My week in random bullet points

Just a few things:

• I am a fickle blogger, but like to avoid the customary preamble explaining my absence.
• I enjoy reading other people's stuff. If you like, you can leave me your blog address in the comments section. I will likely follow you if you write about, as Rob Gordon puts it, the important things: books, movies, music. However, if you are also given to ranting and/ or griping about your life, that is also fine, because obviously it is your blog.
• Flipboard is probably the best thing to happen to me this month. I've never been happier to browse my feeds. Everything is so clean and pretty.
• I'm struggling with my reading in Manila because it is just too frakking hot. But being home (yes, in Baguio now), I'm looking to Christopher Moore to get me out of this slump. (In other news, you can add me on Goodreads.)
• I walked around town with my little brother this afternoon, and we talked about traveling and markets. I'm discovering what it's like to have a conversation with an adolescent sibling. It is very new and interesting.
• It is cool here at night, and my soul dry sobs at the thought of having to go back to sleeping in hell.

Later.

Misdirection

Just a couple of updates (21 April 2012; I know, I know, these should have been up earlier.): The Temporary Environmental Protection Order issued to SM has been extended until the case against them is resolved (13 April 2012). Suddenly, there is talk of soil erosion happening on Luneta Hill and that constructing a seven-storey building and a parking lot will help address it (18 April 2012). Eh? How convenient. One of the earliest environmental lessons we are taught is that the presence of vegetation reduces erosion.

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The community is in an uproar about the 182 trees SM City Baguio is cutting down (What's all this crap about earthballing?) to make room for additional parking space. The most recent piece of news is SM refuses to comply with a court order demanding it cease its midnight felling. The idea of losing those trees just for parking sickens me. I love Baguio. I love its trees. God knows I love the environment. But I have been feeling torn about the protests. I think we're barking up the wrong tree (ha-ha).

SM City Baguio is a shopping mall. Their primary objective is to make money. When fulfilling their "social/ environmental responsibility," they simply push the use of green bags and hang up poster boards about "protecting the environment." I'm sorry to say this, but that's all we can really expect from them. SM is a money-making enterprise, not a conservation initiative. Henry Sy is a businessman, not a public servant. So, I don't think the "Shame on you, SM" argument is going to fly with me. Who are we kidding?

We've all spent years going to SM Baguio. We've shopped there, eaten there, seen movies there. I'm a sucker for their Bills Payment Center. They've made life a hell of a lot easier. We overlooked the fact that before there was SM, there happened to be a greenspace on Luneta Hill. A true greenspace with aesthetic and ecological value. And I'll tell you, there were a lot more than 182 trees. But we went to SM anyway. Our memories are so short. Now it's happening again, we're so quick to turn on The Big Bad Corporation. We've lapped up the convenience of having a mall, and suddenly we're all so indignant about 182 trees.

What did we expect, honestly? We were screwed the moment SM Development was allowed into the City. We lost those trees the moment esteemed members of the city council had their pockets lined with Big Bad Corporation dough. Bayad na eh. Matagal na. It pisses me off that the failings of those actually responsible for the ecological well-being of this City are only an afterthought in this battle for the trees. Members of the local government, these so-called public servants, have betrayed us time and time again. Oh sure, there have been different faces, but it's the same inadequate administration. They allowed SM to colonize our City, among other lamentable crimes. These supposed leaders opened their legs for commercialism, and have been whoring away Baguio's soul since. They condone the actions of SM now, and are getting away with it. Development in our City has been going in the wrong direction for a long time.

A couple of weeks ago, this article appeared in the Baguio Midland Courier and sent me off the rails. A little bit from that piece:

"The city council committee on health, sanitation, and environment stated that it is not the proper body to act on the demand of concerned groups opposed to the project for the council to support their cause."

So who exactly, if not a committee for the environment, should have been keeping an eye on the trees?

In Camp John Hay, even more widespread clearing of trees has been happening under our noses. These pine trees are getting cut down to accommodate the construction of hotels and townhouses people from Baguio can't afford themselves. The pine cover in the trails are thinning out while the area for golf courses appears to be increasing. Important fern and shrub species are getting cleared with no thought as to how this might affect the ecosystem. Camp John Hay is an urban greenspace, if there ever was one. It is a habitat, provides clean air, and improves the climate. It is one of the few remaining areas near the center with a pine forest. Who is looking out for the trees and the plants there? The people of Baguio must fight for ALL of the trees.

The 182 have become famous. But if you ask me, it shouldn't have gotten to a point where we could already count the trees.

(Also, while we're at it, bakit kasi kailangan ng additional parking sa SM? Dahil marami na masyadong kotse at taxi sa Baguio. Nakakapikon.)

I like for you to be still*

These days I prefer silence.
People and places feel far away and I am adrift.
Home is at the tip of my tongue.

*line from Pablo Neruda's "I like for you to be still"

A note on my grandmother

How have you all been this long weekend? I'm writing from home, and I think this is the first time in many visits that I'm not worrying about school or work.

I've been spending time with my family, remembering loved ones who have passed on. I especially miss my grandmother, because November 1st actually reminds me of her. When I was much younger, she used to marshal our big family off to the cemetery every year to visit the graves of our lolos and lolas. It would be a day-long event, with her in the thick of everything. She would have my titas pack Marie biscuits and bottles of Coke so we wouldn't go hungry during our expedition. Apart from the candles and flowers, we would bring brooms to clean the family plot. It was a busy scene: the adults chattering amid tidying up and the children playing with candle wax until someone got burned. Sometime during the day, my grandmother would bring me and my cousins along for a walk through the bustling cemetery. We would call on relatives and family friends, my cousins and I inducing the customary exclamations of "Nagdadakkel dan!" (Look how big they've grown!). Often, we would run into this ancient great-uncle who always looked spiffy in a brown suit. She was a real family woman, my grandmother. On the day we are supposed to remember the dead, she made it a point to bring together the living.

Happy Halloween, ickle ghouls and goblins

Halloween with its costumes and trick-or-treating isn't a Filipino practice, but if we insist on dressing up, I would like to see more children as manananggal and tikbalang.  Our monsters are as fascinating and terrifying as any vampire or werewolf.

Side photo: A A Wild Sheep Chase sheep shirt! (found in Artwork for P150)

I'm reading Un Lun Dun by China Mieville to keep things sufficiently eerie. What are you reading this fine ghostly night?

Today is Hanna Day

This is for Banana on her 25th birthday:

You are a dreamer,
a cumulus cloud chaser.

You are a storyteller,
and yes, "your bed is a raft."

You are a wordsmith,

Long Live the Oxford comma!

You are a paperback lover,
a book devourer.

You are a green Post-it note,
"Don't forget the cake."

You are a music mastermind,
secret mix-tapes playing in your head.

You are a true original,
a rare vintage LP.

You are a lion-heart,

and life is a waltz.

Home again.

Interverse, did I not tell you that I was back home? That's right, again. I'm here to do some data gathering for a special problem for my terrestrial sampling methods class (Did you also feel that I am sharing unnecessarily here? Because I'm typing this and I have a feeling you won't really care.) Anyhow, plunging on shamelessly, the sampling is done! Yes, this morning, while it was shining and John Hay smelled all of pine and dew. We saw a black labrador and lots of ferns. So many ferns.

This is my mother. She was my RA for the day, even when she could have been sleeping in on the weekend. She's the best.

After, the boys met up with us and Pa took us out to Army Navy for lunch in that new Convergys place (My fine Baguio folk, please. Do not roll your eyes at my belatedness, this place is still novel to me.) I had the steak burrito, and was satisfied as always. However: Army Navy, you know you totally strum my guitar, but you seriously need to rethink your condiments. I am nuts about your cream thing, but more salsa I say! Plus, your lemon wedge is not so much a wedge as half a wedge. Acid is the secret source of your burrito's power. Give me a full wedge!

(Before I forget: my baby brother is taller than me and there are unknowable things happening to his voice.)

And then, Booksale after. It was on sale more than it usually is because the rest of SM is on sale. So:

What was a Bukowski doing there? For only P127 too. And finally, a copy of What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) because it was only P45 and didn't have the movie cover. I can be obsessive like that. Also, Booksale is cheeky (read: bookmark). That's why we love them.

At the end of the day, we dropped by the SM Supermarket. Boys and girls, maiawawannak idiay. The tocino and the tapa were not where they normally are. I wanted to sit quietly in a corner and wait for my father to come get me. Because that is what you are supposed to do if you get lost.

There is an art to packing groceries. When I was younger and there was no SM Supermarket, we used to shop in local grocery stores like U-Need or Victoria's or 5 Cents Up or Sunshine. The bag boys could fit everything we bought in three bags or less. They were genius packers, efficient in their use of space and quick with their hands. They would momentarily approximate the relative sizes and shapes of the items, and find the perfect nook for them in each white plastic bag. When you carried the bags, things didn't stick out to poke you in the leg. The bottoms would be flat so the bags would be upright when you put them down. And the eggs were always on top. When you had too many items for plastic bags, the boys would suggest you would be much better off with a box. Everything would fit neatly in there too, tied up with straw, a perfect handle knotted at the top for easy transport. In SM, they just toss things thoughtlessly into huge plastic bags. Weekly grocery shoppers tend to end up with six or seven loads. It is a wasteful process. Remember when we said we would stop using plastic?

Later, dancing hippos. I am tired of looking at plants.