Welcome! I'm Brad, a retired American high school teacher who has been living in Cabanatuan City, the Philippines for more than four years. My adoptive/adopted Filipino family, the Javier-Aldonza-Guevarra-Academia clan, the kind staff at the hotel across the street where I used to live, and the Raguindin family, under whose roof I now live, have been friends and helpmates to me during this time; thanks to them for letting me describe here their trials, successes, heartaches, celebrations, passions, so that American readers can get an idea of Filipino life. It has, for the most part, been a very enjoyable stay. I post every four to ten days. Tap the lower floors above for earlier posts. I'm afraid this new platform does not enable readers to embiggen the photos; will try to make sure to post photos large enough not to require a magnifying glass.

At the new Angel's Pizzeria, downtown Cabanatuan. There's Mama Luz, holding a tasty halo-halo; Maria, the owner of the franchise; me lamely holding up some takeout; and Mich, cousin of Jheng and the manager of Angel's Cabanatuan!

Vice President Harris Pays a Visit

11.23.22

Now, I do hold those two freedoms in high esteem. And I'm sorry to see either abrogated by a belligerent power, as they have been in Ukraine, for instance. Over here in East Asia, China has laid claim to a huge swath of the South China Sea, including what should be the territorial waters of four other countries. An international court in the Hague invalidated China's claim in 2016, but China did not send representatives to the court sessions, and has ignored the court's ruling. It has built military bases on islands in its enormous claim, denied non-Chinese fishermen access to fisheries they had previously fished for ages, and is starting to place oil rigs in what are basically disputed waters.

                    (The Japan Times)

. . . And yet. And yet, the Philippines and its neighbors have been muddling through what is certainly a difficult time. There have been no hostilities between countries, and a great deal of negotiating. Manila is in talks with Beijing to undertake joint oil exploration in the South China Sea, for example. Vietnamese diplomacy is endeavoring to give Vietnamese fishermen access to fishing grounds off the Paracel Islands.

The U.S., as you probably know, has become China's bogeyman over the last couple of decades. The superpower rivalry, with its tit-for-tat tariffs and denunciations, is growing increasingly bitter. And does the appearance of an American vice president in the Philippines indicting the Chinese power grab help or hinder the talks between China and its neighbors?

Weak countries tend to be leery of strong countries, even those strong countries with which they have an alliance, lest they get squashed like a bug  in a rivalry between the strong, and I think the Philippines should be leery of the powerful on all sides.   

I agree with Anna Malindog-Uy, a geopolitical analyst in Manila, who says the Philippines must “prevent at all costs the possibility of becoming a pawn of any superpower to encircle another superpower.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/asia/philippines-south-china-sea-kamala-harris-visit-intl-hnk/index.htm

https://time.com/6236010/kamala-harris-philippines-visit-china/

The news just came in that back in the States, the Nevada U.S. Senate race has been called for the Democratic encumbent, Catherine Cortez Masto. Democrats keep control of the Senate! I voted for Republicans, occasionally, back in the day, but if you've read these postings for a while you know that I feel the GOP has grown toxic over the last ten or so years, and certainly over the last six years.

American reader, you may feel the same way. I hope you do. The four years of Trump saw record-breaking corruption in the American executive, outpacing anything seen in the administrations of Nixon, Harding, Grant. Republicans readily became Trump's enablers, even in the face of abuses that threatened the balance of powers, American democracy, etc. Jeez-Louise. Actions have their reactions, of course. The McConnell Senate's underhanded stacking of the Supreme Court led to the Dobbs decision, and the Dobbs decision became a major factor in the stemming of the "red wave." Continuing Republican support of Trump after Trump had lost for the GOP the presidency, the Senate, and the House enabled Trump to select many candidates for the midterms, candidates that often turned out to be unfit to lead, in the eyes of the electorate. Trump himself will be immersed in legal trouble probably for the rest of his life; what's on the docket, let's see, tax fraud, election fraud, the stealing of classified documents, rape . . . .  

The Senate is safe, but not the House, and as of this writing Republicans are closer to a House majority than the Democrats are: it will be a slight majority if they get one, however. The thought of Jim Jordan chairing the House Judiciary Committee turns my stomach -- but the midterms of a first-term presidency have historically skewed significantly to the side of the party in opposition to the president's party. This time the Geogia runoff may increase the Democratic majority in the Senate, and, if they gain a slim majority in the House, the undisciplined Republican Freedom Caucus will likely be at loggerheads with the more traditional GOPers, to the Democrats' advantage.

All in all, heartening news for democracy lovers.

Back in the Tricycle City

11.3.22

Up the Cagayan Watershed, across swollen rivers, over two stretches of highland, and down the Pampanga Watershed. Nine hours of driving without mishap and with pretty clear sailing almost all of the way, but with no cats to visit me in the driver's seat! I traveled on All Saints Day, a holiday in the Philippines, when so many Filipinos pack food in the early hours of the morning and travel to cemeteries where loved ones are buried to keep vigils at gravesites from sunup to sundown. Not so many vehicles on the Maharlika; not so many overladen trucks zig-zagging the highlands at 5 or 10 kms./hr. And I would have shaved a half hour or a full hour off the trip, had I left Cabagan at 8am instead of 10am. Just as I arrived in Munoz, two cities above Cabanatuan, folks started leaving the cemeteries, and in no time the Maharlika was chockfull of cars, pickups, tricycles. In the highlands above San Jose City, I had bought 8 kgs of fresh ginger as pasalubong, and dropped off 4 kgs at the duplex before heading home and handing over 4kgs to Don-Don.

The day before, my last day in Cabagan, I had driven to Tuguegarao for a last visit there. My passengers in the Avanza were Grace, Faith, Matt, and Crace's niece Marga. Tropical Storm Paeng was now spinning over the South China Sea, but its effects were in stark evidence on this stretch of the Maharlika, which in places passes close to the Cagayan River. In two places we crawled through road-flooding in which water rose to the tops of the Avanza's wheels.Tropical Storm Paeng killed 150 Filipinos; 36 are missing.

See the treeline in the distance? It marks the bank of the Cayagan River. No, not the far bank: the near bank. The river normally runs on the other side of those trees. We passed many flooded homes, and in places on the side of the highway makeshift sheds and tents housed families that had been flooded out.

The time at Robinson's Mall in Tug City was fun but bittersweet. Would I be seeing these fine people again? I had wanted to get closer to warm, funny, smart Grace during my stay in Cabagan, but I had made missteps in that direction. In addition to being warm, funny and smart, Grace is very (almost typed "intensely") religious. She crosses herself before car trips; more than once I've witnessed her whispering prayers under her breath. And of course she attends mass, usually with her children, every week. I'm not religious, though I'm not the strict materialist my scientist sons often appear to me to be. Aldous Huxley coined the term "agnostic," and despite the copout connotations of this moniker it probably suits me best. I don't want to get into the particulars of my "missteps"; suffice it to say they fall into the range of possible missteps committed by a man without religion toward a woman who is fervently religious. And I regret them. But could we have ever bridged the spiritual divide between us? Perhaps and perhaps not.

At any rate here I am now, catless in Cabanatuan. Say that three times fast. Grace and I are staying in touch online. Yesterday felt stiff all over, due to the long drive; today is much better. Hoping to hear some word from the resort staff about Bob and Cy.

Cabagan Blues

10.28.22

As you can see, the new editing platform I was inexplicably saddled with is still quite foreign to me. I somehow lost the border, and can't get it back now (hopefully, before long, I will get it back). Still have not heard from the SimpleSite folks.

Awaiting the arrival of Tropical Storm Paeng (int'l name: Nalgae) right now. The eye will pass to the south of both Cabagan and Cabanatuan, but this storm is massive, hundreds of miles in diameter, and pretty much all of Luzon will get a drenching along with gusty winds. Jheng in Cab City will be closer to the eye than I will be, and I checked in on her earlier today: the family is ready. The family, by the way, is one soul larger than it was when I departed for my month-long sojourn: Mariel and her boyfriend Sean are now the parents of a baby boy. Jheng texted me that the the birth was a very painful one for Mariel, and that the baby was robust and healthy.

I'll be leaving Cabagan for Cab City in a few days. It's been fun, restful. To this day, during my stay, I've provided transportation for a couple of happy and polite children to and from school. Have swum quite a bit in the pool at the resort. And each weekend  Grace and her children have joined me on trips to the malls up in Tuguegarao: above you see Grace helping Matt dress for such a trip while Lolo (Grandfather) watches his beloved fights; and there is a quick turnaround snap of Grace and Faith on the escalator at Tug City's SM Mall.

Next morning

The rain outside is steady but not yet very heavy; the wind is picking up. Already the storm has caused tragedy in southern Luzon and the Visayas: at least 72, so far, have died in flash floods and mudslides. Here is a Ventusky image of the storm at this time..

So the last week of my stay in Cabagan is punctuated by a national calamity -- one that is ongoing as I type this.

A calamity of a more more personal nature than Paeng is unfolding for me now: Cy has been missing for two weeks, and Bob has been gone for twelve days. Cy scooted out as I was talking at the door with the resort's manager, and Bob seems to have fled when I was away and a housekeeper was cleaning the room. At first I didn't feel upset. Cy was out overnight once during my first week; he showed up around noon the following day. "Cats have the homing instinct," I told myself, after a few days. "They'e getting fed somewhere, and that's where they'll hang out for a while." It's been a long while, and still no sign of the two.

My eyes are peeled now when I'm driving in the vicinity of the resort. A staffer here has led me to two strays on the premises, but neither was Bob or Cy. Will I be leaving without them? If it comes to that, I'll leave pictures of them with all the staff here. I'll ask them to try to get them into a room if one or both turn up, contact me, and expect my arrival within a day or two.

9.5.22

I'm Gonna Fix You, Cy

A few days ago I ran into Richard at the SM Mall, and chatting with him learned that he is not a happy man. The expat Aussie and his Filipina wife grow rice on their farm in Talavera, one town north of Cabanatuan, and he told me that for small growers rice farming was becoming financially unviable. I knew that the government's decision to waive restrictions on rice imports in 2019 had  brought down the selling price of unhulled rice. What I didn't know, but learned from Richard, is that he and his wife are facing a double-whammy: fertilizer prices have tripled since 2020!

Richard is an easygoing mate in his early sixties with long and wavy gray hair. He's thin and handsome for an older guy, and he dresses like a biker. Really, I feel more comfortable with him -- maybe because Eric's Norwegian accent makes him hard to understand? because Michael's politics are so repellent?-- than with most other expats I've met in the Philippines. Anyway, I said to Richard the government wouldn't let small farmers go under; they would tweak this policy, institute that policy. Richard said he hoped so.

Reading the East Asian news this morning, I learned the Philippine Department of Agriculture will soon subsidize small farmers 5K pesos for fertilizer expenses. Also read that very poor rice harvests are expected in China and India this growing season due to drought and severe heat; prices seem destined to rise. So how about that, Richard: your short-term prospects seem to be getting brighter.

Not much in the way of drought or severe heat here. The rainy season is finally acting like the rainy season, although the southern monsoon is staying away. We get one or two downpours a day, some lasting minutes, some hours. Here's some news: I won't be alone with the cats on the drive up to Isabela on October 1. My landlord Adonis (Don-Don) has a cousin he would like to visit in Cauayan, which is four towns south of Cabagan, and he's offered to do the driving to Cauayan. Also, Jheng's brother James wants a ride to Solano, Nueva Vizcaya (about the halfway point of my journey). James spent the first few months of this year helping his Uncle Sonny, who opened a second computer repair shop in Solano. Business must be going well for Sonny up there; he wants James's help again.

Speaking of the cats, it seems that Cyrus, the younger of the two, has started pursuing the ladies. Last week he spent a few entire nights outside. Robert was neutered at 6 months; I just haven't gotten around to bringing Cy in. Well, Cy, tomorrow you'll have a blood test, and a day or two after that, snip, snip. More strays are not needed in Cab City -- or in Cabagan!

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1658331/da-told-to-expedite-release-of-cash-subsidies-for-rice-farmers

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3191136/india-and-china-farmers-fret-drought-and-heat-threaten-rice

8.28.22

China Wants Taiwan

Xi Jinping, president of China and general secretary of China's Communist Party, has repeatedly stated that it is China's policy to reunite Taiwan with mainland China in the not-distant future, by peaceful, diplomatic means if possible and by force if necessary. The position of U.S. administrations, for decades, has been to support democratic Taiwan with trade which includes weaponry for self-defense; on the issue of whether the U.S. would come to the defense of Taiwan militarily, should Taiwan be attacked by mainland China, the U.S., despite President Biden's recent claim that the country would militarily defend Taiwan, has maintained a stance of "strategic ambiguity." Which means, what? Maybe, maybe not? I don't think it's going too far to say that the positions of these two nuclear powers (with the two largest armies on the planet), vis-a-vis this island with a population of 24 million, have created a tinderbox in the region, with many opportunities for miscalculation on either side.

China out-invests the U.S. in Philippine industry, but news reports of Filipino demonstrations against the Philippines' growing reliance on China, as well as every conversation I've had with a Filipino about China, suggest to me there is a deep well of disdain in the average Filipino for their formidable neighbor to the west. Generally, the people here feel the Chinese government's economic designs outside its own borders are predatory, and China's territorial claims in the South China Sea are outageous. President Duterte, trying to win investments from both China and the U.S. during his six years in office, maintained a studied neutrality concerning differences between the two major powers, and, beyond diplomatic protest, would not rock the boat when Chinese warships chased Filipino fishermen away from Philippines-claimed islands in the western sea. Whether President Marcos will maintain this "let's just keep an even keel" position has yet to be seen.

Will China invade Taiwan not in the not-distant but in the near future? No doubt the Chinese government has been observing closely the Western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Unprecedented sanctions have been imposed on Russia by every NATO state, by other countries as well. Tens of billions of dollars in weaponry and other support is being funneled into Ukraine. This cannot be making the Chinese leaders sanguine. China depends on international trade in ways that Russia doesn't; and foreign assistance to Taiwan, after Chinese aggression, would much more likely lead to flashpoints and a wider conflict than it currently does in Ukraine. On the other hand, President Xi has publicised the issue of Taiwan, and "rattled the saber" in the Taiwan Strait, as no Chinese leader before him has. It is almost as if he is staking his reputation and legacy on reunification during his tenure.

If China does go in militarily, try to reclaim the island that was Chinese territory for more than six hundred years (before the 1949 revolution, and before the decades of Japanese control before that), how would this affect the Philippines? I guess that depends. Would the U.S. come to Taiwan's defense, and, based on a treaty made long ago between the U.S. and the Philippines, would it pressure the Philippines to allow the U.S. to use military bases on Luzon? Would the Philippines give in to such pressure?

For that matter, just what kind of hegemony is China seeking to establish in East Asia? The years ahead should be interesting ones (cough, cough).

8.23.22

Still Life with Tropical Storm

Well, the tropical storm-force winds are north of here, but it's been a pretty dark and dismal day in Cab City: overcast with occasional downpours. Florita (int'l name Ma-on) has been affecting most of northern Luzon since midday yesterday, and Grace's daughter Faith and son Matt, up in Isabela, got only a taste of school on Monday -- schools in the province closed at 11 am, and they are not open today. They are closed here in Nueva Ecija today, but Jheng's children got in a full day yesterday.

Grace and Faith had flu-like symptoms this morning; Grace just texted me they are both feeling better now (it is getting on evening). Up north in Isabela they're really feeling the storm and have been water-sodden for a day and a half. As for me, have been sedentary for two days now, reading Richard Flanagan's very good novel, Gould's Book of Fish (thanks, Mark!); watching Netflix movies; cooking; tippling into the night.

I guess it just took me blogging about how dry this rainy season has been for one of those whirligigs to descend upon us. Hopefully, Florita will be in the South China Sea by tomorrow morning.

8.16.22

Plan-Making in the Not-So-Rainy Season

It's my fifth rainy season in the Philippines, and this one is not playing out as each of the others did. Simply put, there hasn't been very much rain. Yesterday there was a furious downpour with a nice lightning display -- it did not last an hour. In years past, sunny afternoons at this time of year were a rarity; but these past few weeks have seen long lines of sunny afternoons with nary a drop of rain. And, while two or three circular storms have formed in the western Pacific over the past couple of months, I have a memory of these whirligigs forming with much greater frequency in prior rainy seasons.

I'm not complaining! On the ninth or tenth day of a southern monsoon, a malaise starts to overtake one's soul -- I call it the rain-grippe. A prolonged absence of sun does affect a person's mental space, I've learned since moving here. The rain-grippe has not been felt by me for many moons now . . . .

------------------------------------------------

Faith and Matt will not have an extended break from school until December; at the start of this break, Gracelyn and her children will board a bus and head south to spend a couple of weeks with me. All right, but. As Grace explained how we could reunite, the selfish side of me kicked in. Nearly half a year away from these people who in six days had become an important part of my life? No, thank you. And the seed of a plan lodged itself in my noggin while I was still in Cabagan.

Before the arrangements with the resort were completed, I sat down with Dondon at the big family table, told him I wanted to live in Cabagan for a month and not pay him rent for that month, then settled back in my seat for his response. I was a little uneasy: his family runs three or four small businesses, but my monthly 25k was a real help to them, I sensed. I was also a little worried that he would find an affluent couple or another foreigner to take my place, and my comfortable (even for that money) abode in Cabanatuan would be lost. But a deal was arrived at: if I left Dondon with 5k, I could leave whatever I wasn't bringing to Cabagan in the apartment, and the place would be saved for my return November 1.

So October will cost me 10,000 pesos more than my average monthly apartment expenditure in the Philippines, and 10k is about $180 American at today's rate -- the peso has fallen against the dollar. Much of my eating will be done at Grace's place or street-side, where vendors in every Philippine city provide savory, wholesome, and cheap meals: restaurant bills should not add up to much more than normal. There will be the gas money, and surely expenses unforseen. But a longer stay with "the family of the north country" is necessary for this old man. And a month at a resort? I'm in!

8.8.22

Daang Maharlika

The Maharlika Highway stretches 3,517 kilometers, from Laoag City in the far north of Luzon to Zamboanga City at the tip of a Mindanao peninsula.  There is a ferry service between Luzon and Samar, and another between Leyte and Mindanao; a bridge links the two islands of Samar and Leyte. It is the "great connector" of this country -- not just of four of the archipelego's main islands, but also of several linguistic groups and disparate cultures. You may know that two southern Asian countries in the last few decades, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, changed their names due to the strong association of their previous names to a colonial past. Well, in the Philippines, which was named after a Spanish king now dead for 400 years, there is currently a groundswell of support to do the same. It's a testament to the affection in which Filipinos hold their "great connector" that the new name for the country bandied about the most, in the last few years, is "Maharlika."

The Maharlika is less than 200 meters from the Raguindin house, my current home base, and the Roel Garden Resort in faraway Cabagan is actually on the Maharlika, so the how-to-get-from-here-to-there aspect of the trip was simple enough. Up Luzon's central plain to San Jose City. North of SJC, a wide "saddle" of highlands connect the Sierra Madres to the east with the mighty Cordilleras to the west -- switchbacks galore for about 30 kilometers. These highlands separate the watersheds of the Pampanga River, which flows south through Cabanatuan and into Manila Bay, and the Cagayan River, which flows north between the two mountain ranges and ends at Luzon's northern coast. Then the drive was up the Cagayan Valley for the length of Nueva Vizcaya Province. At the province's northern border with Isabela, the Maharlika winds up into more highlands before dipping back down into the valley. Once back in the valley, it is a straight shot up the length of Isabela Province to the city of Cabagan.

As the crow flies, The distance between Cabanatuan City and Cabagan is 232 km. The road distance is 325.7 km, or just over 200 miles. Now, 200 miles is almost precisely the same distance I traveled eons ago between my home in Cohasset, MA and Waterville, ME, where I attended Colby College. That trip of bygone days took a little more than four hours; the trip to Cabagan took nine and a half hours. 

Why? The Maharlika Highway is not the I95, to put it shortly. There is an expressway on Luzon, with overpasses and off-ramps, on the western side of the island, from Manila to the start of Kennon Road, which climbs the Cordillera to Baguio. But the Maharlika serves as the main drag of sixteen cities between Cabanatuan and Cabagan, main drags that are always, at least in daylight hours, congested with traffic. I probably spent a half hour getting through the downtown section of Santiago. In the highland regions of the Maharlika, a driver is more often than not stuck behind a gi-normous, over-laden, lumbering semi, or a column of semis, which can do no more than 10 km/hr on the switchbacks (and the Marharlika in the highlands is mainly switchbacks). You want to pass one of these trucks in the highlands, where there is never more than two lanes? I did, more than once, when there seemed to be enough clearance and visibility down the road -- always with a strong sense that I was putting myself into peril.

For postings between January 22 and July 27, 2022 (and my actual stay in Cabagan), tap the "8" in the blue band at the top of this page. For earlier postings, descend farther!