Lost in Baler

This is where they filmed ‘Anaconda’, I was afraid one of them would joke. Amidst our silent passage the young driver JP said in earnest, “This is where they filmed Anaconda.”

We were walking the knee-deep waters of Cemento Bay in east of Baler, past an unwavering network of mangroves firmly planted underneath, through golden waves twinkling in the 3 p.m. sunlight then crashing against the rocky reefs. It was my first fashion shoot, I think. I’m not really sure. What I knew was that I was on assignment for coverage of the next day’s long board surfing competition in Sabang Beach, a ten-minute drive from where we presently were.

How romantic it is to be lost in an island!, I thought, almost stumbling over a crushed coral. I wouldn’t say that our group was a concentration of modern Filipino stereotypes, but there we were looking like the simplified sociology of a people from Manila: Ray, a warehouse worker; Renato, a seasoned service driver; Ivan H., a backpacking freelance photographer and independent filmmaker; Roel and Vangie, corporate managers with more than sufficient budget for media mileage, sponsorship, and public relations; Nykko, a freelance magazine photographer and full-time graphic artist; Cory, an Australian surfer, commercial model, and yoga instructor; Cory’s girl Raya, an international model, very skinny, fond of reading Coehlo; JP, the above-mentioned comedian who claimed to have had Japanese and Norwegian girlfriends; and yours truly, a writer frustrated with such “interruptive” out-of-town assignments.

Sunny April, I soon discovered from one of the locals, was already the start of the calm season. I wouldn’t have witnessed the fourteen-foot waves; none of that even after an eight-hour drive from the metro to one of the fastest-rising attractions in the Philippines! The trip had been rocky, literally and at best. Nykko and I were, uncomfortably, the only media invitees, and throughout the expedition, the convoy of which we were part was met by ominous mountains and their even more ominous cliffs, by unspoken fears of being held as urban hostages of the New People’s Army, and by the rigidity of courtesies common amongst strangers journeying together.

Upon our arrival at the destination, however, all unease was quickly dismissed. I saw that the Baler province of Aurora was a natural gem. The grandest vista of the Sierra Madre mountain range from a shore of sand; the youngest Filipino surfing prodigies; the brownest bodies I have ever laid my eyes on, of both sexes, and easily the most defined since my seeing the movie 300; the best second-language Australian, Japanese, and American speakers. Bob Marley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and ska boomed all throughout the preparatory activities; it was against this background that I did my first round of interviews. Then damning whatsoever the itinerary had decreed (if there was one at all), Nykko and I were obliged only to join the photo shoot because so many people had been lining up for the volleyball games. And I had wanted to find out what modeling entailed aside from…uh, from being beautiful. But I got bored in the first five minutes of the shoot.

So I found myself a quiet spot in the most secluded part of the bay: on the farthest solid rock, in the society of a shy seashell. There I read Evelyn Waugh and E.L. Doctorow until the sun began to set.

When we drove back to the main beach of Sabang, I paid no heed to the bustle and excitement for the morrow. Instead I made good on my resolution to watch, at least once a year, the starry constellation spread across the black above us. I noticed, too, that by the streets there were no lampposts – only fireflies over our heads, fluttering brightly.

Dangwa

A rainy day isn’t the best time to visit the place, but if you’ve never heard of Dangwa – the flower market in Sampaloc – you cannot yet consider yourself a real “Manilenyo”. It is home to over fifty flower vendors, and a haven to the diverse daily crowd of visitors looking for the cheapest blooms to fit the occasion.

I’d be foolish to suppose myself a connoisseur in floral affairs, but when my friend, an event organizer, declared that the weekday night wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the brightest spot in Dos Castillas' most famous market, I had to oblige. And so should you.

Bring a camera if you wish (the colors will simply astound you), and take the liberty of posing beside remarkably cheap chrysanthemums, the price of which you may still haggle with the vendor. To my knowledge, all the shops are open 24-7. If you’re running on a really tight budget for those imported tulips, a trip to Dangwa is also your best bet. Dangwa’s flowers are, by nature, completely the opposite of today’s gasoline: there’s always a great supply; it’s affordable even in high demand; and the pricing won’t make you think twice.

For a guy like me, Dangwa comes in handy during the most sudden of dates. Indeed, it's the ultimate florists' corner, the romantics' favorite pit stop, that smells of La Trinidad, Davao, Cotabato, Thailand, Holland, and Ecuador; of the petals and twigs and pleasantnesses of elsewhere. But what makes Dangwa truly unique is that it represents what Manila is all about: creativity, color, cut-price commodities, and cherished traditions. Oh, and of course, the familiar chatter of Pinoy customers asking for “tawad, tawad po, wala bang tawad?”

Thank You, Iloilo

Iloilo City is a gritty city, particularly downtown. To me, it looks like certain parts of old Manila, the parts where I don’t usually go, like Escolta in Santa Cruz or Carriedo, where the dear old fountain is. While on a three-day, two night stay in the capital of the Western Visayan province of the same name, as I was taking an afternoon walk along the streets and sidestepping shards of beer bottles on an abandoned lot, the absurd thought occurred to me that if I were to live in this city, if I were to fit in here and survive for a long period of time or at least look like I’d be able to, I’d probably have to get myself a tattoo, try my best to look like a scoundrel.

Maybe it's not that absurd, for Iloilo seems to be that kind of place. Not that there isn’t anything beautiful that awaits visitors to the city –because, mind you, there’s plenty– but as I explored its downtown area on foot, the sun shining hard on its roads and, at best, only the mildest breeze stirring in the afternoon heat, there wasn’t much else that struck me harder and more profoundly than did its general - what? Artlessness? Lack of urbanity? And I have seen Philippine provinces with weather more agreeable and tropical than this one – sidewalks less littered, too. Cigarette butts decorated the pavements. Dogs strayed, ugly dogs. Faded tarpaulin posters, most of them from the last elections, covered the cracked walls of broken-down buildings. In front of one such building on Calle Real, I saw vendors selling fake Rolexes and blocking the entrance to a local pharmacy. Jeepneys, taxis, tricycles, and pedicabs staggered in all directions, heedless of jaywalking pedestrians and traffic lights on roads which, surprisingly wide though they were, looked nevertheless to be in surgery. At Plaza Libertad, a public park five minutes from the hotel where I was staying, a statue of Rizal stood almost irrelevantly, a marble monument of one of the great Filipino artists ignored by shirtless, brown-skinned boys playing basketball and crying foul in Ilonggo. I wondered if the churchgoers inside nearby Iglesia de San Jose de Placer could hear the fun they were having, what fun, shooting hoops to the soundtrack of spoken sermons and holy hymns, and with a view of one of those Spanish-era structures dilapidating in a way that texture photographers would find accidentally beautiful, along with Iloilo’s other ruins, churches, temples, bell towers, art deco stones, ancestral houses, government offices, and heritage buildings.

As soon as the young men finished a pick-up game, they resumed another. I took pictures; I took notes. They probably played basketball here until it was lights out, and perhaps days here weren’t done until after the closing hours of Plaza Libertad.

To tell you the truth, I had expected differently. But what? I can’t say for certain. When, from the gleaming Iloilo International Airport, I jumped into a taxi, I immediately noticed that the driver had not turned on his meter. He instead proposed a fixed fare, “four hundred pesos, sir,” revealing that he had a family of four to feed and that yesterday’s bread wouldn’t have been enough. Naturally, being from Manila, I didn’t budge.

“I didn’t know I was at home,” I remarked, not without the dripping sarcasm of suburban collar-poppers. “Manong, turn on the meter, please.”

His face was creased with lifelines and his mouth wouldn’t shut; he seemed just of the kind of swindling Filipino taxi drivers to which I am particularly averse. Passionately, he continued to argue. “I’ve been waiting five hours to get a passenger. Five hours! Since seven in the morning!”

“How’s that my fault?” I replied. “If you think you’re getting such a raw deal then change your job.”

It was later that afternoon, after no more than five minutes in my suffocating room at the City Corporate Inn on Rizal Street, that I headed out to walk. Walking, after all, is my greatest equalizer – or should I say tranquilizer?; it calms me down and keeps me from being irrational; and, since any ride would be too fast, a walk has also proven many times to be my richest source of material for writing (that is, if I am writing at all). How else can I describe Life but with the impressive memory of this papery-lipped old man sun-drying his fish out on the asphalt road in the middle of a March afternoon, howling his last price per kilo in a pleading vernacular that I can perhaps never politely condescend myself to understand, but at the sound of which I felt at once blessed and broken? And what else can I say about Love but that it occurred before me as a split-second kiss planted tenderly on the whitener-whitened cheek of a nursing student’s beloved in a jeep that was rumbling and heaving its way to who knew where – might it have been to the woefully commercial Robinson’s Place or the woefully kept University of Iloilo? And how else can I capture Loneliness than by saying it was what I felt at the sight of a middle-aged woman in Jollibee, by herself, all by her damned motherly self, auburn-dyed hair, tinted glasses, pearl earrings, a very 80s print skirt, velvet fingernails, and a faltering appetite, fiddling with and poking her seventy-nine-peso Chicken Joy as though she was performing a poultry autopsy? I would have come nearer as a friendly stranger and struck up a conversation, so that the world would seem to her less unkind, but no sooner than when I closed my book (My Name is Red) and stood up to do that did I notice that there were quiet tears that filled her eyes.

I was determined to avoid fast-food chains the next day and thus ended up breakfasting in Ted’s. If there’s anything, after all, for which Iloilo is nationally famous, it's Batchoy. Rumor has it that it was originally conceived by Chinese immigrants in the provincial district of La Paz. Somewhat like the city, the dish looked to me like a thoughtless muddle – of miki noodles, pieces of meat, and abused bits of garlic, pepper, leeks and pork cracklings, all deposited in a bowl of spiteful-looking broth.

Of course, it was good. I even slurped my soup.

Cicerone: Attractions Philippines in Rizal and Manila

The middle of last week was highlighted by a day-long immersion trip at the municipality of Angono in the province of Rizal, the so-called art capital of the Philippines, where scattered were a motley assortment of unheralded visual artistry and heritage sites. We drove to the modish Thunderbird Resorts for a photo shoot, but were more taken by the hotel’s convenient proximity to what no one stuck in Manila might ever discover: a breathtaking view of the lake, beside which were quiet –almost mute– fishing villages; the Petroglyphs Site Museum, where in 1965, National Artist Carlos “Botong” Fransisco stumbled upon a cave with Neolithic (3000 BC) engravings and which is now considered by UNESCO as one of the most endangered sites in the world (very Indiana Jones, archaeologically speaking); and imaginative figure painter Nemesio Miranda’s folkloric Arthouse.

Touring the artist’s atelier and visual gallery, we learned that the place was also a venue for workshops, competitions, and exhibits – legitimizing its moniker as the town’s “School for the Arts”. Then we dined in the evening at the Nemiranda Art Café Grill and Restaurant.

Before the weekend, I struck a brief yet very agreeable E-mail correspondence with Manila’s ultimate cicerone, Carlos Celdran. I asked him where I could find the “best little boutique bookseller” in Manila –the La Solidaridad, that is– because I was planning on spending the whole of Saturday acquiring a few good titles I was never able to unearth in any Powerbooks branch or ‘leading bookstore’. He gladly gave me the directions.

“But since you’re going to be in Manila anyway,” Carlos added, “go to Intramuros and check out the third floor of The Silahis Center (an emporium of arts, crafts, and antiques), where you’ll find Tradewinds Bookstore: great for Filipiniana stuff, and they have no idea how much anything costs.”

He was right. And I was more than thankful. I inserted Tradewinds in my itinerary, and it was where I first went, purchasing three very rare English-language books for a mere one hundred pesos: Lina Flor’s handwritten collection of light, humorous verses, Dilettante (it sells for thirty US dollars in online shops); Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero’s 4 Latest Plays; and a 1976 Regal Publishing copy of Boyhood in Monsoon Country by Maximo Ramos, considered the Dean of Philippine Lower Mythology. If I had had more in my wallet, it would have been a crazy spree. Still, with bigger change than expected, I bought a wooden “wet-and-wear” bracelet and a souvenir shirt with Philippine jeepneys on it. I felt like a tourist, and the feeling may have been accurate. I lingered about the cobblestone streets and quaint Spanish-era influences of the walled fortress long after I had finished two bottles of Sparkle –perhaps an hour just smoking and watching– and then finally stepped into a taxi on my way to the La Solidaridad.

The obscure bookstore, which was a stone’s throw from Robinson’s Galleria mall and located at the corner of Padre Faura and Adriatico streets, was better than advertised. That’s because it has never been advertised at all. The books were indeed expensive, although not more than what they should cost. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the maddened adventure of scouring the shelves, despite the realization that I was going to miss the grand Dunlop anniversary in Manila Hotel for which I wrote a painstaking script. But I only cared about that a little bit. A pretty curly-haired Caucasian, maybe an exchange student, joined me as she hunted for a couple of Penguin classics. We kept on sidestepping each other, muttering half-politely, "Oops, excuse me!" and "Oops, sorry!"

By the entrance, I noticed a magazine stand that displayed almost all of this year’s issues of The New Yorker, which cost 216 pesos each and which I believe will never, I mean never, be found elsewhere in the country. I didn’t get one due to financial constraints (next time, though!), but I did step out of the shop carrying three more titles: Lawrence’s Apocalypse; J. Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time; and a fresh copy of Sir Dean Francis Alfar’s Salamanca, which was awarded the 2005 Palanca Grand Prize for the Novel. There went my salary. For the next several weeks, I have therefore decided to be even less sociable than before. I will be uncompromisingly “booked”.

Thunderbird Resorts in Angono, Rizal.

A beautifully-lit evening.

Botong Fransisco's discovery: Neolithic carvings.

Nemesio Miranda's Arthouse.

Plaza Ibarra.

Intramuros, one of the most famous attractions in the Philippines.

The walled fortress.

Citizen Ed

Behind the green gate of an unassuming studio in a Makati side street, a small group of workers are welding pieces of what are shaping to be some avant-garde objets d'art. Beside them are blueprints, damp from the rainy mist of a cloudy afternoon, offering a peek at what the finished products would look like. Even on paper the pieces look intricate, remarkably detailed, and creative in a way that can only come from a gifted mind. “E.C.”, reads the signature on the sketches, betraying the identity of the self-effacing man responsible for all this.

It is almost impossible not to notice the art of Eduardo Castrillo, wherever and howsoever one finds it. Having taken the Philippine culture scene by storm forty years ago, the sculptor / jewelry designer has since produced an amalgam of works that are at once international, monumental, and social. His “Heritage of Cebu” at the Parian Park, more than one of the many truly important attractions in the Philippines, stands as a metaphor that speaks volumes of his contribution to the artistic development of the country: a world-class concept in contemporary art; a masterful (and massive) expression of creativity; and a glimpse of national history before the Filipinos' gaze.

Recently, Castrillo celebrated his history and his career in a series of exhibits which - in much the same prevailing manner as his works are located – ran at the UST Museum, Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Yuchengco Museum, and Choice Gallery Expressions at Jupiter Street. “It's a time to show what I've done in the past and an opportunity to show the transition I've underwent,” Castrillo explains at one of his shows. Even so, as he marked four decades of a celebrated career, this 1966 recipient of the Republic Cultural Heritage Award is quick to dismiss the notion that his temperament has significantly changed. “The controversies are still there,” he says with a smile. “The angst is still there. And the overpowering creativity remains.”

True enough, Castrillo can be found these days keeping himself busy as ever. Apart from diligently working on his various jewelry collections, Ed is continuously making and designing concepts to channel an intense drive to create. In fact, he is planning an 11-hectare theme park meant to become as a one-stop shop of all creations, a visual arts educational museum with replicas of famous works as the “Mona Lisa” or “Guernica”.

The park concept is one that obviously requires plenty of time, space, and finance (not to mention painstaking government relations and tedious international research). But if there is one man who continuously garners success by overstepping the limits imposed by rationality, convention and politics, Castrillo is that man. 

Despite never having received formal art education (he majored in advertising in UST but maintains having carried on his studies idly), Ed has continued to impress - nay, astound - art critics, collectors, peers, designers and students. With the valiance, variety and vision of his work, sometimes even the well-studied scholar faces the dilemma of which category to ascribe it.

“Critics often have trouble categorizing my work because most of them are apprehensive of movement,” Ed notes. It must be noted, though, that this is no trouble for him, because he believes that “for an artist to be progressive, one must not conform. After all, my goal is to bring change and steer inspiration, to create a new path of artwork in the Philippines.

“It's for the country to have the proper heritage it deserves.”

Among those which he has bequeathed to the sculptural landscape are the “Martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal” in Luneta, “Bonifacio Shrine” at Manila City Hall, “Our Lady of Remedios Shrine” fronting the Malate Parish, “The People's Power Monument” along EDSA, and “The Spirit of EDSA” at RCBC Building in Makati. But there is great injustice in being bound to mention only a few bullets in his chronology of work, for Castrillo is a multi-awarded, internationally-commissioned and widely-admired artist – the most progressive, perhaps, of our time.

More than bringing home the awards and carving for himself a guaranteed place in the annals of Philippine art history, Castrillo has also time and again served as “a Filipino prize-fighter” and “a citizen to humanity”. He explains that “I owe a great deal of expressing myself to God and country”, and it is this steady notion upon which Castrillo dutifully carries out his artistic vision. He is well-known for the practice of donating his public monuments for selected communities; as partners in the production of this art, these communities answer for the cost of materials and labor. To Ed, there are few things as imperative as the accessibility of art. “Although art has often been overshadowed by politics and the economy, therefore blurring our understanding and appreciation of it,” he remarks, “art should still address all, including the masses. If it has to be exclusive, it will be exclusive to the thinking man.”

As has been prevalent throughout his works, Ed always offers a realistic and penetrating insight into the life of our time and of our forefathers'. He is an acute observer of society, and will invent something to forge a lasting expression of what he has seen or experienced. (“If, for example, I am depicting a warrior, I should depict it in its own rage – in its own reality.”)

And it is in this light that, more than just noticing it, we begin to understand Castrillo's work. Here we are talking of an artist who has been all over the world with international shows; who may, from commissions abroad, earn more than enough for two lifetimes; yet who nevertheless chooses to toil in educating the Filipinos about the power and potential of one's own mode of art. This is why, after having rubbed elbows with prominent foreign designers, painters and artists, he proudly proclaims what he has learned: “That Filipinos are one with all of them,” Ed says unflinchingly. And this is why, in being asked to name an artist whom he most admires, Castrillo diplomatically refuses to acknowledge a single one.

“Of course, I admire a lot of artists for their talent and good touches,” Ed explains. “But with this gift, I am carrying something bigger than myself; I am carrying national pride. I must challenge the Picassos and the Michelangelos and the other artists of the world, because I believe that the brilliance of the mind doesn't have any racial boundaries.”

Indeed, there is for Castrillo no other hero than truth. As the rest of us look up (literally and otherwise) to his sculptures, we are reminded of a man who, in opening new avenues for his hero, has become one himself.

The Outback Cafe and Carmelino's Grill

I don’t know how I ended up eating in two unassuming restaurants last week, but I’m very glad anyway that I did.

The Outback Café in DOT-accredited Swagman RPL Hotel Manila should be one of the best and most authentic Australian cuisine specialty restaurants in town. It’s not exactly first-class. Located on A. Flores Street at Ermita, right next to a number of Philippine attractions in the capital of Manila, the place feels rather like a pub in a foreign country. Very cozy. Subtle lighting. Great location. When I went there, I saw a nice little poster of Steve Irwin (who must be a hero in his country), a huge crocodile replica beside the versatile bar, two big-screen TVs playing The Australian Open, and a two-member band playing the requests of a thick, expat-filled crowd. There’s also free Wi-Fi Internet access for those who have to send E-mails while knifing away at the fabulous steaks.

Not that they serve dishes exclusively from Australia; if you prefer your breakfast, lunch, or dinner the Filipino or American way, then the extremely courteous waitresses would be happy to serve you. Whatever you order, ask for the traditional HP brown sauce – I don’t know why it’s not popular here in the Philippines, but it’s fruitier than A1 – and, of course, for a bottle of your favorite wine.

The other surprise treat I got was a Friday afternoon snack at Carmelino’s Grill, one of those hidden joints near the domestic airport. Less crowded than, say, Razon’s or Dreamhaus in Taft Avenue, the café is a perfect place to say your goodbyes to friends and family leaving on a jet plane. Or to have a cup of brewed before checking in at the airport. Or to just have a one-of-a-kind breakfast. I’m not familiar enough with the menu, but they do have a delectable array of fruit shakes and a variety of Filipino merienda choices.

Which new unadvertised places have you been to lately?

Notes from Mindanao

Today I found and opened a notebook I’d taken with me on a trip two years ago to Mindanao – a many-paged notebook, reporting a (more or less) three-day road trip. I didn’t take pictures. I remember that I’d hardly had any pocket money, and that I’d initially feared for my life.

Mindanao is the easternmost island group in the Philippines, just after Luzon and Visayas. It’s made up of a bunch of smaller islands, and it makes the world headlines frequently enough as a place that, sadly, continues to be disturbed by a number of extremist and militant Muslim groups. No one would dispute that Mindanao is a beautiful place, but at the time I was worried less about scenery than about having my name on a news ticker.

Reading these notes again, however, I remember too how I’d had the absolute time of my life. Fear, once it proved itself to be unnecessary, did not threaten to leave its traces on the pages. The notes are politically undisturbed and brave. I’m not always a brave man, and that’s why I hope you welcome these notes I now share.

Day One

4:07 AM: Sunday morning. Sun hasn’t risen. Just accepted invitation to go on a three-day road tour of the island of Mindanao with Bob (American friend) and Evelyn. Groggy and slightly uncomfortable in Bob’s car, a Nissan Adventure. Nissan Adventure: an appropriate vehicle for this trip. More sleepy than scared or excited, though. At least right now. Should be an eye-opener, especially for this Manila rat. A Kerouacian journey! Nasty motorcycle accident on Diversion Road here in Davao City, or the edge of it. Bloody helmet. Metal parts littered across the road. I can’t see the driver.

So awhile ago Bob played Chicago. Now it’s Jimmy Buffett. Na-na-na, na-na-na. Margaritaville.

I need coffee, even if it’s durian coffee.

7:31 AM: We’re in Cotabato – already. North? Or is this South Cotabato? Or Cotabato City? I’m not sure, but when was I ever sure. My first impressions of this province have been caricatured by news reports and editorials and scenes on TV and in the papers. Bombings, episodes of rebellion. Violence. Murders. Armed Muslims in intimidating skullcaps and color-coded scarves.

Seriously? This is Cotabato? Doesn’t seem as dangerous now, or as unfriendly, as its general reputation. On the contrary! Au contraire! I must learn more stylish-sounding French phrases. All the fruit vendors along the road smile. They’re pretty infectious. I wish more Filipinos would smile like that, and not just as a welcome to foreigners.

It’s so beautiful here. So beautiful, I feel like I haven’t been living. We saw the City Hall building awhile ago: very nice and mansion-y, but what do I know about architecture? The only fears I nurture, passing through, are: Bob running over these cute chickens that hurry funnily across the mountainous road (“Watch out for that chicken!”); the orthopedic implications of unhinging my jaw at the length of one of the least heralded - yet one of the most gorgeous - attractions in the Philippines, the Rio Grande de Mindanao; my committing faux pas in encounters with surprisingly friendly Muslims. Can I never talk to them about religion? Will they get offended if they see me make the Sign of the Cross? They’d probably be more tolerant.

The scenery here is luscious and green, like a golf course, with no holes, stretching to infinity.

10:18 AM: After rolling past places like Pikit, Pagcawayan, Sultan Kudarat, and a long line of what should be the tallest coconut trees I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve seen a lot of them), we arrive at Parang. Parang is in Maguindanao. Bob says something about this being the site of Camp Abubakar, former headquarters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Evelyn and I are too busy looking at the crowded wet market. It’s like everyone who lives in this place works in this market. It’s like a real provincial neighborhood and everybody knows everyone’s name. I wouldn’t really know how to describe it. A man in fatigues stands in the middle of the road, directing the flow of the traffic, even though there isn’t much of it. He makes Bob roll down the driver’s window for a quick check. (“Americanos!” No, not really, the guy doesn’t ask a single question.)

On a muddy street (there’s a slight drizzle), hoards of vendors are sun-drying fish and plying their trade in Bisaya. Well, it sounds like Bisaya. Rata-tata, rata-tata. Evelyn says he can’t distinguish it from my Tagalog anyway. Mine is also rata-tata, rata-tata.

We find more vendors when we stop five minutes later at a cemented bay walk that fronts the Moro Sea, across which we’re offered a glimpse of the hills of Lanao del Sur. Manila seems so far away. The wind is making my clothes dance. I’m flying! And someone’s fishing.

1:40 AM: Bob missed the Jollibee in Pagadian, Zamboanga del Sur’s capital city. Yes, we're somehow in Zamboanga del Sur now. I’m starving. I should’ve opened my mouth when I saw the sign. Jollibee, McDonald’s, it doesn’t even matter. The next civilized commercial area is in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay province, over a hundred kilometers away. At least two hours! It’s rather amazing that hamburger chains have reached these far-flung areas. Well. I must be so narrow-minded I’ve always thought they existed only in Manila. In the meantime, I make do with carrot muffins and raisin-spotted banana biscuits, courtesy of Bob’s wife, Feyma. She sent us off with these home-made delights. Lovely: there’s always so much “home” in home-made.

Bob, meanwhile, is eating something called Dodol, which is a brown, thick, and sloppy Muslim delicacy. He bought it from a Muslim lady with a sort of mobile kitchen cart on the side of the road. The thing is supposed to be akin to toffee. Dodol. Frankly it looks like shit. Shit in a green plastic bag on a dashboard of a Nissan. (Bob will eventually dump the leftover in Dipolog City.) The three of us have a terrible time containing our laughter.

6:16 PM: In Ipil. Having my Jollibee fix. Finally! Two-piece Chickenjoy with extra rice. Looking out the window, I notice that there are motorbikes everywhere. Pedicabs. Festive, many-colored buntings that hang from telegraph wires. (What is this, Saigon?) And, on the sidewalks, barbecue grills with pork intestines and chicken feet on sticks. Yummy. The rising smoke mingles with the falling rain. I come from Manila where these sights aren't really rare, but everything here feels strange and seems beautiful, as in a pleasant dream. Like I’m in a Kazuo Ishiguro novel set in the tropics or something. Malleable. That’s the word I’m looking for. Malleable.

No place to sit down for a cup of coffee, though. Even Julie’s Bakeshop has run out of sachets of three-in-one. I’m absolutely stunned there’s even a Julie’s Bakeshop in here.

The men and women outside are looking at Bob and Evelyn with such curiosity! They haven’t even laid eyes on my, ahem, fuchsia shirt (pink being politically incorrect). I feel invisible now. Joe! Joe! It’s a kind of general welcome cry. For foreigners. If every Filipino can be called Juan then every foreigner can be called Joe.

7:20 PM: It’s still raining. Soaked now. I have like two t-shirts left. I couldn’t even find an umbrella in the only mall. Oh, and someone just tried to talk to me in Bisaya. I was at once flattered and stumped. Funny, because among the three of us, I’m probably the one with the vaguest idea of where we are. I can’t say someone else from my university has been here, which should make me proud of my inability to decline. Not that I have a clue where this municipality is on the map. I’m the one asking the white guys for directions!

I do know where we’re staying for the night. Metro Ipil Mandarin Hotel. Inexpensive, such as hotels in Manila never are.

The hotel staff at the lobby offers me the room service menu. I ask if they have caldereta. Not available. Crispy pata? Not available. Adobo? Not available. It turns out they can prepare only salty fried chicken. With mounds of rice. And cheap ketchup, the kind that’s sweet and where you can see the black ground pepper.

I order anyway. Afterwards I leave the dishes just outside the front door, because that’s what they told me. They’ll just pick it up. As I do just that, I notice a decaying piano in the middle of the third-floor hallway. Goosebumps. Maybe this is The Unconsoled or something.

Verse in the Metro

Photo from the Berso sa Metro Facebook Page.

Have you taken Manila’s Light Rail Transit recently (LRT)? Well, we all should – if only to wax poetic during the ride.

The Instituto Cervantes de Manila, led by Director Jose Rodriguez, and the Light Rail Transit Authority have collaborated to install posters inside the carriages of the train, posters that contain celebrated Spanish-language poems by such writers as national hero Jose Rizal, Jesús Balmori, Claro M. Recto, José Palma, and Fernando Maria Guerrero; Spanish poets Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda, Luis Rosales, Miguel Hernández and Gil de Biedma; and Latin American writers Pablo Neruda and César Vallejo.

The poems, of course, have Filipino translations. So we can stop ogling at strangers and start memorizing lines that ought to have been familiar to us long ago.

This new promotional campaign, entitled “Berso Sa Metro (Verse in the Metro)”, was launched recently to encourage reading among Filipino commuters, as well as to strengthen the ties between Spain and the Philippines, two countries that share a common past that spanned more than 300 years. It’s also a new – albeit simple – cultural attraction in the Philippines, a country that still has plenty of traces of colonial rule and Spanish heritage.

“With almost one million commuters riding the train every day, it provides a great opportunity for the reading campaign to reach as many people as possible,” Rodriguez said.

While the LRT has usually been cited for overflow of passengers, the poems should give people something new and positive to talk about. It’s certainly one of the most unique attractions in the Philippines.

Instituto Cervantes is the cultural arm of the Spanish government that promotes and teaches the Spanish language and culture. It is the largest Spanish teaching organization worldwide, with more than seventy centers in four continents. With its collection of classic and contemporary Spanish art, literature, movies, and music, the Instituto library has become an important agent in promoting the Spanish language in the Philippines and is an indispensable source for those who are interested in Spanish and Latin American cultures.

Sunset in Manila

Let us begin the first-ever post on Attractions Philippines by talking quickly about Manila.

Every day in the capital city of the Philippines, there is something new to see. Something quite out of the ordinary. Something that can be classified as far more than just one of the many Philippine attractions. The ironic thing? It’s something so regular, too.

Something like the Manila sunset.

In Ilustrado, Filipino expatriate Miguel Syjuco’s acclaimed debut novel, one is offered a brief description of the sunset in Manila: “Over the bay, the sunset is starting, the famous sunset, like none anywhere else. Skeptics attribute its colors to pollution. Over there’s the land, the great gray sprawl of eleven million people living on top of each other… fourteen cities and three municipalities, skyscrapers and shanties, tumbling beyond Kilometer Zero and the heart of every Filipino, the city that gave the metro its name.”

One cannot say that he has been to the Philippines, or lived in it, or known it, without having his breath taken at least once by this pretty sight. This goes for locals and foreigners alike. It is truly one of the most popular – not to mention, important – Philippine attractions.

“Oh my goodness,” expatriates must have said, “It’s just like a screensaver!”

In the afternoons, typically in the lovely time between five o’clock and sunset, hundreds flock to the boardwalk of Roxas Boulevard, all of them eager to watch the sun dipping cautiously behind Bataan peninsula on the horizon that is, at first, gold, then dark orange, then purple. Tourists, both domestic and foreign, brandish their cameras; artists set up their easels and sit on stools to paint the vista. Anything to capture the moment, it seems. Of course, the moment is not complete without a glimpse of the tiny white dinghy slicing through the glassy waters of Manila Bay.

Government ordinance may have taken away Roxas Boulevard’s sunset-view music bars, al fresco cafes, and street performances. And ridiculous taxes may have been imposed on the enjoyment of other attractions.

Fortunately, this screensaver – this picturesque afternoon view that has come to embody the tropical beauty of the rest of the Philippine attractions – cannot be touched.