He is gone

The words of my son reverberate in my mind everytime I face the computer now, "Ma, huwag ka nang magsulat." "Bakit Anak, sino ang nagsabi sa iyong patigilin akong magsulat?" But he didn't answer me.

Now, my son is gone. I will never know who asked him to do that but apparently it is someone from the political field who wants to silence me.

Can a writer be silenced at all? Can ideas be stopped from occurring? Why try to stop them? Have people run out of answers? Or have their positions made them so dizzy with power, glamour and visibility that they cannot figure out or do not care to figure out anymore how to be creative in serving the people?

Serving the people was a popular mantra at UP way back in the 60's but the service had meant we were to go up the mountains, be with the people, and possibly hold an armalite. I am not cut out for that one. I am asthmatic and need glasses. I could easily stumble in the dark.

Through the years, I have developed the idea that to serve the people is through education. So people ask me, "Ma'am are you a teacher?" And I answer I am -- a peripatetic teacher. I teach people wherever I am -- the smokers (Mama, ale hindi kayo guguwapo (gaganda) sa paninigarilyo), the jeepney drivers, the vendors, the streetchild (selling sampaguita but didn't know the name of his product), and many more. I think that we still have a lot of people who didn't finish elementary or even high school and this is why when I talk to them, they tend to listen.

Later on, I told my son, I am writing cultural reviews now, Ogening. No longer political articles. And I even sent him an animation of a cyclist, less than a minute. In our last communications, he had told me he wanted to write a script, asking me if I could give him a sample script. I was going to answer he on July 29, but then the news was broken to me by my niece, that he is gone.

Yes, now he is gone. Our last meeting is deeply etched in my mind. His eyes were sorrowful -- And I asked him to stay in the condominium, na hinulughulugan ko para matirhan nila ng kapatid niya. 

Yes, he is gone. And I am questioning, how come, he was pronounced dead by a mere paramedic or the police and not by a doctor in Singapore. How come, the doctor came in only during the autopsy?

Singaporean labor laws declare that when a foreign national dies, a doctor should attend to him. No one should touch him.

STREETFOOD VENDING NOT REALLY HEALTHY

by Wilhelmina S. Orozco

The Filipino people are fond of: tusok-tusok fishballs, quail eggs, balut or penoy, kikiam, chicken balls. They buy this everywhere, whether inside malls or on the streets. This is the problem: the street is not really a safe place for eating. You get the flies, the soot from the jeepneys, the motorcyles, the tricycles, and all other vehicles, including the coughing and sneezing of the next customer to you. And they do that while in front of the food. Others dip their food in vinegar but the stick has already been lined by their saliva.

No rules and regulations exist to control, to supervise, or even to make foods by the sidewalks safe for our people. I know this for a fact. Twice I ate food by the sidewalks and the next week, I was down with a cold and a slight fever. I can only attribute it to the lowered resistance I got from eating there.

Who are responsible for regulating streetfood vending, the barangay or the city health centers. Whoever they are, the people need their muscles to control the race for profits of the vendors and to insure that the people stay healthy despite their poverty -- of resorting to eating by the sidewalks.

So here go the suggestions:
1. Require all vendors to cover the food they sell with an acrylic plastic.
2. Roasting by the roadside should be banned.
3. Washing of dishes by the streets should be banned. Instead, plates should be used.
4. Dining tables should be allowed only on streets where vehicles are not allowed to pass.
5. Vinegar in open bottles should not be allowed. Instead, they should be capped and the customer has to just pour it on the food.
6. Food handlers should wear plastic gloves.  They should not be used for handling moneys.
7. Soot coming from barbecue stands should not bother homes around. I have seen those stands where they roaster just keeps doing his activity without regard to where the soot would fly, whether to the open windows, the indoors of homes, or waft over the faces of passersby.
8. Food should be fresh. I have also seen kikiam, fishballs, etc. being sold at UP stands without any ice to keep them fresh. I wonder if they can withstand the heat of the whole day and still remain delicious.
9. Overpricing of foods should not be allowed. At Maria Orosa street corner Padre Faura, a turon vendor sells two pieces for P20 whereas along Pedro Gil, it is only P15. I think that the DTI should monitor the prices of such foodstands so as to prevent business opportunist that wreak havoc on the financial capabilities of our kababayan.

More to come.