A posting post the post

Gregg was right. I was totally the different person when we met later in the night, after I wrote that awful, desperate and whiny post about I having nothing of urbane civility left almost a week after Milenyo. Writing seemed to have purged all the angst. I asked him to join me in Malate while at home, enveloped in the now-familiar sticky heat darkness, after realizing that I don't need to endure another depressing candlelit night. We, which later also included Mark, hung out at Chelu and drank for no special occasion... well, maybe except for one, my liberation from all anger and anxiety of the previous days. Or maybe this night marked the last stage before grieving for my destituted existence could genuinely begin. We drank, got modestly drunk, and I wasn't too modest about spending my dwindling savings on luxuries like beer. We also ate, we ate a lot while Gregg complained about needing to lose the weight he's packing in between bites of balot, chicken skin and all other sorts of street food fare.

At one point, Mark realized that we haven't been together like this for a long, long time, us being essentially what's left of our Gen Gali/Mr. Piggy's peer group. What was intended to be a simple night of needing to get drunk so I could sleep for much longer, ended up in anticipation for Sunshine Dizon (that's gayspeak for sunrise). Back home, morning sunlight was already beginning to pour in my room, on my bed. How to sleep in bright daylight and the heat of the day microwaving you in the bedroom? Well, I didn't sleep much. Again.

Then the day before power was restored - and the fallen billboard was cleared - I flew to Davao to attend the Philippine National Convention on HIV and AIDS, for the first time held outside Metro Manila. PNAC was sponsoring two community fora during the convention; I was supposed to facilitate small group workshop sessions during one of the fora. The fora didn't bring results we expected, and I feel that the organizers would have to explain their "interference." (But I'm not going into this - at least, not right now.) But the best thing I got from this trip was sleep. When I settled in the hotel on the first night (some cheap but functional inn near Davao Doctors Hospital), I was already asleep 8PM (which is very early for me) and slept 12 hours straight. I had an itchy throat the morning after though; I ran the A/C full blast directly on me all night. Talk about depravity.

When I got back in Manila, the first week of restored electricity also little by little restored our normal activities. That meant getting back on the oh-so-many concerns from within the office to PNAC and to wherever else. I haven't submitted that ADB proposal yet, after learning that I have more time until the deadline for the second round of submission. I once promised myself to finish it as soon as power was restored and life normalized again but *sigh* the momentum somehow was lost, I mean, that frenzied, fierce and inspired drive to write and beat the deadline. Crammers from all corners of the Earth would know what I mean.

I didn't have a particular angle when I started this post, I'm not sure what my point is. Maybe this is an assurance that I'm still a sane person after all insanity. Maybe this is a closure that attempts to be dignified, after having exposed oneself as an embarassingly, half-crazed whine-bag. Or maybe, quite simply, this being the posting post the despondency post is itself the angle.

Anti-discrimination bill - update from the House

I've been meaning to post this e-mail update from Jonas regarding the Anti-discrimination Bill. I received this last October 13.

Early morning today, in between deliberations on the 2007 budget, Rep. Nograles (House Committee on Rules Chair) and AKBAYAN Reps. Risa Hontiveros and Mayong Aguja (Etta was in Mindanao) tried to have the Anti-Discrimination Bill passed on Third Reading. It would have been passed, along with a few other bills, had Rep. Abante of Manila been wise enough to understand the definition of human rights and his mandate as the chair of the House Committee on Human Rights. He stood up and said that he would interpellate the bill since he believes that what it promotes is "morally reprehensible." Rep. Nograles himself tried to reason out with him, but he was very adamant. Abante was also informed that they want to go through the approval of the ADB because there are other bills that had to be approved. Abante was unconvinced and even squatted beside the podium of the Majority Floor Leader (he decides on what bill to tackle) "para bantayan ang Anti-Discrimination Bill." He also argued with Mayong about the immorality of LGBTs, but Mayong just walked out. Abante was already being jeered by his colleagues, but the idiot was bent on filibustering.

He did not budge until session was finally adjourned at about 5 AM today. It will resume on November 6. Nograles assured AKBAYAN reps. that the bill will definitely be approved during the first week. If you have some cash to spare, send Abante a one-way ticket to Kitaotao or Guimaras just to get rid of him during that crucial moment. Also, spread the word: don't vote for him next year.

(Abante is the same guy who wanted to burn Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.)

Despondency in Milenyo's aftermath

I'm on the brink of despondency. I'm now at an Internet cafe somewhere in Greenbelt. I decided to log in again after growing tired of wandering aimlessly in the mall, which was preceded by an absent-minded ride at the MRT, which was preceded by an earlier Internet cafe visit at a different mall in Pasay City.

Two more days left and I will soon be commemorating one week since Typhoon Milenyo's ravage. Two more days left and I will soon be one week's worth of an urban wreck, having no respectable clothing and shelter, in danger of losing ability for food sustenance, unemployed full time. I should be relieved that I am excused from doing more work. But I'm not. Technically, I only earn a meager allowance by the day, for every day at work. So, no electricity, no office, no work, no money. Milenyo has removed so much of the functionalities at work and conveniences at home (which for me are two areas dissected by a street); Milenyo will soon wipe out my savings.

Just last week, the only thing in my mind was finishing writing a project proposal for the Asian Development Bank. I've been working long hours again: on day time, most administrative work and meetings with NGO partners, and at night, banging the keyboard for the ADB proposal. Wednesday night's work capped off with a cool breezy six a.m. logoff from the computer. “Brrr-months na talaga,” I even remarked as I luxuriously stretched in bed and fell asleep. But around 9 a.m., my phone rang, my hunny told me about how wild the storm seemed to be like... Storm? I remembered that over last night's dinner, Joel (one of our directors) and I were discussing that incoming storm. I looked at my window and saw an almost mesmerizing feverish Tahitian-like dance of trees and tree branches. I couldn't recall now everything that my hunny and I talked about.

The next few hours would be a whirl, which started with rex's sweat-and-rainwater wet look appearance and announcement that the office across the street has a problem with windowpanes wildly flapping and banging. That would be our office; time to bring in the cavalry. The battle to contain the windows – prevent their impending crashing disastrous endings – would become also a three-stage scientific experimental activity on different kinds of binding strings, precisely, which kind would be strongest and could prevent the fierce storm winds from successfully prying open and ripping windowpanes away.

Around 12 noontime, after the brief peaceful passing of the eye, the clouds changed directions and winds started to howl (literally); for the first time in my life, I witnessed it blowing hard downwards. At the living room window, I was watching the widening pendulum of a building's signage, knowing with wicked surety that it would soon fall and fly off. I grew drowsy from watching, so I went back to my room, took a quick shuteye... the rage and the howls soon tunneled out of my consciousness. And I would have wished to have kept myself asleep until all the nasty events of the aftermath passed. Meralco restoration became the indicator for restoring norms in the Metro – last Sunday, Meralco was around 80-plus percent finished, our neighborhood was in the minority 20-percent; last night, the talk was 97-percent, so now we're in the minority 3-percent? You cannot get luckier than that.

I think I'm passing through the stages of grief, not in discrete stages, but seemingly altogether, one or some varying in degree/s from the others. I knew I was in denial several days ago, every visual of disaster an abstract, interpreted as blanks in my mind. I've lately been angered at any and all I could relate to the typhoon, from the government, to neighbors, to nasty, long-dead, former friends' pets. Since yesterday, I've have started to feel the ugliness of desparation – I was even feeling a bit resigned (that very, very passive and obese cousin-cum-nemesis of indignation) when I lost a precious 500-peso bill in the dark outside. Thanks to a few bottles of beer last night, my mind was numbed from feeling any further. And this morning, itself being a bright, shiny proof that alcohol doesn't offer any sustaining solution to problems, my escalation to despondency continued. Right now, I feel I want to spend everything that I've left and start looking all greasy and smelly, begin prospecting for a likely, homely sidewalk. I wonder if I could sell myself as an idea – one big, fat beggar, who speaks English upon demand? And if anyone would be interested, I could write project proposals too for the ADB.