POST 156 2nd DAYTIME POSTING

CHOOSEday, March 03, 2009
Manila

Wanted to post a lot of things regarding my trip to Batangan... Living in the boondocks is different here in the TROPICS as compared with in the MIDEAST/KSA or maybe the temperate areas of snowy Europe & the Americas... "Laid-back"? unsure of the idiom...

It rained there & even now while I am typing this... This rain is apparently too early/out of season. I remember we usually had rain in May & not March which is the start of summer. CLIMATE CHANGE?

One can get along on low budget there in the province. My aunt went to market & for at most P100 was able to take home so many eatables/delicacies... We had for lunch sinaing na TULINGAN, APTA with calamansi or tomato as dip, & vegetable soup/stew of SIBATSI, KADYOS, GABI, BAGO leaf - I do not know its equivalent in English. Our stunted BAGO tree is supposed to date back to the 1900's-1920's because my aunt told me, "KINAMULATAN na niya ito." Yet it is only the size of a leg in diameter but with lots of leaves. SIMPLE FOOD yet the TASTE is very different. Delicious & satisfying. (She didn't buy TAWILIS which I really prefer SINIGANG & plain fried. Maybe because the ingredients are FRESH. But I won't trade such natural healthy food for what the STOOP MASSES eat for lunch in the fast foods here in the metropolis which leaves one an empty/unsatisfied "aftertaste" & feeling of being CHEATED of one's money.
And after the meal I had some delicious sweets including candies & read on
DEVLIN's GOODBYE DESCARTES (about LOGIC) & DENNETT's BREAKING THE SPELL (which I want to react on coz it's about PHILO of RELIGION)...
SIMPLE LIVIN & HIGH THINKIN!!! A very satisfying experience in the BOONDOCKs... Much much better than shopping in a MALL a la a shopaholic...

My aunt is now very unreliable regarding her memory... Sometimes mistaking
later events (1960's-1990's) for earlier ones (1900's-1950's) and the places
Zambales for Batangas... But I got some more new stories...

Some other "HISTORICAL" notes worth mentioning from kuwento-kuwentos:

-in the 1950's under QUIRINO or MAGSAYSAY or even CPGARCIA administration, there was a Batangas "rebel" named MEDRANO. [Historical researchers check the old news.] My other's cousin (=a distant uncle) related that this guy got into trouble with the authorities in Manila. He was a mayor or some political /public figure who refused to obey the central govt. in Malacanang... He was hunted by the PC (Phil. Constabulary) & he hid in our town.

-in the late 1940's or early 1950's, there were lots of U.S. ARMY ammunition dumps in our town- bombs, bullets (Before in the 1960's & 1970's it was relatively easy to find CALIBER .50 bullet-tips in our yard - just kick through the soil & you will almost always find one). The story-teller related he got hit by a shrapnel near his calf/ankle when some American soldiers burned?? some junks. YULING, the son of Ka DOMINE along with four others (I forgot their names which I memorized. Am also growing very old!) got BLASTED to smithereens by a huge bomb they were dismantling for gunpowder/parts which they sold. The story is that as their usual practice he was riding on the bomb & hammering away at it when accidentally the "PISTON" was hit... The explosion was so powerful it could be heard for kilometers & destroyed glass windows in our town. The bits & pieces of the bodies of YULING & his companions had to be "picked off" (SINUNGKIT) from the tall BAMBOO poles of the KAWAYANAN... This was in the late 1940's or early 1950's. Even today I feel it is VERY DANGEROUS to cook at haphazard spots/places there. Usually, they set three big stones & put on a huge KAWA/cauldron on top for cooking during festivals, BAYSANANs (marriages) etcetc & light a fire using firewood... What if there is a bintage bomb hidden exactly below the spot?! There might still be unexploded bombs buried there. In fact, I WON'T BE SURPRISED at all if this happens again... More about the U.S. ARMY in Batangan later...

-there used to be lots of PUNGAPUNG plants (someone told me this was the RAFFLESIA of SUMATRA but the biggest I had seen as a child had a stem as thick as an arm.) in Batangan. Its growth marked the start of the rainy season. It had a strong odor & we were encouraged to DESTROY the plant whenever we saw it. It was supposed to be an UNWANTED plant like the weed. I enjoyed hitting it with bamboo arrows because of its soft stem. One may chop it down with one stroke of a GULOK.
-FLORA is not as abundant as before. Even in our yard & nearby areas there used to be lots of BAMBOOs, GUMAMELAs, COFFEs, CACAOs, even the CITRUS SINTURIS (NAVEL ORANGES) which they used to vend/sell along the way/in the buses... They're all gone...

BUS TRAVEL
21st-century bus travel...I shall post images of how buses used to look like - I was able to ride these in the past, when I was a kid. The conductor had to hang out the bus like TARZAN... or CHEETAH?HAR!

Today in the metropolis one welcome change (improvement) I notice is the new buses (CHINA or KOREA?) with very wide windows with relatively low fares. Gives one the feeling of being a first-class TOURIST instead of an OPPRESSED WORKER/PROLETARIAT... A sly POLITICAL tactic by the gov't or bus associations?
Tickets are now printed by electronic cash register-type ticketing device worn on the wrist by bus conductors. But HIGH-TECH does not necessarily imply HIGH-INTELLIGENCE. ON THE CONTRARY!!! For example, I have experienced this several times already. The conductor asks your destination then prepares the ticket & gives it. Then he moves towards the back repeating the procedure.
Then starting from the back, he asks for the payment/fare & even questions the passenger about his destination - the conductor had already forgotten about it! This is INEFFICIENT and shows people nowadays have either become really stoopid or they are not using their coconuts! The conductor should go back to the front area to collect fares instead of retracing (FIFO...) his steps. What if a passenger in front is destined for a nearby place. He can get off the bus without paying!
IN THE PAST (1960's or even early 1970's) this was the procedure:
Starting from the front row/area, the conductor asks each passenger for his destination, and REMEMBERS the faces of the passengers & their destinations. He does this for everyone & moves towards the back asking the passengers about their destinations and he relies on PURE MEMORY for his DATA. Then he prepares ALL the tickets in one movement... Chipping away at the tickets using his metal puncher (which I imitated at play as a child using a device at home which gave a similar clicking sound)... Then he goes in front & issues the correct ticket to each & every passenger. Then he collects the fares... NOTE VERY WELL that bus conductors then were USING THEIR COCONUTS!!! COMPARE NOWADAYS - Sometimes I thought I would appear VERY CONSPICUOUS with my get-up & i would be easily remembered... But NO... the conductor had already forgotten about me! The stupidifying effect of powder mix additives in MAMI-NOODLEs or plastic bottles of H20 or fluoride in toothpastes or what?
SO, do you blame me if I feel people NOW are getting more STOOP by the masses & that there INDEED is a GLOBAL CONSPIRACY to do so...

YOUTUBE LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjBlZl8RON8
ORIGINS OF WHITE PEOPLE
by: KnowYourSelfs

TMNP