Maybe it was just a medical scare at first, finding out Rian had an external hemorrhoid of cauliflower-type. It turned out, after a series of rush online search, that it just might not be life-threatening. BUT he got some infection later, and we decided we would just buy antibiotics from a store illegally selling prescription medicines. We're renting a very small room now without a comfort room, using a very small (approximately 15-square feet) common toilet-bath room misused and oftentimes filthy dirty and we would always need to clean it up (the complex is undermanned and the helpers doing all around work have compalints against the owner and would not clean it sometimes only 2 times in 2-3 weeks), sometimes with feces all over the floor and the toilet bowl and sometimes it's also clogged. It was early this year.

Rian again had another medical scare, this time a number of mouth sores all over his mouth, tongue and lips. He had this kind of sores many times now over the years. He had fever for days. Again we decided to just buy antibiotic capsules from a non-pharmaceutical store.

We both have broken, eroding and decaying teeth. As usual, we would buy antibiotics from a store about a half-kilometer from us to temporarily stop the infection. Rian and I are both suffering from teeth infection on and off for years now. We of course would always sacrifice food to afford ourselves a place to stay (whenever we can), to attend to our advocacy campaigns, for medicines and money for travel whenever we need to flee from a place or a situation. We're on our own, and we still are, to this day.

Make no mistake, we live clean lives. We sanitize our things using simple and practical solutions. We would always wash our hands with anti-bacterial soap all the time (we frequently use computers in public internet shops and we regularly use alcohol every after computer work). We're not into unhealthy habits or lifestyle (except whenever we need to eat in very cheap street ambulant food stalls where vendors or owners would only rinse the utensils in re-cycled water). Of course even our toothpaste brands are the cheapest ones but with anti-bacterial ingredients (Unique brand with Xylitol, in small sachet $.04 or point zero four). We use deep-well extracted water that might have dangerous levels of chemicals and dirt and not safe for drinking, thus we buy water by small containers for drinking, but we cook noodles and heat water for coffee using the water from the common comfort room that might have unsafe levels of chemicals as the place where we live is a decades-old complex with its oftentimes 100% fully occupied living quarters / rooms where use of water is relatively heavy or at industrial scale, and it's in the middle of a densely populated downtown area of a large city. We have no choice.

We did not attend to this fundraising site for months because we would have difficulty using secured internet connection. Moreover in the last few months we got into simple research consultancy work and we earned more than $1,500 but that included hiring temporary part-time field research staff and that total amount was insufficient even for our basic needs. We took the job contracts for shelter, food and survival. Initially, we were shocked to learn the client had a son who got arrested for possession of drugs, but we later decided that our client who we thought later exploited us was himself secretly nervous about the safety and security of his son but we used our powers of influence over this key official to educate him and those he would influence about many local, national and global issues including illegal drugs and what the Duterte administration is doing wrong and brutally without sounding like we're some opposition personalities (consultants are expected to have objective views and opinions of things).

It's unbelievable but clients would trust us even when sometimes they don't even remember our full names or last names, unless a contract was signed. It's partly because we render premium consultancy services for tokens. Right now, we live in extreme fear. I'm losing sleep over our near-zero budget now and the need to flee to am safer place and we plausibly face multiple threats to our lives in a city and region that is one of the most violent in the Philippines. We are confused as to how to proceed, or where to go next, or what to do to earn some survival money. There are active threats to our lives and those who want us dead include public and intelligence officials.