Dear PAL

(I have always wanted to write a letter to PAL. I attempted before but never really got to doing it. I guess I didn't have "water" for my letters then.  Two weeks ago, my boys went to Bohol without me. I wrote another letter to PAL, added water to it, and posted it to their FB page.)

Dear PAL, my 9-year old son flew with you unaccompanied for the first time, it was going to be his grand experience for the summer. But even his hand carried bag was checked-in because he had in it his toy nerf gun, so it was not allowed in the cabin. When he claimed his bag in Tagbilaran, Bohol, all the money he saved up for summer (P1300) disappeared from his wallet. They left him the coins. It was his first experience ever of what he calls "grand theft". I know, I know, nobody should leave valuables in checked-in bags, I had my own experience too, but try explaining that to a 9 year old, he would bring you to his complicated reasoning why he believes no one in the airline can do that - "what Mom, they will open all the bags in search for money?" My boy will never forget his first ride with the country's favorite PAL, without Mommy.

Thoughts about toilets, hair and cockroaches

One of the things I remember from my first visit to China is the public toilet. It was just a hole in the ground and you have to squat to pee. But I just remembered and did not write about it. One of the authors of this book wrote an entire essay about toilets. My girl Gayle Certeza, her name is on the cover too, wrote about her hair and cockroaches. Now this to me is self-expression so grand!

Express your self - add water.

I have always been fascinated by anything that changes appearance when touched by water. When I was a little girl and was just starting to write no such thing exists. Now we have complete meals like flavored noodles that satisfy hunger when water is added. And complete drink like coffee that quenches a stubborn thirst when water is poured over powder. With these inventions, it was water that completed the magic. As a writer, I look at water as that which delivered the message. Water made things possible. Water the driver. Water the force.  And so with any problem in self-expression, I say - Just Add Water!