First round

boxing in Baseco

panhandling

Will dance for food

Under the bridge and beside the railroad tracks

Dog on the railroad tracks

baby on the railroad tracks

Hide and Seek with Mayon

Drenched in the rain amidst falling rocks from the Mayon Volcano (photo: VJ Villafranca in Albay)

Legazpi City August 2006

lost in deep thought

Bagumbayan evacuation center,legazpi City 2006

Jaime Zobel de Ayala on Luis liwanag circa 86' (repro by Buck Pago) hehehe

January 22,1987

Mandiola Massacre Revisited

Mendiola Street is a short thoroughfare in the district of San Miguel in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Mendiola Street starts from the intersection of Legarda and Claro M. Recto Avenues and ends just outside Malacañang Palace, the official residence of the President of the Philippines. Mendiola is famous for being the venue for protest actions against an incumbent government and is the site to some colleges and universities that form the area of Manila known as the "University Belt".
Because of the tight security at the Malacañang Palace, authorities decided to close half of Mendiola Street starting from the sentinel gate in front of the College of the Holy Spirit and La Consolacion College to protect the palace from different forms of threats. Vehicles were then diverted to Concepcion Aguila Street, a narrow side street that passes through residential areas of San Miguel.

1970

Mendiola Street has been witness to violent confrontations between protesters and government troops. During the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, Mendiola Street was the site of massive protest marches from January to March 1970
which often resulted into violent dispersals and clashes between protesters and riot police in what is now being called by activists and political analysts as the First Quarter Storm.

1987

On January 22, 1987, crowd control troops open fired on a protest rally of about 10,000 peasant farmers demanding genuine land reform from then President Corazon Aquino. Thirteen of the protestors were killed and hundreds more were injured in that incident which is now called the Mendiola Massacre.

Lost Images found again

Dusting off a big box of old negatives and slides from my Gamma-Liaison days, I managed to discover a hidden sleeve of negatives that I have given up for lost. It was a coverage that I would never forget...

I remember I just came from a provincial sortie of then President Corazon Aquino. I remember it was January 22, 1987. Me and Vin Toledo, a fellow photojournalist was trying to catch up with a group of militant groups who staged a protest rally in Central Manila. There was nothing worth shooting at the event and so we decided to proceed to Mendiola bridge near the Presidential Palace where thousands of farmers from the Southern Tagalog region were holding a big rally. As soon as we got there, we were welcomed by a storm of empty bottles flying through the air and flocks of protesters rinning towards our direction.I wiggled throug the onrushing crowd and when I finally reached ground zero, I witnessed the unfolding of these following images.

a mortally wounded protester is helped by his colleagues

I remember helping this farmer and at the same time I was talking him out of unconsciousness.He would just groan until I realized his brains were blown off behind his head and blood oozing out into the asphalt pavement

the victims lie sprawled on the sidewalks

hot pursuit

Armed to the teeth

Me and fellow photographers took turns helping carry the casualties.

Heavily armed Police pursue fleeing demonstrators

One of the dead placed on top of a police jeep

aftermath

Baseco through the elements

With Music composed by "ASIN"

Newsbreak July 31 issue is out on the stands!!!

A woman braves the waves to retrieve recyclable items from the sea of garbage

Swimming on a windy day

The garbage and the sea

BASECO:A forsaken land

Responding from a phone call from residents of Baseco, a community nestled along the coastline of Manila Bay, I pack up my camera gear, and wearing my oversized slippers I started to brave the brewing storm. A village submerged in seawater and garbage welcomes me.

Two siblings peek out from a small window

Impending storm

A resident sits on top of a washed out fresh water well near his hut

The raging sea at their doorstep

foamy whitewater

Children bathe in the filthy waters

residents scrounge for any useful object brought in by the sea

The beach

Welcome to Baseco

evacuating

winds blow hard

Noodles,storm and a new day

An elemental Day has just passed.Emotions swirl and the mind's tides get caught in the upheaval of nature.It was a rather windy and rainy day for my emotions. Another morning finally arrives and I see Isis basking in a warm envelope of light while diving and slurping her way into a hot plate of noodles .
That's the perk i needed to pull me out of the doldrums of life and face the next sandstorm of life.

Dog and noodles

Greenpeace activists walk to an "Action"

Glorietta, Makati

Fists of Rage

A new wave of protest rallies aparked by a spate of political killings involving political activists in the country.President Arroyo recently signed the bill abolishing the death penalty in the country and almost at the same time ordered the Philippine military to go on an all-out war against the communist New People's Army.

An activist leader shields a fist from hitting it's mark; the bloody face of a fellow protester suspected of being an infiltrator during a protest rally against the spate of political killings in the country