-
My great grandfather - photo taken in 1882
Manila, Philippines

-
Don Alipio Ycasiano y Bello
A.B. Ateneo de Manila, 1885
“Sobresaliente”

—
Bayan Ko
Written by Jose Corazon de Jesus in 1929
Put to music by Constancio de Guzman
Rendition sung by Kuh Ledesma
Paintings by Fernando Amorsolo

-
Ang bayan kong Pilipinas
Lupain ng ginto’t bulaklak
Pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad
Nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag.
At sa kanyang yumi at ganda
Dayuhan ay nahalina
Bayan ko, binihag ka
Nasadlak sa dusa.

-
Ibon mang may layang lumipad
Kulungin mo at umiiyak
Bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag
Ang di magnasang makaalpas!
Pilipinas kong minumutya
Pugad ng luha ko’t dalita
Aking adhika,
Makita kang sakdal laya!

-
Written as a protest song during the American occupation of the Philippines, it is often sung in protest rallies and demonstrations throughout Philippine history, notably during the funeral of Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. and the ensuing People Power Revolution where Freddie Aguilar lead the crowd to sing the song’s chorus. It has also been re-arranged and recorded by different composers and singers…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayan_Ko

Please click here for the English translation.

—
Senate passes bill boosting veterans benefits
By LAURIE KELLMAN - Associated Press Writer

The Senate approved legislation Thursday that would increase veterans’ benefits and establish pensions for Filipinos who served alongside Americans in World War II.

The 96-1 vote sends the bill to the House, despite objections from some Republicans and President Bush. Bush has not said he would veto the bill, but the White House and some Republicans wanted to strip out the pension for Filipino veterans because they said the money was better spent on soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Supporters of the controversial provision said it would overturn a 60-year-old law to give 18,000 Filipino veterans of World War II who live abroad a roughly $300-a-month pension.

The White House and Republican opponents of the bill point out that such a pension would be added to one already given to these veterans by their own government.

“This legislation would correct an injustice,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who sponsored the bill.

Opposing federal aide to veterans, especially in an election year, is anathema to lawmakers. Senators on both sides bandied that accusation and sparred over which veterans are most deserving of U.S. aid at this time in history.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., noted there was never a promise of compensation made to the Filipinos ordered to serve with Americans during World War II. His amendment would have spent the money instead on new housing and burial assistance for American veterans.

His amendment failed, 56-41.

Burr ended up voting for the bill, even with the controversial pensions.

The legislation also includes aid for a broad array of veterans. It would make some benefits retroactive for more people. It also would increase the amount of mortgage life insurance that some disabled veterans can purchase and give severe burn injury victims new kinds of housing benefits.

By LAURIE KELLMAN - Associated Press Writer

——————–
Further Reads: Library of Congress - Link1; Link 2; Link 3
Military.com: Link 1; Link 2

Since the advent of email, I have received numerous fraudulent email letters purportedly originating from Africa. It usually contains sad tales of misfortune, then comes the lure of millions of dollars for the mere pittance of shelling out the expenses required to ‘receive’ the funds.

A friend of my brother has been lured into such a scheme years ago. My brother’s friend actually traveled to Spain after shelling out a few thousand dollars. Greed and ignorance are aplenty . . . not a good combination.

I just received this email that I had pasted below. What struck me as odd, was that this was the first Continue reading Email Scam Letters - “Nigerian Fraud”

Bughaw.com gets a lot of hits from people looking for English to Tagalog translation, and vice versa.

Working as a Tagalog-English interpreter requires a good knowledge of the Tagalog language, and unfortunately, my Tagalog vocabulary is not incredibly wide, since my family and I migrated to the states when I was only about 10 years old.

I find this online dictionary very helpful whenever the Filipino limited-English speaking person tells me “tapalodo” (dashboard; mud guard) or “apdo” (gall bladder). I hope you will find this online English-Tagalog dictionary helpful and convenient, just as I have.

You can also choose to reverse the translation direction to Tagalog-English, as well as choose other language pairs — all without leaving this site!

---

Habang pahirap ng pahirap ang buhay ng mga pangkaraniwang tao ng Pilipinas, ito ang ginagawa nila Gloria at Erap . . .

Bughaw.com Disclaimer:
Any similarity or likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Names have not been changed to protect the guilty.

Please click the arrow below to view “disco IMPIYERNO”

Dalawang naglalakihang ipis na dapat lang yapakan . . .

Bughaw.com Disclaimer:
Any similarity or likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Names have not been changed to protect the guilty.

Please click the arrow below to view
“La Cucaracha - Mga Ipis ng Bayan”

Baybayin Match Box Earrings

Continue reading FilAm Arts Festival

As I was browsing around GabNet’s website, I stumbled upon Ninotchka Rosca’s web journal, entitled Lily Pad.

Rosca eloquently writes thought-provoking narratives that pertain to women of Philippine ancestry. The novelist in Rosca skillfully weaves events of the past with current issues, all with the underlying theme of the Filipina’s struggle against oppression.

Make sure to click on the archive links to read Rosca’s posts dating back to July 2006, starting with her first post “To Be A Non-Person.”

… This is how it is not to exist, I said to myself. I was shuffling on the sidewalk, hugging building walls. The anonymity was complete. I felt both helpless and sinister; I could do anything since I was nothing; and conversely, anything could be done to me because I was nothing. After three blocks, the claustrophobia became overwhelming; I tore the thing off my body. …

Continue reading Ninotchka Rosca blog - Lily Pad

The female activists in Manila were outraged at the content of a website that, at first glance, purports to be a portal for “selling” Filipina wives. While the T.V. news coverage in the Philippines showed photos from the website, it did not divulge the web address, and the reporters stated that no one knows who the site creator was. However, I did find the site in question, and quickly found the website creator after a little “googling.”

Continue reading Filipina Wife Store

My children call me mommy. I call my mother mamá. In the Philippines, mothers are called many different ways depending on the geographical area or social class. The words nanay, inay, and ina have long been assumed as the Tagalog or Filipino translation of mother. But the word nanay originated from the colloquial nana from Nahuatl (nantli), the language of the Mexican Aztec Indians.

Contrary to popular belief that the majority of the Tagalog words are borrowed from Spanish, many of our loan words come from the Mexican Nahuatl Indians as the result of the Philippine-Mexican (Manila-Acapulco) trade route, which started in 1565 and continued up to the early 1800s.
Continue reading Mother’s Day - Araw ng Nanay

PHILIPPINE FOLKLORE STORIES
By John Maurice Miller,
Boston, U.S.A. 1904

Preface
As these stories are only legends that have been handed down from remote times, the teacher must impress upon the minds of the children that they are myths and are not to be given credence; otherwise the imaginative minds of the native children would accept them as truth, and trouble would be caused that might be hard to remedy. Explain then the fiction and show the children the folly of belief in such fanciful tales.

This is the ancient Filipino account of the creation.

Thousands of years ago there was no land nor sun nor moon nor stars, and the world was only a great sea of water, above which stretched the sky. The water was the kingdom of the god Maguayan, and the sky was ruled by the great god Captan.

Maguayan had a daughter called Lidagat, the sea, and Captan had a son known as Lihangin, the wind. The gods agreed to the marriage of their children, so the sea became the bride of the wind.
Continue reading How the World Was Made

I will be getting an artisan booth at the upcoming Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture, which boasts a yearly attendance of 25,000 people. This makes it one of the largest Filipino American festival nationwide.

I will be selling one-of-a-kind and handmade items that incorporate organic materials, which celebrates our Filipino culture, such as necklaces, earrings, bracelets, candles, ephemera, and other eclectic items. I will use the folk-artsy anting-anting medallion designs into my work, along with the Tagalog Baybayin scripts.

===========

FilAm ARTS and the Pilipino Artist Network (PAN) are inviting exhibitors to the 16th Annual Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture (FPAC), which will be held on September 8 & 9, 2007 at Pt. Fermin Park in San Pedro, California.

Set in the breath-taking seaside location of San Pedro’s Point Fermin Park, FPAC is a unique cultural destination, reaching a multicultural, intergenerational audience of over 25,000 people from all over the country. Over 1,000 traditional and contemporary artists are presented on two stages and in pavilions for culinary arts, visual arts, film, youth and seniors.

Also, FilAm ARTS is offering summer internships in support of the Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture. Two paid internships, the Festival Administrative Assistant and Visual Arts Curatorial Intern, and several un-paid internships are available. Please click here to go to the FilAm Arts website for more information regarding this opportunity.

Build community through arts & culture. APPLY TODAY! DEADLINE IS MAY 5TH.

whenever i have extra time, i browse eBay for old Philippine photos.

one of my eclectic hobbies . . .

i found these photos being sold on eBay.

i didn’t buy them . . .

i just right-clicked and saved in my hard drive.

i collect digital ephemera.

i look at them late at night, when everything is still . . .

:: please click the images above to view photos ::

Continue reading soul snatchers

For six years, we have been subscribers to Comcast Cable’s basic cable service, which amounted to about $49 per month. After getting a few calls from Comcast for Tagalog interpreting, I learned from these conversations that a digital cable service costs about the same amount as the basic cable service.

After urging my husband to look into switching to digital cable instead of (analog) basic cable, we finally made the jump. This switch did not come that easy. Whereas our cable-ready T.V.s didn’t need boxes or receivers before, now they do.
Continue reading TFC - The Filipino Channel

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo59930.htm
Photo taken by Josh Josh

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society and establish a government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our

Continue reading Philippine Elections 2007

This practice has been gaining notoriety every year, and now, it seems that it has become an international tourist attraction, replete with vendors selling “beer, ice-cream, and souvenir whips.”

Some people have questioned the participants’ motives. Others have said that most of the participants are not even devout Catholics, or do not even go to regular Mass.

Here is an interesting angle: while researching about the origins and myths behind the anting-anting medallions, I have read that some of the men who flagellate themselves on Good Friday are actually doing it to strengthen the ‘birtud’ or power of the anting-anting medallion in their possession.

Continue reading Filipinos crucify themselves on Good Friday

An important legacy of the Spanish colonial period was the high concentration of land ownership, and the consequent widespread poverty and agrarian unrest. United States administrators and several Philippine presidential administrations launched land reform programs to maintain social stability in the countryside. Lack of sustained political will, however, as well as landlord resistance, severely limited the impact of the various initiatives.
— Land Tenancy and Land Reform

The oratorical piece written by Raul Manglapus “Land of Bondage, Land of the Free” (posted below) can be aptly applied to the plight of the peasants working in inhumane conditions on the numerous agricultural lands still under the ownership of “old monied” feudalistic landlords, and Manglapus’ written piece most especially has lent a resonating tone to the Hacienda Luisita situation and the unfortunate massacre of the hacienda’s peasant workers that happened on November 16, 2004.
Continue reading The Cojuangcos & Hacienda Luisita

LAND OF BONDAGE, LAND OF THE FREE
Raul Manglapus
October 20, 1918 — July 25, 1999
Appointed as the Philippines’ youngest-ever foreign minister in 1957, and was elected to a national senate seat by a landslide in 1961. He ran for President in 1965, but lost to eventual dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Manglapus returned to the foreign affairs post in 1987 as a member of the cabinet of President Corazon Aquino. A statesman of towering stature, he is best summed up by a Philippine newspaper columnist as “…the best President we never had.”
* * *

Once upon a time, the tao owned a piece of land. It was all he owned. But he cherished it, for it gave him three things, having which, he was content: life, first of all, and liberty, and happiness.

Then one day the Spaniard came and commanded him to pay tribute to the crown of Spain. The tao paid tribute. And he was silent — he was certain that he was still the master of his land. Continue reading Land of Bondage, Land of the Free

… Today only one percent of the Filipino American population can’t speak English at all. Very few immigrant groups can claim that statistic.

Yet, Filipino Americans, especially the first-generation immigrants, have difficulties in fitting into American mainstream society. While they speak good English and know good grammar and usage, and spelling, they have a different way of pronouncing some English words. Some of them pronounce “f” as “p” and the “th” such “d” as in “them” (dem). So when they talk in accented English, some Americans, especially those who have not had any acquaintance with Filipino Americans, sometimes find it hard or refuse to understand such words, especially when talking over the telephone. …

— Veltisezar Bautista, from the book entitled “The Filipino Americans: Yesterday and Today”

* * *
Continue reading Filipino accents

Reading “Senior Enrique’s” blog entry here reminded me of the time when I came across an Amorsolo painting while watching the Antiques Roadshow on PBS.

The Antiques Roadshow is a series shown on PBS that offers appraisal of antiques and other valuables. The production travels the United States in search for the rare and unusual. This particular Antiques Roadshow happened in New Orleans, and one of the highlights during the first hour was a painting brought in that depicted rural life in the Philippines. When it was his turn, the man declared that he actually had second thoughts about taking in the painting since he didn’t consider it an antique. He continued to tell the story that the painting was “gifted” to his father during World War II in the Philippines after helping out some people.
Continue reading Amorsolo on Antiques Roadshow

— Nick Atienza on “Dakilang Alay”
A compilation of stories on the lives and struggles of youth martyrs in the Philippines
Edited by Sarah Katrina Maramag
A project of ANAKBAYAN and FIRST QUARTER STORM MOVEMENT

“Marami nang kahanga-hanga at natatanging Pilipino: Manny Pacquiao, Bata Reyes,Django Bustamante, Ronie Alcano; milyun-milyong mga OFW, mandaragat,nangibang-bayang trabahador at empleyadong Pilipino.

Gobyernong patuloy na pumupuri’t nagbubukod sa mga “katangi-tangi,” “bayani o mala-bayani,”"modelo at halimbawa” na kababanggit, ngunit walang habas na pumapaslang, nangingidnap, nagtotortyur, at nagkukulong sa mga aktibista at mga tunay na tagapagtaguyod ng mga karapatang tao, repormang agraryo, karapatan ng mgamanggagawa at maralita ng lungsod; mga taong walang ibang pinangarap at nilayon maliban sa tunay na demokrasya, kasarinlan, katarungan at pag-unlad ng milyun-milyong sambayanang Pilipino.
Continue reading Monico “Nick” Atienza

Taken from: Conversational Tagalog
by: Rufino Alejandro
Published by: National Bookstore, Inc., 1972

Image taken from International Catalogue of Superheroes

Kung ang mga Hudyo ay may kaniláng Golem, and mga Pilipino ay may kanilang Bernardo Carpio. Kahit noóng muntíng batà pa, si Bernardo Carpio ay bantog na sa kalakasan. Noóng siyá ay gumágapang pa lamang, nabubunot na niyá ang mga pakò ng sahíg. Ang mga punongkahoy ay nabubunot niyá na parang waláng anumán. Ang lakás niyá ay katulad ng lakás ni Herkules sa mitolohiyá.
Continue reading ANG ALAMÁT NI BERNARDO CARPIO

Allan Pineda, top, performs with Black Eyed Peas bandmate Jaime Gomez. Pineda moved from the Philippines to the United States at age 14. His nostalgic rap “Bebot” has struck a chord even among non-Tagalog-speaking Filipino Americans.
(Ben Devries / AP)

A few months ago, David Pierson, a staff writer of the L.A. Times, contacted several Filipino Americans to be interviewed for an article about the Black Eyed Peas’ Filipino rap song “Bebot.” I was among the many who were interviewed for the article, and I know that Moonie was also contacted.

The tone of the interview was not fully reflected on the written article, and only the thoughts of a handful of the people interviewed were quoted. Still, I’m proud that the English translation of the Tagalog Bebot song that I had previously translated and posted on this website had made it on Pierson’s article.
Continue reading Los Angeles Times article - B.E.P.

i couldn’t find the time to finish this article in time for the 9/11 anniversary, but here it is:

Last September 11 marked the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that happened on US soil. Numerous Filipinos perished that day, but to our family, one person stands out the most — Ruben Ornedo. He was on board the American Airlines flight #77 to Los Angeles from Washington Dulles Airport, which was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon at 09:37:46, travelling at approximately 530 miles per hour. No one survived. Ruben left behind a pregnant wife, Sheila, whom he just married three months prior to the incident.

Ruben grew up in Los Angeles in the area where my husband grew up. Ruben’s parents and my husband’s parents were in the same close-knit circle of friends, Filipino parishioners of St. Gregory Church. Ruben and my husband’s background paralleled each other. While my husband went to school at Daniel Murphy, Ruben attended Los Angeles High, but both went on to UCLA and both eventually found work at Boeing as lead engineers. The last time my husband spoke to Ruben was when he called him up to inquire about the Boeing Satellite Systems in El Segundo, California, where Ruben worked as a satellite communications engineer. This was back in 2001 when we had seriously considered moving back to California.
Continue reading Ruben Ornedo

The following essay was written by Carlos P. Romulo (1899 - 1985). Numerous awards have been bestowed on Romulo. Among others, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1942 for International Journalism, the first Asian to receive one. Romulo was the first Asian (and sole Filipino) to become president of the United Nations.

This declamation / oratorical piece is one of my favorites that I had memorized back in high school.

Virginia & Carlos Romulo with my Lolo
Romulo Residence, Washington, DC, 1950
click to view larger image

I am a Filipino — inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such I must prove equal to a two-fold task — the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future.

I sprung from a hardy race — child of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men, putting out to sea in ships that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope — hope in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children’s forever.
Continue reading I Am A Filipino

my lola passed away last year (42 long years after lolo), leaving her lucid thoughts written on the back of old, yellowed photos.

i have been taking these paper memories back to amerika everytime i visit manila . . . little by little . . . even way before she left me. i look at them with reticence, and i miss her . . . incredibly so.

unselfishly, i can’t keep these to myself, and these postings will be recorded under the new category lucid ephemera.

i will end the beginning of this category with a poem written by yeats, aptly titled, “ephemera.”

kasalan ng lola at lolo, 1934
click to view larger image

Ephemera

William Butler Yeats

‘Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning.’
And then She:
‘Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!’

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
‘Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.’

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.
‘Ah, do not mourn,’ he said,
‘That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell.’

we went to washington’s state fair again this year at puyallup.

hillary duff had a concert again, but i didn’t buy tickets for my daughter. last year’s concert was flat - hillary duff didn’t really quite do anything but somehow just stood or sat while singing. after her last song, she waved goodbye and simply left the stage — she didn’t come back to sing another song, which is the norm.
Continue reading do the puyallup

FREE webmail - username@bughaw.com - 2 full gigabytes of server space, with no banner and pop-up ads.

If you would like a free and uncluttered Web mail service with tons of storage and a cool domain name, click here to send a request with your chosen username. You will then get a confirmation email with your username and temporary password. There’re only 80 accounts to be given away! Click here to accesss your new bughaw.com web email.

okay. i’m tired of deleting spam comments. it was a dirty chore that got added on top of all the stuff that a busy mom had to do. cutting and pasting the nasty ip’s on the “ip deny manager” via bughaw’s cpanel was getting too tedious, and wordpress’ internal anti-spam utilities have already been outsmarted by the spam monsters.

i initially thought that word or image verification was the answer. i tried to resist taking on drastic measures, such as installing ’spam karma’ or ‘akismet’ — for fear that these programs might delete more than necessary. after googling around, i found out that ‘akismet’ was the brainchild of matt mullenweg . . . the same matt of the wordpress fame. bughaw is running wordpress. what a perfect marriage!

to download ‘akismet’ - go here.

unzip the downloaded file, and

to get your API key that will enable ‘akismet’ - go here and sign up for an account. i initially just signed up as a plain user, but you can create a blog later on. you will get an email to activate the wordpress.com account. click on the link contained in the email. you will then get another email that will contain your password and the oh-so-very-important API key. use this API key

http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2006/09/14/wordpress-comment-spam/

http://akismet.com/faq/

http://wp-plugins.net/index.php?filter=spam&filter_search=Go…

Bughaw has been getting hits here and there with the search term “paru-parong bukid,” which is a traditional Filipino folk song. Pamela Okiyama has requested to hear the tune to this song, and here it is. The lyrics to this song has been posted here.

This recording was performed by the Cape Kids Chorus at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

tropical butterfly house
pacific science museum - seattle, washington
canon digital rebel
click thumbnails to view larger image

The year 2006 marks the centennial history of the Filipino American migration, and the U.S. Congress passes legislation that officially commemorates the “100 Years of Filipino Migration to the United States.”

After much hoopla about the centennial earlier this year, I really haven’t heard or seen much about it. I don’t even think most Filipino Americans are aware of the centennial other than the ones who are active in the community.

In any case, I am proud to be a Filipino American, and I am proud to be a part of history.

a. Early Period. The first recorded settlement of Filipinos was in Louisiana during the Spanish galleon trade (1565-1815) that carried Philippine cargo. In 1763, members of the Filipino crew escaped forced labor and enslavement and made their way to New Orleans and established a community in the bayous. Known as “Manilamen,” the Filipino cajuns and their descendants introduced wine making from coconut (tuba) and developed an export industry of sun-dried shrimp. From 1763 to 1906, others followed (e.g., mariners, adventurers, domestics) and as the community grew, some moved on to the West Coast and Hawaii or to Alaska to seek jobs in the fishing and whaling industry. A few upper-middle class travelers from the Philippines to Spain also chose to disembark and join the community.

Continue reading Immigration History of the Filipino

i found these “bebot” music videos from youtube.com - there are two different versions that are directed by patricio ginelsa, and produced by xylophone films and kid heroes productions.

the music videos were filmed in los angeles in a period of two days. according to an article written by eric araya for mtv.com, “The video was a passion project for Apl who, with some help from fellow Peas Will.I.Am, Fergie and Taboo, funded the production independently.”

Continue reading B.E.P. bebot music video(s)

i missed seattle’s pista sa nayon last july 30th because it was my birthday, and we were so full of sushi from todai, and the sweltering seattle heat made the trek to seattle’s seward park (pista’s venue) an unbearable thought.

since i missed seattle’s pista sa nayon, and we were in the bay area for my nephew’s binyag, my cousin yellowmetroaide and i decided to check out san francisco’s pistahan: filipino american arts exposition at yerba buena gardens.

Continue reading flip shirts

H´ulyo n. july

july is a signifcant month.

Continue reading hulyo ay para kay eldon maguan

extra moolah propelled me to give in to my bibliophilistic tendencies. i was using three browsers - ebay, half.com, amazon - simultaneously looking for the cheapest possible prices for my list of titles (not a quick task involving shipping fee calculations). my current must-haves?

• white love and other events in filipino history : vicente l. rafael
• in our image : stanley karnow (gotta replenish the copy i gave away)
• pasyon and revolution : reynaldo c. ileto
• growing up brown: peter jamero
• the essential neruda: pablo neruda
• understanding exposure: bryan peterson
• the art of photographing children: cheryl dorskind

then, i typed the word ‘filipino’ on the amazon search as a catchall . . . because i certainly do not want to miss anything. that’s when this t-shirt caught my attention . . . actually, it was the curious merchandise title that made me click on the item — T-SHIRT WHITE “ORIENTAL LOVE FILIPINO BOXING”

the oddity of the title is not what struck me . . . but, somehow over the years living in the diaspora, i have developed a disdain for the word ‘oriental‘ that comes anywhere near the word ‘filipino’ . . . however, it very well just might be me.

haze of denial

**********************

i saw something that wasn’t there
a ghost of my emotions

clarity wasn’t an option
focus was unreachable

i created something out of a mirage
a crevice in my mind
that no one else could see
. . . not even you

i couldn’t cut through the haze
the thick haze of denial
a cloud of unrecognition

only time was able to
thin out the smoke

. . . out of sight
. . . out of mind

somewhere in the streets of manila
batang kalye sa tabi ng kariton

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Playa Las Gatas .::. Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Filmed in Sibuyan Island :: alternatives to illegal logging

by WWF (World Wildlife Foundation)
Philippines Logging and Nature
7 min 5 sec - Feb 9, 2006
www.panda.org :: WWF Philippines

This coming week after Easter Sunday are my kids’ Spring break, and we have decided to spend our vacation at Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Mexico. We’ve been to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico twice before, and Cabo San Lucas is a place to avoid if you do not want to bump into the rowdy, college Spring breakers.

Even though Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo are two different places, it is synonymous with one another. They are located on the west of Mexico by the Pacific Ocean, 250 km (4 hour drive) northwest of Acapulco. Zihuatanejo (zee-wha-tan-EH-ho) was a resort for the Mexican nobility before the colonial Spaniards arrived. Retaining most of its original Mexican atmosphere, it’s a quiet fishing village with beautiful views of the ocean. Ixtapa (eesh-tah-pa), originally spelled Iztapa, is a 10-minute drive to the south of Zihuatanejo, and is a fairly new development that was created in the 1970s with the sole purpose of attracting tourists. That said, Ixtapa’s beaches are lined with resorts that front the Pacific Ocean, and numerous shopping areas and restaurants right behind.
Continue reading Philippines / Mexico Connection

..:: igloo, the green iguana ::..

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our beloved pet igloo, a green iguana, passed away yesterday. she was with us for almost five years, and she grew to be about 3 feet long and approximately 7 lbs.

this photo was taken when she was still a baby. that is a yellow pelota (squash) ball on top of an Ikea rug. we bought her in the garment district in Los Angeles for $5, and she was only 10 inches long. the equipment needed to make her thrive (sun lamp, heat lamp, vertical cage, etc…) amounted to more than $200.

my son requested that her remains be cremated so that he can keep the ashes. i called around and got a quote of between $65-$135. there are also cemetery plots for pets.

this comes a year after the passing of my Lola.
Loss is loss . . .
Grief is grief . . .

Gabriela Booth
Pista Sa Nayon - Seattle, Washington

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