Look Ma, I'm a Writer!

What angered
the Filipinos
and the rest of the world
was that despite
the Philippines being
hit by history's
strongest storm,
and despite the
prompt response of the
entire international community,
local officials
of the Philippine government
had the nerve to slap on
donor's taxes,
import duties,
and other tariffs
on relief goods
and foreign aid
arriving in the aftermath
of the supertyphoon.

But although on the surface
it looked like highway robbery,
this was actually
way more than the
State skimming
a few pesos off the top
using the cleverly executed
sleight of hand techniques
of a certified public accountant.

For every dollar
in foreign aid sent
by our international neighbors,
two percent is taken
by the government.
But the amount collected
does not go to the
local government coffers,
nor does it end up
in the pockets of politicians;
instead, these taxes
are being used
to fund



The Philippine Jaeger Program
The Philippines is known for a lot of things. It is famous for its beaches, its islands, its festivals, and its people. It is also infamous for its dirty politics and rampant corruption.

The pork barrell scandal which rocked Philippine politics just months earlier saw the disappearance of millions of pesos into bogus beneficiaries and non-existent NGOs. It seems public trust has disappeared with the public money, and after a tragedy like Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines last November 8, you can't blame the public for their vigilance.

What most people don't know is that the people's taxes are being used for a noble purpose: the funding of the Philippine Jaeger Program, or the PJP.

The PJP was inspired by decades of exposure to Japanese mechas, and most recently, the release of the film Pacific Rim. Jaegers or battle mechs are huge, gigantic robots controlled by pilots, and are humanity's last line of defense against giant monsters.

"The PJP is doing practically the same thing as the anime battle mechs," says the Honourable Jorge "Bolet" Banal, Congressman of Quezon City's 3rd Legislative District and Chairperson of the Philippine Jaeger Program. "Our goal is to create even bigger, more gigantic robots capable of battling the weather."

That's right–it's Man v. Nature on the road to extinction. If you've seen the satellite photographs of Typhoon Haiyan, then you know why it's called a "supertyphoon". To combat gigantic storms, you need gigantic robots, which is why Philippine Jaegers are generally two to three times bigger than the Jaegers in Pacific Rim.

Because of the sheer size of the robots, two pilots won't be enough. "We need four to five pilots to control a single Jaeger," says Banal. "So in a sense, our pilots are closer to a proper Voltron or Voltes V team."

Chairman Bolet Banal also took the time to explain how a Jaeger is deployed into action. "What we do is we have an early warning device," he explains, "which tells us if we have a typhoon forming in the middle of the Pacific. Then we deploy the Jaeger to meet it halfway across the ocean, and here it unleashes an array of weapons designed to weaken the storm. That way, should the typhoon still make landfall, it would be reduced to gale-force winds."

Following the movie Pacific Rim's tradition of Jaeger names, the Philippines's first Jaeger prototype has been christened "Snyper Bolet", in honour of PJP Chairman Bolet Banal, and is expected to be deployed with the next supertyphoon.



16 Nov 2013

As the setting sun
coloured the sky
from blue to orange,
the boy touched
his little sister
on the arm,
letting her know
it would be dark soon.

And as the sky
changed colours
from orange to purple,
the children headed back
to their assigned shelter,
shielding their noses
from the stench of death,
looking away from
the corpses, recognising
their dead neighbors
who were alive just days ago.

And as the sky darkened
from purple to black,
the boy and his sister
reached their home
─their temporary
roof of thatch and
waterlogged lumber─
shared with a thousand
other refugees, grumbling
stomachs silenced by
very meager dinner rations
enjoyed under the yellow glow
of candlelight and gas lamps.

And as the night sky exploded
into a thousand celestial lights,
the boy and his sister
found a small patch of grass,
where they lay down,
hugged each other,
and cried,
as every star in the heavens
twinkled with the reassurance
that tomorrow would bring
a new day, and
a new hope.



15 Nov 2013

She came in soaking wet,
for it was raining outside.
"The strongest typhoon
in history,"
they called it,
and thank heavens
it made landfall
on another part
of the archipelago,
way down south.

The woman approached
the receptionist,
who informed her
that the doctor
would see her next,
as soon as he was done
with his current patient.

So she sat herself down
on a couch in the lobby,
while a news broadcast
showed scenes of destruction,
as the strongest typhoon
in history
decimated the southern cities
live on national television.

She was slightly anxious,
as this was the first time
she would be going under
a surgical blade.
She began fiddling
with her nose,
touching the bridge,
feeling it in
its natural state
for the last time.
Then she put
her hand in her bag,
fiddling the thick wad of cash
she withdrew from an ATM machine.

As she was counting the money,
making sure she had enough
for her noselift,
her eyes had become glued
to the television screen,
where she saw entire city streets
reduced to rubble,
despair and desolation
on people's faces, and
not a single smile on anyone,
corpses strewn everywhere
like debris,
waiting to be collected
by street cleaners
who would never come.

When the receptionist announced that
the doctor would be seeing her now,
the lobby was already empty.
The woman had left,
braving the pouring rains
to the nearest drop-off centre,
where she gave her entire
cosmetic surgery budget
as a donation
to the victims of
the strongest typhoon
in history.



Dedicated to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan a.k.a. Yolanda, 8 Nov 2013, Philippines

Sat strapped to a chair,
while a man in a mask
brandished instruments of pain.
And pain was indeed inflicted
on the bravest man alive,
with fists clenching in anticipation
at the sound of spinning rotors,
muscles tightening at the
smell of grinding metal,
buttocks rising off the seat
with every touch of
steel blades on bone and tissue.
Yet the bravest man alive
stayed silent throughout the ordeal,
and with one final sound
of breaking bone,
it was all over.
The bravest man alive
smacked his lips
to the taste of blood,
and his tongue could feel
the soft, torn flesh in his mouth
where his front tooth used to be.


*Conceived Saturday, 22 June 2013

It was "Take Your Kid to Work" Day,
and the morning sun reflected
on the little boy's
kiddie-sized aviators
as he rode shotgun
in his father's jeepney.
He was very excited,
and he dressed for it -
a blue ball cap
to match his new blue shirt,
with paper bills sharply
folded around his fingers
like wolverine claws.
He was already in third grade,
yet he had never seen
his father at work,
ferrying passengers around the metro
like the nice man that he is.
All he did was
take the passengers's fare
while his father gave the change,
because the boy didn't know
the different fares
for the different stops.
But he was quite good at math,
this little boy,
and as the sun rose higher in the sky,
he noticed his father
starting to shortchange his passengers.
First 25 cents,
then 50,
then one peso,
then two.
When he looked up
into his father's eyes,
and saw his father
refusing to look back,
the little boy
did not know
what to make of it.


*conceived Sat, 13 Apr 2013

Her son waved goodbye,
and she waved back,
her gaze following
the school bus as it
disappeared down
the street.
Slowly the sound of its sputtering
engine faded out
as it turned the corner.

Then she heard
silence,

but only for
a second,

for the sound
of hammer
on nail
on wood
quickly faded in.
And she saw
a carpenter
on her neighbor's roof,
singing some
long-forgotten construction song
as he pounded away on an
invisible insect
resting atop the nailhead.
All this yammering and hammering
upset the neighbor's dog,
its barks seemingly syncopated
to the sound of the pounding.
A few seconds later
she heard the cries of
"Taho!"
And sure enough,
Manong Joey appeared,
(who, save for his gray hairs,
looked exactly like he did
two decades ago),
bearing on his shoulders
the visually-imbalanced
silver scales of justice.
His bellows and his breathing
were synced, and he showed
no sign of slowing his stride,
knowing that people
on this street
rarely bought from him
on a schoolday.

As she listened to the
symphony of suburbia, she smiled
to herself, remembering the time
exactly twenty years ago
when she had to miss school
because she was sick.
She had stood in her pajamas
and waved goodbye as her
brothers boarded the bus,
and then she had heard
the same sounds,
the exact elements
of sputter,
yammer,
hammer,
bark,
and "Taho!",
only in a different arrangement,
and in a slightly slower time signature.