blog my bohol fever...

My family and I went to Bohol for our summer vacation, and we had such a blast I could hardly contain myself from bouncing off the walls when we finally got there...I contained myself, all right, but not when I got to the food...The seafood tastes incredible in Visayas...I'm used to eating delicoius seafood here in Davao, but the ones in Bohol and Cebu are entirely a league of their own...

Anyways, as I've said, there are so many things to do in Bohol. Aside from eating, there are a lot of historical sites there, as it is one of the first areas in the Philippines to be visited and colonized by the Spaniards. There are many old churches to be visited, along with the blood-compact site, which offers a beautiful view of the ocean as its backdrop. Another beautiful aspect of Bohol is that it still retains its probinsya (country-side) air....there are tons of foreigners there, but it does not feel crowded at all. The clean, white sand beaches are spectacular...Feels like your in Boracay, minus the overwhelming crowd and bars...My son, for one, could not get enough of bathing in their pristine waters...There is also the Loboc River Cruise, the scenic cruise which is beautifully presented, especially at night, with the dazzling lights, and the musical feats of the local folk. Never before have I seen such a sincere and heartfelt effort by the locals to boost their tourism...Oh, and the people there are tourist friendly, the kind man who drove our van doubled as our tour guide...He told us of Alona Beach's short history and informed us that tricycle drivers weren't allowed to post partially clothed women on their vehicles, insatead, passages from the Bible were placed as decor on the tiny colorful transportations of Bohol.

More than that, Bohol is home to one of the Philippines' most recognizable landmarks, the Chocolate Hills....and one of the world's cutest animals, the tarsier...To see my son, who is an avid fan of all types of animals, gaze wonderingly at  that small animal was classic... I will never forget the small joys of that trip...eating at the mall in Cebu...discovering that my son loved eating deep-fried talangka (baby crabs), being with him on his first airplane trip...are memories that I will forever treasure. 

Even doing all those things in our trip, there are still many places left to see in Bohol. We all hope to visit Bohol next year. We could visit nearby islands  or ride a boat for dolphin/whale watching, and we could explore the Chocolate in a different way by riding those small cars on the path around the hills themselves. All in all..the trip to Bohol will truly be one of the best I've ever taken...It was simply special.

some local folk singing and dancing for tourists

me & my son

Registering for Upcoming Elections

I can now say that it is neither fun nor easy to try voting here in the Philipppines. I am sorry to say that I am beginning my blog on such a sour note..but, permit me to rant and rave, as I really do need to get this off my chest.

It was a drastic rush to the newly built half of our subdivision's basketball court early this morning, as we all tried to be in line first...Only, there was no line...two tables were set up. One was for encoding data to the computer, the other one  was where various forms were to be gathered. As a new voter, I had no idea on what I was supposed to do, and neither did my companion, Jocel, who was just as clueless as I was. We reluctantly approached the huddle that surrounded the table that contained the registration forms and stood behind the people clamoring to get there hands on paperwork held by an obnoxious gay person...(on record, I have nothing against gay people, I am a big fan of Ellen Degeneres, Elton John, and Sir Ian McKellen) who poured all his attention to this bulky male officer who just had to step right in front of us. We eventually got our RF. We returned later after we filled them up, looking for the inkpad to place our thumbprints. Apparently, people have been passing the thing around and it took us several minutes before we finally caught up with it. People who were supposed to give us information as to what to do next were in no mood to talk to us. They wouldn't respond to our questions, which weren't rude in anyway. More irritating than that, the woman we were asking for instructions kept on shooing us away from the table, saying that we might trip over the wires of the computer that was gathering data for the upcoming elections.

Then, I blew up. I cut off the bruha (relentless diva) who was ubod ng taray (superbly obnoxious) kept on yapping at us on where we should stay and wait. No one was telling us what to do next, everyone was pointing at someone else, not really being helpful, only wanting to pass us onto someone else. In the end, the computer finally crashed. It probably couldn't stand the heat. In the midst of all that waiting, we weren't even allowed to sit down...the inkpad that run amok, the election officers who kept on complaining about what we were all doing wrong...when it was them who collected the forms, only finding out later that they weren't capable of processing them today, so it all boiled down to the fact that we had to come back tomorrow, because incompetent people who were incapable of implementing a systematic process kept blaming other people for their sheer lack of common sense.

Yes, it was truly a waste of more than two hours of waiting around for nothing in that basketball court that embodied the whole Philippine system: great ideas that fell short in the execution, and resulted to half-baked products byobstinate dolts.