The Genius of Howie

Being in another country, I thirst for things Filipino. One of the things I really miss is the mass hysteria, the constant sprouting of pop-culture phenomena. Someone uses this word and everyone consciously or not adds it to his vocabulary. Someone influential does this or that and the country follows suit. There’s something abuzz and everyone dashes towards it. In many ways, trivial though they may be, you become part of this ship as it sways back and forth, as it rolls from one wave to the next. We party as the rest of the ship parties, sulk as it sulks, mourn as it mourns, rejoice at it rejoices.  The Philippine ship is tight enough that a whisper in the upper deck would circulate in the lower deck. A noise in the bunk beds will reach in the cabins. A craze in the port side becomes the craze in the starboard side. If the commotion is strong enough, it’s hard not to be swept by it; it’s irresistible not to rock with the motion.

That being said, I was thrilled with the launch of GMA’s Pinoy TV channel. They have an interesting lineup. Classics paired with contemporary. They showed Mel and Jay one night, Mel and Joey the other. One of the shows I really like and look forward to is Howie Severino’s Side Trip. I have seen and followed a lot of current affairs shows in the Philippines. I have watched documentaries, travelogues, magazine shows and the like. I, myself, have written a few stories for broadcast TV in a previous chapter of my life. Though there are gems out there, there are those that are futile and frivolous. There are those that are weak attempts at trying to be light and entertaining or deep and pondering. I see two challenges to a coming up with good work – material and treatment of the material. Material is getting scarce. A lot of things around us have been written and re-written about already. A whole bunch of things have been presented to us in a multitude of ways – amusing, in-depth, enlightening, thought-provoking, moving, waste-of-time. I like The Correspondents, for example, for their sometimes alternative perspectives. There are times that what I see on TV feels old. If I see a story about prostitution, I shy off immediately not giving the program a chance to present their wares. Material is like steak. If it’s not handled well and left too long on the grill, the meat is left without any juice.

Side Trip, for all its 3-minute duration is simple, unassuming and refreshing.  And herein lies Howie’s genius. He presents things we see and encounter everyday as we traverse. In this big and long highway of our lives we often find ourselves content with the commute. We go from point A to point B satisfied with quick glances at things outside the window. We mumble a commentary, establish a mental note and move on. Howie bravely steps out every so often and looks at these everyday things with newer eyes. The show then captures the splice and casually presents it. They do not shove things down your throat. The show doesn’t attempt to be deep and moving. It doesn’t have any quixotic expectations, doesn’t attempt to be a travel show or a docu. It is very well done and it does not seem that they are trying too hard to please. Howie seems sincerely interested in his topics, in his travels, in his world. He lugs his camera and tries to capture in frames what we fail to.  You get the feeling that he just loiters around, trapping moments moment by moment, ensnaring the essence of the road, cherishing the value of the travel.

I find this very effective. The message I get is this: as you move from points A to B, keep in mind that side trips abound. The house that you see everyday outside your bus window has a history inside it. That strange guy you notice holding a pair of binoculars looking out for birds has a story to tell. The unveiling can make your life richer but you have to take that first step to create your own side trips – planned or otherwise.

In the meantime, I’ll let the show show me around and leave me 3 minutes later with a snippet of reality, with just enough visual experience to sustain me, to entice me, to inspire me until the next trip – mine or theirs. Intentional or not, this is plain genius.

Elevated Field of Dreams

Being in the center of Mindanao is being in the center of nowhere. Valleys, plateaus and hills mingle with each other like passionate friendship. Slopes and curves complement as the contours of a wonderful face. Here the sky and the earth kiss – so intimate that one blends and melts with the other – while sheets of air embrace the mounds of earth.

I’m in Bukidnon, an elevated field of dreams. You can munch on its crisp, cool breeze like you would a lean, honey-cured bacon. Here, in the highlands, with the swaying of sugarcane, you can evaluate your past, look at the heavens and in retrospect see yourself – who you are and who you’ve been. Places like these are precious and highly volatile. The murmur of branches and leaves and the buzz of insects and bird life take you away from the mundane and meager monotones of Manila. Mt. Kitanlad is in front of me and nothing will keep me from her.

Sweat dripping all over my under-exercised body, oxygen seeping in my lungs sporadically, I arrive finally. Darn, it is a glorious view. Lush vegetation on the ravine post a stark contrast to the naked fields we just passed through. Here at the slightly camouflaged viewpoint we are parallel to the nest of the fourth eaglet on record. A pair of Philippine Eagle had faithfully laid an egg here once every two years since 1990 when it was first observed by an elderly Manobo.

Grabbing a pair of powerful binoculars, I browse through the forest and there she is – the eaglet – the proverbial conflict of life and inevitable death, of hope and irreversible despair. The eaglet, cradled in the arms of a large tree, a tree miraculously missed by chainsaws, is the marrow of many of our environmental dreams. She is restless, flapping her wings and flexing her muscles. She looks around gazing at the kingdom her family lorded over for so long.

After passing the binoculars around, I grab them again. Focusing on the nest, I sense the eaglet crying out by the movement of her beak. Out of somewhere, the parent arrives. Leaving the clouds behind, he zooms in but instead of going to his young, he hovers above our group.

I should really stop with the descriptions. My metaphors and your imagination no matter how fertile can never do justice to seeing the most handsome bird on earth. The Philippine Eagle should be felt and experienced. The eagle left us and I slump on the soft soil, exhausted. I’m probably a tad too melodramatic about these things but right now I don’t care. I just want to soak in this euphoria. Halfway through our retelling each other what we saw, the eagle comes back and is in some sort of pursuit. He is after a smaller bird of prey and they are going in an upward spiral motion. The king displays his reign over his dominion. After driving away the intruder, he settles down on a tree branch. I can now see his relaxed body, his talons, his face and his crown. After a few more minutes I let go of the binoculars and all of my previous reservations. Nothing compares to this creature.

The truth is I haven’t really howled in protest when they said that the population is fast dwindling – surely less than 200 in the wild. You see numbers, data, figures are hard to grasp. They do not extract the same emotion. Standing here at the look-out point I now realize how easy it is to sway me into environment activism. Conservation must really be personal. Tell me that this eagle family will soon be homeless or butchered and I will raise my arms in defiant protest. I will be enraged. The Philippine Eagle experience has become personal and I will not allow it to be taken away from me. As I trek down the mountainside, I make a resolve to make wildlife a personal conservation effort, an effort to portray a clearer picture of wildlife so that it can be planted in the hearts of more Filipinos.

Finally, as I wave goodbye to Bukidnon, everything around seems to wave back. If you are really into it, you can feel the air vibrating, you can hear the vegetation rustling, you smell sugar simmering. And if you are absolutely lucky, as you take one last look up the sky, you can see in all his majesty, the magnificent Philippine Eagle.