MOBILE “BYAHE” THOUGHTS

*On MUSIC

PENAFRANCIA BUS LINE to NAGA (Jan2006) - Pinoys are really musically inclined. Last Monday at Café Brexton, while having coffee and dessert with JVP Batchmates Pat & TQ, I caught one waiter singing along a Piolo Pascual (I think) song… Just this PM (McDonald’s AliMall), intro/instrumental of a song started playing and suddenly, the guy at the next table broke into the song.. “My morning starts to shine…” And in the exact Kyla tune/version.It was funny.

ISABELA to CABANATUAN (Mar2006)– Our butts were just aching so hard- mine, Kuya Chito’s (our videographer) and Bugsy’s (production manager from Jescom). We came down from the rough road of Paracelis to Santiago Isabela. We searched for a furniture shop before heading to Chowking to grab some merienda (Halo-Halo) because estimated travel time to Cabanatuan is 4 hours. It meant, late dinner at 10pm. ..A bit bored from the site of Trucks on the road and vast rice fields, we decided to just sing random songs. We went from Lani Misalucha hits, to Ogie Alcasid songs, to Eraserheads classics. We widened our choices into thinking of songs Kuya Chito and I would sing in duet. Around an hour after, we can’t think of any more songs. So Kuya Chito grabbed his IPOD and we looked into more songs to sing. 4GB of MP3s, it was impossible not to find a song to sing to. Oh life would be so boring without music; travels wouldn’t be complete without community singing and trips would be less fun without one person in the van jokingly complaining about a travelmate singing out of tune.

*On PHOTOGRAPHY

MCDONALD’s NAGA (Jan2006) - My favorite subject has always been – People. Way back in high school, I used to have tons of pictures of my classmates. A lot of Bianca’s, one of my younger cousins – now 10 years old and recently cried over signs of getting her first monthly period, baby pictures were taken by me. Today I remembered an anecdote I once found in Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada `70 (I wrote in my college organizer) – “Sayang, di naka-capture ng potograpiya ang larawan ng mga isip at pakiramdam. Kung para man lang pagdating ng tao sa hukuman ng buhay ay may maipakita siyang ebidensiya ng kaligayahan niya o kawalan nito.” I think this is still very true. Kaya din siguro wala na ako masyadong ganang kumuha ng litrato ng mga tao. Because it feels as if I am robbing them of their stories, of the real stories behind their laughter/smile, or behind their tears. Ok lang if family or good friends, but of ordinary people on the street, ang hirap.

CATARMAN,SAMAR (Jan2006) – Even of places pala, di lang people. I wrote in my journal the first time I went to Catarman.. “Catarman is a wonderful place. I believe it is an epitome of how beautiful the Philippines is. Ang ganda-ganda niya! And I couldn’t even bring myself to take so much pictures of it because I feel and I think photographs won’t give Catarman justice.”