The Lowly Singko

A week ago, while I was walking to my shop, I saw something glistening amidst the cornucopia of trash, rusted nail and mud. It was a five centavo coin, in mint condition, basking in the glory of the sunlight. I dismissed the idea of picking it up and continued my walk.

Yesterday, as I trod the same beaten path, I saw it again glistening, as if proudly announcing its presence or perhaps shouting "Pick me up! Pick me up!" I didn't. Instead, I took out my cellphone and took a picture of this one lowly singko, with a blog post running in my mind.


I asked myself questions once I reached my shop. What has happened to the singko? Why didn't anyone picked it up? Why didn't I picked it up? Is singko dying? Or worst, is it already dead? Has it reached the same fate as its younger sibling, the sentimo (1c)? 


My lola used to tell stories about how valuable the Philippine currency was then. With an exchange rate of only P2 for every dollar, our economy was solidly backed up by gold reserves. I don't know why we shifted from that currency to paper currency, but I think it was a wrong move. Look at the British pound, its stronger than the US dollar  because it is backed up by gold reserves.  My professor in college once told us, the future of economies will be foretold with the currency circulating, the more coins, the sturdier the economy. 


Basing on that statement, I think the Philippine economy is going to the dogs. 
But before I bore you, I don't want to make a mess with the economics.

Why are we avoiding the Philippine coin?  


Why are supermarkets and the likes tagging their products like, 19.95, when in fact, you won't get the 5 cent change? Even if you get that change, it won't be accepted by other stores. I salute the big supermarket chains for supplying us 5cent coin, but i seems it has only legal tender on their stores. Bring it to other stores and they will give you that same look of disgust, as if trying to say, "and cheap mo".


Try to give 5cent to kids who will be disturbing you again come Christmas time with their off tune carols, and surely enough they'll thank you followed by the tagline, "Ang babarat ninyo!", even if you gave them 5 cent. You get the same response from them as if you didn't give them any.

Try to open up an account with a bank for 5 cents, and they'll frown at you, if you're lucky, or haul you out of the bank by security if you look like something else.

My lola once told me, "Di ka makakabuo ng piso, kung wala kang singko". I think it still hold true but if you have 95 cents and picked up a 5 cent, what will it buy you? Assuming that they'll accept your loose change.

I guess like all heroes we enshrine on its face, it will soon be forgotten. Forever lost in value until an archeologist dig it up in a thousand years and make a whole mountain of money from their finds. 

But it is sad to note that the portraits that once was there is gone. Lapu-lapu once grace the sentimo. Melchora Aquino, the singko. Both of them forgotten for their contribution to our freedom, because we chose to ignore the coins that graced their portraits. Well the Philippine central bank should take the blame for that, they chose to remove their faces along with the diyes sentimos with Francisco Baltazar. Instead they just placed the denomination and some kind of fish. U smell something fishy there. Does the coin designer have an axe to grind to these heroes?


I was planning a new mission in life, that I will be picking up ALL 5 cent coins that come my way. Maybe even conducting a social experiment and document the mission, but upon returning to the place of the lowly singko, it is gone. 
Maybe, someone did care.

Quest for the Best

SOON ON THIS BLOG.
The best may not always be bought at the cost of great price.

Are We a Nation of Dancers?

Since Youtube offered its services to the world, videos from our country proliferated. Youtube has provided international careers to relatively unknown, as in the case of Arnel Pineda and Charice Pempengco (soon, CouchPatatas, haha).


But another type of posting generating millions of hits are videos about dancing. The Cebu Inmates started it all with their Michael Jackson dance routines. It hit millions of views.

Since then, many followed suit.


One of my favorite so far is this video (hope I get a freebie from them).





I want to join them one of these days.


But going back to the topic, why are we Filipinos so fond of dancing? In every festivities, like weddings, birthdays, funerals (yes, it's true), part of the merry making is hiring, in the early days cumbancheros, or a whole orchestra for those well-endowed, and in present days, sound mobiles complete with lights and lasers.


Every town and city has its own version of festivals (chami, saging, litson, longanisa, kwekkwek(?)), and part of these festivals is the street dancing competition. Participants donning the city or towns produce dancing to the pulsating beats in retro, hiphop and at times trance.


I remember in my elementary and high school days, part of our PE requirement was performing field demonstrations, dancing, again, to the current hits at that time.
I've danced to the tune of In the Navy, Christmas Polka, and the like.


So, is dancing part of being a Filipino?


We, Filipinos, love fun and merry making. Even in crisis, we find time to celebrate. I remember an incident when a fluvial parade turned to tragedy killing dozens of devotees (and even churning a movie out of it). The succeeding year, they downsized the parade, but the mass dancing continued.


We, Filipinos, also dance as part of age-old traditions. We dance to the Virgin of Turumba, to Santa Clara, and the likes. Sometimes, faith can be expressed in dance.


We, Filipinos, join dance contests in all scales and sizes. From barangay, city/town, to nationwide dance contests, our youths express their angst, their hopes, their ambitions, through dancing.


Perhaps, one of the Greek muses, Terpsichore, ruled over us, playing her lyre to her delight, as she watched the mass of human bodies gyrating to the beat of one nation.


Dancing is our way of expression, our way of life, our way to fame.

Before I go, a word from my sponsor.

One word, ha ha, I hope the passengers remember the safety instructions.

My Theory of Inverse Proportion

Inverse proportion is defined by myself as, when one value increases, the other value decreases. Used mostly in mathematics (algebra in particular, let me recall, it is the correlation between one value affecting the results of another when they work together). In the cartesian plane, it is the effect of the X and Y axis in hyberbolic ...ZZZZZZZZZZ.



In my life, the theory has been hounding me for the past 43 years. And sometimes, I stop and think that this theory should be sacked altogether, coz it's not giving me any good. Here are samples of how the theory of Inverse Proportion is ruining my existence:


1. There is inverse proportion with the cash on my wallet and the bills due.
2. There is inverse proportion with the length of travel and my need to piss.
3. There is inverse proportion with the chance of rain and carrying my umbrella.
4. There is inverse proportion with the number of days till laundry and looking for a good pair of pants.
5. There is inverse proportion with the time spent waiting for a ride and the time left for catching a meeting.
6. There is inverse proportion with the need to take a bath immediately and the availablity of a soap.
7. There is inverse proportion with the need to take a dump and the distance to the nearest toilet.
8. There is inverse proportion with the demand for my products and the supplies for the materials.
9. There is inverse proportion with the cellphone load and the need to call or text anyone immediately.
10. There is inverse proportion with the need to load your cell and the availability of loads.
11. There is inverse proportion with the decision to close shop early and have a long sleep, and the sudden rush of customers near closing time.
12. There is inverse proportion with the plan to wake up early and finding your bed so irresistible to leave.
13. There is inverse proportion with deciding to buy something for yourself and the need to repair your equipments.
14. There is inverse proportion with decision to ride non-aircon bus and only aircon buses plying the streets.
15. There is inverse proportion with your need to buy bottled water on a bus and availability of the vendor.


to be continued....

Let the Battle Begin!

So, yesterday, SM City San Pablo opened its doors to eager, enthusiastic, rabid (?) fans of the franchise. Traffic was horrendous! It took me five long hours to reach my destination, five precious hours which could have been spent doing more productive things than cursing the stupid traffic alternating with the confusion of ideas whether to walk back to my shop.


The same fanfare and traffic I experienced when Puregold opened its doors two years ago.


Now the battle has began between two retail giants. The question in my mind is: who will eventually come out a victor. Only time can tell.


But like all other battles, there will be victors and collateral damages involved. The victors from this battle is the consumers who now have a choice. Specially when Christmas season comes.


I am more worried about the collateral damage this battle will produce. Personally I don't go to big supermarkets like SM, RObinsons and Puregold. I don't feel like giving my money to someone who is so rich they can probably buy my soul along with my future descendants without suffering a dent in their cashflow.


I usually go to my neighborhood grocery store, where I feel more at home, where service is more personalized and we are acquainted on a first name basis. I only go to these big malls when the product I am seeking is not available in my favorite grocery store.


For me, these are the collateral damages. Small businessmen who barely earn from their business what with small margin as markup. They will suffer the consequence.
Many will fold up eventually, eaten alive by the giants without having any means to
protect their turf, defending their business to its last breath.


Large supermarket chains are nothing but bullies. Encroaching the market share and forcing small players to fold up.


That's the sad truth about consumerism.

My "Doggone" Days

Ever since I was a child, our household often kept dogs, basically to serve as guard to our house, to eat our leftovers, to culture ticks and polgas, and to play with us kids. It wasn't fashionable then to have dogs with breed, and we never cared. Dogs come and go in our household, but not as often as maids do. Some of our maids, made lasting impressions, but all our dogs left remarkable imprints in our lives as we grow up. They taught us how to be responsible and caring, it helps us get over life's stresses, even up till now. They may not be as famous as Hachiko, but they gave us lasting memories that is fun to look back and reminisce as days go by.


FOSTER
He was Mama's dog. A beige colored dog, he was big. He looked like a cross between a mongrel and a labrador. He gave us all the love and attention. I still remember him running from our old apartment to our new house, effectively leading us to the place. He played with us. He fathered lots of puppies, and became a terror dog in our neighborhood. He hates kids who are noisy and kept on banging our gate. He hates tricycles and would often run after them. He's bitten quite a few of them. But the loyalty he showed us is unparalled. His only addiction is to be petted on his head, We as kids would often pet him simultaneously so he couldn't open his eyes, it gave us a lot of laugh then. He lived to a rough old age of 12 (84 in dog years) after losing much of his hair. One day, while all of us was home, watching TV, he approach us one by one, asking for his much needed pet on the head. He never missed anyone, even our maid. He waited for us to all go to sleep. We found him dead the next day.


POGI
He's an Agdanganin. With curly gray hair, which is a rare breed for us, thus we call him, Pogi. His long ears earned him a nick, Kapitan, because we would often anchor our hands to his ears while we walk. Foster never got jealous nor territorial when he arrived, in fact, they got along quite well. There isn't much memory I have of him, except that she was my Lola's dog back in Agdangan and she decided to bring it home to us. He did sire lots of puppies, one of whom died as a puppy, who playfully died while trying to eat a metal stand. I can still hear that puppy's whine when we tried to remove him from the stand. We managed to disengage him from the stand, but died a few hours later. Pogi also became a terror dog in our neighborhood, with Foster, they became a tandem prompting us to post "Beware of Dog" sign on our gate.
We found him dead one morning near a pack of half-eaten hotdog. He was poisoned.


PATOLA
A brown mongrel who snout is just too long to earn him the name Patola. He is dumb, slow, plain stupid, but we loved him. He wasn't the pick of the litter when he was born, one of my sibling taped his snout because he's a kid. When we try to remove the tape, it also took off the fur on his snout. We pity him for being that way> He tried to be like Foster and Pogi but he was not even close. One day, he tried to chase a car, he was killed on the spot.


There were numerous other dogs when we were growing up, but when I started to live on my own, I still maintained pets.


BOUNCER
Say separation anxiety and it will spell out BOUNCER. He was my dog back in Gumaca when I opened a resto/bar there. I named him such because we needed a bouncer back then and he just happens to be there. He would run after me where ever I go and won't stop until I notice him and order him to go home. When I returned to our house in Lucena, he came with me. He was my anchor when I was down. He understood me, comfort me. He is the first dog I knew who has an allergy (with Chorizo).When I went to Baguio to visit my sister, I asked my aunt to take care of him. But she didn't. He grow thin and may have became a scavenger. When my sister decided to relocate to Lucena, they found him still at our house, thin and still guarding, still waiting. My sister luckily adopted him, took care of him until he bounced back. When I returned home, he still remembered me. I will never forget how he reacted when he saw me. Then I got accepted for a job, and every morning, it has become a ritual that he would walk with me till I take a ride. Sometimes still running after me, only stopping when he can no longer catch up. In the evening when I pass by the mall near our house, I see him there, waiting for me. And we will go home together. Maybe he never left the place where I left off. Talk about loyalty, and he emulates that word. Bouncer passed away after being poisoned by his enemies at an old age of 60 dog years.


OISHI
My first attempt to take care of a dog with breed, a shih tzu. Oishi came into my life when everyone doesn't want him. He was near blind, his neck is oozing with pus from a wound probably from spending too much time on a leash. That wound emits foul odor. He was heavily infested with fleas and all but I took him in. He was a brat though, owing to his lineage and breed, he demands constant attention. He always gets what he wants, and always in his own term. He is old when I took him in, and a year after, he left me. After suffering from renal disease and paralysis of the lower extremities for two days, he died, suffering. I was at his death bed when he left.


At present, I still have two dogs, namely Chuchai and Poknat, both mongrel. They are my stress busters. Some time, I will devote an entire post to them. But since this is a post for my dogs who's died, I think it is unwise to put both of them here.


Dogs as they say are man's best friends. Sometimes, we think that they depend on us for their food, their bath, their walks. But, living with dogs, I think we gain more from them than they to us. They are survivors, they can live without masters, but can we live without them, specially after taking care of them for so long?

Why I Will Not Buy an IPad.

Okay, so there's this new craze about everyone wanting an IPad because its cute, sleek, hi-tech, susyal, and all the ravings and some rants. So, I asked myself this question: Given that I have the money (which I don't, but don't take this as sourgraping), will I buy an IPad?


The answer is a big NO!! But wait there's more!


1. The size is too small for a screen and integrated keypad. You feel like Carpal tunnel syndrome in the works.


2. 9.7 inch Screen is too small for my ever-growing eye problem. I want my screen the bigger, the better.


3. So what if it has Wifi-capability and 3g, my cellphone already has that!


4. It has a digital compass. What? I got lost in the woods I have to have my IPad with me????


5. Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. I have a very oily fingers, and its ok if it's oil resistant, but they didn't even include a FREE wiping cloth?


6. Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously. I only speak English and Tagalog.


7. It can last 10 hours surfing, but its thin! It will heat up eventually and fry the innards.


8. Supports TV and video. If I want to watch a TV, I'll use a regular TV set.


9. Capacity, it supports 16 - 32GB Flash drive...What the? do they know that one DVD movie is already 4gigs???? and no hard disk??


There are other features which the IPad "boasts" of, but for the price I can buy a more flexible laptop or better yet, I'll buy a high-end PC. But then again, Windows sucks too! But that's another story....

Blogspot Will Never be the Same Again

(or the final attempt of yours truly to immortalize my thoughts in blogosphere)


Blogging caught my attention the first time I heard of a super fast internet connection available for the masses. At a shocking speed of 48.8kbps per second, it was the fastest available then. I posted my first blog at word press. However, due to other concerns, I deactivated this account to focus on more pending matters.


The second blog, Couch Patatas, came out after I took a sabbatical from work and instead re-examine my priorities and re-direct my life. In the blog which drew quite a few readers, I documented my journey to find myself by looking back in my past. Many topics were posted there, until I posted an article with a somewhat sly undertone which confused my readers and (I think) reported me to the site. The next day, my blog is gone (my thought, sorry for the pic, but its widely distributed in the net and anyone can download it, duh).


Friendster, (remember that site?), offered the same service, but I only and hesitantly posted blogs there cause of the growing craze of earning from your post. Lesson learned from that blog, you cannot be creative writing articles with moolah in mind.


This is my fourth and final attempt. After this, I don't think I will have the energy and the ideas to post more entries.


In this blog, I will "attempt" to change the blogging community by posting my thoughts (and rantings, if I may). There are a lot of good blogs that I read, case in point is Bob Ong's, and I am proud to be influenced by his writings.


I hope, dear Constant Readers (courtesy of Stephen King), that you join me in my journey as I explore the world the only way I can afford.