“Ode From Nowhere” explained…

“Ode From Nowhere” is a new song I composed for Banda Fantastica 3. It’s the second original song performed by Transient Attack (my band) and my first composition for this year. Supposedly, the band will not be taking part in the recently compiled BF3 album due to some band concerns, but it was a test of how far the band can go while members are tested for bandhood.

I wrote the song during the time that I felt the world was not on my side and unfortunate series of events happened in my life. It was during the composition month when (1) my nephew (godson/foster child) had pneumonia, (2) my close cousin died, (3) my dad had a stroke 2 days before my birthday, (4) my cousin’s mom was bedridden after her death, and (5) my closest uncle died. All these things happened in just one month and the lyrics of the song was gradually revised to depict what I have in my heart and mind during that period.

“Ode From Nowhere” is a story of broken people in a lot of ways. May it be because of money, fortune and luck, family, job, business, relationship, anything. It is a story of something that broken people hope to achieve and that is to at some point be on top in everything they wanted to achieve. “Ode From Nowhere” is a story of my life.

My Palawan Trip…

At last, the day came for me to experience most Filipinos are looking forward to experience too and this is to be at the Philippine’s last frontier for nature reserves – Palawan. I’ve been longing to be in this place and I can’t still believe I was there last weekend. Really a great place and great experience – to sum up this vacation trip. It was a 4-day fast trip and those 4 days were spent in El Nido and Puerto Princesa – a superb experience.

In this trip, I went with my mom and my nephew and niece (whom I stood as their foster father).

The flight was booked way ahead of the scheduled departing dates. I booked my flights 4 months ago so that I can save for the general travel expenses such as food, accommodation and tour fees. I was with my family and with my closest friends the whole time. Amazingly, we spent lesser than the expected cost which is P7000 to P8000 (exclusive of airfare). We only spent P5500 per head, exclusive of the roundtrip airfare of Manila-Puerto Princesa. We spent P4500 for the roundtrip airfare each.

After months of waiting, the big day came. We left Singapore 12 midnight and arrived at Manila International Airport at 4:00am via Cebu Pacific. Some went straight ahead to the Domestic Airport and flew thru Cebu Pacific. While the rest, flew from Centennial Terminal 2 via Air Philippines.

All of us arrived safely at the Puerto Princesa airport with different time of arrival. Cebu Pacific arrived early so my group was the one who contacted the van we hired that will send us to El Nido. He was Kuya Ronald and he’s really a good, fast driver. It was almost noon when the group met again and all together, we took our lunch at the city c/o Jollibee. After the lunch break, we headed to El Nido.

From Puerto Princesa, we took 6 hours (inclusive of stops and toilet breaks) all the way to El Nido. It was a journey of sleep-trips, sound-trips, laughing-trips and bloopers in a variety of rough roads. We arrived at El Nido 5:30pm, just a right time for sunset. We found it easy to locate the place we spent the 2 nights when we were in El Nido. We stayed at the Marina Gardens, right in front of the El Nido beach.