PARADOXICAL

The World in Folds 

In the beginning, the world was flat and paper-thin. 

When the paper god was designing the world, he chose a 10-20 cm x 10-20 cm paper as basic building block. "Let there be straight lines, folds, and creases," he said. 

"Mountain folds and valley folds. Reverse folds and flaps."

The flat, inanimate material was--with sleight of hand--slowly transformed into an ecology of genetically diverse forms and silhouettes, and the world was papered over with simulacra of life. 

It's an endlessly creative world made out of flatness. 

I enter this world enticed by animal figures I never figured would emerge out of almost nothing: first the jumping frog, then the crane.

It is the beauty of the form of the crane that would get me fascinated. I get obsessed with it. I do crane after paper crane, using printed words as guide until YouTube videos come about. 

It seems simple at first until you try it for yourself and find certain steps difficult. It requires practice. Or several repeat plays. Thank goodness for changeable speed settings on YT.

It is easy to get frustrated, exasperated, irked, insulted, if you don't get things right. "How come my folds are not the same as those in the video, like it's some false advertising?" I retrace my steps to find out which steps I missed.

I collapse some flaps. I smooth out some edges. I fold, then unfold, then squash certain folds. I nip and tuck, so to speak without cutting out anything. Using scissors is verboten, one might as well cut out toy soldier figures in neat silhouettes like some newborn child.

Why do I do what I am doing? I think that's because I feel calm and relaxed doing it--my state of anxiety is reduced.

While it's true that mistakes irk me so easily, I exercise the virtue of patience and perseverance along the way. In my experience, certain origami animals are an extra-challenge: the double-humped camel, the squirrel, certain dog varieties, certain beaver variant... These really tested my patience.

Every minute expended is a way of saying thanks, honoring life in minutes received, being grateful that I am still here, producing at least a thing of beauty no matter how trivial.

I started out with the easy ones: the peace dove, the fish, etc.--all kid's play. Then I slowly graduate to the medium or average, then to the difficult and complex three-dimensional ones. 

I am now dealing with the really challenging ones. Sometimes I emerge victorious, oftentimes not.

I am afraid to do the advanced 3D ones that are monumental in dimensions. After all, I have limited resources, not just time. I do this in between important things, during my resting hours. I also originally set out to use just scrap papers, nothing bought. 

The origami animals I produce are from trash, until a kind-hearted soul gifted me with proper store-bought origami paper. It ruins my unintended intention to recycle trash through arts and crafts, but I don't mind gifts from the generous.

Pretty soon, I am able to create an entire paradise of creatures, hundreds of them and all sorts of genera and species: duck, rabbit, lion, flamingo, toucan, kiwi, Pomeranian, tiger, worm, fly, hermit beetle, other Amazon organisms, other African savanna creatures...

After finishing a creature, I stare at each one in appreciation of the form, not too mindful of the miniscule errors. There is an utter beauty in the symmetry, from the exact mirror images generated through all the angle bisectors. There must be a God, no question about it--the genius designer behind each silhouette. How magical that each one, each complicated structure, could be so created--out of nothing, or out of thin air--or in just a series of folding and unfolding, to be exact. 

They say this ancient Japanese artform is all about mathematics, with practical applications in engineering, medical surgery, aerospace, and other fields. If you think about it, a foldable umbrella is an example of origami in day-to-day application. 

But it's not with the practicalities I am obsessed with. With origami as a form of faith in cost-free pleasure, papered over by surprise from all the right angles, I return again and again to the fold.

posted by Resty Odon  # 8:15 PM 0 Comments

Adventures on FB Messenger

In 2016, I applied as a writer in the LGU and was eventually designated as a 'Public Information Officer.' Among the many tasks I didn't expect to have is answer messages from the people--directly--through our Facebook page, whether they were entered as comments or PMs (private messages).

In a town of an estimated 120,000 population, there were so many people, so many messages to handle. This alone was a humbling and exhausting work, and I was almost alone at it.

I received all sorts of complaints. Many of those were about the services of the power provider, water provider, telecom companies, local district hospital... I answered as politely and empathetically as I could--after all, their complaints were my complaints too. But I felt bad that I had to answer at all for a lot of concerns, particularly these ones outside LGU jurisdiction.

I couldn't blame the people either. I myself didn't know before I became PIO that some areas were outside LGU jurisdiction, and this includes, I found out, national roads and provincial roads and bridges along those roads. The best we could do is coordinate with those agencies politely and relay the complaints from our people. (It didn't occur to a lot of people that they can, in fact, complain directly to all those agencies mentioned.)

The other complaints fell under different LGU departments' responsibility, and these were duly relayed to all the heads and staff concerned. So early in the morning and I was already exhausted dealing with someone whose neighbor had a stinking pigpen or a chicken hatchery overrun by flies.

Understandably, many messages were about local government services and ayuda systems: how to avail? what are the requirements? For this, I am thankful for our Citizen's Charter. Procedures and requirements are actually similar nationwide.

Speaking of ayuda, the bulk of complaints was about why this or that person is a beneficiary (4Ps) and he or she or his or her own father or mother or sister or brother is not. Another concern outside jurisdiction. (It's DSWD's this time.)

Messages come in at all times of the day and in all days every single day. Answering messages felt like it required 3 shifts, just like in factories!

There were times when I had to give updates and sometimes used my personal account for follow-ups. Big mistake. To my chagrin, I often ended up having total strangers as chatmates, with our kilometric 'convo' ending into the dead of the night. Gone was my precious energy, my limited time.

From time to time, there were messages asking for emergency assistance--even when we had an official emergency hotline fully equipped with responders of all kinds. I understand. Messaging through FB costs nothing, compared to making a phone call through landline or cell phone. Because I am too kind-hearted, I would answer anything of emergency nature and relayed whatever I received to proper authorities. Good thing Facebook eventually had a feature in which we can indicate whether the page is closed or open to messaging services.

In this task, I am particularly grateful for the screenshot feature (PrtSc) of my laptop and smartphone, while being mindful of confidentiality. (Confidentiality is a challenging legality to navigate: A lot of complainants prefer not to be identified, and we respect that, but this becomes a problem when there is a need to reveal identities. What's the name of the 'office' again?)

You can just imagine what it was like for me answering all sorts of frantic messages during the COVID-19 pandemic--all at the same time and one after another without fail. (I have written on this separately.)

I am thankful that the hiring of additional staff eventually solved the problem of the super-human amount of workload just in this part of the job. (All other departments experience the same feeling of being overwhelmed, I know, that our constituents are not even aware of, with some department heads likening it to drowning.) Now, I can focus on other equally important work, like hunkering down on the day's write-ups and coordinating with the newsmakers: public officials and the heads of any random department or agency with an important event or two. (This is the reason I get to chat with dozens and dozens of people from all walks per day.)

What I'd like to dwell on right now, though, are the most unusual and most unforgettable requests I got.

I can't quite forget the temerity of this person asking the mayor to shoulder her daughter's debut (birthday bash) or something like that. I double-checked and the person didn't look indigent to me. I had to do a quick review of the actual mandate of a local chief executive, whether it includes throwing away birthday parties for free. I realized I had the power to say no merely by ignoring messages I thought didn't deserve a response.

I also can't forget that wife who asked where her missing husband could be while hinting at domestic trouble. Could I help her, please? I referred her to the Local Civil Registrar. There were cases of lovers' quarrel too, which I was too inept to handle.

There were times when I would feel like the town's Google search engine or telephone directory, whenever someone asks whether this or that kind of establishment exists in Bayambang, or how to get from here to there. This has opened my eyes a bit to which services or business enterprises can and cannot be found in our locality, and how to get around from our town to other places. Among the things I noticed missing or woefully inadequate at the time are ENT specialists, dermatologists, allergy testing center, hearing testing center, other medical specialists, certain drugs (medicines), certain medical tests and procedures, cashew cream de-wart clinics, specialty cuisine restos, and so on.

Complex legal issues always put us in a quandary and were best referred to the Legal Department.

On rare occasions, I had to deal with mental cases, which are, of course, best ignored.

The worst case is downright criminal. One day a female staff--she was still innocent and single then--reported that a guy showed her a photo of his erect phallus while communicating.

For other obviously criminal incidents such as neighborhood altercations and physical violence, I direct complainants to the local police page, but protocol dictates that complainants coordinate with the barangay first.

The truth is, a lot of concerns can be solved at the barangay level and need not be relayed to our level, such as videoke time past 10 PM; tall coconut trees right beside someone else's fence, giving a clear and present danger; dogs leaving poo at the gate, etc. So I routinely advise complainants to raise the issue first with their Barangay Hall, out of due respect to the latter or in observance of the principle of subsidiarity. I am often rebutted with an irked comeback: "That is why I am directing the concern to you because I was ignored at the barangay hall in the first place!"

People sometimes forget that there is a real human being behind the PMs and lose their sense of common courtesy. But as a public servant, I had to keep my cool at saintly levels you could never imagine possible, considering how impatient I can get.

OFWs in distress were the most challenging to handle, emotionally speaking. Addressing their calls for help also requires a lot of back-and-forth and inter-agency liaison work. What if someone told you she was in jail in China and they shaved her hair? Or if someone informed you that she was being raped by her Arab employer at home just because she took a bath, which was wrongly read as an invitation to have sexual intercourse?

With this form of assistance, our office is not only an LGU’s internal media and public relations arm, but something else that every LGU is required to have: a PACD or Public Assistance and Complaints Desk—or an online version of it.

Now one of the most valuable lessons in this ‘adventure’ is to be wary of the pitfalls of the incomplete or inaccurate story, if not tall tales. A lot of complainants come to us bearing their version of a narrative. A careless frontline responder like us can easily get carried away by their stories particularly when it is about a story or injustice such as public servants allegedly treating them bad. But years of experience has taught me never to believe anything at face value, to get the other side or sides of the story until a more and more complete picture emerges. As much as highly stressful this job can get, it requires calm, evenhandedness, and equanimity just as much.

I had to shed off the natural impulsiveness carried over from my youth to get this job done right.

On the other hand, I realize that people with incomplete stories are not being dishonest in the middle of anger; it is just that their vision of reality is often warped by high emotions.

I wonder if these tens of thousands of people messaging us day by day realize how much they should be grateful to the kind, accommodating, and hardworking keyboard warriors behind each helpful answer and informative response they receive with the convenience of digital technology.

posted by Resty Odon  # 5:49 PM 0 Comments

 Where Was I on 9-11

posted by Resty Odon  # 2:09 PM 0 Comments

 Viral: For the content, babae dinilaan ang bentang hotdog saka ibinalik sa warmer sa 7-11. Lalaki, naglagay ng deodorant sa kilikili sa grocery store saka ibinalik sa shelf. >>> These pranks are going too far.

posted by Resty Odon  # 6:17 PM 0 Comments

Finally, Sunlight (Post-Habagat Debriefing)

I

Nothing will ever make you appreciate the sun more than after being soaked for weeks and weeks like some piece of pork in a soy marinade.

As I write this while on leave on September 7, I take a solemn moment to appreciate the sun, and 'worship' it like some pagan tribesman. No, really, it's for my daily dose of natural vitamin D. As I struggle with staring at the glare for one second, I am reminded of my many sins against it: the times I complained too much about how unbearable its heat, how blinding its light, how it makes you short of breath while walking and waiting out in the street in the height of summer, and so on.

In moments of human weakness like that, I try to recall what a Practical Arts teacher (Mr. Fernandez) back in high school told us, his class, when we complained aloud how "everything was wet and muddy" at the onset of the rainy season. "But weren't you complaining about how everything was hot and dry just a few days ago?" "Make up your mind!" was the implication. We just laughed at him, or on our own folly, in response.

Lately, as we all endured the worryingly long rains punctuated by torrents that seemed to tear through the roof and felt like bullets falling on high, I tried to balance my thoughts as is my nature. I tried hard to think of both the pros and cons, so as not to fall into the negativity of grumbling, as is my other natural proclivity.

Cons

In a waterlogged world such as we've had, I noticed how old forgotten but familiar problems crop up: Matchsticks that won't light. A stove that won't spark on its own like it used to. Wooden door jambs swelling, making the door hard or impossible to close. Plywoods curling. Clothes getting damp and moldering. (Plain old vinegar is our most efficacious antiseptic friend and fabric conditioner.) Clothes impossible to dry without a dryer. No matter if you keep a dozen carzoncillos, you will surely run out of them in the long run. The unwelcome smell of rot from the mold and mildew in the rooms. Roofs leaking.

Outside, plants get overwatered. Prized succulents turn into jelly. Some non-native food plants like papaya trees turn yellow, wilt, and die from excessive condensation and precipitation. Pathways turn either muddy or green with algae and moss, making them slippery and posing dangers most especially to running kids and frail seniors.

Wrigglers multiply exponentially. Flies and mosquitoes are a-swirlin--I just had to buy an electric swatter and think of myself as a famous tennis player. Athlete's foot threaten the feet. There's the risk, too, of leptospirosis after wading in the flood, plus the rise in incidence of other diseases such as fever, cough, and cold, dengue, diarrhea, etc.

Staying indoors and not being adequately exposed to the sunrays comes with vitamin D deficiency, rickets, growing fungus inside the ear, and having weather-induced depression, among other such risks. For hypertensives, being cooped up and sedentary for so long is also not good for the blood pressure.

Frozen foods are harder than usual to thaw as they turn Siberian permafrost-hard. Umbrellas misplaced, forgotten, lost. Taking a bath becoming an unwelcome chore.

There's also the more serious side effects of work and business stoppage. Business losses. Zero income for those depending on jobs that are paid arawan (by the day), and we know what this means: no food on the table. In local parlance, the times are referred to as panao'y gawat (meaning hard times). The police chief says petty thievery is on the rise, that even kalderos (iron pots) with leftover rice are stolen.

And of course there's flooding. Depending on the severity, it runs the gamut, from minor inconvenience to a life-and-death scenario requiring decisions from authorities, like pre-emptive and forced evacuations and entire rescue boat operations.

As we nursed our little sufferings, we had to deal with certain incidents, both here and abroad, that were truly staggering and requiring psychological first aid: a glacial collapse that wiped out entire villges, an SUV falling into a river as a span of bridge collapsed (the second bridge in a row to have the same misfortune), with five of its passengers going missing, a promising young boy being swallowed up in a hole on a sidewalk while navigating the flood, etc. (We in Pangasinan were stunned to know that floodwaters from Tarlac could reach up to Dagupan!)

With the serious flooding, people were, of course, reminded of the recent corruption issues over flood control projects that blew in our face in a big way lately. And about how we abuse the word 'resilience.' And how we should change our strategies, making it more comprehensive, "from mountain to seashore" approach, as renowned urban planner Jun Palafox points out. "Flooding doesn't respect political boundaries," another commentator adds.

Not to be dismissive of these things, as this part deserves a separate discussion, we must also be mindful of whether the torrential rains are normal or not. According to disaster mitigation expert Mahar Lagmay, the habagat (monsoon rains) this August of 2026 are frighteningly way above-normal, almost 300% higher in certain areas at the most. And this seems to have happened not just here but in other countries we regard as far more advanced and equipped in disaster resilience (Japan, China, etc.).

If this is truly unprecedented in history, then we are indeed living in an era of climate change. But if it's not, if it happens with regularity in a cyclical manner, then it should have long been a part of our response. But these issues are for another day because they deserve urgent attention.

What I just wanted to say here is far less ambitious: that this supposed 'bed weather' brings with it a thousand rather creative aggravations.

It appears that living in a swamp or bog is not an ideal place to be. To misquote Emily Dickinson, it is like "being a frog telling your name the whole day to an admiring bog."

***

Pros

But all is not lost. As we say goodbye to sweltering temperatures, unwanted sweating is gone. We smell better. (Though it can be argued that sweating it out with regularity is far more healthy.) We also get considerable savings on the usage of lighta, aircon, andelectric fans. It also means finally getting to use those 'winter' clothes from abroad or wagwagan and surplus shop, and enjoy wearing our new outfit of the day (OOTD).

The repeated cancellations of work mean resting from the tremendous amount of work, except for the poor unfortunate souls (the "Team However" of LGU frontliners who always belong to Executive Order exemptions and qualifiers). It means catching up on sleep, picking up long-discarded hobbies once again, and the luxury of listening to various kinds of insects whistling and frogs croaking at night.

A new set of species -- assorted insects, mushrooms, fungi, seedlings -- turn up and take over the landscape. If it's not destructive, water, after all, means life.

The nonstop rains are a great excuse to do many other things, like cooking all sorts of hot soups and brothy dishes and reminiscing on unforgettably delicious though humble dishes now long gone.

Agriculturally speaking, seeds begin to sprout like on cue. Forgotten seedlings rise at the speed of light, raring to be bear fruit and be picked. As our LDRRM Officer pointed out, the water table is refilled. Massive irrigation of farmlands can be had for free!

Moreover, if we are smart and able, we can harvest unlimited rainwater While at it, for later use, maybe during the reported "super El Niño." If we could find a way of shipping the excessive moisture of parched farmlands in the rest of the country, what a wonderful thing it would be.

Other people's misfortune also prompts the kindhearted-hearted ones to reach out without being told, both leaders and ordinary people who take the initiative to help out in whatever way they can, restoring whatever faith you have left in humanity.

***

At this point, I am not sure which I prefer, but I guess life always balances things out. Our role is to ride out this season of slush till the elusive sun appears again, or we might as well enjoy it while it lasts. (Except, of course, when our whole domicile is flooded, which is an entirely different conversation.)

II

But this rainy season is quite unusual for a couple of other things. Except for gale-force storms, it made us experience all kinds of rain, from the faintest pitter-patter to the torrential. Then in one particular interregnum, there was this intermission number of having rain and sunshine at the same time! When the weather can't make up its mind, you get confused as well.

Puzzling

I am reminded of an old hit song by Rivermaya, "Umaaraw, Umuulan." The song wasn't really about the sun shining brightly and rain falling, but about life being "sadyang ganyan" (it is what it is). Like one psychologist I talked to said, "Life has its ups and downs, negatives and positives." It was a very simple observation, but a major eye-opener for me: I received it at a time when I couldn't help but dwell on the unacceptable negatives in my life, yet I was also being blind to the many positives I had.

Poetically speaking, the inclement weather teaches us that "into each life, some rain must fall," to recall an old English class in high school discussing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Not all days will be bright and beautiful. One time you are down, nursing pain both physical and metaphysical for no apparent reason.

But the sun shining and the rain falling at the same time is some seriously confusing phenomenon indeed when philosophically interpreted this way. Life's plus and minus, ups and downs, occurring at the same time, instead of one after another is just disorienting. We can only take change one at a time.

I suddenly remember that in the Pangasinan language, there is reportedly specific terms for this strange phenomenon. According to the book "Pinabln Dalin," it is called 'dalapa,' "that rare weather phenomenon in which it rains while the sun is shining." Similarly, 'uran-bakes' or 'ura'y bakes' (literally, 'ulan ng unggoy' or monkey rain) is a little rain that suddenly comes then suddenly stops, while the sun is shining.

According to an oldtimer, old folks in our town believed that an 'engkanto' o elemental spirit (called 'kaibaan' locally) is having a childbirth whenever this happens. When everything is wet around me while the sun is shining brightly, I too would feel like a total weirdo, like some wet dried fish, or 'daing' in drenched in water.

At this point, I suddenly recall the time in my boyhood when I was told to dry out corn seeds in the sun but had to struggle saving it from a sudden and surprisingly heavy downpour. It was a day of disaster. We ended up having sub-par corn seeds because, the next day, they were infested with aflatoxin-producing molds, a toxin that accumulates in the body, according to research. The harvest couldn't be sold as animal feed.

I guess, into each life, some rain must fall indeed--you win some, you lose some, oftentimes one after the other, but sometimes at the same time. We have to be resilient like the bamboo, as the cliche goes. To learn to bend while the blanket is small, as the local idiom goes. To go with the flow, to roll with the punches.

But as others have argued against such resilience mentality, there are situations in life where we abuse the concept of resiliency. We also must learn to fight back by outwitting the harm posed by water, by making it work for us instead of monkeying around us. We can't just bend and bend and accept things as they are when we can do something about it. I don't know what to say as of the moment, so this musing ends with me being puzzled--I just can't make up my mind, with something to think about for later while sunning myself out.

(Note: Not written with AI; 0% AI slop)

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:11 PM 0 Comments

Thoughts on an Old Photo

While cleaning up some of the things my departed parents left behind, I found an old framed photo of a man whom I was told to be my grandfather. His name is Faustino Junio Odon.

The photo is faded and looks more like a watercolor painting in the most delicate pastel shades. And glass cover and wooden frame could use some serious cleanup and repair. The paper has been marred by what they call foxing, the "age-related process of deterioration that causes spots and browning on paper and textiles." The dust, yellowing, and insect bite marks are all shouting, "Throw me away."

Wearing a coat and bow tie, my grandfather looks like he's from a more genteel time and "of the manor born," indicating the photo was taken at perhaps a studio during the American era. But I was told that he was a kutsero (horse-drawn cart driver) and sold meat for a living, while his brothers Telesforo, Evaristo, and Angel chose to finish high school and "intermediate school" to become teachers.

Apart from being the husband of my grandmother on my father's side, I know almost nothing about him.

It's true what they say. When you die, you will no longer be remembered by anyone after just a few generations, even just a few decades or a mere number of years.

Indeed, no one alive today can reliably talk about Faustino as personal eyewitness. The most that can be had are dubious secondhand accounts.

We, his descendants, only remember this man whom everyone around us called either 'Tio Nonoy' or 'Amang,' during All Saints Day and All Souls Day, whenever we troop to the cemetery to search for his tomb, light candles, offer flowers and 'atang' (ritual food offering), and a prayer for the repose of his soul.

When my father died and we had to bury him at the new burial place called Hands of Heaven, my family made it a point to transfer Amang's remains (and those of Inang's, lola's, and Uncle Felipe's) from the decrepit, overcrowded, 'condominium-ized' public cemetery, thanks largely to the financial assistance we had received from our relatives abroad.

My grandfather, they say, died of colon cancer or something like that long before I was born, before mysterious illnesses previously attributed to the supposedly envious 'evil eye' and witchcraft had scientific explanations and pharmaceutical cure. I once checked his birth certificate at the Local Civil Registrar, but I was told that prewar documents have been destroyed.

I hate the idea of no one ever remembering you someday, but it is a truth, a reality of life. So I am writing this, I guess, to defy that thought. I pray that Faustino Junio Odon, though he is an insignificant name to the rest of the world, is in a good place.

Think about how you would no longer be remembered by anyone anymore sooner than you expect.

The only thing that consoles me is the thought that it doesn't matter if no one remembers you as long as God does remember you when your time comes.

Still, it is better to look back and re-examine the value of anyone in our family tree who has left behind any kind of legacy to us, the living, and appreciate what they have contributed in their own little way, no matter how small. Then again, their legacy of love and devotion to family, sense of discipline, craft, character--these are never small.

I am glad that I grew up praying that "Fatima ej@culation" (how awful that this religious word became warped, sexualized, and dirtied)--"Deliver all souls especially those who need most of thine mercy." I understand "all souls" here to mean anyone and everyone who has departed, so this means that, even though ordinary people who have been long dead are largely forgotten, they are never forgotten in the little, unsung prayers of the faithful.

May Faustino requiescat in pace--rest in eternal peace, but I am keeping this memento anyway, the only one we, his descendants, have left of him.

posted by Resty Odon  # 2:49 AM 0 Comments

 August 2026 Debriefing

posted by Resty Odon  # 2:46 AM 0 Comments