A More Pressing Issue

December 30, 2008

Edit: She has updates. Let’s keep up with our support!

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Hello, Ms. Bambee.

I can’t comment on your blog, so I would just like to say that my prayers are with you and your family.

I’ll also express support by reposting your issue on my blog. I hope it’s all right with you. If not, do tell me.

Repost from: VICISSITUDE’s The world has gone crazy

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2008

 

The world has gone crazy

So, I just had the worst day of my life.

At around 1:30 PM today, at Valley Golf and Country Club, Antipolo City, Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr., Mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur, his father, Secretary Nasser Pangandaman of the Department of Agrarian Reform, and company, beat my defenseless 56-year-old dad and my 14-year-old brother to a pulp because of some stupid misunderstanding on the golf course.

This is a golf course. I have been a golfer all my life, and I have never seen anything like this. NOTHING. This is hard to comprehend. And it happened to my own father and my own brother too. Right in front of my eyes.

My brother and I were playing golf at the South Course of Valley. We were on the 3rd hole, and we see two golf carts going past us, overtaking our flight, and setting up to tee off on the next hole. My dad goes up to them and asks them why they would do that, why they would overtake us without even asking for our permission. Golf etiquette 101. One of the guys says that they’re with the flight in front of us. (So what? That doesn’t give them the right to just pass us WITHOUT asking.) So, we go to the 5th hole. The flight behind us catches up with us, and asks us what caused the hold up. We said that this flight just slipped in front of our flight. So we complained to the marshall. We play the 5th hole and walk towards the next hole, where there is a teehouse, and both the flights in front of us were there, talking with the marshall. The mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur talks with my dad. Things get heated up. Voices were raised. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that someone would pull out a punch. Apparently not. He attacks my father. His flightmates, maybe 2 or 3 of them, rush to his aid and beat up my father. My 56-year-old father. My younger brother and I could not just watch. We rushed to break the fight. My younger brother pleads to the mayor to please stop it. To not hurt my dad. To just stop. His words still ring through my head…”Sorry na po, sorry na po…tama na…tama na po…” With his hands in front of his chest in a praying position. PLEADING. The mayor socks him in the face. My brother defended himself. My dad is still on the ground getting clobbered. My brother is the same way. I try to stop the fight, but all I can do is stop one person. There were 4 or 5 of them attacking now.

Someone breaks up the fight. I thought it was all over. The mayor shouts to his caddy: “Hindi nila kami kilala! Sabihin mo nga sa kanila kung sino ako!” And believe me, I had no idea who this person was. But now I know. He’s the person who, with 4 other men, beat up my 56-year-old father and my 14-year-old brother. He’s the person who sacks a pleading 14-year-old kid in the face. He’s a person who, I am sure, is gonna rot in hell.

I lash out, but my dad held me back. I was screaming my lungs out, shouting to this mayor, telling him about what he had done. I said: “Nakakahiya kayo. Singkwenta’y sais anyos ang tatay ko. And kapatid ko kakatorse anyos. Anong ilalaban nila sayo?”

The mayor looks at my brother, point to his face, and says, “Tatandaan kita!” And he tells me that my brother has a bad attitude and that I need to watch him. WHAT THE HELL?! So, my brother’s bad for defending his father?!

We leave. We walk to the clubhouse to file a complaint. My brother asks for a doctor. My dad could barely walk. Their group comes to the clubhouse, sees my brother. Once again my brother pleads, says sorry, and is crying. He was CRYING, for crissakes. But no. The relentless mayor still punches him in the face, and then sees my dad and goes after my dad again. Him and his friend pull my dad to the ground, pulls at his feet, and steps on him like he’s dirt. I run to him and try to hold him back, holding him back by his shirt, while this other guy and this girl tries to stop me. She tells me to just stop it. I scream in her face “they’re beating my father up and you want me to stop?!” I pull at his shirt–I don’t let go. All I can see was my dad being trampled on. I didn’t even see my brother getting beat up.

People pull them away. I get my dad, and I saw my brother. His right ear was bleeding. I freaked out. I told the receptionists to bring my brother to the clinic. I pull my dad away. People were separating us.

My mom and my older brother come. I tell her Bino’s right ear is bleeding. They both look like they could kill. My dad holds my brother off, I hold off my mom. When I finally got my mom under control, my older brother gets away and I hold him off. Two of the mayor’s bodyguards pull out guns. I embraced my brother from the back, just holding him back, crying. The receptionists came to us, crying, hugging me, my dad, and my mom, whispering to us to just leave. “Maam, umalis na po kayo, may mga baril sila…Maam…umalis na po kayo please…”

I am pretty sure the Secretary of DAR did not take part in the fight, but he just watched all this happen. He watched two of his sons, as we figured out, the other guy was his son, too, beat up my father and my 14-year-old brother. He didn’t do anything to stop it. And this person is what now? A cabinet member. A politician.

Sounds like something out of a movie, doesn’t it? But this is what happened. TODAY. The day after Christmas. To my family. And all I ask for is JUSTICE. The people at Valley Golf did not seem to want to help us. None of the security guards even tried to stop the fight. Right in the clubhouse. I came back after the fight was over and talked to the receptionists. They say they did not see anything. The general manager of Valley Golf would not give us the names of the men who made my brother’s ear bleed. It took him an hour. Maybe even more than that. He seemed to not want to help us. Because, we were against the SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM and the MAYOR OF MASIU CITY, LANAO DEL SUR. They were all scared.

The world has gone crazy. Two politicians beat up a defenseless 56-year-old father and his 14-year-old son. At a golf course. I swear to God, I thought golfers were decent people. You would think politicians were decent people. I guess not. I guess they gang up on 56-year-old men and beat up pleading 14-year-old kids.

Please pray for my dad, my brother and for my whole family. Please pray that we get JUSTICE. Oh God, please, give these people what they deserve.

Desperadas Dos

 

For lack of an available, larger poster:

 From Inquirer:

“Rich and beautiful half-sisters (Gutierrez, Quinto, Calzado, Rivera) meet their long-lost half-sis, Lugaluda Lugalu (Alcasid). Although they were at first suspicious of Lugaluda, the girls eventually warm up to the exotic princess from the Republic of Kwelali. Alcasid, who crosses gender lines for this adult comedy, describes Lugaluda as “maternal and loving.” “She saves her sisters from various predicaments and finds love in a young man at the same time,” says Alcasid. Gutierrez, Quinto and Calzado agree that Alcasid spices up the “Desperadas” sequel with his hilarious portrayal.“

Since a long time ago, I haven’t been a fan of Tagalog movies. Many of our movies’ plots seem to have been written on a tissue over merienda while eating a ginanggang on the sidewalk. This movie, Desperadas 2, was a bit different: This was conceptualized while eating the ginanggang upside down in the middle of the street naked; Poorly thought, minadali, parang na-pressure ang script writer sa plot para makakagawa lang ng script. Sayang. *sigh* In addition, the movie was still dubbed. We’re proceeding to year 2009, and we still have microphone hisses and some muffled sounds.

The movie was below average in my rating. It could’ve been worse, but aside from Ogie Alcasid’s female role saving her siblings from their plight, he also saved the movie a bit. He provided better comic relief than everyone else – until it got monotonous, but that’s beside the point.

There were also advertisements on the movie like many others: Barcelona Brandy, Nestle yogurt, Fit & Right, Nesvita, and Avon. I might have missed a few. Relax. Now it looks like a one-hour-and-fifty commercial, only bad.

See, our commercials are getting better and better, but our movies have only grown a bit – if not at all. Why is everything still dubbed? It destroys a lot of quality for the actors/actresses. Their acting is good, yes, but the voices make it less, or overly emphasized. 

Why do the plots sometimes seem too shallow? Many movies could’ve ended sooner, like 30-45 minutes, but no, we have to keep the people on their seats.

*Sigh*.

Oh by the way, I went home after the movie, I stopped by at Star Movies and saw it was playing Epic Movie. It was a lot better.. Really!

Merry Christmas!

After a long long long long long hiatus, I’m back. Or so I hope to be.

It’s funny how saying “no” makes the next easier to say “no” to. So let’s see, for the purpose of a blog, I will now recall the stuff that have happened so far.

* Ahem ahem *

I have a laptop now! This one just caters to what I need as of this moment: It helps pass the time, at the same time I can edit music and videos with this. Since this one is new, pinangga kaayo ni: I’m so protective of it that I hardly take it out of the house (so much for portability). I’ve bought a backpack though so that if ever I do take it out it wouldn’t look laptop-ish. If you’re curious of what my laptop is, it’s an Asus M50Vm-X1. If not, well, sorry, you already know.

Oh! And I just had a wonderful adventure on my home to Davao for the Christmas vacation. See, I missed my flight last December 22. My companion Mike and I arrived 3 minutes late. With that, the system at Cebu Pacific stopped, and couldn’t accept any more passengers. Even after trying to sweet-talk the lady over the counter, we really couldn’t go against the directives.

The 6:20PM flight was delayed. And even with the delay, we were still told to try our luck as chance passengers on the next flight, 5:00AM the next day. Distraught, we took the option, and decided to stay at the airport overnight.

There were a number of people who didn’t make it to the same flight, and we made friends with each other almost instantly. Funny thing is, we conversed like close friends – and we didn’t even know the others’ names!

The next day, out of the dozens of people who missed the flight, there were 6 who remained – A Silliman student Elaine, an elderly and very friendly Ate Malou, Luisa and her Austrian husband Anton (spelling?), my friend Mike and myself. (I hope to meet you guys again, you were really really fun to be with!)

While everyone was catching up on Zs, I passed the time playing Diablo II. >:) After which I spent the rest of the early morning praying for a trip home – at some point I was actually praying for someone to come in late, but that was bad, so I stopped thinking about it. On a side note, I’d like to advertise that praying the rosary helps, as in!

When the counters opened, the 6 of us got the first priority chance passengers, and waited for the announcement. The time was 4:00AM, and people were still pouring in – we had no chance, I thought. When the time that the system was supposed to stop, still more people were lining up. Oh noes! D:

The crew over the counters offered a different, but still feasible option: Take the flight to Cagayan de Oro, and then take the land trip to Davao City. And by God, we took it! Sayang masyado yung mga umalis para sa Pier.

The flight was on 5:30AM, arrived at CDO at 6:00 (short flight!), picked up our bags, the 6 of us joined forces, rented a Vehicle-for-Hire, passed by Jollibee, shared a few stories, and prayed the rosary for a safe trip! I felt so at home with them, and I didn’t know their names then! We arrived in Davao at around 2 o’ clock in the afternoon, and parted ways – fulfilled.

To Elaine, Ate Malou, Luisa, Anton: I hope you get to read this. I hope we get to meet up again in a much better situation hehehehe. Imagine, 92?!