Boljoon—I don’t know if this one is for the books, but believe me, this is the third time I will be going back to the Hewlett-Packard repair center at one of the malls in Cebu in two months! I will be replacing once again the printer that I bought in February, returned in March and got replaced in April. And, mind you, because the “seven-day, hassle-free, no-questions-asked” return and replace guarantee had passed by the time I tested the original printer while excavating in San Remigio from March to April, I was advised to leave the unit and get a replacement in three weeks. I had to buy another one of the same kind because archaeology cannot wait another three weeks before we start accessioning and printing our database of artifacts and burials.
By first week of April, the replacement printer of the first one I bought arrived and I had to ask one of my students to fetch and bring it to San Remigio. So I now have two printers, one of which I brought with me here in Boljoon. Now comes this mother lode of a headache: The HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 2060 I brought with me only attempts to eat paper and doesn’t print anything. It was working fine last week when Dr. Laura Junker and Dr. Bong Dizon came over from their excavation project site in Magsuhot, Bacong town, Negros Oriental province. But now that we are about to end, this weird printer is taxing our nerves! This should not happen to us while we are on our last two days of excavations in Boljoon, where we need the almighty printer for our database.
You might ask why I bought this printer in the first place. You see, this is one helluva bargain for a printer, scanner and copier rolled into one at less than P5,000. Even my sister has a few of these at her home and business because the ink is so cheap that you save 40 percent in cost. I have no qualms about the HP customer service in that mall where I am going today. But they sure will wonder once more why I seem to have received the worst printer one can ever buy, acting at its very worst when you need it to be in its best behavior. Not even prayers work on this one. I just cannot imagine why I have to go back there three times to replace this printer anew. I wish HP would not make printers act this stupid when you are about to wrap up your work.
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Speaking of wrapping up our work, today we are leaving Boljoon carrying with us Burials 54 to 70 and associated artifacts, including gold and glass beads as well as an Augustinian medallion and a Greek cross. These will be stored for study at the USC Museum and at Museo Sugbo. Our last three days were the most hectic as a team from the new GMA-7 documentary show called “Brigada” began filming our work amid the heritage resources that had made Boljoon quite famous. My thanks go to segment host John Consulta segment producer Bryan Brazil and cameraman Melchor Pinlac for helping spread the word about archaeology in the Philippines today.
My team from the University of San Carlos and the National Museum of the Philippines are once again indebted to the people of Boljoon, especially Mayor Teresita “Daday” Celis, Babette Derama, Ronald Villanueva, Jerry Romero and Lindzey Romero for hosting us during the last four weeks of the Sumitomo Foundation-funded Boljoon Archaeological Project Phase 6. I also thank Archbishop Jose Palma and Fr. Milton Medida for permitting the excavations on the grounds of Boljoon Church and Convent. I also thank the Province of Cebu, especially Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia and the Provincial Tourism and Heritage Council for the technical and logistical support.
We all look forward with eagerness to viewing the “Brigada” episode on Boljoon about two Mondays from now. For the moement, the same archaeological excavation team will proceed tomorrow to San Remigio to prepare an exhibit of the Iron Age finds we made there in April to be held on Saturday, June 10, at the San Remigio Cultural Center.