the mungo conspiracy

(image borrowed from here) Do you know what swordtails are? When I was a little boy, I remember my father would take the family out to the movies almost every weekend. And after that we'd usually grab a bite to eat at this Chinese restaurant. My favorite part of this family weekend ritual, however, was neither the movies nor the eating out. It was this short walk we had to take from the movie theater to the restaurant. For along the way was this little pet shop that offered quite a collection of dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs and rabbits -- enough to impress my young impressionable mind. But of all the animals at the store, my personal favorite were the fishes. And to my utter delight, the pet shop had all sorts of fishes in all sorts of shapes and colors. But what really caught my eye was this small orange fish that had a pointy little protrusion on its tail, the sword as it were, hence its name, swordtail. Secretly, I wanted to have my own swordtail. But even th...

(photo was taken from here:  Fan photos from Tingloy A Taste Of Paradise ) I should have savored every last retelling of the old story my mom must’ve told at least a thousand times. My grandfather was Ireneo Martinez, “lobo del mar” or sea wolf to all those who knew him by profession.  A ship captain and harbor pilot, he was the one expert everyone wanted to safely guide their ships into harbor in stormy weather. Being the best at what he did, lolo earned enough that he was able to buy three good-sized batels he used in the trade and transport of goods. This new source of income meant that lolo no longer had to spend months at a time away from home. Home was Tingloy, a small island fishing community just off the coast of mainland Batangas. The family lived in relative wealth in a house that was the first real big house made of mortar and stone that for a long time you can simply tell the pedicab driver to take you to the malaking bahay to find it. Sunday lunch...

My mother would scream at the TV, “Came to the Philippines! You go there, you come here!” She was again emphatically correcting Jeanne Young on “Spin a Win”, who was just telling the story on how she “went” to the Philippines so many years ago. The affectations of Jeanne Young’s American twang didn’t impress my mom, an English teacher of the old school kind. “Children are listening. You are teaching them the wrong things!” My mom would surely skewer me, the way I’ve mangled the English language with my colloquial and highly informal style. Imagine what she’d do if I ever texted “d2 na me.” The rules have changed. That’s for sure. But still I cannot bring myself to text “Hir na me, wer na u?” I’d rather “D2 nako, sankana?”, or the English equivalent “M here, wru?” That, somehow, doesn’t sound so awful. Maybe I am just an old dog that refuses to learn new tricks. I still adamantly refuse to drop the “O” in “Ok”. What’s another three keystrokes? “K” is just too lazy, if you ask...

1. STOP taking 2 hours to get ready to go out. There are only 24 hours in the day. 6 hours for sleeping, 2 hours for the 3 meals and snacks in between. 2 hours is 12.5% of our productive lives! Men can shit, shower, and shave in 30 minutes or less. We are giving you an hour. If you can not look good in 1 hour, you can not look good, period. 2. STOP blaming men for everything. Do not believe the feminazi propaganda that even blame men for high heels. Get over it. It's the 3rd millenium. No one is putting a gun to your head to wear high heels. Wear it. Don't wear it. It's your choice. 3. STOP being angry for no reason. Stop being in the mood.  4. STOP with the "I'm bored" (what are you gonna do about it?) nonsense. If that's your biggest friggin problem let me tell you about my day...  Do you really want me to unload on you all the crap I had to go through all day? Men are quiet for a reason. We want to spare you the grief. 5. STOP using the ex...

On May 10, Filipinos of voting age will once again troop to the polls to exercise their democratic right. This time and for the first time in an automated computerized elections. Congratulations to the Liberal Party for turning this edition of the presidential fiesta into one issue, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Never mind unemployment, poverty, dying economy, climate change, Maguindanao massacre, etcetera, etcetera. Ironic, but the most unpopular president, who allegedly has never won the presidency shall once again be deciding factor who becomes the next president.  Gibo Teodoro never had a chance. His “galing at talino” was rightly dismissed by the voting population. You claim “galing”, but “galing” in what? “Galing” to serve the blighted Gloria presidency? You are either a fool, or worse a willing participant, in the rape of our sacred democratic institutions then. From the Department of Justice, to Congress all the way up to the Supreme Court. As for “talino”, how can you c...

Sometimes I forget my age. One time, while working late, a young co-worker made a brilliant contribution to our project. “Good thinking Wonder Dog!” I exclaimed. She took that as a very negative sexist remark. Lost in translation was the context. She was just too young to have caught the Saturday Fun Machine edition of “Super Friends”. “Good thinking Wonder Dog,” is a perfectly harmless remark, I explained. Wendy or Marvin always gets to say that at least one time each episode. She was hardly convinced. I felt my age. I was, for the first time, on the other side of the generation gap.  I still vaguely remember the first time someone referred to me as “manong”. It was a little boy begging for coins that ushered my official entry into manhood. I was just fourteen, but had shot six inches the past summer. I was no longer “boy”. Almost overnight, I’ve become manong. And before I could save enough for a beeper, Generation X would be superseded by Generation Y, and now ...

The ninja deep in training at the Maculcol (lahar) river, border of San Narciso and San Felipe, Zambales, Philippines. I love messing with kids’ minds. They’ll believe anything. And I don’t just mean Santa. I would share with my nephews and nieces my most precious secret, that I am a ninja. Oh yes I am. It is a secret, of course, that no one else should know. Not even their siblings. I say that in total secrecy, one at a time, to each of my nephews and nieces. My brother was a little annoyed when he found out the reason his son refused to take karate lessons was because he would rather take ninja lessons from me. I am the absolute master of the art, you see. First lesson, get me a coke from the ref. Aha, no debates, no questions. The student should follow the master without delay or question.  By the time they’ve reached the awkward age, my nephews and nieces began talking amongst themselves, was their uncle really a ninja? So they asked me, point blank. I was a...

Before Michael Jordan retired, I had wanted so much to travel with the Bulls (as a fan) and watch every game for one entire NBA season, home games and away games. If I had been Bill Gates’ son, I would have really done it. Imagine what great fun it would have been if that year coincided with the last leg of the Bulls’ second three-peat! But alas, it was never meant to be. There is the still possible list, of course. I want to eat batchoy in Iloilo. Eat sisig at the riles in Angeles. Eat chicken inasal in Bacolod. You get the drift. I’ve done the local part of the list mostly. What I’ve yet to do is drink lager in Germany (a German friend has brought some to the Philippines, but it’s not the same). Sip champagne in France. Eat pancit in China. When I finally get to drink that shot of ouzo at the foot of the Parthenons, I can die a happy man. Right now, I am actively looking for angel investors to help me with one item on my list. I want to start a gym. Name it, pseudo Frenc...

If you've been reading my blog, you must be thinking, “Surely, this lunatic won’t do too well at social functions.” And you would be right. Not with the way my brain is wired. I am the one guy who will actually show up at 7:30 because the invitation said 7:30. How was I supposed to know that 7:30 was actually for the caterers and that guests aren’t expected for at least another hour? “Fashionably late” is totally lost on me. Worst living room experience was being stuck, waiting for other guests to arrive, at the house of a friend whose mother was Opus Dei. Trying my darnedest to look cool, I tried entertaining myself with the reading material available – all Marian devotional stuff and the like. I was on my third pamphlet when finally the man of the house realized what was going on and rescued me with an EDSA Revolution coffee table book. For all that suffering, I exacted vengeance on the beer. Good thing, I am not a lousy drunk. Foolish, yes. Lousy, no....

I think I was in the fourth grade when my teacher gave us this exercise, “Draw a Filipino house.” Right away, I started drawing a bahay kubo fronting a ricefield, a Mayon Volcanoesque rendition of a mountain range on the background, and the picture completed with the ubiquitous carabao parked on what would be, technically, the carabao-port I was going to this exclusive Catholic school for boys. Matriculation meant that we were all coming from, at least, upper middle class families. But as my teacher would later point out, just about everyone in class had drawn more or less the same picture as mine. Why? We were all Filipinos. We lived in Filipino houses. Did anyone of us live in a bahay kubo? “Anyone?” the teacher asked. No one raised his hand. This was my rude introduction to social studies. As my teacher would go on to lecture, by the fourth grade, and in an exclusive school at that, we were all already miseducated. And not just from school, but from s...