2013 Good Vibes

We all started the year 2012 with the end in mind. End of the World, that is. Turned out this had fueled us to make the most out what seemed to be the remaining days of our lives. 2012 was such a great year and thanks to yet another failed prediction, we're poised to make yet another year greater than the previous one.

And here's a manifesto: 2013 is all about good vibes.

And here's a little thank you note to all those people who became part of the wonderful journey in 2012. So to every single person who has been a part of my 2012, with all that I am, I thank you. Thank you for every memory made, for every moment spent, for every lesson learned, for every teardrop, for every smile, for every laughter, for every promise made, for every promise broken, for every secret kept, for every secret told, for every plan finished, for every action taken, for every dream dreamt, for every future planned, and for all other things.

 I look forward to creating another wonderful year with you guys. We'll travel the world, we'll make a difference, shoot many pictures and videos, eat healthy (naks), exercise (sana), write great stories, spread the love, defy the limit, elect change, paint, sing and dance! We would also make new friends and cherish the old ones and become ambassadors of world peace and while this may sound awkward, ambassadors of a balanced diet.

This 2013, I only wish one thing for all of you and that is ABUNDANCE. Yes, abundance..in all aspects of the word. May you find abundance in finances, in success, in your career, in blessings, and in love. And I hope that on the last day of 2013, you will have three hundred and sixty five new stories to tell.

Tomorrow, as we wake up, starts the first blank page of a 365-page book. Let's write a good one! Cheers for the new year! 2013 will be all about GOOD VIBES!

With all the love in the world,

Louie.

A FOND FAREWELL FOR 2012:

Sonny Boy, Pablo and Climate Change

While most of us remember tropical storm Pablo through the powerful winds it brought on that fateful Tuesday morning, a brave 15 year-old boy from New Bataan in Compostela Valley remembers it as the phenomenon that wrecked havoc to the place he called home and left thousands killed, missing or homeless.

Sonny Boy Jumaling bravely shared how he survived in the raging torrent of water and mud when Pablo showed its wrath in his town, several kilometers away from the central part of New Bataan. It was about thirty minutes past five in the morning when the ferocious storm hit their town, with winds powerful enough to send roofs off the houses and coconut trees swinging.

And there was a distressing uproar from afar they mistook as a mere sound of wind. But they were wrong. In an instant, a furious surge of mud came down from the hills which prompted them to run. They ran to a much safer ground but time fell short as they were swept by such a powerful force.

Sonny Boy Jumaling let photographer Leo Timogan capture a photo of his face which he also bravely reviewed through Leo's DSLR screen. Sonny Boy is among the 42 wounded victims - and counting - who are housed in Tagum City's Rotary Park gymasium.

And so began Sonny Boy’s daylong ordeal. According to him, the angry floodwater flowing at a velocity of 80 kilometers per hour brought him to places he didn't recognize. What he can recall is that the force of nature at its fiercest. He managed to climb a coconut tree but it also bowed down to Pablo. When it fell down, Sonny Boy hold on to it for a bit but the wounds he sustained from all over his body forced him to let go.

Darkness was about to crack when he was rescued alone in the boundary of New Bataan and Maragusan, way too far from his home and from his loved ones. With fresh wounds all over his body, Sonny Boy was reunited with his 13 year-old brother in the town's gymnasium where thousands of evacuees sought refuge and where hundreds lay dead.

His mother did not make it but thanks to God, his father is alive whom he was reunited with in Tagum City's Rotary Park Gymnasium that was temporarily made a secondary hospital treating wounded victims from the towns of Compostela and New Bataan.

Sonny Boy's story is one of the many stories of survival that emerge during the storm. Personally, his story became the multi-faceted face of the phenomenon that caught us by surprise.

Freedom from typhoons is one of nature's gift to Mindanao. True. But not anymore. Our generation have never seen a single storm batter this part of the country but due to the dramatic change in climate and a warming planet, we all suffer the wrath of Mother Nature.

Quite ironically, when Pablo proved its mettle as the deadliest storm to hit the Philippines this year, environment ministers and envoys from the different parts of the world meet at an international climate conference in Doha, Qatar convened by the United Nations.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon highlighted the "abnormal as the new normal." The danger signs are all around, Ban noted, emphasizing that ice caps are melting, permafrost thawing and sea levels rising. In a report by the Associated Press, the climate meet in Doha seeks to craft a new global climate treaty that would take effect in the year 2020. They are also discussing how to rein in greenhouse gas emissions before then, partly by extending the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty limiting the emissions of most industrialized countries.

The Kyoto Protocol expires as 2012 bids goodbye. In Doha, ministers and envoys are having a hard time deciding whether to extend the treaty to five years while developing countries are pressuring developed countries like the United States and China to show how they intend keeping a promise to raise climate funding for poor countries to $100 billion per year by 2020 -- up from a total of $30 billion in 2010-2012.

But the European Union and the United States have refused to put concrete figures on the table in Doha for new 2013-2020 climate funding. AFP reports that individual country pledges did start to trickle in, but the European bloc said Wednesday that tight finances prevented it taking on binding near-term commitments, while Washington insisted it was already "doing what we agreed to do."

Philippine climate envoy Naderev Sano's emotional appeal to the UN body in Doha reflects the collective voice of the Filipino people who, among many citizens of the world, suffer the wrath of global warming. His very short but very powerful remarks came with tears:

As we sit here in these negotiations, even as we vacillate and procrastinate here, the death toll is rising. There is massive and widespread devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people have been rendered without homes. And the ordeal is far from over, as typhoon Bopha has regained some strength as it approaches another populated area in the western part of the Philippines.

We have never had a typhoon like Bopha, which has wreaked havoc in a part of the country that has never seen a storm like this in half a century. And heartbreaking tragedies like this are not unique to the Philippines, because the whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confront these same realities. 

I speak on behalf of 100 million Filipinos, a quarter of a million of whom are seeking out a living working here in Qatar. And I am making an urgent appeal, not as a negotiator, not as a leader of my delegation, but as a Filipino. I appeal to the whole world, I appeal to leaders from all over the world, to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face. I appeal to ministers. The outcome of our work is not about what our political masters want. It is about what is demanded of us by 7 billion people. 

 The warming of our planet and the sudden change in climate is ultimately the result of selfish human activities that destroy our environment. If our world leaders fail to agree on a treaty that would help lessen the threat of global warming, then probably more disasters and catastrophes are set to wreck havoc.

While this bickering in Doha continues and as the Kyoto Protocol is on the brink of expiration without single strand of hope that it gets its much-needed extension, we can expect that stories like that of Sonny Boy and the many victims of climate change in the Philippines will continue in the years to come.

Sonny Boy told me he never lost hope in the long course of his daylong ordeal. Each time he bobbed his head out from the muddy water, facing the gloomy sky, he would invoke God's help. 

Like him, we must never lost hope in our battle against global warming. But there's something that we can do. The challenge is succinctly summed up by Mr. Sano as he wrapped up his appeal in Doha:

I appeal to all, please, no more delays, no more excuses. Please, let 2012 be remembered as the year the world found the courage to find the will to take responsibility for the future we want. I ask of all of us here, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?

Caught by Surprise

Whether you’re at the comfort of your own homes or in the field, Pablo caught us by surprise. Wherever you’re from Mindanao, especially in Davao Region, the presence of Pablo felt through strong winds either shocked or frightened all of us.

In Tagum, Davao del Norte’s capital city, residents including me woke up to the sounds of rustles and whistles made by strong winds accompanied by light rains. It was a pre-dawn phenomenon, when, instead of the sun to wake us up on that fateful Tuesday morning, the wrath of Pablo scared us to death.

That morning was truly strange and horrifying due to the fact that this part of the country is never battered by storms. Freedom from typhoons is one of nature's promises to Mindanao. That statement no longer remains true as a changing climate forced a paradigm shift in paths of storm. Time has really changed. First there was Sendong last year and now here's Typhoon Pablo—described by the government as the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year—which joined the ranks as one of the worst pre-Christmas disasters in recent memory.

During the storm, I left home at around eight in the morning to join my officemates in documenting the path of destruction in my beloved city. In the succeeding hours, with all of us soaked in wet, we saw for ourselves the fierce weather phenomenon that fell down huge trees along the highways, shattered hectares of banana plantations, rose water levels of the Hijo River to critical point, left several properties damaged and collapsed electrical supply. As the night came, my hometown was wrapped in total darkness transforming itself from a boom town to a ghost town for a night.

Palm trees brave Pablo's winds at the height of the storm. Taken about 8:30-9:00 AM by Leo Timogan.

You could only watch in despair as your hometown seemed like a disaster zone for a while. In the city’s aviary zone inside the well-known Energy Park, winds knocked down trees that provide shade for both nature-loving citizens and the caged birds. The sight of people fleeing their homes, carrying their hard-earned properties while braving knee-deep floods and intermittent rains would forever be etched in our memories. We are not used to this. How dare you, Pablo.

We learned, as the floods of information came in the following day, what we experienced at home was just a microcosm of the bigger path of destruction Pablo left in our neighboring towns and provinces. In Compostela Valley and in Davao Oriental, many families are left homeless. Casualties rose to record numbers. Millions of properties are destroyed. Agriculture sector totally wrecked.

Last night, thousands of residents of New Bataan sought temporary shelter in Tagum's Rotary Park. Seeing them on a sunny day 48 hours after that fateful Tuesday storm is sad.

Our hearts go out to those who lost their loved ones, their homes and that strand of hope. Our boundaries, I realized, are just geographical lines.. This storm made us a one sharing and caring community.

Pablo really caught us by surprise. Home is where the heart is. But for many of us here, home is where hearts break.

Helping to clear the road from a fallen tree at Bincungan, Tagum City. Photo by Leo Timogan

Along Mankilam, Tagum City

The gate-keeper of DPWH briefed us about the alarming level of Hijo River in Barangay Apokon shortly before 12 noon. During that time, water level was at 6.21 meters. When we went back at around 4 PM, it was 8 meters which mean it's already in its critical level. Photo by Kelvin Palermo

Residents on their way to the evacuation centers, escaping the rising water levels of the Hijo River. These waters came from the uplands of the Province of Compostela Valley, one of the hardest-hit province during Typhoon Pablo. Photo by Leo Timogan

Constellation of Stars

Complete darkness wrapped the whole place on that moon-lit Friday night when, as the hours leading to the first day of December looms, the Queen of Apostles College and Seminary opened its door to us to witness the tradition that has spanned years of delicate and meticulous art of making parols, perhaps the well-revered Christmas icon of the Filipinos second to the belen.

Quite ironically, the bright sky on that night brought by the romantic moon didn’t offer a vista of little, twinkling, and sometimes falling, astronomical dots. What I saw instead are big ones that are very well-decorated with indigenous and recyclable materials that are brought to life by lights of different colors in the spectrum. Had I been so crazy, I would have thought some of the stars up above camped in this part of the world! 

Past a dark and eerie driveway bordered on the sidelines by old, towering trees is the great seminarians’ abode, home to the future gatekeepers of the Catholic church. These people are also the young men who carried on the tradition of putting up giant lanterns not just for the sake of having it, but to remind themselves and the faithful community in general, of the great celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Through their artistic collaboration to produce such amazing lanterns, they were able to bring such magnitude of joy eminent during the holidays. 

This tradition traces its roots way back in the year 1996, according to the dean of the seminary and our host for that night, Rev. Fr. Emerson delos Reyes. In the past years, he said, belens (or nativity diorama) add up to the hype of the seminary’s Christmas tradition other than the giant lanterns. In recent years, they shifted their focus on the latter, with seminarians organized in several groups thinking of different sets of designs every year in a competition that has meted their calibre for arts and design.

In the seminary’s gymnasium, about ten giant Christmas icons were on display, each having distinct and intricate designs that are rich with meanings and symbolisms. 

One particular design that caught my attention was the smiling snow man, the famed symbol of a White Christmas everybody in the Philippines is dreaming--that kind of moment when you wake up on a bright Christmas morning with falling snow outside your window and freckles across your nose. This particular fixture stands smiling beside an old ship adorned with a cross and a handful of stars, made more vibrant by the tiny dots of yellow lights.

Rise of the Guardians: Simply Magical

IN SEARCH OF an unknown past and questions surrounding Jack Frost’s special ability offers an impressive background to this yet another spell-binding animated film. Playful yet troubled about the existence of his special powers, Jack Frost is blessed with the ability to freeze anything he wishes to turn into ice through his staff. But he is also an interpretation of disconnect.

In the opening scene complete with graphical magic, viewers would, first, be amazed with how Jack Frost marveled at his newly-found powers, albeit his problem of being invisible. Your heart would surely go out for him each time passes through his spectral frame, signifying children didn't notice his existence.

As action progresses, the back story of how Jack Frost gained his special abilities take shape. Adding spice to the greatly-woven story is that he is about to join the elite league of the Guardians, an honest-to-goodness group with members delicately chosen by a certain Man in the Moon. This alliance is best described through the words of North when he explained their mission to Jack Frost: “We go by many names and take many forms. We bring wonder and hope. We bring joy and dreams. We are the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy. We are the Easter Bunny and Santa. And our powers are greater than you ever imagine. It is our job to protect the children of the world. For as long as they believe in us, we will guard them with our lives.”

Image Courtesy of Dreamworks