off topic but very relevant issue

it's about the mayor and his body guards who mauled two unarmed civilians (a 56 year old man and his 14 year old son) in a golf course!
and this is the daughter/ sister's personal account of the incident

please please repost this. information is vital.
and may we uphold the core of our democratic system
through helping this family win justice.

it could have been ours.

LINK

The world has gone crazy.

So, I just had the worst day of my life.

At around 1:30 PM today, at Valley Golf and Country Club, Antipolo City, Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr., Mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur, his father, Secretary Nasser Pangandaman of the Department of Agrarian Reform, and company, beat my defenseless 56-year-old dad and my 14-year-old brother to a pulp because of some stupid misunderstanding on the golf course.

This is a golf course. I have been a golfer all my life, and I have never seen anything like this. NOTHING. This is hard to comprehend. And it happened to my own father and my own brother too. Right in front of my eyes.

My brother and I were playing golf at the South Course of Valley. We were on the 3rd hole, and we see two golf carts going past us, overtaking our flight, and setting up to tee off on the next hole. My dad goes up to them and asks them why they would do that, why they would overtake us without even asking for our permission. Golf etiquette 101. One of the guys says that they're with the flight in front of us. (So what? That doesn't give them the right to just pass us WITHOUT asking.) So, we go to the 5th hole. The flight behind us catches up with us, and asks us what caused the hold up. We said that this flight just slipped in front of our flight. So we complained to the marshall. We play the 5th hole and walk towards the next hole, where there is a teehouse, and both the flights in front of us were there, talking with the marshall. The mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur talks with my dad. Things get heated up. Voices were raised. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that someone would pull out a punch. Apparently not. He attacks my father. His flightmates, maybe 2 or 3 of them, rush to his aid and beat up my father. My 56-year-old father. My younger brother and I could not just watch. We rushed to break the fight. My younger brother pleads to the mayor to please stop it. To not hurt my dad. To just stop. His words still ring through my head..."Sorry na po, sorry na po...tama na...tama na po..." With his hands in front of his chest in a praying position. PLEADING. The mayor socks him in the face. My brother defended himself. My dad is still on the ground getting clobbered. My brother is the same way. I try to stop the fight, but all I can do is stop one person. There were 4 or 5 of them attacking now.

Someone breaks up the fight. I thought it was all over. The mayor shouts to his caddy: "Hindi nila kami kilala! Sabihin mo nga sa kanila kung sino ako!" And believe me, I had no idea who this person was. But now I know. He's the person who, with 4 other men, beat up my 56-year-old father and my 14-year-old brother. He's the person who sacks a pleading 14-year-old kid in the face. He's a person who, I am sure, is gonna rot in hell.

I lash out, but my dad held me back. I was screaming my lungs out, shouting to this mayor, telling him about what he had done. I said: "Nakakahiya kayo. Singkwenta'y sais anyos ang tatay ko. And kapatid ko kakatorse anyos. Anong ilalaban nila sayo?"

The mayor looks at my brother, point to his face, and says, "Tatandaan kita!" And he tells me that my brother has a bad attitude and that I need to watch him. WHAT THE HELL?! So, my brother's bad for defending his father?!

We leave. We walk to the clubhouse to file a complaint. My brother asks for a doctor. My dad could barely walk. Their group comes to the clubhouse, sees my brother. Once again my brother pleads, says sorry, and is crying. He was CRYING, for crissakes. But no. The relentless mayor still punches him in the face, and then sees my dad and goes after my dad again. Him and his friend pull my dad to the ground, pulls at his feet, and steps on him like he's dirt. I run to him and try to hold him back, holding him back by his shirt, while this other guy and this girl tries to stop me. She tells me to just stop it. I scream in her face "they're beating my father up and you want me to stop?!" I pull at his shirt--I don't let go. All I can see was my dad being trampled on. I didn't even see my brother getting beat up.

People pull them away. I get my dad, and I saw my brother. His right ear was bleeding. I freaked out. I told the receptionists to bring my brother to the clinic. I pull my dad away. People were separating us.

My mom and my older brother come. I tell her Bino's right ear is bleeding. They both look like they could kill. My dad holds my brother off, I hold off my mom. When I finally got my mom under control, my older brother gets away and I hold him off. Two of the mayor's bodyguards pull out guns. I embraced my brother from the back, just holding him back, crying. The receptionists came to us, crying, hugging me, my dad, and my mom, whispering to us to just leave. "Maam, umalis na po kayo, may mga baril sila...Maam...umalis na po kayo please..."

I am pretty sure the Secretary of DAR did not take part in the fight, but he just watched all this happen. He watched two of his sons, as we figured out, the other guy was his son, too, beat up my father and my 14-year-old brother. He didn't do anything to stop it. And this person is what now? A cabinet member. A politician.

Sounds like something out of a movie, doesn't it? But this is what happened. TODAY. The day after Christmas. To my family. And all I ask for is JUSTICE. The people at Valley Golf did not seem to want to help us. None of the security guards even tried to stop the fight. Right in the clubhouse. I came back after the fight was over and talked to the receptionists. They say they did not see anything. The general manager of Valley Golf would not give us the names of the men who made my brother's ear bleed. It took him an hour. Maybe even more than that. He seemed to not want to help us. Because, we were against the SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM and the MAYOR OF MASIU CITY, LANAO DEL SUR. They were all scared.

The world has gone crazy. Two politicians beat up a defenseless 56-year-old father and his 14-year-old son. At a golf course. I swear to God, I thought golfers were decent people. You would think politicians were decent people. I guess not. I guess they gang up on 56-year-old men and beat up pleading 14-year-old kids.

Please pray for my dad, my brother and for my whole family. Please pray that we get JUSTICE. Oh God, please, give these people what they deserve.

:sidetrip magazine finished product. a very late post.

it's been two months.
here's the finished product of that sidetrip
magazine shoot.
till next time.

ann demeulemeester

another one of the mythical belgians.

she's known for her patti smith esque look.

a bit rouge, dirty drapey, dark, slim but very easy

nonchalant and ultimately unpredictable.

unfortunately, she's expensive and very few places

around the world stocks her merchandise and they're mostly

in Europe.....BUT



one day while walking along metrowalk (one of

those mall like spaces here in manila), i chanced

upon this peculiar pair of sandals that looked like a cross

between a pair of sneakers and a pair of sandals! as if being

led by an inaudible, invisible pied piper, i, along with my

cousin and sister went in. it was my cousin who asked how much

the sandals cost. to our dismay, it costs aroung 2500php (53usd).

(in the phillipines where a pair of 20usd havaianas is considered
a lxuxry, 53usd for a pair of sandals is blasphemous!)



this got me stirred and curious, i asked my cousin to hand me the
pair of sandals. lo and behold, i saw the tag 'ann demeulemeester' on it.

and the pair is actually in suede.



to cut it short, my jaw dropped. literally. it's rare enough to find an ann

in this part of the thrid world; and to find an 'ann' that cheap is a miracle.



not having 2500php that day, i had it reserved.



and the long adventure on acquiring the pair before leaving taiwan is another

story altogether....



you see i'm not rich. i can't produce 53usd right off the bat. since worse, i'm not

even earining.



but anyway. the lengths i had to go through just to have a pair of 'ann demeulemeester'

sandals. it may sound foolish but love is foolish.

this is my first official luxury 'splurge' albeit discounted. haha. yey!!!

location: eastern rockies of taiwan. hahah. goodluck to me!

my faculties: clothes for the day

Lots of catching up to do in this department. So much catching up i don't even know where
to start. I'm tempted to just dump all my archival pictures and let everyone suffer information overload; or visual abuse, to be more appropriate and correct. Hmmm....

ok! i got it!
yesterday, Le Maison Martin Margiela, the house of Martin Margiela (for those who refuse to decipher the cryptic yet basic French) celebrated it's 20th founding year.

a brief intro:
Maison Martin Margiela, or MMM from this point onwards, belongs to the school of clothing design that veers toward the esoteric; "Intellectual fashion/ clothes".
To appreciate intellectual fashion, one has to have high level of intellect, fashion wise. By intellect , I mean, enough knowledge/ wisdom about clothes that one is receptive to almost any clothing idea presented but still critical; whether it be a radical cut or material. You will need that when it comes to MMM.
He creates not just innovative but more aptly, very radical clothes. he created deconstruction!
(deconstruction: the idea of breaking apart a garment and exploring the posibilites of that garment to create a new one)
Lately, he's been obsessed about the shoulder. Undeniably, he spearheaded the movement of shoulder exploration. Now everyone from A.F. Vandevorst to Zero Maria Cornejo are exploring the said shoulder. Even my silver biker jacket was somehow inspired by MMM!
What's so important about the shoulder? Let's just say, in constructing a garment, the shoulder region is toughest to perfect.


ok. back to my story:
yesterday, in celebration of MMM's 20 years in fashion, they staged a retrospective
larger than life spring collection; covering all of what made MMM, well, MMM!

here are some of my favourite looks: (the third being my ultra fave)


in light of this, i decided to start my outfit posting with what i think is margiela inspired.
(so far i only three from my two month's worth of archive; make that four outfits)


what's in here:
white shirt.
white power jacket from a factory overrun store in subic bay, philippines.
grayed beige cardigan from a thrift store in cubao.
black latex leggings by iXrXoXg.
nike trainers.

what's so margielic about this oufit: the power suit, though the shoulders are a poor
man's margiela; the outfit as a whole being minimalist despite the layers; and the
white shirt that margiela perfected.
more of this outfit here: click me!!!


outfit 2
what's in here:
old white shirt that i draped using safety pins.
shorts by iXrXoXg.
blue tights from a Taiwan flea market.
fake Vans from greenhills.

what's so margielic about this:
the shirt, the shirt, the shirt. the looseness, the degradation, the safety pins....it's super margiela!
though, i admit the tights made the ensemble less margielic.
more of this outfit here: click me!!!


outfit 3
what's in here:
power jacket from subic bay, philippines.
blue shirt that magically appeared in my drawer.
gray trousers with cutting detail by iXrXoXg.

what's so margielic about this: the jacket again; and this time the color palette adds to the whole minimalistic approach. not esoteric still.
more of the outfit here: click me!!!


outfit 4
what's in here:
white shirt with angular cutting detail by iXrXoXg.
gray trousers with cutting detail by iXrXoXg.
yellow flip flops from havaianas.

what's so margielic about this outfit:
everything! this is hitting the nail right on the spot. from the minimalist yet medical feel of the shirt to the fit of the trousers and the overall silhouette they create. plus the flip flops are actually contributing.
more of this outfit here: click me!!!

i'm getting tired of uploading. till next time.
photo credit: style.com

my dirt road: sidetrip magazine photoshooting

i'm laying off with the demi poetry a bit.
last saturday, that was 092708. i provided clothes for a magazine shoot.

my clothes here were modeled by my friend julie for the magazine on the title: sidetrip. it's for their extreme issue. everything extreme: extreme sports, extreme food, extreme fashion... etc. i as a clothes designer fell under the category of extreme clothing for an extreme sport. my sport was motocross but i think i had a davidson rider more in mind with the battered leather jacket and all. (that's me at the top pic. hehe.)



this is julie in my clothes. (styled by me too) haha. julie wasn't my first model. the original model was supposed to be juno, a guy. but he can't come so i had last minute changes.
we're at the sidetrip office here. freshly and ,may i say wonderfully, made up by mark ho.
the shoot, however, was suddenly moved to cubao instead of the orginally planned rooftop of the sidetrip building. more about that later.
what i made (and are for sale):
the biker jacket in metallic detail with drpaed wool collar and sleeves with satin piping detail (contact me for more details. ie. price)
the tie-dye draped shirt dress with gold paint and satin piping detail (1750php)
the destructed black leggings (775php)




the shoot obviously has to invovle a bike of some sort and they had problems transporting the bike. instead we went to the bike on a last minute notice. the bike is a real ducati. which i love. hahaha. in fairness, we had a great photographer named A.N. Noriel. he made the set work. and the final product i have to say is phenomenal. i could not have been happier.
get hold of sidetrip mag's next issue to see final product!!!!



more pictures here: click me!!!!

my face:face behind the name

and the oracle bathed in rays sweet;
naked.
entering each crevice of her body
like silent ants to their mother.
done, she woke and saw it was
good.

picture book in the sky so lucid.

well. the title says it all.
this is my photo album of things/ people/ places
that catches my fancy.

i'm not a photographer by the way.

just an observer wanting to encapsulate
the meaning of life through a readily
visual medium. still, too blatant and straight
forward for my sensibilities.

not exactly my cup of tea. but what gives....
tea is not even my cup of tea

what to expect? lots of clothes and color.
my face. someone else's face. everybody's face.
give color to this world with your's.

hopefully i won't get tired....