The team that was

Kapamilya noon, originally uploaded by Joe Torres.

We were together once...

Hanapin si Dencio!

May extra sa kanan!, originally uploaded by Joe Torres.

Ok na sana ang pose namin ni Vanessa, pero umekstra pala si Papa Dennis, hehe

Pamalo

Lakwatsa sa Mines View, originally uploaded by Joe Torres.

Joe: Matigas kaya 'to?

Van: Subukan mo sa noo mo...

Joe: Paluin kaya kita, hehehe

Karne o...

Karne o..., originally uploaded by Joe Torres.

Payat pa ko noon, hehe

Thanks to Vic; Congrats to the GMANews.TV team

Dropping the (news) ball

(From Mr Vic Agustin's Cocktales)

Both the Inquirer and the ABS-CBN Web sites devote considerable money and personnel to be THE Philippine news portal but, in yesterday’s coverage of Meralco shareholders’ meeting, the GMA site was miles ahead of the two competitors.

As early as 8:48 a.m., the GMA Web site already had a curtain-raiser on the tumultuous meeting, slugged “Boos, pro-Lopez chants greet GSIS chief at Meralco.”

Its second take came at 9:38 a.m., “SEC to take over Meralco stockholders’ meeting.”

Despite its access to its affiliated Manila Electric Co., ABS-CBN only posted its first take on the day’s unfolding battle more than half an hour late, an eternity in broadcast terms, with its first story “SEC halts Meralco board election” being uploaded only at 10:16 a.m.

The Inquirer, whose owners are related by affinity to both the Lopezes and the Romualdezes, uncharacteristically took on a glacial pace, posting its first story by lunchtime, “Meralco defies SEC order, calling it ‘null and void’.”

Sa Borobudur

Borobudur is a ninth century Mahayana Buddhist monument in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome is located at the center of the top platform, and is surrounded by seventy-two Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa.

The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path circumambulating the monument while ascending to the top through the three levels of Buddhist cosmology, namely, Kamadhatu (the world of desire); Rupadhatu (the world of forms); and Arupadhatu (the world of formless). During the journey, the monument guides the pilgrims through a system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the wall and the balustrades.

Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the fourteenth century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. It was rediscovered in 1814 by Sir Thomas Raffles, the British ruler of Java. Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was undertaken between 1975 and 1982 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO, following which the monument was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Borobudur is still used for pilgrimage, where once a year Buddhists in Indonesia celebrate Vesak at the monument, and Borobudur is Indonesia's single most visited tourist attraction. - wikipedia

Photo courtesy of May Velous/Malaysia

How media failed in covering terrorism (Some thoughts from a conference)

Misreporting of information is one reason why the situation hasn't improved in the fight against terror. Media is partly to blame. The basics of journalism were not observed. In most reports multiple sourcing were not used, words were used without any definition, jargons were all over stories.

These were some issues raised in one of the sessions in this week's intermedia dialogue in Bali. There were more issues/concerns raised. There were long discussions, lengthy meetings, debates, like in any other meeting.

So what's the next move? Where is the media in this age of globalization going? Will we continue to be relevant to our readers? Is there really a difference now between what we call the Western press and those working in countries like the Philippines?

You can imagine how difficult it is when more than a hundred journalists from almost a hundred countries come together in one room and talk?

The atmosphere is different in the evenings when they gather in the hotel bar to share a beer and talk about their exploits. Conferences like this is a kind of soul searching for us in the media.

Bali

7 May 2008
11 p.m.

Just got out of the hot tub. I just have to have a smoke. I deserve a hot bath and a stick of cigarette. I have been sitting the whole day in the Third Global Inter-Media Conference here at the Grand Hyatt in Bali, Indonesia. A lot of challenges facing media have been discussed, primarily the problem of corruption and unethical media practices.

It has been a long trip yesterday. I left Manila 8 in the morning, arrived in Singapore (where a Filipina saleslady convinced me to buy the latest Giorgio Armani perfume for men) at about lunch time, took another plane to Jakarta, where I transferred to a domestic airline (Garuda) for the one-hour-and-a-half bumpy plane ride to Bali.

I haven't been around yet. From the airport I went straight to the hotel. It was already evening, so there was not much to see along the way. An expensive batik polo shirt was waiting for me, courtesy of the Indonesian government, for the formal dinner in the evening with the Foreign Minister. It was a fun night of Bali culture – dance, songs, etc – that I was moved to buying two carvings – an Indonesian rice god and Rama and Sita.


I spent time attending all the sessions, taking down notes, interviewing media experts from around the world – about a hundred-and-thirty of us – and, of course, eating. I had three medium grilled lobsters during dinner the first night!

So now, to my cigarette before I indulge myself with a restful night that I haven't had for some time now.

Yogyakarta photos

In Bali and Yogyakarta

Pinoy humor daw (forwarded)

Mrs. Tanoy is a very kuripot Ilocana. When her husband died, she inquired with the newspaper, asking the price for the obituary.
The ad taker said: "300 pesos for 6 words."
She said: "Pwede ba 2 words na lang? 'TANOY DEAD', para mura."
Ad taker: "No Mom. 6 words is the minimum."
After thinking for a while, Mrs. Tanoy said: "Ok, para sulit ang aking pera, ilagay mo, "TANOY DEAD, HIS TOYOTA FOR SALE."

------------

Boy: Nanay, anong ulam natin?
Nanay: Tignan mo na lang dyan sa ref, anak.
Boy: Eh wala naman tayong ref, di ba?
Nanay: O, e di wala tayong ulam. Konting common sense naman dyan!

------------

Caloy: Tay, di ba sabi mo bibigyan mo ko ng P100 pag pumasa ako sa Math?
Tatay: Oo. Bakit, pumasa ka ba?
Caloy: Gud news, tay! Di ka na gagastos ng P100,
bumagsak ako.

------------

Man at 33 quits smoking. That's Will Power
At 43, quits drinking. That's Will Power
At 53, quits gambling. That's Will Power
At 63, quits having sex. And that's Power Failure!

------------

Kano (trying to speak Tagalog): Meg-kanow isang kilow mang-gow?
Tindero: One way.
Kano: Meg-kanow?
Tindero: I sed ONE WAY.
Kano: Aynowng ibig sabeyhin ng one way?
Tindero: Isang daan. Understang?

------------

Erap: Kalokohan! Di ako naniniwala! Walang taong ganun kataba!
Loi: Saan nanggaling ang balitang yan?
Erap: Dito sa dyaryo. Sabi; "British tourist lost 2000 pounds."

------------

MMDA (with pen and ticket to a traffic violator): Name?
Foreigner Driver: Wilhelm Von Corgrinski Papakovitz.
MMDA: Ahhh okay...(sabay tago ticket)...Next time be careful, ok?

------------

BF: Sunduin kita mamaya ha. Bubusina nalang ako pag nasa harap nako ng bahay nyo.
GF: Sige. Anong kotse ang dala mo?
BF: Wala. Busina lang!

------------

Nag-aapply si Tomas na security guard...
INTERVIEWER: Ang kailangan namin ay taong laging may suspicious mind, highly alert, insistent personality, strong sense of hearing with a killer instinct. Sa tingin mo ba qualified ka?
TOMAS: Sa palagay ko po hindi. Pwede po bang yun misis ko nalang ang mag-apply? Very qualified siya dito.

------------

Always remember, when SHE cancels a date, she has to. But when HE
cancels a date, he has TWO.

Do delinquent bloggers go to hell?

There's always a reason.

There's no time. I'm too busy. I have a lot of things to do than blog. I don't even have time to read.

I have been a delinquent blogger, so punish me.

* * *

Ms Joan suggested the book, and I went hunting for it.

"Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?" is a fun read and brought my mind away from the troubles of May Day and the demands of work. (Aside of course from the problem of money that seems to preoccupy our every waking hour.)

Thomas Kohnstamm is a travel writer who, at one time in his life, studied Latin American Studies in Stanford. He has since wrote for various publications, including Lonely Planet.

"Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?" is not a tell-all book about how stupid people are to read travel books (especially the Lonely Planet). It's a book that tells us how some travel writers feed us bullshit and how most of us swallow everything - hook, line and sinker... and the whole shit.

By the way, got to go. I have to look for some travel guide for my trip to Bali.

Notes on proteins, the Nobel Prize, the secret of life

It was a privilege to meet and listen to the distinguished Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover who talked about "Life and death - Why our proteins have to die so we shall live."

Some things he said just hit me.

He observed that people these days seem to be always in a hurry - for a deadline, meeting friends, getting rich, getting famous, winning awards. Where are they hurrying to really? He said most are really rushing to nowhere.

One secret of success is just making the right choice and doing what one wants to do. When you make a mistake, you just turn around, like when making a wrong turn you just make a U-turn and start again. One can't just be wrong the second time around.

For a Nobel Prize winner, he was so candid to advise people not to be too serious about awards, prizes and recognitions. One must be serious about what one does, he said. After winning the award, he said he still has to wake up early in the morning and go to work. There's no vacation in life.

Another secret of success/life, he said, is selecting the right teacher or mentor.

Then he talked about proteins. He said 10 percent of our proteins are destroyed every day. It takes 15 to 20 days to destroy it all. If you think that when you look at yourself on the mirror it's the same face that stared back at you two weeks ago? You're wrong, he said. It's a new face because all your proteins have already been replaced.

The roles of intracellular protein:

1. Quality control
2. Control of processes
3. Differentiation and morphogenesis

Thanks to the work of Professor Ciechanover it is possible to understand at a molecular level how the cell controls a number of central processes by breaking down certain proteins and not others. It led pharmaceutical companies to initiate efforts to develop medications, and one successful drug to combat cancer is already on the market, with many more in the pipeline.

He said people are living longer these days because we have been defeating diseases through science and because we have learned hygiene. He also said that people are not getting older because age is a matter of spirit and what one can do.

Although he said a lot of alternative medicines and homeopathic practices might be effective, many still haven't passed the scrutiny of scientific investigation and proven scientific standards. People should be educated about science, he said.

He advised governments and authorities to give importance to people's access to medicine. He said drug prices are high because some people want to take advantage of others.

He said: "We live in a complicated world of corruption and stealing."

Professor Ciechanover is a 2004 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry and a Distinguished Research Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.

Born in Haifa, Ciechanover received his Master of Science in 1970 and his MD in 1975 from the Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1981 from the Technion and has been a Distinguished Research Professor at the Center for Cancer and Vascular Biology and the Director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences at the Technion. In 2004 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Professor Avram Hershko, his teacher, and Professor Irwin Rose for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, a mechanism by which the cells of most living organisms cull unwanted proteins.

On Eco, Pacquiao and nothing at all

While thousands of Filipino Catholics wave their "palaspas" and as priests sprinkle Holy Water on the faithful, I browsed Umberto Eco's "On Literature," a collection of essays, articles and speeches.

I was waiting for Manny Pacquiao and Mexico's Juan Manuel Marquez to exchange blows early on Palm Sunday when I wrote this to while my time.

Eco is supposed to be a hard read until one plunges into the text and enjoy the stories that support his insights.

Reading Eco is not unlike watching, or preparing to write about boxing, especially if one is not really a fan of the sports pages. One only appreciates the game when blood starts oozing from under the boxers' eyelids.

One has to plunge into the experience (when reading Eco or watching Pacquiao and Marquez). It's like learning how to swim in a river in one's hometown during the first few days of summer after school closes and the grading cards are distributed to excited parents.

Unlike boxing though, there are no fast and hard rules in learning, or in swimming, or politics in the Philippines, for that matter, if one's goal is only to enjoy a great book, the cold water or the wheeling and dealing of politicians.

Eco would even suggest, in his "On some Functions of Literature," to penetrate the "textual labyrinth...like a knitting needle going into a ball of wool" with the use of the electronic hypertext.

(Yup, that's computer programs available free on the Internet that allow us to write stories as a group, "joining in narratives whose denouement one can change ad infinitum.")

"Hypertextual narrative has much to teach us about freedom and creativity," Eco writes.

It's not so unlike the feeling one gets after watching a good fight when something within seems to rekindle one's interest to visit a gym or start a serious health regimen, not to be a fighter like Pacquiao, but just to look good in a summer outfit for a walk on the beach one early summer morning.

Dream on.

A gift for myself on my birthday

Dangerous liaisons: Probing the forbidden

I met Mary at a convention somewhere in the Visayas last year. She works in an advertising firm in Makati.

At first glance, one would see her as a rotten spoiled kid, the type that ruins your day. She gives you the impression that you are boring – no matter who you are.

One night, she barged into my hotel room and borrowed my laptop. She didn't give any explanation. She said she needed to get online. Pronto. She needed to catch someone, she said.

How does one say no to somebody like Mary?

Well, I didn't. I reluctantly, and sort of sarcastically, handed out to her my computer commenting about the weather and the convention in between her somewhat "weird" liaison with that other person in cyberspace.

A few minutes later, she was crying. I'm not talking here about minor drops – but major sobs. I had to get her a glass of water. After a few minutes that seemed to take forever, she went out embarrassed, I think, at her little theatrics.

I've heard Mary laughing about her clumsiness, telling stories about how she forgot to pay her food in a restaurant, of how she would stumble into anything and everything, and break glasses on a dining table.

So it wasn't very surprising that she left her "precious" correspondence in all its naked glory. It was all there waiting to be read. This, I thought, was classic Mary. Apparently, she was having some sort of cyber–relationship with someone.

The last mail was titled "if only" and the guy, Mark, was enumerating things he wanted to do if only things were "different." Sort of mushy, but sounded very real.

I'm not into poking my nose into other people's lives. But the idea of writing about a cyber–affair came up, and Mary and Mark, I thought, were the perfect subjects.

In a situation where everything seems to have no tomorrow, nothing worse could probably turn up for these two. Mark is married and has a child. He finds fulfillment in a work that brings him thousands of miles away from home.

On the other hand, there's Mary. She too is married and has a child.

When this assignment came up, I asked Mary if it was OK if I wrote her story. At first she didn't want any part of it. in the end, however, she agreed and wrote it herself for me.

Here's Mary's story.

* * *

My life is too complicated for games. And I am too complex a person to be just looking for an easy lay.

He's not some movie protagonist. And neither is he a romance novel hero. But that's the point. Mark is not perfect. He's flawed and there's something very human and very endearing about that.

It was purely my being a klutz that led me to him.

An organization where he belongs had this elaborate fund–raising activity. And what do you know, I lost my cellular phone somewhere during the fund–raising lunch. It turned out Mark got it.

I knew up front his "personal circumstances." His profile, along with several other "top guys" of the organization, was in the program for the fund–raising.

My circumstances came out during coffee when I claimed my phone.

I dare not say that was the "start." There was nothing – as in nothing – to begin with. There was no prelude to greatness whatsoever, no fireworks, no bells ringing when I first saw him.

All I knew was that there was me and Mark, and coffee, and cigarettes, great conversation, greater arguments, no put–ons.

The possibility of a relationship was inconceivable. We merely exchanged cards and wished each other good luck.

Two days after, Mark came up to me in my office and asked if I had plans for the night. I nearly fainted. I didn't know if that was relief or fright. Here, finally, was that person who had been pestering me during my waking hours, sort of asking me out. Sort of because he had the perfect excuse to seek company: He had to buy something.

It was a fascinating time we had. It was like being a kid again in a huge playground where you had giant Lego blocks scattered all around you.

Then he took me out to dinner. I don't really know how he did it, but we had that whole huge place for ourselves.

The food was great but I wasn't able to enjoy it. My emotions were interfering with my digestive tract and I had to throw up. It's some sort of psychosomatic manifestation of my weirdness: OVERJOYED = THROW–UP.

I had to explain somehow and I told him that something had been keeping me awake until dawn for the past two days. I told him that somebody might be thinking of me too much that I couldn't sleep.

I downplayed my own emotions for him and said it was just this schoolgirl crush that I thought he was my intellectual hero but it was all very harmless.

Mark blushed as he struggled to explain to me that he might be guilty for my sleepless nights. He was not able to eat. He said he also had this psychosomatic reaction whenever he was overjoyed, that he couldn't eat.

So I sat there worrying about two things. First, that we were spoiling expensive food. Second, I must get Mark to assure me that I'd get a good night's sleep that evening because I terribly needed to rest.

The next time we met, Mark brought me to a place where you could just hang out and stargaze. He pointed out the stars. I came very near saying: "Mark, do you know why there are only those small stars? Because somebody came ahead of you and took the Milky Way from the sky and gave it to me."

Nothing was happening on the physical level. We barely held hands. But elsewhere, something cool and nice and chaotic was going on and both of us were just trying to conceal it, if not quash it.

My brain was rejecting the notion that this thing with Mark was one of those illicit affairs you read in crummy paperbacks.

I couldn't be having that. It was breaking the Ten Commandments and too dangerous. It would ruin us both – our families, our careers, our lives.

The worse case scenario I could think of was of him being rubbed out. Either that or we would become fugitives and get hunted down like rats. My child's future would be jeopardized. I couldn't allow that to happen.

* * *

Globalization brought about increased mobility to Filipino family members. It also brought about expanded means of choices, including choices of partners.

Humanities Prof. Felice Yeban of the Philippine Normal University said because of globalization one "millennial disease" that threatens family life is boredom.

"Unlike before when individuals are rooted in their communities, people these days are being uprooted physically as well as psychologically," Yeban said.

She said unlike before when friends and lovers promise each other to live and die together, the "value of staying in one place" is gone.

"Marriage has to strengthen itself to face the psychological impact of being mobile," Yeban said, adding that it is the tendency of people these days to have more affairs because of mobility.

Prof. Caroline De Leon of Mirriam College, however, said it is normal for married people to get attracted to others. "You can't help that," she said.

De Leon, who heads the Department of Family Psychology and Education in the Catholic school, said extramarital affairs could happen.

"But it's what you do about it that matters," she said. "You get married because you love each other and you promised to love each other for life. That's why the word commitment should have some meaning."

She added that "impulse control" is important.

"I can't imagine what would happen to society if people have just affairs right and left," she said. "What happens to the kids? It would create a deep impact on children and their concept of what love is, what fidelity is and what real love is."

* * *

Jenny is 24 years old, single and is in love with Lito, 30, a married man. I met Jenny in one coffee shop. She was crying while writing a letter to her lover.

The night before, Ana, the man's wife, had found Jenny's picture in Lito's wallet. Lito admitted that Jenny was his other woman and that he was in love with her.

Jenny told me her story as she drowned her feelings over cups of unsweetened coffee and several sticks of cigarettes one rainy evening.

After she finished her letter, she showed it to me.

* * *

"In Philippine society, it seems that extramarital affairs are quite acceptable," De Leon said. "It's quite fashionable. It's not something to hide anymore. Maybe it's because society has become quite tolerant of everything. But I don't know if it is a good sign or not. People are more open regarding that."

The psychology professor reminds couples to remember their marriage vows. "Getting married is not something that is 'chow–and-chew'," she said. It is really something that you think about and deliberate on before getting a partner for life.

"But still, it can happen and it's a question of living up to one's commitment," De Leon said, adding that social acceptability is not a license to justify the seriousness of the issue.

* * *

Here is Jenny's last letter to Lito. After more than a month, it remains unsent.

Dear Lito,

As of this writing, I still could not believe this is happening. Although I prayed for that day to arrive before (so I could recover as early), I never wished it would be this soon.

I was not prepared for this sudden parting. I still see us together or at least trying to be together for some more months and even years, just as you have told me.

I wish to stop the time while you were thanking me for everything, while you were telling me you love me and that you'll never forget me.

Those were words that are supposed to flatter me but it made me sad. Tears drowned my face as I read between the lines that you were telling me goodbye.

I am still crying. I guess I have not stopped since that early Tuesday evening. I instantly went back to sullen mornings and sleepless, weeping nights.

It's been two weeks now but I have not wholly accepted that our days are gone. My mind somehow understands it but my heart violently refuses to conceive it. I wished these were all just dreams.

Everything came so fast. Only days before that fatal Tuesday, we were happily together. We had lunch at that special place.

You must agree that the ********* is the place we could virtually call our own. We both know that nothing can ever replace it. Not even the posh and expensive fine dining restaurants anywhere in the world.

You know what? I even plan to buy it when the right time comes just to save our memories.

What makes it more special is the ********* being right within that extra special place where we always spend our time – talking, walking, laughing, and crying for the kind of fate we have.

Although we knew from the start that ours is really a sad story, we usually would laugh about it for we seldom think we are hapless.

To know how much we feel for each other is enough to forget the grim reality that we could never be what we wanted us to be – we could never be together for long. You could never be mine and I could never be yours in this lifetime.

Perhaps, I came much too late or maybe you went too ahead of me in everything. I may have been too slow in finding you or you have not waited enough to find me.

Then here we are consoling ourselves that maybe we were not really meant to be together at all, though we both know our hearts do not believe it.

The sadness that's swallowing me now is graver than when I lost a relative. I don't feel that I lost somebody but I lost an essential part of me.

We died somehow. And we could not do anything to revive or at least prolong our last breath to be able to hold each other, be with each other, and share ourselves with each other longer.

It is as if we had a cardiac arrest with half our bodies alive and dead. Well, we must really try to live half of our lives to be able to see each other again and eventually reactivate the other half. Who knows? Maybe when that time comes, we could already call it our own.

I have worn my heart out on my sleeves twice before but I am wearing it now around my finger so you could see it clearly and touch it. I think you have touched it several times and even kissed it. I would never forget that.

If you were a chapter of my book, I would not want to close it. You are the chapter where I want to be stuck a little longer, if not forever. I guess it would take so much of me to turn the pages and move on.

But then maybe, that's what I should do. So I could go fast to that time where we could finally be together. I strongly feel that it would come.

Yet I assure you I would always look back to these pages with incessant excitement, with the same vigor, and smile on my face.

Don't worry I would take good care of myself just as you want me to. Just the same, I would never ever forget you and I thank you for the love and concern.

I know you tried to make things easier for us, only that we could not always have things our own way. And if only we could, I am sure you have done whatever it takes to make me happy.

This might be the last letter. But I hope that my way of letting you know about the passion I have for you would not stop here. You must constantly feel it in your heart until we see each other again.

In between now and that moment, I guess I would just have to get my hope, strength and smile from the tapes, books and shirts you left with me.

I love you,

Jenny

* * *

The acquisition of values begins at home, in the family, said psychologist De Leon. The changing and shifting values in the new millennium could be a factor that would make people want to have affairs, she said.

"I believe children who are brought up in some solid traditional values, which are family–oriented would think twice before going into affairs," De Leon said.

* * *

I asked Mary over the Internet what happened to her and Mark. This is what she wrote:

"I struggled to say the words to Mark that I had to go. And it hit me like lightning that this has to be goodbye.

"Inside, I was wishing I could come up with something. Like, probably promise him forever. But I can't. I already did that, and with someone else, just as he probably had, and with someone else, too.

"We held hands. We were happy and he said it might be the best time to go.

"For all its glories and pains, it's enough most of the time that you know you're not suffering alone.

"I don't know about those problematic love affairs immortalized in print and in movies. But whenever I feel I'm dying to hold him or something, I know he's dying along with me.

"Now he's gone."

- This article first appeared in a slightly different version in the Philippine Post sometime in 2000. This edition appeared on GMANews.TV's Valentine's Special this year.

Shopping in KL

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon in Kuala Lumpur when I decided to leave my hotel room and see the city. I was staying a few steps from the famous Petronas Tower, so there was no need for me to discover the place where most tourists and expat workers congregate especially on a Sunday afternoon.

I hailed a cab and asked to be brought to the nearest place where computers, ipods and other gadgets are supposed to be sold cheap. After about ten minutes and ten ringgits later, I closed the door of the cab under a light shower outside a not-so-imposing building.

From the ground floor up I saw the latest original and “hybrid” gadgets – from notebook computers, ipods, accessories, and other equipment only techie guys would enjoy.

I was surprised by the very low prices. Very low indeed that I bought two new Asus Eee PC computers and an 8G Nikon Coolpix camera for the price of a brand new Eee PC in Manila. If only I could walk my way back to the airport I would have bought the 160G external hard drive that was offered to me by a Chinese vendor for only P1,800.

A layman on economics, I wondered why computers and gadgets are priced much cheaper in neighboring countries. Why can't we have it here cheap too? There might be something wrong with how we do business.

Eee PC

I'm writing this from my new Asus Eee PC to familiarize myself with its miniature keyboard.

I bought this gadget because I found it cheap in Malaysia. I got it for only about P8,000 in an IT mall in Singapore while it's being sold here in Manila from P16,000 to P19,000.

This very basic computer is ideal for journalists, as if it's really designed for our needs. It's small that it can be inserted between the pages of a Time or Newsweek magazine. It can connect to the Internet as long as there's a Wifi signal or a LAN connection.

The downside is it's too small that one has to get the hang of it to be able to type faster. Of course it's better than using one's cell fone to file stories.

This is a test entry.

Mornings

I've always loved mornings. The problem is I am just too tired to wake up early to welcome the rising sun and wave goodbye to the morning star's fading light.

These past weeks, however, I've witnessed several sunrises during my trips to some parts of the country - while driving a car, while walking in the middle of the field or while washing my face near a well.

How I wish I could share those beautiful sights with someone who wakes up early and walks with me to the middle of the field to recite a poem or just murmur a short prayer of thanks. I did it once, somewhere in Central Luzon, and regretted it years later. My friend took the magic of the morning from me.

Seeing the sun rise - when dawn breaks and darkness turns to light after passing through what seem to be millions of stages of colorful variations - I realized that the sunrise - the bukangliwayway - is still there for my taking. I only have to wake up early. No friend or fiend can steal it from me.

And yes, I was able to write again after seeing a very beautiful sunrise Monday morning. I wrote it on the spot on my new Moleskine notebook (feeling like Hemingway, ha!). I even wrote something for my friend:

Like a pool
of water
on an empty
parking lot
your stillness
makes the engine
of my old car
roar like thunder

And this one's for my friend:

will there still be
color on the horizon
when you wake up
and remember me

Pa-cute moment

Photo by Trina