9.28.24

Swan Song of the POGOs

The acronym stands for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators. Licensees number more than 200; from centers in Manila and on the east coast of Luzon, they offer online gambling in the forms of E-casinos and sports betting to an enormous clientele in mainland China, where gambling is illegal. Two months ago, President Marcos ordered all these establishments to close down their operations by the end of the year. Beginning in 2025, online gambling will be outlawed in the islands.

                                                                                                                                                                        (PLN Media)

Which is a good thing. Not because these sites are turning Filipinos into gambling addicts: these sites are blocked within the country and by Philippine law only foreigners are allowed to use them. They have been operating for fifteen or twenty years and, as you might guess, have done nothing to ease the current fraught relationship between the governments of the Philippines and the People's Republic of China. Chinese officialdom will not be the only ones glad to see the POGOs go. Two years ago, the Philippines was placed on the "Grey List" of Money Laundering Countries by the Financial Action Task Force, an international watchdog whose purview is inter-state financial crime and whose members include the governments of most of the democratic countries in the world, including the U.S. As the Philippines has discovered, and as Cambodia and Laos have discovered with their own versions of POGOs, these online gaming sites provide excellent opportunities for criminal enterprises (mainly triads) to launder their illicitly-gotten gains. And now all three countries  are on the Grey List, making problematic the attainment of international investment that these countries badly need.

The upside to the banning of POGOs is quite clear: a happier China, a better atmosphere for international investment, and the removal of close to 100,000 Chinese nationals, who operate the POGO centers and who have been linked to criminal activities such as prostitution, human trafficking, illegal detention, illegal labor practices, and even homicides over POGO-related disputes. No, these folks are hardly the cream of Chinese society; return them to the motherland and let them find dishonorable ways to make a yuan there.

Yet there is a downside to the removal of these centers from the country. The Philippine government collects about P 8 billion in taxes from POGOs each year. POGOs drive real estate demand and they drive demand in various other private sectors of the economy: food services, transportation, and utilities, to name three. One government agency or another estimated that POGOs' total contribution to the economy in 2019 was .67% of GDP. In addition, approximately 40,000 Filipinos owe their employment to POGOs either in direct employment by a POGO or by employment in a related, POGO-dependent industry.

There will be pain involved in the removal of POGOs from the Philippines; that is a given. However, it seems to this observer of the Philippine scene that it was a wise choice of the president, who has banned them by executive order. An enthusiastic legislature is drafting a bill to make POGOs illegal. This timely move will, hopefully, be seen as a gesture of good will to the Chinese, whose navy is becoming increasingly belligerent in the South China Sea. Most importantly, these islands will be green-lighted for important investments from abroad in the years to come.

POGO gaming ban - a public policy win in the Philippines: Opinion | AGB (agbrief.com)

What are POGOs and How Do They Work in the Philippines? - HyperLocal PH

No Chinese-run POGOs in the Philippines, Pagcor exec tells House | Philstar.com

9.19.24

Fickle Weather

Today was a half day for Krizza, so Glenda, Krizza and I decided to spend a lazy afternoon at Nery's Resort.  We were on the causeway leading to the resort's barangay when the first splat of rain hit the windshield; a few moments later it was raining steadily, and we decided to head home. We had almost made it back to the Maharlika Highway when the rain suddenly stopped and the sun made an appearance. Glenda was driving, and I asked her to bang another U-ey.

"I don't know," she said.

"No one knows," I said. "But it's nice now and maybe it'll stay that way."

So we turned around again and soon found ourselves back on the causeway.  Midway a fine mist of a rain developed, and as we entered the barangay it turned into a steady light rain.

"Okay now what?" said Glenda. Krizza was mum in the back seat.

"It has something to do with that causeway," I said, taking a stab at light camp. "Let's just go to the resort, see what's what.

The resort parking lot was empty, and underneath a large umbrella, a guy outside the snack shop looked at us questioningly. The rain was now coming down in sheets. Yeah, well. We went back to the apartment. Glenda flopped on the sofa-bed with her smartphone. After a while Krizza pushed her mother over and got some homework out of the way. I took out the camera and made this posting. During the afternoon, the rain stopped for a while, then started again, at least five times.

Yes, that's a hole in the door, for the cats! Don-Don made it for us with a power tool, and we added clear plastic flaps.

9.11.24

Joy-Joy's Visit

Glenda brought her home after a weekend visit to Rizal to help celebrate her birthday with Krizza. Joy-Joy had a doctor's appointment in Cab City on Tuesday, and she would visit with us for a few days, in the midst of which Glenda would take her to the doc's office. She just turned three, is very mobile and talkative, dances to music, has a repertoire of songs she can sing, and seems to understand well

what the "cute factor" can get her, so she's a little sassy. Well, she has a good heart, as evidenced by her joyful and gentle treatment of Phoebe and Sophie; she's well on her way to personhood. Joy-Joy has hemangioma on one of side of her neck -- basically a benign tumor caused by the bunching up of blood vessels. It is left to sort itself out in most cases, but sometimes, as in Joy-Joy's case, it causes pain and sleepless nights and must be treated by a specialist. Usually Daddy Edmar and Mommy Novi bring her down for a Saturday when she has an appointment, and we all have lunch together, but the doc was available only weekdays this time around, and Edmar works, so we're giving Novi a few days alone with Joy-Joy's younger brother Ethan while we pamper the kid. Edmar, by the way, is the firstborn of Glenda's eldest sister, which makes Joy-Joy Glenda's grandniece.

Early on we hit the SM Mall. Had lunch at Shakey's: chicken fingers for the tot while Glenda and I shared a scallop pizza (Krizza was at school). Disappointing: Shakey's, it seems, now adds chili powder instead of basil to the scallops and garlic (maybe they just ran out of basil?). While I had a much-needed haircut, Glenda took Joy-Joy to kidzoona for an hour of fun. I was out of the barber shop in less than a half hour and went over to the third-level toy section of SM's department store, bought two four-packs of play-do. Eight different colors. Joy-Joy has spent much of her downtime in the apartment molding and remolding . . . .

Thursday was the day chosen to return Joy-Joy to Mama Novi.

Glenda wanted to attend on that day the funeral of her cousin

Elmer, who tragically died alone of an asthmatic fit at the age of

forty-seven. He was the numbers runner on the Torres's side of

the barangay, and twice, during my several trips to the

farmhouse, he elicited numbers from me along with a fifty or

hundred-peso note. 

Glenda made a lovely beef kaldereta the night before Joy-Joy left.

Now, back from the funeral and Joy-less, she has instructed me to

get a banana heart at the produce sari-sari on the way back from

picking Krizza up at school. Am interested in seeing what comes out of the kitchen tonight: I'm sure I'll eat it.

                                                                                                (Organics.ph)

9.3.24

Tropical Storm Enteng

It was tracking directly north, grazing the east coast of Luzon yesterday morning and bringing plenty of rain to central Luzon. Then about noon it veered into the island, made it to the Central Cordillera by mid-afternoon, dawdled in those mountains for a few hours, and finally exited the island in the northern reaches of the west coast. Baguio, up in the mountains, was for some time receiving two inches of rain per hour. It's not surprising that of the thirteen dead counted so far, almost all occurred in landslides in the higher elevations.

                                            Enteng yesterday morning, along with its expected path before the abrupt left turn.

Glenda was with Krizza visiting family in Rizal when heavy rain set in, and Rizal is east of Cabanatuan so their rain was indeed heavy. Texting, I suggested that she spend the night there; she texted back that some of the roads in her barangay were already impassable. They ended up spending two nights there while crews drained roadways and removed debris. Labor Day is May 1 here, as it is in most of the world, and I was worried that Krizza would miss a day of school, but after checking the school's website Glenda texted that classes had been canceled for Monday, due to the weather.   

Our luck: the rotation of the storm as it traipsed off over the South China Sea has pulled the southwest monsoon back into the island. Rain will fall pretty much continually in central Luzon until Saturday, and there is renewed flooding in Manila.  

8.27.24

Two Resorts

Yes, we inlanders celebrate, socialize, and relax at resorts rather than at beaches. By my count Cabanatuan City has nine resorts open to the public; within an hour's drive, outside the city, there are five or six more. Another type of resort rents out its entire facility to groups for a few thousand pesos up to tens of thousands of pesos a day; Cab City has at least a half dozen of these "private" resorts.

Last weekend was a long weekend due to the holiday set aside to honor the memory of the assassinated politician Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino. Glenda, Krizza, and I visited two resorts on different days, the first time with Glenda's son Francis and the second time with Don-Don and Aiza's daughter Donaiza. The first was the very inexpensive Nery's. A hundred pesos (about $1.85 American) is the entry fee, and the place offers four pools, bbq grills, long tables + chairs, and quite the menagerie of exotic animals. I've written of this place before on a previous page. In the pools water is not exchanged during the day; they are filled in the morning and emptied at night, with perhaps a quick scrubbing in between. The crowd is generally a young one, raucous but polite, and people are quite good about picking up after themselves. The changing rooms/bathrooms at Nery's are quite grungy; while changing I make sure my bare feet don't touch the floor.

Two days later at about 1 pm Glenda, Krizza, and I pulled up outside Don-Don's apartment, expecting to add Don-Don's daughters Donaiza and Adelle to our group before heading out to Talavera and the giant Crystal Waves pool. Adonis was on the veranda with a friend and Adelle begged off joining us because, as she discreetly informed Glenda, Don-Don was in his cups and she wanted to look after him. This was a very "Adelle thing" to do and so we left her with the tippling men, took on Donaiza, and thirty minutes later we were at the Crystal Waves gate. Why the place has a gate with mechanical arms both incoming and outgoing, and a little guardhouse in which a man in uniform gives us a quizzical glance, receives word that we are going swimming, and pushes a button to raise the barrier, I'll never know. While the parking area at Nery's is a dirt lot, Crystal Waves has a nice large paved area with clearly delineated spaces. Two attendants welcome visitors and add up the bill and stamp the backs of visitors' hands; another attendant sits behind glass in a cashier's booth and accepts bill and money; a fourth attendant stands next to a turnstile through which one gains entry to the resort. Such folderall. At the entrance to Nery's dirt lot, through the car window we hand to a girl the number of purple banknotes that equals the number of people in the car, and we're good.

The admission fee is P200 for adults, P150 for children. Renting a cabana is necessary; that's another P600. Well, they have a lot to keep up on the grounds, and they keep it up very well. Bougainvillea glabra is cultivated in large pots; the trees number well over a hundred, and their gnarled trunks and white, purple, red, and pink flowers line the paths leading to and connecting the cabanas. Very picturesque, really. The cabanas are spacious and very clean, and the bathrooms are spic and span. The one pool is a good-sized pond by American standards; water is constantly going to and coming from it, and at one end there is a hidden mechanism that periodically creates waves. The place is pricy for a Filipino; one notes that the clientele seems more upscale and less noisy than the folks at Nery's.

Glenda had made pancit and pork adobo, which we ate in our cabana. Later we snacked on nutella sandwiches. After a few hours, dark clouds incoming and flashes of lightning announced it was time to leave; by the time we got to Don-Don's place to drop off Donaiza, it was pouring buckets.

8.18.24

Why we Visit Resorts and Not Beaches

Yes, the island that is my home has a funny shape, reader. Also, it's very large. In the superimposition above, the northern shore reaches the tip of Michigan's "thumb" and stretches into Ontario, Canada, while its southernmost point is in central Virginia. It covers 104,688 square kms., which makes it more than three times the size of my home state, Massachusetts. We are "inlanders" in Cabanatuan; while this fair city seems tantalizingly close to the eastern shore, it is a 3-hour drive to Dingalin on the coast -- tack on another hour if you are going to Baler, which lies farther north. You see, the Sierra Madre lies between Cab City and the coast, and to reach those two burgs one must negotiate a ridiculous number of switchbacks, before and after mountain passes, on two-lane highways. The drive to Dagupan, northwest of Cab City, takes five hours and to the southwest . . . well, don't ask me to swim in Manila Bay. I once took friends on a daytrip to Baler, and doubt I'll do that again -- way too much car time and not enough beach time!

8.9.24

School Days

I'm up before them, and so at 6:20 I put on a Youtube collection of Filipino music and continue diddling away at this or that computer game (Lexulous? Cribbage? a Vox crossword puzzle?)  until 6:30, when I turn on a light and raise the volume of the music. Glenda usually rises first and heads for the bathroom; Kreeza, directly behind me on the sofa bed we had delivered to the apartment a couple days ago, murmurs a bit and finally rolls over. If Glenda is cooking breakfast, I'll wash the dishes of the night before, and Krizza takes a shower. Glenda will make a lovely rice porridge and soft-boiled egg, or she'll do scrambled eggs and tocino; I'm likely to make an egg-fried rice and sausage breakfast (I wish one could buy a decent bagel in Cab City). The school Krizza attends forbids its students from walking to or from school, so Glenda and I, day to day, take turns with the driving, while the one who stays behind washes the breakfast dishes and pans.

Krizza is at school from 8:00 to 4:00, which gives Glenda and me plenty of time to get done what needs to get done. Two days ago we spent what seemed like hours attempting to assist three men figure out a way to get our new sofa bed through four narrow doorways into our living room. Yesterday we bought four new tires for the car, then went shopping at the WalterMart. And always there is time to read, work/play on the computer, and lounge about.

Rain still comes barging into Cab City most afternoons, but it's obvious that the monsoon has lost some of its strength. It's a Saturday, and the weather was fine for the birthday party of Glenda's friend's son up in Rizal, to which Glenda brought her children Krizza and Francis. From the pictures she sent, it looks like the friend really wanted the kids to have a good time! Glenda and Krizza will spend the night at the farmhouse and return tomorrow; perhaps we'll go swimming then if the rain holds off.

8.3.24

40 Days

God our Father,

Your power brings us to birth,

Your providence guides our lives,

and by Your command we return to dust.

Lord, those who die still live in Your presence,

their lives change but do not end.

I pray in hope for my family,

relatives and friends,

and for all the dead known to You alone.

In company with Christ,

Who died and now lives,

may they rejoice in Your kingdom,

where all our tears are wiped away.

Unite us together again in one family,

to sing Your praise forever and ever.

Amen.

It is one of the prayers said on the fortieth day after a person's death, among Filipino Catholics, who comprise 82 or 85 percent of the population here (depending upon whose statistic you choose). We are told in the Bible that Christ's spirit walked the earth for forty days before His ascension to heaven. Orthodox Catholics and Filipino Catholics (who follow the Roman Catholic liturgy) envision a similar journey for the souls of all those who have passed on; for forty days they remain on earth, visiting places important in the lives they have led, before they move on to a place of sanctuary where they await the Second Coming. Prayers and a vigil of loved ones on the fortieth day after a passing are meant to make that transition to the place of sanctuary easier for the departed soul.

Glenda and Krizza went to Rizal for the weekend to prepare for and partake in the fortieth-day rites for their father and grandfather, Manuel Torres; the photos you see here were sent to me by Glenda. No, I did not join them, though I feel they would have welcomed me. 

7.30.24

7.23.24

The Big Wet

Meant to sit down to this blog some days ago, but a bad cold prevented me from attempting anything as daunting as the construction of sentences for a while. The rains have really set in, and these are the weeks in the tropical Philippines comparable to the most frigid period of winter in Massachusetts, insofar as one's susceptibility to head colds is concerned.

The above graphic from the Ventusky weather site depicts the rains over central Luzon today, and provides a good illustration of the southwest monsoon. This monsoon has been with us for three or four days; they last from one to three weeks, generally speaking, and really soak western parts of the island. We in the central plain have drizzle in the morning and sheets of rain in the afternoon, whereas westerners get just sheets of rain.  Monsoons come once, twice, or three times in a rainy season -- or they don't come at all. Due to the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone this time of year, without a monsoon there will still be rain, just not as fierce or as persistent.

It is not the same household next door, if I may change the subject.. Don-Don's wife Aiza has gone to the Mediterranean island of Malta to earn good money as a housekeeper in a popular hotel there. Don-Don himself has moved with his daughters Donaiza and Adelle to an apartment not far from here; he apparently was not feeling independent enough living in the house with his mother Teresita. We see him and his girls often, but they are no longer residents here. Teresita lives in the house with Don-Don's son Tenjong and another grandson, Ritz, who is soon to be a nursing student at a nearby college.

In about a week Krizza will begin junior high school here in Cabanatuan. Francis is living with us now too, but soon he will return to Rizal to be with Bienbe and go to elementary school there.

7.8.24

Godspeed, Manuel Torres

Up until my last afternoon in Massachusetts, when Glenda texted her very sad news, I'd very much enjoyed my three weeks living with son Bart in his spacious apartment, just across the town of Medford from the house belonging to my other son Jeff and his wife Anna.  Time spent in Jeff and Anna's garden nibbling on the greenery and watching their beautiful daughter blow bubbles. Between Bart's gourmet cooking and the many visits to restaurants (whose dishes I was never allowed to pay for), I'm sure I gained weight. A trip to the medieval castle of an inventor in Gloucester. Crane Beach. Watching street performers in Salem. My ex Weiya joined us on all of these forays; she presented me with a Crane Beach blanket on Father's Day.

On the days when both Bart and Jeff were working, Bart loaned me his car, so I was able to spend time with former colleagues at Leominster High School, which I visited twice at the end of school days. Went to Newton to have lunch with Mary, my old officemate at Northeastern U. And of course went down to the burg I still consider my hometown, Cohasset, twice alone and once with Bart, to hang out with old pal Mark, see how the old sights had changed, enjoy some seaside dining . . . .  Remembering now especially a couple of sunny hours with Mark, Bart, and Blake and Jill, two old friends who married long ago, sitting on rocks next to the Atlantic Ocean, Black Rock Island with its lonely house offshore to our left and Minot's Light about a mile offshore to our right. Just talking.

It was my last full day in Massachusetts. Bart and I returned to his apartment, where Glenda's text was waiting for me.

 . . . And the dude talked my ear off for the entire 5-hour drive. Ah well. Good to see the apartment and pet the cats; the following morning Glenda picked me up and drove me to Rizal. Mario, embalmed and dressed as I had never seen him in life, would lie in his casket for a week at the farmhouse before being taken in a procession to his funeral at the same little church where Joy-Joy had been baptized more than a year ago. Then he would be taken to the nearby cemetery for his above-ground internment (the dead, for the most part, are "buried" New Orleans-style throughout the Philippines). Above you see the six sisters and adopted brother together with their mother for the first time in many, many years, beside the coffin of their father. In the back is Angelo, the adopted son. The sisters from left to right are Gio, Libya, Nancy, Amy, Jenny, and Glenda. Mother Bienbe sits surrounded by her girls.

Chairs, tables, and a large awning were rented for the many who came to pay their respects, and for seven days the farmhouse was a very public place. No room for the Avanza: it was parked on the road above the property. On the morning of the funeral, plates of pancit were provided for all, and then well over a hundred joined the procession to the funeral. Mario led, his casket on a bier pulled by a car. I brought up the rear in the Avanza for the half-mile trip, and many white balloons were set free when the procession reached the church. It was a hot morning; while the priest did a fine job and the funeral service moved along smoothly segment by segment, it was a very long ceremony! In the second hour, while the priest prepared to deliver communion, I, born into an Episcopalian household, walked into the courtyard, which contained an overflow crowd, and on to the car, where I blasted the a/c and wiped the sweat from my face with tissues. The service ended with communion, and then the procession reformed for the short walk to the cemetery and internment. Manuel Torres, it must be said, had a fine send-off.

I took the Avanza back to Cabanatuan; Glenda would spend a few days with her family. While I was napping at our apartment on the afternoon of the funeral, she sent the photo below; the family had returned to the cemetery to light candles at the gravesite and to leave for Mario a bottle of gin. Many of them are wearing T-shirts with a photo of Mario provided by a cousin.

7.3.24

Mario's Passing

Manuel "Mario" Torres, husband of Bienbe, father of six girls and adoptive father of one boy, died on my last full day in the U.S. The text "My father died!" and the phone conversation with an almost unintelligible, crushed Glenda are still vivid in my mind. High blood pressure and chest pain had caused him to be hospitalized, and in hospital he suffered a heart attack. He was a farmer who had worked hard his entire adult life, and he was a humorous, quiet-spoken man.

Mario's funeral is this morning; I awoke early to note his passing here, and to let readers know I haven't given up on them. There will be more on this sad milestone in the Torres family's lives, and on my stay in Massachusetts, in the coming two or three days.

6.4.24

The L-o-o-o-ng Hop Back to the States

As I tap this out, Glenda is enrolling Kreeza in a nearby high school. Have my exit visa, am registered for etravel, and after the enrolling Glenda will have my itinerary printed up. Manila to Seoul to Boston (the plane departs just after midnight tomorrow): 22+ hrs. Boston to Dallas to Seoul to Manila on June 25: 26+ hrs. Will live with son Bart in Medford; my Philippine drivers license is good in the US for up to six months, and Bart has graciously told me I may borrow his car. There will be friends to visit: in Cohasset, in Scituate, in Newton, in Leominster. One of my nieces plans to hold a barbecue to which my two brothers and several other family members will go. Hope to spend much time at the house of my other son Jeff and his wife and spend time with a granddaughter who is becoming more and more conversational!

The plane flights are wearying, and, while I do tend to bear time differences well, no one ever really knows how jet lag on a particular trip will affect one. It will all be worth it during the three weeks ahead, however.

On another note, I'm relieved that the former president of my country was found guilty of all 34 counts by a jury of his peers. I have friends and family members who are not at all happy with the result. I believe he has committed several crimes, and that no one is above the law. 

5.30.24

Graduation Time

Sorry for that enforced departure from my blog. Payment for the site came due, and I simply had no way of paying. I could get into the problems of double verification under certain circumstances here, but I won't.

Jheng's sister Mariel is still two years away from graduating college, but three younger folk close to my heart -- Adelle Raguindin, Angelica Janiah Academia, and Krizza Torres -- all advanced from elementary school to junior high in ceremonies today. In terms of physical stature, Adelle is the smallest student in her grade, but in terms of scholarly acumen she is a giant. She was the valedictorian at her school, bravely standing before a large crowd and smoothly delivering her speech.

          Adelle                                                                Angelica                                                         Krizza

Adelle, her father Adonis told me long ago, was going to become a pediatrician (I remember wondering whether Adelle, so many years from then, would accede to this plan). Angelica is moving into a school that specializes in foreign languages, where she hopes to study Chinese and Spanish. Krizza at the end of elementary school finds herself where I found myself at the end of high school, unsure of just what she wants to do with her life. Alas! One thing seems pretty certain: she will be attending junior high school in Cabanatuan, and she'll be living with her Mom and me. Glenda is scouting out junior highs in the area, and hopefully will lock onto one before I leave for Massachusetts. The next school year begins at the end of July.

Leaving the Philippines, by the way, if you are a foreign national who has been living here for more than 6 months, requires a good deal of running around chasing papers. Filled out the request for an exit visa at the immigration office two days ago, taking care to bring with me three passport-sized photos of myself. I'll pick up the visa tomorrow. Then there is the E-travel registration that must be filled out online within 72 hours of departure; after one finishes the registration the site burps out an infographic that must be presented at the airport. I should be used to this runaround by now, but I'm not.

In about a week I'll be heading for Boston with a layover in Seoul: 22 hrs. The trip back will have two layovers and last 27 hrs. He, he.

5.12.24

Of Wifis and Rainy Skies

"In a pickle" pretty well describes my situation yesterday and the day before. On Friday I decided it was high time to check in at the blog. Clicking on the pc I noticed internet access was denied. Walked back to the wifi box (Globe Broadband) and saw an ugly red light instead of the usual blues and greens. Of course I diddled around with the box and with the pc for quite a while, but it was no go. Needed to get in touch with Jheng, whose uncle and cousin are IT whizzes, but I lacked the means to text her -- and no wifi, I quickly learned, meant no Skype. A couple of the college boarders in the compound lacked loads for their smartphones, as did Tenjong. And Glenda had left for her father's birthday party in Rizal that morning, planning to spend the night, so there was no car. Jeez Louise. Went to the tricycle stand and got a ride to Jheng's. Her mom and grandmom were entertaining four guests in the small living room: great. Mama Luz went upstairs and brought down a hacking and croaking Jheng, who had been suffering from a sore throat and laryngitis for three days: great again. Nonetheless she took me back to the kitchen and contacted her uncle, sending him video of the wifi box. The box was either kaput or the Globe system was down, came the news. Much more likely the former rather than the latter.

Dejectedly, I flagged a trike down for a ride home. Once home, I opened a book. The previous Saturday morning, I had missed the video meeting with my sons, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter due to one of the "rolling brown-outs" that are mitigating the strain on the power grid caused by the heat wave. It was only the third outage in three weeks, and the outages last only four hours, but this one seemed to have taken that meeting for a bulls-eye, and hit it squarely. In subsequent texting I informed the boys of the problem and suggested we just hold off until next week. Now it seemed pretty certain (and it proved certain) that I would miss the next meeting due to a burned-out wifi box!

Glenda was back before noon on Saturday wondering why I hadn't answered her texts. An already long story shortened, we took the wifi box to the Globe store way down on the southern edge of town, where it was confirmed the box was shot, and where we took advantage of a promo for fiber cable, something the broadband company had recently gotten into. Lo and behold, installers were available that very afternoon, and now I have a super-fast machine and access to the internet for considerably less than what I had been paying with the old setup. My elder son isn't available Sunday evenings (it's his Dungeons & Dragons night with buddies) so we're holding off till next Saturday morning (their Friday evening).  Third time's a charm? Let's hope so.

For Luzon, the weather may have started to take a much-needed turn. Today we hit 38 C, but yesterday's high was 35 (95 F), and the forecast is for a string of days starting tomorrow in the 34-36 C range. More importantly, rain for Nueva Ecija is in the forecast. A big thunderstorm skirted the southern edge of Cabanatuan yesterday (nothing here in the northern part of the city), and widespread afternoon thunderstorms are forecast for five of the next seven days. If this is the start of the usual cavalcade of afternoon thunderboomers that sets in before the rainy season begins in earnest, farmers that still have a viable crop (most of them, thanks to various forms of irrigation) will be breathing a big sigh of relief.

With the Raguindins and Glenda, I cooled off (literally and figuratively) at the Lucky Jhey Resort off the Aurora road today, Sunday. I picked up the tab for the cabana, and Adonis and Aiza brought along plenty of chicken and bangus (milkfish) to barbecue onsite. And yes, those are bipedal and strangely elongated panda bears standing guard at the entrance beyond me. This is a Philippine resort, after all!

4.29.24

A Few Days at the Coast

On the morning of the 23rd Glenda and I jammed three changes of clothing into the smaller of my two pieces of luggage, along with sundry comforts of home. The destination was Playa Azul, a hotel on the ocean in the town of Baler, Aurora Province, which sits on the east coast of Luzon, facing the open Pacific. I drove there, taking one pass over the Sierra Madre, and four days later Glenda drove back, taking a different pass over the rugged mountains that line Luzon's east coast. It was still very hot -- as it is now, after our return -- and the nearly six-year-old Avanza handled the hours of inclines, declines, and all sorts of twists and turns admirably, both in the coming and in the going.

Yes, it's a pretty place, wilder than the much more densely populated, and more touristy, west coast. North of Baler (Bah-LAIR) there are no passes with roads over the Sierra Madre. A coastal road from Baler stretches north for about a hundred kilometers to the small village of Casiguran, where it ends. The coast of Isabela Province and the east coast of Cagayan Province, two hundred kilometers of coastline, are reachable only by air and by sea. A handful of villages at the mouth of the Palanan River in Isabela, with about 17,000 inhabitants, have a small airport out of which six-seater Cessnas fly. Outside of this area, the two hundred kilometers of coastline is practically uninhabited.

It was cooler at the coast than at Cabsy, unsurprisingly -- 33-34C afternoons rather than 38-39C afternoons. On the first full day we went south along the coast, stopping off at Ermita Hill to pay the 60p admission fee and take the road up, up to viewing platforms and a mown field ringed by souvenir and snack shops. There we got the good view of Baler and the coast north of Baler that you see in the pic above. Then we went on to a small resort I had visited with Jheng and her family years ago, nestled between interesting rock formations and containing many tidepools. In the largest of these tidepools tiny tetras darted about, as well as slightly larger fish, some with neon green and some with neon blue stripes. There were spindly, fast-moving starfish, and we gazed upon a 6-8 inch sea snake before it darted beneath rocks.

Next day we drove north toward Casiguran for an hour and a half into country very sparsely populated but encompassing coconut plantations, banana plantations, papaya plantations . . . .  We finally arrived at a small beach resort whose steep narrow twisty path to the shore Glenda did not care to drive down; so we switched positions and I got us down without mishap (Glen later bravely drove us out of there). We had some trouble locating the caretaker, to whom we paid the 100p entry fee, and we had a long dip in a pool fed by mountain spring water before heading to the shore. No other people at this place. Glenda watched from the beach as I dodged waves for an hour or so -- at the beach in front of the Baler hotel, too, she did not enter the water but was content watching me. I did not cajole her; we were at our ease here -- she joined me readily in the pool here and at the hotel. I took snaps from the passenger seat on the road back to the Playa Azul.

Yikes.  . . . Well, somehow lost three paragraphs just now. Dunno how. Refer to the title of the last posting on this page if you want to know what the feeling is about it. Let's see, covered in that writing was . . . .  The food at Playa Azul is superb, loved the pool, the cable TV menu, and I recommend the place to any who can afford it (we paid about P3,500 a night). Bought crabs (really big ones, lovely, fresh) from a pedicycle and dropped them off in Rizal with the Torres family as we worked our way back to Cabanatuan. Sophie and Phoebe overjoyed to see us upon our return. Very hot forecast for the first two weeks of May, and the Philippine government is worried. Twenty-three percent of the workforce is in the ag sector -- they and the wholesalers, retailers, and exporters of their product -- also very worried. For once a typhoon up our alley does not seem an evil thing. Hmm, that pretty much covers it, to my recollection!

On top of the heat wave that will stay for a good while, drought conditions have extended from Luzon to most of the Visayas and Mindanao. As of today, the government has put agricultural losses at more than 1.8 billion pesos; these losses will of course grow as the drought continues. And the rainy season is still six to eight weeks away. With luck, afternoon thunderstorms, often harbingers of the rainy season, will come soon. 

Climate change slowing heat waves | Philstar.com

Extreme heat forces Philippine schools to cancel in-person classes — BenarNews

Almost entire PH experiencing way below normal rainfall in April — PAGASA | GMA News Online (gmanetwork.com)

4.7.24

Bangus, Tilapia

Will be spending my birthday on the coast -- at the beachfront Playa Azul Hotel in the east coast town of Baler (Bah-LAIR). Glenda and I will spend three days exploring the rugged shore there and ducking the waves.  Have noticed online that a handful of new restaurants have sprung up in the town since the last time I was there, and we'll no doubt pay some of them a visit.

Milkfish, known in the Philippines as "bangus," will figure prominently in the menus of these places, no doubt. Many are caught off the eastern shore, and they are the most popular saltwater fish for the table in the Philippines. Bangus grow up to 5 feet long but most adults are in the 3-foot range; they have a mild taste and are often jazzed up with calamansi or a spicy sauce before they are served. They are rich in good fatty acids and a little bony. My own favorite saltwater fish here is the pampano, which is pricier but to my mind a good deal tastier than bangus; I like pampano steamed with lemon slices, especially.

      Bangus (PNGEGG)                                                                                      Pampano (Philaquaculture)

Tilapia, a tasty freshwater fish, is sold roadside from bubbling metal bins and farmed for profit throughout the Philippines. Usually fried for the table, it's the second most popular fish-fare in the country, I would say. Pond farming began in the 1950's in Central Luzon with introduced Mozambique tilapia; that fish proved not to be very popular, and the Nile tilapia was introduced in the 1970's. This fish sold very well indeed, and today very few Filipinos go a few days without this reasonably priced, tasty, smallish fish on their plates.

Nile tilapia (vecteezy)                                                                            (Agriculture Monthly)

In the aquaculture production of salt water and freshwater fish, the Philippines ranks tenth in the world. The industry is important to the economy as a whole, an important employer of Filipino workers as well.

For most of June, I'll be away from the bangus, the pampano, and the Nile tilapia. From the 6th to the 25th I'll be back in Massachusetts, visiting with relatives and Stateside friends. One of these friends has already emailed me not to catch Covid in transit this time; Jeez Louise, I'll mask up for these plane rides. Once in MA, I'll be up for some clam chowder, maybe a cod fillet?

https://www.aquanet.com/philippines-tilapia

3.28.24

Bad Baluts

Jheng's sister Mariel (remember that family over on the Aurora road?) keeps in touch with me regularly to remind me when her tuition is due, to send grade reports, etc. -- she's near the end of her second year in a four-year undergraduate program in hospitality management at Aurelio University, and I'm footing her tuition. An unplanned pregnancy with her boyfriend and the birth of little Shonie haven't deterred her in her quest to be the first in her family to attain a college degree. Anyway, she texted yesterday with some sad news: her mother Luz, grandmother Dana, and Jheng's son Aaron had tried some baluts, and had all come down with                          

bad cases of food poisoning -- so bad that they all spent time at Good Sam                       Mariel, Shonie, Luz, and Aaron

Hospital.

Baluts are a popular if fairly expensive street food in most southeast Asian countries. They are fertilized duck eggs: yes, one eats the boiled or steamed fetus of the bird, directly from the shell. American reader, sounds unappetizing to you? Seemed unappetizing to me too, but of course there came a time when I had to try one. The taste is strong and redolent of fowl, really not bad; I found the texture to be disagreeable, though, and I haven't gone back to baluts. I just read in Wiki that the processing conditions for the eggs are also ideal growth conditions for bacterial pathogens such as salmonella; will pass this information on to the Aurora road family when I see them next. In the meantime, I doubt they'll be buying baluts.

On a tangential note, Teresita brought with her from London some real camembert, a very, how shall I put it, aromatic French fromage, and she offered me a round of it, which I gratefully accepted. Other members of the family, Glenda as well, couldn't understand how Teresita and I could consume this cheese with gusto: they found it disgusting! And their acculturation to this fine product will no doubt be slow: "stinky French cheese" cannot be found in this country outside of Manila, I'm willing to bet, and it's probably not easy to find within that teeming metropolis.

3.15.24

In Passing . . . .

*GDP in the Philippines grew by 7.6% in 2022 and by 5.6% in 2023 (dof.goc.ph).

*According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the projected life expectancy for Filipinos was 71 years for males and 78 years for 

females in 2022.

*The Philippines is made up of 7,461 islands. Only about 2,000 of these are inhabited (Travel Tramp).

*The estimated 2024 population of the country is 114,163,719, making the Philippines the 12th most populous country in the world (Wiki).

*One hundred eighty-two distinct languages are used by Filipinos. The top languages generally spoken at home are Tagalog, Binisaya,

Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Cebuano, and Bikol. Tagalog is taught in all public schools and serves as the nation's lingua franca (Wiki). 

*The only place in the Philippines ever to have received measurable snow was the summit of Mt. Pulag, Luzon's tallest mountain at

9.606 feet. . . more than 100 tears ago. 

                                                                                                                                      Pulag's summit. (Unsplash)

*The SM Mall of Asia in Manila, with almost 600,000 sq. meters of floor space, has more than 3,500 shops (Wiki).

*The country is named after Phillip II, king of Spain when the islands were colonized by that country in the 16th century. There is

a movement afoot, a movement that is gaining traction in cultural and political circles, to change the name. One of the frontrunners

for the nation's new moniker: "Maharlika."

*The Philippines currently has a highly centralized form of democratic government. Its

twenty-four senators do not represent different parts of the country; rather, the Senate

candidates who receive the most votes in a long list of candidates, no matter where they

reside in the country, take the powerful Senate seats that are open in a given election.

This governmental setup creates a number of inequities that have become more and more

noticeable as the country modernizes -- for example, because so many candidates come

from Metro Manila, funding for infrastructure is skewed toward that one region.

Forms of federalism have been envisioned for the country since the days of the revolution

against Spanish colonizers. The revolutionary leader Aguinaldo wanted three separate

administrative regions in an independent Philippines: Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

A 25-member consultative committee has much more recently proposed the creation of

eleven regions that would have two senators from each region, plus two senators from the

central administrative region of Metro Manila. The mechanics of instituting this plan are

currently being worked out: stay tuned. 

*Generally, the temperature of the ocean in the Philippines is that of bathwater. May sound enticing to you, but I prefer the cooler

pools and rivers here for swimming.

3.7.24

The Tropical Sun

"Guess! Guess!"

"Guess what?" I turned to Glenda, who was standing at the door of the bedroom in her PJs. Still prone on the bed, I was physically trying to remove cobwebs of sleep by rubbing my eyes and scratching my scalp.

"We're out of guess!" Well, Glenda's native Ilocano gets in the way of her English vowel and consonant sounds; she almost always murders the small "a."

"Ga-a-as," I intoned.

"Right. We're out."

I asked if Tenjong was in the compound and she, after ducking her head out the kitchen door, answered in the affirmative. Tenjong (Don-Don's eldest, and formerly referred to here as Langjohn -- he found a nickname) is my gas guy, and I told Glenda to give him a 1K note and tell him to keep 50 pesos for himself. Tenjong would carry the empty kitchen stove fuel tank a short distance to a place where he could exchange it for a full tank for about P800. He would carry back the full one, hook it up, and hand over the change. Each tank is good for about four months of cooking.

It's an hour later and I've finished my second cup of coffee. And I'm congratulating myself over having had a good sleep after three difficult nights. You see, the night before Glenda and I were going to Pangasinan for a river splash with other Torreses, the bathroom saw me almost as much as the bed. My luck, a gut bug, maybe a norovirus. Glenda had spent most of the previous afternoon preparing dishes for the trip -- this trip would go on, but not with the drooping one who had little chance of having a good time, and who would probably put a damper on the whole affair. The driving, which I had envisioned splitting with Glenda, would all fall to Glenda now -- about 5 hours' worth. Her performance on the road in the weeks since she got her license had impressed me; I knew she was ready for something like this. And she did a fine job driving to Rizal to pick up family, then heading west to her sister's place in Pangasinan, then driving to the river there. She spent the night in Rizal after driving family members back to the farm.

There was definitely enough water in that mountain-fed Pangasinan river, by the way. Here is one of Glenda's snaps.

I kept the cats company; they were fine with my own guess. Read the kind of book I tend to read when not feeling well: in this case a Clive Cussler cliff-hanger-packed adventure yarn of no literary merit at all (sorry, Clive, but you do entertain).

Now, the three months before the rains arrive in mid-June are regarded in the Philippines as summer; we are on the cusp of said event. In the afternoons during this time, if you're near sea-level you can expect afternoons with oppressive, occasionally "mad-dogs-and-Englishmen" weather. Fahrenheit thermometers regularly register afternoon temps in the 90's; summer heat waves here are declared when there is a stretch of 100+ afternoons (or over 38 C). And this is not the Phoenix, AZ type of heat, Americano. Summer heat here, as in India and the rest of southeast Asia, comes with high humidity. Early mornings and evenings can be pleasant during a Cabanatuan summer, but watch out for that sun! The intertropical convergence zone -- that wet, north-south-north-south traveler -- reaches the Philippines in June and stays for a few months. One may not see the sun for days on end during the Philippine rainy season, particularly when the wet convergence zone is augmented by a southwest monsoon, as often happens during these months. When the rains come they will be most welcome; but they are at least three months away.

Before the summer solstice, and for several weeks, we experience in the Philippines something I had never witnessed before coming here: the sun directly overhead. Had never before experienced this due to the fact that I had never before lived south of the Tropic of Cancer. And it was weird, the first time I noticed this, let me tell you. My home for the vast majority of my days was at latitude 42, where the sun at "high noon" only for a handful of days achieves an altitude angle of 70 degrees, and here it was at 90 degrees!

Hence the disagreeableness of Philippine summer, I guess.

2.27.24

Commemoration

A year ago I was passing a body in a casket in order to  get to the kitchen to make meals. Don-Don's older brother Edmund had died suddenly (heart attack) and, as is the custom in the Philippines, his embalmed body was laid out in fine dress in the ancestral home for relatives and friends to visit, in order to pay final respects and discuss the life of the departed one. This occurred over just three days; the body was then taken over the river to be viewed in his own home in Barangay Masyapyap for three days, before the burial ceremony at a cemetery in Masyapyap. Yesterday, on the first anniversary of the man's death, friends and family members convened at that cemetery to eat a catered meal and remember Edmund. In addition to birthdays, anniversaries of death are observed in the Philippines and sometimes form the basis of social occasions.

Glenda and I had not known the man, but we were kindly invited to the get-together by Dona Teresita, the man's mother, who, so soon after landing at Clark Airport and still dealing with jet lag, planned and presided at the event. Fifty or sixty people attended; it was overcast, in the 80's (F), and there was a comfortable breeze. This was a good opportunity for me to learn more about Don-Don's family and to get to know Dona Teresita better. "Gracious" was the word I used to describe her on the phone, and she's that in person too! Also humorous and vibrant.

As you can see, the cemetery is quite parched due to the lack of rain. The rice crop on Lubang Island, off the coast of Mindoro, is a total loss due to drought, says the news today, and there are reports of widely scattered crop failures on the big island of Luzon. Outside of a few mountain showers in the central cordillera, there is no rain in the forecast for Luzon over the next two weeks. Typhoons can continue to steer clear, but some good, saturating rains would be most welcome here.

A few days ago in Manila, the Catholic Church held its annual Walk for Life, which was begun in 2017 in response to extrajudicial killings of those involved in the drug trade and to calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty by the Duterte Administration. It drew more than 3,000 participants. Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jose Advincula, in the mass preceding the walk, had some interesting words which seemed to pertain to the unavailability of divorce to a vast majority of the population: “How do we deal with the dilemmas and complexities of modern families, irregular situations in the home, the diversity and understanding of identity and personhood, the wounds caused and inflicted because of polarization even in the home?” he asked. He encouraged dialogue rather than unswerving adherence to doctrine. In this country, where so many couples are "separated" and have started new families with spouses whom they are not allowed to wed, these words attracted notice. The Philippines is the only country in the world, outside of the Vatican, where divorce is outlawed; a lengthy and very expensive process of "annulment" is available only to the rich. One senses that change regarding marriage laws is on the horizon; one wonders, though, how long it will take to get to that horizon.

Manila Archbishop Advincula to flock: Rethink pro-life strategy (inquirer.net)