the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

22 March 2008. Black Saturday, I went on an expedition with my second cousin Bisig and Tito Joseph to visit Lola Coring, my lolo's 88-year old eldest sister, whom I had never met. We brought our full gear for documenting the visit, her stories about surviving World War II as well as present-day Cubao, where she continues to sell candies on the sidewalk. In this clip, she tells us about a dog that was given to them from Australia while they were hiding out in Romblon in the 1940s with the family of a guerilla captain. It was risky to keep a dog, because it could bark and lead the Japanese to their hideout. But this one, she says, was smart and would hide every time there were Japanese passing by. This is the rest of the story....

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other the sequel to my first Weekend piece (published in Weekend around April 2001 as a more distinguished Essay, rather than a generic Crossline), you can see how Cebu changed my life after only six months ;) ====================== I should have known moving to Cebu would be anything but normal. Twenty minutes into my six-month stay here, I found myself standing by a grassy embankment a few hundred meters from the Mactan airport, dumped by an irate taxi driver when I refused to pay the P150-fixed charge to my boarding house in Gorordo. I tried to keep my righteously disdainful look on, but it was hard with rain dripping from my hair. It seemed the city hated me at first sight. Cebu, I soon found out, had a secret language all its own—I was doomed to getting dumped on some nameless road unless I learned it. No way was I standing on that embankment ever again. I resolved that my first lesson in the language was to find my way around. I’ve never seen a map of the ...

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other my first-ever published essay in Sun.Star, which came out as a Crossline in August or September 2000. this is the one that got me my first assignment in Weekend, and then Lifestyle....and the rest is history. my thanks to Orly for forcing me to write this :) ============ My college roomie was ecstatic. I had been told just 3 days before to fly to her beloved Cebu for a project meeting. I had applied at the project 3 months before, and told to wait for my contract to be finalized. After bumming for so long, I jumped at the chance to finally get involved. It wasn’t my first time in Cebu . But it was going to be my first job. I nervously met my future Canadian colleagues, got introduced to the staff, and toured around the office. At lunch, I found myself the only Filipino at a table with Canadians all talking about home. Being shy around strangers, and foreigners at that, I mostly smiled my Filipino-meets- kan ô smile the whole time, with the occasional re...

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia to be published on 29 March 2008     Late afternoon is my favorite time of day, when the breeze blows seaward and the birds roost noisily on the electric lines at the boulevard in Dumaguete, where I used to stay. In Manila , where I’ve lived these past four months, the rich warmth of sundown pours out onto the streets, coating the acacia trees and the wide fields of the UP Diliman campus with honeyed light. It is at this time that I put on my sneakers, bind up my hair in pigtails, and go out for a walk.   It’s not just late afternoons that I go walking, of course. With the constantly rising cost of transportation and the temptation to be too busy to exercise, I try as much as possible to walk to where I need to go. More importantly, I walk to pace my thoughts that otherwise would need to rush towards my next destination before the jeepney can get me there.   As soon as I step out of the house, my lungs fill with oxygen, an...

4-5 March 2008. i was supposed to be in macau for another media tour...and i ended up in aparri. which in my opinion was a better deal, because it's easier to go to macau than to aparri, after all. during my break between classes, francis from the lab asked if he could rent my camera for his project in aparri. i jokingly said, sure, as long as you bring me along. and he said ok :) fortunately, i didn't have any classes for the next two days, so i could go (almost) guilt-free. after our 4-7 pm class taht day, we took the 11-hour bus trip from cubao to aparri. but we didn't stop there. we went from town to town to do a survey on fish aggregating devices or "payao" in the province of cagayan. it was COLD. too bad the waves were too rough to go across to the babuyan islands. inevitably, half of the time we were eating the local delicacies (i love traveling in the philippines, esepcially if it's free :D). but since i didn't want to be absent for class, i took ...

Description: On 29 March 2008 the Philippines will join countries around the world as we literally "turn the lights out" for Earth Hour - an event that will fuel awareness on climate change and prove that when the people of the world work together, they can make a difference in the fight against global warming. Ingredients: *Earth Hour will take place throughout the Philippines from 8 to 9 in the evening on Saturday night, 29 March 2008. Directions: WWF invites you to participate by shutting off lights for 60 minutes, organizing your own "lights-out" event or by forwarding this mail to your friends, workmates and family.*