I Am Buraot

As we walk in the town square hand in hand, I could see my father’s face beaming with joy.

I think I was around four, maybe even less. I was wearing this shirt tailored to look exactly like  his. I could hardly remember the details but it reminded me of pineapples because of its color and its seemingly Hawaiian design.

Wearing identical shirts, I was his mini-me. And all three feet of me was walking as tall as him.

I looked in his eyes and all I saw was pride. Continue Reading…

During the term of Richard Gordon as mayor of Olongapo City, there were at least 26 cases of “salvagings” or summary executions that victimized at least 28 people.

The killings were believed to have been made to cleanse the city of undesirable elements and maintain its allure as the center for the R & R of US servicemen.

Olongapo officials dismissed such as “isolated incidents involving hardened criminals whose death were mainly due to gang rivalry”, it is a matter of public record that the victims were mostly teenagers and one was a woman.

According to records from the Olongapo City Fiscal’s Office, the following are among those who were executed during the incumbency of Mayor Richard Gordon: Continue Reading…

“Ganito pala sa Olongapo, parang war zone.”

 This was the surprised remark from one of the media personnel from GMA-7 who witnessed what happened that fateful day in November 1996.

All the action were going on inside the SBMA where the APEC forum was being held, so it only makes sense for all the media, local and international, to be there. Fortunately for us, some GMA-7 staff, particularly Luchi Cruz Valdez (from The Probe Team fame) and a cameraman decided to go outside the former US base searching for exclusives.

They have found what they were looking for, the exclusive footages of how we got mobbed. And they were stunned to have witnessed what happened. Continue Reading…

In just a matter of minutes, after that quick anesthesia-less operation and humiliation inside the operating room, I was in a wheelchair being pushed by that UP volunteer all the way to the x-ray room and unto my assigned room, which was the orthopedic ward.

Weird. I don’t think I had any broken bone or whatever that needed me to be confined to that section. Unless some doctor thought a broken skull would be enough to be categorized as orthopedic.

I saw some empty rooms and wards along the way so I asked the guy why I was being put here. He said he got no idea but we both think it would be safer for me since it’s almost full and lots of people would see me, just in case. Continue Reading…

It was November 1996. The APEC Summit was being held in Subic Bay, Philippines.

It was a time for the country to show off its newly established Subic Bay after the former bases were left by the Americans under piles of ashes brought by the Pinatubo eruption. It was also the time for then President Fidel Ramos to showcase his Medium Term Philippine Development Plan. It was Ramos’ Philippines 2000. It was globalization. It was Olongapo.

Like most people in the progressive left, I was against it. I believe that if businesses can be allowed to globalize, we should also allow the workers to globalize. If capital can go around the world looking for cheap labor, then labor itself should also be allowed to find better pay anywhere in the world. What I’m for is simply for fairness.

The stage was set for mass demonstrations against globalization. And so we at the Sanlakas Olongapo were ready. Continue Reading…

Since there are lots of places I have lived my entire life, I naturally have a lot of friends. Friends that over the years have remained my buddies, my brother, my sister.

I am so lucky to have found them, and I thank them all.

I am not trying to be optimistic here about friendship. In fact, I am a bit depressed writing this article. I am in this mood because earlier I was thinking of my friends who I wanted to talk to and realized…. that four of my best friends are now dead. Continue Reading…

This year comes as a new dawn, the beginning not just of a new year, but of a new life. But as always, not without the remnants of the baggage past.

This time last year I was in and out of the hospital. Teams of doctors were trying to figure out what is that thing that shall not be named, only to find out that they couldn’t.

Several specialists took their chances, only to realize that even if they want to fail, they wouldn’t have a chance.

My bills have since mounted, rather incredulously. My body had since recuperated, rather unhurriedly. My immune system at its lowest in my thirty-seven years of existence that at times I certainly feel like I was five. You see I was a sickly kid. Being a menopause baby had its kicks. Continue Reading…