Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Thursday morning, we took the Cebu Pacific flight to Tagbilaran City. The Cebu Pacific website’s book and pay system was quite good also, making it very easy to book a flight and get the e-ticket. The website certainly is much faster than the Philippine Airlines website, and also seemed more straight-forward and easy to use.

Anyway, we decided to take Cebu Pacific because of the discounted fares and all their flights - domestic and international - now use the (not so) new Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. The new Terminal 3, which finally opened in July, was started during the Ramos administration in 1997 (remember, Pres Fidel Ramos, expert in dubious contracts). But since its construction in 1998, the operation of Terminal 3 was suspended because of numerous legal and technical controversies. The Supreme Court decided in 2004 that the contract of construction of the new terminal by Philippine International Air Terminal Co. with its German partner Fraport AG was onerous. The government paid US$20 million in legal fees in the arbritration process.

But did any big heads roll? Nope.

Anyway, I took a few photos of the interior of the (not so) new terminal, below.

At any rate, it is good to be in Bohol again. Trevor and I will be staying for 3 weeks and we both hope to soon decide on settling here permanently.

It is also very good to be able to meet our new friends in Baclayon again, too - Evelyn and her family. Their barangay just celebrated the fiesta of San Roque. I’ll be posting photos of the fiesta celebration here soon.

On our way home from the supermarket, I saw the construction work on the mall’s facade again. It was already nighttime and the workers were still high up the scaffolding. I took some photos below.

It’s really amazing work - if you’re afraid of heights and afraid of the dark, then you’re in real trouble!!!

The sight was particularly fascinating because of the shadows that the figures cast against the mall’s facade.

One time we saw a worker trying to get up the rope ladder - must be a newbie because he was really really struggling with it, and the damned ladder just kept on swinging!!

The other day we got some pancit from Savory and headed to my mom’s house for lunch with my brother’s kids. Then suddenly, we decided to go to Antipolo with my mom, hiring one of the fx taxis parked in front of the house. Finally! Trevor has been curious what it was like in Antipolo.

Anyway, the primary reason for going to Antipolo is to have a look at what’s happened to this small plot of land owned by the family in a fairly low-cost subdivision not very far from the church. Below is a photo taken by Trevor of me on that small plot overrun by grass, weeds, trees, some dog shit, and a bit of garbage.

The place is actually quite pleasant, with a nice view across Sumulong Hi-way, but of course, not a match for what we’ve seen in Bohol!

Then we visited the church (now Antipolo Cathedral), and then decided to go to Hinulugang Taktak. I can’t remember when I last visited there, must’ve been over twenty-five years ago. The place is now very much developed, but the falls is still quite impressive. I took a photo below.

And here is the declared national historical shrine’s park development plan.

As we didn’t plan on staying long that afternoon, we didn’t enter the park, but we could see that it has numerous picnic areas and there is a large swimming pool right across the water falls. Such a kind of development style actually reminded me a bit of Lake Geronde in Switzerland, which also had this (smaller) swimming pool right next to the lake.

On the way home, Trevor wanted to take a photo of the Our Lady of Fatima University. Here is a photo of the building.

And here is a photo of the name of the university - with Edward and myself.

On the way home, we also passed by the new SM mall in Marikina - again, sporting that horrific box architectural design by SM - but this one was slightly different, like it was on concrete stilts because it was built just by the Marikina riverside.

It was overall a very pleasant trip, a bit spontaneous, but my mom enjoyed it - and so did Trevor. At least, finally, he got to see the place.

Now, we’re preparing for the second sojourn to Bohol!

Got woken up early today - my birthday - by phone call from my mom.

A very good lunch together - with Trevor and my mom (and Edward and Maria too, of course). Trevor was so surprised to see how my mom’s eyes lit up when the taho desert she ordered arrived.

The other night, Trevor and I went out for a walk and suddenly this little black kitten came up behind me. It was so cute, and it wouldn’t go away. We tried walking off but it followed and meowed. It was so friendly and so cuddly and it reminded me of the poor little deformed lovey kitten kitten that Trevor and I picked up just a day before we flew to Singapore. We wondered if this lively little black kitten was its sibling.

July 22, we did decide to put the little deformed kitten in a warm towel and inside a shoe box with some food, and placed it under the stairs outside our apartment where we saw this black and white cat which I was sure was its mother. The following morning on our way off to the airport, the shoe box was gone - obviously cleaned out by the maintenance people who come everyday in the early morning to clean and pick up everybody’s garbage.

So we never really knew whether that little deformed kitten died, lived, or was found by its mother.

Then suddenly - again - we started hearing this little meowing late last night. It seemed to be coming from our neighbor’s shed downstairs, the same shed where we found little deformed kitty. So in the morning, I texted our neighbor asking to check their shed if they find any kitten or hear anything.

I kept hearing the faint sound so I always looked out our window to see if the mother or a kitten was around. Then all of a sudden, there I saw the black and white cat out in our neighbor’s backyard with the kitten in its mouth. Trevor and I immediately went down and asked our neighbor if we could see the cat and the kitten.

Our neighbor explained that she found the kitten in the shed, exactly in the same place as before, and she sad that it was the same kitten. We were so shocked. She explained that the kitten had deformed legs and couldn’t walk.

We went to the backyard and saw the cat - she was so friendly to Trevor, as if asking us to take her little deformed kitty. We saw the kitten and it looked in such a horrible state - it was all wet, wrinkled, and its backside was all sore with wounds and fluids oozing out of its genitals and its anus a bit bloody. It also smelled quite bad, it looked sch a hopeless case …

We took it to the apartment ad I cleaned it up and washed it with warm water, and then placed it in a dry towel and a hot water bottle to dry. The mother followed but she was too nervous to come into our apartment. Trevor decided to give the mother some food but it just got the food and took off.

So we were left with little deformed kitty again. Below is a photo of her.

She could move a bit, meow loudly every now and then, and sleep. When she woke up we tried feeding her. Her fur dried in a short while and she seemed alright, but it all looked really rather bad. Below is a photo of her with one of her deformed legs sticking out.

Then suddenly it dawned on me that the deformed kitten we got earlier had more black than white. I looked at the photo I took last July 22 and indeed - this was a different kitten! Trevor and I was so surprised! My god, I thought, how many deformed kittens did mother have?

Below is a photo of the first deformed kitten that we found. You can see her little white food sticking out from under her tail.

I began to accept the possibility that our first deformed kitten did not survive, and the possibility that this second deformed kitten won’t either. This second kitten was so much much worse with its wounds and its protruding backside indicating that it couldn’t poo or pee properly … It felt so horribly sad.

But after Little Kitty, I was more capable of taking these sad realities much easier now. Such is life, I thought. I remembered how precious and beautiful Little Kitty was, and how ugly and still beautiful these two deformed kittens were.

Second little deformed kitty died tonight, quite peacefully and at least on a warm dry mat…

I started wondering if the kittens were deformed because of some genetic anomaly or perhaps could be because of harmful chemicals in the environment absorbed by the mother or father. I looked it up on the internet and found that such deformities were not so rare! And many actually grow up to be normal cats if cared for by humans. In fact, it is possible that as the kittens grew their twisted legs straightened a bit or became more or less functional, or at least they learned to compensate.

As for stray cats, it could be impossible for such kittens to survive. Our second deformed kitty seemed really badly incontinent/constipated and the ulcerations on its backside and tail looked really bad… So it seems that bowel functions were also abnormal …

Anyway, I learned that the deformities could be genetic (Radial Hypoplasia or Twisty Cat Condition) or could be developmental, that is, the legs could have been cramped in the womb especially in the case of a very large litter, or deformed during very hard labor, or the kitten’s umbilical cord could’ve wrapped around the leg, constricting blood supply to the affected limbs.

I wonder if the mother cat was trying to get rid of her twisty kittens by dropping them in that shed? However, she did manage to nurse these kittens until they were fairly big, perhaps two months or so. It must’ve been s difficult for her …

At any rate, it seems that when detected early enough, twisty kittens can lead fairly normal lives. A good resource on the condition is Twisty Limbs in Kittens, showing that not all twisty cats need to be euthanized.

If that little black kitten that followed us is indeed a sibling of these twisty kittens, then it’s comforting to know that at least a kitten survived in the litter…

The main building of giant shopping mall SM City along North Ave-EDSA in Quezon City must be some 20 years old now, a building sporting that distinctive SM architectural design of the gray ridged facade found in old SM buildings in Cubao, Makati and Manila.

Recently, perhaps in celebration of its 50-year anniversary, SM City is getting a massive face lift, apart from constructions of new buildings and a huge condominium-golf complex nearby.

The face lift includes a re-design of that distinctive ridged facade.

Above, construction work on-going. Below, two photos taken in February 2007, showing the same building with the birds nestled inside the ridges of the building’s facade. (From http://www.korakora.org/wordpress/2007/02/24/a-bridge-in-the-sky/)

This made me think of the implications of such a re-design, especially upon the thousands and thousands of birds that flock to SM City and nestle inside the ridges beginning the months of September/October, and then leaving in the months of February/March.

Above, construction work on the other end of the building. Photo below taken in February 2007 showing the birds as they start to gather and find their places inside the building wall’s ridges by sunset. (From http://www.korakora.org/wordpress/2007/02/11/mall-birds/)

I suspect that the new design will be a smoother facade for the giant shopping mall. So I was wondering how the birds will cope when they all return in a few months to find that their “condominium” has been defaced.

If the construction work was done in September or October when the birds arrive, it could have been quite a disaster. One night in December, during one of those weekends when the mall has a fireworks display, the birds were so disturbed that they flew in panic around the building, flying frightening low barely above people’s heads.

Anyway, I will miss these birds. I was so looking forward to seeing them again late this year …

It is good to be back home after an 8-day stay in Singapore. This is my second time to visit Singapore but the only time that I have had more opportunity to roam around. The last time I was mostly working at the NIE gallery in NTU, located at the far end of Singapore (where I could hear the sounds of explosions from nearby military training!) and staying through the generosity of a friend’s friend from Sri Lanka, in one of many apartment blocks at Commonwealth Crescent.

Edward shows appreciation for art at the Singapore National Museum.

The arrival home must’ve been quite a surprise for Trevor, just as I always feel a slight “culture shock” whenever I come back to Manila from a stay in the countryside, the “culture shock” of coming from a very laid-back, quiet, gentle, clean environment into a hurried, polluted, threatening, alienated city.

Trevor gives Edward a drink during a brief rest from our roam-about-town, right along Manila Street.

The order, cleanliness and organization in Singapore, with touches of chaos in the smaller inner districts, presented us with heightened distinction of Manila’s chaos, disorder, pollution, and - for a westerner arriving from the airport - almost an uncomfortable non-communication with our cab driver. In Singapore, it was not difficult for Trevor to strike up a conversation with the cab river (it has been a bit more difficult for me, being Filipino, although almost all cab drivers in Singapore we’ve met always greet you when you open the door). In the Philippines, especially coming from the airport, most of discussion center on haggling for surcharges to the meter. But I should make clear that this is not always the case, as in one or two exceptions.

A very excited Edward finding nutmeg along the Spice Trail in Fort Canning.

As it turned out, we had to get out of the first cab we hailed from the airport who was bordering on “highway robbery”, asking for fare much higher than the airport taxi service. Coming from Zamboanga many years ago, I was too tired to argue with the cab driver who managed to rip me off a fare almost as expensive as the domestic flight to Mindanao!

Little India’s colorful architecture.

But there will be very difficult times ahead, it seems, for the working class in Singapore, according to our cab driver there, who was also not very happy about plans to build two large casinos in the country. While many Filipinos go overseas, including to Singapore, for greener pastures, our cab driver describes how Singaporeans go to US or Australia for the same economic reasons, but whose jobs have been taken over by cheap labor coming from countries like mine. Our cab driver said he would rather go to the Philippines or Malaysia. In fact, he has been to the Bicol region and recounts the pleasure of the relaxed life there.

The Sri Veerama-kaliaman temple, dedicated to the goddess Kali.

But such places are fast disappearing as the influences and claws of urbanism and “modern life” overtake the laid back cultures of many out-of-town communities. The developed city centres, in the meantime, are struggling for sustainability of their wasteful and unsustainable lifestyles.

The Sultan Mosque, and a high-rise building in the background.

I can feel for the urgency and desperation of our cab driver lamenting the casino projects. As much as Isrizal’s problem at the Urban Climate Camp. The presentations there were very good and varied, however, I was disappointed with the general attitude after the presentations, in particular, the non-response to Trevor’s challenge, which could have in fact been the opportunity to test the viability of the UCC process/gathering. Trevor’s challenge was simple - how can the UCC, at that very moment, address the very urgent problem presented by Isrizal, particularly the problem of the urban mindset threatening a small village ecology in Singapore? Indeed, as Drew remarked, “easy to ask but difficult to answer” which makes it very good test of the value, viability of and motivations behind holding such events/projects in the first place…

A lizard in Canning Park’s Spice Trail.

The (superficial) chaos we experienced in Little India was remarkable, reflecting very familiar experience of freedom in an unfamiliar place. When the temple dedicated to goddess Kali opened we immediately entered and witnessed again this organized chaos of food in trays being brought here and there, music playing, people offering and praying, one man almost jocularly chiding another for not praying hard enough! A truly familiar sermon in my own family! For me, Little India is a small-scale version of the chaos in Quiapo district here in Manila.

A grasshopper in Canning Park.

The visit to the Malay Heritage Centre was more disconcerting, a sad contrast to what I felt and saw in Little India - although the social life surrounding the Sultan mosque seemed alive, the Malay Heritage Center almost resembled the museumified heritage installations that numerous state institutions here in Manila have established, demolished and re-established over the decades. My experience in the Malay Heritage Centre re-calls of being in “life-stylized”, manicured and artificialized heritage in Intramuros, Manila, with the reality of urban poverty found in small pockets surrounding the fort.

A boat with a concrete mast, at the Malay Heritage Centre built in 2005.

The state can build heritage monuments and artificial villages, and private corporations can build cultural destinations and resorts, but it can only come alive if the people are politically, economically, ethnically and religiously free from restraints and oppression.

Some parts of Intramuros, Manila are actually livelier where poverty is recognized rather than ignored and covered by painted walls or advertising billboards. This recognition actually distributes wealth where there is scarcity - something that perhaps is taking place with the revival of the Pasig River ferry.

A tropical rainforest garden inside Changi Airport Terminal 2. I would’ve loved to see the cactus garden in Terminal 1. Maybe next time.

Overall, the visit to Singapore was very good, with frustrations every now and then with the official events, but much appreciation for the organized chaos of short panel presentations and parallel events at ISEA, rather than a well-orchestrated and ordered sequence of events.

There seemed a much greater feeling of freedom in the chaos, and then a sometimes comforting feeling of security in the order of the host country. Coming home, these feelings are heightened all the more.

Edward attends the cyberfemminists panel at ISEA2008.

I’ve managed a bit of rest, some shopping to re-stock our refrigerator, some cooking, writing and even some crocheting again. It’s good to be home - back to the pouring rain - and hopefully soon another visit to Bohol, then anticipating yet another post-Bohol syndrome on our return to Manila. I guess it’s a syndrome of being alive.