Wawa Dam with Bien and Elle

Today, my wife and her student at DLSU went to a nursery and forestry project upstream of Wawa Dam, among the famous spots of Rizal province. Our two girls joined.

Elle Marie and the dam at the background.

The water is actually partly muddy and brown but when it falls down the dam, it looks so white. Loud sound of falling water, really nice.

The dam was created during the American colonial  period I think, it remains there but it's not yet used to augment Metro Manila-Rizal's drinking water supply, Maybe someday.

A viewing deck above the dam. Elle Marie and Bien Mary with their Mama Ella, plus their Ate Faith Gonzales, my wife's student. Today is Bien's 4th birthday, though the celebration was held yesterday at her nursery class.

Dam upstream. We walked going up to the project, about 30 miinutes from this point, and rode a boat going back. Only until this point, of course.

The dam is built on a narrow passage between  these two hills or small mountains. Folk legend says these two hills were "fighting" and Pinoy folk hero "Bernardo Carpio", a local  giant, stood between them and pacified them. Nice bedtime story for kids. 

Another view of the two hills, both well forested, from the boat. Two portions of the river has mild rapids.

Below the dam. Huge white rocks, thousands of them.

Bien with Ate Faith. We met many cyclists on their way down while we were walking to the dam.

Our group photo. It was hot this morning, very few clouds. Though it rained in the afternoon.

A tunnel going to the dam. Nice.

Elle with kuya Deo / Maharlika Nation.

Another view of the dam's upstream. Notice that both left and right sides of the river, the hills and mountains are thickly forested. Trees are like grasses, they just grow fast on their own even if no human plant them. They just need  to be protected from  poachers and illegal cutters for charcoal, firewood, small scale lumber, etc.

This floating hut is for rent, I think about P200 for one day. But during the hot months (March to May), rental can go up to P500 each. And there are many of these sprouting. 

I like this shot, taken by Deo of Maharlika Nation. While walking up to the project site, Elle said she was very tired, although I think she was just making drama, so I carried her on my back. One of our rest stops.

Thanks for accompanying and guiding us Deo.

All photos from Deo + my wife's camera + few from my camera phone.

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* See also: 
Rizal Province, April 18, 2006

Elle and Bien at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, June 29, 2014

Elle Marie and Bien Mary are Turning 8 and 4 Years Old, September 30, 2014

Elle Marie and Bien Mary are Turning 8 and 4 Years Old

Elle Marie will turn 8 years old tomorrow while Bien Mary will turn 4 years old this coming Saturday, November 4. Time has wings. All these photos I got from the fb album of my wife.

Here, taken last Saturday at the Maharlika Artists and Writers Federation (MAWF) gathering in Intramuros, Manila. My wife was invited, she tagged us along on our way home from Divisoria.

Another view, same event. Venue was The Collectibles building I think, 3rd floor. This is just behind the Manila Cathedral.

In one of the regular outings of the mother-daughters. Usually when it's malling, I don't join them. Am too lazy to visit the malls until now. 

Elle Marie at one year old, seven years ago. She enjoyed bubbles then. Until now actually, though not as passionately as before.

I would jokingly tell Elle that she should grow fast so that when she's big,  she can drive me someday as I am getting older. Will become a senior citizen less than a decade form now. :-)

Below, a charming, pretty and tall Elle. She's slightly above my nipple already.

Taken last Friday at a nice bakeshop in our barangay in Makati.
While they both like sweet food, sometimes they are choosy. To balance such unhealthy appetite for sweet food, I feed them banana  often. They like banana. Sometimes mangoes (but mangoes now are expensive) or orange.

And this is Bien Mary now....
She sees herself as a fashion model or ballerina, or a singer ("Let it go, let it go...")

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See also:
Elle Marie and Bien Mary, Part 3, August 21, 2013
Elle Marie is 7, Bien Mary is 3, October 06, 2013
Elle Marie and Bien Mary, December 2013, January 12, 2014
Bien Mary's Moving up Day, April 05, 2014

Elle and Bien at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, June 29, 2014

TSAA's Family Day

Two Fridays ago, September 5, The School for Academics and Arts (TSAA) held its first Family Day this school year. Venue was the Makati Coliseum, not far from the school in Davila St., Makati City. I was not there as I attended a round table discussion by Citizen Watch at UP Diliman.

My wife and our younger daughter, Bien Mary, accompanied Elle Marie (Grade 3) at the event. The grade schoolers showing their Filipiniana dance number. They also performed a musical number using  bamboos and other local materials.

The kinder schoolers showing their talent too.

Co-parent Mike Luis, lead singer of a famous local band, Free Style, singing a song. His son joined him.

The games, funny.

Another game. The kids and parents were having a great time.

Fathers and their kids. I really miss that...

Other parents. Gilbert Maramara (rightmost) and Dean Gioia (beside him) are my usual chatmates whenever we see each  other at the school picking up our kids. And Noel Sandicon too, not in this photo.

Elle Marie, Bien Mary, Elle's two classmates.

All photos above from Dean, Dee Oh and my wife's facebook pics.
Good job TSAA. I honestly miss that event.

* See also, The School of Academics and Arts, July 07, 2014

Uly Veloso's Sculpture

Last July 26, 2014, I attended an arts exhibit -- paintings, sculpture, artistic lights -- in a building at the FTI Complex in Taguig, Metro Manila. A good  friend since the early 90s, Uly Veloso, was one of the exhibitors, showing his recent metal sculptures.

Uly's spacecrafts. Space shuttle Discovery in the front, two "Tora Tora" (WW2 Jap war planes) at the back. Stainless steel on granite base. Discovery is 36 x 86 x 36 cm while Tora Tora is 36x 74 x 36 cm. 

He is using this metal that cannot be bent, so hard, yet there are curves in these planes. How did he do it? A different  kind of delicate, complicated and time-consuming welding process so that the various pieces are attached to other pieces as if they were one piece of metal. Fantastic.

From a spacecraft and planes to the outer space. Constellation Ursa Major or the "Big Dipper". Stainless steel on granite base with glass beads. Again, these are delicately welded and the rounded joints in the middle of those short metal sticks represent the huge stars or formation of stars in the galaxy.

Constellation Leo, Stainless steel on granite base with glass beads. This granite is hard and will not easily break.

Constellation Aries. I took this photo of the sculpture in between  those two nice paintings on the wall.

Back to Earth. Uly's trees.

This one is cool. "Infinite narratives from a Bonfire". Ala UP bonfire after UP Men's basketball team won one game after two years of straight losses at the UAAP. 

44 x 30 x 27 cm.

painted stainless steel 

Below, the artist on the left, and our common friend from UP, Jun Realica in the middle.

Uly and our friend in Congress Mountaineers, Kristin Paredes.

We are the gliding airplanes :-)

Not Uly's work, another artist's work. I like them, cool.

Lots of food and beer that afternoon. Thanks again Uly for that invite. My art-barbarian mind is imbibing the beauty of arts through friends and my daughters.

Those pieces are for sale. I think many of them are still available. If interested, the artist can be reached at uly_veloso_camp4@yahoo.com.
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See also stories here that include Uly:

Mt. Pinatubo, 1994 and 2006, March 08, 2006

Mt. Pinatubo Climb, December 1994, January 24, 2014

Gen. Nakar, Quezon, Mountaineers' Outing, April 30, 2014

Veloso Ancestral House, Baguio City, June 03,  2014

A problematic friend...

A friend has a rocky marriage for several years now. He and wife have discussed separation several times in the past, but they have small kids, their priority was staying with the kids.

My friend says the wife has a machinegun mouth and can be violent sometimes, punched him a few times in the past. His cell phone also contains many angry notes from her, but wife would creep and get his cp, deleted many of such angry, angstful and seemingly paranoid text messages.

He started saving those text messages, but only the recent ones because the older angstful SMS have been deleted already. He emailed this to me and asked to put this online as he does not have a blog, for his reference someday.

2014 text messages by the wife:

Nasaan na ang mga anak ko?  (Aug. 2, 4:43pm)

(anak nya lang daw, di anak ng tatay)

Wag ka na bumalik ng bahay… (Aug. 25, 6:56pm)

(walang helper, walang driver, hindi marunong mag drive, sino kaya maghatid-sundo sa mga bata sa school? Magbantay sa bata habang sya ay nasa work or meeting with her friends?)

Umuwi ka na!!!!! (Aug. 26, 10:18am)

Umuwi ka na at late na ako!!!!!! Wag mo na ako alitin at funder konka mtg ko!!!!! (Aug. 26. 10:27am)

(too many exclamation marks, reflects how loud the shouting and screaming if face to face)

Ngawngaw ng ngawngaw e ikaw? Hangin! Kayabangan (Sept. 2, 8:53pm)

Philippine Construction Boom

I shared this story from Quartz (posted August 21, 2014) in my facebook wall a few days ago with a note, "Magagalit ang mga anti-government groups dito. They will not believe this news." Today it has 23 shares, wow.  This means that many people like to hear positive news too, not just the negatives.

SM North Edsa in Quezon City is the 3rd biggest mall in the world I think. This SM Seaside Mall in Cebu will be the 4th largest, to be opened next year. A friend who saw it says it is "massive". From the other photos I saw, there are at least seven cranes working simultaneously. 

Photos below I got from the Philippine Construction Boom facebook page.

Hundreds of construction workers now have jobs. Once it's done, thousands of sales people, small and medium entrepreneurs (some jobs outsourced with micro entreps), delivery people, etc. will have continuing jobs.

Sprawling urbanization.

changing skyline of makati. The Circuit. Former Sta. Ana racetrack.

NAIA terminal 3 and Makati skyline.

It seems CDO and Davao cities in Mindanao are business-friendly and attracting good investments too.

The Iloilo Convention Center is projected to be finished by March next year. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next year will be held there.

From Bloomberg,

Sleepy Philippine Towns Wake Up to Answer World’s Phones, August 20, 2014. It says,

The old airport, replaced by a new one in 2007, is a construction site, where developer Megaworld Corp. is building a 35 billion-peso ($800 million) business park with a Marriott hotel and condos sporting names like One Madison Place and Lafayette Park Square.

A mile down the road, the planned hospital, shops, hotel and homes of Ayala Land Inc.’s Atria Park District may create 10,000 jobs on former salt pans. For Ilonggos and Ilonggas, as the city’s residents are known, the growth brings new opportunities.

My clubmate in Rotary, Norlan, has a medium size construction business. He once told me that they are sometimes losing their workers to the big construction firms. Naiipit nga daw sila, some of their workers will resign and go to the big firms with bigger salary. So they are obliged to pay bigger pay too

From Manila Standard, QC to host half km-high tower, June 27, 2014. 612 meters high, 200 floors, to rise in QC, wow.