This last Sunday was the exemption because the invitation to lunch felt like a court summons. Among the invitees were two other retired University of the Philippines Baguio professors, Delfin Tolentino Jr. and Ben Tapang. But at the last minute, they came down with the sniffles and flu-like symptoms.

The party, hosted by painter Kora Dandan Albano and her editorial-illustrator husband Jimbo, went on as scheduled. Rolly and I thought we’d be tardy because of the difficulty of getting a Grab ride or a regular cab to take us to the Albanos’ abode in Barangay Dontogan. They are practically our neighbors. We could’ve walked to their place, but not with a pot of warm beef mechado in Rolly’s hand and a bag of gifts in mine.

And who should meet us at the Albano gate but Kayu, the dog belonging to sculptor Roberto “Bob” Acosta and his wife, multimedia artist Katti Sta. Ana who also teaches at the College of Fine Arts in UP Diliman. Kayu wore a cone around her neck to keep her from scratching a wound. The other greeter was the Albano poodle Hermione (yes, named after the strong female character in the Harry Potter series).

We caught poet Aldrin Pentero talking on his phone with a person at Saint or Sinner, a bakery-restaurant downtown, about the delivery of a cake. Kora’s table was set, the food was laid out, and grace was said when suddenly, Aldrin cried out that he had pressed an extra number in his GCash payment: Instead of paying only P1,000-plus for a carrot cheesecake, he had entered P11,000! Frantically, he called the bakery again and gave instructions on the return of the excess P10,000. Rolly joked that he should just consider it a holiday tip: “Merry Christmas na lang ’yan!” The snafu was eventually sorted out. Aldrin didn’t rest until his GCash showed that the money had been returned.

Conversation

Our lunch was enriched by reminiscences on the food of the Yule season still present in family menus like ube halaya, and suman sa latik, both of which Kora, with some help, produced from her kitchen. Katti and Rolly recalled the linupak and binatog of their childhood. I observed how children, especially those in public schools, are deprived of these healthy snacks and make do with chichirya (junk food) at recess time. Katti agreed, saying, “Look at the rot in their teeth.”

Kora recalled the hard work behind making ube, how, in her youth, she saw women churning the ube with a sagwan or paddle for a special occasion. Her ube is comparable to the Good Shepherd’s bottled product. But Good Shepherd’s ace is that its product is creamier because the nuns’ kitchen has a machine capable of breaking down the ube and is not reliant on churning by hand.

For some reason, the conversation turned serious when it focused on feminist hero Gisèle Pelicot of France. Rolly, Bob and Katti were clueless about Pelicot’s landmark case against her husband and her many rapists. (Ever since Rolly retired from newspaper work, he has not kept tabs on current events and relies on short social media reports, but it seems the Frenchwoman’s story escaped him.) Aldrin, Kora and I brought them up to date, and the dropped jaws and shock didn’t ruin appetites somehow.

Chow

It was an afternoon of chewing and trying anything pulled out of the ref or the pantry. I’m happy to report that my mechado, the only meat dish, was a hit. I never got that much praise for my cooking before. I deem it a compliment to my late gourmand of a mother from whom I learned how to produce the dish. (See sidebar.)

Katti brought three vegetarian dishes from Himalayan Nepalese Cuisine, with the Pakora earning everyone’s approval. I dipped my share in a red hot sauce, not the cool green minty one. Kora had vegetarian lasagna delivered from Hill Station. Who’s the health-conscious among us? Jimbo, who has been fully vegetarian for many, many years!

There were slices of queso de bola, another Christmas staple, and fruitcake (also baked by Kora) to go with the chilled bignay fruit wine gifted by artist Dindo Llana before he left Baguio after the launch of our book Narda: From Nursing to Weaving My Dreams, the biography of Narda Capuyan.

Outside the fog was thick, hiding Mount Sto. Tomas from view. When we had half-exhausted ourselves from chatting, I asked if we could document our get-together with pictures at the balcony. Kayu joined our group and smiled for the camera. 

(I noted how Kayu and Hermione are such well-behaved pets. I told Rolly we should have brought our Satchi so she would learn to socialize. He said she might be too frisky in unfamiliar surroundings and cause an accident.)

Someone noticed the slight guava tree heavy with fruit in the garden. Before long, Rolly was munching on one of many plucked by Jimbo.

After coffee, there was reluctance to leave. What followed was an exchange of gifts. We got a Kora tray produced by Casa Juan Manila, bottled tuyo from Katti, a terracotta refrigerator magnet from Bob, and Aldrin’s latest poetry zines which he signed with my purple pen.

Katti drove us home where Rolly retrieved pots of red and pink poinsettia as his offerings to our friends. Bob walked Kayu on our road before they drove off to the high mountain where they live.

My mother’s mechado

Ingredients:

1 kilo beef, cubed or mechado cut

1 kilo ripe tomatoes

2 big onions

2 whole garlic, peeled and pounded

4 medium potatoes, quartered

3 carrots, chopped into circles

1 medium-size pack of tomato sauce

3 bay leaves

1 lemon and soy sauce (for the marinade)

Salt and black pepper to taste

Cooking oil

Procedure:

Marinate the beef in a mixture of lemon juice and soy sauce overnight or at least two hours before cooking.

Fry onions and garlic in oil. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and let simmer until the tomatoes are soft. Add the chunks of beef with their marinade. Pour in 2 cups of water or beef broth until the meat is covered. Add the tomato sauce and stir. Boil in medium heat for one and a half hours. If using a pressure cooker, cook for 30-45 minutes.

When meat is tender, add the potatoes and carrots. Season with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the vegetables soften. Turn off heat, remove bay leaves, and serve.

Read more: This Christmas, help yourself forgive with the ‘REACH’ method

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The lineup of “Awit Para Kay Coritha” culminated with the Tres Marias’ performance, beginning with “Masdan Mo Ang Kapaligiran” by Lolita Carbon’s very own folk band Asin. Prior to them were equally engrossing performances by Toto Sorioso, Chickoy Pura, Maribeth and Lester Demetillo, Corky and Kiko or Old Friends, and Bobby Mondejar and Friends, with a surprise performance by actress Liz Alindogan, who sang a cover of Celeste Legaspi’s “Minsan Minahal Ay Ako.” Each of the Tres Marias had their own individual segments as well.

Most of the “Awit” artists go way back to the time of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship, when gigs were also a form of protest against the regime. This was even before “OPM” (or Original Pinoy Music) was a thing, before the widespread commercialization of music itself.

Among those musicians, Coritha was considered one of the most popular of the protest singer-songwriters during the martial law days. “Oras Na” was famous among dissenters and even among political prisoners; the song is arguably a close second to Freddie Aguilar’s “Bayan Ko” as an influential protest song of that time. It was made popular again during the runup to then president Joseph Estrada’s resignation and impeachment, where she sang it live at one of the first anti-Estrada rallies. Later, she performed the song during the Million People March in 2013, which would be among her last rare live performances.

From their roots performing during the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, it seems unsettling to be reminded of where we are today and who now rules after it was toppled barely 40 years ago.

Throughout the decades, no matter the ups and downs of their popularity in the music industry, these artists have written songs and mounted shows for specific community-oriented causes, beginning during martial law up to the many political demonstrations that followed, to international issues such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to fundraisers for fellow musicians in need. At the heart of it all is music—probably one of the most binding methods (besides food) to build solidarity among people across age groups and backgrounds.

Karaoke for a cause

The show felt like being in a family-reunion-type karaoke night in the best way, except that these were highly talented artists with years of advocacy, musical experience, and maybe also drinking bouts behind them.

Ranging from folk to folk rock to rock to Manila sound, the songs performed during “Awit” were both lighthearted and nostalgic, played on acoustic guitar, sometimes with a keyboard, a cajon, or a violin on the side.

Bayang Barrios, who had begun her set with a cover of Coritha’s “Oras Na,” noted the difficulty of singing the song in its original pitch due to its deceptively simple but high notes. And yet, with her own range and vocal control, she still made singing the folk hit look easy.

Cooky Chua belted a few of her own during her solo segment, including her band Color It Red’s “Na Naman” and a yet to be released song.

Bobby Mondejar and Friends kept a sparkling, lively set with covers of much-loved classics such as “Sweet Caroline” and “Hotel California.”

Chickoy Pura, himself the beneficiary of fundraising shows by musician friends back in 2019 after news came of his lymphoma diagnosis, sang as an encore his composition “Rage (for Palestine),” sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar, his voice, and a gripping but sober emotionality on the continuing war on Palestine.  

It was what the show’s performers had in common: You could tell right off that these are veteran musicians. Here you sit within close range of a tight network of artists who have stayed on the ground, physically within reach of their listeners in small, crowded bars and beer gardens. They compel you to look and listen closely, a masterclass of pulling a riff of notes picked over a fretboard without even sweating, like it was just another Christmas performance.

And in a sense it was: According to Monet Pura, the gig netted P136,600—P95,000 from the show charges alone—all handed to Chito Santos who looks after Coritha. It was quite successful for an event that took only five days to organize.

Full circle

Knowing all of this, watching these performers that have sung during huge historical movements to the next big ones, or in large concert halls, or on TV, now jamming to old songs at a small bar to pool funds for Coritha, who is herself one of the most influential singers of her time and is no longer able to speak, and to top it all off, during a second Marcos presidency—you get the feeling that everything comes full circle in the most ironic, bittersweet, and (from the lens of someone younger) hopeful way. Somehow.

It’s made even more profound by Coritha’s own story, an unpretentious, beautiful woman always captured with an acoustic guitar in hand. She retired in 2000 and had since remained low-profile, but sometime around the ’10s she released a little-known album called “One Earth,” about “the environment, peace, love,” as she described it during an interview before performing “Oras Na” on “Umagang Kay Ganda” in 2010. 

During that period, she could be seen wearing rectangular rimless glasses and simple clothes, almost always with an acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder. There are still some clips online of her performing live as recent as 2014, but there is very little to go on after that.

And then, in 2018, she appeared on TV again, this time in the news, when she lost her Quezon City home along with all her possessions in a fire caused by a lighted candle. In the now viral vlog of newscaster Julius Babao, Chito Santos recalled that before Coritha moved in with him on his farm in Tagaytay, she was still staying in the destroyed property and “sleeping on a folding bed in a tent built by friends.”  

She suffered from depression and had multiple mild strokes spanning that difficult time period. But it was another mild stroke, which occurred early this year, that ultimately caused her immobility.

In the vlog, when Coritha’s partner led the newscaster inside the house, her expression changed from confusion to recognition to pain. A swell of emotions concentrated in the eyes—the heartbreaking image was hard to reconcile with the smiling girl in old pictures.

With others now singing songs for her, the message to Coritha is that she is still known and cherished. More benefit shows for her are slated to take place in the next weeks, some with the same performers as Monday’s gig. The Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit will hold its own fundraising event on Aug. 18, with Noel Cabangon and, again, Lolita Carbon and Bayang Barrios included in the lineup.

Music as proof of life

A takeaway from all these performances that came together in honor of Coritha and her music is that you can feel community and history running vein-deep with music. It’s hard to replicate that sense of community and common interest in a mere studio recording put out on YouTube or Spotify, which is why, with pandemic fatigue wearing off, there are so many concertgoers now looking for a kind of collective experience and communal energy.

Either way, a song will have its own impact and its way of speaking truth to power over generations. Memory is always interesting when it gives itself away. You surprise yourself as you sing along to songs you didn’t even know you knew. It sometimes walks its own path, no matter what happens to the artist herself. 

Coritha, Tres Marias, and the rest of the “Awit” lineup and all their songs give inspiration and context to time. There is no escaping it, but there is a way to enrich and decorate it. The body will fail, movements will come and go, the song will end, but what matters is the singing and the listening. Even when you know it will end, still you love it.

As Coritha once sang of the wisdom of harkening, “May bulong, dinggin mo / Ihip ng ating panahon / May sigaw, dinggin mo / At ubos na ang oras mo.”

Live performances from “Awit Para Kay Coritha” may be watched at CoverStory’s Facebook page.

Read more: Cooky Chua and Joaquin Ignacio on making music and the changing times

The post Memory played by acoustic guitar (or the singer and her song) appeared first on CoverStory.

Laughter filled the venue of the meeting, a classroom of San Salvador High School in this island-village of Masinloc, Zambales, as he recounted being chased away by Chinese vessels when he attempted to enter the area.

De Vera is a member of the Bigkis Fisherfolk Federation, which met with the head of the Peoples Development Institute (PDI), a nongovernment organization, on July 9 to discuss the House of Representatives’ inquiry into China’s human rights violations against Filipino fishers in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

In a letter sent to the House committee on human rights, PDI said Filipino fishers asserting their rights to Panatag’s resources are forced to endure severe harassment and intimidation by China, causing psychological trauma.

“China’s incursions into the WPS have environmental, economic, and social impact [negatively affecting] the Filipino fisherfolk whose right to food and right to personal security are being violated as they lose their main source of livelihood,” the letter read in part.  

500 families

Rony Drio, 57, has been fishing in the West Philippine Sea since he was a teenager, and fishing is his means of supporting his eight children. Over 500 families on the island rely primarily on fishing to survive. 

San Salvador is part of the 7,558-hectare Masinloc-Oyon Bay Protected Landscape and Seascape (MOPLS) under the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System (E-Nipas) Act of 2018. The law defines protected areas as specific portions of land and/or water reserved for their unique physical and biological diversity, and safeguarded against destructive human activities.

The MOBPLS is divided into multiple-use zones (where fishing is allowed) and strict protection zones.

Drio is engaged in spearfishing, while others use nets and hooks in compliance with the E-Nipas Act and the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998. 

When typhoons and heavy rains prevent him from going out to sea, Drio tills a rice farm on the island in a sharing arrangement: Of the 10 sacks of palay harvested, the landowner gets three. “I only get a small income from it,” he said in Filipino.

How it was before

From February to June in the past, San Salvador fishers typically sailed to the municipal waters of Masinloc and headed to Panatag (or Bajo de Masinloc) to increase their catch. The shoal is approximately 120 nautical miles west of Masinloc, and its lagoon is known for abundant marine resources.

According to Bigkis president Randy Megu, 51, bright corals, visible during low tide, used to greet them when they entered the shoal. Further inside are white sandbars where they anchored their damaged boats for repair, he said.

The fishers recalled leaving home at midnight to be able to reach the shoal by morning, with daylight allowing them to easily locate its entrance. “We used to fish all day in Bajo de Masinloc,” Drio said.

But more than food, the shoal offered shelter to fishers during storms because of the serene waters in the lagoon. (In Filipino, Panatag means “calm.”)

All that changed in 2012 when, after a standoff between Philippine and Chinese vessels, China seized control of Panatag. It deployed its coast guard and maritime militia, which bullied and chased Filipino fishers away from the area.

Megu recalled the Chinese forces seizing their catch and sometimes their belongings in exchange for a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of liquor. 

The Filipinos are now unable to enter Panatag even during stormy weather.

Giant clams

And the Chinese forces’ increased harvesting of giant clams has gradually destroyed the marine environment. “The corals appeared to have become sand … and the fish decreased because of habitat loss,” Megu said.

In a 2023 report, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said 1,889 acres of reef in Scarborough Shoal have been damaged by Chinese fishers’ harvesting of giant clams.

The overall estimate of the CSIS, through its Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, is that China’s giant clam harvesting has damaged over 16,500 acres of reef in the South China Sea.

According to the CSIS report titled “Deep Blue Scars: Environmental Threats to the South China Sea,” Chinese fishers use either brass propellers dragged into reef surfaces or high-pressure water pumps to suck out giant clams, destroying the seabed.

The report analyzed commercial satellite imagery of 181 features of the South China Sea. It showed that China is the top reef destroyer in the South China Sea through dredging and land fill, burying roughly 4,648 acres of reefs to build artificial islands.

“Panatag used to shine because of the corals surrounding it. It still shines today, but because of the lights of Chinese ships in the area,” Megu said.

Slashed income

According to the San Salvador fishers, their income has been cut nearly by half since China seized Panatag. They are now operating at a loss due to low catch and high expenses including diesel (of which they need between 100 and 1,000 liters per trip, depending on the boat size, at a cost of at least P60 per liter), and food (rice, groceries), as well as fishing bait.

The total expenses and the 10% commission for the boat owner are deducted from the revenue generated from the fish sales, Megu said, adding that the remaining amount is divided among the fishers aboard the boat.

In 2016, an arbitral tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, invalidating China’s sweeping claim over almost the entire South China Sea under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The tribunal clarified that Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal constitutes fishing ground for nations including the Philippines, and ruled that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights by blocking Filipino fishers from these waters.

China continues to reject the arbitral ruling. In May 2024, China issued the “Provisions on Administrative Law Enforcement Procedures of Coast Guard Agencies” or the “China Coast Guard Order No. 3 of 2024,” a set of regulations outlining how its coast guard will carry out administrative law enforcement operations. 

The new regulation authorizes China’s coast guard to detain for up to 60 days foreigners suspected of violating exit and entry rules in waters it claims.

The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has said that enforcing these regulations in the West Philippine Sea would be “in direct violation of international law.”

“Every sovereign state has the right to formulate and enact laws … however, a state’s domestic laws may not be applied and enforced in the territory, maritime zones or jurisdiction of other states,” the DFA statement read.

Fear

Still, Filipinos are avoiding fishing near Panatag for fear of what Chinese forces will do. “We have fear. We are afraid to fish there,” Drio said.

Bigkis urged the government to protect Filipinos and continue fighting for the Filipinos’ right to fish in the West Philippine Sea.  

Drio said the group had been calling on the authorities “to watch over us for our safety and peace of mind when we are fishing” in Panatag. But he acknowledged that it was a challenge considering China’s continuing aggression.

While Filipino fishers want the Philippine Coast Guard to be present and to extend help when they need it to ease their fear, “there’s nothing we can do,” Drio said. “From what I see now, it’s difficult because even our uniformed personnel at sea are being blocked.” 

Like Drio, Megu believes that the government should step up its efforts to resolve the conflict between the Philippines and China.

“They should find a way to solve this problem and restore the vigor and freedom of Filipino fishermen in Bajo de Masinloc,” Megu said.

Isa Jane Acabal, a journalism student of the University of the Philippines’ College of Mass Communication in Diliman, is an intern at CoverStory.ph.

Read more: Gov’t urged: Defend, assert territorial integrity in West Philippine Sea

The post Filipino fishers continue to struggle amid China’s intensifying aggression appeared first on CoverStory.

Scientists would scoff and tell a completely different story. How could they believe an island would rise above the tides as a memorial to the forbidden love of a princess and a commoner, who sailed together across unforgiving seas and died—and right where they drowned would appear a mass of land shaped like a heart?

The lovers were named “Maring” and “Duke,” according to my grandfather, Lolo Oscar. He told me the tale of Marinduque when I was a child and we were sitting on his veranda overlooking the sea—I, the curious listener, and he, the old storyteller who mixed words and cigarette smoke as he spoke.

I believed everything back then, even the legends of the golden ship that cruised across the distance and mysteriously vanished into the night, and of the golden calf that grazed on the mountains and the lovely deity that protected it. I believed them all because to a six-year-old, the world had yet to lose its wonder.

My grandfather was wise, and nurtured my imagination. He could foretell bad weather coming by the sight of layang-layang in the sky, and a typhoon leaving just by the feel of torrential rain known as paragsaw. And he’d listen to the language of the winds and say from which direction they were coming and where they were heading. 

“Amihan comes from the mountains,” he muttered under his smoke-filled breath. “Habagat comes from the sea.” 

His stories strengthened my connection to this island and the sea, just like the way he raised my mother.

Life by the sea

Nanay had her own share of stories. She recalled their old nipa house on the beach, the one to which they relocated—thrice, she said—to steer clear of the habagat’s fury. She was used to switching places, even if it meant moving only a few steps or just as far as to heed the waves’ command.

Living by the sea must have been a challenging experience for her, I imagine, although nothing of her childhood indicated that it was unbearable. And this brings me to that awful day when she came home crying to Lolo Oscar because her teacher had announced a toilet inspection. (They had no such thing.) He comforted her, simply saying, “The sea is big enough for us. What else do we need for a toilet?” 

I don’t recall Nanay ever finishing that story. But I remember how its missing parts were filled instead with jokes and laughter and some spilled food on the dinner table. We found the story funny, especially when Nanay recounted her toilet-free days under the big old pandan tree, when she’d sneak into a hollow space between the stilted roots. She’d take cover behind the palm-like foliage and wait for the right moment to pee or poo. 

The sea was only a sprint away, and the water never ran out. It was as convenient as having a real toilet, I thought. 

The sea was a very special place in my mother’s upbringing, as well as in mine. I remember playing by the beach with my friends in the afternoon. We collected shells and dug out sand crabs, chanting “Tipas, tipas!” and cheering for the crabs to emerge from their burrows. We chased the small waves and waited for the big ones to chase us. We made balls and built miniature igloos out of sand, and polished them with sprinkles of seawater and grit. We played hide-and-seek under the pandan tree. (It stank, but was a perfect hiding place.) And then, after sunset, when all the fun had ended, we dashed home. 

Delight and fear

My childhood in the late 1990s was delightful. But there was also fear. Word spread about the aswang, the man-eating creature that lurked at night and turned into a dog, or pig, by morning. There also came stories about the white van that roamed the town to snatch kids and kill them for their blood, to build bridges. 

There was one other frightening thing about the island that elders refused to tell children about.

“One day, Marinduque will sink,” I heard the elders talking worriedly. They kept mentioning a name: “Marcopper.” It sounded strange; I knew it was something bad by the way people spoke of it, the deadly kind of bad, more fearsome than the aswang and the white van. 

On the eve of March 23, 1996—when I was still too young to tell the time, or what day it was—a disaster awakened our island to unmitigated horror. One of Marcopper’s drainage tunnels burst open and tons of mine tailings spilled out of the dam. The toxic wastewater surged through the Boac River and down to the shallow sea, killing everything along its serpentine trail. Crops, fish, and livestock all yielded to the toxic and turbulent flood. 

At daybreak, the villagers helplessly watched and wept as their rice fields crumbled in silt and mud and tailings before turning into desolate terrain. 

Residents near the Boac River were forced to flee their homes, but the poison hunted them down. The toxic chemicals that leaked into the water system reached their bloodstreams. Cancer and other deadly diseases became prevalent and while they were grappling with mortality, the villagers took their struggle to the streets and the courtrooms, seeking justice. 

The Marcopper mining disaster of 1996 changed Marinduque from an island paradise to a living hell.

I was a child when the horror occurred. And in my little world, Marcopper did not exist. Only years later, probably when I was in high school, did I learn about Marcopper and its bloody past. I learned, too, that, unlike the aswang and the white van that had scared me, Marcopper was real. Marcopper took away lives, and its victims suffered slow and painful death. 

“NO TO MINING!” the victims cried. 

I saw those words in public places as I was growing up. I heard them said in churches and schools. I noticed them on signs along sidewalks, highways and bridges. The words followed me wherever I went, like an echo. I felt them instilled deeper and deeper into my consciousness, as if telling me that for as long as I’m in Marinduque, I should never forget about Marcopper and the great destruction it brought to the island and our people.  

‘Where exactly is Marinduque?’

I left for college 110 miles away, thinking that I could leave this narrative behind and just keep the happy memories. But the sad thoughts of home always came back. I felt like a pendulum tied to a longer string, but no matter how far the string allowed me to go, I always swung back to the same place.

“Where exactly is Marinduque?” a classmate at the university asked. “Is it in the Visayas or Mindanao?” 

“Marinduque is in Luzon. It’s an island-province three hours away from the mainland,” I told her. 

Curious, she asked: “How do you travel then?”

“From here, I ride a bus to a seaport in Quezon. Then I take a ferry. And it takes another hour and a half on a jeepney to reach my hometown.” 

“So, when do you plan to go back to, oh wait, where’s it again? Masbate? Mandaue?”

“Marinduque.”

“Right. Marinduque.”

I learned that Marinduque exists in other people’s mental maps for two reasons: One is Moriones, the festival, and the other is Marcopper, the disaster. One a blessing, the other a curse. The curse hits a nerve in me every time. Here’s a mining company that made our island world-class famous after destroying it. How can I make lighthearted conversation out of that tragic story? 

Still, it’s a conversation I could not avoid, for there is so much truth in it about my island’s history and my own. And this unpleasant path toward the truth led me to Marinduque’s northeastern shore. I traveled some 58 kilometers from my hometown Buenavista to listen to the silenced stories in Calancan Bay.

Sea and sky

The coastal waters looked wonderful that day I arrived in Calancan. I could not decide whether the sea was mimicking the sky or the sky was mirroring the sea because the bright cast of blue stretched seamlessly across the horizon. I was captivated by the sight, so much so that it distracted me from the tortuous road ahead. 

I observed that cars are rare in Calancan; the narrow roads prefer much smaller vehicles, ideally with only two or three wheels. Jeepneys are somewhat an exception, for they follow a certain trip schedule. The earliest arrival is at 8 a.m., and the last trip leaves at 1 p.m. 

I arrived on a tricycle and had no problem following the schedule. I remember that along the way, as we were passing a hillside, I asked the driver to pull over for a minute so I could have a steady view of the seascape. I saw a couple of islets and a long strip of vibrant white sand covering the coast, different from the dark gray sand I used to play in on the other side of the island when I was little. The sand here is like granulated sugar. The view looked sweet and lovely from afar, with nothing in the water suggesting danger. 

It wasn’t until I spoke to Ka Jose, a village leader, that I realized that my first glimpse of Calancan Bay was an illusion. “What you saw on the way here was not white sand, or a beach, but thick piles of mine tailings and crushed rocks from Marcopper,” he said.

Ka Jose said that in the 1970s, Marcopper built open-pit mines on Mount Tapian. It hollowed out layers of earth from the mountain. It drilled boulders and pulverized rocks and ore residue, flattening the terrain and leaving massive craters on the ground. Allegedly, Marcopper’s open-pit mines, owing to their vastness and depth, were enough to sink the island. 

It was a very scary prediction, but the real tragedy happened when Marcopper built huge tunnels and drainpipes that extended 14 km from Mount Tapian to the surface water of Calancan Bay, which soon became a dumping ground for its toxic wastes. 

The villagers protested. They organized civil groups and held rallies to condemn Marcopper for the damage it caused to Calancan Bay and their livelihood. Ka Jose was at the picket line with his fellow fishers. But their protests meant nothing to Marcopper. Even the government at that time was unmoved. The mining disposal continued.

The story goes that because Marcopper had no intention of pulling out, it pressured the villagers to relocate to the mountain so that its operations could proceed unhindered. The villagers refused. They went to the Capitol and formed human barricades to show their defiance. But they failed. They lost their stake in Calancan Bay without receiving anything in exchange from Marcopper (except for the mine tailings). The villagers have a word for the tailings: tambak.

Tambak was a causeway, but the fishers liked to name it by many expletives. It clogged the mouth of the bay and blocked off the fish coming from the sea. Thus, the landlocked fishers were left with no option: Either they starved in the bay, scrimping for very little fish, or took the dangerous route through an alternative passage where the catch was bigger, but so were the waves. The latter was a wise choice on calmer days, but the days in Calancan Bay are very, very unpredictable. 

Luningning

One morning before dawn, Luningning, a woman I met in Calancan, went fishing with her husband. They rented a motorboat, for they could not afford to own one, and headed to the open sea. The waves were peaceful when they left. But as they moved farther from the shore, big waves started slapping their rented motorboat. As they tried to escape the strong current, the engine stopped. 

It could have been their last time fishing together but, thankfully, they managed to return safely home, where their son was waiting.

Luningning’s life has always revolved around the sea. There have been many sacrifices, she told me, because living at sea meant forever being at the mercy of the weather and the tide. And now that she has a family of her own, with three children and a husband who is also a fisherman, she feels that there is nothing she can do to change the orbit of her fate. 

“It is hard for a mother whose basic livelihood depends on the sea,” she said. “It’s really hard, especially if the sea is our only hope. We went fishing one day and wished for a bountiful catch, but there was nothing.” 

I listened to Luningning as she talked about her suffering. It was of the visceral kind that her eyes and lips could not conceal. It pained her to see her family subsisting on tuyo (dried fish). And it pained her more to reheat the fish with more vinegar just to delay spoilage and ensure more meals, though meager. There’s nothing more painful than this: being fishers and having no fresh fish on the table. 

I reflected on Luningning’s name—which means “brilliance”—and concluded that it is the heavy irony she carries during dark days at sea.

Fishing sanctuary

Calancan Bay was once a place of brilliance, too, just before Marcopper came. The elders remember it as a fishing sanctuary brimming with spider fish, sea clams, and yellowstripe scads, as well as seagrasses and coral reefs, blessed with clean water and smooth tides. Life was so much better in the old days, they say. 

But when mining came, the bay lost its brilliance and vitality. The spider fish, sea clams, and yellowstripe scads were contaminated with heavy metals and died. The seagrasses and coral reefs were smothered in tailings and vanished. Soon, the water was not clean anymore, and the tide became harsh and violent. The Calancan Bay of more than half a century ago became a myth. 

And perhaps the children born here in the 1990s came too late to see and remember the bay before it became a cautionary tale about Marcopper and the dangers of a mine-spilled sea.

I wish Marcopper were the myth, but the facts prove otherwise.

FVR’s report

The sender logs “20 September 1980.” And the header reads “Philippine Constabulary Integrated National Police, Camp Crame.” It is Maj. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos writing to the National Pollution Control Commission (NPCC) chair, Brig. Gen. Guillermo A. Pecache. The letter is about the state of deterioration and destruction of the coral reefs in Calancan Bay. 

In his message, Ramos tells Pecache: “Initial investigation disclosed that the mine tailings have already taken its toll in the bay and have caused continuous siltation of the reef… The marine life which was once abundant within the areas is nowhere to be found.”¹ 

The report from Ramos was alarming, but Pecache saw no urgency to stop Marcopper. It was only a year later, after another round of local protests flared, that the national government issued a cease-and-desist order on the mining disposal.

But Marcopper’s closure in 1981 was a short-lived victory for the people of Calancan Bay because the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. approved the resumption of Marcopper’s mining operations following the appeal of its president, Garth S. Jones.

Per documents, Jones asked Marcos to allow Marcopper’s open surface mine tailings disposal without constraints.² It’s alleged that Marcos was a part-owner of Marcopper, sharing half of its holdings with the foreign company Placer Development Ltd. A month after the request, a court petition stated that Marcos had instructed the NPCC to issue a temporary permit to Marcopper effective from Oct. 31, 1985, to Oct. 21, 1986.³ But come termination day, the NPCC released yet another temporary permit prolonging Marcopper’s tailings disposal in Calancan Bay until Feb. 10, 1987, with the appended condition that Marcopper should soon transfer to San Antonio Pond, the new open-pit mine the company was building at the time. 

Marcopper, however, appealed again to the NPCC and requested sufficient extension for operations and an indefinite suspension of the conditions stated under the new temporary permit order.

Martial law 

I paused while reading the documents and noted the dates (between 1980 and 1986). Yes, the events took place under martial law. 

I wasn’t born yet when martial law was declared in the Philippines in September 1972, or when Marcopper started mining in Marinduque. And almost everything I know about martial law, I learned from books, films, and lectures. I say “almost” because I also learned a few (contrasting) things about it from my grandfather. He said Marinduque was a peaceful place during martial law, and that the streets were dead silent beyond midnight. He liked the imposition of curfew and praised Marcos for it.

Lolo Oscar believed Marcos was a great president. If I were still a child I would have believed him, the way I believed his tales of how Marinduque came to be. But I’m no longer a child; I have decoded the stories. Marinduque was not a peaceful place during martial law. People protested on the ground, but Marcos did not stop Marcopper from destroying our island. He allowed Marcopper’s mining disposal in Calancan Bay, which lasted for 16 years—from 1975 to 1991—partly under his dictatorship. 

And in those 16 years, Marcopper savagely used Calancan Bay as a toilet, flushing out, not piss and poop, but mine tailings dangerously high in arsenic and mercury: dirty and deadly.

I have seen the old pipes used in flushing out the tailings—much bigger than me and so much older, too, but decaying now, with rust and brine eating at the metal tubes that carried the toxic debris from the open-pit mine down to the bay.

The pipes have been untouched since Marcopper abandoned them decades ago. But while I was walking along the bay, on its toxin-laden coast, Marcopper was still present. I felt it in the eerie reddish glow of the oxidized metal tubes, the simmering heat of the tailings beneath my feet, and the lonely stretch of the shore. I realized that this is Marcos’ deadly legacy to our island.

Malakas and Maganda 

My grandfather is dead now, and I wonder if I can retell this tale that begins with love and ends with death. (More deaths, eventually.)

Two lovers named Malakas and Maganda once ruled a country; he made himself a strongman, and she thrived on his power to become the most beautiful woman in the land. But they realized that strength and beauty were not enough to prove that their love was pure and true. And so they sailed the seas and traveled on bridges—and built one where there was none—to find the purest of stones and the truest of treasures. 

One day, Malakas found a heart-shaped island in the middle of the sea. And on this island, he found more precious stones and treasures. He summoned big miners from a faraway land to get the job done for him to please his wife. The miners worked day and night for many years to drill and dig and dump. They wanted to satisfy him with more treasures.

The residents raged at the big miners: “STOP MINING!” But the big miners were unfazed and kept drilling and digging and dumping. 

Then, a bleak prophecy: The island will sink and many people will die. The big miners from a faraway land did not believe the prophecy, nor did Malakas and Maganda. But one peaceful night while the people were asleep, a heavy flood submerged their land. Many thought the prophecy had been fulfilled. 

They were wrong. The flood was only a prelude. The real prophecy would reveal itself to them with loud, angry tremors on the ground to welcome the son of Malakas. It is said that he will fulfill the prophecy, according to his late father’s will, to awaken the sleeping mining giant that will sink the island into the sea.

¹ A letter of Fidel V. Ramos to Guillermo A. Pecache signed on Sept. 20, 1980 (para. 2).

² A letter of request from Garth S. Jones to Ferdinand Marcos Sr. signed on Dec. 22, 1981. Marcos approved it on Jan. 27, 1982.

³ Republic of the Philippines, represented by the Pollution Adjudication Board (DENR), Petitioner, v. Marcopper Mining Corporation, Respondent. G.R. No. 137174 (July 10, 2000) (Phil.), https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/-
thebookshelf/showdocs/1/52007

Read more: Chopping down trees in India, then compensating for them—but at whose cost?

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Jin Hoon, first of two lecturers, walks on stage when his name is called. It’s easy to mistake the hairstylist with the behind-the-head mic for a model: trim figure, glass skin like a K-drama actor, sleek black hair, all-black getup. But the back of his shirt emblazoned with the name Jenny House says it all.

“Annyeonghaseyo! I’m Jin Hoon. It’s an honor to show you Korean culture. I’m nervous right now. My hands are shaking,” he says in Korean rendered in English by a translator.

Jenny House is a Seoul-based hair and makeup salon that counts Korean celebrities like Son Yejin from “Crash Landing on You” and Park Shin-hye of “The Heirs” and “Dr. Slump” as clients. The salon was a participant in the first K-Beauty Hangout held in Manila last April 12, and was co-organizer with the Korean Cultural Center, Korea Tourism Organization Manila, Amore Pacific Philippines, and SM Aura.

Getting that volume

How to have your hair looking natural and with volume? Jin Hoon says he uses a fixer that’s not sticky, doesn’t make the hair stiff, and gives “longevity” to the look.

He sprays the model’s hair thoroughly with the Root Volume Fixer (a product from the salon’s hair care line) and grabs a hair clip, hairbrush, and hairdryer from the case. Alternating movements, he parts the hair, clips, blow-dries, and combs it, and confides that Park Shin-bye hasn’t been to the salon lately because she’s busy filming.

It’s interesting to watch him holding the hairdryer by the body and not the handle, and making the quick motions of drying and parting the hair with the hairbrush’s handle. He does everything in one fluid motion—a master stylist at work.

Next, to achieve that wavy, natural look, Jin Hoon gathers the model’s hair into strands and curls them one by one with a unique technique that, as he puts it, “doesn’t make the hair into a line.”

Hairstylists being silent while styling is fine in a salon setting, but not in a beauty demonstration. The audience fires questions at Jin Hoon and he gamely fields them.

Hairstyling 101

How to deal with frizzy hair? “Don’t stress over it. Use a fixer.”

Want to curl the back of the hair evenly? Don’t try too hard to do it because it’s difficult. However, “if you must, for long hair, you must bring the hair to the front and curl the tips for an overall look of ‘natural curls.’”

How to reverse hair loss? Jin Hoon says it all boils down to scalp care. He himself shampoos his hair every night to get rid of impurities, then blow-dries his hair and scalp correctly, which means using the dryer’s “cold air” mode. A healthy diet is a must in maintaining strong hair, he says; thus, he eats oatmeal—he avoids white carbs and black beans.

Again, more volume for the hair? “Put the fixer under your hair, not the scalp, then blow-dry the hair. [The fixer] will give your hair volume and strength,” he says.

Annoyed by curling hair ends aka “fly away”? He recommends applying Jenny House’s Hydro Keratin leave-in Angeling Cream on “the tips before styling the hair.” (Apparently, the cream “calms” the hair.)

To prevent damaging the hair and scalp through frequent hair coloring and styling. Jin Hoon says he applies “a lot of protein” on his hair. He suggests treating the hair with the salon’s “high concentrated” Hydro Keratin Repair ampoules.

Expressing oneself

Then it’s Jin Hoon’s turn to ask a question. He wants to know how the model looks because “it’s been a while since I’ve styled a person in front of others without a mirror.” The audience shouts Yeppeoyo! (“pretty” in Korean), and he smiles.

One last question thrown his way is about his favorite hairstyles for his celebrity clients.

“There’s already a character when I work on a series or movie,” he says. “As long as the hairstyle adds to the character, I’m satisfied because hairstyle is [about] portraying or expressing yourself. Try different styles [to see] which will express your [personality] the most.”

“Tadah!” he quips, showing off the model whose flat hair has become “naturally” wavy, making her look like the quintessential Korean beauty.

Clean, bright skin

Hwagu, the final speaker, comes onstage. The svelte makeup artist is well put together in all-white jeans, scarf-blouse streaked with blue, and heels, and barely-there makeup. Her red lipstick is the only visible trace of cosmetics on her.

She explains that the essence of wearing makeup isn’t about applying thick layers of it. Good makeup, in fact, begins with good skin care dovetailed with knowing the right products to use. For example, Hwagu uses only water-based products, which are good, she says, for those who are prone to acne or with oily skin.

Hwagu cleans the model’s face with cotton pads sprinkled with Truffle Water Essence from the salon’s cosmetic line. It’s a necessary step because “there are still impurities left on the face after you wash it,” she says. “Also, there are dust particles left on the towel used to dry the face.” She performs the cleansing step twice.

Speaking like a sensei to an apprentice, Hwagu says: “Makeup is a process of putting on thin layers. It’s the same with skin care: You give ‘nutrients’ little by little. You give too much and it won’t be absorbed by the skin.”

Her words highlight the “clean, bright skin” makeup wisdom embodied by Korean celebrities that’s fast becoming popular among beauty connoisseurs.

Thus, she applies a thin layer of what I understand from the translator as “truffle nutrient cream”—my research yields Truffle Firming Cream—around the lips, outer cheek area, neck area (“apt to wrinkle,” she says) while avoiding the oil-prone T-zone. Grabbing a sponge, she removes excess oil from the model’s face before applying sunblock. To finish off, she dabs the lips with lip balm.

“It’s best to use the tube lip balm rather than the lipstick balm because the tube gives more moisture and nutrients to the lips,” she says.

Barely-there look

Contrary to conventional makeup wisdom of choosing a foundation that suits one’s skin, Hwagu uses one that is brighter than the model’s skin tone. What’s important, she emphasizes, is not applying the foundation with the same thickness all over the face, and layering it.

To “give contour to the face,” she uses a darker foundation tone on the sides of the face, and repeats to the audience, like a mantra, to “apply only a small amount.” But contouring is an optional step, she adds.

A question shoots through the air: Is there a difference in doing men’s and women’s makeup? Hwagu says she gives men the matte look because their skin is oilier.

Done with spreading the foundation, Hwagų applies powder on the T-zone, cheeks (“to make the pores less obvious”), and the top of the eyebrows, which, when they get “a bit moist” make it difficult to apply makeup. She colors the eyelids and eyebrows with eyeshadow in light circular motions, after which, with a pencil eyeliner, she gently lines the eyelid’s bottom, following the shape of the eye, then, surprisingly, streaks eyeshadow over it after.

“Koreans don’t have double eyelids, so we apply a thin eyeliner, but we lengthen the eyeliner to make the eyes longer,” says Hwagu.

The beauty masters have their own approaches to beauty. Jin Hoon has his hair curling technique while Hwagu has her eyelash curling method. Hers involves lighting a stick, blowing out the flame, and waving the stick in the air. Then she lightly runs the “hot” stick across the eyelashes and, seconds later, she curls them, carefully placing the curler on the eyelashes’ roots.

My attention wanes during the mascara application—I don’t wear mascara—but my ears perk up when she mentions that heavy mascara makes the eyelashes droop. Again, the constant advice: Use only a small amount.

Interestingly, there’s always the option of using fake eyelashes, like what K-pop artists are wont to do. “They like emphasizing their eyelashes,” Hwagu says. Then she shows how it’s done, applying eyeshadow at the bottom lashes before carefully sticking on the faux.

Simple, accessible

For those not really into cosmetics, K-Beauty Hangout made the business of beauty simpler and accessible, with its emphasis on less is more.

Hearing Jin Hoon say that hairstyling is all about personal expression was encouraging. After all, there’s no need to sport an intricate hairstyle or copy someone’s do. A good hairstyle begins with cared-for hair and scalp.

It was educational listening to Hwagu say that “makeup is really fun when you know the process.” Makeup, as she said, is like skin care; thus, beauty doesn’t mean hiding underneath layers of cosmetics but taking care of one’s self and, with makeup’s help, highlighting one’s best features.

Of course, it’ll be wonderful to take “less is more” to a higher level, where I only have to sit and have these two beauty masters do my hair and makeup.

Read more: When art meets reality in Korean ‘chaebol’

The post ‘Less is more’: learning basic hair and makeup lessons from K-beauty masters appeared first on CoverStory.

So, I asked Janus Nolasco to accompany me on guitar while I sang “You’ve Got a Friend.” It sounded a tad familiar to the kids but only because the song had been used as a backdrop for some silly cartoon or other. But when I got to Taylor’s big hit, “Fire and Rain,” I received the same disinterested reaction.

James Taylor has sold over 100 million albums throughout his career, including 40 gold, diamond certified and multiplatinum albums. These include his “Greatest Hits” 1976, “Sweet Baby James” 1970, “Mud Slide Slim” 1971 and “JT” 1977. Amazingly, his latest album, “American Standards,” reached #4 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and #1 on several other Billboard charts in 2020.

In addition, he has six Grammy Awards spanning a 51-year period from 1970 to 2021. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000), and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame (2000). He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015), Kennedy Center Honors (2016) and Billboard Magazine’s Century Award (their highest honor) in 1998.

Getting the damned tickets

It was therefore with bated breath and thrilled anticipation that I decided to purchase two tickets for “An Evening with James Taylor and his All-Star Band” scheduled for April 8, 2024. Fearing the “nosebleed” section where vertigo could set in, I went for “lower box” seats. The ticket price was too high for comfort but Tesa and I decided to make a one-time splurge for the rare opportunity to listen in person to this global icon of folk and rock music.

The online process was a breeze and I was issued a voucher that I was supposed to present at a shopping mall in order to get printed tickets. That was where the trials and tribulations began.

Four times over a period of three weeks I went to the mall to collect our tickets, only to be informed each time that their internet service was down and no tickets could be issued. When I tried to call to save myself the trouble of going to the mall, I found that all the mall’s phones in all its Metro Manila branches were not working. It baffles me how a shopping mall complex owned by the country’s top billionaire family could not get their internet and phones working for a whole three weeks. 

We were thus left with the option of showing up at the concert venue with our vouchers and lining up to get our tickets. Luckily, the queue was not that long and we finally got our precious tickets. At the entrances, the usual security checks were made. I was surprised to be told that my steel water tumbler could not be allowed in. I had to check it in and was given a number tag. Was this a ploy to force us to purchase bottled water inside the concert venue? 

Political views

James Taylor’s first Manila concert was in March 1994 at the Folk Arts Theater. He scheduled a concert for Feb. 25, 2017, at the same venue, but ended up canceling it due to concerns about the human rights situation in the Philippines at that time, particularly on the antidrug campaign of then President Rodrigo Duterte. 

He posted this Twitter message on Dec. 21, 2016: “I’ve been eagerly looking forward to playing for my Philippine audience ever since we added Manila to our tour of the Pacific this coming February. So, it saddens me to cancel our concert there. I don’t think of my music as being particularly political but sometimes one is called to make a political stand.

“The scourge of addiction is a world-wide problem and does serious harm, not only to the addict but to our society. For a sovereign nation to prosecute and punish, under the law, those responsible for the illegal trade in drugs is, of course, understandable, even commendable; but recent reports from the Philippines of summary executions of suspected offenders without trial or judicial process are deeply concerning and unacceptable to anyone who loves the rule of law.

“I offer my heartfelt apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment this may cause my Filipino friends.” 

It was not the first time for James Taylor to take a political stance. A “progressive Democrat” by self-ascription, he threw his support behind the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton while sparing no words in mercilessly berating Donald Trump. 

In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine published on Nov. 7, 2016, Taylor said of Trump: “This guy isn’t Hitler—this guy is Mussolini. You’ve got this world-class narcissist who is inept, corrupt, and opaque. This is a sort of a puffed-up, self-absorbed, all-hat-and-no-cattle cowboy. All style and no content. We don’t know who the guy is. You don’t know if you can believe anything he ever says because he changes his mind so consistently. He’s more frequently dishonest than he is honest. It’s so baffling to me why people who feel this disenfranchised would choose as their champion this particular specimen. It almost feels like an act of random and wanton destruction to vote for him.” 

In the same interview Taylor talked of his concerns for real electoral reform, the clampdown on immigration, and the conservatism of the Supreme Court. He voiced his support for equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, gay and gender rights, and not going to war.

But enough of James Taylor’s political views. They never defined his public persona, anyway. It’s good to know, though, that an artist of his caliber and influence didn’t shy away from taking a political position when the times called for it. 

The concert in Manila

The concert at the Mall of Asia Arena started on time with a front act by a nameless but highly competent band of local performers headed by the irrepressible Ice Seguerra whose powerful but soothing voice effortlessly delighted the crowd. Activist Noel Cabangon provided social meaning with songs like “Tatsulok (Pyramid),” a protest against social inequality. This front act lasted a long 40 minutes but the crowd didn’t seem to mind even though Ice and Noel kept reminding themselves to hurry up with their act so as not to tax the Arena’s patience.

A long half-hour after the front act, James Taylor and his All Star Band finally came on stage. They were met by exuberant applause, excited shrieks and other forms of verbal homage from an entranced audience of about 15,000 even before a single note could be sung. With an acoustic guitar strung around his back, Taylor bounced in, clad in an off-white blazer that hung loosely over his gangly 6’3” frame. The Band was composed of three vocalists (one of whom also played a fiddle), a keyboard player, a drummer, a pedal-pushing lead guitarist, and a bass guitarist. In the course of the show, Taylor would introduce each one intermittently.

Perched on a high stool and picking on his guitar, Taylor started slow with “Something in the Way She Moves,” a catchy song about the captivating essence of a woman’s presence, her physical grace and allure. With no pause, “That’s Why I’m Here” came next, a reflection on Taylor’s journey through fame in the music industry but also a declaration of love and commitment for someone through thick and thin.

The underrated “Anywhere Like Heaven” is one of my personal favorites, an expression of longing for a peaceful and idyllic place of contentment and an escape from life’s pressures. Not missing a beat, “Never Die Young” came on, a reflection on mortality, a poignant plea to stay young forever and savor life’s beauty.

Early on it became immediately clear to all that James Taylor’s talents are undiminished, his voice retaining its full timbre, crystal clarity and robust fullness, all of which have enthralled and captivated millions of fans worldwide since the 1970s. 

“Country Road” is a look back at simple life roaming the countryside, a return to one’s roots and savoring freedom and adventure. Changing tack, Taylor turned political with “Fiddle and Drum,” a powerful Joni Mitchell composition about the state of the world and delves into themes of war, injustice, and the human condition and the role of art to inspire action and activism. 

Singalong

The introductory bars of “Sweet Baby James” brought loud applause and cheers of recognition from the crowd, and almost everyone started singing along. The lullaby melody was written for Taylor’s nephew and evoked themes of comfort, tenderness and protection on a life’s journey about to begin. I normally hate it when people sing along at a concert, but this time and in succeeding songs, it all sounded natural and quite pleasing to the ear. 

“Handyman” is a humorous portrait of someone able to fix broken hearts except his own. Another crowd sing-along favorite was “Long Ago and Far Away,” a song about a lost love and its memories. “Mexico” is a longing to escape to a carefree life in a tropical paradise. “Carolina in My Mind” is a fan favorite which expresses homesickness for one’s native land and a simpler life. 

Shifting to blues in “Steamroller,” which is about being overwhelmed by life’s challenges and maintaining hope, Taylor abandoned the comfort of his stool, pranced onstage, and added a mean harmonica solo.

“Fire and Rain” is one of Taylor’s biggest hits and a song that is most personal, reflecting his struggles with addiction, loss, and loneliness. Once again it was sing-along time for the Manila crowd. “Up on the Roof” is about finding peace and solace amidst urban chaos and noise. The bouncy rock of “Shower the People” is about spreading love and kindness to others, and the similarly fast-paced “Your Smiling Face” celebrates the joy and warmth one finds in a loved one’s smile. It was the 16^th song of the night and officially ended “The Evening with James Taylor.” The whole band unceremoniously left the stage.

Not to be fooled, the crowd rose and continued clapping and cheering. After about two minutes, Taylor and his band returned. Saying “We can’t end the show without singing this,” and to the crowd’s absolute delight, Taylor sang his biggest hit, Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” a classic anthem of friendship, comfort, support and reassurance. 

Then with the crowd still on its feet and cheering wildly, he performed two more encores: “How Sweet It Is,” a joyful celebration of love and happiness, and, finally the reassuring “You Can Close Your Eyes,” a lullaby with wishes for a peaceful night’s sleep. 

That final song ensured that everyone who came for the concert would find their way home peacefully and have a restful night ahead. 

Did I mention that James Taylor turned 76 last March, and that he performed for a full hour and a half without any break? His 2024 world tour is taking him to 14 concerts in Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand in April and May. In the United States, he will perform in 36 concerts in 22 cities from May to September. 

Most of the descriptions of James Taylor’s Manila concert setlist were generated through Gemini AI and Open AI.

The post James Taylor in my mind and live in Manila appeared first on CoverStory.

The event was announced online a few days earlier and shared by over 100 within hours. It was pegged to run from Holy Thursday to Black Saturday, but organizers decided to hold it on the day Christ was nailed to a cross and died.

The security guard at Don Antonio Heights advised me to take the long way around to get to the venue, remarking on the motor traffic quickly a-building. 

Clearly an independent effort, Our Little Gaza Kitchen had not anticipated the huge turnout and hired no additional hands. It was scheduled at 4-6 p.m.; I arrived just a little past 5. A friend messaged me that she had to leave her father for errands at the food line that was already snaking through the narrow and poorly ventilated compound mostly made of concrete and painted a dull yellow. 

Laughing children ran around waving balloons and plastic bags, shouting at each other in a mix of English, Filipino and Arabic. Perhaps they were excited by the multitude suddenly gathering in their compound on that sweltering March afternoon. They imitated the adults selling food inside: “Twenty pesos, mango juice! One fifty, chicken biryani! Masarap! Masarap (Delicious)!”

Nords Maguindanao, a bearded man in a white shirt and the event manager from the Moro-Palestinian Cooperation Team, tried to keep the crowd traffic in check, telling us that we could skip the line if we wanted to try the desserts first. He said the biryani had run out and a fresh batch was still being cooked. 

Free dates were offered to those waiting for the food replenishments.

To practice Iftar

Later I asked Nords how the event came about. He said it was more than a means to make money for rebuilding their lives. For them, it was to practice Iftar in the middle of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan: breaking their fast by giving charity to those who are fasting. At the same time, it was to help Palestinian families forced to flee Israel’s ongoing strikes on Gaza. 

Wishing to pry further, I walked around the venue and found Gabes Torres, one of the contact persons mentioned in the online posters. She said the idea for the event arose when she and her friends were celebrating her birthday. Back then A Taste of Gaza, a small kitchen run by Palestinian refugees in Quezon City, had already been cooking and selling food, but Gabes and her friends thought more interaction with a wider public was needed.  

So they got the word out and raised the funds to start a bigger kitchen. The Palestinian Filipino mothers organized large-scale cookouts. 

One mother recalled that when they arrived in the Philippines—“Nung umuwi kami rito”—“we found it a bit difficult to look for the spices that we cooked with in Gaza.”

“Until, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to God), we encountered Shopee,” she said. 

I asked what adjustments they have had to make in cooking Palestinian dishes for Filipinos. She said it was mostly that Filipinos do not cook with as many spices as she and the others did in Gaza. 

“My favorite dish is mandi, which is smoke-flavored rice with either chicken or beef. My mother-in-law taught me that dish,” she said.

To fly back home

This was all jarring to me, but in a good way. In the past six months, we have been flooded with images of shattered lives, destroyed homes, and dead children in Palestine. There was not a single image of Palestinians celebrating their birthdays, ordering from Shopee, cooking for big crowds, or even just enjoying a meal.

Nords told me that if peace ever comes to Palestine, the refugees in Quezon City would want to fly back to their home. (Surprisingly, a representative of the Department of Foreign Affairs has supposedly expressed to them that the Philippine government is willing to support their repatriation.)  

Many of Our Little Gaza Kitchen’s cooks are Filipino women married to Palestinian men who came to the Philippines in the ’80s and ’90s to study. The women lived different lives in Gaza; cooking 20 meals per order is not their default expertise. It surprised them that so many Filipinos, especially non-Muslims, came to Our Little Gaza Kitchen that afternoon.

“We hope that Filipinos will get to know us and like us. Maybe we can put up more branches or pop-ups like Gaza Kitchen,” the Palestinian Filipino mother told me. “Inshallah (If Allah wills it), this would be a way for us to start anew here. Kasi, sa totoo lang po, wala na po kaming babalikan (To be honest, there’s nothing for us to go back to there).” 

The reflections of Fr. Bong Tupino for Maundy Thursday and Fr. Jomari Aragones for Good Friday centered on feet—our service to others through Christ’s washing of feet and our commitment to struggle with others, using our feet to walk and to show up for our different causes. 

When I was writing this on Easter Sunday, with the news tuned to Al Jazeera, the reports were about protesters in London calling for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and protesters in Tel Aviv condemning Netanyahu for his failure to bring the Israeli hostages home; about the oldest Catholic communities celebrating Masses in a starved and darkened Palestine; and about 17 more added to the dead in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Some say that there is no genocide, that there are many complexities to this war, and that we all have our own interests in it, in one way or another. But Our Little Gaza Kitchen was something that would not have even materialized had the world been fair. There is little to argue about when someone who lost their home to foreign occupation serves you food and tells you that maybe she could keep doing it until they find home again.

For orders and other news about pop-up Palestinian kitchens, follow A Taste of Gaza–Palestinian Food in Quezon City on Facebook. 

DLS Pineda is a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman and the secretary general of the Human Rights and People Empowerment Center. He plays bass and rides a bike to work most of the time.

Read more: End Israeli apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza, and free Palestine

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I received my first bicycle when I was seven years old, a gift from my Lolo Diego which he bought in the 1970s from a newly opened bike shop in Pasay City. Painted navy blue and with long U-shaped handlebars and an elongated saddle, it was among my few precious possessions. So when the family had to relocate to Mindanao in December 1980, I cried buckets of tears in the effort to convince my parents to bring the bike with us.

That bike is part of my wonderful growing-up memories. It’s one of the reasons why, after decades, I still love to bike. It also helps that my husband Charles is an avid biker with whom I go on long rides whenever time permits.

It’s true that biking gives you a sense of freedom that makes you seek more places to explore, and an incomparable satisfaction whenever you negotiate steep climbs without stopping even if you’re running out of breath. And last March 23, thanks to my good friend, Anne Jambora, I discovered that you get a different high when you’re with other women bikers who have been tirelessly advocating for an abuse-free and gender-sensitive Philippines.

Empowerment ride

The bike ride spearheaded by Break the Cycle Philippines was called a freedom and empowerment ride, in celebration of International Women’s Month.

That Saturday Charles and I met up with Anne on Ayala Avenue, Makati City, at 5:30 a.m. to plot our route to ArcoVia, Pasig City, the event’s meeting place. We chose to take J.P. Rizal Street, Makati, a road parallel to the Pasig River, on the way to C5 Road where we crossed Bagong Ilog Bridge. We arrived at ArcoVia in Pasig an hour later—but not before experiencing some of the challenges that bikers face daily on the road, such as potholes, protruding drainage grates, parked vehicles and motorcycle riders on the bike lane, “salmon” bikers (or those who go against the bike lane flow), vehicles with drivers that clearly do not want to share the road with bikers… 

Ann Angala, founder of Break the Cycle Philippines, welcomed the participants. The NGO was initially a project of Bikers United Movement and was formed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when people had to move around on bikes due to the absence of public transport. 

Angala thanked and reminded the participants of what the ride wanted to convey: to empower women, to keep them safe while biking, and to break the cycle of gender inequality on the road. “Our mission is also to add more women on the road,” she said. 

Citing the presence of men at the event, she said: “Of course we love men… We love you, you’re always there, you’re our allies, but we need more women. Who has statistics of how many women [bikers there are] on the road? I think there are only a few. So we need to see beauties, we need to see women smiling on the road, sharing love and kindness on the road.” 

It was my first time to join such an activity, and our bike ride to SM Aura in Taguig City was a fun experience. The male bikers served as road marshals and “sweepers” to make sure no one was being left behind, but seeing women bikers guide their fellow bikers with hand signals, and encouraging and looking after one another, made me feel proud to be a woman. It was like being in one big family, of which, being an only child, I never had the chance to be a part. 

Stories of inspiration 

At SM Aura, we converged in the air-conditioned meeting room where women bikers were preparing to deliver messages to the participants. It was a welcome relief from the punishing and energy-sapping summer heat. When Angala took the stage to introduce the speakers, we were all ears. 

Angala is a survivor of domestic abuse. In a Break the Cycle Zoom meeting in 2022, she said she started biking in 2017 as a means to attain “empowerment and healing.”

“When I got into biking, that’s when I felt that I am in control of my life,” she said. “You hold the bike’s handlebars and it brings you to places, you feel the wonderful wind on your face, you can go fast, you can go slow… It feels good when you realize that you can use a simple [thing] to bring you anywhere and bring you that kind of happiness.”

Angala said biking so healed her that whenever she became anxious, she just took to her bike. She said her experience has moved her to encourage everyone to try biking: “It’s good for the environment, for our physical and mental health, and for the community.” 

The speakers were introduced by Angala as women empowered by biking and who have helped “the cycling community, other women, and sustainable transport as a whole.” 

They shared stories that were varied and invariably inspiring: Rappler’s Iya Gozum who did a documentary on her 120-kilometer bike ride to check how safe Metro Manila is for bikers; a member of the Dutch Embassy who talked about how she felt biking for the first time in Manila; women who expounded on the benefits of commuting by bike; a biker who helps other women reach their biking goals; mother-and-daughter bikers who have been on long rides with their family to as far as the province of Quezon and Baguio City; a member of the LGBT community and how she found strength in biking; a member of the Commission on Human Rights’ (CHR) Gender Equality and Women’s Human Rights Center, who tackled the harassments that women bikers face on the road and how to address them…

According to an October 2022 Facebook post by Mobility Awards, 54,085 people on bicycles were counted across four cities in Metro Manila—Quezon City, Marikina, Pasig and San Juan—on June 28, 2022, with men outnumbering the women. 

What could be preventing more women from biking?

Safe Spaces Act 

From the speaker of the CHR came reminders that there is such a law as the Safe Spaces Act (or Republic Act No. 11313), and that women who experience such offensive acts as cat-calling, wolf-whistling, unwanted invitation, misogynistic, transphobic, or homophobic remarks, and sexist slurs, and who encounter an immediate threat to their safety should seek help from anti-sexual harassment enforcers at the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and local units of the Philippine National Police, or the “Aleng Pulis” of the PNP Women and Children Protection Center. 

It was a long but fruitful day especially for a woman biker like me. We bike for different reasons, but it becomes extra special when we do so for something that will leave a lasting mark, and help raise awareness on issues that women continue to face on or off the road.

Read more: Finding our way to happiness amid life’s difficulties

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I used to have a keen sense of smell. It’s probably a vestigial faculty from my ancestors who, as hunter-gatherers in the wild of Panay, needed all their five senses heightened. But my nose has been dulled by age, Metro Manila’s pollution, and my own careless olfactory experiments. 

Once, I almost killed myself by being curious and hasty. My father had brought home a new industrial product called “Plastic Steel.” You mixed a dark yellow jelly called a “hardener” into a gray putty to get the stuff to harden. The jelly gave off an interesting odor—strong but not unpleasant. I wanted to savor it. In high school chemistry, you’re taught to smell an unknown substance by using your hand to fan the scent to your nose. I brought the can close to my nose and inhaled. The smell hit me like a concrete wall! This smell could kill! Now I know what World War I soldiers who were lucky to have a nonlethal whiff of chlorine gas felt.

I thought that my sense of smell was unique. Have you ever met anyone who was asleep in a car and woke up with a start when the car passed a patch of flowers in bloom?

Being a “person of odor,” I’m partial to dabbing or spraying a bit of cologne or toilet water (eau de toilette) to the base of ears, neck and shoulders after a bath. Beyond the refreshment you get from a bath, you perk up from the bracing fragrance and momentarily feel like a new man. Moreover, when I smell so good, my housemates seem to be more friendly towards me. 

Luxury item

Fortunately, I have not had to buy what I’ve regarded all these years as an item of luxury. A friend or relative back from a trip abroad usually gifts me with a bottle of fragrance before the current bottle runs out. I’ve bought after-shave lotion (which, I learned, qualifies as a diluted perfume), but then I regard it more as a disinfectant than a fragrance. 

The only time I ever paid for a bottle of cologne was to satisfy my curiosity about this new scent called “Jovan Musk.” I found its scent gross but was calmed by the thought that it was a nature smell derived from civet cats. Those exotic creatures were part of my boyhood memories of a guava orchard frequented by them and me.

I believe I’d have become a better perfumer than a mathematician if only there was some way then for this young man to get to Paris and be discovered by an Annick Menardo or an Erwin Creed.

El cheapo

I relate the above to put my experience this week in context. I had noticed that a gift Bulgari was almost empty and there were no gift-givers in sight. Time to buy my own. I thought I’d settle for one of those cheap scents sold in mall aisles. 

At a mall in Novaliches, I came upon two stalls selling cheapo (being only housed in PET bottles) fragrances. Each had an impressive array of what I thought were the concoctions by local perfumers. At the first stall, I ran strips of scented paper on the counter through a smell test. None had the “citrusy” scent I was after. Nothing perks me up like the scent of an orange being peeled. I asked the saleslady if she had such a one not found among the paper strips. 

The second spray she put on my hand smelled interesting. Fruity plus something else. When I found nothing nice in the adjacent stall, I went back and bought a bottle of that interesting scent: P160 for a 90-ml bottle. Cheap. This could last me a year. 

When I got home, I noticed that there was a small label at the back of the bottle which (let’s just say) read “Thor’s Sweat.” Was there such a perfume in the World of Perfume? The internet said there was: a European creation described as having a “woody and fruity” fragrance.

Wonderful! I had sniffed out a type of scent I was looking for although I had mixed my fruits up: Yes, it had traces of citrus but the predominant smell was declared to be pineapple, not orange. 

Surprise

Was TS available at Shopee? I was surprised to see a dozen sellers of this type of fragrance, all labeled and bottled differently. But each one carried the tag “Inspired by Thor’s Sweat,” or “Replica of Thor’s Sweat,” or “Duplicate of Thor’s Sweat.”

I had stumbled into the extensive market of what is called “Inspired Perfumes” in the trade. But doesn’t this sound like a whole new area of illegal Chinese clones, one more addition to clone sneakers, clone gadgets, clone tools? 

Nope. A little more investigation on my search engine told me that there is nothing illegal about the business of clone fragrances. It’s too difficult to smell out a duplicate. No Versace or Dior has run after copycats. If they did, they’d have to expose in court their secret formulas and face even more copying. 

Of course, the appeal of these smell-alikes is a no-brainer: If you can’t even conceive of spending $215 (P12,000) for a 94-ml bottle of “XYZ,” you’ll be ecstatic to know that you can buy for P160 a 90-ml bottle of “xyz” that smells like it. You’ll happily overlook such minor distractions as the scent being just a bit off (how will moneyless you know it’s even off since you’ve never come within smelling distance of the original?), that the ingredients are cheap, and that your copy is in a PET bottle while the original nestles in a work of art. 

All you really want to do is check with other Shopee shoppers that this clone has a scent that lasts and doesn’t mutate, and that the liquid won’t sting your skin. 

From Shopee, I learned that there are at least 16,500 other Filipinos (or visitors to the country) wearing the same dupe (heh heh, that’s “duplicate” in the language of the trade) perfume as me. I don’t believe I’ve met any of them in the mall, train, bus or church, but then my sense of smell is no longer what it used to be.

Read more: Finding our way to happiness amid life’s difficulties

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Of such vignettes are late Sunday afternoons made on this estimated 2.2-kilometer stretch of land on campus on which converge runners, walkers, lovers, besties, whole families, along with couples bearing their toddlers or fur babies, gray-haired folks on a constitutional, stroke survivors and their caregivers… You blend in from a side street after parking the car somewhere far. You go with the flow, but keep alert against photobombing those recording their steps or their thrill at being back in the university (you’ll recognize balikbayan anywhere), and, as in the scene just past—a woman apparently recovering from illness, likely a stroke, her husband and two sons anxious for her to walk on her own steam again, her nurse pushing the wheelchair out of her path—are mindful not to stare and intrude into their moment between the Engineering building and the Beta Way.

Mortality

Still you mentally wade into their privacy as you walk away from them and hit your stride. You wonder about their circumstances: perhaps a worry-free past upended by present realities and a future made uncertain by health issues. You realize she is not a young woman wearing a loose dress and a brace on her left leg, and neither as youthful is the man who appears to be her husband. Therefore, you surmise, keen on arranging details coherently in your mind’s eye, the two boys barely into their teens are their grandsons, by their body language bewildered by an early signal of mortality in a loved one, and determined to reset.

You recall another apparent stroke survivor, by his crew cut and his bearing possibly a military man, walking arm in arm with a woman dressed in scrubs, a backpack slung on her right shoulder. You saw them often in 2023—once observed them in the parking area, with him getting into the driver’s seat of his car (a bright note in the scenario, you thought, indicating that he had not entirely lost control of his mobility)—but not yet in this new year. You beam up a thought of hope: that the Sunday walk has merely lost its urgency and been stricken off his to-do list.

But not everything is a cause for concern in this Sunday ritual. Good old “Pop-Pop” (your code for the stocky elderly gentleman who makes a regular appearance walking briskly on the center line) is now grumpily coming at you on counterflow. Children testing newly discovered footing are underfoot, their tickled parents capturing their progress on vid. Other kids no longer wobbly are sallying forth on tiny bikes; a boy maybe only four years old makes like a future Evel Knievel  (not that their young parents even know of that long-ago daredevil who constantly challenged gravity). 

The runners—male, female, non-binary—are admirable whether whizzing by or modestly jogging, quickly receding from view as you, distracted, note the stalls offering chichiria near the UP Theater. The patrons are many, from their behavior quite appreciative; two men who stopped to check out the merch resume their fast walk bearing their loot: fishballs drenched in spicy sauce.

You muse on the contradictions offered by the ubiquity of junk comestibles in a supposed wellness routine but are careful not to gawk at the gleefully munching crowd. Careful, too, to avert your eyes from strolling couples whose clasped hands and mingled auras announce their happiness at being present each to each in the here and now—the object of songwriters at every time and place: “I’ve never been in love before/ I thought my heart was safe/ I thought I knew the score/ But this is wine/ That’s all too strange and strong/ I’m full of foolish song/ And out my song must pour…” You give them proper distance. As you give respectful leeway to a slow-moving old lady and her nurse as you turn the corner, throw a backward glance at Plaridel Hall, and head toward Admin, where the Oblation is decked out in a not-immediately-comprehensible protest artwork and thronged by visitors in various stages of photo ops.

Marshals stand at strategic points. They block adult bikers unaware (or maybe not)  that like motor vehicles they are banned from the Oval on weekends and, with an outstretched arm, direct the parties to the next available turn from the area. Or, on patrol on motorbikes, they track down dog walkers and point them and their wards to the sidewalks. (You did not know this, and now make a mental note that all fur babies, whether Fifi the French poodle or Rambo the Great Dane, may enjoy the afternoon on their designated route.) These, or at least the incidents you have witnessed, are no big deals, resolved quietly and courteously, minus the spectacle attendant to bigwig recalcitrants on public roads. 

The sun is fading as you pass the Faculty Center. From the looks of it, the building is almost fully rebuilt from the ruins to which it was brought by a Task Force Alpha fire on April 1, 2016. But for each and everyone forced to endure it, the collective loss is doubtless still inconceivable in its immensity.

You quicken your pace past Palma Hall’s famed AS Steps, which are besieged by trippers who will shortly flood IG with their memories. While sidestepping the merrymakers and measuring your breath—inhale calm, exhale (hah!) anxiety; repeat—you espy someone with the build, the stance, and the tilt of the head of an old flame. Oh, man, you address the indifferent Universe, not now, not when it’s uncertain if he, like yourself, is still crazy after all these years. You hurry past BA, trot past Educ and toward Vinzons’ in an effort to put a bit of distance between you and the scene of an early crime, when your idea of resolving a problem was to take angry flight.

Meanwhile, the sunken garden is in the throes of a soccer match, and families are encamped on the elevated areas with food, drink and loud music.

Disengagement 

It’s said that a salutary way to engage in walking is to literally disengage: to empty your mind of all thoughts and focus only on your breathing, the necessity of it, the rhythm of inhaling through the nose, filling the lungs with air, holding till a certain count, and then exhaling gradually through the pursed mouth. Easy this Sunday afternoon, having quickly recovered from a flustered moment, you think you are getting better at concentrating on breathing and unfocusing your gaze. But past the Law building and off the Main Library you recognize the woman’s husband holding her leg brace and walking toward you on counterflow with one of his boys, apparently homeward bound; he looks unhappy. Somewhere behind him, dodging clumps of runners, walkers, snackers and slackers, bobbing in and out of your vision through a man’s treasure of balloons on sale, the woman advances seated on the wheelchair pushed by her nurse. Her grandson walks alongside, holding her hand.

Suddenly exhausted, you decide to call it a day. What was it Bernard Malamud said? “Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.”

Read more: Each of us is unique, good, true and beautiful

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