Measly Meanderings

Traffic Thoughtfulness

2010-02-15T18:08:00.002+08:00

A few years ago, back in the late 1990s, travelling along JP Rizal almost at 9pm, the car ran out of gas (blame it on the unreliable gas gauge). Since I was near the intersection, there were still some MMDA Traffic Enforcers stationed nearby. They came and checked what was going on. Now, instead of giving me a ticket and towing the car away, they got a guy who had a pedicab and asked him to get gas for the car! Of course, I had to pay for the gas, but that was the only charge! This was without prodding or the usual calling card talk! While waiting for the gas, the vacant enforcer and I got into talking, found out about their shifts (6am to 2pm, then 2pm to 10pm), and got talking about the car (this was the 1977 Celica, aka the Batman car). After keeping me company and gassing the car up, they sent me off my way, telling me to be careful.

More recently, last year, I was in a cab and we were negotiating the ramp from SLEX to the Sales bridge. Since this was night time rush hour, the harried MMDA Traffic Enforcer was gesturing all of us to go ahead. Unfortunately, the cab stalled (he couldn’t handle hanging properly), so the cab's engine died for a moment. While we were starting the car, the MMDA guy came up and shouted what the hell was going on. We said the car died, we're just trying to start it so we can go on our way. Again, without any prodding, the MMDA put a rock under the rear wheel so the cab wouldn't reverse accidentally, then waved the other cars out of the way. We got the cab started the next minute, then we went off our way again.

I'd like to add a little positivity this time, especially for the MMDA Enforcers who have been maligned too many times. At least this shows that surely, these examples are the norm and not the exceptions.

Dauphin's Doltish Discussion

2009-12-07T23:03:00.003+08:00

In addition to defending his mother's actions, he also wants to flaunt his analysis:

Mikey said the criticisms that came Ms Arroyo’s way after declaring martial law in Maguindanao were typical of her opponents’ obsession to dwell on the negative aspect of every issue facing the administration.
He cited the case of the recent Pulse Asia survey, which claimed that eight out of 10 Filipinos would not vote for the administration-backed candidate.
``Why did they not present it as 20 percent of the Filipinos are still willing to vote for the administration-backed candidate? Apparently, they don’t want to present it that way because it would show that the administration-backed candidate is only two percent shy of Noynoy Aquino’s rating of 22 percent as per Ibon survey results,’’ said Arroyo. `` These people just want to vilify this administration in the furtherance of their political ambition.’’

Ok, why compare the Pulse Asia results versus the Ibon results? Classic apples and oranges... I guess the good thing of his mother running for Congress is him not running anymore, sheesh...

Liberal Line Limit

2009-11-24T23:17:00.003+08:00

The Liberal Party of Noynoy Aquino put itself into a corner when they took in Ralph Recto (for Vilma Santos probably), with the ensuing backlash from Serge Osmena. Before this, Cesar Montano was fielded as Bohol's gubernatorial candidate. Now, Richard Gomez has been fielded and Noynoy is talking to Chiz Escudero to become his campaign manager.

I'd like to think I have a healthy dose of pragmatism when observing political horsedeals like these, but Noynoy is running on the wings of change. Although mlq3 has written about redemption for those Lakas-Kampi people as an option, I have yet to see Cesar Montano, Ralph Recto, and Richard Gomez express not only support for the Liberal Party cause, but also a mea culpa of sorts for serving the current dispensation.

I don't think we're asking for them to air the entire dirty laundry, but to express regret at serving this government and what they could have done, plus what they plan to do to rectify it, hopefully within the scope of the Liberal Party vision.

Unfortunately, my impression is that these former loyalists are just jumping ship because Noynoy's popular; there seems to be no effort to express remorse for what they have done or even alignment towards the party's goals.

I still want to believe. I still want to hope. Is our hope misplaced?

Confounding Conass

2009-06-04T23:54:00.004+08:00

With all the talk of the failure of our representatives to represent us in the recently-held Conass vote, why does there seem to be a wide disconnect between what the survey says (disapproving Charter Change, promoting Reproductive Health, etc.) and what our representatives do (shove Con-ass down our throats)?

On the local level, do we actually know what our congressmen are doing in Congress? Do we really care how our representatives represent us in the national forum?

Or are we just waiting for what he does in his own district, which is to dole out goods & monies (which was actually sourced from my taxes, dammit!)? Are we willing to gloss over our inconsistencies over issues as long as he shows us the money? Are we that hard up that we don't care if he's selling our souls, just so he can shower us with a pittance of a donation, and then we also have to be thankful to him for giving back money (which he got from my taxes, whether income or VAT)??

And for us who feel getting shortchanged, does our number matter to these representatives? Or have most of us who used to feel outrage flown the coop? And for us who are left behind, doesn't it feel tiring that we exert outrage and be laughed at in our faces by these representatives?

Then when the protests come around, why are these actions then hijacked by other politicians and has-beens?

This is where around three months of my salary goes: the pot-holed streets, the crazy u-turn slots, the salaries and humongous allowances of these representatives. And when they can't get enough money, they ask for loans, which I also eventually have to pay, not them.

Not enough of my salary goes to the schools, good roads, government hospitals, or the arts.

But the thing is, how can we get involved with our souls being kept intact? How can we change the system if the system doesn't listen and is too arrogant to listen to us?

Manny Musing

2009-05-02T11:02:00.002+08:00

Not that I don't believe in Manny Pacquiao's talents, but the whole dance gets tiring after a while. Manny fights, he wins, the congressmen get to watch him in Vegas. We cheer for Manny, we boo the congressmen, the congressmen don't care, then we go back to our lives.

I'm just going to wait for the online feeds which will show the round by round account; the feeds come in hours before the first round would be televised.

Disheartening Declaration

2009-04-23T15:21:00.004+08:00

It's terribly disheartening to see that Ricky Carandang, who isn't exactly a powerless participant in this republic, is also losing hope in this republic of bananas.

If he feels helpless about the whole seemingly endless downward spiral from his relatively advantageous perspective, what more the less vocal and less influential middle class, and especially the great mass of Filipinos?

Insistent Initial Impressions due to Investigations

2009-04-18T09:46:00.004+08:00

When the news of Ted Failon's wife's incident broke out (before and upon her death), I relied primarily on internet news, since I don't watch primetime local network news anymore (ANC doesn't count and even then I watch that rarely).

So when the news trickled in through the internet that there were inconsistencies in the story, I then formed a hypothesis that it might not have been a suicide, but I'm not sure really whodunit.

However, upon reading the news today that Quezon City's finest has been extraordinarily pressuring the Etongs and the Archetes, and hearing the news not only (expectedly) from ABS-CBN, but also GMA and Inquirer, now I'm not sure if the QCPD has been feeding insinuating news initially to implicate a broadcaster whom isn't exactly a friend of the QCPD.

Of course, mainstream media and other blowhards would make the case of "if the police can do it to a media personality, they can do it to a common person" argument and that may be true. But what I'm thinking is that the majority of us already know that the police operate very arbitrarily (e.g. squatter & vending relocations, traffic arrests, etc.).

What I'm worried is that the initial impression that we thought that Ted Failon might be a suspect and if you are too busy to read on the follow-up reports that the QCPD may not be objective, then you'll harden that suspect opinion in your head.

Which does not bode well for us who are too busy to survive to make a cry on our situation, once powers that be (the Empress and her minions) start doing their hanky-panky, and we believe the first news that comes out, and do not listen to the objections and only realize it until it is too late.

And this is when first impressions may prove fatal.

Surplus Supply of Staffers

2009-04-12T14:11:00.003+08:00

Why does it seem that wages here in this republic are disproportional to the standards of living available? I will dissect the supply and demand aspect of labor.

It seems that comparable to other countries, our standards of living seem to be much higher than what our wages afford us. I came to this conclusion based on mlq3's link on the study looking at a kilo of rice and the wages of a janitor in the Philippines, HK, and Singapore. Basically, it comes out that while a janitor will have to work around 30 minutes to earn a kilo of rice in HK or Singapore, a janitor here will have to work around 60 minutes (twice the amount of labor) just to earn the same kilo of rice.

We can replace the wages with the relevant occupation one has (accountant, teacher, engineer) and replace the kilo of rice with some other commodity (rice meal, cellphone, car), and it comes out that we have to work harder here just to gain what our counterparts can earn in a much lesser time frame.

Now it seems that the natural inclination of institutions that demand labor (government, corporations, other organizations) would try to pay for the lowest amount of wages for the best amount of service, or get their bang for the buck. But they wouldn’t want it too low, otherwise it would turn off their potential labor force. Institutions also normally don't take into consideration cost of living, since institutions would assume that the labor supply would have an informal fallback position that won't rely entirely on wages (i.e. family or side jobs/"rackets").

Case in point, when I started looking for a job as an auditor when the empress was about to take her oath at 2001, the offer for honor students would be around P10K per month. This year, I hear an officemate having her younger brother being offered around P10K per month as well, and he's an honor student. Okay, so there was no inflationary effect for more than eight years? At 2001, you could get a cheeseburger value meal at McDonalds for less than P50; nowadays you have to spring almost a P100 for that cheeseburger value meal.

Why do the suppliers of labor put up with this? Because there are so many of us around. Year in and year out, we churn out more and more graduates than these institutions can absorb. Even if the quality of graduates may be fluctuating year on year, one cannot deny that there are more people competing for the limited openings. It's ok if these industries are growing, but they aren't; some are even shrinking. And with our population growth and policy, this surge in labor won't go down in say ten years.

So what we have is a situation where institutions can afford to pay a pittance, since there are more of the supply willing to offer their services at a lower cost. Even a host of us get out of the republic and never come back, there is a much higher replacement rate to keep the wages down. Population growth abroad is declining and even if technologies become more efficient, the human component will still be needed to operate that technology.

Why then don’t the suppliers of labor demand for higher prices for their wages? Because there would always be additional supply of labor that would be willing to work for less than what you earn at the moment. Actually, that 's the same argument why other countries are willing to hire us because we're willing to work for a relative pittance when their own nationals demand a higher wage.

One of the few times that workers rights actually went up from the labor side was during the time of the Bubonic Plague in Europe during the Dark Ages, where because of the severe population cut down at that time (a third to a half of the population were decimated) that noblemen actually had to bargain with the farmers for relatively more favorable working terms just to keep them working for their lands.

So for as long as industry will have limited growth to a given few here; for as long as the population keeps on growing more than the replacement rate; for as long as the population abroad shrinks; for as long as the wages-cost of living ratio is higher outside than in here, we will continue having these small wages and the exodus of our talents.

Biased against Bargaining

2009-03-08T12:29:00.001+08:00

Just came from walking around Shanghai , and one of the things that ticked me off the most was the incessant haggling by the merchants. I don't like haggling as it is back at home; the most I would do would be to ask for the last price and that's it.

But here, they can get pretty aggressive. Once, I was just looking around for a possible passport holder, and then they took me to a secluded area, which effectively gave them more control (my friend was with me, but this took us out of the open). I really just wanted to look, and after them insisting that they buy the stuff and quoting my price, I finally gave in, paying almost twice I would pay at home just so they would stop. Although the price was also 1/3 or 1/4 of the price they were quoting, they were all ranting that I couldn’t make money out of them, blah blah blah. Effectively I felt that I'd been had.

Another time I was walking outside Nanjing Road when I noticed a shoe-shine man. He asked if I wanted to, but I motioned no, waving my hand. The guy kept on following me and asking if he wanted to have a shoe shine! Argh!!! I had to trot back to Nanjing Road to lose him there.

A while ago, I decided to take another friend's advice and buy a real branded item at Nanjing Road. As I was walking out with the bag, another merchant came up to me, offering to sell watches, clothes, much cheaper than what I had. Thing is, even when I said no, she was following me! I went into another store to try to lose her, but when I came out, she still followed. I hate saying no and when it came out, it was rather forceful because I was so exasperated. So she moved along, and in a less than 10 meters, another merchant came up again to offer electronics, iPods, digicam?

If I wanted something, I would approach the store and ask for it. I hate it back at home when salesladies tag along to ask if you want to buy something, but this is worse. If you don’t become forceful, they'll follow you everywhere.

Foreigners' Feelings on La Filipinas

2009-03-08T12:24:00.004+08:00

Because of the Shanghai trip, it was inevitable that we would be working with non-Filipinos (duh!). These weren't just the Shanghai Chinese who've been in China all there lives, but also white guys assigned to the company and Chinese how have been to the Philippines a few years back.

Believe me, the things that we rant about online, they also experience it. The white guy, for example, he's been in the Philippines long enough to get ticked off at the corruption under the benevolent gaze of the Empress. And he's not even Filipino! He acknowledges that there are levels of corruption everywhere. For example, back in his native land, there were investigations for suppliers taking out clients for dinner and games. If you were a Filipino reading this, you'd know that this is one of the mildest forms of pay-offs, people do worse things, and nobody gets caught for anything.

As for the Chinese guy who's been here, he recognizes that being Chinese in Manila can make you a target for kidnappings, that the white guys in Manila are usually poor while the Filipino Chinese are either the rich or the very rich. He was also appalled by all the guys carrying guns around, down to the security guns having 12 gauge shotguns. I've noticed here in Shanghai that not even the police carry guns; I have yet to see a member of the PLA, but overall, no guns around here.

It seems like a common occurrence when Filipinos are talking about our country to foreigners, that we tend to highlight all the bad things, like the crime, the poverty, the corruption, the weather, and what have you. I don’t know if it's because they're seeing something better (either through speaking to the foreigner or living in a foreign land or both), but stuff that a Filipino would take for granted at home would suddenly find release as long as an interested foreigner is willing to listen.

It's rather sad that only the foreigners seem to enjoy the republic of bananas, since whatever they have to go through (the traffic, the weather, the occasional harassment, etc.), their exchange rate is more than enough to compensate for their troubles and to actually bypass some of the worse aspects of living here (cramped and expensive homes, poor water, little healthcare). As for the rest of us living on Filipino income, we have to go through the whole experience, so it's pretty hard to enjoy the good life at times.

Causes of City Conventions

2008-12-15T01:43:00.006+08:00

As the republic emerges from another Ayala rally last Friday, a few questions have been tossed around the blogosphere and the atmosphere on the nature of Philippine rallies.

As a disclaimer, I have not (yet) been an active participant of a rally; the closest was this Ayala rally earlier this year when I was lounging around the area and I thought I saw a bomb (see lower part of the post). In addition, I do not wholly support rallies as a whole or rallies in particular where the drive is more politically-motivated than most (of course, there’s always a degree of political motivation, but I can only tolerate a certain extent). In general, I believe that rallies are expressions of freedom of speech.

At any rate, I want to answer the questions being asked around that seems to be particular to the republic of bagoong, bandurians, and bananaques.

Why hold the rally at Ayala Avenue, Makati?

Why Makati? Well, Makati has been relatively liberal in allowing various sorts of rallies, even dating back to 1985. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the mayor nowadays is against the empress and he’s willing to allow any chance for an aggrieved citizenry to display their displeasure against her. In addition, Makati is still currently the center of high-profile business in the country (sorry Ortigas and Eastwood). Thus, any rally here would always bring national and international exposure.

Why not hold the rally at Plaza Miranda?

As to why not Plaza Miranda (the pre-Martial Law choice of rallies), I don’t think the current design of Plaza Miranda is conducive to holding rallies anymore. If I’m not mistaken, it’s been taken over by vendors wishing to sell their wares in front of the Quiapo church. It’s right smack in the middle of a rather congested Manila where it’s not accessible easily to both rallyists and media.

Why not hold the rally at Congress / Malacanang?

This questions why the rallies are not brought forth in the center of power, the aforementioned Congress and Malacanang. True, other rallies have been brought to Congress and Malacanang on occasion, but for the maximum impact and convergence of goals, Makati is one of the best places to bring the rally forward.

Why hold a coup-de-etat at a hotel in Makati?

This is related to the Oakwood & Peninsula capers led by now-Senator Trillanes. One does wonder, what is the military significance of a hotel? Arms-wise, none at all. Strategic and publicity-wise, a whole lot. Barricading a hotel breaks the secure sanctity of the nation’s elite by bringing the threat at the threshold. Similar to assaulting Makati, surrounding a hotel hits the elite where it hurts. This wasn’t an original plan; Col. Honasan & then-Capt. Danny Lim have done this already in the December 1989 coup.

In comparison, the Thais blockaded their airports recently because they knew that foreigners used these airports as gateways to their holiday destinations. I guess for all the visitors that travel to Manila, at one point or another one would have to visit Makati to keep in touch with the metropolis. Attacking the symbol of the metropolis tend to highlight whatever message a nonconformist is bringing.

Why did the normally-reserved Mar Roxas let out a string of expletives?

What else for? For maximum exposure! Mar Roxas has cultivated an air of reserved intellectualism; to be shown in public expressing what most Pinoys are feeling in their gut connects him to the Pinoy voter. In addition, the hapless administration flunkies are falling all over themselves denouncing his “ungentlemnlike” behavior. But it has the intended effect that people are talking about it and keeping him and the issue in the news cycle. Heck, I’m still blogging about it and I haven’t even seen it.

Why aren’t the crowds bigger than expected?

This is since the government has learned to control both the actual and the perceived number of crowds in two ways.

To control the actual number of crowds, the police block of the entry points into the main Metro Manila region from the Mega Manila areas (Calabarzon and Bulacan northwards). This is done by blocking the main highways leading up to the metro: North Luzon Expressway, South Luzon Expressway, and Coastal Road. For the life of me, I don’t know why the rallyists can’t think of more creative ways to bypass these checkpoints. Rallies like these are known days, if not weeks in advance; can’t they work a system of trickling the participants slowly in without creating undue attention? Or if they decide to hold their rallies at the choke points, make sure they’re covered and organized so that the media will take notice.

As to controlling the perceived number, this is where the other side gets more creative. Air traffic control is restricted so aerial shots from media helicopters cannot show a panoramic view of the crowd congregating at the corners of Ayala & Paseo de Roxas. Sometimes, a cloud-seeding operation may be started to let nature disperse the crowd. In addition, crowd estimates are downplayed to try to reduce the impact of events (the organizers in turn try to inflate the numbers for the opposite effect).

Are these rallies effective?

If the rally reflects what the significant portion of the population feels (e.g. not just the public driving sector or the marginalized farmers or the bused in crowds), then policy / strategy are delayed and deferred until the situation cools down. The House is currently back-tracking from the cha-cha charge; time will tell if this is enough to delay the initiative enough to render the initiative ineffectual, or if this will force the empire into more forceful and desperate actions.

Non-impeachment non-coverage

2008-12-03T00:49:00.002+08:00

I was reading on the latest impeachment reports online when I saw that the voting was ongoing as of posting time. I checked out ANC and they’re still showing Shop Talk. The major networks are still showing normal TV. Only TV DZMM is showing a video of the ongoing exhortations, not even the video anymore.

It’s a bit of a relief not to listen to the long-winded and fake reasons why our so-called representatives are voting to junk the impeachment complaint. I know showing it won’t rouse anybody; it’s simply bad TV. It was good TV when the pro-impeachment representatives walked out, but other than that, it’s the expected lies that will just make people throw stuff at the TV.

I just wish there was a real choice of district representatives when the elections come around so I don’t have to vote for these losers and blatant liars again.

(Yep, watching West Wing reruns makes me despair about this republic.)

Computers and Cops

2008-12-02T11:43:00.002+08:00

Reading Paeng's post on computer viruses got me into thinking about the level of protection anyone has to employ vis-a-vis what is available for the system at large (whether computer systems or society in general).

He mentioned that viruses usually get blamed even though it's due to the foolhardiness of the computer user that may have caused it. That may be partly true, since if one's going to surf the net, one has to have adequate safeguards installed on his desktop, like anti-virus and anti-spam software. However, this negates the possibility that viruses can be malicious and overcome even an anti-virus software that hasn't been updated for one day. In addition, more web-based applications (e.g. web mail providers like Yahoo and Gmail) are providing anti-virus scanners for free. Although Paeng might come from a position where the World Wide Web is still pretty much an unstructured place where one relies as much on the next person's goodness and there's no real police authority (thank goodness for that); therefore, a netizen has to be extra careful in protecting his turf (much like the frontiersmen in America's Old West).

However, I can't say the same for non-virtual societies in general. Whenever I see a snatching being shown on TV, the first reaction of the keystone kops are that people should be more careful of what they do on the street… Excuse me? Aren't the taxes enough for these enforcers to do their jobs? And why do we find them lounging around and pinning the blame on the citizenry? Is this why the more affluent employ security guards? I guess there's a failure of the system since another one of this republic's distinction (in addition to divorce & short school system) is the largest number of security guards in a country.

Ok, given that the cops don’t have enough money, I wonder where my taxes are going. I take a look at the Globe Visibility / Smart Bro attached to my computer, the initials of ZTE are there...

Typhoon Translation

2008-09-24T22:24:00.005+08:00

Isn't it weird that the international name for the typhoon hitting our republic today is "Hagupit" but we call it "Nina"? How many countries still rename their typhoons? Is it as many as the countries that still have no divorce law (2) or maintain a 10-year educational system as opposed to 12-year system worldwide?

Tripping Towards the 31st

2008-09-11T01:11:00.007+08:00

My 31st birthday was more eventful than my 30th birthday. While my 30th birthday was building up my anxiety of where I was and what I had accomplished, especially since I'd be moving out of the 20s and into the 30s, I was pretty relaxed when year 31 rolled in. In addition, I had the usual birthday cake and blowout on my 30th, but crazy mishaps greeted me on my 31st!

On my way for lunch, I went to the ATM to grab some cash, using my rarely-used BPI card (since this was an Ayala mall). The ATM ate my card not at the PIN-entering stage, but right at the beginning, where it was asking what language I preferred! I was a bit peeved at what happened, but by the time I finished, I was still smiling because I knew that I could still retrieve my card without having to pay extra (I just needed to go back to Glorietta by that Monday).

But later that night, after dinner, Lady Luck decided to play another prank. At the parking lot with Bambi, Marchy's batteries died! (No, I did not leave the lights on… Hehehe!) (See picture of Marchy, got this from the net, Marchy's silver):

Fortunately, Mom and Dad were still at the mall parking lot so they came by. I thought I was still prepared since I bought a series cable days beforehand and tried to juice up Marchy. The operative word was "tried", since I apparently failed… We called up the Motolite hotline to get a new battery, which they did on time. Turns out the battery was really dead (Marchy is a 2nd hand car). But I was still smiling since I knew that there would be help in the form of my parents and Motolite.

In addition on the 31st (which shouldn’t be included in the birthday count, but since we're on the topic of mishaps), my sis & I (with her friends) went to Rockwell for her to watch Death Race while I shopped for groceries. Since my sister went out after dinner, she went ahead with her friends to the Fort while I hung out at the mall for a bit longer. Unfortunately (again), I realized that I had left my parking card with my sister! So I waited a bit at the parking lot while the security got copies of my license and registration to show that it was my car (it's a dinky Marchy, I'm sure it's not a hot car target). Fortunately, the guard says I can get the penalty back if I return to the mall within 15 days, so I still left with a smile.

So thanks to BPI, Motolite, Rockwell, my parents, my sister, and Bambi for keeping me company, extending moral support, being dependable, not getting my bank account, not thinking I was a carnapper, and for just being there (yeah I know, they don't match). I rather enjoyed having a colorful and eventful greeting on my birthday!

(Yes, I missed the Eraserheads concert. I thought it'd be weird attending the concert, since I do love their music, but I was anxious at attending concerts, which may have gotten out of hand. Turns out it was a rather orderly affair, so oh well… at least Ely's recovering well.)

Here's to the last year of being in the calendar!!!

From Flood to Flight

2008-08-27T00:56:00.002+08:00

We were driving on the way home after a few hours of rainfall flooded the streets of the metro once again. Fortunately, we weren't hit by the floods. Unfortunately, since most of the metro is interconnected, a flood in Buendia can trigger a gridlock in EDSA-Roxas.

As we were driving, I noticed that commuters have already walked past the normal waiting area for jeeps and buses and have met the public utility vehicles in advance. Usually, we would submit this as another case for the lack of discipline among Filipinos. But if you look at it closely, especially if you've been a commuter during the rainy season, a more complex mind game is at work.

During the rains, more vehicles are slowed down by floods, therefore, vehicles available for rides arrive later and less frequently.

The time you get off work does not change, so there is the same amount of people waiting for the bus/jeep.

There is no contingency plan to beef up more transport, so you would expect a lesser supply of buses/jeeps given a particular time frame.

The traffic enforcers are trying to unsnarl the traffic, but there is a limit to how much they can free up the chokepoints, namely the vehicle capability and the road conditions.

Since the traffic enforcers are busy unraveling traffic to increase the supply, but not fast enough, a few impatient commuters move forward to get home earlier. Since they are not penalized, the rest follow. Thus, another gridlock is born.

If there would be more traffic enforcers to try to maintain order to avoid jumping the lines, that would only solve part of the problem. Because traffic enforcers cannot maintain the road conditions that aggravated the flooding in the first place.

The people know that something's fishy going on in road repair, as seen by the numerous asphalt outlays that need to be replaced year in and year out. They know that contractors and crooks in congress, city hall, and other government offices take their share, but aren't convicted. The people don’t usually make the direct connection that the potholed, corrupted-laden roads are the cause of the floods during a drizzle, but it's at the back of their heads. And this may be one reason why some of us are unafraid to bend a few rules, since our dear leaders break it so brazenly can get away with it.

And then they foist on you someone who will be the metro disciplinarian but unwilling to go after the big fish. He can clean up the sidewalks of the informal vendors, fine. But I still see gas-guzzling convoys chugging along the metro and he's not stopping them. Sadly, I think our reigning elite would go for volume sales (funding the national coffers with compensation income tax or catching small fry) rather than high-margin sales (small percentage of corporate income tax funding our development or catching big fish). Since the middle and lower class are being squeezed, they get out by voting with their feet.

Erg, a social rant based on today's traffic. How dreadful.

C-130 Crash

2008-08-26T17:44:00.003+08:00

Let's pause for a while for the terrible tragedy that has befallen the crew & passengers of the ill-fated Davao-Iloilo PAF C-130 flight.

Don't be mislead by the manifest stated with the pilots and crew. The C-130 is a large plane, which has a normal capacity of 92 passengers, but that capacity is with seats. In a typical PAF flight, seats are removed, and the passengers sit on whatever cargo that is available or even the floor. So this may translate to around 150-200 actual passengers.

In addition, the C-130 has 4 engines, so if one conks out, the plane can still land. And there are no weapons held by non-friendly forces that are strong enough to shoot down any plane, much more a C-130.

===============

Update:

Since there's no loud protestations so far from the families of the possible victims of the flight (excluding the pilots and crew), the C-130 could have just had only the nine of them on board to pick-up the contingent at Iloilo, so I could be wrong about the flight having around 150-200 passengers.

But still I have my doubts. Because of the capacity of the plane, it would be a waste to send it to pick-up troops without ferrying other passengers or cargo along the way. So I don't know if they're keeping the other victims' relatives very quiet, or they're not disclosing if they have additional cargo.

Gas Gap

2008-08-20T08:30:00.002+08:00

This is a succeeding post after my previous gas computation.

As of today, the US average price per gallon is $3.880. I did a bit of number crunching with the following assumptions, and this is what I came up with:

Philippine unleaded price per liter: P57.07 (from observation, lower than last post)

Peso-dollar exchange rate: P45.500 = USD1.00 (peso appreciation)

Gallon-liter conversion: 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liter (well, this doesn't change)

So that’s (P57.57 / P45.500) x 3.78541178 = $4.748 per gallon in the Philippines versus $3.880 per gallon in the US! Wow, the gap's even bigger!

Put it another way, ($3.880 x P45.500) / 3.78541178 = P46.64 per liter in the US versus P57.07 per liter in the Philippines! Sheesh!

Republic's Root Regulation Ratification Relegated? Really?

2008-08-15T11:43:00.003+08:00

Hmm, is this press release a trial balloon meant to lull us into complacency, only to find out that our beloved representatives will spring on us a cha-cha surprise? And suggested by no less than bicol's finest, Luis Villafuerte? Really?

Frickin' "Flip-Flop"

2008-08-14T16:03:00.002+08:00

Posted on Inquirer.net: Flip-flopping senators over should explain to public--Palace

My knee-jerk reaction:

Do you actually think we're idiots??? You have the gall to say that the Senate's resolution meant to extend the empress's reign? WTF???

Sub-Sophomore Survey!

2008-08-03T21:26:00.003+08:00

Freshmen Year Survey!

What section were you?

Block D1!

Who were your seatmates?

I can't remember anymore; has it really been 13 years ago??? I think I usually sat near Jan Chavez or Omer Dizon.

Still remember your English teacher?

Of course! Fr. Alfeo G. Nudas, S.J.

What was your first class?

Math 17, 8:30am, MTh

Who was your crush back then?

This long-haired chinita-tisay girl, pero siniraan ako ng isang kakilala ko who said na binayaran ko sya to find out more about the girl. And that I paid him P20 to do it. And I think her barkada believed it. C'mon… I'm not that underhanded (too torpe to do that) nor that cheap (a tightwad yes, but not cheap)… Hehehe!

Made friends to the higher years?

Not really, just knew some guys who went from the same high school from the upper batches.

Had a boyfriend/girlfriend?

Is bambi reading this? Then no. :-" Hehehe! ;)

How was your class schedule?

My MTh class was ok, it started at 8:30am so no problem taking the bus by then (I'd be riding by 7am). But my TF classes were another thing; I had a 7am CommI class so that meant I had to be hanging by the bus by 5:30am. Fr. Nudas didn't usually end by 8:15, so we'd have to hightail it to the Math Building where Prof. Abis would give us the evil eye… We'd get to her 8:30 class by running, sharing a cab, or hitching with a blockmate with a car; there was no direct Ikot/Toki route from AS to Math building… :(

Made any enemies?

Not really, I just got along with everyone. However, there was this incident where I was hitching a ride when my friend almost parked near the Upsilon peeing area, este parking area. They gave me the stink eye, which only reinforced my love for fraternities (or lack thereof).

Who was your favorite teacher(s)?

Fr. Nudas of course tops the list, but the runners-up are the following:

Gerry de Villa for being a moderate firebrand

Ato Manaloto for being a believer in a department of atheists, and for being lenient with me even while dozing off during his class (and I was seated right next to his desk! Hehehe!)

What sport did you play?

Fencing and aikido. Hmm, I wonder if I can practice my fencing again… Hehehe!

Back then, do you always buy your lunch?

All the time. We would usually go to the Beach House for the P12 barbecue; if I wasn't with my block, I'd eat a slice of pizza at Giacomino's at CASAA :P

Were you a party animal?

I don't think so… hehehe!

Were you well known in your school?

Nope; it's a big school… Hehehe!

Skip classes?

I think once, but if I don’t remember it, then I guess I didn’t skip it; what a dork… :-B

Did you get suspended/expelled?

Neither :P

Can you sing the alma mater song?

Nope; I always thought you can only sing that song twice in your whole college life: during the orientation and during graduation. I can hum it though… ;)

What was your favorite subject?

CommI! I do take a certain pride in Math 17 that I didn’t drop it when almost half of the class did and I still had a high grade; I can't say I loved it though.

What is your school's full name?

University of the Philippines - Diliman

Where did you go most often during breaks?

Beach House, outside the classroom of the next class, and the CS lib, where I had my first dose of this newfangled thing called the Internet (P20 per hour! Then waste the whole hour by waiting for the graphic-filled anime site to load! All on 15.5kbps dial-up! All on Windows 3.1!!!)

If you could go back in time and do it all over, would you?

Of course! I loved the looser structure versus high school and the part that you were exposed to different walks of life (although one can say BA people are typically homogenous, it's still more varied than the HS people you would've spent around a decade of your life with, assuming you all went to the same grade school and high school).

What do you remember most about first year?

1. Meeting friends outside of my previous circle

2. Riding the bus for almost 2 hours each way to get to and from school

3. Getting high grades for the first year (a feat not to be repeated in the succeeding years… hehehe!)

4. Letting go of my old hang-ups ;)

5. Being in awe of Diliman

Aberrant abs-cbnnews.com Absence

2008-08-03T10:47:00.005+08:00

Where the heck's the abs-cbnnews.com homepage? Why has it expired? It was there yesterday and it expired last July 28?

Barong Beginnings

2008-08-01T00:27:00.002+08:00

A few weeks ago, I came across this article in GMA-TV where there has been decline in tie fashions for the past few years in the US. Being out of the formal corporate getup world for a little over a year insulated me from seeing corporate wear; coming back made me see how suddenly true the non-tie movement has been spreading upwards.

The republic of basketball, bagoong, and balut as a workforce has never been a tie country. But now, this is spreading to the white-collar sector (man, that's a dated phrase). I used to pride myself in wearing a tie every working day (as hinted by my old post), but when I started at my new work, I noticed that my male colleagues were wearing polo barongs more often.

In my first & second jobs, I had two barongs: one short-sleeved linen barong that was a hand-me-down from dad (as most of my fashion sense were), and one was a long-sleeved barong that was tailored from a barong cloth. The cloth was a gift, and it wasn't linen or pina, but a coarser cloth. The short-sleeved barong was still a size too big and the long-sleeved barong was a bit too tight. Needless to say, I didn't wear these barongs often since I wasn’t fond of the fit or material, and especially since our floor was just above the mainframe floor where some of us had to wear bonnets to keep warm.

Going back to my current job, the air-conditioning in the office tries its best, but can't overcome the heat in recent months; even client's offices had their fair share of heat. So I decided to get myself a new linen short-sleeved barong that fit me just right. And then I noticed myself wearing that barong each week, so I bought another one. And another. And another.

Now when we're at clients and there's a meeting of some kind, I pull out the barong. Or when I want to feel snazzy on a Monday, I wear the barong. The barong is much more forgiving on the figure (since my old dress shirts are a wee bit tight and I can't close the top button when I wear my tie). And even if I wear a short-sleeved barong, it still gives an air of formality.

This was the trend that my old bosses were taking from my second job. They were young businessmen who wanted to project an air of professionalism yet wanted to keep fresh, so they used jusi and pina short-sleeved barongs. My classmate from high school also mentioned that one of her bosses in a bank that always wore suits to work for more than ten years has started to wear barongs because of the heat. I also noticed that more "suits" in the CBD have taken to wearing barongs (thus presenting an oxymoronic twist).

I just feel sad though, because I still have a ton of ties in my closet with dress shirts that still make an appearance, although only once or twice a week at most. But I'm glad that I have this set of clothes that make me feel comfortable and still look sharp.

Fuel Fees Frustration

2008-07-14T01:06:00.004+08:00

In the mornings, I switch between Unang Hirit & The Today Show to get both the Pinoy & American perspectives on their mornings. Since we have had this gas crisis for some time now, we’ve been seeing news about Americans complaining how high their gas prices have been (as if we don’t rant about it as well). However, as of today, the US average price per gallon is $4.114. I did a bit of number crunching with the following assumptions, and this is what I came up with:

Philippine unleaded price per liter: P59.57 (from observation)
Peso-dollar exchange rate: P45.660 = USD1.00
Gallon-liter conversion: 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liter

So that’s (P59.57 / P45.660) x 3.78541178 = $4.939 per gallon in the Philippines versus $4.114 per gallon in the US.

Put it another way, ($4.114 x P45.660) / 3.78541178 = P49.62 per liter in the US versus P59.57 per liter in the Philippines.

So what the heck are they whining about? According to Slate, the US has one of the cheapest gas prices around! And here we are, barely a car country, paying for gas through the nose while working ourselves out for the same earnings.

Shameless Shoo-Li

2008-05-18T21:51:00.004+08:00

While reading about the quirks and quandary that besets our society, I try to latch on some public figures that feed my idealist tendencies. Unfortunately, these figures eventually succumb to the dark side.

I still remember back in the late 80s that a certain Commissioner of Immigration and Deportation would eat death threats for breakfast and take congressmen to task (whom she would lovingly call “fungus-faced”). Now, she’s at the beck and call of the Empress and when she was caught reneging on her promise to jump off an airplane, she just says she lied (cue in the maniacal laughter).

Or how about our local Dirty Harry who launched a shame campaign against drug dealers and was the darling of the Yellow Queen, but clung on to the Action Hero and did his bidding even when it was against public trust?

The latest one to break my heart was Mr. Shoo-Li of Mongolian Barbecue fame. He used to host a talk show (Mongolian Barbecue) and invited government officials (fake and eventually real ones). He pretended to be a Mongolian and talked with an ethnic Ongpin Chinoy accent. He would discuss issues at hand and make fun of the crassness that passes for our politics. He would be the outsider to the system (like most of us actually) who would make us think why things are what they are.

Mr. Shoo-Li was ably played by Jun Urbano, a noted director. (He based his character on his father’s portrayal of Genghis/Kublai Khan, I forget which.)

I feel betrayed now because there’s a commercial of him saying that change should begin from ground up, since rallies and any complaining against the system is counterproductive. (And then he ends up going to the rally after his sidekick tells him that there’s P500 for him if he joins.)

This is just parroting the Empire’s line, since this absolves the Empire from any responsibility, when in fact, we disobey the rules because we see that our leaders have that much respect for it in the first place. Our leaders’ degree of influence is indicative of how much they follow what is right (oops, please watch out for dripping sarcasm). So the lesson here is that if you want to improve your lot in life like what our leaders have done, either play the game or ship out (the latter of which is a more appealing option to most of us).

Government Gridlock & Gloom

2008-05-06T08:51:00.002+08:00

Reading about Senator Pimentel’s proposed federalism change seemed like a good idea at first (as most ideas are), then I noticed something that wasn’t brought up in other forums. He was proposing seven senators per federal state to represent the Federal Senate, which would bring the total number of senators from 24 to 75 (by the way, 75 is not a number divisible by 7, so please clarify where I went wrong with my assumption). At any case, this would bring more chiefs to the table, more politicians messing around with our lives, with all the Indians (pardon the term) running abroad to escape this malady.

It’s crazy enough as it is that there are tons of barangay tanods (neighborhood watchers) in the village level and yet crime is rampant (or at least, not abated). We have the provincial elite wanting to test their chops in the capital and give scraps to their constituents as a token of their magnanimity.

On a related note, we seem to have a shortage of professionals due to these professionals flocking out of the country, skilled professionals which includes accountants, engineers, computer specialists, teachers, construction workers, managers, marketers, researchers, doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, etc. But we can’t seem to export what we have in abundance: lawyers &/or politicians. I guess they already have it made here (fair or foul), that’s why they won’t leave. Unfortunately, having a system that extols form over substance creates an environment which also emphasizes legality over propriety, and I think this is where lawyers would thrive. We are exporting the talent needed to build a country, yet we cultivate the talent used to create chaos in the country.

Latent Logs

2008-05-05T15:52:00.003+08:00

I got into thinking about this after reading an entry from UDC. Basically, here are the dormant blogs that I used to frequent and I wish that would go back online:

VivaGlam! – My high school-college friend’s blog. This was basically a travel log with insights from the work trenches, plus her insights on her beliefs. Entries had become infrequent when she moved into multiply (which also had infrequent posts). I guess this is also part of getting married and managing a household while managing a career… Most recent post: February 10, 2008 (still recent, but there was a gap between September 23, 2007 and February 8, 2008)

Fallacious – My sister’s best friend’s brother’s blog (I just love these relationship connectors… Hehehe!). These are the random philosophical/inane musings of a UP CW Lit major, who is now a call center vampire… That change in lifestyle usually makes them too tired to write that creatively or maybe he’s more involved with actual work. Most recent post: April 1, 2007

Kitty Litter – An officemate sent me this link; it tells of a part-time professor who also works in the print & PR world. I think she went to using Live Journal, haven’t figured out her current site (or if she’s still blogging). Most recent post: April 13, 2007

San Juan Gossip Mills Outlet – Edwin Lacierda’s blog, found it through the same officemate. His legal insights (along with Punzi) are interesting to an ex-lawyer wannabee. I’m sure he’s busy with a host of other issues so he can’t go back to blogging. Weirdly enough, before I saw his mug on TV, I thought he would be as old as Abe Margallo (I still don’t know why). I apologize to Atty. Lacierda, he’s much younger than that… Hehehe! Most recent post: November 13, 2007

Substituted Speculation

2008-04-29T23:43:00.002+08:00

I’m currently watching The Explainer rerun right now where Ricky Carandang’s explaining how speculating works on the worldwide market. I think a better local example on how speculation works is when people buy & sell US dollars. In a similar scenario, people with funds would buy US dollars from the Forex stores at the mall or from travelers or OFWs in the hopes of waiting for the US rate to go up. Increasing buying of US dollars would also bring up the price of US dollars since the US dollars demand would go up, creating a bandwagon effect.

Loopy Linking

2008-03-13T00:16:00.007+08:00

Something seems to be screwy with mlq3's site for the past couple of days (borrowing mlq3's phrase). Everytime you go to the main blog site, then click on the link to read the full article for the day, you still see the main page (thus preventing you from reading the entire article and even the comments).

Here's what happens normally when you go to www.quezon.ph:

Here's what happens when you click on the "continue reading" link:

Here's what happens when you click on the "comments" link:

Don't take my word for it. Go to the links (or type them independently if you want) and see for yourselves...

Defective DSL

2008-03-01T00:09:00.000+08:00

Just came from work today, but during the day I was listening to the radio to check up on the rally and how it was going. Today I’m checking the online news to see what happened.

We have a DSL connection at home, but it keeps on conking out. I’m reduced to using the dial-up, just to catch up.

Hmm, maybe we *do* need a National Broadband Network. Seeing how faulty our current telecoms industry is doing their work, I’m quite sure that this administration, in all its wisdom, can more than outperform our engineers. They were able to find a way to solve the classroom shortage, right? By just changing the denominator to modify the rates?

I’m waiting for virtual tomatoes to be hurled at me any moment now… Hehehe!

Twice for Two Hundred

2008-02-23T22:26:00.002+08:00

The President has recently released P200 million to help flood victims in Eastern Samar. That's the same price as the proposed bribe to Secretary Neri. That's 3% of P6.5 billion. P6.5 billion at P50=$1 is $130 million...

To think P200 million can already go a long way into helping those in need, while a whopping 97% goes to the pockets of our esteemed officials??

Coats and Cravats, Caucus at the CBD, and a Could-be Caveat

2008-02-22T00:21:00.000+08:00

I remember watching Jun Lozada’s Harapan episode the other night with my dad & sister and saw the latter part. There were some aspects that looks like it may have been staged, like his shirt for example, or the witticisms (i.e. buti pa sila naka-amerikana, ako hindi). Being a businessman and a founder of several businesses, he could afford to wear suits (or in his case, since he now had contact with the outside world but unable to move in it, he could’ve have a nice suit sent over). But I guess someone advised him not to do so (I wouldn’t call them handlers, but more like image advisors).

Regardless of that possible stunt, it did not derail him from veering away from his story one bit. Almost ten high-level leaders fell all over themselves trying to refute his statement (and even getting sucked into the suit argument) but his core story stood firm.

Dad was a bit turned off by those possible stunts, saying he should’ve just stuck to the issue. But I think those possible stunts with his quips even endeared him to more normal folk, since they can relate better to his situation (like a common worker wearing a shirt considered as an undershirt by the upper class and speaking to the suited aristocrat). Although Dad & I both agreed that Jun Lozada’s main story on the commissions was the truth.

Furthermore, General Razon’s excuse that he had to leave a function and his wife underscored the difference between him and Jun Lozada (and the rest of the people). At least Gen. Razon got to attend a function, in a suit, and still leave his wife in a nice place. Jun Lozada (and a whole lot of other people) are forcibly separated from his family, and can’t even attend formal functions in formal suits.

=========================================

I went to the Makati rally out of curiosity and proximity to the new office. I got there when it was around 7pm, so it was winding down. I walked from the Paseo de Roxas side, and I was surprised that the Makati cops didn’t stop me from walking all the way to the stage! I was able to see people I only saw on the paper/TV/internet. I almost bumped elbows with Fr. Robert Reyes, JDV3, Argee Guevarra, Renato Constantino Jr. (he was thinner than I imagined), and saw Conrado de Quiros walking along the Enterprise Center. Unfortunately, I also saw some people trucked in to pad the crowd a bit (they were in a white dump truck eating from the standard white Styrofoam meal packs).

As I headed back to parking (I had to leave early), I was texting my sister that I was around. The cops suddenly asked me to walk to the side (“Boss, patabi lang po”). I thought a car was going to pass through. Then, I saw one of the K-9 cops with a brown Labrador (a common sight in Makati) walking towards an unattended big, black bag near the corner of Dela Rosa & Paseo de Roxas. Thinking it might be a bomb, I walked briskly until I reached the Sycip Salazar building. I looked back to see what happened, and the K-9 was still sniffing it. I guess it wasn’t a bomb since no news came out of it until now.

I wonder if that was part of the administration’s dirty tricks department, trying to scare everyone to throw them off. Or maybe it was just a plain black bag somebody forgot.

(i)skolar survery

2008-01-28T02:22:00.000+08:00

Got this one by stalking urbano dela cruz.

UP Survey

Maligayang ika-100 taon, mga Iskolar ng Bayan!

1. Student number?
95-26002. malas dati sa EPN until nag-RVC ako!

2. College?
College of Business Administration (that's why number cruncher)... pero nagustuhan ko rin nung tin-ranslate yung title sa tagalog: Kolehiyo ng Pangasiwaang Kalakal.

3. Ano ang course mo?
Business Administration & Accountancy. wanted to be a lawyer, but chickened out after basic business law. and no, i still don't know why they call it a double-major when the BA & Accounting parts since those weren't the only courses (throw in some Econ, GE, and of course, org!), plus integrated pa yung BA and Accounting

4. Nag-shift ka ba o na-kickout?
di naman, pero kamuntik na akong masipa sa course dahil sa BA 114 where 2.75 yung required grade para ma-retain sa BAA program (and not shift to BA) and kamuntik na akong ma-tres. kaso, ni-recount ko yung first exam ko, umusad ng konti yung grade, tapos naging 2.75! hmm, maybe i should've taken that as a signal that i wasn't really meant to be a hard-core accountant...

5. Saan ka kumuha ng UPCAT?
sa College of Home Economics ("may college pala na ganon!" i remember myself thinking). survived the tests by buying corned beef(?) pandesal sa tabi

6. Favorite GE subject?
Comm I - Fr. Alfeo Nudas... Margaret, are you grieving?

7. Favorite PE?
Aikido!!! use the force luke...

8. Saan ka nag-aabang ng hot guy sa UP?
erm, i'm not out yet... nuninuninu....

hot girls. di na ako lumalayo ng BA... pati taga-Econ nakikita ko tuloy! hehehe!

9. Favorite prof(s)
Solita "Winnie" Monsod (caught me sleeping-not due to boredom, i assure you), Clemente for Marketing (even if i got a 2 while most got 1.75 and above for a 6-unit class), Loriega for BA 99.2 (Basic Accounting 2, first lawyer prof), Cayanan for Finance (expert in finance & still flaming!), of course Fr. Nudas

10. Pinaka-ayaw na GE subject.
Math 17. my first class when i entered UP, almost half the block dropped out (i got a 1.75 out of it though, konting yabang naman! hehehe!)

11. Kumuha ka ba ng Wed or Sat classes?
nope, pero may org work!

12. Nakapag-field trip ka ba?
of course, pero di naman masyadong exotic.

13. Naging CS ka na ba or US sa UP?
nung 1st year to 2nd year, tapos 5th year last sem. pero aliw yung isang sem na may 4.0 ako sa BA 118 (na 6-units) sabay may 1.0 ako sa Econ 190.1 (yet another sign i was in the wrong course...)

14. Ano ang Org/Frat/Soro mo?
org: CBA-RVC (memorized ko pa ba pre-req ng BA 190? limang pre-req na kelangang tandaan sa pintuan!), CBA-CAP (which started my love affair with the corporate world), Aikido Society (until 3rd year BA took that time away), JPIA!!! (j-j-j-j-j-j-j-p-i-a!!!-ang kulto sa BA)
frat: proud to be a barbarian!

15. Saan ka tumatambay palagi?
BA 3rd floor front lobby, BA 3rd floor back lobby, JPIA tambayan

16. Dorm, Boarding house, o Bahay?
bahay, bus mula nichols toll plaza hanggang diliman!

17. Kung walang UPCAT test at malaya kang nakapili ng kurso mo sa UP, ano yun? (Given ang mentality mo nung HS ka)
engineering siguro, pero i watched too many lawyer tv shows, kaya nag-ilusyong mag-abogasya. e good pre-law course daw yung BAA, sabay ok pa na combo yung CPA-lawyer.

18. Sino ang pinaka-una mong nakilala sa UP?
aside from the HS guys, si jan chavez na taga-negros sa math 17

19. First play na napanood mo sa UP?
yung Kangkong 1896

20. Name the 5 most conyo orgs in UP
JMA (peace!) yung AIESEC medyo nawala nung panahon ko...

21. Name 5 of the coolest orgs/frats/soro in UP.
JPIA syempre!!! (dork!), dunno the rest, medyo nakulong na ako sa BA from 3rd year onwards

22. May frat/soro bang nag-recruit sa yo?
Upsilon through my HS friend pero di ko tinuloy

23. Saan ka madalas mag-lunch?
nung 1st 2 years, sa beachhouse (nasaan ba beach non???) & casaa; afterwards sa BA pero nagsara yung caf, kaya paikot-ikot. the best talaga pag lunes => libre lunch sa commeet!!! (unless pag taya committee nyo...)

24. Masaya ba sa UP?
syempre!!!

25. Nakasama ka na ba sa rally?
nope; minsan kasi talaga di ako nag-aagree sa mga nag-rarally, although i do admire them for the ferventness of their beliefs. (in the same manner that i admire zealout preachers; to both, please accept my respect but wag nyo na ako isali! hehehe!)

26. Ilang beses ka bumoto sa Student Council
limang beses kada limang taon; kahit na minsan pare-pareho lang

27. Name at least 5 leftist groups in UP
LFS. Samasa-TMMA / Stand-UP (yung humiwalay sa Samasa), forgot/wasn't aware of the rest

28. Pinangarap mo rin bang mag-laude nung freshman ka?
syempre, dork ako e, tapos andami pang achievers sa course. buti sila, nakamit nila! hehehe!

29. Kanino ka pinaka-patay sa UP?
this very, very, very smart & cute girl na kaklase ko, na out of respect for bambi ay di ko na sasabihin kung sino, not to mention fear for my life... (bambs, di naman tayo nag-abot sa UP non e, tapos nasa Manila ka pa...)

30. Kung di ka UP, anong school ka?
malamang don sa kabilang school sa Katipunan (miriam? how i wish!) o don sa may Taft (sa Main as some of my HS friends would adamantly insist)

31. Paboritong inuman?
not applicable! dork alert!!!

sige. bambi. dikya. swipe. paeng. lobit. taya!

Verifying vouchers

2008-01-25T18:51:00.000+08:00

Being back in Makati has forced me to look at other aspects that I have neglected to notice while I was in Manila.

Like the logic of McMoney.

These are the coupons distributed by McDonald’s Philippines at the start of every year offering discounts to certain food items and meals. During their latest ad, it showed a shady deal taking place, with the McMoney being used for payment. Wads of McMoney were also used to pay off the delivery guy. However, in real life one can only use them one coupon for each transaction.

Now I’m not saying that McDonald’s has engaged in misleading advertising, but showing the alternative on TV has got me thinking: why can’t we use multiple coupons per transaction? It’s not like we won’t shell out real money if we use all the coupons, since the coupons only offer a discount. It defeats the purpose of mass producing them and each customer having 3-5 envelopes worth of coupons with around 10 coupons, yet only using them only once per visit.

If McDonald’s want to increase its volume, they should allow multiple coupons each time people eat. Or are they trying to recover the cost with the other non-coupon items per order? What if the customer only orders that specific discounted item, how then will the company recover the cost?

Just a thought experiment.

information systems irritating symptom

2007-11-11T16:52:00.000+08:00

Doesn’t it seem that there’s a growing disjoint between personal computing and office computing? Because of the cheapening costs of computing, a significant amount of the emerging labor force are now exposed to the internet, online gaming, windows XP & even Vista, and video telephony (by contacting OFW relatives).

Yet when it comes to business systems, it seems that we’re still firmly stuck in the mid 90s, or even 80s. Isn’t it weird when you logon to windows, you see this screen:

Only to be exposed to this text-based system for your regular work?

As late as five years ago, this wouldn’t have mattered, since only a few had exposure to updated operating systems and applications. But now with the democratization of computing, and business systems not catching up, the gap is becoming more pronounced.

Plus, the older generation used to text-based systems don’t handle that directly anymore (being part of management), yet the younger set have to face the older system their superiors faced.

And I wonder how this affects the morale of the knowledge workers who have to face this anachronism day in and day out. It may not be a major factor for quitting, but it may serve as one of Herzberg's hygiene factor which may increase job dissatisfaction (like faulty toilets or poor fringe benefits).

thinking a tad too much

2007-11-08T02:21:00.000+08:00

i'm usually the over-analytical person all-around, but sometimes my significant other beats me to it.

bambi & i were hanging out at her sister's house when bambi's niece brought out this souvenir "snowball" from HK Disneyland. it was an aquarium with fishes swimming around and it looked like this:

i then thought, cool, it looked real enough, but the aquarium was an enclosed globe ball, so the fishes weren't real. i then wondered how the fishes moved around. (it moved through magnets)

bambi on the other hand took the biologist approach: wow, look at the fishes! wait, one's a tiger fish and one's a clown fish and one's a freshwater fish while the earlier two are saltwater fishes, so how could freshwater fishes survive with saltwater fishes? but she still didn't arrive at the conclusion that the fishes weren't real.... hehehe!

what was worse was she tried to justify her reasoning by pointing out the following:

there's an opening at the bottom, maybe you could put food in it? => um, it was for replacement water....
the opening could be used to pump air in it? => i don't think so; besides, where's the air pump?
well, there are fishbowls that don't have air pumps => it was an enclosed globe....

by this point we were both laughing our heads off....

instrument tampering & information technology

2007-09-29T22:19:00.000+08:00

haven't posted in a while, not too pleased with bean-counting...

anyhoo, check these videos out:

1) a guy doesn't know how to play the instruments suddenly wows us all...

2) middle age tech support. i used to be an abacus repairman a few years back and i was laughing my head off since i remembered not a few abacus users who had these issues. i especially like the part where the user was still clinging on to the old technology... hehehe!

enjoy!!!

Local Language Legacy

2007-06-20T21:49:00.000+08:00

It pains me at times whenever we have to “correct” ourselves when we try to explain certain English terms to non-Filipino speakers. Case in point: Comfort Room=Restroom/Bathroom for American English.

If American English, Australian English, Singaporean English (Singlish) or Indian English is deemed acceptable English, why must we classify Filipino English as “wrong” or “inferior”? Why must we ape American English when certain words we have used evolved to how our country has developed? Why must we make excuses for words that have uniquely suited our Filipino purpose?

For instance, is it any more wrong to take comfort in the comfort room than to take a bath in a bathroom when all you need to do is to take a leak or to take a dump? Which is more apt?

I guess this is indicative of how we Filipinos view ourselves; trying hard to be Americans yet never being good enough. Corollary, our language is never good enough.

Well, enough of that! If a certain term become nouns or verbs, is grammatically correct, fits our context, and is still in English, then let’s use it by all means! If someone needs to take a leak, go to the comfort room! If someone gets delayed, there was traffic! If someone has a problem, help him cope up with it! If someone is very ambitious, then he becomes a presidentiable/senatoriable! (A term which, by the way, is less cumbersome than presidential candidate/senatorial candidate.)

It’s now high time for them to understand us, when we have spent decades trying to understand foreigners’ English nuances! Although, I don’t want to be salvaged for suggesting a radical break from all the traditional English-speakers… Hehehe!

vista voyage

2007-06-18T00:19:00.000+08:00

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

and i thought i'd get a worse grade... :P

Missing Mike (Not)

2007-06-15T06:31:00.000+08:00

With Team Unity losing big time this last election and the media having an easier time reporting (i.e. lesser libel suits being filed or being withdrawn all together), I'm wondering if this has something to do with Big Mike's absence? Is he the greedy one the empress cannot control previously, causing the derailment of her programs? Is he the Madame to her Macoy? (Not that I'm praising Macoy, but he showed less caprices than Madame.)

Now that with Big Mike indefinitely out of the picture (and will take time to rebuild his clout once he reemerges), can this administration be a bit more open-minded and have more political will to get beneficial projects done?

Too bad he wasn't out of the picture earlier, way before the elections or TU wouldn't have had the kicking it received in the polls. Or if he was still active, the TU would've come out better, but at the expense of more Maguindanaos, probably even Cebu.

City Constituency and Council Chairs

2007-04-24T22:28:00.000+08:00

With the increasing urbanization (and globalization) and mobility of the middle-class Pinoy, the traditional method of representation is becoming less significant. A simple case may be an employee going to work at Makati but actually lives in Pasig. In my case, I work in Manila but I’m registered in Batangas. I even have a friend who works in Manila, lives in Alabang (Muntinlupa), but registered in Tuguegarao. And so on, and so forth.

Of course, working where we’re registered is not a currently viable option. Why don’t we just re-register to where we now work/live? Because it’s such a hassle to do so. In an age where it’s a feat just to gather an official birth certificate or to renew a passport, going to the local level on a working day to re-register isn’t worth the day’s work lost. And for what? Councilors & local officials who would have nothing to do with you, since their policies only affect you indirectly through the business owners; more basic things like social security, medical aid, food are taken cared of by your job; infrastructure spans beyond the terms of these local officials. Besides, you really can’t tell the difference between all these candidates with generic photoshopped faces.

In addition, the current political reality is skewed such that the middle class aren’t the target market for local races. Local officials go for the volume vote, which translates to the CDE vote. The candidates would promise filling the needs of these voters, needs that we have somewhat met (with difficulty, but not as difficult as our less-fortunate brethren). These candidates don’t need our support for the numbers or “moral ascendancy”. So they don’t reach out to us. It’s also partly our fault that we don’t try to dig deeper to what they’re saying so that we know what these candidates are promising (forecasting), so we can hold them accountable to their promises (forecasts).

Then we all complain when we say they don’t represent us. And we have an even greater motive to bolt out of the nation.

Hmm. Since I don’t have a net link at work at the moment, I’ll see if Comelec has guidelines on how to re-register at a new locale when I get home.

[at home]

The Comelec website’s taking a while to load… Here's the site where it answers the FAQ on transferring where you were registered and here's the site where it quotes the relevant law.

Wait a minute... So the Election Registration Board has to approve my request? Then the Election Officer from the original area must know that the approval has been processed? Then I have to wait for the snail mail telling me that I can vote there now? What's the processing time in all of these approval & waiting? What if the Election Officer from the original area doesn't get the approval on time, would someone usurp my right there? And how long does snail mail get around these parts; will it get to me on time, especially since the election's 19 days away?

And all these questions and effort to elect councilors and congressmen who do not address my concerns directly? Of course, if I register where I live now, the councilors & congressmen will have a more direct role in my daily life, but only very, very marginally.

Is it worth all the effort?

irritating initiatives

2007-04-24T22:19:00.000+08:00

(another one of my forgotten posts; this was written at the height of the cha-cha initiative)

The House of Representatives is hell-bent on ramming the Con-Ass initiative down our throats. If the Supreme Court (with the new composition) does say that Congress votes as a whole and disregarding the Senate votes as separate, I wonder what will happen next? After the postponement of the vote, the new Constitution would inevitably be ratified, what happens with the ratification?

[as it turned out, the Supreme Court turned it down]

People don’t like being removed of their privileges unless there’s a price involved and it’ll take a lot of convincing for the people not to elect the President. The usual more-jobs-more-food-more-roads-more-education tack is standard and unfulfilled, so what else do these would-be parliamentarians have to offer to ratify the change?

With this scenario, these congressmen may be left with no choice but to advance the initiative further by falsifying the results of a massive disapproval of the plebiscite; or not invite the people all together in deciding for the future.

Either alienation will definitely create a bigger disjoint between the people and the government. We’ll see less involvement in the public sector and more in the OFW sector.

[sadly, I see the disjoint even without this initiative coming through]

security sentinels

2007-04-24T22:15:00.000+08:00

(i found this post lying in my flash drive; this was written @ the office while waiting for more tasks as a systems bean counter)

Whenever I needed to find a place in the metro (looking for a restaurant or an office), I invariably turn to the nearest security guard for directions. Or when I’m driving to look for a friend’s house in a subdivision, I turn to the guard at the gate for the location. Everywhere we look, we see guards providing security. And in the barangays, I think the tanod (village enforcer) population is also numerous.

Such proliferation of deputized localized enforcers is an indication of how much distrust we have placed on the nationally-mandated security force, i.e. the AFP and the PNP. We are more willing to place our money and our trust to security guards (by paying security agency fees) or to the tanods (by shouldering their allowances) rather than being convinced that our taxes serve well for our national enforcers.

It also doesn’t help that the military & police have taken a rather patriarchal view of themselves as defenders of the nation, more in the sense of an all-knowing overall lord protector than a co-equal partner in nation-building. They possess the management view that everyone is intrinsically capable of doing wrong and must be restrained to do so. Of course, this thinking permeates throughout government, business, and the clergy. But the military & police are armed.

In the course of implementing the state’s directives, the armed forces inevitably trample upon the rights of others, with the “greatest good for the greatest number” theory. If the people don’t follow them, the protectors force them to do so since the protectors know what’s good for the country. They feel that such collateral damage is only minimal and necessary to achieve peace & order.

Unfortunately, recent events have shown that without consultation with the locals, these actions alienate the armed forces from the rest of the populace. People are wary of their protectors, cringing when they are being summoned for any possible & arbitrary infraction of the law. Even innocent people are fearful because of the arbitrariness of the entrapment process (i.e. the cop doesn’t like how you look at them and decide to pick you up) and the lack of protection in the courts (you’re already in jail and it takes a few bags of money to get bail, a lawyer, and time to process your claim/defense).

Faced with this situation, people flee (as indicated by the numerous OFWs leaving the country) or get someone who they do trust (security guards & tanods).

No, I do not ask cops for directions for going somewhere. I might be picked up and be accused as a subversive, or they may kidnap me and receive my family’s savings in return, or they may beat me up for looking at them the wrong way.

bambi's beauty blog!

2007-04-22T23:52:00.000+08:00

to all my 2-3 readers; please check out java-junkie's new blog (co-written by liee, not me): Baklitaan! it's a beauty, make-up, kikay blog for the asian audience in general, the pinay audience in particular! enjoy!!! :D

conrado's charm of circumstance

2007-03-27T10:42:00.000+08:00

i really wonder how conrado de quiros gets away with ranting against the empress & big mike almost everyday, like this time. i mean, i do agree with him most of the time, especially his rants against the empress & big mike, not always his desired actions, but i do share his sentiments.

is it because of the miranda connection? that his daughter covers the empress? i doubt that the father exerts undue pressure on the daughter by using his daughter as a protective shield, inasmuch as the daughter requests the father to back down due to her job security. i'm sure the empress also has asked the daughter numerous times for her father to back down, but to no avail.

(i guess the daughter has as much power in stopping her father's ranting as much as the empress has in stopping her consort's actions).

but for how much longer, i wonder (if indeed this is de quiros's agimat)?

results reporting rigamarole

2007-03-16T05:26:00.000+08:00

as i mentioned in my previous post, i went for a lateral transfer from my original work as systems bean counter to results bean counter. here's a description of the two:

systems bean counter - deriving from the big jar of beans how many each beans are of what kind, whether they be garbanzos, mongo, peas. i have no immediate idea whether these beans are making money or not. and i work with IT primarily with these tasks
results bean counter - reporting how much beans the overall company makes to the regional headquarters

yes, i know. i'm not good with folksy analogies.

this was one of the few times i went out, approached the bosses, and expressed my ambition to be a results bean counter. maybe it was the prospect of hitting 30 with still being unsatisfied with my career, or seeing a college classmate becoming the chief bean counter of the same company, or feeling the need to take charge of my career, so i asked.

fortunately, the office needed a results bean counter more urgently than a systems bean counter, so instead of hiring another bean counter to fill in the results position, i got the job. although it is a lateral position, the exposure to information and people would be more critical.

however, i'm still apprehensive of the distinction with the elite & not-so-elite officers status of this company. i'll regale my 2-3 readers on that on a subsequent post.

my rant right now is about turning over the new position. the results position was opened because the current one is resigning out of stress. her concerns are a very task-oriented demanding boss (which i faced to a greater degree in my old job) and a perceived-not-so-competent semi-boss (which i faced to a greater degree in my first job); so these are not really my problems.

my problem now is the way she was handing over the tasks. for her, there is no overriding concept that ties up all the tasks i've been taught. it's just a series of tasks that have to be done before the deadline, there is no chain, no reason, and no encouragement to seek out new ways of working (which i miss with my previous boss). i tried to inject some ways of doing stuff better, but she'd just wave me off as being too trivial, with the focus on submitting the work NOW, not learning how or why we have to submit it. (the fact that she's younger doesn't really help either, plus her self-acknowledged attitude of non-kindness.)

we have this comedian officemate who rewrites tasks using microsoft excel just so he has his own understanding on how this is done (he was assigned to catch some of my tasks and i like his approach on how he absorbs his work). i just wish more people would be that open.

then my not-so-considerate self says, she's leaving, so you can *own* the work, and it can be your diskarte, your own approach.

so by next April, it's my show now.

Shuttling between Stateside Sites

2007-03-16T05:10:00.000+08:00

Wow, haven’t updated for a while. Brief updates:

Regularized & got a new position in the company that makes soap, shampoo, and soup
Presently in the land of milk and honey for a vacation

Yup, an overseas vacation. It’s more of a family thing, since we haven’t gone to the states together in a while.

At any rate, I went ahead first, because I’ll be coming home first. You see, I’m coming home before April starts, so that I’ll be at the office when we close the books. (Memo to self: I have to update my occupation from number cruncher to bean counter.)

Anyway, the first few days have been spent staying at my aunts’ & cousins’ homes, watching DVDs & US cable. In retrospect, those past few days could have been better spent, since I could’ve just watched DVDs and cable at home. But, I didn’t really take care of my schedule before leaving, plus I don’t expect the people here to change their skeds for me on such short notice. Que sera sera.

Still, I’m looking forward to visiting Vegas, watching Penn & Teller, plus going to the East Coast and watching Les Miz on Broadway, plus seeing various DC sites like the Smithsonian or even the White House!

Then it’s back to the circus that is the 2007 elections, where the choices are even vaguer than the 2004 elections…

Hope to update this blog more regularly soon!

Cashless Congressmen???

2006-12-20T06:44:00.000+08:00

I was enjoying my breakfast of leftover sandwiches, when this headline scrolled at ABS-CBN crawler: Congress is raising P1 million in donations for the family of the slain congressman.

WHAT???????????????

So they’re so friggin’ greedy that they even want to raise P1 million from other people for their own kind? I mean, I do send out my condolences to the family, but come on! Congress can reallocate millions of pesos at a whim for their own ends easily! And yet they manage to piss off people by releasing this insane press release.

These are my representatives?

And the rightists wonder why more leftists are being elected to congress; the rightists don’t realize that they have a wide disconnect with the voters, unlike the leftists. Not that I like the leftists, they’re stuck with an old paradigm, but they relate to the pro-poor program very well.

Ugh.

puzzling pldt promo phamplet

2006-10-24T11:33:00.000+08:00

I received a flyer from PLDT a few weeks ago with the usual monthly bill. In it was the discounts for several establishments, plus the announcement for the winners of the Fathers’ Day watch promo (PLDT raffles your entry, you get a watch). Imagine my surprise when I saw the following names:

Hmm, where have I seen the name Loida Nicolas Lewis before? Here’s one reference; here’s another; and here’s another…

What the heck would a multimillionaire (in US dollars!) want with a cheapo watch??? She can afford dozens of those without batting an eyelash!

If it were just a simple randomly-generated raffle, one can still explain it away as a coincidence where she had no participation. But I think one has to actively join the raffle to win, so again the question: why would she want to join a raffle to win a measly watch???

Or maybe it’s a different Loida Nicolas Lewis?

======================

i'm posting this on the new pc and i'm really starved for the net (the new office doesn't automatically grant unlimited net access, and i'm hesitant to ask since i know how addictive it can be...); to my 2-3 readers, i'll hopefully post more current entries soon! :P

jostling jumping jeepneys

2006-10-08T15:46:00.000+08:00

This is a long-overdue post; in addition, I should be posting on the Milenyo madness. At any rate, here goes my litany against the “folk art on wheels”, the jeepney.

Doesn’t it tick you off that whenever the petroleum companies raise the price of oil, the jeepney operators always raise their fares correspondingly? Yet, when the oil price goes down, no corresponding changes are felt? If oil companies are so heartless yet lower their prices, why don’t the jeepney operators with their “hearts in the right place” lower their prices in the same manner? So big firms are allowed to shoulder losses (like utilities), but the “little people” are allowed to make a killing on the end consumers? Oh come on!

It’s also a poorly-kept secret that the jeepney lobby is pushing against the legalization of routes for the Public Asian Utility Vehicles (colloquially known as FX). They argue that since FX operators should not be legalized since they don’t pay taxes; but they say that FX operators don’t pay taxes since they’re illegal. It’s a patently circular argument.

These jeepney operators don’t want the FX operators for fear of losing their market. They are so greedy that they don’t want to give the riding public a choice between riding a pollution-filled jeepney or riding an air-conditioned FX for a marginally-higher cost. If the riding public can’t afford the FX, they can ride the jeepney.

Are these jeepney operators that greedy that they want to monopolize the riding public? Or are they really scared that the riding public will choose the FX over them, given the choice; and that there is a critical mass of people who would prefer to ride the FX, such that this choice will greatly affect the jeepney operators’ bottom lines?

As it is, the FX operators serve in the gray market as “Metered Taxis”, something like jueteng, I guess. But unlike jueteng, there’s a tangible service being purchased (going from one place to another in relative comfort) from the FX; not the illusory benefits of jueteng (a chance in winning a sizeable amount). So I think legalizing FX routes makes for a better argument than legalizing some forms of gambling.

The jeepney was originally designed to be a stop-gap measure, with the destruction of the railway and bus systems during the war. It has evolved into one of our primary transport systems. It just bugs me to no end that the jeepneys want to impose their own will on the public, threatening with strikes if they don’t get their way, and barring any new alternatives looming in the horizon.

missing makati

2006-09-12T01:01:00.000+08:00

Now that I’ve started with my new job, I’m beginning to miss the urban lifestyle in Makati. Don’t get me wrong, the place where I am now is great, but it’s so different from what I’m used to. I guess I should enumerate the things I miss:

Wearing business attire – although it’s quite relaxing to wear college clothes again, I miss the sense of professionalism a tie or a barong brings. Then again, I guess it’s the actual work that should bring in the sense of professionalism
High rise buildings – I miss the dizzying heights those magical chests take you from floor to floor then viewing the ground below, the people looking like ants. Now, I stare down from the second floor and I see real ants (though not often, this workplace is quite clean).
Access to malls – one just has to ride the FX or walk around to go to Glorietta or Greenbelt, or take a short cab ride to Rockwell or the Fort. Here, there’s only one mall in the vicinity, and when I mean vicinity, it’s a long jeepney or expensive cab ride to get there.
Proper sidewalks – in Makati, one always kept to the sidewalk or in an under/overpass; here at the new place, the compound commands a walking area as well, but once outside, it’s a jungle crossing the street; much like college in the old days… hehehe!
Nightlife options – not that I have much of a nightlife, but at least I had an option for wholesome activities in Makati

Here are the things I don’t miss:

Paid parking – since I’m not in Makati, the parking is for free! Gas is a killer though, since I’m nearer to Makati than my current workplace
Expensive food – there’s an efficient canteen here that serves delicious and filling meals for less than P50 a pop!

Oh well, it wasn’t Makati I left, it was the work; the work now is cool (cool = ok, not cool = hip), good, and better than what I used to do. I guess it’s a risk-returns thing and this time the returns are greater than the negative things of not living in Makati. I still visit Makati, especially when picking up pink princess or my sister.

But one day Makati, I will be back. I will have that corner high-rise office someday.

evening eyesight

2006-08-25T17:29:00.000+08:00

this should've been posted long ago, not when i'm about to leave my current company.

when i was starting out here, before the rest of the people came in, it was only me & categorically imperative manning the ramparts. (now, it seems that LIFO is in effect, since i'm leaving ahead of cat.)

at any rate, there was a time where we had to number crunch some figures for a bank presentation, so we stayed here till 11pm. (to those who know cat's infamous dates, sorry, this isn't one of them.) at any rate, we were standing at the lobby, waiting for a ride home, when rico yan's brother (the guy on the top page) went into the office building. this is weird, since we're at the heart of makati and offices had closed by then (not counting the graveyard shift).

we asked the guard what was going on, he said it was aga muhlach's 20th(?) anniversary in showbusiness. he was hosting his party at the top floor of the building, which enclosed a posh resto.

a few minutes later, two nannies (in their white pantsuits) came out carrying aga's twins, atasha & andres. they were going in their expedition to presumably go home after being in the party. imagine my surprise when andres suddenly looked in my direction, reached out, and said, "dada! dada!"

cat & i looked back.

nope, aga wasn't there. nobody was there.

so does that mean i look like his dada? hmm...........................

=======================

i've told this story a million times (as one can imagine) and these are the two theories why this happened:

andres has poor eyesight
cat looks like aga/like a man

nobody really wants to admit my, um, looks had any part in it.

ok, maybe andres is blind as a bat....

(inspired to be posted by swipe's post, specifically the last paragraph. yes, my experience did happen.)

boards and bars

2006-08-16T14:10:00.000+08:00

The recent news on the nursing board as well as the old scandals regarding the bar and doctor's exams a few years back reminded me of my bean-counting exam-taking experience.

I chose this specific review center back in college since they assured the reviewers that they would be taken cared of, and in a truthful manner. Boy, it was really rigorous; we had three pre-board exams instead of the normal two. And this review center prided itself on an honest system, using its own review materials and shunning other review centers' materials. As such, I knew my strengths (auditing problems) and my weakness (business law & taxation and financial accounting theory).

The more popular review centers were less than vigilant in killing rumors on their access to the test scores, as well as giving special treatment for reviewers coming from prominent schools. I’m saying this euphemistically, of course.

I cannot claim to be a model Filipino citizen and I knew even beforehand that I’d be using my license merely as a formality, but in this instance I put a premium on how I passed this examination, not just the end-goal of passing.

As for the recommendations that the questionable board exams should be validated by making the examinees take the exams again, I’m all for it. If the board results for my batch were dubious, of course I’d be pissed if I had to take it again. But dropping subjects out of expediency’s consideration, just like what the Supreme Court did for the bar exam and what the Professional Regulation Commission is going to do for the nursing board, will make me question if I earned that plastic card. And yes, I’d be ticked off because studying for the board was the hardest I’ve ever studied, even more so than college. But the alternative of doubting your own credentials is unfathomable.

And even if they did truly pass the whole exam, and even if most people don’t ask you what batch you passed and if you’re really good at Mercantile Law or Sets III or V or Auditing Problems; you’d still ask yourself if you’re worth those suffixes at the end of your name (even if you don’t append these initials). It’s like sending a car out of the factory without the steering wheel.

This is when I fully appreciate Conrado de Quiros’s position on the snap election option. The empress may have truly won, even by a small margin of less than 500,000. But going through the garci-calling and the numerous occurrences of vote-padding nullifies whatever she’s done. What does one do, nullify the results for Mindanao for both her and da king, then see if who beats whom? The whole election has been tainted. And a credible election should be in order. An election with a credible COMELEC.

So is this why we’re not pursuing a reexamination of our professionals or a snap election for the leadership, due to expediency?

I just wish the COMELEC can be cleaned though, and start this ball rolling.

return of the raver

2006-08-10T17:16:00.000+08:00

pasigraver's back!!!

bean and biker-doctor on the bard's play

2006-07-28T18:08:00.000+08:00

rowan atkinson and hugh laurie spoofing shakespeare!

maligning metaphors

2006-07-27T10:36:00.000+08:00

(short but graphic post; not for the faint of heart)

you know the expression "get blood out of a stone"? it means to try to do an impossibility.

i've found a way around it.

by making sure you grip the stone hard enough so that blood comes out. from you.

validating voting

2006-07-21T10:07:00.000+08:00

both one voice and amando doronila have posited that the 2007 elections will reflect the people's view on whether the empress still has the mandate to rule. i really, really, really like to wish that were really true, really. however, a few things bother me in assuming the 2007 election-mandate viewpoint:

would the general electorate remember or even know if their representatives and local government executives supported quashing the impeachment?
are the possible contenders to the legislative and executive seats anti-gma or just anti-incumbent?
if they are anti-gma, do they have the capacity to inform the voters what the incumbent has done, and more importantly, what the challengers can do better?
if the voters do know that their representatives and leaders are for the status quo, would it matter to them since they are also benefiting from the lagresse these local executives receive from the pasig palace?

i feel that each answer has a possibly strong "no" answer, that's why i'm worried.

rockwell rambunctiousness

2006-06-29T19:42:00.000+08:00

pink princess picked me up at the office the other day wearing something chic: a white 3/4 blouse, black slacks, and her dad's dior tie. (mental note, i must be turning gay when i use the word "chic".) we haven't seen each other in a couple couple (2x2) of days, so we were happy just traipsing in the rain on the way to the car. since we were both relatively (drenched) dressed up, it was either greenbelt or rockwell. due to the rains, rockwell was the choice.

we haven't been to rockwell in quite a while, so we were surprised by the new layout, like the missing fully booked (it went upstairs), being replaced by zara. we also saw pedring with a girl i thought was olivia daytia, but princess said it was someone else. her highness also saw the sale on mango and began hunting for bargains; i just lounged around in the bored SO area trying to keep my brain from pouring out due to boredom (joke!).

after going around the former plant, we then went to burgoo and made full use of the crayons. all of our kindergarten and grade school drawing skills came back, almost neglecting to eat our seafood linguini & cheeseburger (guess who had what). after getting drunk on bottomless regular iced tea and drawing everything from flying cars to nipa huts to small-circle-small-circle-big-circle piggies, we decided to call it a night and headed for home.

a truly smiley-happy fun date :P

simulated shouting

2006-06-16T19:50:00.000+08:00

abs-cbnnews.com posted this item that the sigaw ng bayan website has been the target of hackers lately.

i remember mlq3 writing about the supposed 9 million hits and paeng's disbelief in such figures.

then i remember that disturbingly political selling of sigaw @ AGFO.

i have this overly antagonistic bitter aftertaste for every government-churned press release. i don't know if it's pavlovian or it's because my dad was a public information officer for the air force so i know that government "praise releases" should always be taken with a huge teaspoonful of salt.

at any rate, i'm wondering if raul lambino made these accusations so that the online community would be lured to his website to check it out?

like the statement of the 9 million hits; netizens would be curious how interesting the site would be, only to be met with an "overflow/overcapacity" message.

or in this instance, netizens would be curious what kind of vandalism was posted; more like seeing the sigaw folks' comeuppance rather than sympathizing with them, then finding nothing.

at any rate, these visits (my visit included) has contributed to the additional hit and the additional unique viewers, which sigaw would undoubtedly use for their own advantage (number cruncher visited sigaw; ergo he must support us)! argh!

they must be really desperate for inflating support; imagine, being wild zealots at an AGFO meeting. it's bad enough they're zealots towards normal people or even hakot crowds. but you're talking to AGFO, to generals and flag officers who currently or previously have the unfortunate but necessary responsibility to send their men inevitably to danger and even death, and the sigaw folks treat these officers as a bunch of wide-eyed ignoramuses?

at any rate, i just wonder how these guys will get around any possible supreme court ruling against them.

helpless? housekeep!

2006-06-16T16:22:00.000+08:00

everything seems so blah these days... so i've been "housekeeping" to keep myself busy... i edited some of my links and i'm in the process of backing up my files so i can finally reformat my PC.

speaking of which, i've been trying to test this spare Intel P4 1.7Ghz processor at the office; i connected it to one of the spare PCs here that also uses almost the same processor (almost; although both processors have the same specs, test processor is made in malaysia, while control processor is made in costa rica). the test processor doesn't work and i don't have any more motherboards or units to test on. i asked our all-around messenger to have it tested on our suking hardware shop, but he reported that the technicians didn't want to pull out their tester (i.e. spare CPU) out of the top shelf. (they keep the spare CPUs on the top shelf because the said processor model is already 3 years old, i.e. ancient technology.)

it's almost two years since i acquired my nokia 6230 and i'm itching to get a new phone, not necessarily a 3G model. i have my eyes on the nokia N91, not because of the mp3 capability, but because of the 4GB hard drive available.

(i still remember when we bought my old PC, the first one in our set to have windows. it had a 2GB hard drive and my uncle who accompanied us said, "two gigs? mamamatay ka na bago mo yan mapuno!!!" much like the wrongly attributed quote of one William Henry Gates III.)

multiple musings

2006-05-31T16:47:00.000+08:00

hmm, i need to move on from my rancid post, so i'll just post bits and pieces of trivia for you to enjoy! :P

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the martial law plan that was exposed by ninoy aquino, oplan sagittarius, was actually a marcos code. thing is, each implementor was given a different code name, say general A was given oplan alpha, secretary B was given oplan rolex, and so on. through this method, marcos was able to determine who leaked the code to ninoy. of course, the poor guy's name escapes me now, so sorry for that... hehehe :P

======================================

i got that "acidic coke" email again, so i looked for any references on wikipedia debunking that myth: here's what i found.

======================================

political front? it's a regular snoozefest...

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i'm off to palawan tomorrow, while java junkie's off to baguio; she's getting the cold while i'm getting the heat...

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happy birthday mlq3!!! still can't figure out how to leave a comment on his blog, with his new format and all... i guess this is the price i have to pay for being plugged to the matrix (i.e. still using IE)! hehehe! :D

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till the next post! :P

rancid rants

2006-05-29T04:02:00.000+08:00

(really downer and self-indulgent post, click here to avoid the melodrama. just refresh after a few days/weeks to see a new post.)

for the past few weeks, i've been noticing that i've been letting a whole lot of things pass through the cracks. i forget errands, appointments, deadlines, etc. i feel that there is a general dissatisfaction throughout what i'm doing, thus only enabling me to muddle on by. there is no one cause; it's more of a confluence of factors, mostly minor, but gradually chipping away at my soul.

thing is, i shouldn't be feeling this way. i shouldn't be confused or adrift, especially at my late 20s. not that that figure should mean anything, but at this age, my father already had me. or say at this age, a host of my batchmates had their own businesses or running their mini-empires in their organizations. when my contemporaries get down and get presented with other options, it's at the very least a lateral movement; i get offered for paycuts.

is it because what i do is so undefinable, that i get to be undervalued? is it because i follow a timetable, that i have to pass up the better deals? is it because i'm too patient, i become to complacent, and thus let the opportunities pass me by? do i need to be angry and raring to go to spot the tiniest window, and maybe that'll be my chance of bettering myself?

and what i do, what's it worth? in all aspects of my life, why does it seem that the actions i make with the greatest effort bring me the littlest (if any) rewards (if not outright losses). and cosmically ironic, why do the things i do with the minimal of effort bring me the biggest rewards? and most frustrating of all, why can't i pinpoint and sustain those moments of minimalist efforts? and does focusing on trying to do less make me a lazy bum?

as an example, what's the point on pouring your sweat on something when you only lose half an inch on your gut? i have to struggle in order to minimize the weight, like eating less? and to what goal? my personal vanity? and why do others seem to have an easier time at this?

it's not only the gym struggle, it's a host of other things too. it has become a series of "what's the point" questions. i plod on, hoping that in plodding, i find that point. that's what's keeping me on, the hope that there is a point, that there will be improvement, that there will be a reward.

but what if that hope is illusory? what if i've wasted my time hoping when i could've switched my options for something else that can bring me better rewards? but how do i know if it's a better option as well?

and is this my only window? to rant about it to the world in general? because everyone else around me is sick and tired of hearing nothing but my rants? that it has become so repetitive that it's pointless?

times like these, i wish i had vices to drown it out. but i don't, so i blog.

and i am so damned sick and tired of trying to rationalize it by saying i've got it better, i'm lucky i have so-and-so, i'm luckier than the majority in this land of bagoong, binalot, and basketball. it only reminds me that i have been complacent, that i could do better but i don't.

i wish i was like javajunkie who could let loose a host of diatribes and tirades; i simply am not that rebellious. i wish i was like viva_glam and hide her feelings through song; i simply am not that creative. so i just blog it as it is.

da vinci and da voltes

2006-05-12T13:35:00.000+08:00

of late, several officials of the republic of one-of-two-countries-in-the-world-without-divorces (no, not malta) have been making noise wishing for the ban on showing The Da Vinci Code movie, as it may sway the beliefs of those who will watch it. one congressman even said that the censors board should listen to the "public clamor" against showing the movie. (there's more public clamor in increase in oil prices than in the banning of the movie...)

news reports keep on citing the banning of The Last Temptation of Christ and Schindler's List as examples of futility in trying to prevent the showing of these flicks.

these officials should better heed the warning of the Voltes V cancellation by marcos. only this time, adults would also be against in silencing other views.

then again, there's always the friendly neighborhood dvd pirate, but watching The Da Vinci Code on the big screen is always different.

breasts and barbeque

2006-05-04T13:25:00.000+08:00

are we that deprived and that destitute that we have to compete in, among other things, the most mothers breast-feeding and the longest grill?

has it come to this?

go go gym!!!

2006-04-26T09:29:00.000+08:00

the past few weeks, i've been going to the "minus" gym to attend the spin class. being a self-appointed pigafetta, i tend to observe and pick on the quirky characters in the gym. i got the inspiration to post this from cat's gym post. don't blame me for being a pintasero, it's an augustinian trait... there are several characters that call my attention (i'm sorry to the people mentioned; i'm sure you're ok when i meet you, i just can't help myself...):

kung-fu hustle guy - no, this guy doesn't look like stephen chow; he looks like that barber guy with his butt sticking out. in addition, this lookalike has that partly blond top with the black roots coming out. i hate his guts and he hasn't done anything to me yet. weird...
70s dude - i saw this guy this morning. after pumping iron, i noticed him fixing his longish bangs to stay in place, kinda like superman fixing his forehead curl (kissme, some people call that curl). the thing is, why bother fixing it, when you're going to take a shower afterwards? or is that the point, you're fixing it now since you're not going to take a shower?
sports bra girl - she goes to spin class with a sports bra and pants. she's fit enough; she draws attention and she knows it.
rosary manangs - these are the ones who refuse to follow the program in the spin class, spinning on their own beat or on their own sequence, which distracts the rest of the class. usually one in each class. they're like the old ladies who pray the rosary in the middle of the mass.

as for me, i'm sweaty guy; five minutes into the exercise and i perspire a bucketload.

evil entrepreneurship

2006-04-17T20:06:00.000+08:00

Entrepreneurship will bring about the destruction of the middle class.

Got your attention there, didn’t I?

The current trend emerging since the 1980s is that to succeed in life, one has to be an entrepreneur. Then stories of the taipans (Tan, Gokongwei, Sy) and recently the pinoy trailblazers (Villar, Hortaleza) would be narrated. However, articles don’t usually cover the mid-sized entrepreneur or the effect entrepreneurship has on the professional class.

When businesses and ventures fail, banks would usually be involved in the cleaning up process (whether to collect a direct loan from a failed expansion or to collect from a dead credit line). When asked why companies fail, they have two major reasons: succession problems and poor hedging.

Succession problems occur when the 2nd or 3rd generations of the owners don’t do as well as their trailblazing parents. Some squander the fortune, some don’t have the same acumen as their parents, and some have the exact acumen as their parents but the talent is inapplicable to the changing current business environment.

Hedging happens when one offsets one risk with another risk. For example, a businessman would need cash for the future, so he borrows in dollars in order to pay a lesser amount, with a reasonable expectation that the exchange rate will not fluctuate too much.

What happened was before 1997, where the exchange rate was P27 to a dollar, capital was free-flowing, and it was easier for businessmen to avail of loans for expansion. After all, this was the Ramos boom years, everyone was optimistic. But the crisis struck, and interest rates shot through the roof. Thus, the businesses couldn’t pay off the loans anymore and they shut down.

While thinking about these things, I thought about the life cycle and profile of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs usually belong to upper middle class to high class families. Lower middle class and low class families usually have little access to capital to start a sustainable and realistic enterprise (there is a limit on how much sari-sari stores and fishball stands one can put up in a community). Standard entrepreneurs on the other hand have access to their families’ capital, or have enough clout to borrow from a friendly bank.

Due to the intense competitive business environment, only a few entrepreneurs succeed; even then, these successful entrepreneurs have been through numerous failures before hitting the big time. Thus, with their instincts hardened by experience, most entrepreneurs believe that they alone can dictate how the business should be run, if not by someone they trust. Thus, they appoint family members to hold positions of authority.

The pattern isn’t breaking anytime soon, as can be seen by the failure of several businesses due to succession issues. Entrepreneurs would cling on rather than change, until the friendly bank becomes less than friendly and/or funds run out because of the sheer magnitude of losses.

When members of the middle class (upper and middle) opt to work as professional employees, they become disheartened since their way up the ladder is necessarily blocked by family members of the owners. Add this to the fact that because of the low level of trust owners have for outsiders, professional employees are only exposed to supervisory and administrative duties; no real responsibility is given.

To achieve a sense of accomplishment, professional employees currently have two options: become entrepreneurs or become OFWs. As more professionals leave the country, the country’s supply of professionals lessen, and the quality of work degrades. If they become entrepreneurs, the cycle begins anew, distrusting yet another generation of middle class professional hopefuls.

The original goal of entrepreneurship encouragement is to stem the preference for title-specific white-collar jobs, but lacking in substance. However, through selling entrepreneurship, emphasizing the “own-boss” notion only solidifies the señorito mentality, too many chiefs, not enough Indians.

I wish I could give a solution to this observation. I could always say, encourage a sense of professionalism within companies and the public sector, in order for professionals to have a better sense of self-worth, but that’s pointing the finger to the powers-that-be; and in this republic, the powers-that-be are still relatively ensconced that they do not feel the pressure to change. Any attitudinal change for the professionals themselves can only create incremental effects, due to the leverage of resources between the haves and the have-nots.

And the drain continues…

tax targets

2006-04-17T10:54:00.000+08:00

i hate these tax press releases, most of them being churned out by the BIR.

study after study has shown that the national budget is being funded more than half by debt (surprisingly more than half of that debt is local debt). the remainder survives on taxes. and for those individuals who pay taxes, more than 70% of the tax is being paid by compensation workers (ordinary employees) who have their tax withheld at the source.

it really pisses me off that there are always reminders on all media to pay the tax, when in fact most of us normal folk who are capable of paying taxes have the taxes already withheld. the few professionals quibble about the details and the corporations fudge taxes all together. if the BIR wants to waste money on an information drive, focus on the corporations and not on the individuals who just get irritated of being reminded of an obligation they have already unwillingly performed.

chocolate croissant comedy

2006-04-04T09:21:00.000+08:00

scene: deli france IL

bambi: tihort, daan muna tayong deli france, i need to buy something
lee: okidoki
bambi: alammogutompangaakoalmusal
kolangpastawaahgutompaakowaah
lee: (kung alam ko lang, yung pasta na yon, isang bilao e...)
bambi: (picks out chocolate croissant) eto po miss, painit lang po
miss: yes ma'am (then hands over croissant)
lee: (plucks croissant from bambi's hands) tenchu mermaid!
bambi: hoyanongakalamogutompangaakoetaposkukunin
mopayansaakinanokahilohahaha???
(in full view of the shocked deli france crew)
lee: sorry po... (hands croissant back)

after walking out into the street

bambi: here you go tihort (hands croissant over)
lee: ano? pagkatapos mo akong pahiyain sa loob, ibibigay mo rin?
bambi: (bats eyelashes) ay lab yu!
lee: nyeh-nyeh-nyeh (rolls eyes)

anlabo... (munching on the chocolate croissant)

pirating pilots

2006-03-30T10:54:00.000+08:00

a lot of news has been going around regarding the pirating of pilots from here to other airlines abroad. of course, less has been mentioned about the initial pirating commercial airlines do to the air force. though one can argue that there aren't that many military planes to fly around with anyway, the point is the commercial airlines is benefitting from the government training given to these pilots. now boohoohoo, they're crying foul and want to restrict their own pilots' movement.

it's the same case with all other professions in the country, especially the nurse phenomenon. this exodus has been going on for ages, with teachers going to houston because of the shortage of english-speaking teachers, to accountants (also) going to the states because of the sudden increase in demand for them due to the post-enron sabarnes-oxley environment.

but if you listen to the pilots (and the nurses, the teachers, and the accountants), when asked what would make them stay, they only want a decent wage and a decent career growth path. they know companies here can't meet eye-to-eye the wages abroad (even if we have an improving exchange rate). but at the very least, give the professionals a decent chance to earn and grow that relies more on competence and less on patronage.

catholic service and cycling-spinning

2006-03-30T10:38:00.000+08:00

in an effort to bring down my BMI to more respectable levels, i go to the spin class at the gym 2-3 times per week.

remember a few years back, during mass, there would be ladies praying the rosary, and not participating at the mass? this really ticked me off. i mean, if you want to pray the rosary, pray somewhere else, or at least not during the mass. they send the message that they disregard the general purpose of the mass and it's distracting to those (like me) trying very hard to focus on the mass as it is.

now a few years later, during spin class, there would be members doing their own routine, and not participating in the class. this really ticks me off. i mean, if you want to do your own routine, do it somewhere else, or at least not during the class. they send the message that they disregard the general purpose of the class and it's distracting to those (like me) trying very hard to focus on the class as it is.

blackness and brusqueness

2006-03-20T11:23:00.000+08:00

dinky was arrested last friday for protesting, albeit in a very creative way.

two things tick me off though:

1) i know that the b&w guys, among them mlq3, made sarcastic remarks about being arrested for walking with the black shirts. i mean, c'mon guys. please don't try to wash your hands on this issue. you were protesting and you knew it. and you had to resort to a clintonian/gloriaesque definition of a "rally." i do symphatize with your actions and admire your creativity; but please don't try to be cute on this one.

2) the cops who did the arresting, and presumably this administration, what's the matter with you? don't you know that you only fan the dissent? you're creating heroes out of these guys. if you want thinking people to defend you, you better stop with the strong-arm tactics. if you feel confident with your argument, you can let the dissenters shout till kingdom come; fight a bad idea with a good one. i hate the fact that you're marginalizing your critical collaborators, wanting only blind loyalty to you. you can buy blind loyalty with your cash, but you can't buy moralistic defense. and apparently, your line is morally indefensible, that's why you have to resort to force and legalistic machinations.

and just like the yesyesyo song, i don't know how to end this post conclusively (had to borrow your line,vivaglam).

rip roaring rex

2006-03-04T11:21:00.000+08:00

in between the friday almost-coup and the sunday almost-mutiny, i decided to go ahead with my previously-set schedule and watch the preeminent fil-am stand-up, rex navarette.

this is my 2nd time to watch rex, java junkie's first. although you can always listen to his albums, nothing beats seeing the interaction and movements of the guy onstage. java junkie and i were in stitches laughing our hearts out while munching on the styrofoam-flavored popcorn (i was too lazy to get the flavoring, or was it too cheap?).

the front act guy was also good, mimicking the voices of iconic 80s-90s commercials like 680 home appliances, and the centrophil commercial on TV, plus he did the comparison between HK's MTR announcements and our MRT voice-overs ("Please mind the gap" as opposed to "Guadalupe Station").

of course when rex came on, he really brought the house down. with topics ranging from dwende-phobia to the star wars halloween to the mmda pink urinals, he brought along the tito bhoy gag, replacing "birds and the bees" ("if a bird packed a bee, dat will be agly!"), with the arm-thrusting-in-the-air motion, "like-dis-like-dat".

rex of course had to comment on the almost-coup, saying "you don't know, but when we come out, we might already be Malaysia". Well, sunday's events showed it wasn't over yet. Even with the lifting of 1017, i doubt it'll still be over.

anyhoo, it was a great night.

emerging & existing emergency

2006-02-25T17:12:00.000+08:00

the coup has been prevented, the rallies have been controlled, people ask me "is it over?"

there are still sizeable amount of troops milling around critical military installations and at the palace (although they are not as tense as before)
people known to be critical of the empress' reign are being arrested right and left

i don't think it's over, not by a long shot. i shudder to think of the day when she will take over media outlets (channel 2 and 7), newspapers (inquirer, she already cracked down on the daily tribune - a newspaper i don't particularly read because of its pro-erap stance; but i do believe the niche should be maintained, not shut down), and utilities (meralco).

although i'm confident i won't be caught, arrested, or threatened (i'm just an insignificant number cruncher who's pissed at the reign; there are a whole lot of others more significant than me), it sends a psychological signal down the line that no one should go against her. i mean, the government only needs to catch the leaders to send the shudders down everyone's spine; but it discourages everyone to say anything. pretty soon, i'll be too scared to say anything. that is just plain wrong.

i really should do something about it; but certain conflicts of interests prevent me from doing so. for now, i blog.

seriously scared of shadow

2006-02-16T14:24:00.000+08:00

what happens when an organization that has the might but is so uncertain about it's own existence that it uses all of its resources just to survive, even at the risk of looking silly?

this.

just now, they arrested ely pamatong's guys again. you might remember him as the failed presidentiable who claimed he threw spikes on the road to create chaos. he was just a nuisance, and they still arrested him.

last december, they arrested 80-something year old fortunato abat through a "citizen's arrest" with the charge of inciting to sedition. who among those who could fight would even rally to his cause?

they hosed down the 70-something year old former veep during a rally on nationwide tv. they could've just dispersed it the normal way.

they're now blaming abs-cbn for the wowowee incident, because it's a leader in dissing the administration.

every little protest, complaint, and opposition to the fact that the president is not doing a good job (forget legitimacy) would risk you a night in your friendly neighborhood jail. if the press and the internet wasn't spread throughout so many owners, that would've been clamped down too.

i believe the government has a right to defend itself from threats, like the NPA, the MILF, the ASG, and what not. but if it overreacts to every little silly attack, it loses it's focus to do important stuff, say governing. and you end up running the government through press releases and photo ops, looking sillier by the day.

while that happens, everyone jumps ship. and everyone else just goes on with their lives, trying not to notice her as much as they can. it is due to the resilience of the filipino that the economy is still managing to grow and not due to a comprehensive vision and program from the government (is there?).

it just ticks me off that the government would stoop so low and be so paranoid as to jump at its own shadow.

tv tragedy

2006-02-04T15:14:00.000+08:00

the wowowee stampede comes as a natural shocker for those waking up on a lazy saturday weekend. as of the latest count, 79 fatalities have been counted and 145 have been injured. the impact of this news has been so great that not only gma-7, abs-cbn's rival station has given this airtime; even cnn has posted news on this tragedy.

as a testament to abs-cbn's professionalism, sensitivity to the local psyche, and speed and mobility of its resources, it was able to marshal it's news staff to report the incidence non-stop. the show was understandably cancelled, with willie revillame, the show's usually rambunctious host, apologizing profusely to the general public and the audience present.

(the show was supposed to have it's 1st anniv, with big prizes being given up to a total of P1M. for an average earning of P100, getting a prize or even just escaping the daily doldrum that is the philippine experience is a treat in itself.)

abs-cbn also offered to pay up for the medical and funeral expenses of the victims. the tickets of the current show would also be valid for the rescheduled show; the prizes are not to be touched, for use of the follow-up show.

it was expected that abs-cbn management and hosts would apologize on tv and to the directly involved audience. what struck me most was when willie apologized, the crowd was saying, "di nyo 'yan kasalanan" (it's not the station's fault).

applauses and boos can be staged, but interspersed shouts of forgiveness is rare, considering that the crowd went through a harrowing experience. the mere fact that you are deeply apologetic and are willing to do anything to rectify the situation beyond the perceived call of duty, i guess for pinoys this makes you more credible, more trustworthy.

this crisis management so far ranks with the cebu pacific crash a few years back, but with a greater media impact. on the political front, with abs-cbn at the loggerheads with the pgma administration, this event was an unexpected silver lining. even more, abs-cbn is now perceived as more credible than the present administration. (pgma can only order a 48 hour deadline on how this happened and issue statements on sympathy, but she has not done anything this fast to help the victims.) any moves on her part would seem routinary at the very least (you are supposed to conduct investigations, which usually don't lead anywhere); at most it would seem opportunistic (why would you get in on the action, when your legitimacy is questioned?).

let's offer our sympathies and prayers to those who suffered in this incident, and let's see how this incident changes the dynamic between a maligned government and an increasingly-powerful and omnipresent media empire.

call me commander, not captain

2006-02-02T20:50:00.000+08:00

i guess i can command a strategic space station near a wormhole, or be in-charge of a galaxy or intrepid-class vessel when the captain's in a conference or turning into a salamander... :P

i'm more of a TNG, VOY, and DS9 guy, the TOS questions really threw me off...

insane iridology

2006-01-26T09:38:00.000+08:00

our kasambahay (helper) mentioned to me while watching the morning shows that she went to an iridology clinic recently (they usually advertise during the morning shows). she then recounted that the consultation fee is relatively affordable and that the findings were similar to what she had with a regular clinic. unfortunately, they prescribed her to take food supplements to help her diabetes, which comes to a monthly total of ka-ching P14,000!!! 3 tablets, 3 times a day, so that's roughly P51 per tablet! (of course, claritin retails at around P44, but i don't take claritin 9x a day!)

it's like one of the printer strategies: sell a printer for a low price, then make the kill with the cartridges. that's why a lot of them hate these ink-refilling stations; they lose their incomes there.

these iridology clinics engage in a doubtful practice at best. sure, they were consistent with the findings of a regular clinic, but doesn't that just emphasize the redundancy of the whole thing?

the worst part is that these iridology clinics prey on the lower end of the society spectrum. our kasambahay told us that a fellow patient, upon hearing the price of her prescription, said she was even lucky because this other patient had to get some supplements to the tune of P24,000!!! gosh!!!

mistaken michael

2006-01-26T09:25:00.000+08:00

i wanted to write about our kasambahay's (helper's) trip to an iridology clinic, but this item caught my ear during the morning rush with chico & delamar:

michael jackson was apparently caught malling in bahrain wearing, among other things, an abaya. online, the following was mentioned:

Jackson, who has been living in Bahrain since June last year as a guest of the royal family, was spotted at a popular downtown mall wearing a black abaya robe, black gloves, sunglasses and a veil that covered his face.

according to the morning rush report, he was also caught going into the ladies' bathroom and applying make-up, before rushing out, allegedly because he mistook the arabic sign.

now i love a good michael jackson joke like anyone else, but here's a wild thought: what if it wasn't michael jackson? what if it was just an unfortunate woman, a real woman? hmm...

nah.

exit ka ernie

2006-01-23T18:39:00.000+08:00

ernie baron passed away this morning.

he was our generation's and abs-cbn's weatherman answer to gma's amado pineda. he became famous for his trademark twang (not the best way to describe it, but it's close) and his bottomless amount of trivia.

over the radio, he would be asked questions regarding everything under the sun. sometimes he would delay answering the questions, presumably for his researchers to hunt for info; but he usually comes up with the answers on the dot. for health queries, he would direct his listeners to take the "cleansing diet", drinking pito-pito tea (made up of seven herbs), and attending the seminars at kamuning road at QC.

he would of course be parodied, most notably by vic sotto in the defunct TVJ, where he would be "ernie barong", with his wacky inventions and barong with the cut at the back (may hati sa likod). i only found out morbidity of the joke on the split back years later; if you were a kid, you'd just think it's weird.

he later made use of his popularity by lending his name to a super-antennae and to a food supplement.

he's such an institution, it's hard to believe he's only 65.

pacquiao's punches

2006-01-23T14:47:00.000+08:00

i usually don't watch boxing matches, not even manny pacquiao's. but since manny has been making waves the past few years, and i've only seen glimpses of his victorious fights, i said to myself, sige, i'll watch him this time.

i was expecting more firepower in his punches, but as numerous boxing armchair analysts have said, he's now more restrained and more scientific in his approach. since he still won, it's still good.

i just got pissed off when i saw the first gentleman and his cohort of politicians watching live at las vegas, not mindful of the crassness of watching there using our tax money. my dad, a conservative, mouthing them said "masasaya na naman pilipino, makakalimutan na naman tayo! (the filipinos are happy again, they'll forget us [the politicians]!)" then they take the credit for manny's winning. the nerve.

obvious overstatement

2006-01-20T11:14:00.000+08:00

i was reading michael tan's column on chile's new female president, when this item caught my eye:

Until 2004, Chile was one of only three countries in the world without divorce. (If you're wondering, today there are only two: Malta and the Philippines.)

i said last weekend over our office outing that it was five countries, everyone thought i was exaggerating. turns out i even overstated the figure...

dollar doleout

2005-12-27T11:32:00.000+08:00

several of my cousins & their offspring from my mom's side came home from the US just in time for christmas. as the tradition, mom would give away money as gifts. she gave one of my nieces a P500 bill. she looked at it strangely and said,

"i can't spend this; it's not even real money..." (with the "attitude")
mom: so you want dollars?
niece: yeah
mom: here you go (hands over $5)

(current exchange rate: $1 = P53.27)

laughter from the grownups all around; mom just saved a couple of hundred pesoses... he3x! :D

quezon quirk

2005-12-22T14:17:00.000+08:00

i got the shock of my life when i saw that i was linked to mlq3's blog, one of the foremost philippine bloggers!!!

then i realized it was one of those random linkages to the right side of his toolbar, for those who frequent his blog i guess... there goes my 3 minutes of fame... he3x! :D

just jessica

2005-12-21T19:43:00.000+08:00

hmm, news has it that jessica simpson didn't sign a prenup before her marriage with now ex-husband nick lachkey-something-or-other. that wasn't very smart, but then again, it's jessica simpson... he3x! :P

monthly memories

2005-12-16T09:46:00.000+08:00

Copy and paste the first sentence(s) from your first entry of each month this past year. What better way to sum up your year and make a countdown to '06!

JAN

no blog yet...

FEB

i guess that's the inevitability of becoming more urbane, more cosmopolitan: recognizing one's own roots start here in the metro.

MAR

lee: ano ba naman yan??? (angry tone)

bambi: bakit??? (bewildered)

lee: bakit ka dyan nagpark ng kotse mo??? (getting pissed)

APR

at any rate, we went to legazpi city for business, then last saturday, we went to see the whale sharks (butanding) at sorsogon.

MAY

somebody must have forgotten to tell the sky that it's summer and i was in bora, because it was raining when i woke up in the morning!!!

JUN

In my never-ending pursuit for vanity, I have decided to look for glasses that will serve as an alternative to my contact lenses.

JUL

I’m waiting for my own PC to get its act together and save my excel file.

AUG

on my way to work this morning, i was following this huge green trash compactor.

SEP

let me start off with the usual political rant unique to the republic of bagoong, bananas, & binalot: yup, she'll be politicking more than governing now.

OCT

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

NOV

oct 28 - left for US, arrived @ SFO

DEC

i have this cousin who was talking about the home-equity loan concept.

(i kinda cheated, some of these are the next few sentences, since i give long-winded intros...) :P

political pastime

2005-12-07T16:47:00.000+08:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(65% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(38% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

i should be working, but isa's latest post led me to this...

meditating maharajah

2005-12-07T09:05:00.000+08:00

picture this: an indian sitting in the park meditating in the traditional lotus hand pose (the fingers forming an "ok" symbol while the back of the hands are resting on the lap).

now picture this: the same indian, in a barong tagalog, and the park's salcedo park in the poshier sections of makati, on a wednesday morning before work.

too bad i don't have a picture of him. then again, even if i did have my digicam at the time, he would've had chased me for disturbing his privacy. now i wouldn't want to be a cause to break his meditation, now would i? :P

tact trumps technical

2005-12-06T13:42:00.000+08:00

i've been meaning to post this ever since i got back from the states, but i guess work got in the way again... he3x! :P

i have this cousin who was talking about the home-equity loan concept. basically, if you buy your home for $300T, then after a couple of years the market price appreciates to $650T, you can go to the bank and use the $350T difference as a collateral for a loan. some banks would even give the whole $350T if not a percentage of $350T. he can then use the money for something else, like a car, or in his case a downpayment on his vacation house in hawaii.

this statement got me really riled up, not because of my cousin though, he's really a nice guy. but here's what got me mad:

he's a pharmacist; he didn't need to be in finance to know these stuff
he has an option to profit on the appreciation on the market price on his house; we can't even get a house here without being super rich or settling on a run-down house

it takes a certain degree of education to take advantage of these perks in the US system, or on any other system except here in our republic. out there, you go on your own merits, and you succeed. here, we only climb because of our closeness with the higher ups.

of course, the soft skills are important, it's what keeps the wheels of society moving smoothly. but the problem is that's all we have here in this republic. we don't nurture or encourage the skill of building the wheels in the first place. outside, between a guy who's technically competent and a guy who's technically competent and good with people, it's the latter guy. here, you don't even need to be technically competent!

the PhDs of china & taiwan came back because they knew their skills would be put to good use. here, if you retire, you just put your money in; no one would care about the skills you learned. the entrenched elite would rather use up the money than listen and learn about new skills to build the nation.

this sucks.

designer's desperate driving

2005-11-29T09:15:00.000+08:00

the world is coming to an end, bambi is learning how to drive!!!

she has been going to driving school the past few days, and she's going around the southern metro from parañakyu to the fringes of cavite! and using manual transmission at that! pretty soon she'll be probably bringing the family car to work :D

i sat in the passenger seat yesterday tutoring her on driving and i got to review the following things i know take as instinct when driving:

the gas & clutch pedals usually act in opposite manner (step on the gas, release the clutch to speed up; step on the clutch, release the gas to slow down/keep the engine running)
a handbrake is good for keeping you from moving forward/backward from a full stop position
driving in a cul-de-sac is not a good idea
expect your left leg to ache after driving a manual
wear an antiperspirant when learning how to drive....
it's never a good idea to distract a driver w/ a fondness for babies & little kids while driving....

good luck bambi! and for everyone else, watch out!!! :D

unneccessary unfairness against untv

2005-11-11T18:46:00.000+08:00

i just have to put this in before the weekend break.

of course we all know about the carnapping shootout thing & the coverage of UNTV of the shooting (i'm too much in a hurry to put in the link, just use your favorite search engine for a backgrounder). according to scuttlebutt, the casualties were really of the bad sort, but there was overkill on the part of Traffic Management Group (TMG) (don't think it was anything of the kuratong baleleng type though, just additional bullets used even when the guys expired).

after being suspended then reinstated, members of the TMG (don't know either if they were the ones in the shootout or not) were seen going around the UNTV premises doing what's called in military parlance as casing or for more western audiences, a sort of stakeout. thing is, they want to be seen by their targets, for the main purpose of harassing their target (in this case UNTV). TMG stopped when UNTV was able to call for help from the Eastern Police District (a location-based PNP unit, as opposed to a special unit like the TMG)

this thing is usually done to scare suspected criminals or other malcontents of society to force them to clean up their act. but in this case, UNTV's sin was to air something it has seen. the act could've been defended amply by the police; instead it had to resort to harassment. (i'm surprised no online version of this news came up, i saw it in the morning news of magandang umaga pilipinas)

my beef is this: why did the TMG have to go to that point of harassing a relatively unknown UHF station? because they were too lazy to go through the usual process? or because they felt emboldened that this increasingly unpopular government will not stop them? at the very least it won't chastise the TMG; but most probably it will champion the TMG's cause.

damn. the empress' paranoia has come to this.

do's & don't's @ dubya's domain

2005-11-09T20:15:00.000+08:00

i'm back in the office, recovering from jetlag... here's an introduction of my future US entries (hopefully, i'll get around into posting it here... zzz...) :P

do not go to an asian immigration official at your port of entry; they know all the crazy things asians (esp. pinoys) will do just to gain the greencard/citizenship; they'll assume the worse.
do activate the roaming feature of your phone, but do not use it too much (i have yet to see my bill, i fear it...)
do make sure that you wear socks for your plane trip, other airlines might not be as extravagant as PAL to give out free socks.
do make sure you wear loose fitting or easy to wear shoes, for easier inspection in airports
do make sure your pants don't fall off when you take off your belt for metal inspection... hehehe!
do make sure you're dressed for the climate (i.e. it's almost always colder in the US than in the RP, so bring a sweatshirt, a jacket, or an extra layering shirt)
do make sure that your luggage has a distinctive mark or ribbon (make it a unique ribbon, since everyone else seems to be going for the red ribbon mark)
do not scatter your belongings out of your luggage, especially on a short trip; you might forget something on the way home
do rent a car online that will allow you to drive w/o the int'l license (hard to do...)
do make sure each day has an activity so you won't regret wasting your time
do not go to a restaurant where you can eat here in the RP!

well, keep tuned in for more stories!

random reminder

2005-11-05T00:19:00.000+08:00

hmm, i dunno if i'll have some time later to blog fully, i'll put an initial outline to remind me of what happened on what day:

oct 28 - left for US, arrived @ SFO
oct 29 - arrived @ atlanta & indianapolis, went to dept store & hospital
oct 30 - went to mall & hospital
oct 31 - rode on '32 ford, went to LAX, arrived @ west covina
nov 1 - bambi san diego day one!
nov 2 - bambi san diego day two! went back to west covina
nov 3 - malling, went to walnut
nov 4 - will go to cedars later

will update my 2-3 readers later!!! :D

trivia @ the toy stores

2005-10-30T08:00:00.000+08:00

whenever bambi & i would go to greenbelt 3 or rockwell, one of our required haunts would be landes/hobbes. in addition to being dorks in a toy store, we would always look for at the trivia games, where they would always show the CSI or SATC games. of course, we would always look for the FRIENDS game, but it would always be out of stock....

at the mall this afternoon here at indy, i came upon this store that sold this item:

now, how to hide this from bambs? nuninuninu... :-"

initial indy input...

2005-10-30T03:56:00.000+08:00

it's 2:57pm here in indianapolis. yep, that's right, my 2-3 readers! i'm on the other side of the world for my mission to escort my lola and pay a visit to bambs! :P

will update you guys later, gotta go out to the downtown mall! :P

pasigraver's presence

2005-10-24T00:18:00.000+08:00

to my 2-3 readers, please spread the word! pasigraver's back online!!! he3x! :D

acrimonious acronyms

2005-10-22T11:03:00.000+08:00

(yes, joey, this isn't the best way to use "acrimonious" either, but i was running out of alliterative words... :P)

in addition to having a weak support base, the insurgents of the land of bagoong, binalot, and balut also have a problem with their names.

take the New People's Army for example. they're the communist armed wing here, so it's understandable that "people" should be in their name. and i guess china took the good name when they called themselves the People's Liberation Army. but it's been 30++ years since the NPA started out! they could hardly qualify as being "new" when the NPA is on it's 2nd or 3rd generation. they probably assumed they can takeover in 5 years, maybe 10 at most. but no... and i guess a name-change would be the last of their concerns...

and don't even get me started with the splinter group of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)... :P

gma's governmental gridlock & gym gripes

2005-10-21T09:44:00.000+08:00

with all the discussions on the stalemate, CPR, coup plots, and general breakdown, i should be saying something to add to the melee in the blogosphere? but what do i need to add? i don't like the president and all the accomodations she's been doing just to perpetuate herself in power, but please oh please, give us a viable alternative! not just another bunch of people who may have idealists in the frontline but will be easily overtaken by the cynical politicians who may be even worse than the short one.

=================================

because of these political developments, i'm reduced to doing a pierre bernard sequence from conan's show...

i cut short my gym session today, that same guy said that i wasn't doing the lat exercises properly! please oh please, would you stop with that segue? i know it's going to inevitably go into the sales talk. if someone can show me how to recuperate that P7000 for 10 sessions (P700 per 1 hour session!) to justify the cost, please let me know!

i'm doing a soft cost-benefit analysis on whether i should stay on in RCBC or just work out in robinson's:

RCBC:

Pros:

free towels
clean showers
free stuff (i only use the cotton buds)
newer looking atmosphere
more ab machines
tidier steam room
brighter locker rooms
cleaner sinks with free paper towels for the sink

Cons:

pestering gym instructors
smaller free weights area
less treadmills
no iced tea

Robinson's:

Pros:

free iced tea
bigger free weights area

Cons:

no free towels
perennially wet sinks with no towels
no free toiletries
dingy showers
dingy atmosphere

i'm still sticking to rcbc because the gym instructors haven't bugged me that much, but it's been 2 days now that this guy's been bugging me. the towel & shower issues in rcbc, i can overlook that if i reach my gym instructor irritation tipping point, and i do hope it won't be soon.

gym grrrs & eager expedition

2005-10-19T18:42:00.000+08:00

don't you just hate it when you go to your local oddessey branch, then the saleslady goes up to you and pester you for stuff to buy? if i need their help, i'll ask for it. not that i don't value what they do or understand that they have to make a sale, but it pisses you off at times.

this is what goes on at the gym. the trainers have to meet a quota, so they come to you and tell you how to do your curls properly!!! this has happened 3x already, and they always think i'm new at the gym! hellow! i've been around since this year started!!! 8- i have my earphones on, with the volume on full! i don't want to be bugged! i don't want to spend P7000 on 10 sessions, when i'm trying hard to balance my finances! and for an incremental body benefit??? and i don't even go out! please leave me be and i'll eventually get my body type when i want to! grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

========================

on a hectic note, i'll be strapping on my flight wings! i'll be going back to mayonlandia for a couple of days again for some work, then immediately afterwards, i'll be off to the land of conan, costco, and chevys!!! i'll be spending a little over a week there, thus enjoying the long todos los santos vacation away, in a land i haven't been to in 5 years! finally, i can get my passport marked again! :P

yun nga lang, the main reason i have to go is to accompany my lola to visit my tita who's undergoing a procedure (i know i'm not much of a catholic, but she needs all our prayers!). then i'm off to the west coast to visit my mom's relatives and bambi!!! :D:D:D

watch out for lee & bambi bloopers in the land of conan, costco, and chevys!!! :D:D:D

characteristically clancy

2005-10-12T18:42:00.000+08:00

Mr. Krabs - Congratulations, you are Mr. Krabs! You
love counting your money, but NOT spending it.
"It's true! I'm cheap!"

Which Spongebob character are you?
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Brother Justin Crowe

Image copyright HBO.

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