Category Archives: current events

Cronyism Part 2

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This is the reward for cozying up with despots like Duterte and criminal families like the Marcoses. Manuel Villar acquired the franchise of ABS-CBN (after the latter was stripped off it by the demon Duterte) in a midnight deal with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that surprised us all.

The bastards.

Meanwhile, ABS-CBN and PLDT had to call off the x-deal between them (PLDT’s acquisition of a stake in SkyCable and in return ABS-CBN gets to acquire TV5) because of political pressure from the House of Representatives.

This is to make sure there would be no opposition media.

I never thought I would live to see such things happening again.

I was set to attend Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR)’s meeting with journalists about “what next?” and how we can maneuver in these dangerous times. However, I was too busy that I forgot about it 😶 Geez.

On the brighter side of life, I was able to cook a dish in my Instant Pot this morning. Chicken curry (using an Ottogi curry mix) for 5 mins only in the Instant Pot. Five minutes. Perfect for very busy homemakers.

Chicken curry on rice. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The potatoes and carrots were soft and easy to eat, as is the chicken. It was lovely to have lunch within minutes of putting all the ingredients.

I’ll just have to check my power consumption since this gadget consumes 1000 watts of power. 🥴🥴🥴

Finally issued a manager’s check to my contractor for the 50% down payment through my mom this morning. Construction materials will be arriving tomorrow and I’m scared and at the same time excited that this is finally happening.

I’m scared because I will be going back home and I’m afraid of shrinking my world again. My hometown is like a nice cocoon that is very comfortable that will also stifle my personal growth.

While I was walking from my apartment to UP yesterday, I felt melancholic that I would soon be leaving the scenes I had been seeing for the last 20 years or so of living here in QC. I felt a tug in my heart when I watched the sunset and the colors that painted the sky. I will be leaving the memories of walking there in the evenings holding hands with someone, as well as the heartaches I had whenever I remembered those times while I was already walking alone. I will be leaving the pain that tore through me when I biked or walked around the campus when I was trying to recover my lost self.

Biking along University Avenue, UP DIliman. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

UP Diliman was home to me, a substitute for my hometown, minus my nosy family. I started graduate school there in 2003 and it has always been my go-to place when I wanted some comfort. It was where I brought my girls when they were still babies until now, to spend the weekend running around the grassy fields because we don’t have enough open spaces here in the city.

I will miss the convenience of having two grocery stores within 100m-200m away from my house and the many restaurants/food kiosks that dot the village. I will miss having Grab delivery just within minutes of me. Lazada and Shopee deliveries are easy because the QC hub is probably just near here.

Suddenly I have an epiphany…

I’m sad because I will be exchanging my freedom for convenience of having family nearby so my girls will grow up in a village, with a male role model (my brother), with cousins, grandma and aunties. They will help keep an eye on them while I’m away. I’m scared that I will be forfeiting a chance to have someone new in my life because my family is nosy.

I’m exchanging my personal growth for what is best for my girls.

Because it’s no longer about me. I want them to have the best childhood and teenage years I could offer them with my meager resources. I want them to have the best education I could afford and manage.

So children, if you’re already reading this when I’m already dead, I hope you realize now that I gave up my life and personal growth for you so you can have the best.

In the open field near UP MassComm. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Great way to start ruining your week

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Yes, this is not a joke. 😤

The thing is under the law, confidential funds (that don’t need to be audited by the state auditor) SHOULD only be applied to intelligence funds. There are specific uses for this kind of confidential funds and SHOULD NOT be abused for other purposes, like TRAVEL. WTF are they going to use it for during their travels???

Confidential funds may also be used to pay rewards to informers; uncover or prevent illegal activities that pose a clear and present danger to the agency, its personnel and facilities; and others that may be authorized in the General Appropriations Act.

The circular provided that the conduct of confidential activities, as far as practicable, be done in collaboration with law enforcement agencies.Confidential funds may also be used to pay rewards to informers; uncover or prevent illegal activities that pose a clear and present danger to the agency, its personnel and facilities; and others that may be authorized in the General Appropriations Act.

The circular provided that the conduct of confidential activities, as far as practicable, be done in collaboration with law enforcement agencies.

Rappler.com

And because there is zero checks and balances in this government because everyone else is under the Marcos machinery (The House Speaker is Marcos Jr’s uncle, the deputy speaker is his son, the brainless Sandro Marcos, and Senate is basically a Duterte-Marcos upper chamber), what can you expect? Budgets are hardly deliberated on.

Good morning, Philippines! LIZA ARANETA MARCOS has a huge wardrobe budget.

And this is another thing that happened today:

For USD earners like me (but don’t give a fuck), this is good on a myopic level because you get more pesos on your dollar.

But for those who think about the bigger picture like me, this means that all goods and services are going to be a lot more expensive. We are a net importer of oil = transportation costs will be much higher. As it is, Grab is more expensive here now compared to Singapore or just about the same.

Double whammy! OMG!

This redounds to cost of food because our goods are transported by trucks, not trains. We are an archipelago so goods are either flown or shipped by vessels fed by oil, not LNG. We also import rice, flour, and other basic commodities. Even onion and garlic! And salt! It’s quite ironic the we are surrounded by millions of km of coastlines and yet we are importing salt!

Cost of power is also climbing because our base load power plants are fed by imported coal and diesel. As it is, gasoline is cheaper than diesel nowadays. And the Filipinos pay electricity through our noses because we pay market rate. Our power is not subsidized, unlike our neighbors. That’s why Indonesia’s inflation rate is artificial in the sense the true cost of goods and are not reflected in the prices that they pay for because its government is shouldering a good part of their expenses (from power to medicines) through state-owned enterprises that own own almost everything. How can you even have three state-owned pharmaceutical companies? Their train fares are subsidized. Just about everything is subsidized.

Anyway, I digress. The point here is, the peso is weakening at a faster rate than expected because it could not shadow the actions of the US Fed. The gap between the USTr and our own benchmark rates has widened, thus, hot money from emerging markets have fled faster. We couldn’t shadow the latest actions (and future actions of FOMC given their latest hawkish stance) because any sizeable rate hikes (like a 75-100-basis-point hike) would kill our very fragile economy now. The BSP has to prioritize the economy before tempering the sinking peso.

This faster fall of the peso will kill our exports as well. Why? Half of our exports is comprised of electronics and semiconductors. Traditionally, these exporters order raw materials (because we don’t process our own minerals like silicon, silver, gold, nickel, and copper) abroad around third quarter in preparation for the orders for Christmas (hello iPhones and iPads). With the way things are, the raw materials have become more expensive now. Then this makes the cost of manufacturing semicon and electronics more expensive = costlier exports.

So I will punch any Marcos apologist right smack on their face if they say that this is good for the economy and that Marcos is making us richer by making us earn more pesos to the dollar. 🙄 Spare me this stupidity. A former reporter (who is now a lawyer) messaged me about this forex thing and she told me that an uncle of her brother-in-law said that this is great and in any case Marcos will make things better because the Marcoses will bring out their gold stash (a.k.a. the mythical Tallano Gold) to help the Philippines. And the sad part here is he was being serious about it, my friend said. Then multiply that to the 31 million who voted for Marcos. This is the level of stupidity reigning over the country today.

Social media has made Filipinos more stupid.

AND THE FUCKTARD MARCOSES ARE ROBBING US RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES! Legalized stealing.

OMG 🤬

How can I even…

I need a drink.

On the brighter side of life, my 10-hour nilaga is stupendous!

Lots of veggies and peppercorns. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The soup is 👌 *chef’s kiss*

I’m keeping the broth again for future dishes like pho or some egg noodle dish? Ramen? Soba? I can’t wait for my Instant Pot so I can experiment with new dishes I can cook with it.

And it aired

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I was so angry 🤣

I was driving on the way home with our Manila reporter, Kr, when I suddenly had a barrage of friend requests and private messages from strangers over at Facebook.

I thought maybe the ABS-CBN interview aired.

Yep, it aired. And I found that I was so angry and it radiated through the screen 🤣

I was able to put on makeup but my hair was a mess 🤣

In any case, my friend said this will be a series of news reports about this issue because she was able to open Pandora’s box. It was bigger than we initially thought.

Meanwhile, I was able to come back to Manila Peninsula to cover a conference so we can ambush interview some C-level execs.

The Manila Peninsula. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I think we have at least 4 stories from this event alone 👏

Plus we saw friends. Ex-journalists-turned-PR/corpcomm.

Selfie!

All in all, a very productive day with a touch of reunion on the side with many, many, many PR friends.

I just realized that my network is vast. From govt, to private sector, to corpcomm, and academe. From top-down. If I wanted, I can really pull serious strings.

Ah, the exes chose the wrong person to mess with. 😏

Kidnappings and organ harvesting come closer to home

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This was sent to me by my older sister as she warned us siblings about two recent attempted abduction cases in our small hometown. And to think I had allowed Twin A this weekend to walk alone to buy something just outside the campus.

The case above is one abduction attempt near the university campus.

This is the recent video of the interview with the victim, she was relating to the barangay officials how she avoided being forced into a white van.

This other one was yesterday:

This one is just today.

Before the pandemic, there was a spate of reports about white vans abducting children and these were linked to rape/organ harvesting. This can just be urban legends but there were reports of children’s corpses found along creeks without major organs.

According to the grapevine the kidnapped children/harvested organs are flown to China, given that the amount of money rich parents pay to save their only child (as a result of one-child policy before they loosened it) is astronomical. Although this has not been established yet, there are anecdotal evidence of organ harvesting happening in provinces before Covid.

The Philippines has an international reputation as one of the global hotspots for organ trafficking. In 2007, it was named as one of the organ-exporting countries in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report, along with India, Pakistan, China, Egypt and Colombia.

Channel News Asia: Kidney for sale: Inside Philippines’ illegal organ trade

Similar reports were published in Latin America, with adults being kidnapped and organs harvested. The United Nations has been after this grisly crime, but these reports are largely ignored as they are relegated to urban legend status.

Philippine Senate has investigated the alarming rate of child kidnappings related to organ harvesting but it has gone nowhere. It only died down a bit because of Covid but now they’re back.

I had been keeping my old phone and a basic smart phone in my drawer to give my girls after they take the entrance exams. But because of these alarming reports, I immediately gave the phones to the girls today so I can track them down (through a geo-location app) and have a means to call them, especially when I’m away. Well, that was the main reason why I was set to give them phones: they would soon be junior high schoolers and they would be commuting to school on their own. I’d rather have peace of mind that the girls have some kind of protection and I can monitor them than worry about the negative effects of mobile phones. They are already more mature now—a far cry from what they were when J met them in 2018. They are more responsible now and are easier to discipline. Without prodding from me, they had been doing study groups with their friends remotely and I can hear/watch them during some of their study sessions.

They also had been working hard on their review school.

I think it’s time that they can be given phones so I can call them every now and then. Or they can call me if something was amiss.

I will also buy them pepper sprays, stun guns, and whistles (as a high school classmate suggested) that they should always bring in their bags or pockets.

Meanwhile, it’s traditional for mainstream media to report about the problems of public school education every time the school year starts. I had produced special reports about these when I was still working for a newspaper. But I went beyond the usual classroom shortage and ill-equipped teachers. I focused on indigenous people and the lack of support from the national government and the malnutrition among Filipino school children. I also reported about the high worm infestation among school children in the Philippines and my research brought me to UNDP to talk/write about this.

I reported such things not to antagonize the Department of Education but to shed light on a systemic problem.

These journalists who shined on the misguided focus of Sara Duterte (bringing back ROTC instead of addressing the lack of facilities and learning resources, really???) are now getting attacked. It prompted me to defend them on Twitter.

Being a journalist in this country in the time of Duterte and Marcos is really a dangerous job. Not only security-wise but also our mental health hangs on a balance. Our jobs require us to be active on social media but then being on social media kills us softly.

And here we go again:

Marcos and his cronies are really out there to kill ABS-CBN.

It’s so stressful today. I wish I could just shut out the world and not read news but that’s impossible because I’m in the business of news production and I always have to be on top of all important news not only in the Philippines, but also in Asia. Like we have upcoming national elections in Malaysia while Softbank is set to exit Alibaba. I start the day reading general and business news (I have two subscriptions) and checking Twitter for breaking news.

By 12 noon I’m already a mass of nerves.

Thank goodness for my comical cats.

Kimchi sitting on my Ipad again 🙄
My Lazada order came with a cat

I’m about to check out from Lazada/Shopee some pepper sprays, stun guns, whistles, mechanical keyboards, and key caps 😂

War

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This government has declared war on UP.

The previous administration has made all state universities and colleges (SUCs) free for all qualified students (which caused the closure of some private colleges due to low tuition/enrollment). This ballooned the student population of SUCs and yet look at what Marcos did to UP…

Just because the university chose not to invite the Marcos Jr to any graduation and did not confer him an honoris causa, which is traditionally given by the national university to a sitting president.

But why would UP even be forced to do that when it didn’t give Duterte any honorary degree during his six-year term?

Meanwhile, Philippine Star has thrown SHADE at Sara Duterte 🤣

I’m all for it, Philstar! 🙌

It’s so hard to work when it’s a bed weather kind of day. The typhoon passing through Luzon has caused class and work suspensions here (floods!) and going north of Metro Manila. The typhoon will exit Isabela province tomorrow morning. I just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. But edits have been calling to me…🥴

Mi goreng with pork nilaga for soup on the side. I suddenly wanted something spicy for today. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

One of the primary reasons why we went home to my mom on a weekday (Friday) was I needed to apply for the UP-wide gate pass sticker. Which I only accomplished yesterday because the UP Police Force handling that closed early on Friday. It was so odd that I needed to leave my license by various UP gates whenever I go home. Like I was a stranger or something. Just because my old sticker expired—hello pandemic!

Anyway, I am finally chipping at my long to-do list.

  • UP gate pass ✔
  • Engine oil change and general car check-up today ✔
  • Emission test for LTO car registration ✔
  • Car insurance renewal – pending. (Haha! I would this online later) ✔
  • Late car registration – scheduled tomorrow

After I have renewed my registration, I can breathe more easily.

I went to my car seat upholsterer this afternoon but his shop was closed. I don’t know if he’s still in business. 😥 I hope he is because it’s hard finding an OK vendor that is a bit cheaper than competitors located on the other side of EDSA (Kamuning St). Let me try tomorrow before or after I finish my business with LTO in Cubao.

I have so many things on my list and it’s so hard for a solo parent like me to to finish all those tasks because I carry the weight of the world i.e. there is no other adult whom I can rely on for small or big errands like this. That’s why a lot of things are delayed, like this car registration 😣 And I found that it’s not unique to me. One of my bffs who is finishing her PhD (and is in Europe now to submit her dissertation and tie loose ends) said her car’s registration has been pushed to the back burner given the bigger stuff that she needed to cross out on her list. She’s a solo parent too (her kids are with her mom in our hometown). There are things that we cannot delegate to other humans because they’re responsibilities another person (who is not your partner) finds annoying or cumbersome and he/she won’t do it for you unless you’re dying.

It’s exhausting to be in my shoes.

Kimchi judging me earlier tonight. 🙃 Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Sushi always looking over my shoulder while I work. Judging me. Looking down on my work. 😂 Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I talked to the travel agency yesterday that is supposed to arrange my S.Korea visa application (because I don’t have the time to do it myself). The agent that I talked to hasn’t come back to me yet. I’m running out of time because I’ll be super busy by next month.

If I can’t have anything concrete by next week, then I’ll just spend my holiday in Palawan—if there’s no typhoon.

Better quality of life for less

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This is exactly why we’re moving out of Metro Manila. This carmageddon will never end.

I am currently working now in my future bedroom, my laptop propped on a portable table. I have sketched a new layout for my flat and added the measurements of the Pax cabinets I will be ordering from Ikea for my wardrobe. I hear the wind agitating the trees, amid the relatively peaceful environment, and it makes these photos above more horrifying for me.

I will be driving through this Bedlam tonight.

This morning I walked under a drizzle to buy beef at a much cheaper price compared to those sold in supermarkets in Manila because 1) the cow that was butchered was under the university R&D and extension office i.e. it is not meant for commercial sale (she just happened to have an accident, like a broken leg so she had to be culled); 2) it was a milking cow (hybrid Holstein), part of the cattle that the university keeps under the Institute of Animal Science to produce dairy products under its extension program.

My father used to have his office here for many years. This building is only one of the few that remained intact after World War 2. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
At least 2 kg of high quality beef inside this cooler. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My lovely view while waiting for my beef. Mount Makiling is obscured by rain clouds. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Walking back home, I saw this vegan and vegetarian restaurant next to the football field. This used to be an artillery building during World War 2 so it’s built like a bunker. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I rested for a bit so I can savor the feeling of being in the football field where I spent endless hours playing the sport that I once loved so much. It’s so peaceful. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So sweaty. With Baker Hall in the background. Behind me is the one-storey building where I buy our fresh milk bottles and yogourt everyday since Friday. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Carabao’s milk. Yum. I didn’t buy mozzarella cheese because…I’m still thinking about our menu for the rest of the week. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Breakfast for today. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

After expending 160 kcal from my early morning walk, I gained it back by having breakfast. LOL.

I started the day early and worked in a better mood than usual. Monday.

I’m romanticizing life here now because I’m not yet living here again full-time. But so far my stress and anger from last week had ebbed and my early morning walks helped a lot in regulating my mood.

To be continued…