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Welcome to the Philippines. Welcome to Mayhem.

I steeled myself out of bed, thinking that waking up even before the roosters did would put me ahead of everyone else.

Today was National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance day so I needed to start early, as early as I can, well aware of the snaking lines that applicants have to go through. 

I went to the NBI satellite office inside the Quezon City hall compound where parking lots were 

still empty and the Hall of Justice still asleep. 

But I was deceived. At the satellite office, there was mayhem and chaos. No early riser would beat the crowd of sleep-deprived men, women, students, seafarers, young boys and girls and the elderly.  They were there since 2 am and the day's cut-off was 5 am. Had I known, I would not have bothered setting the alarm clock the night before. I would have stayed snuggled in bed, dreaming the dreams that go on and on.

I left the parking lot and drove to another satellite office in a nearby mall but there I saw the same chaos, the same sleep-deprived crowd, waiting and waiting still.

I left with all hopes dashed. It was an impossibly long queue. I had to start some other day or wait for a miracle from the heavens above.

I wondered how it is for the maddening crowd. I wondered how they could just sit and take it all -- such a very flawed system. I wondered how the government can live with the fact that for such a simple form of service, it has failed its citizens. And this is not even healthcare and public education.

Welcome to the Philippines. Welcome to mayhem. 

Dreams (And Nightmares)

The mother kept the moon in her belly. She had five secret children, she would later reveal, non-chalantly, as if talking about the weather, 16-degrees cold as the thermometer read.

Three boys and two girls, on top of the other five. To whom would she give the moon? To one of the five secret offsprings, she said.

What would she do with the moon in her belly? I wondered, deep in thoughts. The task is to give it to the most deserving child, she said. The one she loves the most. Yet, she said in a whisper one quiet morning, with doors locked and windows shut, there would be no love child; no other family.

And that the moon would be for the original five, each with a slice of the round, crimson ball. This is the mother who kept the moon in her belly, along with well-kept secrets of her quiet, perfect life.




January 26. Heartbreak Hill.

Covering the Power Rate Hike

It's been several weeks of stressful coverage of the power rate hike. (Christmas and New Year included!) And still counting. As the issue drags on, lobbyists, spin doctors and paid hacks are revealing themselves, wittingly or unwittingly. 

It's inevitable given that billions in profits and jobs are on the line. Almost everyone has an agenda, inevitably clouding the truth. What really happened? Why did electricity rates double in December, a very cold month when demand is supposed to be low.

Everyone's denying responsibility. Nobody's at fault. The blame game goes on and on. It's like I'm watching a tele-drama unfolding live by the minute, with all its twists and turns. 

Watching yesterday's Senate hearing for instance, raised more questions than answers. Why, for instance, did Senator Sergio Osmena III open the hearing with an obvious agenda about the Malaya plant? 

Where did he get the computation and why couldn't he show it when asked? Who lobbied for it? Why did he keep pointing at PSALM? And NOT a question on power producers? The committee is supposed to be checking alleged collusion among power sellers, right?

I'd love to know.  Meanwhile, I'm stuck covering this issue. The zarzuela continues.

And So It Is

It was written in the stars that 2013 would be a good year but really, I didn't expect it to be such a blast. And so despite the tragedy that struck Visayas in the latter part of the year (affecting our helper's family back in the province), I still would like to thank the universe for giving me a good year as I look forward to an equally stellar 2014.

There's just too many to mention but I'll sum it up in three words -- love, friendship and travels.

In March, I saw the sun rising in the sand-covered streets of Doha, my first time to ever set foot on a Middle Eastern country, beyond an airport's transit lounge. You can read my Doha journal here:

In August, I was lucky enough to be part of a regional integration workshop in Yangon, Myanmar, visited by the love while I was there and at the same time, meeting a new friend and fellow pilgrim, Joyce.

Indeed, Jes and I were on the road again, this time in the Golden Land, yet another stop in our lifelong journey between the heart of an enigmatic young boy and a paradise of a beach called Puka. Read here our notes from the road.

In October, I took home an award from EJAP. Thank you, EJAP. It was quite a fine moment. Here are scenes from the awards night.

One weekend, while I was on vacation, the little girl and I escaped to the land of Tom Yum. As always, it was another mother-daughter trip filled with endless laughter, hugs, kisses and our favorite past time, massage.

In November, after more than twenty years, I was privileged, happy and honored to be back in Tokyo, Japan. It was magic to fall in love with Tokyo all over again, just watching the bright autumn leaves blown away by the chilly breeze.

But how I can talk about Tokyo without mentioning the DAJA Awards, the very reason that brought me there? It was a whole new world of learning, mostly about regional integration and trade commitments. Thank you, DAJA for the award. Here are the scenes from the DAJA 2013 Awards.

December was perfect for Donna's perfect wedding. Expect Donna to have such a grand wedding and nothing less. 

It was also a year of rekindling friendships. I lost some best friends as we all continued on toward the rest of our lives. It's been sad but I also made new ones and rekindled ties with my come-backing Hong Kong expatriate sister, the one and only adventurer and my dear Collegian buddies. Thank you to friends, my Philippine Star family and dearest ones.

And so it is, thank you universe for a kick-ass year. It's been a fabulous 2013. Have a great year ahead to my invisible readers. 

The stories of a tragedy named Haiyan

My latest post on The New Internationalist:

 

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Dondi Tawatao. © Alanah Torralba

They saw flattened villages and crumpled homes; uncovered corpses strewn amid the ruins and vehicles thrown about like matchboxes. They saw dazed survivors desperately searching for food or water; they smelled the stench of death that pervaded the air as raindrops fell; they saw a three-year old girl buried under the rubble. They saw all this and more.

These are the stories of three photojournalists who covered the wrath of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which ripped through the province of Leyte in the east-central Philippines on 8 November, killing at least 6,000 people.

Jes Aznar, a freelance photographer who covered Haiyan for The New York Times and who has covered conflicts and disasters in and outside the Philippines, says Haiyan was like no other. He arrived at Tacloban airport in Leyte three days after the typhoon struck.

‘We saw bodies floating at sea outside the plane window. The gutted Tacloban airport greeted us upon landing. There was a strong breeze but the stench of decaying matter was overpowering,’ he recalls.

When he saw more of the destruction, he says it was as if Mother Nature had thrown a major tantrum fit: ‘Slabs of concrete that were once part of houses and buildings were like dominoes, one on top of another. Millions of pieces of broken lumber, stones and household items created a whole new landscape in this city of more than 200,000.’

Yet six days after the storm there was still no government presence. People were left to survive on their own.

‘Looting was rampant. The city was fast deteriorating. The first ones to arrive were foreign aid agencies. The Philippine government obviously was not there. This is what struck me the most,’ says Jes.

With the damage so severe, journalists found themselves much like the typhoon survivors they came to cover. They too had to deal with the logistics nightmare, with electricity shut off, mobile phone lines crippled and basic supplies unavailable. Many of them slept in what Jes described as a ‘torn-down airport’, at least during the first few days.

‘It was good enough shelter for all of us – a bare-bone building cramped with journalists. You could tell how long they had been there by the amount of mud on their boots and face.’

The government, he says, simply failed to do its job. 

‘It should have done what it was supposed to do in situations like this. Simply put, the government should have functioned as one.’

Dondi Tawatao, a news photographer who covered Haiyan for Getty Images, likened Tacloban to a war zone – ‘an incomprehensible mess’.

He has covered disasters in the past but like Jes, Dondi agrees that Haiyan’s wrath was by far the worst. 

‘The airport was utterly devastated when I arrived on 9 November. [There were] no communications, no power, no structures left standing save for the control tower, looking forlorn amid the twisted hulks of debris. I had covered disasters before, but I have never seen this much devastation. The scene was probably as close as you can get to a nuclear bomb explosion.’

Leaving the airport, he saw bodies lying on the roadside. Within 200 metres he counted more than 100 bodies. Those lucky enough to survive were walking aimlessly, dazed and grief-stricken. He walked some more and saw a line filled with hundreds of people waiting for potable water to drink. One begged him for just one gulp of water.  

‘I made my way towards the village of San Jose, the village nearest to the airport. Military soldiers were still in the process of clearing debris. The debris was so deep I couldn’t even see the road beneath me.’

Inside a two-storey structure, he found a corpse of a very large man hanging by his legs, which were snagged by twisted pieces of metal.  

‘The fire volunteers who went inside with me couldn’t get him out. He was too large, too heavy and would require amputating both his legs to free him. I chanced upon a seven-man police crew trying to extricate the corpse of a man and a woman inside a felled tree. They had no tools and gave up on it after a while.

‘What struck me most was the apparent helplessness of the first responders – the military and government officials who were on the ground that day. Few made decisions, or were in the “process” of making a decision,’ he says. 

The stories of survival also struck him deeply: 

‘Many were carrying children, the elderly, and nothing more than the shirts on their back. These people had lost everything.’

Some vowed never to return to the God-forsaken land. 

‘They were streaming by the thousands to the airport, anxious to get as far away from Tacloban as possible. Equally compelling are the ones who chose to stay. Most of those who stayed were the poorest of the poor – fishers, labourers, vendors and farmers.’

Tammy David, who covered Haiyan’s aftermath for The Wall Street Journal, was luckier. She arrived in the second week after the typhoon and so was able to prepare a bit more than others. But the scene that greeted her was just as lamentable:

‘To be frank, I had very minimal stress compared to the others, since I came in during the second week and my assignment was pretty easy. The Wall Street Journal team brought their own generator, stove and other supplies. My luggage looked like a mobile convenience store. In four days, I slept on a mattress, took a bath twice, ate every day, updated my Instagram and drank water when I was thirsty. I was practically in the lap of luxury, but the situation among locals was still very bad which is why to this day I encourage people to help out.’

Still, when she arrived, she recalls being greeted with the stench of the disaster.

‘It was humid and I could smell mud, sweat and piss,’ she says. ‘The smell was bearable but I couldn’t take the sight of people sleeping on the wet and dirty floors of the airport. The planes were noisy but people were sound asleep. They were probably dead tired from waiting for days to get a flight out of Tacloban.’

These are just some of the stories of a tragedy named Haiyan. The stories are as varied as they are painful. They tell of lost lives and broken dreams; of survivors who died because of the lack of medical care; of families torn apart; of thousands of corpses scattered amidst the chaos.

Haiyan was all these and more. It was an incomprehensible mess; a war zone, a nuclear explosion. It was an apocalypse of sorts. Forget the Mayan calendar. This was the day the world came to an end, at least for the thousands who died in the storm surge – including a three-year-old girl found buried in the rubble.

Peace

From CNN's Twitter Account