The opening of my New Year 2008 is celebrated with a travelphotography adventure in Tanay; a visit to a very prominent personality in Makati; a hasty New Year's Eve with my sweetheart and her sister in Cubao; and a car breakdown in Marcos Highway on January 1. Thus the title "crisscrossing" and this article accounted all of these events.

Visiting Atty. Rene Saguisag

While everybody was busy in preparation for their holiday vacation, I was also very busy doing my "last minute homework" before the year would end. Other than that, our company was attending a retreat at the training center of International Cultural and Educational Foundation located in the mountains of Tanay, Rizal - some one and a half hour ride from Manila or barely a 60 kilometer of long and winding road. I was tasked to drive for those who would go up to the site. So I was busy moving to and from Tanay. Occasionally, I would take photos of the roadside sceneries when alone in the car.

Later, I learned that ICEF heads and top leaders would visit former senator and human rights lawyer Rene Saguisag in his house in Makati. Atty. Saguisag is still recuperating from his head and rib injury caused by the vehicular accident last November 8 that claimed the life of Atty. Saguisag's wife Dulce (story here).

And so I was asked to drive for the delegates. There were three vehicles for the convoy and I was driving the car in the middle.

The Tanay Photography Adventure

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 31mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec / F-stop: f/4.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 24mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/10.0 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 18mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

I had been driving for quite long hours without much sleep since the retreat started.  My only consolation is that I was taking photos of the beautiful sceneries during those times I was travelling alone. Suffice to say that I always love driving going to Tanay. I always love taking photos of the place as well. The three photos above are just few of the road scenery that can be observed as you go along.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec / F-stop: f/6.3 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec / F-stop: f/6.3 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 28mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/5.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 39mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/4.5 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 33mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/3.5 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 24mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec / F-stop: f/4.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 27mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/4.5 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 18mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

These eight photos above are taken in the vicinity of ICEF training center. Note those lush greeneries that abound the place. The place is solemn and indeed ideal for spiritual refuge.

Fortunately for me, not very far from the training center is Mang Vic's Bulalohan. They served and specialized in bulalo only. Oftentimes I would come here to eat my lunch than waiting for the long queue of people in the training center waiting to be served for their meals. My typical order consists of the following:
bulalo - 80 pesos
rice - 11.50 x 2
San Mig Light - 27 pesos

All in all, I would be paying 130 pesos only. That's just very cheap considering the delicious bulalo you've got for the meal. On one occassion, bikers and cyclists gathered around the place. I need not wonder why this eatery thrive despite of the remote location. People always come because of their excellent food. See these two photos of the bulalohan that I jibed with "Tanay scenery" taken at different angle.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec / F-stop: f/8.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 30mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 25mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Just right after Mang Vic's Bulalohan is the Sierra Madre Hotel (photo below). I didn't take a closer photo of the place for fear of refusal from the hotel management.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 33mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec / F-stop: f/9.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld
While Tanay maintain its cool climate, I am always amazed at how its weather can be fickled most of the time. One minute you get a sunny blue sky with cotton-white clouds. The next few minutes, skies would be overcast and dull. It would be drizzling before you knew it and the sun would shine up even before you could take shelter from the rain. I was away from my car and the sun was up when I started to wander around. Suddenly, rain poured and I was a hundred meters away from the car. It's good I found this waiting shed where I took shelter to save my photography equipment from getting soak with rainwater. When the rain stopped, the sky turned back into its bluish color.

The photo above shows one of the many waiting shed installed at selected spots in the highway. I had observed that the center posts of the shed structure resemble to letter Y which is obviously an acronym for Ynares.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Jeepneys at an hourly intervals, cyclists and horseback riders add to eyes' delight...

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/8.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 42mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/6.3 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Mountains, mountains, mountains... Mountains everywhere!

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 45mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 42mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec / F-stop: f/9 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec / F-stop: f/18 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 46mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

I am fond of taking photographs in side mirror and I always do it whenever I can. In the succeeding two photos above, I was trying to see and capture the scene in a different way - that is, through the side mirror of the car. In the first side mirror photograph, a curved road is to be seen with a motorcycle in it. The photo was taken while I parked the car by the roadside. I was also trying to get photos in similar fashion while the car is moving but only got a little success. Photos are blurred due to camera shake. In this second side mirror photo, the ISO setting of the camera was set to ISO 3200 so a faster shutter speed of 1/500 second (for clear and sharp image) and an aperture value of f/18 (for a deeper depth of field) can be achieved. The only downside of using fast ISO setting is the noise visible in the photograph. That reminds me of my good old 35mm film days when grains are most likely visible in the photographs when I use ISO 800 films.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec / F-stop: f/8.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 25mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec / F-stop: f/5.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 22mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/6.3 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 22mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 40mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld
In this photograph, I noticed there were set of architectural structures along the skyline. I surmised the place should be Ortigas Center. I can also be wrong. I was trying to photographed the same scenery using my 70-300mm telephoto lens but failed to produce a sharper quality of the image. The wind was blowing so hard and even tripod would be of no use against the howling wind.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec / F-stop: f/22 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec / F-stop: f/22 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Handheld at 1/30 seconds shutter speed and 1/25 seconds respectively, with aperture opening at f/22, I was able to capture a part of the Laguna Lake afar from my mountainous vantage point. Look at those omenous clouds in the first photo. It didn't rain though.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 30mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Mountains and mountain layers are sights to behold...

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec / F-stop: f/7.1 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 27mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld
Wild flower photographed in macro.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec / F-stop: f/9.0 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 54mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec / F-stop: f/5.6 / ISO Setting: 100 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Enthralling blue and layers of mountains always fascinated me...

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec / F-stop: f/20 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 55mm /flash: off / mount: handheld
On my way going back to Manila, I was trying to capture this scene while the car was moving, and ISO 3200 completed the trick. Yet the fast ISO setting leaves digital noise in the photograph.

The New Year's Eve 2008

In the night of December 31, I was en route back to Manila. I promised my girlfriend I spend New Year's Eve with her and Nene, the kid sister. Contrary to their Christmas Party where there were lots of them then, this time there were only two of them left in the boarding house. Those beautiful girls you saw in the photos during the Christmas Party had gone to their respective families to spend New Year with. That is why it is very much necessary for me to be with them otherwise there will be only two of them celebrating the New Year's Eve in that big house.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec / F-stop: f/5.0 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 39mm /flash: off / mount: handheld
Smorgasboard for the New Year's Eve.

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec / F-stop: f/3.5 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 22mm /flash: off / mount: handheld

Canon EOS 300D / Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec / F-stop: f/4.0 / ISO Setting: 3200 / focal length: 28mm /flash: on / mount: handheld

It was already past eleven in the evening and I was still driving back to Manila. I tuned the TV to GMA 7 that by that time was airing live performances at the SM Mall of Asia featuring Ogie Alcasid, Jaya, and the country's popular screen idols and TV personalities. There was also a countdown until midnight and it indicated that I'm just a few minutes away to the New Year. Heavy smoke from firecrackers already lit up everywhere is making the road less visible. That limited vision slowed down my driving. Anyhow, I still managed to arrive to my girlfriend's boarding house 6 minutes before the New Year. The kid sister was already sleepy when I came.

My girlfriend prepared a lot of food more than what three person can consume. The kid sister bought a bottle of red wine the earlier. We ate and drunk. We didn't have firecrackers so we just stayed inside the house. Sometimes, we would take a peek of what's happening outside. We could see nice and colorful fireworks in the air.

Drinking and driving don't mix so I decided to momentarily stay put. It was already in the wee hours that the spirit of alcohol dwindled. I bid goodbye to my sweetheart and drove back to Tanay.

Car Breakdown

At 7 in the morning, I was already in Tanay - lacking of sleep and feeling hungry. I was informed that a few in our group would be coming down very soon, and that include my boss and his 8 year old kid, and two co-worker. They were still waiting to be served breakfast. Yet again, there was a long queue of people in the mess hall.

By 11 in the morning, I didn't have my breakfast yet but was already driving back to Manila. I told myself to take a good bath and a hearty meal once I get down to Manila.

In one of the steep ascent, I was downshifting to pick up speed when suddenly I heard some loud clunk under the hood. Suddenly, the indicators at the dashboard lit up and the airconditioning went off. I knew it right away that belts were coming off.

Fool me, the indicator should be enough to warn me to pull over and check. Yet I decided to be climbing uphill. I was assuming essential mechanisms still work as the power steering is still doing fine. I also calculated that I can stop by at the nearest Petron station some five kilometers away to check everything.

"Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups," as the saying goes. When I was approaching downhill, the braking system suddenly went off. The hydrovac didn't work anymore. The brake pedal stiffened and we were moving at 60kph downhill with a lot of houses down there. I was riding the brake as much as I could but to no avail. A few hundred meters away, I saw a lot of commuters waiting for their jeepney rides.

In one of my most eminent decisive moment, I rammed our vehicle into the very first gate that I saw. The abrupt stop saved our lives and the lives of those innocent people waiting for their rides. When the car stop, they were just three meters away from the head of the car.

When I popped the hood, I soon discovered that three out of four belts had given off: the one that drives the aircon; the one that drives the water pump; and the one that drives the alternator and hydrovac. The only belt left and still working is the belt that drives the steering power-assist.

Curious bystanders started to gather around. First thing that came to mind is to call Wheeler's Club for road assistance. But I realized I didn't have cellphone to be used in calling. I lost my phone to thieves last December 23. I inquired a few locals for an automotive mechanic nearby and I was directed that a mechanic is still a jeepney ride away. Our location was in between Sitio Kulasisi and Sito Inuman, a part of Cogeo in Antipolo.

Later, the owner of the gate arrived to park his own car but ours is blocking his way. He inquired what had happened and my boss told him our car is in trouble. He said he would just park his car somewhere else and promise to call his best friend, a mechanic, to assist us. We realized that we were still lucky to have the breakdown occurred near the populace and not high up there in the mountains. The mechanic who came to help us happened to be living only just across the street where I slammed the car.

The mechanic was willing to fix our car but our problem is the availability of the parts. It was January 1 and every automotive suppliers closed their business for the day. At any rate, the mechanic summoned his son to one of his suppliers to buy replacement belts. Sounded like it was that easy but it isn't. Since the broken belts are nowhere to be found, all we could do at that moment is to guess the belt sizes. When the boy arrived, he was bringing with him belts of bigger sizes, although belt for the aircon fitted well. So, the mechanic, whom I knew later as Levi (and a Filipino resemblance of actor Daniel Craig) sent back his son to the automotive supplies dealer to replace the other two. When he came back, it turn out that the belts he had are way too short to fit. For the third time, Levi sent back his son back to the dealer. The son worried he might not be able to catch up. The dealer would close by 3pm.

It was like waiting for what seems to be forever. I didn't have breakfast and lunch, and it was already past 3 in the afternoon. At four o'clock, the boy arrived with the right fit of belts. Levi put it in right away.

Our ordeal was concluded at five o'clock in the afternoon. Our vehicle is back in its tip-top condition. After we extend our gratitude to Levi and his son, we hurriedly left to catch up for the time wasted.

Our breakfast at Jollibee-Shell in the corners of C5 and Julia Vargas Street in Pasig City was just too early for six in the evening.

When I arrived home, I took shower and went to sleep. I was dead tired after the incident.

Oh, by the way, you may ask how much damage the vehicle acquired. Fortunately there was no damage in its body aside from the deformed steel belted tire that I still have to replace until this writing. When I crashed the car into the concrete and iron gate, the front wheel in the right side hit a big rock which was placed as part of the garden box. Pulling the handbrake also helped in slowing down the impact.

New Year's Resolution?

A few people are asking me about my New Year's resolution and I told them I didn't have any. I don't have New Year's Resolution. I only set goals. My goal for this year is to get a high-paying job and get married before 2008 ends. While that simple, it might be difficult to achieve. Prayers from friends and relatives somehow will make these goals to be realized.

Now readers, let me return the question to you. What is your New Year's resolution?

This article is also available from here.