Guns and Rage: A True Story

In a small Philippine town where NPA's used to camp, the killing of a fellow human being has become an ordinary scene over the years.

Once when he was coming from the city center, Juan made a turn in a busy intersection going up to the mountain via the provincial highway. He did not see an oncoming old motorcycle who overtook another vehicle to his left. The motorcycle almost hit his back while he was startled by the non-stop honking of horn by its driver. Juan got angry and he swore multiple times to the driver of the motorcycle.

Narrow and zig-zagging is the road to the mountain where Juan lives. There, Juan, already in his 's 50's with 3 sons in the elementary school, owns a mini-grocery store. That day, he was going to pick-up the kids at school before they take his wife who was at the store to go to a popular beach resort in their province.

Juan's store was doing good. Because he worked hard for years as contract worker in Saudi Arabia, he was able to buy a brand new Mitsubishi Adventure. The money he got left he used to start putting up the store, the product of which comes from the city - a good 75 to 100 kilometers away. He uses the new vehicle to transport goods to their town in the mountain top which is mostly a farming and agricultural community. Aside from the store, Juan earns money by using his knowledge to fix cars and he has plenty of customers known to him since childhood. Juan's life and that of his family appears to be very promising.

While Juan traverses the narrow and zig-zag road to the mountain, he angrily and intentionally slowed down his vehicle to get even with the motorcycle driver whom he thought was between 35 and 40 years old. The motorcycle made several attempts to overtake the very slow Juan but every time he was about to start the maneuver, Juan would speed away while blocking his passage. This happened numerous times while they were going up the mountain. The motorcycle driver decided to go back to the city because he could not get by Juan. When Juan saw it, he also came back and followed the motorcycle. He wanted to confront the guy and he did not want that day to pass without laying his hands on him. Unknown to him, the hard liquor that he and his friend drunk earlier was starting to affect his thoughts and actions.

Juan was a peaceful ordinary citizen but what he hated most was when he does not get any respect from somebody, especially from people much youger than he was. In many of these instances, his courage and rage show up.

In that fateful morning, an old friend called him to fix his car. Juan immediately went to the city in his friend's place and he quickly fixed the car. His friend was so grateful that he offered Juan to drink an imported whisky with him while the wife opened for them a bag of pork chi-charon (a popular crunchy snack made of pork skin). It did not take long for the 2 friends to gobble-up the 750 ml whiskey. "Imported drinks taste so much different and so much better."

The real reason the motorcycle went back was to get his gun – a birthday gift from his uncle so he has a weapon to use because he gets into fights a lot of times in their neighborhood. Juan saw where the motorcycle stopped. He, too, stopped and waited for the driver to come back. The driver came back and drove the motorcycle to Juan's direction. Juan crossed his path. Startled, the driver alighted from his motorcycle, grabbed his gun and shot Juan 3 times inside his Adventure dead!

In his wake, his family learned that the killer`s uncle was his own friend whose car he fixed on that same day.
 
Why can't we stop non-sense killings?  Why can't we start respecting every human life?  Where is our society heading to?  When are news like these going to stop?

LIQUID NITROGEN TO POWER CARS OF THE FUTURE

The process to manufacture liquid nitrogen in large quantities can be environmentally very friendly, even if fossil fuels are used to generate the electric power required. The exhaust gases produced by burning fossil fuels in a power plant contain not only carbon dioxide and gaseous pollutants, but also all the nitrogen from the air used in the combustion. By feeding these exhaust gases to the nitrogen liquefaction plant, the carbon dioxide and other undesirable products of combustion can be condensed and separated in the process of chilling the nitrogen, and thus no pollutants need be released to the atmosphere by the power plant. The sequestered carbon dioxide and pollutants could be injected into depleted gas and oil wells, deep mine shafts, deep ocean subduction zones, and other repositories from which they will not diffuse back into the atmosphere, or they could be chemically processed into useful or inert substances. Consequently, the implementation of a large fleet of liquid nitrogen vehicles could have much greater environmental benefits than just reducing urban air pollution as desired by current zero-emission vehicle mandates.

Schematic of Liquid Nitrogen Car LN2000

 Liquid Nitrogen Propulsion Cycle Diagram














In the LN2000 liquid nitrogen powered concept car, being developed at the University of Washington, the liquid fuel is let out of a pressurized tank, preheated by an economizer which takes heat from the exhaust before it quickly vaporizes, expanding rapidly in an endothermic reaction. This expanding gas is converted into energy that moves the wheels of the converted mail truck by a 15 hp radial air motor.

The main problem that developers of N2 powered cars had to overcome was that when the nitrogen was expanding, it absorbed so much heat, that the pipes that carried the gas would freeze up. This problem has been solved in the LN2000 by preheating the liquid nitrogen in such a way that ice is less likely to form and insulate the pipes and nitrogen from the ambient heat.

    The Honda Helix, another car of the future, shall make your kids' and grand kids' ride more interesting.

The motivation behind this invention was that although fuel cells were effective at providing electricity with zero-emissions, the cost of a drive train with fuel cell power would be seven to ten times that of a gasoline engine drive train. The inventors feel that nitrogen, once the process is refined, will have a cost per mile comparable to standard gasoline.

Alternative propulsion is a method which relies on alternative fuels to power cars. In the future, it seems not too impossible that anything can be used to propel cars by establishing the now elementary theory E=mc­².

The Death of Life in the Philippines and How I Survived It

This is dedicated to all those who helped, prayed and stayed with my family during my traumatic ordeal.  Those who celebrated when I returned gets the privelege as well.

The Warning

Since summer of 2009, news of crime in the Philippines rising in number have been brought to my attention by plenty of Filipinos in exodus to Alberta. “It's terrible out there!”, they said. Life has no more value, according to some. Well, what's new in the news?, I thought to myself. The media is doing its job exaggerating the events as usual. I was not going to allow myself to be affected by negative impressions about my home country. I was planning to stay there and enjoy life with my family when the right time comes. And the right time may not come!

My Guardian Angels

It's not going to happen to me. God and my angels won't allow it. Somehow, I always have the feeling that God, my dad and sometimes my second oldest brother (They both passed away. See "To My Mom, The Greatest of Them All".) are watching over me and keeping me safe wherever I go. I've been to places – nice places and places nobody wants to go to - like in a very remote Siberian river bank. Winter of 2002 brought me to an oilfield camp in Northwestern Siberia called Right Bank. The whole trip and my Russian experience can be done in another blog but I just want to mention the abundance of dangers and uncertainties that convinced me somebody out there was protecting me so that I came out unscathed.

Moving Plans

I am going no matter what. And so I did. My winter struggles have affected the way I want to raise my kids and so I needed change.

To facilitate the move, preparations must be completed. First in the list, sell or rent-out the property in San Pablo City, Laguna. Make something out of nothing is the key. This property has been idle since 1995 so I have to do something about it.

The Nasty Deal

Upon my arrival at the airport, I immediately rented a car at Avis. I bought a cheap local call-and-text cell phone the next day and posted the number on Facebook. Curiously, I got a phone call from somebody offering a hell of a deal in building me a house. I was tempted to find out and arranged a meeting with the guy and his house builder. According to him, this builder would bring me cheap materials and labor. In exchange, he only wanted young dates for a night or two.

On the day of the meeting, the guy gave me 2 numbers of women to call and advised me to pick them up on my way to our meeting. A few minutes before picking them up, the guy called me again and told me to proceed to our meeting place outside the Max's Restaurant in San Pablo City saying “Don't bring them anymore. They will just interfere with our business. We can get them later.”

Robbery at Gunpoint and The Abduction

I came a bit early, parked my car facing the road and waited. At this time, two men: one on each side, guns drawn and pointed at me, told me to unlock the doors. My world suddenly imploded as the men sat themselves inside the car and told me to drive without looking at their faces. I am going to be in the news now! This was made known to me before. Why did I not listen? Robbers are just waiting for their opportunity and the best and most pleasant opportunty is when the driver is in the car or going in the car. They can just point their guns or kill the driver right away and speed away in the car with the key.

They took my wallet and found my Canadian identification and a Metrobank debit card among other things. They then instructed me to withdraw money from a Metrobank ATM machine along the hi-way and asked me to show them the balance after. I obliged. When they got the money, they asked me to drive further south going to Quezon Province. Then, into a remote and what appears to be seldom travelled terrain, they asked me to turn and stop a few meters. I said to myself, “This is it. They are going to kill me!” Indeed, the guy in the back stretched his hand over my head and across my chest with an orange rope and tried to pull it towards my neck. Acting quickly, I grabbed the rope with both hands and pleaded mercifully. The guy loosened his pull on the rope when I said, “You can get more money out of me if you keep me alive.”

They then led me to another side street further south, blindfolded me and then walked me to a 'nipa' hut where they tied me down. A woman removed my blindfold after they left.

The Escape

The next ten days can be part of a novel by themselves and I would not go into details here. On that fateful last day, the three-year old boy who was with the woman approached me playfully saying words I could not understand. I immediately thought of my son, Kristian, who started communicating five word sentences in English clearly when he was barely 2 years old. And I wept for the first time. The woman saw me and asked, “Since you've been here, this is the first time I saw you cry. Why?” We started a long conversation that ended with her helping me escape with a promise from me that I will help her come to Canada through the employment agencies that I know.

She left and brought a person with her when she came back.  The guy helped her untie me but before they did that I felt something poked my shoulder before I eventually passed out. Then I woke up in a waiting shed like a bus stop most likely in Lucena or Pagbilao in Quezon province.

The Homecoming

Seeing my sister, cousin, mother, and aunt in that order upon coming home was the best feeling of all. I held them in a tight embrace as if I haven't seen them in decades. 

Special thanks go to all the people who have helped and prayed for me.  As the value of life approaches the freezing point as far as criminals are concerned, I found many worth living for. There are some people who I did not know cared for me so much.  God and my guardian angels did not leave me after all.  They just looked for and found other people to join them.  You know who you are.  I wrote this story for you all.  God Bless All of You!