Blogging Miles Around the Metro

…Most especially in this side of the world. Though the young social entrepreneurs featured in the e-card below are not from Southeast Asia, a good number from countries like the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand to name a few, were present at the Young Social Entrepeneurs’ Forum at GK3 recently held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This E-Card’s aim is to let the world know about the work of these young people all across the globe who put together business, innovation, and heart.

Concept by Gabriele Siegenthaler Muinde and Anthony David, put together by Idea!s and Tom Estrera. Help us spread the love, copy and paste to your blogs!

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Sighs!.. 2 days after the Glorietta 2 bombing.. a fire hit Seafood Seafood resto at Glorietta 4 around 12NN Oct 21,2007.

So what am i doing at Glorietta 2 days after the bombing last friday?

1. big possibility that there will be few shoppers around. (very true, very few people around)
2. i need to look for a new TV stand for a newly acquired TV..
3. low probability of having 2 accidents in the same week at the same mall .. (well i’m wrong..)

at around 12NN after visiting Automatic Centre and the furniture store beside it @G4.. a good number of people inside the mall just started running and shouting.. (what the f@#k! dont tell me there’s another bomb?).. I didn’t hear anything, so there’s no reason to panic- and just thought that maybe someone is just joking. haha.. Then all of a sudden most of the sales peep started packing their things and closing their shops. Don’t tell me there’s raid in this mall? there’s no pirated stuff in here right?..
Even heard someone shouted ‘ hay! wala na-naman benta’ ( no sales again.!)..ugh..

But i immediately changed my mind, when i saw the security guards of the mall started running and scrambling with their hand held radios. (oh no, its not a joke!).. after that, i turned the video cam of my Nokia N70 and walked to the nearest exit..

Outside G4, you can feel a state of panic.. police, firemen, paramedics, K9 units and your usual pinoy crowd started to work and of course speculate. I was impressed with the response time of the policemen, firemen and others on duty. They were there in a few mins (maybe because some of there were stationed at G2).

Anyway, just keep it cool.. no need to panic!

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With this stake in the ground, what do you think grows?

Photo taken by Marielle Nadal on the trail from the UP College of Fine Arts to the academic oval, UP Diliman, August 2007.

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I was standing along Katipunan road waiting for a cab, when from a distance, I spied this slow-moving, wagon-like vehicle. Yes, a karitela or kalesa is still quite alive (but barely–with all the smoke, heat and lack of greenery on the roads of urban Manila, you wouldn’t expect these beasts of burden to thrive and survive) in these parts. Sometimes you will see them parked along C.P. Garcia road on the University of the Philippines-Diliman Campus, the carabaos taking a breather, munching on grass.

Actually, I’m not quite sure what this type of karitela is called. I’m certain there’s a name specific to these carabaos who pull along with them entire inventories of lightweight household items to sell–baby swings, hammocks, brooms–mostly made from local materials like rattan, coconut tree leaves, etc.

Somewhat out-of-place against the urban landscape of pavement, overpasses and lamp posts, but no less a poignant reminder of our rapidly disappearing (or perhaps simply evolving) culture and customs.

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You’ll know summer in Manila has begun when urban folk start running into each other on the beach, when you start seeing the Chowking halo-halo ads, and when sunflowers once again line the main avenue of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

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Every morning, fresh-smelling people with mouths set in determined lines pour onto the sidewalks and flow into every available means of transportation to get to places they have to be in–to punch in their timecards, sit at their workstations and clickety-clack away before their computer screens. I used to hang with this crowd, and each day clamber into the white FX (usually an airconditioned van), where for the next hour I would be in the company of literally and figuratively, fellow dreamers. It would be early in the morning, so yes a bunch of us would try to sit back and catch up on sleep (one of the joys of public transportation), while the others would gaze blankly ahead. Dreaming, in their own way I would imagine, of things they want to do, lives they want to live, and how the heck they’re gonna be spending their paychecks come payday.

One time I was seated in one of those FXes where you sit facing each other, and in the middle of the trip, opened my eyes. There’s a surreal feeling when you open your eyes and realize that everyone around you is seemingly in a trance. I could just hear the cynic in me smirk, and say that we’re all zombies to the grind, anyway. But you can imagine everyone else seated in that vehicle, eyes closed, as if in meditation, charging up for the day ahead. By opening my eyes and blinking at everyone else with their eyes shut, I felt as if I was violating some sort of dream-sanctity. Maybe there’s something in the morning air that makes aspirations so crisp and tangible. Maybe it’s the silence giving way to the hum of the FX’s engine. Maybe I’m romanticizing too much the dreams and motives of those who hie off to work each day. But dreams, be they of a better future, or of being able to pay for your own tissue and beer, are aspirations that keep us alive nonetheless.

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A peace-loving Japanese says boycott war, patronize “I Love Sushi”. Hoooboy, this line can be so loaded with meaning.

Dev’s last entry on okonomiyake reminded me of these photos I took a while back documenting a project in Cotabato. The hotel we were staying at had this little Japanese restaurant with not just really good and inexpensive sashimi, but rather innocently humorous signages.

Photos taken by Marielle Nadal at the El Manuel Hotel in Cotabato (um, I forget exactly where the hotel is in Cotabato) in 2005.

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While stuck in traffic this morning, I was struck by this weird little scene:

Some might say it’s quite ingenious to build a treadmill for this dog to exercise. I however think it’s quite cruel to do so. Also, the dog was tied to the treadmill.

What do you think?

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They Buhay Coke (Coke Life) campaign of Coca-Cola saw numerous billboards pop up around main thoroughfares throughout Metro Manila. The billboards feature a variety of things—from superheroes to slice-of-life Pinoy imagery to random colorful objects spewing out of the Coca Cola bottle. And though the campaign itself has some admirable components, the billboards have been subject to quite a bit of controversy, from people wondering why the logo is seemingly cut, to it being some sort of subliminal message alluding to female genitalia.

For me, the Buhay Coke campaign really fits its visuals. This billboard is located near Eastwood, along Libis in Quezon City. You see, in Filipino (some still call our language Tagalog, but it’s officially called Filipino), the word “Buhay” can mean two things, depending on context and pronunciation, “life” or “alive”. Now even if the Buhay Coke campaign refers to the Coke Life, I would say the Coke spewing out of that bottle looks very much alive, and thus Buhay (ang) Coke—the Coke is alive.

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