Dear Sibling

Dear sibling,

How have you been spending your first pay? I say spend it all on something lavish and I’ll answer for the rest of your expenses until your next wage.

I can only assume how you feel about the board examination result. I am not happy of course. I am not sad either. I understand.

I rang up the night before day-1 of the examinations. We went on and on cracking old jokes. Then you mustered your courage to tell manong Bry that someone broke your heart—your first time.

I can tell as you blether hate, anger and hope that you’re in a flat spin. I can feel through each sob, you’re smashed to smithereens.

Your phone line's end is flooded with tears.

You tried haplessly to put into words your pain.

You told me it’s unfair and then asked me why?

Hey, you didn’t tell me there’s someone there to cause all these in the first place.

No sibling, I don’t grasp it no more than you do. Love is messy. Sorry, but that’s the best I can come up with. At any rate Manong will be here to help at every turn.

Sibling, hang on there. The raining and pouring shall end.



I’ll remain,

Manong Bry

Filipinos You Meet in Port Moresby

"Seven Kinds of Filipinos You Meet in Port Moresby

1. The Pioneers.
Legend has it that they paddled their way to pre-independence Papua New Guinea fleeing the Imelda Inquisition.

This is the bunch I don’t know much about but ever so easy to spot in a crowd.

From the grannies with faux Australian accent and their SM-deprived offspring they’re almost always vexingly together anywhere they go thronging the ever few expatriate-safe locations in packs like a grade school fieldtrip.

2. Second Generation.
The OFWs.
Like the Pioneers, they are ever present during them infamously banal June 12 Independence Day celebrations where you’ll die of boredom from the shitty appearances of minor over-sensationalized Pinoy celebrities, Bingo craps, Christmas whatnots and basketball blahs.

3. Cross Breeders.
For socio-economic reasons, they breed exclusively with Caucasians.
If there’s too much carats going on, that’s them.

4. The Entertainers.
They’re prostitutes.

5. Churchgoers.
Well, you see them in church every Sunday and at majong tables after mass.

6. Accountants.
Grace Adler once said, “I hate clowns. They think they’re so funny”.

Delete “clowns”. Insert “accountants”. Delete “funny”. Insert “smart”.

7. Then there’s this gang of five. You’ll live life regretfully if you never get to meet them.

Nothing extremely special about this party of five but they guarantee an experience second only to that feeling of orgasmic headboard-rocking coitus.
Ever genial and handy, they paint the town red onboard a green Mitsubishi."