Hello, folks. My name is Brad; I'm a retired English teacher who specialized in seniors and juniors at a Massachusetts high school. I love a good novel, a fine poem. My home for the past seven years has been in Cabanatuan City, which is centrally located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. My "sigoth" Glenda and I, along with Glenda's daughter Krizza, live in a cozy outbuilding on the estate of Teresita Tecson, whose family asked me to come live with them four years ago. I've met many fine people here, made good friendships, helped out where I could, accepted help when it was offered. Started this blog a few months after coming to the Philippines, and have kept a double focus throughout these pages: one, to let you enter my personal life and the lives of Filipinos close to me; two, to offer overviews of current issues important to Filipinos, as well as the customs and heritage of a remarkable people. Cheers!

Birthday boy.

5.1.25

Birdsong and Butterflies

Glenda was a little anxious about the steepness of the resort's driveway. "Go, go, go, go, go!" I chortled next to her, and she revved straight up the incline. Pointing upward at a 35 or 40-degree angle, we stopped at a wall, and with my left hand I yanked back on the parking brake forcefully. Resort staff hefted large rocks from the side of the driveway and placed them against our rear tires. Mama Bienbe, the children, and Glenda and I got out of the car and greeted Torreses coming up behind us in tricycles, on motorcycles. The air was fresh and cool. We'd arrived at the Sevilla Paradise Resort.

I was paying for the two nights in an onsite house which slept 15, and

at the greeting pavilion, which had a sari-sari store, I handed over twelve

blue bills and one yellow bill: P12,500. Sleeping 15 folks for less than $60

a night? Seemed like a good deal to me, back when I was using Google

Maps, Facebook, and Youtube to find a place for us in the mountains of

the Sierra Madre. The videos for Sevilla presented a place that seemed

somewhat commercialized for my taste, and there were bucolic cabins

with a pool just up the road from Sevilla, but a cabin there could sleep

only twelve, and would cost considerably more than what Sevilla was

offering. 

With our belongings, and food for six meals which various Torreses had bought and prepared, we trudged up a number of steps to an area where we could wait while resort staff cleaned the house we would stay in. There, next to Spongebob Squarepants and one of the 

                                                                          smaller pools, Glenda pointed out for me mulberry bushes and the weavings of silkworms

                                                                          around the crotches at the base of each bush. She brought me to the base of one of three

                                                                          avocado trees on the property, and we looked up at the fruit which, though shaped like

                                                                          avocados, were at this time the size of small plums.

                                                                          Glenda's a farm girl, and she knows her agriculture. While we walked about the upper level

                                                                          of the resort, several of her relatives went back down to the driveway, and as G and I sat on  

                                                                          a bench to admire a view of Luzon's central plain far below, I noticed a line of young Torreses

                                                                          making their way up the steps in parade formation. Balloons were deposited next to us, and

                                                                          Glenda's nephew JM made glitter confetti explode from a tube. Ah, and then a chocolate

                                                                          cake with mocha icing was placed on the table before us as the crew sang the birthday song.

                                                                          Sixty-seven candles would surely have been too many for me; I was grateful they had

                                                                          provided just one for me to puff out.

                                                                          That was good cake. With the mocha taste still in my mouth, we trooped into our home for                                                                                the next 48-odd hours. On the first level, where Glenda and I would sleep on mattresses, we found a spacious living room, a kitchen with a stove, a dining room too small for us, and a bathroom. Up above, one bedroom with a double bed for Glenda's mom and perhaps Novi's little ones, and a very large loft with many mattresses. We had brought sheets, blankets, and pillows, and we set about unpacking and making beds. What food the Torreses brought with them! A bucket of shrimp, pompanos, tilapia, a huge hunk of pork, kilos of longganisa. close to a hundred eggs, a variety of vegetables.  Of course, a very large sack of rice. We ate well indeed in the covered court at the front of our house. Drank well too: I'd asked Glenda to stop at a liquor store before we started ascending the mountain.

The mountain is Mt. Labi, over whose lower shoulder Rt. 16 winds its way before eventually dropping to the coastal plain and the town of Baler. On that shoulder the resort sat. From the largest of the swimming pools we had a view of Labi's summit; from the same pool one could view in the opposite direction Luzon's central plain and, just discernible at the horizon, the silhouette of Mt. Aryat, an extinct volcano not very far from Manila.

Mount Labi has an elevation of 1,628 meters, or 5,340 feet. I judged the summit to be no more than 2,000 feet above us, which meant the resort likely perched more than 3,000 feet above the plain. The pools were all fed by a mountain spring and the water was malamig! -- very cold. We learned that it took no more than five or ten minutes to get used to it, though, and we spent a good deal of time in the water during the stay. With regard to fauna, the resort was teeming with butterflies, most of them white but some with colorful patterns. Friday morning before most of the others were up I went for a dip and found in the water a butterfly on its back struggling. It was almost as large as my outstretched hand, which I used to flip the creature onto the walkway right-side-up. It spent about a half hour in the sun, occasionally flapping its wings. Then it was on its way. There were birds aplenty, but alas none of the more exotic fauna of the Sierra Madre mentioned two postings ago. Unless -- upon our arrival, and at about the time Glenda was examining the mulberry bushes, we both saw in the distance, maybe 400 or 500 yards away in the direction of the mountain's summit, a very large dark bird gliding downward until it was hidden by trees. The gliding action made me think "buteo," and I'm still wondering whether Glenda and I had caught a glimpse of the famous Philippine eagle.

No hiking! No spelunking! No river splashing! Were we lazy? Well, yeah. Understand most of us (exclude Bienbe and me) had busy lives, and this was a chance to relax.  . . . But what should receive the most blame for our eschewal of offsite activities can be seen in the photo above. No, I do not refer to the trip's munchkins, Joy-Joy and Ethan; I refer to the machine you can see above Joy-Joy's right shoulder. It is a karaoke machine, and a good one. When the owner/manager of the resort, Abed, learned that it was my birthday, he gave us the machine and the songbooks for the duration of our stay, waiving the rental fee. The Torreses are more enthusiastic than the average Filipino when it comes to karaoke -- and that is saying something. So we sang, and we sang a good deal. Yes, even I sang (let's see, four solos and two duets)! In all my years in the Philippines I begged off singing when a microphone was going around, realizing I had little talent when it came to singing. The gin helped me to change my mind on the second night, and I belted out Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall," scoring a 90! Wasn't microphone-shy for the rest of that evening.

And now Glenda and I are ensconced once again in our little house within Teresita Tecson's compound in Cabanatuan City. The queasiness of the stomach bug is gone, it feels good not to feel badly, and I'm hunched over the keyboard listening to Baroque guitar. Will post a few more pics of the trip tomorrow.

4.29.25

Messy Ailment

Hope you won't mind waiting another two or three days for the next substantive posting, about my birthday outing to the mountains with many Torreses. It's a bit embarrassing, but another stomach bug clipped me (after I had returned home). Following the trip, Krizza left for Manila to stay with Bong and Jennylyn until Angelo's wedding, thankfully leaving just Glenda to look after me and put up with my groaning and dashes to the bathroom. Right now just lack the stamina to stay at this machine and work my brain for any length of time.

I'm coming down with these gastrointestinal maladies twice a year or so since moving here: inflammation, fever, cramping. In the States, I had one every three years or so. The tap water is fine to drink, Filipinos assure me, and the vast majority of Filipinos drink it. But many affluent Filipinos in Cabanatuan buy their drinking water specially filtered at so-called "waterstations." It is time for me to check out one of these places.

4.20.25

Sophie

Phoebe, our big sleek calico, outsizes and outweighs her sister, the tabby Sophie -- and to her credit, Phoebe has never bullied around her sister, indeed often has shown deference to her sister at the feeding bowl. As I noted in the last posting, they both have access to the outdoors and are fond of the hunt, yet Phoebe is the one who seems more comfortable staying outside for long stretches of time; we take in stride nights at bedtime when Phoebe is not in our rooms, closing the gate and locking the outside door. She would return next day for food and a long snooze. Once she was gone for two days but turned up at our doorstep on the third morning, dirty-pawed and ravenous.

Sophie never stayed outside for more than a few hours -- and now she has been missing for more than a week. Our third day without her, I made a poster that included a photo of Sophie with the help of Word, printed seven copies, and brought them with tape to every sari-sari in the neighborhood, asking the mom-and-pop owners if I could post one where customers would notice it. No one turned me down, and most had sympathetic words for me. Alas, no one has called the number on the poster.

In much happier news, Krizza formally graduated seventh grade at a ceremony in the SM Mall a few days back. The ceremony went on and on: all grades of the Jolly Hearts Academy were included, and each student stood on the stage with the school's principal and the school's founder posing for a photo with each student before awarding a diploma. Special awards for everyone, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Francis and I sneaked off to buy popcorn; when we returned I could see that Krizza's moment was still an hour or so away, so I made off for the SM department store, where I got fitted for much-needed footwear (black Chuckie Taylor's) and chose a new pair of reading glasses (I keep two pairs and one pair broke some time ago). Returned in good time to see Krizza mount the stage and accept her diploma, then played the stalwart when Glenda let me know we were staying put until the end of the ceremony. Ah, well. Eventually the graduating seniors sang in chorus their class song, something by Kate Perry, and the announcer intoned that the academy's graduation ceremony was completed.

It's become hot on Luzon's central plain, folks, afternoon temps currently between 95 and 100 F --

and we expect it to remain so for about another two months, when overcast skies and the rains will

pull those temps down. Most students do not have air conditioning in their schools, and the school

year (July to March) was arranged to forestall cases of heatstroke in the classroom -- indeed, there

will be stretches of days in the coming weeks when daytime temps exceed 100 degrees. It should be 

a good deal cooler in the Sierra Madre, to which I'll repair with plenty of Torreses and friends on

Thursday for a 3-day stay. There will be swimming and hiking, fun and games. I'll turn 67 up there,

so there will be some celebrating, too. Will bring along that tale of the man of La Mancha by

Cervantes, in case this old guy gets tuckered out, what with all the activity -- probably the most

famous work of world literature that I never got around to. Bought it at the National Bookstore a

few days ago.

Ten-Jong will feed Phoebe while we're away -- and will keep an eye out for Sophie.

Update 4:30 AM 4.22: Sophie is back! She and Phoebe were just now crying at the door! She's skinny and hungry. Where has she been?! Ten days on her own!

4.11.25

Critters

Where I lived in central Massachusetts for several years before jumping the Pacific, it wouldn't be unusual for me to see a deer or two, or a rafter of turkeys on somebody's front lawn, on any given day. Once one of my classes was interrupted when students rushed to the windows to watch a female moose clop down the faculty parking lot. Coyotes, bobcats, even bears were a part of my world. Now, on the central plain of Luzon there is very little in the way of sizeable wildlife. Turkeys you can find, but only as poultry. Pythons are said to inhabit some of the larger rice fields, but I haven't seen any. A Filipino friend sent me a picture of him holding up a three-foot monitor lizard by the tail, captured by him at a resort on the outskirts of town -- but I haven't seen a lizard in the flesh anywhere near that size, so they must be few and far between.

About an hour's drive to the east of Cabanatuan the Sierra Madre stand, a prickly spine following Luzon's eastern shore. A handful of its summits rise above 6,000 feet, and not many people live in these mountains. But wild boars do live there, and a shy, fruit-eating reptile that grows to six feet (Varanus bitatawa). Huge flying foxes and the largest eagle in the world live in these mountains, and there are occasional sightings of the tamaraw, a pygmy buffalo indigenous to the island of Mindoro. The mountains are also home to many species of wild orchids, as well as the oddly grounded dipterocarp tree!

Murat Gūngör                                                                 Rappler                                                                                                     Le Bete Royaume

I write of this interesting fauna and flora because after years of merely driving over these mountains in order to reach the coast, I'm finally going to spend some time in them! Three days and two nights, to be exact. I've reserved a bunkhouse at the Sevilla Paradise Camp well up in the mountains. It sleeps 15 and comes with a kitchen, so many Torreses and friends will be joining Glenda, me, Krizza, and Francis. The trip will be about two weeks from now, and the posting after next I'll devote to our experiences in a mountain rain forest.

Regarding critters at home, Sophie and Phoebe still need rabies shots; must stop procrastinating on that. Those critters have a habit of bringing indoors critters they have captured in the compound and beyond. And both of these cats bring their captives inside alive and kicking, before releasing them in the relatively close quarters of our living room and chasing them down here. Yup. About two months ago I threw paper towels over a small bat before Phoebe could tear it limb from limb. Walked into the dark compound with it, and it flew from my hands. Three weeks ago, while Glenda's sister Gio and Gio's partner Charm were staying with us, there was sudden commotion when Phoebe brought in a small black bird with interesting teal stripes on its wings. The bird got away from the cat and skittered across the floor; then Gio went to grab it as Charm held off the cat. Gio brought it back to Rizal in a cardboard box, and it now lives in a cage at the farmhouse. Finally, just three evenings ago, Sophie burst through our cat hole; I was intent on something on the computer screen and didn't look over to see what was up with the orange tabby. Then I felt something hit up against my bare right foot, and I looked to my left to confirm my sense that the cat was over there. More movement against my right foot. Looking down, I saw a lizard at least six inches long cowering there. It seemed traumatized but was not physically harmed, and under Sophie's watchful eye I reached for a hand towel and tossed it over the poor guy. Secured it mainly by the tail with the body hanging out, and the tail did not snap off. This fact, and the loose flesh at its gizzard, suggested to me that I was holding a juvenile monitor lizard. Well, whatever it was, I carried it outside the compound, after showing it to Teresita at the clothesline, and brought it to a small field at the end of our block, where I released it.

Wildlife on Luzon's central plain tends to be small, but it seems abundant enough to keep a tabby and a calico entertained.

3.30.25

Wedding Plans for Angelo; Midterms on the Way

When a Filipino guy has six adult sisters, there is little for him to worry about regarding the planning and financing of his wedding. Unlike in America, the groom's family is expected to plan and pay for weddings here, and for Angelo's sisters the weekend that just ended was a stressful time. Much was accomplished regarding plans and invitations, though, and P30,000 was raised (yes, of course Glenda and I threw in). Angelo and Princess will be married May 10. 

The midterm elections will be held two days after the wedding on May 12. Twelve of the Senate's 24 seats, 317 congressional seats, and thousands of local posts are being contested. Yesterday, while Glenda and Krizza were at the family convocation in Rizal, I woke from an afternoon snooze to the noises of a large crowd of people in the street outside; I pulled on my pants and went out on the doorstep to see what the hubbub was about, and there I met up with Teresita and her orphaned grandson Edward, age 2. They were sitting on the doorstep's stone ledge, which doubles as a kind of bench, watching two or three hundred people, some with banners, surge away from us toward the Maharlika Highway. I'd just missed the procession of a mayoral candidate, which, Teresita informed me, was heading for Freedom Park -- a pretty, grassy area with towering acacia trees, encompassing several blocks in the center of the city -- to partake in an assembly. Teresita went on, in a critical tone, to compare elections in the West to those in the Philippines. "So much noise and arguing, and -- and violence here to choose politicians," she said, then went on to describe the orderliness of elections in the UK, where most people "just mail in their vote!" I told her that American elections were becoming more and more opprobrious, and political violence on a pretty large scale had already taken place in the U.S.

She smiled in a dismissive way, and I realized that political gun violence and assassinations were what she had referred to -- and yes, in that contest the Philippines has the U.S. beat, at least for now. Last August, as candidates were registering their candidacy, two vice mayoral candidates (for different cities) were shot dead. Stop points on roadways have police checking motorists for guns, which are not allowed outside of houses for three months surrounding elections; that edict gunmen have successfully evaded in the past, and, one guesses, will in the future, too.

                                                                                  The tail end of yesterday's procession.

3.21.25

Prom Night

My one prom night happened in my senior year at Cohasset High School (1976). In the Philippines, there is a prom night for 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. Krizza attends the 7th grade prom of the Jolly Hearts Academy tonight, and Glenda and Krizza are squabbling now as Glenda helps her young student with her makeup. Later, Krizza will don a rented gown. It's a hoop gown, but Glenda will "install" the hoop only after she and Krizza arrive at the hotel where the prom will take place: while wearing the hoop, Krizza would simply not fit into the car. Prom-goers in the lower grades do not have dates. Rather, they are paired by staff with a student of the opposite sex for the performance of a cotillion, a formal dance which they have been practicing in school. After this performance, I'm guessing the boys clump with the boys and the girls with the girls for dinner; they are, after all, 7th graders! Parents are invited and Glenda will attend; I'll stay at home with the cats, make myself a big bowl of mac and cheese (never did go in for such affairs: attended senior prom to please my parents and a girlfriend only). Charged the battery for the camera Glenda will take with her, and I'll add some pics before posting this tomorrow.

What else has been going on? We enjoy the new oven. Used the rotisserie to create a juicy whole chicken, and other tasty dishes have come out of that box. Haven't gotten around to sweets yet, but we will. We have been buying other things: let's see, a printer for the computer; a table for pc and printer; a hand-vacuum for the car and mattresses . . . .  In other, much more dire news, deaths from rabies reached a new high in the Philippines in 2024: 246 Filipinos met painful deaths, caused more often than not by family pets. And so I called in the pet carrier I had loaned out to Mariel -- we'll bring Phoebe and Sophie to the vets next week for vaccinations. They both spend time outdoors now, and though they mainly keep to the compound, both have been spotted in the outer environs (strays, I'll add, occasionally find their way into the compound). 

Rodrigo Duterte refused to attend sessions of his trial in a courtroom of the International Criminal Court, but acceded to using teleconferencing to observe the sessions and respond to prosecutors and his own attorneys. Philippine media is awash with his dour expression on a television screen. Sara Duterte is also using teleconferencing from the Hague to fulfill as many vice-presidential responsibilities as she can.

Thanks to friendly breezes out of the northeast, temperatures remain comfortable. We are on the cusp of Philippine summer (April till the rains start near the end of June), and scorchers lie ahead of us, we know.

                                                                                                                  A serene queen. And Glenda did get her into the car, hoop skirt and all!

3.12.25

Duterte Arrested and Flown to the Hague!

Arriving from Hong Kong after a short visit there, Rodrigo Duterte found himself suddenly surrounded by armed security personnel at Aquino Airport in Manila. The security force arrested him and eventually put him on a plane to Amsterdam, with an ultimate destination of the Hague and Scheveningen Prison, where he'll await trial. When one considers the facts that this man was the last president of the country, and that his daughter is the current vice president, one realizes what a big deal this is.

In a briefing close to midnight, President Marcos said, "Interpol asked for help, and we obliged because we have commitments to Interpol which we have to fulfill. If we don't do that, they will not -- they will no longer help us with other cases involving Filipinos fugitives abroad." The International Criminal Court had indicted Duterte after a lengthy investigation into his involvement in the extrajudicial killings of people involved in the illegal drug trade during his tenure as president. We'll never know how many lives were snuffed out: various authorities place the number killed by sanctioned police and vigilantes at anywhere from 12,000 to 30,000. The worst of the slaughter took place in Metro Manila, but killings took place across the islands, and Nueva Ecija, with 156 drug suspects shot down, was no exception. Police shot and killed three young men and a woman one night in a "buy and bust" operation on a dark road between rice fields, not far from where I live. It was on the route to the house of my girlfriend at the time; for quite a while I tensed up whenever I drove around that corner.

There is a great deal of consternation and debate among Filipinos over the sudden arrest and deportation of Duterte. "How can a president kidnap his predecessor, one whose daughter is his own vice president, and hand him over to an international court?" "Well, how can any Philippine president encourage the streetside executions of people selling some shabu?" (Shabu is the slang term here for crystal methamphetamine.) And so on. As I've noted in a previous posting or two, a rupture occurred in the former alliance between the Marcoses and the Dutertes when the current administration was still young; many see the removal of the Duterte patriarch as a Marcos stratagem designed to strengthen his own family's political power. If there is some truth in this belief, I like to think Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. also has feelings for the mothers, fathers, and children of the thousands who met an unusually violent "justice."

Vice president Sara Duterte has flown to the Hague to help prepare her father's defense.

Politics in Duterte arrest? Marcos says ‘gov’t doing its job’

Heatmap of Drug-Related Violence - Violence, Human Rights, and Democracy in the Philippines

Click "14" in the blue box above for earlier entries!