Hello, folks. My name is Brad, and I'm a retired English teacher who specialized in seniors and juniors at a Massachusetts high school. I love a good novel, a fine poem. My home for the past seven years has been in Cabanatuan City, which is centrally located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. My girlfriend/caretaker Glenda and I, along with Glenda's daughter Krizza, live in a cozy outbuilding on the estate of Teresita Tecson, whose family asked me to come live with them four years ago. I've met many fine people here, made good friendships, helped out where I could, accepted help when it was offered. Started this blog a few months after coming to the Philippines, and have kept a double focus throughout these pages: one, to let you enter my personal life and the lives of Filipinos close to me; two, to offer overviews of current issues important to Filipinos, as well as the customs and heritage of a remarkable people. Cheers!

The compound from the street: big house and carport on the left; in the add-on, two stores below and student lodging above . The small building housing Glenda, Krizza, and me is beyond the range of this shot to the right.

1.17.25

Puissant Pustule

Emailing an old buddy in polar vortexland, I typed something to the effect of "Nothing new here. Another christening, another infection." The infection started as a small boil on the back of my head. Didn't have it tended to by Glenda: my mistake. Suddenly (it seemed to me) the thing was close to the size of a ping pong ball, very sore, and I was shivering with fever. A doctor at Medical City said it would have to be lanced and cleaned out -- there would be a surgeon at the clinic next day, could I wait? Might have gone to an emergency room -- there are several hospitals in the city -- but I'd started taking some leftover Clindamycin and the discomfort was bearable. Next day at the clinic, the surgeon said the clinic lacked what he needed to perform the procedure. Would Glenda and I meet him after lunch at the emergency room of the hospital where he had a residency? How these docs transect giant pus-balls on full stomachs is beyond me. We said we would meet him there.

The pain, real pain, was unforeseen by me: a couple of jabs and then a wait lying on my stomach while the job was done, right? But the needle jabs stung pretty badly, and the slicing and peeling and pushing were darn near excruciating. Then the doc said to me, after he no doubt saw my feet going up in the corner of his eye, what I'd heard once before: that local anesthetics sometimes would not work well in the presence of pustules. Didn't seem to be working at all in this case. Well, it was over soon enough. No stitches: he wanted the air to get at it. A loose-fitting bandage. It came to less than $100, minus the strong antibiotic he prescribed.

Alas, poor boy. Still feeling achy the next day, but it was the day of Ethan James Ignacio's

christening: the parents, Edmar and Novi, had asked me to be ninong (godfather) and Krizza

to be ninang (godmother). It was to be held in Glenda's barangay at the little church I had

visited twice before: once for the funeral of Mario Torres, and once for the christening of

Ethan's older sister Joy-Joy. We stopped at the farm and joined the procession to the church.

It was a pleasant morning with temps probably no higher than 25C, and a good breeze was

rocking the branches of trees.

We gathered before the baptismal, heard some words from Father Muego, and then we were

given candles, which we lit from the priest's candle. Ethan was brought forward. He was

teething (christenings in the Philippines are performed close to a person's first birthday),

but Ethan seemed to sense something important was happening and there was very little

crankiness. Indeed, on the way home, the Torres family's newest Christian seemed downright happy.

1.4.25

New Year's Day

Woke up a fifth or sixth time, this time scratching madly at my left ankle: another bug had gotten me. Damn. The light of the new year was coming through Glenda's bedroom window, so I heaved myself off the bed, then held on to a bedpost while the world righted itself. The smoking ended more than a year ago; the drinking will have to end before long. Walked slowly out to the porch and sat down on the bench and put my fingernails to work on arms and legs. This happened the last time I slept at the farmhouse: the bugs seem to notice the body that is different, not Filipino, and they get really curious.

It was a beautiful morning: bright sun, cool breeze from the mountains, fruit trees -- the bushy lime, the scarecrow banana, the majestic mango -- crowding the dooryard of the house. Beyond the dooryard, three acres of light green followed by a mile or so of rich, dark green, the light green being sprouts rising in the onion field next door and the dark green the rapidly maturing rice. The Torres's own three paddies behind the farmhouse will be harvested in less than a month.

The Sierra Madre rises in the near distance. Their highest summits are well over a thousand feet higher than Mt. Mansfield, but their shapes do remind me of the Green Mountains of Vermont. Ah, I must have woken Glenda -- she's behind me now, taking a stiff rake to what was left behind after a night of frolicking: mainly food wrappers, bottles, fireworks wrapping. She makes quick work of the dooryard, then goes inside to brew coffee. One tree and several branches of other trees on the property came down in the recent typhoon, and the wood is now sawn and neatly stacked on the other side of the garden. Behind the wood a kiln has been dug for the making of charcoal; some of the charcoal already made was used for the barbecue last night. 

Asked Glenda to ferry me back to Cab City, then come back here and spend time with family until the school break is over (Jan.6). I'm welcome to stay, I know, and the bugs may well become less curious if I do spend a long stretch at the Torres home. Just don't want to go through the discomfort of finding out whether that is true!

12.24.24

Maligayang Pasco!

Four days ago we learned that Bienbe (Glenda's Mom) would spend Christmas with her second daughter Libya in Pangasinan Province. The same day Krizza's old classmates in Manila asked her to come down and see them over Christmas: three days ago we gave her money and packed her off on a bus. She will stay with Glenda's sister Jenny and Jenny's husband Bong. Yesterday JM (Glenda's nephew), JM's girlfriend, Novi (wife of Glenda's other nephew Edmar), and Novi's baby Ethan arrived at our home, having completed the first leg of their long journey from Rizal to Manila. Here, after an hour or so of small talk, they left with Joy-Joy, who had spent the previous four days with us. They will join Novi's husband (who is working a good job in Manila) for Christmas. As for Angelo, the adopted son, he will stay with friends in the farm's barangay and look after the farm animals. This abandonment of the farm by one and all at Christmas made me a little suspicious. "Maybe they don't want to be there during the first Christmas without Mario," I said to Glenda. "Yes," she replied. "I've already said that to them."

Glenda's son Francis had come to our home with Joy-Joy last week, and I almost forgot: he begged to join the crew on the way to Manila yesterday: Glenda finally said, "okay!" So, the farm is empty of humans over Christmas, and Glenda and I will spend Christmas together at home! Well, Don-Don and his daughters will no doubt be with Teresita for the day, and youngsters will still be in and out our doors . . . .

Adonis brought our Toyota Vios to us a few days ago. Drives fine, and I'm already getting used to the, uh, redness of it. But I miss the handling of the Avanza. Glenda will do by far most of the driving, and, importantly, she seems to like it.

12.16.24

Christmas is Coming; the Goose Is Getting Fat!

Please to Put a Penny in the Poor Man's Hat.

If You Haven't Got a Penny, a Ha'penny Will Do;

If You Haven't Got a Ha'penny, God Bless You!

Sparred online with Sherwin over the money that he, and only he, owes to Toyota Financial Corp. After his second bold-faced lie (well, I couldn't see his face), I called him a liar and signed off. That was more than a week ago, and we haven't heard from him since.

We're expecting a car this week, a 2019 Toyota Vios (seems close to an Accord) with 55K kms. on the odometer. Very clean in the passenger compartment and under the hood. Don-Don, who could work as a car mechanic, gave it his seal of approval. It's color is red, not to my taste really but I'll grow used to it. Today, Glenda was absent for the duration of the morning, came back after noon toting a bag from a shop at the SM Mall. Yes, I reminded myself, it's the buying time. I've got a stack of fancy, Chinese red envelopes for children I know that will just require me to get some new bills from a BDO Bank branch, but for the ones closest to me on this side of the Pacific, some "mindful searching" is in order. Speaking of "Pacific," I'll trike myself over to the NE Pacific Mall tomorrow: the Robinson's Department Store there has free wrapping.

The newlyweds who have been raising a family for

more than fifteen years will reunite in Malta next

month! Don-Don will fly there and work with Aiza,

saving money, I'm guessing, to provide higher 

education for their children. Aiza's sister Clara Mae

will move into Don-Don's apartment and look out for

Donaiza and Adelle, the couple's daughters. Teresita

is moving back to London for several months at

least, so I guess that will leave only Don-Don's young

cousin Ritz and his son Tenjong to look after the big 

house and handle business with college student

boarders.

Ah, mutability! As to what is happening at the pinnacle of political power in America, I'm starting to feel that hating it may be just as silly as loving it. One can hold on to one's opinions without emotional messiness.  . . . I think.

12.8.24

Scammed

A scammer cannot scam the mark who is careful and meticulous -- or at least

he has a hard time scamming such a mark. I was not careful and meticulous 

when I procured, with the help of someone who appeared to be an established

and trustworthy businessman, the Avanza I drove for six years. He had helped me

to get a bank account, though I hadn't lived in the country for the necessary two 

years. He expedited the renewing of my visa. He rented to me the van with which

I took Jheng and her family up into the mountains for a vacation (see the very 

first posting of this blog, basement archive). He had an office on the top floor of

a building directly across from SM Cabanatuan Mall, and a billboard above the

office ballyhooed his company's name: Pinoy World Assist. From this office

Sherwin and his wife Des helped Filipinos obtain overseas visas and employment, and he advertised these services on the city's only FM radio station. His interactions with me over many months during my first years here only enhanced the early impression I had of him: here was a legit, savvy, trustworthy operator with whom I could do business.

I wanted my own transportation when I came here, naturally, but institutional loans were not available to an outsider who had lived in the country for fewer than two years. Sherwin said he didn't have the pull to help with that, but said that for several years he had been helping people who were denied credit by acting as a "subscriber," taking out the loans of others himself and accepting monthly payments with a small fee appended in a subscriber's account set up by the loaning company. I don't think there exists a similar system in the U.S., and at first I was a little leery. Sherwin had his secretary hand him a notebook, in which there were the names and contact information of dozens of people and said, "These are the people I am helping now." Well, okay.

I wanted an Avanza and he said one would be ready within a month. Two months later (I allowed for "Filipino time") he called; Jheng and I went down to his office and were introduced to the new car. There was a verbal agreement on the number of payments, the amount, the date of payment, etc., and Sherwin gave me the account information. No written contract? I wondered aloud. No, this was just something he did on the side and did not want all the paperwork involved in contracts. Okay. I would get receipts when making the deposits, proof I was holding true on my end of the deal, after all.

Well, towards the end of the payments Sherwin was busted very publicly (he appeared on a nationwide true crime show) for sending three women to New Zealand to work as teachers -- allegedly not with work visas but with tourist visas. Other alleged crimes were soon discovered. Sherwin and his wife, I'm told by a reliable source, after jumping bail, are on the lam and to this day in hiding. 

I continued the payments to the end, knowing I had receipts for these payments. When the payments were completed, I used the email of Sherwin's business to request the mailing of the car's title. No response. For three or four months I persisted with the emails, then gave up. The car was rightfully mine -- I had the receipts! Then, several months after I'd given up trying to reach him, Sherwin contacted me and Glenda. Using Tagalog with Glenda online, he said the finance company had sent a letter to him stating that we were 100K pesos in arrears on the car! After we told him that we had receipts for all the payments, he texted Glenda that interest on fees for late payments were responsible for the 100K owed. I could remember two instances in which I had been a day late in making a payment: 100K (about $2,000)!

We pressed him to send the letter and he said he would. We sent him reminders. Two months after he contacted us, the letter finally came. It was dated July 16 (we first saw it in the middle of November), and in it the finance company demanded payment on an outstanding balance and the return of their leased car. Leased! Sherwin had told us we were buying the car. After speaking with an attorney (a cousin of Don-Don) we headed over to the Toyota dealer in the city south of ours, Santa Rosa, with a copy of the letter and the image you see below, which I found online. We told our story to a kind woman in the finance department, all the while trying to reach Sherwin on the phone (Sherwin and Glenda had traded numbers), because Sherwin needed to give the lady authorization to look into his subscriber's account before she could open it. Glenda finally reached him and explained to him where we were and what we needed. I noticed Glenda wincing, and then she held the phone away from herself and turned up the volume: a torrent of angry shouted Tagalog that I couldn't make head nor tails of. Glenda handed the phone to the Toyota lady, who got from him that he would not grant her authorization to open his account. If I had had the chance to ask him why he would not grant authorization, it would have been a rhetorical question.

We were told that not I but Sherwin would be responsible for the money owed; we, however, would have to surrender the car. Across the street from the dealership we flagged down a young trike driver who said he would convey us back to Bitas, Cabanatuan for 300P. And now we are lining up a used car to buy with in-house financing . . . and a contract. There are so many honest and generous people in this country made up of islands, reader. Should have realized that sooner or later I would have to deal with one of the exceptions.

12.2.24

Political Folly West and East

Oy, has it really been two weeks since I last posted? "My bad," as many a former student of mine has put it.

The president-elect on the other side of the Pacific is stirring up an international ruckus with his promises of tariffs to be levied against the closest trading partners of the U.S. And he's stirring up a domestic ruckus with his selection of very ill-qualified individuals to occupy positions in his cabinet. Will trade wars erupt in the opening weeks of his administration? Will Republican senators in January have some spine at the confirmation hearings for the cabinet choices? Will there be mass firings of civil servants and a return to the "spoils system" of government hiring? Will army units be tasked with the tracking down of illegal immigrants who will then be deported? Ask me and I'll tell you that Trump has hired the best team members and made the best policy decisions . . . if it is his intention to bring down the entire apparatus of American governance, put a kibosh on democratic practices, rule the country as a CEO rules a company. I really hope there will be midterm elections in a couple of years. But I wouldn't bet on it, you know? 

 I'm not a citizen or even a permanent resident of the Philippines, reader, but for what it's worth I think the Marcos Administration has done a solid job of leading this country over the last two and a half years. The president's economic missions abroad have resulted in trillions of pesos in investments, GDP has risen at least 5% for each of the last three years, and the tourism industry is booming.

Former Senator "Bongbong" Marcos joined forces with the daughter of the previous president Rodrigo Duterte, Davao mayor Sara Duterte, to win the 2022 election with a record majority of nearly 59%. As commonly occurs in this country, the new president offered his vice president a cabinet post, and Ms Duterte became Secretary of Education. The political tempest that is now larger than a teapot on this side of the Pacific began when, in September of 2023, Duterte requested from Congress extra funds totaling 650M pesos for the Office of the Vice President and the DepEd. Congress demurred, calling the request "divisive," and the vice president withdrew her request, complaining of the "toxic" political environment. Her feelings of unease could not have been lessened by ensuing accusations from a former senator that she could be directly linked to the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers in Davao during her terms as mayor.

It became more and more apparent over the year now drawing to a close that a rift had developed between the Marcos and Duterte political families. The vice president claimed there was a "demolition" team out to destroy her political reputation, and in October, after resigning as the Secretary of Education, at a press conference she declared that President Marcos didn't know how to be president and was leading the country "on the road to hell." More recently, the vice president announced that she had hired a contract killer to move against the president, the president's wife, and the Speaker of the House in the event that she herself came to be assassinated.

Compared to the sh*t-show that is descending upon Washington D.C., this is not a very big deal, certainly; nor will it, in my opinion, impair the function of the Philippine executive. In the Philippines, a president and vice president, who are not elected as a "ticket" but separately here, being at loggerheads with each other is not unusual. One need only look back to the previous administration and the antagonism between Rodrigo Duterte and Leni Robredo -- it should be said, however, that Leni was not nearly as colorful as Sara in her expressions of distaste for the president.

Remind myself, now and then, that politics should be regarded by me less as entertainment, more as a subject that needs study and reflection. Things globally are approaching some kind of a head, after all. Sometimes, though, the zaniness just takes my breath away.

Sara Duterte: Philippines' political feud takes a dramatic turn

Sara Duterte - Wikipedia

11.18.24

Near Miss for Cab City

Pepito (int'l name: Man-yi) came in at a more northerly slant than had been predicted, and the eye passed 30 or 40 kilometers to the north instead of right above Cabanatuan City. Which is fine by me. We experienced gusty winds and plenty of hard rain, but the damaging, dangerous weather was up around San Jose City.

                                            About 2pm the day of the storm, from our doorstep.

The Torres children and Glenda's mama Bienbe were our overnight guests, because Rizal, to our northeast, was to receive a stronger punch from this storm than Cab City. Also, the Torres farmhouse stands in the open, next to a long sweep of rice fields, whereas our solid little outbuilding is surrounded on three sides by more massive buildings. We lost electricity once, but only briefly, and spent the afternoon and evening painting and drawing, watching Tagalog movies, and eating Glenda's fine fried chicken.

The young adults stayed at the Torres place in the storm, looking after the pets and the livestock, and

they had a scary time of it. Ventusky real-time was registering typhoon-strength wind in the Rizal

area over a three-hour period; the little farmhouse received some minor and readily fixable roof

damage. Glenda set off in the Avanza the next morning with Bienbe and the children, and spent most

of the day helping the others clean the house and clear the property of fallen branches, giant banana

tree fronds and other detritus of the previous day's wind. The official death toll of Pepito currently stands

at eight. Aurora was perhaps the hardest hit province; roofs were torn off several buildings in the

coastal city of Baler, which Glenda and I visited not very long ago (see 4.29.24). The Sierra Madre,

the ragged line of peaks looming over the central plain, did shred the cyclone somewhat before it

reached Rizal, kept Pepito from wreaking a like amount of fury on the Torres farmhouse.                                                   Joy-Joy!

11.15.24

And Now Pepito

All's well, for now. Went to the clinic with Glenda yesterday to have the second toe on my left foot, afflicted with an infection of unknown origin, treated; while at the clinic had blood drawn for the PSA test. Oy, those PSA's are expensive: P3,500! The number telling me whether I should be worried about my prostate will be sent in 5-7 business days. In other news, Krizza danced as Ms Australia at her school's United Nations Day pageant, and, a few days before that festive gathering, received an excellent first report card! Glenda is the driver these days for our errands about town; I haven't gotten behind the wheel since the accident.

The north coast of the huge island that is my home -- as well as the group of small islands, the Babayans, just above Luzon -- has had a terrible time these last three weeks: three cyclones have hit this area in that short stretch, starting with Kristine Oct. 24. The mightiest river of Luzon, the Cagayan, has been at flood stage for the duration of that time, and agriculture has been hit particularly hard. Now another whirligig is heading for Luzon, attaining typhoon status as I type this, and if the forecasters are right this one will become a "super typhoon" before it makes landfall. If northern Luzon is the strike zone for Mother Nature this fall season, the incoming pitch is much too low, definitely a ball.

Above is the Ventusky map for tomorrow in southern and central Luzon; and, yes, Cabanatuan sits squarely in the path of this thing. It will be shredded somewhat by the Sierra Madre, the range of 4-to-5,000-foot mountains between the central plain and the east coast, but Pepito will pack a punch when it arrives -- typhoon force winds and at least a foot of rain are forecast for Cab City and surrounding towns.

We live in a solid little three-room building, reader, surrounded by large buildings. The neighborhood stands at least 15 feet higher than Cab City's main drag, the Maharlika, and drainage is very good here. We'll be fine. I do worry about Jheng and her family on the Aurora road, about other people I know in the city. . . . Will write again soon after electricity is restored with news of how we weathered this storm.

11.6.24

Well, That Wasn't Supposed to Happen

I'm in bed at nine, and not used to staying up late in order to view, say, election results. But

watching from the Philippines, I was well-rested when, from 11am to 2pm, the live feeds

from across the Pacific gradually lowered me into a stew of wretchedness. I've lost faith in

the American people, reader. Perhaps you have as well. In 2016 I didn't lose faith in them.

The electorate then was fed up with a neoliberal administration's methods when it came to

pulling a workforce already hobbled by NAFTA up out of the morass caused by the Great

Recession. Now here was a GOP candidate, a famous billionaire, who would get things done --

save jobs, bring manufacturing back, dispel these feelings of helplessness. Hillary certainly

couldn't do this: she had "same old-same old" written all over her. Trump's party had both

houses in the first two years of his term, and all he could manage to do was get a tax measure

that benefited mainly corporations and the very rich passed. The second half of his term was full of missteps, scandals, impeachments.

And MAGA, even while it continued to hold the Republican Party in its thrall (mainly through fear and intimidation), started losing at the polls. American voters hired a new president from the same old-same old crew and rejected MAGA candidates for the legislature hand-picked by Trump. It seemed to me that this angry old stooge bogged down in criminal and civil court cases could not possibly ascend to the presidency again. And now he has.

Global warming is the first thing I think of when I think of another Trump presidency. Then the judges he will choose. The consequences of the mass firing of civil servants, the imposition of high tariffs. The bombast, the buffoonery, the potty mouth, the infantilism.  I mean, this is a sick-in-the-head man, reader. After thinking about those things, then I think about the invocation of the Insurrection Act, the suspension of habeus corpus . . . .  I could go on. How could American voters hand to him once again the reins of our country?

Am I going to eat crow? We hired two boys with slingshots to bag us some crows. After consulting with Glenda, who is a master in the kitchen, I opted for a fricassee with a cream sauce made from the stock. Okay, I kid you reader. I know Glenda would make a good crow fricassee, but there are no crows on Luzon's central plain. There is a species of jungle crow, which we might come upon after hours of driving and trekking -- but the jungle crow is a protected species, as are all wild birds in the Philippines.

11.4.24

America at the Fork in the Road

Well the car is back, and it's time to sort out the less-than-urgent errands that have accumulated and act on them. Let's see, Glenda needs to see the ENT guy for a checkup. I should get a PSA blood test because one of my younger brothers has been diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer.  We need to buy a desk for the pc, which currently sits on a large wooden crate. We need a new frying pan and we want to get a dutch oven. There is more: I should make a list. Weatherwise two more cyclones have approached central Luzon before drifting north and scraping along the island's northern coast. Kristine, by the way, is now said to be responsible for more than 150 deaths.

The U.S. is girding its loins for a national election in which democracy itself seems to be on the line. Frankly, I can't stand the bombastic, ignorant, and deranged man on one side of the presidential match-up, so I'm very glad that he's the anti-democratic candidate. American democracy must become more democratic than it is now, not less so. Get rid of the electoral system and get rid of private money: legislators spend more time building their "war chests" than they do studying the issues upon which they are supposed to act, and major donors are able to exert influence in the way so many of these lawmakers vote! Anyway, those changes are for another day. On Tuesday one chooses autocracy, with fascistic trimmings, or the kind of democracy we've experienced up until this day.

You wanna know what I think? I think democracy is gonna win out, bigly. Screw what the polls say about a "neck-and-neck" race. Harris and Walz by 50+ electoral votes. Democrats take firm control of the House. Can they squeak out another majority in the Senate? I'll go out on a limb and say yes.

When the dust settles post-election, I'll come right back and take my bows . . . or eat me some crow.

(MEDIA.GIPHY.COM)

"Has been," I type, rather than "was," because at this moment a heavy rain is pounding on our roof tiles. Kristine is not only a very large cyclone, but it's also a very slow mover! The eye is now over the South China Sea, and it is moving away from us, but bands of tropical downpours in the tail of this beast are still moving over the central plain of Luzon. Flooding is everywhere. In Cabanatuan, Mayor Vergara has joined first responders and is directing rescue operations and food distribution in the worst hit areas of the city. (My part of Barangay Bitas is ten or fifteen feet above the level of the Maharlika Highway; the neighborhood seems to have weathered the storm well.) The malls of the city have opened their doors to people flooded out of their homes. Provisions and bedding are being donated to the malls' efforts, and Operation Tulong, which receives cash donations and designates their use, is up and running.

In the southernmost part of Luzon, known as Bicol, 20 have died from drowning. At least 11 are confirmed dead in Batangas Province.

So far in all, more than 40 deaths are confirmed. Many areas have not yet called in fatalities, so this number will certainly rise. More in the next posting.

10.22.24

Incoming . . .

And, thankfully, following a northwesterly rather than westerly track. We'll have plenty of wind and rain over a two-day period here in Cab City; in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon, and throughout the Central Cordillera, though, there will be typhoon winds and in some areas feet of rain. Its name is Kristine (int'l name: Trami) and it's a slow mover. Cities along the Cagayan River will have some serious flooding, and the mountain folk of Baguio, La Trinidad, Bontoc, and Banaue need to be on the lookout for destructive landslides.

Today is Tuesday, and most schools, Krizza's school included, let the children go early.  Krizza will likely not have another school day until Friday. Thursday or Friday, I'll come back to this page and write about Luzon's encounter with Kristine.

10.13.24

Glenda's Birthday

Ha, our friend Melvin roasted a big fish in foil out on the sidewalk for us, but unsurprisingly Glenda did most of the cooking for the impromptu party: we had fixings for spring rolls in the fridge, and she rolled up a large pile of these and fried them; also, she made a huge pancit canton (Philippine noodles) with shredded pork, cabbage, carrots, and onions.

Glenda's friend Clara Mae came with her son Frinz and nieces Donaiza and Adelle, and Adelle's classmate friend. Melvin appeared with the fish and his wife and baby. Don-Don and Clara Mae's husband Robin sat at a table in the compound outside, drinking, eating pulutan, and catching up with each other. It was a school night, and after they'd eaten their fill the young'uns sat down to homework while the old'uns raided the fridge for Red Horse beer, of which there was plenty. Happy 32nd, dear.

The car is still in the body shop and may be there for another week or so while they wait for parts. After the body shop it goes to a glass shop for a new windshield. The kid who walks away from that accident with only scrapes and bruises is a tough kid; when I take also into account the courtesy he showed the man who ruined his day, I feel he'll make a fine police officer once he completes his course of study. Thank God he's a helmet wearer. There's no requirement for motorcycle riders to wear one here, and many ride helmetless.  In fact, I have two friends who lost friends who were not wearing a helmet when they had accidents on their motorcycles.

Glenda, Krizza, and I are hiring tricycle drivers to get around; as you know if you've been reading this blog for some time, there is a tricycle station just outside our door. We are buddies with at least half the drivers at our neighborhood stand, and they welcome the extra business.

10.4.24

Pulis

He is a criminology student at a nearby university, and he must have been riding close to the oncoming line of cars as I turned out of that line, blinker on, heading for the entrance to Celcor, where I was to pay the monthly electricity bill. (We can pay the water bill online -- why won't the power company allow its customers to do the same?) The line of cars I was in partially obstructed my view of the lane I needed to cross; should have had patience and allowed the traffic to move ahead so that I could see better into that lane, but I didn't. Then there was the crash, the helmeted figure flying over my hood. Without a doubt one of the three or four worst moments of my life.

Put the car in park and bolted out the door. He was sitting in the street. Relieved to see he was conscious, I put my hand on his shoulder and held it there. Bystanders were on cellphones calling for help. Some stood in the street and directed traffic around us. Within ten minutes, a barangay security officer and an ambulance were there; EMTs removed the young man's helmet, laid him down on the pavement, tended to his scraped hand, the abrasion on his forehead. They looked at his bruised knee, and after making sure there were no broken bones they helped him to his feet. Glenda was visiting Clara Mae (Aiza's sister) at the time, and Don-Don was checking in with Clara Mae's husband; the call to Glenda came directly after the accident -- from an acquaintance who had driven by the scene. They soon arrived, and Don-Don moved bike and car into Celcor's entrance as the young man was helped into the ambulance.

Two city policemen had shown up at some point in a marked Nissan SUV, and after the young man was taken away Glenda and I were asked by them to climb into their back seat. We would be taken to the central pulis station, across from City Hall, and there we would wait for the young man's parents in order to see whether a settlement could be reached. The traffic was very bad. The men were talkative and seemed to try to put us at ease with their talk, which was mainly in English. They found out where I was from, and we talked about the Celtics, world champs, for a while. "Who do you think is the goat in basketball, Jordan or James?" I said Jordan, and the questioner didn't seem pleased with the answer. We moved on to other topics.

The young man had walked well to the ambulance. No limp. I prayed the head was not concussed or worse. The pulis station was a large warren of rooms surrounding a reception area with benches against the wall and a long front desk. Every space clean and brightly lit. Policemen and women walking back and forth chatting, often laughing. One man took down my narration of what had happened, then asked Glenda and me to wait for a while; the parents were coming from an outlying town, and they would first, of course, go to see their boy at the hospital. There was a vendor at a wagon across the street; I went over and watched her fry some fish balls for Glenda and me to eat. The station was not hopping, but there were cases to deal with. A restaurant manager came in with a heavy hand on the upper arm of a young woman -- she had walked off, then run off, with a bag of takeout worth more than P1,000. The woman was well-dressed and had a smartphone, but she had no ID. She did not seem well aware of her surroundings. We overheard the words "mentally impaired" pass from one policeman to another. Ah, drugs. Players in another traffic accident came through the front door and sat down together, were interviewed by one officer, and then awaited their turn at the settlement table.

The mother and the young man himself arrived about four hours into our stay at the

station. I held out my hand and he took it. The mother took my hand. I apologized,

admitted I was at fault, got that all up front. The young man (I will avoid his name, in the

interest of the family's privacy) seemed in good shape, the head abrasion hardly noticeable,

a small bandage on his hand. Beneath his long pants, I knew there was heavy bruising.

The motorcyclist walked into a room with an officer and came back after a few minutes.

"________ would like you to cover the cost of motorcycle repairs, also the cost of a new 

helmet," the officer said. I readily agreed. After a while, a document in triplicate was 

produced, which we read. The young man, the officer, and I signed all three; then the officer

handed one to me, one to him, and kept the third for pulis files. As we moved toward the 

door after more handshakes, a cop with whom we had not interacted raised his hand to me

with a kindly smile. "As they say in the U.S., 'Shit happens,'" he remarked.

I would meet with the young man again at my barangay's office, where I would pay                                       At the pulis office.

damages to him in front of witnesses -- the bill came to P22,000, about $450 American. My

car is in the shop, and I'll be paying P45,000 for its repair. Insurance? Comprehensive insurance is bought here by people who own expensive, and relatively new, cars. The insurance required by law covers personal injury only, which is why I did not have to pay the college student's medical bills. The comprehensive runs to P25-30,000 a year -- is wicked expensive, in other words. After six years of driving with only a small payout for a side mirror I lost, and now this, financially I still come out ahead.

Feeling shaken, even now, by the damage I did to that young man's body, though.  , , , In my fifty years of driving before this, I had never hurt anyone on the road. There's a tightness in my stomach, I'm not sleeping well, etc. Glenda has agreed to do the driving that needs to be done in the city, from now on. And I'll be a stint driver on countryside treks -- but my Cab City driving days are over.