Earth Hour 2010

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From Barney to American Idol

08 January 2009 – A former Barney cast member, Erica Rhodes, is to be featured on the new season of American idol. I saw the video, and recognized her character (years of Barney to keep your sanity from drifting off into outer space)… but for the life of me, I couldn’t reconcile the child on Barney with the young lady auditioning for AI.

Beyonce and Taylor

Now THIS is what I would call CLASSY.

Amen.

P.S. So this video is no longer available because of some copyright claim by Viacom International. Glad I was able to watch it before it became “no longer free.”

Amen. Again.

Man on the Street

06 September 2009 – We had just finished dinner at L’Incontro, an Italian restaurant in Makati. I drove back to Makati Sports to drop Sister Dear and Zivv off where their car was parked.

As Sister Dear got herself out of the car, this man on a bike stopped in front of us and asked if he could clean my car in exchange for a couple of tablets of medicine. He said we could even buy it at the drugstore just so we’d know the money wasn’t for anything else. He added that he had no choice; the medicine is just way too expensive, P47.50, for him to afford.

I gave the guy some money, enough maybe for a couple of tablets. My sister did the same thing, and then we both drove off with a wave of what I’d like to think was good wishes from the guy.

Driving home, my head was heavy. Good thing Tala was there yakking away to keep me distracted… a little bit. Come on! P47.50? And he couldn’t afford it? What has this world come to? How many more people live like him?

I normally don’t listen to stuff like this, but there are some instances that really catch me off guard. I would like to think that God lets the authentic ones come my way. That’s perhaps not true all the time, but the thought helps.

Eat, Drink, Be Merry… Updated

13 August 2009 – So now it’s The Reliable Source of The Washington Post, blogging about yet another extravagant meal our “beloved” President and her entourage had, this time in Washington.

And I quote:

“The Reliable Source has learned that three days earlier, Arroyo and an entourage of about 65 people (including security and food tasters) had dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse on 15th Street NW hours after she met with President Obama. The group took over one of the restaurant’s private rooms and dined on lobster, steak and fine wines; at the conclusion of the meal, an unidentified woman opened a handbag stuffed with cash, counted out bills and paid the $15,000 tab — which included a generous tip.”

Over breakfast this morning, Sister Dear told me the story of one of her subjects for work. But before I move on with the story, allow me first to introduce a traditional Filipino viand called tinola:

Tinola is soup-based, commonly cooked with chicken, green papaya sliced into wedges, chili pepper leaves, boiled in broth flavored with ginger, onions and fish sauce. You can substitute chayote for the papaya, and malunggay (moringa leaves) instead of pepper leaves. Tinola is best when you have the meatier parts of chicken cooked in.

Now, back to Sister Dear’s story. At an interview, a woman was asked how she made tinola on a budget of 50 pesos (for the whole day, not just one meal; and the meal would be consumed by at least five people). She answered: (and this is not a direct quote, so bear with me)

I would buy one chicken wing, one peso worth of soy sauce, one peso worth of vinegar. Then I would boil the chicken in water. Once that’s done, the adults would eat rice with soup, and then 2-3 children can share parts of the chicken wing. This meal can be eaten for lunch and for dinner.

50 pesos. Two main meals. Two adults, three children (at least). One chicken wing. Soy sauce and vinegar worth one peso each. Lots of water.

I hope this leaves a bitter, acrid, acidic taste in the mouths of all those schmucks who enjoyed steak and lobster and wine. Then again, considering the kind of creatures they are, I highly doubt it would.

Eat, Drink, Be Merry…

11 August 2009 – For tomorrow, they come out on Page Six of the New York Post and subsequently harangued by our countrymen for all the opulence they enjoyed.

While they are out cavorting around New York City, pretending for one night to be Paris Hiltons and Leo di Caprios and Brad Pitts (more like Brad’s pitts), our country continues to wallow in the poverty most of them have dragged us into.

$20,000 is a goldmine. Not everyone will be able to see $20,000 in their lifetime.

While they are out enjoying expensive champagne and caviar, the rest of the Filipino nation scrambles about to grab the next dinner, most likely two packets of Lucky Me pancit canton to be shared by a family of five, or six, or eight.

$20,000 can feed God-knows-how-many people for God-knows-how-many months.

While they strut around in their gorgeous, haute couture gowns, a vast majority of our fellowmen dive into the ukay-ukay or the dumpsites to cover themselves up and keep warm in clothes that have seen better days.

$20,000 can house and clothe so many people who sleep out in the cold, under the flyovers, on the sidewalks… hell, on the highways.

While they are out making the most out of their people-given power and privilege, our kids are stuck in schools without classrooms, classrooms without books, books without covers. While they move about in fancy limousines, our kids walk, crawl and swim miles just to be able to go to the nearest school.

$20,000 can send children to school and give them good education and a better shot at life.

Enough said.

Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo

Kay sarap pala maging Pilipino…

I Don’t Want to Be Like Cory

03 August 2009 – I was turning 11 years old when the snap elections and subsequent People Power happened, and my childhood recollections include a kind of rivalry between my father, who worked with the Cojuangcos, and my mother, who was a government employee, and me thinking that either way it goes, my family would be fine.

But I think I may have been more yellow than red back then, seeing as how I loved to sing Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo and that song Virna Lisa (whatever happened to her?) sang, the title of which eludes me now.

Some 23 years or so later, and with a bit more sense of politics and history, I realized I truly was more yellow than red after all, considering the buckets of tears I shed when Tati woke me up at 6 in the morning last Saturday to tell me that “she’s gone.” I had been saying for weeks that I would bawl like a child when she dies; an event, which many, even her family, had begun to expect in the past weeks.

Tita Cory was a very big part of my political awakening, I guess you could say. And because of that, I wouldn’t want to be like her.

I wouldn’t want to have to sacrifice the love and life of my husband for the sake of this country’s freedom. It would be asking too much of me to have to take care of an incarcerated husband, smuggling messages in and out, organizing a campaign all by myself so that he would continue to fight his political battles.

Nor would I want to spend an hour of my life forsaking my family, my daughter, for the nation. I refuse to give up six years of my child’s life just because I have been chosen by millions of Filipinos to be their stalwart of freedom, their beacon of democracy. Taking care of the government must have meant having to delegate the care of children to someone else. NO.

I would like to think that I am a good citizen. Let me pay my taxes, make me follow the law.

But do not make me give up my family.

And because you did, Tita Cory, even for just those six years of your life, I thank you.

Chopper Ride

PLDT Hates Its Customers

• Last month, we had no DSL connection for roughly 10 days. The PLDT folks kept telling us that someone would pay us a visit, and we would rearrange our lives to wait for them at home, but nobody ever came.
• We are currently experiencing the same dead DSL (it started last Thursday or Friday), and of course, we are monitoring the situation before we call PLDT because we were so traumatized from the last time. We keep hoping that our signal would just suddenly, miraculously come back.
• I am personally scared of making the call. I am scared because I just might explode and my behavior (the result of patience being stretched too thin) will be used as an excuse to avoid solving our problem.

And yet, every friggin month, I make it a point to pay my PLDT bill in full before the due date. We are good, loyal, respectful subscribers… now why can’t PLDT just respect us back?