About Me

Saw some­one with an about.me pro­file, and I became envi­ous. I had to make my own.

This goes to the front page, stickied.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Protected: A Declaration

Ambitions

Last Sun­day, over lunch, I told my par­ents and my older brother that one of my friends was going to Spain to take up her MBA. It was the same school that some of my other class­mates in Ate­neo went to, and it’s said to be the best busi­ness school in Europe. They then informed me that one of my “ate” in high school also went to Spain to take up her MBA, seemed to have grabbed a job there, and has now sent her par­ents on a Rome tour.

I became silent, and a lit­tle bit tense. I had an inkling where this con­ver­sa­tion was going to lead to.

Why don’t you try apply­ing for a schol­ar­ship abroad? Papa asked me. After which you can return as a the CEO of a bank, or an insur­ance company.

Or per­haps the gov­er­nor of the BSP, Kuya chimed in.

Hmmm. I didn’t expect that response. Yes, Papa has always been vocal about send­ing me abroad. He believes that fur­ther suc­cess can be achieved by way of a for­eign assign­ment. In a way, it’s under­stand­able. We’ve always been a fam­ily of movers, nomads that travel from place to place, seek­ing for oppor­tu­ni­ties in lands more fer­tile than the last. Papa him­self had begun his quest in Mas­bate, then trav­elled to Cebu with Mama, then on to Zam­boanga (where I was born), and then finally find­ing his Ulti­mate in Davao. I guess it’s high time for me to find my Ulti­mate, which may or may not be in Makati, which may or may not be in the Philippines.

But I digress. The dis­cus­sion about emi­gra­tion has been tack­led ad infini­tum, but the CEO/governor thing gave me pause. I myself have not thought of reach­ing those lofty posi­tions. I’d like to think that I have big dreams for myself, but learn­ing that oth­ers have big­ger ones for me is quite daunt­ing. Should I be flat­tered because it’s one mas­sive vote of con­fi­dence, or should I be ter­ri­fied because the expec­ta­tions are once again far beyond my capabilities?

It’s time to reassess my posi­tion, because I have always envi­sioned my future as this:

[WARNING: GEEK MODE AHEAD.]

I’ll take my final local actu­ar­ial exam in Decem­ber 2011 and pass (MUST. PASS.), attain­ing local Fel­low­ship by 2012, and then com­pletely tackle the inter­na­tional actu­ar­ial exams by 2015. In between these sets of exams, I’ll take my insur­ance courses and attain two more des­ig­na­tions. The CFA title is also swirling in there some­where, but more impor­tant, I intend on tak­ing my Mas­ters degree in Finan­cial Math­e­mat­ics or Quan­ti­ta­tive Finance. Prefer­ably abroad, like the Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy in Aus­tralia. How­ever, unless I get a schol­ar­ship, I don’t think that’s going to be quite likely, and tak­ing time off from work to study is a pipe dream as far as I’m concerned.

In the mean­time, I’ll work as Man­ager for what­ever com­pany I’m cur­rently work­ing for, then move on to for­eign soil in five years’ time (just in time for my inter­na­tional actu­ar­ial des­ig­na­tion). I have my eyes set on Aus­tralia or Canada. Like I men­tioned to a pre­vi­ous boss of mine, I have no plans of work­ing in Sin­ga­pore or Hong Kong. I find that the envi­ron­ment there is, for lack of a bet­ter term, robotic, and I need a lit­tle flex­i­bil­ity in my pro­fes­sional life. In any case, I’ll be stay­ing abroad for five years, then move back to the Philip­pines to assume a higher posi­tion. Not as high as the CEO or the BSP gov­er­nor (good­ness), but at the very most, the Chief Actu­ary of an insur­ance company.

[GEEK MODE ENDS.]

In two years’ time, I’ll be stay­ing in a con­do­minium I bought with my own money. A year after that, I will have bought a car to be used for every­day util­ity. Five years after that, per­haps the car of my dreams, and then within the next ten years, the condo of my dreams.

By age 28, I will have vis­ited my uncle in Ire­land. By the time I hit 30, I will have trav­elled the entire South­east Asia, includ­ing China. To cel­e­brate con­quer­ing this part of the world, I will be spend­ing New Year 2015 in New York City with some friends, drunk as a skunk while watch­ing the ball drop from Times Square. By age 35, I will have spent a few weeks in Europe, includ­ing Spain, where I will no longer be able to eat in the awe­some­ness that is El Bulli but per­haps can still visit as a form of rev­er­ence to culi­nary genius, and Greece, where I will have spent a few days bask­ing in the beauty that is San­torini (and its peo­ple). Then it’s off to Maccu Pic­chu and Rio de Janeiro before I reach 40.

These are my dreams. These are my goals. These are my ambitions.

But the ques­tion remains: can I do it?

The hon­est response: I don’t know. And I don’t think I’ll ever know until I finally pub­lish this mon­ster of an entry that has already taken up 12 hours of my life, set my lap­top aside, bring out my high­lighter, pens, and book, and start scrib­bling my way past Chap­ter 5 of this volu­mi­nous Invest­ments book.

And then per­haps I’ll have a fight­ing chance.

Best Movies of 2011 So Far (June 2011)

It’s mid­way through 2011, and I’ve only man­aged to watch 16 movies. I missed out on Scream 4, Insid­i­ous, Saw 3D, The Adjust­ment Bureau, X-Men: First Class, Lim­it­less, and Never Say Never in 3D (!), which is just unfor­tu­nate. I don’t think I’ll be able to watch 52 films this year, but I hope that I’ll sur­pass the 30-movie mark by the end of 2011.

In any case, here’s a list of the movies I’ve watched so far, with my Top 5 promi­nently tak­ing the lime­light. Sadly, unlike in 2010 where there were such gems like Incep­tion and Shut­ter Island, the qual­ity of movies has gone down considerably.

 My favorite of the bunch so far. While the first Kung Fu Panda left me cold with its incredible/unbelievable end­ing, Kung Fu Panda 2 pro­vided Po with a moti­va­tion so strong and con­vinc­ing that it became easy for me to accept his mad skillz at the end. Add to that an adorable baby Po, and we have a vic­tor emerging.

This may be an exag­ger­a­tion, but I can’t find any evi­dence that will be able to con­tra­dict it: Tan­gled is the best (non-Pixar) Dis­ney movie in the last decade, and per­haps the best to come out since Mulan slashed her way through the sil­ver screen.

Addic­tive, campy fun. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to watch a deli­cious musi­cal, and Bur­lesque deliv­ered in both deli­cious­ness (in more ways than one ;P) and musi­cal­ity. While I think Kris­ten Bell stuck out like a sore thumb, cast­ing Cher and Christina Aguil­era together felt organic and natural.

A movie that tar­gets my many weak­nesses: non-linear sto­ry­telling, time twist­ing, dimen­sion bend­ing. An easy B+ for me.

Didn’t feel like 127 hours in the cin­ema, that’s for sure. Also a good reminder for me to tell my par­ents that I’ll be going to Cam­bo­dia this August. Just in case I get lost in the tem­ples or get eaten by rabid mon­keys or something.

And the rest of the movies, arranged from most liked to least liked. This should be the last time Johnny Depp dons that Jack Spar­row cos­tume of his. The cow, it has been milked.

Throwing Punches

I don’t write about pol­i­tics, ethics, and reli­gion too often, because I think these are divi­sive top­ics most of the time, and writ­ing about them requires a lot of restraint, respon­si­bil­ity, and research. Though I have a lot of opin­ions on our politi­cians, pub­lic ser­vants, and priests, I usu­ally don’t have the nec­es­sary back­ground to ele­vate my com­ments from the mun­dane (“Gusto ko si Leila de Lima. Tough.”) and the crass (“Gago pala yang mga bish­ops na yan e. Dis­gust­ing pala ha? Look who’re being dis­gust­ing.”) to some­thing more “newspaper-worthy.”

The issue at hand is too close to home, how­ever, so I decided to share my thoughts on this one.

Per­haps it’s a mere coin­ci­dence that I came home to Davao just as the spot­light hit the city with the inten­sity of a thou­sand col­lid­ing media vans. A brief but dev­as­tat­ing down­pour of rain had just caused a con­sid­er­able loss in homes and in lives. Even though I was still in Manila when the first wave struck (there was a sec­ond one later that week), I wit­nessed the rem­nants of the ter­ror that passed because my fam­ily lives close to the most affected areas. In fact, the funeral home where a num­ber of flood vic­tims were laid to rest is just a stone’s throw away from our house.

The focus on Davao City inten­si­fied when a few days after our mayor punched the city sher­iff in the face. The details can be Googled eas­ily, but in a nut­shell: (a) a demo­li­tion order was to be exe­cuted that day; (b) Mayor Sara Duterte requested for a 2-hour exten­sion before the exe­cu­tion so she can come over and talk to the res­i­dents; © the sher­iff Abe Andres did not fol­low this order, and the demo­li­tion team advanced despite vio­lent protests from the res­i­dents; (d) the mayor arrived in time to see this hap­pen­ing, ordered the sher­iff to face her, and then punched him for his disobedience.

The back­lash came swift and fierce. As the events were tele­vised on a national scale, the com­ments came from all over. Twit­ter and Face­book sta­tuses buzzed with the opin­ions of inter­ested onlook­ers. While there were those who cheered Mayor Duterte for her spunk and for stand­ing her ground, there were sev­eral crit­ics who opined that she should be made account­able for her actions, for being unpro­fes­sional in deal­ing with the sheriff.

I have no issues with both types of reac­tions, as both have their mer­its. I for one think that the mayor’s heart is in the right place. The city had just expe­ri­enced one of the worst nat­ural dis­as­ters in recent years, and the exe­cu­tion of a demo­li­tion order at such a time is not only insen­si­tive, it is heart­less. Mayor Duterte did not request for a can­cel­la­tion of the order alto­gether; she only requested for a 2-hour reprieve so that she could face the res­i­dents her­self and explain the neces­sity for such an action and thereby pre­vent vio­lence, which she was sure would be forth­com­ing if the demo­li­tion was done wrong. Which it was.

On the other hand, I am also of the opin­ion that this does not jus­tify the pub­lic humil­i­a­tion. As any lead­er­ship book will tell you, rep­ri­mand the sub­or­di­nate in pri­vate. More effort may have been exerted to keep the tem­per in check, espe­cially when the event has already been punc­tu­ated with ini­tial dis­plays of vio­lence. (Do note that after heads have cooled, the mayor her­self acknowl­edges her mis­take and have vol­un­tar­ily filed for a leave of absence from office in order for DILG to con­duct their inves­ti­ga­tions in peace. This is expected of a self-respecting offi­cial, but some­how this makes her head and shoul­ders above the less rep­utable (and more typ­i­cal) politi­cians out there.)

This is not the issue, at least for me. What I take offense to are the other com­ments that have cropped up, par­tic­u­larly those exag­ger­at­ing the actions of our mayor, and those neg­a­tively gen­er­al­iz­ing the Davaoenos as a peo­ple. At least one writer has tweeted that what the mayor did showed shades of Ampat­uan (!!!), while some oth­ers have crit­i­cized the Davaoenos for “need­ing” the Dutertes so much, which is indica­tive of our level of imma­tu­rity and our lack of discipline.

It is to be expected that we Davaoenos will come to the res­cue of our mayor in the face of the harsh crit­i­cisms that have been thrown her way. Local offi­cials voted into office tend to have a more loyal fol­low­ing than their national coun­ter­parts, after all. But in Davao City, it goes beyond a lemming-like sort of loy­alty. Before the narrow-minded crit­ics throw their own punches at the peo­ple and at our mayor, per­haps it would be nice for them to first ask why the Dutertes have ruled Davao City for over 20 years. There must be a rea­son, no?

The Dutertes have trans­formed Davao from its past crime-infested state to one of the most liv­able cities in the Philip­pines. They have pro­vided a level of secu­rity that can­not be matched any­where else. Does this indi­cate that we “need” the Dutertes? Yes, we do. Every city has its crim­i­nals; every city has its exter­nal threats. We “need” the Dutertes in ensur­ing that the peace is kept. And because they have main­tained this peace and man­aged the city suc­cess­fully, the loy­alty has trans­formed to some­thing akin to love.

Does this indi­cate that we need the Dutertes “too much”? I don’t think so. City man­age­ment is a two-way street. The Dutertes are just as depen­dent on the Davaoenos’ par­tic­i­pa­tion as we are on their lead­er­ship and exe­cu­tion. Rather than prov­ing the case that we lack dis­ci­pline, Davao’s cur­rent state is telling of the people’s com­mit­ment to mak­ing the city a more liv­able one. Where else in the Philip­pines can you find a “no-firecracker” ordi­nance that actu­ally works? Where else in the Philip­pines can you find a “no-smoking” ordi­nance that is actu­ally being fol­lowed? Where else in the Philip­pines can you expect taxi dri­vers to NOT reject you, and to give you EXACT change, down to that 50 cent? If that isn’t dis­ci­pline, I don’t know what is.

I wasn’t born in Davao City. My broth­ers weren’t born in Davao City. My par­ents weren’t born in Davao City. But we’ve spent the bet­ter part of our lives here, and we couldn’t have been much prouder and luck­ier to have called this, the Durian City, our home.

Reset

This house has seen sev­eral changes since Papa bought it in 1993, but none more so than the peo­ple liv­ing in it.

I resigned from my pre­vi­ous com­pany after two years of loyal ser­vice. Instead of jump­ing on to the next, like I’m wont to do, I decided it was about time for me to take a long break, with “long” defined as “longer than a typ­i­cal week­end.” A few days of reprieve is already a bless­ing; a fort­night, a mir­a­cle. And when it comes to reju­ve­na­tion, there’s only one place to do it: home.

This is the first time in five years that I’ve stepped foot in Davao on a non-December. My life has been pretty much fast-paced since I started work­ing, with lit­tle time to look behind. It was grind, grind, grind all the way through, a flurry of over­times and meet­ings and papers and exams, and on week­ends, a whirl­wind of dates and romances and par­ties and alco­hol. Call it QLC, call it the Mur­taugh syn­drome,  or call it dis­cern­ment, but it all boils down to this: It’s about time to put the brakes to this speed­ing bus, and five years seem like a good time to do it.

Davao is the per­fect place to reset my life. The weather may have caused all sorts of dev­as­ta­tion lately, but some­how, there’s always the sun­shine to look for­ward to. Traffic’s light, taxi dri­vers give you the exact change and will never deny you a ride, and the food is sim­ply sec­ond to none. All the right ingre­di­ents. All the good vibes I need.

For there is plenty to reset. I real­ized that I have lost dis­ci­pline. I’ve let myself go, gain­ing back the pounds I lost in 2009, and then some. I lost my will to study, even with the knowl­edge that I’m only one exam before fel­low­ship. I lost my desire to excel in work, replaced by a con­stant fear of fail­ing. I lost my drive to write, with plenty of excuses jus­ti­fy­ing the loss of enthu­si­asm for what was once a joy­ful endeavor. Six years of work­ing have finally taken its toll on me, blunt­ing me, dulling me, mak­ing me lose my edge. This is the time for sharp­en­ing my knives again. No excuses.

The goals are as follows:

1 | Bring down my weight from 152 lbs to 135 lbs before my Thailand/Cambodia trip, and lose 10 of those 17 lbs here in Davao. Alter­nate between work­ing out in the gym and jog­ging uphill. Avoid junk foods and soft drinks. Resist the temp­ta­tion of eat­ing more when 80% full

2 | Com­plete a first thor­ough read­ing of the Invest­ments book (with high­lights and notes in the mar­gins) before going back to Manila. Crys­tal­lize the infor­ma­tion in memory.

3 | Blog, blog, blog. Post pic­tures. TAKE pictures.

4 | Visit friends who are in Davao.

5 | Com­mit to a sound finan­cial plan that involves ear­mark­ing money for impor­tant expenses (condo/rent), THEN sav­ings, and finally the remain­ing cash for other expenses.

6 | Come to work early (before 9 AM, prefer­ably). Leave early (before 630 PM, preferably).

7 | Most impor­tant of all, main­tain bal­ance. Play the PS3, com­plete the mis­sions. But on other days, go out and read a book in a cof­fee shop. Watch a movie with friends, and dif­fer­ent sets at that. Be with that spe­cial some­one. Food-hop. Mall-hop. Watch a con­cert, a musi­cal, the Cirque de Soleil. Travel locally. Travel inter­na­tion­ally. Learn how to play tennis.

I have a few weeks to make the most awe­some wave here, so that I can surf my way through another sec­tion in my life.

It’s mor­phin’ time.

Sunbaked: 2011 Year in Blogging

I started the year with a lamen­ta­tion on how dreary my blog has become. I have come a long way from the des­o­late land­scape that once defined The Sun­baked King. Twelve months and 100 entries later, here I am, tak­ing stock of all the thoughts that went through my head, tra­versed their way down to my fin­gers, and ended up in the screen in front of me. Let’s take a trip down mem­ory lane, shall we?

Jan­u­ary 2011,  “Rhymists and Kerykes”

The Ora­cle had dis­closed the name of the maiden to Her­mes, and revealed the beauty that had set his heart aflame– but She had not allowed him to see their future. Not even the wings on his san­dals could out­pace the speed at which the suf­fer­ings were to come. Not even he, Her­mes, keryx to the gods, could escape the maneu­ver­ings of a Muse.

Feb­ru­ary 2011, “White Horse”

A blan­ket of tense silence descended upon the crowd. When the music ban­ished the silence and the star came out, we went wild. She was daz­zling.

March 2011, “Return of the Other”

I’m back, you bitches.

April 2011, “A Lawyer on the Way”

I once wrote a short story using a twisted Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood as my main char­ac­ter. I had my brother read it. At that time, I always let (forced) my brother to read my writ­ings and play my games. I never really expected him to like any of it. But that story cap­tured his imag­i­na­tion so much that he cited it as one of his most favorite short sto­ries EVAH. It brings tears to my eyes to know that I influ­enced my brother into tak­ing up writ­ing and being the suc­cess that he cur­rently is. Wait– what’s that lit­tle bro? No, no, no– thank YOU.

May 2011, “An Open Let­ter to the Sea”

You were just as lovely as the first time I set foot on your shores. As your swell made its way to my bare feet, I recalled how, once upon a Novem­ber, a boy stood at this very spot, wish­ing that some­one was beside him to share your solemn space.

June 2011, “125”

The old Fit­ness First phi­los­o­phy no longer works. “Moti­va­tion gets you started, habit keeps you going” no longer cuts the fat from 145 to 125. What I need is some­thing more inter­est­ing, some­thing more unique. And so I come up with my new gym mantra: geisha. The abil­ity to arrest peo­ple with a sin­gle glance. That should do the trick.

July 2011, “Mem­o­ries of a Sin­gle Guy”

“Lone­li­ness is a state best indulged in the rain. It makes per­fect sense: the only other peo­ple you’ll see on the street are those bear­ing the same cross you’re bear­ing. The fact that you’re so few and far apart is a per­fect man­i­fes­ta­tion of your lone­li­ness, and it suits you just fine. No one to take your hand. No one to pull you close. Only the rain’s weight to com­fort you. Only the rain’s beat to be your guide.”

August 2011, “Siem Reap Stories”

Was it the promise of a sun­set? Was it the allure of the archi­tec­ture? What­ever brought us here knew what our hearts’ desires were. Yes, we were strangers in a for­eign land, but not once did we feel lost. Siem Reap had taken us in, made us her own. We had become chil­dren of the blood­shed that once plagued the land.

Sep­tem­ber 2011, “Duality”

The dual­ity of the date did not escape me. For four years this day only reminded me of the sin­gle most painful heart­break of my life. But the uni­verse, ever so humor­ous, ever so fair, decides that four years is enough. What once was cause for depres­sion is now a cause for celebration.

Octo­ber 2011, “K+R”

We live in a world where peo­ple no longer believe in sec­ond chances. Pain has immu­nized us; heart­breaks have taught us to stay away. But at that moment, a few min­utes shy of the 25th, with one of the hap­pi­est places on Earth as our back­drop, I did what every­one thought I shouldn’t be doing: I took a chance with you.

Novem­ber 2011, “Music and Melancholia”

“You only hear the music when your heart begins to break.” It was one of the sad­dest lines I have ever read. If only things had not hap­pened the way they did. If only hearts were spared the heartaches.

Decem­ber 2011, “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow”

And so I leave it all to Fate. I have done the best I can. It’s time to let go now.

(Mak­mak, thanks for let­ting me use this style. ^_^)

Fireworks: A 2010 Yearend Entry

In 2001, the mayor of Davao City declared the entire metrop­o­lis a no-firecracker no-fireworks zone. In the after­math of that pro­nounce­ment, the city fell silent almost overnight. I did not mind the silence; in fact, I embraced it. I feared those sulfur-laden recep­ta­cles of destruc­tion and despair. The din they caused did not drive away the spir­its, but drove me to hide behind the near­est stur­di­est fur­ni­ture, instead.

The quiet has descended on the city for a decade now, and the cel­e­bra­tions have been mostly serene for ten years. At one point dur­ing the past decade, how­ever, I decided, for the first time in my life, to spend the hol­i­days in Manila with my younger brother. And it was dur­ing that break in 2006 that I dis­cov­ered what I was missing.

Fire­works.

A few min­utes before mid­night, my brother and I went up the rooftop to wit­ness the spec­ta­cle. As bursts of color and flashes of light spread across the night sky, we found our­selves trans­ported back to our child­hood, back to that time when the small­est show of bril­liance made our hearts jump with glee. We stood, awestruck, at the pres­ence of reds, blues, and greens; at comets, cros­settes, and chrysan­the­mums. If we held hands that time, as inno­cent kids do, then the scenery would have been picture-perfect.

Fire­works are magic. Unlike fire­crack­ers, they show­case color and light, not sound. They do not serve to shock and scare, but to stun you into mes­mer­ized silence. While the solemn cel­e­bra­tions in Davao have become quite ther­a­peu­tic, the daz­zling dis­play of fire in the sky is a cathar­tic event in itself. There is noth­ing like the show before us to expunge our­selves of the neg­a­tiv­ity of the year that has passed.

In 2010, there have been too many fire­crack­ers and too few fire­works. I started the blog­ging year with a bang and found myself end­ing it with a whim­per. The promise of a spec­ta­cle van­ished as careerism and emo­tional tur­moil took over. It wasn’t an easy year to deal with– I got burned in more ways than one– and this could not be more appar­ent than the empty dig­i­tal slate that you see before you. I choked, and the words died along­side every­thing else.

Hence:

This yearend, there will be no elab­o­rate yearend entries. No music lists, no movie reviews, no ret­ro­spec­tive look at the year that was. No glossy slideshows and no glis­ten­ing mosaics, either. Per­haps by keep­ing it sim­ple, the scenery will even­tu­ally become more spec­tac­u­lar, the fire­works even­tu­ally more stunning.

Now all I need is that one lit­tle spark.