1. the only carb that matters to you is RICE.
2. you eat the only carb that matters at least twice if not thrice a day!
3. you eat at breakfast buffet, gulping your all you can eat bacon, sausage, corned beef and eggs with toast AND ALL YOU CAN THINK of is “damn, this is really great with rice!!”
4. you have Silver Swan soy sauce, Rufina Patis, Jufran banana ketchup, Mang Tomas condiments in your shelves.
5. you use Ginisa Mix, Sinigang Mix, Palabok Mix and any other Mama Sita or Knorr Mix as part of your cooking.
6. you fry salted dried fish in your backyard or outside your home for all to smell, ignoring even the snare of your neighbor!

Read more

Filipino culture and economic malaise

The Doing Business 2008 report, an annual study conducted by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, states that the Philippines ranked 133rd out of 178 economies surveyed in terms of ease of putting up and doing business in the country:

Regulations affecting 10 stages of a business life are measured from the perspective of the entrepreneur. The stages are: Starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.

According to the survey, the Philippines is lagging behind other Asian markets, including India (120th) and China (83th) whose phenomenal growth has made Asia the fastest growing region in the world. [Inquirer.net]

Any local businessman would affirm the findings of the study; the plethora of requirements and paperwork and the inefficiency of the bureaucracy will squeeze too much available capital and occupy too long a time that many entrepreneurs, including budding ones, consider quitting before day one.

It appears though, that it is even worse when one decides to close a business:

(read more…) 

Hopia Fix

For some time, during my summer vacations in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, I enjoyed eating hopia. I would usually buy from my aunt’s sari-sari store at P3.00 per pack. Those were the small hopia with red beans as filling. A summer day won’t be complete without a trip to the store to get a pack or two of hopiang munggo and a bottle of ice-cold POP cola. I would sometimes get the hopiang baboy, only if the red bean favorite is not available.

Whenever I’d drop by their store, my cousins, with an ever-annoying grin, would still tease me, “Hey! We know what you’re going to buy… hopia and POP cola! Correct?!” Like before, I would go back to our house, with no more appetite for lunch or dinner, as I just had my hopia fix.

But that was a few years ago. I’m now an OFW here in Singapore. It was only recently that I came to know about similar delicacies from neighboring Malaysia, Penang’s tau sar peah and Ipoh’s heong peah (Is it why we Filipinos call it hopia?). It was only here that I have seen hopia in an utterly different presentation, somewhat more sophisticated and with a slightly different name. They call it mooncake. It’s still hopia for me.

Filipino Robert Sunga eliminated in Singapore’s Live the Dream

Filipino landscape designer-turned-Singapore TV celebrity Robert Sunga was eliminated from the singing competition Live the Dream.

What happened? Read more!

WC and the fox-hole toilets

Nung bago ako sa kumpanya namin, gusto kong magbawas ng “maruming tubig” sa katawan kaya nagtanong ako kung saan ang CR. Ano daw ‘yung CR sabi ng mga intsik kaya idinemonstrate ko kung anong gagawin ko sa CR. Hindi daw CR yun kundi “WC.”

Tinanong ko naman sila kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng WC dahil ang CR kako e nangangahulugang Comfort Room. Pero hindi nila alam. Buti pa si Wiki alam:

A flushing toilet or water closet (WC) is a toilet that disposes of the waste matter by using water to flush it through a drainpipe to another location. Modern toilets incorporate an ‘S’ bend; this ‘trap’ creates a water seal which remains filled with water between flushing, thus providing a hygienic barrier by preventing sewer gases from passing up the drainpipe. During flushing the ‘S’ bend also provides siphon action which helps accelerate the flushing process. Water filling up the bowl creates a high pressure area which forces the water past the S bend. At the S bend when water starts to move it creates a vacuum that pulls the water and matter out of the toilet. When there is no more water is left then the air stops the siphon or vacuum process. At that point the water that is going into the bowl continues to fill up the bowl to equalize the bowl and the S bend. This ends the cycle of one flush. However, since this type of toilet does not generally handle waste on site, separate waste treatment systems must be built.

Pero bukod sa tawag na WC ay may isa pang kahindik-hindik na kwento tungkol sa mga toilet sa China. Alam nyo bang “fox-hole style” ang mga toilet dito?

Warning: the following contents are not for the faint of heart. Continue browsing at your own will. Click for more…

Suportahan Ta Ka (Vote for Marco Torres as a Torchbearer in the 2008 Beijing Olympics)

Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger).
                           -Olympic Motto

There is a growing online movement to support Marco Torres in his goal of being chosen as one of eight foreigners/expatriates in China who will carry the torch for the Olympic torch relay. I think that with the growing number of bloggers and internet users in the Philippines, we can all help make this happen. Click here to vote for him.

If you didn’t click the link above, you’re probably wondering why we should support Marco Torres. You’re probably asking, “I don’t know him so why should I support him?”

Good question!

For most of us, the simple answer, “Because our countryman needs our support so that he can best all the other hopeful expatriates in China,” would suffice. But there are those who need more explanations before they give their support. So read on and I hope that after reading this post, you would be more than willing to support Marco Torres. Click here to continue reading

OFW SEX SLAVES!

The figures presented in Karlo Mongaya’s site concerning human trafficking of Filipinas is very disturbing! The video depicting how two senior citizen Americans traveled 6,000 miles away from their home, Mr. Troop Edmunds and Mr.Jerry Hawe, to rescue Lani, a Filipina from an alleged sex slavery syndicate in Malaysia was so moving. It shows how helpless Lani were, under the dictates of her ward. She went abroad in the hope of finding greener pasture only to be, allegedly, enslave through fear, intimidation, duress and, maybe, even drugged to become a puppet of her ward. What she earned out of her sweet, flesh and tears is not even enough to repay her indebtedness for food, clothing and shelter, if  her  ward is to sum it all. I thought that the Filipina rescued by Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Hawe from the alleged syndicate, is just among the 30 women allegedly held against their will in Limbang, Malaysia.

Research made by Karlo based on the studies conducted, however, revealed that Lani and her 30 other former companions still left in Malaysia are just part “of about 400,000 women trafficked within the Philippines annually, according to the US State Department’s Human Rights Report in 2005.” Are these Filipinas considered part of our OFWs? Are they protected by OWWA? If not for this two senior citizen Americans who stopped at nothing to recover Lani, these incident could not have been publicized. I wonder, however, what has happened to that maid in the Middle East who was allegedly raped by her ward.

THE YANKS DESERVES IT!

Media in Focus on the Malu Fernandez Issue

In my last post about Malu Fernandez, I was looking for something concrete, a harsher punishment by the media community to throw at Malu for being irresponsible in her writing. Her resignation isn’t comforting for me; it’s just not enough. Having her sacked isn’t enough consolation for the people she’s hurt; the OFWs and all of us proud pinoys. When I read her article, I could not help but feel as if she’s ashamed to be Pinoy and that she’s afraid to be with her countrymen. That rich and poor complex in the country has got to stop. That ridiculous division should not put one above the rest and definitely, it should not make the others less of a human being.

These are the Media in Focus clips I’ve found in Pedestrian Observer.

Part I.

Read more

On Blog Comments and Instant Angst Release

[...]In the program (Media In Focus aired last Friday), the judgment of Bloggers who let people comment anonymously, specifically those who let people express violent and personal invectives and reactions to the articles or posts they publish online, are questioned, among others. As comments generated by the more popular posts concerning the Malu Fernandez issue increase in number daily, so did the instances of comments containing malicious tirades and cat calls on Malu Fernandez’s weight which was frowned upon as uncalled for and a detraction from the real, more pressing issue.

The absence of filters on said comments is feared to be a cause for alarm because blogs as examples of the new media could become the latest avenue for individuals with violent intentions to convene.

On a personal note, although the trend for blog ownership and readership has been picking up in the last couple of years, blogs should not be perceived as the only venue where unmoderated comments are available and offered for public access. AM band radio stations do, too, and boy they could get just as ugly.

Read more of this reaction at fritzified.com>>

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Closing The Chapter On The Malu Fernandez Issue, Part 1

Author’s note:  While composing the post, I realized that it has become too lengthy to be posted as one entry.  So, I’ve decided to break this up into several posts.  I guess there’s just so much brewing inside me, having held myself back from responding to those that I’ve read, waiting for the right time.  Well, I think the time has arrived to let it all out.

For tonight, I give you the first part of the series. 

*     *     *     *     *

For 2 weeks there has been an ongoing furor on the Malu Fernandez article published in People Asia Magazine and her supposed apology statement. Everyone who was been apalled, dismayed, or insulted by her statements and who has access to the Internet must have given their opinions and sentiments on the issue, of which some were raw, while others were more controlled. All of these happening online, of course. But it’s about time that the issue be tackled in the real world.

The Malu Fernandez Issue in ANC’s Media In Focus

The issue, I think, reached its height when it was picked up by mainstream media, which has brought it to the attention of those who’re not bloggers or those who’re not aware of the skirmishes happening online. The issue, then, became a topic in ANC’s Media in Focus last night, August 30, with Benj Espina (not Medina) of Atheista.net and Josel Gonzales of selvo.wordpress.com representing the bloggers and Alex Magno, Lorraine Belmonte, and Ricky Carandang representing the mainstream media (though Ricky Carandang can be said to represent bloggers as well because he is a blogger himself). Questions regarding internet culture, blogging responsibility, the impact of new media vs. traditional media, and a lot more were discussed, in the light of the awareness raised by the Malu Fernandez issue. The discussion closed with Che Che Lazaro saying that Malu Fernandez made a mistake in writing such crass and discriminatory remarks against the OFWs but those who were offended and retaliated should have acted more decently and responsibly and with less crass.

Overall, I liked how the discussion flowed. There are two things that I want to point out, though:

• It seems that the segment portrayed the entire blogging community as a lynch mob. I beg to disagree. While that there are those who obviously and undeniably behaved like they were part of a mob (I will try to discuss more about mob psychology in a later post), there are those who, even with different opinions, still held on to what reason tells them what is right. While almost all bloggers (except for one blogger who supposedly posted something in defense of Malu Fernandez) do have the opinion that Malu Fernandez did wrong, it is the manner of disagreement that spelled the difference between those who wanted to settle the issue in a more sensible and rational manner and those who simply wanted the issue to end by screaming that they were offended and that it was enough reason why the demand for Malu’s resignation and apology is outright fair. As I’ve said in one of my posts (or was it in the comments section of a post?), this issue indeed triggered a lot of emotions and these emotions tell us that something wrong was done to us. However, it is not enough that we succumb to “emotion reason” to settle this as rational human beings. We need to point out the flaws and the fallacies which are evidence why this issue must be settled by asking for Malu Fernandez to acknowledge her mistake.

Continue reading this entry.

Being in Malu’s Squatty, Well-manicured Toes

I promised myself that I would never write a post about Malu Fernandez and her witty and funny article in Manila Standard. I thought that I could content myself in responding to other blogs and ditching her there. I didn’t think it important to waste a post or a space to such an elitist swine but the temptation to roast her alive in my page is a really sweet idea for me.

Honestly I couldn’t blame her. I pity her for having bruises on her legs, for having been ’sardined’ and pestered in the economy class with the Pinoy OFWs. You couldn’t blame a fat git for not being able to sit comfortably in a chair specifically made for Homo sapiens. Being witty and all, did she think she could fit herself in that puny place? Of course not. That’s why I think she has only been in the first class section all her life.

I need to apologize to Malu as well. I need to say sorry for being poor and underprivileged. Because unlike some members of the elite class in this 3rd world country, we spend half our lives studying and doing honest labor and service to society. Unlike her lot, we need to study so freaking hard and think that by doing great in school, we are guaranteed of jobs to help us and our families in the future. Unlike her, we know the true value of work and being smart. I am sorry that her ideas of being ‘witty and smart‘ mean to deride other people or worse, ridicule them of their socio-economic background. But again, being witty and smart, she should have known better than to insult her countrymen.

Read more

Pinoy Dies in the Outback

A Filipino OFW recently died under suspicious circumstances somewhere up in the Northern Territory. Three months into his work term, Pedro Balading’s remains were found on the road as he was reportedly thrown off a speeding vehicle. His body was flown home in June. Balading, along with 2 other Filipinos were reportedly targets of racial discrimination, abuse and were made to do tasks in violation of their 457 skilled worker visa. Read here.

HELPING THE NEEDY

The Special Education Center of Kalibo Elementary School II was established in 1997 by a teacher, who after graduating his first training in special education for the visually impaired leading to a degree of Masters of Arts in Special Education was tasked to establish a Special Education Class for the visually impaired pupils. The enrollment started with only about five. With the meager budget allocated by the government for the program, the teacher took the initiative to solicit funds from donors through the Kapisanan ng Mga may Kapansanan sa Pilipinas Region VI Chapter.

Read more

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