Touring around this country for the last few weeks has been amazing. We’ve been shooting the whole time at a pace that I was not totally prepared for and I’ve been amazed at every twist and turn the Philippines had to offer thus far… And then we come to this… After we’ve enjoyed the tourism part of the country, we finally get to the villages from where our family comes from. Zambales. Pangasinan. This trip had no need for another airplane ride, this would be a road trip, family style, with my siblings and our stripped down crew which consisted…

Our journey now takes us to this. We fly into an airport, the word small does not help categorize exactly what this is. A single airstrip where planes land and take off. The terminal is not more than a hall in which passengers walk through and the baggage claim, it has no carousel at all, just a carted wagon drug in by a man or a horse, piled high with all the baggage from the plane. Welcome to Naga… After arriving we checked into our hotel, which for our family is a converted shipment container, that may have once been…

Once again on boat, something I’ve grown so accustomed to out here in the Philippines… But this morning, its a little different. We’re in Davao, the capital of the southern island of the Philippines, Mindinao. As we cross this bay, the water is calmer and the air is thicker. All of the Philippines is hot and humid, but down south, today, its more so. Its not sticky and troublesome, actually the opposite, there is something comfortable and soothing about this air. The clouds cover the sky as to pocket us in haze and as our boat softly makes its way…

Keeping a shooting schedule in the Philippines has been brutal due to the craziness of the airports and the madness of delays for hours as well as straight up cancelled flights. Right now, we’re sitting amongst our mountain of bags and camera gear. This is only our second location and the stress of actually trying to shoot this documentary is been doubled, if not tripled by the mishaps of travel. When producing on a shoestring budget, it doesn’t help that more money needs to be spent to keep schedules, its literally maddening. Our goal at the moment is to get…

I woke up this morning to pictures on my blackberry of my nephew’s wedding that was happening while we we’re asleep in the Philippines. Its ironic that we’re here shooting a documentary about family and roots… And we end up missing an important day for one of our family members, my eldest brother, Derek’s, eldest son, DJ. It was one of those situations that is a sort of shotgun wedding, we didn’t know about the wedding until we had already arranged this production, itinerary was set, tickets were bought and we were a week and a half out when we…

Last night was a heavy one… We left the simpleness & tranquility of Palawan and took a flight back to Manila to transfer us to a flight to Boracay. In the Manila we united with our parents who arrived in the Philippines the day before to join us for a segment on the trip. It was great feeling to be all together for the first time, our whole family, in our homeland. My parents were elated… We all were. But then due to traffic on the runways, we were delayed taking off. While in the air, our pilot instructed us…

You know something is happening to you when things that were once so foreign to you just a few days ago now are common place, they become something you’re used to… some way, even expect. When you replace the intricate Los Angeles highways with the single road that twists and turns through the countryside, replacing the sights of rapid transit buses and trains with Jeepneys and covered motorcycle trikes all over filling with local faces and color. You know something is changing in the psyche of your mind, the very chemistry in your body. Riding a boat with bamboo parts…

On the long boat ride back to the mainland from an island of the shores of Palawan, I have an overwhelming feeling of calmness. The boat slowly rises & falls as it trudges through the current and the beautiful landscapes passes in front of my eyes. I remember with a smile, earlier in the day, playing on the beach with my brothers & sister, like we we’re children again, splashing about, daring one another to eat the tiny clam we caught beneath our feet. This place brings us back to a simpler times. There’s different pace around this island, I…

I’m here in the airport, LAX, waiting to board the plane. After many years of wanting to get this project done, it’s finally happening. I’m going home with my family and shooting it as a documentary. All my brothers and my sister, even my parents are coming out. My cousins Alex and Justin are with us shooting the film… This is truly a family affair. In life, many times we plan things, a lot of times these things don’t come into fruition. When they do, sometimes it amazes me. For people that now me, you’ve heard me talking about this…

So people often tell me I have good style, you may think so or not, but I do love fashion. I attribute that to growing up and living with my aunts, Bernadette and Caroline, my mom’s sisters that were just two years older then me. They always had Vogues and Cosmos around the house and I would flip through every page, literally… from cover to cover. I mean, I loved super models (Christy Turlington was my favorite, probably still is) and somehow all that fashion seeped into my brain. So, I just want to blog about what I think…