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.