An affordable, reliable mass transit system in the Philippines: We can still dream, can't we?

When I go to work here in Mexico City, I take the Metro Bus. It's a bus that has its own lane, like the BRT that Cebu City has been trying to construct for many years now, without much success. When I go to the boxing gym, I take the subway. For a one-way trip, the fare for the Metro Bus costs 6 Mexican pesos or 20 PhP, while the subway costs 5 pesos or 16 PhP. The Metro Buses and the subway system will take you virtually anywhere here in the city, and are supplemented by smaller feeder microbuses and vans called peseros or transporte colectivos (what used to be the Volkswagen Combis of old, but which have since been replaced by newer vans or shuttles). 

Both the Metro Bus and subway are affordable, practical, and relatively reliable mass transit systems that ensure mobility for Mexicans (and immigrants like me) living and working here in the capital, particularly for those in lower-income areas. (Side note: both systems are not perfect and they have their flaws, and I've heard a lot of people complain about the subway in particular. But I dare them to take the subway in New York. Or the one in the Philippines. We'll see if they still complain after. Lol) 

Public transportation here in Mexico City – I'm not sure in other Mexican states, though – is heavily subsidized by the government. The city sets fares below the actual operating costs to ensure affordability, with the local government covering a significant portion of expenses through tax revenue.

I'm hoping to see something similar in the future, both in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu. We can still dream, can't we? 🤞🏼

Undying Loyalty

Sara Duterte is gunning (wink, wink) for the Philippine presidency in 2028.

Did her announcement really come as a surprise, though? We all knew she wanted the top post way back, even before the 2022 elections, when she decided to slide down to vice president -- a compromise that gave rise to the short-lived and now meme-worthy UniTEAM (and countless tasteless tattoos that have since -- I assume -- been lasered off by now, thank God).

In giving way to Bongbong Marcos, Sara counted on something that she and the Dutertes could always count on from the registered voters of Davao City since time immemorial: undying loyalty. That undying loyalty has resulted in multiple terms as mayor and vice mayor in Davao City for both Sara and her father, Rodrigo Duterte, as well as a congressional seat for Paolo Duterte in Davao City's 1st District, a congressional seat for Omar Vincent Duterte in the 2nd District, and a council seat for Rodrigo "Rigo" Duterte II. And guess who's the current mayor now? Yup. The supposed vice mayor, Baste Duterte, who had to take over for his father because a cardboard cutout really won't cut it as the city's head honcho, can it? (Although that actually gives you pause, doesn't it? I mean, how many degrees better as mayor, really, is Baste than a cardboard cutout anyway?)

The Marcos administration, it turned out, had other plans other than undying loyalty to Sara and the Dutertes. Sara was caught off guard when Martin Romualdez, Bongbong's cousin, stripped her of her confidential funds -- barely a year after the tandem "won" the elections by a landslide. And the unraveling was swift, which included Sara threatening to hire a hitman to go after (and threatening to, of all things, behead) her boss, culminating in that same embarrassed, emasculated boss allowing (or ordering?) Nicolas Torre to whisk off the elder Duterte in a waiting private plane and fly him to the Hague.

So speaking of loyalty: as expected, after the announcement, the rabid DDS horde has been making noise on the socials and beating the war drums. You dare pick on our Tatay and his family, expecting no retaliation? Just you wait. Hooboy, just you wait. Just you wait for 2028. (Yo Dutertards, that's pretty catchy, huh? "Just you wait for 2028." You're welcome.)

From what I've gathered by observing the non-Davao City DDS in their natural habitat (I know a lot of Cebuano Dutertards, so I know whereof I speak, or write), this loyalty is borne out of a desire to have someone in charge who's uncompromising -- follow me, follow my orders, or you're fucked.

You know the type: the Rodrigo Duterte who murdered thousands in his drug war, the Sara Duterte who beat up a court sheriff on live camera for doing his job, the Paolo Duterte caught on CCTV footage pulling out a knife at a bar and threatening a businessman, and the thirtysomething Baste Duterte who challenged the fiftysomething Torre to a fistfight only to chicken out at the last minute.

This type of loyalty is worrisome. These people know that Digong killed thousands. They know that Sara plundered her confidential funds (remember her spending P125 million in a span of 11 days, and explaining that part of the expenses was a "tree-planting activity"? The fuck were you planting anyway, Taylor Swift's pubic hair?). They don't care that there are rumors of Paolo being a member of the Hong Kong Triad. And, more importantly, they don't give a flying fuck that Ellen Adarna dumped Baste.

These type of people can't be reasoned with. They have a singular goal: to bring the Dutertes back in power by voting for Sara in 2028 -- come hell or (ghost-project flood-control) high water.

Remember that famous quote by Kyle Reese in Terminator 1, when -- tired, hungry, and on the run -- he was trying to explain to a terrified Sarah Connor that the cyborg hunting them is not human and can't be negotiated with?

"Listen and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop . . . ever, until you are dead!"

Listen and understand: these die-hard Dutertards are out there, and they can't be reasoned with. They don't feel empathy or shame. They are devoid of humanity. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until another Duterte burns the country to the ground. As long as it's "their" Duterte. 

When James Cameron wrote the character of the Terminator, he focused on its unwavering, unrelenting loyalty to Skynet, a hostile AI program that became self-aware and vowed to wipe out the human race. While trying to escape the machine and bring Connor to safety, Reese managed to burn off the T-800's living tissue and skin, and blow off its midsection with a pipe bomb -- at the cost of his own life. Still, the Terminator pursued Connor, acting on Skynet's command. That's the thing with Terminators, regardless of the model, from the T-800 to the T-X -- they are loyal to a fault, and the only way to stop them is to turn them off. Which Connor -- played by the iconic Linda Hamilton -- did by crushing its CPU, flattening the cyborg in a hydraulic press.

"That's loyalty for you," I could picture Cameron saying out loud, alone, while writing his screenplay.

Oh, James. Obviously you haven't met a Dutertard.

Sara is counting on something that she and the Dutertes could always count on from the registered voters of Davao City since time immemorial, and now from the registered Dutertard voters not only in the Philippines but also around the world: undying, unwavering, unrelenting loyalty.

Burning Bridges With Your Idols

 

These authors are some of the people I idolized growing up. As a kid I was small, frail, and unathletic, and I preferred to stay indoors and read books and comics rather than play sports (that came much, much later, when I could actually hold my own physically at basketball [as a Filipino, you're expected to play basketball, no questions asked] against other boys [boys who were still bigger and stronger than me, but hey, at some point you have to try, right?]). In my room at my desk or in my bunk bed (or on jeepney rides, or concealed in a textbook inside the classroom) I read these authors' works and absorbed what they wrote, believed in what they believed, picked their brains through their writing, aspired to be some sort of writer like them someday. At a young age I chose a side early on, that of the artist vs. the loud and obnoxious and thieving, conniving politician; and I carried that until now, which is why I still loathe loud and obnoxious and thieving, conniving politicians (and -- worse -- those who work for them, leading to burned bridges with former friends, something I've regretted at first but later on came to understand was part of life if you simply choose to hold on to your principles).

So isn't it heartbreaking to hear that your childhood idols have supposedly done terrible things (or decided to NOT DO ANYTHING to stop terrible things from happening, especially to a loved one)? How can you reconcile the fact that these people that you looked up to are, when you think about it, just like those scumbags that you hated -- or probably worse? 

Like I said, part of growing up is understanding that burning bridges -- with friends, or even family -- is normal if you are to hold on to your principles. And yes, this extends to your idols as well. 

In this day and age where the endless pursuit of money, territory, and power (enabled by violence, genocide, wars, imperialism, artificial intelligence, and yes, those thieving politicians and businessmen) has hijacked everything we hold dear (that's what end-stage capitalism will do, folks), isn't clinging to your principles the least you can do to keep some semblance of humanity in this increasingly dehumanized world? 

A Mere "Formality"

I've never heard of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) until I had to attend a CFO seminar, which is a requirement for Filipinos who want to live abroad with their foreign partner. Apparently, this certificate helps you clear Philippine Immigration (among other required documents, a shitload really), so rather than risk being offloaded on the day of my flight, I decided to go to a seminar and get it over with.

If you were born in the Philippines, and then subsequently went to school and worked (but also drive a car or a motorbike in the Philippines, or vote or collect your retirement pension in the Philippines), most probably you're already well acquainted with the country's "love" of red tape. Applying for your driver's license, tax identification number, PRC ID, voter's ID, and NBI clearance (or that infamous PhilSys National ID), etc., will subject you to a painful experience akin to having your toenails ripped off -- okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but not that much.

So on the day of my seminar, when I was seated in the large waiting area of the CFO office in Manila, I had to internalize the country's "love of red tape," something I had to unfortunately tick off the list, just to fight my growing impatience at being forced to waste my time AND money (to pay for the CFO fee -- after all, if there's anything that the Philippine government loves more than red tape, it's collecting taxpayers' money).

I also decided to find out what this government office was. A quick Google search on my phone told me that the agency "is responsible for promoting and upholding the interests of Filipino emigrants and Filipino permanent residents in countries other than the Philippines. It is also "responsible for preserving and strengthening ties with Filipino communities outside the Philippines." The CFO is distinct from the Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA), which is tasked with taking care of OFWs.

I quickly learned, too, from the conversations around me that the bulk of the seminar covers cases of domestic violence abroad, and what to do and who to contact in case of abuse suffered from a foreign spouse.

A group of around 20 people were herded from the waiting area by an usher into a small room furnished with plastic chairs, a water cooler with a stack of Styrofoam cups and small cartons of teabags and sachets of instant coffee, and a flat-screen TV. We were told to wait. As I sat in that room, I noticed that I was the only guy. And I realized: majority of the people in the larger waiting area had been women -- there were probably a maximum of fewer than 10 guys there, if that.

The women -- mostly young girls, really, in their late teens, but a few in their early 20s -- continued their chatter, probably to ease a bit of the nervousness. A lot of the girls were headed to Europe, some to the US and Canada, quite a few to Japan and Korea. Majority of them met their partners online, through social media like Facebook or Instagram, or through dating apps. 

There was a nervousness in the air, sure, but you could also hear the excitement in the girls' voices. They were speaking in hushed tones, but they were also all smiles, cracking jokes about how hard it must be to learn another foreign language -- and deeming those who were bound for English-speaking countries lucky.

The nervousness stemmed, I found out (chismoso, lol) from a one-on-one interview immediately after the seminar, an interview that if you failed --  according to one of the girls -- could deny you the CFO certificate. The girls evidently did their homework, and I felt ashamed that up until that moment I only felt disdain at the entire process.

Finally, a woman in a Navy blue power suit and a CFO badge walked into the room and addressed everyone. She told us we'd have to stay for a little more than four hours, which was the entire duration of the seminar and interview. I was expecting groans from the girls, but they greeted the bad news -- at least it was bad news to me; Diana was waiting for me in the lobby, and I didn't want her to stay there for hours -- with nods and smiles. Again, they obviously did their homework.

I was expecting the woman in the power suit to turn on the TV so we could get on with the seminar (the room didn't have a door, and we'd already seen other rooms showing some pre-recorded presentation), when I heard my name called. "Mr. Mark Lorenzana," Power Suit said, and ushered me outside the room to a line of small cubicles with office chairs where other attendees were already being interviewed.

As we sat down to the interview, I realized that I wouldn't be needing the seminar anymore. The woman was friendly, and asked me how long Diana and I knew each other. I told her we met in 2007, as coworkers in a company in Cebu, and that I've already visited Mexico as a tourist several times before deciding to settle down there. She jotted down the information on a form, stood up and shook my hand, and told me to stop by the front desk on my way out of the office for instructions on how to print my certificate. 

She was already walking away when I asked her why I didn't need to join the seminar. "Oh, for you this is only a formality." 

"But why do the girls--"

"It's our job to protect them," she interrupted, and hurried off -- after all, she still had a roomful of people to attend to, or "protect."

I didn't know if the other men -- all 10 of them or fewer, in a government office of a few hundred women hoping to leave the country and meet their future husbands -- had to go through the seminar. I suspected, though, that like me, for them the whole exercise was "just a formality."

The only thing for me to do was to talk to the front-desk receptionist, collect Diana at the lobby, and then grab some food at the Shakey's pizza place across the street.

You Really Can't Do Shit When Chef Curry Is Cooking

The NBA season is almost upon us (preseason games are already happening as we speak), and I couldn't be more excited. Mostly because there hasn't been a back-to-back NBA champion since, well, the Golden State Warriors when they clinched their fifth and six titles in 2017 and 2018 (at that time, franchise player Stephen Curry's second and third rings), and that feeling of uncertainty certainly lends itself to more excitement. My gut tells me, though, that perhaps this is the first time since 2018 that a defending NBA champion might repeat (I'm looking at you, Oklahoma City).

Since 2019, here's what the championship picture has looked like:

2025 – Oklahoma City Thunder

2024 – Boston Celtics

2023 – Denver Nuggets

2022 – Golden State Warriors

2021 – Milwaukee Bucks

2020 – Los Angeles Lakers

2019 – Toronto Raptors

I'm sticking to my very early prediction of the OKC Thunder successfully defending their title this season, but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. Thanks to some tweaks by NBA commissioner Adam Silver to the salary cap, which made it nearly impossible for teams to retain multiple stars, NBA dynasties have been virtually nonexistent the past several years (seven different champions in seven years — imagine that).

I'd like to go back to the last title that the most recent NBA dynasty (and [hopefully?] not the last), the Warriors, won — way back in 2022. Back then I was still working for an online newspaper here in Mexico City, mostly covering sports, and it was one of the few basketball stories I wrote (being in Mexico, I wrote more articles on boxing and football [soccer], as well as Formula 1 because of Checo Perez, than basketball).

I particularly loved writing this piece because I was, and still am, a huge Stephen Curry fan. He's at the twilight of his career, but he can still light it up from distance (as he showed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, when he bailed out the US Men's Basketball Team that, unsurprisingly, had a particularly hard time putting away a game French team in the finals).

Anyway, this introduction has gone far enough. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: Chef Curry.

*****

On the Mark: Warriors Are Champions Again Thanks to Curry

(June 20, 2022)

The game was essentially over. Over in the sense that the stunned and dejected Celtics fans that filled the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, were only waiting for the final buzzer to sound so they could watch in agony as the visiting Golden State Warriors celebrated their sixth championship on the night of Thursday, June 16, at the Garden’s famed parquet floor.

The game, however, wasn’t actually over. There was a minute and change to go, and the ball was still in play, but the Warriors’ leader, Stephen Curry, couldn’t care less. He left the court and walked over to his father — former NBA player Dell Curry, a three-point sharpshooter in his own right — who was sitting among the crowd. The younger Curry then hugged his dad, and wept. He had led the Warriors to the promised land, scoring 34 big points that night.

Curry is a baby-faced assassin, and always seems to play with joy — flashing that boyish smile after every dagger three-pointer that feels like an arrow piercing the opponent’s heart. He knows no other way of playing, and it’s one of the reasons why he’s so loved by Warriors fans — both those from the bay area of San Francisco and worldwide, really. But on that night, Curry hugged his father, and wept. He let go of his dad, bent over and seemed to heave a sigh of relief with tears streaming down his face. The Warriors were champs again, and surely fans could cut Curry some slack in this rare moment of vulnerability.

“These last two months of the playoffs, these last three years, this last 48 hours — every bit of it has been an emotional roller coaster on and off the floor,” Curry said after the game. “You’re carrying all of that on a daily basis to try to realize a dream and a goal, like we did tonight. And you get goosebumps just thinking about, you know, all those snapshots and episodes that we went through to get back here, individually, collectively. And that’s why I said I think this championship hits different. That’s why I have so many emotions, and still will, just because of what it took to get back here.”

Curry carried his team in this year’s finals, there is no doubt about that: He has averaged an impressive 31.2 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists in the series, which finally earned him the elusive Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. But make no mistake; he had help too.

Small forward Andrew Wiggins played well throughout the playoffs, not just offensively but also defensively — and made life a living hell in the finals for Celtics star Jason Tatum. Power forward Draymond Green, the motor of the team, finally found his stride in the series-clinching game. Center Kevon Looney — who has been a model of dependability and durability for the Warriors — did all the dirty work, as usual: grabbing rebounds, patrolling the paint and defending the rim. Guard Jordan Poole has been a revelation, Gary Payton II came back just in time from a fractured elbow to help ramp up the team’s defensive intensity and Klay Thompson averaged a solid 17 points per game in the finals series.

Yes, basketball is a team game, and everyone has to pitch in if a team is to reach the pinnacle of the sport. These Warriors have now won four rings together with their big three — Curry, Thompson and Green — which is no small feat. That the core of this team is still intact after winning its first title in 2015 is certainly impressive, but credit is also due to the Warriors’ front office for putting the necessary young pieces around their three superstars to keep on winning.

The Warriors’ success has also been a great example of growing a team organically, through the draft, and developing young players, amid the recent trend of other NBA teams trying to cobble together super teams by throwing money at established superstars and teaming them up together to bypass the time and patience needed to let a team develop chemistry naturally.

Curry, who has played his whole career for the Warriors since being drafted by Golden State in 2009, had been the driving force throughout his team’s success. He has bucked early injury problems, toiled in relative obscurity when the Warriors couldn’t seem to catch a break in his early years with the team, and soldiered on amid the disappointment of the last two years when they were out of the finals after an injury-ravaged version of Curry’s team lost the 2019 championship to the Kawhi Leonard-led Toronto Raptors.

After shedding tears on the Celtics’ parquet floor, Curry would be later seen in the locker room with a bottle of champagne, a cigar in hand and that now-familiar smile plastered on his face whenever he’d bury a dagger three-pointer – six triples that night, as he doused the Celtics’ championship hopes in a barrage of long-range shooting that has come to be expected of him.

He isn’t called the baby-faced assassin for nothing.

The DDS Are Killjoys

After the Philippines was battered by tropical cyclones and heavy southwest monsoon rains a couple of months ago, which resulted in predictable but deadly flash floods, Filipinos are now suddenly -- ironically -- hopeful.

And why wouldn't they be? When the water subsided, anger rose, and President Bongbong Marcos just had to douse the collective rage during his State of the Nation Address. (After spending most of his term thus far gallivanting abroad [a la Sara Duterte] in the name of "generating investments," but not much to show for it, Marcos didn't have a choice. He was already earning the ire of the eagle-eyed; it's easy nowadays to track the frequency of his foreign trips and the corresponding travel expenses.) 

"Mahiya naman kayo," Marcos intoned (an ironic choice of words, don't you think?), singling out those involved in anomalous flood-control projects.

Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto went a step further in a Facebook post, and zeroed in on Sarah and Curlee Discaya, whose myriad of "companies" helped them amass a fortune, two of which were included in Marcos's top 15 DPWH contractors. And it didn't help that the Discayas absolutely love flaunting their (ill-gotten?) wealth, in the form of luxury cars, with Sarah proudly telling Julius Babao that she specifically chose the Rolls Royce because she fancied the umbrella that came with it.  

The floodgates (pun intended) are wide open, and the ordinary folk are hoping that they don't close anytime soon -- hence, this wellspring of hope. (Some have audaciously begun comparing the protests in Indonesia and Nepal to the Arab Spring, a series of anti-government protests that spread across the Arab world in the early 2010s -- hoping that Filipinos will follow suit.) As it is, contractors, senators, congressmen, and corrupt DPWH officials are scrambling to put a finger in the dike, but with pillage of this scale, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

Or is it?

After all, we're talking about the Philippines here. A day ago, Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville Luistro called out Curlee Discaya during the House infra committee hearing for having "selective amnesia."

"Would you have us believe," Luistro said, "that there are people making kickback requests under the current administration but none did during the past one [under Rodrigo Duterte]?"

Luistro accused Discaya of having selective amnesia; I'd argue that the Filipino people as a whole have COLLECTIVE amnesia.

Exhibit A is Senator Jinggoy Estrada of course, and his involvement in Janet Lim-Napoles's pork barrel scam. But because we're Filipinos, he got away scot-free, even managing to win this current Senate term, and now he's once again facing accusations of pocketing flood-control money.

Filipinos are suddenly hopeful, after Indonesia managed to force a Cabinet shake-up, with Nepal following suit.

I, personally, am less hopeful. This isn't EDSA 1 and 2, where there was a collective goal that spurred collective action. In this case, the biggest hurdle for widespread change in the country are the Die-hard Duterte Supporters or DDS.

Even now, the DDS are attacking Vico Sotto, after he voiced his displeasure at the Discayas' alleged lies, chief among them the statement that they'd only earn 2 to 3 percent from a government project, 5 percent if they were -- in Curlee's own words -- "lucky." Sotto is advocating for complete transparency, as is anyone who has a stake in this, naturally the taxpaying public, but the DDS are advocating for complete opacity -- at least when it comes to the presidential term of their Po-on, their beloved and infallible Tatay Digong.

I saw someone's hilarious post recently here on Facebook: "Discaya-Duterte Supporters." Now the DDS are clamoring for the Discayas to be put on the Witness Protection Program (WPP), never mind that they are the least qualified to be state witnesses, for obvious reasons. This is like putting Napoles on the WPP for orchestrating that PDAF scam.

Like others, I'd like to believe that there's hope for this country yet. Heck, that sounds strange to me because we've gone through two EDSA Revolutions already. Who says we can't engineer (pun definitely intended) a third one?

The DDS, with their collective will to cover up for their Tatay -- that's who.

Breaking Bad Philippines

To break bad means to turn to immorality or crime.

Walter White in "Breaking Bad" turned to the illegal drug trade -- transitioning from chemistry teacher to meth cook and eventually drug lord -- out of necessity. He thought he was dying, and was worried for his family's future.

Walter broke bad. These contractors, politicians, and corrupt DSWD heads are just, well, naturally evil.