ZEN Bitchin'

Something remarkable happened to me a couple of days ago. I was logged in Facebook, looking at the wall of status updates of my friends. A name popped up in a friend’s status update comments. A blast from the past. Before I could control myself, I directed a question to her, asking if she, by any chance attended my high school. Turned out that she was indeed the one I thought of. If memory serves me right, she was a transferee from Bacolod, a place that the rest of us that time must have considered exotic, being land-locked Bulakenyos who probably considered Luzon as the only part of the country that mattered.

After this initial contact, she invited me to peruse her profile so I could get in touch with our other classmates. And before the euphoria faded away, I did exactly just that. I stifled a groan when I saw that she had 500+ friends. How was I supposed to get through this list? But about 90 minutes (and a blooming migraine) later, I have seen the many names that populated my young life. However, out of the 30+ names I saw in her profile, I only managed to click about 3 other names.

I have previously written how I felt about my unremarkable years in high school. Of course, when one hears that I graduated from high school at age 14, he or she wouldn’t agree right away that it was an unremarkable 4 years. But to be honest, that’s really how it was. If anything, the only remarkable things in my high school life were how socially inept I were, the sense of alienation that I felt (which never lifted until after my second year at university, and my utter lack of friends. If I were going to use my present definition of friends, I’d say that I only made one true friend in high school. And I never contacted him again since going to Manila a few weeks after graduating from high school. I saw him only 10 years later, by accident, while I was dining with my boyfriend at a restaurant. We were cordial with each other; he seemed excited about a supposed high school reunion that was going to happen in a few months. I feigned excitement when he mentioned the reunion, but I knew in my heart that I couldn’t be bothered to return to a place where I existed virtually invisible–always on the fringes, on the outside looking in the beautiful and popular ones.

Last I heard, J is dead. I remember he had a congenital heart defect. In fact, in our senior year, he got sick and almost died, about the time we had our annual spiritual retreat.

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Yesterday marked the passing of one of the most prominent Filipinos I’ve known in my lifetime. After more than a year of battling colon cancer, former President Cory Aquino passed away peacefully, amidst the flurry of prayers and support from Filipinos around the world. A healing mass was held here in Phnom Penh last Friday afternoon but I wasn’t able to attend. To show my support to her, I posted yellow ribbons in my Twitter and Facebook pages, and in this blog as well. She means a lot to me, and my generation, I think. And her legacy must never be forgotten.

Woman of the Year

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I already did this in my Facebook page. Joined my fellow Filipinos in praying for the recovery (if not the peaceful passing on) of former president Cory Aquino in her struggle with the big C. They’ve been doing this around the Philippines. Also in Twitter and in the blogging world. This post, in fact, was inspired by Luis’s blog.

Would a yellow rose suffice in lieu of a yellow ribbon? I hope so, Luis.

I’m also copying his invitation to other bloggers out there who care for Tita Cory.

1. Create an entry entitled: “Touch a blogger: Tie a yellow ribbon for Cory Aquino!“. A link to this original entry will be appreciated, but is not required.

2. Post a yellow ribbon in your blog for President Cory Aquino. Whatever form of yellow ribbon that your creative imagination can come up with.

3. Invite other bloggers to tie a yellow ribbon for Cory.

For two times in February 2008, a group of Filipinos here in Phnom Penh gathered to talk about the political climate in the old country and its implications on us. It was the height of the ZTE scandal, and we were fortunate to have Dinky Soliman and Father Ed dela Torre as speakers. I wrote about these gatherings HERE and HERE. Almost 16 months have passed since those gatherings. In between then and now, I have seen the building, then the waning of interest in participating in moves to oust our grubby little (I mean this literally) president. Personally speaking, I have kept myself abreast of the issues as they continued to unfold: frustrating and emotionally draining as it proved to be. I cannot speak for the other Filipinos who joined those gathering; but, with the state of affairs in the world, I’m sure people are busy trying to keep their jobs and their families afloat.

Mayor Matt Palabrica

Last night, another forum was held at Bistro Lorenzo, one of the Filipino restaurants here, and we again had Dinky as main speaker. Of course, if you’re Filipino, you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that it’s still an ‘interesting time’ in Philippine politics, what with the election looming over everyone’s minds, and that pernicious prospect convening a constituent assembly (AKA ConAss) to change the constitution, thereby extending the term of GLP (grubby little prez) I mentioned above. In attendance were more than 40 people, a mix of faces (old and new) and dispositions (ranging from the keen to the fatigued and the concerned to the just-plain-hungry-for-the-$4-buffet).

Please pardon the flippancy.

Like the last time, Dinky is here in Phnom Penh on business, but she took time to be with us. She is with a colleague, Matt Palabrica, a young-ish mayor from a town in Negros province. He was here to participate in a workshop on good governance. He briefly spoke about his town, the degree of success they had on good governance and accountability. As most elected officials, Mayor Palabrica was a charming and eloquent speaker.

Dinky with her audience

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Lupang Hinirang – Gary Granada

As the Pacquiao-Hatton fight unfolded before the world, I was traveling by bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. The bus was inexplicably late (almost an hour, imagine!) and it is only now that I realized–could it be because of that fight? In the Philippines, Sunday traffic is greatly diminished whenever Manny has a fight.

In any case, I tried to follow the progress of the fight through the 3G service of my phone. So before I reached Phnom Penh I already knew that Pacquiao knocked Hatton out in the second round. Another thing I like about Manny–he never wastes his fan’s time. So watching his fights is never counterproductive because you can always go back to whatever you’re doing. Everytime he has a fight, I imagine him telling me, with a wink and a smile: “Manood ka, ha. Sandali lang ‘to (Please watch. This will be over quickly.)”.

I was able to watch the replay of the fight the next day, at a Chinese channel, nonetheless. And I learned about the latest blooper on the Philippine national anthem on Monday night, when I watched TV Patrol at TFC.

Which made me wonder: is bastardizing our national anthem becoming a freaky trend among our professional singers? The last time (that I know) this happened was when Christian Bautista forgot the lyrics of the anthem in another boxing fight (Penalosa and some other guy, if I remember correctly). That was stupid. I’m not a fan of his and doing that only made me glad that I weren’t. The news report showed that in another Pacquiao fight, a singer tried to pull a Mariah on the last note of the anthem, and failed miserably. Eww!

And now, Martin Nievera, one of the Philippines’ veteran (some would even consider him a has-been) singers has ‘butchered’ the national anthem with that arrangement that sounded more like Las Vegas than Las Islas Filipinas. He even has the temerity to say that his arrangement was ‘not that fancy’, that he won’t say sorry for something he’s not sorry about, but would, ‘if needed’.

To this, I say, WTF?

Like most people (probably), he is not aware that there is a law that stipulates the things musicians and singers can do with the national anthem. However, I think ignorance of the law is not an adequate excuse. I mean, it’s just common sense. You don’t tamper with things like our national flag just because you think it can look better by adding, say, an extra star or sun-ray. I mean, it is possible to interpret the national anthem in a way that balances the creativity of the artist and the integrity of the song (listen to the widget attached above). Besides, I think our national anthem is one (if not the–but of course I’m biased here) of the better sounding anthems of any country. Its marching beat is very exhilarating. So why fix something that isn’t broken?

Mr. Nievera, I’m sorry, but your version sounded like a desperate audition to have whatever Las Vegas contract you have extended or renewed. You will never out-sing Tom Jones. Tom Jones will out-sing you even if he’s just singing in the shower.

The TV Patrol report included the notion of amending the law to accommodate ‘interpretations’ of the national anthem. Please. This is not about the law. This is about respect to our national symbols and national identity. And putting showmanship over this speaks much of how little respect this arrogant and bloated poseur has for his native country.