By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

SUMMER means kites. Or at least it used to. It’s almost a magical emergence: the sun goes high, the air gets warm, the wind picks up and then a host of kites, all sorts of shapes and sizes, fills the skies. There are amazing kites made of smooth, flashy plastic, often in the silhouette of avians and raptors. These kites soar the highest. There are the boxy kites, often made of Japanese paper or cloth, filling the airways like order being imposed on the realm of chaotic wind.

But when Filipino children say our word for kite—saranggola—they have one particular kite in mind. It is lashed together, small sticks or even the bristles of the walis tingting, bound by threadbare string, wrapped in a skin of old newspaper with a tail of the same material. If made from sturdy old paper, you could even eschew the frame completely. We know it by its evocative name: boka boka. It is a project for fathers and sons and daughters, or between friends on the streets. It’s a collaboration for playmates when any time becomes free.

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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

THERE is a common perception that women are crazy about shoes, but guys are just as capable of filling closets with footwear. But instead of the formal and party footwear so beloved by women, guys have a tendency to accumulate voluminous assemblages of athletic footwear—in particular, basketball shoes. A lot of basketball shoes.

Collectors are proud of their finds, with the complete pristine selection of Air Jordans as the sign of true accomplishment, a feat that can be beat perhaps by only one other thing: A collection of original Nike Air Force Ones in all the available colorways and special editions. In other words, mission impossible.

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By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz
Executive Editor, Sunday Inquirer Magazine

I KNOW, I know. It’s like being a wallflower in an orgy or Cinderella moping in the kitchen while everyone else steps out to party.

But if you haven’t yet made reservations for lunch or dinner or a Valentine tryst in that hideaway, I beg you: cease, desist and judiciously hold your peace. Believe me, you don’t want to wind up as a statistic on this red-letter day. Take it from me, I know. I used to be one.

Like millions of other romantic couples, the hubby and I would usually join the throng of lovestruck Pinoys who tenderly make goo-goo eyes at each other in the car, squeezing each other’s hand (and possibly other parts as well) while patiently waiting out the traffic. Your roses might wilt by the time you get to lunch or dinner, that overpriced Valentine entrée might be nothing but a reheated bistek with a complimentary glass of Novellino, and the bed sheets in your favorite hotel/motel might not be freshly-laundered, but one thing remains constant: it will be a bumper to bumper road situation this Saturday (a Valentine weekend and on a payday, hello?)

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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

OF all the different incarnations of basketball players, it is the scorer that captures the fancy of fans the easiest. Now, some fans have a soft spot for hardcore hustlers–those who dive for every loose ball–also known as energy guys while others like stoppers–lockdown defenders usually assigned to a team’s best shooter–but everybody likes someone who leads the box scores. The most interesting place to see scorers in action in Philippine basketball is in the college leagues, because scorers are encouraged to score more and more in the hopes of outscoring the other team in an all-out arms race. They will learn to defend much later on, preferably when they turn pro. It is thus when they’re in the UAAP or the NCAA when we see these players waxing brightest. Yet even among these ultimate weapons on the collegiate hardcourt, there are various classifications:

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By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

NO, it’s not just those doomsday scenarios that got me thinking this isn’t going to be a good year all around. People, it seems, don’t even want to keep track of the days and weeks and months ahead.

How do I know this? Well, I didn’t receive a single wall calendar this year. And neither have most of my friends, assorted relatives, and I bet the whole barangay. Yup, for the better part of this month, the usual, “Huyy!” (hurled with a brisk upward tilt of the chin) or “Good morning po” has been replaced by the ingratiating, “Kumusta po? May kalendaryo ba?”

Indeed, in our tiny flood-prone community, we used to dispense calendars like an Ecstasy addict blowing kisses. Our household would be swimming in calendars days before Christmas, as would the SIM office. As my associate ed Ruey used to say, you couldn’t swing a cat by its tail without hitting a frigging rolled up calendar around here. But now, zero. As in nil. Nada. Zilch!

Not one of those giant calendars from Star Paper Mills whose detailed record of the daily tides spells salvation for us sea creatures in Malabon. None of those homely calendars from Mercury Drug that has monthly discount coupons for all sorts of medication, nor those glossy calendars of pristine beaches and tufted castles that PAL used to give away, complete with a desk calendar of the same romantic destinations.

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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

MALCOLM Gladwell redefined the discussion about radical change in his first book, “The Tipping Point,” a massively enjoyable and enlightening read. What that book also reminded me of was a long-standing debate I’ve had with myself regarding the nature of change inherent in the life of a person.

You see, there are people whose lives change subtly and steadily over a period of time, so steadily that most other people don’t even notice anything has changed. This of course gives the impression that a particular individual has a very stable, seemingly immutable life, or that the person exerts a powerful hold on his or her life. It makes for a very stable and somewhat boring year.

Others have an explosive quality to their lives. These are people whose lives change suddenly, violently. It lends a very chaotic quality to their lives, which leads to very eventful but also somewhat traumatic years.

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By Pennie Azarcon Dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

FOR the longest time, the concept of living in absolutely made no sense to me. As guys crudely put it, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Yup, I thought smugly; living-in is for women so desperate to snag a mate they’d willingly give away samples of the goods to entice potential takers.

Until I got married.

Getting hitched is when you realize that you never really get to know someone until you’re actually living together. Eight years of dating, dining, and whining didn’t prepare me for my partner’s inner life and darkest secret. Nope, he’s not with the mob. Neither is he a cross-dresser, a werewolf, or a fan of Willie Revillame. A perfectly decent guy, he is also, to my horrified surprise, a pack rat.

Nothing ever gets thrown out. Not the old turntable missing its arm, not the chest of drawers that was falling apart, not the moth-eaten shirts already outgrown, stained or faded. Not the balding car wheels that we’ve replaced months back and which were probably breeding dengue mosquitoes. Not the rusty filing cabinet whose contents nobody was brave enough to examine, since it had once sat on fetid floodwaters for a week. For the longest time, it sat desolate in the backyard along with the car wheels and the turntable. In the library, occupying three glass-enclosed shelves, is a pile of 1950s book-bound Readers Digest that plays host to a whole colony of termites.

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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

EVERYONE says reading is dead or dying, the victim of shortened attention spans, TV or the Internet. Others says that reading is merely changing, migrating from the page to the screen. I’ve been asked why I haven’t moved to Amazon’s impressive little Kindle; I say it’s because I don’t just like reading, I like books: old-fashioned, made from dead trees books. It isn’t romantic, it’s just nothing matches the tactile feel of freshly minted books, the smell of the book paper, the sound of those crisp pages. I’m a holdout, and will continue to be so. My living spaces continue to be invaded happily by piles and piles of books; no shelves are enough to contain all my little treasures.

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By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

IF you welcome the rains, you’re either a farmer in a parched field, a student reprieved from classes, or a resident of anywhere but the cursed coastal cities of Navotas and Malabon.

Believe me, the tiniest gray cloud, a spit of rain or a low rumble in late afternoons immediately presage panic. Especially if you’re nowhere near home. You stare at your office computer thinking, did I remember to put my stash of magazines on top of the dresser? Have I put up my shoes? Are all the electric plugs safely stowed away?

Many many years before, we’d drive into the sunset along Malabon’s main road which was then rimmed on both sides by fishponds. One of our favorite dating places was The Fish Fun, a motley cluster of adjoining huts jutting out into the waters where one can spy sprightly bangus swimming in blissful ignorance of their impending doom. A plate of grilled fish plucked straight from the waters and served with an assortment of dips and achara (pickles) cost less than P20 at that time. But that wasn’t the biggest bargain. What made people flock to this place was the sense of serenity that the stretch of waters on both sides suggested, and the feeling of contentment as one literally walked over a brimming food bin. Could life get any better, we’d think with a hearty burp after the satisfying meal.
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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

BECAUSE Filipinos only experience two seasons, we invariably attach much meaning and sentiment to both. Summer–the dry season–becomes an idyll of beaches, sunshine, freedom and long days. The other season, the wet or rainy season, becomes a poignant period of showers, cool afternoons and dreaming.

Most Filipino school children longed for summer, longed to be released squealing from their restrictive classrooms into the seemingly endless–but altogether too short–months of April and May. But I always preferred the rainy season, the raindrops of June and July, together with the pitter patter of rain as you dropped off to sleep at night.

June and July also came with its requisite typhoons of course and everyone became a radio listener as we begged for a day off from school even as the floods rose and the winds howled.

But as I grew older, I learned to appreciate the rainy season even more. Rain, you see, compresses time. There’s no telling what hour it is in the middle of a rainstorm. It’s like time literally stops to matter. All you have is the rain and you. It’s an unforgettable sensation, like kissing a girl in the gentle drizzle, or the barest hint of sunlight passing through the fragments of cloud and coldness. And people flee indoors. Some people liked to cuddle up with a book. Others cuddle up with someone they cherish. Rain translates our moods for us. If lonely, rain weeps. If happy, rain consoles. I always liked to sit by a window and just look out the window for hours, just listening to the individual raindrops dance on whatever surface they could encounter as I dreamt of poetry and better times.