adventures in neverland

the brouhaha stirred by nora aunor's entry to the metro manila (popular, mediocre) film festival - thy womb - only proves that the superstar still reigns supreme in the local show business industry. only ms. aunor can rekindle and reignite the decades old rivalry among her  rabid fans and that of ms. vilma santos, another respected institution in the moviedom. (confession: i also luv ate vi. who can forget her performances in relasyon, t-bird at ako, broken marriage, sister stella l, pagputi ng uwak, pag-itim ng tagak, burlesk queen? but i'm a norarian at heart.) to say that ms. aunor won the award because she is the superstar is to diminish the worth of her performance in the movie. she won because she was the best among the nominees in the category. in fact, she gave out her best performance yet in thy womb - sincere, heartfelt, quiet. no hysterics, no shouting, no slapping. she is almost unrecognisable, she is completely lost in her role. if you do not know who she i...

"in the cold, cold baguio, it's not only flowers that bloom. even tired, old fairies do, especially in the dark," chinezza del vianco vda de aquino. i want to move and live in baguio was all i could think of as i was dancing dangerously close with a young university student, gary, gorgeous, glorious with a body to die for, at baguio's purple bar. we were almost kissing, even if his girlfriend was also dancing with us at the crowded dance floor. aside from gary, i was also dancing with ryan, another university student in the city,  who looked exactly like his hollywood name sake, ryan reynolds. it was a monday, school night, and the two-storey purple bar, baguio's latest, hottest bar at the moment, was packed with students and young professionals. this is where you will find the city's finest specimens, all young, all gorgeous, all drunk - boy, girl, gay. i luv! %%%%%% i arrived at around four in the afternoon in baguio cty after a seven hour, unc...

pls click here  for the first sagada note. despite the warmth of its people and the majestic view of its rugged mountains, sagada can be cold and lonely at night even for someone who is used to solitude. there's just something about the place that makes you long for someone to cuddle with, break bread with or share a bed with. after a dinner of chicken adobo, fried lumpia shanghai, fried rice and mango shake shared with a couple who was traveling from munich, i started walking around sagada's dark, almost deserted streets looking for a place to piss the cold night away. the young german couple refused my invitation to hang out somewhere, saying they wanted to sleep early, tired from walking around sagada. ^^^^^^^^^ after a few minutes of brisk walking, trying to beat the chilly air, i passed by this bar called sagada pine cafe that played bob marley, santana and mantras. at the door, one of the waiters wearing cowboy hat, tight black shirt and tattered jeans told m...

(to read the first part of this odyssey, click here ) bone tired, ravenous, with painful joints from sitting nearly four hours in an old jeepney that bounced lyk a horse on bumpy, dustry roads and aching for a cold, cold shower, we arrived in sagada at a little past one in the afternoon. the sun was at its hottest, it felt lyk summer in december. i thought by going to banaue and sagada, i would escape the heat in manille. how totally wrong was i. to say that i was disappointed upon reaching sagada is an understatement. aside from the chilly weather, i was expecting a rustic village and sceneries straight from a botong francisco painting - people working on the rice fields, women washing clothes in the river, children playing with carabaos along muddy fields, houses built of nipa and bamboo and surrounded by vegetation. (bahay kubo comes to mind) instead, a thriving community with rows of concrete houses reminiscent of those in affluent villages in makati and alaban...

wanting to unshackle myself from the madness, paranoia and chaos that has become my lyf for the past few weeks, i hopped on a bus going to banaue, hoping for some peace and quiet. i have been wanting to see this nth wonder of the world - the rice terraces - made a hundred years ago with bare hands, sans technology or modern science. if china has its great wall, the philippines has its rice terraces. chos! the trip was a breeze - the bus left at ten in the evening in manille and arrived in banaue at seven in the morning. it was lyk waking up to paradise. i luv. for my first nyt, i stayed at the government-run, dilapidated and quite expensive banaue hotel, where a single room costs about two thousand six hundred plus a night (with free breakfast). it's a pity that the hotel, the biggest in the area, has been neglected. upon entering my room, a foul smell from body odour greeted me. but since i was on vacation, i focused on the positives instead of the negatives. the breakfast of l...