BAD TRIP 5: Walk da Talk

I’ve always wanted to go diving. Ever since I first tried snorkeling in Boracay and saw how beautiful it was underwater, I wanted more. I wanted to go further down... deeper… to swim with sharks and manta rays and giant sea turtles. I envied the tourists in their wetsuits who were sailing away in the horizon for their date with Nemo. And I promised myself I’d do the same in this lifetime.

What's more, I also wanted to dabble in photography, climb Mt. Banahaw, rappel from a 30-storey building, go hang gliding or bungee jumping, do whitewater rafting, and a hundred other different, exciting things.

But somehow, the humdrum of everyday life has a way of putting such plans on hold. There always seem to be a thousand other things to do first. I keep putting things off in favor of “more important” stuff like schedules and deadlines and reports and backlogs and using what little money I earn for practical things like milk and diapers and educational plans for the little princess.

But perhaps I am missing out on life.
I could die tomorrow.
Aaaargh!!!

PS: It's why I envy Jory. He just goes right out and does it.

I wanna swim with sharks....

FIRST TRIP 7: People Power

Someone asked me:
Where were you during the 1986 People Power revolution?

I was in Aklan working for an NGO
It was my second month as a Community Organizer
Working with poor farmers and fisherfolks
Towards community problem-solving on a self-reliant basis

It was my first job, fresh out of university
Wet behind the ears and struggling to make a difference

And I have been in community development work ever since
Couldn't believe it has been 20 years since!

Have I made any difference at all?
What made me stay on in development work?

I don't have ready answers
But I still wish I'd live to see the day
When people do something
Simply because it is the right thing
In pursuit of a common good.

EDSA 1986

ART TRIP 10: In Memoriam

Vincent Benjamin Kua Jr.
(died October 2005)

Idol.
Teacher.
Friend.


This is one of my practice drawings as a student at the Vincent Kua Komiks Studio Plus, with comments from Vincent.

More about Vincent: http://www.komikero.com/museum/vincentkua.html



Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

FIRST TRIP 6: Ano ka, hilo?!

I don’t have fainting spells. I don’t faint at all. I almost fainted only once in my life. And it was all Lukring’s fault.

Lukring who?

The mother on TV’s Ober da Bakod, that’s who. And the actress who played her literally took my breath away. (And that was before she came to be known as Dugong!)

There I was, minding my own business, and happily learning how to ride a bike in Baguio when I found my way blocked by a slow-moving horse on whose rump Lukring was perched like a queen. She was actually at the tailend of a convoy of horses and I couldn’t overtake properly lest I get sideswiped by oncoming traffic.

The road snaked uphill towards Teacher’s Camp and, when an opening presented itself, I pedaled like crazy and overtook the horde of noisy vacationers that included Lukring. It was truly a valiant effort, I tell you. In my mad scramble to overtake them, I must have pulled a muscle in my thighs (they hurt like hell!) and my lungs were just about ready to burst!

When I reached the top of the hill, I was seeing stars! The pine trees seemed to spin all around my head and I was like falling, falling, falling. Toink! I fell on the ground like a sack of potatoes, just about ready to vomit. Aaaaargh!

I spun in outer space for like a full five minutes. And all the while, the convoy of horses passed one by one, wondering perhaps why I was sleeping on the muddy roadside.

Nahilo lang po.

Horseback riding in Baguio

Lukring turned Dugong (aka Malu de Guzman)

ART TRIP 9: Farewell to a Friend

Back in the 80s when leotards and tangas ruled and Gary Valenciano wore shoulder pads, my idol was neither a movie star nor a singer. His name was Vincent Benjamin Kua Jr. and he was a komiks scriptwriter and illustrator. I worshipped the ground that man walked on. I used to spend all my meager school allowance in komiks-for-rent stalls, eagerly awaiting each installment of his novels.

With works like Ad Infinitum, Cecilia’s Lullaby and Pokwang, I was turned into a rabid Vincent fan and a stalker of sorts. From Aklan I wrote him letters and literally jumped with joy when he wrote back. That started a budding friendship that went on for several years and culminated in his being my mentor in komiks scriptwriting and illustration through his VK Komiks Studio Plus.

We lost touch in the 90s when I moved to Baguio, then Cebu in the course of my work (komiks was simply a sideline for me then). When I went back to Manila ten years later, the komiks industry was dead and Counterstrike ruled. I tried renewing ties with him but he was nowhere to be found. Or perhaps I didn’t look hard enough.

Then yesterday, I stumbled onto another artist’s blog and learned in one of the entries that Vincent died of a stroke last October 2005. I was stunned. He was too young to die.

Farewell my friend. Rest in peace.

Some of my work published in Kilabot, Shocker and Fantasy Komiks:

FIRST TRIP 5: Ay, T! Part2

When promdis come to the big, wicked city, they are almost always the object of ridicule by supposedly more sophisticated city rats. So it is so much fun to turn the table around when our Manileno cousins come to visit Aklan for the summer. The ancestral house is in an island-barrio with no electricity and – to them – it’s like living in another planet.

One fine day, a horde of us were strolling with our cousins around the neighborhood when suddenly, Dwayne (a high school senior who was exiled by my aunt to Aklan due to early experimentation with drugs) started yelling “Sunooooog!!! Sunooooog!!!!” at the top of his lungs.

Alarmed, we asked him “Where???”

It turned out what he was seeing was the neighbor’s kitchen, thick smoke billowing out of its nipa roof. It was only Manang Lacion cooking with firewood, stupid!

Bahay Kubo sa Baryo

BAD TRIP 4: Like Animals

“They were exploited, manipulated and treated like animals.”

Harsh words from the Task Force, yes, but dead-on. Wowowee was making money out of poor people’s hopelessness and desperation; the least it could have done was to treat them fairly. I am angered at the way Willie mouthed platitudes like “it’s not about ratings anymore” when in fact it was to boost Wowowee’s ratings that they offered free tickets and raffle prizes to impoverished viewers who were reduced to pinning their hopes for a better life on a game show.

I was witness to ABS-CBN arrogance one time at the airport. Their crew had just come in and was taking their equipment out. They seemed to think they owned the place and were passing back and forth, unmindful of the fact that it was forbidden to use the exit as entrance. When the guard tried to block their way and direct them to another door, minura-mura nila na parang aso. Ang yayabang! Tagabuhat lang yun ng camera ha. Ano pa kaya yung nasa posisyon?

Grief at the Stampede


Willie (and ABS-CBN Executive) works it after the tragedy.
Nice smiles. aaaargh!!!


Tickets offered by show organizers to a sleepless and hungry throng for a chance at a piece of heaven led instead to hellish death

ART TRIP 8: Cambodian Fisherwoman

This is a sketch I did of a fisherwoman on The Great Lake -- the Tonle Sap. Welcome to Cambodia!

On the banks of the mighty Great Lake and the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, Khmers have celebrated for over two hundred years the changing of the river's flow. During the rainy season the Tonle Sap River reversed direction, flooding the lake, increasing its size almost tenfold, making it the largest freshwater body in Southeast Asia.

In the flood season, water engulfs surrounding forests, regulating agricultural production by ensuring that the countryside is covered with fresh, fertile silt for rice cultivation. The rivers and lakes of Cambodia are truly the lifeline for the largely agrarian and fishing society.

The ancient temples of Angkor (think Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider, heheh) depict in exquisite basrelief detail how the life along the lake affected all walks of Khmer life.