Gelene

Back in Manila

I spent Christmas travelling (flying back to Manila from Sablayan/Apo Reef). I spent New Year’s also travelling (ride from Buscalan to Sagada). So it’s only natural that I spent my birthday on the road too (bus back to Manila).

There’s this superstitious belief that whatever you do in the New Year will set the tone for the rest of the year. Honestly, my 2023 was shit and it started with shit as well. I’m hoping 2024 will be better and my being constantly-on-the-road paves the way for positive energy.

I realized that I really like being on the road and I’m a goal-oriented person which doesn’t serve me well with many instances in Life where it’s really more about the process and the journey. This trip was a bit of both. I get bored once I’m done what I went there for and hidden gems are inadvertent finds like the grassroots Christmas thing in Sablayan.

Nothing ever really completely turns out the way we plan. In doing these things, the way I see it, I prepare myself for unexpected events in many other aspects in my Life. It’s not that I make things difficult on purpose; I just anticipate that things are going to get delayed, you’re going to find holes or mistakes within your planning etc which is why it’s always good to leave some padding on our schedules, budgets, and other factors within our planned routes.

I told my friends that I’m prepping for yet another jetlag. One of my good friends works night shift so it was perfect: he got off at 11pm so my other good friend and I waited for him (she didn’t have a set schedule).

I drank 2 espresso shots late in the day, to keep me up, before we headed out for some drinks and pool.

I noticed that my friend was pretty good at it.

“Yeah I used to cut classes in high school to go play billiards with a friend,” Roger said.

“Hindi na ako masyado magaling (I’m not that good anymore),” he adds.

“Well I guess now you need to cut work,” I jokingly replied.

I used to be somewhat decent at it in high school but I currently suck at it since I’ve had zero practice.

We compared tattoos afterwards as he went to go see Whang-Od as well. He was actually the one who gave me a heads up on what to expect and some rundown as well with regard to the tour guides.

Gelene and Roger’s Buscalan Tattoos

“Alanganin kasi yung dates mo (Your dates were weird),” he said in relation to my trip to Whang-Od. I went there on December 31st and left on January 1st so I didn’t have a lot of options.

“Mahirap maghanap ng joiner tour na maalaga talaga sa kliyente at para kang kaibigan at masaya kayong lahat. Karamihan kasi ang tingin sa’yo, pera lang (It’s difficult to find city tour guides who care about their clients, like you’re friends and the trips feel like a bunch of friends going. Most of them just look at you as money),” he explains.

I was ranting about the tour group I went with. I just thought they were so disrespectful and yes, while the Butbuts won’t do anything about his obnoxiousness because they bring in income, I think it’s awful that they’re taking advantage of it and inflating their worth to the tribe based on the tangible things they bring to the table. It’s like a paradigm for all things I hate about Western culture; materialism, greed, excess, deceit… games we play that create internal and external wars, greatly injurious to our well-being and our humanity.

Once we were done playing pool. We walked over to a bar and had a lot of real talk with our mutual friend, Kitsi.

I’m not going into detail with her personal troubles but when she told us, Roger asked me for a cigarette (he doesn’t smoke) because it stressed us both out. I got so pissed at one point that I told her to hold off on access on certain things when it came to the person in question.

However, I will narrate some things she told us during the drug wars when the former president straight up gave the cops license to kill when they catch drug users/sellers.

Apparently, they had a quota per day that they needed to fill so planting drugs on random people became a thing.

She told us about a pedal trike victim.

image courtesy of Gulf News

“Gabi na nun pero hindi pa masyadong late kaya marami pang tao. May pulis na isa at pinlantahan ng droga. Sumigaw yung driver, ‘Pinaplantahan ako! Pinaplantahan ako!’ Yung mga tao humiwalay. Walang gusto tumulong kasi ‘pag tinulunga mo, lagot ka rin. Sumisigaw sya ng ilang beses at dinadalian yung pag bisikleta nya. Tapos maya maya narinig na lang namin ang baril. Patay (It was nighttime but it wasn’t too late so there were still a lot of people; like a crowd. There was one cop who planted drugs in the trike. The driver started yelling, frantically, ‘They’re planting the drugs on me! They’re planting the drugs!’ The crowd parted. No one wanted to help because if you do, you’ll be in trouble too. He yelled a couple more times as he sped his cycling. Then we heard a gunshot and he was dead).”

So much heartbreak 💔

We all have a tendency to be petty, yeah, moreso than I would like to admit. But when you come across stories like these, that hits close to home since your friend experienced it just as you’ve witnessed similar things in the past, it changes something inside of you, I think.

It’s quite sad, really. My mother told me that her parents (my grandparents) never had plans to immigrate during their days because life was good. They were able to afford decent homes and such with a teacher’s salary and the cost of living was in good quality… and then fucking corrupt politicans came into power and stole $62 billion USD worth in Philippine Pesos, upheld the martial law (a lot of riots came with it), and ultimately fucked us.

After which, it just feels like there is no salvation in sight… it’s why my family left. Most, millions, of people in this country – and other countries for that matter – do not have the privileges that I have which I do not take for granted at all. I think it’s why I wept in Cebu; I already knew these things happen just as I’ve encountered similar things in the past but when it’s in your face, when you’ve been living in your sheltered life out in the West for so long, it’s a shock to the system. It hurts to not be able to do anything to help and I know even if I’m able to come up with something, it’s probably not going to be as measurable and will be more for myself to alleviate my own pain. It hurts… even as I type this, it hurts.

When my friend dropped me off my hotel, he asked, “Are you gonna be okay? You’re not gonna cry in the plane?”

I replied,”No. I’m gonna rethink my life.”

Toronto

I would usually feel a sense of sadness when I’m leaving in conclusion to a trip but I didn’t feel it here. When I got back home, actually, I felt my energy quite uplifted. I felt my perspective change with regard to how I see my life but the very first thing I did was get rid of about a third of my wardrobe and other stuff that I have no use for nor love.

But I did put up a wall dedicated to reminding me of this particular journey.

It’s composed of the fan that my friend gave me, the bamboo sticks that were used for my tribal tattoos,  the mask I got in Malaspascua, and a wooden necklace right on top of my Buddhist scroll (not pictured) that reminds me of one of my values.

My home has been a constant work in progress as I change things around here and there especially around New Year’s because I feng shui’d my place. I don’t mind. They’re labours of love and sometimes, the things that are put up here are literally stemming from places with people whose blood, sweat, and tears – including my own.

Life is never easy just as I know that good things come with bad and vice versa because these things tend to come together to maintain some kind of existential equilibrium. This is why I don’t believe in just “thinking positive” without considerations for the negative because the negative teaches us lessons.

We never really get to know a culture until we feel the way they feel with their worldviews because the intellect can only go so far. Like I always say, emotions – along with the senses – have a direct line to the subconscious so significant lessons are always emotional.

It’s been about two months since I got back, as I type this, and I’m still processing some things.

“We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that marks our lives. One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.” – Merle Shain

Keep treading your path, fellow traveller. It is only when embark on adventures that we get to experience various paradigms of Life.

Until next time.