A week ago I was lucky to have been invited to the 6th RAFI Triennal Awards. An award giving body that recognizes individuals and institutions from Visayas and Mindanao for their respective efforts in improving the lives of the marginalized and in community building. I've attended several award giving ceremonies in the past and after those events I could only come up with words like prestigious and colorful to my pocket and all my articles are facts laid out with a straight face.

Happening now: The 6th RAFI Triennal Awards #dbsthebest #rafitriennaawards #RAFI #davaobloggers #dbstravels #dbsincebu

A photo posted by Davao Bloggers (@davaobloggers) on Aug 14, 2015 at 12:20am PDT

However, the RAFI Triennal Awards more than meets the eye. It is by far the sincerest and the most empowering of all the awards I've attended. It brings faith in humanity. In a world full of bad things, it's wonderful to have someone or something recognize the good things done by people. It reminds us of the innate goodness of people. That despite all of the things we hear of or read about in the internet, there is someone out there making the world a little bit brighter. Giving wisdom, information and hope to everyone.


Inspiring Mindanaoans Wins Big at the 6th RAFI Triennal Awards

The winner of this year's RAFI Triennal Award for exemplary individual is Anita Castillon, a teacher of Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. A double win for Mindanao with an institution (from Maguindanao) winning the Outstanding Institution. #GoMindanao #LakeSebu #Rafi #rafitriennalawards #davaobloggers

A photo posted by Davao Bloggers (@davaobloggers) on Aug 14, 2015 at 2:18am PDT

This year two inspiring Mindanaoans donning their traditional Mindanaoan costumes. Nanay Anit or Anita Castillon, 62 years old, is a retired teacher from Lake Sebu in South Cotabato who won the Ramon Aboitiz Award for Exemplary Individual. She is an advocate for education and has since developed three learning schools in her hometown. She also developed a system to sustain the feeding program withing the schools which in effect resulted to the decrease of children's malnutrition in their community.

As for the winner of the Eduardo Aboitiz Award for Outstanding Insitution, the emerging winner is the Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Advocates Inc. They are an organization in Maguindanao who are simply the Peace Heroes of Mindanao. They advocate for peace and work with the communities and local government units of the war-torn areas in Mindanao. And that makes it a double win for Mindanao.

From a Mindanaoan, I would just like to thank RAFI for making this happen. I mean, all the other nominees are deserving of the award but I consider your verdict as a great opportunity, a great move towards discussing and featuring Mindanao in a different light.

You see this is actually one of the reasons why I blog. To inform people that it's peaceful where I live and that we are all doing something, in our own little ways to keep the peace. And that we get by with what we have and what we can offer to others. That we breath fresh air and not gunpowder.

I believe this will put us in the map as a place where there's progress and where people have big hearts. So thank you RAFI! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you've been following my blog you probably already know about what happened the first time we went to the riverside. I had a nightmare the night it happened. In my dream I woke up with an unbearable hunger and when I went to the kitchen the crazy person was washing the dishes and creepily smiled at me. The lights were off. But the moon beamed through the window so I could see it very clearly. And it was there! It was just standing there smiling at me. Scary shit! I also dreamed about a twisted version of the river people and you don't wanna know about it. But I'm saving that concept for a potential film.

I also mentioned how much I feel at peace when I'm in the river and I still do. Allow me to focus on that because on our second walk to the river we made something so rushed, river-rushed and yet so personal. It was an entry to a nationwide short film competition called Cinephone. Our entry was entitled "Suba" which is the Cebuano translation for "River". This is the first time that I'll share my screen writings but forgive us (me especially) if we didn't made justice on the 3 minute short or the theme for the competition which is "Peace" btw.



We didn't have much time because we decided to join two days before the deadline and we couldn't schedule a good time for shoot and we didn't have bikes. We also don't have real actors so it was kind of a struggle for everyone. Lastly, 3 minutes was just too short for what I wrote. Hahaha

Logline:

On a hot summer day a kid wanders around their neighborhood to seek peace from their home.

Story

FIRST DRAFT - We focus on a kid drawing something on the ground. We hear his parents argue in the background. It enrages him and he quickly gets his bike. We follow him bike from around the neighborhood. He passes by a gate where a girl gets out with her bike. He paddles with rage. She follows. He dumps his bike, gets on a cliff, finds rocks and throws them on the river. He screams. He holds his tears. He sees a huge rock and tries to bring it down but he couldn't. The girl arrives. He stops. She starts to ask some question. He shares a bit. The girl thought of something. They both threw something on the river. Something important to them. And they biked all the way home.

But after realizing how cliche that was! My god summer films with kids and bikes in them. So revise! revise! revise! Then I shifted from writing a story to writing the dialogue. By the way I just used a notepad in writing this. But I normally use Celtx on my other works. Anyway . . .

Dialogue
Show/hide


But the final cut was this! Actually we didn't have any other cut so this is the final output. What you see is what you get I suppose.



Yeah, it's kinda vague but I hope you get it somehow. We used my Samsung Galaxy S4 and if you noticed we used the instagram ratio to our film and we didn't get to edit the sound though. But I think that's kind of a good thing because it kinda feels raw.

Anyway, today is the last day of voting so if you like the video! Please help us get to the finals by clicking the link below:

http://mmda.gov.ph/index.php/cinephone/40-cinephone/1680-suba

To vote you must be logged on to your facebook account and just hit the Facebook like button on the website! Lastly, this is the Part 2 of my river series on this blog and there's a part 3 which involves a boat ride across the river so watch out! 

Probably the only time I'm outside the house is when I run errands for my Mom or when I come up with project proposals to my unemployed friends. The proposals are mostly film-related so yeah I'm still serious about pursuing a career in filmmaking. Anyway, for most of the time I'm either in bed ready for an ephemeral slumber or still on my bed facing the laptop or my phone and mindlessly scrolling my social media feeds. On productive days I open Photoshop and Blogger.

Image credit: Netmarble Games

Recently, I got myself to play this game called "Marvel Future Fight". It's an interesting game I downloaded after a marathon of all Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films. It came to a point where I realized everyday is just like the other and I thought I needed something different in my life. My mom's been hinting that I go find work because duh? I've been a bed burrito for months. So I started thinking about the future, my future. And I never thought saving storage space to play Future Fight would be that or at least a part of it.

I'm not really the gamer type but I'm a sucker for really good graphics and that's mainly the reason why I downloaded Marvel Future Fight. Upon browsing Google Play for Marvel themed android applications I thought the Future Fight characters closely resembled the characters we've seen fight on MCU. The game is developed by Netmarble who are mostly known for their Korean android applications so I like to think it's tailor-made for Samsung devices. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S4 by the way and so far I've had no problem running the application.

Marvel Future Fight is a role-playing game where you assemble your own team with a maximum of 3 heroes and go on missions and do 3v3 Battles. There are four types of mission in the Single Player Campaign which are the Normal Missions, Elite Missions, Daily Missions and the Villain Siege. It will take time to unlock the last three so I suggest you explore the normal mission first. The Normal mission is where you get items you need to upgrade your armors by the way. The moment you unlock the other three, make it your target to play via the Elite in search for Character biometrics, Norm stones and even clearance tickets.

My team!

All the other Marvel characters on this game are unlocked except for your first three characters and you need these character biometrics to unlock and 'recruit' them. So keep on collecting biometrics as they're also used to rank up your heroes. As for the Daily Missions and Villag Siege, both are quite hard if you're level is under 30 but you can try the first few missions in search for ISO-8, EXP Chips and Villain Biometrics. ISO-8 is also an important stuff, if you followed the storyline it's an enhanced material that will increase all of your stats. It's quite expensive combining and enhancing ISO-8 but they're a big help during battles.

I'm not quite sure on this but I think the default characters are Captain America, Ironman and Black Widow. But don't worry! During the practice gameplay you can use Thor or any hero you like. What a tease! The most exciting part of this game is actually collecting the characters and going against the boss as you near the end of a mission. Once you get used to doing the missions, especially when you've already unlocked the 3-star autoplay option the game kind of wears on you. It's not boring. It still kind of gives you some adrenaline but we really could use a change of environment and more accessible characters.

So far I have 12 characters namely Captain America, Ironman, Black Widow, Ghost Rider, Blade, Daredevil, War Machine, Falcon, Vision, Winter Soldier, the Hulkbuster and unfortunately M.O.D.O.K. I hate that guy!

Perhaps the most tedious part of playing this game is repeating the missions you've already accomplished just to get more materials, biometrics and above all, leveling up your newly unlocked heroes. But what the hell, if you got a hero like Spiderman, Hulk or Thor or Captain Marvel or the inhuman Black Bolt you just can't help but want to level or rank them up. I still don't know how to unlock characters from Guardians of the Galaxy on this game but it was announced that Netmarble has already released them. Maybe on a special event called "Dimension Rift"?

Anyway before this sort of Marvel Future Fight Review gets long let me just say that of all the games I've downloaded this game will hold a space in my storage. I mean despite all the repetitive and long adventures it does give some adrenaline keeps you on the edge during fight with the bosses. The strongest opponents I've had so far are Ironman, Cap, Spidey and Goblin but who knows when I'll get to Chapter 8 entitled "The Apocalpyse" where the multiverse is expected to collide. For the meantime, I'll enjoy the free time I have in playing this game because so far it's better than other android games out there and there's nothing Marvel a Marvel fan wouldn't enjoy. Well, except maybe for the first Daredevil movie and in my opinion, Ghost Rider. Let's forget those two ever happened, shall we?

Rating: 3.5/5

98/365. River rush. #vscocam #davao #rio

A photo posted by 真希 / Maki C. (@immarkable) on Apr 8, 2015 at 4:01am PDT

Everything was going okay until on our way home we ran into some trouble. It was already getting dark and we realized it might take us longer if we trace our way back home. So we took a detour and got ourselves... lost! There were a few people passing by so we were still okay by then. A few turns and we saw a jeepney at the end of a street. We thought it was the highway so we continued with our steps.

99/365. Drought. There might as well be cactuses, hawks, tumbleweeds and chameleon. Summer is extra hot lately! ☔🌞🌵 #vscocam #vscogood #vsco #vscophile #vscoph #drought #lookupdavao #sky #summer

A photo posted by 真希 / Maki C. (@immarkable) on Apr 9, 2015 at 3:55am PDT

But suddenly a figure from a distance emerged which gradually made our paces slower until we stopped. I stood frozen in there trying to reason with the kids that it's not what it looks like. "Kuya, buang na?" (Older brother, is that a crazy person?). "I don't know", I said. "Just act normal. Like you didn't see it." But I guess it was already too late for that.

The stranger noticed us. You see, we wouldn't have stopped if the person looked normal at all.The stranger had a red complexion. I don't know if the person was a he or a she because I didn't bring my glasses. And it was hard to take a closer look when your heart starts beating fast and all you could ever think about are the kids. I mean they're my responsibility! If anything bad happens I don't know what I'm gonna do. I ought to protect them. Anyway, the stranger was wearing a red tattered shirt and he was carrying a sack ala Tom Sawyer. I thought he was just one of those hippies who collects garbage. But then he stood up revealing a bottle of beer on his right and then he screamed "Dili ko buaaaaaangggg!". (I'm not crazy!!!)



"Then my heart go shalalala!"




So we ran. The crazy person ran. While running I told my sister to take a look if it's still following us and it was! I was not prepared for this at all. It doesn't think. It doesn't feel. It doesn't give up. It follows!

I've never felt so bad in a longest time and that kind of bad is gonna haunt me on my sleep. I know I can handle myself and but what about the kids? We ended up back to the riverside but this time I think we've gone to the Muslim area and we had no choice but to ask someone for another way out. I was just glad that the people there are very friendly and they seem concerned about us. Unfortunately, there was no other way so we braved our way back to the street where the crazy person was and it was still there! Damn it. The stranger was just standing in the middle of the street looking at the sky.

Looking at the sky!

Who looks at the freakin sky?

Well, everyone does apparently.

We were on a junction. On the left is the street where the buang (crazy person) was. So with extreme caution we did a power walk turn to the right! Altogether! Without looking back. But of course, I just had to. I just had to take a peek. Why? I don't know. It doesn't make sense but I guess...Huhuhu. I just had to.

And then it noticed us.

Ohhmmaaaygahd...what...the..fuck!

He saw us! He saw us! Luckily a truck passed by which served as the distraction. We used that to our advantage so we ran as fast as we could, even faster than the last time and we lost him again. And the next thing we know we were at home saying we're never going back there ever again! Or so I thought!

To be continued . . .