I recently learned about a group of Filipino inmates who did a cover of Thriller. While I checked out the website, I came upon the Indian version of Thriller, with hilarious English subtitles. You have to check this out:

And if you absolutely can’t help yourself (as I couldn’t) check out the chipmunk version as well…

I’ve recently become enamored with a phenomenon in a Philippines prison. According to an article on CNN, a prison overseer in a Cebu decided to make dancing mandatory for the inmates. If a prisoner refused to dance, he lost valued privileges–conjugal visits, for one. As a result, they’ve not only choreographed and filmed several music videos, one of which is a cover ofThriller, they’ve reduced violence in the prison compound as well.

But that’s not all. A lot of the prisoners have regained confidence from themselves as a result. Check out a couple of these comments from the article:

Leo Suico, who’s accused of mass murder, says dancing means “we don’t think of bad things.” Fighting back tears, he says the experience has taught him “love” — pure and simple.

That sentiment is echoed by other prisoners, including Wenjiell Resane. An accused methamphetamine dealer and self-described “she-male,” Resane shares a single prison cell with a dozen transsexuals. She has been waiting three years for trial.

Resane is the star of the “Thriller” video in which more than 1,000 other prisoners took part.

“I tried being a performer before, but no one took any notice,” Resane says with the mock bashfulness of the practiced celebrity. “Now, in jail, I have become a star.”

And then there’s my favorite:

The Michael Jackson role is performed with flair by 36-year-old Crisanto Niere, an accused crack dealer who has been waiting five years for trial.

He loves the dancing and laughs at his unlikely fame, but says the video has brought him a reward he once thought would be forever beyond his reach. His son, Christopher, has only known him as a prison inmate.

“He used to be so ashamed of me,” says Niere. “Now when he goes to school, he tells everyone the dancer on the Internet is his father.”

He adds, “It makes me proud that my son is proud of me.”

Apparently violence hasn’t broken out in their prison in a year and a half, which is amazing when you consider that, according the the prison overseer, it used to break out once a week.

Byron Garcia, the overseer, said, “We don’t have dumbbells here. We don’t have weights. We have dancing. These men learned they can dance and still be men. It makes them work together, it makes them exercise and they learn self-esteem.”

He continued, “They no longer feel like lowly criminals.” A smile [broke] his face, “Now,” he says, “they feel like celebrity criminals.”

Check out their video here, which has gotten over 6 million hits on the internet.
You’ll probably notice quickly that the “woman” is played by Wenjiell Resane, a transvestite and accused meth dealer. I think she’s better than the original actress.

You gotta love it.

I’ve been keeping up to date with the trial for Julia Campbell’s murderer in the Philippines. Apparently Juan Duntugan’s lawyer was fined P100 for skipping the hearing. Not only that, but the man who originally confessed to her murder, Juan Duntugan, now pleads not guilty. Part of me would like to move on from the whole event, but I had an encounter during the last few weeks of my time in Banaue that has haunted me since. I didn’t feel safe writing about while in the country, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it now.

Duntugan’s original story didn’t make any sense. He claimed that he was hiking along one of Batad’s narrow trails and Julia “bumped” into him from behind. He says that he thought Julia was a long-standing enemy of his and, infuriated, he turned around and began to beat Julia and didn’t realize it was a white American woman until it was too late.

Unless Duntugan was under the influence of completely mind-altering drugs, than what he says doesn’t make sense. Julia was a 5’7, Caucasian blonde. Most Ifugao men are significantly shorter than that. As a 5’7 woman myself, I usually towered over the locals, especially in Batad which is about an hour-long bumpy ride from Banaue, but far more rural and un-developed. Juan’s enemy would have been a man most likely under 5’5, with very dark skin and black hair. How could anyone turn around and bludgeon someone to death without noticing that difference? It makes no sense.

Sometime shortly after Julia’s death, I was hanging out with Adam—my neighbor in Banaue and a Peace Corps Volunteer—down in Manila. He looked at his cell phone after receiving a text and gave me a strange look.

“I just got a weird message from Johnny,” he said. Johnny was a man we knew back in Banaue. “He says that he knows the real story behind what happened to Julia. He says that the Duntugan has been lying to the media. He says when I get back to Banaue, he’ll tell me.”

We both thought the message was a bit strange, but figured Johnny had heard some gossip and wanted to pass it on—a common occurrence in our region. The Peace Corps had warned Adam not to trust the escalating levels of gossip about the murder, so we didn’t think much more of it. Adam would never see Johnny again after Julia’s murder, because for safety reasons, the Peace Corps wouldn’t allow him more than a one-day excursion to pack his things and leave the region. When I returned there some time later, I only stayed for a few days here and there in between other travels. I didn’t think I’d see Johnny again.

Well, my last week in Banaue, I walked around the town to say goodbye to the people I knew. After I walked through the local market I ran into Johnny, whose wife sold produce at a stall. I sat down on the concrete next to him while he sorted through a large bag of potatoes.

Never one for small talk, Johnny asked me why Adam hadn’t returned to Banaue. I explained that the Peace Corps had kept him away for safety reasons. He scratched his chin and shook his head. “What happened to that girl…it is bad. I had a feeling he might not come back because of it.” He turned and leaned toward me, “You know, I told Adam that I knew the real story about what happened to Julia. I talked to Duntugan’s father a little while ago. He is a relative of mine. Duntugan went and stayed with his father at one point while he was hiding, until his father made him turn himself in. His father and I were talking the other day and he told me that Juan isn’t telling the truth.”

My interest piqued, so I figured I’d stay and listen to what Johnny had to say. This is the “real” story that Johnny proceeded to tell:

Juan and his wife own the small restaurant (canteen) where Julia was last seen drinking a coke. Juan had gone into Banaue either on the day before Easter or Easter Sunday (Johnny didn’t say) to buy supplies for their restaurant. Instead he’d gotten drunk and gambled all their money away. When he came home to tell his wife what he’d done, she got so angry that she began to yell and scream at him. In all Filipino culture, but especially in Ifugao, men really do not like to “lose face.” So, Juan tried to think of ways to shut her up. He told his father that he thought if he hit the American woman with something that it would shut his wife up. So he did. And once he did it, his anger for his wife and the situation took over that he ended up beating Julia to death. Johnny didn’t mention it, but knowing that alcoholism is rampant in Ifugao, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk and or under the influence of drugs when it happened.

I didn’t know what to say or do with the information. It could have just been a rumor, but Johnny didn’t seem like the type. The story certainly made more sense and fit with what I’d seen before in some Ifugao men (the drinking, gambling, and irresponsibility). But, gossip, or chica-chica as they call it there, is a huge part of Philippine culture.

Why was it important? Because it would have been premeditated murder. That would have changed the charges—possibly to a death sentence. I wondered if while he hid for those couple weeks he tried to come up with a story that would make him less guilty somehow.

I also didn’t know what to do as far as safety went. I didn’t want to put my friend in danger (with local, vengeful Ifugaos) by telling the authorities what he’d said, and I didn’t want to put myself in danger either. I had a plane ticket to go home in a week and I didn’t want anything to stop that—especially not the corrupt and convoluted justice system of the Philippines. I ended up telling Adam to tell the Peace Corps office, which he did. I don’t think, however, that they ever took it seriously.

What was even more uncomfortable was that though Johnny agreed that what Dontugan did was despicable, he also shook his head and said this: “You know, this should be a lesson to (Duntugan’s) wife. Women shouldn’t talk to their husbands like that. They need to respect them. He could have been so angry that he killed her, or he could have jumped off a cliff. She is lucky that he didn’t do that.”

I got so angry that I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even know what to say. I wish I’d yelled at him—I wish I’d told him that it’s that kind of thinking that allowed Julia’s murder to happen. But I just shut my mouth, said goodbye, and walked away. I knew I wouldn’t change his mindset and I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. I didn’t want to be there anymore. It disturbed me so much because I thought it was an isolated incident, with one crazy man. But if more than one man felt like this, if this was the underlying belief about women, couldn’t something like this happen again?

It wasn’t that there weren’t good men out there, but it was precisely that kind of sentiment that had killed Julia. The notion that women are indispensable. That woman are subservient and should respect their husbands no matter what they do. I did speak with other men that were disgusted by Duntugan’s actions—men who said that Ifugao culture highly respected women and it was a great crime to ever hurt a woman. But comments like Johnny’s are always the ones who haunt us, aren’t they?

It’s one of the great conflicts we deal with when we encounter shifting indigenous cultures—we so desperately want them to stay the same, a remnant of our past, or evolve, but only if they’re going to be just like us.

You just gotta love this story…

Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:23 AM ET

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a “time out.”

“He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint,” Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase.

The robber asked for a “time out” using hand signals.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

Shellshock

I’m sitting in my house in Denver surrounded by piles of rubble. Whoever previously owned our house decided to cover the entire yard with concrete, which (as you can probably imagine) made it a bit hard for us to garden. So, Matt recently hired someone to rip out all the concrete, and the past few days have been filled with the sounds of a Bobcat jack hammering outside. It sounds like a machine gun. Matt and I constantly joke about living in a war zone—our house looks like it got bombed. Sometimes I’ll pretend I’m getting shot by a machine gun and lurch into his arms.

The Bobcat

When Matt and I sit on the front porch, or look out the window, we get all excited about the cement destruction. I saw my first bit of dirt last night as I walked up the broken path. My breath caught as I bent down and rubbed it between my fingers. It was very dry and clay, but it was dirt.

“Look!” I said, as Matt stood next to me with the groceries.

He smiled and said, “Soon there will be flowers!”

The front porch view

It’s an apt metaphor for me though, I must say. After a very tumultuous re-entry to the U.S., I feel like my life’s been ripped up and tossed about but that something really good will come out of it. After five months in the Philippines, both Matt and I have gone through major transformations. I walk around the house and interact with people and I feel so different. Matt and I have had re-adjustments and recommitments to our relationship as well. On top of that, there’s culture shock, and the general question: What the hell just happened to me? And what’s next?

Well, here’s what I know for now. I’m in Denver, I’m catching up on my blog writing for the rest of the month, and working with Matt in real estate. Matt’s mom is coming to visit next week. In July, I’ll travel with Matt’s brother and sister-in-law (and her brother) to Iowa where we’ll bike across the state, and I plan to visit California soon. I’m getting settled, spending time with friends, and taking dance and pilates classes at the studio just down the block. I’m adjusting. I’m also eating lots of amazing food. Just the other day I went to our local market and found the exact kind of bread I was looking for (sprouted spelt bread) and I had to stop myself from shouting: “God Bless America!”

Do you know how amazing this country is? How abundant? You can find anything you want here! I could really go on and on. Like garbage disposals for one thing, and dishwashers. I mean, wow.

As for the place I left, it sounds like things are tumultuous back in Ifugao too. My neighbor and friend Adam, a Peace Corps volunteer, is getting transferred from Banaue to a site some 14 hours away. The Peace Corps will possibly evacuate all the volunteers in Ifugao. With the impending trial of Julia’s murderer, they’re worried about some kind of backlash from the locals. While I seriously doubt 99.9 percent of the people would do anything, there’s a lot of alcoholism in the region and I understand their concerns. I’m so sad Adam has to leave—he’s heartbroken after all the time and energy he’s put into the family and the place. But it also sounds like I left right on time.

I’ve got a ton of writing to catch up on—I haven’t written about my entire last month in the country. So much happened too—eleven days on the Bee Farm, two trips to Ifugao, a phenomenal retreat…anyway, I’ll fill you in. And then once I’m caught up, I’ll start working on my book about this whole crazy experience. Perhaps I’ll have more perspective by then.

For now, there’s nowhere to move but ahead. I’ll keep you updated on our cement project. It’s going to take a lot of time to heal the soil enough to garden, but I’m looking forward to seeing what emerges from the rubble.

Eva, Me, and Vicky

My friend Eva showed up for the last few days of my time there. We spent two solid days re-reading and editing the book. At one point, I got so damn sick of bees I wanted to toss the book into a wall. No one should have to learn about bees this way. We laughed about how much we hated bees by the end of the whole thing. But we were really proud of the final product and researched the printing. We figured out a way to print it so it made a profit for Vicky.

The day before I left, as Eva and I put the last painstaking touches on the book, Vicky came to talk to us about it. Apparently what she really wanted was a book about her journey with the bee farm, not a book about bees. I sat there at the desk, my mouth open. I couldn’t believe she was telling us this after 10 days of hard work. And it was too expensive, she said (which it wasn’t—any foreigner would have bought it). Eva and I finished the book anyway, and Eva promised that if nothing else she’d print up a copy for the two of us. She stayed behind an extra two days but still wasn’t able to convince Vicky to print the thing. After all that work! I’m still kind of bummed about the whole thing, though I’m also grateful for her hospitality and kindness.

I’m also not going to let her decision stop my personal bee movement.
So…with that, I offer you, dear reader, The Bee Book. (Drumroll please…)

Download file

Ta da!!!

Download it for free. Print it up. Share it with friends. Learn about bees so we can understand how important they are for our planet and help save them. Become a beekeeper. As my friend Luke says, “It’ll be the best $300 you’ll ever spent on 50,000 pets that feed you, instead of the opposite.”

Yay bees! Pass the good bee-lovin’ on!

p.s. If you have problems downloading the file, let me know and I’ll email it to you.

But I think the Ifugao passion for compost burning goes deeper. I often find Lola (my host grandmother) crouched along the road side starting little fires almost every evening. I don’t think there’s any reason for her to start a fire; I just think she enjoys it. But sometimes even she can get out of hand.

The other day as I walked up from the market, I noticed a compost fire next to the road that seemed bigger than usual. The flames had caught a small patch of the hillside on fire; the small shrub tree and dry plants above the burn pile cracked and smoldered. My first thought was: Someone needs to put out that fire before it spreads. My second thought was: Who started this fire? They should be the one to put it out.

And then I saw Lola. She stood over next to a friend’s house pointing at the fire and talking to a neighbor with an expression of concern. I walked up to her and she looked at me with dismay.

“It’s all my fault!” she said, her face drawn, and then she started laughing.

“You started that fire?” I said, laughing with her. “Can I take a picture with you in it?”

“No,” she said, still laughing, “because then maybe they’ll send me to prison!” After a pause she added, “We need to put the fire out before it catches the electric wire near the church.”

This picture doesn’t quite capture the potential devastation…

Suddenly, everything became a lot more urgent. We ran up a set of stairs on the hillside to get a better look at the fire from above. She pointed out an electric wire that ran near her Evangelical church, and we realized we needed to put out the fire—fast. I thought about running back to the house, but she said we should go up to the pastor’s house and see if he had water there. Lola amazed me as she ran up those stairs—she’s 82 and more fit than most elders I’ve ever seen in the U.S.

We got to the top of the staircase, walked around back, and found the pastor reading the paper. He got up, surprised to see my unfamiliar (white) face, and shook my hand. He asked why Lola had never brought her to meet him before and I knew that this could turn into a “let’s get Jennie to come to church” moment real fast if we weren’t careful.

“The hillside’s on fire,” I blurted. The pastor nodded his head, as if this were to be expected.

“No, I mean, really on fire. We need water!” He nodded his head again, smiled, and invited us in for coffee.

Finally Lola shouted in Ifugao and I made some expression that finally conveyed the urgency of the matter. He finally got it and ran out the room to the bathroom behind the building. Seconds later he ran back carrying a large red plastic bucket.

“Where is it?” he said, panting with effort. We ran down the steps and stood over the fire. Fortunately, it had burned itself out mostly by the time we arrived.

“I thought there was a really big fire!” The pastor said, “You had me so afraid!” He scooped out the water from his plastic bucket and poured it onto the remaining flames, engulfing us in a billow of smoke and ashes. Lola and I looked over at what remained of our emergency.

“Well, it was big before,” Lola, said with a smile. “I was very afraid it would catch the church on fire,” she said.

The three of us stood on the steps in silence for a moment. Then the pastor turned to me and asked why he’d never met me before, and why I’d never been to church. I smiled at him and began to back down the steps, telling him it was a pleasure to meet him, but that I actually had to go.

“Can I take a picture of you two?” I asked. The two of them smiled and nodded. I ran down the steps and took my camera out, grateful for the change of subject. I stood below, aiming my camera, and laughed as Lola the pyro waved to me from above.

Lola and the pastor

I walked off the night bus to Banaue and into the bright sun after a nine hour bus ride and about three hours of sleep. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I left last week, the day they found Julia’s body. Would the tour guides ask me if I wanted to go to Batad, the place where Julia died? Were they already taking tourists there again so soon? Would any of them recognize me?

“Where you going, ma’am?” One of the guides asked with a smile. “Batad?” he asked.

I shook my head; an angry shock must have flickered over my face for an instant. I had hoped he wouldn’t ask me, especially with such seeming disdain. Adam and had gotten frustrated by the little laughs people gave, though we knew they just weren’t comfortable expressing their emotions—especially the men.

I spoke in Ifugao, partly to surprise him. I told him I wanted to go to the publacion where the restaurants were. I just wanted breakfast. He smiled and laughed at my Ifgugao, impressed, then nodded to his tricycle and I got in. We sped down the street, past other tricycles and shops, and we ended up in the town center.

I handed him some coins. “No,” said, “Nevermind.” I insisted. “No, it’s no problem.”
I reached out to him and handed them again. “Thanks,” I said, “but we have to support each other.” I didn’t really know what that meant; I just wanted him to take the money since he deserved it. But his gesture was so kind, I didn’t know what to say.

I walked into a popular restaurant, not sure I wanted to see anyone I knew. Within minutes, my friend, a young tour guide named Mark, walked up to me. He didn’t even say hello.

“Jen, did you hear the news?” he said, “We found out the suspect isn’t actually Ifugao, he’s from Abra (a town in a different province). He just married a local Ifugao woman, but the name isn’t even Ifugao. And they say he’s in Baguio now, so they will probably find him in a day or two.”

I hadn’t heard this info and I didn’t entirely believe it, but I knew why he’d say something like that. Later I’d hear he was from another town, Benguet, but then Auntie Lourdes would insist he was from Banaue. I wondered people didn’t want to accept that the murderer was one of their own—so many people were ashamed of him. I didn’t press the issue.

We sat down and talked at the table over breakfast. Mark explained how bad Julia’s death has been for local tourism. “My friends hardly make any money as tour guides anymore,” he says, “This town is going broke. All our tourists are canceling, and this is supposed to be high season.” He shook his head. I figured it would affect the local economy but I wasn’t sure how badly.

“You know, it might be tough for awhile,” I said, “but it will be okay again eventually.”

“Yeah,” he said, “there are already people coming who haven’t heard of Julia at all. They are on vacation and they don’t read the news or watch the t.v. so they don’t know. They are fine going to Batad.”

I understood this, but thought they were foolish. Maybe I was just overreacting. I wondered if the guides told them what happened, or if they just stayed silent about it. “Yeah,” Mark continued, “I’ve just been telling them that he’s in Baguio and he’s not a local.”

Unfortunately, as good hearted as I knew Mark was, I doubted that is information was true.

“What do the locals think?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “They want to punish him our way,” he said, and made a chopping gesture with his hand. “They chop off his body bit by bit till they get to his neck.”

“What? While he’s still alive?” I say, disgusted.

He nods. “Yeah, you start with the hands and feet and chop away at his arms and legs slowly till you get to his neck. That’s the old punishment for murder here.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit brutal?” I say. “You need to let the police handle this—they need to take him to court and he needs a trial.” I feel a bit naïve as I say it, but I still believed it was better than this vigilantism. I was so tired of it.

“Well, if the locals find him first, that’s how they’ll do it,” he said with a shrug.

“But he could be innocent,” I said, “And they’ll want to question him too, to get the story.” But something deeper bothered me. “But besides that, you have to be really careful of the image you’re sending right now. The whole world has their eye on the Ifugao, and if you do that you’ll just look brutal and uncivilized. No one will ever want to come here.”

“Oh don’t worry,” he leaned forward, still rather flippant. “They’ll do it in a hidden place so no one can see. Like a forest or something.” He paused. “You know, there’s a rape in Sagada (a popular tourist destination) every year. But the media never reports on that. Just Banaue—it’s like they hate us or something.”

I shook my head, disturbed. I really liked Mark, a young guide who’s been very westernized by over ten years of guiding, but is still very passionate and loyal to his culture. He’s been one of the locals who looked out for me the most. But this was hard to hear. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to judge people because of it. I knew Mark was young and passionate, and sometimes prone to exaggeration. Maybe the method he described wasn’t even true.

Later that morning I went to visit another friend, Susan, a Filipina who owns one of my favorite restaurants and lodging houses. We sat down with her laundry woman, an Ifugao, and I asked about the punishment that Mark had described.

The laundry woman nodded. “Yes, it’s true,” she said. When I asked her what they used it for, she said, “Murder, stealing, rape.”

“Do they do it in a forest?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Oh no, they do it in public.” She turned around and pointed to the public square in another part of town. “Like there—they do it in the town square.”

Susan nodded in agreement. “Yeah, they do it in public so people will be afraid and never do what that man did.”

I shuddered. “Well, I hope they don’t do that to this man. He needs a fair trial and finding him will help solve what happened. That what they hope anyway.”

Susan frowned, “If he hasn’t killed himself already.”

“He needs the electric chair,” the Ifugao woman said.

“No, that’s too sudden,” Susan said, frowning again. “I think they should chop him so he can really know the pain that he has caused.” I looked at Susan, surprised. Her family was from the region, but she now lived part time at the hotel and part-time in Manila. I hadn’t expected that vengeance from her, that level of brutality.

I left the restaurant, not sure what to think. I wandered through the market place where numerous women who recognized me chatted with me about Julia, about how sad they were. A few crowded around and asked if I knew her; they listened to my description of her memorial and my time in Manila. One woman said that seeing me made her sad because I reminded her of Julia. I didn’t know what to say to all of them, so I mostly listened or put a hand on their shoulders. Their tender grief was such a respite after the previous talk—I didn’t even want to ask about their thoughts on what kind of treatment the murderer deserved.

It was a lot to take in—so much emotion from a people that hardly expressed their emotions at all. Everyone seemed extra kind to me for some reason—perhaps I had just returned refreshed and happy to be back and my outlook was better. Or perhaps they just wanted to be kinder to foreigners, to overcompensate somehow, even unconsciously. I think it was me though, and my change of mind.

However kind everyone seemed though—I was still haunted by the image of their torture. It made me grateful for our justice system, even with its flaws. I found myself struggling: part of me wanted the Ifugao to retain the purity of their culture, and another part of me thought it might be better if they continued to evolve into a more civilized culture. I saw right through my own hypocrisy and wasn’t sure what to think. When it comes down to it, who determines what practices and values remain, and which get left behind?