My Impression about my job...(...and, about our management...)

This was my speech during the TMC Service Award Ceremony (December 2008) almost two years ago. I can see with all that I have uttered that night, nothing much has changed in our management, especially in the Human Resource Management aspect. We are still being considered less important by the management. What can I possibly do, so that we can be compensated according to the type of job that we hold in this company?

I do not know whether what I would talk about in my impression would be proper, but I will assure you I am going to tell you my honest impression and true to the word personal assessment of my more than 5 years of employment under Taganito Mining Corporation.

My job as a Chemist of Assay Laboratory is by far the 4th and the longest employment I ever have had and I am wishing that I will now stop jumping from one employment to another. I have been with the Pilipinas Kao Inc. in Cagayan de Oro City, Coca-cola Bottllers’ Philipines in Zamboanga City, the Austrailian Agency for International Development. And now, I realized I do not have all the time in the world and certainly just as every person does, I want to enjoy the rest of my life in my hometown, and make the most of my time to grow more into a better and effective person with or without raising my own family. Well, the latter is a personal issue I will not delve with at the present moment.

Allow me to share my recent past just so I would be able to clearly explain the succeeding agenda that I have written on this speech. I made some comparison on my previous employer and on the present because I have seen and realize that there are issues that may seem like detrimental to my efficiency and productivity of the rest of other workers of this company and I believe these issues can be resolved and the corporate situation could somehow be enhanced for the benefit of the TMC organization. I am not trying to brag that I know better than the leaders of this company, I am just trying to give a personal impression on some points that we need to reconcile, because I believe that there is always hope regardless of the dire and seemingly cheap norms of predictions some of us here have made about the economic meltdown lead by the United States of America. Honestly I do not like the very notion that we are so much affected by this precarious economic situation. Most of my friends, Chemists and other professionals alike who are now working in the US, are trying to paint an optimistic scenario that the we are better off than what we fear, or we are at a better standing than the fear that is being constantly fed to us by those who presume they know better. I think there is some kind of a conspiracy to scare us, professional workers and the labor sector, I hope I am wrong to suspect the situation that is happening in the US is just cheaply used for the advantage of the financially-abled few.

Well, let me go back to my impression. If I have to compare my present standing with what I was more than five years ago, I would honestly say that I am almost, almost better off than I was then. Well, on certain things.

I started my job here with a meager salary that was way below half of what I was receiving on my previous employer. I only barely surpassed that rate given to me by the Managing Contractor of Australian Agency for International Development, which was then my employer, just only last August during our recent salary increase. It took me five years to even out my previous rate and by then, the cost of living is too much to sustain, plus now, the impending bad effects due to the so-called US-led economic crunch. Do you think I have got some sort of financial growth, personally?

Well, why did I choose to stay here in spite of the opportunities laid out before my very eyes for several times during my five-year stay in this company? Why would I “suffer” staying on unpromising job when I can choose to make my options open and settle for other lucrative jobs abroad or in any other major industries away from this place.

As I have confessed earlier, I have decided to settle in here, right here in my place where I grew up, where my family and relatives live long before the advent of this company, where I know there is an industry now that can offer me a job where my expertise and interests can be utilized well, and where I know there is a company or industry that can provide more. Yes, Taganito Mining Corporation can provide more. I believe in that ever since I first set my foot in this ground.

I would tell you what were my other realizations and hopes are.

You know, I am so proud I work here. I am proud not just because of the name this company bears but because of the very thing we are doing here in this place. In spite of the sad realizations to some aspects of my job that I encounter almost everyday, I can still grasp a speck of vigor to continue what I have been routinely doing at the Assay Laboratory because then I know in some iota of unspoken contribution, I have been part in the integral global development. Whenever I see a vehicle passing by the highway along our home, I would just think that probably the metals used to make that vehicle was originally taken/mined out from Taganito and processed somewhere else in Japan or other parts of the world; that probably the kitchen utensils and other office and household implements most of us are using daily might have been originally taken from this place and was just transformed into more useful forms. And whenever somebody/someone from outside this company would spread wrong information regarding the Mining Process that we are doing here, I cannot help but go all my way explaining to the extent of depending it. We are all aware that the TMC has been doing far more good than harm to the mainstream society and the environment. And this is because of these people who are here in this hall tonight. And I am glad I am a member of this crowd.

And yet, it is just a sad thing sometimes when we can feel that our efforts are deliberately not quite taken seriously. I would take a specific example to our section, the Assay Laboratory and Sample Prep House. Assay, just like any other laboratories in other industries, plays an important role in the industrial process. The laboratory is an institution that advises those at the line production that a certain business is doing well and is not girding beyond the limit of the specified acceptable operating procedures. In food industries for example, it is the lab that advises the operations people that the food to be released for market is of quality standards and would not pose a threat to the consumers. In pharmaceutical industries it is the lab that ascertains that the drugs and medicines released for market could help the health and life of the consumers. Just as it does maintain the quality products of other industrial firms which produce a wide spectrum of consumables and materials. I can go on and on but I would like to point out that specifically in our business, it is the lab, the Assay Laboratory that ascertains and advices the miners that the materials we are mining out are valuable. I would confess that I learned to my dismay, sorry to say this, we are under rated. Assay is a section that employs supervisors who do their jobs personally and does not depend too much on the subordinates to do their jobs done. It is the Chemists who do the Analytical Laboratory Process and the Lab Aides are just there to aide the work. Chemists are the actual working Supervisors and yet I realized our salaries are quite far below than the other Supervisors in other departments. I think now with the coming of Nickel Asia Corporation as a “think tank” and the implementator of the new management systems, this can be resolved. I think you need also to assess and audit whether the functions of the employees in this company are being addressed. You might realized that it is not only financial management where we need to focus our implementation of change, I also think the there is a need to re-evaluate the entire workforce as well and make this organization more efficient in the truest sense of the word.

I would humbly ask though that while you are at this we hope you will not bombard us carelessly for your effort of change. Recently, we felt like there is seemingly an absent of a quaint of hope we usually feel during parties such as this. For the passed five years that I have been hosting this event, I’d always be filled with so much hope that the next year would always be better. Now recently however, I would say that what I feel is quite the opposite. With the bonuses given in a way that is quite different from what we usually expected and the growing amount of taxes that we pay that is also way out of proportion from out benefits, and the absences of other usual perks next year, well, does anybody think we have the reason to celebrate?!

I would like to seek the attention of our corporate leaders, please we need someone at the top who could say otherwise. That there is hope to everyone in this hall tonight and make us more optimistic that while we are on this business we can do better than worrying for the coming years and who will assure us that TMC will survive. Just make the greater number of these employees cling to hope and containment.

I hope I am being heard tonight. Thank you and Merry Christmas to all…

Renewed...

It's taking me a long time to come back in this site and make new blog entries. I have made a promise actually that I need to move on, and by moving on, I mean coming back with renewed vigor to enjoy life and make peace with my history.

At this same time of last year, I was almost totally wreck. I lost all the energy and reasons to enjoy life. I was expressive about my disappointments, sadness, anger, dismay, frustrations, anything negative... Blogging seemed the only way I could ventilate the negative energies that was mounting inside. When I was done and so consumed, I stopped.

Now, I am definitely ready for this Year and the new challenges that life has yet to offer. Loved all the good and bad things that happened to me last year; from my last bf breaking my heart and putting to end of our long relationship, to meeting new people, and new lovers .... and of course rekindling long lost friendships...

I realized that life is constantly re-aligning itself to attain an equilibrium. To gain something you need to give back something away. I truly believe in that. I realize that what I learned in Chemistry during my earlier days could be adopted in mundane issues of our lives – that matter can not be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed into another matter. Nothing is actually lost.

I may have lost some of my energies, I also gained some. I may have lost a person, but I also meet new ones and renewed the old ones, including that of my erstwhile. Of course, I am not being wooed or taken back by my ex, but we meet occasionally and we are being civil (?) to each other.

This new acquired state has offered me chance to look on things differently. It made me realize that some things, even very small ones will make me happy and can be celebrated. I have realized as well that every moment is so fleeting, so I have to enjoy and celebrate all of those moments no matter how infinitesimally significant they can be. I know they will not come back to their original state so I have made a definite vow to enjoy and savor everything I can savor and make it a very important memory and a lesson, a tool for another yet worthwhile experience in the succeeding seconds, minutes, hours, days or years of my life.

It is definitely true, that when something you held important is lost, you will realize in the end that very little is needed to enjoy life. I have realized now that I have enough to live life and enjoy it. I have enough good friends, I have enough good relationships, I have enough things to survive the daily requirements of living, I have enough exercise to feel healthy. I played sports frequently enough and enjoy the feeling of well-being, and I have enough sex to satiate my sometimes untamed biological needs. I have enough vacations and enough time to enjoy the priceless time of my dear friends and loved ones. I have enough things for everything necessary. What can I ask for?

annoying pestilence

He sent me SMS asking for help, and not to greet me on my birthday… I know it was his way of getting my attention because he knew full well that I would help him. I didn’t, and I harshly replied back with cussing and profane words, calling him names and condemning him for difficult life…

When I was done, all my bad energies exhausted and bad words ferried towards his cp number, I felt drained as well. I thought it could unload my pain and revulsion but I was not ultimately resolved. I am not happy I’ve uttered words with so much abhorrence. It wasn’t guilt that I felt afterwards, it was more than that.

I thought a little revenge such as that could appease my soul. It didn’t… I am unfortunately more in pain than before such utterance. And he is becoming more insidious in sending me bad text messages than before… even until this moment when I’m writing this…

How can I move on! How can I get away!...

If this is a war, I have a feeling i will not win this over... If i can, I would be too wasted to live...

plucking off the scab

I sometimes think that I can easily take things lightly no matter how serious the issue would be. But yesterday I was like being struck by thunderbolt, I felt terribly awful. I learned that Biboy’s gf is in fact pregnant for more than 4 months, so that means, they were into that long before he decided to break up with me.

I realize now that one of the major reason’s why he decided to let go of our relationship was that his gf is pregnant. I am confused. I can not define how I suppose to feel. I just know that it is terribly painful and I felt like I am being scorned twice.

For the past two months I have survived being alone and has started rising from solitary recluse, have manage to enjoy life by doing things I don’t normally do. I recently accommodated three to four lovers and have done a marathon of sexual congress spontaneously to three of them. I become a whore, so is my bed. The boys/men I accommodated wildly did not even realize that they were actually alternating, only one of them has been introduced to my family just the way Biboy was during his time. I do not know how long I gonna do this to myself, but I can’t think of a better way to occupy my thoughts during my waking hours. I might be harsh on myself, or to them, but while I was on the verge to any of this activities with this men, they didn’t know that every time I arc my head, I would be looking at his picture on my wall. Insane really, but I think nothing is sane in my life at the moment.

Recently, I am able to introduce one of them to our home. He would sometimes join dinner with us, and my mother would not bother realizing that he is actually sleeping in my room occasionally. So I thought I am almost, almost resolved. But when I heard about the news yesterday, It feels like, I have a wound that’s about to be healed but the scab was plucked even before it dried completely. Now it is bleeding back profusely again.

I want to shout! I want to cry! I want to condemn them… I want to avenge for the pain inflicted… but I also know, it is not a healthy feeling… should I just let myself be scourged by this? All I want for now is for this to just wane away… but every time I feel like I’m almost healed, a part of him would keep coming back to spawn more pain…

tattooed on my mind

I can’t understand myself lately. Pain and enormous boredom has taken a bad toll on my usual vigor towards work and people… In spite of this, I’m not scheming to do some nasty things and create a sinister act that will harm those who are around me. And if I have a magic wand, I could have used it to make me disappear instead in this part of the world. I have a feeling that everything here is turning against my own path on my personal pursuit of happiness.

I just wish that things would be the same as it was few months ago when all I care about this world was (or is, as categorically I still do) the person I love so much…it’s been more than three months already…but just thinking about it now, and the way we were before would generate some sort of lump on my throat, it seems like it’s more comforting to just cry, than suppress sobs and tears…

I still have pictures of his faces on my bedroom wall. I still use our common toothbrush occasionally. I still sleep on his boardshorts… and it would be so dishonest if I won’t admit, I still long to sleep with him like the way we use to when we were still couple…

I even browse my old personal journal books and recall entries/dates when we were together. I know it’s not a good idea to do that, but it is like a panacea for me, it can take out some pain while recalling the good times together… the effect however is just palliative, because once I’d go back to reality I can not do something to spurn out the source of pain and emptiness. Well, separation anxiety is not an issue I can handle too well …

the longing soul

(written while thinking pensively about going away from present work and home)

I don’t want to be desperate. I’ve tried hard to be happy in every which way for the past days… seems like nothing and no one, unfortunately, makes my day worth living… What keeps me going recently is the hope that somehow the life of this soul inside my body will experience some sort of upgraded vitality regardless of some unmet longing for quality life and quality relationships, be it with my family or my lover/s (take note of the extended –s-, I’m actually considering going on a freelance erotic relationships)… I still have some quality friends anyway, although they are literally far from my abode they are within reach anyhow…

I am numb, I think… Perhaps I am also becoming escapists, or was I, even before this awareness had emanated from somewhere else? I know there are things, big things, I need to reconcile while my world is not being swallowed by unrequited love affairs or by unsatisfying and deceitful familial affairs/matters.

We usually worked too hard, fought everyday to make life worth living because there are some very good reasons to live for. Now I am asking myself that very question; what do I live for?

Its so amusing, my way of living is so simple, and I am traversing everyday in a very insignificant place, but I do not seem to act on making this life more interesting. I said simple because it is so in a lot of ways…

I do not have a house, I have written about that here not so long ago. I do not have a car or a car loan to think about. I do not have the most expensive techno-gadgets to bustle about, if I have, it is only this laptop that I am using to make reports or minutes of our COOP meetings. I do not have expensive clothes, and my choices in my wardrobe (as if I have one… ) are just in between work clothes/uniforms and household garments. And I do not have a very significant idea to mull about.

And yet… yet everyday, I would wake up with my head full of things to think about, or worry about… Should I reply to Biboy’s text messages and try to cater his needs even if in reality we don’t have to because we have decided to separate ways already? Should I be amiable and civil to my traitor cousin who always leers whenever we cross each other at the house yard because we are neighbors as we are relatives? Should I be tolerant to my co-workers even if I have these silent curses every time I heard them make bad comments and back bites the passers-by at the lab? Should I be considerate to those in my workplace who are bragging about what they have done to the Company even if they do not have the smallest iota of know-how about their work and what they’ve done is making more work less easy for those who truly are capable and learned workers? Should I be contended with what I have at present even if my heart longs for a convenient, comfortable and worry-free lifestyle?

I have always long for adventure, I always wanted to be somewhere else other than this backward, unsophisticated place. I always long to be in some colorful place wherein I can see and meet people who can appreciate art, good music (when I say good, its not something loud and monotonous) and facilitate discussion about more interesting things and not just about talking at other peoples’ backs. I long to wake up in the morning where I can listen to unfamiliar earthly sounds of creature I’ve never seen before and not about the incomprehensible yelling of my neighbors. I long to poke my head on my room’s window to see a beautiful garden or perhaps a nice scenery or landscape and not the boring site of rice paddies…

But here I am living in a countryside area where all I can see are familiar greeneries of bananas, coconut trees and ricefields. I wonder what other species of flora I can see in my lifetime. I interact and go along with people everyday who believe more on witches and ghosts, and talk insidiously about other people’s affairs. I work in an area where diligence, ingenuity and initiative are not the basis of assessing good workmanship but how one sticks into our bosses asses or how ones’ name tags relate that to our superiors’.

I sometimes think this is not where I suppose to be. But if I go somewhere else, could I make my life better? This place is my home and the people here are my tribe. How can I possibly make this better if I will go away and escape to somewhere else more fascinating than this area. Perhaps I have to hold on yet to what I have here while it is still bearable. I am not sure if there is something I can do to make life worth-living here but as long as I do not feel like I’m being swallowed to this system I think I can win to make my life here fervently meaningful.

Somehow I believe the days to come might bring some unexpected events that will bring colors to every turns of the clock. Or perhaps a passionate person might come to bring aflame to my numbing heart. Whatever it is that is yet to come, I still have a speck of hope that everything in my end will be better… and if it will be, I hope it would be so soon, because hope is all that I have right now…

abandoned sometime ago… could be homeless very so soon…

I will be using this blogsite again to ventilate my indignation, angst, dismay, disappointments, sadness, loneliness, helplessness, defenselessness, and vulnerability. I so regret I couldn’t find a single soul here at my immediate environment where I can express all these without being adjudged unfairly for being a bit emotionally irrational. But when a person is confronted with indignity there could be no other way to make him rational, most of us would react violently.

Well, I am sober though. I can also control all these just as I have always done, I was upset though (but not literally angry…) and DISMAYED… that I almost throw up. Probably because I am still recuperating from all the depression of my relationship that had gone into quagmire when this news came, and because I have just knock off from the graveyard shift where I work indefatigably at the lab trying to meet the deadline for the result of chemical analysis I was doing recently for our corporate gods in Makati Office. What makes me terribly upset was that I was so tired that I wanted desperately to sleep when my mother told me we are to be evicted from the house where we are presently living!

The news came out as a surprise for us, especially for me, as I was honestly not anticipating this would come to me in an unguarded time. I didn’t even know how to react and what to think to resolve this. I looked at my mother with enormous pity because I know it took her a lot of courage to repress her tears, and I know precisely that if this is true somehow she would think that this was actually directed to her and this will be the last of her life’s frontier she could protect. She definitely is at the losing battleground because this is not truly her home.

The house that has provided us shelter is truly not our home. It’s my Aunt’s house. Now I realize that in her struggle to stand to raise her kids she had somehow created enemies within our clan (my father’s side). Definitely now if we are to be evicted from this house, this will make her enemies happy.

Somehow for the first time in my life I feel so terribly homeless. We lost our house when my father decided to sell it when he was asked to be in another work assignment far from this hometown. Nanay, our Aunt (my father’s closest older sister) was kind enough to accommodate us, and we lived with them since, even my father died a year after our transfer to this house. When my Aunt died several years ago my cousin and uncle (Nanay’s Husband, that’s how I call my Aunt) allowed us to live there and we seemed to live like a family. It stirred a lot of undesirable thoughts to those around, even to relatives in our village. There were a lot of malicious issues thrown to our family, stories I didn’t desire to hear. Much more to this, my only sister made numerous misdemeanors that up until now she had not outgrown with, and this was something they could feast with.

There were a lot of times I would not go home and I would normally choose to stay at the campus when I was already a college student because I want to evade from all the issues. For so long I tried hard to correct my sister’s misdeeds but it has been so ingrained to my family’s detractors, they love to talk about it insidiously all the time. I have learned early in my life to just brush it off away from my thoughts because if I should, I would only end up getting depressed for realizing that I do not have a wholesome family, and ultimately hate my sister all the more for dragging us down with her notorious deeds.

It is extremely even painful to just realize that whatever good things my father had instilled to us to become worthy inhabitants of this planet, is quite different from what my relatives had construed about us too. And it is also quite hard to swallow that my relatives as well doesn’t consider us family, we are like outsiders that they seem to wait any mistakes any of us could make so they can fester on it and proliferates stories to the villagers to make us appear as lowly leech, opportunists homeless orphans.

For years I have tried to make us belong to the clan. I have accepted with all humility any comments they would blurt out because I would like to pretend they were doing it as an act of concern. But I always feel otherwise. Now finally in recent years it becomes so clear. I have been betrayed by two close cousins on two separate occasions, I didn’t even show any anger just resentment for the bad things done. I could not hate them because hatred is something so stressful, I cannot afford to be consumed by negative ill-feelings. I thought it would make them realize what to learn in life, but their pride is larger than the lessons they could learn from it.

Well now perhaps I have to make way to provide my family shelter. I do not know how… not for now… especially that my meager salary is only enough to make ends meet in providing food for us. One thing for sure though, that it is an immediate problem I need to urgently address. I am afraid though that the moment I would go home from a night shift’s work, I will find my mother cast away, sleeping outside the door.

I just wondered though why for the long time there was an abrupt change in my cousin’s attitude (the one who provided us shelter). I wonder how she become cold nowadays, I started asking myself about what wrong could have I done to her and her family to deserve her apathy. Each one of us, Jay my brother, and my mother would took turns in helping support my cousin’s kids send them to college. This is not enough a payment for the gratitude they have provided us home and support, but it was done so from the bottom of the heart. The money we shared was not taken by having asked that from some politicians or from other big moneys, it was an output of hard work through blood and sweat. If she was angry with my sister there should be no way she could drag us all because of that issue. Have I somehow made a terrible mistake and have I recently offended her too much to just drop us without even telling us earlier she want us out of her property?

If she has been planning in good fate to lease her house, why haven’t she considered us to be the lessee? We can work it out that way for sure, and it wouldn’t be a problem. But the fact that we were not told about it had somehow eliminated the point that we were considered. My immediate reaction was to verify it from her and hear it from her words, we might just been fed with a misinformation. I did try to contact her by phone. She did not take my calls even if I attempted to call her thrice. Every time I ring her phone I can hear the other end was being dropped.

It weakens my knees, so it was indeed true. I was horribly dismayed I could not surmount the distressing fact that we were to be scorned. I know I have to stand up for my family to provide them with this basic necessity but I was so disappointed why my relative, my closest cousin had just turn their backs on us… so unexpectedly…

Until now it isn’t yet clear to me… I still wonder why this has to be so when all she could have done was inform us formally, and now she refused to talk to me…

I have been abandoned by a lover. I have been betrayed by another cousin by destroying my long term-relationship with a lover. I have been betrayed by my sister when she stashed away every penny and property my father left for us. I have been left alone by the rest of my brothers sooner than they should have left to have their own family and I think I have to take care for my mother, alone. Now another close cousin, someone I even considered my own mother and sister have turn her back on us… and I do not have the slightest idea why…

Life though is still generous… I still have a job though and with all the undesirability of my co-workers attitude they could still provide ways to make me smile and sometimes a good laugh for some stupid jokes. I want to continue living as normally as I can because they are problems provided to me by this universe to aid my maturity. I just hope though that if there is yet to come, something bigger than this, I will not succumb to act on something that will spoil the balance of this universe…

sojourn to Bohol (the last of three parts)

I do not like reading articles that are too verbosely written, I did not even realize I have written one with so much verbosity after reading my last post here in my blog. I do not have any intention however to edit my post. Just leave it as it were. It’s up to the reader if they’ll find it amusing or painstakingly boring, although I would hope it would always be the former.

So we enjoyed our little time with the cute harmless Tarsiers. They have names actually but, the introduction was so fleeting, I couldn’t remember their names anymore. I wonder how a person would react if we were just introduced and after less than a week I’d forget his name! It would be too rude… but they’re not human so I’m excused.

The best thing Bohol could offer to its visitors is not those that I have already described in this journal actually. I know, those who had been in this Island would somehow agree that the best thing we can enjoy viewing here is the numerous mounds that are randomly sitting on the landscape of the municipality of Carmen now known as the “Chocolate Hills”.



This view is something to behold! Seeing this site would make you be amazed at how nature made this possible. Well I’ve read how the tectonic plates and the fact that the Philippines is on the path of the earth’s Ring of Fire does not actually sate my curiosity. The ‘how this nature made this into what it is now’ is something that can not be explained easily by science. This is maybe a part of the divine universal design and this is not what I think as something to be considered as an accident done by nature. Well, whatever! I know there are other things on earth much more magnificent and tremendously fascinating view than this, but this is definitely one of a kind that is accessible to my place and I’m so glad I’ve been here to experience this view!




The view from where I stood is definitely breathtaking. It would had been better though when you would spent time here alone, but I was with a big group of tourists and other than us there were also some noisy chinks (sorry for the word and slang…) chattering at my back. It is true that you can appreciate nature at its best when you are alone with it, confronting the capabilities of its forces and beauty, and conquer whatever it is that makes you think you are less noteworthy than the creation around you…

Here though I was trying hard to focus, trying to make a connection with the spirits of the environment but only got so distracted, not just by several chattering creatures at my back, but by some hunks which happened to be around during this tour. Kenneth definitely just as he normally does, was busy again taking pictures of himself and to some random guys… LOL…


After here we went to the last destination of the tour, back to Panglao Island where the Dauis Church can be found. Similar with Baclayon, it was built around the 17th century and mysteriously has an interior spring situated right at the nave of the church. Local people believe that the water is miraculous and so visitors would somehow think it is so, and they would line up to ask for a bottle of agua bendita. I had collected too and I brought it with me here in Surigao. Perhaps I will use it to gargle everytime I would commit oral abuse, you know what that means!... LOL!…

sojourn to Bohol (part ii )

The last day of our Chem Congress was a tour, but we’ve read that not all of Bohol’s Tourist sites can be accommodated for the day’s tour. We decided to spare our last afternoon before the day for the official tour be spent in Panglao Island.

I was with some participants from Zamboanga City, we were nine of us in all. We were able to make three stops, which were seemingly hectic but it was cool, considering that we had limited time that afternoon and the driver we contract for that tour was paid fairly cheap enough compared to the usual tour packages. We paid the driver of a cab with Php 1,000.00 only (he only asked Php 800.00) for the whole tour, while tour agencies would usually require Php 900.00 for an individual tour package. That means, we were supposed to pay Php 7,200.00 if we were to avail a tour package from any of the local tour agencies!

Our first stop was at the Hinagdanan Cave.

The cavern was dark and has an underground pool. The water was fresh and not salty. It’s clear but you can not see the floor of the pool because the cavern was seemingly dark even when there were few light bulbs inside, purposely installed to allow the visitors to see their path since the rock that forms the flat-forms for catwalks is always slippery or most of the time covered with water.

It’s a little creepy and silent, what you would hear inside are the sounds of bats trying to find some niche where they couldn’t be disturbed from their own siesta. Even if the visitors would not try to make loud talks, their murmurs would somehow reverberate inside this chamber as if the whispers were made by a lot of enchanted beings, echoed several times which does not also stop because the time the echoed whispers dissipates another one would somehow start to reverberate.

We passed a certain old church that was accordingly built during the 17^th century. San Agustin Church has a five-storey Bell Tower that stands majestically even if its first floor is almost completely submerged below the ground.

Its thick walls were made of corals from its local seashores! Imagine if the Green Peace and other environmentalist groups did exist early during the Spanish Time, the gobernadorcillo and other Spanish Officials, even the Friars would have been charged for destroying the environment! Not to mention all the force labor employed just to have this work done. The cruelty of humanity can sometimes create a magnificent work of art/architecture.

The group decided to cool off at the beach, while the sun was still a bit at the middle of the sky. We went to a beach beside one of Bohol’s expensive Beach Club. It was so because if we want to experience the ambiance of the expensive Beach Club resort, we only have to cross the beach front and go to their well-manicured area, hehe….

I wish I could put the picture facing this beach… the water was actually serene and clear, although it would have been much better if the beach was a little bit deserted like the ones you would see in the beaches of Siargao Islands. This time of the year however, Panglao is so inhabited by a lot of tourists and local people, obviously because it is near Cebu City and people from the urban areas would find this place a very accessible escape from the summer heat.

The next day was a bit more exciting as we were scheduled to visit a lot of sites including the world-renown Chocolate Hills. I was there ones after I attended a friend’s wedding which was held at a church in this same Island.

Our 1^st stop the next morning was at an old Governor’s House. The building was now transformed into a government seminar house and a souvenir stop for tourists. Then we went to the Blood Compact Shrine. I do not know why they have to put the shrine there when the Blood Compact Rites between the Spanish Conquestadors and the Filipino Indios in the 16^th century did not actually happen in that area. I can recall my College History that it happened somewhere in the Visayan Island but not actually in that area. I would have wanted to ask the tourist guide this but I wasn’t at the mood in making a debate regarding the exact historical recounts, and for one, it would be insensitive of me to hurt the pride of the local tourist guide considering that they put so much pride in the fact that it really occurred in their island.

Nonetheless, the view in this part of the Island is breathtaking. You can see the sea and far to the horizon the beauty of the world.

That island that can still be seen from where we stood is actually an Island inhabited by dolphins. There was another tour package for this. You can have an actual exposure to the dolphins and frolic with them in the sea! I would have loved that. I love water and I would have chosen to go but my extra pocket money was not enough for that tour package. I believe somehow I’d be able to come back. By then I would really go there…

Several kilometers from this area stood the Baclayon Church.

Built in 1727, it is said to be the oldest coral church in the region. It is one of oldest in Asia and foremost among the best-preserved Jesuit-built churches in the Philippines. The convent which is connected perpendicular to the nave of the church, houses the well-preserved olden implements, church’s gizmos and tools during the Spanish Friars’ time. The altar has an elaborate design where a lot of niches were suspended at the back of the altar as alcoves housing for a lot of statues and idols of saints.

The walls are thick and the windows still hold tinted glass panes.

At a certain moment during our short stay inside the church I studied every figure and the crevices and design of the interior, then I knelt on one of the pews, trying to pretend I was praying. I pictured everything with my eyes closed, relive everything I saw with my poor memory, and I felt the hair at my nape raised in a goose bumps, as if I saw an old moment in the past, in a trance I was like observing a mass that happened long, long ago when this church was just newly-built. I couldn’t understand the feeling. Maybe it was some sort of a feeling of nostalgia, sad but a little bit holy. There was a sense of total respect to something I couldn’t understand. I am not a strong believer, not even to my own religion. I am the least Catholic in my own family but I always believe about a certain Supreme Power, I know there is something or someone more powerful than all the energy combined in the whole universe. I was just so awed this church was able to concretize the absolute gratitude of human beings towards this Divinity, whatever or whoever we call IT that. I do not know whether people today still think and do something good in honor to this Supreme Power or Being. With all the amenities and conveniences we have, we do not even think there is This entity whose total wisdom knows no bound. I can only trust my life to HIM or to IT.

Suddenly I felt the urge to light a candle before the saints parading on the altars and pray for gratitude, for the grace of life I enjoyed even until that moment where what prevailed inside my head was loathing for the misery of being abandoned by a lover. I somehow felt as though I had grasped a certain wisdom, that everything that happened in my life has a meaning. Whether I understood it at the time or not, I just felt that the answer to a lot of selfish questions that still lingered at the back of my head had been put into the light and was meant for a divine purpose. I just know that, whatever it was I’d been mulling as useless investments to a person I considered important, was somehow significant. I know that I made a connection; that somehow I have touch a single soul, longer than I suppose to have made, and I am blessed that for a long period of my life I was important to this soul and I mattered to him. When we got out from the church I felt no regret for all the bad and good things I experienced in my life recently. I just know that I’d be content and happy that even if I did not achieve certain things people consider with so much greatness, I am not insignificant after all. I was also relieved from all the worries that I wouldn’t be responsible anymore for this soul, because I made everything possible to be of good service to him, I had been a provider, a friend and a lover. I was so thankful to God for giving me the chance to meet this person, and for all my moments with him and beyond.

The bus took us then to the docking area at the Loboc River where the next tour activity would be a cruise along this river.

We had our lunch on the cruise while enjoying the scenic views along the river and a duet band was making rendition of Carpenter Songs as a means of extra entertainment. We sang along with the two singers and the air was so festive! The air was neither so cold nor so hot, the ambiance was just too perfect and the company that I was with, were so cheerful!

We docked at another area where several domesticated tarsiers were being showcased (along with flying lemurs) to tourists.

Tarsiers are the smallest primate on earth, their size is no larger than the palm of an adult human being. They can only be found in Asia. Bohol Island is remarkably the only place in the Philippines where this creature thrived. However they are considered endangered species as their number has significantly dropped in the recent century. They are logically fated to become extinct as these primates do not have a dominant ability to reproduce. When a female tarsier is fertile it can only accommodate one single lover, since their vagina closes after every sexual encounter. The breeding season takes almost a year and they give birth only to a single off-spring, after the maternal labor these creatures would be busy nurturing their babies that they do not have anymore attention for any creature of their kind. They are considered loner and territorial as their domicile should be one that is more or less a kilometer away from its neighbor tarsier. Interesting actually!, I haven’t known a single tribe of human beings who are totally monogamous and loner...

(to be continued…)

sojourn to Bohol

I think I need to recapitulate the memories I have had during my short sojourn to Bohol Island before I will leave it into total oblivion. Reading them in my blog will surely help me recall the few good things I’ve got to experience this year.

We have to cross the water towards Cebu City on an overnight trip before taking another fast craft to Tagbilaran City the next afternoon. The trip to Cebu City was my first since the time I’d use to cruise or fly in between islands for the project development activities that we were tasked to monitor during my short stint with the Australian Aid for International Development (AusAID), and that was over 6 yrs ago!

Aside being with Kenneth’s company, Ate Warly, Biboy’s close family friend and neighbor, was also with us. (Ate Warly has become my confidante as well since the time she was introduced to me by Biboy. She is also the mother of Biboy’s best friend, John). I think it was such timely that we were with her so I could have a better chance to ventilate more and get to the issue deeper about our break-up since Ate Warly seemed to know more about it and Biboy’s recent undertakings. We talked so much about it almost all our waking time during the trip. It helped ease me up a bit, but it did not relieve me from all the pain. I kept on thinking anyhow that I was there on the trip to escape from that miserable fate.

Ken has a way of annoying his companion while not knowing it, it’s the way he offer advises and comments on things as if it is really needed by someone who is listening to him. Well, that was not actually my concern during the trip, although I would somehow suffer his rantings during the entire period we were attending the Chem Congress (LOL!). But I would somehow enjoy his company, it’s amusing when he leer to alluring male species as if he can catch them with the timid expressions of his eyes, hehehe… He was also busy during our boat ride to Cebu, lurking on some college boys who were returning to that city for the Summer Classes. I wasn’t just so sure he was able to get one on a quickie because he was always out of my sight most of the time until I woke up early the next morning. He invited me outside the boat so we could view the city, while taking pictures at the edge of the railings as the boat was just about to dock yet.




Figure 1 - Obviously just woke up...


When we arrived at Cebu we asked Ate Warly to allow us to leave our things in her hotel room so we could still go gallivanting at the SM Mall. So Ken and I had decided to see a movie (entitled T2) before going back to the pier for our next ride (on a fast craft) that would take us to Tagbilaran City. We got to the Travelers Lounge before getting into the movie-house so that we can schedule our return-trip ahead, for sure there would be a lot of passengers who would be coming back to Cebu when the Chem Congress will be over. SM Mall has definitely improved since the last time I was there. It took us longer to locate the Lounge, and the aides and guards who provided us direction were only good on giving us more re-directions. Fortunately our trip back was on promo, which means that we would not be charged with fare, we just had to take our free ticket at the port before checking in for the trip. At least that had made the morning less a disaster.

T2 is a movie about the Filipino notion of bad spirits, it was suppose to scare the audience but I wasn’t really scared. I was more scared about running out of money when I get to Bohol. Actually it wasn’t so much of a suspense, but I was alarmed though when we entered the theater, it doesn’t had any audience yet, I guess Ken and I were the only audience who occupied the upper deck. Well that was a bit more frightening, if someone would play some mischievous game to us, nobody could have helped us or witnessed.

So we boarded the Ocean Jet, and indeed it was full of passengers, every sit were actually occupied. There were some young foreigners, 5 of them in a group just adjacent our sit. This time I was the one making chancing glance at one of them. He was the only boy there in their group of white twenty-somethings. I must have scared him he transferred to other sit, LOL! Ken tried to steal a shot but failed. He was always concealed, Ken also was only good at making shots of himself, LOL!, Whenever I turn to Ken he’d pose for himself, he won’t even manage to ask me take his picture for him… hehehe… He use to do that on his own during our time together in Bohol, I wonder why he is becoming so narcissistic, hahaha!

Figure 2 - or perhaps Ken should have moved to his right a little bit...

Well, this is the picture I would have wished Ken was not on it so the boy at the back shall be revealed. This was taken just right after docking at the port of Tagbilaran City.

(to be continued)…

another night with LC...

The second day of the Congress went well without any such remarkable events. I just sat there at our usual table and did not move to other rooms during the simultaneous sessions. When the 1^st plenary session was over at the start of the day the rest of my companions including Kenneth moved to seek for better topics while I was fixed at the chair where I sat because I was busy doing my blog.

The 2^nd day was definitely not exciting. Or perhaps I was just too fixated to the event of that previous night. I still had his smell on my nostrils and the memory was too fresh to savor. I made a peek at his booth before going in the Hall. He didn’t see me passed by, he was so serious at his laptop. Later I would be on mine too making a blog, and it was solely about what had happened during that previous night with him.

Two of my companions were looking at my blog while I was busy typing for another posting. They were so amused they didn’t expect it could lead that way although one of them said that she realized it could possibly happen, the fact that he accepted the invitation for the KTV chu-chu! Well, the blog posting had actually spared me from explaining to them what transpired during that evening, I just let them read it.

Later in the afternoon I sent SMS to his # asking whether he had decided to transfer to our room. He said he had already found another accommodation that’s far better than where he checked-in the previous day. I couldn’t help asking him again to just drop the accommodation and go with us at the hotel where I and Ken stayed. He said he can’t, and went on to remark further that he needed a better sleep… he said however that we have to dine together that night. So I waited until the evening…

He was already at the lobby when I went down. I was so glad as well Kenneth were with his cousins and they took Ken somewhere else; by that I would be alone with him and it would be less awkward for us to talk about things we needed to know from each other. He acted as guide since he knew the place better than I do. I’ve been to Tagbilaran City twice only, while he’s too familiar with the place as it is his market area. Like I said, he is the Account Executive of their company covering the Central Visayaz area.

He took me to a Mongolian Fastfood and we ordered food that is only familiar to him, I just let him took the reins, he seemed to know things like this, while I also know things like what I did to him the previous night, (hehehe). Later he would prove me wrong, he would confide to have excelled even to the latter… but not to people like me, but to straight girls (and over a hundred times to different girls)… hmmmm..

During the dinner, I asked him courageously about what he thought on what happened between us the other night. He remarked back without apprehension or remorse, that he didn’t like it, although he enjoyed the act. He said that it was not suppose to mean anything, he just did that because he was so curious about doing it with a gay and I was someone he could possibly trust. (Perhaps I couldn’t be trusted precisely since I was on the verge of broadcasting what happened to us to all my closest friends…). Well, I haven’t revealed his identity yet although some of my friends were able to see the face and know the name of the guy via blogging and friendster. I just hope he wouldn’t be able to discover my blogsite and read blogs about him.

After the dinner he asked me to walk with him around city and to the pier so he would know the schedules for the next day’s trips. We argued on certain things while we were on our way; like I insinuated that he just didn’t like to admit he really like being pursued by gays and he like being sexually involved with persons like me. He would insist however that he is a straight-male individual and there’s no way he would be involved passionately into a homosexual relationship. Of course I didn’t delve too much on the issue for fear I might lose my chances of getting laid again by this cute guy.

I have to admit it was so interesting to have talked with him on various things, I didn’t even notice we have walked to and fro between the hotel and the pier. Sometimes when I get too serious and argumentative, he would put on a stupid face and we would laugh together like we really knew each other for so long. He stayed at the hotel for a while and we continued talking more seriously, and occasionally I would ask him to stay again for the night. He was so adamant not to, he said it was enough that we did it once. He said it again that he doesn’t like to be involved, he just wanted us to be friends.

I wish we can be more than that. I would have wished to have him for me forever. I know my being desperate had made me long for another lover but I have to admit as well that of all the guys who could be available at this present time, he is the most lovable, passionate (quite in bed) and affectionate as well. I know also that it was still so short a time to consider him that, but I really have an enormous and unexplainable affinity towards him. The rest of my friends who attended the PCC who knew what happened between us would comment that he was indeed a nice catch.

Kenneth caught us talking in my bed when he arrived at around 10pm, so Ken had decided to go down the bar to look for preys as well. I know he was trying to give us space.

Well he stayed until almost midnight, we talked some more until we barely answer each other back because we were both sleepy already.

When he left, he didn’t look back. When I asked why thru SMS, he replied that he doesn’t like to be held back.

Its cliché but its true, some good things can not be kept forever. The whole experience could be imprinted in my soul forever, and its something that I would replay in my memory for as long as I could possibly recall. I only have his picture (taken by Ken during the last Plenary session) his number and his e-mail address but I do not have any assurance I could see him back again… the way he spoke on me that night, he seemed like to mean that it was suppose to be like a one-time-thing only…

I hope the universe will someday conspire to make our path cross again…