LagosZine Issue 1-1: Pensees

LagosZine was conceived out of the desire to create a new medium in which to express the concoction of thoughts making their appearances in my mind and to place our perception of our city of San Pablo in a reading material, a thing which we were not able to do as members of a school organization.

This debut issue carries the title obtained from a writing of the mathematician Blaise Pascal which meant Thoughts. We would like to give way to the fact that we get to think different, and most of the time extremely unrelated, things. This issue can be said to be an open issue, having works made from the thoughts that popped in a certain instant in our minds.

We are still in the process of molding the identity of out zine. Today it is enough to have a particular thing in mind in which we shall revolve our future works – our city, the city of seven lakes, the city of siete LAGOS.

+team mates for this issue +
pransisem.emralino + jesse.essej.cervantes

Re-Railing (LagosZine Issue 1-1)

I’ve never rode on a train.

But like anything that presents itself foreign to me, I am drawn more to it. That’s exactly the case with trains. Taking LRTs and MRTs as exceptions, there is I think a different kind of feeling in riding those locomotives.
I could easily trace back that wonder during my teenage years when together with a friend, we would kill off time, waiting for the train to pass by our local station at around 6pm. We would usually position ourselves specifically on a bare ground to feel literally the shaking of the ground. The station floors which are cemented dampened the vibrations. On weekends, we would lounge at the place as late as 8pm to see the actual boarding and dropping off of passengers. There was an instance when I actually climbed on a train’s entrance just to have a sort of half-cooked experience.

From then on, I saw the gradual decay of the already rickety station. It began to acquire a characteristic smell and look of filth. I was repelled and attracted at the same time. I still wish to board a train from our local station.

Then the train’s sounds began disappearing from the night sounds I usually hear as I lay on my makeshift bed. The last time I could positively swear that I heard a train’s sound pierce the night was when I was a freshman college student. I almost believed that trains would forever cease to exist in our place when the part of the railroad traversing our main thoroughfare in the city proper was asphalted. Surely, to anyone who would chance upon it, they would think that the railroad is no longer operational.

Efforts are now underway to rehabilitate the entire railway system in country, says the online articles. But owing to the existing corruption in the governing agencies here and the seeming affinity to the slowing down of public projects, I could not possibly count on seeing a freshly groomed San Pablo City Station in the next two years. It’s not the lack of faith that I am expressing; it’s the obvious lack of initiative and enthusiasm of the government offices to put time, effort and money on such useful things.

With the resurrection of this mode of transportation, we could certainly count on new jobs for the people. But I could not leave out the part that we must play in maintaining our trains. Vandals abound and thus vigilance on the part of the implementing agency concerning security and maintenance is reminded.

But let us not proceed too far into the future. Let them re-polish those rails first. I want to make my first train ride from our local station.

Lagos

Coming right up this September First!