Same Old Shit...Just Shittier...

Today is Tuesday, Janurary 27th, 2009 and it is now 12:30 AM.

I am listening to Sylvia Tosun's "Underlying Feeling," the soulshifter mix, but am taxed for time so will not fool with the Youtube links, etc. Also been listening to Dead Confederate, Jet, and Keane's massive song, "Spiralling." Will try to do the links on my next entry.

Have not had ANY time for reading . Will get to that...

Rizza is safe on Cebu, in school and still working on her Nursing Degree. I am still in San Franz and things are getting very bad here.

NPA is making gains in an incredible way. Over the last 4 days military convoys have been hauling ass in Withdrawal out of the Valley (I live in a valley in the Diwata Mountain Range, near Andap and Compostela Valleys although ours has no real name, but is called locally after Rizza's mom's family's surname since we settled it and are the largest clan in the region).

I am in Agusan del Sur Province, and cholera has finally reached us and look at me not getting my inoculation. Will I not look hilarious if i up and die from it? It has struck in Barangay#41 in La Paz, a village right outside ours, in fact our main rice farm is half in this village and half in that. A Manobo, Agusan Manobo to be exact, is the first official case but half the village is dying and it will be a day or two and then we will see it , no doubt.

At the same time we expect to be overrun within hours bit all the guns are out, and as always they will surely pass us by, we are not easy pickings. I do not expect to post within the next week, but if it takes longer than 2 weeks I would imagine you have seen the last of me. Rizza will post something, she is a member as well but never posts, just keeps tabs on her old man.

Never got my new AKs from Danao as I have been contracting for them, but they are not even finished being made, let alone in transit so we will maek do with our M16s and my one Galil.

NPA are not like some guerilla armies, FARC for example in Colombia in that they only target certain things and not not blanket targets, like all land holders which would mean we would be executed on sight.

Indeed, we have dealings with them as anyone does in this part of the world, but who can say what will happen in time of war? Our females are out, save for come of the Labourers' wives who are better off here than dying in the Muslim War farther south where the MILF has made advances in their Provinces (Cotabatao Sur and Norte, 2 provinces).

The Bisaya militias/paras are doing fine near Cagayan but in Cotabato it is Muslim Land and it is damn bloody. We have 500,000 refugees, literally half a million internal refugees only since August, where the fuck is the media? You can see it on wires, a pragraph of blood and guts but where is the Western piss and vinegar? The outrage? Fucking more than 100,00 have died here in 10 years, 14 insurrections today, and where is the world???

Anyway, sorry to be a bit dour but life is not grand here , at least I have the electricity on and that is fucking amazing. Now we have better service than we have ever had! Thank Heavens for little things!

I will post in a week or so, G-D willing.

 

Yes! Lets always try to thank God for the little things...I know I try to do that everyday....like thanking him for my bed, for wireless internet, a working fan, a head full of hair, etc.
Hope you cheer up very soon Rach :D

 

Great, a war rolling over the top of you.

Good luck. I hope you and yours get through this suffering only from boredom.

 

Crystal, it is pretty bad. I have been here off and on since 86, so I saw the NPA when they almost toppled the govt. Now they seem to only aim for half of Muindanao, although Ka Osis, the leader of this half of Mindanao (eastern) is not articulating it. they already have paralellel govts 2 villages south, but because we are the seat of Bisaya Right Wing Paramilitary in Mindanao (L-a-demora - spelling it like that to avoid the name grabbing software that might make problems for me , his son is our mayor and his daughter, the ex mayor is my female sponsor from my civic wedding) we have not had heat like this in years, last time was late 80s but after the bisaya did here what they did on Samar, exterminating entire villages, we got left alone. Now they are almost at my door and not as irregulars, like they have been.

There are full time Regulars in the bush, always have been, but now you see them through field glasses on roads, in daytime which never happens unless they set ambushes. the fact that the AFP have pulled out is what is the most eerie, although they ebb and flow just like the guarillas, I have never seen a total pul out, I will not get more into that because just as I am online, I know they are as well, Ka Osis even has a laptop in the bush! Damn things have changed.

I am on edge, but it is always that way before the storm. I thought I left this shit behind back home! Here I was, actually getting used to not being involved and here it comes again in my lap. should have fallen in love with a Yank hahahaha. Just kidding Rizza!

I spend most of my time on the walls, making sure these lazy fucks do not sleep, walking permister with the dogs and the others but again I do not want to get too much into that. I am not guessing when it and if it will happen. Everyone is mad nervous so that now even the labourers and machine operators wives who live in nipa all around the outside of our compound, and are inside now, are itching to make a run for it but we know there is only one direction to run, and cannot say how far that will go since they are on that end too in Propseridad.

Cell towers are down, only got this now but if I have to, as long as it lasts, I have generators for talking to Rizza, etc. If I have to switch to them I will not be on here of course, should not be now, but it helps I guess. the Embassy warned me, so I am not comaplining, I feel more Bisaya than anything, after all this is my family, and I will take it as it comes, just wish it would come already.. anyway, glad to hear from you Crystal.

SG: Thanks, yeah that will hopefully be all. The NPA cannot field a real force at one time, maybe 1000 if they really push it, and that would not be soemthing that would effect us, but it is the small "Platoons" of 30 men, that bother us most because they have been in the bush for years and when they come out naturally all that faux ideology rips away and they act like animals, like all armies do. We will see, not even gunships now, just us and the bush, and the Checkpoints (ours and theirs).

 

Wow. I seriously didn't know that it was so bad there. All you hear about in the news is Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine. You forget that there is violence and strife all over.

Good luck to you rachamim, and may peace come soon!

 

Hi Dave. Well still here, still eerily quiet, electricity went off once tonight, which spooked alot of the labourers but it is on now, and just making do. Yeah the Media ignores us, usually, Abu Sayyaf used to get some spin but only because of kidnapping Westerners! they have over 30 locals in captivity now and not even the Media here gives a shit!

The Media though are often targetted for death by all sides plus criminals, etc. so i cannot truly fault them. It is incredible the age we live in, after Xmas, Ka Osis the NPA leader for this part of Mindanao held a press junket! Outside Butuan he had journalists motorbiked up into the bush, had them hike in for half a day and thengave them press kits!!!

you can find stories on places lik Balita, ph, Luwaran, Revolutionary.net, and other such sites but they spin it for the left, it is so difficult to find out what is really happening but usually I just get it from the sources themselves, eye witnesses, etc. We do business over a large region, so that is one good thing. the army tells us nothing, leaves us to the slaughter and people wonder why Bisaya and Ilongo keep paramilitatries!