rally 

Hazardous Life

Recently, we were covering a rally near the Malate Church when things started to get ugly.

Nobody really knows how it started but apparently somebody agitated the riot police holding the protesters back and they started to retaliate with their sticks and shields.

As usual, I had to be in the middle of it to capture the best image possible. Somewhen during the fracas a Carmelite priest got hit by a cop and was soon squealing for his mommy right beside me with a bloody head to boot.

Me? I got hit in the back with the edge of a police shield and a close encounter of the precious jewels kind from a bamboo stick wielded by one of the protesters.

Fun, fun, fun.

Evil as it might seem, I just can't stop laughing about the whole incident. One moment the priest was all fire and brimstone and the next a helpless, squealing baby with blood streaming from a nasty cut in the head.

May the Blessed Kitty Watch Over Thee

I believe in dreams, I believe in miracles, I believe that toy ballons could touch the moon.

Lo and behold, from the land of Sanrio comes forth the messiah of kyutishness, Blessed Hello Kitty.

Bless us Hello Kitty, guide us to the path of cute and cuddly. Swatch our dreams, empty our pockets, show me the money.

From the heavens above came Little Twin Stars, from the pond of dreams came Kerokeroppi, I dont know what to do whenever you are near, I think of you every second of the day, You give me hope, the strength, the will to carry on.

Kitty oh Kitty save us from ourselves.

GOODBYE JP2

Karol Wojtyla, the Polish priest who became Pope John Paul II and led the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, was an extraordinary man. His death Saturday at age 84 is a loss that, like his impact, will be felt far beyond his 1.1-billion member flock.

Pope John Paul II traveled the world more than any pontiff in history and spoke in person to more people than any individual in history. He toured extensively in the developing world, drawing enormous crowds of the faithful and demonstrating a spiritual power that made some political leaders nervous.

Filipinos will always have a special place for the much loved Pope.In his first visit to the Philippines in 1981, JP2 planted the seeds of a nation free from oppression which ultimately led to the “People Power” revolution which toppled the Marcos regime.

With shouts of “Viva il Papa“, Filipinos and youths around the world once again welcomed him in 1995 for the World Youth Day.

It was also under his term that the first Filipino saint, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, had been canonized.

Known as the “Great Communicator,” the pontiff was fluent in English, French, German, Polish and Spanish. But ultimately, he was fluent in people.

He has preached the Gospel with clarity and extraordinary insight. He has guided the Church wisely and touched the hearts of millions outside the fold. He has faced up to any and all expressions of racism and totalitarianism. He has fought for peace and justice with equal vigor. He has been a missionary traveling the world as no one ever before him, and this he has continued even in the face of extraordinary physical infirmities.

Pope John Paul II made "the worth of the human person" his grand project. Not only did John Paul plead for the lives of the unborn, but also for human rights and social justice for those outside the womb. He deplored the Iraq war, saying that "violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man."

He was a religious leader who labored tirelessly to be so much more -- peacemaker, bridge builder, healer, even conscience to the world.

Pope John Paul II is by any measure one of the most celebrated and inspiring leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has championed the law of God when others have lost hope and given in to the demands of a fickle world.

His, indeed, was a dignified and full life. Through example, in extraordinary travels, in a pontificate defined by courage, leadership and forgiveness, the Pope has reached to the hearts of his flock. Even for nonbelievers, his certainty in his faith could never be doubted, his place in history forever fixed.

Bad as I Wanna Be


Ok, so I borrowed the line from Dennis Rodman, so sue me! Dont you get it? There is a certain mystique surrounding mischief, rebellion, going against the tide, and that sort of stuff.

For many a life carbon copied from a multitude of others is fine, dah?! Boring. But who am I to preach, right?

Individuality as we know it is slowly becoming an endangered attribute. I can't blame them, can I.

To be secure is one of the tenets of life, one so religiously pursued by many. What are we searching for, what are we striving for? Is it not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oops, too imperialistic, lets try it again shall we. A stable high paying job, a domicile worth calling home, good healthy food to sustain us, clothing to impress others with, an understanding & patient wife/husband/lover/whatever, well rounded kids, and finally self-esteem to feed our ego. In the end we delude ourself thinking, hey I got it all. For some perhaps, for all I fervently hope so.

How many times have we faced a fork in our life? Decisions wherein there is no turning back and might as well dictate the rest of our life. You could do this and be that or maintain the status quo. Take the plunge, I say.

Failure is not an option, or is it? Life aint easy. Failure is an option. You have to be wrong to know what is right, diba?

Many times we fail, but what matters is how we bounce back. How we recompose ourself and face the jeers of others, is it not what failure teaches us?

Strength, perseverance, passion are what counts the most.

Be that as it may, we are what we mold ourselves to be. Enough crap about how we are the products of our society. Dont delude yourself thinking we had no choice.

Forks, dear people, forks in our life. Always, every minute, every breath we take. A multitude of paths are available. Some dark, some light, but always there.

There was once a person I knew who said I can change the world. Where is that person now?

Me? I'll be as bad as I wanna be. Got a problem with that bub?

Playing with your minds. . . . . .

He who must not be named

Do try to track down a copy of the japanese film Battle Royale II "Requiem."

Its a story of Japan's wetdream of solving their juvenile delinquents by using them as a pseudo-strike team to take down terrorists.

See the teenyboppers moronic attempt to storm a beach and charge a fortified stronghold without any sense of tactics.

Watch as they stand and wail idiotically while waiting for their heads to be blown up.

Be prepared to writhe and squirm and your seat for an hour and a half of overacting and mindless bloodfest.

Of course their are guns galore and and mil-wear to be seen. To name a few, FAMAS, MP-5s, AK-47s, M-16A2s, JGSDF battle gear, swat getup and what not.

If you are lucky enough do try to secure a copy of Battle Royale I also. More mindless fun with angst ridden teens battling it out with whatever item they can get hold of . . . .

It's a brand new year and sadly this is my first blog entry in so many months.

I had a chance to read my past emails and pseudo-articles and I was surprised to see how angst and loneliness brings out the creativity in you.

Somehow being happy and content tends to smother this trait.

This is not to say that I regret my situation right now, but I do miss lashing out with raw emotions and just letting it all out.

The passion is still there but got kinda lost or is it perhaps diverted to someone else whom I dearly love?

Niways, I do hope to get back the same zeal as before but without losing Ching.

Trala . . . . .

Alexander the Gay

Due to boredom and perhaps intrinsic curiosity, I decided to watch Alexander the Great yesternight at G4. Was planning on watching The Incredibles but I do so wanted to watch that one with Ching.

Niways, the movie was a great surprise in the sense that it was one of the few blatantly homosexual movie that I have ever seen.

However, the homosexuality exhibited in the movie was far far different from any other. It was more of a "Band of Brothers" type of sexuality, and not the screaming faggot type we usually associate with today.

Although I did find myself cringing in the kooky scenes with Alexander and Haephestion plus with his other love affairs, I kinda realize that it was the tradition of the Greeks (Macedonian for that matter) to engage in such sexual activities.

I was not alone in the shocked, aww shucks, giggly state regarding the gayness of Alexandra. I was seated next to a gaggle of college girls and it was really funny how they reacted to the kooky scenes interspersed with the gory and very vivid battle scenes. I do love to see them squirm.

Niways, I think modern common people cannot readily accept that one of the most famous generals of ancient times was openly homosexual (the pare pa kiss nga type).

Certainly, Alexander was not alone in this. Historical accounts say that Richard the Lion Heart and somebody or the other were also gay.

Niways, it was a very good movie with very gory battle scenes which I loved (so very reminiscent with Braveheart and The Last Samurai). The movie however barely showed the enormous military conquests of Alexander. It also failed to show the Gordian knot in which he was famous for.

Watch it and be ready to cringe and be thrilled.

Ha, after five long years I just discovered that my old website at geocities still exists.

Niways, here is an oldie from yesteryear . . .


Halika na, pumikit limutin ang problema. Hihintayin ang umaga.

Wish it was that damned easy. Better days are definitely ahead you just have to survive the night. Its the problem aint it, if you still have the guts and the willpower to carry on. My nights have steadily become a nightmare, a slow death of sorts. Wish that I could just lie down, close my eyes, and wake up to a new dawn. Unfortunately, I just cant do that for I’m not living in some fairy land. Reality bites, as they say, and it bites damnably hard.

Demons of my own making abound and have slowly crept into my psyche. Carry a honkingly big stick and beat the hell out of these demons seems the best course of action, but in a sense i dont want to. Somehow I thrive on the adrenaline rush, that all out emotional lashing out. Raw, intense emotions. Love, hate, despair, anger. I live for those. Somehow i might bitch about my life, but in the end this is what I love the most. An unbalanced existence, verging on insanity and self-destruction. A life so fuckingly unpredictable that every day is a gamble. If u see me now, my scars are increasing rapidly. Aye, symbols of stupidity and at the same time badges of honor for a life I have chosen to live.

Strength, passion, perseverance. What counts the most. Passion I definitely have, the other two would need some work. Passion wold someday be the death of me, but its a long ways from now. Without passion what is man? Perhaps this is my way of expressing a cry for help, perhaps not. The life i have right now, leaves me quite unbalanced most of the time. I still havnt found what im looking for. Bike for life has been moved to the 21st of May but my training continues on. I need this project so much to gain a foothold back to sense and sensibility, least i totally implode.

Hope might be fleeting for some of us, but ever there is something for us to hold on to. Children with cancer are out there dying, slowly losing the lifeblood of hope. Bike for Life. www.bike4life.org . Let us give hope to those who have so little of. Let us give life to those who have given up. Perhaps in the end, we will be saving ourselves.

Gumising na. Araw ng pag-asa'y narito na. Dumating din, haharapin natin. . .

Pocket PC rocks!!

I was just issued a Toshiba E740 pocket PC by the office and I must say the unit rocks. It has two, yup thats right, TWO expansion slots Compact Flash and MMC/SD plus it has wi-fi and 64mb of onboard memory.

Now I can view my pix taken from my DSLR in the PDA and can send it via wifi to our site. Now if I can only find a program like a photoshop lite to accompany the PDA it would be perfect for me and can virtually send from anywhere with a bluetooth SD card and a gprs cell phone.

Did I mention the games? Galeeeng. Meron ako nabilihan na pocketpc games at parang mini-pc na sya. There is a game called snails that is similar to worms armaggedon or to gunbound. Meron din mga rpg stuff like eye of the beholder type games pero di ko pa nainstall.

I also bought an IR keyboard for the PDA but havn't used it much since I found out that I can write directly to my PDA and have my handwriting by recognized and converted to a word format file.

Still longing for a proper laptop though.... but for the moment I am quite satisfied with this little gem

Ragnarok

It all started with that stupid review. Now I am hopelessly addicted to Ragnarok and I don't even know what the goal of my character is other than to kill more monsters to level-up.

I am currently in Baguio with my boss and luckily (or rather unluckily) there was a 24 hour bet cafe near the hotel where I was staying and I gravitated to the place searching for a terminal to play online.

Woe is me, the boss is giving me a DSL connection at home and it seems the ragnarok bug would even get worse.

It has been a long time since I blogged. Why I really don't care. Niways, I just watched a DVD titled "War Stories" and it tells the stories of war correspondents covering the civil war in Uzbekiztan, somewhere in former USSR. It tells of the hardships and the risks that we journalists take in order to produce our stories and photos. It made me wonder why I chose my current profession, photojournalist, as compared to a relatively easy and higher paying job as a corporate slave. I mean I do have all the credentials and experience plus a few units of Masteral subjects and a diploma in retail management. The truth of the matter is I love what I am doing, no matter how difficult or insane it might be. I mean nobody in his right mind would eagerly look forward to a confrontation or exhaust all his resources trying to be assigned to the frontline. I do not mind working under the hot sun and patienly waiting for something to break nor do I complain being soaked in torrential rain and risking life, limb, and property just to take a photo. Sure I do voice out my feelings, but in the end like a moth to a flame, I am drawn to the adrenaline busting world of media. As a journalist, I give voice to suffering, a window to adversity, and a road to recovery for the masses. On the other hand I am also there to share in their joy and in ther sorrow. I know what it is like out there because I am out there with them. Would I ever consider another career, probably. But in the end, I would always keep coming back to where my heart is. "There is no truth, only stories...."

THANK YOU TEARGAS!

I have been tear gassed maybe around three or so times before but I can say that the worst teargas experience I have ever gone through was the FPJ dispersal of last week.

Maybe they were using new stock or something but man oh man did that gas hurt and irritate our eyes and lungs.

How do I explain it . . first you feel an irresistable urge to cry very much akin I guess to having salt and pepper rubbed into your eyes, your lungs seem to be on fire and every breath seems to burn, finally if you can't hold it, an urge to vomit.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the water cannons and the very big stones and bottles thrown our way.

Needless to say went through that ordeal teary eyed and drippingly wet.

Another day.

LIKE HELL NO . . . .


There are many reasons why People adopt a vegetarian diet. With the growing awareness of the importance of healthy food, many people are becoming vegetarian because it matches the kind of low fat, high fibre diet recommended by dieticians and doctors. Concern about the environment is another factor as people become more aware of the effect raising animals for their meat is having on the environment. Or you may be concerned about wasting world food resources by using land to raise animals for meat instead of growing crops that can feed more people directly.

Health benefits for a vegetarian diet are numerous. According to a report from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) eating food containing substantial and varied amounts of vegetables and fruit will prevent 20 percent or more of all types of cancer. Recommended consumption is 5 to 10 servings daily, which means a substantial amount of fruit or vegetables for the day.

In numerous studies it has been shown that following a plant-based diet is associated with lower cholesterol levels, less heart disease, lower risk of many cancers, lower blood pressure, decreased weight and even stronger bones.

The greater consumption of fruit and vegetables usually associated with a vegetarian diet represents a major health benefit because of the vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting phytochemicals and dietary fibre they supply.

A vegetarian diet can include dairy products, eggs, butter, margarine, nuts, seeds, salad oils, vegetable shortening and cooking oils for fat sources.

There are four levels of vegetarian diets: Vegan; only consume food of vegetable origin. Lacto-vegetarian; includes cheese and dairy products. Ovo-lactovegetarian; includes eggs. And Semi-vegetarian; no red meat, but open to chicken and fish.

Vegetarian diets are basically healthy and far superior to the low-carb revolution, but many would argue that perhaps a more balanced diet would be better. The real issue that lumps vegetarian diets in with all the others that fail so miserably in the long-term is sustainability. One must always ask themselves: can I follow this diet regimen for the rest of my life?

Most say that a non-vegetarian diet is harmful to health, anti-economic, dangerous for the environment, contrary to ethics, inauspicious and incomplete.

The meat diet makes one insensitive to the suffering of others and indifferent to the exploitation of weaker elements of human society. Once these unethical values are accepted, they can be applied to children, women, sick, economically or socially disadvantaged, handicapped people, minorities, etc. A society based on such negative values cannot attain peace and receive properly the message of God.

Health is everybody's business and over 90% of health problems are due to wrong diet and lifestyle. So, this is a good starting point.

SPAM

Like yuck! I am so baboy na. . . .

So they say..

Niways, I miss the crimsom, sodium laden, slabs of meat that was served most days during my childhood.

Fortunately, I just found out that there is a specialty resto at Glori that specilizes in this artery blocking treat.

Have not eaten there yet but would like to soon.

Miko

Hells Bells ... Harry Potter 3 sucked big time!!

I think it was the most boring and uninspired movie I have ever watched.

I really don't get what the hype is all about this fledgeling snotty wizard and his equally inept friends.

Heck the only thing I loved about the movie is the tomboyish Hermione Granger.

But hey don't get all hyped up and hyperventilating about my comments.. fanboys and girls .. its just me.

Miko

Shut up Mr. Speaker!!

Digs Dilangalen, my new hero after Eddie "Pilukang Itim" Gil..

Miko

I am Miko Santos and I am for Bro. Eddie ......

Seriously!

Just came from covering the political rally of Bro. Eddie held in Ayala and I must say the man's charisma is in the high 20's. Although this is not the first time that I have covered Bro. Edy in the campaign, this is the first time that I was really moved by him and the people supporting him.

You could feel their intensity and passion.

There came a point that way up in my ladder and clutching my camera ready to take a shot, I was muttering things like "Yes Lord", "Amen", "I believe" and such nonsense.

Anyhoo, my vote is definitely for Bro. Eddie. It would be fun to see what he can accomplish as our country's top honcho.

Cycling and freedom … same thing.

During the recent Holy Week in Metro Manila, the city was a virtual ghost town. A sudden eeriness seems to have crept in the metro. Gone were the traffic jams, honking horns, revving engines, squealing brakes, and irate drivers.

The near absence of cars and vehicles in the metro made it possible to hear the leaves rustling in the trees and for once you could actually hear the birds sing. When you sniff the air, it was perceptibly cleaner also.

The city, for a few days, was a paradise for bikers, walkers, and runners, who came out in droves to fully take advantage of the temporary truce with the city’s polluted atmosphere.

It was also time to make you think what we have sacrificed in the name of progress and personal comfort.

Personal cars are in great abundance in any city worldwide and in recent studies have proven to be a major source of pollution, illnesses, deaths, and social degradation.

In contrast cycling your way to your destination promotes an active lifestyle, contributes little to no pollution, and encourages social interaction.

In a growing number of communities, bicycling and walking are considered indicators of a community’s livability. A factor that has a profound impact on attracting businesses and workers as well as on tourism.

Although personal cars do have their advantages and one can even argue that in light of the present situation, biking to work may even be more dangerous, one must consider the benefits that one can get.

People have been calling city cyclists crazy, and frankly, they may have a point. You have to be a bit crazy to tackle urban biking, with all the pollution and dangers of being shoulder to shoulder with irresponsible drivers.

But biking is one big free liberating experience. Riding a bike is like having an epiphany on how better we and even the world can be if we but stop and consider the alternatives. You realize things you can and can’t do. You turn the wheel, you go where you go at your own pace.

Biking will make you a better person. Away from the hustle and bustle of traffic jams, you get to see the real situation and get to commune with what is happening in your society. Seeing the poverty and filth in the streets may move something in you to try to improve the situation.

It is just a matter of rethinking and contemplating a lifestyle change that minimizes dependency on cars. You not only clean the air, lessen gridlock, create more livable cities, but also promote a better and healthier way of perceiving yourself and society.

Do make the lifestyle change support your local bike advocacy group.

OH my gawd!!!!

I am 80% evil!!!

Why am I not surprised . . . . . .