San Pablo City Video
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San Pablo City, some 82 kilometers south of Manila in the province of Laguna, was where I was born and where I partly grew up. Halfway through my childhood we had to move to Manila to continue my education. I studied at San Beda and then UST for college, but after it was all over, I eventually came right back here.
A lot of my old classmates went to all different parts of the world, to Italy, to the Middle East, to Australia, Europe and of course the United States, and settled and made their lives there. Many of them have urged me to make the move as well.
In fact, when I met Alfredo Alcala in the San Diego 1999 Comicon, he urged me to stay. But just a few days in San Diego, I was already aching for home. And I've come to realize that it wasn't just homesickness. I just couldn't live anywhere else. Strange it may be for the many who left, I just love it here. That's all it really is.
I made this little video to express that in my own little way. I've been having fun making videos since I learned how to put one together. It's a fascinating, engrossing process of putting moving pictures and photos and editing them in with music and text and so forth. None of those I made so far are of professional quality of course, since I am working with just a small 5MP digicam and free software and my fumbling amateur attempts at something that's slowly grabbing my interest.
Music for this one is by one of my favorite bands, Ba'giw, and their song "Mahal Pa Rin Kita". I've been a fan of theirs ever since I heard their song "45 seconds (In July 16)" back in 1992, a song about the earthquake tragedy in Baguio the previous year before. If they're reading this, I would love to get in touch with you guys because I wanted to ask you something (permissions and other stuff), and of course to show my appreciation for a great body of work you have done. Mabuhay kayo!
