Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Early Monday morning, Trevor and I decided to apply for our visa to India.

And as it turns out, the Embassy wouldn’t process our visa application. They said that we were applying too early and added that we should apply 2-3 weeks before our scheduled flight to India.

My excuse was that we needed to get our visa because we will be out of the country for 3 weeks in November. The Embassy insisted that we apply last week of November since it takes only 3-6 days to get the visa.

I insisted saying that we needed the visa to confirm our reservation at the Homestay - the Embassy said that we will definitely get our visa so we can confirm the reservation, but we can’t just apply too early.

Because that didn’t work I told her we are not so sure of being in Manila end of November as we might still be in Mongolia. The Embassy said that we can try end of October. I said but that’s not 2-3 weeks before our flight to India. They said they will accept it then. They added that the Embassy may also give us only a short term valid visa and may no longer be valid when we leave for India if we apply too early. I said, but isn’t the tourist visa 6 months valid? They said the Embassy has the discretion to give shorter visas.

I guess the Embassy was really really keen on not letting us apply at all until much later.

What an ordeal. The Embassy was located in an exclusive rich village (Dasmarinas Village) and they wouldn’t let a taxi go in or people (non-residents) walking in. People had to pay a ticket at the guard’s entrance to ride a shuttle service to take them to the Embassy (or other place in the exclusive village). What’s worse, they said that only foreign nationals or those married to foreign nationals could walk - un assisted, or should I say, un-guarded - inside the village.

So to walk in Trevor and I showed our marriage certificate (I always bring it with me - I may not be in Saudi Arabia, but it helps). The guard looked at it and remarked, but you are a Filipino citizen. I said OF COURSE! They were probably expecting Filipinas married to foreigners automatically kicking their nationality.

But imagine, I can’t even walk freely in my own country because I am still a Filipino!!!!

What a world!

We got home, rested, and shortly as I was starting to cook dinner, I heard a loud meowing outside. I looked through the window and saw - right under the tree next to little kitty’s tree - was an abandoned little kitten!

I immediately woke Trevor up and told him we should get it. So we went down - it was raining a bit - and took the little kitten. It was inside an open plastic bag indicating that someone had thrown her into the fence and right under that tree.

Our new kitty looks so much like our first little kitty we found some 3 months ago, under the tree and also while it was gently raining. Little kitty is also a tri-color, so we can say that it’s most probably female. I took a photo of her, above, asleep on my old soft cotton shirt which I placed on top of Trevor’s slippers.

This new kitty has her eyes open and is able to walk around, definitely older than our first kitty who still had her eyes closed when we found her.

I gave our new little kitty some food (some baby milk left over from before) and then I gave her a good wash with warm water and made her pee. Our new little kitty has a short rather fat tail. She’s really quite cute. I’m so glad we found her (or she found us!)

Our new little kitty had quite a good rest, especially fond of Trevor’s slippers. I guess we’ll need to get a new pair soon.

This photo of her back really reminds me of our first little kitty … I was also reminded of the day that kitty died but I don’t feel as sad anymore, in fact, I feel happy that in some way kitty has come back to us.

I truly hope we do better this time and help kitty grow up to be a big cat - so George and Fortun can have someone to play with.

Incidentally, I just learned that stray cats/kittens were used as targets by an air-gun toting folk in Dasmarinas village last year. See in the news, and from the Makati local government website news, below.

BINAY ORDERS INVESTIGATION OF CAT SLAUGHTER IN DASMARINAS VILLAGE

posted 01/05/2008 12:58 PM SATURDAY

The Makati Police Department is currently investigating the recent killing of 29 kittens and cats in Barangay Dasmariñas.

Makati Police Chief Supt. Gilberto DC Cruz ordered the investigation following verbal orders from Makati Mayor Jejomar C. Binay. Cruz said Makati Police investigators are coordinating with Barangay Dasmariñas officials and the Dasmariñas Village Association (DVA).

“I have ordered the Makati Police to arrest those responsible as soon as possible. The suspects have violated a national law and a city ordinance on animal welfare,” Binay said.

The mayor said the suspects must be found to secure the safety, not only of animals, but of residents and visitors of Dasmariñas Village.

“Whoever did this does not seem to have a sound mind and may cause harm to people the next time. I am asking anyone who has information to cooperate with the authorities,” Binay said.

Last December 16, several cats were shot at using an air gun with lead pellets inside two holding cages at the back of the DVA gym. The cats were cared for by the Compassion and Responsibility for Animals (CARA) Philippines, which is helping the DVA address the stray cat population problem of the village. The cats were reportedly up for adoption. - From Makati Gov

The main building of giant shopping mall SM City along North Ave-EDSA in Quezon City must be some 20 years old now, a building sporting that distinctive SM architectural design of the gray ridged facade found in old SM buildings in Cubao, Makati and Manila.

Recently, perhaps in celebration of its 50-year anniversary, SM City is getting a massive face lift, apart from constructions of new buildings and a huge condominium-golf complex nearby.

The face lift includes a re-design of that distinctive ridged facade.

Above, construction work on-going. Below, two photos taken in February 2007, showing the same building with the birds nestled inside the ridges of the building’s facade. (From http://www.korakora.org/wordpress/2007/02/24/a-bridge-in-the-sky/)

This made me think of the implications of such a re-design, especially upon the thousands and thousands of birds that flock to SM City and nestle inside the ridges beginning the months of September/October, and then leaving in the months of February/March.

Above, construction work on the other end of the building. Photo below taken in February 2007 showing the birds as they start to gather and find their places inside the building wall’s ridges by sunset. (From http://www.korakora.org/wordpress/2007/02/11/mall-birds/)

I suspect that the new design will be a smoother facade for the giant shopping mall. So I was wondering how the birds will cope when they all return in a few months to find that their “condominium” has been defaced.

If the construction work was done in September or October when the birds arrive, it could have been quite a disaster. One night in December, during one of those weekends when the mall has a fireworks display, the birds were so disturbed that they flew in panic around the building, flying frightening low barely above people’s heads.

Anyway, I will miss these birds. I was so looking forward to seeing them again late this year …

The fiesta went quite well this weekend - really noisy - and someone organized some parlor games for young people along our street. It was sunny all day and a group of gay performers visiting from Cavite entertained with their dances and fire-eating stunts. They came in via a jeepney hired for about 1,700 pesos for a few days, according to their hired driver, to join fiestas in Parañaque, Manila and then ours. I asked the driver if he owned the jeepney, he said no, and pointed to the old woman sitting inside it, he told me, she owns the jeepney. He added that he was just the driver. I asked him if they’ve been here before, he said no. So I thought that the routine must be quite popular (impressive drumming and some 5 or 6 gays in ati-atihan -style or other costume (last year I think it was safari) and one or two of them very skilled in fire-eating.

They are extremely talented, certainly much better than the amateurs around here who beat drums and jump up and down. There have been plenty of very impressive drumming recently though, so I guess people have been practising more.

Anyway, the jeepney driver asked if Trevor was my husband and I said yes. I asked if lots of women in his town marry foreigners and he said, yes, there has been a growing number of women marrying foreigners. So I asked how the relationships were and he said not very well. I asked why. His explanation was quite poetic, I thought,

“May kama ka na, hindi ka pa nakuntento. Ngayon ay nasa banig ka na lang, di lang banig, sementong malamig pa.”

He said, describing the women, You were given a bed and you are not content, now you only have a mat, worse you have a cold ground to sleep on.

The women, he said, also fooled around a great deal.

He asked if Trevor was a good husband. I said yes, and I described to him how we live. He seemed pleased that we live rather simply and are happy. When I mentioned that Trevor was already retired and not working he said, “alagain na lang”, that is, just someone who needs caring. I thought he meant it negatively but he added that it was good because he is my husband, and couples look after each other.

I realized that “alagain” had a more positive connotation to some people especially when it referred to family looking after each other. Or perhaps I confused it with “palamunin” which meant a mouth to feed, which can have a negative connotation especially when referring to lazy young able-bodied men in the family, but has a more jocular connotation when referring to younger people or people who have just lost their jobs and still live with their parents.

Actually, I was about to ask the driver and gay dancers if they would wish to perform at the church (just a few more yards from where they parked the jeepney) in order to attract more people and earn more money, when I realized that the church here (which can be quite conservative) would consider these things blasphemous. I guess the same with the kids playing games with long eggplants hanging between their legs, which Trevor saw on his way back to our apartment.

When the religious procession began in the evening it started to rain.

Today we celebrated lunch at a nearby restaurant with Auntie Pin and family - it’s auntie’s 80th birthday. Plenty of food, we even had some for take-out! Below is a photo of Edward after eating…

And below I took a photo of the pond surrounding the restaurant - plenty of fish - and coins!

Anyway, all day that Sunday fiesta I’ve been thinking of that gay performance group. They work really hard and I can imagine invest a lot in their skills, costumes, make-up. I wondered if they earned enough through their fiesta-hopping and if they encountered aggressive towns… It would’ve been nice to chat with them but they all had to go and work …

I also thought about those women, especially in small towns, who had unsuccessful relationships with foreign men. It must’ve been quite a disaster for the men too. Actually, Trevor and I met an Australian woman at an airport in Thailand who said her ex-husband has married twice, all to Filipina women who just took money from him and dumped him - and that he was doing it all again. She thought that he was really stupid.

Then I thought about a few Filipina friends of mine, women intellectuals, who have just married foreign men and are very happy. So it also seems that quite a number of young intelligent Filipina women are now marrying foreign men (not Americans!), not for purely economic reasons but more for intellectual reasons. Well, not intending to put down Filipino men but it does seem that the local intellectual-cultural machismo landscape (at least in the city centers) has degenerated…

Strange how one reads more deeply upon the writings of someone who just passed away. It is like reading the letters of somebody you secretly love.

Over the past three months, Sid has been emailing me on a few topics: one was an invite to participate in an exhibition that he was organizing with Dopy for the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Then a few weeks later, a “happy new 2008″ greeting with a note that the exhibition, originally scheduled for February 13, was being moved to September, and that would give them time to think about my reservations about joining. Another was to tell me that the NCCA announcement for Websining was incomplete and that he was submitting his entry to the Open Call for Art anyway. I guess he liked Websining - last year he was one of the moderators for the KURO Satellite Forum on “art competitions” and participated in another KURO forum hosted at the CCP. I also had fun working with Sid on Yankee Doodles some five years ago.

Trevor met Sid once, at another forum at the CCP, and Sid joked how some westerners he meets overseas often asked him if Filipinos could really climb coconut trees … (Of course, when Trevor and I went to Bohol, and saw those kids climbing the coconut trees along Loboc River with lightning speed, and then diving into the water, one would feel most compelled to get to know someone who could actually perform such a feat!)

A friend wrote that Sid actually went home from hospital, so everyone thought he would recuperate. Sid was born to the world on a Christmas Day. I guess, when fate called, he didn’t want to leave the world on an April Fools Day.
Goodbye, Sid, we will all miss you - till we meet again.

Sick Leave
(With reference to Juan Luna’s painting, “Parisian Life”)

Like a patch of skin spared
from sunburn by a shield
of cloth or sunblock lotion,
there’s a rectangle on the wall
lighter than the wall itself,
where a painting used to hang.
Now that the artwork is gone,
visitors ask, “What used to be there?,”
and “What was it about?,”
as if they hadn’t seen the piece before,
or maybe not carefully enough.
‘Wasn’t there a woman seated
in a café?, Didn’t she have a glass
of wine, or some company?,”
The damp ground, eavesdropping,
almost shifts, holding up the house
whose wall holds up a rusty nail
in its perpetual upturned pose,
holding up no answer.

On my fourth day in hospital
with dextrose feeding me twenty
drops a minute, I picture in my mind
a space I may have left behind,
not entirely empty, but of air
made thinner by my absence,
or of lighter tissue,
so that people pause, inquire,
and imagine what used to be there.

“So where’s the painting now?”

vvvvv

Sid Gomez Hildawa (1962-2008)
Artist, Poet
Department Manager
Visual, Literary and Media Arts
Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)

I hardly check my Gmail account. And when I did today, I found an email from Kim telling me that his dad passed away February 1. Thirteen years ago I wrote something about Prof. Valino. I interviewed him, took some photos, and wrote the article below for a travel newspaper I worked with for a couple of years.

Last I heard from Kim, Prof. Valino was living in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ejica with his cousins and nephews who took very good care of him. Kim sent a photo and I was quite happy to see that his father looked healthier and plumper. My last memory of him then was a very thin frail man (as in the photo I took of him below in 1995) - which was after his retirement from teaching at university. That time he was working on a mural painting.

In Cabanatuan, Prof. Valino had lots of painting work to do - he still had commissions and has done some paintings for the churches and chapels in Cabanatuan City. Kim said that Prof. Valino also had paintings of various stages of development in his studio. Perhaps there would be some interest in the Valino clan, perhaps his daughter Lorna who is also an artist, to document and investigate Prof. Valino’s work development - it could be a valuable contribution to a truly indigenous art education in the country.

I feel sorry that I didn’t get Kim’s email on time to attend Prof. Valino’s funeral and meet his family… I feel sorry that I was never able to stay in touch with Prof. Valino after he left Manila…

Carlos P. Valino, Jr., reluctant master
by Fatima Lasay
TravelNews Philippines issue October 1995

There’s work going on at the lobby of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. For nearly three months now, Carlos P. Valino, Jr. has been pouring his heart out onto a larger than life painting in an effort to depict the vast history of the Fine Arts.

From dusk till dawn, one can see the artist at work, progressing, studying, reviewing the images, there in the lobby of the college building. It is an unusual situation, because Valino is no ‘exhibitionist.’

For years, art has been a private matter for Valino, never taking pleasure in art shows and exhibits, never really wanting to show off his work or sell them. And if he should ever show them, he shows them only to a chosen few, and if he is ever talked into selling them, he tags exorbitant prices. Valino’s attachment to his work is bordering selfishness, a private affair, a work all his own.

Carlos P. Valino, Jr. was born in Sampaloc, Manila. His childhood years, however, flourished in the provinces of Cabanatuan, Nueva Ejica and Santiago, Isabela. In 1947, he entered the UP School of Fine Arts as a Ramon Roces Scholarship Grantee. In 1951, fresh out of school, he worked as a freelance artist until seven years later he was asked to teach at the UP School of Fine Arts. From 1965 to 1969 he served as College Secretary of the then College of Fine Arts and Architecture.

Besides being a UP professor, he has managed to put up a few one-man shows and win major prizes in various painting competitions, among them the Bonifacio Centennial, the Malvar Centennial, and the Aguinaldo Centennial. In 1976 and 1977, he was listed in the Dictionary of International Biographies and in Volume 4 of the Illustrated Men of Achievements book. He is also the recipient of the Outstanding Novo Ecijanos Award in 1982.

It is worth mentioning here that Valino never really intended to become an artist. His first choice in college was Medicine; he wanted to become a doctor. His mother wanted him to become an artist. Perhaps there is little difference between his youthful interest and his destiny, as today Valino is an expert on the human figure.

Valino’s mastery of the oil medium may be associated with a deep and lasting reaction to the drama and treatment of the gigantic Spoliarium. As both creator and critic of art, his involvement with the works of his mentor, Ireneo Miranda, may also be considered a significant contribution to his practice of art today.

In the proliferation of styles beginning in the 70s to the present, a stylistic pluralism has evolved, and many of our contemporary artists have subconsciously directed their styles in a need to comply with the demands of what is popular and new. In the midst of this crossbreed of styles, the technique, imagery and material of Valino is a timeless classic. While many styles today are rapid and spontaneous burst of color, Valino’s is a disciplined and progressive study on the laws of value, color and texture. I have seen his line drawings in the early stages of his work at the College of Fine Arts, and the lines are whimsical where the images are so, and the lines are aggressive where the emotive content is aggressive. The patient and masterful control of every line, every space and value is what sets a dedicated master apart from the dabbling painter or the ominous art mill.

However, Valino is not the stereotypical artist living in a degenerative state. He is the jocular artist, the one unaffected by whatever spate of critics or vandals, the one calmed by religiosity, acquiring the therapeutic benefits of his art.

Looking over his few art shows from 1967 to the present, one may notice a slight but significant abandon from the political and social statements he has made to the more spiritual and religious thematic series beginning in the early 1980’s. He quips that perhaps as one gets older, one becomes more concerned with his reputation in heaven. He is not, however, slightly concerned about his popularity on this temporal earth. He has done huge works gratis et amore, and he is not impressed at the trend of artists putting up as many as three art shows every year. To Valino, art is never a source of revenue but rather solely a source of joy. His work in progress at the College of Fine Arts is his love for art and for God. And for the first time in his life as an artist, he could feel a presence guiding his hand into asserting the images of a work he could not now merely regard all his own.

It was evening of October 25 when some kids started knocking on our door calling out “Trick or Treat!” Hmmm… isn’t that a bit too early? Trevor, who has been anticipating this much earlier, has been preparing since first week of October for these kids by saving up coins to give away. And just like the Christmas carols, the same group of kids come back for more treats a few minutes later.

The other day, I was even more surprised when the kids came at 3 in the afternoon! Hmmm … so I told them to come back later. Our landlady who lives upstairs told them all to go away, there won’t be any trick or treats around here until October 31!

I told Trevor we might’ve spoiled the kids by giving them some money as treats (we didn’t like the idea of giving them candies, although sugar treats are apparently the norm in the US. However, I did hear some of our neighbors giving them treats too. So far, I haven’t heard of any tricks, but considering that in the UK police have warned parents that Halloween pranks by their kids will be punished, I can only say “thank goodness!”

Anyway, when the same bunch of kids kept coming back within a couple minutes, Trevor decided to give them a ‘trick.’ He opened the door and growled at them, scaring them all off screaming. It was fun and I’m sure the kids had fun too.

This evening they came back. I opened the door and saw them far from the doorway, obviously scared in case Trevor comes out at them. I told them, “oi kids, why aren’t you in costume?”

One of them replied, “we don’t have money to buy costumes, but later if we get enough money …” They were trying very hard to look like poor street kids (something they probably learned from watching Wowowee) but it didn’t work - they were very obviously kids from middle-income families. Anyway, I told them, “you don’t need money to get costumes! You can cut up paper and all sorts of things and make your own costumes.”

And for a while I thought about how strongly “Trick-or-Treating” and “Halloween” are commercially pushed and socially accepted activity - just like Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, etc.

Actually, the scariest trick or treat costume, besides being the cheapest one, is also of indigenous origin: the bayong (a bag made of woven palm leaves). One can cut eye holes in the bayong and wear it over one’s head. The bayong mask is reminiscent of the spies of the Filipino volunteer armies, such as the Makapili, organized during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines.

Then I told them, “when you kids come back you better tell me where this trick-or-treat came from and what it means. And why didn’t your parents do trick-or-treating when they were young?” They made all sorts of guesses and one of them said trick-or-treat (as many other things) came from America.

As far as the Philippine experience is concerned, that is quite true, although originally, the tradition comes from the British Isles in the Middle Ages (also known as “souling”): “trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of “souling,” when poor folk would go door to door, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (All Hallows Day).” See the Wikipedia entry.
“Souling” translates to “pangaluluwa” or “mangalulwa” in Filipino, which means to go around serenading homes, simulating souls temporarily released from heaven during the eve of All Sants’ Day.

However, most Christianized Filipinos would prefer to go to the dead rather than have the dead go to their homes. Thus All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2) are days when families visit their dead, many often spending overnight or longer at cemetery. While cemetery security is being more tightly enforced now, previous practices included plenty of eating, drinking, music, gambling and other games

Evidently, trick-or-treating resembles the practice of going door-to-door singing Christmas carols in return for ‘treats’, which connects to wassailing (from the Anglo-Saxon toast wæs þu hæl, “be thou hale” — i.e., “be in good health”). In cider-producing areas of England, such as the West Country, wassailing also refers to drinking (and singing) the health of trees in the hopes that they might better thrive. (See the Wikipedia entry on wassailing).

Trick-or-treat, as an activity for children in which they go from house to house in costumes, asking for treats such as candy with the question, “Trick or treat?”, is a 20th century phenomenon. Apparently, the activity came to the Philippines from the US - and only very recently. I have not had any experience of Trick-or-treating when I was a child, and have not had kids trick-or-treating our homes until the late 90’s.

Ritualized begging on Halloween in the US seem to have become popular only in the 1930s, with the earliest known uses in print of the term “trick or treat” appearing in 1934 (Oregon Journal), and the first use in an American publication occurring in 1939 (The American Home). From western America, trick-or-treating spread eastward with lulls between 1942-1947 because of sugar rationing during the Second World War.

In the Philippines, Halloween parties, costumes and trick-or-treating seem to have been first adopted by children of upper class families, evidently as influences by their families’ friends and contacts from the US, including upper class families preference and access to US media and lifestyles.

In our old neighborhood in Sampaloc, Manila where I grew up, there was no such thing as trick-or-treating, but around the same time, lavish Halloween parties, costumes and other activities took place in exclusive residential compounds such as Corinthian Garden, Forbes Park, Ayala Alabang, Dasmarinas Village, Bel-Air, and the like. Only recently, did the practice get adopted by middle- and perhaps even lower-income families with the promotion of such practices in mainstream media and almost all the shopping establishments.

What I do remember as a child during All Souls Day, besides the customary visit to the cemetery, was sitting in the candlelit darkness with my brother and sister, listening to our father tell some of the scariest stories ever…

Although we didn’t need to be at Immigration until next week, we decided to go today just to make sure since there seem to be quite a number of non-working holidays coming up - the upcoming elections and All Soul’s Day.

It was the usual commute to Manila, for our 2-month’s worth dose of carbon monoxide. It’s not as difficult for me anymore, as I was getting a bit more used to the pollution, although I still feel nauseous as soon as I get down from the jeepney.

We decided to go to Fort Santiago again to wait out the 4-hour processing for the visa extension. It’s quite nice there, a distance from the pollution and the noise of motors. On the way there we decided to buy some bottled water at MiniStop and two kids asked us if we could buy them some doughnuts. I saw the doughnuts in the shop, they were not really shaped as doughnuts but were shaped as holloween motifs - ghosts, witch’s hats, pumpkins, etc.

We got the kids some doughnuts and chocolate drink. Then when we went to the nearby Chinese fastfood for some lunch take-aways, the kids were there again, cheering us, and then said goodbye.

They were one of several regulars in the area - a bunch of kids collecting garbage in that part of Intramuros.

We had our lunch and then a bit of rest at Fort Santiago. Quite a surprise to see a number of tourists - Americans, Japanese, Koreans, etc. - when two months ago the place was all quiet. The entrance fee seem to have gone up too, I don’t know if it’s permanent or only for the peak season.

The horse-drawn calezas were all busy - nice for the cuchero and plenty of exercise for the horses. Even with all the foreign travel advisory I guess there are still some tourists who like coming to the Philippines, although it’s not very clear what might be there to see in Manila compared to other parts of the country like Cebu or Palawan, apart from foreigners coming over perhaps because they have family or maybe because of business.

Anyway, here’s a photo of myself and Edward, wearing clothes worn by Filipinos from early 19th century Manila. The clothes were perhaps drawn from Damian Domingo’s watercolor albums from the 1830s, called “Tipos del Pais.”

And here’s a photo of Trevor as a Spanish friar.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to do some crocheting at Fort Santiago and at Immigration. So at least, work is progressing. I am making a smaller version of the red roses purse for our landlady’s daughter.

Then I got an email and a really lovely photo from an ex-colleague now based in the US. Beautiful environment, in Georgia if I’m not mistaken. Earlier I got an email and photos from an old BBS friend now living in Canada - some really lovely photos of himself and little daughter at a beach in western Canada.

I feel so envious, that in other countries a clean environment is still accessible to the public whereas here you have to be rich or a tourist to enjoy such things. The cleanest enclaves here seem to have been fenced off by rich resort developers or bought out by foreigners, and the air polluted by motor cars and waters and earth polluted by industrial development (many of them foreign investments) … Whoever said the best things in life are free must be joking or just being cynical.

If the countryside aren’t polluted by mining, industrial processing and monocrop agriculture, cities are quite horrible too. I was just thinking some time ago after the Glorietta 2 mall explosion in Makati City - if it really could be gas explosion, not gas from cooking but gas from sewer, since police investigators seem to be getting sick. I remember some 3 years ago I went to the new Ayala Museum, went to the toilet, and then when I flushed, water and shit swam out of the bowl, luckily I was able to jump out of the cubicle in time!

Big cities can have real problems with sewage systems, and perhaps especially Makati which used to be all swamp…