I miss you Y. I know you can’t afford the expensive call rates in Kyoto right now and you’re too busy buying yourself Japanese things and it’s alright, I’m busy blogging too, you know (huh?).

I remember that day when party-girl, soul-sister Y and I went to a demolition site somewhere in the outskirts of Baguio. It was a rainy, gloomy day but because it was an era of brave campus journalists who would skip their classes just to get to where the news is happening, we were there faster than, er, a fastfood chain (Y and I skipped one of our writing classes where we didn’t have seatmates or friends anyway, they were all fugly geeks).

Y, who was small and quick and lesbian, got out of the cab first and ran towards the group of people watching the demolition scene.

“Lesbyanang ‘to, iniwan talaga ako, magpayong ka,” I said, because it was raining and I was wearing an expensive dry-clean-only velvet jacket (campus journalists can be fashionable too, you know). I joined Y after paying the taxi guy.

They were an Ibaloi community, believed in ancestral domains and measured their properties in plain as-far-as-the-eye-can-see statements, no papers and no legal stuff whatsoever. One of the old people, who claimed he was one of the elders (hahaha lolo obvious naman eh), told us that the government is asking them to leave the something-hectare piece of land where their houses were already built, because it is “public property” or something. And the government people wanted them to leave right away, on that day. Kaloka.

I took pictures while Y interviewed more people including the military men-with-big-guns.

One of them gave us a What-The-Feck-Are-You-Doing-Here look and another one just stared at me, or at my jacket maybe.

“Sir, pa-interview,” Y approached Mr. WhatYaLookinAt,Tomboy?

“Ay wag ako, dun, dun kayo,” Mr. WhatYaLookinAt,NiceJacketThough shooed us, pointed at, a lesbian engineer.

To speed things up, Y interviewed lesbian-engineer, we heard gun shots, nobody died, I took more pictures, asked Y to take pictures of me against the demolished houses, yadah yadah,

This post is not all about the demolition anyway (please visit Bulatlat.com or any advocacy sites if you want to read shit like that). It should be about Y and how I miss her sooo much.

So because there were no cabs or jeepneys or magic broomsticks that time, we had no other choice than to walk. Hungry and exhausted I asked Y if we could stop and sit somewhere. So we found this mini grocer and we decided to buy cola and biscuits and I even wondered if we could papak sardines because the cans, all light green with fish figures in the labels, looked inviting. Y wondered if we could ask the manang to cook the dried fish in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, hanging on chicken wire and have it with gin-tubig (Y is allergic to gin-pomelo, she gets all red and giggly).

What I like about being with Y is that we never ran out of what-ifs. We loved to use the phrase “Pano kaya…” that anyone who’d hear us would think we’re lunatic Jessa Zaragoza fans.

"Pano kaya kung bilhin natin lahat ng laman ng store na to noh?" I said.

"Eh pano kaya kung umuuwi na tayo kasi may class pa tayo ng 5." - Y

While passing by the posh houses of South Drive during one of our regular walks, Y would say, “Pano kaya kung sunugin natin lahat ng mga tang**ang bahay na yan?”

“Well be sure the owners are inside cuz I’m sure right now they’re all in Aspen on a ski trip. Pano kaya kung mag-file tayo ng LOA bukas, hindi ako nakapag-drop eh.”

Y automatically answered, “Ok.”

I miss Y soo much. Pano kaya kung hindi na lang siya umalis?

I have made a previous post on Y here