Lobo

IT STARTED 4 IN THE MORNING

I had three hours of sleep and was woken up and had two minutes to pack up for an overnight in Batangas. This was the Philippines, Batangas was a beautiful province filled with coconut trees and coastal towns with kind smiling people. Along the edges of its bays you can see the island of Palawan.

The party was composed of my Mom’s friends from elementary, who had last seen each other in 1976, had their first reunion in 2010, finding each other through facebook, and was now on a road trip to the South. I was crammed with my sister at the back along with the other things.

Lunch was served, Da (the lady with glasses) joking about condoms in Mel’s (the professional photographer) bag and how Ferdie (the pastor) was Pro-RH. There was a silence there, A serious look passing on Ferdie’s face, and then after we’d started eating. Ferdie himself broke the silence by pointing out how lax it was in the province, yung bagal ng oras (slowness of time). He pointed out to a jeep across the street, illustrating his point. It had four passengers out of twenty and was taking its time to fill itself up. The people already inside seemed to be waiting for nothing in particular.

The lomi (thick egg noodle) was insanely delicious. Well it wasn’t exactly flavorful, but it was deliciously authentic. The feeling that it was just right, and whatever the recipe was in the city was wrong. It gave you faith that you were at the right place and doing the right thing eating the right food. This was Savodame Fast Food. I have no idea how to pronounce that, but apparently the owner of the place lived in Lobo (Lo-Boh not Low-Bow), our final destination. We took directions and left right after we finished eating.

Bad decision. I was more than full and needed to take a breath. I kept quiet as we zig-zagged through a mountain range towards the coastal town of Lobo, holding vomit. The road was pretty perilous, the mountain paths filled with unmanned curves (Great time for road repair, the summer season. That’s a very Philippine thing. Let the tourist-foreigners and tourist-locals/voters see the progress we’re making.) and deadly cliff drops.

We were greeted by an aggressive little monkey at the white gates (already open for our arrival) of Villa Villañueva. It was tied to a tightrope between two trees; however, it could easily escape if it figured out how to unbuckle the belt on it with its monkey brain. We headed off and unpacked, the beach an alluring sight and I couldn’t wait. I took a midday break, coming back to the hut during the late lunch.

Our base for the night was an oversized version of a nipa hut, the floor composed of strips of bamboo tied together then raised six feet tall. You’d climb the stairs and reach the balcony, go straight and you’d reach a faucet for washing dishes, turn right and you’d be facing six plastic chairs and two tables ready for use. Besides the tiny mosquitoes I couldn’t complain. There were two rooms with two beds each in them with their own comfort rooms, both connected to a main room with two more beds in them. The main room was the most open area of them all, a breeze’d hit you at all sides.

A local woman named Elena had appeared out of nowhere, the beach spawned different personalities if you don’t watch it. She did everything for a modest fee: massages, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking, buying ingredients from the market, finding tour guides etc. For some things she obviously overcharged, beyond city prices for the city dwellers, but the adults had paid anyway. Not for cooking and going to the market though, Melot (the lady who was sleeveless) and the men wanted to do that for themselves, of course.

I set my wet clothes up on a tripod, and found Mel there. We talked of Nikon and its lenses, about sunsets and capturing it, about how its always the photographer and not the camera that took the shot. I agreed. Slightly awkward talk though. A pretty long talk with me with nothing but my towel on.

I’d dressed up and we went hiking to a lighthouse, take pictures and all that. My little sister opted to drop dead to sleep. Fighting back the waves was probably exhausting and adventure enough for one day for her. It wasn’t a joke of a hike, I lost my breath for a bit. We’d walked down the beach and towards an almost hidden staircase and ascend it, the space between each step was quite large. The railing saved our lives, upper bodies compensating for the exhausted lower halves. There was a fear of snakes and whatnot. We could hear hisses and howls, and I’m not kidding. It was vivid and it echoed, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Nothing exciting happened though, thank the light. We reached the lighthouse, took pictures and all that.

The lighthouse itself was locked up and there didn’t seem to be any caretakers.  Mel was suspicious, a big adventurer, sticking his hand into the slits in the windows of the compound surrounding the lighthouse, feeling a chill on the inside. Supernatural, he suggested. I didn’t believe any of that though. Another strange occurrence, when we realized that there were wells all over the place. Did the Japanese throw men in there to drown? Well there was a giant pump to the side. Mystery solved, it was used as a water station. The building surrounding the lighthouse looked very much like a school though, can’t ignore that.

We went down a steep road down to the coastal town and did some halo-halo, (a Filipino dessert) treating our guide to one. Our guide’s name was Lily. An amiable young woman until I found out she was 41. An amiable woman. We had the dessert under a mango tree. They’d commented on how easy provincial life must be. I looked around. Maybe. The local teenagers were chasing chickens. It was pleasant to watch as an outsider. I felt that our companions on the trip must have really enjoyed the contrast between their own lives and what they saw as provincial.

An old-timer passed by and Ferdie took the opportunity to ask how the weather was during a storm and how high the water went. We were surprised. The water went up really high. We were about two feet high from the beach, fifty meters from the waves and on an elevated surface. I just noticed that the ground was man-made, all rocks, not a trace of soil or sand. They’d made the surface on their own to protect themselves from the swell.

We’d gone back to base. I fell asleep.

Dinnertime I woke up and they’d already built a bon-fire. It was their time to hang out. I had a single Tanduay Ice, a fruity pre-mixed drink, and five hotdogs on sticks. It was hard roasting the dogs, the sticks were around three inches too short. You’d have cooked your own hand if you weren’t careful. My sister was off by the darkness of the sea or making sand castles of Santa Claus or whatever. I later joined her after realizing the fire was too weak to take any more artsy shots.

We stared off into the dark for a long time, seeing things glow beneath the shallow water. We stood where the waves could hit us. I kept moving our slippers away from the shore, realizing the tide was getting stronger and stronger. It only took a minute. I saw the same glowing objects near the camp. Fireflies.

I had a great sleep, troubled at first with mosquitoes but eventually got used to their stings. I woke up with dead mosquitoes on the bed, probably had killed them in my sleep.I took advantage of the sun. Beautiful light there. I took a lot of video. Maybe I’ll use it somewhere someday. Maybe not. Like American Beauty, that quote by the pot-dealer/filmmaker kid: “Video’s a poor excuse.” He was talking about memories. He was right though. It was surreal being in new places. Meeting new people is easy, but new places are different. Different because you can leave them.

There was a little kid that watched me take videos of whatever caught my interest. In the end the only words he could say were pahingi pera (Can I have some money?).

I dressed and skipped breakfast, knowing I’d rather be hungry during the zig-zag that lay ahead. Wrong move though, the heat hugged you and choked you. Still, I wasn’t holding any vomit and could appreciate the view this time. It was beautiful. Coconut trees and bridges and rivers and people and town centers and souvenir stands and more people and road workers and mountains and more mountains and the primary colors, all those primaries jumping out at you.

My throat had its fill during lunch, a little eatery owned by this lady with short blond hair. SM City Batangas (A mall, there’s a whole chain of SMs all over here in the Phils) was at a walking distance from us, SM employees (mostly young women) came and went. The ladies commented on how the guys were busog (full) from both the food and the girls around us, a feast for the stomach and the eyes.  One of the girls at the other tables even had her underwear showing. You could see it from where our male companions were sitting. And you knew about it because they kept pointing it out. It took us an hour to consume all that bulalo. Delicious. You washed down the flavor of the beef with soda and rice. The soda and rice made you want more beef. And so the cycle.

Everyone wanted to go to the comfort room. And everyone craved for another round of halo-halo . We’d spent another hour or so then at SM City. There’s an active ping-pong culture there, with kids lining up for their so called summer clinics (composed of two ping-pong tables and two-players, the kids going up against them in a line). Also, there’s a lot of expats. My sister bought shoes at Mendrez. Da pointing out that the collection there was better than that the Mendrez in Manila. On the way out of the mall the group fooled around with anything that fancied them. Probably because no one knew us there. We were tourists.

Ferdie flirted with the girls handing out perfume samples. Da sang on the Magic Sing (videoke device), at one of the music stores, an actual crowd of working class looking fans surrounding us after. She was creeped immediately that all these men were checking her out. I hope we didn’t offend them as the group scurried on away from them, laughing.

And. Perfect. There was a Goldilocks right at the exit. They served Pinoy food, one of their specialties: halo-halo . Another half hour of laughter and we’re on the road again. It was smooth driving up until we reached the Alabang-Zapote road, that thin road where all the crossroads of the South had met. Prone to traffic therefore. We’d reached my home. The party had coffee with my Mom and then said goodbye.

Mel took this one.

Blues and Yellows

Now I understand how familiarity breeds contempt. Just like in the Batman movies where you ‘live enough to see yourself become the villain.’ In there somewhere is a connection, though I haven’t found it yet.

I’m at home in Las Pinas. And while my first day is very efficient, I wonder if it will last. The scene here is the complete opposite of my residence at Quezon City. In the city I am alone with a computer. Here at home are my niece and nephew. My sisters. My parents. They’ve changed a lot since I’ve been home. Things are quieter. You can talk about certain things now. From 16 I take the college train and suddenly I’m 20, observing my own like an ethnomethodologist. 

The cure was a change of scenery. I couldn’t really function well in the city. I lost my mind a bit. Just last Friday I was staring at the walls or closing my eyes and staring into the dark. Waste of electricity. The computer was on for three days. My written thesis waiting to be picked like a scab.

Though it used to be the opposite. I used to be deadly efficient in the city. My grades were high, and not for honor-seeking reasons. I’ve ‘known thyself’ through trial and error, mastered my sleep cycle and figured out a cramming technique which worked with me the best. I felt more badass knowing I could eat Lucky Me’s all day to afford beer all night, and still be able to cram an exam in the morning. And ace it. 

And the lingering. Lingering because we never did stay at one place too long. Late at night or early in the mornings I would walk the streets alone. A pleasure only a man can enjoy, I guess. Life’s sexist pleasures.

That was the key. Familiarity breeds contempt. The saying says it all. We have to keep changing. To keep moving. Keep living. Even if we lived at one place, we can redecorate. Kill routine.

Although one day if I stayed too long I’ll begin to see myself ‘become the villain’ and hate all that is familiar. Ledger’s Joker comes to mind. Chaos personified. That random card in the deck of life that kept everyone on their toes.

For now though, all I see around me are shades of blue and yellow.

 

“Blame yourself, or God.”

As an adolescent I used to worship the gray Playstation now crusted in hand-dirt and covered in green tablecloth hidden beneath empty DVD covers and shoeboxes under a green table located in my little sister’s bedroom which she used to invest entire summers on Harvest Moon herself while I was away—-

And the fan fiction I would create around certain favorites including romances between Disney’s Hercules and Meg and Final Fantasy’s Ramza and Agrias and yet another with Batman and Meg and yet another with Alicia and Lavian and the assassins of the Silver Ogre–

But there was this one line that always got me whenever I played and replayed Final Fantasy Tactics where Ramza our naive young noble confronts his friend whom he thought once dead. He simply asks why he was doing whatever he was doing (kidnapping the Princess in this sequence) and Delita simply replies:

“Blame yourself, or God.”

Which as a kid always struck me as a very mysterious line since I was in a Catholic high school way back and I’ve never encountered poetic stuff like this and it kind of made me giggle and look around to make sure that no one would see that I was amused by the strange use of the word “God” and “blame” put together in one sentence so what was I to do but ponder and ponder and finally I think I’m a bit smarter than before I think and I’d like to explore the question through three different readings of the line…

1st~

In the literal story context he was meaning that if Ramza had treated him as an equal and defended him when he needed him the most (The story is that Ramza’s brothers who are high ranking generals in the current war order the use of Teta who is Delita’s sister as a sacrifical pawn to capture one of the rebel group’s leaders. To make it clear Delita and his sister are commoners whereas Ramza his best friend is a noble), Delita would not have turned against him to fight as a general on the opposing side -The Black Sheeps- under Goltana.

In this literal interpretation I just reduced Delita’s complex-ass line to a whiny reminder of Ramza’s wimpy past. In Tagalog, he could have said: “Ikaw kasi eh.” or a childish

Translated to…”Your fault.”

2nd~

Let’s take a look at Delita who is a war orphan like his sister who he sees murdered in front of his eyes for the sake of the ‘greater good’. This man has lost faith and realizes that only he can change his own fate.The line now seems to be as directed as much to himself as to Ramza.

Here Delita could have been much more poetic than it seems as he could also be pointing that he has gone through it all and has been enlightened and is now on this path of his own making. The effect to me if I interpret it this way is that he was already past his friendship with Ramza though they will be friends forever in the story. Delita could also have said “Whatever” or even silence and it would achieve the same effect of being focused and determined and that his past remains in the past and he’s already moved on since the damage is done.

Translated to… “Whatever.” “It happened.” “The damage is done.”

3rd~

Ramza should either blame himself or blame God. Where god is meant to represent something only the rich nobles like himself would be important to. (One of the rebel group captains named Miluda compares herself to swine and dies telling them that that’s how the nobles will always view the commoners) God in this reading takes on the form of the Durkheimian figurehead of society.

Over-reading the line a bit but this interpretation now is much more reflective of an imagined inner life of Delita than something concrete in the scope of the game’s story. The line now becomes embittered towards Ramza and his attempts to try and understand Delita and get involved with him again—a past that Delita does not want at his doorstep.

Translated to… “We’re friends, but in this world we can’t be.” “You’re too rich to be my friend, you’ll never understand what it’s like.”

That was an exercise in mental masturbation so forgive the lack of punctuation unless you’re a grammar Nazi then bite me.