Weather is lovely; not too hot. Compared to Sikatuna, which is 26 degrees right now, I’m in an enviable position.

I just finished the tedious car registration renewal yesterday afternoon…you would really wonder why we Filipinos can’t have nice things in life. It took quite a while to finish the process because the IT stystem was down again. I overheard the lady said STRADCOM was down so they couldn’t finish the pending registration of other applicants.

I messaged my transport reporter friend and asked him why the hell STRADCOM still in business with LTO? I thought their contract has ended and this is exactly what I had been ranting about two years ago on TV (when another journo friend interviewed me about this) and on Twitter.

He said some IT services are still with STRADCOM. That company held hostage LTO’s database for a long time…

I wrote a series of Tweets about this and an FB post in 2022. This is what you get for letting corruption flourish. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ah, let me sleep this anger first. I will have to drive my girls to Ayala Vertis North later today to celebrate the birthday of their friend.

Since my girls were with their friends, I had the entire afternoon for myself. I was able to finish an analytical piece, complete with graphics that I rendered on Excel. I’m quite satisfied with myself. 😁

I realized that this mall doesn’t have much in terms of retail stores but it is compensated by the number of restaurants and cafes, gyms, and other lifestyle outlets. Like what my Manila reporter and I wrote years ago in an analytical piece, before the pandemic, malls in Metro Manila were allocating 30% (or more) of their gross floor area to restaurants and lifestyle centers. Malls in Metro Manila have become substitute to parks (which are sorely lacking in this metro) and other public places due to poor urban planning. My bosses are surprised that we have clinics, spas, and even churches (Catholic and Protestant) inside malls. Malls are also places where people stay until traffic has eased. At the same time, retail has slowed down a bit because of ecommerce but it’s not as bad as in the US. Filipinos still like buying in person—whatever the traffic situation may be.

Meanwhile, I snagged a complete set of Jane Austen from one second-hand bookstore kiosk at Ayala Vertis.

Let’s see if I could finish this this coming Holy Week.

And oh, I finally caved in. I bought a huge tray of gouache. It’s like playing with acrylic.

And by the way, this is me: