Today is Tiesday, June 22nd, 2010 and it is now 1001AM here in Quezon City, Luzon, Philippines.
To recap, I was at Rizza's family compound, on Mindanao and Col. Lademora, a mentor of mine had just summoned me to come to his house via his son, the Mayor.
I asked the Mayor if he was heading over to his father's house and he said he was actually going in the opposite direction to Lianga, across the provincial line in Surigao del Sur, to buy some fish.
Our province is landlocked, though the next municipality to the east, Lianga, in the afore mentioned next province, is a coastal town. I have explained the Philippine's unique municipal structures in the past but since I love repeating myself ad naseum, I will tell it again.
In rural areas the most basic unit is the "Sitio," a clump of houses. If you are an American, picture yourself on a rural road, you see a group of 4 or 5 houses clustered on a farm, that is the equivalent.
Next is the "Purok." A Purok is a grouping of sitios, in general vicinity to one another though if this demarcation serves a purpose it escapes me and every Filipino I have ever asked about it.
Next, you have the "Barangay." The rule of thumb is that 2 puroks make 1 barangay but it rarely if ever happens like that. A barangay is equivalent to a "village." The rule of thumb is less than 100 families per barangay but this is also something rarely adhered to.
Then you have the "Town." No matter how big the municipality is, it is a "town" unless it generates a set amounf of income at which point it is chartered as a "City."
So, if you are travelling through the countryside here you can pass through 30 villages and still be in the same town. Between each village can be kilometers and kilometers of thick jungle and these 30 villages can take 100 kilometers all told but still be in the same town.
You can be in a town with 90,000 people, and it is still a town, or be in a municipality with 20,000 and be in a "city."
It takes some getting used to.
Each town has a Barangay named "Poblacion," and this denotes the "downtown shopping district" of a municipality. Mayor Lademora was going to Lianga's Poblacion because that is where one goes, in our area, if they want seafood and Bisayans eat seafood everyday if they can afford it. We generally have it for 2 meals a day, sometimes all 3.
IF you like fish you will love Mindanao or for that matter, most anywhere outside of Manila though you can find it there as well, just more difficult and a tad bit more expensive.
On Mindanao Bisaya won't eat freshwater fish if they can afford not too, though some make an exception for "Bangus." Bangus is about a kilo on average, it is butterflied, seasoned very heavily, and dried. They are sold on roadsides in huge piles. Luckily for me, Rizza's family will not go near it.
For me, not a huge seafood fan, I had to adjust my diet in 2007. Mom was so caring, Dad as well, always worried because I would not eat the fish they were serving so they would send a servant out to buy me a meat dish 2 times a day, and my requisite 1 liter bottle of soda. They all drink cold water but I had grown spoiled in recent years.
The soda here is decent because they come in glass bottles, something the West stopped years ago. Sprite, or a brand called "Royal Orange," but the price is almost what it would cost in the US, rendering it a rich man's beverage.
I ended up adapting and today, even though I have spent a good deal of tme back in the States since 2008, I truly enjoy Red Snapper which they call "Lapu Lapu"in Bisaya.
A funny joke with a bit of history: Those of you with even a faint grasp of history might remember that the man credited with circumventing the planet 1st was , in English, "Ferdinand Magellan." Some may also remember that when Magellan came to the Philippines he ran into a bit of bad luck.
On Mactan Island, an atoll just off of Cebu, where Cebu City is now, the Chief refused to convert and accept that Magellan, in his wooden ship was now claiming to own the land (in the name of some far away king).
Magellan decided to teach the man a lesson. The ship sat out a bit because of coral reefs but Magellan and his landing party waded into shore.They snuck up to the obstinate chief and set his village on fire.
The warriors of course were livid. Magellan had given an order to his artillerymen to fire their cannons at the beach if they saw things getting dangerously tense. Well, things were way past "tense." The problem however was that the ship sat out way too far to make any kind of threatining impression. Magellan took a poison arrow to the leg and his men promptly withdrew, throroughly routed.
Most historians claim that Megalln turned and faced the tribe of "thousands of warriors" to give his men time to wade out to the ship bust other historians find that just a bit too pat ad entirely counter-intuitive to boot. In any regard Magellan kicked the bucket.
The chief? His name was...LAPU LAPU.
Now the joke: "Who killed Lapu Lapu?"
The answer most anyone shouts out is "Magellan" though it was Magellan who was killed by Lapu Lapu, not the converse.
The punchline to the joke though:
Who killed Lapu Lapu? THE CHEF hahahahahahahah!
So...I took the Sportage (*Kia SUV) and drove to Col Lademora's home. We were both thankful that we escaped unscathed after the "Maguindanao Massacre," the event that I wrote about both here and in a CE and P Forum.
Basically, to recap...On 11/23/2009 a Vice Mayor in Maguindanao Province decided that he would defy a local warl-rd and run against him for Governor of the province.
After being warned many times to back down he sent his wife, 2 of his sisters, a group of attorneys and 32 journalists in a convoy of SUVs for a 30 km. trip to the provincial capital of Sharif Aguak. Their purpose in going there was to file the vice mayor's Certificate of Candidacy for the May 10th, 2010 Elections.
Upon entering the town of Ampatuan they were stopped at a police checkpoint, along with 2 unrelated SUVs who had cut into the convoy by passing the last vehicle.
The Governor's son, leading the family paramilitary with at least 100 guerillas all fully armed were waiting at a police checkpoint..
Raping the women, they then commanderred the vehicles and drove 2 km. into the bush, up to a hill overlooking the checkpoint. there a govt. owned backhoe 9consruction machine) had gug 3 deep pits. Using a belt-fed M16 they executed at least 56 people. A 57th was hogtied and shot in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun. 3 people remain missing until now so the probable death toll was 60.
it was the single worst case of violence against journalists in history, as well as the worst single ase of Election-related violence in the Philippines where sich violence is almost mundane, expected as part of the cost of "doing business."
I will continue to explain why we were "relieved," etc.
(Edited for spelling and to add the last paragraph)
To recap, I was at Rizza's family compound, on Mindanao and Col. Lademora, a mentor of mine had just summoned me to come to his house via his son, the Mayor.
I asked the Mayor if he was heading over to his father's house and he said he was actually going in the opposite direction to Lianga, across the provincial line in Surigao del Sur, to buy some fish.
Our province is landlocked, though the next municipality to the east, Lianga, in the afore mentioned next province, is a coastal town. I have explained the Philippine's unique municipal structures in the past but since I love repeating myself ad naseum, I will tell it again.
In rural areas the most basic unit is the "Sitio," a clump of houses. If you are an American, picture yourself on a rural road, you see a group of 4 or 5 houses clustered on a farm, that is the equivalent.
Next is the "Purok." A Purok is a grouping of sitios, in general vicinity to one another though if this demarcation serves a purpose it escapes me and every Filipino I have ever asked about it.
Next, you have the "Barangay." The rule of thumb is that 2 puroks make 1 barangay but it rarely if ever happens like that. A barangay is equivalent to a "village." The rule of thumb is less than 100 families per barangay but this is also something rarely adhered to.
Then you have the "Town." No matter how big the municipality is, it is a "town" unless it generates a set amounf of income at which point it is chartered as a "City."
So, if you are travelling through the countryside here you can pass through 30 villages and still be in the same town. Between each village can be kilometers and kilometers of thick jungle and these 30 villages can take 100 kilometers all told but still be in the same town.
You can be in a town with 90,000 people, and it is still a town, or be in a municipality with 20,000 and be in a "city."
It takes some getting used to.
Each town has a Barangay named "Poblacion," and this denotes the "downtown shopping district" of a municipality. Mayor Lademora was going to Lianga's Poblacion because that is where one goes, in our area, if they want seafood and Bisayans eat seafood everyday if they can afford it. We generally have it for 2 meals a day, sometimes all 3.
IF you like fish you will love Mindanao or for that matter, most anywhere outside of Manila though you can find it there as well, just more difficult and a tad bit more expensive.
On Mindanao Bisaya won't eat freshwater fish if they can afford not too, though some make an exception for "Bangus." Bangus is about a kilo on average, it is butterflied, seasoned very heavily, and dried. They are sold on roadsides in huge piles. Luckily for me, Rizza's family will not go near it.
For me, not a huge seafood fan, I had to adjust my diet in 2007. Mom was so caring, Dad as well, always worried because I would not eat the fish they were serving so they would send a servant out to buy me a meat dish 2 times a day, and my requisite 1 liter bottle of soda. They all drink cold water but I had grown spoiled in recent years.
The soda here is decent because they come in glass bottles, something the West stopped years ago. Sprite, or a brand called "Royal Orange," but the price is almost what it would cost in the US, rendering it a rich man's beverage.
I ended up adapting and today, even though I have spent a good deal of tme back in the States since 2008, I truly enjoy Red Snapper which they call "Lapu Lapu"in Bisaya.
A funny joke with a bit of history: Those of you with even a faint grasp of history might remember that the man credited with circumventing the planet 1st was , in English, "Ferdinand Magellan." Some may also remember that when Magellan came to the Philippines he ran into a bit of bad luck.
On Mactan Island, an atoll just off of Cebu, where Cebu City is now, the Chief refused to convert and accept that Magellan, in his wooden ship was now claiming to own the land (in the name of some far away king).
Magellan decided to teach the man a lesson. The ship sat out a bit because of coral reefs but Magellan and his landing party waded into shore.They snuck up to the obstinate chief and set his village on fire.
The warriors of course were livid. Magellan had given an order to his artillerymen to fire their cannons at the beach if they saw things getting dangerously tense. Well, things were way past "tense." The problem however was that the ship sat out way too far to make any kind of threatining impression. Magellan took a poison arrow to the leg and his men promptly withdrew, throroughly routed.
Most historians claim that Megalln turned and faced the tribe of "thousands of warriors" to give his men time to wade out to the ship bust other historians find that just a bit too pat ad entirely counter-intuitive to boot. In any regard Magellan kicked the bucket.
The chief? His name was...LAPU LAPU.
Now the joke: "Who killed Lapu Lapu?"
The answer most anyone shouts out is "Magellan" though it was Magellan who was killed by Lapu Lapu, not the converse.
The punchline to the joke though:
Who killed Lapu Lapu? THE CHEF hahahahahahahah!
So...I took the Sportage (*Kia SUV) and drove to Col Lademora's home. We were both thankful that we escaped unscathed after the "Maguindanao Massacre," the event that I wrote about both here and in a CE and P Forum.
Basically, to recap...On 11/23/2009 a Vice Mayor in Maguindanao Province decided that he would defy a local warl-rd and run against him for Governor of the province.
After being warned many times to back down he sent his wife, 2 of his sisters, a group of attorneys and 32 journalists in a convoy of SUVs for a 30 km. trip to the provincial capital of Sharif Aguak. Their purpose in going there was to file the vice mayor's Certificate of Candidacy for the May 10th, 2010 Elections.
Upon entering the town of Ampatuan they were stopped at a police checkpoint, along with 2 unrelated SUVs who had cut into the convoy by passing the last vehicle.
The Governor's son, leading the family paramilitary with at least 100 guerillas all fully armed were waiting at a police checkpoint..
Raping the women, they then commanderred the vehicles and drove 2 km. into the bush, up to a hill overlooking the checkpoint. there a govt. owned backhoe 9consruction machine) had gug 3 deep pits. Using a belt-fed M16 they executed at least 56 people. A 57th was hogtied and shot in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun. 3 people remain missing until now so the probable death toll was 60.
it was the single worst case of violence against journalists in history, as well as the worst single ase of Election-related violence in the Philippines where sich violence is almost mundane, expected as part of the cost of "doing business."
I will continue to explain why we were "relieved," etc.
(Edited for spelling and to add the last paragraph)