Tag Archives: elections

They can’t afford me

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“I’ll cross the bridge when I get there. But if ever, teaching will be good. I’m a lawyer. But entering government? No way. They can’t afford me,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll fire all of them.” –Liza Araneta-Marcos

Politics.com.ph

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONqnPYgnE0

Ahh shades of Imelda Marcos. She’s scary.

And yet they don’t want to pay their taxes.

Tax expert Mon Abrea says simple math would have pushed the bill into the stratosphere. Twenty percent interest is slapped on every year the tax is left unpaid. Justice Carpio says the passage of so much time makes a case against the heirs, especially Marcos Jr., of willful refusal to pay. He says there’s a remedy for that.

NPR.org

God save the Philippines from the Marcoses. I can’t blame friends and millions of Filipinos who want to migrate if this idiot wins.

Bongbong Marcos will move the Philippines closer to China

Beijing stands ready to help Marcos family consolidate power over the long term
Alvin Camba
April 5, 2022 17:00 JST

Alvin Camba is assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and a faculty affiliate at the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, is on track to win the May 9 Philippine elections.

As Bongbong has himself said, he will move to maintain a strong relationship with Beijing while not completely abandoning ties with the West. Beijing likely expects Marcos to disregard the 2016 ruling by an arbitration court in The Hague that rejected Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and kowtow to China on crucial international issues.

The makers of The Kingmaker have made their film about the Marcoses free to view for everybody. Unfortunately, Filipinos are stubborn, especially if their core beliefs are challenged–if they’re corrected.

All my plans for today were wiped out as the weather turned weird. It rained non-stop today, like it’s already August.

Parking area. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Well, it’s a good thing that it rained so Lamesa Dam and Angat Dam can be refilled, if not up to the safe level. This assures us that there will be no water shortage in the coming days…or weeks. The temperature cooled up a bit from 30s down to 26 as of this moment. But because of this weather (and lack of sunlight), I did nothing but sleep. And edit three stories. Do some admin work, touch base with a source, and listen a bit to a webinar. I’m giving myself this day to slack off because—I dunno. I don’t feel like it.

This is my day of letting steam off because of my annoyance with company leadership issues. I couldn’t help my colleague with her job requests because of reporting line issues (vague). It’s really annoying me. It’s already April and there’s nothing definite happening. They couldn’t even give me the proper transition timeline. 🙄

To rid myself of annoyance, I temporarily halted my repetitive curtain sewing and returned to my complicated poppy flower drawing. It’s making me cringe. Either I finish this or I move on to drawing humans.

I suddenly remember my lawyer-artist friend who commented about the girl I was cheated on with by my ex-husband; he said she is not a fine artist but she’s more of an illustrator (they have common friends). That’s why she kept on doing squiggles and abstract graphic arts. I trust this friend because he is a really good fine artist and he has been winning competitions left and right but he chose to be a lawyer because…he wants to earn well. So now he shifted to photography and buying expensive equipment and drones has been his pastime.

So now my question is, what do I want to become? I don’t know. I just draw and paint to express myself. I’m not even good. But it forever frustrates me that I am having a hard time drawing faces or humans for that matter. I need to up the ante. Challenge myself.

Let’s start with this:

Practicing with grid lines. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m not yet brave enough to do full frontal. Probably I’ll do pencil first because I’m more decent with pencils.

Smart beefcake

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Not only is he a great dad with sense of humor and a loving husband, he is also a smart beefcake, too. I had been following his Instagram for 4 years now and he is really hands-on with this Centrfit company he has built with his partners. He road-tests the exercises personally that he or his partners devise for this platform. I didn’t try it when he offered a 30-day trial because the exercises are hardcore or high-impact that can shatter my knees.

Read the rest of the thread on Twitter.

As I posted on my FB wall:

Please read this Twitter thread. This is scary Please get out of your echo chambers. Reach out to the people in your communities.This is extremely disturbing. The enemy is really well versed in the art of black ops. Hiring microinfluencers to shape the psyche of the C, D, E markets who do not have the access to fact checkers because it requires money (data, airtime load, smart phone) to access Tsek.ph.

“When I heard about them hiring micro influencers, I just thought of them as, perhaps, a message conduit, but receiving these questions (lalo na yung most recent. I mean? Saan nanggaling yung ipapatanggal ang ambulant vendors?), kinilabutan ako.”–@hannahbarrantes

As I said during the interview in ________, those in the lower economic level are not being reached by the truth brigade. The battle against “fake news” should be approached at the grassroots level. Apply the different communication tools in AKAP principle in social marketing (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice). This should not just be a bullet way of using mass media/social media . We’re only scratching the surface and we are failing in the first step–making people aware. Graduates of _________ know what I’m talking about when I say social marketing concepts for rural development. Same principles.

I’m getting tired. This is the longest election season I experienced. I was just chatting with one of my BFFs and she said if BongBong Marcos wins, they will no longer come back to the Philippines from their vacation in Australia and just process their immigration papers from there. Another former colleague already left for Canada, never to come back.

These are educated people. Brain drain. If Marcos wins, there will be an exodus of skilled and educated Filipinos.

This is what we do on Friday nights.

Twin A applying facial mask on me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Twin A bought me facial masks from SaveMore. I don’t know why but she did. And she insisted that she put it on me tonight to help me relax after work. Since she used her own money for this gift, I obliged.

No filters. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Clean face, pampered with love from my daughter. Nothing can beat that.

Yes, I’m already 42 years old and damn proud of it. If he finds me old, then he has a problem, it’s not me who’s the problem.

Atrocious handwriting

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Printed exercise sheets for Twin I. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My kids have atrocious handwriting that was not corrected in school because they had been at home for 2 years. I was too busy to pay attention to their handwriting and I didn’t know how to help them. My mother and their dad have bad handwriting so I thought it could be just that.

However, it was already Twin I who asked me for help so I had to sit up and pay attention. I remember when I was in third and fourth grade we had handwriting classes where we were taught cursive handwriting. We had writing exercises in which we shadowed the handwriting of our teacher or what was in our exercise book. So I downloaded some exercise sheets for my daughter to practice on. Hopefully this would help.

I had tried to imitate the neat handwriting of some of my artistic classmates but eventually I developed my own form/style. My father had beautiful handwriting, so did my older sister and brother. My brother’s handwriting is similar to my father’s.

I could say my handwriting is ok and oftentimes my notes are neat, even when I’m doing interviews or listening to conferences/seminars/lectures. I remember my high school and college classmates borrowing my notes because 1) they’re comprehensive; and 2) they’re neat. This skill helped me now in my note-taking as a reporter, especially when there are disputes with those complaining about my reportage. My editors in London or HK ask me to send my notes to them for defense. If my notes are unintelligible, I would have a bigger problem. So I have kept all my reporter’s notebooks from 15 years ago as they stand in court, in case someone sues me. That’s the power of good note-taking—and alongside that is good handwriting.

So I need to train my children how to take notes and improve their handwriting.

Meanwhile, my other children…

Sushi lounging on my bed while I’m working my ass off. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So far they haven’t destroyed anything this week and last week. But they chewed on Twin I’s school exercise lying around so that’s her fault for being untidy. 🙄

Oh yeah, I have to trim their claws and give them a bath. And shop for supplies again. Ah, the things you do for your pets. 😶

My post about Radiowealth had really gone viral. 7k likes and 5.6k shares. My neighbor sent me a screenshot of my post that has been passed around in Ateneo. One of my sources also sent me a screenshot of it that is being passed around in his Rotary Club.

Of course, the BBM camp is not remiss in their duty in bashing me. So I posted this today, translated in English:

BBM people have been sharing my post about Radiowealth and attacking it, saying the site I shared (blogspot has no SSL certificate etc). The main questions remain, is it true that Marcos grabbed businesses he, his family and his cronies benefited from it? Is it true that we began to sink with the debts we incurred because of his graft and corruption? There was a BBM supporter who sent me a private FB message disputing my statements, that the closure of Radiowealth was not politically motivated but it was about the radioactivity posed by the TVs. 🤔 I had watched on our Radiowealth TV for long hours and until now I’m still alive. I haven’t transformed into an X-men. There were so many requesting FB friendship but NO, I don’t care about them. I’ve had so much experience with internet trolls. I just delete and delete friend requests and PMs. For fact-checking purposes here are links:

https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/starweek-magazine/2013/01/27/901409/domingo-guevara-road-industrialization

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/remembering-dmg-self-made-entrepreneur-091445720–finance.html

https://www.elib.gov.ph/details.php?uid=722235afc2209d5ce5dc064e1127bac3&fbclid=IwAR24bXlm6coSvRDSeDj1POyItA8dg-ZpYsxRehYflC3-tl7uu40kWC9xe2E

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2006068

There was one fact checker from Tsek.ph (group of volunteer Philippine journalists) who messaged me on Twitter and said they went through my post and marked it True. I wanted him and the world to know that I am a journalist and I do my research well. I don’t make claims lightly. Plus, I clearly remember interviewing one lolo who mentioned this to me, it was also discussed in one of my broadcasting classes, plus my father told me about this. <<< well this last one doesn’t count as an empirical evidence but this was the one that prompted me to research about Radiowealth.

As I said before, media literacy must be taught in elementary and high school so people can be taught critical thinking and not just be brainless consumers of mass media information. It’s my advocacy. However, it’s hard now that I’m no longer in the academe. The lectures and media trainings have stopped during the lockdowns and that TV interview I had earlier this month was one of the few I did in the last two years.

I have a feeling I will have my other foot back again in academe soon…🤔

You should have done this, Mommy

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Screenshot from Palawan News

Twin I sent this to me and went up my room to tell me I should have done this. “You should have sold his gaming rig, Mommy.”

Huh?

“Tito J,” she said.

Awww. This girl is very sore about Tito J. Can’t blame her. She’s really hurt.

I should have done to J what Will Smith did to Chris Rock today at the Oscars for disrespecting me.

As for her dad? “Mommy, do you know you can sue a father who doesn’t send financial support to his children?”

“Yes I know,” I said. “Do you want me to sue him when he doesn’t have money?”

“Well he says he is stand to inherit xxx million from Lolo,” she said. Gee, that idiot is really not exerting effort to improve his lot and is just waiting for his father to die.

“Tell him to give you money for college tuition,” I said.

Losers.

Meanwhile, in satirical news that I wish they’re true:

This. If only my teachers in elementary and high school could be sent back to be re-educated 😣 The level of cognitive dissonance is unbelievable. And to think these are the same people that tried to shape our world view. 😥

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The new plants that I will strive to keep alive during this season of intense heat.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

There should be a better way of arranging these plants. They don’t make sense anymore. I need risers. Even if my world doesn’t make sense now, at least my container garden should.

I’ve told my new APAC boss that I need to be in Singapore for 8 days in July for our annual conference, which will be held face to face for the first time since the pandemic began. I just submitted to London HQ my request for travel to SG. But I think I need to be in Singapore even before July, probably May. I need to arrange a lot of admin work. *Le sigh*. The hiring process for new reporters is taking a loooooong time.

It’s the little things that cheer me up

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Tagarp floor lamp. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I added this lamp to illuminate the living area because the overhead light is too bright for the girls who are just confined at their tables and for Ate C when she watches TV.

My initial watercolor efforts. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had hung that other flower too high; I’ll just adjust it one of these days. I decided to display them to document the difficult journey I had for the month of Feb until this month. This art therapy reminds me of the struggles I’m having to get better, to move on.

My landscapes below my sister’s depressing city scapes. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Contrasting seascapes: my sister’s violent sea vs my dreamy Panglao beach side drawing. Photo by CallMe Creation.com

It’s like a documentation of the emotions I went through while I was doing my art therapy and rediscovering my love for watercoloring that I abandoned for 25 years.

I’m more of a charcoal/pencil and watercolor girl. I tried oils before but I only produced one oil painting and I was very angry at that time that’s why the resulting painting was very dark. My cousin loved it though. It’s still in my mom’s house and it’s like a foreshadowing of my married life. I gave away my oil paints, linseed oil and thinner, brushes, and knives to my sister who paints more using acrylic. She’s more likely use oil than me who never touched the oil paints for years.

Floating koi. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

My girls kept on laughing because the kois looked like they were floating. Well yeah, they do float in the sense the real photo captured how clean the ponds of the Himeji Castle Gardens looked like. When I was there, a worker was vacuuming the pond. I also have to learn how to do watercolors of water, glass and reflections.

I’m still relearning how to control the behavior of different brands of watercolors and there’s a big difference between Asian watercolors meant for Asian techniques and western watercolors. For example, this Kuretake Gansai Tambi is mostly opaque so it’s sort of difficult to do washes and wet-in-wet techniques when doing trees and bodies of water. No wonder this brand has so many greens…You cannot just dive in and easily create gradation using wet-in-wet because I find that the colors get muddy if I do that, hence, the weird tree reflections of the sketch above. The colors don’t flow so it’s a bit difficult. I learned that gansai were formulated for Japanese paintings that are usually done on rice paper so they don’t bleed as much like western watercolors do.

I have to explore what this kind of watercolor/gouache-like medium can do and what it’s good for.

Attempt at wash first before sketching. Let’s see if this method would be better. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

My FB post about Radiowealth is now shared 2,400 times and liked 3,100 times. I’ve seen a lot of comments that they didn’t know about this and were shocked to learn that Marcos really hampered the progress of Philippines then. Imagine, Radiowealth could have been the Sony or Samsung of today. The company was also manufacturing Volkswagen cars, turntables, aircons–all things industrial. We had a thriving steel industry then, ahead of Taiwan and South Korea but the companies were taken over by Marcos as well. I have all the books documenting these in my personal library.

Photo from Skytraxratings.

Philippine Airlines was Asia’s first commercial airline that was taken over by Marcos and eventually given to one of his cronies, Lucio Tan. San Miguel was once under the Spanish families (Sorianos/Ayalas) that was taken over by Eduardo Cojuangco, another very close Marcos crony, via anomalous transactions involving coconut levies taken from the backs of coconut farmers. It is still owned by him/his estate today. RPN-9 and IBC-13 were taken over by the Benedictos. The Campos family of Unilab and Greenfield (also now Del Monte and Nutri Asia) also benefited from Marcos. This is probably the reason why they don’t really do media interviews, just like the Salims of Indonesia, whose patriarch was a close associate of Suharto.

How easily people have forgotten.

Half-day

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I was dead until 12 noon today. I just slept. I woke up because I was hungry and I forgot that today is the political rally of Leni Robredo-Kiko Pangilinan at Ortigas Center.

My sister and a lot of my friends are out there. I was thinking whether I should try to join but then we still have Covid.

According to friends, at least 140k people joined.

Ortigas Center was a sea of pink.

Drone shot.
Another drone shot.

In other videos you can feel the energy of the crowd, everybody was happy and this was not chaos.

I would have loved to be there but I’m scared of getting Covid again. I got Covid even I was fully vaccinated. But I’m happy that a lot of people are coming out supporting the opposition.

Marcos will make sure that there will be cheating on May 9.

Hmm I should contact PPCRV and see what I can do to help at HQ.

The reason I was asleep half of the day was because of this.

I really need a drafting table. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I was drawing until 3 am. First off, I cut the watrcolor drawing I did that is no longer working for me. I did that to recycle the 300 gsm watercolor paper.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The back is still useable. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I checked the proper perspective. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I applied what I’ve learned from Domestika. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Did the initial coloring. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Himeji Castle Gardens. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

This sketch will go to my friend K as a get well present along with the food I’m gonna send tomorrow.

Since I didn’t go to the rally tonight, my girls and I just went to Ikea to buy their chairs because the ones I bought from Ofix are beyond help. The girls’ backs are suffering and the chairs are really falling apart.

Cart is full 😋 photo by CallMeCreation.com

I also bought bins to corral my sewing stuff and painting stuff, a floor lamp for the living room, and lots and lots of frames.

Then we went to SM Department Store to buy the girls their birthday T-shirt dresses. The clothes I bought them a few months ago can barely fit them now. 😩 They grow up really fast.

Got home at 10 pm. We had to take C5 because of the huge traffic jam caused by the Leni rally at Ortigas.

I’m tired. I don’t think I can draw tonight.