YouTube - Ang Lee's Lust, Caution Trailer

YouTube - Ang Lee's Lust, Caution Trailer

I cannot wait to see the new Ang Lee film.

Estrada Pardoned

I came from a bus ride from Lipa. They were no barricades along the high way. There was a mood of celebration in the air. It seems like here we are we have a chance to change history. A huge crowd was building from my stop along EDSA. I texted my friends. We were meeting at the front steps of Megamall but there were no vehicles plying the highway. I decided to walk with the crowd to the shrine. At last I met them at the foot of Guadalupe bridge. We missed people power so this was our history. We want our second envelope opened. Clarissa Ocampo was our hero. Erap must go down. And he did. Erap was tried and convicted.

Then he was pardoned. Is this justice? Why give pardon to somebody who said he has not done anything wrong? At bale wala lang ang paglalakad ko sa EDSA sa init ng araw ng tanghaling tapat. Hindi ko alam kung ano ang nasa utak ni Gloria. Erap has long ceased to have a base clut. She also has ceased to have such and is surviving purely on tactics and theatrics. Let us judge her now. Like we have judged Estrada before. Let us not wait for history to judge her.

Maria Clara Gallery Zamboanga

The Muse Revisited. An ongoing art exhibit at the Maria Clara Gallery La vista del Mar Zamboanga City. Included are works of established artists from the city with various inspirations. The snaps featured here are the works which caught my eye. The sculpture featured is in terracotta done by Lorna Fernandez entitled - the vessel.

Jumalons - a family of painters

It was the end of the road, a stone filled path after the cemented bit. A weather beaten grayish brown fence with bouganvilla post on the side. There was no doorbell and I was not sure if "tao po" was the right thing to say in this part of the country when you go calling on other poeples houses. It was the youngest daughter Is, who was running out the front door with her stuffed toy rabbit whom I caught the attention as I peered on top of the wooden gate. She showed me in and I was immediately enchanted by the surroundings. It was not a landscaped garden that welcomed but the elements were there for a truly artistic surrounding. It was the details that go into each rock, flower and tree arranged with a spirit of creativity. The front door opens to a pond with waterlilies and carp, often a subject of the host Lorna Fernandez paintings.

We first met her in a family exhibit when we bought paintings for a new office space. The paintings were done by their youngest daughter a road leading to a house and kids floricking in a swimming pool. They were perfect for the kids clinic we were opening. Her husband, Edwin Jumalon was the featured artist in the Ateneo de Zamboanga Gallery last month where large abstract paintings were exhibited.

The house was a virtual gallery of their works. The walls and ceilings of every room contain pieces from previous exhibitions. Amihan's women are in perfect silhouettes juxtapoused into scenes like the crucifixion, but her recent works convey the hardships of bringing up a child. A mother giving birth. A mother giving her child a bath. A mother breastfeeding. The usual romanticized images of a mother and her child were distorted to show that in reality it is a difficult relationship. There were the old terracota series of Lorna Fernandez showing dream images of childhood which I hope I could afford someday.

She lead us into other rooms then into the dining area which is the most beautiful part of the house. The room looks out into a flowing river and a curtain of yellow bamboo along its bank serves as a wind breaker but allows one to view the rice fields across. The walls were covered with works by each member of the family. The ceiling showed large works by Amihan showing women in gothic achetypes. A pieta by Edwin hung on a post by a grilled window and some of his abstract paintings. Lorna's quintessential rose and other flowers adorn other parts of the room. She showed us her new works a red rose and an unfinished phaneolopsis piece which she remarked differ from the previous pieces because she used the style of her only son where paint is mized with glue and detailed swirls are etched into the painting.

Then the secret was revealed. All these time we were amazed with all the artists we have met in Zamboanga, but here was an important vibrant artist which Zamboanga have not yet discovered. Its very own Winner Jumalon. Her mother showed us his early pieces hung on the dining and kitchen room walls. A mother with a seemingly sick child, fighting cocks with large feet and a huge cemetary piece with his early style which won a Japanese painting exhibition. She brought out the Asian magazines which featured Winner and catalogues of his international exhibits. She said he was mostly into portraitures now, his style distorting portraits. And she showed us a copy of the Winner's Bencab portrait. It was in a magazine along with the works of Orlina and other contemporary Filipino artists. We were flabbergasted.

There we were in a humid exhibition hall by the sea. We have taken quick snaps of the paintings but were dicussing into buying a terracota sculpture of a women with a flower on her breast. Ms. Fernandez recognized us from our previous meeting and we talked about her sculptures. It was a very untactful to invite one's self into somebody else's house. But we asked if we can see other works at her studio and she invited us to her house.

There were a lot of beautiful things in her home. And I said to myself if I am going to have a house it will be a bit that way. It is one of the most beautiful homes I have visited in Zamboanga. As we were on our good-byes, I decided on the red rose. I still have to arrange the purchase of Lorna's sculpture at the local gallery which was tagged sold under my name. It was drizzling and we ran from the front door to the car revelling at what we have experienced.

Baguio Revisited

Baguio has marked the different phases of my life. My visits there have marked important milestones. As a child the usual activities like the riding a horse at Wright park, shopping for vegetables at the Market, peanut brittle and watching a cadet drop his sword during a PMA parade were my memories. In college it was going to the disco in the same hotel that collpased two months later during an earthquake. There were other trips made to that city in between done for shopping for vegetables andscurrying the ukay ukay stalls when it was still a fashionable thing to do. I remember eating strawberries with sugar bought from McDonalds. I remeber having pictures taken while riding the boat at Burnham park. I remember riding the bike. Stolling along the path leading to the Mansion. Eating ube at the Good shepherd. Shivering at night because of the mountain air. And the old ice cream shop at mile high at Camp John Hay.

But like life the city has evolved and too much progress with unchecked development have made it a place like any other. I do hope that the magic the cold air brings still preserve the best of the city has to offer.

Extended ATONEMENT trailer

Ian McEwan's Atonement was dazzling. It was the first time in a long long time when I was hurrying up to finish a book to see what will happen in the end. I was a disappointing ending but it was a superb McEwan ending.

The dragging pace of the first few chapters of the novel unfolded was suddenly revved up by the revelations that followed. The style transitions were hardly noticeable, the characters briliant, but it was the ending that nailed it. It was like Age of Innocence meets Alfred Hitchcock.

How do you atone for a mistake that ruined other poeple's lives knowing that you can never do it, not in you entire lifetime?

Glorietta 2 Bombing

The blast created a hole on the ground and blasted the roof of the atrium. As of this writing 10 are dead and a hundred injured. Only sick minds can plan such evil. I believe the police, military and government cannot do the job alone or they simply cannot do the job. When I talked with a ASG DPA, it was like he knew everything single move the enemy was going to take. If the military has such, then why the Glorietta 2 bombing? Are we just heavy on theory and lost in practice? It was right down smack in the middle of Makati. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere in this forsaken country.

We have sacrificed a lot of lives for nothing and I don't see any point in all these at all. That is why this blog entry actually has no point at all. Just like wasted lives. This is a wasted entry. A wasted country.

It's About Time

The Filipinos in America should be thankful rather than irked over the whole Desperate Housewive's brouhaha. It is high time that they see the reality that no matter how much they have achieved or how much money they have, they will never be truly American. Underneath the thick accent and expensive make-up they still look at us, as little brown brothers worth nothing more than what they pay us.

Magising nga kayo! Ano akala nyo nakatungtung lang kayo s America puti na kayo immune from racial slur. Dream on mga tsong. Reexamine the kind of work you are doing there. Kapareho ba nila o trabaho ba na ayaw nilang gawin? They have given the dirty jobs to the third worlders. That doesn't make us them.

Bakit ba kasi pagpilitan natin ang sarili natin doon and not see ourselves for our worth. Bakit ang standards natin based on what everybody else tells us what it should be and not on what we think it should be? Bakit afraid tayo sa criticism and view it as something positive to grow on rather than sulk and demand for apologies na wala namang patutunguhan kundi pataasan ng ihi na sa lupa rin bumabagsak.

Dapat nga meron ganito monthly para in the long run we are forced to examine ourselves regularly for our faults and defects and be able to improve on ourselves.

Fiesta Pilar 2007 Zamboanga

The Supreme Error on RIRR

Just when I thought there is still hope for this country, I was wrong. We have all been fed breastmilk substitutes high on corn oil and fats that even the justices at the Supreme Court do not have enough brain cells to think clearly. So the petition to junk the RIRR on the Milk Code is finally approved. It's another victory of evil proportions. The Supreme Court take into its hands the 16,000 children who die each year in this country. May they haunt the halls of that building in Padre Faura and show their faces to each justices forever.