malling under the sun

Eat Bulaga was here again this afternoon. Not to do a show but to share some cash to its beneficiaries.

In going to the many places they provided the party three vans, one for Tito Sotto and the Eat Bulaga staff, another for the crew, and for the media pips. There were also two escort motorbikes with their noisy wang-wang sound.

I'm telling this because I was enjoying and hating this coverage altogether.

First stop was a public grade school in a very populated part of the city.

Our van arrived first. The moment it stopped, all of us inside, including the driver, were shocked when the children and the adults started crowding it, and tried looking through the tinted windows who were inside! They were surely thinking we were stars of Eat Bulaga because of the EB posters around it. Syet!

We could not move out yet! Not when there seemed to be a stampede outside. I'm not kidding! I was really laughing at the situation, while our photograhers were enjoying it and waved at their "fans"(buot2x!). We decided to stay even if the crowd had already shifted its attention to the arrival of the second van, where Tito Sotto was aboard. Bwahaha.

When we finally got out, the expression of the people we met was like "ngek!"

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Even those two escorts were fooled by our van (I dunno why). Instead of paving the road for Tito's van, they were with us when we moved on to the next stop. We even suggested our driver to bump on one of those riders so he would know he was in a wrong van.

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One of the many stops we had was a dumpsite. My first time. We had to walk several meters to get to the shack of an old woman, another beneficiary. While walking I felt I was covering for I-Witness (hehe!) but Jay Taruc (?) was so game when he played "basurero" in that coverage. I just could not stand the putrid smell of the place. Even the kids and the adults had that kind of smell. They sure have water within their reach! Just lazy lot they were. Their very surrounding was littered with plastic things. And the women were just sitting in one corner screaming upon seeing Tito. Grrr...visitors! Don't you get it?!!!

I am totally against laziness, I'm going to make that clear. I'm partly it, that's why. hehe

Sensing my disgust to the place, well, I was covering my nose with my hanky which made it very obvious, one woman, on our way out, shouted "Ma'am, humot sad ning among lugar oi!"

I had to uncover my nose. Nauwaw pud kaha ko sa akong gibuhat.

My point is, it's a fact that a dumpsite really stinks. But the place, being an open dumpsite, has already been ordered closed by the DENR. Meaning the smell left of the old basura should not have been that intense. But it was, and mostly coming from the people. And they could have swept their backyards clean (the houses were actually planted at the foot of the mountain of basura and not on the very place where the heap of basura was). But they left it the way. I've seen an equally poor community but it was not this dismal.

And take note these houses have TV sets and other household appliances. I'm sure they can afford brooms, too. I'll sweep for them if they like.