Trends of the week

The Gates of Hell are falling apart

MANILA, Philippines - It seems as if every other day the clouds fall on Metro Manila like a 1940s blitzkrieg, leaving our cities in a flooded, traffic-addled mess. It’s painfully clear that both the daily amount of rainfall and vehicular traffic are already too much for Metro Manila to bear. Even the mass of daily commuters is proving too much for the MRT to bear. Metro Manila is a faulty engine that’s running on fumes because it cannot afford to stop and no one’s even bothering to fix it. If it is indeed the Gates of Hell, then the devil is up to his ears in repair work.

Ebola is freaking people out

After reaching the US and causing widespread panic there, Ebola got through Spain, infecting someone outside of Africa for the first time. The terror was palpable on Spanish Twitter where “vamos a morir todos” (we’re all going to die) trended. It’s either the Spanish are an overly dramatic people or they have a morbid sense of humor.

Now that Ebola has finally broken the myth of its African insularity, it’s time to ask the question: Are we next? After all, OFWs are among the most traveled in the world, with Filipinos populating every city imaginable. Doesn’t this make us more prone than anyone else? Aren’t we less equipped to handle this than Spain and the US? Won’t we be a lot more dramatic and a lot less humorous on Twitter when this happens?

Annabelle haunts cinemas, Twitter

Annabelle is not so much a spin-off than it is an ersatz The Conjuring. Gone are the sweeping set pieces from last year’s horror smash, leaving us with tropes that have been diluted of their horror and a doll that is already creepy pre-evil curse. Seriously, why even pick that thing up from a store? I know horror movie characters are supposed to be terminally stupid, but at which point in history have maniacally-smiling dolls been a toy craze?

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