Rogue May 2017 by Rinzon

I S S U E 1 0 9 ———— C O V E R S T O R Y

CONTENTS May 2017

“Just the weirdest music, I listen to all of it.”

Viva La Vida

KIANA VALENCIANO

One could say it was all in her name, or perhaps in her blood—but the music scene seems to have always been Kiana Valenciano’s real destiny. Alyana Cabral sits behind the scenes as the singer-songrwiter proves she’s not your father’s Valenciano.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY BJ PASCUAL

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I S S U E 1 0 9 ———— F E A T U R E S

CONTENTS May 2017

THE PEOPL E VERSUS GINA LOPEZ

Under ﬁre and under siege from all sides, Cabinet Secretary Gina Lopez hasn’t pulled her punches at all in her brazen approach to advocacy. In this Rogue exclusive, Yvette Tan goes beyond the controversy to reveal the woman at its center.

THE KARAJAWAN DIARY Once a surﬁng spot in the middle of nowhere, Siargao has rapidly drawn in hordes of tourists looking for the next big dream destination. Jose Mari Ugarte plunges into the island’s surﬁng subculture as its economic boom starts to rock the boat.

FOR THE DEAD AND THE DYING As the war on drugs rages on and the number of extra-judicial killings reaches far past the thousands, Attorney Jose Manuel Diokno ﬁnally breaks his silence. Alcalde Mal sits down with the lawyer as he ﬁghts the myth that politics has turned human rights into.

TRIAL AT SHIGA Though Japan continues to be branded as the land of rising opportunities for overseas Filipino workers, the pursuit of the yen is rarely as easy as is commonly told. Ken Ishikawa attends the trial of a Filipino woman accused of using drugs just to get by.

APPLE PIE , PATIS ATBP.

“Surﬁng is sexy, and

From Copenhagen and Paris to Hong Kong and New York, many Filipinos have navigated the globe on the wave of a food revolution. Jose Mari Ugarte talks with a few of them for a taste of the far-off cities they now call home.

sexy sells. Right now,

100

that attracts that

THE SEARCH FOR BIG BLUE If there is anything renowned deep sea photographer Gutsy Tuason has learned, it is that timing is everything—especially in his hunt for the beautiful and famously elusive blue whale. He takes us along for the (wild) ride in the oceans off Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Siargao is the most exotic place on earth sexy, surﬁng crowd. It could be the sexiest place on earth.” ABE NAVARRO TOLENTINO

110

SURFER JOHN CARBY PHOTOGRAPHED BY GAPS SABUERO

I S S U E 1 0 9 ———— S E C T I O N S

CONTENTS May 2017

“My way of staying sane is to be in contact as m ch as possible with e natural world.” EDUARDO HERRERA

AGENDA

SPACE

THE EYE

THE S LANT

Tao Philippines takes the would-be adventurer freewheeling through Palawan’s most remote islands; a ﬁxation with detail marks every layer of Patrick Cabral’s elaborate paper cuts; whether they’re gone after one more single or live to release a Greatest Hits CD post-apocalypse, these local musicians are shaking up the independent scene.

Even amidst the noise of urban life, Eduardo Herrera’s abode in Makati remains the artist’s serene work in progress; as the vinyl record enters its second golden age, we present the pinnacle of the medium: the Japan-pressed edition; Chilean-born designer Nelson Sepulveda merges his austere aesthetic of pure lines and stark ﬁnishes with a rich cache of Philippine materials.

Once the realm of the kitschy, overly enthusiastic tourist, the utilitarian belt bag is given style credence via a push for all things 80s and 90s; globetrotter Jeremy Jauncey reveals his favorites from his travels around the world; the rugged landscapes and coastlines of Pantelleria inspire Paul & Shark’s adventurous Spring/ Summer 2017 collection.

Photojournalist Ezra Acayan investigates a mining community in Camarines Norte settling for the scraps of industry; Philbert Dy unveils the theatrics behind the Cubao MRT station’s latest “security measures;” Paolo Enrico Melendez reﬂects on how the most radical revolutionaries have become conservatives, long before the revolution is even won.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SONNY THAKUR

Executive Editor JEROME GOMEZ Deputy Editor JONTY CRUZ Managing Editor JACS T. SAMPAYAN Associate Editor PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ Contributing Editor DEVI DE VEYRA Founding Editor JOSE MARI UGARTE Editorial Assistant PATRICIA CHONG Online Editor PHILBERT DY Editor at Large TEODORO LOCSIN, JR.

ART

ON THE COVER Photographed by BJ Pascual Styled by David Milan Makeup by Owen Sarmiento Hair by Mong Amado Stylist Assisted by Blake Samson Kiana Valenciano wears a Celine dress

Senior Art Director KARL CASTRO Junior Designer MARK SANTIAGO Photographer at Large MARK NICDAO Photographer STEVE TIRONA

Contributing Writers EZRA ACAYAN, MIO BORROMEO, ALYANA CABRAL, EMIL HOFILEÑA, KEN ISHIKAWA, ALCALDE MAL, JAM PASCUAL, BLAKE SAMSON, YVETTE TAN, PAUL TIBURON, GUTSY TUASON Contributing Photographers & Artists RYAN ARBILO, ANDREA BELDUA, JOHN SEATON CALLAHAN, KAREN DE LA FUENTE, PATRICK DIOKNO, DEEJ FABIAN, CARLO GABUCO, KATHERINE JACK, MARC LILIUS, ALEX MAELAND, ARTU NEPOMUCENO, BJ PASCUAL, IVAN REVERENTE, CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT, CHRISTOFFER ROSENFELDT, GAPS SABUERO, J. DAGO SANTOS, MILO SOGUECO, SONNY THAKUR Interns ANGELO DIONORA, EUSELA LANDRITO

PUBLISHING Publisher VICKY MONTENEGRO / vicky.montenegro@roguemedia.ph Associate Publisher ANI A. HILA / ani.hila@roguemedia.ph Publishing Assistant MADS TEOTICO / mads.teotico@roguemedia.ph Senior Advertising Sales Director MINA GARA / mina.gara@roguemedia.ph Account Managers IRA GUEVARRA, VELU ACABADO, DENISE MAGTOTO Marketing Manager TRIXIE DAWN CABILAN Advertising Traffic Officer & Production Coordinator MYRA CABALUNA Associate Circulation Manager RAINIER S. BARIA

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For subscriptions, back issues, bulk orders, and other circulation concerns please contact: Rainier S. Baria (+632) 729-7747 rainier.baria@roguemedia.ph ROGUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY, ELEVEN TIMES PER YEAR. THE EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS OF THE MAGAZINE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES IN RELATION TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE ADVERTISEMENTS, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES ADVERTISED IN THIS EDITION. OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS MAGAZINE ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF ROGUE MAGAZINE. THIS MAGAZINE IS FULLY PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT, AND NO PART OF THIS MAGAZINE MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS.

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ISSUE 109

THE EDITORS’ NOTE May 2017

A sperm whale dives deeper into the waters off Colombo, Sri Lanka

f a person travels abroad but doesn’t post it on social media, does he really travel? The question may seem trite but such is the age we’re living in. Even before we book our ﬂight, our whole itinerary is shaped, even dictated upon, by Instagram, travel blogs, and all the latest trends. Yes, this dynamic has made the whole process more democratic—relatable even— but in doing so, everything has become predictable. The mystique of it all is gone and in its place is a series of sameness, the destinations reduced to photo booth backdrops as only the faces change. What is the purpose of traveling then if everything feels familiar? With the interconnectedness that technology has brought upon us all, where does that ﬁrst

step in a trip lead to now? We might as well leave our luggage in the closet and keep our passports in our drawers if the be-all and end-all of sojourning is to rep online. Christopher Hitchens once said, “I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.” The late contrarian always welcomed the different, was always open to the unexpected things that challenges brought. In that way, he speaks of traveling as it once was and perhaps how it was always meant to be. Travel taken for granted becomes generic, commonplace. One needs to be reminded that it is ﬁrst and foremost a privilege. Not just in the material context but in that greater sense of humanity. We

THE ROGUE TEAM

were and are meant to discover, to hunt and gather across the land. From tropical paradises to concrete jungles to that ﬁnal frontier, a real life is comprised of experiences both near and far. To live a life based on predetermined road maps is to live with one eye closed. And though others may say that it’s not about the destination, a journey without purpose is nothing but mindless wanderlust. It is in the unexpected where we appreciate the new. It is in alien territory where we feel our surroundings most acutely. Away from what’s safe and what’s certain is where the greatest discoveries happen. Traveling in the face of the unknown is how adventures are made. Traveling without mystery is nothing more than a prolonged commute.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GUTSY TUASON

Journey into Mystery

ISSUE 109

THE GUEST LIST May 2017

GAPS SABUERO has been surrounded by water all his life. He hails from Iligan City, best known for its waterfalls, and eventually found himself packing up his life to move to Siargao island. In this issue, he takes us into the waves of Cloud 9.

CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT is a French photographer who fell in love with the Philippines during her travels around Asia. She’s returned to the country to learn more about it, starting with the surﬁng subculture on the island of Siargao.

BJ PASCUAL is one of Manila’s youngest and most in-demand photographers, with over 100 magazine covers and an immense body of work from local and international publications and advertising clients under his belt.

GUTSY TUASON, when asked what three things he would take with him if he were stuck on an island, answered: smokes, his iPod, and beer (a lot of it). In this issue, he takes us along for his mad hunt for the Blue Whale in the oceans off Colombo, Sri Lanka.

MARC LILIUS is a photographer known for his work in fashion and portraiture, shooting the likes of Tilda Swinton and Alex Kapranos. In this issue, he photographs Chef Lorenzo Maderas in Romulo Café.

MILO SOGUECO is an award-winning ﬁlmmaker and photographer. He also actively supports independent cinema through his positions at the Movie and Television Review and Classiﬁcation Board and Quezon City Film Development Commission.

IMAGE OF ALYANA CABRAL COURTESY OF JP TALAPIAN

YVETTE TAN is best known for her work in fantasy and horror, for which she has won numerous awards. She also writes nonﬁction, focusing on food, travel, and personality proﬁles. Here, she goes behind the scenes of controversy with Gina Lopez.

CARLO GABUCO, 35, is a visual artist and freelance photographer based in Manila. He recently received a grant from the Magnum Foundation Fund for his powerful photos of the government’s war on drugs.

ALYANA CABRAL has three musical acts to her name: indie rock band The Buildings, folk-inspired Ourselves the Elves, and experimental project Teenage Granny. In this issue, she writes our cover story about rising star Kiana Valenciano.

CHRISTOFFER ROSENFELDT was raised in South Africa, but is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Before discovering his love for photography, he played music and experimented with crayons and paper.

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A R E N A

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Catch-27

PHOTOGRAPHED BY EUSELA LANDRITO

With its stunning city views and signature cocktails, Manila Diamond Hotel’s high rise drinking establishment makes for the perfect escape from the daily grind

FEW THINGS ARE as revealing as a name, and Bar 27 is no exception. Situated on the 27th floor of the Manila Diamond Hotel, the cocktail bar boasts open spaces with stunning views of Manila Bay at sunset and of vibrant city lights as the nightscape comes alive through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The modish sofas and armchairs in the bar’s interiors are more intimate in the night, making for a relaxed ambiance for relishing fine company, soothing music from the saxophonists and acoustic bands that play every night, and of course, good drinks from the mixologists behind the gleaming onyx bar counter. “Every establishment has a signature— usually one or two,” says Louie Ramos, Diamond Hotel’s F&B director. “We created 27 signature cocktails, and there’s something for everyone.” Someone looking to unwind and enjoy the music should try Read Between the Gin, a refreshing concoction of citrus fruits, Sprite, and Pimm’s. Those more inclined toward whisky can sit at the counter and have the bartender pour them a Smoking Gun, which infuses bourbon with the flavor of hickory. Ending the night with a bang requires only one order of Hasta La Vista, a blend of maraschino, passionfruit, and pineapple with the punch of three types of Bacardi rum. An eclectic array of wines and the best craft beers await those looking for something simpler. Digging into the food on the bar’s menu is no hardship either, with offerings such as Gambas al Ajillo, Salsiccia, and the Jamon Experience (which features three types of jamon) on hand. “We want Bar 27 to be a relaxing space,” says Ramos. “This is a place to enjoy the view, the company, the music—and of course, the drinks.” —PATRICIA CHONG Quintos St., Ermita, Manila; 528-3000; diamondhotel.com

May 2017

Edited by

JEROME GOMEZ

AGENDA

Issue

F O O D + E N T E RTA I N M E N T + C U LT U R E + T R AV E L

What may seem like a raw deal might just be what local travel culture needs. For the tourist truly looking to disconnect from everything—including the impulse to Instagram the fuck out of his vacation— this tour company in Palawan delivers on its promise of adventure, and the chance to hang out with that most neglected of travel buddies: one’s self WORDS BY PAUL TIBURON PHOTOGRAPHS BY KATHERINE JACK

THE P30,000 TABO SHOWER

boats. As much as I and my shipmates appreciated Tao’s eco-advocacies, we didn’t come here to be bleeding hearts. We came for the adventure. And so, as we rounded off the Linapacan coast, I found myself among a bunch of guys clambering up a cliff, then leaping, one by one, into the sea, 12 meters below. We’d already been swimming all day, and yet, it felt like the most natural thing to do. Eventually, I worked up the courage to leave the life jacket on the boat. I put down my book, stuffed my phone back into the bag, and most remarkably, pushed most of my worries out of sight—I’ll deal with them come nightfall, I told myself. And so, I swam with no safeguard, no restraint, just a snorkel and complete freedom. Even though I’ve snorkeled so many times before, it felt like I was encountering the sea for the ﬁrst time, in my own skin. I recall Harry the puppy, at home in the middle of the ocean: strange, fantastic, yet completely plausible. That was exactly how I felt. As I started disconnecting from the trappings of my usual environment, I found myself connecting with a different one: I chased parrotﬁsh and gar, gawked at coral and stingrays, and spied a sea turtle in the deep. I relished the white sand, the salty air, the kalumpang trees on the beach with their dried seed pods opening like wooden clovers. And of course, the sun setting on the West Philippine Sea, best paired with swigs of gin pomelo with my fellow travelers. Indeed, a round of gin pomelo at sunset is probably the only thing Tao guarantees. Other than that, bahala na. And there lies the appeal of the Tao experience: when you have no plans, everything becomes a rather interesting surprise.

here were around 30 of us traveling together on a boat from Coron to El Nido, and I was the only Pinoy. Well, one of two, if you include the Fil-Canadian backpacker on a rare visit to her homeland. It was mostly Europeans, plus a newlywed Taiwanese couple, and a group of South American bros. I wasn’t all that surprised. After all, if an ordinary Filipino had P30,000 to burn (excluding airfare!) on a vacation, it would probably involve aircon, a proper bed, and food that at least pretended to be gourmet. Yet a group expedition with Tao Philippines promises no such luxuries. You’re paying P30,000 for a ﬁve-day holiday that’s, at the core, typical probinsiya: communal transport, sleeping under a kulambo, bathing outdoors with a tabo, and eating isda and gulay all day. “This is not a tour or a hotel,” warns Tao Philippines on its website. “This is a journey to the most remote islands in Palawan. We do not guarantee that you will have a nice relaxing time. In fact, we do not guarantee anything.” And it’s true. You don’t know who you’ll be riding with. You don’t know which islands you’ll be visiting. You don’t know if it’ll rain, if you’ll see a pawikan, or a shipwreck, or the ruins of a Spanish fort. You never know

when Harry, the captain’s dog, will just randomly leap off the outrigger and swim out to sea. You don’t know what’s for lunch. You won’t even know what time it is. The day will ebb and flow, and a Tao trip compels you to just go with it. Come evening, the captain drops anchor and you step off the boat onto dry land. It’s a different base camp each night. You pack a small waterproof bag with the basics you’ll need for the night: sleepwear, toiletries, a towel, maybe a phone. The rest of your luggage, you leave on the boat. You’re assigned beddings and a mosquito net at the start of the trip; these go into a bag with your name on it, yours to use for the whole journey. The crew prepares dinner—beach fare, of course: fresh seafood, vegetables, rice, fruit. In all likelihood, there will be a campfire. Hang out and chug beer with your shipmates, or find your own spot and be alone. Let loose. Tao is a hipster’s dream. Buzzword du jour like organic, artisanal, and sustainable certainly apply, and for sure, its mostly Western following doesn’t fail to notice. But that isn’t the appeal. You don’t have to fetishize the fact that your beddings were sewn by local women from recycled flour sacks, or that the farm’s pigs were raised on composted food scraps from your

THE SIMPLE LIFE

Top: The distinctive architecture of Tao basecamps, inspired by beak and boat forms, is designed to be simple to build yet strong enough to withstand typhoons. Right: Our captain’s pet Harry leaps off the boat for a quick dip.

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD RATHER STAY PUT, TAO JUST OPENED CAMP NGEY NGEY. SAME TROPICAL FREEWHEELING, BUT ON JUST ONE ISLAND. MORE INFO ON TAOPHILIPPINES.COM.

IMAGE OF DOG COURTESY OF PAUL TIBURON

AGENDA TRAVEL

SAY WHEN

AGENDA DRINKS

The Philippines’ first major whisky festival, Malt Manila offered more than shots of quality spirits WORDS BY PHILBERT DY

ere is how you know Malt Manila isn’t fooling around: when you register at the event, which took place at Manila House last March, you’re handed a Glencairn whisky glass attached to a lanyard. This is your pass for the entire event, and over the course of the night, your glass will be ﬁlled with as much whisky as you can take. You aren’t going to be sampling liquor in little plastic cups as you go from station to station. Rather, you walk up to one of them, hold out your Glencairn glass, and have them pour your preferred amount for tasting. There are buckets of ice everywhere, and receptacles for pouring out the whisky that doesn’t suit your palate. There are experts on hand to tell you about each drink, if you care to know more about the substance that is causing your inebriation. The selection is vast, with the usual suspects Macallan and Chivas Regal rubbing elbows with harder-to-ﬁnd bottles of Dalwhinnie and Glengoyne. Taiwanese distillery Kavalan has a surprisingly large presence here. There is plenty of food around to help your body cope with the abundance of spirits. The roast beef, in particular, is nice. It’s served in a sandwich, with a nice crusty bread balancing the fattiness

SPIRITED AWAY of the meat, and a selection of There are other classes, With its talks and condiments to personalize too, ones that didn’t just grooming features, the bite. involve drinking your way Malt Manila lets you There is a cocktail bar at the through a distiller’s catalog. walk away a little drunk, a bit more end of the hall for a change of Jay Sala, a collector of Japanese pace, and a station that dispenses dapper, and a tad whiskies, along with beverage learned on the nuances cigars, if that’s your thing. If you director Elliot Faber, offered a of whiskey-making and need a break from all the alcohol, seminar on investing in these whiskey-drinking. you can get a shoeshine and a increasingly rare spirits. Lee haircut and get fitted for a suit, Watson of ABV Cocktail and care of Felipe and Sons. There is a display Absinthe Bar moderated a blind taste of fine shoes from Sapatero next to an test that saw participants set aside their exhibit of mini bottles of liquor. There preconceived notions of the flavors is also a machine that tests your level of of whisky. intoxication, because this event isn’t really And so you walk out of Manila House about bringing yourself to dangerous around midnight with the Glencairn glass levels of drunk (though there were still dangling around your neck. Maybe certainly some people who were looking to you have a new haircut. Maybe you’ve test their limits). decided that you’re going to pour some There are master classes organized by money into finding a bottle of the now the Whisky Society of Manila, Philippines, discontinued Hibiki 12 years. Perhaps where each of the whisky distributors you have drunk your weight in whisky, or guides a limited number of students were a little more responsible and sampled through a selection of their wares, often judiciously. Perhaps you found your new with a pro to help them sort through the favorite spirit, or maybe this was all a flavors. These structured sessions were blur. No matter what your state when you generally attended by the most seasoned leave Malt Manila, one thing is certain: drinkers at the event, but they would have this event was a real boon for lovers of been a good introduction to someone just the drink. And when it rolls around again getting into the spirit, with these curated next year, you’ll be back, maybe with two progressions of whiskies offering a fine Glencairn glasses dangling from way to discover what it is that one likes. your neck.

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AGENDA ART

SURVIVAL INSTINCT

From the hard edge of letters to the sensitive lines of code, fixation has been the running theme in the life and craft of Patrick Cabral. The artist’s magnified attention to detail now turns to a new art WORDS BY PATRICIA CHONG PHOTOS BY PATRICK DIOKNO

“

ala siyang process,” says Patrick Cabral. He’s almost confused at the question: What, indeed, is the process behind his paper cuts? “Magcu-cut ka lang.” The answer seems too simple when one looks at his work—seen by most only through his posts on Instagram as @darkgravity. In one corner of his workspace is a glass case containing various three-dimensional polygons and a skeletal ampersand, shaped with paper and a good amount of Mighty Bond in one whole day. Twelve boxes stand in rows on the ﬂoor, each containing a part of his recent collaboration with AOK to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund. They are paper cuts of endangered animals, all of them detailed so ﬁnely that the material resembles lace. The style lends gentleness even to the image of a tiger, its gold foil eyes glinting as the layers of paper and masking tape that make up its face take shapes remi-

HIS DARK MATERIALS

Clockwise (from top left): Cabral’s paper cut of a pangolin, which took 13 days to design and complete; a cut of a rhinoceros, based on an Albrecht Durer woodcut; a cut of a skull, bluetack added between layers for more depth; Cabral’s workspace, with his typography of an Apple slogan hanging above. Opposite (from left): Cabral’s paper cut of a tiger, which is “slowly getting killed by capitalism;” a portrait of the artist.

niscent of the petals of a flower, with whiskers and fur tapering off in slivers. Cabral’s take on a white rhinoceros stares out of its own case, character made almost delicate with patterns cut freehand all over its body to resemble Albrecht Durer’s famous woodcut of the animal. This piece alone took 10 days to complete. “I was born to a working-class family,” says Cabral. He grew up in Bicol, with no galleries, museums, and art subjects. His first steps toward art came as a child shadowing a tito moonlighting as a calligrapher, lettering names on high school diplomas. “Sa amin, you count the value of work by how many days you put into it. Kung gaano kadaming pawis iyong binuhos diyan. That’s how you get paid sa manual labor. And with me, ganoon pa rin.” The value that comes with the intensity of effort is the running theme across his entire body of work. His typography has evolved into art: Above his desk is his geometric lettering of what he calls Apple’s “Think Different chorva,” which took three days to paint. His first fumblings with web design and development are the entire reason he dropped out of college—something

he says he intended to do anyway, so his parents could support his siblings’ schooling instead—to pursue a miserable ﬁrst job coding in Legazpi City, and then motion graphics in Manila, where he spent six months living with a college friend in what he calls a squatters’ area. These ventures culminate in “Pugo,” a game (think Flappy Bird with a dramatic visual upgrade and a nationalistic streak) he designed with his wife, visual artist Camy Francisco. In progress now is an application that automatically designs and animates calligraphy. The work Cabral chooses is allconsuming, elevating what he does not by explanations of his exploration, but by the difficulty of its execution—from lines of code making or breaking an application, or the cuts made entirely by hand that complete impossible patterns on paper. “Umpisa pa lang, creativity is about addiction,” he says. “I have addictive tendencies that manifest in my work. The more I consume myself—‘di ko na maiisip na iyong mga problema ng outside world. It really just so happens iyong nagiging ﬁx ko is making something with my hands.”

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AGENDA BOOKS

PERSONAL BOUNDARIES Between Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-prize winning The Sympathizerr and his formidable new collection of short fiction, which would we recommend you take with you on vacation? The least circuitous one, of course

iet Thanh Nguyen seems to have secured his footing in short-form story writing, characteristic of the best American writers today. The Refugeess was released in the shadow of anticipation for the sequel to The Sympathizer. It never feels tedious, and adequately explores the diverse nuances of what would have otherwise been a giveaway story. While The Sympathizerr made waves for a whole year before it won the Pulitzer, one is forced to admit that it’s not the friendliest book to take home the prize. Nguyen’s new collection of short stories is much easier to read. To its credit, the end of The Sympathizerr in particular does bring in some admirable, concrete ideas about ideology and identity. However, the reader only reaches it after a prolonged trek of disconnected events. Part of the challenge was knowing that the 20

author had centered the plot around an exciting premise—a Communist spy infiltrates the top circle of South Vietnamese military fleeing the Fall of Saigon. The spy reports on efforts to mobilize from America—and had gone off ff to almost completely throw it out the window. The book was a real slog by that mark, as the unnamed narrator moved from person to person, chronicling the lives of the former Vietnamese citizens, with little intention to reference them again later on. And when the book reaches its turning point in the final chapters, one feels tempted to throw their hands up, wondering what could have been left out. Beyond the topic of exile, all the stories in The Refugeess deal with families and the various alienations any member begins to feel when the whole unit is thrust into unfamiliar

situations. In “I’d Love You to Want Me,” an aging librarian becomes suspicious of her husband of many years, when, succumbing to dementia, he begins to call her by another woman’s name. “The Americans” brings a war vet back to Vietnam as a tourist, where he watches in horror as the country victimized by the American war machine lays claim to everything valuable in the veteran’s life, beginning with his daughter, who insists that she has a “Vietnamese soul.” Finally, in “War Years”—the book’s strongest story—a son recalls his early years as a refugee in America, to a time when his mother is seemingly targeted for extortion by a zealous supporter of the re-mobilization effort. When his mother attempts to confront her tormentor, both in public and in private, she begins to reconsider what she really values and how she can

IMAGE COURTESY OF JODI COBB\THE DENVER POST VIA GET TY IMAGES

WORDS BY MIO BORROMEO

Location, Location, Location Sometimes it takes creative writing to sell a destination. From Anthony Doerr’s conjuring of Saint-Malo to Vladimir Nabokov’s suspiciously fictional Fialta, offbeat milieus abound in modern literature

THIS IS THE HOUR

Orphans evacuated from South Vietnam arrive at Stapleton International Airport, Denver, in 1975.

protect them. By considering the family as a focal point for refugee and alienation stories, Nguyen calls to mind the recognizable analogies between household and nation, between child and citizen, between parent and authority. The result makes for interesting interaction. In one such story, “Someone Else Besides You,” an old Vietnamese father insists to his son’s ex-wife that he will never return to his home country, for fear and understanding of the Communists. The ex-wife suggests that the Communists only seek to move on; they aren’t that bad. When the father tries to invalidate her claims by calling her a foreigner to whom the Communists pander, she suggests: “Maybe you should go back. You can get closure.” As such, each presentation of characters is fragile and intimate, as it is whenever families cross the boundary between one homeland and another.

S A I N T- M A LO

A L L T H E L I G H T W E C A N N OT S E E Find in these pages a French coastal town remarkably captured in a crucial moment. Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel obsessively recreates Saint-Malo in the days leading to its near decimation at the turn of the Second World War. Doerr’s attention to detail simulates for the reader the experience of the book’s blind heroine, Marie-Laure, who ﬁnds her way around the city through a massive scale model constructed by her father. Saint-Malo still stands today, its ephemeral beauty nearly restored after a 12-year process of redevelopment.

T H E H O US E O N T H E RO C K

A M E R I C A N G O D S Neil Gaiman’s novel, which ﬁnally sees its adaptation to screen, memorably features the kitschy Wisconsin tourist attraction as a gateway to the hall of the Old Gods, led by Mr. Wednesday. Let’s just say non-believers should stay away from the world’s largest carousel.

S H E E P ’S H E A D

T H E B O N E C LO C KS The end of what is arguably David Mitchell’s best novel brings readers to a small Irish peninsula known for its popular network of walking trails. In the future, the novel imagines Sheep’s Head as a Mad Max-esque cluster of communities that have been affected by large-scale climate disasters and the withdrawal of major economic powers from Ireland. As soldiers and militiamen fight for control, the book’s heroine, Holly Sykes, encounters a figure who has played a significant role throughout her entire life, only to discover that this same figure will seal her fate.

B O N N E V I L L E S A LT F L AT S

T H E F L A M E T H RO W E R S Though the majority of Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers takes place between Italy and New York, it’s the early scenes of the book that are most arresting, transporting readers to the sweltering desert of Utah, where protagonist Reno, after befriending the heir of an Italian motor empire, attempts to tear one of his prototype motorcycles through the salt ﬂats’ land speed record.

K I N G S TO N

A B R I E F H I S TO RY O F S E V E N K I L L I N G S Though the Jamaican capital has regularly ﬁgured in Ian Fleming’s superspy adventures, it’s recently been recast in a new light, thanks to the Man Booker-winning novel by Marlon James. The book vividly takes the reader into the minds of gangsters like Josey Wales, whose attempt to assassinate Bob Marley serves as the focal point for the novel. Don’t go looking for the facts behind the story. James writes as if he were already there.

YA LTA?

S P R I N G I N F I A LTA Regrettably, one will not ﬁnd Fialta, described as a picturesque Mediterranean town on the Riviera, on any map. Fialta only exists in the pages of one of Vladimir Nabokov’s most beloved stories, the setting of one man’s ﬁnal, poignant encounter with a fellow exile and truly kindred spirit. It is said, however, that the closest anyone will ever get to the idyllic setting is Yalta, a city neighboring the writer’s former residence in Crimea. —MIO BORROMEO

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AGENDA MUSIC

WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE

Eclectic, adventurous, and above all, post-ironic, new bands are making inroads into heretofore unexplored creative territories. Rogue presents five acts prodding at the very edges of the known landscape, from a rapper who personifies a fire emoji to a singer-songwriter who transmutes melancholy into fuel

NINNO

PHOTOGRAPHED BY KAREN DE LA FUENTE

certain kind of gall is required to determine which young musicians deserve to be featured as acts to watch out for. Countless factors have to be considered—the dominant sound of the times, the size of each act’s following, the ever-evolving musical tastes of a vaguely deﬁned audience, and other stray impressions gathered from hanging out at noisy haunts that smell like armpits—to make a prediction this writer wouldn’t trust with a Greek oracle. These are the young acts who are going to make it big. For sure. These young musicians to watch out for aren’t so much part of a stylish meritocracy report, informing readers of a musical act’s factual awesomeness. They are here for one simple reason: the work they’re putting out is amazing. —JAM PASCUAL

“I’m rapping edgier than radical polygons / See I’m infinite like an apeirogon.” An apeirogon, Niño Rodriguez, a.k.a. NINNO, explains, is a polygon with infinite sides. The dense lyricism of rap allows NINNO to make a load of references, from the Marvel Universe’s Franklin Richards (a reality warper) and Captain Stagnetti (google him) to the arithmetic shout-out that this writer is pretty sure no one’s made before. What makes NINNO such a formidable figure is that he is a multifaceted guy—rapper,

producer, 1/3 of the hip-hop nerdcore trio Shadow Moses, head of the Logiclub clan. As a rapper, NINNO’s approach to fire-spitting is technical—speedy and flow-conscious, as evidenced by the lyrical acrobatics on his last full-length album TCK. But what separates him from the rest of local hip-hop’s Englishspeaking ilk is his propensity for storytelling. His upcoming album, Confessions of a Dangerous Entity (or C.O.D.E.), is a concept album revolving around a character confined to a psych ward

basement. It’s this high-minded approach to his creative output that shows there is always the agenda to be complex, to push boundaries, to border on oﬀensive. “It requires a lot more thinking, and a lot of it is introspective music,” he says. It’s something we hear in TCK, with NINNO approaching topics from religious extremism to authoritarianism. Now more potent than ever— in anime parlance, this isn’t even his ﬁnal form—NINNO’s power levels have nowhere to go but up. —JAM PASCUAL

NIKI COLET PHOTOGRAPHED BY KAREN DE LA FUENTE

It’s been a few years since Niki Colet released her ﬁrst EP, but it seems as though it’s only now that she’s uncovering her full creative powers. The singersongwriter, whose work is proud to have the likes of Lana Del Ray, Regina Spektor, and Joni Mitchell in its sonic DNA, appears to be undergoing her own creative evolution—slowly stepping out of the folk bubble critics tend to keep her in. Her latest single, “One Day,” is a

melancholic ode to almosts and could-have-beens. Produced by Nick Lazaro, the song shows Colet sticking to her guns— poignant lyrics, an alto register that can sink ships—while exploring new textures and complexities. Whether or not it appears in a future album, and where exactly Colet is going is hard to say, but it signals a change. “I think I’m at that point where there’s a lot of dust in the air, so I’m still not seeing clearly

how much I’ve changed,” she says. “I’ve done gigs, I’ve met certain musicians, I’ve worked on new songs, I’ve thought a little bit more deeply about the kind of artist I want to be. And I’m still here.” And the state of “still here” is a commendable thing, navigating a scene made mostly of dudes in bands. It just so happens we’re here to witness her trajectory, and to hear the music that comes out of the ascent. —JAM PASCUAL

SHE’S ONLY SIXTEEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDREA BELDUA

When She’s Only Sixteen was still starting out in early 2010, the dominant sound of the local music scene was heavy rock, not quite indie as we know it. Although the boys of Sixteen wouldn’t exactly call themselves pioneers, musicians playing a similar music at the time now either have a couple of full-length albums or kids. Sixteen has maintained its relevance with sporadically released singles and a consistent gig presence, but the guys haven’t been quite there yet—which

isn’t to say they haven’t been busy. Since the release of the band’s EP in 2012, each member has gone in multiple directions, cultivating side projects and exploring new sounds. The band’s upcoming album is the concrete manifestation of all that growth. “This album is a mixture of the past three years, of where we thought we were going, where we are now, and where we’re about to go,” says frontman Roberto Seña. Sixteen has slowly been shedding the

garage rock sound that carried its EP in favor of a more spacey, psychedelic approach that emphasizes texture. As early as now, Seña already knows it won’t be their deﬁnitive album. It’s a little strange that a relatively seasoned act on the verge of making its full-length album hasn’t quite agreed on its identity just yet. Perhaps ﬂexibility will be its strength—the ability to adapt and grow, even after today’s dominant indie sound has run its course. —JAM PASCUAL

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AGENDA MUSIC

FOOLS AND FOES PHOTOGRAPHED BY DEEJ FABIAN OF SUBSTANCE

So much happens in every Fools and Foes song that you almost forget that their official repertoire only consists of a handful of tracks: five from their debut EP Underneath the Roots and three from a forthcoming second release. Every song is a jigsaw puzzle of melodies and complex drum parts, but Fools and Foes knows better than to be technically proficient just for the sake of being flashy. Just like their influences—from Minus the Bear to American Football—the four-piece math

rock group has mastered the alchemy of transforming musical notes into earnest emotion. Their newest single, “Nocturnal,” starts oﬀ as a moody, haunting number before breaking down into an intricate coda that somehow retains the spontaneity of an unrehearsed jam. Compressed into four minutes are the almost sentient exchanges between guitars and drums, irregular line cuts in the band’s anxiety-ridden lyrics, and Isabelle Romualdez and Miguel Querubin trading contradicting

vocals, all metamorphosing into a dynamic bassline. And that’s just one song. But none of this makes Fools and Foes inaccessible. If anything, their meticulous style only helps sharpen the emotions they want you to feel. Their attention to detail elevates their music beyond surface feelings and into something that’s inexplicably speciﬁc and universal at the same time. You’d be hard-pressed to ﬁnd other bands that do the same. —EMIL HOFILEÑA

YŪREI

PHOTOGRAPHED BY KAREN DE LA FUENTE

People used to joke about Yūrei being the “only grunge band in the indie scene” in the sense that they were among the few that sounded like Nirvana and possessed the same spirit. Against their heavy metal past, Yūrei’s band members did everything themselves, from releasing records to funding studio rental and gigs using their own money—the works. As many accused them of neo-90s punk and grunge revivalism, they kept wearing

their inﬂuence on their sleeve until their latest album, Random Schizoid Godhead Generator, introduced songs that peeled oﬀ layers to reveal something purer to the point of automatism. From then on, Yūrei has thrived on this randomness, and it is this entropy that holds the band together. Today, the band performs live with synths, electronic backing drum tracks, and other gadgets nobody imagined its members

would bring to the stage. In this current age of indie appropriation, when Nirvana shirts are sold at Uniqlo, the fuzz of Yūrei’s guitars and their synth bleeps endure, ringing in the small bars the band performs in. Few bands in the scene are as selfconscious as Yūrei, and they continue to run away from what everyone else expects them to be. At the end of a show, they always have the last laugh. —ALYANA CABRAL

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T H E

R O G U E

A R E N A

Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

Style Reboot Subculture favorites mark a return in Dr. Martens’ 57th birthday bash, uniting rebellious champions of individuality

FOR ITS 57TH YEAR , Dr. Martens celebrated the spirit of individuality, rock’n’roll style. Held last month, the British brand’s birthday bash united Dr. Martens Loyalistas—a community of the shoe label’s Filipino fans—and media partners in a night of revelry and music, headlined by Wolfgang frontman Basti Artadi. The brand is a cultural ﬁxture, and its 1460 8-eye boot, named after the date it was created (April 1, 1960), has deﬁned its uncompromising, durable and comfortable design identity. Meanwhile, the SS17 Originals collection reintroduces three shoe designs

from its archives, available in Black and Cherry Red Smooth leather, and made with the brand’s signature yellow welt stitch: the 60s 3989 Brogue, known as the wingtip-style brogue; the 70s 2976 Chelsea Boot, worn originally for horseback riding and a popular agriculture workwear and walking boot; and the Adrian Tassel loafer, a favorite pick of office workers and stylish teenagers from the late 60s to the 80s. The three styles have remained subculture favorites across the decades. —GELO DIONORA Available at Bratpack, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 728-4028; drmartens.com

May 2017

Edited by

JEROME GOMEZ

SPACE DESIGN + INTERIORS + ARCHITECTURE + TECHNOLOGY

Eduardo Herrera’s Makati abode perfectly reflects his ongoing quest to maintain a sense of balance through different places and art forms

WORDS BY EMIL HOFILEÑA PHOTOGRAPHED BY SONNY THAKUR

Issue

109

SPACE HOME

W NATURAL CONNECTION

Most of the furnishings and decor (the abaca carpets and stools, upholstered cushions, and cane chair seen in the photo) came from Soumak; Herrera's walls are adorned with his own photographs and artworks. Opposite: Herrera personally chose the objects in his space and configured the various areas according to his needs. The work station (bottom) has an easy flow and is bathed in natural light. Previous page: Eduardo Herrera flanked by his own painting and his surfboard.

hen caught amidst the concrete, noise, and traffic of urban life, most homeowners might turn to crafting meticulous interiors to make up for the lack of a scenic view. But Eduardo Herrera isn’t most homeowners. Not only has he managed to ﬁnd a great view overlooking the business district of Makati, he’s also kept the interiors of his bachelor's pad humble to the point of serene. No wall-mounted ﬂat-screen TV or overabundance of tables and chairs to distract you here; he practically forces you to enjoy the majestic view, not that you need coercing. Having lived in Madrid, San Francisco, and Costa Rica, and now based in the Philippines as a freelance artist, Herrera recognizes that each city or small town he’s lived in has its own energy and texture, which can be jarring to adjust to. “My way of staying ‘sane,’” he

says, making air quotes with his fingers, “is to be in contact as much as possible with the natural world.” The sunlight that pours in from the floor-to-ceiling windows is a testament to that. Instead of heating up the room, the light transforms the place into a naturally lit studio. Both in daylight and in the glow of nighttime Makati, Herrera’s home reveals itself to be the product of an artist constantly at work. He’s mostly known for his painted murals and visual art, but Herrera is just as passionate about everything from photography to surfing and music. Every bit of his naturally creative and restless personality can be seen in the cans of paint, surfboards, and vinyls found around the house. Herrera confirms that he didn’t have everything in the space planned out when

"My way of staying sane is to be in contact as much as possible with the natural world."

he moved in. Bits and pieces of his home are added over time, finding their own natural spot without ever looking messy. In lieu of a formal seating area, he has a Japanese-style table surrounded by pillows. Instead of a random assortment of pictures hanging on the walls, huge prints of Herrera’s favorite photographs lend their ambiance to the room. But as much as Herrera revels in the freedom that his art gives him, he admits that finding a balance and a rhythm is something that he’s been trying to focus on. He at least knows not to scatter the floor with his unfinished creations; he has an office hub adjunct to the dining area, overlooking an uncommon patch of green in the city. A guest bedroom on the opposite end also functions as a mini-library, while a soundproofed recording room is hidden in the back under lock and key, next to the kitchen and master bedroom. Still, having separate rooms from the main open

M AY 2 0 1 7

SPACE HOME

CASUAL MANNER

Right: In the master bedroom, Herrera's laidback character and love of the outdoors is vividly expressed through a bespoke sofa from Soumak. Its shape evoking the waves of the sea, it is upholstered in native weaving and cotton. Below: Another surfboard stands next to the bed; nearby, Herrera's record player and selection of vinyls are propped on the floor.

Herrera embodies the artist as a work in progress, but displays a confidence and a style that already feels fully formed—reflected in his pad's simultaneous modesty and boldness. area is no indication that he compartmentalizes the different parts of his creative personality. Herrera the painter is exactly the same person as Herrera the photographer. You’re just as likely to catch him lying around with his cat, Sati, as you are to see him jumping out of a plane. To him, both the active and relaxed parts of his lifestyle are indicative of the same person—creatively charged, other-centered, and spiritually connected with his art. “For me, [practicing my art] isn’t just about learning. It’s about being able to have a feeling, or a message, or a concept, and being able to get it across.” Herrera embodies the artist as a work in progress, but displays a conﬁdence and a style that already feels fully formed—reﬂected in his apartment’s simultaneous modesty and boldness. As to his primary art form, he says he prefers not to highlight any, for fear of narrowing his vision and missing out on all the good things happening everywhere else. It’s unlikely that he’ll ever have to worry about that. One look out his window tells you that Herrera’s already made this city his own.

DESIGN SHIFT Nelson Sepulveda collaborates with Filipino craftsmen, shaping a new design language

IMAGES COURTESY OF CARMEN DOMINGUEZ (PORTRAIT) AND NELSON SEPULVEDA (PRODUCTS)

WORDS BY DEVI DE VEYRA

MATERIAL MASTERY

Clockwise from top: Coconut twig leaves by Hacienda Crafts; handcrafted candelabra by Chanali; woven baskets by Shelmed Cottage Treasures. The designer continues to explore native methods and materials through his extensive sojourn around the country.

hilean-born designer Nelson Sepulveda fell for the Philippines at first sight. “It was sort of ‘gifted,’” he says, “my heart was immediately plugged in.” Sepulveda was blown away by the rich cache of local materials, the driving force behind his creative practice. A guest designer of CITEM’s Manila FAME, Sepulveda was originally contracted to create a collection of basketry in collaboration with Filipino craft companies. “This is insane,” he recalls saying. “I want to do more than just baskets; I want to do furniture.” He got his wish. At last month’s Manila FAME show, Sepulveda presented an expanded collection that included furnishings and home accessories. The designer also extended his range of materials, working with metal apart from rattan and other fibers he has been using. Sepulveda’s aesthetics are quite austere with pure lines, stark finishes, and a calm palette of mostly neutral colors mixed with black. This allows his signature marks to shine through. “My designs are driven by the beauty of materials,” he admits. Unlike other creatives who immediately take to the drawing boards upon entering factories, Sepulveda usually starts his own process by touching and manipulating

SPACE DESIGN

materials. “I don’t immediately go into what people should do with it. Most of the time, I try to do what I can with my own hands, whatever I can do, to get a connection with the matter. Then I just sort of let the pure material talk.” A lover of things handmade, Sepulveda says his knowledge of local techniques comes from a deep respect for artisan craft. “I want to see all the stages (of production). I’m not going to arrive here and think, I’m a designer. I want to understand the whole process of creation. Because from that comprehension, everything just becomes so ﬂuid for me.” Apart from developing designs, Sepulveda has been actively promoting Filipino crafts through his own collections for Dutch lighting company Ay illuminate. As a result, a few buyers from his own network visited Manila FAME to explore export possibilities. His boundless curiosity is rewarded with discoveries that spark creative bursts, as witnessed by visitors to Manila FAME. Sepulveda’s collections reveal a contemporary tenor, which he explained as necessary for crafts to survive a ﬁckle global market. “When people talk of craft, they talk of something that somehow stopped somewhere, something from the past. This is what people should be more attentive to—the needs, currents… these things move. So everyone needs to be a bit more like a chameleon and adapt. But that doesn’t mean they have to abandon something.” The designer’s most recent exhibition at Manila FAME is just a prelude to bigger things: Sepulveda describes his capsule collection as a “statement which is going to bloom and expand.”

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SPACE COLLECTIBLES

VINYL FRENZY

The Japan-pressed vinyl record is the holy grail of collectors, commanding respect, reverence, and of course, premium price. As vinyl collection enters its second golden age, Manila gets set to host the definitive aficionado’s event

inyl records and their peripherals are as much objects of design as they are media for music. The best turntables have their own character: an identiﬁable whirr to the motor, unique pull switches, distinct tone arms. The record sleeve is just the right size for a compelling piece of cover art. The vinyl itself is often a site of personality, from the mellow 7”s to the serious 12”s. Even the humble triskelion spin adapter is now a skeumorph for a collection of music. Arguably, the best-sounding records are produced in Japan. “The 32

story that the famous American audiophile label, Mobile Fidelity, deliberately chose Japanese factories for vinyl pressing is well known,” shares Hiroyuki Kaneko 1, who has been collecting original vinyl pressings for the past three decades. Japan-pressed records are so well made that they do not suffer the usual warping of an inferior edition. They are some of the bestlooking, as well. Japan ﬁrst presses, for instance, are in red polyvinyl, giving them a distinctive and bold look. And Kaneko speaks of the obi, borrowed from the Japanese kimono and applied in paper form to the

packaging of locally manufactured records. “Obi designs are so diverse and beautiful that there are some collectors who collect only them,” Kaneko says. Shigeki Fukuda 2, a design consultant, part-time DJ and collector since his mid-teens, recognizes the value of such pressings. “I take care not to make any scratches when spinning them,” he says. This also gives a Japanese edition one of its trademarks. “Most LPs are in mint condition even though they are vintage,” Fukuda says. As recent as a decade ago, vinyl was the territory of the connoisseur.

PORTRAITS BY SONNY THAKUR (TOTI DALMACION), NEAL OSHIMA (ERIC PARAS). IMAGES OF KANEKO AND FUKUDA COURTESY OF THE SUBJECTS.

WORDS BY PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ

Arguably, the best sounding records are produced in Japan.

Phonographs were salvage items, picked from the most obscure stores or grittiest back alleys by only the most determined audiophiles. Titles were sold second-hand in cramped thrift shops, a risky bet for the possible scratches and warps; or brand new in specialist record bars, a pricey outing for the low-supply, highdemand things. It didn’t help that the interest came with an air of snobbery. There were claims to better sound quality, which fed the long-running yet simultaneously static digital vs. analog debate. Early collectors waxed poetic in over-indulgent paeans, resulting in alienation as harsh as that hyperbole. CDs, followed by compressed audio files, and finally the more recent music streaming sites, marched on to the paradiddle of a ravenous market that only wanted to play its jams without fiddling with a stylus. Thanks to the persistence of collectors, and—let’s be honest here— the straight-up better sound quality of the medium, vinyl is enjoying its second heyday. Artists are queuing up vinyl-only releases, or pressing re-issues of classics, ironically, about the time CDs were dominating the market. Turntables, both entry-level and pro, are readily available. And vinyl stores abound. Sometime this year, vinyl fans will get the chance to sample and purchase records of their choice at Back2Mono, a three-day pop up organized by Fukuda, together with This is Pop Records honcho Toti Dalmacion 3 and designer Eric Paras 4, who is hosting the event in one of his beautiful postwar showrooms. Back2Mono’s main feature is a 500-piece exhibition of Japan-pressed vinyls curated by Kaneko that includes covetable releases such as John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Queen’s much maligned early album Queen II, and the rare Demon and Eleven Children by Japanese prog rock pioneer Blues Creation. Follow Back2Mono on Facebook and Instagram where event details will be announced soon.

M AY 2 0 1 7

Nine years into the business of personal shopping, Aimee Hashim has perfected the art of procuring symbols of power for the discerning collector

THE ALLURE OF a collection begins, often, with the act itself: of the search and the acquisition. For others, it is the assembly of the object, seeing them all together—be it in the form of cars, watches, or clothes. Many have made a business of procuring symbols of power for collectors, but few have been as resilient as Aimee Hashim, who has survived in the arena for over nine years with one cardinal rule: exclusivity. “I never make [my clients’] purchases available to everyone,” she says. “I never

post ahead of them. I let them wear the items—shoes, clutches, etcetera—ﬁrst and give some time before I post about them. It’s simple.” Hashim’s official titles are personal shopper and lifestyle consultant, though these hardly begin to cover the full extent of her work. For one thing, her expertise isn’t limited to bags and shoes, as some may infer from her blog, Love Luxe Bags. She will shop for virtually anything she has access to, and this access extends beyond

Philippine shores to the collections of curators and fashion houses in Europe and Dubai. Her days end as late as 3am, with Hashim keeping up with different time zones for talk of new releases and orders—if she isn’t already communicating with them in person. “I travel most of the time and I’m really mobile,” she explains. “[When I’m in Manila,] I spend most of the time online and in the car, as well as transacting and talking to my clients and staff everyday.”

THIS PAGE: DOLCE & GABBANA TOP AND TROUSERS, HERMÈS CLUTCH, FRANCESCO RUSSO SHOES. OPPOSITE: SELF-PORTRAIT DRESS, HERMÈS BIRKIN, PATEK PHILIPPE WATCH. ALL AVAILABLE AT LOVELUXEBAGS.COM.

Objects of Desire

P A R T N E R

P R O M O T I O N

“I never make my clients’ purchases available to everyone.”

Hashim’s clientele ranges from men to women, personalities both well known and under the radar. She is, however, most known for her work with celebrities, which began in 2014 with clients such as Gretchen Fullido and Ces Drilon. The list eventually grew to include the likes of Maja Salvador, Marian Rivera, Alden Richards, and Sam YG. Her signature across all her acquisitions for these is elegance and timelessness, carrying European brands unlikely to go out of style.

“[My clients] know what they want,” says Hashim. She tells tales of ﬁnding high-cut sneakers from Giuseppe Zanotti, lipstick from Christian Louboutin, clutches from Manolo Blahnik—all of them difficult to ﬁnd, with most fashion houses refraining from making all their wares available in one store. “And they know that I am their access to help them acquire it without hassle. They have their own style and preferences and I only help them decide every so often. I don’t just let them shop and shop.”

"!* ' + ) # )) '( + $ !) # )) '(

+++ ,&' (( %# &

May 2017

Edited by

JACS SAMPAYAN

THE EYE

Issue

109

FA S H I O N + S T Y L E + G R O O M I N G

T H E WA I S T I S A T E R R I B L E T H I N G T O M I N D Fashion‘s love affair for retro pushes the once square, utilitarian belt bag to a contemporary gentleman’s staple

SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 118) FOR STORE INFORMATION

ZIGGY SAVELLA JUMPSUIT, BALENCIAGA BELT BAG. OPPOSITE: TIM COPPENS SHIRT, SACAI TROUSERS, NEIGHBORHOOD BELT BAG. PREVIOUS: ZIGGY SAVELLA SHIRT, SACAI TROUSERS, LOUIS VUITTON BELT BAG.

SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 118) FOR STORE INFORMATION

ZIGGY SAVELLA DENIM SHIRT, LANVIN PRINTED SHIRT, ZIGGY SAVELLA TROUSERS, LOUIS VUITTON BELT BAG. OPPOSITE: BALENCIAGA SHIRT, LANVIN TROUSERS, LOUIS VUITTON BELT BAG.

PHOTOGRAPHER ARTU NEPOMUCENO ART DIRECTION KARL CASTRO STYLING AND PRODUCTION BLAKE SAMSON HAIR AND MAKEUP NICOLE CEBALLOS OF MAC COSMETICS PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTED BY IGNACIO GADOR PRODUCTION ASSISTED BY PATRICIA CHONG MODEL NICK KICI OF ELITE MANILA

THE EYE STYLE

NATURAL SELECTION Paul & Shark keeps the spirit of adventure alive with durable pieces that resist and respect the environment WORDS BY GELO DIONORA

mack in the middle of the Strait of Sicily, the island of Pantelleria introduces travelers to nature at its rawest, untouched state. Exploring the island entails hiking along craggy coasts (the island’s only “beaches”), ancient trails traversing forests and vines, natural and manmade rock formations (like the dammusi, rock houses built for water collection), and volcanic springs. Pantelleria does not run out of lovers; Italian designer Giorgio Armani, for instance, has been spending three

decades’ worth of summers in his villa there, which he bought back in the early 80s. He abides by a daily morning hike whenever he is on the island. The Italian island serves as inspiration and namesake to Paul & Shark’s Spring/Summer 2017 collection. Aptly named after the island itself, the collection showcases Paul & Shark’s classic sportswear and outerwear, both of which are designed to resist and respect the elements of nature. Signature nautical

themes—anchors, stripes, sailboats, and sharks—mark water-resistant jackets, trench coats, windbreakers, and knitwear. Vibrant pops of yellow, orange, and red stand out against the island’s formidable stone walls and formations. Cool shades of khaki, white, and blue capture the vibe of the island’s stone-cold exterior, with its rocky coastlines and bodies of water. Elaborate ﬂoral prints and patterns, seen on the brand’s shirts and buttondowns, enhance the beauty of the island ﬂora.

1ST LEVEL, SHANGRI-LA PLAZA MALL EAST WING, SHANGRI-LA PLAZA MALL, SHAW BLVD. COR. EDSA, MANDALUYONG; 997-7709; PAULSHARK.IT

THE EYE STYLE

ALL IN Luxury meets playfulness in Louis Vuitton’s version of a deck of cards WORDS BY GELO DIONORA

he journey of playing cards began in China, circa 9th century. In their travels westward to Egypt, the cards, with their abstract design and calligraphy, were enjoyed by both common folk and royalty. By the time they reached Europe in the 14th century, playing cards were elevated to conversation pieces, a reﬂection of the continent’s then booming economy and the luxurious craftsmanship that resulted from it. Seven centuries later, Louis Vuitton (Greenbelt 4, Ayala Center, Makati; 756-0637) continues this heritage of luxury with playing cards from its Gifting collection. While cards from 14th century Europe were gilded—gold was a favorite color and metal to work with—and painstakingly painted

with intricate designs and fine art, the French fashion house opts for classic shades with a few pops of color. Violet lines cross over light gray cards bearing the house’s recognizable logo. The bright red flap of the Monogram canvas case that is reminiscent of the Louis Vuitton trunk provides the perfect accent against LV’s signature brown hue. Besides their understated elegance, the playing cards—along with a set of dice, leather spinning tops, yo-yos, and a “Louis” teddy bear—embody the playfulness of Gaston-Louis Vuitton, grandson of the luxury goods founder. An avid collector since childhood, he was also known for his artistic and whimsical window displays for the French label’s first few shops.

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THE

ROGUE REGISTER

The traveling social media celebrity on the best airline, neighborhood restaurant, and where he will fly to next INTERVIEW BY JACS T. SAMPAYAN

“

JEREMY JAUNCEY

here is this perception among older generations that millennials don’t work, they don’t do things seriously, they don’t understand the meaning of ambition, and they can be famous just by posting a selfie. And my reaction is that’s not the case,” says Jeremy Jauncey, founder and head of Beautiful Destinations, the largest social media travel community in the world. “If I could sit in the middle, I’ll help the slightly older generation understand all the positive things happening with young people. And then I can say to the younger generation that there is a massive opportunity to learn if you embrace all the things the older generation can teach you. It’s a role I really want to play.” Embracing both old and new is demonstrated in the 32-year-old’s exquisitely curated platform-turned-creative agency, which he started in 2012. “The original idea was to create a place we could go to that could celebrate all these beautiful things happening in the world, but doing so that would respect culture, and embrace everything that social media allows you to do,” explains the former rugby player. “We asked ourselves, could we fill this community with people? Could we share all of these amazing photos from around the world? Really for one purpose, to celebrate the world and the power of positive messages about travel and culture.” Today, that community has a population that rivals that of small countries, with over 13 million followers across 180 nations. The half-Scottish, half-Colombian globetrotter was in town recently, serving as the latest endorser of Bench, as part of its #lovelocal campaign. What was your earliest ambition? Professional rugby player. What is your most treasured possession? iPhone. Who are your favorite writers? Winston Churchill, Patricia Cornwell, Malcolm Gladwell. What do you consider your greatest achievement? My relationship with my family. What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess? A good watch. What drives you on? My family. What are you working on now? Beautiful Destinations! What time of the day are you most inspired? 5 to 6:30 a.m. Favorite hotel? Amanpulo. Necessary extravagance? Travel! Favorite city in the world? London. Favorite country? Sweden. Favorite airline? British Airways. Ideal playlist? Zedd, Galantis or Sam Feldt. Favorite artists? 1 Banksy. Favorite actors? Christian Bale, Leo Di Caprio. Favorite gadget? 3 Apple Watch. Favorite car? Ferrari. Favorite fitness activity? Lifting weights. Where do you live? Downtown New York. Neighborhood restaurant? Gemma’s at Bowery Hotel or Rosie’s. Favorite cocktail? 2 Tequila on the rocks. Favorite athlete? David Beckham. Sports team you root for? Scotland Rugby Team. Favorite book? 5 The Last Lion. Favorite TV show? Narcos. Favorite movie? Gladiator. Favorite dish? Steak & sweet potatoes. Any pets? None. Jeans? Diesel. Footwear? Barkers. Watch? None yet! Favorite designers or brands? Bench! Diesel, Orlebar Brown, 6 Burberry, Belstaff. Wallet or money clip? Wallet. Shampoo? Yes. Cologne? 4 Clinique Happy. Who cuts your hair? Tommy Guns in SoHo. What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen today? My brother’s face. What was your last Facebook/social media post about? Travel! What’s next on your bucket list? South America.

THE EYE ACCESSORIES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PRADA, DOLCE & GABBANA, EMPORIO ARMANI, AND GIORGIO ARMANI, ALL AVAILABLE AT EYE SOCIETY

DOPPELGANGLAND

Once the sole territory of Aviators, double bridge frames and thin temples are becoming a trend, meshing with other classic structures and evoking a 70s silhouette

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ARTU NEPOMUCENO

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T H E

R O G U E

A R E N A

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STREET SMART California action sports brand DC Shoes recently introduced the Astor for Spring/Summer 2017, which features a clean blucher-toe silhouette and an upper in leather, nubuck, suede, or canvas. Cushioning is supported by an internal elastic gore, an OrthoLite sockliner, and a durable IMPACT-I rubber outsole. Sporting a herringbone tread for traction, these kicks come in gray, black, white, and dark green.

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COLD FRONT Saucony’s Dirty Snow Pack was inspired by the big blizzard that hit Boston (the brand’s headquarters) two years ago, resulting in about nine feet of ice. The collection, which reimagines the brand’s classic models like The Shadow and The Grid, features a unique dirty snow upper, rope laces, a perforated Wolverine Silkee Suede toe box, a snow white midsole, and a translucent outsole that mimics an icy exterior.

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May 2017

Edited by

PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ

THE SLANT

Issue

109

OPINIONS + IDEAS + PERSPECTIVES

“Under the scorching heat and the muddy terrain, Eman and his family have to crush and sift through hundreds of kilos of rocks and clay throughout the day, which yields about a gram or two of gold dust.” 01 All that Glitters

02 Criminal Insecurity

03 Take My Name and Shove It

EZRA ACAYAN Declared illegal and unsafe, compressor mining continues to be practiced by communities in gold-rich areas. The townspeople of Paracale in Camarines Norte tell us why.

PHILBERT DY The illusion of safety is often as good as its reality. But in abiding security checks, we might just be allowing a less obvious form of violence.

PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ It is the golden age of managed brands and curated personal histories. Fodder for the counterculture, one would think. So why have the old radicals been so meek?

Ezra Acayan

on compressor mining in Camarines Norte

ALL THAT GLITTERS What pushes a community to settle for a source of livelihood that may be viable but barely livable? A photojournalist reports from a subsistence mining town in the south

n the gold-rich town of Paracale in Camarines Norte, many small-scale artisanal miners dive into hazardous conditions in search of gold. A kilometer hike across amber trails and knee-high mud in a swamp next to a river, the hum of a compressor engine grows louder and louder as I and my companions get closer to two mining pits. A few minutes after we arrive, a man emerges from a muddy pit. Christian Balerosdasco has just spent hours deep inside a mud-ﬁlled tunnel digging for gold, biting on a piece of tube connected to a compressor as his only means of breathing. For decades, Paracale’s residents have worked in hazardous conditions. They scavenge under the earth and dive into mud-ﬁlled tunnels using only makeshift tools to mine for gold, often placing their health and lives at risk. Christian, like many of Paracale’s residents, practices “compressor mining,” a method of mining for gold which involves diving into thick, muddy water, breathing only through a rubber hose connected to a compressor. Compressor mining is illegal, but the allure of the gold that awaits underground has not deterred Paracale’s residents. Christian’s father, Emmanuel Balerosdasco, oversees the small operation. Eman has been practicing kabod (the local term for subsistence mining) for over two decades. He has eight children, four of whom help him out in the mining pits. His son Rommel, who is only 17 years old and just recently graduated high school, has joined his father in the mines. “Almost everyone here is a miner. I can say 90 percent of the residents are into mining,” says Eman of Paracale’s 60,000 residents. They spend around two to six hours submerged in the dark water digging blindly for rocks which can contain gold particles. “Sometimes miners just go back up when they get hungry, or when they can’t feel their limbs anymore,” says Eman. Miners can easily drown if the compressor fails; they also risk having the underwater pits collapse on

STRIKING GOLD

Seventy-three provinces in the Philippines contain gold deposits. A combined yearly yield can average about 35,000 kilograms. A large percentage of this total comes from small-scale operations. Above: A miner descends into a shaft to prospect for deposits. Below: A full day’s work of compressor mining, in raw gold. Opposite: A compressor miner surfaces from what is technically an outlawed method of mining.

48 M AY 2 0 1 7

PHOTOGRAPHED BY EZRA ACAYAN

them anytime. An hour later, another man emerges from a second pit. Anthony, Eman’s eldest son, proceeds to grind the mud he has collected. After a short break to share a meal, Christian and Anthony dive back into the pits to search for more gold. Lumps of mud are carried out. Under the scorching heat and the muddy terrain, Eman and his family have to crush and sift through hundreds of kilos of rocks and clay throughout the day, which yields about a gram or two of gold dust. To process the gold, miners expose themselves to dangerous chemicals such as mercury. Mercury binds gold particles together, which then allows miners to melt it into a single piece before it is sold to local gold dealers. A gram of gold can go for around P1,000, which the miners split amongst themselves for their daily needs. Subsistence miners make around P250 a day from digging and panning for gold, but there are days where they make no money at all. Eman admits that many have died doing this type of work. Ban Toxics, a local non-governmental organization in the area, claims that artisanal mining is a povertydriven industry. Subsistence miners often work in harsh conditions with no proper training and protection.

Eman and his family are lured into this The gold underneath the earth has helped type of work because of lack of opportunities Eman provide a comfortable living for his in the area. They have no choice but to do family. As we hike back up to the village, he this type of work despite the dangerous invites me to his home. It’s a big two-story working conditions. concrete house, spacious “People sometimes go enough to accommodate Subsistence ﬁshing, or sometimes they his family of eight. Aside go farming,” says Eman, from being able to feed his miners make who sidelines as a carpenter family every day and send when he is not doing his children to school, the around P250 a kabod. “But the money is in gold he has collected over the gold.” years has allowed him to day from digging the Local reports indicated build the house. the country produced about Rommel heads back from and panning for 18 tons of gold at a market the local gold dealer after value of over $700 million in collecting their earnings for gold, but there 2014, while 80 percent of the the day. The family bonds are days where gold comes from artisanal over a bottle of rhum. and small-scale mines Aside from putting their they make no which operate without a lives at risk every day, the government license. The Balerosdascos also face the money at all. Philippines holds the largest possibility of their livelihood copper-gold deposit in being stopped. Large-scale the world. mining ﬁrms that have Later in the afternoon, the buzz of the caused massive environmental destruction compressor halts. “No more gas!” shouts prompted presumptive Department of one of Eman’s workers. They tug on the Environment and Natural Resources compressor tubes that feed into the pits, secretary, Gina Lopez, to order the closure signaling Christian and Anthony to head back of many large-scale mining operations. up. They emerge from the pits, and proceed But many small-scale mines are also being to grind the rest of the mud before calling it threatened. a day. “We are not like the big mining companies,

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50 M AY 2 0 1 7

Philbert Dy y

on the theater of commuter safety

CRIMINAL INSECURITY The Filipino is not a criminal, but he is treated like one on a daily basis

IMAGES COURTESY OF JENNY RELEVO

who destroy the land and take everything,” says Eman. “We only take what we need to survive. We will mine one place and then leave it alone until the trees grow back.” The next day, Eman and his neighbors accompany me to Paracale’s hills, where more residents have set up their own mining pits to practice kabod. A wonderful view awaited on top. Against the backdrop of the ocean and nearby islands, Paracale’s landscape is teeming with lush greens and trees. The swamps where subsistence miners like Eman set up their mining pits abound with flora. It’s a stark contrast to the images I have seen of bald mountains in many of the archipelago’s regions where big mining firms operate. But this has not stopped the local government from enforcing a mining ban. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau earlier in the year enforced a cease-and-desist order against mining activities in 12 towns of Camarines Norte province. In Paracale, around 5,000 subsistence miners lost their main source of livelihood. In the coastal village of Bulaay, along the shores of Paracale, scores of concrete tunnels that feed deep into the earth have been left abandoned for a year. The tunnels were used by Bulaay’s residents to mine for gold, but personnel from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) dismantled the mining shacks. Bulaay was cited by the MGB as a “danger zone” for small-scale mining activities since it is located near the shoreline and is vulnerable to storm surges. Residents pleaded with authorities to spare concrete tunnels from the demolition, since they are used to protect the area from the strong waves. The demolition has plunged many of Bulaay’s residents, who rely solely on the mining tunnels for their livelihood, deeper into poverty. Subsistence miners earn a living on a day-to-day basis and only when they are able to mine for gold. Today, many of Bulaay’s residents have to make do with fishing and ferrying tourists on their boats to the nearby Calaguas Islands. Some of its residents continue to practice kabod, sifting through the sand along Bulaay’s shores, but they are not making nearly as much as what they used to make when they were operating the tunnels. Despite this, Bulaay’s residents try to remain upbeat. As I took pictures, I was invited by the townsfolk to a birthday party for one of the miner’s children. Families put together what money they could spare to buy party decorations and cake. I shared a light moment with the miners as their children played party games. Once the celebration had ended, they went back to digging sand, making use of the time left before the sun disappeared and the waves grew too high. In February, thousands of subsistence miners held a protest asking the government to lift the mining ban. Eman was one of those who attended the rally. “We are already poor but they want to make us even poorer,” he says. “If Gina Lopez would give us proper jobs then the people wouldn’t be this poor.” Despite the mining ban, Eman and his family continue to put their lives and health on the line, digging and crawling deep within the earth, in search of that bright yellow metal. “We will only stop if the government will give us better jobs,” Eman says.

f you have traveled abroad, you’ve likely had this experience. You are about to enter a train station or a shopping mall where there’s a security guard or a doorman at the front. You then, out of reflex and pure muscle memory, open your bag to show its contents to said guard or doorman. And then you realize you’re not in the Philippines, and that this person doesn’t actually care to see what’s in your bag. For years, we as a people have accepted the bag search as an everyday fact of life. We are resigned to the idea that entering commercial centers and mass public transportation always involves some guy idly rifling through our things. It may as well be an admission of collective guilt; by giving in to this inspection, it’s as if we are saying that we cannot be trusted, and that we deserve to be treated with suspicion when we’re just going out for groceries. This is all, at its core, just security theater. Nobody in their right mind could claim that these bag searches effectively stop someone from bringing in a dangerous object into our public spaces. For this to really work, security personnel would have to search every nook and cranny of a bag, and ask people to open every sealed package that they have with them, like a tin of Altoids, for instance, for fear of what could be hidden inside it. The logic behind this is that the appearance of security, no matter how perfunctory, is enough of a deterrent to keep places safe. The truth is that these bag searches do nothing to stop a determined criminal; rather, they only inconvenience perfectly innocent citizens just trying to go about their day. It may seem like a small thing, but it all adds up. It creates bottlenecks at entranceways, unnecessary obstructions that impede the free flow of commuters. It’s certainly the case now at the Araneta Center Cubao MRT station, which has just added an X-ray machine to its ritual of passenger abuse. Even before the X-ray machine, the Araneta Center Cubao MRT station was hardly what you would call a pleasant place. The sheer amount of commuters that gets its ride on this station results in dangerously full platforms, which in turn leads to security closing off entrances and making throngs of people wait in packed lines until a few trains ease up the commuter congestion. This is again one of those inconveniences that we’ve come to accept, people simply inured to the reality of the train-taking situation in Metro Manila. But now it’s worse. Prior to the addition of the X-ray machine, the entrance was big enough to accommodate more than one line of passengers. Now, with everybody having to subject their bags to inspection through the machine, the line to the entrance has become even longer and slow-moving. Adding insult to injury is a sign above the machine reminding commuters that neither the security company nor the MRT management will be responsible for any items lost in the process of having their basic rights violated in the name of security theater. We do acknowledge the importance of security measures, and are thankful for steps taken to protect us from any form of harm or attack. But observing this absurd process for more than five minutes does not make the MRT any safer. The huge volume of

people that pass through the Cubao station means that operators would have to speed up their inspection as well. Multiple bags are stuffed in the X-ray machine at the same time, producing a jumble of images that even an expert operator would have trouble sorting through. And forget about privacy, since the machine’s screen faces outward, giving everyone a view of the bags and their contents. Furthermore, its purpose is questionable, since other MRT stations don’t have X-ray machines. Thus, a person determined to bring a dangerous item on these packed trains would only have to do it at another station. One must consider, at some point, the greater effect this has on our national psyche. Are we really in such constant danger? Are we as a society so untrustworthy that we have to be willing to give up a measure of our liberties? It isn’t very hard to draw a line between the environment of assumed suspicion that these constant bag searches have fostered and the rise of a strongman that sees so many of our citizens as irredeemable criminals. When we cede some of our personal space and property to strangers on a daily basis, it doesn’t seem farfetched to just let policemen walk into our homes. They are doing it, after all, in the name of security. They are keeping us safe, and our liberties are a small price to pay for that. It is just frustrating that the onus of security has been placed on the people these methods are meant to protect. They may seem like minor inconveniences, but one cannot discount the conditioning that they represent, and the abdication of responsibility from those paid to ensure our security. It is a big show of doing something without really being effective at all. Meanwhile, people are being treated like criminals on a daily basis, the contents of their bags subject to the scrutiny of strangers, little bits of their lives on display. Contrary to popular belief, the Filipino is not a criminal, and we all deserve better from those that claim to keep us safe.

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Paolo Enrico Melendez on the emerging counterculture

TAKE MY N AME AND SHOVE IT Against an entrenched culture of capital and consumption, legacy and ego, a handful of outliers make the case for a new kind of rogue

indication, his bandmates not only didn’t see it coming, but heard of the break up at the same time as the general public. THE END OF Throw is signiﬁcant because it

took place on the same month that another counterculture icon took center stage. Urban Bandits, another first wave radical stalwart, got together after three decades for a gig, to “Musically, they were perhaps the most polished the electric thrill of the underground. It was among the first wave punk bands, exhibiting a level by all accounts a successful reunion, with of technical skill that was heretofore unreached by the usual punk mythos of riot and riot cops. contemporaries. Lyrically, Dead Ends were as poetic The signal boost, from start to finish, was so as you could get, employing incremental repetition, strong that our own online site picked it up, correlatives, and even alliteration to great eff ct.” via a very literate report by a contributing musician-writer. The same could be said of Dimalanta’s later What makes the juxtaposition of these band, Throw. With three albums, and a fourth two events striking is that, unlike Dimalanta on the way, the group exhibited the same and Throw, Urban Bandits and their vocalist productivity and creativity as Dead Ends. Arnold Morales have been coasting on their While Throw didn’t stray too far from Dead early success. Ends territory in terms of Their reunion set list technicality, their studiowas telling—the same to-gig cycle was regular, they’ve been playing Is there a less punk songs athletic even. They showed for the past 30 years. The how any culture industry gig branding was straight thing than to do entity can consciously out of the 80s. Even the maintain its relevance choice of concert venue, a what you did five through two ways: place of importance to the engagement with current band’s history, damned minutes ago? issues, and continuous Urban Bandits to further production. Throw also hermeneutic hell. illustrates one of the defining characteristics Is there a more late-capitalist reactionary of the counterculture: a disdain for the tried space than the fucking nostalgia market? Is and familiar, a disregard for comfort zones. there a less punk thing than to do what you Well, that’s all over now. did five minutes ago? Dimalanta has called it quits, following protracted contretemps over a radio show WHICH BRINGS US to the larger context to that he hosts, together with two other this, at once eulogy for the counterculture musicians. Many from the underground saw and call for new radicalism. the whole thing as cashing in, and lashed For the past couple of weeks, if you’re out in the usual way that the counterculture the type who follows current events, you does: accusations of dishonesty from the get will have seen news of Kadamay, that urban go, furious handwringing, hasty distancings. poor group that took over idle government Stalinist erasures performed online and with property in Pandi, Bulacan. the entire community as witness. Very weird. Mainstream reaction has been largely Throw was in the middle of recording their negative. There have been those who claimed latest album. If online reactions were any that Kadamay will set a dangerous extra-legal 52 M AY 2 0 1 7

KADAMAY IMAGES COURTESY OF LESTER G. BABIERA

have come to bury the counterculture, not to praise it. Two issues ago, we featured a portfolio of protest musicians. Among those in the story was Al Dimalanta, the creative force behind the hardcore band Throw. Of Dimalanta’s earlier band, the pioneering Dead Ends, I had editorialized thus:

RADICAL CONVENTIONAL

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GERIC CRUZ

Punk pioneer Al Dimalanta called it quits recently, citing an irredeemably toxic community. Opposite, from top: Event merch of the reunion gig staged by Urban Bandits; scenes from the Kadamay urban poor group’s occupation of idle government land in Bulacan. Originally meant for military or police families, the small houses they now occupy have no electricity and water. Most do not even have doors or windows.

precedent. There have been those who have missed the point entirely, such as Senator Antonio Trillanes, who has fallen back on his predictable red baiting as a smokescreen against the larger problem of inequitable land distribution. And then there are those, primarily from the middle class, who have resorted to a sort of defensive snark against the members of Kadamay and their supporters. “The poor are the luckiest!” they pontiﬁcate. “They get houses for free, while we toil away with taxes and mortgages.” It’s worth noting, however, that in the larger context, squatting is nothing new, and certainly not the dangerous precedent it is being made to be. The squat has been used as a radical strategy since the 70s, most effectively in Britain by the Black Panther affiliate collective Brixton Black Women’s Group, as well as the Bengali Housing Action Group, likewise a collective of displaced families of Sri Lankan origin. More recently, there are Rome’s Right to Inhabit Movement, an advocacy for migrants. The Iffley Open House in Britain (again). And many more. Notice that these are all groups from the fringes of society, suffering the very

contemporary problem that is shrinking social space, all but invisible to the upper echelon, and despised by the middle class. Real estate scholars who have studied squats have noted a number of beneﬁts to allowing the practice. The most obvious one is allowing the homeless, “Rough Sleepers” in today’s parlance, access to housing. It also dissuades speculators from buying up and neglecting property. Likewise the practice of buying to rent out, which works well in free market theory, but has driven up rents to ridiculous levels in street level practice. AT THE HEIGHT of the Kadamay issue, an indie director posted a social media status that weighed in, neutrally, on the issue. To paraphrase, the Kadamay members had acted as punks. Perhaps driven by the choice of simile, Arnold Morales of Urban Bandits commented on the post, to echo it. That in itself does not warrant closer attention; we are all entitled to air our opinions online. The problem, however, was that the statement wasn’t phrased as an individual’s idea. “Tambayan mo pero wag mo angkinin,” to quote Morales verbatim. “Anarchy ng mga bobo.” His tone and choice of words make the statement an ideological one, a (re)deﬁnition of the Pinoy punk ethos. It is thus an institutional statement. A realigning of what was once a radical thing, the loud unwashed bastion of Filipino counterculture, to what is probably the most cop out intellectual position one can take, in this day and age: one of condoning the loss of social space, and the concession of capital, both material and cultural, to a very select few. Better culture industry workers than Morales know than to do this, today, when there isn’t a more pressing imperative to countercultural work than resist market homogeneity. There are artists paint bombing private property, at their own expense. Writers bucking the traditional circuit of creative writing degree to workshop to big publishing house. Musicians ditching distribution for the sake of metrics, in favor of small runs for gig trading, again at their own expense. Hell, there are even some entrepreneurs, not known for radical counterculture work to begin with, who are ignoring the demand for scale, just so they can focus on their core service, to use a business buzzword. To add a very personal and anecdotal note, I haven’t felt more creatively liberated than when I decided to chuck not only my byline but also my copyright claim when I released my book earlier this year. Perhaps the key to the new radicalism is this: the ability to think outside of one’s legacy, and therefore class. I haven’t spoken to Dimalanta, but I’m willing to bet that dropping his band must’ve been a very satisfying thing. “Patay na ang punk,” Morales had said, in that Rogue Online write up I mentioned earlier. “Pero buhay pa rin ang mga punks.” And there is a terrible irony in that statement, which arises as these three seemingly unconnected events come together. Because that has always been the way to co-opt any radical movement. The problem is never the ideology, but the ideologues.

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54 M AY 2 0 1 7

Viva la Vida PHOTOGRAPHED BY BJ PASCUAL

THIS PAGE: STYLIST â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OWN DRESS AND JACKET, BALENCIAGA BOOTS. PREVIOUS SPREAD: LANVIN TOP.

Styled by David Milan Makeup by Owen Sarmiento Hair by Mong Amado Stylist assisted by Blake Samson

Music is a time-traveling machine. A song a portal to another time.

This is Kiana Valenciano’s favorite thing about music, the element of time travel. “I wish that I got to experience the 70s or the 60s,” she says, as she talks about some of her favorite artists, like jazz singers Al Jarreau and Billie Holiday. But she can only go back to when she was five years old, when music served a special purpose not only to her but also to her family. At five, she was already a singer before she was even aware of it. Mornings in the Valenciano household would start with the sound of her voice. She was “the human alarm clock of the family,” to use the words of her father, the singer and songwriter Gary, the guy they call Mr. Pure Energy. In the case of the Valencianos, music is and will always be a constant, not just because of Gary’s long, incredible career, but also because of its presence in Kiana’s life, and the lives of her older brothers, Paolo and Gab. “Most of my life was spent in concert halls watching my dad’s rehearsals. I would also watch his shows. At home, I’d spend time in his music room. And if I wasn’t in his music room, I’d be with my brothers. Paolo is into rock. Gab is into pop, hip-hop, and electronic music.” The former frontman of the alternative metal band Salamin, Paolo has since embarked on a solo career and is making a name for himself as an award-winning director of music videos and live concerts for a slew of local artists that include his father. Gab, of course, earned a lot of attention as a musician-dancer-YouTube content maker extraordinaire; Beyoncé referenced the hyper dance and editing style of his “Super Selfie” video in her music video “7/11.” “Even her side of the family is very musical,” says Kiana, ‘her’ being her mom

Angeli Pangilinan, artist manager and one-time member of the 80s showband, Music and Magic. “They’re all singers.” Every member of the family contributed to Kiana’s musical nurturing. “I just picked up different artists from different members of the family,” she says. “With my dad, I listen to Al Jarreau and Michael Jackson. With my mom, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, even Elvis Presley. I got The Beatles and Nirvana from Paolo. And then Gab is the hip-hop, R&B side.” From these various inﬂuences Kiana developed an eclectic taste in music. “I even like country. Most people don’t like country, but I learned how to appreciate it. Just the weirdest music, I listen to all of it.” Performing was a natural next step. Kiana, who was six when she received the Awit Awards for Best Christmas Recording and Best Child Recording Artist for “Once Again It’s Christmas,” sang covers and Gary V hits with her dad and her brothers in live concerts and TV show guest appearances. Kiana never went through any formal training in music. With each public appearance, she relied on pure instinct, which served her well during early performances, but took a toll on her vocal cords when she turned 17. “Because I never took voice lessons, I got nodules because I wasn’t using my vocal cords properly. I developed calluses, and so I needed to go to therapy to kind of get my vocal cords back in shape,” Kiana says. Through voice therapy, she developed a beautiful rasp that is more apparent when she speaks, but turns subtle when she starts to sing in a style that includes solid vocal colorations. It allows her voice—lightly hoarse but powerful in high-pitched moments—to gracefully transition into a fragile yet determined falsetto. Kiana’s captivating balance of

wheeze and whine is reminiscent of her own soul and R&B idols—Aaliyah, Kehlani, and Etta James. The vocal runs she naturally developed throughout the years were a reflection of her affinity with rhythm and blues and a jazzy style of singing. It wasn’t long before she would craft her own brand of R&B. Kiana was actually on her way to becoming a fashion designer. A graduate of fashion design from the Raffles Design Institute, and a popular fashion and lifestyle blogger, she took short courses in fabric awareness, fashion marketing, fashion business, and fashion design at Central Saint Martins in London, barely two years ago. Little did Kiana know that moment would spark the beginning of a songwriting career. “I met a few people in London who were into music production as well and we ended up jamming,” she recalls. “We recorded a song. We’re never going to release it, but it was just kind of fun to experience that again and get back in the groove without my dad. All my life, it was me singing side by side with my dad or my brothers. [In London] That was the first time I really had a taste of doing or producing something on my own.” Despite showing great potential—Magic 89.9 named her Most Promising New Female Singer for the song “Without You,” and she was recognized with a Best New Female Recording Artist nomination in the 2015 Awit Awards for “Dear Heart”—Kiana was hesitant to acknowledge her gift. “Everyone kind of expected me to make a name for myself, to join the industry, but I was never really sure,” she admits. “It was always kind of like a backup plan just in case I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. But then last year, somehow I started writing my own music

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THIS PAGE: STYLIST ’S OWN DRESS. OPPOSITE: STYLIST ’S OWN DRESS AND JACKET, BALENCIAGA BOOTS.

“All my life, it was me singing side by side with my dad or my brothers. [In London] That was the ﬁrst time I really had a taste of doing or producing something on my own.”

into trouble? I’m telling you to go away.”

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THIS PAGE: BALENCIAGA TOP, MARTIN BAUTISTA SCARF. OPPOSITE: STYLIST ’S OWN SUIT.

“If you’re hitting on me, why am I getting

and I don’t know, I guess I enjoyed how it would affect other people, so I just continued writing. Then I realized it’s something that I wanted to do.” For Kiana, words and melodies come fast and spontaneous. Her latest single, “Does She Know,” came “out of nowhere,” she says. “I was actually on my couch about to leave my place, I think to visit my parents. And all of a sudden, I just got hit by ‘You got a lot of nerve, baby,’ the first line of the song. So I had to message my mom: ‘I don’t think I’m gonna make it ‘cause I can’t stop right now,’ and then I had my first verse instantly. But I didn’t know where to take it next, so I started sending voice notes to a friend of mine, Moira dela Torre, who is also a musician and was in the States at the time.” Singer-songwriter Moira is known for her stint in The Voice Philippines Season 1 and for providing the vocals to the McDonald’s jingle “Hooray for Today.” When Kiana sent her the verse for “Does She Know,” Moira sent back the hook. In a day or two, the girls finished the song. Kiana then handed the melody and lyrics to producer Marcus Davis, who built everything else from scratch. When Kiana couldn’t think of a bridge, she enlisted the help of another friend, rapper Curtismith, who gave the song its final touch. “The story behind the song, it just came from all the stories I’ve heard from friends, cousins, and girlfriends who were hit on by someone who’s already in a relationship, and then the girl gets into trouble. If you’re hitting on me, why am I getting into trouble? I’m telling you to go away,” she explains. Like music, Kiana’s ability to translate empathy and altruism into song comes naturally. The music video of “Circles,” an early piece which she wrote and her father arranged, is dedicated to the victims of abuse she met at iFight Movement, a youth group against human trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation. “It’s a stand. I haven’t experienced [abuse], but I’m standing up for people who have gone through it.” As for “Does She Know,” Kiana takes comfort in the fact that her loved ones are able to relate to it. “To actually sing it to people who know the situations and have been in those situations, it’s a different feeling.” With her chops as singer and songwriter, it’s not hard to say Kiana faces a promising future in music. She remembers the greatest advice her father gave her: Be yourself. “When I was younger, I’d put on a different face because I wanted to fit in, or get friends, or whatever,” she says. “But then you realize, when you’re putting on an act, everything else is also an act. But if you’re yourself, you gain the right friends, you gain all the right opportunities that are actually meant for you, not for whoever you’re pretending to be. That’s why I’m writing the songs that I’m writing. I’m being myself and people like that, thank God.” It’s a pretty good resolve to live by for a young dreamer just about to break out. “Because I know that people are always going to tell me to change my hair, straighten my hair, get white, whatever,” Kiana continues. “But if I stick to being myself and stay confident being myself, then I guess everything’s just gonna be okay.”

GINA LOPEZ

THE PEOPLE

PORTRAITS BY MILO SOGUECO

She conducts herself—as per her critics—like she’s God’s gift to the environment, but with a background attached to the rehabilitation of the Pasig River and the reforestation of the La Mesa watershed among other nature-protective projects, who’s to say she isn’t? No Secretary from the Duterte Cabinet has attracted more headlines than DENR’s Gina Lopez, the Forbes Park princess turned missionary turned philanthropist and earth mother. Call hers an impassioned or brazen approach to an advocacy, but she has no doubt put the mining industry to wide notice. Yvette Tan meets with the country’s most talked-about environmentalist weeks before the Commission on Appointments’ controversial rejection

“I’m under siege,” *EDITOR’S NOTE

This interview took place on April 12, 2017, weeks before the Commission on Appointments’ decision rejecting Ms. Lopez as DENR Secretary.

says Gina Lopez, while being made up in a room that looks like a combination gym and walk-in closet in her home in Quezon City. Her tone is exasperated but one could feel part of her is amused at the situation she’s found herself embroiled in. It’s not just because she is juggling three things today, a Holy Wednesday: an interview and photo shoot with Rogue, a meeting with staff and consultants, and there’s an ABS-CBN crew waiting for her in the holding area downstairs, waiting to shoot her video greeting for her brother Raffy Lopez who is turning 60 in a few days. But this is likely an easier day than most. The woman has been under fire for a lot of things lately— more than she ever expected when she stepped into the role of secretary for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)* in June last year. At the time of this interview, Lopez was facing criticism on many fronts. She had just been bypassed by the Commission on Appointments—which means President Rodrigo Duterte has to reappoint her if she is to keep her post. (Last month, the President issued ad interim appointments for Lopez and three other Cabinet members who have yet to be confirmed by the CA as of this writing.) Her decision to close 23 mines, suspend five, and cancel 75 mining contracts has angered both mining companies, as well as academics in the geology community. Her background and qualifications to run the department has continually been called into question—even before her appointment had taken effect. She earned much lashing from impassioned critics online when, taking a page out of the President’s playbook, she recently cursed a news reporter during an ambush interview. Finally, a number of DENR employees have rallied against Lopez for implementing a controversial transfer of two of its personnel.

LOPEZ IS QUITE candid about the challenges she faces

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES

adapting to the public sector. “It’s not easy to work in a

government bureaucracy with all the rules and regulations. The private sector’s much easier. You just think of something good…and you do it,” she tells Rogue. “Here, you have all these rules and regulations to follow, plus the fact that you almost have no privacy.” Lopez has been known to be a staunch environmentalist even during her pre-DENR days. As chief of the ABS-CBN Foundation, she’s spearheaded many projects, including the cleanup of the Pasig River’s many esteros—most notably the Estero de Paco—and she’s worked with various communities to produce organic products made available at her high-end store G Stuff, whose entire proceeds go back to the communities. She pioneered the Foundation’s Bantay Bata hotline to help report on and curb child abuse, and started Sineskwela, an educational children’s TV show aimed at supplementing basic education, especially in far-flung areas that might have a shortage of teachers. She has also been an anti-mining advocate ever since radio journalist Gerry Ortega, an anti-mining activist, was murdered in 2011. “I spoke to him 30 minutes before he was killed,” she recalls. Then as now, she has envisioned her post in government as a significant opportunity replete with possibilities. “It was exciting for me to be DENR Secretary,” she says. “I mean, to be in charge of the use of our natural resources because my experience before DENR was that if these resources are well taken care of—so that the people benefit—we can literally get our people out of poverty. I have not the slightest doubt about it because I’ve done it in the private sector, so I know it can be done. The excitement of doing it on a massive scale moves me and continues to inspire me.” Her appointment happened partly through audacity and partly through being at the right place at the right time. “I’ve seen what mining does, so during the presidential campaign, I went to all the presidentiables so in case they won, they would know that this is happening in the country and that they should not allow it to

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same vision. “The critical thing there is we must all be on the same page. And my page—which is non-negotiable— is social justice, because that is what DENR is all about. [We are not committed] to any business [or] whatever interest, but to the welfare of the people. Now we see what we can do to make that happen.”

go on. I went to everyone, and the one who was most supportive was Duterte,” she says. “And then in the end, when he was elected, I went to him again, because he kept on talking about Australian mining, and I wanted to show him that the mining that’s done here is not necessarily what’s done in Australia. And then he said, ‘Why don’t you become DENR Secretary?’ I said, ‘Huh?!’”

IN THE TEN months she’s spent in the DENR, her methods of dealing with issues and her leadership has attracted controversy. “I didn’t want to be just regulatory, it’s not inspiring to me because my experience is that when people’s lives benefit from the environment, then they’ll take care of it,” she says. She realizes it is quite naïve to think rules and regulations will take care of the environment. “If situations can be maneuvered where human beings actually benefit, and the quality of life is enhanced through the care of the environment, the [locals] will be the first ones to take care of [the environment] because it’s connected with their quality of life.” On paper, she may not be the most qualified candidate for the position, something her critics have not been amiss in pointing out since Day One. She agrees with the statement, but counters that she makes up for her lack of knowledge through the experts she works with. “I am not, nor will I ever be as multifaceted as necessary that’s needed to lead this massive organization, and I don’t think anyone can ever claim to be, because who is that much of a genius?” she says. “But I have amazing consultants.” She names some of them: Rex Cruz, former chancellor of the University of the Philippines Los Baños’ College of Forestry and Natural Resources. “He was in Al Gore’s Nobel Prize team,” Lopez adds. There’s also Christian Monsod “who was involved in the writing of the Philippine Constitution.” There’s Ed Morato, erstwhile dean of the Asian Institute of Managemen. “I think you get the gist,” she says. “You need a group and people working together to make a difference. But while it is important to be surrounded by experts, she knows it is equally significant that they share the

LADY DYNAMITE

From top: At a press conference about the controversial mining audit that closed 23 mines; in dialogue with the Lumads taking refuge at the UCCP Haran House in Davao City; with President Rodrigo Duterte during the first Mindanao environmental summit at Ateneo de Davao. Opposite: Lopez during an interview with Reuters in February 2017.

REGINA PAZ LA’O LOPEZ, now 63, has always been known as the Lopez with a bleeding heart. She grew up sheltered, a scion of one of the most prominent families of Iloilo, and arguably, of the country. She will be the ﬁrst to tell you that her childhood was happy, even idyllic. Her view of the world changed when she went to college in the USA and was exposed to different kinds of people. “Then I met this guy from Harvard who recommended I go to this ashram which teaches meditation,” she wrote in a Rogue essay in March 2016. “I had an experience. I felt something deep. Tears rolling down my cheeks. I felt something I had not felt in church, in school. I had a feeling of Divine Love. That changed my life forever.” She joined Ananda Marga, a spiritual organization that saw her uprooting herself from her comfortable life in the Philippines to live as a missionary beggar in Africa in pursuit of spirituality. She would be incommunicado for 20 years, returning to the Philippines only when a family friend found her begging on the streets of Nairobi. It was also in Africa where she fell in love with her former superior, now her ex-husband; they have two sons together and remain on good terms. She has always tried to, in her own way, better the lives of the people around her. Unfortunately, a government office cannot be run on good intentions. Lopez doesn’t make excuses for her perceived shortcomings, but she doesn’t allow herself to be cowered, either. When asked about the DENR employees’ protest against the draft order transferring Human Resource Development Service Director Rolando Castro and Personnel Division Chief Miriam Marcelo to different positions due to their involvement in the non-appointment of Lopez’s undersecretary appointee Philip Camara (for Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer), Lopez acknowledges that the situation was misunderstood. She has since personally spoken with

the parties involved and has decided to proceed in the way that she deemed best for the department. “Philip has a master’s degree in agra-economics. He’s also a Wall Street banker. He’s also been a trainer in area development, which is where I want DENR to go,” she says. “The problem is, he hasn’t fulﬁlled civil service exams, so his application was denied despite the fact that I had put in writing that he’s my choice.” Explaining herself more, she says, “Per Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Cabinet Secretary is authorized to choose who she thinks is most suitable, provided that they pass all the requirements. So per law, I could’ve hired him and then in that year, let him take the civil service exam. What happened is that even if I wrote that, the people under [me]... didn’t sign, which is one of the reasons his application was denied. “Because Philip… was just doing this to help me, he really took offense to it. My transferring those two people out also rocked the boat big time because they felt that I was arbitrary and dictatorial when they were just doing their job. But when I met them, I really don’t think they’re intention was to go against me. I think they’re just following... civil service rules, so I totally understand. We had a meeting and I sat with them and assured them that nothing unfair is ever going to happen. So now what we’re doing is we’re keeping it status quo. We ﬁnally decided to let Philip work as a consultant if he so desires, and then I keep the organization as is.” As to her recent run-in with Janina Lim, a BusinessWorld reporter who Lopez called “just a fcking employee” and accused of having “no heart for the poor” after Lim cornered the Secretary in the DENR

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SHE IS AWARE that her detractors are going to use this

show of temper as fodder, as another proof of her being unﬁt for her post. “I can’t do things to please people because if I do things to please people and it’s against how I feel, then I’m not being true to my values and my principles,” Lopez says. “If I was really concerned about my appointment I wouldn’t have issued closure orders to 75 MPSAs (Mineral Production Sharing Agreement) or done closure to, I think, 23 mines and suspend the rest if one person in the Commission of Appointments in Congress is the owner of a mine. “And it’s not just that they own the mines. It’s that mining money actually funds political campaigns. That’s the reality of the situation. Businesses fund

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE LOPEZ MUSEUM AND LIBRARY. OPPOSITE: IMAGE COURTESY OF GINA LOPEZ .

OUT OF AFRICA

From top: Lopez with her parents and brother on a trip to Greece in the 90s; as a teenager, with her father, Eugenio Lopez, Jr; early in her years as an Ananda Marga missionary in Africa.

Central Office, Lopez admits that she was already annoyed by Lim to begin with. “I have a really hard time when I feel the situation merits compassion and that person is just deadma and coldhearted and the questions are insistently technical and materialistic.” However, she adds, “I do warrant she’s dynamic and persistent and I think those are assets in the journalistic field. For me, personally, I just have a hard time when people don’t feel for others. Having said that, when I looked at it, that doesn’t warrant the arrogance and the way I talked to her.” Lim was asking Lopez about the directive the Secretary issued to suspended mining firms in January ordering them to put up a P2 million trust fund that will be used to cover whatever detrimental impact continued mining operations will cause the environment and the communities that could experience adverse effects. “It didn’t help that Janina’s boss is the—I mean the paper is owned by one of the biggest mining institutions in the country,” Lopez tells Rogue, though she stresses that she isn’t accusing anybody of anything. Business World, since 2013, has been under the control of MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. which is ran by Manny V. Pangilinan who is also chairman of Philex Mining. In 2012, it will be remembered that Lopez and Pangilinan had a heated public debate in a forum on mining. “But if I look at all that, it complicates and confuses the issue.” She adds, “What I wanted to say is, because since she’s an employee of a newspaper that is owned by the biggest miners, I was saying, ‘You’re not just a fucking employee. Why can’t you have love for God and country also?’ That’s how I meant it. Not putting her down, but as an expression. Having said that, that doesn’t excuse the tone. And so because a lot of people were hurt, journalists and economists... I sincerely and I deeply apologize. “My concern was my treatment of one person who has her first job out of school is being taken as a dictum on the whole journalistic press situation. That’s not fair. There are so many journalists and economists I love from my heart... and so to say that my treatment of her is saying that [that’s what I think of everyone is] a little bit…I assure you, that was between her and me, and I did go off tangent but it is in no way a dictum I have for other economists and journalists, who I deeply love and respect.” And then she ends, offhand, “I mean what you see is what you get so I really don’t know if I’m gonna make it, you know?”

“I will not sacrifice my values and my spirituality trying to adjust to a political scenario. I will only hope and pray that whoever is making decisions also has some bit of goodness and spirituality in them.”

political campaigns. So there are many, many, many politicians out there who are indebted to the people that funded their campaigns. I’m not accusing [or] pointing fingers at anyone. I’m just stating the reality of the situation that has existed literally for decades. And not only in this country. In all countries, business funds political campaigns.” “I will not sacrifice my values and my spirituality trying to adjust to a political scenario. I will only hope and pray that whoever is making decisions also has some bit of goodness and spirituality in them. I mean, they’re there to serve the people.” Here, the normally composed Lopez starts to fume, as she tends to when she talks about a perceived injustice. Her pitch rises, her speech quickens, and she begins to spout facts gleaned by her team and based on conditions she herself has witnessed. When her memory fails her, there is always someone on hand to verify dates, places, and statistics. “Because the profits they make go out, they don’t go back in.” She uses the Caraga region in Mindanao, where 14 large-scale mining firms were set to close in January following orders from her office, to illustrate her point. “All the areas [in the Philippines] where there’s mining, the poverty level is above average... except for Benguet—but that’s not because of mining, that’s because of Baguio’s (vegetable production)—and Zambales, because of Subic.” Lopez spends a lot of time traveling to affected ff areas and meeting with the residents there so that she can see the situation for herself. The funds for her trips are taken from the department’s leftover travel budget from the last administration. “Yesterday I was in Marinduque,” she offers, ff “Nobody goes there because there was mining there before, but it’s breathtakingly gorgeous… When I got there, I see this big [copper] pit that had been left [open since the 80s]... The fishermen said the fish they used to catch before, until now, 21 years later, is nowhere near what it used to be. “At the end of the day, I’m not even blaming the miners. You know whose fault this whole thing is? The government. Because miners will do what they do. They mine. Businesses will do what they do, but if the

government is strict and says ‘you can’t do this’ and ‘stop this right now,’ they’ll follow the rules.” Lopez believes that the solution to the Philippines’ countryside poverty lies in socially responsible projects, particularly ecotourism. “Do you know that Malaysia is angling for a $13 billion economy based on biodiversity? We are many, many, many times Malaysia.”

SHE RATTLES OFF what the Philippines has to offer. ff

“You know what endemicity is? Endemicity is when the biodiversity is exclusive to the place. Do you know the country with the number one endemicity per unit area in the entire planet? The Philippines. Do you know where the center of the marine biodiversity in the entire planet is? Batangas! The California Academy of Sciences comes every year and it finds hundreds of new marine species there. There was a gold mine that they wanted to put up there, which would have killed that. That’s our gift to humanity, our biodiversity.” She stresses that she isn’t against an industry, but its destructive practices and their effects ff on the environment and communities. “I’m not against all mining. In fact, we passed 13 mines... In Agusan, there are two mines that have passed… We’re having an area development plan [where] their Social Development and Management Program fund [of] several hundred million pesos can be used to benefit the entire Agusan... My skill is development, and their skill is mining. I will work with them and all the mining companies that have passed on the condition that they don’t kill our rivers, our streams, or our farmlands. Then I’ll work with them to increase our economic impact without charging a penny or asking them for more money.” She has asked that mining companies use their SDMP (Social Development and Management Program) fund for much more than a rote fulfillment of government requirements. “When you mine, you’re supposed to set aside a fund for rehab [of the community when the mine closes]. This is the law. “What I wanted was that the stockpile—it’s when the ore is still in the mine—I can allow them to remove

THE HE

Fo o rt e et two w in in

“

i i n s U d ure r e i err on on f th h i ooms oo ms ha ha n C abod od d .

the stockpile because it’s an environmental hazard, all I’m asking is that they give P2 million for every farmland they have disadvantaged beyond the rehab area. “Because after the mine is closed, the money they put is only for the rehab area. Who’s going to take care of the farmers out of the rehab area? And [the mining companies] are going to make so much money... Why can’t they give P2 million for every farmland they have disadvantaged? It’s my prerogative as DENR Secretary to maneuver that the use of the resources doesn’t disadvantage present and future generations. So all I’m asking is that they put money there… Since they disadvantaged the farmlands, why can’t they take care of the farmers that they have disadvantaged for decades? Why can’t they put aside a certain amount of money? As you can see, I feel very passionate about this because I feel that it’s so unfair.” For Lopez, the bottom line is always about the Filipino people, no matter how many feathers she inadvertently ruffles along the way. Still, some have accused her of using her office to push for her family’s interest in renewable energy. She reportedly made a statement that all Environmental Compliance Certiﬁcates (ECC) of renewable energy projects would be approved and processed in two weeks. Lopez denies this. “Antimining? What does that have to do with renewable energy? My anti-mining stance comes from the experience of people suffering. ff There’s no connect. They’re not beneﬁting,” she says. She does, however, admit a dislike for coal plants, stressing that it has nothing to do with business. “I really don’t like coal because I don’t like suffering,” ff she says. “Before I was in DENR, I decided to do a study 68 M AY 2 0 1 7

headed by an ex-Jesuit. He was the VP for Communication Research in Ateneo. He did a study of four coal plants. [He found that] in all of the coal plants, the people suffered ff healthwise. The ﬁshing resource, the farming resource. And so it was clear to me that the people suff ff ring are the ones subsidizing the cheap energy that people get in coal. It has nothing to do with [my family]…I mean, I’m not even pushing their business... I must hand it to my family: they have not come to me at any point in time to further their business interest, or to hit any opponent of theirs. They just steered clear of me and have just supported me emotionally. I love them.”

WHATEVER ONE THINKS of Lopez, her actions, and

her qualifications, there is no denying she is an idealist. Whether this helps or hinders the DENR is up for debate. But her plans are grand, and on paper, one could say they may just be crazy enough to actually work. “Mining is not labor intensive. It’s capital intensive... but the thing here is this, even if the investments are massive, 82 percent of the net income goes to the [mining companies]. So we don’t even benefit from those investments. Then there’s another thing: the labor is… seasonal because you can’t mine all year round. So when the [laborers] are not mining, they’re not paid. What do they do then? “What I want to do is put up a green economy where they can have money every year and their earning money does not debilitate others’ capacity to earn money. My problem with mining is yes, it gives jobs, but it’s also killing the income of farmers and fishermen, and you can’t build an economy based on suffering.” ff She says that she is working with the Sixto K. Roxas

Foundation, which is “composed of economists, entrepreneurs, agriculturists, scientists, environmental planners” working on projects that will enable them to hire 320 people from each mine after closure right off the bat. Lopez explains that this number will grow per month, and that they’ve projected they will be able to offer jobs to 35,000 people in about 18 months. “And then have an economy of P200 million net, every month… That’s the ambitious plan... We’ll get them out of poverty because I’m not gonna bring the money out. I’ll just invest, help them make money, and help them with marketing.” Lopez cites the communities she’s worked with in the foundation as examples. “[In] Puerto Princesa, my communities are earning up to 30 million now every year and I only put in a million pesos. In other places where I put 1.5 million pesos, the slew of communities there is earning P40 million every year. On the second year, they can send their kids to college. My experience doing that is the reason why I’m so passionate about saving our resources. I feel we should conserve our beauty. I think we should do value added on our agriculture. I feel we should go biodiversity, because one, medicinal plants rake in P500 million every year. If we plant 5,000 hectares of bamboo, on the fourth year, the numbers show us they can start making a hundred million pesos net every year,” she says. “In mining, they’re just there as laborers, and when the mining is over, then what? Whether or not I’m there in the projects, the projects will succeed and the people will continue earning.” She works with Department of Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol on programs that aim to help communities beneﬁt from caring for the environment. “And then there’s a way to design the money of DENR so [the communities] have a net income from the seedlings, and from that net income the Natural Resources Development Corporation, which is an agency under DENR, will help them make money. Then we can kick-start the economy,” Lopez says. “I just have to use the money of DENR well so that it can develop the economy. Even the National Greening Program. Instead of just planting trees, you can do agriforestry in between. And then you can plant trees of wellness. You can plant fruit trees. You can plant so the area—if we do our job well—can eventually be economic zones. Even from Day One, they can be economic zones if we can do agriforestry in between.” She says that despite the bureaucracy, there are beneﬁts to working in a government agency that she didn’t experience while heading an NGO. “We have the money, we have the ‘power,’” she says in air quotes, “to make a huge difference in the country. The reason why I’m so excited to be in DENR is because there’s so much money—like, for me, it’s a lot money because I’ve never had so much money in my life. I mean, so much money. I don’t need to ask for donations. In ABS-CBN, this was my life. When I was a missionary, my life was asking for donations. Here, I have to worry about how to spend the money and to spend it well.”

DESPITE HER MANY detractors, she has found an ally in President Duterte. In a speech in Baguio last March, he addressed the mining companies saying all that the industry contributes to the economy is about 70 billion in taxes. “We can live without it,” he said. “I would rather follow Gina. Maghanap buhay na lang tayo ng iba.” “I love the President. I don’t think any other president would have appointed me,” says the environment Secretary. “This is my experience with him: He’s genuine. I think that’s why no matter [how] the media hits him, his ratings are still very high... His love for the country and his empathy for people are real.” Lopez copes with the pressures of being Secretary of DENR through meditation. She has two meditation rooms in her Quezon City abode: one on top of the main house, and the other by her lush garden near a swimming pool. “Meditation is critical. Since I took on the job, I now sit with someone every day. I meditate with her every day... Without meditation, I wouldn’t be able to survive. I have no doubt about that statement,” she says. “I think what happens when you meditate, you develop an empathy for people. The challenge here is to not let that empathy turn into righteousness because then that’s going down another downhill plan. So that’s my challenge, and I’m determined to survive.” She’ll know that she’s done her job when people’s lives improve. “And when they know that their quality of life comes from the care of the environment,” she adds. “I’ve even gone forward to say that the foundation of economic growth is love. It’s love which unites communities. I went and talked to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. I totally love them. And when they feel that you’re sincere inside, then they can trust you. And trust is the beginning of peace. Without trust, no matter how many papers you sign, it’s not going to work.” Her work in government has taken her away from her post in the Lopez Foundation, but she remains active in several of her non-proﬁt projects, such as the rehabilitation of the Pasig River and G Stuff. “The money doesn’t go to me anyway, so why can’t I push it? And besides, the problem of the poor is marketing. They come up with good products, and we help them develop those products. We sell can them. They’ll get the money.” As to her future in politics, she’s letting the cards fall where they may. “I don’t know if I’m going to survive politics because I’m really not a politician,” she admits. While her fate as a government official hangs in the balance, for Lopez, it’s business as usual. “I want to be able to create different models of how the country can move forward. I really feel we can get our country out of poverty. My future plan is to have wow projects in each and every region and I want to do it in record time. The performance indicator of these plans is non-negotiable, it’s the welfare of the people. In other words, if whatever we do for the environment—if people’s lives don’t improve, and if people don’t feel the beneﬁt of our plans, I will consider ourselves a failure.”

“I mean what you see is what you get so I really don’t know if I’m gonna make it, you know?”

THE K ARA JAWAN DIARY Once a quiet surf spot, Siargao Island off Surigao del Norte is rapidly becoming a dream destination for tourists from around the world. Though the sudden economic boom has virtually transformed the lives of the local community, it also comes with a rising tide of anxiety over its sustainability. Jose Mari Ugarte dives into the surfing subculture that defines Siargao, and attempts to capture a moment in the islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history that may never come again

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT AND GAPS SABUERO

they say, including a Spanish priest and his friends, who were also pedophiles, running amok around the island half-naked, drinking coconut whisky, and molesting the natives. But that was a very long time ago; so long, in fact, that there is no documented evidence to prove that it actually happened, unlike the legend of Max Walker, which is a story as true as time. It is a story, among many others, that drew me to this teardrop-shaped island 800 kilometers southeast of Manila, in the Surigao Del Norte province of Mindanao. It was my first time to visit, so I was both excited and apprehensive. I was also fortunate enough to have several contacts on the island, including my friend Donnie Capili, who is building an ice plant there. My assignment was to infiltrate the island and immerse myself in the local culture, which many people have told me is unique in an almost indefinable way. My friends Chris Warns and the film director Paul Soriano own a popular resort there called Harana, and they were kind enough to introduce me to their partners who were managing the place, Ian Sermonia and Mike “Mookie” Medina. The resort was fully booked, as usual, except for the biggest suite they had, the six-bed family villa, which 72 M AY 2 0 1 7

was the perfect place for me to work in the next seven days. I highly recommend it. I went to Siargao to do four things—drink, talk, surf, and write—as much as I could during the time I spent there, and there are no amount of words that could possibly express the gratitude I felt after being thoroughly indulged by the people I met there, especially Ian, Donnie, and Mike. Ian was particularly helpful in planning an itinerary for me to make sure I could talk to as many members of the original Siargao community and visit as many places and do as many things as time, money, and human energy would allow. What follows is a mad, scrambled chronicle of the seven days I spent on the island everyone seems to be talking about these days, trying to understand its weird mystique and getting to know its people in a very intimate way, and it all begins with the legend of Max Walker.

T H E L E G E N D O F M A X WA L K E R I did most of my work in Harana’s main bar and restaurant, which is comfortable and primitive at the same time, as guests sink themselves into soft bean bags while having a beer or a tuna and bacon shawarma, usually talking about surﬁng. It was here where Ian

and I would meet every morning and discuss my itinerary for the day, which included several pre-scheduled interviews with some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, including the mayor of Siargao’s main tourist town, General Luna—or G.L., as the locals refer to it—a tall and brawny 75-year-old man by the name of Jaime Rusillon. The ﬁrst morning I got there, Donnie, who lives right next door, came over in his motorcycle, as we were talking about the mayor. “Ask him to tell you the story of Mike Boyum,” says Donnie. “These guys who founded G-Land in Indonesia. He lived and died here before Cloud 9 exploded. The locals thought he was some sort of missionary, but he was actually hiding from INTERPOL because he was smuggling heroin and shit.” There was another guy with us at the table, a friendly enough raconteur from Davao named Iñigo Jaldon, who had moved to Siargao four years ago to become a tattoo artist and a licensed real estate broker. “You talking about Mad Mike Boyum?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, he said, “There are so many different stories about him. Some people say he was a Pentecostal missionary, and others say he was a lunatic—

IMAGE COURTESY OF BRAVO BEACH RESORT SIARGAO. PREVIOUS SPREAD: PHOTOGRAPHED BY CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT.

The original foreign settlers of Siargao were all pedophiles,

IMAGE COURTESY OF JOHN SEATON CALLAHAN

could have been both. Some people say he was a shabu addict and died from it, and others say he starved himself to death. With all these stories he’s become some sort of an urban legend around here. Locals name their dogs after him.” When I met the mayor a few days later, in the main port of town overlooking Tuason Point, he was sitting nondescriptly in a small wooden table for two in front of the water, drinking a cup of coffee and chain-smoking cigarettes that dangled ﬂimsily from his bottom lip, even as he spoke. He could have been anyone. “I was born here, raised here, married here, and will probably die here,” he said, in a deep, 75-year-old voice. “You can trace my family tree up to about 200 years—I’ve seen this island from the very beginning.” The mayor never learned to surf, though, because according to him, “When those crazy guys arrived carrying that crazy contraption, I was already the mayor here and too old for surﬁng.” The “crazy contraption” he is referring to is, of course, the surfboard, now a ubiquitous symbol of Siargao. “What about the crazy guys?” I asked him. He chuckled and shrugged

and lit up another cigarette, as if he was preparing to tell a story. “When I ﬁrst ran for mayor back in 1980, the only thing on my mind was to clean up this town, but then the white men showed up. First it was a German priest who spoke several languages. He walked around town for about a week. It turns out he was a travelogue writer for a German publication. His stories of this island were translated into English, and that’s how surfers ﬁrst heard about the waves of Siargao.” Soon after, according to the mayor, two more surfers arrived, an Australian named Steve Jones and a Cuban-American named Tony Arruza, both in their early twenties. They stayed for about a month without spending a dime, as the Siargao locals are known for their hospitality. Two years after that, an American showed up, “and he appeared to be troubled,” said the mayor. As was the case with the two surfers that came before him, the mysterious American had heard about the spectacular waves here, and when he met the mayor, he introduced himself as Max Walker, “like the guy from The Phantom,” said the mayor, an avid comic book reader in his teens. Mayor Rusillon welcomed

VERY GOOD NICE

Siargao’s critical challenge is preserving its beauty and vibe, which the locals describe as “very good nice,” and a major player behind this endeavour, according to Ian Sermonia, is the Siargao Environmental Awareness (S.E.A.) program led by Marja Abad. “What started out as beach clean-ups has now led to something much bigger,” says Ian, “including the Siargao Green recycling plant, an efficient garbage collection system, and teaching the youth about the importance of protecting the environment.” This page: American surfers Evan Slater and Taylor Knox, photographed by John Callahan at Guyam Island in 1992. “I heard a rumor about the Philippines from an Australian guy I met in Mauritius,” said Callahan in a story for Surfer magazine. “He talked about the surf camp at Catanduanes, but knew of a small island off the coast of Mindanao that was unexplored. The way he talked about it got me interested. I set up the trip without much information. I knew I wanted to go between September and December. That’s when the southwest monsoon blows offshore the Pacific coast, and you get ground swells from the typhoons in the Western Pacific.”

OH MY WOW

Wilmar Melindo is the face of Siargao and has appeared in various magazines, but his job doesn’t end there: as president of the Siargao Island Surfing Association, he is in charge of the waves and makes sure that the vibe on the water and among the surfers is all good. “The Philippine Coast Guard is going to deputize these guys as auxiliary lifeguards,” says Ian.

Max Walker to Siargao and invited him for some swigs of tuba with his friends on the beach. Politely, Walker asked the mayor if he could go out for a swim, to which the mayor replied, “Go ahead.” The next day, Walker returned to the beach, this time carrying one of those crazy contraptions, which he took with him into the ocean and used for what appeared to be walking on water. A few days later, Walker contacted the local Protestant pastor and said he had long been a believer in fasting as a way to improve health and spirituality. “He wanted to beat the record of Christ,” said Rusillon, “and that’s when I knew there was something wrong with the guy.” He did eventually break Christ’s record, but died in the process after fasting for 43 days. Among the personal possessions he left behind was a diary that revealed his real name—John Michael Boyum. “I had him buried overlooking the break,” said the mayor, “his body nothing but skin and bones.” He wrote to his family, informing them of the sad news and of the existence of a mysterious package that he had kept locked away in a tavern in Surigao City. His brother, another surfer named Bill Boyum, came to the 74 M AY 2 0 1 7

Philippines to retrieve his brother’s belongings, and told the mayor he went by the name of Max Walker because he liked to walk the earth and the waves. “I had no idea at the time that Mike Boyum was actually a trailblazer in the surfing world,” he said. He dropped out of college in the mid-60s, traveled to Aspen, Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia, then moved to Bali in 1968. He and his brother Bill rode Uluwatu—Bali’s best-known break—for months at a time with nobody else in the water. And when more surfers showed up, they embarked on a search for waves on the edge of a jungle reserve in southeast Java, where they found perfect eight-foot left-breaking tubes a few miles up the beach from a fishing village named Grajagan. “One of the most charismatic surfers of the age, charming and persuasive,” according to the Encyclopedia of Surfing Mike Boyum conceived and developed the G-Land Surf Camp in 1978. By allowing 10 surfers in at a time, and charging $100 a day per surfer over the course of a fourmonth surf season, Mike Boyum was grossing roughly $250,000 per year by the early-80s. When the Indonesian government found out that Boyum had also branched into drug

smuggling, they clipped his wings. In 1984, Boyum was arrested, extradited to California, convicted on drug charges, and served one year on a work-furlough sentence. The following year he was arrested in New Caledonia, again on drug charges, and imprisoned for nearly four years. Upon his release, Boyum was mostly on the run until he ended up in Siargao in 1989, where he discovered the perfectly shaped right-breaking wave that would later be known as Cloud 9. Mayor Rusillon took Bill Boyum to Surigao City to check the safety deposit box, which contained about $67,000 in travelers cheques, wrapped in a burlap sack. There was also a letter that said he left another $5,000 with an American staying in Davao City, and even more money in Bali and in Queensland, Australia. “Bill asked me if I could accompany him to Davao City,” said the mayor, “but I said my job ends here.” Word eventually spread through the surﬁng world that the infamous legend Mike Boyum had died on some hidden island in the Philippines called Siargao, and that’s when the pilgrimages began. Surfers from all over the world began following his trail. “He was literally a trailblazer,” said the mayor,

PHOTOGRAPHED BY CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT

“

“because surfers from all over the world had begun following his footsteps, his trail, in search of the best waves on earth.” Among them was world-class surﬁng photographer John Callahan, who went to Siargao in 1992 with pro surfers Taylor Knox and Evan Slater. Callahan’s photos appeared in Surferr magazine and Siargao was never the same again. “I named the break after the local no-melt chocolate bars,” says Callahan. “Going into town after lunch for a warm Coke and a Cloud 9 was the highlight of our day.” These early surfers came, saw, and conquered the waves of Siargao; and when they departed, they left behind a few of their “crazy contraptions” on the beach. The locals wondered what the hell they were, and what they were used for, so they picked one up and discovered for themselves.

SURFING IS MY LIFE Born and raised on the island, 40-yearold Wilmar Melindo is one of those locals. With his exotic good looks, surfer’s tan and physique, and gentle personality, Melindo has become the face of Siargao, and the island’s de facto ambassador. He and about 10 other locals, including brothers Rudy and Nolong

Figuron, were the first Siargao natives to pick up one of those crazy contraptions and discover its power. “It took me five years to get really good at it,” he says, “but when I finally did, it felt really good.” Before the surfers arrived, life on Siargao was profoundly simple. “There were no resorts, no electricity, and the funnest thing we did was catch land crabs on the beach during full moons,” he recalls. “Sometimes we would come home with a sack of crabs.” Nowadays Melindo’s schedule revolves around the tides. “I judge surfing competitions, train about 200 surf instructors, and coach our champions.” I met one of those champions, 33-year-old Nildie Reitenbach, another Siargao native and the island’s first female surfing champion, at her newly opened beach bar, where she told me “growing up here was beautiful and simple. I was eight years old the first time I saw a foreigner. At that time, all the locals would share one surfboard. If you were unlucky, you would wait the whole day for nothing.” Reitenbach started fishing with her dad when she was four years old, so like most of the locals, she knows the ocean like the back of her hand. “I started surfing with my

g m a forei dito, OK lang sa akin kasi masaya— pero ngayon medyo sobra na.”

DON’T PISS IN THE SOUP WE ALL GOT TA EAT

Ian Sermonia (this page) and Abe Navarro Tolentino (opposite page) are the vice-president and president respectively of the Siargao Tourism Operators Association (S.T.O.A.), the prime movers of the island’s protection and preservation. “It’s hard to change people and habits,” says Ian, “so it’s definitely a challenge, but there is hope.”

cousin Manette Alcala, who is the mom of the wonder kid Kai Kai, the seven-year-old surfer. We cut a lot of classes just to surf, because our school was right by Cemetery Surf. We’d swim out and paddle to where the tower is now, and we would even sleep in the tower just so we could be the first ones in the water. To me, surfing is everything, it’s life. Every wave you ride gives you a diff rent story. Once I’m in the water I forget everything and I’m just happy, even if I don’t catch any waves; it’s just a different ff world for me.” The country’s current champion, 24-yearold Philmar Alipayo, was born and raised in Siargao as well, and started surfing at the age of 10. “Pero ngayon ang mga bata a four years old ang gagaling na,” he told me. “Dati, agawan kami para manghiram ngg board. Minsan nagsusuntukan pa kami. Isa yungg board, eh mga kinse kami, so nagsusuntukan kami. Yung mga iba kailangan maghintay sa a beach. Kung sino ang pinakamatapang, siya yung una. Pagkatapos ng surf, akyat ng buko, kain, taposs surf na naman. Araw-araw yon, pagkatapos ng eskwela.” When Mayor Rusillon saw Siargao’s potential, he built something the locals had never seen before—a road. “I had to divert a 76 M AY 2 0 1 7

lot of money to do that,” he said, “and I ended up in the Sandiganbayan because of it.” Nine cases were filed against him, and after a 15-year battle with the Supreme Court, he was acquitted of all nine cases. As more surfers arrived, locals began offering ff nipa huts to sleep in, and that was the very beginning of what the mayor calls “Siargao’s tourist bonanza.” People started buying land for pennies and began establishing various little surf camps and resorts. “Back in the day, we would never go to Cloud 9 because the waves looked very dangerous,” said the mayor. “Now it is the reason why all these people are here.” One sunny day in 1993, an Australian by the name of Peter “The Pirate” Latham was walking down the beach with the mayor, watching the waves roll like thunder, when he made a suggestion. “Mayor, don’t you think you should have your own surfing competition?” he asked. “Why not?” replied the mayor. They called it the Siargao Surfing Classic, and it was a challenging first effort. ff “We didn’t have enough prize money, so I had to borrow P20,000 from my mother,” said

“Evver th t wants the h same thing for this island,” says Ian, “but who can do it best—who knows?”

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GAPS SABUERO

Rusillon. “Yung pang mahjong niya. She was very angry.” There were participants from different parts of the world, and when the mayor introduced Latham as the director of the competition, the crowd broke into laughter when he replied, “But mayor, I’m not a surfer.” Fortunately, one of the contestants, Greg Colbert, raised his hand and said, “Mayor, I used to be a professional judge in Australian surfing competitions. I know the rules.” Mayor Jaime looked at him, then turned to the contestants and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the new director of the Siargao Surfing Classic—Greg Colbert.” The townsfolk of General Luna flocked to the beach to witness the outrageous spectacle of white men riding the menacing waves of Cloud 9 on nothing but boards. “One time we had a surfing competition here and there was this Australian guy who was already blacklisted in Indonesia,” recounts Gaps Sabuero, Siargao’s resident surf photographer and bodyboarder from Iligan. “On the final heat of a local competition, he swam out to the water, interfering with the four finalists. Everybody was shouting at him, but he didn’t show any

respect for the locals. He wiped out, and when he got to shore, there were five guys waiting to beat him up. They called him Red Dog. There aren’t that many asshole surfers, but you get the best and the worst. He’s gone now, and I don’t think he’ll be back.” Nildie won her first competition 18 years ago and got P500 from the mayor. In Cloud 9, where the waves are hollow, crazy, and powerful, surfers are scored on a scale of one to 10 by the way they barrel through them. Nildie competes eight times a year and has too many trophies to count. She was number one in Asia in 2003 and held on to that crown until her younger sister Nilbie took over. “I used to be her coach,” she says. “Now it’s the other way around.” Last year was the first time Alipayo competed outside the Philippines, at the West Sumbawa Pro in Indonesia, and he won first place. “Grabe,” he said, “pagkatapos ng laro ko, umiyak ako. Niyakap ko coach ko si Kuya Wilmar.” Like Melindo and most of the other great local surfers, Alipayo has become somewhat of a sex symbol among the foreigners, “pero magulo,” he said, before revealing that he used to be married to a

French girl. “Kumasal kami sa France. Doon kami dapat tumira, pero ‘di ko nagustuhan, so iniwan niya ako bago ako pumunta sa Sumbawa. May isang anak kami, dalawang taon, kinakausap ko siya araw-araw. Baka makita tayo next year. Sana . . .” A three-foot wave doesn’t sound like much in a surﬁng competition, but it’s measured from the back, which means the front is twice as big; so when they say it’s a three-foot wave, it’s actually a six-foot wave. “Not even catching a wave,” says Mike, “just surviving out there is intimidating.” Every wave is different: Rock Island waves, for instance, are like moving mountains, so when you wipe out, you’re underwater for a very long time, longer than you’d be under in Cloud 9. When you’re going down the wave, you can count one—two—three—four . . . it almost seems forever before the wave ﬁnally breaks. “My last shift here we got double-overhead at Cemetery,” continues Mike, “I looked at it and said I don’t know, it’s kinda big and it just looks really heavy; and Wilmar says, ‘Kaya mo!’ and I say ‘OK.’ We paddle out, then the big sets started coming in. I see him throw his board and yell fuck! My leash snaps, you’re 77

80 M AY 2 0 1 7

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GAPS SABUERO

tely don’t e for the nd,” says wner Mike “Mookie” Medina. “Every single surfer remembers the first wave they catch.”

LOVE IS THE SEVENTH WAVE

Nildie Rietenbach (above) and Philmar Alipayo (below) are Siargao’s best male and female surfers, competing— and winning—regularly in both national and international competitions. “I’ve seen this island grow from zero to now,” says Nildie, “and it’s just crazy.” Previous spread: Siargao local Gabriel Lerog riding the waves on his board, as seen on a looking glass.

“We ow wh ’ss going to ake o er next,”” a s Hippie. “I s pose it boils d w wn to the c n idaa i the mooost money. I just hope we elect someone who cares about the environment.”

82 M AY 2 0 1 7

ANTHONY KIEDIS IMAGE COURTESY OF WILMAR MELINDO; JAIME RUSILLON AND HIPPIE WIGLEY PHOTOGRAPHED BY CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT; MIKE BOYUM STILL FROM THE DOCUMENTARY ‘SEA OF DARKNESS ’ (2010) DIRECTED BY MICHAEL OBLOWITZ . ALL OTHER IMAGES COURTESY OF SUBJECTS

in the middle of the ocean, and after being underwater for quite a while, you reach up for air and realize you’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and there’s nobody around you. At that moment you just have to stay calm, find your inner peace, and say it’s not that bad. It seems like a catastrophe for a few moments, but it’s actually not that bad. . . . but then the sets just keep coming.” One morning, a few Israeli surfers arrived and foolishly thought they could handle the waves of Cloud 9. “They go out there, over, one of them duck-dives into the water, and then smashes into the reef, ends up paralyzed from the waist down,” says Mike. “They had to pick him off ff the reef,” adds Ian. “Apparently, he broke his spine. “So sometimes when we go out there, we ask ourselves: can we do it? Possibly. Are we gonna try? Naaaaah. That day when I snapped my leash, I was having amazing surf sessions for, like, three days, so my confidence was high. I was, like, I’m rippin’ it, let’s fucking go. I ate it. Mother Nature just kicked my ass. . . and then you gotta swim all the way in, and it’s a long swim. My buddy’s getting eaten up too. Everyone just eating it. I finally get to my board, which is, like, a mile away. Made it to the reef. Five minutes later, everyone comes back defeated. Everyone got beat up. . . . and those are the moments when you think about your life.” Eddie Nassr, a nuclear scientist who recently moved to the island, used to surf 10-foot overheads in Hawaii when he was not part of a team maintaining the warheads in Pearl Harbor. “I thought I was gonna die,” he said. “Hawaii’s got serious fuckin’ no-joke waves. There’s so much moving water there. That’s 20 0 feet. You can’t really see your buddies in between waves. When you’re paddling over the mountains and they’re rolling under you, you’re, like, whoooaaahh . . . It feels like snowboarding, really, when you’re riding waves that long. It’s exactly like boarding down a mountain made of water . . . but with snowboarding you can sit down and take a break; with surfing, you’re locked in and committed to the wave.”

K A R A JAWA N Wilmar Melindo is a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, so when he couldn’t afford ff to see them live in Manila, he was stoked to meet Anthony Kiedis and his sound engineer surfing in Siargao. “They asked me to take care of him while he was here,” he says. “He passed by my house and called my name. My girlfriend asked me who it was, sabi ko wala!! We hung out and surfed for two days, then he left. Ang dami kongg likes sa Instagram!” Kiedis once told People magazine that his goal for the year was to get better at surfing, which he thought would make him a better father. There is definitely something soulful about surfing, which permeates through the entire community of Siargao, creating a vibe that is sexy and spiritual at the same time. The philosophy is being one with nature, which means having the natural and moral human instinct to protect it. “Surfing is almost like a meditation,” says Ian. “There’s a very Zen and spiritual aspect to it. When you surf, you feel aligned with God, nature, and the universe; and just having that feeling makes you think about other aspects of your life.”

SIARGAO MASAYA

From top: Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis 1 caught some waves in Siargao back in 2014; Iñigo Jaldon 2 is a local tattoo artist and real estate broker; Mike Boyum 3 was an infamous legend in the surfing world who spent his final days of life close to Cloud 9; Stephanie Roth Gana 4 is a Swiss national who founded the Siargao Masaya foundation, which sponsors scholars and micro financing for locals; Mayor Jaime Rusillon 5 has been mayor of Siargao’s main tourist town, General Luna, for what seems like an eternity; Niño Barbers 6 is a member of Siargao’s ruling political family, and could be the island’s local government saviour, if he plays his cards right. Verity “Hippie” Wigley (opposite page) teaches yoga by the boardwalk and lives in a rainbow house with star windows.

It’s about peace with the community and oneself, even when you’re wiping out in the chaos of a monster wave. It is camaraderie and a mutual respect, whether you’re out in the water or out at the bars at night. “There was some aggression a while back,” says Ian, “and a study concluded that if the locals developed a sense of empowerment through self-sustainability, there would be less instances of violence among them—because this is their land, their home, and they should feel like they own it, not the other way around.” Locally, they call it Karajawan, or well-being. “There will always be places with good waves,” says Ian, “but at the end of the day, it really is the people of Siargao, who are welcoming but never pushy. They know they don’t need foreigners here, but if you wanna

ALL ALONG THE WATCH TOWER

Siargao’s close-knit community of surfers paddles out by the waves of Cloud 9 in memory of Mike Escoltura, one of the island’s most promising young surfers, who passed away in April.

g that will preserve its integrity,” says Ian.

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country, and what that is, you can only feel when you get here.” Swiss anthropologist Stephanie Roth Gana first came to Siargao in 2009 and immediately became very active in the community and helping local families. “I learned to speak Surigaonon fluently because it’s important to find out how people are thinking.” Gana took the time to observe how people behaved and lived and worked, then started the Siargao Masaya Foundation, which provides children with education, among other things. “We started with 10 students and now we have 160.” By collecting personal contributions and creating a budget, the foundation helped students buy uniforms, books, and school supplies; it has also helped locals establish and maintain their own businesses. “Many of the kids have finished college and are now working with their own families. It’s nice to see that.” The foundation also plans to buy a small jeepney and start a mobile library that will go around on weekends, lending books and giving away free condoms. Gana also started Karajawan sa Siargao, an organization that basically identifies the community’s problems and comes up with solutions, like establishing a market where

locals are invited to sell local Siargao products in General Luna. “I also volunteered to help S.E.A., an environmental awareness group,” she says. “We clean the beach and are registering petitioners to ban plastic; we are also looking for locations for recycling.” With the inﬂux of tourists and new residents, garbage is becoming a real problem in Siargao, and with only one landﬁll, a need for solutions is desperate.

T H E S E X I E S T P L AC E O N E A RT H The fact of the matter is people are buying land in Siargao at a very aggressive pace, and the fear lingers among the people I’ve spoken to that their island may become another Boracay. “It’s not a perfect paradise,” says Donnie, “but it’s got soul. Boracay lost its soul.” And, as Abe Navarro Tolentino says, “Surﬁng is sexy, and sexy sells. Right now, Siargao is the most exotic place on earth that attracts that sexy, surﬁng crowd. It could be the sexiest place on earth, for the moment.” As far as eco-warrior Wilmar Melindo is concerned, his life’s mission has always been to protect Siargao from abuse. “What worries me,” he says, “is that we promote

IMAGE COURTESY OF NICOLAS ANSTET T

hang out, they’re more than happy. Everywhere you go on the island, you can walk into anyone’s house and they’ll feed you.” “The local community here really embraced me,” says British national Verity Wigley, a.k.a. Hippie, who runs Hippie’s Surf Shop and has two daughters with Melindo. She is one of the ﬁrst women on the island to give birth to a new generation of Siargao mestizos. “Every time I would try and leave, he would bring me right back—so we fell in love and I never left.” Hippie claims she’s never met friendlier, more genuine people. “The locals would give you their last peso if you needed it to buy a cigarette or needed a drink, which to me was very special.” “Siargao is ‘very good nice,’ as the locals say,” says Abe Navarro Tolentino, a community leader. “The spirit is really a mix of everything: it’s your experience here with the locals, who are very friendly and very welcoming. There’s a feeling on this island that you don’t get anywhere else. It’s the community of foreigners and locals existing happily together. It’s a community of good people. When you come here, it feels like you’ve left the Philippines. There’s something that separates Siargao from the rest of the

IMAGE COURTESY OF BRAVO BEACH RESORT SIARGAO. NEXT SPREAD: PHOTOGRAPHED BY CAMILLE ROBIOU DU PONT.

and promote, but what we tend to forget is that we are still an island and we have to be able to sustain whatever we promote without hurting the island. We all have to eat and shit here. Two years ago there were no cars—now there’s traffic. I see this place grow every month, and every month I see new foreigners moving everything they own to this island. Sabi ko patay. There are days when I wish I could go back in time.” “I’m sort of caught in the middle,” says Sabuero, “because more people coming here means more business for everyone, but at the same time the local surfers don’t want their waves stolen. Surﬁng is a selﬁsh sport. Right now, the island seems like it’s struggling to catch up with the sudden growth of tourism. Four days a week, 500 or so people come in, and a lot of these people actually end up staying. It’s not even summer yet and I’m already nervous and anxious about all the people.” “In the far ends of this island you will see some major infrastructure being laid down,” says Donnie. “I mean, I’m on my bicycle and constantly exploring, so I see shit, like 10 kilometers in, it’s just a dirt, paved road, then you go a little further, boom, fuckin’ six-meterwide asphalt paved road in the middle of nowhere. That’s like putting an SLEX for these people. Somebody’s interested in building an international airport on this island. It’s happening, man, it’s happening. . . .” Siargao is owned by hundreds of small landowners, but the bigger ones are the ruling Matugas and Barbers families. The big developers have yet to make an entrance, although we can assume the Ayalas have their hands full with El Nido. But if there’s another thing the community pins its hopes on, it’s that bawal baduy dito. If you try and build something soulless here, people see right through it, and chances are they will boycott it. The establishments that seem to thrive on this island are the ones where the owners live in. The people that work there are personally attached and are proud of it; they’re doing it because they want to be there. “Congressmen need to write bills that bar global brand franchises from entering the island,” I tell Donnie, “and draft those fuckers into law, along with other ordinances that regulate the size and style of anything you build on the island, whether it’s a shopping mall or an outside shit-house.” “People we know are here,” says Donnie, quietly. “Sight unseen, with money in their pockets, and just buying land. Fuckers are buying two-hectare properties at 8,000 [pesos] per square. Everybody wants a piece of this place.” Though Tolentino’s maternal grandfather was governor and congressman here for more than 30 years, politics is out of his perspective. “I’ve seen it and I know what it is, and it’ll consume you,” he says, “which is why I decided to get into the business sector here, and try and change things from that end.” Being here for so long, Tolentino knows 80 percent of the people who have been here for more than 15 years, and together they knew there was a need to form a strong organization between all the resorts. So he took over the Siargao Tourism Operators Association (S.T.O.A.), an underdeveloped local chamber of commerce for resorts. With just over 50

members, S.T.O.A. is the island’s main driver of tourism and one of its largest employing organizations. “My condition for taking over was that I would have to make a few changes,” he says, “including my tenure as president, which I extended to three years. I also wanted to be able to choose my own cabinet, so I have Ian as my vice-president.” With a general legal counsel and a secretariat, Tolentino led the endeavor to professionalize the association. “I’m a member of the Jaycees, so I brought its system into S.T.O.A. We run ourselves independently from the local government.” Since then, S.T.O.A. has been able to air out important issues and concerns in a more organized fashion, trying to develop the island from a conservationist angle, instead of continuous development without being mindful of the consequences, which is what the government, unsurprisingly, seems to be doing at the moment. “We’re funded by very minimal membership fees, and the secretariat is the only one that receives a salary. It’s just our genuine concern for the island’s well-being that motivates us to influence policy on it.” Among the issues S.T.O.A. has been addressing is the non-existence of a trash collection system, so the association decided to do it itself, and it’s about to agree on a garbage segregation rule wherein nothing gets collected if it isn’t segregated. “Trying to work with a government that can’t even collect trash from people who pay a garbage tax, has compelled us to do it ourselves. We’re doing the best we can.” Siargao’s biggest frustration seems to be dealing with the local government, but you can’t really fault local officials because they didn’t have the foresight to see what was coming, nor the resources to deal with it. They had never experienced anything like what’s happening in Siargao today. “To be fair to them,” says Abe, “it’s our fault as well, because, as tourism operators, we’re the ones who created this, so we’re stepping up so that they can step up.” There are businessmen flying in and out of Siargao every day who couldn’t give a lowflying fuck if the island sank tomorrow, for as long as their numbers are met, so S.T.O.A. provides investors with information about the island and how rapid development without sustainability could potentially prove disastrous for their bottom line. The only way

Siargao can handle this kind of exponentially growing progress is if it’s planned properly, with the proper infrastructure to match the influx, which it doesn’t have at the moment. “We tell investors what the island really needs,” says Tolentino. But what is perhaps more important than addressing these issues, is making sure they stay addressed, which is why even after a new president is elected, the secretariat remains, along with the systems that were already set into motion. What appears starkly obvious is that S.T.O.A. is taking on tasks the local government is incapable of handling. The association helps the locals form their own organizations, so it can better handle the influx. It has a habal-habal registration system, and projects to modernize the police force, and every other month its members meet and summarize their achievements. What is key in this story is that Siargao is yet another microcosm of the country, rich with promise, but ripe for the picking. What is happening on that island right now is a critical opportunity to evolve as a society and handle the progress with reason, while it’s not too late. Whoever gets elected as mayor, governor, or congressman in the next elections—and many say Senator Ace Barbers’ younger brother Niño is the man most likely and capable of taking the job—will come faceto-face with that opportunity, and be given the rare chance to make a difference. As Mayor Rusillon said before wrapping up our conversation, “There it is, the long and short story of this town.” At 75, the toughskinned mayor of General Luna appears to be spending the majority of his days sitting by the water, watching the world go by. He squints out at the sun dipping into the horizon, turning the waves into flames, and says, “I am now in the sunset of my life at 75, but at least I’m leaving something behind.” Indeed. It was on his watch that Siargao became the magical place it is today: a surfing community with a heart, soul, and spirit that is simple and good. But it will be on somebody else’s watch that that karajawan— and the community that thrives on it—is maintained. “Are you running for reelection, mayor?” I ask him. “No way,” he answers as he takes one last drag from his cigarette before flicking it into the sand and burying it with his right flipflop, “I’m sick and tired of this shit.”

The body count of Duterteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s war on T drugs ugs has surpassed that of Marcosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Marcos s war on dissent. Attorney Jose Manuel Diokno takes a stand on behalf of thousands dead, and aims to help survivors through this recurrence of dark nights. Alcade Mal investigates

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CARLO GABUCO

In the age of Duterte, it is the obvious question no one wants to have to ask: What does one do if he ﬁnds out his name is on the local drug list?

The creation and maintenance of these lists has color of legal authority, through PNP Circular 16-2016, promulgated just one day after Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency on June 30, 2016. Yet there is no built-in mechanism for one who may have been wrongly accused to challenge his inclusion in the list. Surrender, as a means of clearing one’s name or even of one’s conscience, has become the instinctive response of many who find themselves tagged, but not charged, through any formal legal mechanism as a criminal suspect. And yet, many of those who have surrendered, who have sworn oaths to never, ever become involved in the illegal drug trade, still end up dead. Albert Sidayon of Pasig City; Bryan Agsalda of Jones, Isabela; Rogelio Salamate Jr. of Las Piñas City; Annabel de la Cruz of Mandaluyong City; Arman de la Paz of Marikina. All previous surrenderees, all since gunned down. The definitions of extra-judicial killings (EJK) equivocate. The numbers vary, but certainly rank in the thousands, more than the 3,240 documented murders during the martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Thousands of families grieve for their dead, and for their thousands more left orphaned by the drug war. Some of them will choose to grieve in silence. Others will want to fight back, to seek the justice that is very much the entitlement not just of the victims of drugs, but also the victims of the drug war. Yet in a culture where the accuser is also the official investigator, as well as the suspected executioner, the integrity of the authorities to prosecute the perpetrators of extra-judicial killings is compromised. How then can one

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who is aggrieved obtain justice under these circumstances? These are questions that bedevil even the most committed human rights lawyers such as Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno, the president of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and dean of the De La Salle University College of Law. While lawyers are obliged to support the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, their clients also expect them to offer concrete and helpful solutions to their cases. Further harm to the families of EJK victims does not help. “It’s a very difficult situation for a lawyer at this time,” Diokno says. He does not blame the people for being afraid. “It is very clear the government has sent the message that if you speak out, your name might be on the list the next time.” “As a lawyer,” Diokno says, “I would explain to clients what their legal remedies are, and I would encourage them to pursue those remedies. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want to encourage them to file a case, because I don’t want it to be on my conscience that they would be subject to extra-judicial killing or similar kinds of activities. So it’s very hard for us at this point to pursue legal remedies.” Diokno clarifies that the legal strategy for now, though, is not one of abject surrender. In fact, there have already been victories before the courts in those instances where the families of victims have decided to fight. Efren Morillo, the lone survivor of a police raid in Payatas, and Cristina Gonzales, widow of a drug suspect killed in Antipolo, were both able to obtain from the Supreme Court writs of amparo—protection orders that prevent law enforcement from approaching within

one kilometer from their homes or work places. These protection orders, Diokno says, are apparently respected by the government, for now. Even in those cases where victims or their families have been more apprehensive in fighting back right now, Diokno offers a remedial effort that may bear fruit in the long run. “One of the things that FLAG has been doing, what we’re after at this point, is documenting cases. We have developed a template for all victims of the war on drugs and EJKs and similar human rights violations to make sure at this point that when the day comes that cases can be filed, that we have the evidence required to pursue these cases.” The quest for precise documentation is the exact opposite of the scarlet listings being employed by law enforcement. “It’s very easy to make allegations of human rights violations, but for us to gain a lot of headway in terms of vindication of human rights, we have to make sure that they are properly supported by the facts. Right now, it’s really a fight for the truth. You have a lot of people pushing for a reality that isn’t really real, and we want to make sure that if called upon, we want to make sure what really happened... We hope that the time will come when people will feel that it is time that they vindicate these rights.” Law students, the Commission on Human Rights, and other human rights organizations are being trained by FLAG to properly document these emerging cases of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations. The afflicted are encouraged to reach out to these organizations, or even to their own religious organizations, which

PHOTOGRAPHED BY CARLO GABUCO

Diokno observes, have become “really more and more open to helping those who have been victimized by these kinds of cases.” This is an approach geared towards the bigger picture. “The template we have developed, we think, is compliant even with international standards, so that if people from the United Nations and other international organizations look at the documentation, they would be satisﬁed that it is sufficient.”

iokno, now 56, has been practicing law since 1988. He counts among his clients such personalities as ZTE whistleblower Jun Lozada and Senator Leila de Lima. But perhaps the identities of those whom he has sought to prosecute as a private prosecutor are more telling: Then chief of Task Force Habagat of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission Panﬁlo Lacson and 33 police officers involved in the alleged rubout of 11 suspected members of the Kuratong Baleleng robbery group; General Jovito Palparan and several military and para-military personnel, for their alleged involvement in the torture of suspected New

People’s Army members, brothers Raymond was wrong. So even when most people were and Reynaldo Manalo. It is no surprise that afraid to say anything, he was one of the few Diokno has been popularly identified as a who had the courage to speak out.” human rights lawyer. Senator Diokno was among the first Jose W. Diokno, Chel’s father, was the imprisoned upon the declaration of martial first ever chairperson of the Presidential law in 1972. He was detained for two years Committee on Human Rights (the predewithout ever being charged before any cessor agency of the Commission on Human tribunal, or without even being told why he Rights). Just one month before his death in was jailed. After his release in 1974, Diokno February 1987, an ailing Diokno resigned founded FLAG, which took on cases of as chair to protest the killing of 15 unarmed political prisoners whose rights were violated farmers gunned down while protesting at by the martial law dictatorship. Despite Mendiola Bridge. Three decades earlier, the having been freed from detention, Senator elder Diokno was fired as Secretary of Justice Diokno was still required to report to the after he had insisted on the investigation military the list of people who would consult of powerful American businessman Harry him as a lawyer. Stonehill, who was believed to have wielded Chel Diokno sees many similarities undue influence over numerous between the pattern of oppression Manila politicians of all stripes. during martial law and the situation And as a senator, Diokno resigned today. The primary difference lies in WHO SPEAKS from the Nacionalista Party to the branding. “During martial law, if FOR THE DEAD Noemi San Agustin, protest the emerging authoriyou were branded as a Communist, 30 years old, holds tarian tendencies of his party-mate, if the government said you didn’t her son close as President Ferdinand Marcos. have any rights, you were not a police carry out a “One thing I would say about my human being, and therefore, you drug raid in their home in Pasig City. dad,” the younger Diokno says, “he can be killed. Even human rights The government’s really had a lot of guts and a lot of lawyers were branded as Commuwar on drugs has balls. He didn’t hesitate to speak nists at that time. Nowadays, the affected countless out when he felt that something branding is different. If you are a of other families. 91

criminal, drug addict, drug pusher, then you are not human and you don’t deserve human rights.” Diokno is fearful that with h the current pervasive attitude towards drugs being fostered by the government, a anyone who is branded as being affiliated wiith drugs would be highly prejudiced by the ju ustice system, even if innocent. A similar atm mosphere pervaded during martial law. He explains, “At certain points during martial law, there were no civilian courts, there were only military courts and even civilians, prominent minent people opposing the government who were tried and convicted by military courts. Ninoy Aquino, convicted by military courts whose Commander-In-Chief was none other than the President. You could not really expect justice during that time time.”

he deterioration of the administration of justice during d martial law, Diokno feels, has h helped enable the current ar. The public’s trust in the fairness of our judges is in ndispensable to respect for the rule of law. That fairness was directly attacked at the start of martial law. “One week after martial law was declared in 1972, Marcos issued a letter of instruction, where he said that from now on, all judges must submit their courtesy resignations that he could accept at any time. A year after that, in 1973, the transitory provisions of the new Constitution provided that judges will remain in office until such time that they are removed by the President. What that means is that from 1972 to 1986, the dictatorship really owned every judge in the country. And that affected our

And that has resulted in a justice system that doesn’t really care much for accountability or transparency.”

odrigo Duterte is the first Filipino lawyer elected to the presidency since Ferdinand Marcos. Duterte is also the first prosecutor elected to the presidency. Diokno accredits the President with particular understanding of the problems of the justice system he inherited. “The President is a lawyer, he was a prosecutor, he knows the problems of our justice system. He knows why it’s so hard to hold criminals and corrupt people accountable... As a long-time prosecutor, he saw firsthand how the legal system worked, and I think that was one of the reasons why he got fed up with it. That’s why he’s been advocating these issues on war on drugs; forget about the proper procedure, just get the results that the country needs. For a short-term solution that may work, but for the long term, I really fear that it will destroy the legal system that he is trying to preserve and lead to a system where power will be the determinative factor and the merits of a case or the justice of a case will not really matter anymore.” Diokno is suspicious about the sincerity of the President in terms of the war on drugs, given the latter’s repeated assertion that there are 3.8 million drug addicts in the country when the Dangerous Drugs Board’s own figures cite only 1.7 million (including those experimenters who tried drugs only once in their lives). Diokno is concerned that the drug problem could be used as an excuse for a more authoritarian form of government. “When you condone shortcuts in the law, when you condone EJK and other sorts of shortcuts, ultimately it’s not just the victims of those shortcuts who will suffer, but it’s the legal system itself. My question really is, if the legal system becomes meaningless to the people, what kind of government will be capable of maintaining order in the country? And I fear that the only kind of government that will be capable of maintaining order when the legal system is meaningless is an authoritarian form.” Diokno insists that there is another path to law and order without sacrificing human rights, one that directly targets the weak legal system in the Philippines that the dean feels the President is frustrated with. “The reason why crime and corruption are so rampant in our country has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with our weak legal system. I think he knows

“My question really is, if the legal system becomes meaningless to the people, what kind of government will be capable of maintaining order in the country?” legal system fundamentally. Lawyers realized that if they wanted to win their cases, if they wanted to get clients and make money, they would have to be close to the regime.” That legal network that operates to ﬁx cases, according to Diokno, remains today. “I tell my law students at DLSU that there are two kinds of lawyers in the country today: lawyers who respect the rule of law and respect justice and the merits of the case, and lawyers who just respect one thing, and that’s money. The unfortunate thing—many of our corporate clients, for example, would rather go to those lawyers of that type rather than those who respect the merits of the case. 92 M AY 2 0 1 7

that. If he were only to put all his will and the support of the people to strengthen the legal system, he could really have a country that would be the best in Asia. What do I mean by that? Why do criminal syndicates get away with it? Why do corrupt officials get away with what they’re doing? It’s because we can’t put them in jail. Why can’t we put them in jail? Number one, because our police cannot gather the evidence to put them in jail. Number two, because the prosecutors cannot convict them. Number three, because our judges are afraid to make sure they are put in jail. Number four, because Congress hasn’t given the judiciary the budgetary support to have a strong legal system. If he were to do that, we could develop our country into the best in Asia. I do wish he would do that rather than encouraging the police and others to take the law into their own hands.” Instead of addressing these systemic problems, Diokno decries, officials of the current administration have been openly dehumanizing those suspected or accused of crimes. “The Department of Justice Secretary himself has said that criminals are not human, therefore, they don’t deserve human rights, and I think that’s a big obstacle to accountability. They keep on saying that human rights is the problem when I think that human rights is the solution. If you want a society where people are held accountable, let’s do it, let’s get the evidence, put them in jail and let them rot there. But encouraging the people to take the law into their own hands… do we really want the man with the gun to decide who is a criminal? Do we want the man with the gun to say you deserve to die, therefore I’ll kill you? That’s why we have courts, that’s why we have judges. They are the ones who are supposed to decide that. By encouraging the people with guns to do that, it’s really going to destroy the legal system entirely.”

iokno is likewise in the frontlines in the efforts against the reimposition of the death penalty—a priority measure of the Duterte administration. The House of Representatives has already voted to return the death penalty. Diokno has previously cited the findings made by the Supreme Court in the 2004 case of People v. Mateo, that 71.77 percent of death sentences previously reviewed by the Supreme Court had been revoked either through acquittal or modification. Another indictment of the Philippine justice system. The poor are especially vulnerable to the death penalty, Diokno has said, “because they have no voice, no money, no power, and lack the resources to hire good lawyers.” Diokno believes that if the death penalty once again becomes part of the law of the land, the Supreme Court has no legal option but to thwart the restoration. The Philippine government, he explains, had already ratified

BOT TOM IMAGE COURTESY OF SENATE PRIVATE RELATIONS AND INFORMATION BUREAU; OTHER IMAGES COURTESY OF JOSE MANUEL DIOKNO

AS THE FATHER, SO DOES THE SON

Shedding light on the controversies from the government’s war on drugs, Chel Diokno has become the torchbearer to the pursuits of his father, Jose W. Diokno, who was the first chairman of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights (known today as the Commission on Human Rights) and founder of the Free Legal Assistance Group.

the Second Optional Protocol of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, an international instrument that under the Philippine Constitution, forms part of the law of the land. “That treaty obligation requires that we not reimpose the death penalty. That is a treaty obligation that we cannot turn our backs on. The Supreme Court would respect those international instruments, and they would have no choice but to respect them.” But the President has had the propensity for denigrating the international order, even going so far as to threaten withdrawal from the United Nations. If he went as far as to withdraw from the ICCPR, Diokno explains, “that is a prospective withdrawal, he cannot do that retroactively. Our treaty obligations will still remain obligations even if he does that.” Diokno remains hopeful that international pressure can compel the current administration to improve the human rights record of the Philippines, despite its own compulsions. He advises international observers critical of the human rights situation not to be daunted by adverse reactions from Malacañang. “I think it is a good sign in the sense that our government will have to realize it is part of the community of nations and it will have to comply with at least basic obligations of every country that is part of the United Nations. “Whether we like it or not, the Philippines is part of the international community. The President may disclaim it, but I think he realizes that no matter what he does, the Philippines is part of the IC. The bottom line will no longer be issues of human rights, but issues of trade. With our commitments to the EU and to other countries, many of those commitments are tied to our human rights record. He cannot just suddenly say, ‘I don’t care about the human rights record,’ as we could lose all of those trade commitments if that happens.” Diokno pushes back against the claim that human rights are a Western construct. “Filipinos understand that human rights are basic even to us. Even before we were colonized by Spain, by the United States, we respected human rights. Even our own language recognizes that. When you talk about our language of what is just, and what is right, very basic in our language is a sense of fairness, and that sense of fairness is the core of human rights.” As Senator Diokno once wrote, the words katarungan and karapatan precede colonization. The root of katarungan is tarong, meaning “straight, upright, appropriate or correct” while karapatan’s root is dapat—or ﬁtting or correct. The Filipino people have inherently understood the intimate relation between what is just, what is right, and what are rights. “This myth that human rights is only a Western concept, I don’t think that people will accept it. You cannot discriminate, that any person no matter what he does in his life, deserves some basic recognition of human rights.” 93

Filipinos make up the third largest group of foreign national residents in Japan. The yen, known in the Philippines as lapad, continues to be a sought-after currency, and the star of many OFW narratives set in the host country. But what happens when that pursuit becomes all-consuming? Ken Ishikawa attends the trial of a Filipino woman accused of using stimulants to get by

ILLUSTRATIONS BY IVAN REVERENTE

“The police over at the neighboring prefecture caught a Filipina with shabu and they are asking me to interpret for her in court. I’d like you to come with me and Joselito,” Professor Tsuruga said. “You might learn a thing or two.”

So it was that I found myself traveling to the Osaka University at Toyonaka one cold, late spring morning in July. It was only three days since I arrived in Japan to begin my research on Japanese-Filipino children and I had only begun gaining a sense of the place and how Filipinos conducted their lives there when I received the call. I know that it’s not all yen and roses for Filipinos abroad. In 2013 alone, the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs reported that it repatriated the corpses of 883 Filipinos. However, I had thought Japan to be a safe place for Filipinos but then I was to bear witness to a trial, and of a Filipina no less. Traveling through the brisk rain aboard the monorail going to the campus, I scanned the pines for a spot of bother, yet they remained a wall of impenetrable green. I went to the building where the sociology faculty kept its offices. It was 7 a.m. and the halls were dark and the sound of rain pattering on the windows echoed through the corridors. I was the first to arrive and then a few minutes later, Joselito came in, beaming. He mentioned that this trip to Shiga was a welcome break from writing his dissertation. Although he only wore a white shirt and jeans, Joselito spoke polysyllabic sociological terms in rapid succession with a glee that would excite even a bystander who doesn’t know anything about the human sciences. After several minutes, Professor Tsuruga arrived, wearing his unofficial uniform—a green fishing vest outfitted with numerous pockets in the front. If one does not know him to be the best Filipinologist in Japan and a master of Tagalog, one would think he’s just your typical grandfather who is always on his way to a fishing trip somewhere. There are many unorthodox things about Professor Tsuruga but what surprised me was that he walked like an Olympic race walker—a physical ability he says he gained by virtue of being born and raised in Tokyo. The denizens of Tokyo, apparently, gain speed-walking abilities because they are always rushing to get on the train on time. In Umeda, the professor kept outpacing Joselito and me by 50 meters while we rushed to meet the 10 a.m. JR special rapid express heading to Gifu. He’d stop every now and then to look stolidly at us while we tried to catch up with him and our breaths. Thankfully, we got to the train on time and we watched the gray and black city blocks give way to steep hills and grasslands punctuated with pine forests from rain-flecked windows. After 40 minutes, we arrived at Otsu station, several stops away from Kyoto. Professor Tsuruga breezed 96 M AY 2 0 1 7

through his album of calling cards and called the prosecutor who requested for his services as an interpreter. The lawyer said he would pick us up in 20 minutes and we used that break to eat bowls of chirashidon for lunch. True enough, the lawyer appeared 20 minutes on the dot in a black cab. Otsu is only 63 kilometers away from Osaka but it already felt provincial in its smallness and the way it accommodated itself with the mountains. Its roads tracked up and down heights and hillocks into narrower and narrower streets and alleyways in a bid to negotiate with the furrows and elevations of the landscape. Our driver navigated through small one-way streets bordered by traditional Japanese houses, and drove up hilly slopes where further houses were. Soon enough, we reached two-lane roads shouldered by mountains and hills. I have no doubt that these views have been the subject of thousands of woodblock prints since ancient times. The mountains appeared like they did in Sumi-e paintings, their outlines sleepily appearing across the rains and the mists, which floated above the trees like long strands of shredded rice paper. Some 20 minutes into our drive, the taxi stopped at a break in the greenery. There was a small guard house and a two-story house that looked like an affluent Japanese family would own. The professor told us to go down as we had arrived at Shiga Prison. I gaped because it was the first time I visited a prison that didn’t look anything like a prison. It looked more like a typical Japanese home fronted by a beautiful garden with a customary koi pond. I had the urge to enter the door, remove my shoes, wander into the kitchen, and pour myself a cup of cold barley tea, but stopped myself because I’d most likely see guards with gruff faces instead of a friendly grandmother. Joselito mentioned that the house serves as the facade of the prison complex; the architecture has been designed for anyone outside to not see the walled complex. Save for Professor Tsuruga, we were not allowed beyond the guard house and had to wait for him there. Aside from watching the paint peel and intimate the smells of cigarettes to the ghosts of the previous characters that found their way into that solitary room, Joselito and I talked about his research on illegal migrants and how easy it is to get items Filipinos find prestigious, like an iPhone, in Japan.

s I am now recalling the afternoon we spent in prison, wisps of what I learned at Professor Tsuruga’s legal translation class came to mind. The professor has been translating for Filipinos embroiled in legal issues in Japan since the late 1980s. He taught Sociology primarily, but his work as a translator for Filipinos spanning two decades gave birth to his teaching a legal translation subject in Osaka University. He invited me to one of his classes—an experience which allowed me to understand a little more about his craft and the procedures surrounding the process of translating for the plaintiff or the suspect. The day I visited the class, he asked his students to role-play the translation process using different scenarios. What gave the class an air of grit and legitimacy was the presence of three detectives whom the professor invited to talk about their experiences with foreigners suspected of crimes. I played a shoplifting suspect in one scenario and the one playing the translator used the words “Watashi-tachi,” which means “us.” The police officer immediately advised her to not

use this word. According to the detective, the investigating officer, the suspect or complainant, and the translator must work as a team. This revelation gave me the impression that questioning, as practiced there, is an inclusive process which unites the policeman, the translator, and the suspect in untangling the truth—a far cry from how questioning is portrayed in the police procedurals on TV. The role playing activity involved six scenarios featuring various crimes, which according to the professor, are ones that migrants are commonly accused of or are found commonly committing. During the lecture, a student helped me by translating for me and writing down the Kanji and the meaning of the words written on the board.

Four policemen escorted her into the courtroom. She was bound with a thick blue rope around her waist, her arms and hands cuffed at the back. Aghast at seeing the condition of a fellow Filipino, Joselito muttered “Putangina” under his breath.

1. ഇ⿦⤖፧ (Gisou Kekkon). Roughly translated as Camouflage or False (ഇ ⿦/Gisou) Marriage (⤖፧/Kekkon). This is when somebody marries a Japanese national or Nihonjin for the purpose of acquiring the Spouse of Japanese National Visa to be able to stay in the country longer. Marriages of this nature only last until the documents are processed. One story I heard about Gisou Kekkon is that the prospective partner must pay around ¥200,000 or around P100,000 per month. 2. ኱㯞ᡤᣢ (Taima Shoji). Tai is the Japanese word for “hemp,” if I understand correctly, but the second character (㯞/Ma) implies a medicinal property or drug use. The next two characters are for Shoji (ᡤᣢ), which means “in possession or possessing something.” Although it specifically means “in possession of marijuana,” it can also be used to mean other recreational drugs as well. 3. ୓ᘬࡁ (Man Biki). The first character (୓/Man) usually means “ten thousand” but can also mean “many.” The second symbol is for “lift” or “lifting.” If one takes the symbols together literally, the crime of shoplifting can mean “stealing ten thousand.” Depending on what is stolen, shoplifting is usually considered a petty theft; the inscription of the crime in Kanji, however, gives it a sense of exaggerated gravity. A shoplifter who can steal ten thousand things must have a wormhole in his pocket to fit that many. 4. ㈙᫓Ḽ᭷ (Baishun Kanyuu). The first two characters for Baishun denote “getting or paying for the services of a prostitute” while the character for Kan means “pleasure.” I’m not sure about the last Kanji for Yu but the person translating for me at the class worded Yu as “invitation” or “temptation.” The only character I found that would fit this context is ᭷, which means “possession 97

or limited company.” Kanji characters can also be read differently and Joselito says that another reading of these characters literally means “girl selling Spring,” as in the season. 5. ࡦࡗࡓࡃࡾ (Hittakuri). According to my translator, Hitta means “small” and Kuri means “to rob.” Hittakuri means small robbery and this is used to categorize purse snatching. I believe there are Kanji for hitta and kuri but only the hiragana is used when referring to the crime. 6. ㈨᱁እάື (Shikaku-gai Katsudo). The first two characters for Shikaku mean “qualifications or capabilities.” እ (gai) means “outside of” or “not covered by.” Katsudo, the last two characters, mean “activity” or “work.” Shikaku-gai Katsudo means working outside of one’s qualifications or capability. This usually involves working without a permit, like a person giving medical treatment even if he is not a licensed doctor. In the context of foreigners, this means working without the proper visa. If one only has a student visa, for example, one cannot work without having the proper permit called እᅜேⓏ㘓ド᫂᭩ (Gaikokujin Touroku Shoumei-sho).

t around 3 p.m., Professor Tsuruga came out of the prison with the lawyer. All four of us rode on the same taxi again into the Otsu municipal trial court. We went up the second floor and into one of the courtrooms. The courtroom reminded me of one of the small theaters in the Cultural Center of the Philippines. There were three rows of pastel green chairs that looked like and offered the same comfort of ones found in movie houses. Of course, beyond the wooden fence, one could find the usual features of a court—the highest seat for the judge, a partition for the clerk and the translator, two tables on the left and right for the prosecution and the defense, respectively. Suspects and witnesses need to use the rostrum facing this judicial body. As the proceedings began, a person from the court announced the case and that the defendant was a Filipina slapped with use and possession of stimulant drugs, specifically deoxyephedrine, which is known in the Philippines as shabu. Four policemen escorted her into the courtroom. She was bound with a thick blue rope around her waist, her arms and hands cuffed at the back. Aghast at seeing the condition of a fellow Filipino, Joselito muttered “Putangina” under his breath. The court went in session for at least an hour and a half, reviewing the evidence submitted by the inspecting team. The police obtained a warrant to search the accused’s home and asked to go through the premises around the wee hours of May 29, 2012. According to the arresting officers, the accused gave herself up without struggle and that they found three bags, each containing .001 grams of stimulants in her bathroom. During questioning, they found another bag in her wallet along with an already empty container, so a drug use charge was added along with the possession. It was also at this time that the accused mentioned an acquaintance from Nagoya who taught her how to use the substance and sold her drugs at a party around December 2011. Since then, she’s been using shabu to keep awake. She claimed that she only used the drugs because of the stress she encountered as a caregiver in the local hospital, and to keep her energy levels high for her second job in a konbini, a convenience store, in a gasoline station which she manned from 9pm to 3am.

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Aside from work, she also tends to the needs of two daughters who are nine and 13, and wakes up around 7am to prepare their packed lunches. As the trial commenced, I started imagining the life of the defendant. She used the drugs to boost her productivity. She had to be awake more to earn more. The defendant mentioned that she was only getting ¥120,000 a month from her day job. To further contextualize what her standard of living must be like, I tried creating an estimate of monthly costs in Japan based on the average prices I saw in groceries and convenience stores and of my own expenses: MONTHLY RENT For a Small-to-MediumSized Apartment*: ¥30, 000 to ¥70,000 UTILITIES Electricity: ¥4,000; Water: ¥2,000; Gas: ¥4,000 MOBILE PHONE ¥4,000 to ¥8,000, depending on the plan INTERNET ¥4,000 FOOD** Convenience Store Bento: ¥298 to ¥540 per meal; Beverages: ¥105 to ¥300 (per liter of nonalcoholic drinks, alcohol is quite expensive here) GROCERY Per 100 grams of pork (adobo cut): ¥70 to ¥80; A 300 to 400 gram pack of fish: ¥600 to ¥ 700; 5 kilo bag of rice: ¥3,600; Vegetables: ¥100 to ¥200; Fruits: ¥100 to ¥600 *The accused has to take care of two kids. **If a person goes to restaurants or convenience stores for his meals instead of cooking, monthly food consumption could reach ¥30,000 to ¥45,000 to eat three meals a day. TRANSPORTATION Trains: ¥80 to ¥210 for the first three stations (It really depends on the operator. Private firms like Hankyu, for example, offer cheaper fares than the ones owned by the government. This estimate covers travel inside one’s city or prefecture only); Bus: ¥210 to ¥250; Taxi: ¥564, flag down, ¥100 after the first three kilometers

Looking at these figures other considerations came into focus. During my flight to Japan, a Japanese gentleman seated beside me, a member of the Diet, mentioned that the average salary of a fresh graduate is around ¥165,000. Since he is a politician, his estimate must be accurate. If this is what Japanese fresh graduates get, why was the accused only getting ¥120,000 a month? Is it because she’s doing blue-collar work? She has lived in Japan for more than 10 years so it is possible that it is just that. According to some stories I heard, Japanese graduates vie for the white-collar jobs at big, wellknown companies, hence the discrepancy between the white- and blue-collar jobs. What is interesting is the accused mentioned that she was a caregiver and not an assistant. Looking at the figures and tallying the possibilities, I can only imagine how the accused’s family lived from month to month. I believed then that three people couldn’t even scrape the bottom of the barrel if they relied on ¥120,000 for a month. Yet there are also incidental expenses that can shock their meager budget. Athletic uniforms and bags, for example, can cost ¥100,000. In the Philippines, one can literally clothe an entire barangay league with that amount, and still have some left over for each team’s water boy. In Japan, it appears you have to make a killing if you want your family to go on living. The flow of my economic excursion behind the crime was cut when the prosecutor stopped reading the report. The defense cross-examined and directed the testimony of the accused. Unfortunately, I was not able to understand the dialogue of the accused or her attorney, a rather tall and svelte lady in her 40s who wore a white business dress and shoes for the occasion.

Questioning, as practiced there, is an inclusive process which unites the policeman, the translator and the suspect in untangling the truth — a far cry from how questioning is portrayed in the police procedurals on TV.

I went out for some time during the course of the session as I got dizzy from the perfume of the accused’s boifurendo; a veritable mushroom cloud of Drakkar Noir seemingly ate up all the oxygen in the room. It didn’t help that the court set its air-conditioning to mild in abeyance to government policy to save electricity as the country pondered what to do with its nuclear reactors post 3-11. When I came back, Joselito described how the defense questioned the litigant in such a way that she was able to express the gravity of her hardships. The attorney fought back her own tears when she uttered the words kodomo or child. She also asked her client how regretful she was for what she did, to which the accused replied that her regret is “as big as the world.” We believed that the Filipina hit the jackpot in terms of her lawyer, who showed immense amount of sympathy for her client. Other lawyers might have just thrown her under the bus. We were not sure if gender played a role in the politics of the courtroom but being a woman gave the defendant an edge in getting the sympathy of the judge. The accused was also fortunate with her prosecutor, who was from the Japanese version of the Drug Enforcement Administration. In the end, the prosecutor recommended a prison term of a year and a half to three years, with the application of the suspension of the sentence if the suspect does not repeat her offense. The judge agreed with the recommendation of the prosecution: suspension of the sentence for three years and the commutation of the sentence to no jail time if the accused does not repeat the offense. The police escort removed the rope and the cuffs from the suspect, and her boyfriend took her out of the courtroom.

rofessor Tsuruga broke down the reason for the verdict: 1. First-time offender. 2. Breadwinner of two children. As we walked out of the courthouse, Joselito asked out loud about how the police could have found out about the Filipina’s substance abuse. The professor replied that someone may have tipped them off but the police will never reveal their sources of information even in official reports. Aside from economic hardships, the high standards of living, and the drive for increased work productivity, strict community standards and closeknit neighborhood networks were also involved in the case. A friend of mine, whom I will call Dr. H, told me about her observations and experiences as an expatriate living in Kyoto for more than 10 years. Dr.

H mentioned that Japanese communities have very strong social surveillance networks. One time, she explained by way of an anecdote, three housewives murdered the husband of one of the wives, chopped his body up, and decided to spread his parts in dumpsters in far-flung neighborhoods. The three women were eventually caught when one of them was questioned by a resident of the community, who wanted to know who she was and why she was throwing her trash there. Thinking about this, I got the sense of the level of interiority, tradition, and habit that these communities have. A stranger or an outsider must really stick out like a sore thumb in terms of the continuum of the community’s life. I cannot also forget what Professor Tsuruga shared. He’s already been living and teaching in Osaka for more than 20 years, and yet he still considers himself an outsider. Even two decades is not enough to qualify one as a native or a member of the neighborhood. Professor Tsuruga is from Tokyo and hence, he is only separated from his neighbors by a degree of regionalism. What more if the newcomer is from another country? While Joselito and the professor continued analyzing the conduct of the trial, I saw the figures of the defendant and her boyfriend making their way out of the courthouse and into the side of the building. And then a woman’s cry—a wail that thundered her grief across the empty municipal parking lot. Although the Japanese judicial system, with its bent on restorative justice has shown her mercy that day, another set of laws carried out by a mass of faces was sure to convict her. She will probably have to move as the hospital may not accept her back. Her neighbors will always talk about her drug use. Her children, of course, will be subject to bullying. The blindfolded lady with the scales gives us an ideal and the law is sacrosanct because each statement in it must be weighed, measured, and hammered so its beneficiaries receive their due—even if the measurements are imperfect, because the idea of justice cannot be weighed as accurately as a pound of flesh. Outside of the law, society pursues its own idea of justice with teeth, fists, and guns. It happened in Japan. It is happening in the Philippines now. Only, it is society doing the judging first and the alleged criminals never receive the tender mercies of the courts. As we walked back to Otsu station, I looked at the horizon and saw the underbelly of the clouds rim with darkness. I looked for solace in the sunset. My gaze landed at the road: the shadows of the pines brimmed with stilettos.

No matter how far and wide you travel on this lonely planet of ours, it is almost certain you will run into a Filipino, particularly one who will cook you a ﬁne meal or mix you a stiff drink. With the global food revolution in full tilt boogie, and Filipino cuisine inching its way toward the center of the table, Jose Mari Ugarte interviews four Filipino chefs and a bartender from ﬁve different cities around the world, and gives us a savory taste of the broad extent of our cultural embrace PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOFFER ROSENFELDT COPENHAGEN ALEX MAELAND HONG KONG RYAN ARBILO PARIS MARC LILIUS LONDON J. DAGO SANTOS NEW YORK CITY

COPENHAGEN

BARTEND

GEOFFREY CANILAO

s the ﬁrst Filipino to open and tend a bar in northern Europe, Geoffrey Canilao has had his share of close encounters, like the night he was physically threatened by a talent agent who accused him of dating one of his Hollywood starlets, a regular of the bar who overindulged in Skinny Bitches, among other substances. “The prick told me to stop being a bad inﬂuence on her,” says Canilao, who wanted to punch his manicured face. Instead, he remained calm and replied, “Well, you’re going to have to tell that to one of the cocktail waitresses too, because she’s also dating her.” Another time, another actress regular who always started off with a Gin Martini, cold but dirty, and worked herself up to some form of exotic Rum-Tiki-style drinks later in the night, came by with her boyfriend a day or two before Christmas. “On Christmas Day,” says Canilao, “I was woken up by a seven o’clock in the morning phone call from a guy claiming to be a famous football player from one of the big English Premier League Teams. He was accusing me of sleeping with his girlfriend!” After a

few minutes of threats and jealous rambles, he realized he was talking to his actress friend’s boyfriend in the middle of a jealous rage. “Hey, bro,” he told the caller, “she’s just a good friend, nothing ever happened, and you just woke me up accusing me of this while my wife is sleeping next to me—plus, it’s fucking Christmas!” What’s the best bar you’ve ever gotten drunk in? “When push comes to shove, I have to say Employees Only in New York City, because besides the well-executed cocktails, this is my bar family and going back to it always feels like coming home to your favorite aunt and uncle. Another favorite is the Artesian at the Langham Hotel in London. It is a great example of how to deliver great service and create a wonderful atmosphere through hospitality, and at the same time remain a forward-thinking bar that not only inspired me, but inspired the whole industry to think creatively about cocktails.” It’s your Death Row Drink, what’ll you have? “Natural wine from Sebastien Riﬀault, Blood and Sand Cocktail, San Miguel Light with a hefty shot of Del Maguey Mezcal made with Jamon Iberico, Mizuwari with Nikka Taketsuru 21, a heavy pour of Port Mourant 1997, a Cohiba Cigar, and a super cold glass of water from a spring in Japan, or well water from our summerhouse in Denmark. I know it’s a lot, but if I’m about to die, I am drinking and eating fucking everything.”

PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHRISTOFFER ROSENFELDT AT BALDERDASH, HIS BAR IN COPENHAGEN, ON MARCH 14, 2017

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HONG KONG

rik Idos, owner and executive chef of CHINO in Hong Kong, was born and raised in Los Angeles after his parents and grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines. It was here that he not only learned from watching his family prepare traditional Filipino meals for special occasions, but was also majorly inﬂuenced by the authentic Mexican food culture of L.A. “There’s a place in L.A. called Tacos Leo,” he says, “that specializes in al pastor tacos, and it’s the best I’ve had. It’s located in a parking lot next to a gas station, and only serves a small selection of tacos. The later into the evening it gets, the busier it becomes.” After graduating from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Idos decided to take a chance and move to New York City. There, he was offered ff a position as a line cook in Nobu 57 where he apprenticed under celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa. “Nobu taught me a lot about simplicity and not to make things too complicated. But working with him, doing over 500 covers, and then going out to drink after service every night, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life—until I opened my own restaurant.” Combining his past and present culinary passions, CHINO is a modern Mexican-inspired neighborhood restaurant that is focused on producing fresh and creative food and drinks.

PPRENT

It’s your Death Row Meal, what can I get you? “An In-N-Out Double Double with grilled onions and fries. Every time I arrive in L.A., I go directly from the airport to In-N-Out. Something I grew up eating and crave for when I’m back home.” What was the last great meal you had outside of your own restaurant? “Cosme in New York. Every aspect of dining, from service, food, and drinks, to overall experience was good. Food was innovative and service was very personable. The Mexican Mole was memorable, one of the best I’ve ever had. Another place is NoMad—the Whole Roasted Truﬄe Chicken is worth all the hype.”

H PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALEX MAELAND AT IDOS ’ HONG KONG RESTAURANT CHINO DURING ITS FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN 2015

PARIS

“T

he craziest kitchen I ever worked in,” says Quina Lon, pastry chef and proprietor of Muscovado, on rue Sedaine, in the Bastille neighborhood of Paris, “was the ﬁrst real kitchen job I had in one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in London. Almost everyone there was on cocaine and the sous chef was sometimes high while running service on the pass. I remember asking a colleague if she ate a lot during her days off, and she replied, ‘No, not really—I just snort coke.’” The innocent-looking chef, whose tattoo you can’t see in this portrait, earned her street cred in some heavy-hitting kitchens, including time spent in Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner, where she got a good glimpse of the molecular gastronomist’s world by being there since its opening. “The most important lessons I learned were consistency and discipline. There were

times he would pop in, like a very curious man, bite off a pineapple leaf to see if it could be used for something, then spit it out.” After five years and three high-profile restaurant openings in London, Lon moved to Paris to open Muscovado with her sister Francine. It’s your Death Row Meal, what can I get you? “Lechon, roasted to perfection with tanglad and kaffir limes stuffed inside, served with the richest and tangiest chicken liver sauce, pako salad with salted duck egg and tomatoes, as well as garlic rice. For dessert, I will have sylvanas and mangoes from my mum’s garden, and pineapples with plum salt.” What was the last great meal you had outside your own restaurant? “I was lucky enough to have been taken by my boyfriend to Nahm, in Bangkok, for Christmas. He used to work at Nahm in London, so we got shown around the kitchen by David Thompson himself. He also sat with us for a cocktail before our feast, and gave tips on where to eat. They didn’t let us order and just sent us food; it was epic. We went back for lunch a few hours before flying out.”

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RYAN ARBILO AT MUSCOVADO, HER RESTAURANT IN PARIS, ON MARCH 10, 2017

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LONDON

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PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARC LILIUS AT ROMULO CAFÉ IN LONDON ON MARCH 20, 2017

hile working as a chef at the Tanner Brothers’ Kentish Hare, Lorenzo Maderas always entertained the idea of opening a Filipino restaurant in London named after his father Romulo. As fate would have it, Rowena Romulo, granddaughter of the late statesman Carlos P. Romulo, contacted Maderas and asked if he was interested in running the kitchen of the ﬁrst Romulo Café in Europe. “It seemed meant to be,” says Maderas. “And now I feel very much a part of the business. I have the freedom to be creative and provide my own input to the beloved Romulo family recipes.” One of his most popular dishes is his interpretation of the classic sisig, where the ﬂavors of pork and apple are carefully balanced, as well as an adobo that’s cooked with kamote to give it color.

THE MOD E

RN TRADI

LORENZO MADERAS

What was Carlos P. Romulo’s favorite restaurant in Manila? “The Prince Albert Rotisserie in the Hotel InterContinental, which closed last year. Its private room was named after him.” What was your craziest Kitchen Conﬁdential experience in all your years in the food business? “I was there when a chef dropped his knife on himself. There was blood everywhere and I was scared as I had never seen that much blood before in my life. We called an ambulance and had to wait a while for it to arrive, but he did recover and about a week later he was back in the kitchen.” What was the last great meal you had outside your own restaurant? “Grilled chicken liver at Eat Tokyo in Notting Hill Gate. It reminded me of street food in the Philippines when I was growing up.” It’s your Death Row Meal, what’ll you have? “A Wagyu burger in pan de sal, with blue cheese and Tabasco sauce. And an Oreo milkshake.”

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LIST

PHOTOGRAPHED BY J. DAGO SANTOS AT THEIR BROOKLYN RESTAURANT, PURPLE YAM, ON FEBRUARY 13, 2017

left-leaning student councilor at the University of the Philippines, Amy Besa left Manila as soon as habeas corpus was suspended, and became a full-fledged activist fighting against martial law in the Philippines and for immigrant rights in the U.S. Then she met her husband, Chef Romy Dorotan, and the two embarked on a 21-year adventure through the world of cuisine, preparing food for movie stars and models in SoHo, while always keeping a non-invasive attitude. Soon, they swept New Yorkers off their feet with an impressive modern Filipino menu that attracted Hollywood big shots like film producer Joel Silver, who loved their halo-halo and even brought Mel Gibson in to try it. “We were trying to do crazy stuff like set up an old Filipino ice grinder on the bar,” says Besa, “but the block of ice would fly out of the contraption every time we would try it out, and Joel would say, “What the fuck are you guys doing?” Influenced by the wisdom of British food writers Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David, and Alan Davidson, Besa and Dorotan studied the origins of ingredients, why they tasted a certain way, and what determined how people used them. “We were not into recipes but rather into logic,” says Dorotan. “If you read their books, most of the recipes are discussions of methods and why they were done a certain way. Most don’t have measurements and some are short paragraphs. They leave a lot to the imagination and to one’s curiosity and creativity.” Finding his voice at Hubert’s, the first restaurant in the city to do what Alice Waters was doing in Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Dorotan uses all organic ingredients in his dishes made entirely from scratch. The couple’s cookbook, Memories of Philippine Kitchens, won the Jane Grigson Award for Distinction in Scholarship and the quality of writing by the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 2007. “It’s truly an award of its own kind because all the judges vote on it, and they only give it if they feel there is a book that deserves it.” What’s your cooking and eating philosophy? “We approach food first by looking for what grows in the environment wherever we may be. We don’t discriminate. When we are in New York City, we immerse ourselves in several green markets and get to know farmers and suppliers of great produce, grains, herbs, fruits, etc. Then we create dishes and meals out of them. We still feel that we cook Filipino-American meals in our restaurants because it is our palate that determines what comes out of our kitchen, and ours is a Filipino and an American palate combined.”

NEW YORK CITY T H

VETERA

AMY BESA & ROMY DOROTAN

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109

In the great azure wilderness, tim s ery . t w by catching an apparition of the a f whale. Deep sea photographer a d e r hunts for the largest animal on Eaar h n e oce s f

s e ,

MAR 22ND, 12:50 PM KAY

MAR 30TH, 2:19 PM ROHAN

Scott, I’ve double checked that your airport transfer has been arranged - all good. There will be a card kept waiting for you at front desk; rm 2408. Will prob be asleep by that time, so just let yourself in Kay, what time is tomorrow’s pickup? Sleep naked pls I will let myself in Lol MAR 30TH, 3:28 PM ROHAN

And so begins another adventure in search of tail—sperm whale tails, to be exact, and hopefully the elusive blue whale, the largest animal on Earth. First, a quick stopover in Singapore, where I pick up The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World’s Most Mysterious Air Disasters at the bookshop. I’m a bit obsessed with airplane disasters, and I’m also partially afraid of ﬂying. Why do I do this to myself? Why are they even selling this book at the Changi Airport? The ﬂight leaves on time but every bump along the way I’m convinced the plane is about to crash. That’s it for the book, I’m not picking it up again until I get back to Manila. I arrive in Colombo, Sri Lanka, past midnight and all goes well. The driver is there to take me on the 45-minute journey to the city where my hotel is, and I do let myself in.

112 M AY 2 0 1 7

BENEATH STILL WATERS

Gutsy Tuason’s search for the blue whale begins at a secret location (opposite) in Sri Lanka. Previous spread: Gutsy’s roommate Rohan gets up close and personal with a friendly sperm whale. Growing up to 60 feet in length, the sperm whale is a shy animal, making close encounters such as these few and fleeting.

Day 02

It’s a good thing I didn’t buy a book about car crashes, because the driver that took us on the seven-hour van ride to our secret location for whales is an absolute madman. The highlight (if you want to call it that) has to be when he overtakes a car—only to ﬁnd a bus coming from the opposite direction, overtaking as well; we end up splitting the two-lane road three ways, with us in the middle. Finally at our destination, I kiss the ground and quickly dig into a Lion beer and discuss the plan of attack for the next seven days. Which pretty much goes down like this: get on a boat, search a 50-kilometer square patch of ocean, and return before dark. Easy.

Day 03

It can’t be this easy. Our naturalist guide Gayan ﬁnds us a family of whales after only two hours of searching, and from here on, it’s non-stop jumping in and out of the water. We had single whales, doubles, triples, and at the end of

the day we had a pod of ﬁve whales. My only regret was that we should have extended instead of heading back at 2:30 p.m., as not to go over our six-hour time limit. I should know better—when the action is hot, stay with it. You don’t just leave ﬁve frolicking whales in the water with plenty of sunlight to head back to base for an early happy hour with some Jameson Bold.

Day 04

Now this is more like it. Shy whales everywhere and a whole lot of jumping in the water, only for them to dive down the moment they sniff you out. And of course, this is the day we extend for four hours only to come back with a handful of so-so images. The sperm whales are proving to be a handful. Most of them are super skittish and unless you are a champion free-diver, like the Chinese woman in our group, and not a full-on vaper like myself, it’s not easy to get that head-on photo that I’m looking for. (But I do get a money shot of a sperm whale poo-nado.) After 10 hours out at

sea there is a consolation prize—a magniﬁcent pod of 50 Risso’s dolphins, but the moment I get in the water, they start to disperse like children out of a schoolyard as the bell rings. It’s night by the time we get back; time for a quick drink and to dig into one of the many curries that are served at the resort every evening.

Day 05

It’s time to take a chance on the blue whale, which according to Gayan, should be at a different location from the sperm whales, so even though the sperm whales are out, we choose to search an area devoid of them. And with no luck, we head back early, but we do see some sperm whales on the way back. The water, however, is greenish in color and we decide to be spoiled brats and not jump in. Since I get back early, I go with Captain Morgan to check out the ﬁshing village where he lives. It’s situated in a small inlet and was spared the full brunt of the 2004 tsunami, which devastated other parts of Sri Lanka.

113

We have no chh . o some of it just blindlly oviin arounn , but m ly v i in a c rtaiin u li oa t at ke s

The sight of local fishermen on the shore sorting their catch is a ritual witnessed every morning before setting out in small boats to spot spouts and ripples in the ocean, signs that a whale may be in the area.

INTO THE BLUE

d ing .

A sperm whale in the midst of communicating that “you don’t want to follow me.”

EVASIVE MANEUVERS

I should know better—when the action is hot, stay with it. You don’t just leave five frolicking whales in the water with plenty of sunlight to head back to base for an early happy hour with some Jameson Bold.

Day 06

Back to the sperm whale grind. After pretty much nothing yesterday, we were in need of our sperm whale ﬁx again and, boy, do we get it early in the morning with a pod of seven sleeping whales. It is such a treat to see them not moving and admire all the intricacies of their huge bodies. It doesn’t take long for them to wake up and realize there are humans creeping on them while they sleep, and in a lazy but hurried daze, they move away. I’m able to work this pod for a couple more jumps, as they grow increasingly more active and alert with every passing jump. I do manage to get quite close to one of them on the last jump, before it makes a slow and controlled dive. The conditions are just perfect— gin-clear water, the sun out, and not a ripple in the sea. It’s going to be hard to beat this with no extensions today. We head back to base camp on time for early happy hour, high ﬁves, and Jameson Bold.

Day 07

After that epic day with the sperm whales, we are back on the hunt for the Blue, which

CHANCE SIGHTING

Growing up to 90 feet in length, the blue whale is the largest animal on earth. It is also one of the most difficult to capture on film.

leads to nothing, except for sunstroke and a massive pod of Spinner dolphins that are too shy for us to get in the water with, so I have to be happy with so-so topside shots taken with my ﬁsheye. Actually, we got spoiled again by the previous day, and don’t really try that hard with the few sperm whales that were loitering around as we get back from the hunt for the Blues. It’s sort of a “grass is greener on the other side” mentality when there are options for two types of whales to shoot. I really need to be content with what is around at the moment, and that seems to be sperm whales. We call it a day at a decent hour and formulate a game plan for Day Eight, which we decide is going to be D-Day.

Day 08

It’s do or die for the Blue (okay, it’s not that dramatic in the whole scheme of things) but for the purposes of this trip, pretty close. We have no choice but to try for the Blues again. We cover close to 50 kilometers, some of it in a pattern and some of it just blindly roving around, but mostly avoiding a certain unlicensed boat that keeps shadowing us. We

have a highly respected guide on our boat, and if there aren’t many whales around, the other boats tend to put a tail on him. This sucks, because once a whale is spotted, it becomes a free-for-all, without any courtesy extended to the “ﬁnder” of the whale. Well, we don’t have to worry about that happening today, because there seems to be a dry spell at the moment, with the Sperms seemingly vanishing into thin air.

Day 09

Yesterday’s happy hour story about commitment, hope, and perseverance seems to motivate the team, despite there being no whales around of any sort. We have only one option, and that is to search far and wide for any signs of spouts. The first half of the day has us on the edge of our seats, until Gayan gets a call from another boat that there was a blue whale in the area and it was about an hour away. We race over to the area and it was indeed a confirmed sighting, but finding the blue whale was one thing; next was actually getting in the water with it and then, getting close enough underwater to be able to come

back with a decent image. And we have to contend with seven other boats in the process. With blue whales, timing is everything, from literally waiting for their breath hold to being close enough when they pop back up to get a jump in the water. We have three attempts—the first jump gets me fairly close, not the dream shot I had in my mind but good enough to see the animal in its full form. The second one I do not even see the whale, and the third, by the time I get to it, was just all tail. And just like that, it disappears into the deep blue wilderness. We try to track it one more time, but the sea kicks up and it’s hard to spot spouts in the waves. But before heading back, a fishing boat catching tunas caught our attention. The boatmen do not allow me to get close to them for fear of scaring off the fish, but while floating in open water a squadron of devil rays makes a close flyby. This reminds me of why I look out to the sea—it’s not for the things I’m supposed to see, but for the unexpected surprises that show up and tell me to jump right back in. 117

ISSUE 109

SHOPLIST Where to buy the products featured in this issue

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right in the middle of things. eh_Ã&#x203A;\b^efZgbeZ'\hf

ISSUE 109 ARS

GOIN

May 2017

In celebration of Rogue’s 10th year, we revisit our past issues to bring back previously featured personalities, this time as Famous Rogues. Jose Antonio Gonzalez was first featured in our December 2009-January 2010 Year-ender Issue.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez, businessman

is name was Speedy—or so one would think. Jose Antonio Gonzalez graduated high school at the age of 14, zipped through college in Indiana, and jumpstarted a serious sales career right before opportunity came quick on his heels. On a high-speed flight from Tokyo to Taipei, he met American businessmen who made him the king of his very own Mondragon Industries. As secretary of the Department of Tourism under President Cory Aquino, Gonzalez reeled in millions of tourists and built the beginnings of the Philippine Riviera in Batangas. But he would resign in the aftershocks of scandal—seen with his mistress setting sail on his yacht to his private beach in Bataan and flying everywhere from Buenos Aires, London, to New York. Upon his return, he would lay everything on the line to revive Clark, transforming a former American military base into Mimosa, the most glamorous golf and gambling paradise this country has ever seen. But in true Speedy fashion, his fall was as hard and as fast as his rise; after a year, Mimosa crumbled under the weight of public battles and heavy debt. In the aftermath, Gonzalez would slow down, rebuild his bonds with family— and find himself finally at home.

“People thought I was crazy—and maybe I was.”