Holding-hands in Phnom Penh: 07

26 July, 2007

8 random facts about me

Dear Pepe and friends, here now is my answer to your tag - random facts about moi. Deciding what to include was difficult but it was a fun exercise! Here goes my list:

Fact 1. I was a premature baby. Yup, I was told that several days before I turned 7mths in my mother’s tummy, lumabas na ako. Nainip (impatient) na sa sobrang tagal, a trait that I still continue to battle with. The first thing that my parents did when they held me for the first time was check whether my fingers and toes were complete. They were so scared that their first-born was not completely developed physically and mentally that I was sent to doctors every month when I was a toddler for regular check ups. I was also enrolled in school at an early age. Natuwa pa sila when I was accelerated to grade one at the age of 6.

Fact 2. I was born to an Ilonggo father (from Roxas City, Capiz) and a Bikolana mother (from Naga City). I was born in Roxas City, grew up in Manila, then went back to Roxas City again to finish high school. I got my bachelors degree in Cebu City and worked there for a year before moving out to Naga and Legaspi cities. Having lived in several cities in the Philippines, I can speak Tagalog, Ilonggo-Hiligaynon, Bisaya-Cebuano and Bikol dialects. Had I stayed in the Philippines and continued working with a media company (ABS-CBN), I would have learned either Panggalatok or Chavacano as I was keen on being transferred to either Dagupan City or Zamboanga City. But, as fate would have it, I am currently here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and speaking the Khmer language.

Fact 3. While doing my TV internship in my last year of college, I interviewed Air Supply and Chicago and produced a feature story for the Starnews segment of TV Patrol Cebu. I also got to interview and write a news item about former Senator Jovito Salonga and Senator Aquilino Pimentel who were then running as President and Vice President, respectively. I got a flat one for that! Since then, the lure of TV broadcasting has been so strong that after a one-year stint with an NGO after college, I worked for ABS-CBN and the list of personalities that I interviewed, local and national, grew longer. I remember fondly Rico Yan who was such a gentle person and a very professional actor. Upon seeing my ABS ID at the airport, he and his group, including his mom, greeted us showbiz style (beso-beso) and granted an interview. May he rest in peace. There were also other movie actors and singers but I won’t mention them anymore. Mahaba ang listahan. I also remember the time I interviewed former Ka Bel (Crispin Beltran who was with KMU at that time) and Ka Satur (Ocampo) live via the program Dateline News (on SNN, now ANC), and other tradpols.

Fact 4. My college days in Cebu were the best years of my life. Some say high school life is the best, but I beg to disagree. My classmates (as well as school mates and board-mates) were from different provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, and some from the Luzon area. We entered the university as gawky teenagers of different economic backgrounds and with different personalities, full of questions, full of hope and idealism, enthusiasm and energy for learning, for life and for the future. We left college after 4years (5 years for some) filled with lessons learned and bittersweet memories - hard work, heartaches, frustrations, successes big and small and fun experiences - enough to last us a lifetime. We went on separate ways to brave the world as global citizens... environmentalists, women’s rights activists, lawyers, journalists, businesswomen and men, teachers, doctors, later on becoming husbands, wives, fathers and mothers...

Fact 5. Although a bit late at 16years old, I was trained as a gymnast at the encouragement of my PE teacher in college. She saw in me a potential and took me under her wing. Four hours of training per day, for 4 years I trained together with the other gymnasts of the Central Visayas Gymnastics Association. Several years, several exhibitions, and several kilos gained later, I still could do a mean cartwheel and other gymnastic moves but, you won’t see me doing that anymore. Sige, pag may talent fee gagawin ko. I’ll do it if the price is right! Hehehe.

Fact 6. I am not a certified diver (yet) but I have been lucky enough to go diving. I took a crash course and voila…I enjoyed diving and the beauty under the sea immensely. I also learned the ropes of rock-climbing (with the help of Naga City’s Marlboro Man Reginald Tan), surfing (with a surfer dude from Daet, Camarines Norte whose name I forget now but he was actively promoting Daet as surfing destination in the Philippines) and target shooting (with Roger Dy, also from Naga City and placed third in the world target shooting competition in the late 90s) and they all got me hooked. Friend Chris Jackson, in one of his visits to Cambodia, took me to this firing range past Pochentong airport where we spent the whole afternoon firing handguns and AK47s in between catching up on stories. I never went back there, mahal kasi (it’s expensive).

Fact 7. I was good at producing coverage for live events. I was a producer for ABS-CBN Bikol (meaning, both Naga and Legaspi). One of my favorite moments was in 1998 when I was handpicked by ABS-CBN/RNG to man ABS-CBN Naga’s live coverage of the centennial celebration of the Philippine Independence in the province of Camarines Sur. The main task was to provide 10min live updates to Manila during the whip-around, and, as climax to the whole ABS-CBN coverage, feed the grand fireworks display, which was the highlight of the coverage, simultaneous with the other live points in the country. As there was time difference, the plan to broadcast the simultaneous fireworks display was on the brink of not happening. Camarines Sur was only minutes away from starting the fireworks while … the Luneta fireworks were not yet ready.

I gathered all my guts and went up to the old bat, then Governor Luis Villafuerte who was sitting prominently on the stage in full Filipiniana. I was hesitant but I had to do what I was set to do and request that the fireworks display be delayed a few minutes more so that it would start at the same time as the Manila fireworks. I wasn’t nervous but was just afraid that he wouldn’t let his fireworks display be delayed by the whims of a TV station. I know my EPs (Executive Producers) in Manila wouldn’t take no for an answer so I hatched a plan to make the old bat agree. To make the story short, we got the needed delay. What did I do? Nothing spectacular, I approached him with an “ABS-CBN ako” attitude (if you meet someone who works for ABS-CBN, you’ll know) and promised him that in exchange for the tiny delay, he would get a 5mins exposure live on national TV. While the other provincial live points were not successful, the grand fireworks display in Camarines Sur was shown live for the full 5mins with an annotation by our local host (Elmer Caseles) and interview with Governor Villafuerte. The Governor was so happy about the exposure that he, swelling with pride, invited the whole crew for dinner.

Epilogue. I got congratulatory slaps in the back from our cameramen (local and one came from Manila) and received a hefty talent fee for that! Villafuerte is now a Congressman who, months ago, was (perhaps, still is) one of the main figures in the battle for speakership in the congress.

Fact 9. Unknown to some, I can’t count well before 9 in the morning... :)

I would like to tag my good, good friend Sam, Ate Vicki, Francine,Bro. Vince, and others who would like to try this fun exercise!

***

I also took the opportunity to post some photos that have been long hidden in my baul (chest). The first photo was taken during our J/S Prom in college. The second and third photos were taken in Daet with the surfing dudes and Jojie the guy who supervised my diving experience, in Naga City, respectively. The last three photos are testament to my stint at ABS-CBN Naga - interview with former Senator Orly Mercado in Lucban, Quezon; preparing for a live news update with the crew; and the last one is a photo of reporter-producers from other ABS-CBN's provincial stations to cover the 1998 Palarong Pambansa in Naga City. If you recognize some of them, they are Jun Tariman (Cebu), Andy Rara (Davao but now with GenSan), Woodrow Francia (ABS-CBN Naga/Legazpi), Aladin Bacolodan (then with GenSan but now with TV Patrol Manila), Gary (ABS-CBN Baguio), Macel Ingles (Naga/Legazpi), Cherrie Tinoko (Legazpi), someone from ABS Sales (Manila), Kate Madrid (Legazpi) and moi (Naga/Legazpi).

20 July, 2007

We're back!

After a long blog hiatus (that's 7months of absence), I've decided to start blogging here again. Both R and I haven’t had time to post in the past few months so here is our attempt to get back in the swing of things:

Work is definitely coming together now. We're getting more progress and the priorities have become clearer. The antenna had been erected in the Kamchai Mear Pilot Project area, and another 35m antenna will be put up in the Kep Pilot Project area. This is a giant step, really. Since last week, we have been communicating with the Kamchai Mear Pilot team through Skype and they are active in the basecamp (online) discussions now. The audio and video quality is good, albeit with some two seconds delay. The Kep Pilot team is now using Internet from the iREACH office in Kep itself and I can feel their excitement in their emails to me. Later on today, if not, tomorrow, we are scheduled to test the connectivity in the Kep Pilot through Skype as well. These antennas will send signals to each pilot area’s 9 selected village hubs - these are actually centers within the community and chosen by the community - where villagers can have access to computer and internet services, very low cost local telephony or VoIPs, and radio phone-in access for live and non-live group discussion on the community radio (which will be established later this year). Of course, technical glitches arose, and more will come up from time to time, but we have very good technical support from our contractor, Gateway Communications. I may not be involved in the technical aspect of this project but I work very closely with the pilot teams and with the communities – planning, reviewing and analysing reports, documenting activities, visiting pilot areas, meeting strategy partners, participating in online discussions, etc. so, that explains why my blog hasn’t been updated for a very long time.

***
One of the peculiar things about living here in Phnom Penh is the number of keys that could accumulate in one’s pocket – I carry a huge bunch of house keys everywhere I go. We have keys for every gate and door inside and outside the house (accompanied by huge padlocks) and it feels like getting in and out of the US embassy. (As mentioned in the previous entry, we just moved in to a new apartment which is just minutes away from my office and from where R works). The apartment we are renting is on the first and second floors with our landlord on the ground floor. We have two bedrooms, three toilets and bathrooms, kitchen, living room and a huge space on the second floor where we do our laundry, which could easily be transformed to a dance floor if needed.

Anyhow… Moving into a new place has been really tiring! The process of arranging and moving things around is taking us forever! The thought that we’ve been here for two weeks and are still 75% unsettled (lots of boxes still waiting to be unpacked!) hangs over me. R reminds me not to rush and to do things just one thing at a time. I agree with him, but it is very frustrating to go through the many unpacked boxes looking for things. We clean the house but keeping it clean is a different story. Behind our flat is a construction site and needless to say, it gets so dusty you can feel the powder under your feet.

A month before we moved, we had been looking around for a car to buy. Most of the cars for sale here are actually second (third, fourth, etc…) hand vehicles brought in from countries like Japan, Korea, USA, etc. These cars have been repaired and refurbished here in Cambodia. What we both wanted was a car that would be able to survive the challenging roads in the countryside as we plan the odd weekend away. We didn’t want to have a car that would fall into pieces after a drive over the dancing roads of rural Cambodia! One day three weeks ago, along St. 57, we spotted an old Willys Jeep parked in front of Champei Spa; it was for sale. We thought it was what we wanted and R contacted the owner. For some reason, R cancelled the transaction (after the test drive he couldn’t produce the correct papers for the vehicle, so we arranged to meet the following day to complete the sale. However, I noticed that the owner had stripped it and replaced a lot of the visible parts with old junk, God knows about gearbox, diff’ etc –R.), and assured me that there were more of those kinds of cars for sale here, and that we could get one with all the correct papers.

Good news is, just a few days after our transfer, we were proud owners of a 1987 Mitsubishi Pajero. I know, it’s an “ancient” car and who knows how many hands had it been passed on through (4 hands – R.), but hey, it’s a 4wd vehicle and just the kind of car we want for our out-of-town trips. We know the engine isn’t the original, we were told by the previous owner that it’s from a Mitsubishi Montero, but it has all the correct paperwork and is registered with the right gov’t guys. After much scrutiny from our landlord, who, by the way, is a secondhand car dealer, he assured us that the Pajero was good for the price… not the best, but not bad either. It should be reliable, the previous owner told us. Since we got the car, our landlord has been kind enough to take R to his mechanic-friend for some repairs (the exhaust was blowing badly at the start of the first box, so, after a little messing around trying to braze the rusting holes, he removed the front box entirely and let in a 12” length of old pipe and sealed it all up with a gas torch. 45 mins- $7 –and now it growls like a ……smile! R). He assured us that the quality of his friend's work is good and we wouldn't get ripped off. Soon, R will go to the transportation department in PP to pay the annual road tax and take it to the garage for some repainting work (plus repair the rusty sills and the odd dent and long scratch - R). R already found all of the old ownership papers for the car. They were hidden in a space under the dash behind the glovebox. We found out that it was originally a German diplomat’s car and was imported tax free by the German government.

Anyways, we are both happy about the car and it’s a sort of manna to us considering that we are now in the rainy season and have been drenched in the rain and floods on motorbikes and in the horrendous traffic numerous times. Taking the tuk-tuk everyday to work was also an expensive alternative to motodops, with different work schedules, it cost us $10 a day. So, having this car to go around PP will be a safer and better option. Now, the challenge is in driving around without getting fined. We need to widen our sight, with eyes peeled for traffic police who are very attracted to foreigners driving around town (read: foreigners + driving = $$$$). Ex-pats around gave us an important piece of advice: never meet a traffic policeman’s eye, or they’ll pull you over for reasons only they (the traffic police) know, and proceed to empty your wallet straight into their own pockets.

With the Pajero, it is Max who seems to be enjoying driving the most. Every day, at 5.30pm, she is car-sitting. R leaves her there to guard the car while he is in school. One thing about Max is that she never makes a noise whenever she goes with us for a ride. All she does is look out the window, often shifting from one side to the other as she gets more and more excited. I think she likes looking at the passing traffic.

Me? R is giving me driving lessons. As he was teaching me the basics, it got me scared (:o we never left the garage! –R). Learning how to drive, I realized, takes concentration, good coordination and lots and lots of guts. The more I get to learn the ABCs of driving, the more scared I get.

The other week, R and I popped in at the UK embassy for some business. You see, after months of securing documents, we finally get to proceed to the completion of our *mission*. We had to appear before the British consul for an oath and for R to sign an affidavit. Once the embassy issues R a certificate in 21 days, our next step is to present this and other papers to the Cambodian Foreign Affairs Ministry. To those unaware, well, just watch out for the developments... I’m too shy to divulge more about it.

I think this is all for now… it's gotten this long, I got carried away. Better brace yourself for more babbles in the next few days… Hopefully, old friends will find this blog again. If not, perhaps, this will find new ones.

n.b.: The above entry was cross-posted in my other blog. For other stories of our adventures in Cambodia, please visit my Sreisaat blog.