Voices in my head

Sitting at my desk I hear in my mind.... Bill_IEEEE! Mark_ieeeee! I don’t hear you! what are you doing?

Its been 29 years since my Lola passed away and I still hear her in my mind. I feel like crying.. I miss my Lolo and Lola





GALON, MARIA Birth 30 Mar 1906 Death Jan 1977

GALON, EZEQUIEL Birth 8 Apr 1907 Death 26 Mar 1990

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Sunset

To the north of Tagbilaran City there was at one time a seawall, from the age of it you would have to guess it was built sometime during Spain’s rule, but I don’t know this for sure. Regardless of age it is a place that I loved to go late evening to sit and watch as the day’s sky change in to a multitude of colors until the final color black with glittering stars and sometimes a lover’s moon would be natures display.

It’s here where you can sit and enjoy life simple solitude. As dusk closes, the ocean seems to calm and the sun falls oh so slowly behind a point of land that extends out in to the bay. As I sit and ponder I suddenly hear a plopping sound. I look and can see the fisherman in their boats trolling their nets and plopping the sea with a tool made from half of coconut shell attached to a stick used in attempt to scare the fish into the net. As the sun disappears behind the trees of the point, all that can be seen is their shaded outlines and the occasional bird landing in them to retire for the night. The setting sun watched from a white clouded mountain top is nothing compared to the beauty of this sunset.

I think about my forefathers and family who have past, those that I had never known, I think of my Lolo and Lola and wonder; is this the sunset they had watched in days long past? I feel them with me now and hear them tell me yes, we have seen the same.

Night has fallen and the only light is that of the stars and the fishing boat lanterns. The light of lanterns glistens and dances in the ripples the water and in them you can just see the outline of men tending their nets. It’s not long before you hear a scraping noise along the seawall, the sound of hermit crabs dragging their shells, where they are going and what they are doing? only they know.

As I gaze out in to the darkness of the night my heart is content and soul is at peace; I will always remember a sunset in Bohol.

The Wet Market

I woke up early this morning and I heard a rooster crow. My thoughts went back to those mornings in the Philippines when you hear the early morning footsteps of people and tri-cycles passing by. No doubt most, if not all heading to the wet market.

I remember getting up and getting dressed so that I too could get to the wet market before the days heat began. While dressing I would hear people busy in the kitchen, the rustle of pots and pans and mumbled talking. Dressing and knowing full well that hot coffee and pandsal would be there to meet me when I descend the stair and enter the kitchen. Sitting at the table on plastic chairs more common in America to be use on the patio outside then in the house, I sip my steaming hot coffee and eat warm pandsal. The maid is making hot cakes or other such food items for Jan-Brian who’s still sleeping in his bed and Janet is busy preparing for market, but takes the time to kiss me and say good morning. Dogs bark, rosters crow and the occasional croak of a gecko hanging on the wall. The sounds of vendors passing bye shouting what food or drink they have for sale. All now, fond memories.

The morning is cool and it’s still dark out. The walk is short to the place where we will wait and eventually hire a tri-cycle to take us to the wet market. While we wait I hear the scrap, scrap, scarp of an old woman and her broom made from palm sweeping debris in to small piles that she will later pickup and dispose of or burn. My thoughts are broken as I hear Janet talk to the driver and ask if he would take us to the wet market.

Its lighter now as we ride down paved and unpaved roads in the tri-cycle, a tri-cycles who side car is a bit short for me due to my height. My head would bump the roof now and then when we hit a pothole or a ruff section of road, reminding me to hold my head lower. We are in a busy section of town now, you know this almost immediately as the sounds of life abound and of course the ever present exhaust fumes pumped in to your lungs from tri-cycles and jeepneys that abound in an areas such as this.

The tri-cycle comes to a halt with a slight yawn and jerk, I grab the pipe that’s welded to the front of the side car to aid me in getting out, my knees grateful to be able to stretch. Janet pays the driver the 3.25P fare and a peso as a tip, a sign that he’s been of service and gracious driver.

I love the wet market and as we enter I smile because I remember that the wet market is the place I took Janet on our last date on my trip to the Philippines prior to this one. Life is everywhere and the sights, sounds and smell of the market are fantastic. We pass the vegetables, row and rows of them cascades of colors fill you eyes as you pass by them and you can smell the freshness of the harvest.

Grains of all colors and textures in bins, buckets and barrels sitting side by side. The green of mongo beans offset by the tan color of a grin I can’t identify all melting in to so many varieties and sizes of rice.

I’m mesmerized bye the shear size of the area used to sell fish. A area the size if not larger that of one parking level in a Sears Roebuck parking garage. I stop often too look at the fish, some of which I have never seen before. This too, although smelly, is a colorful place gray and blacks, blues and yellow and the silver of course. Even the meat market has something to offer in the way of memories if not the smell of a slaughterhouse then the sound of each vendor competing for your business.

Most colorful and one that pleases the eyes is the fruit section. Bananas of every size and type. You can smell the sweetness of pineapple as you walk by the fruit vendors. They are cutting them removing the skin and eyes shaping them with spirals almost as if it were a works of art more than tasty treats to eat. Janet stops at a vendor and buys a small bunch of bananas, banana’s that are not much longer than my finger. She buys them because she knows I love to eat them.

I feel the shopping bags made from old cement sacks whose make shift handles are digging in to my hands. They are full and are beginning to get somewhat heavy and although I love going to the wet market, I’m glad when Janet tells me we are done.

How I miss the Philippines……………………………………

Everywhere A Moron

"Steve Hubbard" wrote in message
news:6369-3D83E8FF-626@storefull-2373.public.lawson.webtv.net...

> Just back from a week in the PI...what's up with all the
> urinating on the street corner and then waxing the
> Dolphin for good measure?...better get Gloria out to
> inspect her Troops! Its really a pervasive sickness that
> defies all commom sense and logic...but then again
> common sense is no longer common...

Mr. webTV Idiot,

It's really irrelevant what you think about the Philippines and we Filipinos. It is after all our culture and habits good or bad and I would suggest if you don't like them or if they disturb you than perhaps you shouldn't visit the Philippines.

You whine and complain, you belittle and ridicule, but yet you come here to a Filipino news group and visit the Philippines and in some cases marry a Philippine national. Yet, all you can do is write about the things that you saw that you dislike or find objectionable.

Its obvious that the problem is not with the Philippines or Filipinos it's with you and your thought patterns.

By your way of thinking the following is true;

"Americans [some] don't wash there ass after defecating, they simply wipe there anus with a paper napkin; now we all know unless you wash you don't remove everything you simply spread it and since the "typical" Anglo has a hairy ass the defecated waste matter is spread gingerly about. Therefore we can surmise; Americans are dirty with poor hygiene and they smell like crap."



Next time you shake someone's had ask yourself, did he wash his hands after wiping his nasty ass with a napkin?

Bill

I Miss My Philippines

I miss waking up early in the morning to the sounds of roosters crowing, the time in the morning when the temperature is mild and the sun is just starting to break. I miss strolling down the street to the street vendor who sells coffee by the side of the road I miss leaning against the buildings downtown in Tagblarian, Bohol sipping hot coffee and watching the people pass by and the smell of fresh made pandsal coming from the bakery. I miss the UBE lady who sells fresh UBE sticky rice outside the wet market.

I miss..... My Philippines...... I want to go home.....

I HATE THESE PEOPLE

----- Original Message -----
From: "Null"
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Bad News
> Bad news - your fellow Filipino will be waiting eagerly to screw you
> no matter where you go. Only local laws and customs prevent him/her
> from giving you the all out fucking that you would normally receive
> 'back home'.

My response;

Its amazing to me to read posts by people who come to SCF and have so much bad to say about the Philippines and Filipinos. These are people who really know nothing about the Philippines, our people or culture. In some cases they are even coconuts living in other countries.

They talk through their asses thinking they know about the Philippines because they visited there or because they are married to a pinay/pinoy. They think they know because they read this or that about the Philippines or from what they see on TV or what a friend told them.

You people don't know squat about the Philippines, our people and our culture and you can't because you are not a Filipino or haven't lived there in our environment. So everything you say means absolutely nothing.

So what if people in the Pinas talk bad about our government or the conditions. That happens in every country. So what if Filipinos want to live or work abroad so they can have a better life, It means nothing.

Even if a Filipino lives and works abroad very few would say they don't love the Philippines. I really wish there were some way that you could see the Philippines through the eyes of a true Filipino, and then you would see the good and the beauty of the Philippines, its people and its culture.

It's too bad that most of you are too shallow to look beyond the bad, beyond the poverty and beyond what the media shows you. It's too bad that all you can do is be counter productive and so high on your own good fortune and life. It's too bad all you can do is flap you useless lips about something you know nothing about.

National Philippine Treasures

Last March when I went back home we decided to drive from Manila to Bicol. We made allot of stops along the way, orchard ranches, roadside eatery's, etc.. One place we stopped at was called Villa Escudero.

It seems Villa Escudero is a coconut plantation and a resort and that one of the original owners Mr. and Mrs. Don Secured were archeologists and collectors of artifacts; some of which are Filipino historic artifacts.

There is what they call a museum you can tour there and view allot of their collection. I was shocked to see things that I would consider National Philippine treasures; Original writings,among them some by Jose Rizal.

Although I felt fortunate to be able to view these treasures I couldn't help but wonder why these items are not in the hands of our National Museum where they could properly be cared for and preserved. Villa Escudero's Museum has no climate control and none of the things in there are in vacuum sealed cases or even sealed cases to protect them. The papers and pictures, cloths and linen are deteriorating.

It will be a shame that our future generations will have lost these treasures because they remain in "private" hands and collections that are not being cared for or preserved the way they should.

America's Occupation of Bohol

I ran accross something I wrote in 1997 thought I would post it here...

Like the rest of the Philippines Bohol would have a new invader, the Americans. In 1899 an American by the name Major Hale landed on the shores of Bohol with the three officers and a small band of men. from Bohol's shore these offices and men walked into Tagbilaran City.

There Major Hale and his men were escorted into what was the Government House. The president of Bohol; Bernabi Reyes, counsel, and chieftains offered their protest against the occupation of Bohol by the Americans. The protest stated that the then government of Bohol surrendered the island of Bohol to the Americans, not because it they wanted to but because it was being forced to do so. Since the Boholano's lacked weapons that could compare to those the Americans had, they could not resist without heavy loss of Filipino lifes.

The Boholano's had great respect and love for Emilio Aguinaldo but were ordered that all allegiance to Aguinaldo must be renounced, they were forbidden to honor, or help further Aguinaldo and no flag could be flown except for the Flag of the United States.

[ Note: Emilio Aguinaldo headed the revolt and later defeated Spanish forces in Manila, other parts of Luzon and the Visayas. On June 12, 1898, he proclaimed Independence from Spain. On January 23, 1899 he was elected as the first President of the Republic of the Philippines, and he convened the Philippine Congress which ratified the country's Constitution it's was not long after he would be fighting the United States. Pres. Aguinaldo sent Felipe Agoncillo to Treaty of Paris to plead the cause of the Filipino people at the Paris peace negotiations that would end the Spanish-American War. Felipe Agoncillo was not permitted to attend the conference. Felipe Agoncillo went to Washington where he tried to work against the ratification of the treaty by the US senate. The United States decided that it would still annex the Philippines. And so Aguinaldo once again took up arms to fight for his people and country and we enter the American occupation of the Philippines.]

Major Hale stated;

"The American troops had have come under my command Major Hale as representative of the Government of the United States to take possession of the island and to protect the people; we come as friends and not as enemies; but that all allegiance to Aguinaldo must be renounced, all contributions cease. Henceforth Bohol was to become a part of the U.S. forever."

During the occupation of Bohol by the Americans much of the same injustices that befell other Filipino's in other areas of the Philippines befell the Boholano's. In intresting note is that the first aggressions by Filipino patriots actually took place in the Visayas, However I don't know how much of them took place on Bohol.

Because of abuses and injustices by American troops warfare between the American forces and over 100 Boholano's lead by Pedro Samson, broke out in the hills near the village of Carmen on August 31, the Americans defeated and killed most of poorly armed Boholano's who were armed only with bolo's and old percussion and flint lock firearms. Pedro Samson, escaped with a small band of men and was able to raise a new group of patriots. This time Pedro Samson would not under estimate the Americans and would start battling the Americans using guerrilla type warfare, Pedro Samson and his ban of patriots would do battle and then disappear into the mountains and jungle. Because of this additional American forces were requested by Major Hale.

Capt. Andrew S. Rowan and almost two hundred men of the 19th U.S. Infantry, were dispatched and landed on Bohol. For a time Pedro Samson and his men controlled the interior of the island. But at the expense of the people who lived there. Abuses of the people by the Americans in Bohol continued and worsened.

The barrio of Jagna was burned by the 19th Infantry on 14th of May, the same day an infantryman of that command raped a women, the Infantryman was found and killed by the woman’s finance. The rape enraged the boholano's and resistance towards the Americans heighten.

The men of the 19th Infantry continued to burn villages, towns and execute innocent civilians thought the rest of the war. At one point General Hughes and his Army of me burned so many villages and town the smoke could be seen and smelt all the way to Manila. The more the Boholano's resisted the more restrictive the Americans became. Bohol was cut off from the rest of the Philippines, their trade was stopped, and they endured forced starvation due to lack of trades in food goods from adjoining islands and their trade with other countries. Pedro Samson and his men surrendered to the American forces on December 23. But Americans never the less continued to torture the people of Bohol. The war ended, the 19th Infantry left Bohol, April 3, 1902 and the Philippines turned over to the people.

As the Americans were forced out a new era of peace and trade would begin. This would last only a few years until the WWII and the Japanese. Although the United States preformed unspeakable acts of aggression and murder upon the Filipino people, none was as bad as the Japanese.

Electroshock Therapy

On my last trip to the Philippines I really hurt my neck so I wanted to go get a massage. Well I ended up at this chiropractor whose office was in the middle of this small village and made from Nipa. I didn't think much of it at first as going to such places don't bother me, I wasn't expecting and office building and like I said I thought I was going to just get a good massage.

It all started out okay he had me sit with my back to him and he worked in the Chinese green oil in to my neck and back, still normal so far, then he put this heavier stuff the consistency of a light grease. It smelled like tiger balm but it wasn't. Then he had this tool that sounded like one of those big massage vibrators I didn't think anything of it until he pressed it to my back and my whole friggin side pulled in I was being friggin electrocuted!!!! ARAY!!!!!! I jumped out of my skin. The guy said relax, just relax, to me in Tagalog. NOW how the heckl do you relax when some body is electrocuting you?

Finely he stopped and I thought oh thank GOD! He even turned the damn thing off so I felt safe. He had me lay facedown on the table and did some adjustments and worked some of my muscles I was feeling better and relaxed then I heard that horrible BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Oh my God I was being electrocuted again and I could see Janet giggling as my body spasmed every time he would run that thing up and down my back. By now I'm thinking to myself “please turn it off, oh please turn it off" I didn't know how much more I could take. Finely he turned it off and I felt at ease. When asked how I felt I said "GREAT! Everything is fine" who wouldn't? I was not about to get electrocuted again, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Janet handed him 200P and we were on our way.

Janet was laughing at my comments about my electroshock therapy. Then it struck me, Janet had said she wanted a massage too. So I said; hey we have to go back! You wanted a massage too. She declined stating that she doesn't want it at seeing me get one and began to laugh.

Talking about Jeepneys

Talking about Jepney's I actually loved riding them but now only ride tri-cycles because I always get yelled at by some guy and he takes all my money. Besides Jepneys are to expensive to ride. When I rode Jepneys people were so nice!. I was riding the jepney sitting near the driver in the back. People would give me money, at first I thought it was odd but after a while you get use to it and just nod to them, I think it means thank you.

I was really lucky that those people gave me the money because I found out that riding jeepneys can be expensive. I'm not quite sure why yet, but what happens is when I tried to get off the jepney there was some guy standing in the back, a fair taker or something, anyhow when I get off he grabbed my arm and says some words really loud in Filipino! I finely figured out it’s because he was collecting fare. Like I said I was lucky people gave me money because boy when he took the fair, he took almost ALL the money that all those nice people had given me.

I tried to complain to him but he got a mean look on his face and I got scared, then he yelled at the driver and they drove away.

That's why I only ride tri-cycles now, the drivers are nice to me and they are only $3.75 they wrote it on the side car, I don't know why they want American money and not pesos oh well :)

(Note: I received allot of email on this story, my friends; this was all in jest this is not a true story I made it up for fun.)

THIS IS MY TABO

THIS IS MY TABO. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My tabo is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.

My tabo, without me is useless. Without my tabo, I am useless. I must use my tabo true. I must wash better than my enemy who is trying to wash better than me. I must wash him before he washes me. I will....

My tabo and myself know that what counts in this life is not the butt we wash, the noise of our utot, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the wash quality that counts.

My tabo is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its handle. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my tabo clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before the Tabo God I swear this creed. My tabo and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.


So be it, until there is no enemy to wash, butt Peace!