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Stephanie Dychiu CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES - Jaime Laya

2010-04-10T08:00:00.001+08:00

JAIME LAYA: A COLLECTOR'S JOURNEY

By Stephanie Dychiu

Philanthropist, cultural vanguard, and sometime governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines, Dr. Jaime Laya shares a piece of his collector's mind.

The disease is called collectivitis, and it is infectious and incurable.

Dr. Jaime Laya caught it at a young age, when his father foisted a shoebox-full of used envelopes on him, stamps still attached, to keep him busy and out of trouble. “Since then,” Laya writes in his book Consuming Passions, “I’ve had both continuing passions and casual flings with all sorts of collectibles—animal, vegetable, and mineral.”

The chairmanship of his high school philatelic society was his first managerial role, foretelling an epic future in art and antique collecting that would run parallel with his achievements in business, education, and public service. Retracing these twin paths leaves one feeling that Laya always seemed to be at the right place at the right time, with an enviable knack for spotting talent.

He was certainly born at the right place at the right time. His father Juan wrote the award-winning Commonwealth-era novel His Native Soil, and was friends with the popular painters of his time—Amorsolo, Manansala, and Ocampo. Art and nationalism were fixtures in Laya’s childhood millieu, but he grew up to be . . . an accountant. In the sixties, he became a professor at the College of Business Administration of the University of the Philippines. He struck up friendships with fellow teacher Jose Joya, and radical artist Ang Kiukok. When he became dean of the UP school of business, he cut “ex-deals” with the future masters—paintings for tax deductions—to perk up the school’s dreary walls. In his own office, he hung a market scene bought for P35. The painter was Cesar Buenaventura.

In the mid-seventies, Laya became Budget Minister. To spruce up his department’s mind-numbing annual report, he got an artist to make drawings for the cover. The artist was Onib Olmedo. Thanks to collectivitis, Laya had the foresight to save the original sketches for posterity.

In 1981, he was appointed Governor of the Central Bank and Chairman of the Monetary Board. While grappling with the Balance of Payments deficit, the Latin American debt crisis, and various emergencies wrought by the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, he went on an art acquisition mission (“statistics on growth and trade are not enough to know a country and its people”). Cesar Legaspi, Arturo Luz, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, and Ramon Olazo were prevailed upon to donate works. Priceless pieces from all over the country were rescued from mite, mold, and mildew, such as the only signed oil painting of Damian Domingo found in a bodega of the Paterno family, and a rare interaction work by H.R. Ocampo’s Saturday group of artists, signed by “half a dozen of the brightest lights of Philippine art”, gathering dust at Rustan’s Galerie Bleue. Gold pieces dating back to the pre-Hispanic barter trade were also added to the Central Bank’s Money Museum.

For these and other accomplishments as Chairman of the Intramuros Administration and the National Commission for Culture and Arts, Laya is lauded as the man who gave the nation palpable reminders of its cultural identity.

It was all serendipitous, of course. Laya did not consciously set out to amass the collections he built for public and private enjoyment. In his book, he jokingly ascribes collectivitis to a “hunting gene” that causes people to “diligently search for paint on fraying canvas”, “gurgle over chipped little jars with brown spots”, and “gleefully drag home cannon, bell, plow, or creaky bed”. In prehistoric times, homo erectus stalked rhino and lugged it to his cave. Today, Laya snares “armless, legless, sometimes headless” santos to bring home.

“I was always collecting one thing or another, beginning with stamps, coins, then books,” he says on the afternoon of our visit at his office in Philtrust Bank, where he currently serves as chairman. “The first paintings I ever saw were from my grandmother. She had these two little amateur paintings, done by a friend. Yun ang tinitignan ko nung maliit ako.” The first painting he bought was the 35-peso Cesar Buenaventura that hung in his office in UP. It was followed by an Amorsolo, a wedding gift to Laya and his wife.

Naturally, collectivitis made Laya itch to find companions for his lonely Amorsolo. Budget was tight, so he researched before making any purchases. He took note of the pieces art galleries chose to exhibit, and observed what knowledgeable friends bought. He studied the works that won competitions. He played secret judge at shows, comparing his personal picks with the works critics praised or vilified in the newspapers.

“People were more fortunate before, when there were real art critics in the newspapers,” he says. “Today, what’s published is simply a biography of the artist, and a plain description of the exhibit. ‘This gallery opened, this artist exhibited, he’s a graduate of UP, or UST, he’s exhibited before, and he paints flowers.’ Ganun lang. There’s no judgment. Before, we had critics like Leo Benesa and Rod Paras-Perez. They didn’t care who got mad at them. They just said what appealed to them and what did not. And it helped develop the judgment of readers like me who were uninformed. This is why Contemporary Art Philippines is an important contribution. Through it, people can have an idea of what is good or bad. They don’t necessarily have to believe it, but at least they will see how other people think.”

Art enthusiasts feel a constant need to have their judgment validated, and Laya says even he still feels that need up to now. Price is the most obvious indicator of value, but his rule these days is “maganda at mura”. Better to acquire a nice work by an unknown, than a lousy work by a famous name. In his book, he cautions against “artists not above mounting their own publicity campaigns”, who build careers out of media hype. He also laments the practice of producing “large-format books lavishly illustrated in color with so-so works”, done by some dealers to hock mediocre work to people who go for “book pieces”.

With these ploys proliferating, what becomes of authenticity in the art market? “That’s the traditional question that has never been answered,” Laya chuckles. “Rembrandt, for instance, was very popular in the early stages, but eventually, nobody bought his works anymore. In the end, it was his works that nobody wanted that stood the test of time. Same with Van Gogh. In his lifetime, I think he sold only one painting, but now he is the record-breaker. So to me, collectors should just collect what they like, and painters should paint what they think is best.” He says he has never bought a painting he didn’t like but thought would appreciate in value. “Swerte na lang that most of them did.”

Wish lists no longer plague him. “Painting is just something I enjoy. Okay lang kahit wala akong makita. In fact, better nga kung wala akong mabili eh, at least the money is still with me! If I find something, I’m happy. If I don’t find something, I’m not unhappy.”

Things have a way of finding their way to him, anyway. “Sometimes it takes twenty years. There was one watercolor I saw in a book printed in 1958. Nakalagay doon kung sino may-ari. I kept track of it. Painted by Jose Honorato Lozano, a nineteenth century artist. It took thirty years. Tinatandaan ko lang siya. Serendipity lang naman yan.” He points to a small Santo Niño kept under glass on one table in his office. “I saw that in a book on Philippine religious imagery by Fernando Zobel in the late sixties. I got it in the eighties. Twenty years. Inabangan ko lang siya.” How to hunt for a random relic seen in a random book? “Lagi mo lang i-on ang radar mo, baka sakaling nandiyan. When I’m really interested in something, I remember. I don’t necessarily pursue, but I remember. And then"—the power of visualization—"it shows up."

Will he ever open more of his personal collection to the public? “Well . . . there are better things in the Intramuros Museum, but nobody goes there,” he hedges. “How many visitors are there in the National Museum? You go there at any one time, siguro you have less than a dozen willing visitors. Yung mga unwilling, yun ang mga estudyante na nakapila na ikot ng ikot.” And why is that? What prevents art from gaining a broader audience? “First, it’s a matter of education. Why does the elite appreciate art but the masa does not? Because teachers in public schools are less interested in art than teachers in private schools. Maybe the thing to do is to improve teacher education, so it has more elements of art and culture. Second, maybe the media should have greater coverage of real art criticism. Newspapers, television, they cover fashion and cooking very well, they cover home décor, makeup, skin improvement. Maybe they should also have greater coverage for fine arts. Interiors is a good starting point, because you have visual arts there.”

Laya has accummulated countless masterpieces for the national patrimony as well as his personal collection, but one of his top three favorites is still the amateur painting that fascinated him as a boy. “It shows a woman walking toward the viewer on a street. May bamboo trees, may nipa hut. Very ordinary. But it reminds me of my grandmother.”

Collectibles, he says, are “keys to memory”, “handed by someone reaching across time and eternity”. This thought is echoed in the Juan Luna pen-and-ink stationery design he donated to the Central Bank many years ago. It shows a country girl holding a book with the words non omnis moriar—“not all of me shall die”—taken from a verse Horace wrote two thousand years ago to equate his poetry with immortality:

I have created a monument more lasting than bronze,
And higher than the royal site of the pyramids,
Which neither harsh rains nor the wild north wind can erode,
Nor the countless succession of years,
And the flight of the seasons.
Not all of me shall die,
My praise shall grow and never end.

Away from the critics and the pundits and the galleries and the auction houses, collecting, like all art, is simply a yearning to remember and be remembered. Nearly fifty years since he bought his first painting, Laya is far from done. At his office, we spot a freshly bought canvas leaning sheepishly against one wall, still swathed in bubble wrap. “The normal person stops adding to his paintings when his house and office walls are full,” he writes in his book, “but collectors are not always normal. Some follow the jeepney driver rule: there is always room for one more.”

(This article originally appeared in the April-May 2009 issue of Contemporary Art Philippines magazine.)

Stephanie Dychiu MARIE CLAIRE - Manila's Park Avenue Gangstas

2010-04-10T07:50:00.003+08:00

Editor's Letter, Marie Claire, January 2009:
. . . about her story 'New Lives for Teen Gangs', Stephanie Dychiu says, "meeting the Park Avenue gangstas was a reminder that change and hope don't always have to come in big sweeping moments--they can take place in small acts aimed at one person at a time." A group called Community and Family Services International whose spokesperson is comedienne/actress Tessie Tomas helps these kids change the course of their future.

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Original title of this article: "One of the Gang".
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NEW LIVES FOR TEEN GANGS
By Stephanie Dychiu

Named after New York City’s wealthiest address, Park Avenue in Pasay City is a narrow side street where teen royalty go by the names Bad Boi and Shawtababee instead of Blair and Serena. Only 15 minutes by MRT/LRT from the real Park Avenue of Metro Manila (Ayala Avenue in Makati), Park Avenue, Pasay is a parallel universe where fortunes are made not on the stock market but on the Libertad Market, and social status is attained not through money and pedigree but through brute strength and a flair for rap.

AWAY-ALAK
Typical of most mean streets that make up the underbelly of the metropolis, the alleys around Park Avenue are patrolled by youth gangs who are fiercely protective of their turf. Here, traditional trappings of civility such as work, school, and family have a long history of failure, so the gangsta becomes the surrogate that brings identity and structure to the lives of the out-of-school and out-of-work. Furthermore, when all it takes to be the victim of a brawl is to walk past someone who is “lasing, tapos nayabangan sayo”, it makes sense to join a group sworn to mutually protect each other before the violence actually happens.

“Minsan may atraso talaga, pero madalas, away-alak lang,” says Melanie*, 24, a native of the area who joined the West Side Mobstahs* at age 15. “’Pag naka-inom ka, matapang ka.” Where does a tambay get money to buy booze? She nods toward the Libertad Market. “Madaling dumiskarte diyan. Halimbawa, may namili. Buhatin mo yun. Bibigyan ka ng P20 o P60. Yung iba, humihingi ng ulam sa mga nagtitinda, tapos binebenta nila.”

A skirmish her cousin got into in a recent fiesta shows how trouble can start randomly when tambays get soused. “Nag-iinuman sa labas, kasi may videoke dun. May nagpaputok ng baril. Warning shot lang, pataas ang putok. Yung pinsan ko, lasing, lumabas. Naghahamon ng away. Pinagsusuntok yung iba. E, siempre, may gang, e. Yung pinakamatapang sa kanila, nakita. Sinugod. Hanggang ngayon hindi siya makapunta dun.”

STARTER VS. FOUNDER
“Yung taga-umpisa ng banat, ang tawag diyan Starter,” Melanie continues. In a fight, the Starter throws the first punch (or takes the first blows, if on the defensive). Seems like a role few people would want, but Starters actually like their posts because it gives them power over other members.

The Starter, however, is not top dog. “Yung pinaka-lider, ang tawag Founder.” How does one become a Founder? “Maghahanap ka ng grupo mo.”

Launching a new gang is no different from launching a new shampoo. First, create a distinct brand identity: “May sign-sign, minsan tattoo.” Second, build brand awareness: “’Pag naglalakad, isigaw mo ang pangalan ng gangsta. ‘O, ano ako. . .!’ Ganyan.” Third, reinforce brand recall by popularizing a slogan or jingle. “May ginagawang mga kanta, mga rap. Kumakalat. Naririnig na lang dito.” Finally, demonstrate superior product performance: “Pakita mo matapang ka. ‘Pag hinamon ka, patulan mo kaysa masaktan ka.”

How will a gang leader know his campaign has succeeded? “’Pag pinaguusapan na siya. ‘Pag naririnig na ng mga bata.”

HIRAP, SARAP?
When females want to join a gang, Melanie says the Founder usually gives them two choices: “Hirap o sarap. Yung hirap, sampal, 15 times. Yung sarap, sex.” The preferred choice? “Siempre sarap na kaysa maghirap. Kaya maraming babae na nagiging pokpok.” An older cousin of Melanie was already a member of the West Side Mobstahs when she was initiated. “Sinalo ako ng pinsan ko. Siya ang nagpa-sampal.”

For the all-male Real Pinoy Tribe*, hirap is the only route to becoming a member. “Ang ginawa sa amin ‘jump-in’. Ginulpi kami for 30 seconds,” says Jason*, 19. He joined the gang at age 15. “Six kami nun, tapos mga 20 katao bumugbog sa amin. Hinika nga ako nun.” The gang has rules to prevent serious injury during hazing. The head, neck, and face are off limits. “’Pag tinamaan ka dun, pwede kang sumigaw na ‘Foul!’ Stop na yun, kahit wala pang 30 seconds.”

Why go through all that just to be part of a gang? “Gusto ko kasi maranasan kung paano magkaroon ng power sa isang lugar.” That power comes at a price. Like NATO, gang members are bound to a mutual defense pact that views an attack on one as an attack on all. “Kahit wala kang ginagawa, pero yung iba mong kasama may atraso, pwede ka nang gulpihin.”

Hence the importance of allying oneself with the right leader. “Ang basehan namin, yung nandiyan para sa amin lagi,” says Jason. “Kasi, ‘pag may kaaway kami sa school, kung hindi na namin kaya i-handle, tinatawag namin siya. ‘Rekta na yan. To the rescue na siya.”

“MANNY PACQUIAO”
The rescuer Jason is referring to is Randy*, 21, the leader of their branch of the Real Pinoy Tribe in Pasay (the gang has several chapters spread across Metro Manila). “Siya ang Manny Pacquiao namin.”

Small, quiet, and soft-spoken, Randy at first glance would never be mistaken for a gang leader. In fact, he objects to the title. “Walang leader, mas ahead lang,” he says, attributing his seniority to having joined the gang before the others.

His reason for joining: “Marami akong nakikilala, kahit sa Cavite, kahit sa ibang bansa. Sa Korea, sa Japan. Dito rin sila dati. May mga Mexicano din, sa L.A.”

The Real Pinoy Tribe does not allow females to become members. “Pinagmumulan kasi lagi ng away.”

The gang activities, as Randy describes them, seem harmless enough. “Inuman three times a week. Basketball. Computer.” How then does trouble start? “’Pag ginugulo kami ng mga taga ibang lugar. Bigla na lang pupunta diyan, maghahagis ng bote. Makikipag-away.”

It was in this arbitrary manner that a major blood feud erupted around one year ago. The feud was so intense, it drove Randy to embrace his current lie-low status.

RESBAK
It all started when a man on a motorcycle went to the gang’s turf pretending he needed to ask something. “Lumapit ang isang kasama ko,” recounts Randy. “Bigla na lang may binunot, kutsilyo o ice pick yata. Nakita ng isa pang kasama ko. May hawak siya na fluorescent na itatapon na sana niya. Pinalo niya sa mukha ng naka-motor. Tapos mga limang bote ng Emperador. Pinagtanggol niya lang yung kasama namin.”

The man on the motorbike promptly went to his own gang to report the attack. “Nagsumbong din sa pulis, kasi maimpluwensiya siya dun, may kamag-anak yata siya. Na-ospital siya, puro tahi ang mukha. Dinemanda kami.” Randy and his friends went into hiding. The matter with the police was settled only after Randy’s older brother, a seaman, paid P26,000 to get him off the hook. “Ayaw ng kuya ko na makulong ako.”

Things did not end with the police. There was street justice to contend with. “Yung resbak nun, matindi,” says Jason. “May pinatay sa amin.” Late one night, while the gang was hanging out on their street, a man armed with a sumpak, or homemade shotgun, came and fired several shots. As the most prominent member of the gang, Randy was one of his main targets. But it was someone else who was killed. “Parang araw na talaga niya,” Randy philosophizes. “Twelve gauge yung shotgun, kumakalat ang buletas nun. Isang buletas lang ang tumama—sa kanya.”

Reprisal was swift. A hit squad was dispatched to hunt down the gunman. He wasn’t found, but one of his cohorts who happened to be near his house when the squad arrived was killed in his place.

TEKWAT
Just like Randy, a close call caused Melanie to distance herself from gangsta life—she almost landed in jail because a friend filched (tekwat or shoplift) a bottle of cologne from a supermarket and put it in Melanie’s pocket. “Bumukol, e. Nakita. Pinababayaran ng ten times. ‘Pag di nabayaran yun, dun ako sa kulungan.”

One of her cousins—the same one who bore the 15 slaps in her behalf when she joined the West Side Mobstahs—got wind of what happened and went to Melanie’s mother so the money owed could be paid before she got locked up. “Binato ako ng orasan ng nanay ko. Tapos umiyak siya. Nakakahiya. Magkano lang yung cologne? P20? Nahuli ako sa halagang ganun.”

Meanwhile, the West Side Mobstah gang was disintegrating. “May nasaksak kasi sila, tapos namatay. Kaya naglayo silang lahat.”

HANAP- BUHAY
Watching the mayhem from not too far away were the people behind Community and Family Services International (CFSI), an NGO that happens to be located in an old building along Park Avenue. The group’s primary focus is helping displaced persons in far-flung conflict areas like Mindanao and Myanmar, but it became clear the gangstas in CFSI’s own backyard were also displaced persons—displaced from mainstream society—whose lives were being ripped apart by conflict.

CFSI set up the Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay program to take tambays off the streets and into vocational courses so they can eventually find work. The most popular course has been food and beverage (F&B), because those who complete it are guarranteed jobs at restaurants that are allied with the vocational school. The course costs P13,000 and runs for 6 months. CFSI shoulders only half the cost of the tuition. The other half is paid for in installments by the youths themselves once they start earning, so they have a sense of personal responsibility.

BAGONG BUHAY
Ruth Solis, the social worker assigned by CFSI to the program, explains how the gang’s own psychology and dynamics are being harnessed by the NGO to reshape their lives. “As you can see, they are very territorial. Kada-street may grupo. If we gather members of different gangs here [in Park Avenue], mag-iinggitan yan. ‘Ma’am, baka nandiya si ganyan . . .’ So we take them out of town. Tagaytay, Mount Makiling. ’Pag inalis mo sila sa teritoryo nila, they become less mayabang, because they become dependent on you, for food, for transportation.”

Outside their turf, the boundaries between gangstas start to blur. The trip out is like a vacation—no pressure, no pontificating, lots of fun and food. But life skills training is subtly woven into the activities.

CFSI also puts the gang members’ advanced capacity for loyalty and solidarity to good use. Winning over just one leader can mean winning over an entire gang. Randy, for example, has been a valuable ally to Ruth. “Ang advantage ni Randy, magaling siya makisama,” says Ruth. “Tapos, ‘pag kaibigan ka niya, talagang hindi ka niya papabayaan. That’s why a lot of the other kids look up to him.”

Jason hopped on board because Randy was in. After spending 2 years in first year, 2 years in second year, and 2 years in third year high school, then dropping out altogether, he passed the Accreditation and Equivalency Test with CFSI’s help recently. “If you pass that test, it’s like the equivalent of passing high school,” explains Ruth. The test is administered to people who feel awkward going back to high school, but want to have the credentials. “Manny Pacquiao also took this test.”

ENDO
The streetsmart Melanie is one of CFSI’s most successful Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay participants. She has completed vocational courses in computers, cosmetology, and food and beverage. Her favorite is food and beverage, “kasi may trabaho kaagad”. Her first job as a waitress was in a restaurant in Mall of Asia, and she was asked to come back for a second stint after her first 6-month contract ended. Hard work surprisingly agrees with an ex-tambay like her. “Gustong-gusto ko yung napapagod. Halimbawa, closing ako ngayon. ‘Pag sinabi ng sir ko na wala tayong opening, ako ang magvo-volunteer. So straight na opening at closing ako.” Why does she like it? “Pera. Tapos mas marami akong nakikilalang tao.”

Saving is a challenge, however. When not on “service break” (the idle period between 6-month contracts), Melanie earns an average of P7,000 a month from waitressing. She gives three-fourths to her mother to pay for household expenses. At the end of her first 6-month stint, she was able to funnel her last pay to a small venture that tided her over the service break. “Nagtinda ako ng sigarilyo, kendi, tinapay, noodles, diyan sa kanto.” At the end of her second 6-month stint, there were no more savings. “Bumili kasi ako ng gamit,” she says. Deprived of life’s little luxuries for so long, she splurged on a TV, DVD player, “slide-up MP4”, and silver bracelet “na may bato-bato, maganda”, all bought in “gives”.

Currently on “endo” (end of contract), she is hoping her third 6-month assignment will come soon. Her long-term goals are simple. “Gusto ko lang may tirahan kami na malayo ang mga kapatid ko sa gulo, tapos may trabaho sila. Yung matinong trabaho ha? Hindi yung nagbebenta ng kung ano-ano. Yung kapatid ko dati, nagbenta siya, marijuana. Ang ginawa ko, nilagay ko sa tubig. Di na pwede.”

There is also the matter of getting pustiso for her younger brother. “Sawa na rin siya sa pagiging tambay. Gusto niya mag-apply sa fastfood. E bungal siya ng isang ngipin kasi nabagsak siya sa scooter. Hindi siya natatanggap.” She told him to apply again only after his dentures are in place, which she expects to happen in a couple of months, “kasi magkakapera ang kuya ko. Gas boy siya, malakas kumita.”

KABA
Randy briefly worked as a busboy after completing Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay’s food and beverage course. He was assigned to a posh restaurant in Greenbelt, where he has seen “KC, tsaka si Pops” in the flesh.

“Gusto ko yung nagdadala ng food, kasi hindi ko nagagawa yun dati. Pero nakakatakot mag-saulo ng order.” A 12 gauge shotgun does not faze Randy the gang leader, but he balked when he was asked to take over bartending duties at the restaurant. “Naunahan ako ng kaba. Hindi ko alam mag-mix ng cocktail. Tinuruan naman kami pero hindi mo naman makukuha yun sa isang beses lang.” He was so panicked over the assignment that he stopped going to work after the first 15 days. He was even too ashamed to call.

Ruth, whom Randy has taken to calling the real gang leader, has arranged for him to personally deliver the check for the balance of his tuition to the food and beverage school, to force him to set things right with them after going AWOL. A job transfer is being worked out.

“JOHN MAYER”
Jason, meanwhile, is still high from passing his high school equivalency exam. He is now eyeing college. “Gagawa ako ng paraan na maisabay.” (He will start working in a restaurant soon, after completing his Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay training.) “Kahit two-year course lang.” Which school? “Hindi ko pa alam. Hindi ko rin alam yung schedule, kung magkano. Kelangan malaman ko muna kung saan ako maa-assign.”

Then, there’s his music career. “Nasa banda ako dati, alternative. Pero acoustic na ako ngayon, blues na ang tinitira ko. Idol ko si John Mayer.” Wide-eyed and well-built, the affable Jason actually looks a bit like John Mayer. But showbiz is not for him—or so he says. “Mas sikat ka ‘pag underground artist ka. Magpapakalat ka lang ng CDing burn.” Sample nga? “Ay, ayoko! Ano kasi e, yung lyrics ko, hindi naka-copyright. Iniiwasan ko magka-leakage.”

Finally, his political career. “SK councilor kasi ako sa amin.” What? “Oo. Nangampanya ako, tapos nanalo. Dapat nga chairman na lang ang tinakbo ko e, kasi mas mataas pa ang boto ko sa kanya!” He turns serious. “Gusto ko rin magkaroon ng mark dito, para magkaroon ng change.” How? “Una, sa aming magto-tropa. Hanap ako ng pagka-busyhan namin. Hindi na yung vices.” Sports? “Hindi na magki-click sa amin yun. Ganun na rin ang project nila lagi. Sports daw nang sports. Bibigyan kami ng bola, ng dart board. Wala namang gumagamit. Gusto ko yung habang tumatagal, mas magiging interesado sila. Diversionary tactics lang. Kasi ‘pag busy ka, wala kang oras para sa bisyo.”

ISTAMBAY ME
As Melanie, Randy, and Jason struggle to keep themselves busy, the work also goes on for CFSI. Barangay officials and parents of out-of-school youths are being closely involved in the Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay efforts so progress is sustained. Many kids still need to be placed in vocational courses to keep them away from drugs, violence, prostitution, and criminal activity. But more funds are needed to pay for 50% of their tuition. At only P6,500 per life-changing course, it’s money well-spent.

“Hangga’t hindi pa sila namamatay, meron pang chance,” says Ruth. “Ang tingin kasi sa tambay laging masama. Pero actually, ‘pag sinabi mong kelangan nila tumulong, tutulong sila. Mabilis sila kumilos. At ‘pag sinabi nila walang manggugulo dito, talagang walang manggugulo.”

Such is the gangsta’s uncanny charisma. With Park Avenue, Pasay only 15 minutes away from the real Park Avenue (Ayala Avenue in Makati), it’s wise to work with it rather than eradicate it.

To sponsor a Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay scholar and know more about other ways to help, call CFSI at 519-0048, or email headquarters@cfsi.ph. More information about CFSI’s other projects can be found at www.cfsi.ph.

*Names of gangs and gang members have been changed.

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Teysi ng Tambayan

Tessie Tomas on celebrity philanthropy and finding meaning among the tambays.

While making buzz-worthy films (Ploning, 100, One True Love) and top-rating soaps (Kim Samsoon), Tessie Tomas works as Public Relations Officer for Community and Family Services International (CFSI), the NGO behind the Hanap Buhay, Bagong Buhay program that provides jobs and training for disadvantaged youths.

What bothers you most about tambays?
I lived in Tondo when I was younger, and also in Blumentritt. Nakakakita ako ng mga tambay, but it was not as bad as now. At age 10, I was doing radio soaps. I would take a jeepney to the radio station to record until nine in the evening. You cannot imagine a 10-year-old girl now taking a jeepney and feeling safe by herself. I felt so safe at that time.

Some people will freak out if they knew the waiter or waitress serving them is a former gang member.
I would tell them to focus on the positive instead of being afraid. Be happy for the person and give him or her encouragement!

Many celebrities exploit social causes to boost their image. Has your sincerity ever been doubted?
Sometimes people think I am running for public office. But the reason why I [became active in] social work was my mid-life crisis. I had a 10-12 year conflict that started at 40. Then one day, parang I heard a soft voice that said, “Stop searching so far for the meaning of life”. I was already helping CFSI then. I realized that was the work that made me happy. This is my second passion. Nagugulat ang mga press. “How come you didn’t tell us?” Kasi it was something private e. The same with Regine (Velasquez, her co-star in Kim Samsoon). I told her, why don’t you come and visit my NGO before our season ends? I explained what we do. She wanted to donate 20 sacks of rice. She didn’t want any TV cameras. Halos ang buong Pasay naghintay kay Regine Velasquez. Sabi ng mga bata kay Regine, kumanta ka naman sa amin. Sabi niya, anong gusto niyo? “On the Wings of Love”. Kinanta niya ang buo, hindi excerpt ha, acapella. Naiyak ako. Biruin mo, Regine Velasquez singing. And she did it so casually, one morning.

How do you cope when things don’t work out, or when people take advantage of you?
Yung rate of success, I don’t focus on that. Hindi ako nagpapaka-result oriented. I just focus on helping. I have no expectations. When I hear that voice that says ‘You help’, hindi ko yan kinu-question. Hindi ko iniisip na, pucha, baka igastusin ito sa iba. Every single time I have a chance to help, I just do it.

Why were fame, fortune, and family not enough to make you happy?
I had my first Pajero in 1992 when I had Teysi ng Tahanan. I looked at it and I said, this is really the car that I like. Glistening, it’s the right color, it’s so ganda, I have a driver, I live in a nice condominium in Ecology Village—I was still single then—daily show and all. And I looked at it, and in two days, the euphoria was gone. When I organize a medical mission, the joy lasts for a month. Why? Because it is soul work. I am feeding my soul when I do social work. It is when you are of service to others that you feel so fulfilled. Pala.

What keeps me going is the balance. Nag-burnout ako sa showbiz. If I kept going on that route alone, it was really dangerous for me na. I might say I’m gonna drop all of this. But because of my social work, I am more motivated to do showbiz. At this point in my life, I really, really know na what counts.

(This article originally appeared in the January 2009 issue of Marie Claire magazine.)

Stephanie Dychiu GMANews.TV - Catholic Church Battles Abortion

2010-04-10T07:40:00.002+08:00

QUIAPO CHURCH BATTLES ABORTION IN FRONT YARD
By Stephanie Dychiu

For the Catholic hierarchy, it must be a dreaded case of the barbarians finally reaching its gates.

Two years ago, at the bidding of Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Monsignor Jose Clemente Ignacio became rector of the Church of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, home of the miraculous 400-year-old statue of the kneeling Christ that is the object of frenzied adulation by millions.

To head what the Cardinal calls “the premier church of the Philippines" is an esteemed post any man of the cloth would be eager to assume—except the plaza outside the Quiapo Church also happens to be the abortion capital of Metro Manila.

While the clergy has been steadfastly championing the pro-life cause and battling artificial birth control, the bloodied fruits of unwanted pregnancy have come to besiege its acropolis. “It angers me," says Monsignor Ignacio. “Sometimes I cannot sleep because it is our responsibility."

“The Nazarene performs many miracles"

On any given day, but especially on Fridays, multitudes gather among the blind, the sick, and the lame at the Quiapo Church to beseech the Black Nazerene for favors. The air becomes thick with vulnerability and desperation, so anything paranormal is easily pawned. Black candles for hexing philandering husbands. Towels to wipe on the Black Nazarene’s foot and keep as an amulet. Roots and leaves that cure all ills. And the artfully named pamparegla, an acrid potion for inducing menstruation. Originally devised to treat dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps), it can trigger miscarriages in pregnant women when taken with the restricted anti-ulcer drug Cytotec.

“Maraming himala si Nazareno. Ang hindi buntis, nabubuntis. Ang buntis, biglang hindi na buntis (The Nazarene performs many miracles. Those who are not pregnant become pregnant. Those who are pregnant can be made not pregnant)," syllogizes Roger, one of the many vendors who illicitly sell Cytotec to troubled women flocking to the church for the magical return of their monthly period whenever they are “delayed" and need not be. A large tattoo of the Black Nazarene covers most of his upper arm. “Fanatic ako ni Señor Nazareno (I am a fanatic of Señor Nazareno)," he boasts.

“It started in 1995 . . . “

Sister Nelia, a loose-lipped peddler who has roamed Quiapo for forty years and claims she supplied Ferdinand Marcos with banaba leaves when he was ailing in the US, offers some history. “Nagsimula yan dito 1995. May dumating na babae. Uminom daw siya ng Cytotec nung buntis siya. Reseta ng duktor kasi may ulcer siya. Nalaglag ang bata. Kinalat nang kinalat ang istorya. Ang daming naghanap. Siempre, ang mga tindera, ‘pag may naghahanap, bibigyan (It started in 1995. A woman came. She said she took Cytotec when she was pregnant. Prescribed by a doctor because she had an ulcer. She lost her baby. She spread the story around. Many people started looking for the pills. Of course, vendors give people what they are looking for)."

And who are the people who come looking for the pills? “Ang mga hustisya," cackles Roger. “Ang mga pang-gabing hostess. At tsaka mga asawa ng taga-Saudi. Nami-miss nila asawa nila, nagkakaroon sila ng pagkakasala. Meron ding mga asawa na ayaw nang magdagdag ng anak. Meron ding estudyante (Prostitutes. And wives of contract workers in Saudi. They miss their husbands, so they commit adultery. Also wives who don’t want more children. And students)."

Where do the vendors get the pills, which have been banned from drugstores? “May umiikot dito. Nira-rasyon yan (Somebody goes around. The pills are rationed)," Sister Nelia answers. She adds hastily, “Noong araw, nagbenta ako niyan, pero ngayon, hawak na ako ni Mama Mary (I used to sell those pills in the past, but now, I am with Mama Mary)."

Sometimes, she continues, it is the mother who buys the pills when those who get pregnant are very young, or have sensitive professions (lawyer, doctor). The mother also does the buying when rape or incest caused the pregnancy.

Not just the poor girl’s pill

Middle-class women impregnated under less sordid circumstances are not beyond turning to Cytotec in their hour of need, often with full support from husbands and boyfriends.

“Please advice… I’m positive 8 weeks," writes yummee439 on the internet. “Di naka-pullout hubby ko, ejaculated inside me. We can’t afford another child. Where can I buy Cytotec na orig?" A good samaritan points her to Quiapo. “But look around first, sis. Bring P1,000-P2,000 because you have to buy pampahilab with Cytotec."

The pampahilab referred to is Methergine, a drug used in hospitals to control the bleeding of the uterus and expel the placenta after a woman gives birth. Like a chaser, Methergine is always sold with Cytotec in Quiapo.

Little guilt is shown in taking the pills, which are simply seen as a means of getting one’s period back after it stops due to fertilization. Never mind what else comes out when the flow comes gushing back.

What to expect when you’re aborting

“Malalaman mo na tapos na ‘pag nakita mo na siya (You will know you have succeeded when you see him)," says Dolores, a vendor whose unnerving calm could crack Hannibal Lecter’s composure. She describes the debris that comes out with the menstrual flow. “Kung one month, parang egg yolk lang ang lalabas. ’Pag two months, ganito na kalaki (If the fetus is one month old, it will look like egg yolk. If it’s two months old, it will be this big)." She holds up a hefty thumb, shaped like a stubby chorizo.

“’Pag nilagay mo ang two months sa platito, buo na (If you put a two-month-old fetus on a small plate, it will already be whole)," Sister Nelia elaborates.

“Hangga’t maari, one month to two months lang (As much as possible, the fetus should only be one to two months old)," warns Dolores. “’Pag three months, tao na siya (At three months, it will already be human)." Past the sixth month of pregnancy, the fetus expelled by Cytotec may already be a mature baby that can survive outside the body.

“Pero ‘pag sa pera, yung iba wala nang buwan na binibilang (But if the price is right, some vendors no longer count the months)," chortles Roger.

Does it hurt? “Wala lang (It’s nothing)," replies Dolores. “Lalabas lang regla mo (Your menstruation will just come out)."

Do you need to take a leave from work? “Hindi na. Pumili ka lang ng oras na relaks ka, tapos uminom ka ng dalawa every six hours (No need. Just choose a time when you are relaxed, then drink two pills every six hours)." Cytotec can also be inserted inside the vagina to speed up the dilation of the cervix.

How will you know it’s working?

“’Pag nag-L.B.M. ka (When you experience diarrhea)," says Roger. “Hindi lahat nag-e-L.B.M. (Not everyone gets diarrhea)," Dolores corrects him coolly. “Antayin mo twelve hours. ‘Pag wala pang nangyayari, mag-text ka. Baka kailangan dagdagan. Depende kasi yan sa lakas ng kapit ng bata (Wait twelve hours. If nothing happens, send a text message. You might need more pills. It all depends how strong the child is, how long it can hang on)." A normal dosage of Cytotec is six pills taken two at a time. Some women take as much as eighteen before they start bleeding. The bleeding usually lasts three or four days, in intermittent spurts.

“The fetus fell into the toilet bowl"

A girl who took the pills while eight weeks pregnant relays her experience on a social networking site. “I took Cytotec orally and inserted vaginally. I started bleeding and felt like peeing and pooing, so I went to the bathroom. My stomach hurt, like I had diarrhea. A big blood clot came out. The fetus fell on the toilet bowl, then the placenta. I wanted to cry but I was happy that my problem was over. I got my original Cytotec from XXXXXXX, 091X-XXXXXXX."

Another girl took the pills on her twentieth week. The trauma was more intense. “I drank four Cytotec and put four in my pussy. I prayed and did the sign of the cross on my bump. I got a fever and started shivering. When I went to the bathroom to urinate, the baby came out of my vagina. It was fully formed, with eyes and feet. I bled and bled for days. I’m sick all the time now. I want to go to the hospital but my parents might find out I had an abortion. Can the doctors tell?"

“Wash your vagina before you go to the OB"

When Cytotec fails to thoroughly expel the fetus and the placenta, body parts and excess tissue are left inside the uterus. Curettage (raspa) in the hospital becomes necessary to prevent infection and septic shock. This malfunction happens so often that tips on how to handle it are common among Cytotec users. “Wash your vagina very well before you go to the OB," instructs one girl, “because they might find traces of Cytotec and not believe you had a normal miscarriage."

Cytotec can also cause the entire uterus to rupture, which can lead to death or permanently damage the reproductive system. Future childbearing becomes impossible. If the pills are unable to induce an abortion (usually because they are fake), and the woman decides to continue her pregnancy, her child may be born with serious mental and physical defects.

But the vendors do not dwell on the negative, maintaining that their customers are satisfied.

“Bumabalik sila (They come back)." Stern Dolores musters a smile. “Nag-a-abroad, pagbalik dito, may pasalubong ka pa (They go abroad, then give us gifts when they come back)."

“Nagbibigay ng prutas at kung ano-ano (They give fruits and all sorts of things)," echoes Roger.

Sacred shock treatment

“Pregnant? Confused? Problems? Handa kaming tumulong (We’re ready to help)," says a poster on the bulletin board at the entrance of the Quiapo Church. The contact numbers of the church’s counseling center are printed underneath. “Did you know?" asks another poster of a blood-spattered fetus stuffed in a bowl, umbilical cord still attached. “This baby was killed by a self-poisoning abortion when his mother was 4 ½ months pregnant."

At high noon on selected days, the video wall outside the church that is used to broadcast masses to the spillover crowd on Plaza Miranda airs ultrasound footage of an eleven-week-old fetus floating happily in its mother’s womb while sucking its thumb. Suddenly, an abortionist’s curette appears, and the fetus frantically tries to evade it. With nowhere to hide, the fetus is ultimately scraped out of the womb in bleeding chunks. Last to go is the head, which is crushed for easy removal. The footage is taken from the 1984 documentary The Silent Scream, spliced with even more graphic video of dismembered fetal limbs, heads, eyeballs, and the voice of a child dramatically pleading for its life in Filipino.

These are just a few of the radical steps Monsignor Jose Clemente Ignacio has taken to squelch the Cytotec trade since he became rector of the Quiapo Church two years ago.

“There is a syndicate operating"

“You know, the Philippine Constitution says the State shall protect the life of the unborn from conception. And the Revised Penal Code says abortion is illegal. The BFAD (Bureau of Food and Drug) says they have already banned this drug. The media, the senators, the congressmen, the mayors have tried to bust the trade. But it’s still there."

So what makes a priest think he can do anything about it?

Pause. “The Cardinal told me it would be a difficult assignment." Tough-minded “Father Clem" was handpicked for the cleansing of the temple.

He pulls up some data on his computer screen. “According to a 2008 study done by the Guttmacher Institute and UP Population Institute, half of the 3.4 million pregnancies in the Philippines were unintended, and there were 560,000 cases of induced abortion. That’s 1,534 attempted murders of babies per day, or one baby per minute. This is worse than the deaths caused by terrorism."

He grabs a calculator. “Quiapo is the distribution center of Cytotec in the Philippines. The average price here is P1,000 for six pieces of Cytotec. If this is the minimum amount for the first stage of abortion, and we multiply this with 560,000, this is equal to P560 million. Being the distribution hub, this is big business for Quiapo. There is a syndicate, an organized market operating."

Why Quiapo? “A lot of people come here because of the Nazareno. It’s the busiest church in the Philippines."

He clicks another slide. “Most of the sellers are the herbal vendors. But since the police started catching them, they’ve changed tactics. Now, they are soliciting verbally. Even vendors of religious articles might be selling Cytotec."

Feeding the trade is a highly profitable protection racket. “Plaza Miranda policemen are offered vague bribes by vendors. When this doesn’t succeed, threats are used. Media, political relations. Here in the church, we have received bomb threats."

Police connection

A top target of threats, and the focus of an ongoing smear campaign in the tabloids, is the new police captain who was assigned to Plaza Miranda three months ago and has been working closely with Monsignor Ignacio. “If Captain Samoranos is being persecuted, it means he is doing a good job," says the priest, flipping through a folder of tabloid clippings lambasting Samoranos.

Out comes the calculator. “When a policeman or barangay official is assigned here, there is a very strong temptation to collect from the vendors. In Plaza Miranda alone, I counted about 1,000 vendors. Assume the minimum is P30 of kotong (bribe) per vendor everyday. P30 x 1,000 is P30,000. You multiply that by thirty days. P900,000 in one month. Multiply that by twelve months. [P10,800,000.] That’s just one collector. You can see it’s a multi-million-peso business. Cytotec is just one. Count how many vendors there are in the whole Quiapo. Even sampaguita vendors are paying collectors just to be able to operate."

No law in the land

Kinks in the law do not help. At his outpost overlooking Plaza Miranda, Captain Samoranos explains that a Cytotec vendor needs to be caught in the act to be arrested, and can only be detained for twelve hours. For charges to be filed, the BFAD needs to certify that the drugs confiscated are indeed Cytotec. This takes around two months, by which time the twelve-hour detention period has long expired. “Isa lang magiging rekomendasyon ng piskal diyan-—release (The fiscal will have only one recommendation—-release)."

Even if a case is filed, Captain Samoranos says the only charge that can be slapped is selling drugs without a license or prescription. Under the Pharmacy Law (Republic Act 5921), this is punishable only by a fine of P1,000 to P4,000, or imprisonment of six months to four years.

Monsignor Igancio shows a letter he wrote Senator Miriam Santiago asking for a law making the sale of abortion pills a crime of solicitation to commit murder. “That would make it non-bailable."

Church vs. State, Coke vs. Sprite

Monsignor Ignacio agrees that the demand for abortion pills exists because there are too many unwanted pregnancies. But are there too many unwanted pregnancies because there is too little knowledge about contraception?

“My best friend drinks Cortal with Sprite after she and her bf (boyfriend) have sex. She never gets pregnant,“ blogs sabsganda. “Coke, dear, not Sprite," biboysmom clarifies. “I take Cytotec right away when I’m delayed. Nagkakaroon ako kaagad (I get my period immediately)," shares brownsugahbeyb. “Ikaw ha, bad ka, my husband bought that, that’s for abortion," chides ludettski. “Stork with Red Horse is more effective." (Cortal is a brand of fever medicine. Stork is a menthol candy brand. Red Horse is a beer brand.)

“Unwanted pregnancies cause illegal abortions, that’s a fact," says Monsignor Ignacio. “But are we now supposed to promote contraceptives? Contraceptives will produce more abortions. Contraceptives will create a [culture of irresponsibility and selfishness]. The more people engage in selfish sex acts, the more you produce unwanted pregnancies, because contraceptives are not 100% [foolproof]."

(Not that anyone needs another recap, but here’s the gist of the birth control debate: The Roman Catholic Church supports family planning, but only through natural means such as the withdrawal method and the Billings method. Advocates of artificial contraception in government and the medical community say this is unrealistic, because most people do not have the high degree of discipline and clockwork ovulation necessary to make natural family planning work.)

More sex = more abortions?

If women who use contraception have more sex, do they also have more abortions? Data from the 2008 report of the Guttmacher Institute and the UP Population Institute shows only 11% of the women who induced abortion were using artificial contraception when they conceived. Majority or 54% were not using any birth control method, while 35% were using natural family planning. The same study lists the chances of getting pregnant while using different contraceptive methods: 2% for IUDs (intra-uterine devices), 3% for injectables, 7% for birth control pills, 13% for condoms, 26% for withdrawal.

But the Church is immovable. “Sometimes we get into something because we think it’s a good tool," says Monsignor Ignacio. “What we don’t know is there’s a whole culture behind that tool. Like computers. It can facilitate things, but there are dangers. Computers are now also being used to pollute the minds of the young, for the sex trade, for terrorism. There’s a whole world behind the tool."

The Reproductive Health Bill being debated in Congress promotes both natural and artificial contraception. The Church is flatly opposed to it. The bill says, “Abortion remains a crime".

Abortion is the one thing the Church and the lawmakers actually agree on. This can’t be good news for Cytotec vendors.

Money before religion

But out on the streets of Quiapo, there is little interest in ideological debates. Abortion is strictly business.

“Kung ibibili kami ng pagkain ng pari diyan, hindi na kami maghahanap-buhay (If the priest buys food for us, we will no longer have to earn a living)," says Roger, he of the Black Nazarene tattoo. “Yung mga abuloy diyan, hatian niya kami rito (He should split the church donations with us)."

Another vendor, Sally, whose T-shirt says Patawarin Mo Po Sila, Hesus Nazareno (Please Forgive Them, Jesus of Nazareth), is more pragmatic. “Kung gusto nila pigilan ang pagtinda, bigyan nila ng kapalit, ng suporta (If they want the selling to stop, they should give alternatives and support)."

The profits from selling abortion pills are hard to top. Per transaction, vendors sell an average of six pieces of Cytotec at P150 each and ten pieces of Methergine at P50 each. The average transaction is thus worth P1,400. (Of this amount, a source says the mark-up is as much as P1,000. But this is difficult to verify.)

That’s the supply side of the curve. On the demand side, economics also trumps ideology—-72% of the women who attempt abortion in the Philippines (87% of whom claim to be Catholic) cite financial reasons for not wanting to raise a new child, according to the 2008 study of the Guttmacher Institute and UP Population Institute. More than half (57%) are mothers who already have three or more children, and don’t want another one.

Do vendors use Cytotec?

Even within the vendors’ personal lives, economics determines whether or not a child will live or die by Cytotec.

Nini, over six months pregnant but still peddling abortion pills, is obviously in favor of having children, but only because she can afford it. “Kung walang tutulong sayo, gawan mo ng paraan hangga’t meron pa (If no one will help you raise the child, do something about it while there’s still time)" is her outlook.

Roger asked his own daughter to take Cytotec when she got pregnant. She had just graduated from college, and he had already borrowed P130,000 to pay a recruitment agency so she could work abroad. She chose to stay and keep the baby. He was furious, but he let her marry her boyfriend. “Civil engineer, e. Dose ang sahod. Umaabot ng kinse kasama allowance (He’s a civil engineer. His salary is P12,000. It goes up to P15,000 with allowances)." Had the guy been jobless, what would he have told his daughter? “‘Uminom ka! Tapos ituro mo sa akin, papatayin ko ang putang ina!’ (‘Drink [Cytotec]! Then point him to me, I’ll kill the sonofabitch!’)"

Illegal means profitable

What if, just if, pigs could suddenly fly and the BFAD lifted restrictions on Cytotec?

The vendors are surprisingly ambivalent. Operating underground is more profitable, they say, because they are not subject to the same capital and regulatory requirements as real drugstores, and they can undercut pricing easily.

Astute Dolores cunningly points out that Cytotec is becoming more popular because of constant news coverage. She notes that the fastest way to make people want something is to ban it. “Tsaka nagkakaroon ng ibang intensiyon ang iba (And some people acquire unusual intentions)," she adds, alluding to the tendency of persons in power to exploit the illegality of a trade to extort protection money.

Monsignor Ignacio calls their business “selling weapons to kill unborn children". Do they feel any guilt at all? “Wala (None)," they chorus. “Marami nga kaming natutulungan, e (In fact, we are able to help a lot of people)," says Sally. “Sila ang lumalapit, nakaupo lang ang mga tindera (The customers are the ones who come, the vendors are just seated)," says Roger.

Mercifully, there is one exception. “Ako, ang tawag ko sa Cytotec na yan, salot (Me, I call Cytotec poison)" sniffs reformed Sister Nelia. “Kung wala yan, napakaganda sana ng hanapbuhay namin sa herbal (If not for that, we would have a good livelihood selling herbal cures)." She wags her finger in the air. “Pinapangaralan ko sila. Napakabigat na kasalanan niyan, sabi ko. Tayo hindi permanente sa lupa. Pagbabayaran niyo yan, ‘ka ko (I lecture [the other vendors]. What you are doing is a big sin, I say. We will not always be in this world. You will pay for what you have done)."

As she saunters away in a righteous huff, a policeman leans over and murmurs, “’Yan, kaaalok lang niyan ng P1,000 per week nung isang araw (That one, she just offered P1,000 per week [of protection money] the other day)."

The economics of abortion

Economic theory presupposes that human beings are rational, making choices by weighing costs against benefits. On the supply side, Cytotec vendors see that the financial benefits of breaking the law far outweigh the costs, because, as it turns out, there is no law. On the demand side, the women contemplating abortion are faced with a lose-lose situation, but think they have less to lose by sacrificing an unborn child than absorbing another financial burden they can ill afford.

Quiapo’s parish priest and the Plaza Miranda police have made moves to choke off supply. What will the congressmen and senators do to curb demand? As the arguments continue over condoms and pills, the barbarians are at the gate and one baby has died per minute that you have been reading this story.

Note: Names of vendors and women’s web aliases have been changed. Web comments have been paraphrased for brevity. The 2008 report of the Guttmacher Institute and University of the Philippines Population Institute cited several times in this story was written by Susheela Singh, Haley Ball, Rubina Hussain and Jennifer Nadeau, of the Guttmacher Institute; Fatima Juarez, Centre for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies, El Colegio de México, and independent consultant; and Josefina Cabigon, University of the Philippines Population Institute.

(This story was originally published on GMANews.TV on October 18, 2009. Photos by Howie Severino and Miranda Angeles.)

Stephanie Dychiu MARIE CLAIRE - Mestiza vs. Morena

2010-04-10T07:20:00.000+08:00

WHO'S AFRAID OF KAYUMANGGI?

(Kayumanggi = brown skin in Filipino)
By Stephanie Dychiu

Brown beauties break barriers to thrive in their own skin. But can beauty really be color-blind?

On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon, and a morena became the first Filipina Miss Universe. For pageant-obsessed Pinoys, the triumph of Gloria Diaz almost eclipsed man landing on the moon. More than just an honor for the nation on the world stage, it was a victory for all morenas who had long been sidelined by the mestiza ideal.

Tisay Supremacy

There is scant information on pre-colonial standards for beauty in the Philippines, so preference for fair skin often gets blamed on colonization. No less than Jose Rizal lampooned this in his 1887 novel Noli Me Tangere. The book’s social-climbing character Doña Victorina sports artificial ringlets, a fake Andalusian accent, and a face thick with rice powder to appear white and Spanish.

“Four centuries of being called ‘indio’, and, when marrying above one’s class or into a mestizo clan, often hearing the line ‘para mejorar la raza’ (in order to improve the race), even in jest, has driven the point that brown simply doesn't matter in society,” says veteran fashion and advertising savant Bobby Caballero.

In the 1940s to 1960s, the reign of Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn further fanned the flames of mestiza worship. Virtually all leading ladies in Philippine cinema were high-nosed alabaster beauties—Paraluman, Carmen Rosales, Gloria Romero, Amalia Fuentes, and Susan Roces, to name a few. Even the Binibining Pilipinas winners that preceded Gloria Diaz, such as Myrna Panlilio and Pilar Pilapil, were mostly mestizas.

And then came Nora Aunor.

The Anti-Tisay

“Nora Aunor totally upset society,” says Joann Maglipon, editor-in-chief of YES! Magazine and www.PEP.ph (Philippine Entertainment Portal). “Suddenly, a small brown girl with very Filipino features had become the country’s superstar—making producers wait, moving politicians to send for her by helicopter, leaving advertising executives lining up. The country’s media were carrying daily images of a dark-skinned, wavy-haired girl who had once sold water by the railroad tracks. Seemingly overnight, the masa was dictating its taste upon the scene, sweeping aside an aghast elite, which fought back by looking down on the superstar. There is a reason why they call Nora phenomenal.”

The girl called “negra” by her schoolmates was able to command manic adoration from millions, and she hosted one of the longest running TV shows in Philippine history (“Superstar”, which ran for 25 years). To date, her record of acting awards is unsurpassed, and her legendary fanbase remains solid despite a prolonged absence from the entertainment scene.

“Nora was popular because of her wonderful voice, and people were in dire need of role models who were accessible,” says Professor Jose Wendell Capili, Head of Graduate Studies at the College of Arts and Letters of the University of the Philippines, and editor of the book Mabuhay to Beauty. “There were big stars after Nora, like Sharon [Cuneta], Maricel [Soriano], Judy Ann [Santos], but nobody can duplicate the phenomenon that she was during her prime. With the possible exception of Vilma Santos.”

Santos, however, was of the standard fair-skinned mold. As the original Eskinol girl, her translucent complexion drove a generation of Pinays to use astringent every night before going to bed.

Brown Sex Appeal

In the 1980s, “chocolate beauty” Tetchie Agbayani set another kayumanggi milestone by posing nude for the German edition of Playboy magazine. Twice.

“I think when Playboy came out, it dawned on people here na maganda pala ‘pag dark ka,” says Agbayani. Before Playboy, it took more effort for her to get noticed locally. “I was already in movies, but parang ang bagal. My late manager Franklin Cabaluna had this collection of Playboy magazines. Out of frustration, I joked, ‘If Playboy comes, I’ll pose for them.’ Months later, Playboy contacted him. They needed to do a feature on women of Asia. He was handling a lot of celebrities, so he brought this thick wad of pictures and showed it to them. When they gave him back the pictures of the girls they wanted, natawa siya. It was all me, I just looked different [in every shot] because the pictures were taken from different stages of my life.”

Agbayani went on to star in Hollywood films like The Emerald Forest, The Money Pit, and Gymkata. “I don’t think I would’ve stood out if I weren’t dark. Europeans, Westerners, they think that when you’re Asian, you have dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. They don’t see an Asian girl to be mestiza.”

Bambi Arambulo was another sexy icon of the 1980s. She played the debutante in the camp classic Temptation Island, a movie about shipwrecked beauty contestants. “I was not morena, although my features were,” she says. “I was always envious of the ones who were born with a natural tan. But during my time, I truly doubt one's skin tone was ever the reason not to get picked for a show.” Arambulo has been based in the US since 1983. Does she feel more beautiful abroad where she can be considered exotic? “I never noticed the difference.”

“Personally, I find the morena beauty more magnetic, more sensual,” says Joann Maglipon of YES! Magazine. “She looks tighter and just more solid. But then I catch myself, What am I thinking? Why am I pitting one against the other? Must pigment actually define beauty? Pigment—which is an accident of birth, of race, of continent, of circumstance?”

Masa Media

If Nora Aunor were starting out today instead of 1969, Maglipon feels she will have a tougher time gaining acceptance. “The rise of whitening products tells you so.” She adds, however, that it might be wrong to say skin color is the dominant variable producers look for in actresses they want to build up. “Being businessmen, they are going for who the public will like. There are many informal feedback sources that they can use, such as their maids—it has to be the masa—also their colleagues, but they have to pick up the public pulse. They cannot do it in isolation.” Other intangible factors come into play, says Maglipon, such as feedback about work habits and viability for stardom. But all things being equal, if skin color was the only difference between two talents, she says the mestiza would have the edge.

There are exceptions. “A welcome surprise is the continuing viability of the Sex Bomb Dancers who have a show called Daisy Siete. It’s a minor surprise in the industry that this show has [lasted] way beyond what was expected, even after [the Sex Bomb Dancers] were booted out of Eat Bulaga, although later they returned maybe twice a week or so. They still managed to keep the show going. That means people can relate to them. Also, because they feature problems that are real to those of their age. So, maybe that’s the thing. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was also pressure on these girls to look fairer.”

Morena model-turned-actress Bubbles Paraiso says she has so far not experienced any stereotyping. “I don’t know if my complexion limits my roles, because I’ve only started in showbiz. Before, they would always have mestizas portray rich roles and morenas poor roles, but so far, most of my roles have been rich!”

Undeniably, though, many comic acts still portray dark people as objects of ridicule. “When you have TV shows making a mockery out of all these snub-nosed people,” says Maglipon, “then you create another generation that’s going to believe their noses are not good enough, a generation that feels bad about itself, that must go for cosmetic surgery.” By her observation, dark and flat-nosed people are only able to avoid comic typecasting “when they’re very tall, and have the features of a ‘black beauty’, because then they take on some Caucasian or Western features that offset the Pinoy features.”

A recent trend in show business has been the sudden whitewashing of the skin tone of erstwhile morena celebrities. “The young . . . are pressured when [they see] their kayumanggi heroes turn fair,” comments Bobby Caballero. “We’ve become racists in our own brown islands.”

The media plays a huge role, concludes Paraiso. “The more the media presents a Filipina beauty as someone beautiful, the more Pinays will take pride in [their] skin color. ‘Fair is beautiful’ has to be forgotten, and ‘I am beautiful’ should be instilled. The more the media features morenas, the more people will accept that our natural complexion is indeed beautiful.”

But advertising is the hand that feeds media, and things get complicated.

Morenas in Advertising

Nandy Villar, Managing Director of McCann Erickson, says that twenty years ago, morenas usually got their break in advertising only after winning major beauty pageants. “Even then, they weren’t big icons. Those who made it big were all fair-skinned. One of the biggest was Alice Dixon, who became famous for her ‘I can feel it!’ Palmolive ad.”

Other morena beauty endorsers usually had a prior claim-to-fame before they bagged advertising contracts. “Twenty years ago, toilet soaps like Palmolive and Lux were the beauty brands,” says Villar, “and Eskinol seemed the only other beauty product advertised on top of the soaps. Lux used the two biggest names in 1988, Sharon Cuneta and Kuh Ledesma. [Kuh] had always been as she is now, morena. But her celebrity status allowed Lux and its fans to go beyond her skin tone. Soon after, came the pre-glutathioned Regine Velasquez, and Pops Fernandez, who was also morena.”

Villar says beauty products today still favor fair-skinned women. “That’s our cultural standard for beauty, especially among the mainstream market. Many times, the choice for morena beauties happens when the ad wants to portray characters that are closer to real women, like Lumen of Surf.”

Model Rissa Mananquil is an exception, having clinched coveted beauty endorsements like Pond’s and Vaseline lotion despite being dark. “When I was a kid, I had a playmate who called me ‘negra’,” she says. “But I never grew up thinking I was ugly.” In 2001, she was part of a Bennetton international ad campaign in New York. She does not recall losing any modeling jobs because of her skin color. “Thanks to kayumanggi forerunners in the industry like Anna Bayle, Tweetie de Leon, and Angel Aquino—they paved the way for my morena batchmates and myself.”

In the late 1970s, Anna Bayle’s exotic looks and distinctive walk transported her to Paris and New York, where she became the “First Asian Supermodel”. Tweetie de Leon won the Supermodel of the Philippines title in 1987 and has outlasted many of her fairer-skinned contemporaries as a product endorser. In the early 1990s, Angel Aquino was one of the first unknown morena models to spearhead the launch of a major shampoo brand (Pantene).

The openness toward darker models ebbs and flows, however. Morena TV host Bianca Gonzales, whose first name ironically means “white” in Italian, started out as a commercial model in 2000. “It might be harder for Pinay models like me this time around,” she says, “more than three, four, five years ago, with the influx of half-Filipino, half-foreign models around.” She says she has lost jobs to fairer-skinned models twice in the past.

Bubbles Paraiso began modeling in 2001. When she first started going to VTR’s, her manager told her she needed to get bleached white if she really wanted to get jobs. “I kind of got discouraged thinking the only way was to go white, which I didn’t want to do, but fortunately after that, I landed a TV commercial because of my color—it was a summer TV commercial for a soda, so they wanted someone tan.”

Kayumanggi Chinese-Filipino model Trixie Chua, a runner-up in John Casablancas’ Look of the Year in 1988, did not experience any direct discrimination while auditioning for commercials, but saw subtle signs that her skin color was an issue. “They'd tell you, ‘thanks, we've booked someone’, and you'll just hear that [the job] went to a non-morena model. I landed more campaigns in Singapore in a shorter period of time than in Manila.”

Bobby Caballero witnessed many mestiza vs. morena encounters during his heydays in fashion and advertising in the 1970s and 1980s. “[In fashion shows], mestizas were the top choice. Dark-skinned models were plugged in when shortages came up. Dante Ramirez shook the scene with his towering dark goddesses—Diwata, Dayang Dayang, Elektrika—[but] the buzz was short-lived. Mag editors and ad agencies still preferred ‘kutis porcelana’. I was with Ace Compton (now Saatchi), and kayumanggis didn't even make it past the brainstorming talks. [Mestiza beauty] Maritess Revilla, the Camay Girl, held the throne for years. We'd shoot test commercials and air them in Cebu and Davao, but we never invested in kayumanggis for the acid test. My ‘Iba na ang matangkad’ Star Margarine campaign had [fair-skinned] Aurora Pijuan, then Miss International, but she was [still] considered [dark] by the client. When we launched Levi’s, no kayumanggis made it to the list.

“Then, we were signed up by Hyatt Hotel with Tita Chito Madrigal for the La Concha fashion shows. It took a cosmopolitan mind like Tita Chito, prodded by gutsy Santiago de Manila (designer Ernest Santiago), to get the white girls worried about getting tans to win solo spots. Exoticism became the rage, and Gary Flores produced Kalipayan. The tisays begrudgingly worked up tans by the Hyatt pool. Controversy ensued when Gary created Group A and Group B models. Group A were the tisays, Group B were the morenas. Anna Bayle was put in Group B, and she stormed out of the Hyatt, and later on to Paris, New York, and Vogue cover fame.

“When I did our Clio award-winning TV commercial ‘The Beauty of the Philippines, Philippine Air Lines Shining Through’, we used sultry olive-skinned Tweetie de Leon and Melba Arribas, together with not-so-mestiza PAL cabin crew, [the] Charisma Girls. “I continue to work with fashion directors, like Raymond Villanueva. In his book, Ria Bolivar is today's top kayumanggi ramp star. Rajo Laurel, light years ahead in attitude and style, uses dusky Anna Casas.”

Kayumanggi Rising

What spurred the increased openness to a non-white paradigm? Professor Capili enumerates key incidents in history: “The emergence of the African-American and Asian-American movement; the liberation of colonized countries in Asia and Africa after World War II; the emergence of non-white artists in mainstream cultures, as exemplified by the domination of Motown music during the 1960s and 1970s; the emergence of colored supermodels like Anna Bayle, Naomi Campbell, and others—these are circumstances that were not there before World War II. It is still a white man's world, because the world is controlled by leaders of predominantly white cultures, but the glass ceiling has been broken. It is now possible to move across disciplines despite skin color.”

To Joann Maglipon, however, color and race biases are still very much around. “Right here, you see it. How Filipino parents and Pinoy media teach kids to think that short-legged, snub-nosed, and dark-skinned are funny caricatures of the human form. Sure, there’s been a bit of progress, but not enough to acknowledge that brown is beautiful.”

In Fairness . . .

Most Pinays still want to be fair. In 2004, a Synovate study showed 50% of Filipinas used a skin lightening product. Today, whitening products control more than half of the local skin care market. Even the 22-year-old daughter of trailblazing morena beauty Gloria Diaz (Isabel Daza) is endorsing a whitening product.

“I think now [being white] is more associated with beauty than with one's rank in society,” says Villar of McCann Erickson. “It matches our standards for cleanliness and hygiene. Culturally, we see the maputi as mukhang mabango, fresh, and neat. In fashion, we also believe that if one is maputi, one can wear any color of clothing. [Wanting to be white] is really an Asian thing, more than a Pinoy thing.”

Rissa Mananquil says if she met a girl who used whitening products, she would not try to talk her out of it. “Just because you think something is ugly, doesn’t mean the world agrees with you, but to each his own. Being a beauty columnist as well, I get to interview foreign principals of global make-up brands. They are always puzzled why Asians and Filipinos want to look fairer. In the US and Europe, women go crazy for self-tanners and bronzers because being tan is their definition of beauty.”

“I am anti-whitening for myself,” says Bianca Gonzales, “but if I have friends who want to have fairer skin, I will support them. What I am for is supporting Pinays who choose to love their brown skin . . . and not feel pressured to spend [their] allowance on whitening products.”

“This whole beauty thing ends up making things ugly,” observes Joann Maglipon. “That desk job, those house chores, being of modest means. Why? Because beauty tells you these things keep you from having access to the huge vacation, the wealthy and indulgent partner. It’s hard to have smooth, fair skin when you have to take the tricycle, then the jeep, and finally the MRT, to get to your desk job.”

Tetchie Agbayani is more bothered by the lack of self-acceptance than by whitening per se. “If you’re going to be happier with fairer skin, go for it. But why are so many women not happy with what they have? I would address the root causes of that mindset.” She cites the black-to-white mutation of Michael Jackson as an extreme example. “It’s called body dysmorphic disorder. You look in the mirror and see many things wrong, but when others look at you, there’s nothing wrong. So maybe what’s wrong is not how you look, but how you see yourself.”

Beauty Beyond Color

Black, brown, or white, natural or induced, beauty comes in many colors, and to deride a person’s preference for one or the other seems equally hackneyed in this enlightened age. Could it be that the rise of kayumanggi beauty is significant not only because it opened eyes to the merits of a darker coloring, but also because it stirred a deeper and more universal chord among mestizas and morenas alike? Nora Aunor represented something more than just her dark skin—she was a myth made real. Talent enabled her to rise above society’s prejudices and create a more egalitarian model for attractiveness based on ability and empathy more than external looks.

Maybe kayumanggi beauties earn their place in the hearts of people not simply because they are brown and proud of it, or because they don’t try to be white, but because they prove that, brown or white, bleached or spray-tanned, a person’s worth is not to be judged by the color of her skin.

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Skin color bias, according to a morena icon turned psychologist

When it comes to beauty and skin color, Tetchie Agbayani is in the rare position of celebrated subject and trained observer—from beauty queen/fashion model in the late 1970s and Playboy model/movie actress in the 1980s-1990s, she became a psychology teacher at St. Joseph’s College in 2004. Now completing her Master’s Degree in Psych from the Ateneo, she ponders the origins of skin color bias:

“We can’t attribute it solely to colonial mentality. Let’s look at Japan. Japan is extremely nationalistic. They like their own. They’ve never been colonized. They have fair skin. And yet, they still use whitening products. So it’s hard to say it’s [due to] colonial mentality. It’s more deeply rooted, I believe.”
“It has something to do with the collective unconscious, I think. Carl Jung talked about this wellspring of knowledge that connects all people, all cultures. He talks about archetypes. All communities, from the Inuits to the Eskimos to the tribes of the Amazon, recognize certain universal symbols. I think it has something to do with the notion of white is good, black is bad . . . because of that collective unconscious.”
“In our bird farm, the birds with more colorful feathers attract more mates.” (Related to natural selection, standing out from the crowd is an advantage in the biological competition for mates. This evolutionary construct could partly explain the desire to be whiter or darker than one’s peers.)

(This article originally appeared in Marie Claire magazine, November 2008.)

Stephanie Dychiu GMANews.TV - Pax DVD in Quiapo

2010-04-10T07:10:00.003+08:00

(Ramadan special coverage)

PAX DVD IN QUIAPO
By Stephanie Dychiu

It is the peace that passeth all understanding. What centuries of diplomacy and military subjugation failed to do, the pirated DVD has achieved in Quiapo. Muslim and Christian standing together as equals, calmly debating the merits of Bruno vs. Marley and Me.

At twelve noon in the holy month of Ramadan, it’s business as usual at Manila’s Constantinople, the wedge of jampacked earth by the Pasig River where the strongholds of Islam and Christianity eye each other warily across the Quezon Bridge. In the north, the Quiapo Church. In the south, the Quiapo Mosque. In between, the promised land of Quiapo DVD. While Ramadan in other Muslim countries means a near total shutdown of commercial activity, at Quiapo DVD, the only discernible trace of it is the foul mood that has beset some vendors who are evidently hungry from fasting.

In one cramped building, a boy in white embroidered cap is slumped over a pile of racy indie flicks. He is shaken awake when a girl in tiny shorts asks for Manila By Night by Ishmael Bernal. With nary a need to ask who or what, it takes five seconds for him to fish out the hard-to-find classic and screen it for quality check. A few stabs on the remote to skip intro credits, and a topless Alma Moreno comes into view. She goes at it with Orestes Ojeda. “Walangbaz," the boy grunts to the girl. “Ano (What)?" the girl asks. “Walang bass (There’s no bass)," a female customer in headscarf translates, Hannah Montana in hand. “Sira ang speaker kaya walang sound (The speaker is broken so there’s no sound)."

Somewhere in the back, three men are organizing discs into neat stacks. A woman carefully folds labels. Business is doing so well, they can’t restock the shelves fast enough. More customers come in, the sort you would never see venturing into Quiapo’s Muslim Quarter ten years ago: A portly fifty-something man in beige loafers with his driver. Two Taglish-speaking guys searching for The Tudors.

Thunder cracks and a heavy rain suddenly pours. For half an hour, Infidels and Saracens are trapped in one enclosed space. A comfy silence descends, while the bedlam of Quiapo rattles along outside. Someone puts on Angels and Demons starring Tom Hanks, and everyone gathers around the TV.

In the 1970s, the modern-day insurgency in Mindanao broke out and hundreds of thousands of Muslims fled to other parts of the country to escape the crossfire between military and Moro fighters. The Philippine government built the Golden Mosque close to the Quiapo Church in a symbolic gesture to show equal recognition of Islam and Christianity.

For Muslims in die-hard Catholic territory, there was, of course, an image problem. Four hundred years of demonization by frustrated Spanish colonizers, who were never able to conquer the sultanates of Mindanao, are not easily shaken off. The moro-moro plays that were the equivalent of movie night in colonial times pit “good" Christians against “bad" Muslims, and the Muslims always lost because they were the enemy. This is burned in Blu-Ray into the indio’s genetic memory.

In 2000, a second Muslim diaspora was set off by the all-out war President Joseph Estrada declared against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. That year, DVD technology also turned five years old, and The Phantom Menace became the first Star Wars movie released in DVD. N’er the twain shall meet, it seemed, until displaced Muslims found a living in Quiapo selling movies in cheap DVD format, which were entering the country through the Mindanao back door.

The industry is now worth billions. Certainly not a triumph for intellectual property rights, but an indication nonetheless of something the Europeans knew when they created a single market and a single currency—economic interdependence means they would never again go to war against each other.

There could be a lesson hidden in this unlikely harbinger of cross-cultural understanding, this great weapon of mass distraction that the Optical Media Board understandably seeks to obliterate. Pax DVD hints that the answer to a security problem may not always be a military solution. Ang mga nag-aaway na Muslim at Kristiyano mga sundalo lang (The Muslims and Christians who fight are only the soldiers), muses an elderly man in jelaba standing outside the Quiapo Mosque. He smiles beatifically, then brings out a small prayer booklet. For you, he says. Then he turns around, because someone has tapped him on the shoulder. A man needs directions to Quiapo DVD.

(This story was originally published on GMANews.TV on September 20, 2009.)

Stephanie Dychiu LIVING ASIA CHANNEL - Caramoan Islands

2010-04-10T07:00:00.001+08:00

The Caramoan Peninsula is on the northeastern tip of the province of Camarines Sur.

(Excerpts from video narrative)

----------------
THE LURE OF CAMSUR
by Stephanie Dychiu

It is a story that has often been told. The story of a secluded island, ringed with powdery white sand, floating on a sea of clear bluegreen water. Behind the shroud of myth it lay quietly, shielded from the outside world by the absence of modern comforts. A secret paradise known only to locals. Until one day, it is discovered by the West, and word spreads, and the island is catapulted into instant celebrity.

This is the story of nearly every famous beach in the Philippines, and it is the story of the once impenetrable islands off the Caramoan Peninsula.

------------
The journey to Caramoan from Naga begins with a 90-minute land trip to San Jose, where the port of Sabang is located. From Sabang, boats travel two hours to Guijalo Port in Caramoan.

Some travelers make a side trip to Aguirangan Island on the way to Caramoan. This uninhabited island is only 30 minutes away from Sabang Port, and is a popular excursion site. Its clean nipa huts are maintained by village leaders from the mainland town of Presentacion.

Upon docking in Guijalo Port in Caramoan, a 45-minute drive leads to Gota Beach near the tip of the Caramoan Peninsula. This is the jump-off point for exploring the islands of Caramoan.

Caramoan rose to international fame after word got out that the French edition of the TV show “Survivor” was shooting an entire season in the islands. It is hard to imagine how a place of such immense beauty was able to evade the spotlight for so long. No pushy touts and tiki bars taint its beaches. No shoddy resorts shatter the serenity of its coasts. Instead, there are soaring limestone cliffs, quiet coves, and immaculate islands that hark back to a more primeval time.

The Gota Village Resort opened its doors to the public after its first occupants, the Survivor TV crew, concluded their exclusive stay at the end of a three-month shoot. The wooden cabins the French crew stayed in are now available to tourists.

The name Gota comes from the phrase “Gota de Leche”, which means “drop of milk”. This was the original name of Caramoan, which was inspired by the milkdrop-shaped stalagmites in the area.

Beside Gota Beach is Hunungan. The cove in front of this beach is exceedingly calm because it is sheltered by a small island that is close enough to swim to. A fifteen-minute boat ride from Gota is Matukad Island. The white sand here is as soft as finely milled mineral powder. Near Matukad is Lahus Island, a narrow strip of beach that is open on two sides, and looks like a land bridge connecting two small islands.

Farther away from Gota, Pitogo Island has a beach made up of stones instead of sand. Sabitang Laya has a very long white beach. Cutivas is the farthest among all the islands. But the most intriguing of all is Tayak, which has a mysterious lagoon gaping at its navel. This lagoon has a combination of fresh water and salt water that has yielded a combination of fresh and salt water fish.

Cruising around the islands of Caramoan, the inevitable questions arise—how long will this paradise last? Will it survive the onslaught of tourism?

Comparisons have been made to other islands in the Philippines that are now collapsing under the weight of overdevelopment. The people of CamSur are adamant that Caramoan will not suffer the same fate. Exacting standards have been set for building and design. Seasoned masterplanners have been hired to ensure all structures blend with the terrain. Sewage treatment, water recycling, and local employment have been made mandatory. There is talk of limiting the building of resorts to the mainland, so Caramoan’s islands remain untouched.

And yet, Caramoan’s story is a story that has been heard before. The story of a secluded island, ringed with powdery white sand, shielded from the outside world, until it is catapulted into instant celebrity. Nothing is ever the same again after that.

But Caramoan’s story has also just begun. The cliffs and the coves, the mangroves and the mountains, still stand as regally as when they first welled up from the earth at the dawn of time.

Open your eyes, look at them closely, and remember what you see.
This is the way it has always been. And the way it should always be.
(End of excerpt)

Stephanie Dychiu GMANews.TV - The Revenge of Carlo J. Caparas

2010-04-10T06:50:00.002+08:00

THE REVENGE OF CARLO J. CAPARAS (GOD HELP US)
By Stephanie Dychiu

Carlo J. Caparas wears sunglasses at night.

It is eight o’clock in the evening, and the Komiks King is holding court inside a house in Ayala Alabang. A Mercedes ML 350 with “CJC" license plates stands guard outside. Behind the murky lenses that never leave his eyes, the man of the hour is basking before a TV crew with son Carlo Jr. and daughter Isabel Peach. Wife Donna flits about with pooches Bruno and Duchess. In the last five hours alone, two media groups have swooped into the house to interview Malacañang’s Chosen One for National Artist-Visual Arts and Film.

All manner of insult has been hurled Caparas’s way since he, along with NCCA Executive Director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez and two others, were named National Artists by President Gloria Arroyo without going through the selection process of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

(Caparas and Alvarez have an association that precedes this controversy. The two worked together on the Komiks Karavan in 2007 to revive the komiks industry. Alvarez’s husband, former senator Heherson Alvarez, proclaimed Caparas a “plebeian philosopher" when the Massacre King received the Gusi Peace Prize in 2006. Former Senator Alvarez himself received the award in 2007. The award, named after a World War II guerilla and human rights advocate, is given by the Gusi Foundation, whose president is Manoling Morato, no stranger himself to controversy and one of Caparas’s most vocal defenders in the National Artist fracas. The Morato family crest hangs by the door of the Caparas house.)

Amid the brickbats, Caparas has maintained a childlike “finders, keepers" certitude, which keeps him in high spirits. He bids the TV crew goodbye, then plops onto a couch for his next audience.

“Drawing ang nagligtas ng buhay ko"

Since he made the leap from komiks novelist to film director in the early 1980s, Caparas has not been seen in public without his sunglasses, no matter what time of day. “Parang brand yan," he says. “Kumbaga sa San Miguel, ‘pag nilagay mo yung beer sa puting baso, wala na. Baka ako, ‘pag wala na itong image ko, baka isang driver o kanto boy na lang ang kamukha ko."

(“It’s like being a brand. When you pour San Miguel beer into a white mug, you don’t recognize it anymore as San Miguel. Without my image, I might just look like a driver or a street thug.")

That wouldn’t do for the self-made Caparas, who dropped out in first year high school but managed to claw his way to komiks, movie, and TV fame (some would say infamy). The fear of being shamed has clung to him like an allergy since age eight or nine, when he says he developed an inferiority complex after his father was sent to jail for a crime he did not commit.

The story is straight out of one of his komiks novels: “May Aglipayan na pari. Meron siyang kerida na niregaluhan niya ng alahas. Inutang niya sa father ko, palihim lang, kasi pari. Naghiwalay sila ng kerida niya. Itinakas ng babae ang alahas. Dine-deny ng pari na bumili siya sa father ko. So, father ko ang nanagot. Nabasa ko sa diary niya yung pagka-api niya. Kaya ang hatred [nabuo] sa sarili ko."

(“There was an Aglipayan priest who had a mistress. He gifted her with jewelry that he bought from my father on a loan. It was a secret, because he was a priest. The priest and his mistress split up. The woman ran away with the jewelry. The priest denied he bought jewelry from my father. My father had to answer for it. I read about the injustice done to him in his diary. That’s how hatred took hold of me.")

Hunger was his other source of mortification. “Six or seven years old, foraging for food na ako. Nagigising ako sa umaga, mahina ang tuhod ko sa gutom." (“I would wake up in the morning weak from hunger.") To distract himself, Caparas began to draw. The vengeance he could not exact in real life, he concocted on pen and paper. He took pleasure in mutilating the faces of those who taunted him, and sketched alternate realities for himself.

He says he owes everything in his life to drawing, which is why the slur that has wounded him the most since the National Artist ruckus erupted is the accusation that he does not know how to draw. “Mula sa galit, hanggang sa kahirapan, drawing ang nagligtas ng buhay ko. Tapos biglang sasabihin nila hindi ako marunong?" (“From anger to poverty, it was drawing that saved my life. And now they say I do not know how to draw?")

“Mahirap, inapi, umasenso, gumanti"

As a teenager, Caparas was an avid komiks reader, and he liked to copy their style of illustration. At 19, he became a security guard at the Carmelo and Bauerman publishing house. He was assigned to the night shift, and from there came what he calls his “1,000 nights of reading". For three years, he did nothing but read the books coming out of the printing press. He also kept drawing to pass the time. Someone saw the notebook where he had written and illustrated a complete komiks story called Ako’y Nagmamahal Sayo. The notebook was brought to komiks writer and publisher Pablo Gomez, and became Caparas’s first published work.

The story of Ako’y Nagmamahal Sayo was inspired by the book Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, one of Caparas’s favorite writers. “Tungkol siya sa pagmamahal ng isang lalaki sa babae. Maski ano ang gawin ng babae, umaalis, nawawala, pagbalik, tinatanggap pa rin niya." (“It is about the love of a man for a woman. No matter what the woman does—she leaves, disappears, returns—he still takes her back.") Forgiveness was fascinating to Caparas because it was something he could not do in real life. “Nagagawa ko lang magpatawad sa mga karakter ng istorya ko." (“I could only forgive through the characters in my story.")

Another big komiks publisher, Don Ramon Roces, gave him his next big break. The old man asked him to come up with four komiks novels: one action, one comedy, one adventure, and something for women. Caparas gave him Totoy Bato (action), Andres de Saya (comedy), Ang Panday (adventure), and Bakekang (something for women), three of the four now household names on television.

As demand for his work grew, Caparas gave up illustrating to concentrate on writing because it was more lucrative. “Ang isang isyu [ng komiks], three days mong ido-drawing. Pero twenty-two issues, kaya kong sulatin in one sitting. Nabibili pa sa pelikula. So ang disparity ng income napakalaki." (“One issue takes three days to draw. But I could write twenty-two issues in one sitting. The stories I write are also acquired for the movies. So the disparity in income is very large.")

Fear of poverty kept him productive. “Yung ibang artist, nakakasulat through inspiration. Ako, ang motivation ko reason. Dinadamihan ko ang ginagawa ko para kumita. Kabado ako na baka mabawasan ang nobela ko, baka lumaos ako. Baka mabalik ako sa hirap." (“Other artists write through inspiration. My motivation was reason. I wrote a lot to earn a lot. I was worried they might cut down the number of novels that I was writing, or I might become a has-been. Or slip back into poverty.")

So he gave his readers exactly what they wanted. For Caparas, fantasy and escapism are what people want, and he stuck to standard formulas such as “mahirap, inapi, umasenso, nakaganti" and “pangit, tapos gumanda sa bandang huli". He made sure ganti, or revenge, was always part of the story, because he knew from experience that was what people needed to see. “Yun ang formula ni Fernando Poe, e. Gugulpihin muna siya sa una, tapos gaganti siya sa huli." (“That was the formula of Fernando Poe. First he gets beat up, then he fights back.")

Aside from revenge, people also love being scared, he says. Of all the komiks novels he has written, the one that sold the most was Matatalim na Pangil sa Gubat, about an unknown monster that was killing people and animals in a village. He teased and tantalized his readers with the mysterious menace, until they could no longer take it and he decided to reveal that the monster was in fact a giant crocodile. “Gusto ng tao, binibitin sila. Gusto nila, merong pangyayari na susundan nila." (“People want to be kept in suspense. They want to have something happen, then follow what happens next.")

Caparas says trying to keep the audience of a serialized story loyal and satisfied is harder than creating work that comes out only once. “Kasi nag-e-entertain ka ng mga tao, e. Unlike sa mga literature na gumagawa ng book, nasa kanila lahat ang time. Nasa kanila lahat ng chance para pagandahin, kasi walang pressure, e. Dahil hindi sila nag-e-entertain ng tao, more of educational matters ang ginagawa nila." (“Because you are entertaining people. Unlike those who write literature or books. They have the luxury of time. They have all the chances to make it nice, because there is no pressure. Because they are not entertaining people. What they are doing has more to do with educational matters.")

“Hindi ko tinalikuran si FPJ"

Of all the characters he created, Caparas considers Panday the most legendary because it was picked up by the late Fernando Poe, Jr. “Bawat komiks novelist, ang wildest dream noong araw, maipelikula ni Fernando Poe ang nobela nila. So, gumawa ako ng tailor-made sa kanya, yung Panday. Na-attract kaagad si FPJ, pati si Susan (Roces, wife of FPJ). Kasi ang image ng Panday, champion of the oppressed, katulad ng image ni FPJ."

(“The wildest dream of every comics novelist in those days was to have Fernando Poe make a movie out of their novel. So I made a story tailor-made for him. That was Panday. He was attracted to it right away, including Susan, because the image of Panday is ‘champion of the oppressed’, just like the image of FPJ.")

Had someone else played the role in the movie, Caparas doesn’t think Panday would have become the legend that it is today. “Si FPJ ang legend kasi, e. Kaya automatically, nung kunin niya yung Panday, naging legendary na rin yung creation ko." (“FPJ was the one who was a legend. That’s why, automatically, when he got Panday, my creation also became legendary.")

So legendary that it has sparked its own narrative in the National Artist controversy. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is rumored to have given Caparas the National Artist award in exchange for him giving her the rights to Ang Panday in 2004, so FPJ could not use the popular character in his campaign against Arroyo in the presidential elections.

Caparas snorts at the notion. “Paano nila masasabi yun? E, hanggang ngayon nga ang Panday ginagawa ni Senator Bong Revilla, e. At ang Panday Kids ko, nasa GMA7." (“How can they say that? Up to now Panday is being done by Senator Bong Revilla. And Panday Kids is with GMA7.") So who owns the rights to Panday? “Yung intellectual rights, akin yan. Walang may-ari niyan. Ang nabibili lang nila sa akin, halimbawa, yung rights to film, yung rights to [TV]." (“I own the intellectual rights. No one owns that. What they buy from me are rights to film, rights to TV.")

He says his friendship with FPJ endured even when he threw his support behind President Arroyo in the 2004 elections. “Nung palapit na ang eleksyon, [nagkita kami] sa kasal ni Ruffa Gutierrez (to Yilmaz Bektas, March 2003). Tinanong ko si FPJ, ‘Tatakbo ka ba?’ Sabi niya, ‘Kahit meyor, wala akong balak.’ Nagtawanan kami."

(“When the elections were nearing, we saw each other at the wedding of Ruffa Gutierrez. I asked FPJ, ‘Are you running?’ He said, ‘Even for mayor, I have no intention.’ We laughed.")

Later on, when FPJ announced his candidacy, Caparas says he was caught by surprise, but he had to make a choice. “Sa isang istorya, ang kailangan bida. Hero. Sa eleksyon, hindi bida ang kailangan. Lider. Hindi ko tinalikuran si FPJ bilang bida ng mga creation ko. Pero ang kailangan natin nung time na yun, lider." (“In a story, what you need is a protagonist. A hero. In an election, you don’t need a protagonist. What you need is a leader. I did not turn my back on FPJ as the hero of my creations. But what we needed at that time was a leader.")

After the elections, Caparas says he and FPJ remained on good terms, and would even joke about Caparas’s wife Donna (a staunch Arroyo supporter) being the reason why they landed on opposite sides of the political fence. “Sabi niya, ‘Si Swannie (wife Susan Roces) nanununtok, e. Si Donna, namumugot, ‘no?’ Tapos, tawanan kami." (“He said, ‘Swannie throws punches. Donna cuts off heads, right? Then we laughed.") He says they even discussed a new movie project called Anino ng Kampeon, in which FPJ would be the main star and Caparas’s wife Donna would handle production.

It didn’t happen. FPJ suffered a stroke and died in December 2004.

“Original yung Joaquin Bordado bago Elektra"

Panday may have been written specifically with the King of Philippine movies in mind, but Caparas cobbled most of his other characters from ordinary people he saw around him.

“Yung Pieta, ginawa ko yun nung marinig ko na yung classmate ko biglang sinuntok ang ina niyang naglalaba. Sabi ng mother ko, yung bata gumaganti sa ina. Kasi maliit pa, inilalaglag na niya. Yung Bakekang, [base yun sa isang] maid sa lugar namin na gustong-gusto magka-anak na maganda. Sobrang lupit na nung amo niya, hindi siya umaalis. Gusto niya may mangyari sa kanila, para magka-anak siya ng maganda."

(“I did Pieta after I heard that a classmate of mine hit his mother while she was washing clothes. My mother said he was getting back at her, because when he was still a baby, she tried to get rid of him. Bakekang is based on a maid in our place who really, really wanted to have a good-looking child. Her employer was already very cruel to her, but she would not leave. She wanted something to happen between the two of them, so she could have a good-looking child.")

The shocking gang rape of the actress Maggie de la Riva gave him the idea for Angela Markado. “Dinagdagan ko lang, [kasi] komiks. Ang ginawa ko, yung mga rapist, itinattoo nila ang pangalan nila sa likod ng babae, na hindi na mabubura. So yung babae, tuwing titignan niya sa salamin ang likod niya, nakikita niya ang mga perpetrator. Yung mga pangalan na yun, isa-isa, ginagantihan niya hanggang mapatay niya lahat."

(“I just added to it, because this was for comics. I made the rapists tattoo their names on the woman’s back. Everytime she saw her back in the mirror, she could see the perpetrators’ names. One by one, she killed them, until they were all dead.")

Angela Markado was translated to film by the late director Lino Brocka and screenwriter Jose Lacaba. In 1983, it won Best Film at the Festival of Three Continents (Asia, Africa, Latin America) in Nantes, France. Caparas counts this as one of his proudest achievements, notwithstanding talk that Angela Markado bears suspicious similarities to the 1967 French film The Bride Wore Black by Francois Truffaut. Quentin Tarantino was also accused of knocking off The Bride Wore Black in 2003’s Kill Bill, where The Bride (Uma Thurman) avenges herself by butchering her would-be murderers one by one from a list.

Copycats are a ticklish issue for Caparas. He compares his Joaquin Bordado starring Ramon Revilla to the movie Elektra starring Jennifer Garner. “Yung Joaquin Bordado, [nagsimula yan dahil] nakikita ko, bawat lumaya sa Muntinlupa, including my father, may tattoo. May ahas, may scorpion, may eagle. Siempre, wild ang imagination ng writer. Sabi ko, kung may agimat siguro, kayang buhayin ang mga tattoo sa katawan. Ang nakakalungkot nito, pagkatapos kong gawin yung Joaquin Bordado nung 1988, nitong [2005], nakita ko may Elektra, na buhay yung mga tattoo."

(“I thought of Joaquin Bordado when I saw how everyone who got out of Muntinlupa, including my father, had a tattoo. Snake, scorpion, eagle. Of course, a writer has a wild imagination. I said, if there was a magic charm, it would be possible to bring the tattoos to life. The sad thing is, after I did Joaquin Bordado in 1988, in 2005, I saw Elektra, where they also had tattoos coming to life.")

Caparas is referring to one of the villains in the film, Tattoo, who could bring to life the animals painted on his skin. “Nung alamin ko," he continues, “may Pinoy dun sa creative na taga-komiks." (‘I found out there was a Filipino in the creative team, who came from the local comics scene.") Could this simply be a coincidence? No, he insists, because he personally knows the guy. “Idol ako ng magulang niya. Ayokong mapahiya siya. Ayokong masira ang hanap-buhay niya. Gusto ko lang sabihin na original yung Joaquin Bordado bago Elektra." (“I’m the idol of his parents. I don’t want him to be humiliated. I don’t want to ruin his livelihood. I just want to say that Joaquin Bordado was first before Elektra.")

Joaquin Bordado, Pieta, and Bakekang have all been turned into major teleseryes in the last few years, along with Caparas’s other works Totoy Bato, Ang Panday, Gagambino, Kamandag, and Ang Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang. Angela Markado’s TV adaptation is also in the works. Say what you will about Caparas, but the man knows something about self-promotion and the popular pulse.

My wife Donna Villa gave my films their long titles

Caparas’s film career started by accident, when he came home one day and found the director Artemio Marquez in his house. Marquez was having money problems, and wanted to come out with a movie to make a fast buck. He asked Caparas if he could use the story of Mong, one of his komiks characters. (Mong, in Caparas's imagination, was a simple-minded but extremely tall boy who became the first Filipino to join the NBA.) To attract Caparas’s komiks readers, Marquez asked him to share the billing as co-director, even though Caparas knew nothing about directing.

“Sa unang pelikula ko, never ako nakapunta ng shooting," says Caparas. “Never akong sumigaw ng Action! o Cut! Nag-hit ngayon yung pelikula. Sabi ni Temyong Marquez, ‘Alam mo, Carlo, binibili ng tao yang pangalan mo, pinapasok talaga. Mag-direk ka na lang.’"

(“With my first movie, I never went to the shooting. I never shouted Action! or Cut! Then the movie became a hit. Temyong Marquez said, ‘You know, Carlo, people pay for your name. You should become a movie director.")

Caparas hesitated briefly, then asked Marquez to assign him an assistant director. He took the assistant director, Angel Labra, to the New Frontier theater in Cubao. As the movie played, he asked Labra to explain how every scene was shot, and what lenses were used. By the third movie, Caparas decided he was ready. The first film he made was Kung Tawagin Siya’y Bathala in 1980. “Doon, sumigaw na ako ng Action!" (“On that one, I shouted Action!") He also met Donna Villa, one of the lead stars of the film. She became his wife.

Caparas says his background in komiks gave him an edge as a filmmaker, and not just because his name already had a following. Comic book panels, after all, are like the storyboards filmmakers use to outline how they want scenes to be shot. “Alam ko na kung ano ang mga magandang angle, ang [visual] storytelling. Ang komiks ko kasi cinematographic, e. Maski konting salita lang, aandar na ang istorya." (“I already knew what the good angles were. I knew about visual storytelling. My comics are cinematographic. Even with just a few words, the story moves along.")

Of all the films he has made, Caparas says the ones he is proudest of are Pieta, Kahit Ako’y Lupa, Bubbles, and Zamboanga Massacre: Arrest Patrol Man Rizal Alih. He likes each one for different reasons. Pieta won several awards from the Film Academy of the Philippines in 1983, including Best Director for him. Kahit Ako’y Lupa is his most autobiographical work. Bubbles won him the 1988 Best Screenplay award (along with Tony Mortel) from the Film Academy of the Philippines, for its depiction of the notorious Ativan Gang (a gang that drugs its victims using the Ativan sedative before robbing them).

Zamboanga Massacre was one big testosterone rush. “Hino-hostage pa lang si General Batalla, nagsu-shooting na ako, kasi gusto ko fresh talaga." (“General Batalla was still being hostaged, I was already shooting because I wanted the footage to be really fresh.")

(Rizal Alih was a rogue cop who fought with his superior Brig. Gen. Eduardo Batalla in January 1989, then held him and several others hostage in Camp Cawa-Cawa, Zamboanga City. By the time the hostage-taking ended, 19 people were dead, including Batalla.)

One of Caparas’s all-time favorite directors is Sam Peckinpah, the man who set new standards for onscreen violence in Hollywood with the 1969 flick The Wild Bunch. The knock-off it inspired, The Hunting Party, is one of Caparas’s favorite movies. It is riddled with the slow-motion action sequences, spurting blood, and general hysteria that accompany many of his own films. When Caparas revealed recently that he was in talks to do a movie on the People Power phenomenon (“EDSA, The Untold Story",), testy Tweets sniped that the bloodless revolution might turn blood-soaked instead.

Which brings up the essential question—are there films he made that he would rather forget? Caparas admits there are quite a few, such as “yung mga ginawa kong commercial films para kay Donna (his wife is the boss of Golden Lions, their production outfit), sa gusto niyang may ma-i-book kaagad na pelikula." (“The commercial films I made for Donna, in her haste to book movies right away.") He smiles indulgently, as he always does when he talks about his wife. “Naging box office hit din naman, so hindi ko masisisi." (“They turned out to be box office hits, so I don’t blame her.") He stops short of naming what those forgettable films are. “Kasi baka sabihin ng mga artista kumita ka naman, bakit mo . . . merong compromise talaga." (“The actors might say the films earned money, so why . . . there really is a compromise.")

The dizzying, drawn-out movie titles, he says, are also his wife’s idea. Some of the longest are: The Untold Story: Vizconde Massacre 2 (God Have Mercy on Us), The Annabelle Huggins Story – Ruben Ablaza Tragedy (Mea Culpa), and The Cecilia Masagca Story: Antipolo Massacre (Jesus Save Us!). “Si Donna ang nagbibigay ng mga sub-titles. Kasi mula nang gawin namin yun, nakakapag-set kami ng box office record." (“Donna is the one who gives the sub-titles. Ever since we did that, we were able to set box office records.")

As for the obligatory entreaties (Lord, Have Mercy!, Jesus, Pray for Us!, God . . . Why Me?), there is an actual explanation: “Dinagdag ni Donna yun ‘pag victims ang ginawa namin, para daw kakampi ang Diyos sa title pa lang. Parang nabe-bendisyunan itong trabaho. Okey lang sa akin na may sub-title. Tutal, nare-retain din naman yung title ko." (“Donna added those whenever the film was about victims, so that God would be on our side based on the title alone. It is like the work is being blessed. I’m okay with the sub-titles, since the main titles I give are retained anyway.") In Caparas’s world, this makes perfect sense.

“Nakuha ko na ang ultimate achievement ko"

Just like fighting for the National Artist award makes perfect sense. In Caparas’s world, the award stands for something bigger than nomination procedures and selection committees. He seems to see it in the context not just of his body of work, but his entire life. A life where he actually had to live through the battles that Panday, Totoy Bato, and Joaquin Bordado fought only in his imagination. He survived resoundingly, tucked away now in a posh suburban neighborhood with a vivacious wife and children who adore him. For this, the unseen eyes behind the sunglasses seem to ask, does he not deserve whatever reward the universe sends his way?

“Kaya lang ako minsan nagiging harsh sa mga salita ko, kasi masyadong harsh ang pakitungo nila sa akin," he says of his critics. “Nakita naman nila na napakaraming dekada na pinaghirapan ko, ninu-nurture ko ang kakayahan ko, lahat ng magagawa ko ibinubuhos ko, ang ibinuhay ko sa pamilya ko, galing diyan sa sa mga trabaho kong yan."

(“The only reason why I have been harsh with my words is because they have also treated me harshly. They have seen me work hard for many decades, nurturing my capability, pouring everything I have into what I do. It was because of all those works I have done that I was able to support my family.")

Whatever shortcuts he may have had to take seem overshadowed in Caparas’s mind by his fundamental belief that in life there are two kinds of survivors—the ones who wait for manna to drop from heaven, and the ones who take matters into their own hands. Definitely, he is the latter.

If the tables were turned and he was in the position of composer Ramon Santos, who was removed by Malacañang from the list of National Artists submitted by the official nominations committee, Caparas says he would accept his fate. “Kasi recommended pa lang, e. Hindi pa proclaimed. Pero kung proclaimed ka na, at tsaka ka aalisin, ibang usapan na yun. Hindi ka na papayag." (“Because then I would have only been recommended, not yet proclaimed. But once you have been proclaimed, and then you are removed, that’s a different story. You can’t just accept that.")

And what if the petition to block his proclamation is granted by the Supreme Court, bringing his tangled reign as National Artist to a sudden end? “Mahirap i-preempt ang judicial [process]. Hindi puwedeng magbibigay ako ng opinyon, in fairness to the Supreme Court, in fairness to the petitioners." (“I can’t give an opinion, in fairness to the Supreme Court, in fairness to the petitioners.") Then, “Wala sanang hindi nadadaan sa usapan. Nangyari lang, nagpunta sila kaagad sa kalsada." (“There’s nothing we could not have settled by talking. The thing was, they went to the streets right away.")

Whatever the outcome, Caparas says he has already chosen to take the higher ground. He lays the worst and best parts of his life side by side to prove his point. “Nung security guard ako, nabaril ang paa ko. Six months ako hindi makalakad. Wala akong pambili ng dextrose, dugo, at gamot. Nasa hallway lang ako ng PGH (Philippine General Hospital), plywood lang ang higaan ko. Masakit na masakit yun. Nangako ako na kung magkaroon lang ako ng chance magka-pera, never ko na matikman ulit yon. Pati mga kasama ko sa buhay, never makarating ulit sa hirap na pinanggalingan ko. Kasi hindi nila kakayanin. Ngayon, ang ultimate achievement ko sa buhay, nakuha ko na—itong family ko. Si Donna tsaka ang mga bata. ‘Yan ang achievement na totoo."

(“When I was a security guard, I was shot on the foot. I couldn’t walk for six months. I didn’t have money to buy dextrose, blood, and medicine. I was on the hallway of the Philippine General Hospital. Plyood was the only thing I had to lie on. That was very, very painful. I promised myself that if ever I had the chance to have money, I would never go through that again. Even the people in my life will never go through the wretchedness I came from. Because they won’t be able to bear it. Now, I already have my ultimate achievement in life—my family. Donna and the kids. That is what true achievement is.")

If success is the best revenge, Caparas appears to have already won his.

(This story was originally published on GMANews.TV on August 26, 2009.

---
Image credits:
Photos of Carlo J. Caparas: Joe Galvez
Caparas family photos: Caparas family
Komiks covers from: Komiklopedia
Sunday Times screenshot from: Executed Today
"Tattoo" photo: Ace Showbiz
Layout design: Jayme Brucal-Gatbonton

Stephanie Dychiu FILGOLF - Claude Tayag on Celebrity Chefs and Cooking as Art

2010-04-09T20:03:00.001+08:00

(NOTE: This interview was done about one month after Anthony Bourdain shot an episode of No Reservations in the Philippines. Below are the clips of Bourdain's visit with Claude in Pampanga, followed by an excerpt from the Filgolf interview with Claude.)

NO STARVING ARTIST
By Stephanie Dychiu

Painter-sculptor-chef Claude Tayag talks about celebrity chefs, the painting he’ll never sell, and what he wants for his last meal.

For The Talented Mr. Tayag, all creativity is the same. Only the medium changes. At his Bale Dutung (house of wood) in Angeles City, all the world’s a stage; paint, wood, and food are its players. They have their exits and their entrances, they play many parts. And at the center is the force that holds everything in orbit, the self-taught-therefore-freewheeling Claude, and his darleng Mary Ann.

Some people think if they can cook, they can run a restaurant. You don’t have a restaurant. You see the difference. One is art, the other is business.

Maybe I’m not ready, or maybe that’s one of my long-term . . . I’m happy where I am. It’s tempting. I’m not keeping it closed. But not now. Dami kong offers sa mga mall, pero di ko pa kaya.

It’s not just about restaurants anymore. It’s all about chef branding now—books, newspaper columns, TV segments, product endorsements. So many people going to culinary school. Chefs are the new artistas. Artistas are becoming chefs.
Being a chef now is a respectable profession. Noong araw, kusinero ka lang. Now, there’s no longer a social barrier. Inumpisahan din nila Margarita Fores. It’s also all these food shows on cable TV. It’s gotten glamorous. What people don’t realize is, just because you graduated from . . .

. . . a French-sounding school?
You still have to work hard. Young chefs don’t have that panlasa yet. They have learned the technique, but they have not yet learned the art. But over time, if they are really into it . . .

What is art and what is technique, when it comes to cooking?
Technique is the physical aspect. The cutting, the preparation, the sauté, the steaming. The art is the creation, the alchemy. What is a good combination with what? Yung timpla. Hindi mo naaaral yun sa cookbook. If you can follow a recipe, you are a cook. But you are not an artist.

When can you call yourself an artist?
When you create your own dish. When you’re no longer just following. Anthony Bourdain, who was here, admits that he was never an artist. He was just a cook, doing line work. Line work is assembling the salad, making the sauces.

Anthony Bourdain hates celebrity chefs and the Food Network. Rachael Ray and Rocco Di Spirito especially. He doesn’t see himself as one of them.
The problem is when you spend more time facing the cameras than working in the kitchen. Hindi ka nahahasa. To develop the art, you have to experiment. And if you’re working in a restaurant, you cannot do that, unless you are the owner. In an established restaurant, people go for consistency, because they have a favorite dish, and you cannot change it. It can be frustrating. If you want to be an artist, you experiment at home. People get to know you, maybe through catering, they invite you to do this or that.

There’s this book called My Last Supper. Fifty famous chefs talking about what they would eat if it was their last meal. What would be yours and where would you eat it?
Parang sa ano yan, sa Bilibid, nasa Death Row na.

Sabi ng warden pwede ka pumili kung saan ka kakain, basta bigyan mo siya.
Maybe in Baguio, in the middle of John Hay, para malamig. No, wait, magsesebo ang pagkain. Ayoko. By the beach na lang. A lot of sinugba, but lechon is number one. Not just any lechon. The one stuffed with lemongrass. Not Cebu lechon, I find that too salty. The one with tanglad, lemongrass, leeks, garlic, sampaloc leaves. Very aromatic.

Plain rice or garlic rice?
Lechon lang. With sinamak. Not the liver sauce. But I want to have control over the fire. ‘Pag tinanggal mo na ang balat, you grill it again. Para masunog ang taba, ma-tusta. Then, maybe a bottle of red wine, hangga’t sa malasing ako. Then, I will pass out. Yun na. I die happy.

Pinoy food pa rin, up to your last meal. A lot of the chefs in My Last Supper also chose their native food. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Gordon Ramsay. Pasta and bruschetta for Mario Batali. Sushi for Nobu Matsuhisa. Blowfish for Masa Takayama.
We have so many choices here now. Every ethnic cuisine. But there’s also a revival of interest in Filipino regional cuisine. Have you ever heard anyone say ‘I’m craving for fusion food’? What kind of food is that? It’s nice to eat, but at the end of the meal, you don’t remember what you ate. So, it goes back to ethnic. Kanya-kanya. ‘Pag Chinese, ganyan. ‘Pag Japanese, ganyan. That’s the mission of the Kulinarya book, to set the standard for Filipino cuisine. In the end, lahat tayo, we crave for our own.

(End of excerpt. For full story, read the May-June 2009 issue of Filgolf magazine.)

Stephanie Dychiu FILGOLF - Tagaytay's Small Hotels

2010-04-09T20:01:00.001+08:00

STAYING INN

By Stephanie Dychiu

Tagaytay’s small hotels give reason to stay indoors and snuggle.

Would you drive one-and-a-half hours out of Metro Manila, just to stay in? Normally no, but the bed-and-breakfast boom in Tagaytay has turned cocooning into a blissfully inactive activity. As Metro Manila grows progressively noxious, more pensiones sprout on Tagaytay’s balmy ridge. What these establishments lack in size, they make up for in concept.

Sometimes a hotel isn’t just a place to lay your head on. It can be the very reason for making a trip. A friend’s kid brother once told me, in between potato-chip bites, that his idea of a perfect vacation was to check into a hotel and order room service. That nine-year-old wisdom is certainly true for these three small hotels in Tagaytay.

The Boutique Bed and Breakfast

A bed and breakfast, strictly speaking, is family-run and serves only breakfast. For it to be family-run, a family must be in residence. That’s the textbook definition, but there is nothing textbook about The Boutique Bed and Breakfast. A joint venture of friends Happy Ongpauco, Allana Montelibano, and Melon Santiago, the hotel is a mix of modern interiors, rooms named for romance, and, um, Hawaiian barbecue. All on a scenic location overlooking Taal Lake.
The stark white façade and clean lines of the building, with white Panton chairs poised carefully on the terrace, are hard to miss after you survive the bombardment of buko pie and bulalo signage along Tagaytay’s main highway. A flight of steps leads to a lobby whose views on urbanity are interpreted in glass, leather, acrylic, light touches of brocade, and the prevalence of white. This space has been a frequent backdrop for photo shoots since the hotel opened in October 2006.

Behind the lobby counter is the “Pamper Me” room, where guests can select bathroom amenities from an array of options prepared by the hotel’s chemist. Shampoo, soaps, shower gels, and eau de toilette come in different scents like apricot, mango butter, tea tree, lemongrass, chamomile, lavender, green apple, aloe vera, bergamot, orange, jasmine, chocolate, and vanilla. Stacks of DVDs lie beside the bath and body treats, in case the need to fight boredom arises.

The seven rooms of The Boutique are named after the supposed seven stages of love: I Lust, I Dare, I Desire, I Dream, I Escape, I Surrender, and I Love. In that order. No surprise then that the place is popular with couples. When words are not enough, book a room to show your Desire, or prove your willingness to Surrender. But try not to Escape. It’s the smallest room with no view. It adjoins I Love, however, and can be a convenient sanctuary in the event of a tiff. Also a nice hideout for kids who don’t want to be around when parents get too cozy.

At The Boutique, Love is only second to Lust. The latter has a bigger space, better view, and more privacy. Love is solidly grounded on the first floor, open and welcoming with direct access to the public lanai adjacent to the hotel’s dining room. Lust, on the other hand, is seductively perched on the second floor, and has the only bathtub in the entire hotel. It looks out to Taal Lake through floor-to-ceiling windows, visible from the lanai below, but elusive and unreachable. Which room is more in demand? Lust, of course.

Much has been said about the architecture and design of The Boutique, but equally notable is the food. The hotel was, in fact, originally intended to be a location for Happy Ongpauco’s Hawaiian Bar-B-Que restaurant, before the owners decided the place was too scenic to be limited to dining. Says hotel manager Mylene Bautista-Bizzotto: “Our specialty is baby back ribs. People come from Manila and wait for a seat, just to have that.”

There is a niggling disconnect between the urbane interiors of the hotel and the down-home quality of its food, but that is easily shrugged off when a chunk of bulalo as big as your arm is served up for lunch. Or when breakfast in bed comes with bulalo corned beef so tender, the tasty meat flakes fall feather-like from the bone. Suck the (bone) marrow out of life, I say.

Checking into the hotel is not necessary for a taste of its food, scenery, and design-conscious surroundings. If you’re heading up on a weekend, however, it’s wise to call ahead so you don’t waste time waiting. Rooms and restaurant seats are sometimes booked weeks or months in advance. The hotel staff welcomes group bookings (not hard to fill up seven rooms) and can make special arrangements for marriage proposals, anniversary surprises, and such.

The Boutique Bed and Breakfast is located at 45 Aguinaldo Highway, Silang Crossing East, Tagaytay City (Phone: +63 46 413-1885, +63 46 413 1798, +63 46 860-2716, +63 927-3632660; Email: theboutique.bnb@gmail.com). Room rates range from P4,555-P6,985 on weekdays and P5,650-P8,985 on weekends. Rates are for two and include breakfast, complimentary facials, and hot chocolate at bedtime. More information at www.theboutiquebnb.com.

T House

The T is not for tea but for tranquility—this is the first thing guests learn about T House. Aptly situated beside the Ina ng Laging Saklolo (Mother of Perpetual Help) church, T House opened in June 2007 to restore calm to worn-out souls. Upon entering the property, bamboo shrubbery and the sound of trickling water set the tone for the Zen-like experience the hotel hopes to impart to guests. It’s not the first establishment to attempt this, and it most definitely won’t be the last.

But T House is determined to awaken feelings of well-being and transformation. Though it lacks a lake view, it has its own spa and gourmet restaurant. The property stands on land that the owners, Fem and Mario Paguio, originally earmarked for retirement. Mature fruit trees create a natural canopy over the hotel, and support numerous Japanese lanterns that hang over the pathways.

Zen philosophy teaches that all beings come from four basic elements: earth, fire, water, and air. The 15 rooms of T House are thus grouped into three clusters called Fire, Water, and Earth (sorry, no Air). The color schemes of the rooms are based on the element they are assigned to: red and yellow for Fire, blue and green for Water, brown for Earth. Natural stone accents on the floors and walls, and the use of recycled wooden beams for railings, keep the structures warm and inviting despite their generally sparse appearance. At T House, the allegiance to Zen does not preclude modern bathroom fixtures and flat screen TVs in every room.

Soaps come from one of Tagaytay’s most well-known establishments, the Ilog Maria Bee Farm. At Ilog Maria, honey and beeswax are used as natural moisturizers to make soaps, face scrubs, bath salts, toothpaste, and many other products. The soaps come in delicious scents like kalamansi, carrot, cinnamon, coffee, ginger, rosemary, spearmint, and oatmeal.

The in-house spa occupies a large cabana equipped with a few massage beds separated by curtains. The aromatherapy massage treatments are divided into Energy (revitalizing), Serenity (calming), Stress-Less (relaxing), Passion (mysterious), and Detox (cleansing). The most popular aromatherapy treatment is the T House Jojoba Blend.

The most eye-catching area of T House upon entry, if you navigate through your stomach like I do, is the theater kitchen. From the garden, you can watch the kitchen staff assemble the evening’s meal, and sort through their shiny collection of pots, pans, and other implements. Spa cuisine that won’t starve you makes up the menu at the T House restaurant. Favorites include the salmon salad with wasabi mashed potatoes, tuna citrus salad, and chocolate pancake ganache with walnuts. The signature dessert is a panna cotta trio made up of raspberry, pineapple jam, and fresh mango, on a base of lemongrass. Wash it down with the T House signature cocktail—non-alcoholic—of guava, papaya, and mango. Tea at T House is served with fresh rosemary, tarragon, and mint leaves picked from the property’s own herb garden.

The restaurant can seat 40 on its ground floor and 60 on its upper al fresco floor, making T House an excellent venue for medium-sized parties that can be kept somehow intimate. As a wedding reception venue, it is snug enough to ensure bride and groom properly bump into all guests, instead of sending bleary-eyed smiles halfway across a ballroom. All 15 rooms can also be reserved for group vacations or family reunions.

T House is located at 3195 Calamba Road, Tagaytay City (Phone: +63 46 483-0011 to 12, +63 928-9409954; Email: stay@THouseTagaytay.com). Room rates range from P4,025-P6,325. Rates are for two and include breakfast. More information on www.THouseTagaytay.com.

Potter’s Ridge

Potter’s Ridge seriously challenges the logic of building your own resthouse in Tagaytay. Why bother when there is a place that perfectly approximates the imaginary Tagaytay home of your imaginary aunt? “I want them to feel like they’re my relatives,” says Marissa Potter of the guests who come to stay. By all accounts, she has succeeded.

While other pensiones invest in stylish design and chic concept to set themselves apart, Potter’s Ridge has gone the opposite route and stuck to the basics. Its choice location puts guests almost directly between Taal Lake and Balayan Bay, and the simple open structure of the hotel makes the most out of the breezes and sunshine that pour copiously through the windows. The absence of overly professional polish in the décor creates a genuine sense of being in a home instead of a hotel. Most of the furniture was obtained from a surplus auction house and restored by Marissa, who likes fiddling with fixer-uppers.

The entire Potter’s Ridge, in fact, was one massive fixer-upper when Marissa first laid eyes on it. After living abroad for thirty years and working for Reuters in the Middle East, she returned to the Philippines and bought an empty lot in Tagaytay. The property had a 50% drop, but this did not deter her from pursuing her project—even if it meant having to rappel down whenever she had to check on the foundation. Fortunately, at 2,678 feet above sea level, views at Potter’s Ridge are still fabulous even five storeys below the ground floor.

There are 19 rooms at Potter’s Ridge, all spacious, clean, and outfitted with basic furniture. If you’re looking for five-star amenities, this is not the place for you, but if you appreciate seeing priceless Asian art in one room and silver Mickey Mouse cabinet handles in another, you’ll feel right at home at Potter’s Ridge. There is a charm in the lack of effort to live up to someone else’s idea of sophistication.

Food in Potter’s Ridge is served in an expansive dining room surrounded by views of Taal Lake and Balayan Bay. The atmosphere is beautiful yet homey at the same time. Marissa says guests sometimes get so comfortable, they come out to breakfast in pajamas. And why not? The laid-back vibe of the place really does trick your mind into thinking it belongs to you.

The kitchen is run by Chef Mau Santos, who trained under Chef Ed Quimson. Marissa recommends Potter’s Trotters (their version of crispy pata), zucchini crunch (zucchini sautéed in tomatoes and herbs with crunchy pork rind), Alfonso banana leaf wrapped tilapia (named after Alfonso, Cavite, the nearby town where most of the Potter’s Ridge staff hail from), and Glen’s pesce pasta (pasta named after Marissa’s husband Glen, made with mackerel, herbs, olive oil, and dried chilies). Chef Mau’s bulalo steak is a must-try, as is the special coffee made through a “secret” method by the staff from Alfonso.

A home away from home is what every bed and breakfast aspires to be. Though its facilities are not perfect, when it comes to creating a sense of home, Potter’s Ridge succeeds without really trying.

Potter’s Ridge is located at Km 67 Aguinaldo Highway, Laurel, Batangas (Phone: +63 46 413-0368, +63 919-4629897; Email: info@pottersridge.net). Room rates range from P2,800-P4,800. Rates are for two and include breakfast. More information at www.pottersridge.net.

(This article originally appeared in Filgolf magazine, October-December 2008.)

Stephanie Dychiu LIVING ASIA CHANNEL - Coexistence in Santiago City

2010-04-09T19:59:00.000+08:00

This mini-docu aired on the Living Asia Channel from August 24-31, 2008. Trailer appears below, followed by excerpts from the narrative.

EAT, TRADE, PRAY: The Path to Coexistence in Santiago City
by Stephanie Dychiu

With more than 17 ethnolinguistic tribes in a population of less than 150,000, Santiago City can teach the world a thing or two about getting along. In this junction of the Cagayan Valley, commerce, cuisine, and creed are the keys to living in harmony.

In a small municipality eight hours north of Metro Manila, a simple canvas sign with the word “COEXIST” stands like the Statue of Liberty at the entrance of the town hall.

A closer look reveals the symbolism behind the spelling of the word. The “C” is the Islamic crescent moon, the “O” is the pagan pentacle, the “E” is Einstein’s formula E = MC squared, the “X” is the Jewish Star of David, the dot on the “I” is the Buddhist dharma wheel, the “S” is the yin yang symbol of Taoism, and the “T” is the cross of Christianity.

This is the Municipality of Santiago, for whom the presence of at least seventeen ethno-linguistic groups gives the word “coexist” a special significance.

Though part of the Cagayan Valley region—an area rich with some of the most fascinating caves, waterfalls, and islands in the country—Santiago takes singular pride in being an independent component city, one of only four in the Philippines. This means Santiago is not subject to the supervision of a provincial governor, and townsfolk enjoy the thrill of scribbling “Santiago City, Philippines”, no province needed, whenever they write down their addresses.

In recent years, the government of Santiago has organized an annual festival to celebrate the city’s remarkable ethnic diversity. Baptized “Pattaradday”, the Ibanag word for “unity”, the festival takes place every first week of May, when the city commemorates the time in 1743 when the Municipality of Santiago was first created by royal Spanish decree.

Hundreds of the best street dancers in the Philippines, from the Ibon-Ebun performers of Pampanga to the Pintaflores dancers of San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, gather in Santiago during Pattaradday to represent the various ethnic groups that have made the city home.

Santiago’s determination to carve out a unified identity from the many bloodlines that run through its veins is influenced by the role it plays in the entire Cagayan Valley Region.

Between the rambling peaks of the Sierra Madre, Cordillera, and Caraballo mountains flows the longest and largest river in the Philippines—the Cagayan River. Long before Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Salcedo landed in the area in 1572, the waters of the river already sustained many tribal settlements, one of which was the Ibanag, who named themselves after “Banag”, the native word for “river”.

Today, the Cagayan River is the geographic link that binds the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, and Quirino into one political unit, the Cagayan Valley Region. Of the four main cities of the region, Santiago is the closest by land to Metro Manila. It is also the meeting point of the main roads of the four provinces of the Cagayan Valley .

With travel and trade in the region dependent on land transport, Santiago’s location has turned out to be its biggest advantage, enabling it to become the gateway to the farming, caving, hiking, and gamefishing treasures of the Cagayan Valley.

Santiago’s economic future is practically assured, but it needs to protect the many distinct cultures that have thrived in the city, which can be diluted by the intoxicating march of progress. By celebrating the Pattaradday Festival every year, Santiago’s people are able to remember their multicultural roots and keep their traditions alive.

* * *
Commerce has a way of putting people of different backgrounds on common ground. Even at the public market, the unifying magic of Pattaradday can be seen. An inspection of the goods for sale shows bounty from the sea caught in Pangasinan, gleaming white rice grown in Cagayan province, and, of course, Santiago’s very own panutsa, or stiff cakes of hardened sugarcane syrup.

The odd mix of food popular in the city also shows the multifacted origins of Santiago’s people. The Ilonggo import chicken inasal, or roast chicken, is a staple. Indeed, this area far away from the original home of chicken inasal in Western Visayas has developed its own brand of the roast chicken, called “Mang Pandoy’s Chicken Inasal”, with outlets not just in Santiago but also in other parts of Northern Luzon, such as Cauayan and Tuguegarao.

Challenging the domination of chicken inasal, roasted chicken, in the palates of Santiaguenos is goat meat or kambing. Many kambingan, or restaurants specializing in goat meat, have come and gone in Santiago, but none have been able to rival the success of the very first kambingan on #48 City Road. Lest anyone forgets, the sign out front bears a reminder that it is “The Original Place”. This kambingan is said to be the best kambingan between Santiago and Bicol, the acknowledged mecca of chevon connoisseurs. There are only three dishes on the menu, all made from goat meat, of course. Kaldereta is a golden yellow stew of tomato sauce, cheese, garlic, onions, pepper, and peas. Kilawin has strips of meat cooked, not over fire, but in a mixture of vinegar, chili, onions, and ginger. And Papaitan is a bowl of entrails floating in a murky green soup of bile.

* * *
. . . the church with the largest congregation is the parish of St. James. In this church, the broad-minded tenets of Pattaradday are carried on even to matters of faith. Mass is delivered in three different languages—Tagalog, Ilokano, and English. As the language used by the priest to deliver the homily changes, so the language used by the choir to sing also shifts.

The St. James Parish also distributes the Holy Bible written in Ibanag. True to their native word Pattaradday, which means “unity”, the Ibanag are said to be the most adaptable and most open to assimilation among all indigenous Filipino tribes. They were instrumental to the spread of Christianity in the Cagayan Valley region, because it was their language that the early Spanish missionaries were able to learn and propagate even to other tribes.

The innate adaptability of their Ibanag ancestors may explain why the mostly Catholic Santiaguenos are able to maintain an uncommon openness toward people of other cultures and religious beliefs. For a small city that is not even on the route map of local airlines, the number of well-established non-Christian religious communities in Santiago is significant.

The Omar Ben Abdul Azez Mosque has a good-sized congregation. During Martial Law in the Seventies, many Muslims came to Santiago to escape persecution in Mindanao.

Alibsar Adoma, also known as Alex, came from Marawi and has integrated very well with the community. He has even been elected president of his neighborhood in Santiago.

"Ako po si Alibsar Alex Adoma, pumunta ako dito nung year 1976. Ako po ay purok
president dito sa Malvar . . . Pumunta kami dito sa Santiago para
maghanapbuhay. Tsaka maganda rin dito sa Santiago dahil ang mga Muslim
dito ay hindi naman inaapi. Lahat naman ng napuntang Muslim dito sa Santiago ay,
maganda talaga."

Even as they participate in the everyday life of the city, the Muslims of Santiago are ever conscious of preserving the heritage of the land they left behind. They continue to pray five times a day, and send their Santiago-born children to the madrasa of the mosque to learn Arabic.

Ahmad Elias is a second-generation Muslim living in Santiago.

"Ako si Ahmad Elias, Jr. Bale, pinanganak na ako dito sa Santiago. Ngayon
employed ako sa North Eastern College, nagtratrabaho ako diyan as secretary ng
College of Law and at the same time part-time instructor ng mga ibang colleges
dito sa Santiago."

Living in Santiago and working in the schools, Ahmad is surrounded by Christians most of the time, but he does not feel different from them.

"Hindi naman kasi wala naman akong dapat isipin na iba ako except we differ in
faith at siyempre sa culture . . . wala ring pagkakaiba except of course na
napunta kami sa ibang bayan na may kanya-kanyang kultura din . . . yung
pamumuhay dito ng mga Muslim ay maganda naman kasi nagkakaisa kami, walang
masyadong di pagkakaunawaan lalo na sa ibang mga kultura dito kasi kami mga
Muslim nagpunta dito sa Santiago para humanap ng magandang kabuhayan."

The Chinese community of Santiago also have their own place of worship, in a Taoist temple. On the ceiling of the temple, the yin yang symbol reminds visitors of the Taoist belief in unity of opposites as the path to achieving order in the universe. The philosophy of Taoism was shaped during a time of heavy feudal warfare in China, and as such, many of its teachings are about the goal of ending conflict.

The Taoist principle of peaceful balance and unity, similar to Pattaradday and the teachings of Islam, is further echoed by a group of Indians who gather regularly at the Sikh temple in the city. Santiago seems a rather random place for a Sikh temple to thrive, so it is surprising to hear that the temple has been around for 25 years. What is even more surprising is to hear the Indians speaking in Ilokano and Tagalog. A number of them are actually more comfortable speaking these dialects than English.

Most of the Indians in Santiago are from Punjab, and they came to the Philippines for business. Every Sunday, they gather for a meal and religious service at the Gurudwara Jagat Sudhar temple. “Gurudwara” literally means “doorway to God”, and the Sikhs believe that every gurudwara they have, no matter where it is in the world, should be open to all, regardless of race or religion. They do not believe in the caste system. Here in Santiago, they welcome anyone who wishes to know more about their faith.

"Our religion is also a religion like other religions in the world. Our Sikh
religion give the message to the humanity, we are all equal, we are all the son
of god. And give the message to us that unity, and should be proud-less, and
should be not greedy, because god send us in the earth to do good. Cooperate to
each other, help each other, is not only for the Sikhs, but to every human
being, even though he belongs to the other religion, our Sikh religion is stable
on truth, and give the message of truth to the human being. And that’s why
whenever we are going to the church, and our temple, our Sikh temple, ladies are on the one side and gents are on the one side. And we are sitting on the floor.
It mean that we are all equal. No rich, no poor, no high, no low. Everybody is
equal. That’s why equality is the most proper and right way in our Sikh
religion. That’s why every religion, every person, can join and come here
in our Sikh temple."

In this gurudwara in Santiago, in the season of Pattaradday, where Punjabis open their doors to strangers and speak in Tagalog and Ilokano, the meaning of unity, tolerance, and coexistence has never seemed clearer.

Stephanie Dychiu - Requiem for an American Dream

2010-04-09T19:58:00.005+08:00

REQUIEM FOR AN AMERICAN DREAM
By Stephanie Dychiu

At the turn of the 20th century, the Spanish-American war ended with Spain ceding the Philippines to America under the Treaty of Paris. US cavalry men set up their headquarters near the Angeles train station in Pampanga, then found themselves “saddled” with an unusual problem—their horses were allergic to Philippine grass and kept getting sick.

Soldiers' sanctuary
Hay had to be imported from overseas to feed the fragile steeds, until one day, the animals were found happily grazing on a fertile patch in a small village. The soldiers relocated their military reservation to the area where the sweet grass grew, naming it Fort Stotsenburg. Years later, Fort Stotsenburg grew into Clark Air Base, the largest American installation outside the US mainland, covering an area almost the size of Singapore.

Inside Clark Air Base was a beautiful 200-hectare leisure estate that housed the golf course, country club, and bungalows of the American air force officers. Hundreds of mature acacia trees lined the streets of the Clark Golf Club, their branches casting a protective shade over the neighborhood’s wide avenues, giving room for chubby crows to roost.

Change erupts
Life was busy defending God and country, but pleasant enough at the base, until relations began to sour between the Philippines and the United States following the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. As the expiration of the 90-year lease on Clark drew near, the Americans spent long months wrangling with the Philippine Senate for an extension.

Then, nature abruptly put an end to the kerfuffle by unleashing the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Mount Pinatubo woke up after six centuries of slumber, blanketing a massive area of Luzon in ash.

It was June 1991, three months before the expiration of the lease, and Clark was in ruins. The Americans did the sensible thing—they packed up what they could, lowered their flag, and left a pile of soot the size of Singapore behind.

Buried in the debris was the beautiful 200-hectare leisure estate, its golf course, country club, and newly constructed bungalows.

Under these inglorious circumstances, the Mimosa Leisure Estate was born.

Elusive prize
The mimosa plant (makahiya) is a shy, sensitive plant, closing up its leaves at the slightest touch, then opening up again when it thinks the intruder is gone.

The same might be said of the Mimosa Leisure Estate. Protracted ownership struggles have seen it opening and closing its doors to private investors for the last ten years. It is the prize everyone wants, but no one can hang on to for long. The man who dug it piece by piece out of the ashes of Pinatubo and turned it into a tourist destination was booted out by the government in 1999, after being accused of not paying rentals. Since then, several attempts to award Mimosa to other private investors have not worked out for some reason or another. As of this writing, Mimosa remains in government hands, gearing up for yet another attempt at privatization.

The turmoil has, of course, had implications on service and upkeep.

Fading glory
Ten years without private capital means no major new facilities have been added apart from the original golf course, casino, and conference rooms. The pool is still more family-size than country-club-grade. Service is often lean, and Mimosa’s trademark Montevista Villas are trapped in a Nineties time warp.

Not that the place is not good enough. It is good enough. Staff faithfully keep the lawns and gardens watered and manicured, making long walks around the estate a genuine pleasure. The Mediterranean-style Montevista bungalows that were originally designed for the American air force officers are still sunny, clean, and satisfyingly roomy, if a little worn. Large kitchens and master baths, ample space between villas for privacy, competitive pricing, and an unrivaled location within the historic grounds of Mimosa still give Montevista an edge over other lodgings in Clark.

But good enough, for Mimosa, is not good enough.

For a property with such an illustrious past, a place that holds so many memories of American and Philippine history, a symbol of a people’s rise from the ashes of Pinatubo and a century of co-dependence . . . room service breakfast should not be served in a styrofoam box.

Upgrades take private capital, however, and that is something Mimosa has chronically fallen short of.

But maybe not for long.

Hello, Korea
When budget international flights began landing at Clark’s Diosdado Macapagal Airport, the former American enclave turned Korean.

The largest structure with the most visible sign along Acacia Road is “Koreatown”, spelled in English with a Hanggul translation written on a tarp near it. Outside the building, half a dozen large black eel swim in a half-filled aquarium, while a lone lovebird chirps in a cage above the tank.

Inside, Koreatown is divided into a Korean restaurant, a 24-hour Korean convenience store, cubicles for foot and body massage, and a travel agency that arranges golf tours—all the essentials of Korean life, under one roof. Stickers of the Korean Community in Central Luzon Association—yes, there is such a group—are all over the walls.

The Filipina behind the reception counter assumes I’m Korean and greets me in Hanggul. The same thing happens with the Pinay waitress who approaches. Three rumpled Korean teenagers in shorts and slippers are having a late breakfast on one table. They look right at home.

What the most popular dish is at the restaurant. “Samgyupsal (a kind of grilled pork), P300.” What about the eel? “Sutbul (barbecued) eel, P1,800 for one kilo.” A kilo is equal to about three eel, and orders need to be made an hour ahead because the eel are barbecued fresh out of the tank, never frozen. That is the way the Koreans like it, and that is the way it is.

It is too early in the day to eat a kilo of eel, so I move to the Montevista Café across the road. A staffer comes over and starts talking about—what else—the Koreans. She says many of them study at the Holy Angels University and Angeles University Foundation. They don’t just study English, they take up real degrees, like Hotel and Restaurant Management. Many of the Korean golfers playing on the green already live in Clark full-time with their families. And she says it’s great. “I’m happy that Clark is now known more for tourism than prostitution.”

After America
Before 1991, only Americans and authorized Filipino employees were allowed to enter Clark Air Base. The day when the Clark Golf Club’s green would be bustling with Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and their multilingual Filipino caddies was unimaginable back then. But today, 2,000 of the members of the Mimosa Golf Club are Korean, and the best-selling dish at the club’s Veranda restaurant is Sae Gogi—Korean-style beef medallion in chili sauce, served with kimchi and rice.

“When the Americans left, people thought there would be no more jobs,” says one of the top officials of the club, who lived in Clark in the 1960s-1970s. “But now, there are ten times more jobs.”

Tourism is definitely picking up, and many groups are lining up to cash in on Clark’s future. But looking at the scorched World War II propeller at the entrance of the Clark Museum just outside Mimosa, the glory of the past is also not easily forgotten.

Inside the museum, photos of the people who lived, played golf, and held parties at what was then called the Clark Golf Club line the walls, along with the things that they used to fight wars, build schools, airlift ousted Presidents to Hawaii, and sign decrees that altered the course of history.

Across Mimosa, the original posts of Fort Stotsenburg still mark the sprawling parade grounds where US troops held drills and polo matches, on the very same pasture where their horses munched on Philippine grass and miraculously did not fall ill.

Standing out there where tourists now go to jog or to quietly read books, watching the Philippine flag flap in the wind where the American flag used to fly, one can’t help but hope that when Mimosa once again goes through another round of bidding, it will find an owner who will see more than just villas, golf course, casino, and tourists. The torch of remembrance is still burning, and needs someone truly worthy to carry it.

(This story was written in February 2009. Vintage photos are from the Annotated Pictorial History of Clark Air Base 1899-1986 by David L. Rosmer.)

Stephanie Dychiu CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES - The Art of Building

2010-04-09T19:57:00.000+08:00

THE ART OF BUILDING
By Stephanie Dychiu

Can art solve the problems of city planning and social order? We find clues in the work of Jorge Ramos, venerable builder of Metro Manila state architecture.

There is art that exists purely for beauty, and art that fuses beauty with utility. If art never met architecture, we would still be living in caves. For this reason, Ayn Rand called architecture the “highest of all the arts”, and dedicated her novel The Fountainhead to the noble builder’s profession.

Howard Roark’s obsession to build a skyscraper that would symbolize the greatness of man is reminiscent of the last state-sponsored building boom witnessed by Metro Manila in the Seventies and Early Eighties, when Imelda Marcos dreamed of the “City of Man” and tried to dredge it out of the waters of Manila Bay. If, as Frank Lloyd Wright said, architecture gives form to the social order we wish to live in, then the government’s building projects from that period were the Bagong Lipunan (New Society) made flesh.

Quite a number of those monuments to progress sprung from the mind of architect Jorge Ramos, whose buildings have become so much a part of the landscape that people seldom question how they got there. It’s hard to fathom Metro Manila without the Heart, Lung, and Kidney Centers on East Avenue, the GSIS Complex at the Pasay City reclamation area, the Quiapo Mosque, and the expanded Malacañang Palace and Philippine General Hospital as we know them today.

Each landmark tells a story of how the art of building was used to shape the course of history and society.

(End of excerpt. For full story, read the July 2009 issue of Contemporary Art Philippines magazine.)

Stephanie Dychiu CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES - Collector As Curator

2010-04-09T19:56:00.000+08:00

COLLECTOR AS CURATOR
By Stephanie Dychiu

Is it novelty or is it art? Who decides what can be called contemporary art? Is it the critic who shapes the taste of the public? Is it the dealer who paves the way to commercial success? Is it the scholar who bears the imprimatur of the cultural Establishment?

At a recent exhibit of the Finale Art Gallery, the arbiter was none of the above. Or in a sense, all of the above. Noted private collector Paulino Que, whose trove of Philippine art stretches from Juan Luna to today’s twenty-something wunderkinds, has long been a quiet but pervasive force in the local art scene. Prodded by Finale’s Vita Sarenas, he agreed to show 22 of the best works he acquired from young artists in the last ten years.

“There is no institutional collection of contemporary art in the Philippines today, so that makes [the Paulino Que] collection significant,” art historian Patrick D. Flores remarked during his talk on the exhibit, dubbed Figuring the Times: Philippine Art 1996-2009. “Most [institutional collections] start with the modern period, such as the CCP collection, but it stops with the 1980s.”

With contemporary art receiving little support from a cash-strapped government, and conservative private museums adopting a wait-and-see stance on work deemed too new and experimental, a private collection such as Paulino Que’s is crucial to knowing the art of our time.

Of the 22 works he chose for the Finale exhibit, half were created very recently, between 2008-2009. The artists represent a broad age range (22 to 50), but follow a tight set of themes: socio-political and religious oppression, disillusionment and existential ennui, parodies of urban/pop culture. If art is a reflection of life, these appear to be the issues of the day.

Opinionating about contemporary art is a thorny business, because it has become as much about concept as the actual physical object produced. It is rarely about beauty anymore, so aesthetics cannot be the sole gauge of quality. Even skill and technique are increasingly left out of the equation, as everything is reduced to The Concept (i.e. unmade bed nominated for Turner Prize years ago). The struggle to be accessible without being literal, thought-provoking without being incomprehensible, different but not lazy, often ends in a huffy cop-out: “You just don’t get it.”

That said, below we present our favorites from the Paulino Que contemporary art collection, because good art is universal, good art is intelligible, and good art should not require encyclopedic insider knowledge (or a kilometric title) to engage the dilettante mind and soul.

ROUNDTRIP OVERLOAD by Mark Justiniani (2009)
History is made not in the corridors of power but in the everyman’s colorum. A priest decides the church is toast; a farmer takes up the Katipunero struggle; a soldier looks out to an empty horizon; a young girl dreams of stardom, or marriage to a foreigner, whichever comes first. Flashpoints in Philippine history flicker on the tricycles’ rear view mirrors. The barefoot crowd’s aspirations bombard the frame: Nora Aunor, Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, Wow Magic Sing. The incumbent leader is Ate Glow serving “Kape Barack” in an anti-diarrhea ad. Big Business looms behind. A gunman alights near the isaw stand to set things right.

BUBBLES ON HIS HEAD by Geraldine Javier (2004)
The banality of death creeps innocuously in this scene of a corpse drifting past fresh green grass under a bright blue sky. Life, like the bubbles floating over his dearly departed head, is here one moment, gone the next.

ONE-MAN SHOW by Elmer Borlongan (2008)
The usual suspects attend a Metro Manila art show. The well-dressed wino plots his next purchase. The camera-toting press shoot everything on display (or are they fellow artists reconnoitering?). The aging habitué tries to keep his eyebrows down while chugging a beer. The sabit goes only for the food. The gossips’ eyes dart left and right as they whisper nonstop. And the newbie in the corner wonders what everyone else is thinking.

UNTITLED by Louie Cordero (2008)
Night of the Living Dead in neon—shit, guts, muscle, blood, eyeballs, teeth, and bits of human flesh acquire a strange toy-like appeal when bathed in fluorescent candy colors. I see Jason, I see Freddy, I see Chucky . . . a salute to the puerile appeal of monster movies, from a techniclolor zombie in souvenir statement tee.

NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE by Nona Garcia (2006)
What does the middling middle-class life look like? It is a sala stuck in the seventies with only a TV for company. Discarded “hobbies” lie pointlessly in one pile. Man is but a ghost of himself, his presence hardly missed.

(This article originally appeared in the April-May 2009 issue of Contemporary Art Philippines magazine.)

Stephanie Dychiu BOOK RELEASE - EXTRAORDINARY: Stories for Aspiring Leaders

2010-04-09T19:55:00.001+08:00

First attempt of MAP (Management Association of the Philippines) to come up with a local equivalent of books written by Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, and other management gurus from the West. EXTRAORDINARY bottles the wisdom of the top 50 CEOs of the Philippines (two passed away while book was being written).

Excerpt from my chapter "Managing in Uncertain Times" appears below (click on images to read).

Click on the jump to view the complete list of CEOs featured in this book.

Eugenia Apostol - Founder, Philippine Daily Inquirer

David Balangue - Chair & Managing Partner, SGV & Co.

Ambasaddor Cesar Bautista - Former Secretary, Department of Trade & Industry; Former Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Cesar Buenaventura - Senior Partner, Buenaventura Echauz and Partners

Rafael Buenaventura - Former Governor, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Edgar Chua - Chair & President, Pilipinas Shell

Jose Ma. Concepcion III - President & CEO, RFM Corporation

Raul Concepcion - Chair & CEO, Concepcion Industries

David Consunji - Chair, D.M. Consunji

Jose Cuisia - President & CEO, Philamlife

Ramon del Rosario, Jr. - President, Phinma

Ambassador Ramon del Rosario - Former Ambassador to Canada, Germany, and Japan

Corazon de la Paz-Bernardo - Former President & CEO, Social Security System (SSS)

Rex Drilon - COO, Ortigas & Co.

Carlos Ejercito - President & CEO, United Laboratories

Dr. Jesus Estanislao - Former Secretary of the Department of Finance

Lance Gokongwei - President & CEO, JG Summit Holdings

Atty. Felipe Gozon - Chair & President, GMA Network, Inc.

Oscar Hilado - Chair, Phinma

Chit Juan - CEO, Figaro Coffee Company

Dr. Jaime Laya - Former Governor, Central Bank of the Philippines; Former Minister, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports

Delfin Lazaro - CFO, Ayala Corporation; Former Secretary of the Department of Energy

Atty. Elena Lim - Chair Emeritus, Solid Group

Oscar Lopez - Chair & CEO, Lopez Group

Guillermo Luchangco - Chair & CEO, ICCP Group

Antonio Meloto - Founder, Gawad Kalinga

Aurelio Montinola III - President, Bank of the Philippine Islands

Rizalino Navarro - Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry

Napoleon Nazareno - President & CEO, SMART Communications

Jose Pardo - Chairman, Philippine Savings Bank; Former Secretary, Department of Finance

Manuel Pangilinan - Chair, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company

Vicente Paterno - Former Senator, Republic of the Philippines; Chair, Philippine Seven Corporation

Marixi Prieto - Chair, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Cesar Purisima - Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Former Secretary, Department of Finance

Socorro Ramos - Founder, National BookstoreOscar Reyes - Board Director, Pilipinas Shell

Sixto Roxas III - Former Assistant Executive Secretary for Economic Affairs

Juan Santos - Former Chair & CEO, Nestle Philippines; Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry

Evelyn Singson - 2006 President, Management Association of the Philippines

Gabriel Singson - Former Governor, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Ramon Sy - Co-Vice Chair, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company

Washington Sycip - Founder, SGV GroupTessie Sy-Coson - President, SM Investment Corporation

Jesus Tambunting - Chair & CEO, Planters Development Bank; Former Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Tony Tancaktiong - Chair, President, & CEO, Jollibee Foods Corporation

George S.K. Ty - Chair, Metrobank Group

Geronimo Velasco - Chair, Republic Glass; Former Secretary of the Department of Energy

Cesar Virata - Former Prime Minister; Former Secretary of the Department of Finance

George Yang - President, Golden Arches Development Corporation

Alfonso Yuchengco - Chair, Yuchengco Group

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala - Chair & CEO, Ayala Corporation

Stephanie Dychiu MABUHAY - Sailing in the Philippines

2010-04-09T19:54:00.002+08:00

Original title of this article: "Whatever Floats Your Boat"

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AMAZING SAILS
by Stephanie Dychiu

Whether by hobie, yacht, or banca, the best way to explore the Philippines is through its waters. Luxe or low-budget, seasoned or novice, every traveler is sure to find a voyage that shows why islands were created in the first place—so boats can visit them.

Though not yet as popular as scuba diving, sailing is one of the most invigorating experiences a traveler can have in the Philippines. The waterways are nowhere near as heavily touristed as Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand, and one can spend months frolicking on the flotilla of 7,107 islands. Bulk of the islands are untouched by tourism, so "you'll feel like Ferdinand Magellan with every landing," says Peter Capotosto, son of an American commodore who used to run the Manila Yacht Club. Capotosto has his own sailing school on Taal Lake, less than two hours' drive from Metro Manila.

Each island in the Philippines has a different personality, but what most will have in common—again, this is unusual in Asia—are highly sociable natives who can communicate in English. Bruce Curran, a Scotsman who has sailed on every continent in the world except Antarctica, has found himself permanently moored in the Philippines. He says the image of the country as a pirate's haven is extremely overblown. "I know of some tourists who had trouble with their boat while at sea. When a fleet of twelve bancas approached them, they thought they would be attacked for sure. But the men towed them to safety while singing Frank Sinatra songs." After years of plying Philippine waters with nothing but his wits to guide him, Curran wrote the first comprehensive book on sailing in the Philippines in 2003 (Combing the Coral Carpet, available at major bookstores or through www.combingthecoralcarpet.com).

The Philippine coastline is the fifth longest in the world. The endless choices for cruising would befuddle even Columbus himself. Below are a few unique sailing experiences to try, bearing in mind a couple of practicalities: first, bareboat charters are rare in the Philippines, so enjoy the convenience of a full crew on board at astonishingly low costs; and second, Philippine maritime law has not evolved enough to encompass leisure sailing, so the laws that apply to cargo ships and tankers will more or less be the same for your little tub.

Sail inside a volcano
For many a neophyte Filipino sailor, life begins at the Taal Lake Yacht Club under the tutelage of Peter Capotosto and his cohorts. Taal is perhaps the only place in the world where one can learn how to sail on a lake that is inside a volcano that is inside a bigger lake. This peculiar topography resulted from a prehistoric volcanic eruption. Hobie cats, toppers (small molded plastic dinghies ideal for beginners), board sails (for windsurfing), and kayaks are available for rent. Sailing lessons are conducted by Nestor Soriano, a Southeast Asian Games medalist. Camping used to be the only way to stay overnight on Taal Lake, but in recent years, a friendly German has opened up his air-conditioned lodgings to paying guests. For more information, log on to www.sailing.org.ph/tlyc.

Take a banca safari
Since ancient times, different places around the world have developed boats customized for the wind and water conditions of their specific environment. Turkey has its gulet, Egypt has its felucca, Dubai has its dhow, and the Philippines has its banca. Bruce Curran has been particularly fascinated by this native Filipino outrigger canoe. He says it is the perfect design for navigating the best cruising grounds in the country, which tend to have shallow waters and extensive coral reefs that a regular sailboat with a deeper keel would have difficulty traversing. This fixation with the banca inspired Bruce and two expatriate friends to build a super-sized, eighty-foot version which tourists can charter for island-hopping around the Philippines. Food, crew, and nightly accommodation in beach resorts are included in the package rates. Popular routes are Palawan, Cebu, Negros, Zambales, and Mindoro. To reserve your own trip, log on to www.bancasafaris.com.

Explore the Calamian Islands
For both Peter Capotosto and Bruce Curran, the Calamian Islands offer the ultimate sailing experience in the Philippines. The Calamianes are a collection of 128 islands between Mindoro and Palawan that are popular among sailing enthusiasts because of their many natural harbors and outlandish geographical attractions. Limestone cliffs, superb diving, and isolated world-class resorts are the trademarks of this area, which is a favorite yachting destination of the country's elite. Some of these private yachts are available for charter to tourists, though not too many formal charter companies exist. Best to get in touch with Peter Capotosto (E-mail: peter@sailing.org.ph, Phone: +63 2 8113183) to get proper referrals. The Calamianes abound with must-do activities for travelers, but two of the most memorable are: dropping anchor on Coron Bay then taking a smaller boat inland to Cayangan, a phantasmagoric freak of nature that is part lake, part hot spring, with water that gets hotter as you dive deeper, then turns from fresh to salt water at a certain depth, at which point a lone five-foot barracuda living in the lake usually makes an appearance; and sailing from Coron to Calauit island, a game preserve where African wildlife like zebra, giraffe, and impala have been successfully transplanted to a tropical environment and run around with bizarre endemic fauna like the bear cat and mouse deer. Check www.palawan.gov.ph for more information.

Join the Philippine Hobie Challenge
The climax of sailing in the Philippines is taking part in the Philippine Hobie Challenge, which enters its eighth year in 2007. Next year's competition will start in Hermana Major Island on the west coast of Luzon, moving on to Capones Island, Ambil Island, Apo Island (across Verde Passage), Dimapac Island (north of Calauit), and ending at Club Paradise in Busuanga. The race covers 250 nautical miles in about five days. The Hobie Challenge is held in February every year. Non-sailors can follow the action at every stop. For more information, go to www.philhobie.com.

Over the years, the Philippines has borne the brunt of negative press about its polluted cities, ludicrous politics, and sluggish economy. But the true spirit of the Philippines is out there in its seas, in the simplicity and eternal optimism of its small coastal villages. When daily pressures threaten to overpower you, take a boat around these islands of timeless beauty, and soon you'll be reminded that all it takes to cope with the turbulent winds and currents of life is a healthy respect for the immensity of the universe, and a little adjustment on your sails.

(This article originally appeared in MABUHAY magazine of Philippine Airlines, October 2006.)

Stephanie Dychiu MARIE CLAIRE - Age, Beauty, and Happiness

2010-04-09T19:53:00.000+08:00

Original title of this article: "Age Becomes Beauty"

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FACE TO FACE WITH AGING

The quest for eternal youth is one of humanity’s most enduring aspirations. Stephanie Dychiu takes a look at what’s out in the market.

For Filipinas today, the fountain of youth is no longer a quixotic dream. Just pick up a jar from the supermarket, or sit through a few stabs from a syringe.

COMING OF AGE

Procter & Gamble, manufacturer of anti-aging cream Olay Total Effects, pegs the Philippines’ level of anti-aging sophistication at less than one-third of Thailand’s. But awareness is growing very, very fast. “Before Olay was launched two years ago, anti-aging was only about 5-6% of the total skin care market,” says Anna Legarda, Brand PR Manager for P&G Beauty. “Now, it’s around 20%.”

Data from Unilever, parent company of Pond’s Age Miracle, shows consumption of anti-aging products tripled in the Philippines in the last three years. “Here, whitening is still the biggest face care segment, with 50% share,” says Meryll Yan, Assistant Brand Manager of Pond’s Age Miracle. “But globally, anti-aging is the biggest face care category. It’s the fastest growing segment globally and in the Philippines.”

SURVIVAL OF THE PRETTIEST

The pursuit of youth is directly tied to the pursuit of beauty, says Dr. Vicki Belo, who runs a high-profile chain of beauty clinics. “Youth is wasted on the young, it’s true. You feel young inside, but then your face doesn’t match. Appearance is important. It’s about survival of the prettiest.”

Survival of the Prettiest is a book written in 2000 by Nancy Etcoff, a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School. Her research showed babies stare longer at pictures of attractive people; men are more likely to help pretty women fix a flat tire; and job applications with pretty photos get picked up more than applications with plain-looking photos.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEAUTY

“I established my clinic because I had acne and I was fat,” says Belo. “I saw how beautiful people had many advantages in life, which they didn’t have to work for. Cosmetic procedures are a way of leveling the playing field, for those who were not born beautiful.” When asked if her very public efforts to promote weight loss and anti-aging are setting unrealistic standards, Belo says it is those who promise implausible benefits through natural means who are misleading the public. “There’s a limit to what diet and exercise can do.” For example, diet and exercise cannot get rid of heavy eyebags, which are partly hereditary.

“Cosmetic surgery can be an act of charity, a priest said that,” says Dr. Florencio Lucero, who has been practicing plastic surgery for almost 30 years, and was chief of the plastic surgery division of the Philippine General Hospital. Lucero began his career in reconstructive surgery, dealing with cleft palates and burn victims. He started seeing cosmetic surgery patients in the late 80’s. He says even back then, the goal of nearly every patient was to look younger.

GOODBYE, LINES AND WRINKLES

The formula for the slow death of skin is maddeningly simple: Age + Sun Damage = Loss of Collagen = Dryness = Lines and Wrinkles. Early signs of deterioration can be controlled with nary a drop of blood spilt, but most treatments are not permanent. Maintenance is required every few months.

Anti-aging creams bought off the shelf are the first line of defense. Some affordable brands can be as effective as very expensive brands, but benefits are possible only through continuous use. Simple creams work best as preventive maintenance on skin that is not too damaged.

Laser resurfacing treatments such as Fraxel can produce results faster than creams (at a much higher cost, of course). Lasers smooth out fine lines, remove dead skin, reduce hyperpigmentation, fade acne scars, and reduce the size of pores.

Botulinum toxin type A injections, popularly known by the trade name Botox, are a pro-active way of preventing lines and wrinkles. When injected under the skin, it stops muscles from contracting, so creases are unable to form. Not all lines and wrinkles, however, can be treated with Botox. Those that are visible even when the face is not moving may be too late for Botox to fix. Botox is also not advised for creases around the mouth, because you cannot talk or eat properly if the muscles near your mouth are paralyzed.

Deep lines and wrinkles that cannot be treated with Botox can be repaired using injectable fillers. The most commonly used fillers are collagen, Restylane, and fat. They are particularly good for plumping up thinning lips and lines around the mouth.

SAG NO MORE

As time passes, gravity joins the sun in ravaging the face, and skin starts to sag. Another set of treatments is in order.

Thermage is a radio frequency treatment that melts fat on the face and creates a tightening and contouring effect. “It’s for you if your face gets bigger and flabbier as you get older,” says Belo. “If you’re the type whose face gets thin and haggard, what you need is a filler.” One Thermage session can be enough to produce results, but it takes a few months for full effects to show.

Aptos threading can approximate the effect of a face lift with no need for surgery. Extremely thin threads are tucked under the skin to pull up areas that are starting to droop. The threads are kept in place by microscopic teeth, and last as long as five years.

When aptos is no longer enough to keep the face tight, a face lift is the drastic next step. Loose skin and fat are removed surgically to keep the face from sagging. Eye lifts are popular because the eyes are the first to show signs of aging. In this procedure, a portion of the drooping skin between the eyebrow and the eye is removed to create a smooth, wide-awake look.

THE REAL ELIXIR OF YOUTH?

A stem cell transplant procedure pioneered in the Philippines by Dr. Florencio Lucero and Dr. Bill Paspaliaris of Australia is one of the more radical anti-aging treatments available locally. Stem cells are the building blocks of the human body. The body malfunctions when stem cells weaken, causing disease and aging. However, when healthy stem cells are infused back into the body, disorders can be reversed. Stem cells have been used to treat diseases like Parkinson’s, leukemia, and diabetes. Used for anti-aging, proponents claim they dramatically increase mental alertness, improve skin texture, and boost physical stamina.

Stem cell treatments have a controversial history because early practitioners used human embryos to harvest healthy cells. At Lucero’s clinic, stem cells are sourced from the patient’s own body fat. “We call it autologous stem cell transplant,” says Dr. Lucero. “’Autologous’ means from you, and back to you.” A simplified version of the treatment called Acti-Stem injects a stem cell activator directly to the face to revive collagen production.

Lucero’s 47-year-old wife Tinette has undergone the stem cell transplant and says she felt the effects soon after. “Faster than the gingko biloba anti-oxidant I’d been taking for 10 years! Within a week, I started to feel a change.”

Not all are convinced the procedure works, but in the last two years, Lucero says about a hundred people have had the transplant. It doesn’t come cheap, but money is no object for those determined to restore their lost vitality. Lucero usually combines the transplant with liposuction (to source fat for harvesting stem cells) and cosmetic surgery, so patients get a complete anti-aging overhaul. Expectations are not always realistic. “I can set back the clock at least 10 years, but not 20,” he says. His wife Tinette adds, “You still have to feed your body right. Otherwise, you’re back to zero again even after you’ve had treatments.” The couple put up an organic farm to have a secure supply of chemical-free vegetables at home.

BEAUTY, AGE, AND HAPPINESS

It is not hard to believe that 60-year-olds can someday look as young as the 30-year-olds of today. In Ancient Greece, the average person lived only up to age 40, yet today, medical science has extended the average human lifespan to 66. Aging seems more a result of biochemistry than the passage of time, which is why rabbits are old at 5, but people are young at 15. But if the quest for youth is really a quest for beauty, and the quest for beauty is a quest for happiness, is stopping the clock the answer? Will our days be as precious, if we knew we had an unlimited supply of them?

Perhaps the lines and the wrinkles and the sagging skin exist to remind us of the transitory nature of the world. We can slow down the inevitable, stretch 66 to 120, make 50 look like 25, but our search for fulfillment will always be beyond the physical. Even Vicki Belo agrees: “If you have no meaning in your life, no amount of treatment will make you happy.”

(This article originally appeared in Marie Claire, October 2008.)

Stephanie Dychiu BBC Top Gear - Baler Road Trip

2010-04-09T19:52:00.004+08:00

Helicopter attack scene from Apocalypse Now shot on beach featured in this story can be viewed on this YouTube link.

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Baler, Aurora: APOCALYPSE WOW
by Stephanie Dychiu

Decades after the greatest war movie of all time was filmed in the Philippines, Top Gear drives up to the town that made it all happen.

When five-year-old Sofia Coppola first landed on Baler in 1976 for the filming of her father’s anti-war opus Apocalypse Now, she took one look at the nipa huts, greenery, and carabaos then said to her mother: “It looks like the Disneyland Jungle Cruise”.

Fast forward to the movie’s famous air raid sequence—with a soldier high on acid surfing on the beach while a hive of helicopter gunships above him annihilates a nearby “Vietcong” village—and Baler is suddenly as far away from Disneyland as any place can get. The ruthless Lt. Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall) orders his men to play Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries from the helicopter loudspeakers to add drama to the carnage. As the massacre ensues, he utters the classic line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

What was it about Baler that made Francis Ford Coppola decide it was the perfect backdrop for the greatest attack sequence ever captured on film?

It all goes back to the character of Lt. Kilgore. In the movie, Kilgore didn’t care about the war, all he cared about was surfing. When someone tells him about a seaside village where the waves can rise up to six feet, Kilgore plots an invasion to claim this surfing nirvana for himself.

That slice of surfing heaven wasn’t just a figment of Coppola’s imagination. It actually exists in real life. Along Sabang Beach in Reserva, the Aguang river mouth meets the waters of the Pacific Ocean in an area that used to be known as “Kagewad”. This spot was re-named “Charlie’s Point” after Hollywood came to town.

Charlie who?

Vietnam War geeks would know that “Charlie” was the G.I. moniker for the Vietcong. In Apocalypse Now, Lt. Kilgore decides to wipe out the Vietnamese because—well, “Charlie don’t surf”. The fantastic waves near the village were wasting away.
Fortunately, the irony of Kilgore’s “Charlie don’t surf” statement was not lost on the public psyche. Years later it would be immortalized in a song of the same title by the British punk rock band, The Clash.

But what if the present-day Charlie—meaning you, the quintessential couch potato—really don’t surf? Will you be blown to bits with napalm if you dare set foot on Baler?
Quite the contrary. What follows is a simple guide to enjoying Baler for all the Charlies who don’t surf. It is easy to get caught up in Apocalypse Now fever when planning a trip to Baler, but whatever you do, don’t play Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries during the eight-hour drive up. A British organization recently reported that this song is the most dangerous piece of music you can listen to while driving. It’s way too effective at bringing out your killer instincts.

HOW TO GET THERE
The usual route from Metro Manila to Baler is a 120km drive to Cabanatuan City via the North Luzon Expressway and Maharlika Highway. From Cabanatuan, it’s another 110km to Baler via Palayan City, 60km of which is a dizzying stretch of zigzag road that will greatly test your patience, eyesight, and driving skills. (To get in shape, try criss-crossing EDSA on your car from Makati to Quezon City and back. Do this six times, then pop a Valium to soothe your frazzled nerves.)
VEHICLE CARE
Baler and the neighboring towns of Casiguran, Dilasag, Dinalungan, Dingalan, Dipaculao, Maria Aurora, and San Luis are rich with coves, reefs, caves, beaches, and waterfalls that are a joy to explore on a 4x4. A vehicle with four-low transfer case or gearbox (or low gearing) will be necessary if you want to experience driving on Ampere, a trippy little beach in Dipaculao that is entirely covered by piles of smooth stones instead of sand. The bloodcurling screams of your 4x4 when it chews up the stones to get near the water are not to be missed.

WHEN TO GO
It depends what you’re after. If you want to surf (or ogle surfers), the best time to go is between September to February. Surf competitions are held during this time when the ocean swells are at their scary best. With busloads of tourists spilling into town, this is also the perfect time to socialize. But if you’re all about zen, organic food, and the meaning of life, go during the low season between March and August when you can have the beaches almost entirely to yourself.

WHERE TO STAY

Bay’s Inn (80 Sitio Labasin, Barangay Sabang, Baler, Aurora; Phone: 042-2094312; Mobile: 0918-9266697) Rooms for two with fan and bath go for P300-350 a night. For an extra P400, you get air-con and TV. Bay’s Inn is one of the most popular places to stay in Baler, so don’t expect peace and quiet if you stay here during peak season.

Bahia de Baler (Sabang Beach, Baler, Aurora; Mobile: 0920-5550451) Bahia de Baler is a lot quieter than Bay’s Inn, but also more expensive. Single and double rooms with TV, private bath, and air-con cost P1,200 a night. However, there is one large dorm-style room that can fit ten people in double-decker beds, which costs only P2,500 a night. If you are traveling with a large group, you should definitely book this room and book it fast because it is the only one of its kind in the whole resort. Breakfast is included in the room cost.

WHERE TO EAT
The lively restaurant of Bay’s Inn is the undisputed best place to eat in Baler. The dishes range from P75-150 each with servings that can be good enough for two. Be sure to try the Crispy Buntot. This is a pork dish like crispy pata, except you’ve got buntot (tail) instead of pata (knuckles). A good compromise for the contra-Atkins crowd that’s looking for a good cholesterol fix minus the guilt.
Cheaper and less spectacular eats are available at the Baler town proper. There is a small row of pleasant carinderias near the museum where a full meal can cost as little as P50.

ACTIVITIES AND SIGHTSEEING

Beaches There is a wide variety of beaches to check out in Baler and its environs. The most obvious one is the black-sand Sabang Beach right in front of Bay’s Inn and Bahia de Baler. Less accessible but prettier than Sabang is the white-sand Cemento Beach, a favorite among surfers, snorkelers, and divers. Then you have Canawer Beach in Dilasag and Dinadiawan Beach in Dipaculao, which both claim to be the Boracay of Aurora province. Finally, there is the aforementioned Ampere Beach in Dipaculao, which doesn’t have black sand, doesn’t have white sand, but has stones. You can spend many cathartic hours playing stone-throwing games here.

Waterfalls When the sun and salt water become too much to take, scoot over to the soothing freshwater falls nearby. Dilaguidi Falls in Dilasag at the foot of the Sierra Madres has a fifty-centimeter-thick wall of cool water. Bulawan Falls in Dinalungan was declared the cleanest and greenest inland body of water in Regions III and IV. You can also practice your dive from the twenty-five-meter high Laccab Falls in Dipaculao.

Caves The town of Dingalan is home to the Lamao Caves which are located on a seaside cliff. Bancas like to dock in the small beaches between the caves. A waterfall can be found inside one of the caves, while another has a steady shower of water that makes it feel like it is raining inside. Turtles and sharks have been spotted near these caves.

LISTINGS
To organize a trip to Baler and nearby attractions, contact Noel Dulay of the Maria Aurora Outdoors Club at 09193724764. You can also contact professional tour guide (and expert surfer) Charles “Mac” Ritual at 09198131962.

(This article originally appeared in BBC Top Gear, October 2004.)

Stephanie Dychiu BBC Top Gear - 15 Minutes with Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala

2010-04-09T19:52:00.001+08:00

15 MINUTES WITH JAZA

The head of the Philippines’ largest business conglomerate is hooked on . . . dirt biking?

Why trail riding? What’s wrong with golf? Or sailing? Or exotic cars for that matter?
I started to ride Montesa Trials bikes and Bultaco Sherpa enduro bikes in Spain when I was eleven. Back then, these Spanish bikes were the best off-roaders in the world. Engines were simpler, and we spent hours cleaning our own carburetors, fixing our flats, cleaning our oily spark plugs. The south of Spain had mountains that were rugged, rocky, and bare so you could ride for hours without seeing anyone. I stopped biking in my early twenties when I began working full time, and didn’t start again till I turned forty. My wife Lizzie saw me reading motorcycle magazines and did the unthinkable . . . she gave me a new bike for my birthday, a BMW GS 1150. Probably the best gift I ever received!

You’re known to have KTM’s as your weapons of choice.
KTM’s have an exceptional off-road racing heritage. They make the best off-road bikes in the world. When they announced a couple of years ago that they were going to introduce a dual-cylinder, big bore, dual-purpose bike, I knew it was the bike I wanted—even before I saw it in its final form. Modeled after one of their winning bikes on the famous Paris-Dakar Rally, the KTM 950 S is the best large, dual-purpose bike in the market if you frequent dirt roads. It has extraordinary suspension, and is surprisingly light and nimble for its size. It also has a unique engine that takes off like a scalded cat after it breaks 6000rpm. Its only negative, for some, is its extraordinary height which takes some getting used to (I stand on tiptoes at stop signs).
My roots are in dirt riding, however, and the KTM 950 is too heavy for more serious trail riding, so I added a KTM 520 EXC for that and a KTM 620 SXC for dual-purpose riding when I need a lighter bike. This may seem excessive, but we live only once!

You can have pretty much any bike out there. Are there still any bikes that you dream of owning?
A race-ready, factory-works KTM 660 Rally like the ones raced by professionals in the Paris-Dakar Rally. For road riding, a high-end Ducati tourer or road racer would be fun.

You’re a big promoter of eco-tourism. Now that at least seems consistent with trail biking.
The Philippines has beautiful terrain that’s mostly inaccessible. I used to travel extensively around the country in my early twenties with my brother, Fernando. Our visits have taken us from the Cordilleras and Sierra Madres to the beaches of Baler. We even rode from Laoag in the north to Davao in the south over eight days. By riding on a motorcycle, you can really enjoy the surroundings: the smell of the sea, the pines in the mountains, the dry dust of barren areas, and the unusual sensations that come from riding in monsoon rain or summer heat.

Most exciting—or frightening—riding experience?
Riding across the Cordilleras from Tuguegarao to Baguio with my son, Jaime Alfonso (13 years old and he rides a Honda CRF 150). It was the first time we rode together in demanding terrain over two days. His piston ring broke down and blew halfway across the mountain. Also, on one of our runs between Baler and the northeast coast of Luzon, we crossed a number of rivers at the beginning of the day only to find they had grown in size and depth at the end of the day when we returned! Some of our bikes disappeared completely under the water and had to be emptied out overnight.

Biking fantasies. You must have at least one or two. A stadium supercross before a thousand screaming rednecks?
Participating in the twenty-one-day Paris-Dakar Rally Race and carrying the Philippine flag. This is probably the most demanding off-road race in the world and the scenery is breathtaking. However, one needs to have the time and stamina to prepare for it . . . a luxury I do not have these days.

Finally, what’s next for JAZA, as far as your trail biking adventures go?
Together with my brother and some friends, I plan to ride across the Moroccan desert in 2005. My ultimate goal, however, is to ride across the Patagonian plains of South America between Chile and Argentina on a KTM 950. That’s probably as close as anyone can get to riding at the end of the earth.

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala is the President of Ayala Corporation. Dashing and dignified, extremely erudite, and apparently, motorcycle-manic, he is also a Director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). - Interview by Stephanie Dychiu and JV Colayco

(This article originally appeared in BBC Top Gear, September 2004.)

Stephanie Dychiu BBC Top Gear - Pinatubo Crater Ascent

2010-04-09T19:51:00.000+08:00

Dale Abenojar figures in this 2004 story as the first person to drive a vehicle up the crater of Mount Pinatubo. Two years later, he caused a national controversy by claiming to be the REAL first Filipino to summit Mount Everest, a title Philippine media had already given Leo Oracion.

Click here to view ABS-CBN's coverage of Abenojar's Pinatubo crater rim ascent mentioned in this story.

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JUAN VS. THE VOLCANO
by Stephanie Dychiu

Remember Joe vs. the Volcano with a young Tom Hanks and even younger Meg Ryan? The movie’s premise is something most Pinatubo-bound Juans can relate to: world-weary Joe Banks (Hanks) is stuck in a dead-end job, hates his boss, has a hopeless office crush (Ryan), then suddenly discovers he is dying of an incurable disease. A rich businessman contacts him with an unusual offer. In exchange for living his final days in the lap of luxury, Joe must sail to an isolated island and throw himself into a live volcano to appease the island’s gods, saving thousands of inhabitants from certain doom.

Must you, the average Juan, wait for similar incurable disease, rich businessman, and vexed island gods before planning to trek up the mouth of a volcano?

Not when Mount Pinatubo is only a few hours’ drive away.

Since its spectacular eruption in 1991 drove the Americans out of Clark Air Base, Pinatubo has been wriggling back to the public’s good graces by reinventing itself as an adventure destination. “Reinventing” is the operative word—Pinatubo to this day continues to reshape and redesign its landscape like a fickle colegiala. Well-trodden trails are washed away by flood waters overnight, and large boulders go on frequent landslides to rearrange themselves. Even the crater lake’s waters have been known to turn from sky-blue to inky black over a short period of time. Such unpredictable behavior often frustrates four-wheelers who lose their makeshift parking hideaways whenever Pinatubo decides to move furniture around. Map makers also grudgingly admit that any successful attempt to plot the area’s terrain is bound to be short-lived.

But perhaps it is these very foibles that make Mount Pinatubo so irresistible to adventure-seekers. Earlier this year, it basked in the limelight once more as the star of the Shell-Mt. Pinatubo Crater Rim 4x4 Ascent. Leading the expedition was seasoned four-wheeler Dale Abenojar and his “ReoRover”, a mutant contraption the mere sight of which can send Land Rover purists into paroxysms of shock. Aptly christened “Frankenstein’s Monster”, Abenojar’s handiwork consisted of a 100-inch wheelbase Land Rover double chassis, Reo 2.5-ton military truck axles and transfer case, custom drive shafts, and, yes, air brakes that puffed and seethed like an overheating bus on EDSA. The ReoRover had a Ford 460-cubic-inch (7.5-liter) big block V8 gasoline engine with 460bhp, mated to an automatic transmission, and a custom radiator placed behind the driver’s seat.

How Abenojar survived the drive to Pinatubo’s crater rim is an epic tale spanning seventeen days and ten kegs of beer. But for the average Juan who simply wants a break from the usual badminton-cum-Ice Monster weekend, here’s a quick guide to planning a basic Pinatubo expedition.

Itinerary

Day 1:

5:00 am
Depart from Metro Manila via the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and head for Barangay Sta. Juliana, which is about an hour from Capas, Tarlac.

9:00 am
Arrive in Barangay Sta. Juliana. Register for the Pinatubo climb at the Sta. Juliana Tourism Council (climbing fee is about P20 per person).

9:30 am
Drive from Barangay Sta. Juliana to the end of Crow Valley, where you will find an Aeta village called Bangan Tungol. Bangan Tungol is the place to hire Aeta porter/guides (about P500 per day for each guide).

10:00 am
Eat pre-packed breakfast in Bangan Tungol.

10:30 am
Begin the hike to Pinatubo’s crater rim.

2:30 pm
Arrive at crater rim. Collapse only to get up again and set up camp. Stay overnight.

Day 2:

7:00 am
Wake up and have heavy breakfast.

8:00 am
Do last-minute frolicking at crater before preparing to descend.

10:30 am
Pack up and begin descent from volcano.

2:30 pm
Arrive back in Bangan Tungol. Rest. Have heavy late lunch.

3:30 pm
Depart for Metro Manila.

7:30 pm
Arrive in Metro Manila.

How to get there
The usual route from Metro Manila to Pinatubo is a 120km drive on the NLEX to Capas, Tarlac. From Capas, it’s another 20km to Barangay Sta. Juliana. From Sta. Juliana, it’s another 5-6km to Bangan Tungol. The circuitous route from Bangan Tungol to Pinatubo’s crater rim stretches about 10-12km.

Vehicle care
Where to park in Pinatubo depends on weather conditions and the water level on the river channel. When the weather is bad and the water levels are high, it is advisable to leave your vehicle at Bangan Tungol. But when the weather is good and the river is behaving itself, you can park your vehicle several kilometers further. Ask your porter/guide to recommend a good spot. This can cut down your hiking time by as much as half (two hours instead of four). Regardless of where you park, hire a local to keep watch on your vehicle while you are out hiking. Leave some food with your “guard” so he won’t abandon your vehicle to hunt for lunch. And in case you haven’t noticed, this terrain is strictly for 4x4s only.

When to go
November to May are the best months to go. The rainy season from June to October can cause dangerous flash floods and lahar flows, so climbing is not recommended during this time.

Where to stay
A tent. This is the mouth of a volcano. There are no charming bed-and-breakfasts around.

Where to eat
Last time we checked, McDonald’s had no outlets in Pinatubo. It’s campsite grub all the way.

Activities and sightseeing
Crow Valley. Crow Valley used to be the gunnery and bombing range of the US Air Force. Fighter planes practiced their bombing skills here. These days, the Philippine Air Force tries to do the same with the five or so planes that make up the entire air defense fleet. Needless to say, happy hikers should avoid this area when RP-US joint military exercises are ongoing.

Bangan Tungol. Spending a few hours in this traditional Aeta village is a worthwhile experience. At Bangan Tungol, time seems to have stood still, because there is pretty much nothing urgent to do and nowhere to go. There is little use for money, because there is nothing to buy. There are no fixed meal times, the Aetas eat only when they are hungry. Immerse yourself in this ancient lifestyle to exorcise the urban existential angst that brought you to Pinatubo in the first place.

Hiking. The other-worldly terrain going up to the crater rim is the main attraction of this trip. On the first hour of hiking, you will be trudging along the O’Donnell River channel in shallow water. This river is named after an Irish priest (not Chris O’Donnell) who used to live in the area. On the second hour, you will be walking on a sandy lahar desert. On the third hour, the sand turns into large boulders.

Pinatubo crater. The crater rim is a great place to meditate, eat, sleep, and generally forget about the rest of the world. Over the past ten years since Pinatubo’s eruption, the flora and fauna in the area has regenerated, thanks in part to the efforts of environmentalists who plant trees yearly and bring quail, chickens, cats, and rabbits up the mountain to revive the wildlife. The famous Pinatubo crater lake, which is about two to two-and-a-half kilometers in diameter, is a good place to try out your inflatable rubber boat, but don’t even think about swimming. The water is contaminated with dangerous chemicals.

Listings
Dale Abenojar is a veteran offroader and hiking guide. To inquire about guided 4x4 trips to Pinatubo, call him at 09176673765. The Department of Tourism-Region III holds an annual Pinatubo trek every November 30. You can tag along for a minimal fee. The Angeles City 4-Wheelers Club (AC4W) transports registered participants as part of the club’s community service. Contact Region III Department of Tourism Director Ronnie Tiotuico to sign up.

(This article originally appeared in BBC Top Gear, September 2004.)

Stephanie Dychiu FHM Supplement - Cordillera Road Trip

2010-04-09T19:49:00.000+08:00

About this supplement

MOUNTAIN RETREATS and HEADHUNTER'S TRAILS

by Stephanie Dychiu

TRIP 1: Baguio-Sagada
MOUNTAIN RETREATS

When you wake up tomorrow morning, take a bath, put on your tie, leather shoes, suspenders, and other articles of clothing that will cover your excuse for a body, and drive to the office.

Then, for a change, imagine how things will be when you’re finally living your dream of going on a road trip. You can fling all your worries to the wind, not caring that the timekeeper in your office will be furiously subtracting numbers from your paycheck (leave without pay, see). That wouldn’t bother you—no, sir!—because by then, you will be in your SUV on your way close to the tip of the North. Just think: five days without cellphones, email, fax machines, and traffic schemes changing by the minute.

Not possible, you say? Think again. We’ve got an itinerary that will take you on your SUV from Manila up to Baguio, the Cordilleras, and back to Manila in five days. It’s a road trip that will soothe your inflamed premature midlife crisis like a salve.

So what are you waiting for? Pack your things, get your set of wheels ready, and disappear from the life that you know and hate—at least for five days.

DAY 1: MANILA-BAGUIO (242 km)
You’ve got a long day of driving ahead of you, so make sure you’re speeding out of Manila on the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) by 7:00 am. Don’t worry about leaving home on an empty stomach or a bursting bladder; there’s a Petron station along the highway with a Pancake House and Starbucks just 15 minutes after you come out of the tollbooths. Take a leisurely hour-and-a-half to have breakfast and shop for supplies at Treats. Make sure you fill up your kikay kit with essentials, not with gum. Then gas up and have a quick vehicle check-up at Petron before getting back on the road.

Follow the highway all the way to Tarlac, where you can take a break for lunch. *Important Tip Not To Be Ignored In All The Excitement: Space out your journey so your companions don’t develop cabin fever and start singing Barry Manilow songs. Several fast food restaurants are located right along the highway in Tarlac, so you won’t be forced to eat Cordillera dog meat this early in the journey. Get back on the road by 1:30 pm, and drive non-stop to Baguio. You should be there by around 4:00 pm.

Baguio
Spend the night in Baguio. Upmarket travelers can stay at Camp John Hay (Loakan Road, Baguio City; Baguio phone: 074-4460231 to 50 local 1003/1004; Manila phone: 8450892 or 8450911). This former sanctuary of the US military is now a tourist playground of pine forests, picnic spots, horse and bike trails, skating rink, and a mini-golf course. For better or for worse, Metro Manila landmarks like Starbucks, Country Waffle, Dencio’s, and Brother's Burger have taken root in the John Hay compound, so you’ll feel like you never left home at all. If you’d rather save your cha-ching to buy knitted Baguio ski caps you won’t ever use, a more affordable alternative to John Hay is the Hotel Supreme near the downtown area (113 Magsaysay Avenue, Baguio City; Phone: 074-4432011).

Have dinner at Café By the Ruins (25 Chuntog St., Baguio City; phone: 074-4424010), arguably Baguio’s most notable and cozy restaurant. Here you can sample Benguet coffee, red rice, and fresh salad greens doused in mouthwatering “Ruins dressing”, a heady mixture of mayonnaise and fish roe you will be obsessing about for the rest of your life. If you’re in the mood for more exotic fare, check out the eateries in the slaughterhouse compound near the Santo Nino Barangay Flea Market, where appetizing Soup No. 5 (cow testicles swimming in beef broth) and mystery meat can be found at prices that are easy on your pocket. For those with weaker stomachs, traditional home-cooked Pinoy fare is also served.

After dinner, comb Session Road and nearby streets for second-hand designer duds to spruce up your sorry wardrobe back home. The wag-wagan (that’s ukay-ukay to you, Manila boy) is a good place to pick up sweaters and coats in case you forgot to pack enough warm clothes in the mad rush to be out of Manila by 7:00 am like we ordered you to do. At an average cost of P50 per clothing item (sometimes with an authentic North Face or Herve Leger label), you’ll be smiling through your sneezing fits while rummaging through the musty piles. Needless to say, but still we will say it for the benefit of the daft, you must wash the clothes before using them.

If the sequined shirts and crocodile boots at the wag-wagan put you in a clubbing mood, throw them on—with lots of cologne—and drive up to Legarda Road for drinks, dancing, and a round or two of billiard games. Gimbals (Mount Crest Hotel, Legarda Road; Phone: 074-4456945) and 18 B.C. feature live bands and the best-looking crowd in all of Baguio. Try your best to fit in, despite how you look.

DAY 2: BAGUIO-MOUNT DATA (100 km)
Make up for all the hours of sleep you lost yesterday by waking up late today. However, it is never good to be driving through mountain roads after dark, so be sure you’re back on track by noon. Bring along some fast food take-out to snack on when you take a quick break later on the way to Mount Data.

Head towards the exit to La Trinidad, Baguio’s neighboring city. Near the exit, you will find the last Petron station you are going to see for the next three days. Better tank up, check your tires, do some yoga if you have time, and complete all necessary vehicle maintenance at this station, because there will be nothing but desolate Halsema Highway from here on.

About 60 kilometers after you exit Baguio, you will come across the highest point of the DPWH national network of highways (7,400 feet above sea level), evidenced by a stone marker carrying the most imaginative name, in case there might be some misunderstanding, of “Highest Point”. This is a good spot to stretch your tired legs and wolf down the fast food take-out you’ve been drooling over since Baguio. Two little sari-sari stalls on this spot sell sodas cooled au naturel by the mountain air. You must try them if only to prove manang isn’t lying when she says, “Oo, malamig po ang coke namin,” even when there’s no fridge in sight. Another 40 kilometers down the road, you will finally reach the Mount Data Hotel, a property of the Philippine Tourism Authority. You should arrive here around 4:00 pm.

Mount Data
Mount Data Hotel (Sinto, Bauko, Mountain Province; Smart Link satellite phone: 0985421514; Resident Manager Dollie Theodore’s cellphone: 0918-3344701) is perhaps the best-value mountain lodge in the country. First-class service and facilities come at economy class prices. This little-known hideaway is actually quite popular among VIPs trying to get away from it all. And if you are a VIP—which, unfortunately, you are not—there would be a point to knowing that a conveniently situated helipad in the hotel lets you quietly chopper in and out with minimum fuss.

This itinerary allows you to stay in Mount Data only until 4:00 pm the following day, so it is recommended that you waste no time sitting down with Resident Manager Dollie Theodore or any of her staff to discuss what sights to see. It’s 100 to 1, though, that you will want to plan a return trip the minute you set foot on this soothing mountain haven.

If you are in a penitent mood after several near-death encounters racing up the rough road from Baguio, drive 30 minutes from Mount Data Hotel to Mount Bandilaan, where you can climb a 200-step hill that leads to a shrine of the Virgin Mary. Or, you can take in the breathtaking views at the Inodey Falls Viewpoint (30 minutes away) and Sabangan Viewpoint (1 hour and 40 minutes away). In Sabangan, you can visit the Sabangan Loom Weaving House, where you can purchase native napkins, table runners, placemats, and bags. For fresh produce grown in the gardens of Bauko, visit the Abatan Public Market 20 minutes away from the hotel. Don’t forget to ask Dollie or her staff about Mount Data’s famous enchanted eel . . . that got your attention now, huh?

DAY 3: MOUNT DATA-SAGADA (50 km)
Get back on Halsema Highway by 4:00 pm so you can reach Sagada by 6:00 pm, when the dark settles in. If it is your first time driving up to Sagada, don’t be foolhardy and attempt to drive in the dark, unless you are curious to know how it feels to hurtle off a cliff behind the wheel of your car, while cows casually graze in the background and wonder about your IQ.

Check yourself in at St. Joseph’s Resthouse (phone: 0918-5595934), one of the best places to stay in Sagada for its convenient yet quiet location on top of a small hill. Dorm rooms are available as well as stand-alone cottages, some with fireplaces. There is a restaurant inside the compound which opens into a small garden set up with picnic tables, where your posse can veg out after the drive from Mount Data.

But don’t vegetate for too long. Everything closes at 9:00 pm in Sagada (really, truly), so hit the town for dinner as soon as you’ve fixed up your lodgings. For such a tiny town, the dining options in Sagada are surprisingly plentiful. This itinerary allocates two days in Sagada, just about enough time to let you sample the best Sagada dining has to offer for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Don’t leave the town without eating at the Yoghurt House, Massferre’s Inn, the Log Cabin, Alfredo’s, and Shamrock Café. Remember to inform the restaurants in advance that you will be dining there so they can ensure your preferred dishes are available and you don’t have to wait long when it’s time to eat. No one wants to see you running amok because of your acidic stomach.

DAY 4: SAGADA
Wake up early so you can visit the tourist information center at the municipal hall to plan out the rest of your stay in Sagada. The info center can assign reliable guides to your group so you can experience the best of Sagada with the little time that you have. Be sure to include these sites on your list:

Sumaging Cave. The most popular tourist site in Sagada, Sumaging is home to bizarre rock formations named “elephant”, “frog”, “pregnant woman”, and many other indefinable shapes (maybe you should name one after yourself). This excursion takes about 3 to 4 hours. Practice your motor skills before taking on this cave because the damp can aggravate your already wobbly sense of balance. Bring along a waterproof daypack with a change of clothes because you will be wading through knee-deep water at some point, or swimming in the waterfall inside the cave. Don’t get too adventurous and start wandering off on your own—a foreigner who tried to do this lost his way and was eventually found dead. Your guides are there for a reason other than to be amused by your pasty-white city-boy legs.

Echo Valley. The stone walls here can create echoes for your voice, hence the name. This area is a sacred burial ground of Sagada’s indigenous tribes so you must treat it with the necessary amount of respect, i.e., no shouting that you are the king of anything. In this valley you can find some of Sagada’s famous hanging coffins, which are actually wooden boxes carrying the remains of the dead that have been hung on the walls like paintings. This excursion will take about 1 hour.

Demang Village. If you’re curious to see what a traditional Sagada village used to look like, Demang is the place to go (not the Net). Cogon houses can be found here, as well as dap-ays, the circular stone structures where village elders meet to discuss community affairs.

Bomod-ok Falls and Bokong Falls. A waterfall is a waterfall, but between these two, it’s still a little hard to choose. Bomod-ok has the stunning big waterfall that is surrounded by rice terraces, but it takes 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there. Bokong is closer, just a 15-minute walk from Sagada’s town center. Although smaller than Bomod-ok, Bokong’s pool is actually deeper. You can dive into it from about 16 feet and pretend you’re not a wimp.

Danum Lake. When you’re through caving, trekking, and swimming around, and you still haven’t lost any body parts, haul yourself over to Danum Lake for a congratulatory picnic. After eating, you can collapse on the grass and pretend you don’t have to walk another hour back into Sagada town. If you’re really too exhausted to move another inch, bribe your companions with full body massages so they’ll set up camp for the night. Don’t bring out your battery-operated massage thingy until they bite.

DAY 5: SAGADA
Did we mention you’ll be rafting on this trip? You never imagined you’d be this excited, right? For good measure, book your rafting romp way ahead while still in Manila.

Save your rafting run for Day 5 when you’ve gained enough perspective to appreciate the historical significance of the Chico River to this region. In 1974, the National Power Corporation proposed the construction of four hydroelectric dams on the Chico River, a project that would increase power supply in Luzon at the cost of destroying centuries-old rice terraces and flooding the ancestral lands of the Cordillera tribes. The previously warring tribes signed peace pacts (bodong) with each other and united to fight the Philippine government. The armed struggle was exacerbated by the killing of tribal leader Macling Dulag by the Philippine Constabulary in 1980. Faced with a common enemy, the New People’s Army (NPA) allied with the local tribes to fight the Philippine military, turning the Cordillera into one of the most militarized regions in the country. The tribes eventually succeeded in their struggle, and the plan to build the dams was abandoned. Today, the Cordillera is a self-governing region of the Philippines where tribal laws still prevail over the management of resources, personal and family relations, and the maintenance of peace and order.

As a rafting destination, foreigners have likened the rapids of the Chico River to the Grand Rapids. The presence of Class 2, 3, and 4 rapids make it an ideal training ground for beginners. You’ll be a little bruised and scratched up by the end of the rafting run, but the eye-popping views of rice terraces, hanging bridges, and local children bathing in the buff will be worth all your nightmares of being dashed to pieces against the rocks.

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TRIP 2: BANAUE-KALINGA-CAGAYAN
HEADHUNTER'S TRAILS

Use your brain cells for a moment and wonder about this: If Herodotus were alive today, what would he consider the real Eighth Wonder of the world? Since the Greek pundit of the Seven Wonders of the World died in 425 B.C., the Cordillera Rice Terraces have been vying for the non-existent eighth title along with Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, the Panama Canal, Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater, and even King Kong.

Fortunately, UNESCO picked up where Herodotus left off and put out a World Heritage List that is not limited to seven or seventy sites, but extends to over seven hundred. In 1995, the Cordillera Rice Terraces were included in the list as “a landscape of great beauty that expresses the harmony between humankind and the environment.”

Yet there is more to the Cordillera than the rice terraces, and in this adventure, you will be entering a no-man’s-land of savage beauty whose fate remains firmly in the grip of the last Filipino headhunters, fierce warrior tribes that have successfully repulsed colonizers for centuries. You will be treading on sacred tribal ground that has been carved out of the sovereign Philippine state, a self-governing land whose concept of justice and retribution dates back to ancient times. Following the headhunters’ tracks can literally be a jaw-dropping experience (see why in Day 3 below). This is a challenge no true adventure traveler should pass up.

DAY 1: MANILA-BANAUE (Via Cabanatuan: 342 km; Via Baguio: 441 km)
If you are coming from Manila, follow the itinerary on Day 1 of Trip 1. We’ll know if you don’t. But this time, go past Baguio and stop for the night in Banaue. You should arrive in Banaue no later than 6:00 pm. Alternatively, this trip can serve as an extension to Trip 1, which ends in Sagada. From Sagada, drive a little over 60 km down to Banaue, a journey that should take around 3 hours or less.

In Banaue, check in at the Banaue Hotel & Youth Hostel (Manila phone: 5242502, 5242495, 5256490; Banaue phone: 073-3864087, 073-3864088). It’s a property of the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA). The hotel stands right in the middle of the 2,000-year-old Banaue Rice Terraces at an elevation of 4,000 feet above sea level. Let’s see you make a dive from there, hotshot. Shoestring travelers can choose to stay in the hostel building which has communal but really comfortable dorm rooms.

Assuming you drove up from Manila and arrived in the early evening, your best bet would simply be to relax your cramped legs in the hotel and sample the offerings of the in-house Imbayah Restaurant, known to be the best in town. On certain evenings, the hotel’s Ifugao employees put together a cultural show for the benefit of tourists—so you’ll have more interesting pictures other than your feet and your index finger.

If, on the other hand, you drove down from Sagada, you should arrive with plenty of daylight left, so head off for lunch at the People’s Lodge and Restaurant (Phone: 073-3864014) in town. This restaurant has a small balcony with a nice view of a hanging bridge over the Chico River, and clusters of tin houses precariously built against the mountainside. Can you say picturesque? Oh, right, you can’t. You can also pick up maps and travel pamphlets at the restaurant’s shop.

A trip to the Banaue Museum is a good way to know about the culture of the places you will be visiting further along on this adventure. The museum is right next to the Banaue View Inn (Phone: 073-3864078), where you can ask for the museum to be opened if it is closed when you arrive. Before turning in for the night, arrange with the front desk of your hotel to have a guide accompany you to Batad the following day because, remember what the doctor said, you’re not supposed to be left to your own devices.

DAY 2: BANAUE
Start the day early and drive to Batad to trek down the amphitheater-like rice terraces. There, you can savor the authentic Ifugao way of life. You can even opt to stay overnight in one of the traditional rice huts—a very interesting experience. The hike to Batad is strenuous and will take over two hours, so make sure you bring lots of water and will power. If you’re not in great shape, ask your guide to bring you to Bangaan instead.

DAY 3: BANAUE-BONTOC-KALINGA
Leave for Kalinga by 9:00 am. En route from Banaue, stop by Bontoc to check out the Bontoc Museum so you can get as much culture while you can, other than ballet. It has a comprehensive collection of Igorot artifacts, from clothing to weapons to gongs (a.k.a. gangsa) with handles made from human jawbones. In traditional headhunting practice, the jawbone is removed after the head of the enemy is lopped off so it can be used to embellish gongs. The jawbones serve as the identification mark of the owner of the gong. See? Getting culture doesn’t have to be all sweetness.

Stop for lunch at the Ridge Brook Hotel and Restaurant, where you can ask about well-known Kalinga guide Francis Pa-In. Francis knows Kalinga customs, history, and culture as well as he will know at first glance that you are actually scared of the dark. He’s been assisting anthropologists and tourists visiting the area for years (among them, David Howard, author of The Last Filipino Head Hunters, a one-of-a-kind book documenting the vanishing culture of the Cordillera tribes, available on Amazon.Com for about US$ 17.50).

Get back on the Halsema Highway by 3:00 pm at the latest to reach Tinglayan in Kalinga by 5:00 pm. You should ideally have a full-time guide with you when you leave Bontoc and head for Kalinga so you won’t end up in the Pacific Ocean. Try to arrange this way ahead before you even leave Manila. Contact Naty Sugguiyao at 0917-9668081 or 0912-8401202 for assistance. Naty is the provincial director of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples who is based in Tabuk, the capital of Kalinga province. She is also one of the prime movers behind Chico River Quest, Inc. (www.chicoriverquest.com.ph), the pioneer rafting tour operator in Kalinga.

In Tinglayan, expect lodging options to be clean but basic. The Luplupa Riverside Inn is quietly tucked away inside Luplupa village and is the newest among the lodging houses in the area. Other options are the Sleeping Beauty Resthouse and the Good Samaritan Resthouse, which are closer to the Chico river but also closer to the roadside, making noise levels definitely higher than Luplupa Riverside Inn. These establishments all have limited beds, so be sure to make your reservations with Naty even before you leave Metro Manila. You can also ask her about the latest road conditions (landslides are a fixture in the Cordillera) and water levels of the Chico River (if you intend to raft or kayak).

DAY 4: KALINGA
Look up a man named Moises Atuban to help you get around Tinglayan. Moises lives in Luplupa, a village of less than 900 people (half of whom are below 18), where everyone knows everyone else.

Moises is one of the first locals to be trained as a rafting guide by Ned Sickels, an American photographer and rafting expert from Oregon who was befriended by Naty Sugguiyao while traveling in the United States, and persuaded to visit the Philippines to set up rafting tours on the Chico River.

Today, the Chico River Quest, Inc. is run entirely by the locals in Kalinga who are dedicated to preserving the river’s cultural significance and ecological value even while promoting it as a world-class whitewater rafting destination. National tourism officials can learn a thing or two from the initiative and ingenuity of these Kalinga folk.

According to Moises, whitewater rafting in Kalinga is best from September to January, after the rainy season has passed. Various river runs can be arranged, such as:

Tinglayan Marathon Run. This is a stretch of Class 4 rapids covering the length of the Chico River from Tinglayan to Tabuk. Rafting time in high water is 4 to 5 hours, going up 6 to 7 hours at lower water levels.

Chico River-Tabuk Day Run. This is a 3-hour rafting trip with Class 3 rapids that are ideal for beginners. Enjoy beautiful scenery without the treacherous continuous rapids of the Tinglayan Marathon Run.

Saltan River Marathon Run. The first day will be spent going from Tabuk to Balbalan where travelers can stay with a Kalinga family. The second day starts with a 30-minute trek through the rainforest, followed by a 4-hour, 30-kilometer Class 4 run down the Saltan River. The stunning limestone gorge, tranquil pools, and cascading waterfalls you will witness during this run will make you forget that you are actually scared witless of the rapids.

While in Kalinga, do not pass up the chance to trek through the villages and observe the local people’s way of life that remains largely untouched by outside influences. But don’t stare. You are bound to see old men and women with tattooed bodies roaming around the villages. Tattoos on a man signify that he was once a headhunter while women sport tattoos merely for adornment. Most of them will cooperate if you ask for a photo-op, so bring some medicines or matches to thank them afterwards (Cash is discouraged. So is a rendering of your favorite song). Make sure a competent guide is with you at all times.

DAY 5: KALINGA-CAGAYAN (45 km)
Time to make the final push to Cagayan Valley, where caving awaits as a welcome break to all the rafting you’ve been doing—or frantically trying to do. Hit the mountain road departing from Kalinga by 6:00 am, and you should get to Tuguegarao, the capital of Cagayan province, in about two hours. Have a bite at Pension Lorita (Rizal St., Tuguegarao City; Phone: 078-8441390) before venturing another 24 kilometers to the Callao Caves Tourist Zone in Peñablanca, where you can check in at the Callao Caves Resort (Phone: 078-8441057) along the Pinacanauan River.

Callao Cave is a seven-chambered limestone cave that can be accessed either by taking a boat or walking 200 steps up to the cave entrance. It doesn’t have a helipad, unfortunately. Natural skylights in the cave keep it relatively well-lit and well-ventilated. One of the cave chambers has been converted into a chapel with wooden pews and a stone altar. Towards the end of that chamber is a statue of the Holy Family sitting on an unreachable rise by one wall. Bat droppings are common inside but don’t worry, they don’t smell as bad as yours.

Hire a guide to help you explore this natural wonder through the Sierra Madre Outdoor Club (Region 2 Department of Tourism, 2F Supermarket Building, Bonifacio St., Tuguegarao City, Cagayan; Phone: 078-8441621, 078-8462435).

Spend the rest of your remaining time in the Callao Tourist Zone swimming in the Pinacanauan River or exploring the other caves in the vicinity. Just make sure you have a good rest before making the long drive home. You’ve gained bragging rights. It would be a shame not to claim those rights at the office just because you fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a tree, and met Elvis.

(This article originally appeared in Petron Rover, an FHM supplement, in November 2003.)

Stephanie Dychiu FHM Supplement - How to Plan a Road Trip

2010-04-09T19:47:00.001+08:00

About this supplement
STEPPING OUT
How to Plan Your Next Rip-Roarin’ Romp on the Road
by Stephanie Dychiu

So you’ve finally worked up enough nerve to get off your lazy ass and hit the open road. A road trip is the beginning of the unknown and the start of a new dawn, the excitement of the chase and a move into the unexpected. However, before you get carried away with your own poetic lines, there is plenty to do to ensure things remain under your control and you have a good time. Preparation is a good thing and should smooth out the hassle of a bad beginning.

Choosing a destination
You can’t get to where you’re going if you don’t know where to go, genius. Figure this out by asking yourself why you want to go on a road trip. What do you want to get out of it? Are you simply out for a weekend of aimless fun and frolic, or are you searching for something more specific? We suggest organizing your trip around a theme to make it more focused and memorable:

Retrace your roots. Return to the old provincial house where your parents grew up and imagine how life was when they were your age. Look up old neighbors, friends, and teachers who knew them back then and ask what they were like. Unless, of course, you’d rather not know.

Take a food trip. Be a true-blue road hog and make eating your sole reason for traveling. Go on a noble quest for the best roadside bulalohan in Batangas . . . and pray the cholesterol doesn’t kill you so you can live to tell about it. But hey, you only live once.

Pursue a personal interest. Spend your holiday learning a new skill or researching a project. Weekend surfing and sailing lessons are offered in La Union and Subic. Or you might want to get ideas for building your dream house by photographing Spanish-era structures in Vigan and Taal town.

Other practical considerations before deciding on a destination:

Budget. Everything begins and ends with how much money you’re willing to spend. From gas, to food, to hotels, toll, entrance fees and late-night drinking sprees, you’ll be shelling out all the way. Always travel within your means and set aside enough for emergencies—like landslides on a major mountain road that can leave you and your car stranded for a day or two.

Weather. Like we said, landslides . . . oftentimes, they are triggered by heavy rainfall. Floods and blow-your-butt-away winds can also put a major damper on road trips (and on your budget).

Road conditions. Unless you’ve got the patience of an Easter flagellant, it is best to avoid areas undergoing major road construction or repair. You may also want to keep your shiny new shock absorbers as far away as possible from very rough, unpaved roads.

Religious and cultural festivals. It’s really up to you. Some people actually like to join in the crush of merry-making. Others would rather head for the hills and be anti-social. Either way, it would be good to know of any major events in places you plan to visit, especially when the events in question include a mass circumcision-cum-batchoy festival.

Time. Road trips are not exactly the fastest way to get from one point to another, so if you’ve got a co-dependent boss who suffers from serious separation anxiety, you might want to rethink your plans. Save long drives for seasons when you can take longer leaves--no one wants to invest 12 hours of driving on an overnight destination. But then again, you may just want to tell your boss to go to hell. It happens.

Choosing companions
Don’t waste your hard-earned gas money and precious vacation leaves on the right trip with the wrong crowd. It’s better to go at it alone (or stay home knitting) if you can’t find the right travel partner. Sit your comrades down and go through this questionnaire to find out if you’ll still be bosom buddies when you’re tired, hungry, dirty, and trapped in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire and no spare.

1. What is the total amount of money you plan on spending for this trip?
2. What are the places you’d like to see and the activities you’d like to do?
3. How much time do you expect to spend by yourself? With the group?
4. Do you expect the group to eat every meal together?
5. What type of food will you absolutely not eat?
6. How will you feel if members of the group become romantically involved during the trip? (Assuming it’s not with you, in which case check for a big “L” on your forehead.)
7. What type of accommodations and bathroom situation are you expecting?
8. What time do you prefer to wake up in the mornings? Go to bed at night?
9. To what extent are you willing to engage in strenuous physical activity (we mean hiking and carrying heavy gear over long distances, this is not a follow-up to question 6)?
10. In case an emergency situation arises, what can you contribute to help the group (aside from moral support)?

Honest and open communication at the planning stage ensures no one gets voted out by the end of the trip. Especially not you.

Final reminders
Everything’s all set, you’re really raring to go! Make sure you’ve got all of the following before heading out the door:
- First-aid kit with iodine (good for treating wounds and disinfecting drinking water), bandages, anti-histamines, paracetamol or ibuprofen, anti-diarrhea tablets, oral rehydration salts, and no-drowse anti-motion sickness tablets. Stay off the “medicinal” brandy.
- Car toolkit
- Spare tire
- Flashlight with spare batteries
- Cell phone and charger
- Valid car registation, auto insurance policy, and driver’s license
- Maps
- Money and credit cards (duh!)
- Luggage

That’s about it, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Go well and stay well!

EASY RIDERS
Save yourself from grumbling and gripe-fests from the tollbooth to the boondocks. Here’s how to keep your passengers happy during the long ride.

Audio books. Audio books are a great way to help everyone forget they’re cramped and bored in the car. Go for fiction titles, not cheesy motivational tapes. Don’t play the entire book uninterrupted during the ride. Pause periodically to discuss everyone’s thoughts on the unfolding saga, and what they think will happen next. Whodunnits are most fun for this activity. If you have children (or childish adults) in the car, Disney audio tapes are a sure winner (you’ll just have to put up with the singing).

Karaoke Klub. The night before the trip, instruct everyone to bring along a tape or CD for impersonating their favorite singer. They can even dress up like him or her if they want. At the start of the ride, play the DJ and pretend you’re hosting a variety show. Interview your “guest stars” about their latest shows and movies before letting them perform. But ask yourself: which is better, a 6-hour-long stream of complaints, or your tone-deaf friend singing Abba?

Twenty Questions. Let one person think of something that falls under any of three categories which the group can decide on (for instance: NBA stars, action stars, porn stars), then have him write it down on a small piece of paper. The others can then take turns trying to figure out what he wrote by asking questions answerable by Yes or No. For example, if the category is sexy stars, the first player can ask, “Has she been on the cover of FHM?” Whenever the answer is Yes, that same player can continue asking questions that will help him guess the right answer. If he asks a question to which the answer is No, his turn passes on to the next player. The maximum number of questions that can be asked by the group collectively is twenty. Then a new person will begin another round by writing another word on the piece of paper.

(This article originally appeared in Petron Rover, an FHM supplement, in April 2002.)

Stephanie Dychiu FHM Supplement - Road Trip Magazine

2010-04-09T19:46:00.001+08:00

Between 2002-2003, produced small road trip mag for Petron under Summit Media. Inserted in FHM and distributed at gas stations during peak travel months (April and November). Readers happy but free titles hard to sustain. Lasted five issues. These are the covers of the first and last issues, and the ed's letters that explain "intent".

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Editor's Letter - First Issue (April 2002)

IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT
Escaping Metro Manila by car is often a formidable task, one that requires truckloads of patience and sometimes, a profound death wish. EDSA at the wrong time of day can truly be the passage to hell. Buses and jeepneys never give an inch. Motorcycles thrust and weave like bats out of hell. At the root of all evil is the motorist’s horn. Some dark force has placed the horny hand of Manila motorists on a pedestal of discontent. Start dreaming of the countryside now or you might pull over and abandon your vehicle. The horn cries out constantly in echoes of frustration, aggression, attraction, and greeting. Have no fear, control yourself, the tollbooths are getting nearer . . . soon, you’ll be burning rubber on the open road.

Our mission at Petron Rover is simple: we want you to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Traveling isn’t just a matter of getting from point A to point B and missing everything in between. Road-tripping is a unique form of travel in a league of its own. Cheaper than air or sea travel, it gives you unlimited freedom to get close to your chosen destination. With Rover, you’ll be experiencing higher highs on the road you never thought possible.

But before sending you off on the road journey that will change your life, we want to make sure you’re well-equipped for it. Check out our Gear, Wear, and Grub sections on pages 2-5 to see the latest outdoor products for easing life on the go. We’ve also tapped into the fifteen-year experience of Lakbay Alalay, Petron’s annual motorist assistance project during holidays, to bring you expert advice on getting your car ready for the long haul (pages 6-7), and dealing with roadside emergencies (page 8).

Best of all, we’ve road-tested two—that’s TWO—excellent road adventures for you to try out this summer. Start small with a laid-back three-day jaunt to nearby Tagaytay and Batangas (pages 11-14), before taking on the challenge of a five-day expedition up the rugged coast of the Ilocos Region and the mountains of Cagayan Valley (pages 15-19). Nervous? Don’t be. Petron Rover will be with you all the way, supplying maps, tips, trivia, and endless ideas for enjoying the ride while staying safe. Count on us for more than gas. But if gas is what you need, you’re never too far from a friendly Petron service station, whether you’re cruising along a bustling provincial town or speeding down the lonely highway. Find them clearly marked on the maps of our featured trip routes.

You’ve got the full force of the country’s largest oil company to back you up, no one knows life on the road better than we do. So switch off that TV and rev up that SUV! Your journey into a brave new world of adventure begins now.

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Editor's Letter - Last Issue (November 2003)

BECAUSE THE ROAD IS THERE
It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. . . "Whooee!" yelled Dean. "Here we go!” And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that. We were delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time—to move.
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Beatnik icon Jack Kerouac was on a high when he wrote the great road trip epic On the Road in the 1950s. It was a time when the American Dream had failed, and an entire generation was swept by the need to be liberated from materialism and break away from conformity. There was only one way to live out the dream: out on the open road.

Times are no different now. The Philippines stands on the brink of yet another showbiz presidency, your boss just told you they’re cutting bonuses again this year, and you spend your free time posing in Makati bars pretending your life means something .

All those who are nodding, put your hands in the air and say, “Alleluia! I am a loser in desperate need of salvation!” Fear not, brother! For you who are weary of the same old same old, we offer a sliver of hope—a natural high taller than your 35th floor office cubicle awaits at the towering peaks of the Central Cordillera.

In this untouched region of primeval landscapes and fearless warrior tribes, you can hike up forests to view centuries-old hanging coffins, shoot rapids with the rice terraces as your backdrop, and dive off 20-foot waterfalls into the crystal clear waters of a natural swimming pool. If you just turn to pages 10-19, you’ll find out more of the how, where, when, forsooth, and therefore of the adventure that awaits you and your SUV.

But as always, before venturing into unfamiliar ground, make sure you’re good and ready. The road less traveled is the road where most accidents happen, especially when you’re behind the wheel. Pack only essential survival gear (page 2-3) and remember the rules of driving in the rain (page 6-7). The Boy Scouts of the Philippines will teach you how to make do with wilderness chow (page 4-5), because you’ll need all the help you can get when you set out. When you--theoretically-- know all the outdoor skills you’ll be needing, it’s time to let inspiration hit you. Read about the survival stories of those who have looked death in the face, and lived to tell the tale (page 8-9). (Okay, you’re allowed a few tears.)

Now, there is a universal rule that when city folk are stuck on an unpaved path in the dark due to a faulty 4x4, the strangers who come along should be kind and helpful. In the middle of producing this issue, the Petron Rover team’s 4x4 succumbed to the strain of rough mountain driving and busted a tire axle on the remote dirt road between Bontoc and Banaue. The sun had set, the rain started to pour, and it looked like we were in for a long, uncomfortable night with nothing but cigarettes, water, and Massive Attack songs for sustenance. Who should come upon us but a group of staffers from the Bontoc hospital on their way home after delivering a dead body to another town? Our heartfelt thanks to Mang Dimas and Mang Eduardo for the six hours that you spent tirelessly removing the damaged auto part in the dark, running it back to Bontoc, forcing the town’s only welding shop to open late at night, and never letting our vehicle out of your sight until we were safely tucked in our hotel again. This issue (and autographed Bong Revilla photos, as requested) is for you.

We leave you and your midlife crisis with more words of wisdom from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road: "Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."

Safe journeys.

Stephanie Dychiu ENTREPRENEUR - Managing Credit

2010-04-09T19:45:00.002+08:00

After surviving Chartered Financial Analyst exam.

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CREDIT IS GOOD, BUT WE NEED CASH
by Stephanie Dychiu

Extending credit to customers is risky business—it can dramatically increase sales, but also bury you in uncollectible debt. Here’s what you need to know to make credit work for you.

These days it’s practically impossible to run a business without offering credit to customers. If handled right, extending credit can really boost your sales. Generally, people like delaying payment for as long as possible so they can use their cash for other things. Or sometimes, they experience a temporary cash shortage, and flexible payment terms enables them to continue acquiring the goods they need until their cash position improves. Restaurateur Heidi Ng, proprietor of Don Henrico’s in Malate and West Avenue, confirms this: “Credit terms have a huge influence in my decision to go with a certain supplier,” she says. “It’s more convenient for cash flow and check releasing.”

The cost of giving credit
Extending credit may increase your sales, but this does not necessarily mean your profits will also increase. This is because you will be incurring additional costs, such as:

Additional working capital. Working capital is the cash you leave tied up in the business to ensure smooth day-to-day operations. It is computed from your balance sheet using the following formula: Receivables + Inventory – Payables. Extending credit can mean higher receivables. The higher the working capital stuck in your business, the more opportunity cost you incur, because this money could otherwise have been earning interest in the bank.

Higher salaries and admin expense. You will need to set up a Credit and Collection department to do credit investigation, keep track of receivables, and remind customers to pay up. This means hiring more people, buying additional office supplies and equipment, and higher phone and electric bills.

Bad debts expense. Hardly any business that offers sales on credit is able to collect 100% of its receivables. You must be prepared to absorb some amount of bad debt. This can range between 1% to 50% of sales, or even higher, depending on the industry you operate in.

You have to make sure the increase in sales that will result from relaxing your payment terms is enough to offset these additional costs, and make a tidy profit. Otherwise, it’s not worth it, just stick to your no-brainer COD (cash on delivery) payment policy and save yourself the grief.

Evaluating credit-worthiness
In the US, evaluating a customer’s credit application simply means calling up the credit investigation bureau, but here in the Philippines we unfortunately cannot be as straightforward. Anthony Que Garcia of Integrated Resources Construction, a firm engaged in the construction of residential and commercial buildings, relies on word of mouth and past experience to gauge clients' ability—and willingness—to pay. "Kung hindi ko kilala, I get extra careful," he says.

Here are a few ways you can get inside info on a customer:

Get a copy of his latest financial statements from the SEC. Examine your customer’s liquidity position by computing his current ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities) and average collection period (accounts receivable divided by average daily sales). These two ratios show his ability to repay debts. The current ratio should at least be 1.5 or higher, and his average collection period should ideally be a lot shorter than the number of days you’re giving him to pay for his purchases.

Ask for a bank certification. If the customer is an individual and not a corporate entity, the SEC won’t have any record of him. Ask him instead to present a certification from at least 2 banks confirming that he has maintained a certain average daily balance for the last 6 months (enough to get you paid).

Visit his place of business. Be very observant during the visit, noting the quality of the surroundings, number of employees, level of activity, and, most especially, the types of fixed assets lying around. Vehicles, machinery, equipment, and land are some of the properties you can lay claim on if he fails to pay his debts in the future. The atmosphere at his place of work will also give you an idea if his business is doing well or not.

Tap the grapevine. In business, it pays to gossip. Casually mention your client to his other suppliers, bankers, lawyers, and friends to see if any interesting information pops up. You might find out he has outstanding loans with too many banks and suppliers, and most of the fixed assets he owns already have claims on them.

Painless credit and collection
“Credit is all about relationships,” notes Heidi Ng of Don Henrico’s. “Normally, you only give credit to customers with whom you already have a good relationship. But sometimes that relationship can actually make it harder to collect. Mahihiya ka kasi.” In a society as non-confrontational as the Philippines, it is hard to talk about past-due debts. Transactions are often done through chika and pakiusap. However, there are mechanisms you can put in place to protect yourself without alienating your clients:

Always ask for a downpayment. Ideally, the downpayment should already cover your cost of production for the customer’s order, and the balance is simply your mark-up.

Require post-dated checks to be submitted before approving an order. This is by far the best way to protect yourself from bad debt. If the customer defaults, he will be liable not only for breach of contract but also for estafa, which is a criminal offense. This will make him think twice about not paying up.

Engage the services of a credit card company. This effectively passes on the risk of not collecting to the credit card company. In exchange, the credit card company will expect you to “sell” your receivables to them at a 3-5% discount, which means you’ll only get P95.00-97.00 for every P100.00 worth of credit sales generated by your business. Seems pretty steep, but if it means you won’t have to maintain your own Credit and Collection department, it just might be worth it.

Offer additional discounts for prompt payment. The discount you offer for early payment must be substantial enough to make customers feel they are suffering a big opportunity loss by not paying on time. Ideally, the effective yield of the discount should be higher than bank money market rates, otherwise the customer will feel he is better off putting his money in a time deposit instead of paying you right away. Offering discounts will cut your profit margins, but if it saves you the headache of running after customers who refuse to pay up, it might be worth it.

Insert penalty clauses for late payment in contracts and invoices. This so-called “fine print” on your documents should be carefully worded so as not to scare off customers. Consult a lawyer to make sure your penalty clauses are within the bounds of the law. “You can also do advance billing,” suggests Anthony Que Garcia of Integrated Resources Construction, “since they know you can deliver on time, and everything is ready when the due date comes.”

When all else fails . . .
Go to court! But leave this as a last resort, as it can be both emotionally and financially draining. “Businessmen should be encouraged to go into preventive law, not damage control,” says Atty. Eugenio Villareal, Managing and Litigation Partner at Escudero, Marasigan, Vallente, and E.H. Villareal (EMSAVVIL Law), and professor at the Ateneo School of Law. “Keeping a lawyer on general retainer is a good investment in the long run, because he can make sure your business documents carry all the necessary clauses to protect your interests from the very start.” A general retainer fee can be as low as P3,500 or as high as P20,000 per month, depending on the needs of the client and the law firm you decide to engage.

Before deciding to sue, Atty. Villareal advises doing the following:

Send a demand letter. The first demand letter can be signed by you, the business owner, sent around 30-60 days after the receivable falls due. A second demand letter, this time signed by your lawyer, can be sent after 90 days. Be sure to confirm the customer received your “gentle reminder” by getting someone from his office to sign a receiving copy.

Know your legal position. “Even if you know deep in your heart that you are on the side of the right,” says Atty. Villareal, “what is morally right is not always the same as what is legally right. Make sure there is evidence of an unfulfilled obligation and that you did not in any way contribute to the customer defaulting on payment (such as by unreasonably refusing payment tendered).”

Determine if filing a case will be cost-effective. Taking a person to court is expensive. Lawyers’ fees and filing fees can reach hundreds of thousands, even millions. “You must also determine if the person you’re suing has the capacity to pay damages,” says Atty. Villareal. “Otherwise, it may be futile.” Refer to the previous section on Evaluating Credit-Worthiness to determine your customer’s financial standing.

Going to court is unpleasant, time-consuming, and expensive, but is oftentimes necessary even if it is not cost-effective. “If you don’t take action, you’ll start accumulating massive unexplainable bad debts in your accounting books,” says Atty. Villareal. “Shareholders and bankers funding your business will not be happy with that.”

(This article originally appeared in ENTREPRENEUR, September 2002.)

Stephanie Dychiu wins Scholarum Award for Journalism

2009-09-09T10:41:00.007+08:00

Stephanie Dychiu's story "New Lives for Teen Gangs" for Marie Claire magazine received the 2009 Lasallian Scholarum award for outstanding media coverage of youth issues.

The panel of judges for the 2009 Scholarum Awards included Isabela Governor Grace Padaca, University of the Philippines Journalism Chairperson Rachel Khan, De La Salle University Marketing Communication Executive Director Jose Mari Magpayo, Knowledge Channel Foundation President Rina Lopez-Bautista, and RFM Corporation President Joey Concepcion.

CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES - Jaime Laya by Stephanie Dychiu

2009-07-10T07:30:00.008+08:00

JAIME LAYA: A COLLECTOR'S JOURNEY

FILGOLF - Claude Tayag on Celebrity Chefs and Cooking as Art

2009-04-09T18:49:00.040+08:00

Some people think if they can cook, they can run a restaurant. You don’t have a restaurant. You see the difference. One is art, the other is business.

Maybe I’m not ready, or maybe that’s one of my long-term . . . I’m happy where I am. It’s tempting. I’m not keeping it closed. But not now. Dami kong offers sa mga mall, pero di ko pa kaya.

LIVING ASIA CHANNEL - Caramoan Islands

2009-02-16T23:20:00.051+08:00

MARIE CLAIRE - Manila's Park Avenue Gangstas by Stephanie Dychiu

2009-01-13T19:33:00.012+08:00

Editor's Letter, Marie Claire, January 2009:
. . . about her story 'New Lives for Teen Gangs', Stephanie Dychiu says, "meeting the Park Avenue gangstas was a reminder that change and hope don't always have to come in big sweeping moments--they can take place in small acts aimed at one person at a time." A group called Community and Family Services International whose spokesperson is comedienne/actress Tessie Tomas helps these kids change the course of their future.

FILGOLF - Tagaytay's Small Hotels

2008-12-09T23:53:00.027+08:00

STAYING INN

By Stephanie Dychiu

Tagaytay’s small hotels give reason to stay indoors and snuggle.

The Boutique Bed and Breakfast