THE KUALA LUMPUR FORUM (1 month to Japan)

There were three gentlemen from the Philippines and one each from Timor Leste, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Four of them made it to the hotel lobby photo and perhaps, one of them will be invited to pay homage to Santa Marta, sister of Mary and patron saint of housewives and restaurant workers, the portkey to an audience with the ghost of Simon Bolivar somewhere at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino where the Magdalena River passes through before diving into the Carribean Sea for a long swim across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver a communique to the guardians of the Anatalya coast along the Mediterranean Sea. 

That disptach was conjured from the mist of a muddy confluence of two rivers that created the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and inspired the transformation of Petaling Jaya from a 486-hectare rubber estate into a satellite town. 

A day before, the Kuala Lumpur Forum received a doctor's prescription for a confirmed hotel booking and a rush travel insurance procurement, an inbox purge and quarterly timesheets at the transit hotel, and a $100 ransom for a passport that almost got left behind. 

It was also decided during a hotel restaurant huddle that the two meetings bumped off by PR 525 be compensated with a plastic bag of mutton rendang and egg panotta for lunch, and a dinner of overladed Kambing Bhukara Briyani.

Thus was how the declaration for Santa Marta and Anatalya evolved: 

• a report submission before the ambassador checked in
• a campaigner's overview of the Belem outcomes and how the adaptation of just transition might get lost, damaged, and possibly compensated with climate finance 
• unlocking the airline gates to Colombia in a month's time and Turkiye in 8 months with an incantation from a shared agenda for the content gathering interviews

The welcome dinner was sober and dominated by a conversation about ASEAN member state beers, an abstinence whose dullness was punctuated with a cleavage spied around Independence Square, the abundance of subtle hustles at the River of Life, the erect phallic symbols of Kuala Lumpur, and a nuked beef rendang dinner at the Central Market.

It was also announced at the ensuing press conference that the Phnom Penh Workshop as well as the Bali Assembly are now in the advance stages of procurement despite a slight delay in Manila, to ensure that CSO key moments are as harmonious as the flavors of sup kambing and buttered chicken with naan bread.

In Poblacion, Supergirl and Wonderwoman dressed an old-time burger and vanilla milkshake with two cups of red wine from PR 526, bloody enough for the Blues Brothers to croon how an extra service under the red lights of Padre Burgos was politely declined, skewered into crimson pork barbecue, and marinated in 2 bottles of Red Horse Stallion. 

The morning after, the Phantom Biker crashed a car-free Sunday in Ayala Avenue to chase after bikes of various makes and collect sweat from nubile runners of diverse sizes to season an adobong baboy breakfast at the Legazpi Sunday Market.

The Holy Week went live and palm branches go on sale after the Sunday mass at San Pedro de Macati.

Pugad Baboy delivered fresh clothes but missed Marilyn Monroe at the Filling Station during a lunch of half-burgers, pizza, and root beer floats. 

Catholics officially embarked on a visual fast as the saints of Guadalupe Church were covered with the color of penance that foretold of a death in San Jose City... 

THE AGONY OF A PAYMENT REQUEST

St. Joseph was a bodyguard with the celestial mission of protecting the mother of Jesus, and already had children when engaged to Mary thus implying that they didn't have a child together, which earned him veneration as the "most chaste" guardian of virgins. 

St. Joseph, being the patron saint of Bakal 2, is the progenitor of a fiesta meal ---   sinaing na tulingan, sinuglaw, malasadong inihaw na panga ng tuna, overcooked dinakdakan --- that were served in a garage to insulate visiting friends from the distress induced by registering a new bank account, signing a financial agreement, and initiating a payment request that almost fractured the Kuala Lumpur Forum. 

The disbursement did got through, pathetically stumbling through blockages while the Bali Assembly is being procured, while an impact story from Phnom Penh take shape from the fragments of three weekly meetings, a catch-up with the broker, updates from the Sta. Martha Conference, and an abbreviated finale on business development.    

The Barangay Night was On-The-Level though and themed Tanduay-red, almost like bottled red wine and the color of left-over menudo and glistening street barbecue that ushered the first call for the 9th Inclusive Business Forum in Manila and delayed an end-of-project report.  

On the week of St. Joseph;s feast day, blood was drawn at high precision through online banking apps that were activated with emails and signed time sheets from the marching band to induce a post-payment review of a policy toolkit while revisiting the bike trails around Bakal 2 all the way to the Sunday market in Munoz...  

A SHORT IMPACT STORY

Comms is a portrait in a landscape of plastic flowers, ceramic bowls, and a cache of strategic tools for an early sacramental extra-strong beer that drafted storytelling skills into a communications plan. 

The impact, though strong and strategic, must be sweet like a morning iced tea.

It should be infused with developed ethical content despite its being caricatured for an ice breaker. 

An impact story, when refined and shared, will be a perfect fit for the first version of a narrative.

Almost like the ballad of The Hague about how a blockage hostaged the Kuala Lumpur Forum until a Financial Administrator intervened to trigger Step 07; so unlike the Jakarta narrative that is ready to be gathered at the ASEAN Gender Week in Manila through a registration link for a breakfast meeting with the Line Manager whose  payment request was confirmed by a footprint report to have been disbursed, but not for the Bali Assembly procurement nor a 3rd session on business development or financing a coal phase-out advocacy. 

In Bakal 2, the plot is about a pair of litsong manok in the bike trail crowing the impact of an unmasked opthalmic loveliness that inspired a partial credit card payment. 

An impact story can be a sad tale of unrequited young love, of Normita who bequeathed herself to a rich heir in Paniqui, of Leah who married an older man from Mapandan, of Leonor Rivera whose regrets resonate in the abandoned spaces of the Maria Clara House in Camiling. 

It can be the account of two fishermen whose bangus catch from Lingayen Gulf were sold as packs of kinilaw, sisig, inihaw, and sinigang at SNR-Calasiao.  

Another angle is how the Binmaleys built a church for Our Lady of Candles to commemorate the purification of the 40-days old Christ, and Apo Baket "calling" (mantaoag) a farmer to build her a church that is now the abode of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Manaoag.  

The real story however is that although the cost of pale pilsen has not increased, the chreap sisig sucked...    

THE MEANING OF M

M ain't the Chief of M16's Secret Intelligence Service but a reluctant caregiver somewhere in London.

M stands for Maligaya where 50 (or Roman numeral L) birth years were celebrated with a thousand shots of Scotch whiskey and American bourbon.

M was the meeting in Hogwarts where lobbyists were rewarded with bags of eggs, and the men in aprons who converged in Baloc on the 8th of March. 

M is the enigmatic Specialist of terse one-liners that almost compromised the Kuala Lumpur Forum, an escalation required to finally link a project ID to a grant number.

M is the impact story that will be narrated in Manila, the main agenda of a biweekly task force huddle, and the other matters discussed in the other meetings.    

M are the morning rides that punched through pay windows for a second booster shot before the Bali Assembly was registered for the ASEAN Gender Week.   

M can be the litsong manok, a musky pinangat na hito, or a tray of itlog maalat that compensated The Ironman of Bakal 2 for his services.

M is mass at the historic Barasoain Church and a GRO named Margareth who was treated to her first ever birthday cake during the homily.   

M is a moustached Plaridel enshrined and celebrated in Bulakan, and a Requiem Mass for a misogynist congressman at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Marilao.

Finally, M stands for the Michellin Bib Gourmand emblem that adorned Chie-Chie's Batil Patung like tubs of lechon karahay, chibul, and dinakdakan floating in a sea of egg drop soup.  

TWO MONTHS TO JAPAN

I first came to Japan on November 2006, many years before the Kuala Lumpur Forum got mired in a grant number generation process as the Bali Assembly is being assembled for procurement. 

I remember being ushered to a taxi with self-operating doors that brought me from Kansai International Airort to the JICA International Center in Osaka, a memory harvested from a pensieve of mourners and eavesdropping Monday callers that a death in the Kingdom of Pee convened.

In two months time, there will be beer-tasting in Osaka in memory of a 4-hour chartered bus trip to Nagoya, a full two decades  before the introduction of the ASEAN Gender Week in Manila as the impact story of Business Development's second session to punctuate a rote email exchange with Melbourne.

The Nagoya Castle will be revisited, perhaps Atsuta Shrine too, but Mt. Fuji will have to give way for the confirmation of a budget reallocation as reported to The Line Manager 3 days before Hogwarts huddled with The Congressman from Tulat. 

Nagoya was the base of the 2006 intrusion to Kyoto before the advent of the Ironman whose box clean-up inspired fair finance advocates to book a reservation for the Kyoto Imperial Palace where the Phantom Biker can cook buridibod for a haircut and trade kare-kare for a monthly power usage after the usual "tapon basura" rides.

For the 2026 episode in Japan, a day in Nara and sake-tasting in Kobe were inserted as a way of soliciting a fresh interpretation if it is indeed a case of Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea.  

Maybe, the sleep doctor just wants a commission from the sale of a continuous positive airway pressure machine.

Maybe I'll buy once advance payments to the hotels in Kyoto and Nagoya are settled.

The monhtly phone bills were paid instead which is why the fried tilapia tasted like kwek-kwek, the sisig overpowered Bikol Express, and inihaw na hito made the black cat bite a finger that resembled a piece of litsong manok.