fullman*

The people walking on the street suddenly stopped, their faces darkening – here a tear or a whimper, there a sigh – and then the act itself. At the sight of a familiar nape, or at the prodding of a distant scent or the notes of a song once shared, the heart is wrenched out of the one’s soul, gravity becoming its long-lost lover, shattering on busy pavements, in the middle of the city, inside an empty church, in front of a portrait, or even when one is high.

The act repeats itself, a testimony to the truth that we have more than one heart, and the best argument why we can’t spare that many.

In Bagasbas, one does not denounce the crowd. One just ogles.

With plans to return to Caramoan cancelled, I got invited by Iona, my officemate, to a surfing trip to Bagasbas. The town is about 15 minutes away from the chaos of Daet, the capital of Camarines Norte. Since I was already in Legaspi City, I decided to go.

Incidentally, the trip to Daet could be described by the building blocks of Pinoy erotic stories – masikip, mainit, minsan may amoy. From one point in the region to another, one has to take GTExpress vans, a proof that sardine cans can indeed be used as instruments of transportation. These vans also uphold Al Gore’s principles on ecological interconnectedness: a case of flatulence inside these vans is a good reminder that indeed we share what we breathe. Read the rest of this entry »

Because Jae omitted certain details, I feel compelled to make this confession: somebody farted in the van. Not once but twice. It was so strong and life-threatening, but the driver adamantly refused to open the windows, as if he wanted his passengers to have a bonding moment. It was only after the second assault that he finally relented. By then Clang/Christine was already spraying her perfume all over the place to mask the coma-inducing odor.

We were on our way to Sabang, which is two hours away from Naga City. The boat ride from Sabang to Guijalo Port, the gateway to the islands of Caramoan, would take another two hours. We junked the tour package that would have costed each of us around P7,000 for a Do-It-Yourself trip, and in return we had a weekend of adventure, scented road trips, hours of chismisan and Jae’s constant shrieking.   Read the rest of this entry »

This is the reason why I haven’t blogged for the past few weeks: I wanted to  transfer my blog to a new host.  Finally done it, and while there are some glitches that still needs to be fixed, I am pretty glad that I decided to move to a new house!  

(Now that I’m done with *nix stuffs, SQLs and ftps – I am just trying to impress you – I’ll probably be spending a few more days looking for new themes and doing some widget-shopping. Will definitely update in a few days.)

And so yesterday, after pigging out in Binondo and while we were walking to Cartimar, we discovered the Magdalo bar and restaurant (and carwash). Now that the political grapevine is again full of rumors of another coup attempt, I wonder if the Oakwood Mutiny and the Manila Peninsula Siege were nothing but an exercise of culinary espionage? After all, why launch coups d’etat in hotels? Rumor has it that one of the mutineers escaped through the kitchen – was he stealing a recipe, or doing a quick taste test?

When you announced the other day that Bishops do not need sex education and that you actually have your sex education program, I instantly got a hard on. There’s nothing like listening to a man of cloth explaining the birds and the bees and the miraculous babies to arouse me instantaneously.

In high school, I got bored with flip charts showing the fallopian tube, the vans deferens (duh!), and all these organs. But with bees and birds – dude, my dear Bishop, I get the point. It’s so raw that it gets me off – no need to commit premarital sex, or in my case the dreaded immoral, infernal homosexual sex – and I do get the message instantaneously: the birds shouldn’t get the bees, they should get married first and promise to each other that the bird won’t eat the bee and bee won’t sting the bird. Commitment before the stomach. See?

I also wish you would always bring that nifty anti-abortion poster of yours, that one with Grim Reaper and his Sickle of Death carrying a baby. The caption “Born Free” perfectly captures the attitude that young Filipinos should have towards sex. It is so… natural. Reminds me of the lioness that inspired the song. The image alone would make each and every horny teenager throw away their condoms and think of marriage everytime they have sex. And pregnant teenagers would not even contemplate taking morning after pills or going to underground abortion clinics because the poster alone would remind them of the… lioness.

My dear Bishop, nobody gets pregnant in the kind of sex that people of my “inclination” engage in, but we have decided to abandon using condoms because we firmly believe in your doctrine. Condoms prevent procreation. And more importantly, one must not waste the seeds of procreation. If the HIV incidence in the Philippines increased this year, then we must spend more to have cleaner toilet bowls and implement a more aggressive mosquito eradication program. Surely, with the help of god, the number would dwindle next year.

And I say yes to requiring prescription for condoms! Sex, after all, is a disease. Only perverts engage in meaningless sex, the type that requires condoms. Normal people think of pregnancy everytime they engage in sex. It’s true even for gay men. And while we are at it, you really should require prescription for lubricants, too. And also for guys4men membership – I don’t mind telling my doctor that homosexuality is a disease, so could I please be given a reseta to be a member of g4m?

So here: I will attend your sex education workshop. Please be warned that, given your expertise on sex (I feel so inadequate, you guys must be sexually active!), I might ask the following questions:

• What exactly is rimming, and will it make me get pregnant?
• Are you top or bottom? Is it true that versatility is akin to being in purgatory, and must we decide with finality where we really are?
• Just to avoid confusion and unnecessary sexual reaction, when you mention the “flesh of Christ” during communion, which flesh are you really talking about? Also, is He a bird or a bee?

Sincerely,

Fullman

From Section 10 it became Section 2.7. And so finally that morning, after a long delay, we found ourselves right in the middle of the Bureaucracy, going over a Memorandum of Agreement (“henceforth referred to as MOA”), some preambulatory clauses, pertinent provisions, and a litany of technical terms.

I was with E. and N., leaders of an organization of Filipinos with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) that has been providing support to positive Pinoys. They were about to lose their office this year due to lack of funding, and since 2006 they’ve been trying to get the Department of Health to provide a little office space in one of its facilities for free. Their appeal went through a complete bureaucratic life cycle – it was approved in principle, was referred to several public health agencies and facilities, was suddenly denied, and was being re-considered. When Akbayan heard of the case, we brought it up in a congressional hearing, finally compelling the Department of Health to see if there’s a spare room that the organization could use. It was decided that a hospital in Manila would host the organization for the meantime.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not that I haven’t gotten over with the US elections, but I just have one question: What’s ‘country first’ nga in Filipino?

And when are we going to hear about the ‘Obama-Arroyo’ regime? Tagal naman…

Fished this out from CNN.com.

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. Read the rest of this entry »

This changes nothing, not here for sure.  Obama will be in White House, indeed a proof of the audacity of hope; meanwhile, in this archipelago, generals will still be carrying millions of pesos in their pockets for their junkets. Bishops will still be dictating how policies should be decided. Scams would not cease.

I have never been fond of American politics, not until this election. This has been a very moving election, and for all the gaffes and its divisiveness, it has shown what politics should be about about: it is eminently about the people exercising their sovereign will – in this case, a clear rejection of the politics that Bush represents and yes, a movement to make American politics truly color-blind. No illusions should obscure how we look at Obama – we still have to see how he is as President. But the symbolism should not be missed: to borrow a feminist metaphor, a glass ceiling had been broken today, and that alone is a cause of celebration, of exuberance.

It is tragic that Filipinos viewed this election with indifference. Are we racist enough to miss the fact that the election of the first black American President is what the American Dream is all about, a dream that is deeply ingrained in our colonial mentality? Equally tragic is that this apathy also displays how hopelessness has paralyzed us in such a way that we cannot even relate to a very moving political phenomenon. Has desperation gnawed that deep into our collective soul that we can no longer feel any sense of solidarity?

The moment CNN announced that Obama won in Florida and has enough votes in the Electoral College to win the presidency, I felt so moved. The first thing that came to my mind was a poem by Langston Hughes:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.

A very moving election, indeed. Congrats, Obama!