After a 5-hour drive, we arrived at around 9pm.

It was too dark to go out and do night shots. Then again, the main high way was lined with bars and strip joints. Yes, we were on that side of the city.

We got a place that faced the beach. But since it was too dark, I was only able to take a pic of the garden.

I did say it was a working-trip, so after settling down, I got online and worked. That’s what I’d do at night. Once the sun was up, I started taking pictures…

Of the lobby…

the cafe…

the bar which is a popular hangout for the foreigners…

the pool and jacuzzi…

er…the other “pool”…

People selling stuff on the beach…

The beach itself…

Bancas waiting for customers who are willing to pay to be taken to cleaner and clearer waters…

Another angle of the bar in the middle of the sea…

As well as how our resort looked like on the “outside”. An entirely different world actually.

Finally I had my fill of Olongapo’s golden sunsets.

And colorful twilights.

Back in the resort, a band started playing for customers who drank and dined. On my end it was time for me to go back to my laptop and work once more.

Since I have a son, we always had this conversation every summer. I always told him that he can decide on it when he gets older. Perhaps it’s because of relatives or classmates that have already been ‘cut’, my son decided to go through it. I opted for the safer route — to let a doctor do it in a hospital.

It was an outpatient procedure. What made the experience amusing was that there were 5 kids aged 7 – 10 before us. The kids came with their parents [aunts, sisters, uncles etc] for morale support. As the kids came out of the room, they were congratulated by their fathers, “Son, you’re a teenager now.” or “Son, you are now a man!” To which my son would whisper,”awh ma, that is so wrong. Circumcision doesn’t make me a teenager…I am already a teenager. I’m also a man. Why do they say that?”

I’d go, “it’s to make people feel good. They also believe that it circumcision makes you a man. Who are you to argue with what they believe?” I smiled. “Why are you going through this again?”

“Because I have to. I want to. For hygiene. So that I don’t have to face my gf, if I have gf, uncut.” He said shaking.

I grinned and said, “I think we better come back AFTER you’ve finished college. So that you won’t have any girl looking at your penis and being embarassed till then. At least I don’t have to worry you’ll have sex before finishing college.”

“Ma! that’s embarassing.” He laughed.

So there we were, submitting to the dictates of culture without really admitting it. We were both relieved when it was done and over with. Laughing and joking as we took the public jeep back home.

I guess in some cultures, it’s their ‘first’ sex act that makes men feel like… men. On my end, it’s just a **$)%  foreskin!

Rica Espiritu

It is the small things that make our day meaningful. For me it would be the tea time hour with the ones I love, coffee breaks with the ones I work with and now, the blogs and posts my friends would write as the day goes on.

There’s something about listening to or reading somebody else’s stories and learn from the way they view the world and find the strength in the way they face their own challenges. Strangely enough, their words makes me feel like I was able to catch up with my life. Every now and then my soul feels like it finally came home, fulfilled in ways I would have never imagined had I just continued with my daily grind.

Rica Espiritu

A streamer from the city Mayor pledges his support. Unfortunately, he repealed the law that allowed the company to claim the area.

The trip would always end with a lunch in Aristocrat, a famous restaurant by the bay. My grandfather would always buy my grandmother’s favorite dish. They’d linger and talk while I’d be given a pen and paper to draw stuff. How was I to know that they were having a “date” too?

I had those memories. My son’s story would be different and so will my grandchild. What stories will we tell when the area would be filled with buildings and more traffic? How can we value the place when the reclamation project will block floodways, causing Manila to sink deeper in flood waters during typhoon season?

Why did I join the protest? Because I want to be able to walk along the coastline with my grandchild. I don’t want that to disappear and be covered by buildings. Manila’s progress can be done by concentrating on educating their poor, sheltering the homeless and empowering them with skills so that they can stand on their own and not depend on dole outs from the government and alms.

What really happened?

“In 1992, a group called “Manila Goldcoast Development Corp.” lobbied for approval to reclaim the entire Manila Bay waterfront along Roxas Boulevard, between the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the US Embassy. This scheme was challenged by citizens, who fought to preserve the last remaining access to the bay along Manila’s historical district. The citizens won. The Manila City Council passed City Ordinance No. 7777, prohibiting reclamation in this area.

However, Goldcoast was, tragically, able to get City Ordinance No. 7777 repealed. In February 2011, City Ordinance No. 8233 reversed the prohibition. A consortium agreement was signed in April 2012 to reclaim the same waterfront along Roxas Boulevard, about 288 hectares of land, even swallowing up the Manila Yacht Club and the Philippine Navy Headquarters.

In addition to blocking the view of the sunset from Malate and Ermita, the reclamation will worsen floods, extinguish the tourism area along Roxas Boulevard, destroy the potential of our historic Intramuros, remove 20 vital anchorage berths for ships and most of all, take away from us a waterfront we all love.”

[Click on this Link to sign the Petition]

So last February 12, concerned citizens, students and organizations gathered at the Rajah Sulaiman park in front of the bay. Armed with cameras and paint, they formed a two kilometer chain along the bay. A quiet statement of what we stand to lose should this development push through.

Students …

and their teachers came to support the protest.

See where the sea meets the horizon? This scene is what we stand to lose once  the reclamation project is completed.

I moved to a higher place in order to get a bird-eye view of the crowd. The people moved to the edge of the baywalk to form a human chain.

This is the part where phase 1 of the reclamation area will cover.

As the sun started to set, people faced the horizon and held hands.

Each city has its own personality. You just have to notice it. In this case, I am documenting it through this photo essay. This time, I brought my camera as I took my daily 20-minute walk around the neighbourhood here in San Juan.

The sky was clear, save for the usual thin screen of smog that turned the sky into a muted shade of orange. It was time to walk around the city. My city. San Juan. One would think that the world has just started to stir, but no. This city, just like any city on this end of the world, never sleeps.

Outside my place the wind was still cool. Summer doesn’t start until next week. You don’t get to hear anything except cars and motorcycles passing by.

Further down the road, a sweeper cleans the streets – cheerfully I might add. Even if he was shy about looking at the camera, he gamely smiled as he did his work.

Before the banks open, their parking spaces turn into areas where you can buy fresh vegetables and fruits. Most of them are on carts so that people can clear the area once people from the bank start coming in.

Technically you don’t have to go far to get the vegetables you need.

Yes, we Filipinos are a happy lot. There’s always a ready smile when a camera is spotted – even in the dark! The light here was created by a jeep that passed by.

This is our wet market. It is located at the basement of a supermarket. Filipinos value fresh food, which is why a lot of people would rather buy from these markets where goods are delivered from local farms as early as 3 – 4am.

This guy is almost done selling fishes.

Yes, you get to pick too. This guy is handpicking his shrimp.

This taho vendor stands at the corner of Blumentritt and N. Domingo everyday until the sun rises and he moves to a cooler area. He has loyal customers who take taho as breakfast. For those who don’t know what it is,  taho is made of fresh soft/silken tofu, arnibal (brown sugar and vanilla syrup), and pearl sago (similar to pearl tapioca). This staple comfort food is a signature sweet and can be found all over the country. The Indonesian and Malaysian equivalent of this snack is tauhue [wikipedia].

San Juan is full of tricycles. I just realized that now. Almost each area has its own tricycle group. This is a line of tricycles waiting for customers to come out of the wet market.

There are a lot of vendors selling local rice cakes, suman and other delicacies for breakfast. Most of them are found near the corner of each street hoping that those rushing to work would buy food for a quick breakfast.

She happens to be the only vendor selling fresh flowers in the entire market.

A grandfather accompanying his granddaughter  to school. Yes, where else can you find a high school uniform that stands out? Fuschia skirt!

Another group of tricycles waiting for students and their parents to bring them to school.

I noticed that there’s a new “meat shop” in town.

The meat’s freshly killed and chopped in front of you. You get to pick the part you want to buy.

Still a long way to go  - at least I am half way back.

This corner is where fresh coconuts are delivered daily.

You have the vendor chopping the coconut, pouring the juice into a plastic bag and the coconut meat into the other. The customer usually brings it home and transfers everything into a pitcher of water.

Yes, we still have our homeless and on this end, this homeless family is better off than most. How come? They have a blanket, a bed, a mat and a beach umbrella for privacy.

A school service jeep [or school jeep] waits outside a house.

This is also the time you will find mothers bringing out their babies to catch the morning sun. While our elders would often say that you should do this so that the babies can get their daily dose of vitamin D, I think that was just a reason they gave so that they could socialize with their neighbors after the kids and partners have left for school or work.

This homeless family uses the barrier to hang their clothes.

Somebody’s awake and folding their cardboard mat.

Sadly, one of the things you notice in San Juan are the piles of garbage in certain corners of the city. It’s like everybody snuck out in the middle of the night and threw their trash in this corner – hoping that the garbage truck passes by in the morning to shovel out the garbage.

Everyone’s doing their own chores. Here’s a guy washing his jeep.

You also have make shift food stalls that sell breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here’s a student with her mom, buying her “packed lunch”. Yup, our local ‘fast food’ service.

One  of the reasons why it’s challenging to walk around my neighbourhood is that it is not flat! At the top of this hill is an elementary school.

I was being followed by noisy kids. I turned around and took a pic of them. A few of the kids thought I was taking  a pic of something behind them.

This is their humble school.

It’s almost 6:30 am and the students are hanging around, waiting for class to start at 7:30am.

Beside the school is a “convenience store” that sells them everything they need. From junk food to “real food”. The small basket on that table is full of hard boiled eggs. For parents and students who would want a quick and filling snack before school starts.

I realized that this scene is very common here in San Juan. That is, houses that are converted into half commercial, half residential areas. The lower level becomes a business while the owners live on the second floor.

It’s 6:30am and the early morning rush hour traffic has started.

Still, Filipinos will have time to cram in a cup of 10 peso coffee at the local store.

One of the well known areas in San Juan where you can eat pares!

Am back on the main road. Am almost home and it’s a good thing. It’s no fun walking during early morning traffic.

And that’s all she wrote,

Rica Espiritu

It’s not about guns, although I do believe that there should be a law regarding the kind of guns sold to individuals -then again what do I know about guns? None.

It’s about the people wielding guns. Within the same day, we had a guy in China STABBING 22 schoolchildren. So, what do you do? Ban knives?! No. You ask what pushes these people to do what they did. How could they sustain such anger for so long? What caused them to explode with such fury such that they don’t mind taking these innocent lives with them in death? Is it society? Is it our educational system? Is it our values? We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask such hard  questions. How many more people and children will die before we could stop such things from occurring?

If Adam Lanza was your son, your brother, your boyfriend, your husband, your friend, – what would you do? Would you have been able to stop such a thing from happening?

Those were the questions I asked myself as I did this simple graphic. Lighting a candle to shed some light into this tragedy. To shed some light into the psyche of people who commit such acts. To hope that we will all be illuminated somehow to create a society where such things can’t or will not happen again.

Food for thought.

Rica Espiritu

I took this photo 10 minutes ago. It’s ten minutes past 6am and the sky burned with the light of a new dawn for a few minutes. A few minutes were all it took for me to put things in perspective in my life. From the point of view of a person full of gratitude for..

1. Being able to see the sun rise and admire the sunsets.
2. To be able to hear a bird or two sing as they welcome the dawn or the sound of churchbells welcoming people for the morning mass.
3. To be alive.
4. To be able to feel the cool breeze of the December air on my skin.
5. To be able to have a home strong enough to withstand the typhoons and high enough to avoid the floods.
6. That I am not fearing for my life or the lives of those I love today.
7. That I actually have clothes to wear, a job I love, a son I am proud of and pets that drive me nuts.
8. To be able to get stressed and worry about the clothes I will wear, the job that I love and my son that drives me nuts.
9. To be able to live in a country that respects women.
10. To be able to write and read!

Rica Espiritu

I have always wanted to write about things as they happen. Now I can do that. Yeah — as if Facebook wasn’t enough!

Rica Espiritu

So this is a gallery of what I’ve collected so far. I hope to add more as I start digging into my archives.

• 5 Flyers
• 4 Logos & Branding
• 7 Marketing
• 1 Photos

Rica Espiritu

Presidents, CEOs, officials and representatives of different BPOs along with government institutions and private organizations came together for a common cause – that is to create a healthier workplace. The project started earlier this year with 8 BPOs participating in a Project led by the UN’s International Labor Organization. The “health domains” tackled in particular were Cigarette smoking, HIV/AIDs and STI, Alcohol and Drugs, Nasal/Lung Ailments and Tuberculosis, Good Health and Breasfeeding and finally, Exercise. These health areas form the word CHANGE, a workplace campaign for healthier lifestyles among young professionals, which was pioneered in the BPO industry, and is intended to reach those in other sectors as well.

This isn’t just a movement that is targeted towards the employers and business owners. This is a movement that is also geared towards spreading information among employees, hoping that afterwards, they will make “informed choices”. To help them, the ILO and its partners [Department of Health, Department of Labor and Employment - Occupational Safety and Health Center, Business Processing Association of the Philippines, Employers Confederation of the Philippines, World Health Organization, UNAIDS and the UNDP] developed marketing and learning materials from which I was tasked to design and execute. Below are the designs that were given to all those present and to BPOs who wish to implement the change in their work system.

The executive overview summarizes the entire project.

It contains 6 fact sheets with stats and facts regarding each of the health domains that was focused on. It also contains one CD with advocacy videos created for this project, targeting employers and employees.

.”]way if you wish some retention to happen.”]

I didn't want the factsheets to be typical pie-charts, photos and stats. I wanted it to be more interesting so I used and created images and turned it into an infographic. In this day and age …one has to learn to present information in a more interesting [if not dynamic

."], and how to measure the change — if it has been effective. “]

The Behavioral Change Strategy kit contains the e-learning module, peer education modules, checklists for setting up a healthier system [integrating legal aspects too

way if you wish some retention to happen."]

I didn't want the factsheets to be typical pie-charts, photos and stats. I wanted it to be more interesting so I used and created images and turned it into an infographic. In this day and age …one has to learn to present information in a more interesting [if not dynamic

We conducted a study and found out that positive messages are more effective than negative ones. Which is why, each of the health areas have additional posters that employers can use to promote the issues. The next image is an example.

These materials are published by the ILO and will soon be released for public consumption by July, 2012 on their website.

And that’s all she wrote,

Rica Espiritu