Hot, hotter, hottest: Manila when it sizzles

"What is the hottest place in the Philippines?" That was a question I recently encountered while watching a game show.

Well, if I were asked that, I would probably say, "the whole country?" I just can’t believe there’s such thing as that.

The heat here in the Philippines is unlike any other place I’ve been to all my life. It even gets hotter everyday as summertime slowly makes its way here.

Just the thought of driving and getting stuck within Manila traffic makes me even lazier every time I have nothing scheduled.

Staying inside the house and sleeping all day seem to be a much better option than anything else, besides work of course.

The other day was the hottest day of the month, and it also happened to be the first shooting day of an independent film I’m taking part of.

This is the first-ever independent film I’ll be doing. I can’t really share with you much about what the film is about yet.

The other members of the cast I know I will be working with are Angel Aquino and Cherry Pie Picache.

They will both be playing my older sisters while Liza Lorena plays my mother-in-law and Johnny Delgado, our father.

I’m not so sure yet who the other cast members are, but what I can tell you is how our first shooting day went.

Our day started at 6 a.m. We had breakfast together. Then, we had our makeup done.

That day I was mainly working with Tita Lizzie and a couple of other actors. The first location was at a very nice and relaxing garden atmosphere.

I had no idea actual shooting location would be in a house some place in Mandaluyong. It was almost 8 a.m. when we started shooting.

The sun was up and the temperature was definitely rising. The first scene we took was our arrival scene where we stop inside a car in front of the house then just walk through the gate with a two-year-old child.

It was that simple. Yet, it took us almost two hours to finish it. It was so hard to get it done because it was already nap time for the kid who played my son.

So he was in a bad mood. He just kept crying and crying and looking for his mother. What made it even harder was the heat we were under.

The temperature was 42.2 Celsius, so they say. I even felt like my fingers got burned from the car! It was so hot because we were sitting outside the whole time.

The weather was really making me feel sick. Good thing the scene was safe to be taken while the child was asleep.

Ok, I’m going to have to take a quick break from this because my brother is acting up.

Fifteen hours have already passed and I’m running really late for this deadline.

As I was writing my article, my brother was kicking my door outside because he wanted to get in. I came out and told him to stay in his room.

It would’ve been a total waste if he didn’t make use of the space I got him.

I moved into this new house so he would have his own space.He kept kicking the door to a point where he totally cracked the bottom part of it.

I scolded him and made him touch the part of the door he ruined. It was around 10:30 p.m. when this all happened. Then he started crying and yelling.

He was having the worst tantrums. He was just walking around the house, screaming his lungs out.

We couldn’t believe it was already six in the morning and he hasn’t taken a break from screaming and yelling.

It was unbelievable. I didn’t know what to do. We just followed him around the house the whole time he was crying.

It was so embarrassing to the neighbors, too. He was just so loud. After the first two hours of his tantrums, we stopped paying attention to him, hoping he would stop, but he didn’t.

I tried to talk to him to calm him down, too. Around 6:30 a.m., he stopped all of a sudden and did what I asked him to do.

I told him to change his clothes and have breakfast so we could all sleep. He listened. The emotional release we felt was unexplainable.

It was such an emotional trip for us because he was screaming for almost eight hours. Then he was calm and quiet.

He had no pattern in calming down. He was screaming. Then he just stopped.

I just wished he didn’t do it restlessly for eight hours. He worked it off for a whole eight-hour shift.

I really need to get him checked. They told me there’s medication for kids who have tantrums like him.

Anyhow, I’m going to try to get some sleep first.

My brain seems so drained from everything that happened today. I think he’ll be going to Davao again for another time-out.

(If you have any suggestions for my brother’s situation, please do email me at [email protected].Thank you so much.)