Weekend Recap

I wasn’t too happy about the rain last Saturday. Not that I don’t like rain in general. I actually kinda like rain. It’s just that I washed two loads of laundry Saturday morning and I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of my clothes still being wet at the end of the day. Luckily though it didn’t rain for too long, and after lunch my clothes were dry enough to bring in.

At around 3PM I went to the Shang to meet the PDA. I got so bored waiting for them to arrive I almost left. I waited for like an hour and a half before Juris showed up, and another 30 minutes after that before Marie came. Jhona wasn’t going to come. I was pissed she wasn’t coming because it was like a month since we last saw each other. But she had a meeting at work or something, so there wasn’t really much we could do to persuade her to come. But Juris, Marie and I had fun anyway, belching cigarette smoke at the Shangrila food court. We were planning to buy a new journal, since our old one was already all filled up, but we couldn’t find one that we all agreed on. We also decided to finally begin working on our literary folio. It’ll just be a simple, stapled paper kind of thing, but of course the entries will be top-notch. I still haven’t gotten round to writing the short story I intend to include in the folio. We’re going to include some of our PDA journal entries. We’re not going to put our names next to the entries, of course, since the entries we’ve decided to include are the really “raunchy” ones. I can’t believe some of the things I’ve written in the journal. Stuff like “I feel really negative today, and the only thing positive about my being negative is my being HIV negative”. Anyway. Once the folio is done we also plan to distribute copies at different coffee shops and bookstores.

Sunday I pampered myself. I had a facial and a hot oil treatment for my hair. I felt so relaxed during the facial that I think I felt asleep. I met Juris and Marie again later that afternoon to talk about the folio again because it would be the last time we would really have time to talk about the project in detail since Juris would be starting law school at the Ateneo and since Marie would be teaching at UP San Fernando. I, on the other hand, am not sure what days my rest days would fall on once I start taking live calls in Expedia. That and I’m more likely than not going to be placed in the graveyard shift. But anyway. We’ll manage.

I can’t think of anything else to write about at the moment. I might write more later. Depends on my mood.

Disturbed

This is a news report I heard about this morning (taken from http://www.inq7.net/brk/2002/may/31/brkoth_2-1.htm):

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A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy was killed in a tragic hostage drama in a Pasay city bus station at dawn Friday, dzBB radio reported.

The boy died from multiple stab wounds inflicted by the unidentified hostage taker, who was then shot several times by policemen even as he lay dead on the Philtranco terminal pavement along EDSA.

According to reports reaching INQ7.net, policemen were unable to control the situation even as a GMA-7 reporter, Michael Fajatin, volunteered to negotiate the hostage’s release.

Despite this, the hostage taker, reportedly from San Mateo, Rizal, continued to thrust a bladed weapon into the child’s armpit which led to the boy’s attempt to grab the weapon. A struggle ensued with the hostage taker stabbing the victim up to four times in the back before police finally opened fire. Bystanders then approached and stomped on the prone and bloodied suspect.

The knife-wielder snatched his victim from the lap of the child’s horrified parents over a reported spat with a relative, whom the hostage-taker thought was an employee of the bus line. Afterwards, the suspect was shown repeatedly plunging his blade into the back of the child.

Witnesses told dzBB radio responding Pasay city police, led by its chief Supt. Eduardo dela Serna, “only stood and watched” as the hostage drama ensued and only attacked the hostage taker after he stabbed the victim. They said there were “numerous” opportunities for the police to overpower the hostage taker but decided to just “lay back and watch.”

The police even failed to control the growing crowd of kibitzers, the witnesses said.

Red-faced police officials pledged an inquiry into the fracas.

The Philippine National Police is set to launch a full-scale investigation into the hostage-taking incident to determine if there was overkill in police operations to subdue the suspect, a television report said.

“We have to conduct a thorough review and investigation…so many questions need answers in this hostage-taking situation,” PNP Public Information Office chief Senior Supt. Leonardo Espina said.

Espina said they would also summon Fajatin, who negotiated for the release of the victim.

“We just can’t let anybody handle the (negotiations). We have to have trained negotiators in situations like this,” he said.

“We are dismayed by the death of the child,” metropolitan Manila police chief Eduardo Aglipay said over dzBB radio.

He said there would be a thorough investigation, with the police using the television footage as evidence.

“There are so many questions to be answered regarding this hostage situation,” he said.

“If there were lapses in procedure we would act on them,” Aglipay said. “If anyone committed a mistake, they have to answer for it in terms of administrative punishment.”
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I was so shocked when I heard about this story this morning. Apparently the TV station mentioned in the report took pictures of the police smoking cigarettes and hanging out while the hostage taker had the child under knifepoint. Then when the hostage taker stabbed the boy in the neck, you could hear how the boy was screaming. The boy also put his hand on the knife to try to pull the knife away. I felt so sorry for him, and so horrified that something like that could happen. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for him. And it’s just so alarming how apparently there were so many chances for the police to have prevented the hostage taker from stabbing the boy, but they didn’t act early enough.

I’m really affected by stories of children being maltreated, abused, tortured, killed. When I hear stories like the one above I get really weak thinking about how the child must have felt, and sometimes I can almost imagine myself in the child’s position. It makes me feel really helpless. If it were Jelu or Lisa that that happened to I probably would’ve committed suicide after. I don’t even want to think about it. :'(

Shut up, BITCH!!!

I feel like a bitch today for some reason. The most minor things irritate me. Things like how the security guard at the lobby only checked my bag and didn’t check the bags of other people (who DEFINITELY looked more suspicious than me), or how the guy selling pizzas was paying more attention to his cellphone than he was to taking my order. It’s almost like the same feeling I get when I answer calls from VeriSign — the feeling as if I’ve exploded from rage and flames are rushing out of my body. The only difference is that today I’m keeping my cool and I’m not swearing my head off. I’m curbing the urge to snap out. I’m not sure, but I think it’s linked to the mood swings I’ve been experiencing recently.

I’m excited about this Saturday though. Me and the PDA are going to be meeting. I only hope Jhona will be there though. It’s been a while since she was last able to join me, Marie and Juris. She claims she’s busy with work, but the three of us think that more likely than not she’s actually more busy with her new guy. If we do meet there’s a possibility that we’ll meet at the Speech Majors grand goodbye thing. A few of the speech majors were thinking how since the most of us are really busy with work now, and since it seems that it’ll be ten years or more before we really get together again (because we’re all pretty much sick of each other), we should have like a “GOODBYE” party. Hmmm… I’m not sure that it’ll be 10 years before we see each other again, but I like the idea of having a party anyway. Of course most probably it will only be the Pangkat Malaya members who’ll attend, but that’s to be expected. For friends who are reading this who aren’t familiar with Pangkat Malaya, I’ll tell you about that group next time.

I started writing this entry at 2:00 PM, but it’s already 6:00. We have an exam tomorrow, so I sorta have to go now. I’ll write more tomorrow. c”,)

Tour of Manila, Part II

Last Saturday (05.25.02), me and Juris took another hysterical (historical —hysterical because we spend most of the time laughing) tour of Manila. The first tour we took was around Divisoria, Binondo, and Quiapo. We had lots of fun then, because we rode on a calesa from Divisoria to Binondo, and it was on that trip that we decided that Binondo was the coolest place to hang about in Manila. Binondo’s streets are surprisingly clean (especially Ongpin), considering the rest of Manila is quite dirty. So this time around we started the tour in Binondo. We were supposed to be looking for a new journal, since the PDA journal is all full and Binondo is semi-renowned for its cheap paper and office supplies. Instead we ended up pigging out. You can’t really help but do that in a Chinatown district, especially if like me you just love Chinese food. Hopia, almond cake, machang… Almond cake is the best, although we didn’t find any when we were there last Saturday. It’s like puto, but it tastes like almond jelly. We found this really nice restaurant that served heavenly seafood rolls that looked small. When we ate them though they were so heavy that we could only eat 1 each, though we had 5.

After Binondo we had a stopover in Sta Cruz on our way to Intramuros, and we took a look at the Sta Cruz church. I like visiting churches for some reason, even though I consider myself as not really having a religion (though if I had to pick, I’d pick Buddhism – specifically Zen Buddhism). I guess it’s because religious place have a generally quiet, meditative atmosphere. Not to mention that a lot of religious places are beautifully designed. The Sta Cruz church was cool because the icons on the walls behind the altar had a shimmery, metallic design. At the entrance they had a display of like the church’s history. I was shocked at the pictures taken in the aftermath of the Manila holocaust. For those who aren’t aware, the Manila holocaust happened in 1945 just after Japan had surrendered in World War II. The holocaust happened after the surrender, because there was one Japanese general who just could not accept the fact that Japan had lost in the war. He was so upset that he brought over 25,000 of his troops to Manila, and they went on a killing spree. They practically destroyed the whole city, landmarks as well as, of course, the people. I was horrified at the pictures of the dead people piled up after the attack. It was like the pictures of the concentration camps you see in Europe, only this time the dead people in the pictures were Filipinos. Indescribable. Apparently, according to one historian, the holocaust that happened in Manila was the last holocaust of the Second World War.

After Sta Cruz we took a jeep to Intramuros. By the time we arrived it was already dark — not because the trip from Sta Cruz to Intramuros take a long time, but because we only started our tour at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Our first stop at Intramuros was the Manila Cathedral (at least I think that’s what it’s called). In any case it’s the one that was declared a Basilica Minore by one of the popes, and it’s one near the Plaza. The Plaza has nice wooden benches just outside the Cathedral you can sit on. Me and Juris had a smoke there before walking around. We couldn’t really go inside the Church because there was a wedding going on. All of the churches inside Intramuros are quaint and lovely wedding venues. But even from the outside you could tell that the church was gorgeous, what with the dome and all. In my opinion if a church has a dome, it sort of make it holier and more religious(?). We also went to the Saint Augustin Church, but there was also a wedding there, and the guided tour-place was also closed. Basically everything was closed, so we decided that we had to come back another day. The only thing we could really appreciate were the brick roads and the outsides of the buildings. You’ll notice that most of the buildings, especially the landmark ones, have a sign saying how they had to rebuilt after the Japanese invasion.

After Intramuros Juris and I went to the Glorietta to watch Star Wars Episode II. Anakin (the actor – Hayden something) was so gorgoeus. I’m not really sure though if he was a bad actor, or if the script just really sucked. In any case he was still nice to look at. I’m not that sure though if I’d like Anakin (the character) as a lover. In a way the character is like a dream lover — gorgoeus, poetice and sensual, yet sensitive and vulnerable. However people like that usually have a tendency to be volatile and manic depressive as well, just like Anakin’s character. They’re fine when they’tre young, but then they grow up to be wife-beaters or drug addicts. In Anakin’s case he became Darth Vader, a sadistic space warrior who cut off his own son’s arm. The film as a whole was really nice, as long as you didn’t pay too much attention to the script (which like I said, sucked). The visuals and the art direction was awesome, especially the scenery of Naboo. The work was intricately done and very much aesthetically pleasing.

So that was it for the tour, and that is it for this entry. Class starts in a few minutes (it’s now 8:55 AM) so I gotta be going. Veron is also training for Expedia now! I’m so excited! c”,)