Paskuhan sa Tumana 2011

December 16,2011.  For a couple of hours at least, 18 brave souls now banded as Match Factory workers, celebrated their Christmas Party.

This Christmas Party would be fondly remembered as a night of revelations.

First and foremost, it was a revelation to see the organizational skills of Kenn and Cathy. Their uncanny duo made it possible to execute a four week “monita-monito” run very smoothly without people having to give latex-condoms as we’ve seen in past years.

Cathy’s catering skills were revealed as she budgeted not a whole lot of money to come up with a sumptuous feast.  The “tower-mug” was a touch of class that transformed the dinner setting into something funky. 

The music of the night was courtesy of the “Tumana Band” of  Almond and Van. But the revelations of the night were still about to come.  Deah and Kim wowed us with their singing prowess.  Ella, of course, dazzled us with her emotional songs.  Truly revealing was Cathy’s rendition of “I don’t want to miss a thing”.  Nobody was talking when she belted that number while her special-someone, Mon, listened in awe.  The rap-trio of Ria,Jasmine, and Deah was hilarious.  But the Champion of all songs would be RJ and his rap-version of a Linkin Park hit – “In the End”.

Just when you taught you saw it all, the wacky side of the TL’s was revealed as they participated in the banana-match relay.  Their hips swayed gamely as if they were teachin us how to doggie as they battled to reach the finish line.

Almond then revealed his bitter-sweet news.  Sweet because he would be pursuing a dream in the land of milk and honey. Bitter because we would see another good man leave come 2012.

The thunder of the night would be the revelation of Francis and Barbee.  Yes folks, they have finally admitted that they are now an item.  Hell Yeah! What else could you ask for? A surprise for every step you take.

Post Script. Another tender revelation.  Rhea is confirmed to be on the same boat with Kim. Two kids for Y2012, a pair of luck charms.

“I tried so hard and got so far but in the end, I found out that  it did really matter….

Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

I’ll be home for Christmas, babe

It has finally come to the month of December again. How quickly the days were plucked like the falling leaves from our Kamias tree.

But climate change has certainly altered the weather pattern of Christmas . Gone were the cool days of early morning dawn. Gone also, were the days when at 5:00 pm, the landscape was already covered with darkness and you would love to take long evening walks. This year, the change in the climate has brought upon us a “wicked-weather” that is as fickle-minded as a teen-age shopper at Forever 21!   The mornings could be blazing at 27degC and suddenly shift to storm-rains in the afternoon. One thing I noticed, the heat is no longer humid, it has become dry heat!!.  

I guess “Change” is the predominant direction for Y2011. We, at the Match Factory, are not excluded in this evolving sphere of change.

This year, two former Match Factory workers said “I do’s” with their respective partners and changed their lives with new journeys.  Ate Ron and Toots are now linked with other couples who promised each other that they would “love, cherish, and hold each other, till the end of time” .  Our very own, Rhea, followed suit by end July and started to her own life journey with Julius.  Any new takers for Y2012? 

At the start of this year, one of my sons in the match factory underwent difficult change when he had to say goodbye to his partner.  The change would not be easy as he had to let go of pieces of emotional baggage.  But he took the change positively and underwent a transformation. To start fresh, he transferred to a new place by himself kept himself busy with his SLR.  Slowly but surely, he steadied himself and learned to be part of the team once again.

Also at the start of the year, we had the pleasure of going to a real-life Tumana. The journey changed me forever as I knew what my retirement would look like. The blessed event was complete with angry birds, guns, fishing rods, and a pool of fish who simply didn’t want to be caught. 

In the match factory, the first quarter of the year was also noted with a lot of changes. Processes and business demands get updated and so we re-align our manpower to these changes. Some of these changes meant saying goodbye to old and  loyal friends. However, it also meant getting to know new friends. We said our goodbyes to Janaly, Ohyen, Kris, Donna, Jaymar, and of course to Joanna this year.  We said hello to Jasmine, Cathy, Franz, Barbee, Ella, Almond, RJ, and Louise. It was an even happier reunion of sorts for Tan-tan and Rhea who had the pleasure of formally joining the team.

As expected, the change in the composition of the new team resulted in some friction as the honey-moon period transitioned into serious work.  New personalities clashed with the old personalities. That was really expected.  What the hell did you expect when sixteen people(16) are thrown together in a 4×10 meter clean-room? Eventually, the new team settled their differences and began to work together.

A life-changing event happened to our snake-charmer-Kimster.  She announced her biggest surprise for Y2011 when she learned she was blessed with a baby in her womb.  It made me ponder about my own children and what we would do, as parents, to make them happy. For the Chinese, a pregnant woman in the workplace is supposed to bring in good luck for the company. I certainly wish Kimster and her baby the best of health.

As we cruised toward the middle of the year, the Match Factory was ridden with personal conflicts arising from God-knows-what.  Changes would be again seen as the meek were transformed to lions.  Clashes in the pantry, bathrooms and hallways would be common skirmishes.  In the end, the loud-mouths would eventually succumb to the silence that the passive peace-makers bring to the table. Personally, it would have been a choice of sending a .45 hollow-point or a 5.76MM armor-piercing round,  down their noisy mouths.

In the same parallel cruise of the middle-year, professional conflicts also sparked in the match factory.  Sparks and tempers were flying every which way as manpower constraints and limited access to resources forced management to implement brutal changes. As usual, it’s the people who would be sacrificed in the end. Some hard working factory people got the raw end of the deal as they only did what was asked of them but they got the ire of the other workers.  In the same token, the brutal changes did some good as some of the “bad apples” in the factory simply couldn’t hack it anymore and left.

During the third quarter of the year, my son here in the match factory experienced another round of change as he got back on the saddle and entered into a new relationship.  This time, his partner is a professional with a bachelor’s degree in Education. She has worked as an educator for the past five years and comes from a very humble family. I have had the opportunity to meet her and her parents as well. Hopefully, my son has learned invaluable lessons as he prepares himself for marriage.

Even hobbies change, if I may say so myself.  From simply shooting pest-birds and silhouette targets, I actually enjoyed shooting with a camera. I joined the coverage of a Fun-Run and a Halloween gig called Spooktacular.  Change really does a person some good, some time.

As we round up the year, I am continuously looking forward to changes.  The devil in me needs to be tamed and that’s a fucking work in progress.  To those lives I have positively touched and changed, may you pay it forward to another deserving soul. To those lives I have negatively touched and perhaps damaged forever, my sincerest apologies.  I tell you, I don’t sleep without having thought about you and my transgression.  Everybody goes through this permanent cycle called change.  I am a tough nut to crack but I would like to believe there is still hope for me to improve myself.

Have a Happy Holidays ahead of you. This Christmas is about change, just like the first Noel who changed the world more than 2,000 years ago……”Heat up the food babe, I’ll be home for Christmas. Don’t forget to wear your lovely red-lipstick with nothing else on….ho-ho-ho”

Araw ng Kagitinggan

We were so used to former PGMA’s “Holiday Economics” that yesterday’s holiday at the middle of the work-week caught us off-guard.

Since it was a Wednesday, I believe people simply opted to stay in the city and do their Christmas shopping.  Boy oh boy, were the malls packed!

After doing some Christmas shopping of my own, I decided to watch films with courage and bravery as themes. What better way to commemorate Gat Andres Bonifacio, right?

First, I downloaded a 2011 remake of an alien film classic – “The Thing”.  I was able to watch an earlier version of “The Thing” which starred Kurt Russell.  In fairness, the latest remake was almost as good as the Kurt Russell version.

The story is about an alien spacecraft that crashed in the Arctic wasteland, hundred of thousands of years ago.  An expedition in 1984 was able to uncover the ship and its lone passenger trapped in a block of ice.  The lone passenger, trapped in this frigid coffin of ice is what is called “The Thing”.   The scientists on the expedition take a tissue sample of the frozen passenger and inadvertently re-animates the spider-looking creature.  Lo and behold, the creature is apparently not as friendly as they expected it to be and it starts feeding on the expedition team.  To complicate things, “The Thing” can copy the human-figure of its victim . It can also use the faculties of speech and reason to lure more victims to their death.  There is only one courageous  survivor of the expedition, a female scientist. This ass-kicking geek blows up the alien creature by shoving a military-grade explosive in “The Thing’s” mouth.  Talk about an ice-breaker eh?

Next movie I pirated off the net which displayed bravery is a Filipino flick by Regal Films.  The movie is entitled “Aswang” (loosely, this is Filipino version of any known blood-sucking creature).  In this movie, it is the Aswang who displayed extra-ordinary bravery by defying what her nature dictates.  This memorable Aswang chooses to preserve life and does not treat humans as cattle. Of course she gets into trouble with her entire clan who treats her as an outcast.  The movie is set in a fictional baranggay in Pampangga called “Barrio Tumana”.   Yep, I shit you not, it’s actually called Tumana. 

Since this is not an Indi Movie, the movie is complete with twisting sub-plots. There is murder and unrelenting chase-scenes. There is a trio of  bad-ass hitmen hunting down the children. There is a story about redemption regarding one of the hitmen.  There are also dream-sequences of wanton passion.   A  typical Regal Film formula : a little bit of everything for everyone. How can this Aswang movie go wrong when you have a demigod like Lovi Poe as the central character with fangs.