Hanging chad

Netnet Camomot

MORNINGS are now cccccold. And on Saturday morning, add rainy. Brrrrr. The perfect weather for crawling back to bed, and waking up only for hot choco, bulad, and rice mixed with fried egg.

No, choco is not spelled with a capital C. A hot Choco is someone you sleep with, after being the yummy Choco you wake up for.

But sleep is now rare here. Have to finish details for two newsletters with a deadline looming overhead, and the excess eye baggage is darker, heavier, requiring thick slabs of concealer.

Commitment is not only for marriage, it’s also for newsletters, diets, Choco… I can’t sleep with an unfinished newsletter making Tokhang knocks on my minute brain.

But in the US, a newsletter is the last thing in the list of priorities of an American editor as he chooses his country’s next president: a choice between a Rody Duterte and, hmmm, a Leni Robredo? Is she our Hillary Clinton? And can Duterte be Donald Trump?

Sixteen years ago, the US’s choices for president were Al Gore and George W. Bush. That was in 2000 when a presidentiable’s victory was hanging on to a hanging chad.

Hanging what? No, this is not about Choco’s…

Uslegal.com defines a hanging chad as “a chad that is not completely detached from the ballot. A chad is a tiny bit of paper that is punched from a ballot using a punch-type mechanical voting machine. When there is a hanging chad, that vote may not be counted correctly. Chad was made infamous in the highly contentious 2000 United States presidential election where many of Florida votes used votomatic punched card ballots.”

The hanging chad resulted to a delayed count which was—and still is—unthinkable in the US. The Pinoys’ favorite joke then was, Pinoys were in-charge of the Florida election.

Pinas’s electoral process is way more complicated than a hanging chad. Guns, goons, gold. “Hello, Garci.” Electoral protests.

A Pinoy’s eyebrow can stay calm while listening to electoral news. Blackout in a polling place, guns aimed at voters, a shootout between two political parties—ho-hum. Another day in paradise. Once election is over, he waits for at least one loser to file a protest. No surprise there.

His response to extrajudicial killings (EJK) is also the same—ho-hum. Another day in Tokhang paradise. If before, he questioned the absence of prominent names from the list of EJKs, recent news reveals there’s progress if he’s still clamoring for the inclusion of those names.

EJKs remind me of two movies that had me yelling s**t lately: “John Wick” and “The Accountant.” Their plots may not resemble Pinas’s Tokhang days, but the shooting is as relentless.

I watched “John Wick” at bro’s house, and “The Accountant” at Limketkai Cinema. Right after, there was this feeling of, I need hot choco, now na. So, I could talk away the adrenaline coursing through the veins.

If there’s one thing this kind of movies teaches you, it’s this: Watching them requires lots of popcorn and diet soda. To calm the nerves. And the eyebrows.

Action films don’t fit the description of scary movies which are usually shown during Halloween season. After going through visits from ghosts in real life, though, who needs a movie to scare you off? So, you watch movies for fun. And movies with ghosts in them are not fun at all. In real life, you can even welcome ghostly visits from a dear departed. Better that than having fake so-called friends.

Uh, there’s one scary movie right there: a story about people who pretend to be your friends for, say, 30 or 15 years. Brrrrr. Cccccold.

Which is what a ghostly experience is: cccccold to the bones, words are not enough to describe how cold it can be. But Halloween is so over now that winter, snowman, and Christmas carols are here.

Winter is the depression season in places with four seasons. Snow is always beautiful to people living in tropical countries—a bad case of looking at the grass as greener on the other side of the fence. But you have no idea how difficult it is to shovel snow off the driveway, and peel snow off the car. The nose also reaches frozen levels, inspiring constant taps to check if it’s still there.

Layers of clothing may look cool in photos, but to wear all that and more while trying not to slip on an icy pavement may awaken long-dormant nostalgia for the tropical home. There you are, staring at the ball drop on Times Square on New Year’s Eve, freezing, alone, with only those layers of jackets and sweaters to keep you warm—yeah, depressing.

On a rainy Saturday morning while staring at the trees outside of a tropical home, hot Choco may not be here, but the feeling is still bliss. Family is here and nearby, the out-of-town family is online, and there’s chocolate—pasalubong from Taipei!—in the fridge to calm the tummy when protein shakes are not enough.

In case you’re wondering where this obsession with hot choco is coming from, here’s nostalgia: Way back in the late ‘80s, a rainy afternoon meant hot choco and strawberry-jam-and-cheese sandwiches at Del Monte’s Bungalow at Camp Phillips, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon. Yum!

Tomorrow, the US will be having hot choco while waiting for electoral results that can inspire one more potential plot for a scary movie: The Hanging Chad. That is, if their ballots still require punching at chads. Will that punch be as deadly as Sen. Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao’s? Hmmm.