ten ₱esos

President Arroyo flew from The Mansion in eastern Baguio City to peaceful Sagada in Mountain Province two days ago. This morning, Dominic and I left Tuding, bordering Baguio City, to ride a GL/Lizardo bus on Halsema Highway from Baguio City to Sagada. The journey lasts six hours (including two rest stops), as we don’t have a helicopter.  Our old bus suffered the separation of the retread on an inner rear tire, so the bus was sidelined for a while as the driver and conductor removed the outer wheel and tire, then the tangled-up, separated tread, then the tire that it had come off, then put on the spare tire. »→

Yesterday I walked from Vizco’s to, then up Mount Santo Tomas, Kubayao, Tuba, Benguet. I spent two hours, fifty minutes to reach the top, as I knew exactly how to get there, unlike the first time, and I wanted to arrive before nightfall. I saw the city lights this time, as darkness fell while I admired the view from the summit. I didn’t take a camera, though. »→

An Italian priest, Fr Paolo Padrini, has created the iBreviary application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s an digital version of the Office of Readings, the Liturgy of the Hours, Holy Mass scripture readings and common prayers that you’d find in a breviary. »→

When I went to Baguio City for Christmas eve Holy Mass celebrated by the bishop, I did not expect to hear heresy spouted from a lector/commentator before Mass when I wished to pray in peace.

“Sambuhay: A Pastoral Service of Pauline Priests and Brothers,” is a four-page, pulp-paper, weekly missalette published by the Society of Saint Paul’s Philippine-Macau Province.  In the Christmas edition is the following:

Today I walked the streets of Baguio City to revisit The Jeepney magazine vendors.  Afterward I decided to walk to home in Tuding, as is my custom lately (the past two weeks).  I have three routes.  Today I walked south on Session Road to Camp John Hay, then I ran on the Eco-trail.  That was fun.  Jogging uphill was quite challenging in some places, because I’m not very fit, Baguio City is at altitude with humid air, and the trail was steep.  I recommend walking the Eco-trail to everyone who can, and I’d encourage runners from the lowlands who visit Baguio City to run Camp John Hay.  It’s less-polluted and more picturesque and peaceful.  You can go too fast downhill on the Eco-trail, jarring your knees, or you can slow to a jog or walk downhill where it’s steep.  It reminded me of running in University of Tennessee’s arboretum in Knoxville.

Months ago, I ate pesto pasta with chicken several times in Pizza Volante of Baguio City, but I had not tried it in Vizco’s until last week. I love it! I like Vizco’s pesto so much more than Volante’s, and the fresh bread is also delicious. I have dined on this several times last week and this week. Now, the chicken atop the pasta (optional) is battered and fried irregular scraps of meat — not elegant. In Pizza Volante it’s neatly-sliced, almost uniform strips arrayed across the top of pasta on a dished oval plate. In Vizco’s, the pasta is served in a bowl, and it’s so delicious. I heartily recommend it.

As I walked through Baguio City today, I saw one of the preparations for dinner at Teachers Camp as I walked past on Leonard Wood Road’s sidewalk. I almost lost my lunch (from twenty minutes earlier) when I saw a black dog’s severed head and four legs and two men butchering the dog. Dining on dogs is reportedly common in the Cordilleras region. But I didn’t expect to ever see so close a chopped-up dog.

Though it’s not a pedestrian-friendly city, I’ve walked for many miles through Baguio City.  I see litter strewn almost everywhere, dog feces and horse feces on roads and sidewalk, smog belched from poorly-tuned diesel trucks, buses and jeepneys, wood smoke, graffiti, heaps of garbage, garbage bags hung from trees, gates and fences, acrid smoke from garbage fires, reckless, lawless drivers … This is not a civilized, reputable city that’s pleasant for visitors.  Now the sidewalks and malls are choked with frenzied Filipinos trying to spend money before December 25.  I can hardly walk to a restaurant, post office or church without being bumped by dozens of persons, any of whom may try to pick my pockets.  Sagada, in Mountain Province, is so much more agreeable.

Baguio City is rife with thievery, according to the newspapers I read and the news on the internet. On Tuesday morning, after Holy Mass, though Our Lady of the Atonement Cathedral was ‘surrounded’ by Baguio City policemen, it was robbed. Someone (or more than one) stole 50,000 pesos (US $1087) which had been collected at Mass from the church’s office across the driveway. Supposedly someone observed the money being transferred to the office after Mass, and somehow got the tithes. I guess that it wasn’t in a safe. Maybe it was an ‘inside job,’ like many other thefts in the Philippines.

A year ago, I participated in One Laptop Per Child’s promotion, Give One. Get One.  I paid $399 to give a rugged, durable, portable “XO” computer to a child in another country, and I received one.  I had intended to fiddle with mine, learn the ‘ins and outs’ and all the applications, in anticipation of perhaps using XO computers in a school in the Philippines. »→

This morning Dominic and I will travel again by G.L. Lizardo bus to Sagada to get away from the lunatics in Baguio City and Benguet.  Ask Dominic how much ‘fun’ he had hassling with idiots at PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone), about our painfully slow DSL.  Do not subscribe to any PLDT “service” if you can use a competitor’s service.  I wish that we had tried Bayantel.

Today, in a span of two hours, I readily gave money to four sidewalk beggars, remembering Matthew 25. In Session Supermart and U-Need groceries, I couldn’t get a large bag of peanuts, so I walked over Magsaysay to the north sidewalk then along it to buy a large bag of nuts. »→

Today, as two weeks ago, Esmond (from Britain and South Africa), Analyn, and Randy (from Massachusetts) hosted a patio party on a balcony near Tam-Awan Village in Baguio City, overlooking Luzon’s coast and the sunset on South China Sea. We didn’t have as many folks as last time, but we enjoyed conversation and ate imported steaks tilapia, chop suey, white rice, chips and dip, rocky road ice cream… “A good time was had by all.”

……A Filipino who has been arrested seven times since 2001 for trucking dogs from Manila Capital Region to Baguio City to sell them to butchers, has been busy again since leaving jail on bail. His employees were caught driving the same Mitsubishi L300 van, loaded with 70 dogs, toward Baguio City! Too bad the Quezon City Police hadn’t impounded the van previously. Too bad they let Palanca continue to employ people to capture and transport pregnant, ill and injured dogs, bind them and truck them to meat markets here in the Cordillera Region. »→

Well, I learned immediately after my last weblog post about the dollar-to-peso exchange rate that the Philippine Central Bank won’t allow the U.S. dollar to break the 50-peso mark in currency exchange. Reminds me of a rev-limiter on a car engine, because each day we see the peso-to-dollar exchange rate ‘bounce off the limiter,’ never exceeding 50 pesos per buck. »→

I can download 44-53 kilobits per second when PLDT doesn’t drop the connection. We haven’t had rain nor sleet nor hail nor snow nor avalanche nor hurricane nor mudslides, so why are PLDT’s lines so slow? PLDT should be ashamed of the extremely slow speed of the Digital Subscriber Line for which it charges 3000 pesos per month!