Manila Pen Stand Off

We had an Australian guest in Makati when Trillanes and company marched to Peninsula. She is actually planning to get married in Q1 next year and considering the Philippines or Thailand for their honeymoon. The president of one of our subsidiary companies was all out in marketing El Nido resorts in Palawan. I would have suggested the same. She was so thankful for the informations and I guess she was seriously considering El Nido. That was Wednesday.

Thursday morning-- work work work. Then, after lunch, all the TV networks are into this escape and march of Trillanes. At 3pm i guess CNN or BBC picked up the news, then the mobile phone of our guest started to ring.. calls from colleagues and bosses in Hong Kong and relatives in Australia. Even our counterparts in Hong Kong called to assess the situation. After so much calls, our guest decided to leave right then... picked up her things at the hotel then drove to the airport that afternoon.

I can tell from her face how worried she was. And i guess the Philippines have lost just another prospective tourist.


El Nido, Palawan, originally uploaded by zenbanez.

Anyway, I cant blame foreigners on how they'd react in such situations. This world has so much security concerns and often times foreigners are advised to just leave or move away asap.

Exact Fare Act

Its in the news. Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. has filed a measure seeking to penalize taxi drivers who don’t give exact change to passengers.

Do we need this law? Yes, definitely. Most taxi drivers in Manila has lost morals just to earn extra peso. They are abusive most of the time and have no idea of customer service.

Our culture on giving tips and gratuities is one of the things i dislike. We are all striving in this forsaken third world country. We are all poor. Poverty should not be an excuse to compromise what is good or right. People should just work hard, be fair and succeed on their own (of course that's ideal, and no one is perfect hehe).

I wish this law will come with efficient and effective implementing rules and not just for the sake of having a law (or publicity). There are similar laws for sure but only LTO/LTFRB knows and nobody cares to implement.

I know execution of law is just another one big problem. I tried once to fill-in an electronic complaint form in the LTFRB website hoping for a miracle reply. Months passed and i received not even a read receipt of my complaint. Those "Contact Us" pages on government websites are useless most of the times. Well thats another story.

City of Acronyms

Makati, Manila, Quezon City... there is one common thing about the Mayors of these cities.

In Makati, they probably spent few thousands just to get those metal railings twisted to form the logo of B. From what i have heard it means "Bayan". Hehe very nice coincidence for Binay.

In Manila, former mayor Lito Atienza painted all those public fences and walls with his favorite slogan "Buhayin ang MayniLA". It's a worthy project actually... but why is the last two letters always highlighted? Does it mean Los Angeles? Does it say lets make Manila like LA? No, thats acronym for Lito Atienza ofcourse.. and has no meaning at all but just trying to put their name everywhere.

Same in Quezon City. They have this slogan "Serbisyong Bayan" posted everywhere. I think they disregarded many other cool political mottos just because it didn't bear the letters SB.. or they launched a city-wide slogan contest and letters S and B is a must-have criteria.

And in the Visayas, a friend told me there is a place (i forgot) where all street light posts where awkwardly curved to shape letter P which is believed to be in honor of a local political clan with last name starting with P (i also forgot). I don't think its for Pacquiao.

Well, in Baguio city, many public structures got the letter V logo. I guess that stands for the past mayor's last name- Vergara.

These people are sick. I believe most of them are great achievers in their own field or career and yet want their names posted everywhere and get recognized everyday. Or is it human nature? Will i do the same if i were them? Hehehe... i will never know.

Anyway here is a wonderful dusk shot of Makati skyline courtesy of flickr.com/angrylittleboy.

Political Confusion

I am personally convinced Erap has plundered lots of money during his time --- well, just as politicians do. But Erap is the man-- he stood all the way to his conviction saying he did nothing wrong and that people already acquitted him. I admire Ghandi, Mandela, Che Guevarra et. al. for doing their own things in history. But for Erap to make it appear he can replicate such sacrifices is a twisted belief a.k.a delusion. Its just good for him to be brave and face his enemies cause other options would tantamount to admission of guilt.

But i am also convinced Erap doesn't deserve all of it. He wasn't given a good chance. He was already convicted by Davide in 2001 and that Sandiganbayan was created just to formalize the judgment. Eventually he will end up guilty, i believe, but at least it would have been a fair fight if the impeachment trial continued. The million people in Edsa 2 should have instead shouted for the opening of the envelope and watched over the impeachment proceedings. By that, Erap would have been impeached and there will be no question on the legitimacy of Gloria's succession. The question on legitimacy brought so much pressure which eventually pushed Gloria to do EVERYTHING to win the 2004 election. Well, thats how i saw it. =)

They say Erap's conviction is a warning to all public officials and a good indication that no one is above law and that justice prevails in this country. Sounds good. And foreigners to this country would praise the verdict and blindly take the message. But for me, this can be just another sad part of our twisted political history. And the story continues with the lady who conspired with high society and exploited people power to get the presidency. Then cheated all the way to... well this will gonna be a long post, time to go.

Indigenous People

Click here then here for exciting discussions on indigenous people. I guess the discussion has settled down so let me just post my opinion here.

There is no exact definition of "indigenous people", i bet even anthropologists would not agree on a precise definition. That, i think, is the root of all these issues. I say the 110 list of indigenous people is valid and that pampangos, ilocanos, tagalogs and the likes are not indigenous. They have embraced Spanish culture for centuries and they are attached and even proud of it. They are the Filipino majority. They run the government. They populate the elite society.

Igorots embraced Christianity only during the American era (not really sure hehe), have been historically differentiated from the majority Filipino and are still doing things they do long long time ago. I think that satisfies at least 90% of the supreme court definition of indigenous people.

But time will pass and the 110 list needs update. Time will tell.

Origin of Filipino People

I am curious what our current elementary text books tell about the history or origin of Filipino people.

I learned in Grade 4-5 that original Filipinos are the Aetas. Then came the Malays from the malay peninsula down south through the land bridges connecting Borneo and Palawan or Mindanao. My teacher told me malays are the tagalogs, bicolanos, kapampangans and other low land groups. Then came the Indones through the same path and who are now the mountain people of Luzon and Mindanao. In short, Filipinos are from Malaysia and Indonesia.

But Wikipedia tells a different story.

"The term Malay is also considered misleading because it gives the impression that the route for the populating of the Philippines was via Malaysia, when actually, the current Malays of the rest of the Malay Archipelago and of mainland Malaysia are the descendants of Austronesian-speaking immigrants who first went to the Philippines before further venturing south into what is now Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, as well as to the other Pacific islands."

So, we are the ancestors of Malaysians and Indonesians and not the other way around. And if this is true, it means most of my generation have false knowledge of our origin. Tsk tsk.