Sagada Sojourn: Bus to Baguio

The trip to Sagada was almost 3 years in the making. With more than 2 years of dreaming and imagining, the actual planning (itinerary, budget, shopping, scheduling) only took a little over 2 weeks because we already knew where to find what we needed. All that was left to do was write everything down on paper, shop for necessities, pack our bags, and go!

On Friday, February 5, I bid my workmates farewell and jumped into a cab (which they very kindly hailed for me) with my huge, pink backpack and striped slingbag. I got off at Jollibee Farmer’s Plaza and had hot choco and a tuna pie, waiting for the boyfriend.

He showed up pretty early and we walked all the way to the Victory Liner bus station, me in my office work clothes with a huge, pink tortoise shell on my back, sweating and swearing silently. The hour we waited for the departure of our bus was spent with him looking dreamy-eyed and drooling over the buses that had lazy boy seats.

Wishing on a lazyboy seat.

The bus finally left, and we photographed, munched, argued and slept our way to Baguio. The thrill of the first change of the landscape always gets to me and I snapped away, thinking every moment too precious to allow it to pass by.

A view as alien to city life as I could get, within the first hour out.

A bus ride is not complete without the stopovers and token artsy shots:

The first stopover.

How many liters to Baguio? To Sagada?

The bus started to move and a little girl started crying in panic, her words incoherent to all but those nearest to her. “Sshh, sshh, we’re not leaving yet,” a woman soothed. “We’re not leaving your big sister,” said the bus conductor, gruffly, gently, looking at the girl but careful not to touch her.

Kudos to this Copywriter

I found this copy in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It’s a press release for the Edades Tower and Garden Villas, a residential tower being constructed (or will be) in Rockwell:

It was the time when only pastoral landscapes and flawless brown skinned bodies ruled the art scene. Nubile maidens, demure even in naked glory, bathed in crystal waters. And as always, the rice stalks abound. The carabaos portrayed a languid countenance. Art was anything and everything idyllic. Often, beasts of burden were depicted as contented cows.

Until Victorio Edades came along. Born on December 23, 1895 to Hilario and Cecilia Edades, he was the youngest of ten children. Being non-conformist, he didn’t succumb to small pox as 6 of his siblings did. Right after high school, he sailed to the United States, labored in factories, moved to Seattle and took up architecture. He detracted and earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting. And got himself out of design disciplines.

Rebelling against form and function, he immersed in Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse and other post-impressionist icons. He went home, did a one man show and sold none of his work.

Still, Edades won over the “Classic Fundamentalists”. went against the conventions of domestic art and was honored with the “National Artist Award in Painting”. Much like Cezanne whose work was rejected for five years by the famous Paris Salon, Edades fought for geometric simplification and the fracturing of proportions. As Cezanne paved the way for Cubism, Edades started the Modernists movement in the Philippines.

It was a long way from Barrio Bolosan, Pangasinan. Edades, resisted in a time where a small town felt like a political arena. The collective and the communal were routinely repressed and viciously suppressed. Art was also like religion, sanctified and sanitized. But people who are fated to be catalysts have the locus standi. “That which is impossible to force, is impossible to hinder.”

For Edades, art can’t change anything except people. And people can change everything.

The ending paragraphs were the best: I thought it was a nice tie-up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fine the same advertisement on the Net so I can’t show you the layout, but I did the next best thing and scanned a picture:

I have no idea who the creator of this is, though.

I’ve always thought that the advertising industry is one of the best to work in: imagine art earning money. Happy, di ‘ba?

Thoughts on Vacation Leave

I’m home, on my very last vacation leave for the year. I’m antsy because somebody might take my seat, LOL.