Octopus arms

"There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves."

~Jose Rizal (1861–1896), Philippine national hero

A couple of friends and I spent Philippine Independence Day, June 12, at the Ayala Museum. We got to silkscreen our own t-shirts courtesy of Team Manila, which brought its ScreenMachine for the event. In keeping with the occasion, the design they chose was a stylized Philippine flag with the year that the country declared its independence from Spain, 1898. The shirt in the foreground is still missing the red part, which is the pattern on the silkscreen frame on the right. Notice that the ScreenMachine just holds the tees and silkscreen frames—the printing still has to be done manually. In a country with a 7% unemployment rate and an 18% underemployment rate, I completely approve of Team Manila's production choice.

Team building

Our office trip to Bantayan Island (see yesterday's post) wasn't only for rest and recreation. The more important objective was team building. In our case, it was quite literal.
  Gawad Kalinga (GK), which means "to give care," is a poverty-alleviation and nation-building movement which builds houses and creates communities all over the Philippines for the poorest Filipinos. GK communities are known for their colorful houses, which is but the first step in the long process of poverty-alleviation. There is a young GK Village in Bantayan Island—named the Pope Francis GK Village—and we spent our first afternoon there.
  GK is completely funded by donations and powered by volunteers. The land for the Pope Francis GK Village was donated by the municipality, which increased the donation after Typhoon Haiyan destroyed many of the coastal villages in Bantayan Island. The houses are largely funded by Xavier School and the ERDA Group, both Jesuit institutions based in Manila.
   The simplest way of volunteering is by helping build houses, which is what we did. The boys did the heavy work of mixing the sand, cement and water. (I tried, but my arm strength is absolutely pathetic.) That's our big boss dude in the Hawaiian shirt.
  We passed buckets of the cement mixture for the floor of one of the units. Aside from volunteers, GK houses are built by their recipients, who have to log in 300 hours of labor and attendance in values formation workshops before they can move in. GK calls it "sweat equity." And the formation continues long after the beneficiaries receive their houses—necessary if one wants to build real communities and not just houses.  
  Before we left, some of the children of Pope Francis GK Village performed a dance for us, a dance that they had been practicing for a big GK event.

To learn more about Gawad Kalinga, and maybe even donate or volunteer, please visit their website.

Portrait with noodles

Kanzhu, a small restaurant that we tried recently, prides itself in its hand-pulled noodles. It's easy to understand why—freshly made noodles have a soft, wonderful texture that commercial noodles just cannot replicate. I think Kanzhu has to work on their broth, though—it was disappointingly bland and is a discredit to their hardworking noodle-maker.

What a job!

Ever wonder what an underwater archeological dig looks like? This diorama at the Museum of the Filipino People gives us a glimpse. The excavation site is in shallow waters near the shore, however, so barrel rafts rather than a ship could be used.

Twenty for half

An itinerant fruit vendor on the sidewalk outside the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish church was selling green mangoes, sampaloc (tamarind), and kamote (sweet potato). Green mangoes are sour and those who like them eat them with bagoong (fish or shrimp paste) or sea salt. Tamarind is also sour but it can be candied, and the fruit is also used for the soup base of one of our most popular dishes, sinigang. It was the tamarind that was selling for twenty pesos (less than 50 US cents) for half a kilo.

Building blocks

One of the brick walks of Eastwood Central Park, flanked by the colorful Eastwood Mall and the 1800 Building (an office building), leads to the Excelsior (a residential condominium building) across the street.

Painstaking

The next time you eat Chinese dim sum dumplings, slow down and savor every bite. A lot of effort goes into making each small piece—from the finely minced filling to the delicate, translucent wrapper.

BKK: First glimpse

This intricately detailed temple scene is just a small portion of the mural at the baggage claim area of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport.
  The richly elaborate mural covers one entire wall, and a couple of painters were still working on the last few panels when we went to Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, last November.
  Except for decorative details like the mural and some sculptures, however, the industrial steel and glass architecture of the airport can make it seem like anywhere in the world. Which is probably reassuring to people who travel a lot.

See murals from around the world in Monday Mural.

Of smiles and hearts

At the Blue Market social enterprise fair where I took yesterday's photo, I was immensely gratified to learn about Quezon City's Sikap Buhay Entrepreneurship and Cooperatives Office. More than just a microfinance program, the office helps its poor clients with business development and planning, and it also helps the micro enterprises find new customers and markets. In fact, their stall in the fair featured the handicrafts of several cooperatives and enterprises, which included bags, mats and picture frames woven from fabric scraps, used paper and foil packs. Less garbage for the city, livelihood for the city's poor, and useful products for their customers. Everyone wins.

Daytime reality

The business side of the University of the Philippines-AyalaLand TechnoHub during daytime. The public center with the restaurants and shops are mainly a service to the many Business Process Outsourcing and technology companies which have their offices in the compound.

All-nighter

In 2008, the University of the Philippines–Diliman and property developer Ayala Land teamed up to create an information technology park in a section of the state university's unused land. Located in the northern-most side of the campus, the 38-hectare UP-AyalaLand TechnoHub is a low-density complex made especially for Business Process Outsourcing and technology firms. Many of its current tenants are large contact centers but, as befits the mission of the higher education institution half of the partnership, it is also a technology business incubator and is home to several small high technology companies.

Taking a break

I'm not quite sure what he's selling (onions?), but it cannot be easy in Manila's hot and polluted streets.

Taken from the comfort of an airconditioned car just outside the historic walls of Intramuros and the Club Intramuros Golf Course. Sigh.

Dressed to the nines

The second floor landing of our office building got all dolled up with a lovely faux indoor garden for its blessing yesterday.

This is my fifth location in the twelve years that I have worked in the same office at the Ateneo de Manila University. I just have three things to say about it. One, I really hope that this is my last move; it's just so stressful, especially when you're the one who has to manage it. Two, I'm very, very thankful that this time, I didn't have to manage the building's renovation, unlike back in 2008. And three, I'm going to miss our jungle (though maybe not the bugs and pythons).

Looking after the future

Metro Manila's sewerage system is one of the worst in Asia. We do not have sewers, only drains. Which means that we do not have a centralized sewage treatment plant either and that is why our rivers are all dead. The government-owned public utility company Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), which was supposedly responsible for water distribution and sewerage but did poorly in both counts, was privatized in 1997. Manila Water holds the concession for the eastern half of the metro, which includes Quezon City, where my husband and I live and work. During its first decade, its main concern was to get water to those areas which still didn't have running water and to plug all the wasteful leaks in the system. It has done quite well with those particular tasks and, at the start of its second decade, it began the even bigger task of getting a proper sewage system in place. It has finally reached our barangay and we've been living with the noise of jackhammers for several weeks now. This is what the road which connects to our street looked like last week and our own street will look like it sometime in the near future. We're not complaining, and I have not heard of anyone in our neighborhood complaining either, which I think is wonderful. It will take a long time, but there is hope for Metro Manila's rivers and waterways yet.

Campus jungle

Yesterday's building might have been a disappointment, but its location is something that the Ateneo de Manila University can be proud of. Despite the growth of the student population and the increase in facilities, the school has still managed to keep several relatively large stands of woods in the campus. The Biological Research House is within one of them, which has been left alone to grow wild. This is what the mini-forest looks like from the street. The bridge is off the frame to the right.




Our little office building sits at one edge of the woods, and this is part of what I see from the fire exit just outside my room. The green is soothing to eyes tired of staring at a computer monitor, but there is one particular disadvantage: you won't believe the bugs and other creatures that sometimes get inside our building. The worst we've had so far is a baby python sleeping just outside 'my' fire exit (I'm proud to say that I didn't freak out when I saw it). Thank goodness it was still young—it was less than two feet long and a maintenance staff just picked it up with one hand. Seven-foot pythons have been caught in the campus several times. When they're that big, the school turns them over to the Ninoy Aquino Parks & Wildlife Center.

Art and money

I've noticed that some of the most extensive art collections in the Philippines, both paintings and sculptures, are owned by banks. One of these days, I have to find out whether the bank buys them as investment pieces or if they're accepted in lieu of cash when an artist or collector defaults on a loan. I didn't get the name of this sculpture or its artist, but I saw it in the lounge of Banco de Oro's head office when our university hosted an event for alumni employed by the bank.

See what's reflecting what at James' Weekend Reflections.

Jam-packed

The district of Binondo is Manila's Chinatown. It is a densely populated area, with more than twelve thousand people crammed into its .66 square kilometer (.26 square mile) land, according to the 2007 Philippine population census. Despite its narrow, crowded and oft-dirty streets, Binondo has one of the highest land values in the metro. No houses here, just cheek by jowl office and apartment buildings which are all at least three stories high. No matter what the building is, the street level spaces are all eateries, retail stores and commercial enterprises.




About the only thing that distinguishes an office building from an apartment building in Binondo is the laundry drying in the balconies of the latter.

All in a day's work

Our office always makes it a point to document all our events, both for the university website and also for our sponsors. I don't know what our grounds maintenance personnel uses this platform for, but it's great for recording an event taking place in a huge field. And isn't that acacia tree top just luscious?



By the time I finished my circuit around the field, my office mate was already holding an umbrella up. Probably not so much to keep the heat of the sun off, but because she can't see what's on the LCD screen for the glare.



I wish I could send some sun and heat to those still in the grip of winter. Our evenings and dawns are still a bit cool, but Metro Manila is already hitting 32°C at mid-day!

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Raise the roof

Though I root for the Blue Eagles when it's basketball season, I have to confess that I'm not really much of a basketball fan. The only reason why I was at the Back 2 the Bonfire program last week was because our office was involved in organizing the event. In other words, it was just work for me—fun work, but work nevertheless. Anyway, we were at the parking lot early so we saw the stage being set up. We arrived while they were hanging flood lights and speakers from the ceiling frame and we wondered why the ceiling of the stage was so low. It looked kind of claustrophobic. Then these guys grabbed chains at the four corners and started pulling them to raise the ceiling. Oh!



But what happens when a chain gets stuck? Then someone has to climb up to untangle it by hand.

Siesta time

Because of the Philippines' hot and humid weather, taking a siesta after lunch is common practice especially if your work requires laboring under the sun. What made me smile about these construction workers is the fact that they were building a new library in the Ateneo de Manila University. When I was still a student, a friend and I would always take noon naps in the library. We never got caught.