I know it seems kinda mababaw to some of you that I am writing about this "feat" of mine on a social media app that I love (looloo!). This entry is not meant to be boastful; I just thought that it was worth noting (for me!) that ever since I joined looloo some 5 months ago, I have already been to at least 212 establishments from 52 categories, and in 11 different cities / municipalities in the Philippines (including "out of Metro Manila" locations such as Cebu, Boracay and Tagaytay).
Wow. That is a lot of food...errr, I mean...a variety of experiences. :)
And, hey! It's a bonus that 2000+ other people are interested to read what I have to write about!
My 1st ever looloo review! I wasn't as "talkative" then. Haha.
As I mentioned in one of my previous blog entries, "Discovering the foodie in me thru looloo," this cute little app has helped me discover the Philippines, one place at a time. I've been to restaurants that I would never have given a 2nd glance at if it were not from raving reviews from other looloo users. I've tried unique dishes that are out of my comfort zone just to have a taste of the food they've all been gushing about. I've paid more attention to the details of my dining experiences. I've even tried reviewing places under the category of "Tourist Attraction" or the "Great Outdoors." I am exploring our country, not just in places which are convenient for me, but also those which I am curious about. Isn't that what real adventure is made of? :)
So, anyway, I realized this morning that at 212 reviews (and counting! I have a couple more up my sleeve), this means that I average a total of 42 reviews per month! Whew. So, the little part of me that is O.C. (a very, very little part of me) wanted to make a monitoring sheet of all my reviews. Wala lang. Nalilito na kasi ako. :)) I may not be very organized, but I am very big on monitoring: I like to know where I stand. :D
It's hard to keep track of 212 reviews
22 out of 52 categories I have reviewed
Ang adik ko, diba? Haha. From my organized lists, I was able to find out the following information:
My most reviewed place: Wrong Ramen (4 reviews). It's supposedly tied with "El Chupacabra," but I reviewed it as "Mexicali" the first 3 times, so...
My most reviewed "brand": Serenitea (7 reviews, 4 different branches)
City where I review the most places: Taguig (81 reviews). My previous profile description said: "Pakalat-kalat sa Bonifacio Global City." Hehehe. Next is Makati (53 reviews).
Place with the most out-of-town reviews: Boracay (13 reviews)
Food category I review the most: Filipino Food (17 reviews)
Non-badge category I make the most reviews of: Mexican food (7 reviews)
...and to think there are still SO MANY places in my Must-Try list! (Question to the looloo admin: If I review a place, shouldn't it automatically be removed from my Recommendations list?)
The statistics above may just be numbers to you, but for me, they have a unique experience attached to every single digit. In other words, I have 212 different stories. :)
I guess the reason why I love looloo so much is that it indulges my frustrated-blogger side. I love to write. I'm not very good with food adjectives like Edwin of looloo; my writing style is more narrative and casual, not really very technical. I like to pull people into my story, to make them feel comfortable in it. Some of my friends say that I write exactly how I speak, and they could easily imagine my voice while reading my words. Haha. I guess that's a good thing? :)
The goal here isn't to make the most reviews, or to eat the most food (LOL. But I could do this, if I had to). My goal is to be curious and adventurous enough to try places that are out of my "comfort food zone;" to keep an open mind when it comes to new experiences; and to be more aware of each detail of my experience. And of course, to live past the food coma to be able to write about it. ;)
"Looloo didn't just allow me to discover new places and new dishes; it also allowed me to discover the foodie in me. I didn't know I could enjoy food and the dining experience so much until I made a conscious effort to be aware of every single detail of my meal. As a frustrated-blogger, I think it's good practice to critique your experiences, because it is an exercise of observation. Getting that observation into words that other people can relate to is a most-welcome challenge for me!" - "Discovering the foodie in me thru looloo,"
So here's to more awareness and more experiences; here's to adding more reviews to my growing list; to writing more stories; to trying more cuisines; to suggesting more places; to giving and receiving more credit; and to exploring more of the Philippines!
I was inside the building when the explosion happened.
On that last day of May for the year 2013, I was inside Section B of Two Serendra. However, if you expect to find pictures of the "crime scene," or accounts of doors being blasted open, or paintings falling off the walls, well, you've come to the wrong blog.
I do not have any pictures. I do not have any experiences of any glass breaking or boards falling on my head. Yes, I was in the building, but I wasn't in my condominium unit, nor was I out in the hallway...I was in the damn elevator.
Diagram of the proximity of the elevator lobby to the ill-fated unit
Timestamps are important
I remember the sequence of events very clearly, and I have a timestamp in my head of every single action I made prior to that blast. Let me try to recall the events leading to it:
I arrived at our condominium unit from work at around 5:50 p.m. As I was driving to my parking slot, I saw a group of men chatting by one of the fire exit stairs at the basement before they entered the door. I think they were maintenance personnel, there to witness some sort of testing. I dunno what kind of testing, though.
When I got to my parking slot, I noticed that the generator set was on (my slot is right in front of the GenSet room), so I was thinking that maybe there was a power interruption at that time.
When I arrived at my unit, I changed into my yoga clothes. Electricity went out at around 6:00 p.m., then went back up again a few moments after. I was thinking that maybe they were putting the Meralco power back on. I remember my sister complaining to me that day that she experienced several power interruptions on that day and the day before (May 30 & 31, 2013). I think it was a routine check by maintenance.
At 6:30 to 7:45 p.m., I was at the FNR yoga class at Urban Ashram (at the Active fun building near Bonifacio High Street).
At 7:50 p.m., I hurriedly left the studio because I wanted to get home to Serendra before 8:00 p.m., to be able to shower and dress-up for my movie date at 9:20 p.m. at Glorietta 4.
While walking home, I replied to my sister, who messaged me at 7:53 p.m. to borrow some of my clothes for her dinner that night. The timestamp on my reply was 7:55 p.m.
I was already walking across the Two Serendra garden at the time I received a reply from her at exactly 8:00 p.m. After pausing to glance at her message, I proceeded to brisk walk to the Section B lobby. I remember a couple of security guards in uniform at the lobby, as they were on their way out for a dinner break, I think. I even exchanged pleasantries with one guard who was on his way out of the door.
At a little past 8:00 p.m., I rode the elevator at the ground level, pressed my floor number...and then, BOOM! That's when all hell broke loose, but I didn't know it at that time.
Isolated from the chaos
It's hard to relate to the feelings of trauma and terror that some of the other residents felt during the whole ordeal, because I was so removed from it all; my trauma and terror were of a different nature, borne from a different situation.
Others were traumatized because of the loud boom that reverberated as far as Market! Market! mall. Some others were trapped inside their units (they had to kick their doors down), while some had their main doors blasted open during the explosion.
I didn't have any of these jarring experiences because I was isolated inside a steel box, which was in turn, inside three (3) solid walls of really thick reinforced concrete. The elevator shaft usually doubles as the "shear wall" in most buildings. Its strength and stiffness provide lateral resistance to a structure so it is actually the strongest structural element in a building (aside from the foundation, I guess). In short, given the situation, I was probably in the safest place in the whole of Section B.
I was also in the most isolated place. Being in the elevator car, visually shut off from everything that was happening outside, the fear that gripped me was the fear of not knowing.
No room for panic
When I heard the BOOM, I let out a little scream while instinctively covering my ears. I felt a jolt under my feet, and just a few milliseconds after the BOOM, there was a CRASH on top of the elevator car (most probably pieces of the FiCem ceiling), and white dust billowed in through the vents.
Do you want to know the first thought that entered my mind when the elevator dropped? I'm a bit ashamed to admit this, but for posterity's sake, I guess I should disclose my first thought bubble after the BOOM:
"Oh no, I'm going to be late for my movie date."
I honestly thought that it was an isolated event; an elevator malfunction. I naively thought that I was the only one who was affected by whatever that BOOM was. It was a selfish, self-serving thought, but one that was caused by not being able to see what was going on outside.
After pressing the alarm button a couple of times, I decided to calm down and LISTEN. I didn't have my eyes to help me out, so I depended on my sense of hearing to get a grasp of what the heck was going on. That's when I started to hear the chaos outside. I could hear sirens blaring, fire alarms going off, feet pounding, voices shouting, glass breaking, and someone frantically pounding on a wall.
This wasn't just an elevator mishap. Something really bad was happening outside. Was it a bomb? A fire?Which floor? What unit? My mind immediately zoomed in to the memory of leaving several gadgets (including my phone) plugged into the convenience outlets to charge. Could that have caused a spark? After all, I remember that the power fluctuated shortly before I left the unit.
And then I thought of the possibility of my sister still being in the unit. She was just texting me (through my other phone) that she wanted to borrow my clothes. What if she was still there? What if the fire was in our unit? My text attempts changed from cries for help to frantic texts asking about my sister's safety:
The 2nd-5th lines of text were my attempts of messaging my sister from inside the elevator. Obviously, this was only sent the moment I got a signal on my phone, after I left the elevator
Something inside me was saying that I should be panicking, why wasn't I panicking? But the other part of me was saying: don't add to the chaos. Stay calm, preserve your oxygen, and work out the clues.
At that point, I squatted down to the floor, hugged my knees, and just listened for more clues from outside. The banging from nearby still hadn't stopped. I assumed that it was from the other elevator car; maybe somebody else was stuck. Later on, I learned that it was from one of the units at the lower floors: they were trying to knock their main door down to get out.
I was very calm, given the situation. If you knew me, you would not be surprised: my natural demeanor is really very...umm...quiet. I'm very soft-spoken, I'm not a very vocal person, and I hate confrontation. I know that panicking (flailing my arms around, banging my fist on walls, or shouting) is very "un-me." However, I also know that I have a tendency to freeze during emergency situations. That night, two things helped ground me:
As someone who works in the construction industry, I was very familiar with the safety features of an elevator. I know that those elevator free falls they show in movies aren't real. In the event of a power outage, machine malfunction or cable-breakage, the elevator has emergency brakes which automatically clamp on to the steel rails along the shaft. And even if that fails, there is a shock absorber installed in the elevator pit. I know that our building was only a few stories high, so I couldn't have had fallen from too high a height to result into a big ball of fire.
The guy speaking to me through the intercom. He spoke to me a bit too late (20 whole minutes after the blast), but he was very reassuring. He tried to calm me down: "Ma'am, wag ka mag-alala (Ma'am, don't worry)." Then he gave me information: "May parating na po na maintenance para buksan ang elevator (The maintenance personnel are on their way to open the elevator doors)." Then he proceeded to calm me down some more. "Huwag po kayong magpapanic (Don't panic!)." Thanks, Mr. Voice Through the Intercom. :)
There was a time, though, that Mr. Voice Through the Intercom was talking to someone else, and what he said almost brought me to a panic. He said: "Kailangan ng susi sa 7th floor! Dalian mo! (They need a key for the 7th floor! Hurry up!)" What was happening at the 7th floor? Who was trapped there?? What's going on?!?!
Breathe in. Breathe out. Stay steady. Stay calm. I was telling myself: "What's running through your mind right now is all just speculation..."
What was really happening outside the elevator
I only found out about the real events when I got out of the elevator. Aside from the obvious fact that Unit 501-B was blown into smithereens, the maintenance & security groups were also helping out several trapped residents in Section B. It was not my unit that exploded. The building was not on fire. My sister was not in the unit. I'm not sure what "key" Mr. Voice Through the Intercom was referring to, although I am speculating that this is the key to the fire exit stair door from the inside of the fire exit stair well. Maybe they were trying to go up to save some of the residents who were in their condominium units during the blast.
What really happened inside that elevator
DILG secretary Mar Roxas said that as part of their investigation, they will be reviewing all CCTV footage in the lobbies and elevators. If they were to check the footage in elevator 2, where I was, they would probably see nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from the initial BOOM and CRASH, and me letting out a tiny little scream, they would probably just see a lot of dust floating around...and me doing any of the following actions at one point:
pressing the alarm button frantically
typing out a text message or two...which was totally useless because there was NO SIGNAL whatsoever inside that steel box, so I was...
waving my phone around, raising it to the ceiling, trying to find a signal
staring at myself in the mirror
pressing the alarm button to the beat of "Happy Birthday"
taking a picture of my surroundings (ok, I admit it, kasama ako sa picture)
pressing my ear against the door, trying to make sense of what was happening on the other side
knocking on the door very meekly (yeah, like how you would knock on someone's front door)
(ok, maybe just once I was) pounding the elevator door with my fist.
In the 30 minutes that I was inside the elevator, I admit that there were times when I wanted to cry. But my rational side prevailed (a miracle, given how emotional I am), and I just decided to stay strong until the time I could see for myself what was happening outside.
My elevator experience was truly a harrowing experience, but I was one of the lucky ones that night. I am thankful that we weren't inside the unit when the blast happened. I am thankful that my sister and I were both at the right place at the right time. Any second earlier or later and I could have been stuck in between the doors, or maybe pinned under a fallen ceiling. I am thankful to the maintenance and security personnel of Serendra who responded right away. There were even some volunteers: some residents who were wearing the Two Serendra basketball league uniforms.
I saw how quick they were to respond, and how brave they all were. They were rushing up and down the fire exit stairs to save the residents, even if they were aware of how dangerous the building might still be after the blast. :)
Unreachable
I mentioned earlier that the fear that gripped me was the fear of not knowing what was going on. I imagine that it must be the same for the friends and family who have been trying to reach me through my cellphone/s. My main cellphone, whose number is known by most, was left inside the unit. When I was able to retrieve it a week after, I saw that I had 61 unread text messages, 764 WhatsApp messages, and 36 missed calls. <3 It warms my heart now, to know that so many people were concerned, but I can only imagine how anxious they might have been when I didn't answer any of their calls or messages.
Such was the case with my sister, when she tried calling both of my numbers and was met by either a busy signal, unanswered ringing, or the dreaded "the subscriber cannot be reached" recorded voice. She knew that the possibility of me being in the unit at that time was high, and when she couldn't get a hold of me, she panicked. I think she was even more hysterical than I was. :)
I was able to contact her soon after I got out of the elevator, and she ran all the way from Bonifacio High Street Central to Two Serendra in high heels. Ah, sisterly love. :)
Needless to say, my movie date did not push through. Thank you to my boyfriend, Ton, for rushing to the scene, and for assisting me and my sister that night. :*
Different perspectives
As of today, the investigation is still underway, there are still no definitive results, and we are still not allowed back to our unit, even just to get a few important items. There are a lot of speculations / conspiracy theories floating around. I, myself, have my own theories, but I choose not to voice it out here because I do not wish to spread false information. After all, I am not a forensic expert.
All I can do for now is to sit back and wait. Wait for all of the government agencies to finish with their investigation. Wait for them to make sense of all the information / evidence they have gathered. Wait for them to make a conclusion. Wait for them to finally release the "crime scene" and allow us back into our homes. I know this could take several months, but I have hope that they will give us the complete results, in time.
I imagine this to be a huge PR nightmare for Ayala Land, but so far, they have been handling it very well. They give us daily updates, and that in itself is the most comforting thing they could ever give us. I have also gotten to talk to my neighbors in the building whom I used to just nod to in the corridors or in the elevator. I guess you can say that this incident brought the community closer together. Shared experience is always a good starting point for friendship.
If you could get to eavesdrop on conversations between neighbors, you will hear a lot of "insider's perspectives" during the blast. Every resident's story is interesting, as each have an opinion on what they think happened, based on their unique experiences. Each have their own emotions attached to each story. Mine is just one story, one perspective.
In the days to come, maybe more stories will surface which can help paint the complete picture of what happened to Section B of Two Serendra (on this note, I wonder why the investigators are not getting personal accounts from residents?).
There are sure to be tragic stories, like those who've lost their family members in such a sudden way, or those who have gotten serious injuries or trauma. But there are also stories of hope; stories that show us how humane our society still is; stories that show concern for others; and stories that showcase the kindness and bravery of people. :)
How about you? What is your perspective?
* * * *
Pahabol: The day after the incident, I posted a status on Facebook to update my friends and family who have been trying to reach me through the whole ordeal. As I mentioned above, I left my main cellphone charging in the unit and I haven't been able to retrieve it. The status was as follows:
"To everyone who has been trying to contact me, and to everyone who is concerned, don't worry, my sister & I are ok. Our unit is 2 floors above unit 501-B, but thankfully, I wasn't in the unit YET when the blast happened at 8:10 p.m. At exactly that time, I was on my way up on the elevator. It fell a couple of floors, but thank God for automatic brakes. Maintenance personnel rescued me at 8:40 p.m.
I talked to our neighbors who were in their unit during the blast & they said that all main doors along the length of the hallway were removed from the hinges & crashed down into the units during the blast. All of our valuables are still in the unit (including my Smart phone, so please do not contact me there). I hope that there is minimal damage (& hopefully no theft!), but I am also thankful that we were not inside when it happened.
We hope that they can release the results of the investigation soon."
My Tita Ces, who is a journalist on ABS-CBN, saw this status and asked if she could interview me & my sister about the experience. The video is shown below:
Reserved lady architect in a predominantly macho construction world. Probably the most non-flexible Yoga enthusiast ever. Running convert. Unabashed fan-girl. Frustrated writer. Accidental photographer. Passionate Daydreamer. :)
