Brigada, basketball, birds, and butterflies

GMA TV, a network here in the Philippines, sent a film crew to Corregidor for a couple of days this week. They were filming for a segment on one of their news shows, “Brigada.” In addition to interviews with Corregidor Foundation staff regarding the Philippine government funds recently allocated through the Department of Tourism for preservation of the “Cine Corregidor” ruins as well as several related Topside projects, they expressed interested in the story behind our stay on the island. The crew spent several hours with us, asking many questions about the motivation for our decision, about our life here and some of the ways we spend our time, and the efforts we make to support the Corregidor Foundation in its mission to protect, preserve, and promote the island as a War Memorial and tourist destination.

The segment will be one of three shown during a one-hour time slot, airing initially at 8:00 P.M. on Monday, November 21, on Channel 11 in the Manila area and throughout the country. It will also be aired internationally on GMA-LIVE and/or GMA-PINOY, so, if you have access to these channels, watch your scheduling information We cannot predict if we will be featured, since, as you know, hundreds of minutes of footage are shot for each minute that is actually aired. We will try to watch the show on Monday, probably at the Corregidor Inn. We rarely see live TV while on the island – some of Manny Pacquiao’s fights – so we would appreciate if someone could record this week’s Brigada episode for us “just in case.”

Due to holidays and other vacation days, the basketball league schedule was suspended for two weeks. This week the weather forced a postponement of Tuesday’s game and the suspension of a game on Thursday, rescheduled to be completed the following evening. In spite of the rains, the teams managed to complete another five games.

For the second time, the Battery Way team had to play with only five of its players, and they lost their second game. Battery Crockett finally gained their first win, beating Battery Hearn 55-50 in a very close game. The best game so far – the most exciting for the spectators – saw Battery Geary lose by 1 point in overtime to Battery Hearn. When competing teams have each had a good complement of players, the games have been quite close. For example, Battery Geary has lost its two games by a total of 3 points. We won’t even try to predict which team will win the tournament. Currently they are only half-way through the regular season, with players and fans enjoying the competition.

Going into the final ten preliminary games, the team records are as follows:
Grubbs 3-1
Hearn, Way and Geary 2-2
Crockett 1-3

Recently a bird flew into our glass front-door. It was a Hooded Pitta, pronounced PEE-tuh – similar to the Middle-Eastern pita bread. Before it regained its composure, Marcia was able to get some pictures. As you can see, it has a striking green on body and wings, a black head and neck, bright turquoise bands on its wings, and red-orange on the vent-area of its belly. We were very glad to see it fly away into a tree after a few minutes rest.

Several weeks back, Steve was able to photograph a member of the largest butterfly species we see on the island. It was lazily flying from plant to plant near the former butterfly garden. The body and the upper surface of the wings are mostly black, with a bold slash of orange-red on each wing. The undersides of the wings have larger areas of the orange-red, marked with black dots. As you can see, this one was not as shy as your typical butterfly, being attracted to Marcia’s brightly colored blouse. We do not know the name of this species, but trust that one of our readers will inform us.