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Black
Yellow
Green
Black
Purple
White?
No.
Perhaps, cream.
Is cream a color?
I don’t know.
But it looks like the color of a cream.
Nestle cream.
Fuck! Nestle products are great but the company is oppressive.
Imagine different colors of labor and other kinds of abuses.
Put colors to everything.
Pink for child labor.
Yellow for lack of benefits and privileges.
Black of the sweatshops.
Purple for underpayment.
Cream for environmental destruction.
Black for deception.
Purple for the abs of Tweety de Leon.
Black for Twitty de Leon.
Black for Nescafe.
Black for the boycott of Nescafe.
Black for the boycott of all Nestle products.
Cream for Coffeemate.
Cream for Bear Brand.
Cream for Nido.
Cream for Nestle Cream.
Green
Yellow
Pink
Yellow
Cream
Black
Pink
Yellow
Cream
Cream
Purple
Pink
Yellow
Yellow.
Maggi is yellow.
Black
Black is the color of poor working condition in Nestle plants all over the world
Purple for the discrimination against women
Purple for the lack of protective gears and safety clothing in sweatshops
Yellow for the Nestle’s 50 percent ownership of L’Oreal, which according to PeTA implements an animal testing policy.
Cream for Nestle’s breach of the 1981 World Health Organization’s Code Regulating the marketing of breast milk substitutes and for the company’s continued promotion of bottle feeding.
Black
Yellow
Black
Green
Cream




The cathartic pile of my floppies.

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Reports from home were both enraging and instructive.

Enraging because I can’t still appreciate the art of dying senselessly, much more if death is spawned by someone I have been expecting to protect me—someone whose mouth I feed because of the tax I pay to the government.

Enraging because I cannot imagine dying from the hands of a proud and loutish military personnel whose existence depended on the fact that he gets a share of my salary.

Enraging because I didn’t expect somebody I know would find death for the simple reason that he wanted to curb the horniness of a military personnel by defending his friends.

Anton’s penchant of being violent was always hidden by his bubbly character bizarrely twisted by his being soft-spoken. Among friends, he was always known as one of those who will buy a friend’s fight, always willing to gamble just to protect a friend.

This he was able to prove right until Sunday night when he was felled to the ground by a military personnel’s gun who earlier wanted to “table” Ayee’s female cousin, Mutya, inside bar in Kidapawan City.

Like her gay cousin who has won several gay beauty contests, Mutya was also charming and beautiful. Their family belongs to one of the old rich clans in Kidapawan City.

Initial reports had it that the suspect also grabbed Ayee’s butt. The boorish character of the military personnel irked Anton who, with Ayee and Mutya, ganged up the military personnel until the latter was pinned down.

Because he could not contain the shame of being a loser, the military personnel fired his gun hitting Anton. Killing Anton.

Another gay friend, Rolly, described what happened very clearly in the vernacular—Mao nay kaso sa crime of pride. Army gikulata ug bayot, natandog ang pride…gipusil ang bayot.

But the report was also instructive. For one, it tells me to anticipate the possibility that, like Anton, I can also be killed by a military official whose family, the Filipinos feed.

And that it can be soon.

Anton’s death was instructive because it tells me to appreciate the darkness of irony.

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How can't one person's early morning distress and tantrum be possibly pacified by a simple text message telling how inspired another person can be after reading a story that came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer?

"Just got inspired today by Jepoi's story on Ovarian Chants, " read a text from Oibone, whose mother, I know, survived an ovarian cancer.

The story is about artist Ross Zerrudo's struggle, pain, angst, fear, and survival in the face of an ovarian problem. Oh well, IT IS an ovarian problem, hello.

Why I am writing this? Because I know Jepoi, I know Oibone, and I know Ross and I read the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

And like Oibone and everyone else in this doomed country, as pointed out by Joy, I am one soul who needs even just a small amount of inspiration.

Simple.

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Caloi reports about the reign of despotism 34 years after Martial Law.

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Ken Rudolph, a highly-experienced film critic and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1975, watched Mel Chionglo’s Twilight Dancers last September 11 in the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

And he has this to say:

I had my doubts whether to spend an early morning with straight Filipino macho dancers dancing and selling themselves in gay clubs. I’d seen at least 3 of the previous versions of this film; and only the first, by a different director, was actually special. However the films have held my interest in the past, so I gave this one a try. I’m sorry I did.

There was nothing original in this story of a young guy who, along with his older, over-the-hill mentor in the twilight of his dancer-prostitute career, got involved with a ruthless lady “business woman”, whose business was drugs and corruption. The previous macho dancer film was about AIDS; but this one was all about political corruption.

Unlike the previous films, it looked terrible: shot with inferior digital camerawork. And even the macho dancing was perfunctory and only used as throwaway sequences to separate the story sections. Apparently the film has been rated X by the Manila authorities, which means it is banned for everyone. Why is a good question. Maybe because it steps on crooked local politician’s toes; certainly not for any sexual titillation.

Quote--Apparently the film has been rated X by the Manila authorities, which means it is banned for everyone. Why is a good question. Maybe because it steps on crooked local politician’s toes; certainly not for any sexual titillation--unquote.

Exactly why Ken Rudolph didn't like the film was because it did not titillate his sexually-scarced life. His ranting stemmed from his curbed expectations for dicks to shoot out from the tight undies of the dancers. He would have given the film a nice review had it shown more flesh.

Sick!

I have not seen the movie yet but I would like to give it a try. I think I would go out of the movie house happy than frustrated. Well, Masahista was another story. I didn’t like it. There was nothing spectacular about it that I have immediately forgotten everything I watched the moment I stepped out of the movie house.

But as I have said, I want to give this one a try.

If it mirrored the current political crisis in the country, then Twilight Dancers must be over the top. This Rudolph cannot understand nor appreciate the movie because he doesn’t have the slightest idea about what’s happening in the country today.

Unfortunate for Rudolf because he watched the wrong movie and made another wrong move—to review it. I bet my ass on it, mga kapatid, he was there because he was horny but had a problem with how to sustain his hardness. Too bad because he thought the movie is good enough to help him with his dysfunctional sexual life.

Good for me because I don't need to be titillated in order to explode.

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I love cogon grasses.

Cogonal fields bring me to trance when rose gardens bore me to death. Roses are dull and they smell the same that not even their colors can unfetter them from the pathetic truth of being nothing but boring.

Cogons, on the other hand, are shy and mysterious. They grow silently and they die silently but never unnoticed. A cogon-adoring too, the wind weeps for the death of cogons, its tears showering on the departed soil, breaking its sudden infertility.

Only then that the emancipation of the fresh cogons happen. And a new love affair happens again.

The wind makes love to the cogon as if there is no tomorrow. The wind usually slaps the cogons softly, teasing them until their stiff bodies bend gracefully, as if in sweet surrender.

Whether the arching of their bodies means reaching an orgasm is something that the wind and cogons can only tell and understand.

But not at all times is the wind soft in caressing these grasses. Sometimes, the wind is harsh. Sometimes it hits the cogons strongly that it breaks the bones of the poor grasses, leaving them listless on the ground.

Then, lifeless.

And the wind and I will await for the new breed to spring again. And until then the chanting of the requiem stops.





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The sun this morning was blinding that it was difficult to believe how everything went so gloomy so fast. Imagine how things can change within the span of four hours. After reaching my office, everything started to change from white to black.

But I realized that while on my way to the office, the poetry of bleak complemented with the beauty of tragedy gracefully welcomed my day—only that my glasses were too dark for me to appreciate them immediately.

As I stared blankly at my screen, I recalled a small boy played with a dead rat sprawled at the middle of the road—its head crushed and pieces its brain and entrails reddened by blood splattered and colored the concrete road. The rat was no small rat. It was as huge as a cat.

The sight left me humming “there was once a cat who got eaten by a rat…I don’t know why is it so…I don’t think blah…wherever they go…La la la la la la la…”

I love this song but I can’t remember its title nor the artist. Perhaps it is for this fact that it remains to be my top favorite. It’s the element of I-don’t-know. It’s not about lame mystery or something, you know. It’s this bizarre familiarity, perhaps. I haven’t been able to listen to it since I was like 16 years old.

With that unknown song still blaring inside my head, two blocks from my office, I notice a spilled strawberry jam on the footpath. Beside the jam was a receipt.

Beside the receipt was that thought that one inday ng bahay was being beaten to death for smashing the jar of strawberry jam on the pavement.

But who cares? The ants had a feast, anyway.

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Let's talk about poison.

A guy was sitting at the bar looking at his drink when suddenly a big bully walks in and drinks his drink in one high shot.

The poor guy starts crying.

Bully: Hey bro. I am sorry. I will just buy you a drink.

Guy (In tears): First I got fired for being late to work. Then I go to my car and it's carnapped. I forgot my cellphone and my wallet in the taxi. I got home and found my wife kissing the gardener. And now, I put poison in my drink and you drank it? It's just not my day!

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Got it from my email. It made my day but it is something that sounded an alarm. It's a story that explains the tragedy of paranoia.

Truly made my day...

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Gonzales said. They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as unknowns, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

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What are pesticide made of?

A pesticide formulation is a mixture of active and other (also called inert) ingredients, as well as metabolites, contaminants and impurities.

Active ingredients are the biologically and chemically active substances--usually the only component identified in the pesticide labels--that prevent, kill, or repel pests.

Contaminants and impurities are responsible for product hazards, which have not been purposely added but are a result of the production process. Metabolites are breakdown products that are often more hazardous than the parent pesticide. It is formed when the pesticide mizes with air, water, soil or living organisms.

Those preferred to, as other ingredients are the substances aded to adi in the application of the active ingredient or to facilitate its effectiveness. These are also misleading referred to as inert ingredients, which are often considered as manufacturer's trade secrets and thus, unidentified.

There is a significant lack of toxicological information about inert ingredients. Of the 1,820 inerts currently in use, the toxicity of approximately 1,350 remains unknown. However, the Journal f Pesticides Reform reports that despite minimal testing, many so-called inerts arfe actually hazardous.

According to reports, 72 percent of pesticide products available to consumers contain over 95 percent inert ingredients and fewer than 10 percent of products list any inert ingredients on their labels. Moreover, more than 200 chemicals used as inertsare actually indentified air and water pollutants, and some 400 inert chemicals are actually used as active ingredients in other pesticide products.

ARE THERE SAFE OR ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY PESTICIDES?

As far as synthetic chemical pesticides are concerned, it is difficult to say. Pesticides have a history of being phased out use after several years on the market, confirming that pesticides are being sold without prior adequate testing for theor potential impacts on health.

Banned pesticides today were once declared safe for use.

And while new pesticides released in the market today may be less persistent in the environment, the shorter half-life becomes ineffective in the face of too frequent pesticide application, particularly in plantation.

Half-life, according to a experts, is the time (days, weeks or years) required for half of the pesticide present after an application to breakdown into degradation products. The rate of pesticide breakthrough depends on temperature, soil acidity, micro-organisms in the soil, exposure to light, water and oxygen. Many of the breakthrough products themselves are toxic and may have different half lives as well.

The Pesticide Action Network, on the other hand, said that "even when pesticides are applied according to label directions by professional, well-trained applicatiors with proper oversight of authorities, these synthetic chemical products still carry out their mission. They are toxic. They do what toxins do. Synthetic chemical pesticides are designed to cause injury and death. That's just what toxins do."

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The children of Kamukhaan (Davao del Sur) who manifested symptoms of pesticide poisoning.

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These children often scamper for cover every time aerial spraying is conducted while they are on their way to school. One morning, though, the children were too slow to avoid the poisonous yellow shower. This is because the banana plantation company in their village in Subasta, Calinan District failed to announce the aerial spraying schedule.

This picture goes to show that not only are the banana plants get sprayed by the carcinogenic chemicals but also the people, including children who are mostly vulnerable to diseases.

SECOND-HAND POISON

Environmental exposures to fungicides usually involve relatively low concentration that may occur over long periods of times. While the human health effects associated with chronic, low level pesticide exposures are not yet well understood, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that environmental pesticide exposures are associated with neurological and reproductive damage, effects on growth and development, birth defects, endoctrine disruption, cancer, and other adverse effects.

In 1999, toxicologist Dr. Romeo Quijano and daughter Ilang-Ilang published a study (Kamukhaan: A Village Poisoned) documenting the effects of 19 years of regular ground and aerial spraying on a small community near banana plantation in Kamukhaan, Davao del Sur.

The initial study and consequent international fact finding missions confirmed significant health impact to both children and adults, as well as to farm animals. Contaminated soil and water were also attributed to the spraying of chemicals.

While the major causes of diseases were communicable and typical in poor, rural Filipino communities, some atypical patterns were also reported which were consistent with independent studies documenting health impacts from pesticide exposure.

■ An unusual significant number of adult males showed signs and symptoms of anemia and possible blood dyscrasias;
■ A signficant number of males and females exhibited signs and symptoms of tremors and palpitations suggestive or endocrine disruption;
■ A considerable number of children showed developmental delays including stunting, wasting, delays in development of secondary sexual characteristics, and mental difficiencies.

Note:

The study of Dr. Quijano resulted to a filing of libel and civil suits against him and his daughter Ilang-Ilang by the banana giant Lapanday, formerly owned by former Agriculture Sec. Luiz Lorenzo.

While the libel suit was also trashed by the court, the Lapanday Corp. continued it's civil case against the Quijanos.


More on pesticides tomorrow.

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The fight is heating up for the banning of the most dreaded and devastating form of pesticide application in banana plantations in Davao City--Aerial Spraying.

Aerial spraying is differentiated from ground application of pesticide, where pesticides are applied either directly on soil and or crop manually or using various ground equipment such as mororized or hand-operated sprayers, backpack sprayers, boom sprayers and air-blast sprayers.

It is used only in large farm areas and is preferred due to uniform and apparent efficient coverage in terms of area per unit of time, or in cases where ground spray cannot operate because of farm layout problem or slope.

IS IT SAFE?

Banana plantation companies maintain that the pesticides they use are legally procured and that government sanctions its safe use in agriculture. Fungicides being sprayed aerially are handled by certified pesticide applicators who have undergone corresponding training. Company manuals detail safety protocols and measures. Government industry regulating bodies abide by their mandates.

Even chemical pesticide manufacturers and distributors, while acknowledging potential hazards of their products, provide safety information and precautionary measures in application and handling as a guarantee to safe use.

However, various studies and anecdotal evidence culled from actual experiences on the field point to the contrary.

DRIFT

Pesticides sprayed do not stay put. Pesticides in the air can drift up to 3 km or more than the treatment site, contaminating the soil, open bodies of water, and other animal and himan environs in the process.

Studies in banana producing countries show that of the fungicides applied through the air, about 40 times during each cultivation cycle, 15 percent is lost to the wind drift and falls outside of the plantation. About 40 percent ends up on the soil rather than on the plants and about 25 percent is washed off by raid--totalling to a 90 percent loss.

In the United States, estimates for pesticides in general is even lower at one to two percent of sprayed chemicals actually reaching the target pests. Aerial drift is also estimated at five percent under optimal low wind condition to 60 percent under more typical winds.

Aside from the airborne drift associated with the physical movement of the droplets or pesticides sprayed, drift may also occur even days after spraying is done. Referred to as vapor drift, it is commonly associated with the volatilization of pesticides or the physical change of liquid pesticides into vapor gas.

More on this tomorrow.

Referrence: Bantay Kinaiyahan (Watershed Issues in Brief) of the Interface Development Interventions, Inc

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For more than a year now, my Tuesday mornings has always been bloody hilarious, if not frustrating.

Or both.

Tomorrow, the city council will unleash its clowns again—some of them are literally funny enough to cause rectal bleeding among the spectators, including me, and some are just plain stupid enough to cause constipation.

Oh. Sorry for being a little “toiletty” here. How can I possibly help it when, most of the times, some of the city councilors act like shits who exhumed themselves straight from high end subdivision’s septic tanks, only that they are clad in coat and tie and embroidered barongs?

Sure they make the entire session hall reek of you-know-what.

First off, I would like to expect councilors In-Fairness-To-Me and The-Allegator-Your-Honor to take the podium again, like they did last Tuesday. These two always tried to outwit each other.

If councilor In-Fairness-To-Me stands, councilor The-Allegator-Your-Honor follows. It appears that this has become an unwritten rule already which everyone else in the council understands.

But everytime the two councilors grab the mic, the rest of the honorable councilors would always be caught scratching their heads, maliciously grinning, talking to each other, or leaving the hall. The presiding officer, the vice mayor, always leaves the hall.

Last Tuesday, as councilor The-Allegator-Your-Honor was just starting to say her piece, the vice mayor slammed the gavel and declared a one minute recess. The session resumed after almost 10 minutes, though. Another councilor presided over.

Later, councilor In-Fairness-To-Me broke the house with his as if not-so-obvious observation of aerial spraying, a method of synthetic chemical application in banana plantations now widely criticized for its potential to contaminate open bodies of water and expose and kill many people because of the uncontrolled chemical drifts carried by the wind.

“Your honor, aerial spraying is very exposure!” he said with conviction after which he turned to look at the journalists covering the session as if saying “In fairness to me, eh?”

And who could forget when councilor The-Allegator-Your-Honor said “The allegation of the alligator, your honor…”

Well, there are also those whose roles in the city council are nothing but 1.) To raise their hands whenever a votation is needed and 2.) To keep their mouths shut. One of them is this very beautiful and stylish Sangguniang Kabataan leader.

Tomorrow, I can only imagine a battle of cocks peeing and throwing up (that’s cumming, yeah) with their long and useless debates on matters too important to be dragged.

Hell, yeah, they can actually throw logic and reasons at each other. They’re lawyers after all and dense enough to self-tag as The Conscience.

Well, conscience my ass.

Tomorrow they will battle up each other till kingdom come--until they lose their audience, including the ever impatient journalists. They’ve long lost their senses and decency.

I’m dying to see them lose their voices. And their useless lives.

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I thought it was nothing but just the beer and the lack of American lemons that had me acting jumpy. My hands were clammy and my back was drenched in sweat.

The night wind had the smell of deadwood and dried animal urine that sent me long forgotten memories of General Santos City, when it was still known as Dadiagas—the time when despite the downpour and surprising cracks in the sky, my feet felt dry against the sand.

Geeya and Leggy were excited about Christmas while arguing whether the black woman belting out with Mariah Carrey on the wide screen was Patty Austin. Everyone at Kanto Bar seemed oblivious that it was already September.

The clocked marked 1eyem. The inevitable has arrived. It was difficult but somehow I mustered the courage to fake an early Christmas greeting.

Geeya noticed how jittery I was immediately after I moved in from the not too far table of Cheerah and her American friend. I lit up stick after stick of Marlboro Lights in my bid to calm myself.

It worked. It kept my remaining sanity intact. Perhaps it was the nicotine or just the white smoke that confused me, redirected my attention from myself into creating bizarre forms and figures of dull creepy colors that blocked my eyes and numbed my brain.

My phone trilled and I know it was mama. I was scared to pick it up. Afraid of the message. It trilled again, sending a message of urgency and alarm. I wished mama was just kidding me when she told me earlier that papa caught himself in a brawl and they were rushing him to the hospital.

How can a sexagenarian possibly be caught in a manual crushing of skulls and battery of flesh? How can one engage in a violent showdown of physical strength, which can be measured and defined by age? How can one not possibly distance himself from trouble?

How…fuck!

Thinking of it made me wish for my own death.

Earlier, Cheerah narrated how she’s having trouble meeting her deadlines. Germel lamented the same thing while we were having dinner two hours earlier. Both of them just came from Manila for a gathering of journalists.

Both of them wore deep black tops…the shades enough to embarrass the night.