Where Are We Going?

We are not being racist but Chinese immigrants have grown to millions since the president took over back in 2016. Now those occupying apartments/condominiums in the South of Metro Manila are Chinese, depriving some Filipinos of affordable places to live in. I read in some reports that they pay double or triple the amount that is supposed to be paid and they pay in advance. A very lucrative business to those Filipinos who grab the chance to earn more.  Come to think of it, they have constructed housing facilities too. The president welcomes them with open arms.

What are best friends for anyway? Duterte said that it is unfair to impose travel ban considering the closeness of the two nations. It behooves me to understand that China is far greater important to him than his own people who he promised to serve when he got elected. 16M die-hard duterte followers.

We have POGO now (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) owned and managed by the Chinese. Lately, there are  prostitution dens being patronized by these people. They come in without visa, and the Philippines issues visa right there and then upon arrival.

Now we have our first case of the coronavirus. A Chinese woman who came from Huwan, passed by Hong Kong, landed in Cebu City then went to Manila. Now she is confined at  San Lazaro Hospital, a public hospital for communicable diseases which is so close to the university belt. I fear for those small kids who have to commute to and from school exposing them to the danger of the virus.

Finally, they have to wait that one gets infected before issuing travel ban but according to reports it is only confined to Huwan province but reports also say that the virus is now all over china.Oh,I guess issuing a travel ban now is moot because China has lockdown. Too late the hero, that’s how uncaring our government is.

We don’t have those  modern facilities to address this just like other nations so we must really be wary of the happenings here. No enough training even for health personnel to handle it. And the “good” secretary of health seems to be just following orders from his boss.

Philippines, I ask this once more, where are we going?

Read Full Post »

Gosh….

I don’t know what kind of president we have here. He is certainly a psychopath to the max. If US and some other nations have closed their borders, here,  they are allowing tourists and those coming in from the affected areas of China. Even the health secretary says, it is not yet time to ban mainland Chinese to come over.  Some are in a panic mode already. They’re many Chinese here in the metro.

Maybe this government is afraid to offend its best friend China that is why even those who are supposed to protect us are not doing anything. Sorry for the rant friends, this is just disgusting. This is not the only issue at hand that he ignored.  He was not even concerned with the victims of Taal volcano eruption. They decreased the supposed budget for calamities considering we are the most prone when it comes to earthquakes, floods  etc. The budget for the office of the president increased tremendously. And wow, he is even challenging to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement between US and the Philippines just because  US cancelled the visa of one of his alalay  Sen bato. (that lower case name of the senator is deliberate).

PLEASE HUWAG niyong ipagsapalaran ang buhay ng bawat Filipino.

 

Read Full Post »

It’s Another Peter Mayle Book

I found another lovely book by Peter Mayle. This is my fourth book of him after  reading his first three books. I have made short reviews here before. This is actually my 12th  read this year.

French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew

It’s another memoir about his life in France. He died two years ago and I blogged about it here. I am excited to start this.

I just finished a long fiction called New York. It is a historical novel by British novelist Edward Rutherfurd. Oh my, it’s all of 862 pages, four centuries of life in New York. It used to be called New Amsterdam. The novel chronicles the birth and growth of New York City, from the arrival of the first Dutch and other European colonists in the 17th century to the summer of 2009. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know that it was previously ruled by the British empire. Originally there were only 13 colonies in the whole US of A. It’s actually too long to summarize.

Read Full Post »

Memories

Facebook calls them Memories, those somehow forgotten events that happened years ago but they remind you of it.

When I opened my Facebook account this morning and visited the app, I saw several photos of the last high school reunion I attended some nine years back.  Some of my classmates and batchmates visited me I think a couple of years ago but that was it. I am trying to avoid going out often because my immunity is low nowadays. Yes, I still wear face masks when I go out.

Taken almost 39 years after our high school graduation.

I do communicate with them almost every day thru Messenger, call them once in a while. They are the same old jolly people just like when we were in high school.  I guess high school days were the best years. Getting to know everyone, forming lasting friendship with some, embracing our individual journeys in life. Some of them post about their travels, some just like me talk and post pictures about our grandkids.  It’s quite nice to reminisce those days, the laughter, the difficult and challenging assignments we had to do in some of our high school subjects.

Back then, I hated Algebra but I loved Physics and English. History was a favorite because we were lucky enough to have good teachers.   Before we graduated, we had a high school presentation and the whole batch chose to imitate some programs on television but with some twists of course. It was more of the laughter in every episode of the presentation. Since I couldn’t act, I chose to join the production staff.  It was a lovely legacy to the junior batch. The succeeding batches had part 2  and part 3 of it. I remember the last issue of our high school paper, those lines  like “I bequeath……” describing something about yourself and bequeathing it to one of the junior students.

And high school ought to prepare us for another journey and difficulties. But we learn, how we learn in the process.

Read Full Post »

How To Recognize Male and Female Plant Seed

For gardeners out there, have you tried this? I have this old post which I wrote in May 11, 2009 and posted it at my blog Gardens and Empty Spaces. Back then “like” was not yet introduced by WordPress I think but you can comment on the post. This has earned a lot of comments.  Someone commented just yesterday. I am reposting it here.

In our trip to Zambales  a few days ago, I learned some interesting facts about growing things in one’s backyard, very common of which is the papaya plant. Papaya is a soft-wooded perennial plant that has an average lifespan of 5 years and would grow about 4 meters high. The flowering stage is from five to eight months after planting and harvesting comes around five to six months after that.

My sister-in-law is a certified farmer, she underwent a complete 6-months seminar given by the Dept. of Agriculture.  She shared with us what she learned and gave us some seeds of different vegetables which are quite easy to grow, given a small space ,even just in pots.

I was not even aware that you would be able to know whether that papaya tree in your own backyard will bear fruit or not. Most of us just wait for papaya to produce flowers before we will be able to detect whether it is a male or a female.  Papaya flowers are just like jasmine blossoms. The flowers of female papayas are close to the stems while that of the male ones produce long flowers. But we really don’t have to wait for six months before we’ll be able to know if they are worth cultivating or not.  That’s a waste of time and space, according to my sister-in-law. We know for a fact that only female papayas produce those sweet and delicious fruits. One sure way of knowing is this, papaya male plants have one straight root while those of the females are branched-out, producing two or more roots, they’re the only ones that you have to transfer and plant.  Interesting!

Tomatoes are capable of self-pollination so they grow fruits on their own. Same goes true with squash. We have planted some squash  and tomatoes in our small backyard and  they’re growing  by leaps and bounds everyday.  We also planted pechay (Pak Choi) in small pots. Eggplant seedlings are sprouting like crazy. I can’t wait, I am quite excited waiting for everything to grow.

I tried planting chayote two days ago at the back garden. We have a permanent trellis there where it could climb on. It is also known as mirliton squash,  an edible plant belonging to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae.  When cooked, chayote is usually handled like summer squash; it is generally lightly cooked to retain the crispy consistency. Let us see how it grows in the next few days.

Our back garden and that’s Noki looking at some of our cats.

Planted some sweet potato vines a couple of months ago. We use the young leaves (found at the tip of each branch) to mix with our sinigang.

 

Read Full Post »

Yeay, It’s Ampalaya

Yesterday while we were eating lunch and Oreo was seated near, he saw this fresh ampalaya (bitter gourd) that I planned of cooking for dinner sauteed in eggs and paired with fried fish.

We were all surprised when he started munching on the vegetable and seemed to enjoy it so we took a video. I tried uploading it here but a fellow blogger said she can’t open the link so I just erased it. This is the first time I’ve seen a dog eat fresh ampalaya, I am pretty sure he won’t touch it when it is cooked. We googled the benefits of eating fresh ampalaya by those other breed of doggies and it has several.

Read Full Post »

Those Moments

I was quietly reading when he came barking his heart out. Then he noticed our glass sliding doors and he saw two dogs, he stopped for a while and faced me. He went out of the room and  got his small doggie toy.

“A peace offering”? I asked.

He then positioned himself at the edge of the bed and looked at me.

“Oh, you’re sorry you are barking out loud”, I said. Look at his eyes, he seems sorry enough. I have to cuddle him and he licked my arms.

We’re friends again.

That’s Oreo….bow!

Read Full Post »

Habang May Buhay, May Pag-asa

Those words simply mean, “while there is life, there is hope”.

Saw this photo published by one of our news dailies here. A touching tale of something you would love to ponder on. Amidst the tragedy is a life growing.

Photo culled from Phil. Star.

Habang may buhay, may pag-asa.

 

Read Full Post »

The Speed Is Faster….Definitely!

Hi everyone!

I missed reading your posts. We had no internet connection for almost three days due to maintenance work by Globe Telecom. They do a twice-a-year maintenance but it’s okay. At least they are up-to-date. Last week they upgraded our modem and our outer antenna.

According to Globe, the Philippines became the first country in Southeast Asia (SEA) to experience commercial fifth-generation (5G) fixed wireless broadband after Globe Telecom launched the Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G postpaid plans. This was introduced June of last year. This is  the outer antenna. Gone is the square box we used to have. This one is elongated in shape and does not require a higher place to get a strong signal. It was just fixed to our outer wall.

Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G

Read Full Post »

VIVA PIT SEÑOR!

They say that the devotion to the Sto Niño in the Philippines is as old as the history of Christianity in the country. Today we celebrate the Feast of Sto Niño, the child Jesus. “Pit Señor” is the short form of “Sangpit sa Señor,” a phrase in Cebuano that means, “to call, ask, and plead to the king.” We celebrate the  Feast of  Sto. Niño every 3rd Sunday of January, the Holy See has granted us special permission to celebrate it, a unique devotion among  us Filipinos.  It is a festive celebration which recalls our conversion to Christianity.

There are so many celebrations in the Philippines during the Feast. We have the Sinulog Festival in Cebu, the Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo, the Ati-Atihan in Kalibo, Aklan, the street dances in Tondo, Manila and many other places where the Sto Niño is their patron saint.  These are famous celebration usually seen by tourists from other countries as well. We venerate the image of the child Jesus. Sto Niño is a Roman Catholic title of the child Jesus.

Given the humility of a child, the frank  and straight to the point way  they say what they think, the honesty written in a child’s face, the loving and lovable way they accept things without question, these are the lovely traits we often envy. Sometimes we wish we were little kids again.

Viva Pit Señor!

 

 

Read Full Post »