ANNAlysis

I’ve never been a fan of Halloween. Over the last 5 years, I’ve only been in Manila once, and thus only celebrated it once, when my friends and I went as crayons (and won the Best Group Costume Contest of Ponti!!!!!).

Photo from Mariel, Ponti, 2010

This year, some of the Global Shapers, Ike, and I headed to San Vicente, Palawan. Since Pie was elected Mayor, she has held “Scary Scary Night” in her municipality. Her stories about the costume contests, talent show, and horror booths have always been so funny, so we wanted to see it for ourselves. Little did we know that we would have to dress up and be judges for all three events.

L-R: Tabby, Pie, me, Ike, Eric (beach devil… Whut), Lynn, and Miguel. Photo from Pie’s mom, Tita Chona.

As you may have observed, Lynn, Pie, and I went as different versions of Greek goddesses. Pie was something like Cleopatra, I was something like Napoleon, and Lynn was something like Poseidon.

First was the Scary Booth Contest where the different local government departments (e.g., tourism, treasury, etc.) had to create horror booths that people could walk through. Lynn and I pretty much screamed our way through almost each one. You cannot believe how creative and competitive the local government officials were. A-game talaga. One booth pretended to hold kids in captivity, and no one likes the sound of wailing children. Another booth looked like they made a visit to the butcher earlier that day. The scariest one for me had people hiding in the dark and grabbing my limbs with or after holding ice, so the feeling was wet and cold. #career

Lynn woke up the next day with a sore throat from screeching.

Pie and Special Projects Head Edwin co-hosted the rest of the program: Scary Costume Contest and the Scary Talent Show. 9/10 groups did dance numbers. (A skit landed as the finale.) The dance groups were ALL amazing. This sounds so showbiz, but it was really hard to judge. We kept erasing and making changes in our score sheets. They were already SO GOOD without formal training and learning from TV, what more if we can get a few streetdance coaches there over the summer?

As an intermission, Pie hosted a pick-up line contest with the audience. I can only provide translations for one, SORRY! Here are our top picks:

Contestant 1: Mayor, punta tayo sa sementeryo.
Pie: Bakit?
Contestant 1: Dalawin natin yung puso kong patay na patay sa ‘yo.

***

Contestant 2: Aswang ka ba?
Pie: Bakit?
Contestant 2: Sa lahat ng laman loob ko, puso mo pa yung kinuha mo.

***

Contestant 3: Cactus ka ba? (Are you a cactus?)
Pie: Bakit? (Why?)
Contestant 3: Okay lang masaktan ako, basta mayakap kita. (It’s okay if I get hurt, as long as I get to embrace you.)

During the program, Lynn looks at me and says in all sincerity, “If I were Pie’s constituent, I’d love her.”

After Halloween, we spent the rest of the long weekend swimming, talking, drinking, and (over)eating. More sand, sun, and sea in the pristine San Vicente. We stayed in Capari Resort, away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, with its own quiet cove.

We had sulo-lit (translated as tiki torches, paradise version of candlelit) buffet dinners by the shore every night as we watched the moon rise from the hills. It was almost surreal to see the moon soar above the horizon. Lynn sighed and told Icy, Pie’s sister and co-owner of Capari, “I think this place is magical.”

And it is.

Photo from Lynn

Lynn, me, and Pie in long beach, the 14.7-km white sand coast. This surely beats the scenario below, where the three of us met in January of this year and bonded for life :)

Photo from me

All photos from Ike unless otherwise indicated

Sometime in July, I received an invitation to participate in MPIC’s Shore It Up, the company’s annual coastal cleanup. I’ve had different roles in coastal cleanups, from Program Head to Project Head to volunteer diver to speaker. Last year, I was a volunteer diver and gave a talk to Ateneo law students in Anilao. This time around, Lou and Ms. Melody of MPIC invited me to give a talk to the would-be Junior Environmental Scouts of Subic, 100 kids in 4th and 5th grade!

I’ve given a talk to 11 kids. 20 kids. But 100? I needed added support. Enter Lynn Pinugu, one of my best friends and greatest inspirations, aspiring environmentalist, and co-founder of Mano Amiga Academy, an international school that aims to bring quality education for all. We met a week before the event to finalize the program. Because Lynn and I have such good chemistry and teamwork, we finished the outline of our session in about 15 minutes.

Reciting the Junior Environmental Scout pledge on stage after the talk. Photo by Ike.

I started my talk by introducing Lynn as “kaibigan ko na mahilig sa mga hayop, tulad niyo!” (“my friend who likes animals like you”) SHUCKS!!! MISPLACED MODIFIER!!!!! FAIL.

In any case, it’s always a pleasure to interact with children. We learn so much from them, possibly more than they learn from us. When we asked them why the food chain was important, one 5th grader stood up and started discussing “autotrophs,” “primary consumers,” and “decomposers.”

My favorite was the answer to the question, “Ano ang coral?” (What are corals?) Student said, “Mga buto ng patay na isda!” (Bones of a dead fish). #confidence #whynot

We asked them to create posters to show how the community can take better care of the environment.

Photo by Ike

Photo by Ike

Photo by Ike

Lynn noticed that one student looked really stressed. When she asked why, he said in Filipino, “Because our slogan needs to rhyme!!!!” LOLOL. Cutie pie.

We told them to come up with names for their teams too. There was “Team Shark,” “Zero Waste Masters” (SO COOL, I only learned the term zero-waste when I was in 4th year college), and my favorite below, “Environment Friendly Friends.”

Close up:

I love the drawing of the breaching shark. I’ve never seen one.

That weekend was incredibly wet, but MPIC prepared well — there were raincoats for everyone and small buses for transportation to and from sites. That afternoon, the caballero tree planting pushed through! Fight kung fight! Here’s Ike looking like Rambo (okay, not really…) and Lynn looking like a Korean doll.

The MPIC core team did a great job organizing what could’ve been a logistical nightmare. They also partnered with the local communities to ensure sustainability of the projects. That’s my kind of cleanup–may monitoring and evaluation factor. Unfortunately, the artificial reef deployment and underwater cleanup didn’t push through because of the unfavorable weather conditions, but to my knowledge it will happen on another weekend. Too bad I won’t be there since I’m in Cebu for the next few months.

Until next year!

The title is a quote that I got from my friend and mudrakellz Chely. Whenever I catch myself about to complain (e.g., not having time to breathe, watch movies, sleep) I remind myself that it’s better to have a lot of work than none. I’m also blessed to be doing work I look forward to (most of the time). My friend asked me recently, “What are your hobbies?” I said, “Writing… Traveling… Scuba diving…” Then I paused and realized, “Oh wait. That’s my job!”

Fieldwork in San Vicente, Palawan for a climate change adaptation project. I went to work in a boat, so this is what a “rough” day in the office looked like.

Studying. Everyday I feel like my brain is a tabula rasa or a sponge. So much to learn and discover.

Scuba diving. The dive buddy and I found weird and gross things, like a 100-year-old tuna and a diaper at 96 feet below the surface.

Photos by Ike Dimacali

Project proposals. Like presenting in TESDA so we can come up with a marine ranger program. This aims to make scuba diving more accessible (read: cheaper) for coastal communities, so they can watch over their reefs. Co-convener: Jake Miranda.

Photo by Jake Miranda

Shark conservation. Additional fundraising efforts, campaigns, articles.

Photo from Thysz Estrada

For thresher sharks.

Photo by Jake Miranda

And for the whale sharks of Oslob.

Infographic by Save Philippine Seas and Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines. View larger file here.

Writing. For Lonely Planet Philippines, Rappler, Homegrown.ph, Illustrado, and other publications.

And legislation.

And on Sunday:

Busy is a blessing :)

I look forward to Septembers not only because it’s the start of Christmas season in the Philippines (yes, you read that right!) but also because it’s the time of the international coastal cleanup. This one- or two- day event, usually on the third weekend of September, gathers people from all over the world to go to coasts or under the sea to pick up trash.

“It’s one day. What difference will it make?” you might think. While there’s truth to that, out of the hundreds and thousands of people who go to this event, there might be a few whose lives will change. I took the leap from theatre to conservation because of an underwater cleanup in 2007. I talked a bit about this in the recently uploaded Breaking Glass interview on Rappler. Since then, I’ve organized two with the UP Marine Biological Society (UP MBS) and participated in a few more. This year, it looks like I’ll be in Subic for Shore It Up. Going every year is one way I ~give back~ to what got me here in the first place.

The UP MBS will be having theirs in Puerto Galera. UP MBS is working with Giordano for this, and they’ve contacted Save Philippine Seas for a bit of comms collaboration.

The result? An infographic about the Philippine waters :) Check out the bigger file here and feel free to share!

Where would you like to participate on September 15-16? You can find a list of events happening around the country here. Let the Scubasureros know too, by putting more information about your coastal clean up here.

About a month ago, I headed to Changwon, Korea with fellow Filipino Global Changemakers (GCM) Cris and Dwight for the 3rd East Asian Seas (EAS) Youth Forum which carried the theme Young Champions for the Oceans. (Keeping in with the Olympic spirit???) The forum gathered almost 100 youth delegates from 12 countries in East Asia.

Cris and I were able to attend the forum through the support of the GCM. Cris was in the 2011 Global Youth Summit in London, while Dwight and I were part of the 2011 Asia Youth Summit in India. It may have been my and Dwight’s first time to meet Cris in ~real life that day, but we clicked right away. Kulit niya in a good way. I don’t know where he gets his energy.

In this Forum, Cris and I were participants while Dwight was one of the organizers. We had our share of fun teambuilding activities c/o Dwightloves, like Advocacy Speed Dating and Knots (a.k.a. Dr. Quack Quack in Filipino).

Throughout the week, we attended workshops and lectures, and shared ideas and experiences with our peers. It was always a fight to stay awake because we didn’t have coffee breaks. Or coffee, period.

The country’s booth entitled “The Philippines: Land of Giant Crocodiles” at the EAS Forum Exhibit puzzled me. Lolong may be a saltwater crocodile, but it’s not exactly what thousands of divers come here for, yeah? Tubbataha, Verde Island Passage, anyone? I tweeted this reaction and someone replied, “Maybe they were referring to the crocodiles in Batasan.” Benta.

Ran into the beautiful-in-and-out Miss Earth (for real Miss Earth ha!) Ms. Cathy Untalan. This woman is incredible. The kind of person I want to be when I grow up. Height and waistline included. In the photo below, parang her waistline is my neck, noh?

Meron pa kaming “cultural activities” like basket weaving.

I must admit, I was kind of frustrated with the program because we couldn’t and didn’t discuss issues that really mattered (t0 me). For instance, we couldn’t discuss the Panatag Shoal issue. We didn’t have sessions where we learned about each country’s issues, projects, and solutions. I like geeky sessions like that because they help us become better, more effective advocates. I believe that international forums like these are opportunities to bridge the gap and form multi-lateral connections for world peace. #IThankYouBow #MissUniverse

The last day was a good way to punctuate the entire experience. We explored the GIGANTIC Yeosu World Expo. I went around with Dwight and Korean participants Jean (who has a voice for audiobooks) and Kalsey (my roommie! I adore her.).

The promdi in me couldn’t help but react.

We dropped by the Philippine booth and saw that our country’s mascot was a giant clam. While I understand the giant clam’s significance in marine biodiversity, our mascot was ah… uh…

What it looked on the inside:

Hi there Tita Chit!

That evening, we attended the closing ceremony. The ladies from the Philippine and Malaysian delegations:

And of course, what’s a trip to Korea without some K-Pop!!!!!

I went home the next day with a lot more questions than I started with, which is the way I like it anyway. So much room for learning, for growth, for exploration.

I want to go back to Korea and go around Seoul next time. But for now, no more international trips in the near horizon. The Philippine seas are calling. Poet W.H. Auden once wrote, “Thousands have lived without love. Not one without water.”

Lucky for me, I have both.

Most photos in this entry are from Dwight. Love you, crowd favorite.