CACOPHONY VOLUME III

CACOPHONY Making Sense Out of Discordant Voices Volume III

Self Published Clifford Anzo Paragua Creative Artists Production August 2020 All Rights Reserved

Clifford Anzo Paragua was an Executive Director at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) at the time this volume was written. For more than a year, he was also detailed at the Office of Presidential Assistant for Education, Office of the President with offices at the Malacanang Complex.

Prior to his retirement from government service in March 2014, he was assigned as Labor Attache’ at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, Japan where he served for three years.

FOREWORD The issues of Volume III of CACOPHONY or whatever I have been able to retrieve from my files are now between these covers. Again, CACOPHONY is a weekly newsletter that I came up with while I was in government service.

Volume III, like the first two volumes is supposed to cover 52 weeks but because I was not able to retrieve all the 52 issues from my files, this volume consists of twenty nine (29) issues only. The first issue is dated January 27, 2008 and the last issue (No. 35) is dated September 28, 2008. Unless I will be able to find copies of the remaining issues (No. 36 to No.52) this volume will remain as is. As in the other volumes, each weekly issue consists of five (5) short articles about anything and everything!

Issues No. 14 to No. 19 are also missing, but I hope to be able to comb through my old files and my old USBs on the slim chance that I may stumble upon these issues. I hope my former colleagues in TESDA and other friends who used to enjoy these issues still have them in their bauls, unless 5S has taken its toll.

Like in the other volumes, the pieces are about my adventures and misadventures in the service and some are about my life preoccupation - food and cooking, and still others are about technology, economic development, the arts and, of course, politics, and the species called politicians who bring color to that sector of society.

Again this volume is self published. I did the layout and editing using MS Word and designed the book cover on MS Powerpoint. The ebook was made out of the pdf file of the

manuscript and converted into an ebook using the application ISSUU, which is a very convenient ebook maker without cost.

Next, I hope to be able to either scan or re-input the whole Volume I (which I self-published in hard copy some years ago) so that I can complete the ebook triology. I lost the electronic files of Volume I when someone stole my backpack containing my USB sets some years ago.

Since the pieces in this volume were done in 2008, these pieces are dated and so a number of them talk are about my work while I was in the service. Again, I hope the reader will read the pieces in context, not bothering with the identities of names and persons that I have mentioned in the pieces.

Dated as they are, I hope the pieces will still be a source of information, insights and perspectives that reflect my person as just an ordinary guy.

This third volume has come in a jiffy in a manner of speaking, given the technology and the applications that are now available on line. With a little more time, I should be able to convert Volume I into an ebook like this and Volume II. Ultimately, I hope to be able to finally see all the three volumes published within this year to pave the way for the completion of some manuscripts for other books that I have I kept in the backburner for quite some time.

I hope you enjoy reading the pieces as I have enjoyed writing them.

Clifford Anzo Paragua, August 2020

27 JAN 08

VOL. 3

NO. 01 VOLUME III

The title is no longer followed by a question mark – this is therefore the beginning of Volume III – whether anybody or somebody likes it or not. There are many things to write about.

So, why am I still reporting to the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Education? My detail to that office was supposed to end with the year and I was looking forward to my transfer to DOLE to handle once again the Bureau of Local Employment and assist in the maritime concerns of DOLE. Of course, things didn’t work out the way I expected because DG Syjuco did not approve of my transfer and he conveyed to me that he had something else in mind for me.

I did not have any occasion to ask him what that “something else” is supposed to be because, as events would unfold, the decision on the PAGC case came to fore. He opted to extend my detail to OPAE, perhaps due to the insistent request of PA Valisno.

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The last few issues of Volume II chronicled the developments that ensued in this hopefully once-in-my-lifetime saga.

Regularly doing the paper gives me a large measure of satisfaction and accomplishment, although the wife often looks at the attendant risks and resulting unwanted situations.

I have possibly invited the ire of some people, but all I do is express my views about things and events. I suppose I am entitled to this. I understand perfectly that some people may disagree with what I say, and some may agree. I don’t really mind.

As I said in the first few issues of CACOPHONY, I don’t even know if anybody reads the paper. Apparently, some people do – judging from the good and bad reactions that are manifested in many, many ways, good and bad – for me.

I never asked my dad why he has been writing all these years.

His reasons may be different from mine, but we may just be of the same mind. Should that be too surprising?

THE MOTION What started out as a 15-page draft ended as a 36-page motion for reconsideration that argued from the point of facts and of laws. Francis really made a thorough study of the case and the decision and all the relevant laws, orders, circulars and rules.

From the two basic arguments that I had in my draft, based on similar arguments forwarded by Atty. Marge, Brenda and Des, he came up with four arguments, three of which are cited as

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errors of law. It is really fascinating how Francis has made the motion so interesting – and possibly worthy of a second look.

First, it was pointed out that there was a serious error in the decision finding me and the other BAC members guilty of grave misconduct instead of the real offense for which we were charged – misconduct. There was also error in imposing on us the harsh and excessive penalty of dismissal despite the findings stated in the decision itself that 1) there was no allegation of conspiracy in the formal charge, 2) there was no corruption involved, and 3) there was no injury to the government.

I also invoked the following mitigating circumstances: good faith, length of service in government and lack of thorough education about the Procurement Law. Section 54 of the Uniform Rules of the Civil Service provides that “The minimum of the penalty shall be imposed where only mitigating and no aggravating circumstances are present.”

Indeed, the PAGC did not invoke any aggravating circumstances and no aggravating circumstances were proven in the course of the investigation. Under such circumstances, the rules are clear.

I said I was also denied due process because I was not furnished by the PAGC with other relevant documents used as evidence in the investigation, despite clear provisions in Section 5, Article VI of the PAGC 2007 Rules.

I also pointed out that the PAGC acted in excess of its jurisdiction when it took cognizance of our alleged violation of RA 9184 or the Procurement Law, such law not being integral to

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the scope of its jurisdiction. The PAGC Rules provide that it may take cognizance of other violations of law which may be referred to it by the President. No such referral was done in this case.

Francis was able to secure a copy of the more recent Uniform Rules of the Civil Service. We noted that in Sections 57 and 58 of these Rules, the accessory penalty of forfeiture of leave credits is not included, although it was in the older version.

Of course, I prayed for the reversal of the decision and dismissal of the case. Francis advised me to offer the alternative for the Office of the President to modify its decision.

I have full trust in him, so I verified all my statements.

There is nothing much else to do but pray and wait.

AFTER FILING It was not really photo-finish, but it was almost. I guess Francis did not sleep a wink to finish the motion last Friday.

I finally signed all the documents at about half past two in the afternoon and proceeded posthaste to Malacañang to submit my motion. Francis asked an aide to send a copy by registered mail to the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission in Diliman.

The Malacañang Records Office was still open when I finally reached the place before four that afternoon. Thank God that the employees, including the receiving officer, were not yet in TGIF mood because she cheerfully accepted my motion and put the official bar code on my “received” copy.

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I proceeded next to the third floor of the Mabini Hall to the Receiving and Docket Section of the Legal Office to submit another copy. Then and only then was I able to heave a sigh of relief.

Yes, I was really relieved because I was able to beat the deadline. I think Francis did more than justice to the motion, as he is really wont to do. When he does a job, he really does a good job.

I also felt relieved because I thought that my motion will lead to the reversal of the decision, or at the very least, to its modification, leading to the lightest possible penalty for such error of judgment. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Many friends who have offered me their prayers are keeping me afloat in these trying circumstances. Again, maraming salamat. I hope your prayers and mine will see me through all these, content with the thought that justice will be done.

Sabi ni Mr. Kaypee, “it’s wonderful to get answers to our prayers, but it is even more wonderful to let God mould you and make you into an ANSWER to somebody’s prayers.” Well said, sir!

PALAY NEWS There is something at the Department of Agriculture called QTA – Quick Turnaround Program. It involves a search for new areas in the country that can be planted to palay.

According to a piece that I read recently, Secretary Arthur Yap has announced that over 100,000 hectares in Visayas and

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Mindanao have been planted to palay. The harvest from these new palay farms is expected to offset the drop in outputs in Luzon.

This has also increased palay harvest in the country by twenty percent. Looks like QTA is working.

If all things go right, Secretary Yap says that QTA will raise palay outputs this year by 5.78% or a total of 17.3 million metric tons. Does this mean that the price of rice may do down?

What I like most is the hope that if the QTA target is fully achieved, this will bring the country’s palay self-sufficiency to about ninety two percent. Does this also mean rice self-sufficiency?

Coupled with the use of seed technology to increase palay production, the agriculture department, through the QTA, will continue to open more irrigated lands in other parts of the country.

Secretary Yap looks like a low-profile fellow but he seems to be making waves in his work in the department. If he can bring the country to the level of rice self-sufficiency, then he will forever be in my book of excellent mangers.

Naalala ko tuloy ang Kalentong, one of the main arteries of Mandaluyong City. Sometime in the late 70s, I resided in that city in a rented apartment. That’s when I began to hope that someday, a city mayor will be born to put order to the chaos that prevails in that stretch of road day-in and day-out, night-in and night-out.

Terrible talaga! The jeepney drivers, the barkers, the sidewalk

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vendors, the pedestrians and what have you – all have made this short stretch of vital road pure chaos.

City mayors have come and gone, and come again, but conditions have remained chaotic. Mayor Benhur Abalos appears to be more concerned about racing and race horses than the sheer disorder in Kalentong. Political will or unconcern?

Chairman BF seems to have the first – political will – especially in the effort to demolish illegal structures along sidewalks and constructing all the pedestrian walkways in major thoroughfares.

He says he doesn’t even care if the people affected by all these demolition efforts will not vote for him. Is he throwing in his hat in the 2010 elections? Too early? Maybe too late?

QUICK FIX, #6 It is still a week of stress and worry, waiting for the final verdict on the PAGC case. It looks like I can’t help it.

So here are other forms of self-medication, both for worry and stress. Did you know that you can schedule worry, instead of experiencing continuing and free-floating anxiety?

Setting aside a time that you can fully devote to your worries can help you put them under control. In fact, it becomes easier when you can write down what is worrying you. This will help you concentrate on your worries and keep track of them.

You can also set a specific time and place to worry, including the length of time that you must devote to this task. Not in your

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favorite place, of course, and definitely not before bedtime.

To deal with stressful encounters with people, practice sane socializing. Siyempre, avoid people you do not like and go with those that you do like. Be polite, but steer away from people who make you uncomfortable. Dapat lang naman, di ba?

03 FEB 08

VOL. 3

NO. 02 LAST MINUTE

It was a summit that turned to a consultation but ended up as a congress. That is the long and the short story of the recently-concluded First Biennial National Congress on Education at the Manila Hotel Tent City.

The occasion was graced by no less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo herself who wanted to convene that congress as early as possible instead of the original May 2008 schedule. PA Valisno and the Presidential Task Force for Education, for which we provide technical support, had to work double time in all of three weeks to put everything in implementation mode.

Needless to say, the entire staff of the OPAE had to forego weekend schedules to see to it that all materials are prepared, written, photocopied, invitations sent and confirmed.

The whole thing started out as a national summit, but we woke up one day and it became a national consultation cum progress report of the Task Force. We woke up another day to find out that it will finally be the first biennial congress, after all, consistent with one of the mandates of the Task Force.

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The final news came two days before D-day and it is not difficult to imagine the rush and the frenzy to change everything including the IDs and certificates which had been printed earlier.

No, it was not just a waste of scarce resources. It was a sheer waste of valuable time. Spent funds can be replenished but time wasted is non-renewable – a sad story that is not uncommon in government affairs. Even the official printed program had to be redone.

As we were about to pack up for the night on the eve of the congress, we received instructions to revise some portions of the program because Secretary Neri, for one good reason or another, won’t be able to make it. And the three education agencies had to give their respective response to the Task Force report, instead of coming up with new or additional issues.

A lot of prayers will go a long way for the congress.

D-DAY The official list of invitees came up to about 400 stakeholders in the education sector. But the list suddenly became almost double after word came that we are supposed to include some 300 or so teachers in our list of invitees. The President, apparently, wanted a few hundred teachers to be around, since they, too, have stakes in the education system. Tama naman, di ba?

In the early morning of the first day of the congress, I decided to have coffee at Jolibee. I sent a message to Noel, my colleague in OPAE, asking him how everything was going at the Tent City.

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To my pleasant surprise, he replied that they were already in the thick of things as several hundreds of participants were already around before eight o’clock that morning. Is it indicative of some excitement, some anticipation of what will happen in the congress? Or is it indicative of the changing “Pinoy-always-late� culture, given that the program says that registration will start at eight?

The President was not expected until ten that morning, the appointed time for the start of the program. When I finally made it to Manila Hotel at about half past eight, very few seats remained to be taken, and the hotel housekeeping team was busy setting up additional tables and chairs.

Apparently, the additional 300 or so teachers came quite early as other guests and participants continued to pour in. We were lucky that we got the Tent City for a venue since the place can easily handle some 1,500 people.

The Tent City was indeed a good choice. It boasts of about twenty package type upright air conditioners and temperature, in spite of the number of people inside, was really comfortable.

There are four large new comfort rooms at either end of the Tent, two for men and another two for women.

Security precautions are evident with two metal detectors stationed at the main doors, guarded by security personnel.

As always, the President came on time and the program promptly started. As I listened to her speech, I began to understand why the teachers had to be around.

We also realized that we had more people to eat merienda!

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THE CONGRESS The President gave a rather lengthy speech, complete with the litany of her Administration’s accomplishments in the field of education through the years.

The draft speech that I prepared was barely anywhere to be heard, but who am I to complain? It was a good speech, pregnant with expectations, sabi nga nila. She made mention of all the important decisions that she has made in the series of six meetings that she has called for in December last year.

Day care centers for five-year-old children will be an additional year for basic education. Sec. Jesli Lapus of DepEd has been instructed to draw up a standard curriculum for pre-school and to take over its supervision, from DSWD and the LGUs. The administrative implications are quite staggering, I think. The President prefers this additional year to basic education rather than an added year to college.

She also formally announced the release of one billion pesos for improving teacher competencies in elementary and high school. She said that half of that should go to the teaching of English, considering the perceived deterioration of that skill among our teachers. Of course, she also mentioned the release of an equal amount to TESDA for training scholarships.

The attention of the administrators of colleges and universities established and maintained by local government units was also called. They were asked to comply with the minimum standards promulgated by CHED for degree programs.

And rightly so.

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In fact, I have maintained that it is ridiculous that the state colleges and universities cannot even be forced to strictly adhere to such standards, if they simply invoke what they cheerfully call academic freedom. To me, it is a beautiful term that has been played around for so long. And look where it has taken us. We are almost at the bottom of world ratings. Not really surprising.

Sometime last year, I spoke before the heads of state colleges and universities and I said that academic freedom should not be taken as a license. I almost got myself bodily carried out of the hall. Well, almost. Kung nakamamatay lang ang irap!

For the President, it looked like a cheerful day, and somehow everyone probably felt relieved that the opening ceremony went on smoothly without any glitches. PA Valisno was certainly glad.

THE WORKSHOP Workshop 3 was assigned to me as this dealt with the issues on the harmonization of tech voc education and higher education, and the ladderized education program included.

It seems that there are overriding concerns about the scope of the jurisdiction of TESDA and CHED, especially with respect to the implementation of ladderization program.

Any higher education institution wanting to offer a ladderized degree program has to get a permit from CHED and a registration certificate from TESDA, principally to ensure that vocational qualification standards are appropriately covered.

The higher education institutions, in effect, have to go through the administrative and technical requirements of the two

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agencies before they can offer a ladderized program. The state colleges and universities, who do not even get permits from CHED, have been raising a howl about this. Kukuha ng permit sa TESDA? Nababaliw na ba sila? Saan na yong academic freedom?

Yan ang mga tanong nila. Mabuti talaga, di nakamamatay ang irap.

Before the Congress, the President made two relevant decisions based on previous consultations with stakeholders in education. She declared that associate courses, usually two-year programs which are not really equivalent to a degree, are under the jurisdiction of CHED. No problem, really, since TESDA programs are basically structured on the basis of job qualifications, not on course duration or units or credits.

She also issued an Executive Order mandating that higher education institutions opting to ladderize their programs may do so without securing another permit from CHED or TESDA, so long as the program was previously recognized by CHED and a model curriculum for such program has been promulgated.

I thought that this would make the HEIs happy, including the SUCs. But it turned out that they were not really jumping with joy. Some of their programs have yet to be recognized or a model curriculum has yet to be promulgated. Bitin pa rin pala!

Maybe ladderization should be pursued without the need for CHED or TESDA approval so long as the relevant Policies, Standards and Guidelines (PSGs) of CHED and the Training Regulations (TRs) of TESDA have been issued.

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POST WORKSHOP CHED Dep. Exec. Director Lito Vitriolo felt like we needed to go for a quick post workshop evaluation. So we had a four-man “evaluation” team at the Harbor View.

Dir. Lito, Dir. Romy Isaac of CHED-OPAE, CHED OIC Asst.

Dir. William Malitao and me had a very interesting time dissecting the “in-the-box” recommendations in the workshops, while coming up with “out-of-the box” versions.

We thought that some of the workshop recommendations were neither and the same may really be said to be “out-of-this-world”, instead. But who can quarrel with these recommendations while enjoying endless bottles of light beer and hearty pulutan!

The post workshop “evaluation” lasted up to about nine that evening and I had to drive home a little bit tipsy as I had one too many – perhaps too many for a “retired” drinker.

I passed by EDSA on my way home and when I got caught up in traffic at the Boni area, I was suddenly startled by the loud honking from the vehicle behind me. The car in front of me was already about fifty meters away. I had a micro sleep on the wheel!

10 FEB 08

VOL. 3

NO. 03 EXTENSION

My assignment to OPAE has been extended by the DG

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Primarily due to the request of PA Valisno. I did welcome the extension because I really want to help in preparing the full documentation of a very successful education congress.

I was part of the whole preparation leading to the congress so I guess it is just right that I will have the chance to see through its full documentation. Already, I have done the initial layout for a sixteen-page newsletter that will essentially document the highlights of the education congress. The maiden issue of the newsletter with the masthead EQR (Education Quality and Relevance) Updates is now posted in www.opae.gov.ph.

The DG also asked me to give some time to the maritime concerns of TESDA. I understand that TESDA is in the thick of preparations for the London meeting in early March of the STW Sub-Committee of the International Maritime Organization.

I got word that TESDA is not sending anyone to the meeting but somehow a position has to be firmed up with respect to the proposed upgrading of competency standards for ratings forming part of a navigation or engine watch. I prepared the TESDA position in that regard early last year for an earlier London meeting.

I also got word that TESDA is coming up with an on-line assessment procedure, instead of the old paper and pencil type.

There is definitely some advantage in going hi-tech but there are also possible negative consequences. Of course, I have yet to see and appreciate the design so that I can better assess how this procedure will firmly fit into the entire system.

The OPAE team is now in a frenzy to do the full congress

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report, as this will most likely be the hot agenda item in the next Task Force meeting scheduled for the 20th of this month.

I hope to see the newsletter in print by that time.

CLEARED There is word that the charges against the Director General in connection with the case filed by SAMAKA have all been dismissed and he has been cleared. Secretary Ermita issued the decision sometime last week, presumably because the Committee of Peers Secretariat referred the matter back to his office. I had to have a copy of that decision, one way or another.

I did get a copy a few days ago and I found the document quite interesting. It may even serve my own purpose.

For instance, on page 5 of the decision, it stated “The absence of the element of corruption implies that there was no undue injury to government. This means that the dismissal of the respondents was not commensurate to the offense of violating the provision of RA 9184, as amended.”

The absence of the element of corruption was mentioned in the earlier decision of the Office of the President citing us for grave misconduct and dismissing us from the service. Note that the second sentence is expressed in the plural form, perhaps alluding to all of the respondents, the DG and the BAC members.

Another part of the decision said, “”Dismissal from service cannot be found in the provisions of RA 9184, as amended.” It should follow that we cannot be dismissed from the service even if, as alleged, we have violated a provision of RA 9184. In fact, on

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the third paragraph of page 5 of the decision, the same is repeated – “the penalty provided by RA 9184 in cases of violation thereof, as discussed above, does not include dismissal from the service.”

In the same paragraph, the decision went further – “Besides, the act of Syjuco, in resorting to limited source bidding, was authorized by the TESDA Board itself through its Resolutions.”

The original BAC recommendation was approved by the DG, and ultimately by the TESDA Board. The BAC recommendation is twice removed from that approval so we should not be held accountable, in the same manner that the DG was not held accountable.

Also, the decision said, “It should be emphasized that the offense involved in this case does not constitute grave misconduct or gross neglect of duty.” But the BAC members were charged with grave misconduct, contrary to the preceding statement. Paano yon?

Finally, it said, “Bad faith can never be presumed, and since it was not proven, the benefit of the doubt should favor regularity in the performance of their duties.” Again, note the plural form used.

These bases for the dismissal of the charges against DG Syjuco equally apply to the BAC members. However, we have not been as fortunate as the DG in getting the same decision.

Meron pa naman sigurong hustisya sa mundo.

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MANIFESTATION I conveyed the news about the decision to Francis, my lawyer-friend who helped me craft my motion for reconsideration. He asked me for a copy of the decision so that he can look at the possibility of filing a manifestation based on such decision.

I sent him a copy and a day after he informed me of the possibility of a manifestation, having noted the same observations that I made about the premises of the decision dismissing the charges against DG Syjuco.

Another lawyer-friend confirmed the need to file a manifestation, principally to ensure that the guy who is handling our motion for reconsideration is aware of the decision dismissing the charges against DG Syjuco and the grounds for such dismissal. I have to assume that the guy does not read CACOPHONY, so there must be a more direct way of telling him that he should take note of the grounds for such dismissal which also apply to the BAC. It is also interesting to note that the DG appealed the “decision� of PAGC, which actually became the basis for the OP decision. The BAC members filed a motion for reconsideration of the OP decision, the same decision which was the subject of the DG’s appeal. The PAGC decision was reversed in his favor.

I am not sure if the other BAC members are also intending to file such manifestation, but I was told that whatever final decision is issued will apply to all of us, since the BAC recommendation was collegial. The sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

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I have no way of determining how long the wait will be. But I am sure praying that when it comes, it will be the same dismissal of charges for practically the same grounds.

Sana naman. Please continue praying for me.

SMART MOVES That’s the title of a book that has been in my “library” for quite sometime now, authored by Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman.

It is actually a “Manager’s Book of Lists”, things to do to work smarter.

One portion of the book deals with the roots of interpersonal conflict, a common everyday situation at home and at work.

The authors have listed eleven items on the list. Very often, conflicts in an organization can be traced to “personalities”. A person differs with another based simply on how he or she feels about that person – bias and prejudice.

Some people are quite nasty and stubborn. They go through life with a chip on their shoulder and they always seem to be looking for trouble. Naghahanap lagi ng katalo.

Others easily feel attacked by criticism and their sensitivity or hurt comes from low self-esteem, insecurity or even conflict in their own lives. Balat-sibuyas na, matampuhing unggoy pa.

Conflict also occurs where there is difference in values and perception, in the way we perceive the world. This incongruence in our views can be traced to differences in our upbringing, culture, race, experience, education, occupation, socio-economic

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status, and other environmental factors.

Differences over facts can also be a cause, especially if such “facts” cannot be documented or measured. For instance, if someone says, “It is a fact that you are insensitive to my feelings” – how can you argue with that “fact?”

Differences over goals and priorities can also come into play in creating conflict. Another cause is differences in methods – there are many ways to kill a cat.

Competition for scarce resources is surely a source of conflict, as competition for supremacy is. We usually want to outdo or outshine another person, even for promotion in the organization.

Misunderstanding is often due to communication breakdown.

This happens when a listener’s unwarranted inferences about a speaker’s intent lead to interpersonal conflict.

It pays to know all of these possible causes of interpersonal conflict so that we can step back and understand our own point of view when we deal with our friends or co-workers.

QUICK FIXES, #7 Do you have any problem with self-confidence? People who have self confidence have it because they do what they do very well. They feel good about themselves and they are respected.

On the other hand, cocky people and egotists are turn-offs.

They think too much of themselves. They are not really selfconfident; rather, they are self-centered.

Self-centered people have not really learned to accept them-

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selves. They overdo their sales pitch as they try to gain acceptance and approval from others.

If you don’t have self-confidence, you have a tendency towards bragging, jealousy, possessiveness and prejudice. You do what you do for the favor of others. You hate to admit mistakes, fear criticism and are driven to succeed. However, you do not feel satisfaction in your success. You feel unable to get what you want.

If you find yourself in this kind of situation, try to know yourself better by defining your real problem. Observe yourself and keep notes for at least a week. Write down situations where you feel competent doing things and where you feel you are not.

Figure out why you feel confident in certain situations. What is there in such situations that make you confident? What is there in other situations that don’t make you feel good?

Having no self-confidence is often situational, but not always.

17 FEB 08

VOL. 3

NO. 04 WEBSITE

Sa wakas, the website of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Education (OPAE – where I am detailed) is now up, with the URL www.opae.gov.ph.

As originally planned, the websites of the three education agencies are all linked to our site. Dapat naman, di ba?

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We have some OJT students from EARIST who helped Fred and Noel, our own IT staff, to design and activate the site. As I have mentioned in the last issue, the OPAE newsletter (EQR Updates) is now posted in the site, both the 6-page maiden issue and the 16-page January 2008 issue. Both, of course, are in full color.

Ed Chavez of Region IV-A also had a hand in all these developments. I got him to meet with Fred and Noel to plan out the activation of the site. As always, Ed did a good job.

I still remember the time when I was assigned to the Region IV Office, originally the Southern Tagalog Region or STAR Region, which consisted of ten provinces, the CALABARZON provinces and the island provinces which are now Region IV-B. I worked with Ed to come up with the regional office’s website and in a jiffy, it came up, all with my picture and message. In a little while, the site also had info on the latest news, the weather, interesting places in the region, and even the latest information about all the provinces and major towns and cities in the area.

If you are a little bit bored about the content of the site, you can even download some games as a diversion. In fact, you can even play the game right on the site.

Ed was able to make the site very useful and user-friendly with a lot of information to boot. Of course, Ed did not input much to the site, but he simply created the necessary links to sites which already had all the valuable information about the region.

In due time, I hope the OPAE website will be as useful, given

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all the links that can be created in the field of education and training, educational assessment, accreditation, quality assurance and what have you. The possibilities are unlimited.

Talk about a knowledge management system.

BANGKOK A one week training program sponsored by the World Bank has been scheduled on the last week of February in Bangkok.

PA Valisno and Dr. Rey Peña are getting ready to make that trip. I am supposed to join them, but many things stood on the way. One was the sudden OP decision on the PAGC case which occupied most of my time after the New Year.

The program is about post-basic education, both technical vocational and higher education. I was looking forward to some discussion about short term vocational higher education.

I will miss the opportunity with a large measure of nostalgia.

Bangkok is the place that I have visited for the most number of times, maybe about a dozen times since that fateful first trip abroad in 1977 when I spent a month in Bangkok together with other trainees from Asian employment services.

When I was director of the local employment bureau, I ran a program on the promotion of self-employment for the Asian Regional Program for Labor Administration (ARPLA) based in ILO Regional Office in Bangkok, then headed by Chief Technical Adviser HMH Siddiqui, my “ninong” in the ILO office.

During those times, I did not have any trouble looking for

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projects. Mr. Siddiqui would simply give me a call from Bangkok to inform me that he had a project for me to implement. Then I just had to fetch him in the airport when he came to Manila to make the final arrangements. He came and I delivered. That simple.

He also arranged for me to travel to Bangkok for regular assessment meetings on the projects. In fact, he also asked me to participate in a special program on self-employment in Dacca, then capital of Bangladesh. He made me a resource person in another program on the same subject during a conference in Karachi, Pakistan. All my expenses were paid for along with a little pocket money. The guy had so much trust and confidence in me.

The last time I visited Bangkok was for a short holiday with the wife on a cheap package tour a few years back. We marveled at the progress that we saw in that bustling city, compared to how it was when I first laid eyes on it.

Before that, I went to Bangkok with Joe Clarito of the Maritime Training Council for a training program on competency assessment in the maritime sector which was handled by Singaporean officers.

So many things to be nostalgic about, really.

KARE-KARE Yesterday morning I had an appointment with Dr. Padron, my dentist who made my new dentures sometime last year. I still has a little trouble with them and I thought it was time to pay him a visit.

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The front part of my dentures was hitting one of my remaining teeth and I felt a bit uncomfortable. Also, I had some trouble with chewing because the upper teeth were not aligned with the lower ones. They surely needed some adjustment. It was a good thing that the dentist could give me time yesterday.

The whole process did not really take that long. The dentist simply asked me to bite some carbon paper and the dentures were promptly given to the technician. After two or three minutes, the dentures fitted better and I thanked Dr. Padron for the bother.

As I was leaving the dental clinic the wife sent a message for me to buy some shrimp bagoong as she wanted to prepare kare-kare. I suddenly remembered that the day before she bought some buntot ng baboy at the meat shop.

Mercury Drug was the only shop in the building and I was lucky that it carried the item. When I got home, the pressure cooker was already whistling and the puso ng saging, sitaw, sliced garlic and onions were already prepared. The wife forgot to buy some talong, however, to complete the ingredients.

To simplify the whole process, she bought some kare-kare mix which worked well, except that it was a bit bland. When it was done the wife was satisfied with the results. Our two boys, the wife and I had a hearty lunch and my dentures did me justice, this time.

At noon today it was my turn. I still had a sachet of the sweet and spicy Korean mix, perfect for my kind of pork and chicken gizzard adobo. I included some thin slices of sayote, similar to the way some vegetables like upo is added to dinuguan.

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I had one cucumber left so I also prepared kani salad, complete with Japanese mayonnaise, crab sticks and nori. The salad went well with the adobo. It’s a good thing that the pork was tender although the chicken gizzard, unexpectedly, was a bit tough.

You can bet your last centavo that we had a sumptuous meal.

SMART MOVES, #2 The book is also very helpful to me as it gives some pointers on ten types of words to use carefully. Speakers and writers really need to take note of these types of words that are often used in everyday conversation, not only as embellishment.

Take jargons, for example. This is the technical language of a profession which is of course confusing to those who don’t use it everyday. Have you noticed that many experts often find difficulty getting themselves understood by lay persons? Talk about writ of Amparo or habeas corpus to a street vendor!

Euphemisms is another. The internal revenue people will say “revenue enhancement” instead of just saying “taxation” straight away. Euphemism has the effect of weakening the language as when we say “perspiration” instead of “sweat.”

Idioms should be used very carefully because these are often peculiar to some communities but not to others. The same can be said of slang words which are often not found in the dictionary.

Profane, disrespectful language will usually be taken with offense, no matter how colorful such language may be. You may gain some impact but your listeners will not always like it.

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Office or company specific phrases are similar to jargon. Use them in the office and make sure that outsiders will understand such phrases or you will be branded as insensitive.

There are words which are called red flag word. For instance, don’t refer to a woman as a “girl” – she will surely be offended.

She will focus on that word and stop listening to what you are saying.

Avoid vague or abstract language especially when giving instructions. “Please do it as soon as you can” – does not really say anything definite. It’s best to leave no doubts in the meaning of the word that we say. Mabuti na yong malinaw kaysa malabo’.

Some people are in the habit of using overly complex words – “we wish to proscribe the superfluous display of one’s vocabulary” – get’s mo ba? Finally, it is best to avoid clichés or worn-out expressions. Ok lang ang sabi ni Melanie, “Don’t judge my brother, he’s not a book!” Not everyone is a Melanie, of course.

QUICK FIXES, #8 Let’s continue with self confidence. Remember there’s a whale of a difference between people who are self-confident and those who are self-centered. Self-centered people are not self-confident.

Believe this – people who have self-confidence like themselves, and, you guessed it, people who are self-centered like only themselves. Di tiyak if others like them too, di ba?

So you have to learn to like yourself even though others may

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not like you. Ganoon lang talaga ang buhay. Don’t expect everyone to like you, but it’s really tragic if you don’t even like yourself.

Being liked depends on many factors over which we have very little control. There is one factor though which you can fully control – how you feel about yourself. You have to take responsibility for doing what needs to be done to like yourself.

Understand that self-confidence is internal and not something which depends on external factors. Walang pinag-kaiba sa happiness. You cannot find it anywhere else except within you.

Determine what you like about yourself. List them down and add to the list as often as there is something to add, including those things that you did which made you feel good. Do it now.

24 FEB 08

VOL. 3

NO. 05 EFFICIENCY

The satellite office of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) at the Robinson’s Galleria is a self-contained place where you can have your driver’s license renewed in a jiffy.

A few days ago I visited the office as my driver’s license was about to expire. I noted again that my license was originally issued to me in 1984 which means that I have been at the wheel for more than two decades now. Marami nang pinudpod na gulong!

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I presented my license and I was asked to fill up a form, just one copy. Then I was instructed to proceed to the next room for a drug test. I was given a jingle bottle, filled it up in the CR and had it promptly labeled. Then I waited for a few minutes to be called in for the medical examination which turned out to be something else.

My height was measured along with my weight. Then I had to go through the Snellen Chart, the test for visual acuity. My right eye was good but I had some trouble with my left eye.

Working together, the right and the left seemed to complement each other.

I was given a clean bill of health – eyesight and drug-free urine – after I shelled out some more than three hundred pesos.

Then I was asked to return to the other room for a date with the webcam. Next was an invisible digital signature with an inkless ballpen.

After a few more minutes, I was asked to write on a release logbook and I got my brand-new three-year driver’s license, all in a matter of half an hour! The exclamation point is intentional.

The last time I went for renewal at the Novaliches LTO, I had to waste a whole day before the whole process was completed.

Thank God someone at the LTO had the guts to use technology to improve access to license renewal services and extensively decentralize operations. It’s another good thing that the fixers have not come with such decentralization.

It is even rather surprising that everyone in that satellite office was courteous and appeared to be super efficient.

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This pocket of efficiency is a saving grace to the generally inefficient bureaucracy. I am not yet jumping with joy, though.

MATALAS ANG PANG-AMOY He looks like an ordinary mortal, but he is not. He is made of some stuff and temperament far different from what many of us are made of. He is a true-blue entrepreneur.

I met Danny some years ago when he was a start-up school owner. He was probably in the look out for contacts in the education and training sector when we stumbled on one another.

Obviously, he was just learning the ropes as well as some corners that he can cut. But I have always been awed by guys like him, no matter how many corners they cut. I have fancied myself as an entrepreneur, but it always ends up as a fantasy.

I stumbled on him again recently and had coffee with him.

He spent time recalling his younger days when he left his fold as a stow-away in the bustling city. He spent most nights in Luneta but sought refuge in Quiapo Church when the weather was rough.

Sarsi was his favorite, the only drink he could afford, actually, to wash down the toasted machacao which was often his daily fare. And as I tried to imagine myself in that kind of predicament, I am not really sure what and how I would have done.

As he sipped on his coffee, I noted the rose gold watch that he was wearing and a platinum necklace complemented his outfit. What a far cry from the guy who spent nights in Luneta and subsisted on Sarsi and machacao.

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He invited me to the inauguration of his sixteenth branch, somewhere in Fairview and I quickly understood the rose-gold wrist watch. He has moved on fast since the first time we met.

He is truly not like many of us. He is not a brilliant guy, but he simply has a nose for business. Matalas talaga ang pang-amoy sa pera. He takes risks and no simple risks at that. And when his bet wins, he really makes his bank account quite fat.

It’s a good thing that other than the rose gold watch and the platinum chain on his neck, he was the same old guy that I met a few years back, modest, unassuming and witty. His transformation from a vagrant in Luneta to a successful entrepreneur has made him a lot wiser, but he still loves to smell the flowers and marvel at the rainbow forming during a morning drizzle.

I have a few other friends like Danny to write about.

ROUTER The frustration was beginning to take its toll on me. The other day I had purchased a wireless Internet router for a measly P1,280 at CDR-King, my favorite IT gadgets store.

I intended to convert my Internet line attached to my PC at home into a wireless network so that I can use my Centrino-enabled laptop, my personal digital assistant (PDA) and my Nokia N-80 to access the Internet wirelessly.

Since it was my first encounter with a wireless router, I read the manual extensively to make sure I was doing the right thing.

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So when I thought I was ready, I powered the unit on and my excitement escalated when my laptop indicated that it has connected with the wireless router. But the Internet was nowhere to be seen. Something is obviously wrong.

I spent the better part of the night trying to find my way through the maze. But to no avail – I went to bed frustrated.

Yesterday, I sought the help of Leo of MISD to solve my problem and, as always, he patiently guided me by phone though a series of steps that I had to do to configure the router.

I followed his instructions but I still could not make it work. I was ready to give up for the day but my son came to the rescue.

He patiently went through the user’s manual and found a way to configure the router.

When he was done, he found out that my laptop also needed to be reconfigured – and he did it. To my utter surprise and joy, I could now surf the Internet wirelessly using the home WiFi. I got my HP-IPAQ which also had WiFi capabilities and instantly, I was able to access my emails and even replied to some of them. Next, I tried my Internet version Nokia N-80 and it also worked immediately, although it’s a bit annoying to surf the Internet with such a small screen and navigation key.

Scheduling of the use of the PC Internet is now a thing of the past. My two sons who always competed for Internet time can now have their own sweet time through the wireless network.

They even play their network games competing against each other. The world will never be the same again.

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I can even now readily get in touch with the whole world wherever I am in the house. It’s not a small wonder.

SMART MOVES, #3 I have spoken in public so many times and I have been introduced so many times. The introductions are seldom to my liking and so here are some smart moves for giving a good introduction for a speaker.

Rather than a resume’, it’s better to ask for a short three-paragraph biographical sketch of the person to be introduced. It will indicate what the speaker wants to be said about him or her. Of course, you can also ask permission to make minor additions or deletions depending on your own style.

A short interview with the speaker is also very valuable. Ask the speaker some key questions like, “What event in your life has had the most profound effect on your career?” “Who is the person who has had the most profound impact on your life?”

“What lifelong ambitions have you yet to achieve?”

Tell the audience why this particular speaker is standing in front of them – don’t leave them guessing. It is not enough to rattle off the speaker’s credentials, degrees, titles, awards, etc.

They need to know what expertise the speaker has on the topic.

Why is the speaker uniquely qualified to have the floor?

When introducing a speaker, smile, be upbeat and animated.

Always sound as though you are excited about the speaker’s presence and you can’t wait to hear the speaker talk.

Help the speaker build instant rapport with the audience by

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showing the speaker as a living, breathing, compassionate and even vulnerable person. Of course, be careful not to offend or embarrass the speaker when you share something of the speaker.

Remember not to steal the speaker’s thunder – introduce the speaker, not the topic. Find out if the speaker will want you to say anything about the topic beyond the title, otherwise you may compromise the entire speech!

Worst of all, don’t ever say – “Our speaker needs no introduction.” Kung ganoon pala, umupo ka na at tumahimik!

Say the speaker’s name before anything else. This is a bit surprising as we often reserve the last part for the name!

Although this is not a hard and fast rule, you will notice that the rest of the introduction will flow effortlessly after the speaker’s name is given.

I will follow these tips when it’s my turn to introduce someone.

QUICK FIXES, #9 Let’s continue with self confidence. You don’t really have to excel in anything to have self-confidence, but it helps if you do.

Doing a good job is self-satisfying. It gives us self-confidence and an eagerness to be in a place where we feel good about what we do and about ourselves.

It is said that one day does not make a summer, like there is no “always”, there are no “nevers.” It is wrong to say that you don’t do anything right or you always make a mess of things. An

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unsuccessful occurrence is not an indication of a pattern of failure.

If you have learned to appreciate your fine qualities, remember that you are not perfect. Accept yourself, including all your blemishes. Accept your imperfections as endearing, enjoyable, human and part of the package that is you.

Learn to take care of your needs. Bear in mind that only you can know what you need and can go about fulfilling your needs.

If you expect others to identify your needs and take care of you, it’s going to be a frustrating wait. Nobody knows what you need.

02 MAR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 06 AUTOMATIC MANUAL

Honda Cars call it the paddle shift, a type of car transmission that is both automatic and manual. What more, you can do the shifting by hand on the steering wheel!

What will they think of next?

Since 1985 when I started driving a four-wheeled vehicle, I have been accustomed to manual transmission, which allows a driver to shift gears with the clutch. That’s how it has always been, until the wife and I decided to have an automatic in 2005.

I had to let my left leg “unlearn” the almost reflexive motion of stepping on the clutch when I have to shift gears. After almost three years, I have satisfactorily adjusted and I can now drive an automatic with ease and confidence.

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Given the choice, however, I still prefer to drive a manual because I feel that I have better control of the vehicle and I can let it do whatever I like. Somehow, the automatic doesn’t seem to work the same way. Maybe I haven’t really learned everything.

The new Honda technology is quite fascinating, although I believe it is a refinement of an existing technology. For instance, I am aware that new Mazda cars have such a feature, except that shifting is still done with the shift stick.

Honda has gone further by allowing a driver to shift at any speed from automatic to manual right on the wheel, only with the fingers. The left paddle is for downshifting and the right one for upshifting. There is no need to activate a “manual shift” mode.

The paddle shift technology is now in the current Civic 2.0 model. It will also be with the 2008 Civic 2.0 and the upcoming all-new Honda Accord. I hope this technology will also find its way to the Kompressor models of Mercedes Benz.

Basta ako, the 200C Kompressor is still my dream car!

SWEET AND SOUR CRABS Last Monday morning, the wife asked me to prepare some crab dishes based on a recipe’ that she has found in one of our cookbooks. It called for some flour, some corn starch and some leeks. When I opened the cupboard, all these were nowhere to be found. I had to improvise and make something out of the crabs.

I found two small pouches of sweet pizza sauce in the cupboard and so I decided at once to make some sweet and sour

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crabs. I made sure that ordinary white sugar was available.

I divided each crab into four pieces, after taking off the shells and the appendages. I set the sipit aside for crab soup.

In my non-stick wok, I put the sweet pizza sauce, added half cup of water and a large amount of sliced garlic. A generous amount of sugar came next and the whole mixture came to a boil.

Then the crab pieces came next which was left to boil under slow fire for some five minutes, since the crabs were pre-cooked in boiling salted water. I did not have any leeks so I left it at that.

I cracked all the crab sipit with my cleaver and boiled them in five glasses of water. A little salt and some sugar made a savory soup that went well with the sweet and sour crabs. I could have added an egg or two to the crab soup, but this, too, was not in the fridge. I have not gone to Makro for quite sometime now.

This is the place where I usually buy eggs by thirty-piece tray.

You guessed it. We had another hearty meal and when the brood was done, only three small pieces of crabs were left – good evidence that the dish made it to the grade.

Monday was declared a holiday to commemorate the EDSA 1 anniversary. That’s why I could spend some time in the kitchen. I still recall that during the EDSA days, the wife was still heavy with our panganay who was born to the world a few months after EDSA. The wife and I went to EDSA in the afternoon of the 24th of February 1986. I had to park my jeep somewhere near G. Tuazon in Cubao since the whole highway was packed with people. We

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walked from Cubao to the Ortigas area and spent some time with the crowd. We lingered around until sundown and walked back towards Cubao for the trip back home.

The day after was history. People power came into being.

TERMINAL MAN I was early to the office last Tuesday morning and I was surprised to find PA Valisno on her desk. She was supposed to have left for the trip to Bangkok on Monday night.

She thanked me for the paper that I drafted for her keynote speech at the conference of school superintendents the day before.

She decided not to proceed with her trip to Thailand upon better advice, although Dr. PeĂąa was on his way.

Just back from a trip to Seoul, she had some chocolate pasalubong for me, as always, and she expressed her apprehension about Dr. PeĂąa who had a problem with his expired passport.

Apparently, he was able to board his plane upon the intercession of PA Valisno and he made it to Dom Muang Airport. Then he had another problem. The Thai immigration authorities would not allow him to get into the country because of that expired passport. So he had to do a Tom Hanks.

I sent him a text message last Tuesday morning to find out how he was doing. Sure enough, he said that for that Sunday night he really became a terminal man like Tom Hanks.

Lucky enough, the Philippine Embassy in Thailand came to

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his rescue and issued him a new passport, thus saving him from growing a beard and surviving on airport food.

I sure hope that he made it to the World Bank sponsored conference so that we may profit from the materials that he can take home. There must be a lot to learn from the conference.

Somewhat luckier than Dr. PeĂąa, I have not had such unnerving experience in any of my travels abroad. I remember that probably the worst that has happened to me, so far, was when I went to Dacca for a conference on self-employment.

I am not sure what happened but my connecting flight to Dacca from Bangkok was supposed to be on the same day. When I made it to Bangkok, I found out soon enough that the flight was actually the day after. So I had to find myself a place to spend the night and made sure that I make it back to the airport early morning the next day. Luckily, I did.

When I was on my flight back to Bangkok from Dacca, I lost my luggage. Again I was lucky that baggage people at the Bangkok airport helped me look for it and found it among the luggage destined for Manila. Muntik na akong maunahan ng bagahe ko.

A little prayer always goes a long, long way.

SMART MOVES, #4 Last issue, I mentioned that I have spoken in public so many times and I can say that, by now, I have gained a large measure of confidence in front of any audience, local or foreign.

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Practice really makes perfect. By the time I got my first job as a college instructor in 1971, I began speaking to an audience.

When I became a division chief in 1977 and a director in 1986, the opportunities for public speaking multiplied tenfold.

Nevertheless, here are some tips from the book that all of us can use to gain confidence as a public speaker.

Whether we admit it or not, all public speakers experience some amount of “podium anxiety” or “stage fright” as it is more commonly called. I still have some of this, but I have learned a few tricks here and there to take care of my anxiety.

Bear in mind that your audiences are rarely hostile, so don’t mind the little butterflies in your stomach. I find it best to always think that I know the topic better than anyone in the audience.

This always works for me, although such may not necessarily be true.

It is also good to have a good feel of your audience. The more you know about your audience, the better. The more you know about your topic, the better. So prepare, prepare, prepare.

I have found myself, on many occasions, being asked to speak before an audience without any preliminaries. No preparations. But stock knowledge has always saved my day. Mr. Siddiqui, my “ninong” in ILO Bangkok (in the old days) taught me how to make use of my “mango tree” during times like these.

(More of this later.)

Find a way to use reassuring notes, including your “choreography”, reminding yourself when to pause, when to emphasize an important point, when to make a gesture.

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If possible, find some time to familiarize yourself with the room, perhaps even the lectern. This may be the best place to practice your speech, if you can.

Establish eye contact with some friendly faces, especially those whom you know personally or those who communicate their support or agreement with you non-verbally.

As much as possible, use natural humor, more than planned jokes that may fail. You are the easiest subject to get your audience to laugh spontaneously. However, if you want to tell a joke, be sure that it has neither ethnic nor sexist tones that can offend people.

Remember, don’t take yourself too seriously by overestimating the importance of your speech in the scheme of things. Relax lang!

QUICK FIXES, #10 You can be the self-confident person you want to be if you can do what the parent that you always wanted to have does.

Give yourself unconditional love. You may not like some things about yourself but you have to love yourself, no matter what. It’s not being vain. It’s just that you are the one person in your life that you have to live with. Accept yourself unconditionally.

Give yourself praise and encouragement. When you do something you like, let yourself know it. Let it stick in your consciousness so that your self-respect goes to a high gear.

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Set rules so that you avoid certain behaviors or actions that get you into trouble. Rather than “do not” rules, adopt “do” rules that instill in you a healthy and self-confident life.

Teach yourself skills through self-help or how-to books, by watching others or getting training. Be able. Be independent.

Learn social skills, the rules of social interaction which are based on consideration, kindness and interest in others.

09 MAR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 07 MANGO TREE

He called it “your mango tree” but I don’t really know the basis for the particular choice of a tree. Be that as it may, the whole concept works for me and I am sure it will also work for you.

We were having some idle talk and I said I often have some difficulty speaking before an audience especially when I don’t have a high degree of familiarity with the subject matter. This was during a lull in our conference on self-employment in Pattaya, Thailand, again sponsored by ILO Bangkok.

Mr. Siddiqui, my Bangladeshi “ninong” in ILO Bangkok was listening intently and he said, “The trick is to stick to your mango tree and you won’t have any problem speaking before people, no matter how long it may take.”

I was a bit lost so he went on, “Your mango tree is your field of expertise. You are with the employment service so you can

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talk about employment and everything that goes with it for as long as you want. And you can’t go wrong.”

“For instance,” he continued, “let’s say you are asked to talk to nuclear physicists. You will have to start with some general statements about nuclear physics, say something about science, in general, then say finally that science, like nuclear physics, has created so much employment in the world. There is your mango tree and you can now comfortably discuss your field of interest.”

There have been a lot of occasions where I used that trick and it always worked for me. It’s a small lesson that I learned in Pattaya, one of the original resort towns of Thailand. When I first visited the place in 1977 it was like Olongapo, except that it was probably even wilder. A young lad like me, thirsting for adventure, really had a grand time in that place.

Pattaya was the sin capital of Thailand, similar to Pat Phong of Bangkok where girls with skimpy bikinis were everywhere to be found. And all of them were possibly there to be had.

The next time I visited the place ten short years after, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It became a bustling metropolis with high rise buildings, modern transport systems and fun places.

Of course, the girls with skimpy bikinis were still around.

COMING OF AGE Like me, he is also a Pisces guy, so he must have some of me.

He came of age last week when he became 18, thus officially shedding off his “minor” status. Jeryc has now reached majority

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age although he is probably not quite ready to face the world on his own. That statement, of course, is always debatable.

He was born on the last day of February, not on a leap year though, and he came to the world as a bubbly baby. He is a fine-looking boy but even at about three years old, he couldn’t say a word. Not a single oh! or ah! So the wife and I got a bit worried.

We consulted a speech therapist who assured us that nothing is the matter. It was just a simple case of delayed development.

The therapist advised us to continue talking to him even if we don’t get any audible response, so long as we get some visible response.

After several weeks we got the surprise of our life – he began to speak a few words, not baby talk but real words. And for him and us, the world was never the same again.

The wife was also concerned about his height because even in his early teens Jeryc was one of the smallest boys in his class.

He was not even five feet tall and his class pictures easily show that he can be the favorite of the class bully.

My elder son was already more than five feet tall when he went to Philippine Science High School. And that’s why the wife thought that the bunso’ did not get any height genes from me.

But it turned out that he did. When he went to college two years ago he was almost as tall as my elder son, and, of course, a lot taller than the wife, although a few inches shorter than me.

Now the wife is concerned about his hair – which is straight

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and more than shoulder length. Maybe the long hair goes with his fascination for playing the keyboard, another skill that was apparently latent a few years back. He exhibited no interest in music or musical instruments until he got out of secondary school.

One day he surprised us with a request – he wanted us to buy him a keyboard, a Kurg synthesizer, in fact, which cost a small fortune. He now plays music, although, sadly for us, it is the music of his generation. Well, it’s not the age of the Beatles anymore. It is the age of anime’.

He is also busy practicing his guitar skills. We got him an electric guitar with a small amplifier to practice on. The wife is preparing for the worst – he may wake up one day and say that he wants a set of drums.

Not a bad idea for a one-man band!

FOOD SIGNATURES He has probably shared this with many others but I would like to share it with more people because they make sense.

Johnny of CAO has sent me an article about food signatures.

For instance, you will notice that a sliced carrot resembles the human eye, all with the pupils, the iris and the radiating lines. It is not surprising that science has shown that carrots enhance blood flow to the eyes and improve our eyesight.

The tomato is red and has four chambers, like the human heart. Research has shown that tomatoes are heart and blood food. The same thing with grapes which hang in a cluster that

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resembles the heart and each grape looks like a blood cell. Like tomatoes, grapes are also heart and blood vitalizing food.

I am sure you have noticed that a walnut looks like our brain, complete with left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrum and lower cerebellum. It is no wonder that walnuts help develop over three dozen neuro-transmitters for efficient brain functioning.

Kidney beans which look exactly like human kidneys are known to actually heal and help maintain kidney functions.

Celery, bok choy and rhubarb (the last two are not familiar to me) look like bones of the human body. They consist of 23% sodium, similar to bone composition which is also 23% sodium.

When our diet lacks sodium, the body uses the sodium in our bones and they become weak. Celery, bok choy and rhubarb replenish the sodium requirements of our bones.

Eggplants, avocadoes and pears are good for the female womb and cervix and they, in fact, resemble these organs. Eating just one avocado a week balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancer. Olives are also known to assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. (The only fig I know is Fig Newton’s.) They increase the motility of male sperms and the number of sperms to overcome male sterility. On the other hand, sweet potatoes look like the pancreas.

They actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Grapefruits, oranges and other citrus fruits look like female mammary glands and they promote the health of the breast and the movement of lymph in and out of the breast.

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Finally, onions look like body cells. In fact, they clear waste materials from all our body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of our eyes.

SMART MOVES, #5 In one earlier issue, I wrote about upward delegation, something which some middle managers resort to when they have not acquired a certain level of self-confidence.

While managers normally frown at upward delegation, there are actually practical benefits to management in increasing upward communication. Very often, only the good news reaches the boss. However, we must tell our employees that the only bad news is the news that is not communicated upward.

Managers should also practice MBWA – management by walking around. When you do this, just ask questions and listen.

Don’t talk too much.

Declare an “open-door” policy and follow it so that employees know that they can come and see you if they have any concern. But don’t “kill” the bearer of bad news by reacting violently.

If possible, arrange for periodic informal gatherings, like those that we call “team-building.” These are times when people can be more open and tell us things that they would not say in the office.

Solicit regular status reports during staff meetings but don’t be too judgmental about these reports.

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Of course, people will appreciate you if you can laugh at yourself and even at your mistakes. It always works if you apologize if you’ve done something to hurt an employee.

To be more human is to be more approachable.

QUICK FIXES, #11 Jealousy and envy are cousins. In fact these words are often used interchangeably. Both have negative connotations and are often associated with discomfort or uncomfortable emotions.

They are actually symptoms of poor self-esteem.

They are also based on unrealistic thinking. There are realities that we need to consider when we feel jealous or envious.

Only you can make yourself happy. No one else can bring you happiness. Although you may feel happier with certain people, your happiness does not really depend on their presence.

What one person does or does not do will not ensure your happiness. People do things for themselves, not so much against you. If they show interest in someone else they are not doing anything to harm you.

All persons can and do love more than one person, but love can mean differently to different people. Besides, you cannot always be number one. If someone loves you completely, you will not get all the attention all of the time.

Realize that love is boundless. There is more than enough to go around. Also, it is a fact of life that no one does everything

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well. When someone speaks eloquently, it doesn’t mean that you are a lesser person if you can’t. It’s called individual differences.

16 MAR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 08 STRANDED

Her email really sounded urgent, and it was supposed to have been sent from Nigeria where she was stranded. Evelyn, the wife’s cousin who works with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, said she was attending a conference in three African countries when she left her small bag containing all her valuables, including her passport, in a taxi.

The conference, which was all about “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education”, went from Ghana to South Africa and finally to Nigeria where misfortune befell her. She could not pay for her lodging and board and the hotel management was demanding that she cough up the money soon or else she will find herself sleeping on the pavement.

She said she needed $1,250 for food and airfare and $950 for hotel bills. If I could send her $2,300 through Money Gram or Western Union, she will appreciate it and promised to pay it back as soon as she’s back in Manila.

Her story sounded good, but some things were bothering me.

In the first place, where in the world will I get $2,300 which is almost P100,000 by today’s reckoning? In the second place, I began to wonder why she sent me such a message instead of sending it to someone in the family.

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Also, I noted that she began her message by asking me how I was doing. Wow! With all her troubles in that part of the world, she was concerned about how I was doing! I thought there was something not quite right.

She calls me Kuya Cliff, but her message did not have any salutation. She signed her message with her full name, not with her nickname, which is another piece of the puzzle.

I called the wife immediately and asked her to give Evelyn a call to validate the story. Someone at the other end of the line, possibly her secretary, said that Evelyn was in a meeting.

“Tungkol ho ba sa email na galing sa Nigeria?” she asked all of a sudden.

And she recounted how Evelyn’s Hotmail address was hacked, how someone else seems to have used her address to send the “urgent” message requesting for thousands of dollars.

Scam pala!

Evelyn informed me that she has not been able to open her emails since. She also said that the same message may have been sent to all her contacts. She didn’t say if anyone sent any money.

Beware! Someday you may be stranded somewhere in Africa!

DOCUMENTARY? A few nights ago, I found my younger son on the PC, intensely viewing what seemed to me like a movie. Then I overheard something about war, the Al Queda, President Bush, the oil cartels.

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These caught my interest and I momentarily joined him in viewing what seemed like a documentary. It was actually in the style of Michael Moore, some kind of investigative journalism.

I asked him to make me a copy in my 4GB flash disk the following morning so that I can have my own fill. My elder son warned me that the first episode is rather disturbing.

The film is titled “Zeitgeist”, a German-sounding name which literally means “time spirit” or spirit of the age. It had three episodes, the first not clearly related to the first two, possibly.

The first is about Jesus Christ – a story which the filmmakers claim as plagiarism, something copied from an original. The story of the life and death of the Christ was supposed to have been based on the original tale of the Egyptian god Horus, the Sun God. Based on hieroglyphics, Horus was born of a virgin on December 25, adorned by three kings, had 12 disciples, performed miracles, was crucified and resurrected on the third day. Like the story of Christ.

Such story was replicated in other lands, like Attis of Greece in 1200 BC, Krishna of India in 900 BC, Mithra of Persia in 1200 BC and Dionysus of Greece, again, in 500 BC, among others.

The second episode touched on the “story” of 9/11, New York’s World Trade Center which crumbled into a pile of dust and rubble after being hit by hijacked planes. The film says that this “story” is not the real story – the whole incident was stage-managed and part of a grand plan. You have to see the film to appreciate it.

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The real story of “terrorism”, the world wars and the Middle East conflicts is the last part. The film indicts the ruling class in the US, including the Bush family for staging the wars to further their business profits. Puro negosyo lang daw lahat!

The second and last episodes didn’t seem to register with my son – unlike the first which seemed to have hit him like thunder.

It looked like he has taken the story hook, line and sinker. “Ayaw ko ng magsimba”, was his concluding remark, unfortunately.

My son’s faith is not yet that strong, apparently. He must realize that the story of the life of Jesus Christ is the “modern” version of the life of Horus. Christianity, like other beliefs, is a way of life, a way to live in commune with nature and our fellowmen.

TELEVISION TO GO It is possible to watch all the local channels on TV and the reception is quite good, depending on the antenna used. No, this is not cell phone TV, but laptop TV using the USB port.

I bought it at CDR-King for a hefty sum, P1,580, but I guess it was worth it. I can now watch Eat Bulaga on my laptop wherever I am. My laptop does not even consume as much power as a TV set.

As soon as the software was installed, it immediately worked with only a copper wire for an antenna. The USB type can be used in any laptop or PC with a USB port, provided that its operating system is Windows. It doesn’t work with Linux in my mini laptop.

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The laptop to TV converter is a lot cheaper than a regular color TV set. Also, you don’t have to lug along a TV set to watch Marimar or Joaquin Bordado. You can even minimize the TV image so you can continue working in your laptop, if you want.

The converter comes with an RCA interface so you can connect a video camera or your Magic Sing. This is another instance of full convergence of TV, computer, camera, cell phone, printer, etc.

You can also record a TV program and view it later, if you don’t want real-time viewing. You can also take snap shots like a camera does. Just freeze the picture and file it in your hard disk.

I certainly got my money’s worth.

SMART MOVES, #6 Let’s have a few lessons on confusion, or to be more precise, words that tend to confuse and used erroneously. This will at least clear up some confusion as we do our daily write-ups.

The simple three-letter words “can” and “may” are most commonly used in a wrong way. For instance, you can say, “Can I call you?” A good answer maybe, “Yes, you can, but you may not.” The word “can” refers to ability and “may” refers to permission.

“Further” and “farther” are words that are often interchanged. When referring to distance, use “farther” but when time or quantity is the object, use “further” as in, “We pursued the topic further.” But say, “We walked farther than expected.”

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The book says the word “irregardless” is incorrect, although you can still find this word in the six-inch thick Webster with the comment that the word is archaic. Some people still use the word, but I’m glad that it is not part of my vocabulary.

I hope you do not have any problem with the words “principal” and “principle”, although some may do. When used as a noun, “principal” may refer to a school official, or to the original amount of money before interest. When used as an adjective, it means “of primary importance”. “Principle,” on the other hand, refers to a fundamental truth, like a set of ethical principles.

Another set of difficult three-letter words is “lay” and “lie”, lalo na when these are used as verbs. Of course, you never say, “tell a lay”, when referring to falsehood. You lie down but you don’t lie an egg. The confusion comes when you use the past tense of “lie” which is actually “lay.” Magulo talaga!

Someday you will have to use the word “disinterested” which does not mean “uninterested”. It actually means “impartial” and “uninterested” simply means “not interested.”

“Oral” and “verbal” are words that are commonly attached to the word “agreement.” The book says that the more appropriate term is “oral agreement” referring to a contract that is not consummated in writing.

This last one is tricky. The book says that a team “comprises” the people who work on it, but people do not “comprise” a team; they “constitute” the team. Ah, ewan!

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QUICK FIXES, #12 Here’s one last piece from the book, dealing with anger, or how to handle our own anger, a part of our humanness, whether we admit it or not.

Like other emotions, anger is supposed to benefit us when we know how to use it to our advantage. Many of us have opted to deny our anger so we end up repressing it, almost automatically. We may say that we never get mad, hiding anger from ourselves and ending up dealing with it in a destructive way.

Pushing anger away is not to our best interest simply because it will manifest itself in some other ways. You may say that you are not angry, but watch out, you may tend to backbite.

Also, repressing anger often leads to migraines, ulcers, colitis, arthritis, high blood pressure or asthma. You may easily find fault, become sarcastic or be pointedly silent. You may become a nitpicker, a nag, a malicious gossiper, a blamer or a cynic. Look at all what you may become if you push away your anger – all these come out in decidedly unattractive ways.

If you do not recognize your anger and take care of it as it happens, there are other dangers. It may become displaced anger when you end up taking out your anger on an innocent person.

When you feel like killing the boss, you shout at your children instead. When traffic gets the better of you, you kick the dog when you finally get home. Ganyan ka ba?

You end up causing yourself more unpleasantness and difficulty

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because you spread your anger around. They will ask, “ano kaya ang nakain niya?” Kaya, it’s better not to hide it.

23 MAR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 09 ONE TIME

The Holy Week respite gave us the opportunity to take a few days trip outside the metropolis. Also, I became one year shy of senior citizenship last Maundy Thursday.

A kumpare of mine offered us a place in Rosario, Batangas to spend the nights in. It is about twenty minutes away from the alluring beaches of San Juan. This was possibly our fourth or fifth visit to San Juan but we always find something new.

For instance, this time took us to a place called Sa Masa and the name sounded like it looked. It was not really much of a resort but it was far from the beaten track. And that made it fun.

At first we tried to get us some space in the resorts near the Kabayan Resort, a place we went to a year ago. It was just about nine in the morning but the resorts were bursting to the seams.

Everyone seemed to have gotten there on Thursday and so we did not get there on time since we trekked to the beach on Good Friday.

The boys offering alternative places painted the rosiest of pictures for us – beachfront huts with beds, comfort room with running water, a kitchen and an electric fan – all for P700, if we don’t stay overnight. So we called it a deal.

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The one-lane road to the resort, or what appeared to be a road, was really bumpy and extended for more than a kilometer.

It took us about a liter of gasoline to reach the place. And we had to waste another liter to get out of the place, if the sales pitch turned out to be a dud. And it was, actually intended to be a one-time operation.

The wife had to settle for the steep price of P1,500 for one kubo’, good for ten persons. We had a place to cook meals, but it was no kitchen. We had some place to lie down but it was no bed.

There are comfort rooms and showers but these were for everyone. The electric fan turned out to be the cool breeze all around.

It was another experience of a lifetime, in spite of the broken promises. The water was fine, until the tide ebbed, and the water fun was gone. I was able to use my fishing line, but I failed to notice the bakawan in the water. My hook and sinker snapped when they got caught up in one of them. That ended my fishing expedition.

A new place, a new experience. Broadening, indeed!

DOCUMENTARY? #2 The second part of the Zeitgeist film deals with 9/11, which is supposed to be the trigger for the anti-terrorism campaign all over the world. Hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11 and both towers crumbled to the ground in a heap of debris. I should have said three, because three buildings, including Building 7 of the World Trade Center came down that day.

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The film says many things were left unexplained by authorities on that fateful day. For one, the buildings collapsed into a pile of dust like an old building that is purposely dynamited and blown up by a demolition team. The towers came down in exactly the same manner, the concrete walls pulverized and the steel beams melted.

Investigators found traces of thermite, an explosive incendiary used to bring down old buildings through controlled demolition. Based on studies, about ten floors came down per second, rather too fast for a “normal” fall, considering that there are 47 steel columns supporting the building floors.

In fact, many witnesses reported bomb explosions in the basement floors even before the first plane hit the building.

Photos taken while the floors were crumbling down seemed to show some explosions on the lower floors of the building.

According to some independent investigators, 9/11 is an Inside Job perpetrated by “criminal elements” within the US Government. It “was a ‘false flag’ terror attack on its own citizens to manipulate public perception into supporting its agenda.”

They further stated that “9/11 was an operation intended to authorize funds needed for a new level of imperial mobilization.”

It is said that since that fateful day military spending in the US has increased by 100 billion dollars a year. Malaking kita!

As confirmed by the PNP, the Philippines shared information with the US on documents captured from terrorist lairs, particularly about their plans to board and hijack commercial planes which they will dive at the CIA Headquarters, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. In fact, it is said that at

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least 12 other countries warned the US of this imminent attack.

All disregarded!

It is also surprising that the names of the supposed hijackers were not in the planes’ manifest. It even turned out that the rentals for their houses and cars were paid for by the US government! To top it all, it was established that at least six of the supposed hijackers have been found alive!

MINI LAPTOP I was waiting in line at CD-R King sometime ago when this young lad, who was buying an SD Card tried it on his mini-laptop, the size of a regular book, about an inch and a half thick.

Ever curious, I asked him about the laptop’s configuration.

He said it’s not really much – 512 Mb memory, 4 Gig hard disk, with Wi-fi capability, and Linux operating system.

The price was a bit steep, as he said P18,000, but he paid with his card, for 12 months at zero interest. Of course, zero interest is simply a figment of his imagination.

But these were enough for me to start the search for a store with such an offer. And the search did not really last long.

I was really on my way to get a laptop-to-TV converter when I stumbled upon the ASUS mini-laptop at Silicon Valley in SM City Hall. It carried a price tag of P15,999 with a “free” 4 Gig flash disk to compensate for the 2 Gig hard disk on board.

The small hard disk capacity worried me a bit, as I intended

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to install a Windows operating system like the guy I met at CD-R King did. The salesperson assured me that I will like the Linux on board since it works much like Windows. And it really does!

Besides, since Linux is considered “open source” there is no problem with licensing, not like Windows which is subject to intellectual property matters. So I went for the imagined zero interest deal, payable in six months.

The software has its own version of Microsoft Office – called OpenOffice with components similar to Word, Powerpoint, and Excel as well as a pdf file reader similar to Acrobat. It has its own music player, video player and movie player, although you can only store movies in a flask disk or in an SD card.

Best of all, it has on-board games, including Solitaire and Frozen Bubbles, something which keeps the wife wide awake till the wee hours of the night.

I have purchased a 1Gb SD card where I save my files. The Wifi capability is its features that I like most. “Free” Internet!

SMART MOVES, #7 It’s graduation time, speech-writing time and speech delivery time. Let’s look at some powerful speech openers.

We can begin by asking a rhetorical question. “How many of you are satisfied with your efforts to get people to listen to you?”

A strong, surprising or ironic statement can also make a good opener, something like – “Everything that you have been told about the theory of relativity is wrong!”

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We can also quote a startling statistic – the number one fear in all our life is speaking before an audience. Or we can say that the Philippines is the least corrupt country in these parts – but be prepared for rotten tomatoes flying around.

If you want, you can also disclose something about yourself – some small “secrets” – or just mention that your speech will summarize what has happened to your life in the last five years.

It’s also good to quote a pithy aphorism – a brief saying – that will be the thesis of your speech, like “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”

If you want to be a bit dramatic, startle your audience with a visual act, something that they will be surprised to see, or an aural surprise, something like loud music.

You can also refer to a current event that has everyone’s attention, especially if you can relate the event to the topic of your speech. You will be off to a good start if you can do this.

Finally, you can ask the person who will introduce you to say some hard-hitting statements about you. Better still, such statement should be laced with a lot of humor.

FEELING TOPS-PLUS Eighty-eight, the bookshop where I bought it no longer exists.

The book cost me P25 but the nuggets – guides to choosing happiness – that I got from it are priceless.

The author, Robert Lee Bauer, says that there is abundant

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happiness inside all of us. And we can release it by choosing to do so. He writes about methods to activate the power to choose.

The first key to happiness is perspective – that’s what the author says. It is the judgment of facts and circumstances in relation to their importance. What will make you the happiest person on Earth? Your answer will be quite revealing.

You may want to write down everything that you desire in life – then imagine that you have had all of them for quite some time. What new goals and desires will you add to your list? If there is nothing to add to your list, what will sustain your enthusiasm for life? What will you have to look forward to? Baka wala na!

Are the things on your list mostly material items? Are they dependent on the action of other people? You need to realize that we can only control ourselves – remember the 10% under your control and the 90% which are not – and it’s really far better that way so that spontaneity will add sparkle in your life.

The importance that you place on things will take on a different light when you see what others are going through. If you knew, for instance, that you have only two more years to live, you can still cheer up someone who has only six months to live.

The main thing, according to Mr. Bauer, is that you do what makes you happy in perspective to your own likes, needs, resources and so on. Learn what really makes you happy.

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30 MAR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 10 NASIMOT

It is one of her favorite “pampabata” recipes, one pork leg, cooked in a pressure cooker until tender and finally made crispy in a turbo broiler – crispy pata. The dip is Del Monte vinegar with light soy sauce and some chopped red onions – the traditional way to “neutralize” the fat content.

But, neutralized or not, crispy pata is best taken once a month, and ideally in moderation. Last Saturday’s dinner was the “once-a-month” schedule and the brood had a feast, all with fresh Romaine leaves dipped in the same concoction of vinegar and soy sauce but without the onions.

Today’s lunch was somewhat different, although of the same material – recycled crispy pata. I found out that there was still some skin, flesh and cartilage left from the other night’s dinner so I made something out of it.

I separated the knuckles from the leg bones and put them all in the pressure cooker all over again, this time with a lot of broth, some sliced onion and one small pack of Magic Mix. I simply brought the whole thing to a boil for some twenty minutes.

After the pressure is released I let the broth continue to boil under slow fire. I put in some diced potatoes, a few sliced leaves of Baguio pechay and some roughly ground black pepper. You can be sure it is a mouth-watering dish, if you are not vegetarian.

My mother-in-law was around for lunch and she said that the

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dish was the best way to “simot” the crispy pata. Like the wife and my younger son, my biyenan is also a true-blue carnivore.

We were not the only ones who enjoyed the second dish from the crispy pata. Wacky and Rex, our dogs, also enjoyed every minute of taking care of the bones which were somewhat “softened” by going through pressure cooking twice. They consumed everything that was left of the bones. The pig leg was really hundred percent consumed, flesh and bones and cartilages.

I am not really sure how much more plaque has built up in our arteries. There must be a way to wash out these plaques so that we do not end up with clogged vessels and more health hazards.

Anyhow, nothing of the pata was really wasted.

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE It must have really been planned because this is the second time that I had to have the plastic gear of my Singer sewing machine changed. I had to shell out P900 again, otherwise, the machine will just lie unused all the rest of its days.

It took some years from the time I bought the machine before that gear finally gave way. And it took some time before I could find someone who can replace that worn-out gear.

Come to think of it, I bought that sewing machine because it’s a Singer, expecting it to last a lifetime and to be reliable. Of course, it turned out not to be so, even if it’s a Singer.

My sewing machine is the atras-abante model, where I can

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do zigzags and even button holes. It comes with its own electric motor which I have learned to use very conveniently.

I learned how to sew from my mom’s manual machine, an ancient sewing machine which has seen more than four decades of service. But it has no plastic parts and the metal gears have not been worn out in spite of their advanced years of use.

When my mom’s machine was made, planned obsolescence was possibly not yet in vogue. Machines were really designed and manufactured to last a lifetime.

The Singer guys must have eventually caught up with the idea of planned obsolescence – some vital parts or components of a machine are programmed to conk out or wear out at a certain time. You will then need to replace such components or parts.

Worse comes to worst, you will have to say goodbye to the machine by calling your local magbabakal. These are the days of throw-aways.

I have planned to get the offending gears to the Batangas Regional Training Center, possibly to have them replicated from aluminum or steel using the CNC lathe machine. I am not sure, though, whether, the center has achieved that level of competence. I am equally unsure whether the CNC machines are still working.

Of course, another option is to stock up on these parts – kaya lang, I don’t really know where to get them.

RICE SHORTAGE? Should you consider me lucky because I was able to buy four

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5-kilo bags of rice at P32 per kilo? Maybe, because the bags were the last in the stock of Galleria Supermarket last Friday, according to the stock clerk who was around.

Rice supply in the supermarket was rather abundant, but most of the variety cost more than P35 per kilo. It is not even surprising to see P40-per-kilo rice from Thailand or Vietnam.

It looks like we woke up one day and we found out that suddenly there is rice shortage. I was rather surprised about these developments because I wrote about the rice situation some issues ago, saying that government is on its way to ensure rice self-sufficiency in the country. Ano ba talaga ang nangyari?

A few days ago I read one columnist in a popular daily who said that something smells in all of these. With the story of rice shortage hugging all the headlines, it becomes quite natural to expect government intervention – rice importation.

The columnist was saying that government importation seems tinted again by some kind of corruption. Someone somewhere is making sums of money. It is said that government is paying more than $700 per metric ton of Vietnam rice. He cites that price quotations for Vietnam rice that are posted in the Internet go for just more than $400 per metric ton.

Mahina ako sa arithmetic, but I can clearly see the difference between $700 and $400 – kung totoo ang sinasabi ng columnist.

On the other hand, what else is new?

In the old days, people were saying that someone at the Department of Agriculture made $1 per kilo of imported rice. So

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if we were then importing millions of kilos of rice, someone was making millions of pesos. Sabi ko nga, what else is new?

Meanwhile, should we get ready for P60 per kilo rice?

SMART MOVES, #8 In any organization, strife or differences between and among people is commonplace. There are a number of reasons for such organizational strife.

One of them is prejudice or bias – which we often refer to as differences of “personalities.” One person “differs” with another simply on the basis of how he or she feels about that person.

Another is nastiness or, more precisely, stubbornness. Laging naghahanap ng away – these are people who go through life with a chip on their shoulder – always looking for trouble.

Balat-sibuyas, oversensitivity to criticism, is another. Some people easily feel hurt by others’ remarks because of low self-esteem, insecurity or conflict in their lives.

Sometimes conflicts result from varying ways different people view the world. Incongruent views can be traced to differences in upbringing, culture, race, experience, education, socio-economic status and other environmental factors. Siguro there is really not much that we can do about this.

Kung minsan naman, it’s just a matter of differences over facts, especially if such facts cannot be quantified or documented.

For instance, when someone says, “It is a fact that you are

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insensitive to my feelings,” how can we quarrel with that?

Siguradong may quarrel!

Or it can be a simple difference over goals or priorities. Of course, these things cannot be taken for granted, so these differences have to be discussed and threshed out.

A difference over methods can be another source of irritation.

Pareho kayo ng pakay, but you differ in the “how.” Again, these things need to be ironed out immediately before they get blown out of proportion.

Competition for scarce resources can also create a wedge among people, especially in a situation where there are competing goals. Competition can also be for supremacy, when someone tries to outshine another, even for promotion in rank or pay.

If we really look closer, many of the interpersonal conflicts that we see around are caused by breakdown in communication as well as unfulfilled expectations. When expectations are unreasonable, inappropriate, too numerous or unstated, they often go unfulfilled and become endless sources of irritation. So, say what you want – and be realistic about it. Mabuti na yong malinaw kaysa malabo!

FEELING TOPS-PLUS, #2 All of us have goals, whether we admit it or not. Goals, short-term or long-term, are our reasons for living.

We need to decide what goals we want and live towards their attainment. It is best if we can write them down and even

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tell our friends about them. As our needs change through our life, we also change our goals.

It is quite important to consider two things as we set our goals. These should be high enough so that we can extend ourselves fully in life. Also, our goals should be far away enough so that we can reach them by taking small steps.

When we achieve goals by leaps and bounds, the results are often not firm and well established. These results are usually hard on our nerves and our emotions. Rapid changes are not always beneficial. Mabuti pala di ako nanalo sa 6/49!

We actually change very slowly, both in body and in mind, so let us remember this as we set our goals in life. The higher our goal, the further away, in time, it should be set.

However, we also need to set short-term goals so that we get a sense of accomplishment, reassurance and confidence as we work on our bigger goals.

Many people restrict their goals to financial and materialistic things. We should also set goals that will allow us to extend ourselves emotionally and mentally.

06 APR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 11 BLUE LAGOON

The trip took longer than expected – all of six and a half hours from our place in Novaliches. Being a Saturday, yesterday was MMDA’s schedule to re-block or re-cement one portion of

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EDSA near the Ortigas area, leaving just two lanes of the normally six-lane Highway 54.

I half suspected that something was amiss in that main artery because on Saturday mornings traffic is usually light. It took us some forty-five minutes to traverse the distance between the Kamuning fly-over to the Ortigas interchange, a distance which should not take more than five minutes.

Iyon ang unang penitensiya.

The trip to the South Expressway was uneventful except for the usual heavy volume of city people trekking to the south for a swim in the beaches of Batangas or in the pools of Los Baños. We were part of that volume, anyway.

The second was worse. When we reached Sto. Tomas in Batangas, supposedly a few minutes or about an hour away from San Pablo City, we got stuck in traffic – for more than two hours.

I was tempted to turn around and head back to anywhere in Batangas but the wife prevailed.

She said she would not miss the opportunity to see the Blue Lagoon, a nice rustic farm resort just a few kilometers past the city.

We missed our lunch and we had to go one meter every few minutes or so – all because San Vicente, a barangay in Sto. Tomas, was celebrating its fiesta! Yon pala! People were having their feast in San Vicente as we were calling high heavens to let us endure our hunger pangs.

At about half past two we made it to Chow King in San Pablo

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City – lunch at last. The spicy beef noodles was really good – lalo na sa gutom na gutom. The kids had fish and tofu and some laureate while the wife preferred the boneless bangus. Our own feast!

We finally made it to the farm at around three and the manager was not really surprised why it took us that long. The coffee brew that was served calmed our nerves and the place was really something to explore.

According to a long-time friend, the property is about 4.5 hectares of hilly terrain. It is owned by a happy, unassuming couple with an unquenchable thirst for adventure. The place is planted mostly to rambutan but the fruit is not yet in season. The best part, for me, is the man-made lagoon, fed by natural spring water with a beautifully manicured landscape.

We were told that the whole place was the handiwork of natives who have made artistic use of rocks, trees, bushes and grass to create a rustic natural effect. We were billeted in an air-con room overlooking the lagoon, with the rhythmic sound of rushing water to mesmerize us. What a nice place to behold.

The long trip was well worth it.

PALAISDAAN I had a strong suspicion that the place is rather far from our point of origin – the Blue Lagoon. Our guide said that the destination for dinner was a short 20-minute drive, though.

The place was actually in the Bay area, possibly overlooking the Laguna Lake. This is probably the reason why the place is

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nicknamed “Kamayan sa Bay.” We settled in a bahay kubo which was on a bamboo raft and floating on a man-made lagoon. The set-up was probably novel in these parts but I’ve seen similar set-ups in Quezon and elsewhere.

I half-expected that the menu would be generally sea food but I was wrong. Our guide ordered grilled spare ribs, some pinakbet Tagalog, gambas, sizzling squid and green mango shake. The wife and I preferred to have some fresh buko.

As expected, the pinakbet Tagalog was quite good, but not as good as my mom’s pinakbet. She overcooks the vegetables and makes sure that the ampalaya is the small and bitter variety.

My mom tops her pinakbet with vegetable oil and crushed chicharon and this makes it lovelier. There were times when she would call me on the phone just to ask me if I want to have lunch with her pinakbet. She does the same thing when she cooks pinapaitan or sinaglaw, made from cow entrails.

Our guide really made sure that we enjoyed dinner. The wife and I sure did but I am not sure whether our boys did too. They were mostly quiet during the entire dinner.

The trip back to the farm was uneventful but all of us looked forward to some restful sleep after our seven hours journey earlier that day. That barangay fiesta in San Vicente has taken its toll.

The packaged air-conditioning in the room did the trick.

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PANDIN LAKE We left the serene and beautiful farm in San Pablo City after partaking breakfast of longganisa, crispy biya’ and some salted fish. Good thing we were given directions on how to make it to Pandin Lake, one of the seven lakes of San Pablo City.

Sampalok Lake is the better known among the seven but we were told that the lakewater is not as pristine since several parks have sprouted around the lake. We were advised to see Pandin Lake instead and enjoy lunch while rafting on its clear waters.

We missed the lady who was supposed to guide us to the lake, which was a good 15-minute trek from the highway. Once again, our mobile phone saved us from wasting more time and after turning back for another kilometer or so we finally saw her.

She was grinning from ear to ear when we stopped by the roadside.

Pandin Lake is a small lake, maybe about 20 hectares, but it boasts of clean, clear water and fresh and cool mountain breeze.

We boarded a bamboo raft together with four ladies carrying wooden oars – they are the oars-ladies of Lake Pandin.

They brought with them our sumptuous lunch – pako salad, ginataang hipon, four pieces of pritong tilapia, adobong manok and some sliced tomatoes and onions in vinegar and soy sauce.

All these came with four servings of rice wrapped in banana leaves.

I could not believe how much food they have prepared for us – everything could feed about a dozen people, not to count the four fresh buko that was delivered by two boys on another raft.

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The wife enjoyed a dip in the cool lake waters, but our two boys just wanted to look around and savor the cool fresh air. We couldn’t really eat much after enjoying the buko juice and meat.

The whole package cost us P1,500 – and the wife probably enjoyed the whole trip because she even gave some tip to the oars-ladies. Of course, she made sure that we will have ready dinner when we get home that evening – pinabalot ang mga tira!

SMART MOVES, #9 Sa mga kagaya ko na mainitin ang ulo – here are eight tips to control anger in yourself. Take a close look and do a lot of practice.

Recognize that an angry exchange of words changes few minds. Often we believe that the fellow who runs out of arguments loses and will change his or her mind. I doubt.

It is also good to become analytical about the behavior of others. Another person’s behavior may look irrational, childish or crazy but that person possibly has good reasons for such behavior. Look for these reasons and you will understand the person better.

It is important to realize that no one can make us angry – we make ourselves angry. We should be in control of our own emotions. If we relinquish this control to others, then we allow others to make us angry.

When you feel angry, recognize that the longer you remain calm and in control, the more likely that you will gain from the experience. Anger always gets in the way of rational thinking.

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This is something that many people don’t do – to be observers of their own life. Evaluate your actions and responses to situations objectively and always try to do better next time.

There is a lot of difference between simply reacting to people and responding to them. Sabi nga, think with your brain, not with your stomach. If someone gets your goat and seems bent to do it as often as possible, the best thing to do is to distance yourself from that person. Iwasan mo na siya kung palagi kang binubuska!

Finally, for me, here’s the best one – when a person earns your rejection, give it! Burn your bridges and build relationships with others who are more open to sharing and camaraderie.

Bakit mo pa ipagpipilitan ang sarili sa ayaw sa iyo?

FEELING TOPS-PLUS, #3 It is not really difficult to admit that you want to be a little happier, di ba? In fact, practically every person wants to be a little happier. The book offers a way to start towards being happier.

There is only one task to accomplish – raising your self-esteem – because it is the ultimate key to happiness. It means self-respect, self-admiration, self-acceptance and self-reliance. But it is definitely not an ego trip.

Akala ko simple lang, but self-esteem is high regard and value for oneself. It is not respect, admiration, acceptance of others, although these are inevitably its ripples. Don’t expect others to respect you if you can’t even respect yourself.

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If you don’t have peace within yourself, your actions are simply bandages on deeper problems. Accept the fact that people make mistakes. If you did something bad, it doesn’t really mean you are bad. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the act was permissible, either.

Look at the good things about you and try to de-emphasize the negative beliefs. It’s difficult to move forward if we don’t get rid of these negative beliefs. They simply serve as yokes or as millstones which burden us as we try to move forward.

Also, throw away perfectionist attitudes and habits – these can only create more anxieties in your life. As they say, kung minsan nasa ibabaw, kung minsan nasa ilalim – we can’t always have the best of both worlds. Permit yourself to be human by allowing yourself some mistakes, accepting your losses and understanding your shortcomings.

13 APR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 12 MUELLE

EDSA was a breeze at half past four on a Friday morning and in barely an hour we were on our way to the South Expressway.

It was a bit of a bother to get up at three in the morning so we can make it to Batangas Pier on or before seven to catch the first trip of the roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) bound for Puerto Galera.

It was our first visit to that piece of paradise in Mindoro Oriental, to savor its beaches, its food and everything else that it has to offer. Without our guide who was in a van ahead of us, it would have been quite difficult for me to find my way in the port

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complex, straight to the Park and Sail facility.

We made it to the pier ten minutes past the appointed time, so our guide, who was supposed to take his van on the ro-ro, missed the vessel. He decided to stay behind for a while to wait for the ro-ro to Calapan and advised us to go ahead and take the motor boat to Muelle. He promised to call some people to take care of us, as soon as we get to the place.

It is the last weekend before the boys go back to school so we took the chance to go to a place we have never been to before. It’s one way of getting rid of all the negative stress associated with work and the daily grind. After the trip to Blue Lagoon and Pandin Lake last week, there is really not much stress left. But just the same, the Puerto Galera trip should produce not just the usual photos but also fond memories to live by.

Muelle is one of the “weather-proof” ports in Puerto Galera, supposedly the place where Spanish galleons were once made. It was a short hour-long boat trip, made shorter by a relatively calm sea and the bright summer sun.

After a five-minute Mindoro, a cute seaside We were shown to our cove. The two boys took swimming pool.

shuttle ride, we made it to Puerto resort with concrete lodging facilities. well-furnished rooms overlooking the a room on the ground floor beside the

When we got settled, we proceeded to the market to hunt for bargains and lunch. Minerva’s Kambingan was recommended but the place had everything except kambing. But the nilagang baka, the ginisang ampalaya and the sinaing na tulingan were good.

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We walked back to Puerto Mindoro to find our guide already waiting for us. He showed us the whole place, including a private den which displayed the works of a true artist. it.

Puerto Mindoro may not really be its namesake, but close to TUKURAN FALLS

It was a short 20-kilometer trip by jeepney through a picturesque two-lane road, sometimes well paved, sometimes bumpy. It was a hilly climb, with a view of the bay from a thousand feet in many points. We reached the drop-off point safely.

The brief stop-over was actually the start of the second leg of the trip – the more exciting part. It was a twenty-minute ride on a carabao-drawn cart along a really bumpy trail, crossing a shallow river at six different points.

It was about noontime so we had to endure the sweltering heat but the experience was more than enough to compensate for the brief discomfort. At one point in the river crossing the carabao suddenly stopped and seemed to fall on its knees. We got worried, but the boy driving the cart assured us that there was nothing wrong – the carabao was simply answering nature’s call.

When we reached our destination I realized that the warning given to us before we left Puerto Mindoro – be ready to get wet – was for real. We had to wade in the foot-deep river to reach our kubo’.

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A deep natural pool where a number of people were taking a swim greeted us. But there was no Tukuran Falls to see. We were told that we had to climb several sections of rocks to see the falls itself. The wife decided that the challenge was too much for her.

My elder son and I climbed three sections of rocks and we were able to get to the falls, but not to the main section of the falls.

I gave up because the noon heat was too much for me and I quickly got some snapshots of my son before we returned to the kubo’.

Lunch was good – inihaw na talong with bagoong na hipon, ginataang tulingan, inihaw na liempo and ripe mangoes and over-ripe pineapples for dessert. You can possibly imagine the fun!

Three foreigners were around to try the carabao-drawn cart ride and go for a cool dip in the natural pool. But it seems that they did not want to have anything to do with lunch. In fact, they left ahead of us taking a ride in a Hummer that is fit for jungle trails. The cart ride was probably too much for them. Di na umulit.

We did not see all of Tukuran Falls, but we had a lot of fun with the cart ride, the refreshing dip in the cool waters and the sumptuous buffet lunch cooked in a nearby charcoal grill.

TAMARAW FALLS Our next destination was Tamaraw Falls, so-called perhaps because of the pride of Mindoro, the well-known tamaraw. It was along the same bumpy road back to Puerto Mindoro. Along the way we had a brief stop at the only hanging bridge in the

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province.

It is actually a pedestrian suspension bridge built during the incumbency of Governor Valencia, spanning both sides of the main river, about three hundred meters wide. It was a place for city folks like us to wonder about and to take more snapshots.

Then we proceeded to the falls for more pictures and for our own eyes to behold. The falls can be seen right on the highway and a concrete bridge has been built in that portion of the road, allowing the water to flow freely to the other side. Two pools have been constructed and bathers need to pay an entrance fee of P20 to take a dip. A fair price for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The wife and the boys seemed too spent to go for another swim so we just decided to take as much shots as we could. My mother-in-law however decided to hunt for some souvenirs.

On the final stage of our return trip to the resort we stopped by the most picturesque portion of the winding road. A makeshift view deck was constructed but everyone was worried that it will give way with too much weight. The view deck was perched on a cliff about a few hundred feet deep. The anxiety created by that rickety view deck diminished our excitement over the scenic wonder.

We made it back to the resort at mid afternoon, enough time to take a refreshing hot shower and a restful nap. We planned a visit to White Beach that night, but we decided to reserve the excitement for the next day.

Everyone had a good night sleep.

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WHITE BEACH Our tireless guide drove us first to Ponderosa, an unusual golf course on top of a mountain. This is one course where you need to really calculate the strength and direction of the wind before you shout “fore”! Even for a non-golfer like me, the challenge really looks formidable but really fun.

The mountain-top golf course has a commanding view of the whole bay area, including White Beach, the reputed Boracay of Mindoro. Two rich and famous guys, National Artist Locsin and Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala, are supposed to own large stretches of land in the bay and beach area. It’s no wonder.

After a short steep downward drive, we finally made it to the road leading to White Beach. There are really no roads reaching the beach, except for a number of meter-wide alleys leading to it.

The beach area was quite organized like Boracay and the restaurants, souvenir shops and even the tattoo shops are generally the formal sector type, although there are a few informal vendors selling native trinkets and the like.

As expected, the wife and my mother-in-law could not resist the temptation. They each got a necklace, a bracelet and a pair of earrings. It’s a good thing that the vendors do not accept credit cards, otherwise we would be in trouble.

The favorite food in White Beach seems to be kebabs – all sorts, shapes and sizes. It was a good thing that the brood just had some breakfast at Puerto Mindoro, so we were able to resist the temptation. The wife simply had some halo-halo but the boys and the biyenan opted to postpone lunch for the mainland.

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White Beach has calm, clean water but the sand is not really white. In fact, it is rather dusty. People, of course, don’t go there for the sand, but for the swim and the fun with friends and family.

The boat ride to Batangas Pier was a bit bumpy but we made it back to the mainland in one piece. Our car was intact where we left it two days ago at the Park and Sail facility – all for the price of P320, a lot cheaper than the Park and Fly facility at the airport.

DOCUMENTARY, #3 This is the third and last segment of the film Zeitgeist. It is entitled “Don’t Mind the Men Behind the Curtain” – referring to an elite group of rich people who really run the economy and determine how people and nations survive.

Benjamin Disraeli, the English statesman, said, “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” In the US these personages are the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Rothschilds.

These are the guys who hatched the idea of a Central Bank, the institution that produces (prints and mints) all the currency of a nation. They control the interest rates and the money supply which is the main determinant of the level of inflation.

Since the Central Bank produces the money, it also loans that money to the entire economy with interest. The value of the dollar, or the peso, for that matter, is determined by the CB by increasing or decreasing the money supply and the rate of interest.

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Every peso is loaned at interest, and the money to pay the loan and the interest also comes from the CB – tubong lugao at walang katapusang utang. Di naman surprising kasi ang buhay ng maraming Pilipino ay walang katapusang utang din.

We are told that we have attained a record high 7.3% GNP. Kaya lang mukhang ang ibig sabihin ng GNP ay Gutom Na Pilipino! Mahigit P30 na ang kilo ng bigas and before we know it, gasoline has breached the P50 per liter level. Ganyan talaga. Let’s just lessen our wants and focus on our needs.

20 APR 08

VOL. 3 NO. 13 KAMOTE

He has confirmed what I have believed in for quite sometime – that kamote is one of the best food that has been disproportionately devalued. In his Star column “As I Wreck This Chair”, Mr. William Esposo expounded on the virtues of this lowly staple that is far more superior than rice.

Mr. Esposo has chosen to digress a little bit from the usual political turmoil and used his space to offer a way out of the rice shortage. However, I suspect that only food freaks like me will heed his call. Mahirap na yata ang mangamote!

According to his findings, kamote exceeds the nutritional and health value of rice. It is definitely far cheaper than rice and it is more filling. Better still, it suppresses hunger much longer.

Certainly, kamote is much easier to grow, with or without fertilizer. That's why we are sometimes told – umuwi ka na lang

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at magtanim ng kamote! The root can be eaten by itself – kahit walang ulam, masarap pa rin! Nilaga, prito, barbeque, inihaw, but the best is baked kamote.

Eating too much rice can make you sick because it converts to sugar – masama sa mga diabetic – but kamote brings you to health. Korean doctors have evidence that kamote lowers blood pressure, bad cholesterol and even blood sugar. Because it is high in fiber, kamote is one of the best foods to prevent cancer.

The first time I visited Seoul some years ago, I noticed that some sidewalk vendors were baking kamote in steel drums.

Koreans probably knew all along that eating kamote is good for the health. Hinding-hindi naman sila nangangamote.

Here's what we get from a 3 ounces (1 medium sized siguro) baked kamote: 90 calories (I don't really know what this means) zero fat, zero saturated fat, zero cholesterol (I know what these mean), 21 gm. carbohydrate, 2 gm. protein, 3 gm. fiber, 36 mg. sodium, 19,218 Intl. Units Vit. A, 6 microgm. folic acid, 1 mg, pantothenic acid, 1 mg. Vit. B6, 20 mg. Vit. C, 1 mg. Vit. E, 38, mg. calcium, 1 mg. manganese, 11,552 microgm. carotenoids and 11mg. potassium. Wow! Let's start substituting rice with kamote!

TICKLED PINK My dad was really tickled pink when he read the piece which I lifted from Jokes of the Day, my favorite joke box in the Internet.

It's the story of Harry, a nice little guy who just entered first grade.

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Harry's teacher, Mrs. Toledo, got somewhat peeved because of the former's insistence that he should be in grade three like his older sister because he says he is in fact smarter that her. This insistence got the better of his teacher so she went to the principal's office to get some advice.

With Harry waiting outside, the two agreed that the principal should ask him some questions and if he does not get them right, he should stay in grade one. And that should be the end of the story, sabi ni principal.

Harry was called in and the principal explained, “I am going to ask you some questions and if you can't answer them correctly you will have to stay in the first grade. And Harry agreed.

“What is 3 x 3?” sabi ni principal. “Nine”, sagot ni Harry.

“6 x6?” “Siyempre 36,” serious na si Harry.

Marami pang tanong ang sumunod from the principal, questions that she thought a third grader should know. Harry got all of them right. But Mrs. Toledo intervened and said, “Ako naman ang magtatanong.”

“What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?

Nag-isip si Harry at sumagot, “_____1______.”

Next question: “What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?” Sagot agad si Harry, “________2_______”.

Next: “What does a dog do that a man steps into?”

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“________3_______”, mabilis na sagot ni Harry.

At this point, the principal could not believe what she was hearing.

Next question: “What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down and a dog does on three legs?”

Madali lang kay Harry, “_________4________.”

Medyo nanginginig na si principal sa mga tanong at sagot.

Finally: “What word starts with an “F” and ends with a “K” that means a lot of heat and excitement?”

Sagot ni Harry, “________5________.”

Nakahinga nang maluwag ang principal at sabi, “Put Harry in Grade 5. I got all the five questions wrong.

Ano ang mga sagot ni Harry? Ano ang mga sagot ni principal?

DOCOMO It's a Japanese cellphone brand that, I think, is not yet available in the Philippines. Kahit yata sa Greenhills.

But somehow I was able to get one, although I could not operate it at first since the battery conked out. I tried some Nokia batteries and it did work. And i saw some of its unique features.

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It has a rather large screen like a personal digital assistant (PDA) although it is not the touch-screen type. It has a sliding mechanism and a second camera for 3G or videophone communication.

Its menu is animated with varied colors. I have not found out what its internal memory is but it has a mini SD card slot to allow expansion of its external memory, possibly up to 2 or 4 gigabytes.

Like most phones of its type, the DOCOMO has the usual camera, which also serves as a video cam, a music player but not an FM radio. It has a barcode reader but I haven't learned how to use it. I am not even sure if it works at this point.

It is also equipped with push-to-talk technology, like many other phone models, but this kind of service is yet to be made available in the country. It has also an answering machine module where you can record your own welcome message for your callers.

I tried to find any shop that can supply the missing charger but the best response that I got was – wala pa pong ganyan sa Pilipinas! I got my ultimate answer in Carriedo St. near the Quiapo Church. For a measly sixty pesos, I was able to get a universal battery charger – it can charge any type of battery of any brand.

With overnight charging I was able to get the battery fully charged and the phone worked well – not really well, because that's when I found out that it was locked to the DOCOMO network. Kaput! No other SIM card worked with it!

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Anyway, I can always use the built-in camera and video cam, then save the file to an on-board mini-SD card for downloading and printing. Kahit paano ay napakinabangan.

Greenhills will someday offer me a salvation.

ON-LINE RECRUITMENT She just wanted to make sure that everything is legitimate so she sought my advice. She responded to an on-line ad for hotel workers in the US of A, particularly at the Metro Hotel in New York.

After filling up an application form via the Internet, she sent this to the US Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization Service thru a innocent-looking email address: usimmigration@mail.org.

She was also asked to furnish a copy to a private email address which is suspicious-looking: Jenny254you@yahoo.com.

Shortly after, she became ecstatic when she received a note of approval plus an Employment Contract Agreement giving her the position of Assistant Restaurant Manager with an offer of $6,400 and above salary per month. Diyos ko, napakahirap bilangin yon!

The contract duration is three years, subject to renewal, a real once-in-a-lifetime offer. What more, the contract comes complete with reimbursement of reasonable expenses for entertainment, travel and similar expenses. To top it all, it includes a yearly 8-week vacation with full pay! Wow! Sino ang makakatanggi?

Then she received an email from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the instruction that she should

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contact an immigration lawyer by email for the issuance of her working permit and Entry Approval Certificate. Ganoon lang kadali.

Finally she received an Immigration and Visa Form which she had to fill up including her photo with the instruction that she should send $350 through Western Union to pay for her screening fees. The payment should be coursed through a certain Mrs. Janete Gomes Correia of Portuguese Guine Bissau.

Dito na siya nagtaka. Where in the world is this place called Portuguese Guine Bissau? Who is Mrs. Janete Gomes Correia?

Biglang nawala ang Metro Hotel at US Immigration sa eksena.

She was not even surprised when I told her that hindi siya nag-iisa. She is luckier because she thought twice before she went to Western Union to do her money transfer transaction.

Otherwise, she will definitely be part of statistics.

FEELING TOPS-PLUS, #3 It is not really difficult to admit that you want to be a little happier, di ba? In fact, practically every person wants to be a little happier. The book offers a way to start towards being happier.

There is only one task to accomplish – raising your self-esteem – because it is the ultimate key to happiness. It means self-respect, self-admiration, self-acceptance and self-reliance. But it is definitely not an ego trip.

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Akala ko simple lang, but self-esteem is high regard and value for oneself. It is not respect, admiration, acceptance of others, although these are inevitably its ripples. Don’t expect others to respect you if you can’t even respect yourself.

If you don’t have peace within yourself, your actions are simply bandages on deeper problems. Accept the fact that people make mistakes. If you did something bad, it doesn’t really mean you are bad. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the act was permissible, either.

Look at the good things about you and try to de-emphasize the negative beliefs. It’s difficult to move forward if we don’t get rid of these negative beliefs. They simply serve as yokes or as millstones which burden us as we try to move forward.

Also, throw away perfectionist attitudes and habits – these can only create more anxieties in your life. As they say, kung minsan nasa ibabaw, kung minsan nasa ilalim – we can’t always have the best of both worlds. Permit yourself to be human by allowing yourself some mistakes, accepting your losses and understanding your shortcomings.

08 JUN 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 20 VIEW FROM THE TOP

Last Saturday, I wanted to use our wagon to do some marketing. As I was waiting a little bit for the engine to heat up, I tried the break pedal and it didn't feel “normal”. In fact, on my second step on the brake pedal, it suddenly sunk to the floor.

Bumigay ang break master!

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On Wednesdays, the other car is “coding” so with the wagon unserviceable, we had to leave the house rather early so we can get to our destination before 7 AM. In fact, we did reach the wife's office before that time, but I didn't have enough time to make it to my office, which is about 45 minutes away. I parked the car at the wife’s office.

So I took an air-con bus bound for Quiapo, my first bus ride in the last ten years or so. It was like a new adventure.

Traffic in Ortigas Avenue was bad. In fact, we got stuck in the Greenhills area for a good 25 minutes. Vehicles of the rich and famous bound for Xavier School occupied two lanes of the three-lane road, leaving just one lane for the rest of the masa in public transports.

It’s a good thing the bus had a TV on board although half of the time the images were distorted. I had a grand time looking around at things from another perspective.

Every single day that I drive to the office, my attention is focused on the road, on the vehicle on my right, on my left, in front, at the back, on pedestrians, at the traffic lights and not much else. But on this particular bus ride, I focused my attention on other things.

It looked like I had the best view from the top. I could only see the dusty tops of jeepneys, cars and vans, without any hint of concern whether they will suddenly swerve to the left or to the right. Many people on the bus were still on “sleepy mode” since it was early morning, although some were already taking quick glances on their fancy watches, especially the students.

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Men appeared to be less concerned with ladies on “standing -room-only” situation because no one offered any seat to a lady. I paid P22 for that trip from EDSA-Ortigas to Arlegui in Quiapo. I still remember that when I went to college, a bus ride from our place in Sta. Ana to Quinta Market was worth all of ten centavos.

I think a liter of gasoline back then was something like nineteen centavos.

Well, those were the days, my friend.

MENTAL LAPSES He gave me a frantic call because he seemed to have lost his way. My dad was asking me for directions on how to get to our place in Novaliches. He was calling from a public phone not too far from our subdivision.

So I gave him directions on how to get to our place, where to get a tricycle ride and which landmarks to look for. I was quite concerned that he has lost his way, although he has been to our place for countless number of times. Age must really be catching up on him. But he is really a young 88-year-older.

The brain does these funny things to us when we experience such lapses. This sometimes happens to me, especially when I see someone whom I’ve met in the past but have not seen for quite sometime. Names often escape me, although they come back when I least need them, or when I stop thinking about them.

Maybe such lapses are due to nicotine or alcohol or both, as I started quite early on these things. Thank God I had the good

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fortune, and the determination, to get rid of them before it’s too late. I really hope that no serious harm has been done.

When my dad finally got to our place, he looked like he was on a daze as he couldn’t believe what happened. I offered him a cool drink and a piece of cake to put him at ease. Then he reassured me that he has regained his bearing.

When he left our place, I reluctantly allowed him to go by himself but I was not at peace until I got my mom on the phone more than an hour after. My dad made it back home.

The following day, the temporary peace was again disturbed by my mom’s call at lunchtime asking me whether my dad has again visited us. He left the house early that morning while my mom was still in bed and has not returned since.

After about an hour, my mom called again to inform me that my dad has returned home after losing his way again while looking for Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina, a place he has been to a number of times. Not an encouraging sign.

Maybe forgetting names is not as bad as forgetting places.

Forgetting yourself may be the worst of all.

FREEDOM FROM DEBT, #3 Last week, I wrote about the four reasons why we get ourselves into problem debt. Ron Blue, the author, offers this insight – most debt problems are SPENDING problems, not INCOME problems. That, to me, and hopefully to you, is an interesting observation.

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Tama ba siya? Sabi pa niya – given human nature, extra income tends only to raise our level of discontent, increasing the desire for more and more “things” that will not meet our real needs. From experience, my answer is YES! Mr. Blue says there are four steps to get out of debt – madaling ilista pero napakahirap gawin. First, determine where you are, stop getting into debt, develop a repayment plan and establish accountability.

So let’s begin. List down all the amounts that you owe at this point. Gaano kahaba ang listahan mo? Ilang “gives” ka pa? What is your outstanding credit card balance? Salary loan? Policy loan?

Magkano ang binale mo? This list should give you a good idea where you are now.

Step 2 is probably the most challenging: decide that you will not go into borrowing for any purpose. Itigil muna ang pangungutang. Go to the extent of wrapping your credit cards in aluminum foil and put them in the microwave or in the stove until you get a shiny mass of plastic.

If you cannot stand the stench of burnt plastic, do some “plastic surgery” with your scissors. That’s what I did to my other credit cards. I have only retained one for “emergency” situations.

Step 3 gets you to develop a repayment plan. Begin by computing your everyday living expenses – light, water, cooking gas, cable service, telephone service, entertainment, transportation, baon, soap, lotion, manicure, haircut, tuition, books, newspapers, rent, car repairs – the list may be endless! But you have to make that list. It’s the only way to see where your

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salary or income is going and whether there is something left to repay your debts. Sana hindi negative ang resulta!

Finally, become accountable – make a commitment to your family, to your wife or husband, to your children – and make sure that you follow through. Ask them to remind you always about your commitment – and help you fulfill that commitment.

RELATIONSHIPS, #2 John Maxwell says that if we want to be successful and make a positive impact on others, we need to have the ability to understand other people. This shows in your ability to communicate with others.

It is a big mistake to put the highest priority in being able to express your ideas and feelings rather than in listening to, respecting and understanding another person’s point of view.

Learn to understand people – how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how they are likely to act and react in a given situation. Then you can influence them in a positive way.

There are a number of reasons why people fail to understand others. One is fear – we become fearful when we don’t understand another person’s point of view, especially if that person is the boss.

Accept that by nature we are self-centered – we always think of our interests first. But this should not deter us from looking at things from the other person’s perspective. As they say, the salesperson’s challenge is to see the world from the prospect’s viewpoint.

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Another reason is failure to appreciate differences – we must learn to recognize and respect everyone else’s unique qualities. In a similar vein, we also fail to understand other people if we do not acknowledge similarities. Think about your emotions if you were in the same position as the person that you are interacting with – put yourself in his or her shoes.

In human relations the least important word is “I” and the most important word is “WE”.

BROWN'S GAS With the price of gasoline nearing the P60 per liter mark, I have been considering a number of options to cushion the shock.

One possible option is to refrain from using the car and instead take public transport. Or use my bike. Or buy a motorbike. Or use a Brown’s gas generator for the car.

Brown’s gas is made up of the two hydrogen from water (H2O) separated through the hydrolysis of water. The Brown’s gas generator is supposed to ensure complete and clean combustion, less harmful emission and better fuel efficiency and savings.

The generator uses a liter of water and a spoonful of baking soda with positive and negative coils to be connected to the car’s battery through the ignition switch.

Based on how it is described on the Internet, the gas that is generated is introduced through a tube in the engine’s intake manifold – and it does the work of reducing gas consumption or increasing gas mileage, for as much as 30% or 40%, as claimed.

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I was able to get a good illustration from Dir. Jun Jucar who has used the Brown’s gas generator for some time now.

Unfortunately, I haven’t fabricated the generator. What’s worse – I have to get myself familiar with the engine parts so that I will connect the generator properly and get maximum benefits.

The Brown’s gas generator is all over the Internet but every time I talk about it, people look at me as though I come from another planet. I haven’t heard anything about it from the government energy guys, or even from the science and technology guys. Bakit kaya?

Come to think of it, alternative energy sources like wind, solar, hydro and what have you, should be a hot item in the government’s agenda. Sad to say, this seems not to be the case.

Or are we not just aware of what is being done, assuming something is being done about the skyrocketing prices of non-renewable fossil oil?

We can make use of any energy-saving idea. Got one?

22 JUN 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 22 WAISTLINE

The short article came out in the Star a year ago but it may be good to bring it up again to remind you to look for the tape measure and see whether your waistline is something that you should be concerned about.

If you are an adult woman, your waistline should not be more than 31.5 inches or 80 cm. For adult men, the ideal waistline should not be more than 35 inches or 90 cm.

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Mine varies between 33 and 34 inches, depending on which time of the day, breakfast, lunch, dinner or in-between. Not bad.

Dr. Augusto Litonjua, a noted endocrinologist, has observed the role of a large waistline, together with other commonly considered factors in raising what is now referred to as “cardiometabolic risk.�

In the past doctors determined our risk for heart disease and diabetes by checking certain risk factors: our age, relatives who have had heart disease or diabetes, hypertension, bad cholesterol and elevated blood sugar level.

Dr. Litonjua says that a large waistline can be added to the list of health threats that can raise our cardiometabolic risk. He explains that a large waistline usually indicates a higher-than-normal amount of intra-abdominal fat. This is not the fat underneath the skin but the fat inside the abdomen surrounding the internal organs.

Based on scientific studies, high intra-abdominal fat can affect the way our body processes blood sugar as well as cholesterol. So it really helps to do something about a large waistline and an equally large weight.

Try the old, tried-and-tested ways – cut down on salt, control your portions, eat more fruits and vegetables and less fatty foods.

Get some exercise, engage in sports if you can, or just do a little more walking and running. You must quit smoking and limit your alcohol intake.

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All these sound so simple – but look around – the “battle of the bulge” is not yet won for many men and women.

The tried-and tested ways will work only if we have the will to try and test them for our own selves. Do you have the will?

GASOHOL I was a bit surprised to read in a rather old book published in 1981 (27 years ago) about gasohol – a blend of 10 percent ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and 90 percent unleaded gasoline. The article starts with “the market for gasohol is still very small and its production costly”… meron na pala noon!

These days, topics like this are music to my ears, considering that the price of a liter of gasoline is near the P60 threshold. As far as I know, there is only one oil company that has put gasohol in the market – Shell – and it is called Shell Unleaded E10.

My niece who drives a Vios is using it and she pays P2 less compared to regular unleaded gasoline. She says that Shell’s move is in compliance with the provisions of the Biofuels Act that was enacted by Congress recently.

Why did it take us this long? Why did we have to wait for a law to be passed before going into gasohol? And, for that matter, why is Shell the only company offering gasohol?

It is possibly part of our “masochist” syndrome, as they say, or is it the lack of technology to produce ethanol at economically profitable levels? Or we simply did not care because petrol prices are “affordable” anyway?

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Ethanol is produced by the fermentation of starches and sugars. The largest source is actually corn, of which we have plenty. But oats, barley, wheat, sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and sugar beets can also be used to produce ethanol. Even potatoes and cassava (kamoteng kahoy) are possible sources.

Oil companies say that mileage improvement is inconclusive but engines using gasohol tend to foul less and to run cooler and cleaner.

Here’s one caveat – alcohol is an excellent solvent and it has been observed that in old cars mechanical problems have resulted due to clogged filters. Alcohol loosens accumulated dirt and this is deposited in the car’s filters.

This is fair warning for me – I probably can’t use Shell Unleaded E10 on my 1995 wagon without ensuring that my filters will be replaced the soonest possible time.

FREEDOM FROM DEBT, #5 “Can afford” – an expression that has somehow changed meaning – from “being able to pay cash” to “being able to afford the monthly payments”. There is a whale of a difference between the two – but that is how the dice rolled.

To better understand these perspectives, Ron Blue offers a way to differentiate between “credit” and “debt” which, he says, are two different things.

Credit is having the right to borrow – karapatang humiram o umutang. It deals with the borrower’s integrity – his or her faithfulness and timeliness in paying the bills.

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Credit is used to go into debt – which results when the credit extended is used to purchase some product or service. For instance, having a credit card does not necessarily cause one to get into debt. If we use, or misuse, the credit card, then we get into debt.

In the old days, we “can afford” if we are able to pay cash outright for all things that we buy. But nowadays, we say “i-card mo na lang” which usually means that we believe we are in a position to pay the monthly “minimum” amount in our credit card bills. Our borrowing decisions are therefore manipulated simply by considering the length of the repayment period in order to make our purchases “affordable.”

How many of us have fallen for the “zero interest” offers using our credit cards. I have fallen for this a number of times. It makes the purchase “affordable” at equal monthly installments (3 months, 6 months, 12 months) but “zero interest” is only a figment of our imagination. In real life, there is no such thing.

Credit card companies know too well that the “cost of money” is their bread and butter.

I think the guys who invented money never thought that other than its intrinsic value, money will be traded like any other commodity. In fact, other than metal coins and paper currency, plastic cards are now a common form of “money.”

And the world has never been the same again.

RELATIONSHIPS, #4

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“The ability to skillfully listen is the foundation to building positive relationship with others”, says John Maxwell. That’s why it pays to understand the value of becoming a good listener.

He also says that when President Lyndon Johnson was still a junior senator, he had a sign in his office which reads – “You ain’t learnin’ nothin’ when you’re doin’ all the talkin’.”

Whether we realize it or not, listening shows respect. So when we communicate, we have to be impressed and interested, not impressive and interesting. You have to be willing to focus on what the other person has to offer.

Listening also builds relationships. Dale Carnegie, the famous author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, says that you can make more friends in two weeks by becoming a good listener than you can in two years trying to get people interested in you. I agree.

People who talk about themselves and their concerns all the time rarely develop strong relationships. David Swartz, another author, says “big people monopolize the listening and small people monopolize the talking.”

Listening also increases knowledge. Someone said that a good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. Some put themselves in a position where they think they know all the answers. If they do, how do they continue to grow and learn?

Listening generates new ideas. Employees love to contribute ideas but only if their leader shares the credit with them. New ideas will flow if we give people the opportunity to share what’s on their mind – and if we listen with an open mind.

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Take note – listening builds loyalty. If you don’t listen to people they will find others who will. When people believe that they are not listened to, they seek out those who will and sometimes this signals the end of a relationship.

Whoever said that God gave us two ears and only one mouth so that we may listen more than we talk – was truly wise!

GOLD OF ANCESTORS It’s the title of an exhibit at the Ayala Museum in Makati which features some 1,059 precious objects believed to date back to the 10th century. I read about this in a feature story written by the one and only Jessica Zafra in a recent issue of Newsweek.

The gold pieces suggest that our ancient ancestors may have had closer links with our Southeast Asian neighbors than what we currently know.

For instance, one of the gold pieces is that of a vessel which is shaped like a creature that is half-bird and half-woman, much like one character in Hindu mythology. Unfortunately, we don’t have much written accounts of our pre-colonial history and culture.

Ms. Zafra says that this lends to the real problem of determining whether these gold pieces were made by our ancestors or brought to the islands by foreign traders. Even the museum curator flatly says – “we don’t know” – so we simply have to assume that the gold pieces are “Proudly Made by Pinoys” until proved otherwise.

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The early Spanish conquistadores observed that natives in our islands wore a lot of gold ornaments from head to foot – mabuti di sila tinamaan ng kidlat. Records circa the 16th century indicate that Filipinos were knowledgeable about gold. They even had sophisticated vocabulary for gold, including techniques used by goldsmiths.

Another piece on display is a pair of gold “lingling-o” omega-shaped ornaments which are generally believed to have been made in Vietnam. However, a recent archaeological find in the island of Batanes in the north is of a “lingling-o” workshop complete with tools and fragments. It is therefore safe to assume that the gold ornaments on display were “Proudly Made by Pinoys” 2,500 years ago in Batanes.

Maybe on my next malling in the Greenbelt area, I should make it a point to see and savor this gold collection which was kept under wraps by the family of the late National Artist Leandro Locsin for quite sometime.

Ayala Museum, here I come!

29 JUN 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 23 HIGHER EDUCATION?

There is something to think about the term “higher education”. I’m not sure why, but I woke up one day thinking that “higher” is a comparative term, implying that there must be something “lower”. Something “higher” is often associated with something “superior”, and consequently, anything “lower” may be considered “inferior.”

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Is this simply part of my neurosis? Or is there really something to it?

Higher education, like technical education, is part of the tertiary education sector – the education level that comes after the secondary level. Good enough – tertiary definitely comes after secondary – but why does it suddenly become higher education? Higher than what – higher than technical education?

My own personal perspective, which may be largely subjective, is that basic education, technical education and “higher” education – all prepare the individual for life, for a job or a lifetime of economic activity. From that vantage point, the three are equally important, although they involve the development of different sets of competencies.

As declared, basic education is supposed to develop learning competencies which allow a person to learn how to learn – the basic human growth and survival tool. Technical education is supposed to develop vocational competencies that enable a person to perform technical level jobs in various fields of endeavor.

“Higher” education, on the other hand, is supposed to provide professional competencies that allow a person to undertake professional jobs, usually associated with teaching, managing, research, technology development and other “thinking” jobs.

Given this perspective, it may be more appropriate to refer to “higher” education as professional education.

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The education spectrum will therefore involve elementary education, secondary education, technical education and professional education. The spectrum represents the natural progression in the development of competencies that are relevant to an individual at various stages, under varying economic challenges and realities.

Our friends in CHED need not consider themselves “superior” just because they take care of “higher” education. Our friends in TESDA must not consider themselves “inferior” just because they take care of non-degree vocational programs.

CHED or TESDA, degree or non-degree, technical or “higher” education – both equally prepare the individual for his life ahead, contributing to society by utilizing his/her competencies based on his/her own individual interest, aptitude and potential.

RECORD It may not be a world record, but in my book, their partnership is definitely a record that will not be equaled for a long, long time. In a few days time, July 16, 2008 will mark the 70th wedding anniversary of my mom and dad.

You read it right – it’s not their 70th birthday, it’s their 70th wedding anniversary. I don’t really know if there is a name for it – it’s not silver, not gold, and maybe not platinum either.

How many couples the world over have come to this point in their lives? My dad is a healthy 88 and my mom is an equally healthy 85. For sure they started life quite early and never looked back.

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Maybe because I am the bunso’ in the family, I don’t have any grandchildren – yet. All my siblings have children and grandchildren who are, of course, the great grandchildren of my parents. It is very possible that one or two great great grandchildren (apo sa tuhod) will witness their 75th wedding anniversary, a short five years from now.

My dad is still a busybody, still writing his monthly newsletter, still reading his daily newspapers, still doing watch repair jobs, still playing handyman in the house.

On the other hand, my mom is still the same doting mother, the same caring housewife, still doing laundry, still ironing clothes, preparing meals, doing the dishes and still tidying up the house.

My mom often complains that my old man spends a lot of time these days dozing off in bed or on the sofa. I guess it’s really nothing to worry about as long as he still wakes up. The real thing to be concerned about are his mental lapses which occur while he is on his way to previously familiar destinations – like our place in Novaliches.

He still has 20/20 eyesight as a result of a lens implantation procedure that he went through some years ago. However, similar things cannot be said about his hearing. My mom, on the other hand, can still hear a pin drop, but visual acuity is something else. Well, as I always say, we can’t have the best of both worlds.

Seventieth wedding anniversary – what a way to go!

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FREEDOM FROM DEBT, #6 Do you have a credit card? If you do, here’s what Ron Blue have to say – “Merely putting a credit card in a potential user’s hand will lead the person to spend 34% more.”

Have you noticed – the credit card companies are having a field day sending us credit cards even without filling up any form or submitting any document – and getting the first year without annual dues? That’s how many of us get into the credit card trap.

There are a number of misconceptions about credit cards.

Many of us convince ourselves that we cannot live without them.

But many times we find ourselves buying temporal and depreciating items – nothing of permanence. One wag says that we often use our credit cards “to buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t know.” Totoo ba yon?

We also believe that having a credit card means we are credit worthy. Here’s the reality – while credit card companies are concerned about creditworthiness, they are really more concerned about their profits. They may incur some significant bad debts, but with more than 20% interest plus the fees that they charge, ok lang kung may kaunting pumapalya sa pagbayad.

There is no such thing as a credit rating. Credit card companies may presume that lending you money is risky if you don’t have a credit rating. But if you never borrow money using your credit card (cash advance) you really don’t have any use for a credit rating.

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Interest rate, interest charge – the same thing? No, there is a big difference. If you borrow P1000 and pay 12% interest for one year, you will pay P1,120 after one year – that’s interest rate. If you borrow P1000 at the same 12%, but pay back in equal monthly installments over a 12-month period, you will be paying P93.33 monthly. This means that in six months time, you will have paid back P559.98, more than half of the original amount borrowed – but you are still being charged an interest based on the original amount of P1000!

Remember the no-collateral cash advance promos – they tell you what interest charges really mean. You continue to pay interest even for money that you have already paid back!

RELATIONSHIPS, #5 You have to want to hear in order to become a good listener.

You also need some skills to help you.

Always look at the speaker and give him or her your undivided attention. Don’t interrupt people because this indicates that you don’t place enough value on what the other person has to say. If you have the habit of interrupting people as they speak, determine to make a change.

It is better to find meaning and understanding in what is being said, rather than just remembering the words spoken.

Studies show that people can remember only 50% of what they hear immediately after hearing it. The next day retention is usually down to 25%. So it is better to aim for understanding rather than just remembering the facts.

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Our emotional baggage often makes us react to certain people and situations. Sigmund Freud said that a man with a toothache cannot be in love – the ache does not allow him to notice anything other than the pain. So always check your emotions when listening to another person.

You cannot jump to conclusions and be a good listener. So wait till the other person has told the whole story before you react. If you don’t you may miss the really important points that the speaker intends to say.

Listening is most effective when it’s active – comment meaningfully so that the speaker will know that you are listening and may offer more information. Sum up what is being said at regular intervals by paraphrasing the main points before going on to the next.

Always make listening your priority no matter how busy you are or how high you are in your organization. Many people take the ability to listen for granted – they think that they can always hear – but they are not capable of really listening.

PUMP PRICES We acquired another vehicle more than three years ago and, as I am inclined to do, I kept many of the gasoline receipts in the car itself, probably since the first time the gas tank had a fill.

I found a receipt dated May 14, 2005 and, believe it or not, it registered a price of P30.33 per liter of unleaded gasoline, practically one half of what it is today. Since that fateful day three years ago the price of unleaded gasoline has practically doubled!

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If memory serves me right, our salaries in government have been augmented twice, each a ten percent increase, the latest one coming this month. And with a double-digit 11% inflation, this latest increase is essentially a figment of our imagination, if not downright erosion of our purchasing power.

The receipts also indicate that by December of 2005, a liter of unleaded gasoline cost P36.25, up by 19.51% from the May 2005 level. By August 2006, the price has increased to P42.69 to a liter although, quite surprising, as 2006 ended, pump prices for unleaded gasoline went down to P36.25 per liter.

From January 2007 to May 2007 through November 2007, prices per liter fluctuated from P36.87 to P39.57 to P41.15. The year 2008 is a crazy upward spiral – P49.07 in early May, P52.07 in late May, P53.57 in early June, P56.47 in mid June – and my world was never the same again.

The papers have reported that daily commuter count in the MRT has increased by 20,000 recently and that number will possibly not let up. I have observed a significant increase in the number of two-wheeled vehicles on the road anytime of the day, coupled with a growing number of mini cars of the less than 1000 cc category.

The rich and famous, of course, are still moving around in their gas guzzlers – their Expeditions, their F-150s, their Durangos, their Patrols and their more-than-2500 cc SUVs. Who cares?

If you think wage rates will keep up with pump prices and inflation, you must be reading the wrong books!

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6 JUL 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 24 SALABAT?

You didn’t guess it right – this is not about the book. It is about the honeyed brew from Bohol that I enjoy every morning.

It was a token given to me for some faintly-remembered favors.

Some weeks ago while doing some marketing at Robinson’s I chanced upon a piece of ginger that cost all of P52 – one single piece of luya for that price! But the luya looked imported, not from any of the nondescript ginger farms in the countryside. It looked like it came from Kaohsiung or some other town in Taiwan.

Nevertheless, imported or local, ginger is a powerful antioxidant.

One study, in fact, suggests that it is one of nature’s most potent antioxidants. It contains 12 elements that are more powerful than Vitamin E, 40 times over, according to “Super Life, Super Health”, my newest acquisition.

It is said that the Greeks ended their evening of feasting by eating ginger wrapped in bread – to lighten their load. Over time, this practice evolved into the world’s first cookie – the gingerbread.

In the Middle Ages, ginger could only be found in the dinner table of the royalty, of the rich and famous, because the cost of one pound of ginger was equivalent to the price of a sheep.

Ganoon kamahal.

In our body, something called eicosanoids produce the prostaglandins, substances which affect how sticky our blood

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platelets are. Healthy blood circulation comes with balanced prostaglandins which also help in avoiding migraine and rheumatoid arthritis.

A study done in India in 1994 revealed that 5 grams of ginger a day reduced the risk of clogged arteries in people with heart disease. In Israel an outpatient cardiology clinic routinely recommends ½ teaspoon of ginger juice daily for its patients.

Ginger is also believed to help in lowering the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream by improving the digestion of fats.

So the next time I see one piece of luya for P52 I will still think twice but I will no longer raise my eyebrows.

Salabat, anyone?

EDUCATION TOURISM It was conceived some years ago but the project became dormant for quite some time. It intends to provide education and training opportunities to tourists who seek to develop job skills or to earn academic credits while enjoying the beauty of our alluring tourist spots.

It is a special project of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Education which recognizes the fact that the Philippines is the major source of English education in these parts of the globe.

Eight priority areas have been chosen for the project with the help of the Department of Tourism: Metro Manila (including Tagaytay, Batangas and Cavite), Boracay and Iloilo, the whole Davao area, Banaue (including Baguio and Ifugao), Northern

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Palawan, Subic and Clark, Bohol (including Cebu and Camiguin), Vigan (including Laoag and the Hundred Islands).

These are undoubtedly tourist places but we also have to offer our education and training services to make the tourists’ stay doubly worthwhile.

Our PCCI-ECOP champions tell us that there is a lot of sense in the project because many tourists, in fact, come to the country not only to see the sights but to learn some other “things” on the side like conversational English, golf, arnis, ballroom dancing, scuba diving and even how to fly a two-seater light plane.

Remember the 9-11 story?

Back in OPAE, I suggested that it’s time to harness the power of the Internet to drumbeat the promises of the project and increase our tourist arrivals. I know it is possible to locate the URLs of all these priority areas – all the tourist destinations, all the education and training institutions qualified to participate in the project, all the LGU services in these areas – and link all of them to our own website.

In the process we will not reinvent any wheel but we will simply provide a portal from which inquiring minds can get some ready answers. My suggestion was taken well and things are now underway.

We will have to feed the website information to all travel and tours agencies in the country catering to our target markets, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. We also count in our tourism attaches, trade attaches and other consular office functionaries as part of our promotion brigade.

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Of course some measure of regulation will have to be adopted to ensure that only those who enroll in quality programs will be issued study permits by the immigration office.

Turista na, estudyante pa! Gastos sa pasyal, gastos sa aral – a good way to augment our proceeds from our hospitality services.

FREEDOM FROM DEBT, #7 This is the last thing from Ron Blue’s book – things to think about when buying – especially a car – on installment or in cash.

He talks of two ways by which people are “deceived” into buying on installment and, in the process, getting into debt and paying more.

First deception: it makes sense to borrow than to pay cash.

This is absolutely false when the economic return from borrowing is far less than the economic cost. Ron says “if you can’t afford to save in order to pay cash, you can’t afford to buy on credit.”

Second deception: the idea of “easy payment” terms. Ron says there is no such thing as easy payment. Sabi pa niya – if you can’t afford to save, then you can’t afford to make payments.

Simply put, if you can afford to save some money in your bank account which will earn some interest over time, you will be able to save enough to buy your dream car on cash – and be debt free! Remember, Ron’s book is sub-titled “How Your Family Can Become Financially Free”. Walang utang!

Why buy a new car, anyway? For its utility – as mode of transport? Or for significance – to show off to your buddies?

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One interesting view that he expounds – the cheapest car that you can own is the car that you now have – unless it’s time to have a replacement, a decision which should consider three important items.

The first is time: when your car is in the repair shop most of the time and you lose so much valuable time. The second is the cost of repairs: when repair costs are greater than the value of the car when it is fixed. The third is safety: when the car has become unsafe or when using it involves considerable risks to life and limb.

Whatever is your ultimate reason for replacing your car, don’t forget – it’s always better to save and pay in cash than to go for “easy payment” installment terms.

Freedom from debt!

RELATIONSHIPS, #6 John Maxwell writes about servanthood and being a servant leader – having the qualities to lead and to serve. He poses the question: can you serve and lead people at the same time? He makes this statement: “you’ve got to love your people more than your position.”

When we speak of being a servant, we usually associate this with low-skilled people at the bottom of the pack. Maxwell says this is surely a wrong impression. Being a servant is not about position or skill – it’s all about attitude.

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For instance, poor attitude towards servanthood is manifested by rude workers in government service, waiters who cannot be bothered with taking orders, or an employee who talks on the phone instead of attending to your needs.

It is not so difficult to spot such people and yet it is also quite easy to detect whether someone has a servant’s heart – the readiness and willingness to help others.

A person with service at heart puts others ahead of his own agenda. This person possesses the confidence to serve. Maxwell says: “show me someone who thinks he is too important to serve and I’ll show you someone who is basically insecure. How we treat others is really a reflection of how we think about ourselves.”

This person sees the need, seizes the opportunity and serves without expecting anything in return. He does not focus on rank or position.

Maxwell concludes: “the extent of your influence and the quality of your relationships depend on the depth of your concern for others.”

Again, I thank Dir. Pina Zafra who gifted me with the book that hopefully gave us all some valuable insights on relationships.

PARADOX Des sent me an email with this attachment – something which I have encountered before but it is really worth mulling over again.

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It is a piece by George Carlin, a comedian whose wife supposedly passed away recently. The piece eloquently talks of the paradox of our time, a time when “we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses but smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees, but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems, more medicine but less wellness.”

Mukha ngang may katotohanan ang kanyang mga nabanggit.

Carlin also says that “we’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.” Really, many of us literally kill ourselves in our work and sacrifice the life that we actually have to make.

Sabi pa niya – “we’ve added years to life (humahaba ang buhay), but not life to years” (panahon na makabuluhan). Eto pa – “we’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space…We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.”

And take note – “these are times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.”

Incisive, indeed, this serious comedian!

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Let me add this SMS that I received from Mr. Kaypee: “All things in life are temporary. If they are going well, enjoy, they won’t last forever. If they go wrong, don’t worry, they can’t last long either. The larger our faith, the lesser are our fears. The greater our trust, the smaller are our doubts. The stronger our belief, the weaker are our worries.”

13 JUL 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 25 PROPHECY?

Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose is a name that was not part of my consciousness until about two weeks ago when I received an email from Lou about him. He is supposed to be from Brazil, a teacher by occupation and a “dreamer” by avocation.

He has made a number of predictions presumably based on his dreams, perhaps to a point that these are sometimes referred to as prophecy by some people.

For instance, he predicted that this year cure for AIDS and dengue will be found. But the real headliner is July 18th – the day he predicts will bring an 8.1 earthquake to Philippine shores – and thousands will die. My God, what a prediction!

Let us pray that this is just one of Juseleeno’s wild dreams.

It’s rather discomforting to think about an earthquake of that magnitude, perhaps the strongest that will ever hit the country. I remember that during the Ruby Towers quake, I even had difficulty getting to my feet when I was suddenly aroused from

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my sleep. If memory serves me right, it was about 6.9 in magnitude.

It becomes even more discomforting when they say that five months before Princess Diana met her death in a car accident, Juseleeno predicted the event through a letter to her. Thirteen years before 9/11, he wrote a letter to the US President that the World Trade Center will be attacked.

Eight years before the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami on December 26, 2004, he wrote a letter to the Indian Embassy, to the Indonesian President and to the Philippine and Thai Embassy.

He says that China will be hit by a 9.1 earthquake in the Hainan area with 30 meters tsunami which will also hit Japan.

Millions of lives will be lost.

In 2011, a cancer cure will be found. Sana puro ganito na lang ang prediction ni Juseleeno. Kaya lang, nature’s wrath is something that we have little control of. Too bad.

Let’s all pray that Juseleeno just had a bad dream.

PEROXIDE Her husband has been in the medical field for about 36 years, so she must know what she is talking about. Becky Ransey of Indiana says that doctors usually don’t tell us about peroxide (agua oxygenada), or they would lose thousands of dollars (or pesos).

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Maraming gamit ang agua oxygenada at mura pa. The small plastic bottle is about P14 while the bigger bottle is about P37.

For instance you can use it as a better substitute for Listerine – it’s an effective mouthwash when diluted with two parts water – and it whitens our teeth. You can read this in the bottle itself.

We usually associate peroxide with cleaning wounds and skin sores, nothing else. Actually you can soak your toothbrush in a peroxide solution to keep it germ free.

You can spray peroxide on your counters and table tops and wipe with a dishrag. Pouring peroxide on your cutting board (sangkalan) will get rid of salmonella and other bacteria. It is also effective for fungus on the feet. Just spray a 50/50 mixture of peroxide and water every night and let dry.

Soak any infection or cut in peroxide several times a day and they will surely heal. You can also use a cup of peroxide as bleach for whites in your laundry. In fact you can even put a bottle of peroxide in your bath to get rid of boils, fungus and other infections.

For those who want a natural look, a 50/50 peroxide-water solution will work fine. Spray it on your wet hair after taking a shower and comb it through. You will get natural highlights if your hair is dark or light brown.

I still prefer my P7.50 natural black hair dye!

SOY It may be the reason why the Japanese have very low death rates from breast and prostrate cancer since this is a staple in

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their diet. Tofu, soy milk, soy flour, tempeh and miso are all derived from soybeans and these are rich in protein, fiber and minerals.

Soybeans have complete protein, have no cholesterol and contain both water-soluble and non-soluble fiber. Water-soluble fiber helps lower cholesterol and control blood sugar. On the other hand, non-soluble fiber produces large stools and helps fight stomach and colon cancer. This also helps fight gallstones and relieve constipation.

Soybeans are also the world’s richest source of lecithin which plays a major role in fighting off disease and aging. Siya and tunay na pampabata, hindi crispy pata.

Lecithin is said to lower cholesterol, helps the body in digesting fats and prevents fat build-up in our arteries. Soybeans also contain large amounts of calcium to prevent bone density loss in women after menopause. They are also rich in linolenic acid, an omega 3 oil that helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

Nutritionists even claim that soy protein is the best vegetable food for maintaining normal blood sugar levels. In Chinese, soybeans is literally known as the “greater bean” used for food and in traditional medicine for thousands of years.

A recent study by Chinese experts revealed that soy actually slowed down the aging of red blood cells and heart muscle membranes. Sa Japan naman, women rarely have “hot flashes” during menopause so there is no word in the Japanese language for “hot flash”. Scientists say this must be due to the natural estrogens in soybeans.

The wife should read this.

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MAKE AN EXTRA BUCK The piece was contributed by Justin V. Cecil, MBA, oh how to make some extra bucks in these hard and trying times. We have a lot of things to gain from what he said – if we really put these to action.

He says it is a good idea to save our loose change – kung sakaling meron. In my case, since I don’t carry a coin purse, I usually just put my loose change in my backpack or in my laptop bag or in my drawer or in the car – which means just practically anywhere.

My dad saves his loose change (bayad ng nakikitawag sa phone) in an big, old Lady’s Choice jar and my sons were always asked to help themselves (isang dakot lang) whenever we visited the old man.

But I agree with Mr. Cecil about the idea of saving loose change especially now that “loose change” actually includes 25 centavos, 1 peso, 5 peso and 10 peso coins. In the old days two peso coins were the most that we had.

Next, he says that we should stop eating out so much – if we really ever do nowadays. Kasi, we pay for VAT, service fee, LGU fee and give some tip to the waiters, other than the fact that we usually have to pay gold for the food that we eat. Ok lang kung may mag-treat!

Sabi niya, we should learn to recycle, or sell our old newspapers, plastic bottles, beverage aluminum cans, etc. Bote!

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Garapa! Of course, Inday has been doing it all these years and she gets extra bucks!

Also, we can have a garage sale or a yard sale, as our neighbors in New York say. But Mr. Cecil says that we should not give away the things that we don’t want or need for a few pennies. The rule of the thumb, he says, is to give them away for at least a quarter or their original price. One-fourth at least, or one third at the most.

I remember that some years ago the wife had a garage sale and she made several thousands. However, she was a bit downhearted though when she found out later that she gave away an unused set of crocheted table cloth and napkins for just a fifth of its market price.

The next garage sale is possibly just a few breaths away.

The last one is something that sounds alien to me, but I have read so much about it – spend your money on paper first before you actually spend it. Simply put – you have to have a budget.

This is the only way that we can determine where every cent is going.

Five easy ways to make some extra bucks – make sense.

QUALITY OF EDUCATION We have a few college seniors (trainees) in the office whom we asked to write their thoughts about the quality of education in the country today. We wanted to find out whether we had some potential recruits for some possible vacancies in the future.

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Their papers were interesting reading – to say the least.

One said, “When I thought of the word ‘education’ the first thing that comes into my mind was “price”… Admit it the word ‘price’ is a burden.” (It’s verbatim from the paper.) The possible message – quality education costs. Maybe.

Another said that technology “teaches us how to be lazy as a student.” For instance, “in doing some research and assignment instead of having books as reference they just search in the internet, copy paste without reading it first without knowing that they are already committing plagiarism. And in the part of the teachers some of them are accepting it and in the eye of some students it is just okay to do it over and over again without any learning from the lessons.” (Verbatim) Actually they don’t learn anything because there is no intention to learn. The objective is simply to comply with requirements. That’s how it has always been. I hope that’s not how it will always be.

Also mindful about technology, another said that education in the Philippines needs improvement, “not because we have slow learners for students. The younger generation actually have the brains to solve the most intricate problems in computer. But also because of these modern technologies, their focus were swayed to do things the easier way.”

The grammar is somewhat faulty but the message is the same – technology is not being used to its optimum advantage.

Another trainee, in “scribbling my thoughts,” talked about Janina Madrigal, the 2008 Bb. Pilipinas hit of the town. “My

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pamily … they are … Oh my God! Ha ha ha … I’m sorry guys but this is pirst pageant ever. I did not expect that I came from the taft ten … eto na … My family … My family was the important persons in my life…”

Oh my God! Anong nangyari, Janina? Sabi ng trainee namin – if you say that speaking good English should not be the basis for assessing the quality of our education – “c’mon man, English is just a part of our curriculum since grade one.”

I agree! If we have been learning English since grade one, what happened to the Janinas along the way? Wrong teacher?

Wrong lesson? Wrong student? Wrong parent? Wrong book?

Wrong method? Wrong whatever? Choose your wild!

20 JUL 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 26 WILD DREAM

Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose’s dream for July 18 was just that – a wild dream. The 8.1 quake was the centerpiece of his dream for the day but it seemed to have happened two centuries ago on a lesser scale.

These days China seems to have taken the brunt of the “Ring of Fire”, the path of volcanic activity and the inevitable quakes. I hope Juseleeno’s dream about quakes hitting China and Japan again is simply another part of his wild dreams, assuming that he even exists!

Recently the wife forwarded to me an email about a shocking story of a young lady student from the University of the

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Philippines who passed away last month. Her name was Tiffany and she was hit by a dump truck. One unlucky girl.

Tiffany had a boyfriend named Noel and both were really close to each other. In fact, they were always talking to each other on their cell phones. She even changed her SIM card from Smart to Globe so that they can both be on the same network and get good network coverage.

She spent the greater part of the day talking to Noel over the phone. To her family’s surprise, a few days before her death she suddenly said, “When I die, please bury me with my cell phone”.

She said the same thing to her friends, but not to Noel.

When she passed away, Noel was away and the family could not inform him. They had one problem – they could not move her casket. A Feng Shui master was called to intervene. Tiffany’s friends told him about her request to be buried with her cell phone – and the Feng Shui master quickly obliged, putting Tiffany’s phone and SIM card in her casket. Then they were able to load it in the van and laid her to rest.

When Noel came, Tiffany’s family informed him about her untimely death but he could not believe it – “katatawag lang niya sa akin!” – he insisted. “Katunayan araw-araw ay tumatawag siya sa akin.” Then his phone rang and there it was - a call from Tiffany! He put his phone on speakerphone mode and everyone heard Tiffany’s voice – loud and clear.

The Feng Shui master was called in once again. He worked for five straight hours to solve the mystery – and he did it! He found out that Globe has the best coverage. Wherever you may

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be, it works. It has the strongest signal wherever you go, even six feet under the ground!

Kaya kung ako sa inyo – mag shift na kayo sa Globe! Sorry, Smart and Sun guys, Tiffany shifted to Globe!

This hilarious story must have been churned out by the bright boys of Globe’s ad agency. Nagoyo rin ako!

US VISA It was supposed to have come from Boo Chanco’s column but Neo sent this to me by email. Neo is one guy who has a lot of funny bones in his body. The story sounds familiar, maybe because it is possibly true.

One 70-year old Lolo was applying for a US visa so he can visit his children. One of his grandsons came with him to the Embassy to make sure that he can answer all questions to be fielded since he did not speak a word of English.

The Consul asked the apo to ask his Lolo why he wanted to go to the US. “Bakit daw po ninyo gustong pumunta sa America?”

“Sabihin mo sa kanya na gusto kong makita yong mga anak ko doon.” And the grandson dutifully made the translation.

The consul had another question, “Why does he have to go there? Why can’t his children just come to visit him here?”

Startled, the apo translated again, knowing that this may be quite a difficult question.

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“Sabihin mo sa kanya – dito pinaganak ang mga anak ko at nakita na nila ang Pilipinas. Gusto ko namang makita ang Amerika bago ako mamatay.” Good answer, the apo thought, and translated.

The heartless Consul was unimpressed and said that he had to disapprove the visa application because Lolo could not speak a word of English. “Di daw po kayo bibigyan ng visa kasi di kayo marunong mag-English.”

Nainis si Lolo at sabi niya, “Sabihin mo sa kanya ito at huwag mong papalitan ang sasabihin ko, ‘Tang ina niya, bakit siya nasa Pilipinas eh di naman siya marunong mag-Tagalog?!!!”

Reluctantly the apo dutifully translated, “You son of a bitch!

How come you are in the Philippines when you cannot speak Tagalog?!!!”

The Consul got the surprise of his life. Not losing his sense of humor, he relented and immediately approved Lolo’s visa application.

It’s a nice thing the good Consul did not lose his composure when he got a dose of his own medicine.

DEAR ABBY Still from Neo’s email chest – a very serious problem that was sent by a troubled husband who wanted to remain anonymous so he signed his letter as “Perplexed.” It indicates the seriousness of his problem.

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I thought it better to directly lift and quote from his letter so that I won’t needlessly dilute his thoughts. Of course he begins with the proper salutation, Dear Abby: “I’ve never written you before, but I really need your advice.

I have suspected for sometime now that my wife has been cheating on me.”

Sounds like a serious situation, indeed. Let’s continue.

“The usual signs: the phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up. My wife has been going out with “the girls” a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says, “Just some friends from work, you don’t know them.”

Mukhang may itinatago talaga.

“I always try to stay awake to look out for her coming home, but I usually fall asleep. Anyway, I never approached the subject with my wife. I think deep down I just didn’t want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to really check on her.”

Patay, malamang mabubuking na siya.

“Around midnight, I decided to hide in the garage behind my golf clubs so I could get a good view of the whole street when she arrived home from a night out with “the girls.”

Then it happened.

“When she got out of the car, she was buttoning up her blouse, which was open, and she took her panties out of her

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purse and slipped them on. It was at this moment, crouching behind my clubs, that I noticed that the graphite shaft on my driver appeared to have a hairline crack right by the club head.”

Any serious golfer knows how bad this problem is.

“Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it back to the pro shop where I bought it?”

As I said before, he simply signed his letter “Perplexed”.

Maybe he should have signed it with something else – like Very Serious Golfer, perhaps. Any other suggestion?

CONFESSION The story is not really that strange, and this is the reason why Marlyn shared it with me. It starts quite abruptly with a wife bringing home a lover while her husband is at work.

By a twist of fate, her 9-year old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them and hides in the bedroom closet to watch. By another twist of fate, her husband also comes home.

She hides her lover in the bedroom closet, the only hiding place available, not knowing that her son is in there.

“It’s dark in here”, says the boy. “Yes, it is”, replies the man.

“I have a baseball”, says the boy. “That’s nice”, says the man.

“Want to buy it?” “No, thanks”, says the man. “My dad is outside”, says the boy. “OK, how much?” “$150.” “Sold.” Great selling strategy.

In the next few weeks, the same scenario happens again, the lover finding the boy in the same closet.

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The boy starts with the same line: “It’s dark in here.” The same reply: “Yes, it is.” “I have a nice infielder’s glove.”

Remembering the last time, the lover asks: “How much?” “$350.”

That’s highway robbery, but I’ll take it.

A few days later, the boy’s father says, “Hey, son, grab you gloves and baseball and let’s have a game of catch.” “I can’t Dad, I sold my ball and glove.” “How much did you sell them for?” “$500” His Dad is mad, “That’s terrible, overcharging your friends. I am going to take you to church and you have to confess your greed.”

Reluctantly, the son goes with his Dad to church. The little boy goes to the confession booth and his father closes the door.

Then the boy says, “It’s dark in here.”

The priest replies, “Don’t start that shit again, you are in my closet now.”

Didn’t I say the story is not really that strange?

CONTACT LENS Blondes have a reputation and three of them were applying with the Texas Highway Patrol. Here’s their story, as related in an Internet piece.

A detective was tasked to interview the three blonde applicants. “So you all want to be cops, huh.” And the blondes nodded.

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“To be a detective, you have to be able to notice things like distinguishing features and oddities such as scars, moles, etc.”

Then the detective pulled out a picture from a folder and stuck it in the face of the first blonde for about two seconds.

“Now”, he said, “did you notice any distinguishing feature about this man?” The blonde’s answer came immediately – “Yes, he has only one eye!”

The detective shook his head and said, “You are dismissed.

Didn’t you see that the picture is the profile of the man’s face?”

The first blonde walked out of the office in a hurry.

The detective stuck the same photo for two seconds on the face of the second blonde and asked her the same question – “Notice anything unusual or outstanding about this man?”

“Yes, he has only one ear!” The detective, exasperated, said, “Didn’t you hear what I told the first lady? This is the profile of a man’s face. Of course you can only see one ear. You are excused!”

As the second blonde was leaving the detective turned his attention to the third blonde. He thought, “This is probably a waste of time, but…” He flashed the photo in her face for a couple of seconds and asked her if she noticed any distinguishing mark.

The blonde answered, “I sure did. The man wears contact lenses.”

Surprised about her answer, the detective looked at the papers in the folder and said, “My God, you are absolutely right.

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His bio says he wears contact lenses. How in the world could you tell that by looking at his picture?”

The blonde rolled her eyes and said, “Well, that’s easy! With only one eye and one ear, he certainly can’t wear eyeglasses, right?”

She is definitely right! Ha! Ha! From Joke of the Day.

27 JUL 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 27 LIPSTICK

No I don’t use them but the wife and million others like her are using this “emotional” product. Recently I came across this short article in the Internet site of Margie, the Arthritis Lady.

The information was shared by someone who works in the breast cancer unit of the Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto and is being circulated at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Recently, in the US a lipstick brand called “Red Earth” was selling at $9.90, down from its original price of $67. It’s a real price give-away – because the lipstick was found to contain lead.

This is a chemical which causes cancer.

In some studies, a number of lipstick brands have been found to contain lead – Christian Dior, Lancome, Clinique, Y.S.L., Estee Lauder, Shisheido, Red Earth (lip gloss) Chanel (lip conditioner) and Market America – Montes Lipstick.

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When the wife heard this, she immediately went to her dresser and dug into her lipstick arsenal of every conceivable size and shape. She proceeded to subject each one to the test – put some lipstick on your hand, then rub a gold ring on the lipstick.

If the lipstick color turns to black, it contains lead.

It’s a very simple test and two brands – Lancome and Chanel – did not pass it. I offered that these may have been bought at 168 in Divisoria or at the Plaza Miranda Mall in Carriedo. Regardless, the wife immediately decided to “retire” them from the service.

Lipstick that last longer may really have higher lead content.

Consider this the next time you go shopping for lipstick, either for you or for your one and only.

Who knows what sort or other facial, lip, eye or body cosmetics will turn black when gold is rubbed into them? Many women and even men use these things day in and day out without realizing the risks and dangers.

Mabuti na lang laway lang ang pampakintab ko sa labi!

TETADA KALIMASADA Director Bebs shared with me the latest on his adventures during the Directorate meeting a few months back. “Alam mo na ba yong tetada kalimasada?” was his initial question?

I did not really have one hell of an idea what it was all about, but he reassured me that it is a form of mental and physical conditioning which generates some kind of force, maybe not unlike the “force” of Luke Skywalker of the Star Wars fame.

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Tetada Kalimasada is supposed to have its roots in Surabaya, Indonesia. It is a form of exercise therapy that stimulates the inner powers of a person who follows a particular type of training. There is no magic, fasting or anything that relates to the mystical. It is simply some form of exercise that follows a standard rhythm often based on the beat of drums.

A fellow by the name of Ir. Eddy Surohadi of Surabaya is considered the founder and grand master of Tetada Kalimasada after he introduced this form of exercise in November 1991. He has also introduced this in the US, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, German and Austria.

Dir. Bebs has been practicing Tetada for quite sometime now.

In fact, he has joined some sort of competition where unopened soft drink bottles are broken simply with bare hands. He let me view a video on his mobile phone showing how he applies “force� or a palm blow on the bottle cap (tansan), breaking the other end of the bottle in the process.

According to Dir. Bebs, even his son can do it now since he, too, is hitched into the hobby. Tetada is advisable even for people who are in good health because this increases body endurance, sustains youth and builds high spirits and sex ability. I failed to ask Dir. Bebs to confirm all of these, but I am sure he will gladly do so.

In fact, even DG Ed dela Torre will probably also confirm these because he and his wife are also into this form of exercise. It is said that for those who are recovering from illness, the exercise actually accelerates the healing process and helps in creating antibodies to enhance the immune system.

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Sounds interesting, but I am not really sure if I will give it a try. Writing the CACOPHONY pieces is also a healing process, sustaining a healthy outlook and promoting high spirits. I can attest to the fact that this may not really help build sex ability.

But I may be wrong!

WORDS TO LIVE BY I think it was Manong Ishmael who sent this to me by email and most likely many have received something similar before.

But it is always good to share this with those who haven’t received it yet. Or with those who don’t yet have any idea what an email is all about.

Do you know the best anti-depressant? Just take a 10 to 30 minutes walk every day, and smile while walking. That’s it.

Complement this with a 10 minute of silence each day. Let’s see if you can last that long. Some people can have a nervous breakdown after 10 minutes of silence. I certainly am not one of them.

As soon as you get out of bed in the morning complete this sentence: Today my purpose is to… Then say: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning and ever shall be world without end. Amen.

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Dieticians and nutritionists can explain this best. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and less of food that is manufactured in plants. Drink green tea and plenty of water.

Kangkong, talbos ng kamote, kalabasa, saluyot, dahon at bunga ng malunggay are good for the body.

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Hear this: Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment. Life isn’t fair but it is still good. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Make peace with the past so that you don’t spoil the present.

Don’t make the mistake of comparing your life to others’.

You have no idea what their journey is all about. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. Don’t take yourself so seriously because the sublime truth is that no one else does. What other people think of you is really none of your business.

You don’t have to win every argument. You can agree to disagree. Remember, however good or bad a situation is, it will surely change. So frame every so-called disaster with: “In five years, will this still matter?” Remember too that God heals almost everything.

No one is in charge of your happiness except you. You are entitled to it whatever direction you have chosen for your life.

Your job will not take care of you when you are sick but your friends will. Develop a true friendship that is nourished by spirituality and stay in touch.

At the end of each day, complete this statement: I am thankful for … and today I accomplished … Dear Lord, You made me survive this day. Please bless everyone I’ve encountered this day. Hold me in Your hands as I go to sleep.

Thank you. Amen.

BAYANI

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If you have not noticed, I have. The big stickers on jeepneys, FX taxis, buses and even on tricycles, with a Philippine flag and the word in capital letters – BAYANI. Is it a hero? A fraternity? A movement? A brotherhood? A TODA? No! It is the MMDA Chairman!

Many have said that Chairman Bayani is guilty of premature campaigning. For what? If anyone thinks that he is already campaigning for presidency, Chairman Bayani cannot be faulted for it. It’s all in your mind, stupid! Chairman Bayani thinks the same thing, maybe.

Mayor Jojo of Makati, who may be itching to have similar stickers but has not done the same thing, raised hell about the giant tarpaulins of Chairman Bayani prominently displayed all over EDSA. But the MMDA Chair has always been quick to say that he has not violated any law. He has done nothing illegal.

Nothing immoral, then? Does he care?

The bus and jeepney drivers and operators have also dutifully greeted the MMDA Chair on his birthday some weeks ago by decorating many of the foot bridges along EDSA with tarpaulins. All of a sudden the TODAs are grateful to the MMDA Chair for all his U-turn slots, anti-colorum spray paiting, agaw-manibela, pink fences, number coding!

A few days ago, the dailies reported that Bayani posters have sprouted in Central Luzon reminding everyone that “mga batas ay solusyon, dapat alamin at sundin” or “pantay-pantay kung may disiplina”. How profound, indeed. Chairman Bayani was quick to say, “It’s a personal advocacy. There is nothing wrong with that, anybody can have his own advocacy.” Sige na nga.

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More from the MMDA Chair: “I am not endorsing any beauty product. I am endorsing ‘Kaayusan’.” Oo na nga, sabi eh.

May patama pa siya.

He does not deny having political ambitions. Well and good.

But he is not yet campaigning since he is not yet a candidate. Still well and good? His “advocacy” comes with his pictures, but only to “attract attention”. Still well? He says he did not spend a single centavo from government coffers for his “advocacy”. Still good?

Oo na. Sige na. May magagawa pa ba kami? Magkita-kita tayo sa 2010 para masaya.

SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRES Ms. Salve Duplito of the Inquirer wrote a small article about Filipinos who are considered hidden, self-made millionaires. She says that there are quite a number of them now since making a million these days is not really such a big deal.

Just ask the guys in the ZTE-NBN deal, the guys who built the Macapagal Boulevard, those who negotiated the North Railway Project, our “honorables” who regularly receive their pork. They may have something to say. Baka lang. But don’t ask the Court of Appeals justices. That may be sub-judice.

In any case, Ms. Duplito says that a study reveals that self-made millionaires live on 7% of their wealth, save 15% and invest nearly 20% of their realized household income. They also invest heavily in education for themselves and for their children.

Listen to this: they live BELOW their means, drive humble cars and live in simple houses. Malamang walang utang, Vios 1.3 ang pang araw-araw at nakatira sa single-detached 2 bedroom

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bungalow, either owned or rented. They have credit cards but not credit card debts. They prefer to cook their own birthday dinners.

Most self-made millionaires are happy in their relationships.

They don’t buy things for show. They are frugal, but not misers.

Some are employed, others are self-employed and they get more satisfaction in an increasing portfolio of mutual funds, stocks and bonds.

Sana ako rin.

03 AUG 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 28 HANDLE A HERO

Today’s Star carried a nice article by Jim Paredes of the Apo fame entitled “How to handle a hero”. It’s about his impressions on OFWs (Mga Bagong Bayani) who are homebound. He observes, “Many OFWs come home for that rare visit looking forward to family bonding, only to discover that the people they want to spend time with are busy. They do not feel integrated, only accommodated.”

Jim is really incisive, and he, himself, is like an OFW since his family now resides in Australia, and he often comes to Manila to work and earn his bread and butter.

He says that our OFWs should not only be considered as “providers and sustainers of life back home” but also as people who need care and sustenance – which many of them hardly get.

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Totoo naman. Kadalasan, the relationship of OFWs with their families is simply one of economics. Nakatatanggap lang sila ng text kung may kailangang bilhin o bayaran. Or someone is sick, or some relatives need money. For the family, no news is better than the arrival of the monthly remittances. Western Union is what it is now for that.

Many OFWs feel deprived of affection, more than physical absence, which sometimes leads to alienation that can be most painful. Communication with the OFW is often reduced to just an enumeration of what needs to be bought, to be financed, instead of loving reassurances, expression of gratitude and encouragement.

This is the reason why I have often suggested to our friends in OWWA to adopt a family-oriented Pre-departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) so that the entire family can work out a meaningful strategy to cope with the drastic changes that will come with overseas employment. I hope I was not barking at the wrong tree.

Jim offers some advice to the families of OFWs. Relate to the OFWs as people, not just as providers. Constantly shower them with gratitude. Don’t blame them for being away. Encourage them to get a life outside of work. Pero huwag lang “extra-curricular” activities.

Don’t forget to greet them on their birthday, during Christmas, New Year, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc. Two other important things – put aside some of the OFW remittances for a rainy day, and make sure to be around when they come home.

The saddest homecoming is when the OFW finds out that his or her family is worse off than the time he or she made the heavy

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decision to leave them behind for greener pastures. It’s not only sad, it is tragic.

CORPORATIZATION There is news that Commissioner Nona Ricafort, Officer-in-Charge of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) aims to promote corporatization among the 111 State Colleges and Universities (SUCs).

She said, “With the country’s food security problem in mind, we’re seriously considering converting idle SUC lands into agricultural estates. We’ll put them to good use.”

Nice words. Good intentions.

But let’s hear what the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has to say. Chairman Antonio Tinio says that corporatization “can only mean higher costs that will push tertiary education beyond the reach of even more students.”

Not to be outdone, Alvin Peters, president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) has this to say, “Corporatization will further drive the profit-oriented nature of education in the country.”

What will I say? Knee-jerk responses? Terms not explicitly defined? High-sounding terms? Argumentum ad hominem?

Everyone speaking too soon? Nobody listening? All of the above?

In TESDA we did not use big words like corporatization. We chose to use the self-explanatory term “Income-Generating Projects” or IGPs. The IGP approach is to get the school to finance start-up projects like chicken layers (for eggs) and broilers (for meat), swine culture (for pork and piglets) vegetable

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gardening, rice planting, tilapia culture and duckery (for balut, penoy and itlog na pula).

The IGPs include food service, catering with events organizing. Each IGP becomes a training ground for student “workers” who get a share of the income of the project. This means that the students will have to work hard to make the project profitable.

In the case of the Quezon National Agricultural School, then headed by OIC-RD Ted Gatchalian, the eggs, the chicken, the pork, the vegetables, the rice, the tilapia, the balut, penoy and itlog na pula are sold to the students who “work” in the food service (school canteen), catering (for kasalan, binyagan, debut, birthday, etc.) with event organizing. Everybody learns their skills, everybody becomes budding “entrepreneurs” and everybody shares in the bounty. The greater part of the income is of course re-invested in the growing “business.”

The entire school campus has been put to good productive use. Nobody is raising a howl about rising cost of education or profit-making in education. From a handful of sixty students to more than 600 to date, the school’s approach to “corporatization” is down-to-earth.

MIND DIETING South Beach, Atkins, Cabbage Soup, Fruit Diet, See-food Diet, What-Have-You Diet, and countless other forms of dieting have made many people rich but have made fewer people lose weight.

I think many of these diets, often considered as fad my many, really intend to instill some sort of discipline among those who

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intend to lose some pounds. But very often the whole dieting exercise is reduced to calorie-counting which is quite tricky, unless you do some serious arithmetic.

It amazes me how many types of diets have been invented. It amazes me more how many more have been convinced to try them. It amazes me still how many have lost a few pounds during the dieting period, only to regain much more after.

Perhaps it is time someone invented something called mind dieting, that is simply looking at the emotional side of food.

Many people eat to make themselves “full” but the real “hunger” lies in a deep-seated emotional emptiness. For these people, any kind of diet will do, anyway dieting is most likely just a passing fancy.

I have said it before that man is the only animal that eats even when he is not hungry. Animals in the wild will hunt for food when they are hungry but once they get their fill, they take it easy and often spend the rest of their days sleeping. Until the next bout of hunger.

We are social animals, kasi, so we tend to be bound by convention and often “forced” by social rules or norms. When the clock strikes twelve at noon, we automatically feel hunger pangs because it is the “normal” time to get hungry. Besides, for those who are working, the lunch hour is prescribed. Whether you are really hungry or not, you will have to take your lunch.

I have tried somehow to deviate from this norm, taking my lunch at “odd” hours, only when I really feel hungry. In fact during days when I get a “second” breakfast at Chowking or Jolibee, lunch will really be quite late, often at two in the

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afternoon. This allows me to do a lot of work during the usual lunchtime.

This is some kind of mind dieting for me. Try it.

NANO Tata Motors recently launched possibly the cheapest car in the world – the four-seater, 623 cc twin cylinder Nano. It costs about 1 Lakh or $2,500 or about P115,000 plus VAT plus tax plus dealer’s margin plus sales commission plus other things.

It was called Nano to denote small size and high technology, also low cost but high-tech. It is 5 feet wide and 10 feet long with adequate ground clearance so that it can maneuver easily in urban roads. The wheels are at the corners and the engine and powertrain are at the rear like the Volkswagen of yesteryears.

Designed with a family in mind, the Nano has a roomy interior and generous leg space and head room. It has an all-aluminum two-cylinder multi-point fuel injection gasoline engine. It is controlled by a specially-designed electronic management system.

The Nano will go on sale in India later this year and judging from the 7.9 million hits in the Tata Nano website on the day it was launched in January, sale will most likely be brisk.

According to an Internet article, the Nano website (www.tatanano.com) was developed within one and a half months and the portal was built on open source technology with minimum investment. Wala siguro silang pambayad sa consultant.

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There is no air conditioning in the standard model, with manual steering and no air bags. But the Nano can go as fast as 70 kilometers per hour at 20 or so kilometers per liter.

Mabuti pa ang India, it is making its own cars. I was told that the small 800 cc Suzuki Alto came to the Philippines as a completely built unit (CBU) from India. These days, the Alto along with the Chinese-made Chery, seem to be the cheapest cars of choice, the former going for P359,000 SRP and the latter for P319,000 SRP. I hope I will be able to afford the Nano. Or I can probably just swap my 12-year old Space Wagon for the standard model.

GREEN PAN It is only available through the Internet. Unfortunately, I haven’t really tried to make any purchase through the Net except when I bought our ticket for a vacation to Kuala Lumpur more than a year ago.

The green pan promises to be the next generation Teflon cooking pan. It can go as high as 450 degrees without burning, much better than its Teflon-coated cousins.

With the green pan, frying eggs can be a breeze with absolutely no oil, and grilling pork, beef or chicken will work just as well. I can fry eggs without oil on my Teflon pans but the heat needs to be regulated. The same can be said about grilling and even inihaw na talong.

When the brood goes for summer outing, I usually bring along my portable butane gas stove and my square Teflon coated shallow pan. Along with just a knife, I can cook a number of

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dishes on this pan – fry some fish, grill some liempo, inihaw na talong with sibuyas at kamatis, fry some rice, even toast some bread. Nagutom na tuloy ako.

In the house I do have stainless cookware which I can use for my induction cooker. It’s the only thing that works with this type of stove. I also have some ceramic-coated sauce pans, good for preparing gravy and even sinigang. Of course I also have my stove-top glass Corning ware, fun to cook with because you can see all the ingredients through the glass pot.

I haven’t used my vertical oven lately, but my oven toaster is somewhat overused. Even my regular gas oven is seldom used, except during the Yuletide season, or when I do some real baking.

My turbo oven is used more often, especially when crispy pata is on the menu.

The green pan will most likely be the next addition to my arsenal of cookware. I hope it will be in the open market soon.

10 AUG 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 29 DOJ

It’s not what you think. It’s not about the department headed

by Secretary “Speedy” Gonzales, although their acronyms are the same.

It’s a new “designation” that probably fits my present job description – Director for Odd Jobs. Since I have had no portfolio for some months now, then I simply end up doing things that

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people expect I could do. Fortunately, these are the same things that I often enjoy doing. Well, at least most of them, anyway.

Other than that, I also find myself shuttling from one office to the other, in TESDA some days of the week and in the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Education some other days. So I am possibly one rare two-office employee, doing things which are sometimes totally unrelated.

Of course, at the OPAE, like in TESDA, I often find myself preparing papers, speeches and presentations for the boss, often at breakneck speed, if necessary. Like in TESDA too, I often find myself in situations when I get “surprise” assignments to make this or that presentation, to deliver this or that speech, or to brief this or that group. Well, wala talagang nagbago.

In TESDA, I continue to offer my views on matters concerning the maritime sector, maybe because people still find some value for the ten years of work that I have put into that sector. I continue to be asked about matters concerning program registration, maybe because people have not really forgotten that I authored the original program registration framework and guidelines.

It’s a good thing that people in TESDA continue to get my views regarding corporate and sectoral planning perspectives so the three years that I spent in the planning office has not gone to waste.

There are occasions when I volunteer to do some editing work, if only to make sure that the TESDA materials that go public will at least be free from obvious grammatical lapses. At

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least the practice that I get writing the CACOPHONY pieces has been put to some good use.

In OPAE, the story is rather similar, except that I often get good reviews from PA Valisno, along with a generous dash of “salamat”, “magaling”, “mabilis ka talagang magtrabaho” and many other similar words that are as rare in TESDA as blue moons.

I have put many of my computer skills to good use, including layout and graphics skills. I have done some photo enlargements and book cover designs and, as always, produced the OPAE newsletter, aptly called “Education Quality and Relevance” or EQR Updates.

Mabuti wala pang nagpapagawa ng wristwatch or wallclock!

MiEV Mitsubishi doesn’t intend to be left behind in the race to launch a real green car. It plans to mass-market a small electric vehicle called MiEV (Mitsubishi in-wheel Electric Vehicle) by 2010.

The car promises to allow higher mileage, independence from petroleum, and a positive impact on the environment. It has three magnetic synchronous motors. Each front wheel has an in-wheel motor and a single electric motor drives the rear wheels.

The car’s top speed will be 112 miles per hour, powered by a lithium-ion battery installed under the floor. It will have a photovoltaic (solar) generator on its roof, a power-generating fan inside the front grill, power-saving LED lighting, and an efficient

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air conditioning system made possible by heat-absorbing windows.

There are actually five models of electric vehicles now available abroad. As a class, these vehicles are called NEVs or neighborhood electric vehicles. These are intended for short drives at slower speeds of 25 miles per hour.

One is the Dynasty iT made by Dynasty Electric Cars of British Columbia, priced at $14,000 to $25,000. Another is the GEM, made by Global Electric Motors, a Chrysler company, priced at $6,795 to $12,495. Still another is the Columbia ParCar Summit priced at $9,497 to $10,857.

The ZENN is manufactured by the ZENN Motor Company.

It means Zero Emissions No Noise, available at $14,700 to $15,575.

The last one is the Miles Electric Vehicle ZX40 which sells at $14,900 to $18,900.

Magkano kaya yong electric jeepney ni Mayor Jojo Binay?

OLYMPICS DELEGATION I have seen similar things from my first year students in the early seventies. But these funny phrases sent to me by Baby B. through SMS may possibly beat them all. She even calls them intellectual quotes and expressions. Let’s see if they really are.

If you didn’t realize it, I’ll tell you straight – “I’m sick of tired” with you. Well, this assertion sounds like it is “true good to be true”. Ano raw?

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Well, ganoon lang talaga ang buhay – sabi nga nila, “when it rains it four”. Akala ko three?

In an earlier piece I wrote that praise and recognition for good work is rather common in the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Education where I am detailed on a part-time basis, unlike in TESDA where these things come “once in a new moon”.

How I wish I knew about this before. In any case, I beg of you, “please don’t make fond of me.”

Baby says, “The more you hate, the more you laugh”. I am not sure whether she really believes in this because even her classmates from her “Alma Mother” can’t believe it. In fact, they told her to “keep your mouth shocked”. Actually their admonition is just “the tip of the icing”. When they saw her, they said that their encounter would be a “no holes barred” atmosphere. “Ats if” they really meant what they said.

But I guess I have to explain at this point why this piece is so titled. Baby apparently got confidential information about the Philippine delegation to the Olympic Games in Beijing. She said that the United States, which has so far harvested more than a hundred medals, sent 280 athletes to the Games. On the other hand, the Philippines had a delegation of 270, slightly smaller than that of the US – and this consisted of 15 athletes and 225 Congressmen! Mabuhay! Bokya na naman tayo sa Olympics!

“Connect me if I’m wrong” but I think we won a gold medal in something called wushu. Hooray! Kaya lang, not counted – “I hope you don’t mine”. We look like losers again, and Baby says she doesn’t “wanna portrait that role” either.

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In fact, her parting words were, “Will you please give me alone?” No problem, Baby, as long as you don’t say, “the nerd!”

WIRELESS ELECTRICITY He sent me an SMS with a lot of excitement, parang nakita na niya ang fountain of youth. Dr. Rey Peña said that what he had been saying all along has turned out to be true. Electricity can now be transmitted without wires. Parang di na kailangan ang mga transmission cables at towers at mga post eng Meralco.

Yahoo! came out with the news about a demonstration of wireless electricity done by Intel, which lighted a 60-watt bulb without wires from a distance of three feet.

Intel said that it transmitted electrical energy using magnetic field instead of electrical field to make it safe for humans to be around. The wireless electric power system may revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from wall outlets or transformers.

In the future office buildings may be rigged to supply power to computers or laptops without the need of wires. It will eliminate chargers and maybe even batteries in laptops.

Intel says that its wireless electricity system is still in its infancy and much research still needs to be done before this can reach the market. Technological transformations are expected to be available in 2050. Diyos ko, abo na tayong lahat by that time!

Another company in Philadelphia is looking at another wireless power technology – this time attempting to convert radio waves to electricity. Delikado, baka makuryente tayo pag nakinig tayo kay Joe Taruc sa DZRH!

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CONDO Recently she suggested that we should probably consider the option of renting a condo somewhere in the EDSA area, nearer our place of work. Like me, the wife has noticed that our gasoline expense is eating much of our monthly pay since we have to travel daily by car from Novaliches to our places of work.

She said that I should take a look at one of the new high rise condominiums behind Robinson’s Galleria, a stone’s throw from POEA where she works.

I visited such place one afternoon and learned that only three condo units are available for buyers, in spite of the steep price of two to three million pesos per unit.

I told the lady marketing assistant that I am in search of a condo unit that we could just rent. She said that I went to the right place because there were some six units available – at P12,000 per month – with one month advance and two months deposit.

I thought that the rate was too much, but maybe I was wrong, considering the location. The lady offered to show me the condo unit at the fifteenth floor. I was surprised to see a small one-room unit, all of 31 square meters, including a small bathroom, a smaller kitchen, a sala and dining area combo and a bedroom smaller than our veranda.

It was not the end of the rental rate. If we rent the room, we had to pay something called “association dues” at P1,800 per month. And if we needed a parking space, we had to pay P3,500

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per month, plus another “association dues” of P600 per month.

Sila na lang ang nabuhay!

When I told the wife about it, she said “mag-gasolina na lang tayo!

17 AUG 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 30 CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

The concepts of quality assurance and quality systems are fairly recent additions to my vocabulary. There have been two events in TESDA that forced me to look into these concepts and internalize them.

One of these events is the eight-year long PAQTVET project which is actually the Philippine-Australian Quality Technical Vocational Education and Training Project, a very long nomenclature, indeed.

In the course of this rather long project, I found myself entangled with a number of Australian consultants, experts in the field of quality assurance and tech-voc education and training.

The other event is TESDA’s involvement in the maritime sector, principally in conjunction with the Philippine accession to the STCW Convention or the Standards of Training, Watchkeeping and Certification. Under Executive Order 242, TESDA is mandated to issue competency certificates to ratings, particularly to those who assume watchkeeping duties in the deck and engine departments.

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In both events, people say that quality assurance is “documenting what we do and doing what we document�. We develop a quality policy manual and a procedures manual.

Whatever is written in the procedures manual should be followed to the letter so that work is done consistently in accordance with procedures.

An internal audit is done by trained quality auditors to ensure that there are no deviations from procedures. This presumes that the public or the customers know these procedures and they are satisfied as long as these procedures are followed.

For me this is the crux of the matter. In the recent external quality audit of TESDA’s activities in the maritime sector, customer feedback is one of the areas where TESDA is weakest.

For me this is rather a serious irony. Customers are the best auditors of the performance of an agency, but the audit can only happen if procedures for securing customer feedback are religiously followed.

Agencies usually prepare for internal audits and external audits which are often done on specific schedules. On the other hand, feedback from customers is usually spontaneous and reactive to their actual experiences with day to day operations.

I call this a customer-driven quality system.

MIRACLE He often makes my day with thoughtful and sometimes though-provoking text messages. Les Reyes is a young

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entrepreneur who made his first million a few years back and has not stopped making more ever since.

He is part of the list of prestigious personalities in Joey Concepcion’s Go Negosyo book.

Some days ago, Les sent me this text message: “No matter how softly you whisper a prayer, God surely listens and understands. He knows the hopes and fears you keep in your heart. And when you trust in His love, miracles happen. God bless.”

I replied that indeed miracles do happen and he texted me back: “Yes sir, you are one of my miracles.” He made my day again.

Sometime ago, Les also sent me a very telling message. He said, “In life what matters is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got but what you shared; not your success but your significance; not what you learned but what you taught; not your competence but your character; not how long you will be remembered but by whom and for what. Live a life that matters, that cares, that loves. Enjoy life and make the most of it.

The pertinent questions, therefore, that we need to ask ourselves are – What have we built? What have we shared? What is our significance? What have we taught others? What is our character?

Another texter, Mr. Kaypee, shared eight truths that we should all remember. First, he defines faith as the ability to not panic. He immediately follows this with the reminder that if you worry, you did not pray; if you pray, don’t worry.

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He also says that even if we are not good at arithmetic, we should always do our mathematics – let’s count our blessings.

Let’s live on the basis of spiritual truths; we need not be religious nuts.

Because I am about to become a senior citizen, he assures me that growing old is inevitable although growing up is optional.

He probably knows too that I am the silent type so he said that silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted.

Finally, let’s all take note of this – there is no key to happiness, the door is always open. Happiness is really entirely up to us.

GENIE Dir. Rannie sent me a rather long message about his trip to Midsayap in North Cotabato at about the time the MILF, or what was believed to be a break-away faction of the MILF, was sowing terror in the area.

He said that he has seen many families along the roads living in temporary shelters, mostly tents and makeshift dwellings.

These were families who left their homes for fear of getting themselves into the crossfire between the rebels and the pursuing government forces.

According to Dir. Rannie, he could hear the sound of exploding mortar shells as he travelled around the place. So I texted him back and said I am praying for his safety, but he should also do some praying himself.

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I remember in the early days of my entry into government service in the 70s when I became part of the Presidential Task Force on Labor based in DOLE. We cooked up a project to train young Muslims to become seafarers in Nuling, Maguindanao.

This was the height of the Mindanao wars during the Marcos regime.

At night, we could hear the army tanks as they made their way through the highway. From the vantage point of the training center which was on top of a hill, we could see some clashes as the rebels returned fire.

Dir. Rannie did not say whether he met Pedro in Midsayap, but the latter thought that he was a very lucky guy when he stumbled on a bottle which contained a genie.

The genie, as always, said that he will grant any three wishes.

So Pedro thought awhile and then said, “First, I want to live in a big mansion”, to which the genie replied, “Your wish will be done, master.”

“Next I want my complexion to be white so that women will be attracted to me.” Again, the genie said that that wish will be granted.

“Finally, I want all women who see me to take off their panties, caress me and feel comfortable in my presence.”

The genie said, “Master, at the count of three, all your wishes will come true. One…two…three…surprise! At natupad ang tatlong wishes ni Pedro!

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Kaya lang, ang protesta niya – “Bakit mo ako ginawang inodoro???”

TOBACCO ADS The other day, I saw some pictures of cigarette packs being sold in Thailand which included unsightly pictures of persons suffering from diseases or conditions caused by smoking. These pictures are expected to speak louder than words. Much louder than what the surgeon general is saying about the danger of smoking to one’s health.

Perhaps, smoking, especially among women and the young is still common in Thailand, as it is in the Philippines. It’s a good thing that many public places including the air-conditioned malls have been declared smoke free.

This is, however, not true in the case of mall areas where bingo is played. It seems that mall managers have “allowed” smoking in these areas. Since the bingo joints are usually not secluded sections, the smell of tobacco pervades the surrounding area. People have to bear the secondary smoke from these bingo joints.

Since I have given up smoking a long, long time ago, I hate the smell of tobacco and I try my best to avoid the effects of secondary smoke.

It’s a good thing that Republic Act 2211, otherwise known as the Tobacco Regulations Act of 2003 has prohibited ads on radio, TV and movie houses since last year, and in newspapers and magazines since July of this year. The law also prohibits tobacco

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companies from sponsoring any sport, concert, cultural or art event and even individual or team athletes, artists or performers.

A good friend, Associate Commissioner Gesmundo of PRC is not a smoker but he texted me sometime ago to remind me of something else - not to make or receive calls on my cellphone when the battery reaches the lowest bar. According to him, clinical tests in the US shows that this can cause deafness and can develop tumor in the brain. He reminded me not to put my mobile phone near me when I go to bed.

If you have doubts, better be safe than sorry.

TWO NUNS I must have come across this story in the past, but Neo reminded me about it again in an email.

One was the kind who is like The Count of Sesame Street fame – always making mathematical calculations. The other must have gone through all the logic courses in school – always considering things from a logical perspective.

One night they were walking in a dark alley on their way back to the convent when they noticed a man following them.

When they walked a bit faster, the man seemed to quicken his gait to catch up.

They looked at each other and seemed to come to the same conclusion – the man probably had something in mind – RAPE! So the counting nun said, “At the rate we are going, he will catch up with us in ten minutes so we better walk faster or run.”

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The logical nun replied, “It’s more logical to run so that we will lose him.”

But the man would not give up and he also broke into a run.

Again the counting nun said, “At the rate we are running, he will catch up with us in one minute.” The other nun replied, “It’s more logical if we split up so that he will not get both of us.”

So they did. The counting nun ran as fast as she could until she safely reached the convent. Then she started worrying about the logical nun because she was nowhere in sight.

After about ten minutes, however, the logical nun came. She was pale and panting, possibly from fear and some other things.

The counting nun asked, “What happened?”

“Well, he ran rather fast so he caught up with me. And when he did, I pulled up my skirt and he brought down his pants.”

So what do you think happened?

The counting nun was so concerned and asked the same question – “Then what happened?”

The logical nun replied, “As you know, a woman with a raised skirt can always run faster than a man with his pants down. So it’s not what you think!”

It’s not really what you thought it was.

24 AUG 2008

VOL. 3 NO. 31 CONVENTION CENTER

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More than a month ago, I was invited to a maritime convention sponsored by a group headed by Mr. Sammy Lim of FAME, the Filipino Association for Mariners Employment.

The venue was the new SMX Convention Center, part of the SM Mall of Asia, reputed to be the biggest mall in Asia. This was my first visit to the Center. The last time I saw the area, it was still part of a vast parking lot along the bay, between the mall itself and the church built at the farthest end of the complex.

It was a rainy morning when I got to the place. I was surprised to see only four other cars parked in the parking lot which could take in about a hundred vehicles. I thought I came in too early as others may have been caught in the traffic or in the rain or both.

I crossed the street to the Convention Center and asked the guard why there were so few cars in the parking lot and he said, “Naka-park ho sila sa basement. Marami na hong tao sa itaas.”

So that is it! Everyone is parked at the basement but I didn’t know that the Center had that kind of parking facility. Then I proceeded to look for the stairs as the long escalator was not running.

I dutifully asked one of the security personnel where the way up is and he directed me to the escalator. “But it’s not working”, I protested. Then he said, “Automatic ho iyan. Basta tumapat lang kayo aandar na yan.”

I did as told and sure enough, the escalator came to life and lifted me up to the convention floor. Mahirap talaga, kasi wala pang automatic na escalator sa probinsiya namin. Strike two na ako.

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Before I entered the hall I decided to answer the call of nature so I asked for direction to the rest room. Luckily, it was not difficult to find. In fact, the restroom was much bigger than a regular studio unit in a condominium. Our house is just a bit bigger, happily.

The convention hall was quite grand, with good audio-visual facilities. The seats were comfortable and the dining area was conducive to eating. These and the good food served from Via Mare more than made up for any shortcoming in the convention.

Next time I go to the SMX Convention Center, alam ko na.

INEFFICIENCY Several times in the past, Globe sent me text messages that the bills sent to my office were returned so I was advised either to do any of three things: go to the Globe website and change my billing address, call a certain toll-free number, or visit any Globe business center.

I visited the website and found out that I couldn’t get through the process because I could not log in, minus a user name and a password. I did not want to use the toll-free number because I might end up talking to a machine. So I settled for the third option.

The customer service person at the Globe business center in Market! Market! was extra helpful. He attended to my concerns courteously and made sure that I left as a satisfied customer. I requested him to shift my billing address from the office to my residence since TESDA is no longer paying for my phone bills.

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He quickly worked on his laptop and assured me that the billing address problem will be a thing of the past. I thanked him profusely for his services and left with a sense of accomplishment.

A few days after, I received a text message from Globe reminding me to pay my overdue bill with the advice that I may change my billing address through any of three ways. Oh no, not again!

I have assumed that Globe has only one data base of all its customers. Since one business center has assured me that my billing address has been changed, I never expected to receive a message from Globe again reminding me to do this or that to change such address.

I settled my bill in another business center, this time making sure that my correct billing address has been properly noted. In fact, I expressed exasperation over my receipt of another reminder, inspite of my visit to a business center.

The center supervisor apologized and assured me that all will be well – until the next text message asking me for my billing address – which I did receive a few days after this second visit.

Well, talking about efficient technology.

Globe people have a lot of explaining to do.

NEW GUY There’s a new guy at the helm of the Commission on Higher Education. He is none other than Chairman Emmanuel “Manny”

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Angeles of the Angeles University Foundation in Pampanga. It is probably important to emphasize the location of his school.

Dr. Manny Angeles is one of the members of the Presidential Task Force for Education representing private academe.

I remember that during the first meeting of the Task Force that I attended in Ateneo Rockwell, he made a presentation on his assessment of the education system in the Philippines. It was the first time that he became part of my consciousness and so I listened attentively to his presentation. Unfortunately, I was not lucky enough to get to the grain of his message. I don’t really know why.

As the meetings of the Task Force became more intense, I began to notice some of his “favorite” remarks. It seems that he doesn’t really have any lost love with technical vocational education, especially “the way TESDA does it”. I did not have the nerve to intervene when this remark was made because I might be declared “out of order” since I am not a member of the Task Force.

But it is certainly interesting to find out what he really means by that. Dr. Angeles also seems not to have any love for ladderization. In fact, sometimes he mentions this like it is some kind of an arrangement that not only dilutes but even devalues degree programs. This is not too different from comments that we heard earlier from the state colleges and universities that tech-voc programs somehow lower the prestige of the degree programs. I have difficulty understanding this.

Dr. Angeles also seems to be looking forward to the re-merger of the three education agencies. The word

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“trifocalized” is possibly not part of his vocabulary or dictionary, as the case may be.

Well, we cannot fault the guy for having such views. He is certainly entitled to them. I am sure he will do his best to improve higher education. I am not hoping against hope.

BASTOS If you often do any driving around Metro Manila, you will likely confirm what I am going to say next. Maraming bastos na driver sa Pilipinas, if Metro Manila is a microcosm of the whole country.

EDSA is the best place to spot these kinds of drivers. All over the place you will definitely see the yellow lines and the ubiquitous signs – Yellow Lanes for Yellow Plates, referring to the public utility vehicles, including taxis, I suppose.

It is a simple rule but many drivers choose to disregard such simple rule, either because they think nobody is enforcing it or they simply want to have their way.

The situation is aggravated by the islands built by Chairman BF’s boys for loading and unloading of bus passengers. Many private vehicle drivers stay in the yellow lanes and then squeeze themselves into the lane for private vehicles at the loading island approach, disturbing the smooth flow of traffic. Ang Pilipino talaga, basta may pila gustong sumingit, gustong mauna.

Talagang may kabastusan.

The worst culprits are bus drivers who simply refuse to fall in line. Instead they usually intimidate smaller vehicles by slowly

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getting into the lane at the last possible stretch of the road. So it is not really unusual for vehicular accidents or collisions to happen.

Another form of kabastusan can be observed in narrow four-lane main roads, two lanes for either direction. At the usual unloading areas, traffic is often stop-and-go and long lines are formed. As always, the bastos drivers, jeepney and FX drivers usually, go to the lanes intended for oncoming traffic. They disturb the normal flow of traffic on the oncoming vehicles’ lane as well as traffic on their own lane because they force themselves to get into it at the end of the line.

Yon pa rin. Gustong mauna, ayaw pumila, mas gustong sumingit.

“Sa ikauunlad ng Pilipinas, disiplina ang kailangan,” sounds like a cliché but if Filipino drivers insist on their kabastusan, pupulutin talaga ang Pilipinas sa kangkungan.

Traffic rules are the simplest laws of the land, yet we cannot even follow them. It is no wonder that we are still where we are as a nation and not really getting anywhere.

Have you noticed if Bangladesh has just passed by?

BIG PROBLEM Late last week, I was invited to make a presentation on manpower planning and development before a small audience – three functionaries of the Ministry of Labour of Bhutan, a land-locked nation in the Himalayas.

It is such a small country with a population of more than six hundred thousand people, perhaps no larger than the inhabitants

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of the Sampaloc area. About forty one thousand square meters of mountains, valleys and plains define its geography.

Surprisingly, at least for me, the small audience, two young ladies and a young man, spoke good English and I did not have any trouble making my presentation.

I spoke about the advances that we have made in terms of discarding the old and worn methodology called manpower requirements approach, and the shift to a more analytical methodology. In current parlance, we refer to this as PSALM, which Director Bernie and I developed during our Planning Office days.

The Bhutanese manifested interest, took down a lot of notes but I sensed that something else was bothering them. Something told me that I was not hitting the nail on the head.

The young man, who was somewhat more articulate than the two ladies, said that they appreciate the logic of the methodology.

However, their country is having another big problem that may render such methodology not practicable.

He clarified that many Bhutanese are unemployed, yet some five thousand foreign workers, mostly Indians, are working in the country. Bhutan has common borders with India on three directions and one with China. Indians can freely get into the country without passports or visas, as long as they have identity cards. Then they get the 3-D jobs (dirty, difficult, dangerous) and accept low wages.

Well, I told them about the tenet of our methodology – no amount of training can solve a non-training problem. They

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agreed and realized that government policy on emigration needs to be revisited to address their present concern.

On the lighter side, they were looking forward to a visit to the Mall of Asia which will have a sale in the coming days.

Maybe the whole population of Bhutan will snugly fit into the mall with a little more space for parking.

31 AUG 2008

VOL. 3

NO. 32 SAFETY HELMET

Senator Bong Revilla has a bright idea – to require all motorcycle riders to wear safety helmets. He has filed a bill no less, and even done some roadshow to drumbeat support for the proposed legislation. Mind you, this is not just for show.

A rider himself, Senator Bong certainly knows what he is talking about. Countless riders have lost their lives because they preferred to “feel the wind” in their faces, or these were cases where their heads were simply full of air.

The roads are now awash with riders of all temperaments and persuasions, but mostly hotheads whose primary aim is to get ahead of all the rest. As a four-wheel driver, I tend to be wary about these two-wheel denizens because they come and go from all directions, often the wrong direction.

This is rather recent to us but in Thailand and more so in Taiwan, the ubiquitous motorcycle riders have been around in countless numbers since fifteen or so years ago. Some ten years ago when I had a short visit to Taipei, two-wheeled vehicles had vast parking lots all to themselves. The roads of Bangkok are

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always jarred by the shrill decibels of motorcycle engines, fortunately without the usual smog.

There must be some logic in calling the safety gear as crash helmet, since it comes in handy in case of a crash. But the safety gear must be used in its preventive sense, not in a “required” or compulsory sense. I speak from experience because I have been a rider myself since my high school days.

Maybe Senator Bong should talk about his bill with the Philippine National Police, not only because they are the enforcement guys, but also because many uniformed personnel ride bikes without wearing safety gears. Again I say, the lawmakers are the lawbreakers.

In this country, no one needs to be surprised. The day should come that we need to be.

FUN BOOKS She echoed what I had in mind all along. Yvonne, my colleague at the OPAE suggested that I should put together the pieces that I have written about a common theme into one book, or several books for that matter.

Really, the pieces that I write in CACOPHONY appear to be discordant since I write about anything under the sun, at random, as they come to mind. Yvonne’s suggestion may really be the way to “make sense out of discordant voices.”

So I spent my weekend trying to do just that, using a newly-learned system of book publishing with Microsoft Word and Acrobat Distiller plus Pagemaker and Microsoft Digital Image for the book cover.

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For practice, I came up with a collection of all my Volume 1 pieces on my culinary adventures and entitled this as “Food and Cooking and Some Fun”. Fun is an integral element in the book because I do the pieces basically for fun. I have been able to publish a 52-page booklet during the weekend using my laptop and my old HP895 printer.

It is a good first attempt judging by my colleagues’ question, “Saan ninyo pina-publish ito, sir?” or “Puwede na kayong tumanggap ng publishing work!” Not yet, I am still practicing the techniques.

In any case, when I am finally done, I will probably have the following titles: Food and Cooking and Some Fun, Work and Bureaucracy and Some Fun, Life and Living and Some Fun, Technology and Gadgets and Some Fun and even Society and Politics and Some Fun. Five thematic fun books. Maybe I can even put Volumes 1 and 2 together, di ba?

FOUR GAPS I was amused by what Mr. Heriberto A. Bautista of Pozorrubio, Pangasinan wrote in the Inquirer a few days ago. It’s quite an incisive analysis of what he refers to as the four kinds of gaps that plague our country.

He says that in the past, two kinds of gaps created a lot of problems for us. One is communication gap and the other is generation gap. Unfortunately, Mr. Bautista did not provide some elaboration on these issues, maybe he believes that these are self-explanatory.

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In fact, I think they are inter-related. The language of today’s generation, their kind of music, their perspectives are quite different from mine, although I am possibly just two generations detached from the youth of today.

He says that more recently, two other kinds of gaps have reared their ugly heads. One of these is the credibility gap. He considers this as the number one problem in the country today because many Filipinos no longer believe in our leaders. Most of them say something but do something else. Parang ganon na nga, di ba?

Politicians are his main target and he considers them psy-war experts who are very good at politicking, stealing, lying, grandstanding and deceiving people. Siya ang nagsabi niyan, but loud echoes can probably be heard around.

The fourth kind of gap, he says, is TANGGAP, money changing hands, bribery, tongpats, bukol, or some other Lozada-engendered terms. Whatever it is called, it doesn’t only sound bad, it is really bad. The Executive branch? The Legislature? The Judiciary? May pagpipilian pa ba? Sabi ng isang column sa newspaper, same-same lang silang lahat. So where do we go from here?

Mr. Bautista ends his piece with a statement and a question.

“These are times that try men’s (and women’s) soul? Do Pinoys still have a soul?” Appropriate question. What is the appropriate answer?

HIGHWAY ROBBERY The other day I went to Globe to seek some answers to a number of questions that I had about my cell phone bill. Since

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TESDA has stopped paying for my mobile phone service fees, I decided to downgrade my plan to P500, with a supposed loyalty discount of P250 per month.

Simple arithmetic tells me that if I don’t go beyond my P500 per month plan, I will only pay P250 per month at the most. But this was not destined to be so. The latest bill that came through the mail showed that I need to pay P589.12, even after the discount was applied.

I was being charged P446.43 for “fixed charges” and P302.78 for “voice call charges”. I was completely at a loss about these charges so I had to look for some answers.

And here they are. First, Globe is committing highway robbery to perhaps millions of unsuspecting customers. Second, Globe people will keep you in the dark so that this robbery will surely be carried out. Third, Globe is non-repentant, and will make sure that you shell out your cash within the two-year lock-up period.

And here are the details. When you get a P500 post-paid plan from Globe, you are “entitled” to free 500 text messages per month. So if you do send as many as 500 text messages per month, then you are getting your money’s worth. You are also “entitled” to what may be considered as bonus 20 minutes of call time. Here’s the catch – all calls that you make beyond 20 minutes will be charged according to the usual call rates (P6.50 per minute) and ADDED to your bill (or added to your P500 peso plan)!

My (and possibly your) own interpretation is – Globe is forcing me to use text because if I use my phone to make calls

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beyond 20 minutes I will be charged additional costs. So why is Globe “forcing” its customers to use text messages for a call and text service that has been contracted for P500?

When you load up your phone with a pre-paid card, you are free to use the value of the card for what ever you wish – for SMS, MMS, international call, local call, internet, email, whatever. But not for a P500 plan where you are forced to pay the bills that come on a monthly basis.

Eto pa. Under this plan, you can always share load with your family members, friends, barkada or anybody – and this will be charged ON TOP of your P500 plan – because Globe says that only you can use the value of your plan. You cannot share it with anyone else. But buy a pre-paid card worth P500 and give the whole value away to anyone and Globe will not mind. Does it make sense? To me it doesn’t.

These are the things that Globe people did not tell me when I got the P500 plan. Maybe because I did not ask. These are the things that they told me when I asked my questions. Maybe because I asked.

This is not the last time that the world will hear of this robbery.

SWEET DORY Dory is not the name of a new acquaintance. It is the white fish fillet that we had for dinner the other night.

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The wife found a recipe’ in the Internet and she wanted me to try it and add my own dash of creativity. She asked my younger son to print the recipe’ for my guidance.

First I boiled half cup of water with half a cup of brown sugar.

(This turned out to be a bit too sweet for our taste.) When the sugar was completely dissolved, I added some thinly sliced ginger (like matchsticks) and a spoonful of patis.

I let the mixture boil for a minute more and added the dory fillet which I earlier sliced into bite size. I covered the skillet so that the fish fillet will cook well, turning them at least once. I sliced two medium sized white onions into rings.

When the fish was done, I took them out of the mixture and put them in a serving plate. Then I tossed the onion rings into the mixture together with two spoonfuls of sesame seed and let them cook for about a minute.

I poured the mixture over the fillet on the serving plate and the dish was ready for the taking. (As I said earlier) the wife found the dish too sweet for her taste so I suggested that we add a dash of cayenne pepper and that did the trick.

My elder son who is not into hot dishes liked the sweetness though. You can bet your last centavo that the dish was devoured up to the last bite.

Next time, it will be less sugar, with some leeks and cilantro or kinchay.

14 SEP 2008

VOL. 3

NO. 34

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BEST-KEPT SECRET According to a paper distributed in the Special National Directorate Conference in early September, “The claim that TESDA is the best well-kept secret appears to be founded on solid ground. Therefore a poll about TESDA would be appropriate, as the result of this will provide a sense of where TESDA is at in the public consciousness right now.”

The paper was supposed to summarize the findings of a social marketing and advocacy expert. I haven’t met the expert but the assessment made is something that I expected, coming from someone who may have some services to sell.

After fourteen years in existence, TESDA is definitely not an unknown agency. There is definitely no conscious effort on the part of TESDAns to be mum about TESDA’s activities and accomplishments. The expert’s statement will probably have to be considered in a figurative sense, since its literal meaning may not make sense.

The idea of conducting a poll about TESDA to measure public perception of its people and its services may be well-placed. I am sure Secretary Jesli Lapus of DepEd is still on cloud nine after a polling organization came out with very positive marks about his performance.

Sana ganoon din ang resulta sa TESDA. It was reported that TESDA has contracted the services of a polling organization for one year to afford the organization a

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year-round measure of its performance as its various publics perceive it.

In the meantime, the regional and provincial offices, including the TESDA schools and training centers are expected to craft and launch their respective social marketing and advocacy campaign (SMAC). The poll, therefore, will most likely measure how effective such campaign will be, instead of just determining the public’s perception of TESDA’s services.

A TESDA external communication plan has been hatched by a group of directors. The plan is truly comprehensive, utilizing all forms of communications media including YouTube in the Internet. Nothing has escaped the creative talents of the TESDA media team.

With all the millions that will be spent in the campaign, including the cost of the polls, I’m sure TESDA will not remain as “the best well-kept secret”. Di ba, sis?

PIG KNUCKLES The wife and I had dinner at Mickey’s some nights ago. It is a relatively new outlet for home-made sausages, steak and other processed meat at Robinson’s Galleria.

I ordered a white sausage called bratwurst but the wife preferred to try the pig knuckles which she had been thinking of the last few days. Well, as they say, the best way to get rid of a temptation is to give in to it. She did. It looked like the pig knuckles were boiled, deep fried and then heated in an open fire before it was served.

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My bratwurst was also grilled in open fine. I was a bit disappointed because it did not have a distinctive German taste that I was looking forward to. Unfortunately, Mickey’s did not have any sour pickles or yellow mustard which could have added some tingle to the palate.

That Friday, I visited the meat shop in Galleria to pick up six pieces of pig knuckles which was going for P70 per kilo. I had them cut into inch and a half thick pieces. Then I looked for the Korean Dweaji Kalbi Sweet and Spicy Seasoning Mix which I used as flavoring. The knuckles became soft and tender after boiling for half an hour in my four-quart pressure cooker. Sesame seeds were the last to go into the brew.

The dish was rather different from what the wife had at Mickey’s some nights ago. But the whole brood enjoyed the sweet and spicy dish, especially the soft litid of the knuckles.

Even Wacky, our mestizo Labrador, had a great time with his bones.

Of course, the main course came with the usual side dish of thinly sliced fresh cucumbers laced with US- made Italian dressing that I picked up from a shop in Market! Market! for only P99. By the way, there are other types of US-made dressing in that shop, including Thousand Islands, all for the same price.

This is the same shop where I get my India-made sour pickles which I often use to dress my steaks.

This is something to look forward to next Saturday.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY, #2

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I was wrong. All the cell phone companies are not only into highway robbery – they are all doing a hold-up – without even announcing it.

The Globe modus operandi is the Smart modus operandi pala. Parang yong cartel ng mga oil companies. Wala palang pinag-kaiba.

Sun is trying to be a bit different, as it has always been. If you get a P350 plan from Sun, you will be told that you can use the value for unlimited text messages and calls. That’s what Sun has always been known for. However, unlimited text and calls is not really “unlimited” because you are actually “limited” to Sun to Sun text and calls.

Anything that goes to Globe or Smart or TM or Talk & Text or Singtel or Docomo will be charged accordingly and ADDED to your bill. As always, kanya-kanyang racket. And all of us who can only afford these low-cost plans will have to live with these kinds of robbery. Or we simply go for a pre-paid plan – and live with a different kind of robbery.

I will have to find out whether the National Telecommunications Office has given its nod to all these types of hold-up. If it has, then it has made itself into an instrument of plunder – the telcos are raking in millions of pesos each passing day.

It’s nothing different from the way the LPG companies do business. They use their own kind of regulator so that customers can only use a particular brand with its own kind of regulator.

Once a Shellane user, you will be tied up with Shellane forever.

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No amount of advocacy, or even legislation, assuming the LPG lobby is non-existent, will work. The way to do business is not to give the customer any leeway, once a choice is made.

Well, highway robbery or hold-up, we don’t seem to have any choice. Or do we?

FIREFLY The whole morning was a bit rainy, as it usually is during All Saints’ Day. But we had to leave early for Himlayang Pilipino where the wife’s brood usually converges to visit the grave of the youngest sibling who died at a tender age.

As usual, the road to Himlayan was a non-ending stream of vehicles of all sizes and shapes. It’s a good thing that we could pass through some subdivisions on our way to the cemetery so that we could join the traffic some five hundred meters from the main cemetery gate.

Unlike in previous years, it wasn’t easy to spot a parking space since double parking was not allowed in many of the narrow lanes. I had to drive twice practically around the whole place until I spotted a clear area where I could squeeze in my Space Wagon.

My biyenan brought along some carbonara sauce for the spaghetti cooked al dente, with some eggs in mayonnaise for the bread and some ubi halaya. The wife brought some medium size hipon cooked with a lot of garlic and half a bottle of sprite. I brought along the cold cuts from Mickey’s, just in case.

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Everyone enjoyed the food and as the afternoon hours ticked, the sun came out and suddenly the temperature gradually became too hot for comfort. We packed our things and left the place at three.

We went to bed a bit late as the wife wanted to finish another episode from her DVD series of the hit 24. When I switched the night light off and was about to give her a good night smack, a lone firefly hovered around our bed for sometime.

And the wife said, “Siguro si Lola ‘yan, kasi di natin dinalaw.” Maybe. At this time and age, I thought that fireflies can only be seen in rural settings and not in our urban subdivision.

She flew around the room for quite a long time, until the wife and I stopped counting our sheep.

Si Lola nga kaya ‘yon?

POLENTA One of the items that I picked up from the grocery shelves was a packet of polenta, the yellow corn grit that I have long wanted to try as I often see it on TV. It came from the US and so it did not come cheap.

In any case, I proceeded to look for saging na saba to complete the ingredients of what I had in mind. My mom used to cook corn grits when I was a kid and I thought that it would be good to have my kids try the same thing.

I used my mini high-speed blender to produce finer grits so that it can cook much quicker. From the blender, the polenta went to my glass mixing bowl and I added the sliced pieces of

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the peeled saba. I simply mashed the saba into a pulp making sure that the grits are thoroughly mixed with it. Then I added three spoonful of coconut sugar to sweeten the mixture a little bit.

I formed round ping-pong size balls and flatten then before I put them on the frying pan under slow fire. Once they are golden brown, they are ready for the table.

It was the first time that the wife and my sons got a taste of the fried corn grits and the whole plateful was gone in a jiffy. It went well with the cheese-ubi ice cream that was available from the freezer.

I read the fine prints on the polenta package and a recipe’ for corn grit porridge was included. I will try this recipe’ when I am able to visit Market! Market! again. My mom also used to cook corn grit suman with some grated coconut and dry milk. I will try this too but I will make sure that the milk is not laced with melamine.

Polenta is also used to thicken soup and I will “invent” a shrimp and mussel soup with polenta as soon as I can go to Farmer’s Market for the ingredients. I can already see the excitement in my younger son as the steaming hot thick soup is served. But that will be on the coming weekend.

21 SEP 2008

VOL. 3

NO. 35 LESS IS MORE

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A few days ago I found Jason Jennings’ book again in the car and decided to take a look at the “ears” that I made the first time I read it. I know we can learn a few things from the points made in the eared pages, especially as these often go against conventional thinking.

Take a look at what is written about vision and mission, the usual stuff of organizations which proclaim to follow the path to quality. “People who have survived the mission and vision thing give a knowing grin and agree that most of those grandiose statements are fit only to be framed on the wall of the reception area, put on the cover of the annual report and talked about with the head honcho to show that you’re on the team. They definitely are not ideas anybody would actually try to carry out to get the job done better. Unfortunately, lofty mission and vision statements, like all the other empty promises too many companies make, have a rich history of not being worth squat.”

I won’t even attempt to say anything more, otherwise I might end up diluting the strong message given.

Let’s look at other ideas, those that pertain to “innovations” in the organization. Jennings talks of a beleaguered CEO or manager who “proceeds to create an initiative with a lofty project name like PUFF – People United For Our Factory. The next quarter, of course, management is back again with another equally preposterous set of initials asking people to be or do something different. Most workers have been asked to focus and refocus on so many phony-baloney programs so many times by so many people that it’s no wonder they become cynical.”

Does this sound familiar? Here’s more on the “manager’s latest discovery. “Whatever their length of time on the job, most

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workers have seen lots of harebrained initiatives that disrupt their work, then founder and sink…only to be replaced by a new fad initiative that comes in with the next tide. No wonder workers roll their eyes in disbelief at the manager’s latest discovery. They mumble to themselves and to each other that the boss should “get real”, digging in their heels while pretending to embrace this “newest, latest and best” program for efficiency.

The top-down imposition of any system communicates clearly to workers that management thinks that they, the workers, are too stupid to figure out a better way of doing their tasks.”

How about when a manager says that the strength of the organization lies in its people? It really depends. Look at this: “It is not believable or authentic when a corporate chieftain or manager publicly proclaims the organization’s workforce as its biggest asset and then hastily retreats behind the closed door of his office to pen the orders for a layoff…”

There is more to Jennings’ book than meets the eye.

SPINACH SOUP A brief lunch at the small Savory Restaurant in the Mall of Asia provided the “inspiration” for a new soup – spinach soup. I found it among the items in the menu and I was curious to find out how it looked and, of course, how it tasted. Spinach, other than Popeye’s secret weapon, is really a nutritious food for longevity.

When it came, I was a bit taken aback because of the deep green color of the soup. It was quite thick with tiny bits of tofu and eggs. My younger son, I think, was equally curious as he grabbed his soup bowl and filled it with the brew. His reaction to

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the soup led me, the wife and my elder son to grab our own bowl and have a taste ourselves. It was good, and I started to imagine how I can make my own version.

The following day, a Sunday, gave me the opportunity to wear my virtual toque and try the dish myself. Luckily, I was able to buy fresh local spinach leaves from the grocery shelf and some Japanese tofu to complete the ingredients.

The spinach leaves were the first to go into my blender to cut them into tiny bits and then to the sauce pan, along with the tofu which I also blended into fine pieces. While waiting for the soup to boil, I mixed two tablespoons of corn starch with half a cup of water.

When the soup boiled, I seasoned it with instant panggisa, then I whisked in one egg and finally the corn starch. As soon as the soup thickened, I turned off the stove. I had my first taste of the soup and I thought that it was somewhat “grassy”. I must have missed something. I tried some pepper and it tasted a little better.

Our Sunday lunch main dish was fried cream dory fillet which usually comes in frozen one kilo packages in supermarkets.

I used the Del Monte frying pack which I got from the grocery shelf for P32, including a marinating mix, a batter mix, a breading mix and a packet for gravy.

I am not sure whether the soup made the grade. Since I did not get any violent reaction, except for a short comment from the wife that it did not have the same taste as the Savory variety, then that is enough reason for me to try it again, maybe with some “modification”.

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In fact, in the fridge right now are some fresh spinach and Japanese tofu. You can bet that tonight spinach soup will again be on the dinner table.

GOING HOME EARLY I found this is my email box sometime ago and I thought it will be good to share it with others who find all the excuses to stay late in the office or elsewhere before they begin the long trek home.

The piece is attributed to Narayana Murthy who is supposed to be a member of the Board of Trustees of the Asian Institute of Management. He is from India where he is known as the builder of the biggest IT empire. He is also known for his simplicity aside from being the new IT Advisor to the Prime Minister of Thailand.

For accuracy let me just quote him at length. “I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these long hours for years. I don’t know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace.”

Nakapunta na kaya si Mr. Murthy sa TESDA? “Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization… Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors.”

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Napakadali naman sigurong maintindihan ang sinasabi niya.

“As managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office. First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves.”

Set the example? Paano kaya yon?

Mr. Murthy shares some simple guidelines. 1. Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work. 2. Work hard and smart for 8 or 9 hours. 3. Go home. 4. Read books, comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc. 5. Eat well and sleep well. Simple lang, walang complications. He calls this process re-creation.

Well, some people do not live simple lives. They have “exciting” lives with all the complications. And like someone I know, they go home early…in the morning!

ELECTRIC CARS Gerry M., who used to head the TESDA Training Center at the Export Processing Zone in Rosario, Cavite during my stint at Region IV, has finally received a well-deserved promotion. A few days before he took his oath, he sent me an interesting piece about electric cars, a topic that he probably knows will surely get my attention.

It is not uncommon to hear radio and TV broadcast in Los Angeles, Mexico City and China warning people about high air pollution levels – children and the elderly should not venture out to the streets, those who suffer from asthma should always carry their inhalers at all times, and, if possible wear protective masks.

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According to the story, General Motors produced an electric car called EV1 in 1996. It was a fast car which could accelerate from 0 to 65 miles per hour in less than 9 seconds. It was silent, produced no emissions and had no tailpipe. Recharging the vehicle was no problem as it could be done at home.

The electric cars, however, were never offered for sale.

People could get it on a ten-year lease agreement. So after the lease period, GM repossessed all of them and destroyed them!

Anong problema?

In 1997, Nissan did a similar thing with its electric Hypermini model. The City of Pasadena, California got some units on a ten-year lease. When the lease contract expired, Nissan got back all the units and destroyed them! Again?

In 2003, Toyota decided to stop the production of its RAV4-EV model, a 4x4 electric SUV which would have suffered the same fate had not some Americans who leased the vehicle got together to protest and pressure the company to sell the units.

And they succeeded. Of course, I have yet to see a real RAV4-EV on the road.

It seems that the oil companies can still buy their way through all of these developments. Their lobbyists seem to have been able to make sure that these electric vehicles do not last long.

The rage for non-renewable fossil fuel which is fast choking the environment continues, all to the benefit of the oil cartels.

When will all this insanity end?

PAYING LAST RESPECT

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Here’s a short anecdote that I got from the Internet, an apt reminder to all of us about something that we may not have realized until now. Let’s join them as they pay their last respect.

“One day not too long ago the employees of a large company returned from their lunch break and were greeted with a sign on the front door. The sign said: ‘Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym.’

At first everyone was sad to hear that one of their colleagues had died, but after a while they started getting curious about who this person might be.

The excitement grew as the employees arrived at the gym to pay their last respects. Everyone wondered: ‘Who is this person who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he's no longer here!’

One by one the employees got closer to the coffin and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood over the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul.

There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it could see himself. There was also a sign next to the mirror that said: ‘There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.’ You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your

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realization and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself.

Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life.�

Indeed, we are responsible for our own lives!

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