GIRO D' NUEVA ECIJA

Primoz Roglic wore pink as Amaud Amare rode through a pile of broken bikes bikes with Caleb Ewan out sprinting the peloton and Cesare Benedetti ruling the first day in the Alps as Ilnur Zakarin also took one in the mountains.   

The Phantom of the Trails chased pansit kanin at Violy's Kainan and a slab of fried liempo at Jethro Eater for the entree, had monggo and barbecue at Luming's Canteen for the main course, and splurged on egg caldo somewhere and grilled liempo at Johsric's Place for dessert. 

At the Giro D' Italia, the pros feed on energy bars, gels and cab drinks while at the bike trails of Nueva Ecija, I forage for rice, meat and beer.

It is the first rest day of the Grand Tour, my 13th ride of the month and our last moment in the podium where we bid addio to a memorable Amaranthine year and P200,000 spent with no regrets.

THE MAY 13 MASSACRE

They saw it coming, so the anti-establishment who was once the establishment offerred a sacrificial lamb for slaughter in the election for 12 Philippine senators.

Para lang masabing sumali sila.

Nevertheless, the "enlightened elite" supported Otso Diretso which I also did except for Bam Aquino and Mar Roxas whose family names are the manifestations of our elite-dominated democracy that has benefitted so much and yet gave so little, and also Akbayan for sentimental reasons and perhaps my requiem to what was once the future of new politics which is now a hollow shell of what it claims to be. 

Ano ang napala sa pakikipagsabwatan?

  
I am tired of the Left and the Right, of yellows and reds, and would rather paint a new picture on a blank canvass that is bereft of political colors.

Mahilig magpinta ang mga nasa middle class. 

The partylist which is an appeasement to those in the margins of society has been hijacked and must be abolished, the political system that is designed to perpetuate the rule of the elite should be overhauled to ensure parity.

Hindi eleksiyon kundi...    

What are the options now?

I don't worry about the Senate and its "presidentiables" who will play their cards smartly (and cunningly) with 2022 in their minds. .

An extrajudicial solution is a scary scenario that will just escalate the polarization of the country between the reds and the yellows.

Furthermore, I look at Duterte's election as a counter move from a neglected public along the lines of the masa going for Erap in 1998.

Erap was eventually deposed by the established elite with the backing of the military but that won't happen to Duterte who seems to have the military's full support, who blasphemed almost everyone and is getting away with it, and has a strong base of support in the provinces that sorround imperial Manila.      

I don't like Duterte but this time, I'm not willing to usurp the will of the neglected public who elected him to office like when we betrayed the masa by ousting their president in 2001. 

What shall we do?

I say wait it out in the short term since "natural causes" might just be around which is the band-aid solution.

But what we need in the long run is radical change that should be led by an ideologically-neutral movement, a third force that can consolidate the silent majority, with new leaders as popular as Erap with a political will that is stubborn as Duterte's. 

Menawhile, let's pack the guns and contemplate with Johnny Walker Black on the rocks.

ZAMBOANGA HERMOSA

Cesar Climaco, MNLF, curacha, a collapsing foot bridge

And a ditty that goes: "Don't you go, don't you go to far Zamboanga..."

These are my immediate images (and sound) of Zamboanga, the Philippines' southernmost city where we were enroute despite security jitters.

But we have to eat first before Flight PR2997, in a culinary red light district near La Loma where we lunched in our blazing red shirts on ochre pares (beef stew, fried rice, hot soup, cold water) served in orange plates and bowls while sitting in red plastic chairs and drinking from red pitchers, shaded from the sun by a heavy red canvass, and jumped into our Hawaiian clothes right after arrival for the Tropical Aloha Night, the Sir Knights scavenging dinner from leftover carcasses of roasted pigs and fresh slices of tuna sashimi which I gleefuly tossed with an unlimited supply of Chivas Regal and Johnny Walker Black.

The Aeropuerto Intenacional de Zamboanga is just 3.1 kilometers to the Grand Astoria Hotel which is just 650 meters from the Metropolitan Cathderal of the Immaculate Conception which is 450 meters to Plaza Pershing which is 140 meters to the City Hall which is 850 meters to Fort Pilar.

We strolled the next day in our dark green Zamboanga Hermosa shirts through old shops with antique wooden doors and locks, attended mass at the modern candle-inspired Cathedral (circa 1998), passed through minute Plaza Pershing (circa 1915), and took photos at the colonial City Hall (circa 1905).  

At Fort Pilar (circa 1635), ghosts and history faded in and out each ancient wall and umindful of the passing time, we gawked across the placid waters of Basilan Strait to the silhouette of Basilan Island, wondering why a sight so beautiful would draw such a violent history. 

We came for the 43rd Grand Session and for the curacha too, so called because it resembles a giant cucuracha (cockroach), in where else but at Alavar's Seafood Restaurant where the crabs are cooked in a special Alavar sauce which with the java rice, shells, shrimps, fish and more crabs took an hour that we whiled nibbling on sweet and crispy martillos from Fort Pilar.  

There were six dress changes in the next three days: one each for Monday and Mascota Night; thrice for Tuesday, the Draping Ceremony and Broadway Night; twice for Wednesday's Installation Ceremony and Masquarade Night, and we were the Blue Boys of District 5!  

The costumes alone during Broadway Night intimidated us but we persisted with our interpretation of "The Sound of Music" which earned us a 5,000 pesos consolation prize while I as Captain Von Trapp was adjudged as the Best Male Performer (with HL Eva Panopio as Best Female Performe).

All five Courts and District 5 got their "Outsanding" (and many more) plaques too! 

Zamboanga Hermosa might be our first and only visit to Asia's Latin City, and that raison d'etre and the consololation prize from Broadway Night decided that we go see for ourselves Sta. Cruz Grande's pink sand beach which according to the National Georgraphic is one of the 21 best beaches in the world, although I would argue that it is best described as "almost pink".

There was the lagoon too that, guarded by two police escorts in full battle gear, we explored in tiny yellow vintas while amusedly listening to the story of the male and female bakawan, chased jellyfishes through a forest of seagrass, and bravely munched on freshly harvested sea grapes before heading back to the [almost] pink sand beach where we cajoled an early lunch from our English-speaking guide so we can go back to the hotel before check-out time.    

We made it to check-out with enough time to explore the colorful stalls of the Canelar Barter Trade Center, rummaging through fake Levi's jeans, an assortment of southern apparel and accessories, a stash of food and beverages probably smuggled from nearby Malaysia, and pills that we are told is guaranteed to stir the libido of both men and women.

Zamboanga Hermosa is the best Grand Session I have attended so far and we surely enjoyed every day of our stay that is appropriately concluded with an early dinner at the dingy and almost dilapidated Savoury Restaurant who claims to serve the best pansit in the city, before we crammed into our airport shuttle for a chaotic check-in and eventual flight to Manila via PR2998.

Muchas gracias!  

THE KILLING FIELDS

We finished all the beers at 1 AM during on our last night in Cagayan De Oro after which I grappled with sleep and the pleasant memory of a car named Altea, travelled to Laguindingan Airport at 3 AM and touched down in Manila at 6:25 AM, napped at Red Planet-Binondo at 10 AM after brunching at the New Toho Food Center and Lan Zhou La Mien, went to NAIA 3 at 7 PM and arrived at Villa Langka Boutique Hotel in Phnom Penh at around 2 AM.

I told myself that I will spend the Sunday in my hotel to mend myself and that was how it was until Moe and Vin arrived in the afternoon and convinced me to join them fo a visit at the Killing Fields where we also had our late kunch.   

The "Killing Fields" was coined by Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran whose ordeal under the Khmer Rouge Regime and eventual escape was made into a movie with the same title that I first  watched as a high school student in Almaguer, and refers to several locations in Cambodia where almost 1.4 million of the estumated 1.7 to 2.5 million Cambodians who died in the genocide were executed.

The "Killing Fields" in Phnom Penh is actually an extermination camp in the village of Choeung Ek where prisoners who survived torture at S-21 or Tuol Sleng Prison were bludgeoned, stabbed, hacked and bashed to death because using bullets for execution was deemed too expensive.

Only 7 of the estimated 14,000 people who were interred at Tuol Sleng and transported to Choeung Ek survived, with most of the Cambodian prisoners executed at Choeung Ek while prominent persons and foreigners were killed and buried at Tuol Sleng.  

I've been to Tuol Sleng in 2004 and since then, and I've been hounded by the graphic photos of prisoners taken when they were alive and after their gruesome deaths.

I was told Choeung Ek would be more disturbing but I found it sanitized after being turned into a memorial park, the tree where infants were bashed to death now richly adorned with multi-clored bracelets.

In Tuol Sleng, I can actually visualize the prisoners and hear their screams of agony.

We Grabbed from the "Killing Fields" to the Russian Market [Phsar Tuol Tom Poung] for what is allegedly the best iced coffee in Phnom Penh where we got lost trying to find and when we did at Shop 547 of "The Best Iced Coffee in Phnom Penh, only one serving is available which we agreed for Moe to have while we settled for the version of the nearby "The Best Iced Coffee of Cambodia".

"How can such a gentle people be capable of such extreme violence?" I pondered during Monday's monologue on private sector engagement but come ot think of it, such genocide is actually being perpetuated today in the name of profit and wealth creation, with entire communities dispossesed and laborers worked to death for the benefit of a few billionaires!

Just how much is the share of the cooks, servers, entertainers and cleaners from the bill we paid for our reception dinner at the Bhopa Phnom Penh Titanic Restaurant? 

If the monolithinc private sector multi-nationals is the devil incarnate and Oxfam is the pretentious angel of salvation, can they actually work together on equal terms to save humanity? 

That I was not able to rationalize despite ascending Cloud for three pints of craft beer and pizza...