I spent my childhood thinking of Bohol as populated not by humans by monkeys so small you need a microscope to see them. To my lovely Boholano friends, I didn’t make this article up as I learned these things from my elementary education, which fed me with pictures of your beautiful island as nothing but mysterious hills and primates, and a little bit of Dagohoy in between.

If you, readers, don’t know Francisco Dagohoy, he was the leader of the longest rebellion against the Spaniards in the Philippines that took place in the island of Bohol from 1724 to 1829. It was so successful it took 85 years to fail.

Dagohoy’s story is intimately linked with the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier. My grade school books told me Dagohoy built chocolate hills and cloned tarsiers when he was not out chopping off heads of Jesuit priests.  As an inquisitive grade school pupil, I learned Dagohoy got his name from “dagon” (Visayan for amulet) and “hoyohoy” (Visayan for gentle wind).

Dagohoy initially wanted his followers to correctly call him “Talisman of the Gentle Breeze” but realized English wouldn’t arrive in the island until 200 years later. Nevertheless, Dagohoy’s amulets gave him the ability to leap from one chocolate hill to another, which made the tarsiers turn green with envy because they could only hop from one tree branch to the next. Dagohoy also had clear vision inside dark caves and forests, which made the tarsiers even more envious because it took them 45 million years to grow their eyes that big and fix them permanently in their skulls just to develop night vision.

But the tarsiers couldn’t afford ill will against Dagohoy, especially since their patron, with all his love for Bohol, couldn’t rotate his head 180 degrees. Ha-ha, loser! Besides, Dagohoy fed them with crickets, spiders, grasshoppers, and kidneys of Jesuit priests in his zoo-like headquarters in the mountains of Danao town. The tarsiers stayed with Dagohoy until he was bitten by a dog named Rabies, and died. I read this in grade school.

After their hero’s death, hundreds of Dagohoy’s followers preferred death inside a cave in Barangay Magtangtang, Danao than surrender. Their skeletons still remain in the site. Among the skeletons found are those of small creatures with eye sockets bigger than the skulls themselves. These small creatures couldn’t be other than tarsiers. The tarsier population in Bohol started to dwindle after Dagohoy’s death, I read in grade school.

When I was in Bohol on an “Accompany-A-Balikbayan-Sister” travel grant recently, I took advantage of the tour to check my facts. And I was surprised at how accurate they were. The tarsiers do not only have eyes bigger than their heads, they have also failed to recover from Dagohoy’s death and continue to mourn inside cages owned by private individuals in Loboc, Bohol.

I also learned from our tour guide that “despite the protection status of the Philippine Tarsier, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has granted special limited permits for this display of the Philippine Tarsier in Loboc. Here, tourists can see the Philippine Tarsier up close and personal and take pictures. Unfortunately, the Philippine Tarsier here are semi-captive, being kept in cages along the Loboc River. Here, the animals are not in a sanctuary and as such, these shy animals have miserable lives and normally don’t survive for long.”

If you’re not familiar with the Loboc River, it’s a body of water actor Cesar Montano built so he could shoot his award-winning film “Panaghoy sa Suba” in 2004. The movie was so successful it inspired Spaniards to establish the town of Loboc in 1602.

Back to tarsiers, they are caged and dying in the name of tourism. I suggest you visit them while they’re still there, and while I continue to check my facts about Dagohoy and the Chocolate Hills.

Sun.Star Cebu. July 27, 2010.

If it happens in Pinamungajan–or Timbuktu, or Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland–it happens everywhere.

The task force should be handled not by policemen or NBI agents but by musicians, particularly lyricists. You call the police or the NBI when it’s about drugs, or alcohol, or guns, or Joavan Fernandez. But when it’s about videoke violence, call the songwriter. Unless our law enforcement institutions include “Lyrics as Cause of Violence” in their training, drug raids and checkpoints will never solve videoke killings.

This is Google Research I’m talking about, the most reliable source of information for very serious researchers, like college freshmen and humor columnists. My comprehensive Google research told me video killings are intimately linked to the lyrics of the song that caused the fight. Take “My Way” for example.

A dozen articles dissecting the lyrics of “My Way” crop up when you google “videoke killings.” If you think I’m making this up, here’s an excerpt: “The number of killings connected to singing of the song (My Way) may simply reflect its popularity in a violent environment…The song’s ‘triumphalist’ theme might also be a factor.”

“The lyrics of ‘My Way’ increase the violence,” the study continues. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody…It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.” The typical Filipino irritates.

It makes sense. Remember the last time you went videoke-ing with your friends, and there’s this guy in the next table singing “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” with all the braggadocio he could muster and you were so damn annoyed by it? Of course you don’t blame the lyrics. “I know just how to whisper/ And I know just how to cry/ I know just where to find the answers/ And I know just how to lie” is down pat annoying but only because you hate Air Supply to begin with.

You want to blow Hitchcock and Russell and their legion of fans to smithereens, not that drunk in the next table. And we’re not talking about the Bee Gees yet.

Now, imagine that same guy screaming, “For what is a man? What has he got? If not himself–Then he has naught…The record shows I took the blows. And did it my way.” Man, that guy’s annoying!

In fairness to Sinatra, he didn’t write “My Way.” It was Paul Anka, who re-wrote it from the original French, which he described as “a bad record, but there was something in it.” That “something” is murdering videoke singers all over the country. Creepy.

The Pinamungajan incident offers an additional twist to the videoke rage phenomenon. The song is not “My Way,” thank God, but Fred Berame’s Cebuano classic “Samtang May Kinabuhi.” In the context of the videoke rage in the country, the song sounds equally creepy.

No, we won’t dissect Berame’s lyrics right now. We’re running out of space. Besides, I hear somebody singing “My Way” at the videoke bar outside, and I have a mission to fulfill. Give me that gun now.

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star Cebu, July 20, 2010

“MANNY Pacquiao is tough, compact and sweet. Manny Pacquiao has 6.8 percent cholesterol, 7.6 percent protein, 6.4 percent carbohydrates and 3.7 percent calcium, plus iron, niacin and vitamin E. Truly, Manny Pacquiao is good for your health.”

If that didn’t hook you to read on, you must be some kind of a scrooge who despises everything that engenders fun writing. Even if an article started with something like “Pacman is best when dipped in hot sikwate,” you would think your favorite boxing champ had been actually kidnapped by a De La Hoya fanatic and subjected to a weird form of torture called “Death by Tsokolate.” You’re that kind of person. Get a life, one that has a lot of humor in it.

Of course, Sarmiento’s story that came out last May was about the Pacman bread, the bread, named after Manny “The Pacman” Pacquiao; the bread that tastes just like any bakery item your P5 can buy, only it is shaped like a fist – not Manny’s but the baker’s. Come on. Do you really think Pacman sat down with the baker to have his fists measured for oven accuracy?

While we’re at it, how should you bake bread to make it taste like you’ve been hit by a solid left? And who cares what “niacin” is, or how much cholesterol is “6.8 percent cholesterol?” It’s Manny Pacquiao, the People’s Champ! Any bread, beer product or lip gloss named after him is always hot.

The Pacman bread got me thinking if we haven’t had enough already of this thing we have with buns and boxers. Remember Elorde the bread? Ask your parents about it. Remember Pancho the bread? Ask your great grandparents about it. Or don’t bother. It’s the same plot anyway: somebody punches ass, becomes a world champion and retires to find his name immortalized as a breakfast commodity.

No big deal, actually. Give me some delicious bread in the morning to go with my 3-in-one and I will swallow it whole even if it’s named after the world’s lousiest Kung Fu fighter. I wouldn’t have written a column about it at all had a friend not told me over the weekend that our bakers are at it again.

This time, they have given our boxers a rest and decided it is our national heroes’ time to be with us at the breakfast table. By heroes I mean the ones who really sacrificed their lives for the country without earning millions of dollars from every fight.

I’m talking about the Cory bread. I have yet to see and taste it, but I can already see its color. Boxers are not giving bakers a difficult time because they have their fists. What does a hero like Cory have? A pair of eyeglasses? That would be so Ninoy. Rosary beads, perhaps? Or can the bakers work around an image of a hero’s annoying youngest daughter? That bread wouldn’t taste good. Is color yellow enough to represent a woman’s sacrifices for her country?

But I’m not a baker, I’m a writer. And in case I have to write a news feature about the Cory bread, I will start it the way Sarmiento started her Pacman piece:

“CORY Aquino is tough, compact and sweet. Cory Aquino has 6.8 percent cholesterol, 7.6 percent protein, 6.4 percent carbohydrates and 3.7 percent calcium, plus iron, niacin and vitamin E. Truly, Cory Aquino is good for your health.”

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star, Sept. 15, 2009

The words I am referring to are penis, genitals, orgasm, ejaculation, masturbation, and other terms that you, with your puritan upbringing, wish did not exist at all. And more than just the brute force of the words themselves, this article will evoke images of male sex organs being fondled by massage therapists in some dark spas in the city. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here’s what. Last Oct. 1, the Business Section of this newspaper carried a story about how an official from the Spa and Wellness Association of Cebu (Swac) was protesting against the operation of spas offering “lingam” massages here. Swac president Johnie Lim said “lingam” massage is not bringing a good name to Cebu.

What kind of massage would give Cebu a bad name? “Lingam massage is considered a massage technique performed on all parts of one’s genitals. The word ‘lingam’ is the Sanskrit word for penis,” wrote Sun.Star Reporter Nancy Cudis. You heard the word right, my dear – penis.

I was not frustrated that Cudis didn’t provide more details about lingam in her story, other than writing further that the massage “is a two-hour service for about P900, involving a one-hour body massage and another hour of ‘sexual’ massage on the genitals.” I could imagine the struggle Ms. Cudis, a recipient of this year’s Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards, had to go through just typing the words “penis” and “genitals” in her story.

If a story with the words “penis” and “genitals” should be allowed to see print, it must be of crucial interest to the public. Indeed. Imagine all of Cebu’s men – husbands, boyfriends, sons, grandpas, tanods, councilors, the clergy, the Marines – going to lingam centers every payday. Lim himself narrated how a wife begged him to do something to stop lingam spas from operating. Either her husband, or son, or driver is a lingam disciple.

I did my own online research to spare you the trouble of googling “lingam.” A few clicks and here’s what I gathered: “Orgasm is not the goal of the Lingam massage although it can be a pleasant and welcome side effect. The goal is to massage the Lingam, also including testicles…”

More clicks: “The setting and your attitude are what make a Lingam massage a special experience for your man. Prepare a quiet, preferably dim, space with a bed, a futon mattress, or a blanket and pillows on the floor. The temperature in the room should be a little warmer than normal because you will both be nude.”

And another click: “Then, as a show of respect for his male power, ask permission to touch his Lingam. Simply ask, ‘May I touch your Lingam?’

One more click: “Pour a small quantity of oil on the shaft…” And one more click: “Then imagine using an orange juicer…”

And one final click, this time a video: “Access Restricted. Sign Up Now.”

Not one to give up easily, I clicked a related video: “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation!”

Oh, well. You can have your lingam. I don’t have P900 to spare, anyway.

By Insoy Niñal

Sun.Star Cebu
Oct. 6, 2009

Heeding the advice of its volunteers sorting through donations at relief centers, the DSWD also said it will no longer accept “giraffe-print panties, folk dance costumes, bathing suits, ball gowns, neckties, feather boas, pink leis and grass skirts, and multi-colored granny panties that all say ‘Blow Your Horn!’”

The DSWD public advisory read: “We appreciate your concern for our brothers and sisters badly affected by the typhoons. But please understand that we don’t want our evacuation centers to be filled with people wearing Charlie Chaplin suits and Mexican sombreros.”

“We have nothing against Charlie Chaplin suits and Mexican sombreros,” the DSWD advisory clarified. “But these items just seem inappropriate for people to wear in times of floods and other disasters.”

To demonstrate its point, the DSWD included in its advisory pictures of Chaplin as “The Tramp” and of a very young Antonio Banderas wearing nothing but a Mexican sombrero.

The list also included “underwear with zero elasticity left and bacon briefs,” together with Air Supply Greatest Hits cassette tapes and Judy Ann Santos-Ryan Agoncillo posters.

The apparently well-researched advisory ended its appeal by quoting a newspaper columnist: “People who raid their closets for donations need to ask themselves important questions. Is this something they need? Would this make things easier for them? If I was in their place, would I appreciate getting this? Pretend you are putting together a relief package for your friends. I don’t think you’d throw your bacon briefs into that bag.”

The DSWD ban doesn’t cover used clothing and other non-food items alone. The welfare department also announced it is no longer accepting packed noodles.

In the same advisory, under the subhead “Noodles Coming Out Of Evacuees’ Ears,” Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said “packed noodles are yummy, especially when cooked, but victims of Tropical Storm Ondoy also need other daily essentials to help them rebuild their lives.”

The advisory listed down different types of noodles: wheat noodles, rice noodles, mung bean noodles, potato or canna starch noodles, buckwheat noodles, and acorn noodles. It also said that colloquially, a “noodle” is a person with poor judgment, or a fool.

Meanwhile, at a Cabinet-level meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council on the same day, President Arroyo was saddened by the reported shortage of instant noodles in the market in the aftermath of typhoon “Ondoy.” Arroyo said the Department of Trade and Industry will procure noodles abroad and distribute these to evacuees through the DSWD.

Arroyo said it was her first time to hear of “bacon briefs,” but that Malacañang welcomes any donation, be it bacon or briefs.

By Insoy Niñal
SUN.STAR CEBU
Oct. 13, 2009

met with a mountaineering group last night to organize a trek to one of tsinelas’ areas in a remote mountain barangay in the province. ABANGAN!

our new TSINELAS logo’s debut.

thanks to jaq siwala