June 5, 2018
1. Air is dry in the US and every time I stay for at least two weeks, my skin begins to crack most especially my feet. I drive my daughter crazy every time she sees my scaly skin. I am so lazy kasi to apply lotion. Malagkit.
A few hours after we arrived in Manila, we had home service nails cleaning which included vigorous scrubbing of feet. Ang kinis na uli.
2. June 6, 2018 I woke up at 3 am feeling hungry. The only food I found in the freezer was a pack of small siopao asado I bought in Greenhills a month ago. Pwede pa rin hindi pa panis.
3. Antonia gathered all the newspapers while we were away and placed the stack on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t at all excited to read the news, parang never akong naging happy sa mga balita sa atin. O eto mukhang masaya. Filipinos are happy. I am glad. All persons regardless of color and race have the capacity to smile even while undergoing some hardships. We manage to shrug our shoulders off and accept things that we have no control off. We cry, we sulk in grief, we scream our angers out, we heave a sigh of frustration, then we wipe our tears, keep our chins up, re-touch our eyebrows and lipstick then stand up and face the realities of life again. Oh life. yeah, that’s buhay.
4. At 4 am I messaged the driver and Sgt. Pepper to remind them to pick up Edmund from the airport at 6 am. I got worried Oyen wasn’t able to give instructions to them. Nakatulog kasi agad ako. When the drivers didn’t reply, I went to Oyen’s room and woke her up. She did remind the two guys to pick up her dad.
I was still worried they wouldn’t show up but by 5 am they were in the garage prepping up the engine. Good. Edmund chose to fly one day later than Oyen and I.
5. Breakfast by Antonia. Edmund likes fish so every morning, Antonia fries one fish for him. I wanted soup so I asked her “meron ba tayong soup?” Her reply—“meron mam, tinola”. But of course.
6. My daughter told me about the video / photo of Ninoy Aquino being kissed by two adoring fans while he was on the plane to Manila minutes before his assassination. Oyen told me Kris Aquino was mad at the person who posted that. Apparently Mocha Uson used it to defend Pres. Duterte kissing an OFW on the lips. Huli lagi ako sa balita kasi hindi ako nagbabasa ng mga Facebook or online news. Dagdag stress kasi. In this case I became curious so I Googled what Oyen was talking about. I saw Kris Aquino’s video addressed to Mocha Uson. Despite her being angry, she still tried her best to be respectful. She didn’t utter any offensive word in my point of view. Kung ako ang galit siguro kung anu-ano nasabi ko.
To give me more perspective about the kissing scenes, I also searched for the video showing Pres. Duterte prodding the woman to kiss him on the lips. Tila magkaiba ang situation. Etong sa Korea, it was a consensual kiss. Yung sa eroplano, tila biglang hinalikan si Ninoy nung fans, medyo nagitla nga sya. Tila may difference. I understood why Kris was terribly offended. Mocha Uson said it’s not about Kris Aquino. When our family is involved, it’s about us. Every human would act and feel that way. Sana huwag ng maulit. We have to be more sensitive to other people’s feelings. Kahit hindi natin sila kapamilya or kapuso. Most particularly in Kris Aquino’s case, her dad was killed on that day. Use of any footage or photo from that ill-fated day would naturally trigger sad memories for the Aquino family.
