Mornings in Malate

Believe it or not, the sun rises in Malate, home of dirty old men and their mistresses, vagabonds and young boys in auburn dyed hair savoring rugby. 

In the morning, bars are empty and karaoke lounges like the Mabini Jewel Cabin are sound asleep and snoring.

Today, while the sun is scorchingly dry, there's a family of street urchins sleeping just outside the Cabin; passersby drop a coin or two before walking toward the rest of their lives, no time to think where a single peso could go for this family.

Gone are the lasses in their miniskirts and high-heeled stilettos who eke out a living picking up foreigners for more than a one-night stand but for a ticket out of their lonely lives.

Hugs and Kisses stare at me, empty and abandoned, at least today, right this hour. I am sitting by a vintage oak barrel outside Malone's Irish Pub which "lets your beer do the talking," sipping a cappuccino while writing this. 

The Malate of the previous night is not the same as this morning. I wonder where they all went while a UP student who hanged herself visited me in my dreams last night, up there in a borrowed room smelling of Brie cheese and nicotine smoke.

The blazing lights and party music are gone, replaced by the honking of jeepneys plying the dirty streets of Mabini. 

I wonder where the pimps went. I wonder where the pedophiles are. I wonder, too about the young forlorn ladies belting out love songs in lonely KTV rooms. 

A bar girl in pig tails, green checkered skirt and knee-high socks jolts me out of my reverie. Ninety pesos for my cold cappuccino, she reminds me. I reach out for the last of my money but she disappears as a bald foreigner catches her attention. 

"Do you miss me?" he asks her. 

"I'll be back. I'll just pick my laundry," he promises her and walks away. She smiles and waits. And waits longer. They all do. 

We all do. Because the sun rises in Malate.

(A version of this article is part of a submission to a fiction Masterclass) 

Airports

I'm in any one of the four airport terminals in Manila, at least once a month or maybe more, either as a passenger or the bf's chauffeur.

Whichever it is, the experience is the same. The parking lot is a maze, at least in the main terminal, a labyrinthine hell of a mess, filled with cars parked in all directions and motorists born to violate traffic rules. 

There's no telling when one can park or if one can park at all, so don't risk bringing your car if you have a flight to catch because you might just miss it looking for that elusive slot. 

If you're lucky to get one, a dizzying scene of well-wishers and eager loved ones await you. There's not just one family member to send a departing passenger off but jeep loads of clan members. 

When you're waiting for an arriving passenger expect to see a monstrous crowd of waiting families, like monkeys behind bars or prisoners of war. It's no use telling the passenger to stand and wait under the right letter; you won't see him anyway in the mayhem, not with the mumble jumble of cars breaching the two minute limit by the minute. 

The comfort rooms in this part of the country will bring you no comfort with its stench and dirt. And don't bother flushing the toilet because it's either not working or the handle's too dirty for even the dirtiest hands to touch. 

The security personnel are as grouchy as The Grouch so save your smiles for that arriving loved one, whatever need or inquiry you may have. 

Immigration and Customs officials are comparable. You'll chance upon friendly ones more often than not but corrupt ones negate all these small consolations so you begin to wonder what the hell are you paying your taxes for.

Flights will be delayed. The heavens must be performing a miracle if your plane arrives or departs on time so expect to wait and wait longer. 

Still, there's no escaping airports. For a wanderer like me, it's that gauntlet walk to get to wherever my feet takes me -- to some paradise in the southern part of this God-forsaken land or to my favorite Southeast Asian country. 

Yet, it wouldn't be too much to hope for a nice deal, at least for my P550 terminal fee. Clean restrooms are the first on my wish list. 

But then again, who am I kidding here. The Philippines has the worst airport in the world, after all. Never mind if it bears the name of the father of the top official of this land.

(While waiting at the airport, two hours and still counting...)

From the Mailbox

Received this from DW Akademie via airmail. Thank you Deutsche Welle! It was a fruitful experience. 

Germany in My Mind: Our Sunset Cruise on the Rhine

Reposted from a year ago

Germany is a memory of the crimson sun slowly fading beneath the pale blue horizon as the hulking white catamaran gently crawls on the Rhine.

It is a crisp June afternoon in Bonn and Jes and I are standing on the deck of the boat, savoring this part of Europe.

Age-old castles line both sides of the river. And fancy restaurants, too. There are young boys and little girls in pig tails racing by the shore.

There is a broken bridge from a forgotten war; Medieval churches nestled on green-covered hilltops; Birds flocking from one branch to another; there are other boats, too and million-dollar yachts with lovers locked in each other's arms.

We sip on our champagne to fight off the biting breeze but we are already in a stupor from the boat ride alone, enthralled in this bearable lightness of being.

Traveling is about discovering the foreign and the unfamiliar; of getting lost and taking everything in; of freezing the time and passing it; of painting with light and weaving stories; and of dreaming of Einstein's dreams.

Cruising the Rhine is all these and more.

It is a plate of flying hors d'oeuvres; of fresh green lettuce, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese; of bottles of ice cold Becks beer and the froth on our pursed lips. 

It is the warmth of the brown spring coat while holding hands. It is high-heeled shoes and brown boots; of hundreds of sweaty bodies dancing on stage. It is jam-packed, drenched-in-booze all-night partying.

It is about strangers dropping by tables; fake backdrops of photographs; of endless giggling.

It is about sharing Winston lights on the deck while freezing in the cold. It is waiting for the sun to set at 10 in the evening and waiting for the yellow moon from years ago.

Germany is a memory of a cruise one afternoon of June on a river called Rhine, with the love, dreams and the warm embrace backlighted by the setting sun.

My Hell of a Ride

The mayhem begins long before the ride starts. Before you even imagine how it would be -- would you be able to find a seat, would you make it on time, would a pickpocket go home with your phone or would another lost soul jump to his death?

Indeed, the chaos begins not when you cross the faded yellow platform but at a point somewhere beyond six flights of stairs, where a long snaking line of commuters spills over to a portion of Metro Manila's busiest highway, known to some as EDSA, gates of hell to everyone else.

Here, at the foot of MRT's Quezon Avenue station, on pools of mud and water from last night's rain, is where the line to this morning's ride starts.

Commuters -- in high-heeled shoes and chambray jeans; in crisp mini-skirts and torn yellow shorts, long black slacks and cherry red dresses; in worn-out jerseys, too -- keep on coming, braving the madness. Because there is no other way, at least not right now on this God-forsaken hour, when one has to choose between this route and enduring the traffic along EDSA.

Many in the crowd are used to this kind of hell, the rush is part of the daily grind. Others are first timers while some are occasional train riders. Beginners or regulars, the inconvenience is the same -- the crowd is as thick as the Red Sea's waves and a fetid smell of sweat and body scents wafts in the air.

Some I suspect are hungry and sleep deprived while others escape to the comfort of music on their ears.

It is 7:30 in the morning and the heat is scorchingly dry.  You begin to think so much time is wasted in the long queue, minutes away from friends and even loved ones, too. But once inside and the train moves, you'll catch a view of the traffic below and you realize that in the hell that you are, you still got a better deal, at least right this hour, when there's a bigger nightmare way down there.

Today, there's all sorts of people on the train, there's a fake blond in blue and white stripes, an old woman in red praying the rosary, a lanky elderly waiting for a seat, a young lass putting on make-up and a big burly guy chewing a gum. There's a man with a Bugs Bunny shirt dozing off to Neverland, and another one holding her girlfriend in her arms.

Everyone gets off at some point, somewhere. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, who knows where we'll all be. It's how fleeting life is, as fleeting as a moving train, as surreal as men jumping to their deaths.

Everyone's waiting for their stop, to take a breath of fresh air amidst strange voices on the microphone and the maddening crowd. To walk and to continue home, wherever home may be -- in the arms of men they love, in dirty sheets in borrowed rooms or in the wailing of children left in others' care. Somewhere, somewhere, in this cursed shitty world.

We will step off and mind the gap and struggle to walk toward the rest of our lives.

written in a cramped MRT ride, October 21. 

And So It Is

And you try each day, in this God-forsaken world, filled with child molesters, thieves and irresponsible alcoholic dads, to survive and make sense of the chaos. You try to imagine, even in the most unimaginable hours, that there is something real out there, beyond the doublespeak of people around you, those who claim to be your friends, loved ones, too. You try to see through the haze and the noise and the madness, and you think there's something more for you as you wait in the loneliest of hours for something to hold on to, that promise of tomorrow, though the promise never comes.

You try and you try and you try because you know in the deepest recesses of your hearts, in the most miserable moments, you know you deserve something better than be treated by forty plus spinsters with remorse and envy; or older women who resent you for the travels you've made because those are the trips they could never make.

And so you try, over and over, again and again, to find peace in the mayhem amidst all the resentments and the broken dreams but you realize by looking at moving walls that there is nothing to hope for, especially not for a dumb blonde like you. Not in this affirmation-hungry world, filled with egoists and backstabbers and men and women, who in the end, fight over junkets and other freebies, not unlike little children caught in a mad scramble for candies.

Scenes from the 22nd Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines Business Journalism Awards Night

October 18, 2013, Intercontinental Hotel, Makati


With business editors and reporters

with Alena Mae Flores of Manila Standard, my amiga

with past and present banking and finance beat reporters

With the femmes fatales of the energy beat

With my super favorite Tito Mon Lozano of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Riza Olchondra of the Inquirer for Trade and Agribusiness, Doris Dumlao of Inquirer for capital markets, Lenie Lectura of Business Mirror for Telecommunications, Angela Celis of Malaya for macroeconomy, Richmond Mercurio of Malaya for Energy, Jimmy Calapati of Malaya for Banking, VG Cabuag of Business Mirror for Best Feature Story and yours truly for public finance. 

 And this one is my Philippine Star family's tweet about my award. Thank you, EJAP, Philippine Star, the board of judges and to all my sources. Congratulations to fellow reporters who won and to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Malaya Business Insight, both named Best News Source. See this and this for more information on the awards night.

and on the front page, too. Thanks for the support, PhilStar, especially to my editors Roman Floresca and Marianne Go.

Photo credits: Paul Isla, Jun Ebias, Albert Castro and me