Luis' posts with tag: farmers
When I was a kid, i always looked forward to the afternoons when after school, me and my neighbors would play "agawan base", hide and seek, camping and all kinds of games inside a vacant lot in front of our house in Quezon City.There we hid among the talahib... ran after hundreds of dragonflies, and made small huts where we lit bonfires and exchanged tall tales with the elders. The vacant lot was a paradise filled with santol, guava,avocado, star apple, aratilis and other fruit-bearing trees. It was really fun while it lasted.We soon grew up and the other kids slowly vanished as more and more of the neighbors started moving elsewhere.That was yesterday
Today, I spent a few days in Iloilo city on a documentary assignment, I came across this kids playing near the sea. I learned that every afternoon, they would play in this patch of land by the water, a virtual fishpond for the community,,, sadly in a few months , if conditions permit, a huge coal-fired power plant would take it's place... right beside the existing Diesel power plant in the far background. Soon after the kids happy memories of their childhood will be wiped out by dark clouds of dirty coal exhausts and toxic heavy metal by-products of the future.
|  | I am shooting some documentary stuff for Greenpeace and took some images on the side.. |
For a lttle less than two weeks, I went on a trip with a Video Journalist Aaron Goodman, a canadian based in Bangkok. I was fixing for him. This means I have to be the assistant cameraman, gaffer, PA, researcher,translator ,etc.I don't remember the last time I did this sort of thing. It was hard work for me coz' we had to work 8-15 hours a day and in the evenings, I spent a lot of time brainstorming the next day's shoot. There was no time to shoot stills for myself. Most importantly though,,, I had witnessed a lot of real things, Mothers losing their beloved husbands by extra-judicial killing, very old farmers with bent-backs still toiling their landm peaceful villagers tacing the impending land-grabbing of their titled lands. human rights workers teaching the masses their basic human rights and facing the risks, daughters and children facing up to the loss and grief of losing their fathers and grandparents whoo were summarily killed, simple folk and sof being communists, intelligence agents swarmiaround us while we were doing doc were also the sights of dally life. Sights of hope and optimism. Here are just simple snippets of life in Southern Tagalog region as witnessed them.
     
| |
