet access, time and facility for language are formidable barriers to blogging today. But their existence does not make blogging less of a right that every citizen should have the freedom to enjoy -- or decide not to enjoy at all.

In the same manner that simply because the Philippine blogging community today is a mostly elitist segment of society at large should deter ordinary citizens from wanting their voice to be heard and demanding their own seat on the table -- in cyberspace. To the contrary, it is our challenge to tear down these barriers, or at least die trying.

I am not sure if I will see it in my generation, but wouldn't it be nice, for instance, to see the school children in Naga's public schools blogging because it is how their English and Filipino compositions are to be graded, not through that antiquated theme book anymore?

In the same vein, the fact that decent education today remains inaccessible to a significant segment of the Philippine population -- particularly the poor, the constitutional provision notwithstanding -- does not make it less of a right and more of a privilege.

The day we begin to believe that it is so is the day we admit that aspiring for the good, old "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!" is pointless, and that our modern Louis XVIs and Marie Antoinettes have the divine right to rule as kings.

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Revisiting political dynasties

ON PAGE 12 of Philippine Star today can be found 58 texted responses to the issue of whether political dynasties are good for the country; unfortunately, they are not available online.

The texters came from all over the Philippines, including a few who come from Bicol and one from Naga; with the increasing ubiquity of cell phones -- penetration rate for mobiles has reached 45% as of yearend 2006 -- I think they are a fairly accurate representation of popular sentiment in the country.

They also show how far detached our politicians are from ordinary citizens they are supposed to represent. It is another instance where Philippine theory -- expressed in the constitutional prohibition against political dynasties -- diverge wholly from practice, as Philip Alston noted in his damning report.

By my count, there are only three responses (5%) who look favorably at political dynasties, coming from places like Capiz (turf of the Roxases, led by incumbent senator and 2010 presidentiable Mar Roxas), Las Piñas (home to the Villar-Aguilar combine, headlined by Senate President and reelectionist Manny Villar, who is also expected to contest the presidency); and Cabanatuan (where the Josons have lorded it over since the birth of the republic). The rest (95%) are overwhelmingly against them.

Which means an argument can be made that political dynasties elsewhere failed to "make the country progressive," "deliver efficient and graft-free goods and services," and "get things done in the interest of taxpayers" -- the three reasons advanced in favor of this practice.

Yet here we are, having to contend with the pained reasoning of reelectionist Sen. Joker Arroyo who, in endorsing the candidacy of a Pampangueño carpetbagger for the 1st congressional district of Camarines Sur, sees nothing wrong with dynasties "because it is a fact of life tolerated all over the world." Later this week, he will headline a list of national bigwigs who will pay homage to the centennial of Fuentebellas of the Partido district, ironically being bandied about as "a tribute to the constituents"!

In the same article, former senator Tito Sotto rues the alleged difficulty of defining by law to what extent the ban should be made, trivializing it with the non-issue of political mistresses as a means of circumvention. Then there's this post which appeared in the Eleksyon 2007 section of the Inquirer, employing finely crafted legal goobledygook in justifying the practice.

But how about listening to the sentiment of ordinary cellphone-using folks who share the wisdom of the 1987 Constitution's intent to guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service, precisely by banning these dynasties?

That's one of the things we haven't really tried yet.

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A ritual of summer

THE annual recognition ceremony for our community elementary school took place yesterday, in the heat of the morning sun; thankfully, it was over a little past 10:30 am, thanks to the tight program prepared by the Grandview Elementary School management headed by Luis Marasigan, its officer-in-charge.

So how did my worried Grade V son fare this time? Well, Budi wound up a fighting fourth; on the basis of academic grades alone (which I think account for 70% of the total grade), his performance this year would have been good for 2nd, which is what he did last year. But then again, Budi will have his final chance next school year when he moves on to Grade VI.

Nonetheless, he ended up with the most number of special academic and non-academic awards, including being the best performer in Filipino -- a subject all my three children in public school, starting from Ezekiel down to Sofia, are having trouble with, but seems to have conquered this year! Maybe this thing helped after all, Irvin?:)

My future little teacher Sofie, in addition to the "Best in Filipino" award, also got fourth. But she, I think -- and this is not because I'm playing favorite -- has more upside than Budi if performance trends are considered.

At the tender age of six after finishing Grade I two years ago (Sofie was only 5 years old when we enrolled her), she was scratched from the honor rolls; that was the year then Education Secretary Butch Abad decreed -- correctly, I think -- that there should only be one set of awardees per grade level regardless of the number of sections there are in a school. That year, Section B contributed most of the honor students, simply because their teacher was more liberal in grade-giving.

Last year, Sofie cracked the Top 10, good for 8th place; this time around, she leapfrogged over older classmates to take fourth, within striking distance of the perennial top performers. Competitive like Budi, and blessed with extraordinary diligence that she got from her mother, my Patsy Bulatse is aiming higher in these next three years.

How about Ezekiel? Lynn texted me last Friday that our eldest dropped out of the Top 10 again, but still within the Top 20, more than enough to stay in the Engineering Science Education Project (ESEP) class of Cam High next year if he chooses to. But to his credit, he did very well in the recent national and division achievement tests, topping Mathematics and Filipino.

So on the whole, in this annual ritual of summer, our family remains to have a lot to be thankful, and our kids a lot more to do, and far more grounds to cover. Whether they will commit themselves to higher personal goals and make the requisite sacrifice these entail, or enjoy the view and smell the flowers along the way, is largely up to them: their father, mother and lola will always be around as guide until they become ready to take on life on their own.

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