Brawls. You know, those times when men (or boys) decide to box, kick and bludgeon each other senseless for the simple reason that they can. And in most cases, for the simple reason that they drank one too many bottles of Emperador Light. There's a reason why whenever you hear or read the word "brawl", it's always preceded by the word "bar". Apparently, the sidewalk or parking lot outside of a bar looks like a boxing ring or an MMA cage in the eyes of a tipsy man.
If you are a regular night-time customer in any of the establishments whether it be bars, restaurants or coffee shops along Session Road, I'm pretty sure you've been an unfortunate witness to a few (or several) of these brawls. It's a sad, sad thing. Session Road, the heart of the city, is being used as a battleground by drunken idiots and clueless students who think that fighting in the streets is cool. I get drunk too. Probably too often. But at least I don't go around kicking other people in the balls.
Here are two videos of recent brawls along Session Road:
In the first video, we see several men going at it and the aftermath with the arrival of the police. This is serious stuff right there. It's hard to know who are the culprits and who are the victims. One thing's for sure though, the man in a white shirt was seriously hurt. He can't barely walk and he looked like he's got a broken nose or worse, a broken jaw. He's clearly writhing in pain.
One thing I noticed is that why isn't there medical personnel accompanying the cops? I don't know how these things work but shouldn't the the bleeding guy be treated there and then? What if there's a stabbing or shooting? They just loaded the men into a police truck. Here's to hoping that they had him medically checked before they threw him in jail or whatever.
Update (as per the caption of the video): "On June 5, 2013 around 12:45am, another brawl - a bloody brawl -
happened which it started from Mabini Street then going to Session Road
and back. According to one of the involved, the man in white shirt
allegedly just suddenly attacked the man in gray jacket (one holding a
rag against his head) with a beer bottle which he sustained a head
injury along Mabini Street. The friends of the man in gray jacket then
bursts out and chased the man in white shirt, beating him in the middle
of Session Road, then they let him go, but then they went back to him
and dragged him back to Mabini Street where he cried for mercy. Moments
later, the mobile patrol unit of Baguio City Police Office came and
picked up the two men, brought them to a hospital then sent to BCPO
Station 7 where both men settled the argument."
In the second video, we see students (probably high school students) rumbling in the sidewalks of Session Road. This is a common occurrence caused by warring groups who like to call their groups "gangs". These are often clueless and immature teenagers who have nothing else to do.
I hope the authorities have seen this particular video and I'm hoping even more that they are doing something about it. The teenagers in the video can be easily identified. This is a small city with just a few high schools. I don't think it's too hard to identify the perpetrators, get a hold of them and teach them some lessons. If the police and the city schools concerned work together, they can do a lot to help make sure that these street fights between students don't happen again. These confrontations can be deadly if any of the young men is carrying a weapon.
As a long-time resident of this city, I want it to be safe. That I can drink my beer in peace. That I can walk the sidewalks at midnight without the fear of meeting groups of war-mongering young men.
Burnham Park, Baguio City's premier attraction isn't what it used to be. It's a far cry from the one that people visited and enjoyed a decade or so ago. A lot has changed and it's sad to say that most of these changes took away in one way or another the magic and uniqueness that the park used to have. Sure, the lake and the boats and the trees are there but it's a different park now. I'm not going to the details but the Burnham of before is better than the Burnham of now. And this is the price the city has to pay for developments. Well, that's what the city hall had been saying for the last several years. "Burnham is being developed." Developments here. Developments there.
And by development, they meant concreting almost every piece of bare ground to the point where trees get choked to death, fencing the park to keep away (who knows who they are trying to keep off), giving the park grounds for vendors to do whatever they want, and who knows what else.
And if these aren't enough, there are current proposals of building gates for the park and concreting the perimeter of the Melvin Jones Football Grounds for...*surprise, surprise*...vendors. Business is good and the city needs to do good business but what the hell. Melvin Jones is already in a SAD and SORRY state. It doesn't even deserve to be called a "football ground" in its current state. Go see the place. A few more puddles and it will start to look like a thousand carabaos played football there.
Anyway, it's good that there are commendable citizens of the city who are trying to protest these almost idiotic proposals (not to mention the loss of public funds that can be used in more productive projects). There's a petition penned by Karlo Marko Altomonte and you can help by signing it here. Or follow the link below. It will take just a couple of minutes for you to sign it. And thank you in advance.
By Melissa Cancino - I pay close attention to the online chatter around the Cordillera region and its indigenous people collectively known as the Igorots (of which I'm one). I follow blogs dedicated to this community. Some of these are written by fellow Igorots. And some are written by non-Igorots who are interested in learning more about our culture and traditions. I regularly check on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for conversations and posts that involve us in one way or another. I often scour the web for the latest articles and online content that concern us.
During one of these excursions, I came across the work of an American freelance photographer by the name of Jacob Maentz who now calls the Philippines home. This man's work is nothing short of amazing. Obviously, what I liked the most in his work is his feature on the Cordillera region and its people. You can check it out in this web page (his website). In the rather short time that he spent among the Cordillerans, he seems to know more about us than we do of ourselves. That speaks a lot of the passion and research he puts into his work.
Again, you can check out his photos and article here. Learn more about him here. Below is one of the photos he featured in his website.
Okay, so the Baguio-Benguet Diocese led by Bishop Carlito Cenzon came up with its list of "favored senatorial candidates". They are Mitos Magsaysay, JV Estrada, Antonio Trillanes, Lito David, Marwil Llasos, Koko Pimentel, Gregorio Honasan, Cynthia Villar and JC delos Reyes. What do all these candidates share in common? They are all against the Reproductive Health Bill. So yeah, they are favored by the church because they are against the RH Bill.
You want to become a senator in this country? Oppose the RH Bill and Catholic votes will rain your way. I guess that's what the church is trying to say. It will be funny as hell if any of those pro-RH senator candidates suddenly makes a turnaround and oppose the bill just to get a piece of the so-called "Catholic vote".
When the Baguio-Benguet Diocese released the list of "favored senatorial candidates", Bishop Cenzon was quick to clarify that the list is not an endorsement. According to him, the voting power still remains in the people's hands. I say that's bull. When you get up on a stage and mention a list of favorable candidates, that's endorsement. You are telling people who they should vote for. Plain as day.
To the Baguio-Benguet Diocese, if you really want the voting power to stay in the hands of the people, then stop telling them who they should vote for. Stop handing them lists of your "favored senatorial candidates". Let them decide which candidates to vote for. They are voting for themselves. They are not voting for the church.
There are two main reasons why I get hold of a book and read it. One, because of a recommendation by someone. Two, the title is catchy. In the case of William Gay's I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, it was the latter.
I've never heard of William Gay nor any of his work. But when I saw the book's title, it piqued my interest and I had to check it out. Good thing I did because it turned out to be an enjoyable read. I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down is a collection of thirteen short stories. These stories are categorized as Southern Lit (stories about the American south). Gay writes in the language of the south so if you're familiar with it, you'll end up reading the prose with the Southern accent at the back of your head.
Here are my thoughts on each one of them.
I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down – The first story in the collection, this tells the tale of an aging man running away from a nursing home and returning to his farm only to find out that his house is being occupied by a family of three. Thus starts a series of events that include the shooting of a man, the strangling of a dog, a visit to a taxidermist and an unintentional self-immolation with fire. Really good stuff. Meecham, the old man in the story reminds me of Clint Eastwood's character in the film Gran Torino. Tough, gritty, not one to back down from anybody.
This was also adapted into a film starring Hal Holbrook and Ray McKinnon. Below's the trailer:
A Death in the Woods – Here's an excerpt from this story that cut me a bit: “Yet she'd always been a person of silences, of dark places that you couldn't see into. He would have liked to see the world through the eyes she saw it with, but her vision of it seemed posted off-limits, no trespassing.” If I am to write an autobiography, that's exactly how I'm going to describe myself. At the center of this story is the discovery of a dead man in the woods near a married couple's house. The death was ruled a suicide from the onset but you will be left guessing as to why he did it in that particular patch of property. In a sense, this is a love story. A dark love story. You won't know the circumstances around it but it's a very interesting one nonetheless.
Bonedaddy, Quincy Nell, and the Fifteen Thousand BTU Electric Chair – This started out as a comedy and ended up in tragedy. It's town chick magnet versus a young beauty named Quincy Nell. In between them is an air conditioner. A lot of the events in this story defy logic but who cares about logic if you are enjoying the read? Bonedaddy, the lead character in the story sweeps a young girl off her feet, thinking he could just dump her the way he did with all the others. He was wrong. Very wrong. People have tipping points. When they are pushed to the limits, they will do things that you won't expect they would do in a million years. This story is a perfect example of that tipping point being reached.
The Paperhanger – This is a dark story. If it got any darker, it would be a horror story. It's one of those whodunit tales where a crime happens in the beginning of the story and the rest plays out trying to give clues as to what happened and who did it. What's interesting about this particular story is that even though the real culprit was divulged at the end, you don't know why he did it. Is he a serial killer? A man driving through a road of revenge? A ghost? We get a bit of backstory of the man but there's nothing in it to explain why he did what he did.
The Man Who Knew Dylan – The Dylan in the title of the story is a shoutout to the one and only Bob Dylan. But the famous singer has no real significance in the story. This story is basically the journey of a man, a girl and a thousand-dollar television set. Man goes to girl's home to get the TV. Girl presents government checks. They drive to town to encash the checks. And one thing just led to another. In the background is a dead man with a hole in his neck and stuffed in a freezer along with bags of green beans.
Those Deep Elm Brown's Ferry Blues – At the center of this story is Scribner, a man suffering from Alzheimer's. He's a man unsure whether he burned another man to death 25 years ago. Sympathetic to people afflicted with Alzheimer's, this tale gives you a first-person view of how sufferers of the disease live their lives. Scribner's antics come off as comical but they're all serious once you pause a moment and try to digest what they mean. Scribner flirts with a nurse saying “I'm still a pistol yet, and cocked to go off anytime. You ought to go a round with me.” In other times, he's throwing peas all over the living room and feeding prescription pills to chickens shouting “Get em while they're hot. These high-powered vitamins'll have you sailin like hawks and singin like mockinbirds.”
Crossroads Blues – Love. How far would you go to get back to a wife who just quit and ran away from you? Would you go after her and try to win her back? Or decide that the only way to go is to drive your car off the road or cut that pulsating vein in your left hand with a pen knife? Karas decided that his solution is the latter. He was unsuccessful however and this made him try one last hurrah to get his wife back. It didn't turn up to be the fairy tale he was wishing for.
Closure and Roadkill on the Life's Highway – Raymer is heart broken. His wife Corrie left him and shacked with a red-haired guitarist in a country band. Every single day of his miserable life, he keeps thinking of his ex-wife. And then an old man comes along and tells him a story of how he hid a huge glass jar full of money in a cave along the Tennessee River. Raymer thought this money could be his ticket to winning back Corrie. But he did the very opposite after learning that all Corrie ever cared about was......money.
Sugarbaby – Finis and Doneita, a couple who had been happily married for thirty years have everything going for them. Their two daughters have grown and married and living lives of their own. Then Doneita buys a dog she named Sugarbaby which Finis then shot with a magnum, blowing it off the porch of their house. The dog was yipping and yapping every night, robbing Finis of sleep. So Finis shot it dead with a magnum. “Goddamn you, Sugarbaby.” he said. Another tragic story of an old man going out of this world with a method of his choosing, albeit this method was a result of the circumstances caused by the idiotic actions of the people around him.
Standing by Peaceful Waters – Probably the saddest story in the bunch. Here we have a man named Bender, his wife Lynn and their young kid Jesse living in a house soon to be engulfed under water because there's a government dam being built around their farm. Bender is trying to hold out for as long as he can, hoping for a miracle that the government will just abandon the dam project. An argument with his wife Lynn turned everything for the worse. It turns out they have bigger problems than their house being under a hundred feet of water.
Good 'Til Now – I didn't particularly like this story but it's still worth a read. It's about a married woman having an affair with an artist/poet/musician.
The Lightpainter – At last, a family story wherein no old man's toting a gun or getting himself killed. The Lightpainter is about a family of three's rocky relationship with a young woman they welcomed to live in their home and considered to be one of their own. Sad circumstances caused the young woman to live through a path considered by society as filthy, bad and unacceptable. And the only one who seems to understand her plight is her foster father whom she kissed one night when she was just sixteen years old.
My Hand Is Just Fine Where It Is – I'm glad this is the last story in the collection because I didn't quite get it. I read it twice just to make sure I understood the whole thing but some bits still didn't make sense at all. The good writing and language is still there though so it's still worth reading.
In a nutshell, I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down is a great collection of stories. If short prose is your thing, this is a must-read.
Other works by Gay that you might want to check out are the novels Provinces of Night and The Long Haul. I haven't read these novels (although I intend to), so I can't comment on them.
