Caustic Thoughts

High Functioning Depression - What it's Like to Have it

2019-02-13T16:14:00.000+08:00

Video Transcript: I had a secret. I kept it under wraps for years because when I tried talking about it people thought I was being ungrateful.

My secret? I suffered from depression.

I still do, but I have had the good fortune of eventually stumbling upon people who also suffer or have suffered from it and understand what it's about, people who don't aggressively blame me for it, but don't let me wallow in despair either.

Before I go on, let me just say... If you suspect that you suffer from depression or some other form of mental, emotional, internal disturbance, DO NOT SELF-DIAGNOSE. Please seek help. Depression is not a joke and there is no one size fits all solution. I should know, I had a close family member who didn't make it. So I can't say it enough; seek help!

Also, please note, what I am about to say is based on my personal experience. I am not a mental health professional or your overbearing mother, and I am not qualified to define or analyze anyone else's circumstance. My objective here is to simply share what I personally went through in the hopes that it might prove relatable to someone.

So what does it feel like to have what I have?

At first, I seem to have shared very similar mental states (some of which still persist) with my clinically depressed acquaintances. There was that crushing feeling of sadness and hopelessness, and the distressing feeling of sitting in a black hole, alternating between numbness and overthinking the cobwebs I conjured out of nothing. I had very little belief and pride in myself and in what I did, and like my saturnine pals, there were sporadic attempts to be, let's just say, harmful...

But then something shifted ever so slightly, and I don't quite know how and why it did. Perhaps a combination of my unique chemical and mental make up and the demands of a changed environment made it possible, or maybe a huge purple villain from another dimension snapped, and instead of eliminating 50% of the population, his snap shifted brain cells.

Whatever the cause, I noticed, I had suddenly gotten up and began to drive myself over cliffs of excess.

I’d become so concerned about time or my perceived shortness of it that I start work at dawn to ensure I make the most out of my day, but even then I end up deeply dissatisfied with the day's work. When I'm not working, I either stuff my face senseless or I sleep --- a lot, one time clocking in a record 20 hours of sleep on one of my mandatory holidays. I sleep so much during my days off I'd likely pass off either as a cat or a piece of furniture. But despite all the seeming rest I get, I still end up perpetually exhausted.

But there is one other thing I do even more excessively than eating or sleeping --- reading.

In 2016, I read 61 books and listened to 24 audiobooks, a total of 85 books consumed in one year. This, combined with my two other favorite excesses, has resulted in extremely dark eye rings and a fairly even increase in my horizontal dimensions.

Yes, I really look like a sad panda right now.

Feeling like a panda. Thinking like Batman.

I’ve been told this seemingly frenetic mutation of my earlier condition is called high functioning depression, also known as, the Batman state of mind (just kidding) --- also known as, dysthymia or persistent depressive disorder (PDD).

Earlier in 2018, I went through another major shift. All of a sudden, something just lifted. There is still some feeling of heaviness, but I feel a lot lighter now, and I've done a lot more different things besides reading, eating and sleeping. By the end of 2018, I only managed to read 25 books, and looking back at 2016, I can't imagine how I finished so many.

Moms Don't Think

2016-07-16T12:03:00.000+08:00

We used to tease my mother-in-law for her preferred mode of weekend entertainment. It consisted mostly of watching movies with little to no dialogue, but brimming over with blood, gore and broken limbs. She explained that she did not care to think in her moments of repose, which would have been the case if she were to watch fiction of the verbose sort.

While, in the interest of maintaining my digestive peace, I still question her choice of genre, I no longer wonder at her reason. I understand her now. After a week of slaving over soul-crushing cubicle work that is the demand of necessity rather than interest, and dealing, in a personal and professional capacity, with the mind-boggling angst and nonsense of a constant stream of bipeds in arrested emotional maturity, it is too much to require additional strenuous mental exercise on a rest day.

I understand her even better because I find myself in the same situation, stretched so thin by the demands of full time employment and parenthood that I refuse to use my brain a second over Friday's sunset, by which time I demand my inalienable right to nonsensical rest and recreation.

In my case, I find my comfort in my trove of books, but while my younger tastes leaned towards the likes of Poe, Kafka, Fitzgerald and Dostoevsky, I now find myself in need of much, much lighter fare, so utterly bereft of depth that I am ashamed to admit the crime of reading them, and am therefore constrained to hide the evidence in the bowels of a nondescript eBook reader.

But even then, the lack of spare brain cells to process even my dumbed down diversions requires me to reread sentences thrice before I comprehend their import, an affliction first manifested by my own mother, who, paradoxically, has a degree in English Literature. This has led me to the conclusion that mothers aren't, by nature, slow or uncomprehending. We're just tired!

(Thanks Rocky for sharing this. >:D)

Now the question is, shall this be the permanent prevailing state of affairs? To that I say, I refuse defeat. After two months with my eBook reader, I have been forcing my grey matter to gradually migrate, cell by cell, back to its usual haunts: Tolkien, Dickens, Eliot, Chekhov, Hemingway... God help me.

Comelec Tales: The Return of the Dead Voter

2015-12-19T11:42:00.000+08:00

It’s almost election season again, a time for cripplingly long lines and tall tales. Sadly, while most of us will probably be forced to marinate in candidates’ assorted vats of lies, not all of us will be given the privilege to cast our votes for our preferred liar. “No bio no boto” stands.

I almost didn’t make it though, and it was partly my fault.

I do not do anything at the last minute. I am, moreover, so anal retentive that I quadruple check anything I’d already done, which is why it came as a surprise to me that I decided to depart from my usual insanity.

For some inexplicable reason, I trusted in the system. I registered years ago, and in my voter’s certification, they printed my signature, thumbprint and the face of the first functional zombie on earth.

I was therefore quite distressed to find my name among the list of voters without biometrics a week before the deadline for voters’ registration. I suspected that it might have been my otherworldly beauty that may have led Comelec staff to doubt that I was human.

Regardless of the reason, I made up my mind to line up the following day to show my certificate of proof that I am a voter in possession of a face. This is despite the fact that, with very little time left to registrants, the lines would likely redefine despair, patience and fortitude all in one day.

By the way, can anyone remind me why do we do this? Why do we voluntarily subject ourselves to such a painful inconvenience when we always end up electing officials who torture us with inane or corrupt governance anyway?

I do not know why. I suppose Filipinos are simply eternally hopeful that eventually we’ll hit the mark. Unfortunately, the last time we did this, we mistook PNoy’s shiny pate as the bullseye and missed by a mile entirely.

So, armed with a dose of determination and a layer of hope imbibed from listening to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing on perpetual loop, I marched to the registration area the next day, only to discover that there were no separate sets of numbers for inquiries, new registrants and registered voters without biometrics. We all had the same queue and the last priority number had been given at 6 a.m.

Those of us who persisted in inquiring, gathered like lost sheep at the exit, united in our mutual cluelessness. With the seasoned tutelage of Manong Guard, our self-appointed shepherd who had hitherto been intent on making sure none of us went over his imaginary fence, we eventually devised a fishing game to reel in passing Comelec staff to gang up on (with the meekness of a gang of sheep of course). We appointed official bait who we threw at our prospects.

Two catches later and our group had grown considerably smaller, with most of the sheep marching home sheared… err, verified. My situation however, had gotten murky. Our first catch declared that my certificate was enough proof that I had the all clear to vote for my choice of clowns in next year’s cirque de gobierno. Our second catch however, said I had no biometrics despite the printed proof to the contrary.

Manong guard had a word of sage advice for us few remaining disconsolate sheep: We should line up at 2 a.m. the next day so we could be the first in line for priority numbers at 6 a.m.

I could almost hear Heneral Luna hollering his now immortal question in my ear, “Bayan o sarili?! (Country or self?!)”

Such a difficult question. Can I use a lifeline please?

The predominant feeling was disappointment, but I have, these past years, been decidedly dissuading myself from the immediate urge to complain about public service. First, because it isn’t always the public servants’ fault. In this case, we were given 18 months to sort ourselves out, but many chose to do so only at the last minute. Second, because not all government employees take one hour to finish their 15 minute breaks while queues simmer in high blood pressure. There may have been flaws in the local systems they chose to adopt, but the local Comelec staff clearly worked seriously and diligently.

With no solution in sight, I trudged home defeated, and in a twisted attempt to relieve my disappointment, I took to Twitter to bask in the despair of other voters. Fellow blogger, Vic ended up tagging Comelec’s James Jimenez in a tweet I made in reply to one of his. Naturally, I thought nothing of it. You simply do not expect people of consequence to take notice of little people (although technically speaking, years of stress eating has made me anything but little).

To my utter shock, Jimenez asked for the details of my problem and had Ms. L from his office call me long distance from Manila. I was astounded. It was as if I was in the middle of a bizarre late night telenovela where everything was so absurd that nothing made sense. Someone from up the top was personally trying to help me.

Succeeding referrals from Ms. L to Ms. M and Ms. H of their local offices finally revealed the reason behind the discrepancy in my records. Apparently, my file had been deactivated due to death. More importantly, it wasn’t my fault, Ms. H said. It was involuntary manslaughter on their part.

Get up. Time to vote.

My husband rejoiced at the news because it meant I never had to pay taxes again --- I was dead after all. To his dismay, I opted to rise from the dead with the help of Ms. H who had restored my biometrics.

And I lived happily ever after… I wish. I might still end up with a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, voting for loonies we’d end up suffering under for the next six years, again.

But really, the highlight of this story is Jimenez. This should teach me not to lose faith in our public servants. Hallelujah! There are still some good ones out there. Here’s hoping that next elections, we put more of them where they can help.

The Half of It

2015-08-29T11:47:00.001+08:00

It happened one bright afternoon when vendors were setting up their stalls for the weekend flea market. She had expelled copious amounts of undigested matter, soft projectiles so formidable, they sent one stall owner and her kin running for the hills, leaving me with the unenviable task of demonstrating my inadequate cleaning skills in front of oddly delighted spectators.

It happened again in a posh upscale mall. This time it was the youngest who had deigned to enhance the tiles of beige and cream with his ecru-hued dinner. At least his color combination was impeccable. By this time, my cleaning prowess had elevated to ninja level; I had to wipe the mall restroom too when his digestive tract decided it had more to share to the world.

Halfway there

My mother assured me I hadn’t seen the half of it. I wondered what worse things I’d done as a child to make her say that. I have no recollection of having made her acquainted with the byproducts of failed digestion. But then, our adventures together may have been of a more extreme nature.

There was that time I slept at the car’s back seat and downed a lungful of carbon monoxide. Senseless and, according to her, looking possessed and grinning like the devil, I very nearly crossed over.

Then there was that unique swimming episode when I plunged into the mouth of a dead volcano that had been converted into a water reservoir, with my salvation in the hands of a man, who himself, did not know how to swim. I swear my mother’s agitated gesticulations during and after my Olympic worthy dive could have won her the championship at a hip hop dance contest.

Multiply all my other escapades by six (my siblings) and you’ll arrive at the conclusion: No wonder my mom is one crazy tamale.

I strongly suspect though that I am fast approaching the point of “seeing the half of it” or at least reaching my mother’s level of insanity. I have, after all, carried an unconscious 25 lb asthmatic boy for three hours because the ER had no beds left, and I have held vigil and cleaned after a bloody food poisoned little girl. And yet, that really is just part of the half of it, because they’ll grow up and there’ll be more frightening things to look out for, like prom dates and abominable teen fashion.

This isn’t intended to scare. If anything, this is really an exhortation to be kind and forgiving of the people who’ve raised you. Ruling out some detestable exceptions, many parents do the best they can with their limited skills and understanding and despite their frustrated dreams. The best of us expect no other reward than the memories of little arms lovingly wrapped around our abdominal spare tires and soft grateful kisses on our raisin faces permanently wrinkled with worry.

Cheers to all parents past and present who have seen and survived the halfway mark.

Interstellar Mini Movie Review

2015-04-27T10:14:00.000+08:00

I’ve been emotionally compromised. I couldn’t stop thinking about Interstellar days after I’d watched it, and I’ve had to rationalize my prolonged teary-eyed state as distress over more mundane concerns (paying my annual income tax, for example), when in reality, I wanted to weep for Cooper.

My husband got a copy of the movie because he liked it but felt he needed another go to fully absorb the story. His brains apparently fell off a cliff midway. That was fair warning that I needed to watch the film in an isolation chamber for comprehension purposes. That’s just what I’d expect from Christopher Nolan whose films are beautifully crafted marvels that require audiences to take anti-inflammatory medication.

If all you remember of high school physics is your teacher’s superb skills in making you cry, then the movie’s dialogue, liberally seasoned with discussions about singularities, wormholes, relativity, gravitational waves and time dilation will leave you feeling like a fart capsule exploded in your brain. The only way to connect with the story is to pare down some of its mind numbing concepts.

In Summary

The earth and the human race are about to go kaput. Cooper, a former pilot, is recruited by NASA’s professor Brand to take a ship with a group of scientists, including Brand’s daughter Amelia, into a wormhole to gather data from three possibly habitable planets orbiting a black hole. Brand reveals he is working on an equation that will allow them to launch space stations that’ll take humanity to a new home. In the event that this fails, Brand’s plan B is to use frozen embryos, which the scientists take with them, to jumpstart the human race.

Cooper leaves behind his broken hearted 10 year old daughter, Murph, but is determined to one day return. It is later revealed that Brand lied about there being a plan A, having secretly solved his equation and deemed plan A to be impossible. From the start Brand intended Cooper and company to execute plan B with no hope of ever returning.

After discovering that two of the planets are inhospitable and after a series of unfortunate events (i.e. after all the supporting cast have been killed off), Amelia and Cooper are the only ones left of their company. Low on fuel, Cooper detaches himself from their ship and launches into the black hole’s singularity while propelling Amelia and her embryos into the third planet. (Talk about becoming the mother of the human race! That is if she manages to survive her first ten toddlers.)

While in the black hole, Cooper finds himself in a five-dimensional area compressed into a three-dimensional space from where he transmits data to an adult Murph. She uses the data to solve the equation that will allow mankind to launch space stations, thereby saving it from extinction. Cooper exits the blackhole and is back where he started. He is later reunited with Murph, but because of time dilation, Cooper has hardly aged, while Murph is now elderly and dying.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need a PhD in constipated Hollywood plots to be able to relate to Interstellar. Nolan’s message is simple. Unfortunately, this is also where the story goes a little wishy washy. After all that convoluted mental acrobatics, all Nolan wants to say is: Love is that all mysterious force that binds us, draws us together across time and space and conquers all. In the end, Nolan takes us back to the inexplicable.

I don’t begrudge Nolan though, because he reminds us that we don’t always need rigid proof to experience something powerful, real, true and comprehensible. Matthew Mcconaughey portrays Cooper as your average Joe which makes it even easier for us to stand in his shoes. If you’ve ever loved another being with fierce depth, you will understand Cooper’s despair at parting and his anguish at later realizing that he has missed irreplaceable years in his child’s life.

For countless Filipinos the world over, Cooper’s experience should resonate on an even more personal level. We have, after all, our OFWs who, because of love, must part for prolonged periods of time from the people they care for.

So is Interstellar really just a touchy feely movie masquerading as an abstruse pop quiz in astrophysics? If the story strikes a chord with you, I don’t think you’ll bother analyzing what it is or is not.

Just for laughs, here's Interstellar's Honest Trailer .

Reading Guide: Ten Questions Filipinos Should Ask after the Mamasapano Clash

2015-02-08T15:58:00.000+08:00

The botched police operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao that led to the brutal deaths of SAF troopers has left a potent cocktail mix of emotions in me. Forty-four brave sons for the head of international terrorist Marwan. I knew none of the troopers personally, and yet I grieve in this awful state of anger, devastation and frustration. If you love this country, you will understand why this has left a bitter sting on my consciousness.

Of course I am saddened for the bereaved families, but there is an overarching awareness of another loss. The Fallen 44 were among the best and bravest who would have constructively contributed through their work and character to the task of reviving an ailing nation. We need people like them. We’ve already lost too many of our brightest minds, artists, athletes and workers to foreign shores because our government has neglected to nurture their dreams.

Post by Philippine National Police.

As if this loss wasn’t enough, the incident has had a ripple effect, touching and exposing a multitude of sensitive points, ranging from doubts about the soundness of government leadership to fears about the outcome of peace talks with the MILF. This is what some of us fail to see even as thousands have already freely expressed their sentiments.

The problem is not that we all have an opinion. It’s that many have opinions formed on the basis of digestive gas, and social media gives us the license to throw out incomplete or misguided thoughts like bits of fecal matter on an already gangrenous situation.

If you must have an opinion, you should at least read a little, analyze and ask questions. If you don’t know where to start, here’s a reading guide:

1. Who was Marwan and why were they after him?

Malaysian bomb maker Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, was an engineer trained in the United States. He was believed to have headed a Malaysian terrorist organization and was a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah. He is suspected of having had a hand in the 2002 Bali bombings, killing 202 people. Local media suggests he had ties with the ISIS.

Read:
Wanted by the FBI: Zulkifli Abdhir
'High likelihood' suspected Bali bomber among dead in Philippines clashes, official says

2. Who was directing the operation against Marwan?

Suspended PNP chief General Alan Purisima has denied having directed the operations, declaring that his role was limited to providing the intelligence packet. If you listen between the lines of Aquino and Purisima’s statements, the blame seems to be pointed at a smaller goat, relieved SAF chief Getulio Napeñas, Jr.

Is it acceptable that none of the top brass seem eager to take responsibility for what happened?

Incidentally, Aquino was in Zamboanga when the slaughter happened. Can you honestly believe he was just there by chance?

Read:
‘Purisima planned it all’
Purisima denies hand in Mamasapano operation
Aquino’s February 26 speech after Purisima’s resignation

3. Why was the military unable to provide reinforcements?

PNP OIC General Leandro Espina and AFP chief-of-staff General Gregorio Catapang knew months ago that there were plans to arrest Marwan, but they had not known of the exact details of the actual January 25 operation. Espina’s request for military reinforcement was made only during the actual fight.

Bitter ampalaya balls have been thrown between the PNP and the AFP but again, it’s important to read statements carefully. It seems clear that the operation was kept so tightly under wraps that coordination became difficult during the actual encounter. It has been suggested however, that secrecy was crucial for the success of the operation.

Read:
The Mamasapano operation: He said, he said, he said
SAF chief: I am responsible
AFP chief sheds tears for fallen PNP-SAF cops

4. What could have happened if the military got involved?

The situation was complicated by an existing ceasefire agreement between the MILF and the government. If the military got involved, could they have endangered peace talks with the MILF?

Read:
Where were the military troops?
Why the military did not reinforce SAF

Post by Rappler.

5. If there is a ceasefire agreement, why was the MILF involved?

The forces that clashed with SAF troopers included members of the BIFF, MILF and private armies. The BIFF is a splinter faction that separated from the MILF in 2010 over disagreements in the peace process. Only the MILF has a standing agreement with the government.

Notwithstanding the agreement, MILF Chariman Murad Ebrahim said that in reality, once there is a common enemy, everyone joins in. Moreover, the MILF and BIFF have members who are either relatives or friends, making it difficult for one group to completely sever ties.

Read/Watch:
BIFF on MILF unit: ‘We’re all family’
MILF Chairman Murad Ebrahim – watch 2:18

6. If the BIFF and the MILF have close ties, what kind of peace will there be in Central Mindanao?

This remains to be seen if the Bangsamoro Basic Law is passed and takes effect, but you can just imagine…

7. If the MILF are eager to shake hands with the government, why did they allow a known terrorist to roam freely in their area of influence?

Marwan lived in Central Mindanao for twelve years, taking three Filipino wives and forming ties with a number of terrorist groups. The key word here is “ties”. If the MILF tried to aggressively ferret him out, would they have stepped on certain relationships that were not in their best interests to run over?

Read:
Marwan’s ties that bind: Aljebir Adzhar aka Embel
Marwan’s ties that bind: Ren-Ren Dongon

8. Why are the authorities being faulted for not coordinating the MILF if they felt they had good reason not to?

The implementing guidelines of the ceasefire agreement stipulate the need for government forces to coordinate with the MILF for planned operations in their area. Former GPH Peace Panel Chairman Jesus Dureza however, said that this excludes operations against high priority targets. The current government peace panel has labeled Dureza’s statement as misleading.

Wait. What?! The term “required” is a little disturbing. Areas occupied by the MILF are still under Philippine territory. We are a sovereign nation. Can’t the government enforce the law in its own territory without the requirement to coordinate?

Read:
SAF did not have to inform MILF
Govt panel: Coordination with MILF required even in pursuit of high-value targets
Lacson’s supposed opinion on sovereignty – paragraph 6 (source unverified)

9. Is everything okay now that Marwan has supposedly been neutralized?

Marwan’s cohort and fellow bomb maker, Abdul Basit Usman is still at large. Marwan also reportedly trained 300 bomb makers in Central Mindanao. Moreover, the government now has the BIFF, who have threatened to launch attacks, to contend with.

Read:
Marwan leaves behind 300 bomb makers in Mindanao
BIFF vows more attacks

10. Will passing the Bangsamoro law finally bring peace and put an end to the troubles plaguing Central Mindanao?

Much depends on whether the MILF can police their ranks and contain those who are relatives with or sympathetic to the BIFF who are in turn sympathetic to suspected terrorists.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, because the Bangsamoro Agreement is still up for debate. Constitutional expert, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago says that creating a substate, which the Agreement suggests, is unconstitutional. Moreover, the existing ARMM is mandated by the constitution and cannot simply be abolished to give way to the Bangsamoro law.

My Opinion: The constitution is the supreme law. If we cannot respect it, no law is sacred.

Already, we are seeing vestiges of this substate. In the video shared in #5, Ebrahim said that if any of the MILF fighters involved in the Mamasapano clash are found in the wrong, they will not be turned over to government authorities, but will be tried in their own courts.

It’s worth noting though, that all out war doesn’t seem to be an easy alternative to a questionable peace agreement. According to GMA News research, armed conflict in Mindanao has lead to the deaths of 120,000 people from 1970 to 1996 and to physical and cultural displacement.

The effects of armed conflict go beyond Mindanao. There will be economic consequences that will affect the rest of the country.

Post by Pol Medina Jr.

Read:
Miriam: Bangsamoro Agreement Unconstitutional
Bangsamoro law cannot abolish ARMM, says ex-solon
Armed conflict, malaki ang epekto sa kalidad ng buhay ng mga komunidad

The SAF 44 did more than fulfill their mission. Their deaths pushed more Filipinos into seeing the bigger picture--- the enormity of the difficulties and issues facing Mindanao and the rest of the country.

Knowing our government’s track record, I do not expect that the brave Fallen 44 will ever be given conventional justice. The best justice we ordinary citizens can give them is to pay better attention to the events that threaten to push our country into a deeper pit and to become more involved. Our nation’s future depends on our decisions. Let’s start by picking leaders in 2016 who have our country’s best interests in mind and the skill to steer us out of this quagmire we’re in.

Rest in peace Fallen 44. May we do justice to your sacrifice.

Lost Soles

2014-11-15T13:28:00.000+08:00

The best places to find financially rewarding jobs in Misamis Oriental are Tagoloan and Villanueva. These two places contain the companies that applicants drool over while half awake beside the telephone on a warm and dry jobless day. Getting into companies there will not just give employees the feeling of being well compensated; it will also give a view into a distant but secure future, one filled with fat chickens on the table, Tanduay in blue boxes, an air conditioned home in the Estates and the most expensive Magic Sing in the sala.

That’s why my heart jumped when I got a call for an interview from a Tagoloan company. I took out my interview clothes that had been reeking of moth balls, put on my most comfortable pair of fake leather shoes and flew off to the jeepney terminal. It was my first trip to Tagoloan and I had no idea that the sun would be crueler on that part of the world and that the trip would include a free supply of grey face powder that had a peculiar way of coating the insides of nostrils too. But I didn’t mind going through the trip. If I got accepted, I could be sitting on a company bus the following week on a cool morning when both sun and smog are at their kindest.

I got off right in front of the company gate. The company building was still some distance away and I had to walk over cemented paths that looked so warm that they could cook applicants in transit. All of a sudden I knew how the ancient human sacrifices thrown into volcanoes must have felt like on the day they died. But I pushed on, hoping that I would meet with no other form of tragedy along the way except for a splitting headache no pack of Medicol would be able to cure.

But the hammer in my head proved to be the least of my worries. By the time I reached the middle of my walk, I noticed tiny black particles following my every step. I thought the heat had finally gotten the best of me, making me more paranoid than usual. It turned out I wasn’t hallucinating. The little black things dodging my every step came from the bottom of my fake shoes.

I had no idea shoes that hadn’t been used in ages had a way of falling apart under the slightest provocation. The problem was, I was already at the office door. Oh, the shame of it all! I dragged my feet carefully but still left traces of black pseudo leather on the carpet.

I sat through my interview, praying that I wouldn’t leave the remainder of my soles underneath the chair where I had tucked my feet. When it was all over, I limped out as quickly as I could, leaving more of my nasty mystery trail for the janitor to solve. If Cinderalla had fake leather shoes instead of glass, her prince would have found her sooner.

I didn’t get the job. The interviewer must have noticed the way I sat as if I was carrying a liter of urine in my bladder. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Don’t wear fake leather shoes to an interview if you’ve kept them too long. You’ll lose your sole on a warm, unforgiving interview day.

*First posted on MisOrJobs
November 27, 2008

MisOrJobs Bids Farewell

2014-08-31T15:44:00.000+08:00

Everything we do involves some degree of risk. The only way you’d be able to avoid taking risks is if you keep to your bed for the rest of your life and do nothing. Even then you’d probably risk eventual organ failure for lack of activity. The real challenge is knowing when to charge and when to surrender. The problem with me is, I never can tell.

My experience with letting go has always involved making the decision to do so only after some alarming sign slams some sense into me, like a 500 lb. anvil falling on my head or Maricel Soriano’s palm hitting my face at 200 kph.

A few weeks ago, I had another one of those devastating alarms go off. I woke up to the news that my six year old local job site, MisOrJobs, with over 20,000 monthly unique visitors and over 50,000 monthly visits became the unwitting tool of a scammer. Some wise guy posted a bogus job ad, intending to defraud applicants.

Yup, those are some pretty decent stats I'll surely miss.

The ensuing events felt like a bad primetime drama unfolding in slow motion, leaving a prolonged nasty aftertaste you can’t flush out with mouthwash. In summary, an applicant fell into the trap. The NBI got involved and, what I would imagine to be a nerve-wracking entrapment operation was mounted, leading to the scammer’s arrest. The media caught wind of it of course, and published an article with my website’s name splattered all over it. I was contacted for my side of the story. I had to see lawyers and then lie down anxious and immobile for hours.

I’d assume the scammer took a fair bit of time to brainstorm his grand designs of petty thievery. Really though, if he used his skills and resources to pursue a more socially acceptable undertaking, like writing better senatorial speeches, he’d have almost made an honest living for himself, but noooooo, he had to go all Lex Luthor and use his prodigious intelligence for evil.

Needless to say, my thoughts go out to the victim. I can’t imagine the stress caused by such an ordeal, but I can’t help but think I’d been ill used too, and I suspect that the effect on me will very soon spread over. The incident has convinced me to shut down MisOrJobs, leaving its thousands of followers out in the cold.

This is not a case of lack of perseverance on my part or turning my back on a challenge. This is about me finally realizing that I’ve sacrificed enough. Running a website involves many sleepless hours of administrative and maintenance work. Add to that the time and effort needed to put every single email from employers, jobseekers and spammers under a magnifying glass. If I had to screen more intensively, I’d need an electron microscope. Even then, who knows when an even more enterprising bacteria of a man manages to disguise his presence and escape detection.

Do take note, I do all of my intensive work and screening for free. I don’t get paid. I already have a demanding full time job that eats my brains on a regular basis, plus kids on lithium batteries to manage. MisOrJobs has become one of those extra weights designed to etch darker bags with the depth of the Marianas Trench under my eyes.

Why did I punish myself with all that free work, you ask? Too many have said they found the site helpful and have expressed gratitude for the hard work. It didn’t feel right to pull the plug then.

Now that I have made the decision to abandon ship for myself, I probably have more time to do things I probably should have done more, like comb my hair or check myself out in the mirror. I also have extra time now to go to the kitchen to learn to prepare food that doesn’t come out of a can or dial McDo; to go out and find out what the sunlight feels like; to burn the growing tire around my waist; to rediscover the use of my voice box to talk to real people; to watch more fun cat and dog videos on YouTube. More importantly, now I have time to pursue things I’m truly passionate about.

I’ll be honest, just because I’ve made up my mind doesn’t make the execution easy. I’ve nurtured MisOrJobs for more than half a decade, and it feels like I’m letting go of a loved one, so I’m more inclined to drop it slowly. It’ll be a couple of months before I finally close the doors.

It’s worth noting that I’m not the type who says never. Who knows one of these days someone else might offer to take the domain out of my hands to resurrect it or I might find myself in a new situation where I’m more able to run it again. So I do encourage my fans to continue to follow MisOrJobs’ social accounts. I’ll keep updating those with relevant posts and perhaps one day I’ll let you know what the future holds for the site, but for now, farewell.

Dark Thoughts in the Dark in Mindanao

2014-05-24T11:11:00.000+08:00

I’ve been derailed. Around a month ago, we had two weeks of spotty internet connection, supposedly due to damage to undersea internet cables. The thought of the little mermaid cutting lengths of cable for her collection came to mind. Just as an onset of conscience convinced her to return the stolen cables, our city descended into the wholly warm, occasionally dark realm of rotational blackouts --- 3 to 7.5 hours a day. The lady at the power company's customer care table remarked at our good fortune considering that other places in Mindanao endure 12-hour blackouts. I'd give two AA batteries to anyone who can guess the expression on my face when she said that.

I tried to fit my usual long online work hours and childcare into insane schedules to work around the blackouts. There was a point though when I began to feel myself progressively transforming into one giant, tense, purple nerve, ready to snap at the slightest poke.

Naturally, I’ve had to control myself. To vent off some steam, I’d march to the closet and scream. I’ve since sent the bogeyman running to his mother crying, “Mom there’s a nerve in my closet.”

Staying in control is important because I get the impression that complaining isn’t fashionable here. The last time I complained was when our garbage collectors disappeared into some void, leaving us close to cultivating the first maggot farm in the city due to uncollected trash. I was told I shouldn’t have filed a complaint and that I should just wait patiently for whenever authorities choose to take action.

Wait a doggone minute. Am I not a citizen of a country with one of the highest tax rates in Asia? If I can’t enjoy reliable basic services in spite of the taxes I pay, can I at least be entitled to the right to send maggots to government officials for Christmas?

We Filipinos are famous for our ability to cheerfully and ingeniously survive the worst kinds of adversity, but there is a danger to this skill. We run the risk of always accepting that we are slaves to circumstances, whatever they may be, and that there is nothing we can do.

Just because we are a happy people and we can live through the worst times, it doesn’t mean our default response should be to accept every piece of shit thrown at us. Can we not demand for accountability too? I suggest we nominate members to the Government Association of Greedy Officials (GAGO for short) and send them on prolonged field trips to Mindanao during rotational brownouts.

Of course it’s not just GAGO members that we should be taking to task. We are after all, responsible for putting them where they are. Does that make us eligible for membership to the TANGA club?

Bonus Rant: If you want to understand how electricity is generated and distributed in the Philippines, why it’s so expensive and why we consumers sit in the dark waiting for the light long after God gave humankind the intelligence to generate it, watch this video from Rappler.

Out of the Kitchen

2014-04-26T11:28:00.000+08:00

Are advertisements shaped by the real world or is it the other way around? I’m not entirely sure. My kids and I seem unable to relate to some of the more recurring TV ads these days. Cases in point:

Ad A: A woman grinning from ear to ear washes clothes by hand, and the items on her clothesline multiply indefinitely until she becomes a tiny spec in a sea of clean clothes. She remains blissfully happy, a maniac addicted to laundry.

Ad B: It’s early morning and a mom is in a mad rush around the kitchen preparing for members of her family who will be off to work and school. She ends up having a massive headache the size of PNoy's foreign relations problems.

Ad C: A mom serves her kids at the dining table while joyfully extolling the virtues of artificial flavoring. Life has never been easier with the advent of semi fake food.

My husband bought this for me for my protection. I'm kitchen and cooking impaired.

Do most modern women do all of that? If I had to wash clothes to infinity and beyond, my fingers would be in bloody shreds and I would probably never smile again, ever. As to kitchen duties, I am cooking impaired. My husband once summed up my attempts to learn to wield knife and spatula by declaring in exasperation, “The whole kitchen is against you.”

In our house, my kids know it’s their father they need to see for clean clothes and good food, but these ads have gotten them confused so that they’ve started to wonder if their father is really their mother; their mother their father; or if their mother is really their mother, then why is she working ten hour shifts and not in the kitchen or the laundry room shredding her fingers?

I suppose my kids aren’t the only ones puzzled. One time, while at my father-in-law’s place, a group of neighbors’ kids, all boys, were playing in my pa’s living room with pink cookware. They were each vying for the role of father of their make believe house. Clearly in their houses, the men man their kitchens as well.

This is not a feminist commentary. It’s an observation on how some families and situations no longer fit old standards and how children’s perceptions have begun to evolve.

I wonder if you’ve begun to change your internal concepts as well. More importantly, I wonder who does the cooking and the laundry in your homes.

Here's the man of our house doing the cooking.

Do I Look Like a Jellyfish to You?

2014-03-01T10:47:00.000+08:00

My kids call me Jollibee. My husband thinks I look like Garfield. My mom says she misses those days when I looked like a jellyfish. Doesn't anyone in my family think I look human at all?

Of course, the members of my family value me and when they call me animal names, they do so with great love and affection. In fact when my husband calls me by my cat name, he purrs and leaves a trail of lasagna bits for me to follow to the lunch table. I am not quite certain though what people outside of my family think when they look at me.

My baby photo.

The sales clerk at the supermarket gave me a clue on how strangers perceive me when she called me "sir". In my head, I heard Britney Spears singing: "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman... Probably because I'm really a man."

I love my strange looks but I must admit, it hasn't always been easy looking the way I do. I've received tons of advice on how to look less animalistic or masculine. I've been given tips about makeup, clothing and grooming; with the additional warning that someone more feminine looking (like Orlando Bloom?) will one day grab my husband's eye if I don't whip myself into shape. The one piece of advice I will never forget is from a former classmate who told me I should dress like a girl because I'm a girl.

I get it. To others, I don't look cool in the image I've chosen for myself. The thing is, I've tried to look the way others think I should look. I've had jobs that nearly killed me with mandatory heels and lipstick. Needless to say, I found that the traditional feminine look just didn't work for me and I came away from my heel wearing days with five valuable lessons.

1. Nothing is worth painful feet, or painful anything. If you're a picture of agony in heels or if you squirm in emotional distress under layers of face paint, then something's wrong. You have to make the decision to either commit yourself to the tremendous amount of time and effort it'll take to get used to what you're not comfortable with or you settle for the look that makes you feel good about yourself.

We all wear pants and sneakers in this house and nobody has to apologize for it.

2. You only owe people basic grooming. It's a form of mild discourtesy for your breath to smell like a bag of garlic chips, for your clothes to look like they've been to Mordor and for your armpits to smell like rotten eggs, but other than making sure you've brushed your teeth, taken a bath and worn fairly clean clothes, you don't owe anyone anything else. If you must look extra trim, dapper or flashy, it's because you feel you owe yourself that.

3. Clothes and appearance don't define people. It's tragic when girls are put in rigid boxes and told that gender dictates appearance and identity. It doesn't matter if you're a girl in jeans and an undercut looking like a chipmunk. Character, values, and to a certain extent, mental aptitude matter more.

4. Your attitude about yourself is important. Sure, everyone else thinks you look funny, but what do you think about yourself? No one can drag you down if you have a good sense of your own worth.

5. Laughing at yourself is a sign of maturity. Being able to see the humor behind the way close friends and family joke about your looks is an indication that you aren't insecure and you're mature enough to know when people aren't out to hurt you.

Clearly I love myself better now, but it took a few painful episodes of trying to fit in before I finally figured things out. Here's hoping that anyone else who has yet to embark on a similar journey goes through a smoother path.

What I Want to Be

2014-01-24T15:58:00.001+08:00

Do you remember the first time you were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Talk about pressure. I’d imagine that shortly after mastering your ABCs, adults stood over you during a family party expecting a charming answer. You would have breathed a sigh of relief when the adults smiled and patted your head after you blurted out the first thing you remembered from your community helpers picture book.

Career contemplation. In the end Dora decides to pursue her lifelong passion.

It took many seconds before I could think of an answer for my adults. I was thinking I didn’t want to be an engineer like my father because his textbooks had scary looking squiggly characters on them that looked like they came from a can of worms. At that time, I did not want to be a teacher like my mother either because she always looked like a bag of nerves.

So I told them I wanted to be a dentist. But I was as likely to jump into the field of dentistry as my molars were from developing athlete’s foot. After watching several episodes of Star Trek, I decided I’d rather be an astronaut instead. I quickly abandoned the idea when I found out that I could not even “Find X” (X seems perpetually lost too) in high school and that owning a scientific calculator does not make people develop an understanding for calculus.

I’ve had to undergo several different mutations where I thought I finally figured out the perfect identity. It’s seems however, that it’s now really anyone’s guess what I want to be or what I am now. Unlike Bong Revilla who is absolutely certain that he is a senator and not a thief or a wolf in senator’s clothing, I have absolutely no idea what I am.

I’ve given up trying to put a deadline on becoming a successful someone because I realized that the more I panicked, the more I missed out on other things like sleep, food, fun, my kids’ birthdays… oh, and is that my life passing me by? I didn’t even recognize it.

So I resolve to be calmer. The answer to that decades old question will come to me and it doesn’t have to be right this very minute.

Into the Labyrinth of the Philippine Tax System

2013-12-16T09:38:00.000+08:00

What’s scarier than a Red Bull overdosed zombie? It’s a Red Bull overdosed Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares. The lady is an absolute maniac--- er--- machine; running after tax evaders, left, right, in, on, over and under; utilizing the full extent of the law to squeeze the last cent from every taxable entity. From what I’ve heard, that includes the dead and people who just happen to accidentally come across money lying on the street. I wouldn’t be surprised if she manages to uncover some obscure legal basis for taxing animals, inanimate objects and fictional characters.

Starring Kim Henares

Do consider though, she’s just doing her job and within legal boundaries, which is exactly what we demand from other government officials moonlighting as clowns/thieves/scoundrels. Personally, I’m not the type who complains about things I can’t change and taxes are as inevitable as stress in a call center.

Acceptance for the tax man’s job however, does not mean I take great pleasure in paying taxes. I would equate the experience to having to run a marathon in five inch stilettos, doable but painful and frustrating, and it’s not because of the maddeningly high figures taxpayers have to pay. The real reasons why I am regularly visited by nightmarish visions of a nude Henares atop Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball are the convoluted payments systems and the knowledge of where my payments go.

Tax payment systems here are a labyrinth of epic proportions. You will get lost. You will weep and pull your hair. There will be a lot of BIR personnel to ask information from but they’ve all majored in ancient languages and will insist on explaining what you need to do in Latin.

Just when you’ve begun to learn the when, where, how and why of it all; they’ll add levels of difficulties in the form of new regulations, policies and requirements so that you will once again start rocking back and forth, dazed, confused and a shadow of your former self. Cases in point are this year’s new rules on receipts and withholding taxes, non compliance with which will probably land businesses and professionals directly in front of Henares’ ball(s).

For Kim, nearly everything is taxable. Photo from Pesos and Sense.

Despite all this soul crushing convolution, I would still have happily complied if I knew my money was put to good public use. As matters stand however, mine is compliance minus the happiness. There is simply no joy in knowing I’m paying for some politician’s daughter’s Hermes collection while many of my fellow Filipinos who should be benefiting from my taxes wallow in hell on earth.

I’d imagine that because our taxes aren’t going where they should, Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua might just be enjoying better food, water and living conditions than many Filipinos. Heck, the lucky dog might even be receiving better education.

It’s almost Christmas. Why am I thinking like this? I should be thinking of less distressing thoughts like the prospect of walking into a lion’s den or falling into a snake pit, but there are no holidays for the tax lady. Already we’re preparing new accounting books and papers for next year’s labyrinth.

Merry Christmas to you too Kim.

Janet Napoles Says Nothing at all at the Senate Hearing

2013-11-07T14:32:00.000+08:00

Janet Napoles should get a Guinness record for most evasive maneuvers in a senate hearing. No amount of prodding, imploring and veiled begging could cure Napoles' severely impaired memory in relation to the ten billion Pork Barrel scam.

You could have gotten more juice out of a raisin than information out of Napoles

The senators employed a variety of interrogation strategies. To paraphrase and recap some of the more notable ones:

Santiago’s strategy: You poor little thing. Let me help you. Here are your legal options. Now tell the truth before the mastermind, whose initials by the way are JPE, assassinates you. Take revenge while you’re still alive. (Patayin sa Sindak si ~~Barbara~~ Janet)
Escudero’s strategy: I’ve read and watched every single interview you’ve given to the media. I know everything, including what you did last summer, so don’t lie to me. (Big Brother ang peg)
Poe’s strategy: The all merciful God will forgive you, so tell the truth. (To the tune of: Ipagpatawad Mo)
Cayetano’s strategy: Can you please implicate the people who have wronged me? (To the tune of Nanggigigil Kami)

Image from 8list.ph

To all these, Napoles repeatedly replied:

I don’t know (Hindi ko alam)
That’s not true
I can’t remember
I invoke my right

Reminds me of pop songs. Repeat four lines of lyrics for two minutes until fade, but imagine listening to the same four lines for six hours! And after all that, what did the senators gain?

Nothing.

The hearing was not intended to establish the guilt or innocence of Napoles and others allegedly involved in the scam. It was supposed to have been conducted in aid of legislation so that the senators could craft better laws to prevent future similar scams. I can’t imagine now what kind of legislation they can form out of that session. Maybe they can pass a law that will make the statement “I invoke my right” illegal in senate hearings if the invoker can’t pronounce self-in-cri-mi-na-tion along with it.

Napoles making her cheat sheet before the senate hearing.

But come on, we’d be kidding ourselves if we think the senators were thinking of legislative work when they questioned Napoles. You could see from the way some of them ground their teeth to dust in frustration that what they were after was a confession from her and for her to name names, but Napoles did not crack.

If anything, she may have been successful at showing she needed more serious medical attention. She may have been lobotomized and is suffering from severe amnesia or she may have become delusional, creating a fantasy world for herself. In her insane, upside down world she thinks:

scams are fairy tales;
thieving senators deserve tea and sympathy; and
people with 7 cars and 3 houses (daw) like herself are considered not rich

Now that we’ve wasted six hours of our lives listening to Napoles’ ala pop song chorus reply, what are we to expect next? They say the senate might call Napoles or her husband back in for another round of questioning. My tip to Napoles: She should study and adopt Pinocchio’s method of evading questions which he demonstrated in the movie Shrek. Those who have tried his technique swear that it’s guaranteed to prevent noses from growing while lying.

Watch the senate hearing replay here:

Finally Found the One

2013-10-14T17:15:00.000+08:00

My parents are pretty cool, if only because, growing up, they could hardly care less if I brought home an academic medal or guavas. So while other kids had to endure advanced classes in some seemingly esoteric subject; maintain grades achievable only by those close to insanity; learn 99 ways to pain through ballet and karate; and master a foreign language, I was in the backyard making mud pies and getting acquainted with primitive organisms in pools of rainwater. In short, I enjoyed being a kid. It wasn’t until college that I was advised to do my best.

Twenty years from now, nobody will care how many ribbons you got in pre school

Of course I know the importance of training kids to aim for academic excellence. It develops confidence and instills discipline. I do believe in encouraging kids to do better in school, but only if kids really want to and not just because their parents desire it with a violence bordering on criminal, in which case, the parents, not their kids, should be standing on the school stage with medals round their necks.

Most importantly, I think the pursuit of good grades should not be made at the expense of values formation. When kids are made to feel that they must achieve something by hook or by crook, there’s a 50% chance they’ll turn into crooks. If they aren’t taught to achieve goals legitimately and honorably, they will be swine in the making, heirs to Janet Napoles and Mark Solis.

My friends joke that I secretly like to collect school uniforms because I’ve moved my child to three different schools already. Her two previous schools focused more on developing the mental abilities of students to the point of developing telepathy than on stressing the importance of honest, hard work.

I think I’ve finally found the one though. A small indication of this is the Models of Honesty list, of which my kid is a part of, on the school bulletin board where normally, other schools display top ten lists. Side story: Yes, my daughter is in that list because she is super honest. She never fails to tell me in public how fat I am and how much I need to exercise.

To be clear, I’m not saying I’m leaving values training to the school. I’m saying I want my kid to be in a school where its values are aligned with mine so that training is consistent even when I’m not looking.

I just hope we can afford this school long term. Apparently, charity is not one of their values.

No Fifty Shades of Grey Here Except if it’s Television

2013-10-03T15:24:00.000+08:00

One book that will never find its way to my bookshelf is Fifty Shades of Grey. For the record, I haven’t read it, but of course I’ve heard what it’s about. My husband though hasn’t. He actually thought the book had something to do with the history of black and white television. Just so you know, he’s from earth, but mentally he lives in Mars sometimes.

The real 50 shades of grey.

When I posted my husband’s quip online, some of my friends got even funnier, mixing creativity, cluelessness and critique.

Rex: I’m afraid that what he’ll be reading is a story about two people getting creative on top of a black and white TV while using the antenna as a whip.

Nikki: I actually thought it was an x-ray book.

Edu: I thought it’s a book for color matching.

Me: Is the writing style in the same level as (as bad as) Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown?

Rocky: It’s not even Dan Brown… It’s (like) a 17 year old girl writing fanfic.

That last comment from Rocky got me wondering, if there’s nothing outstanding about the writing style and there’s nothing special about it, why is the book selling like potato chips? Don’t people know there’s a great deal of this stuff for free online? Fancy some tentacles, pogo sticks or creatures from outer space? The internet has got all that covered and more by fan fiction or fantasy writers ranging from 17 years old to forgotten years old.

The ready availability of such unusual reading materials online however, is not the reason why I feel I don’t need or want Fifty Shades in my collection. Just as they say, “You are what you eat,” I believe, “You write what you read.”

I don’t mean you should Sotto copy or do the Solis. I mean if you read multiple books from a certain genre or author, you imbibe part of the vibe and style. Try this. Read 19th century Russian literature for two weeks. After that I’ll wager, you’ll start writing such brooding stories your mother will call a psychiatrist for you.

If I read Fifty Shades, I might start inserting whips and leather boots in my clients’ blog posts.

Top Five Challenges Online Workers Face

2013-09-16T14:10:00.001+08:00

Some people seem to think I have it easy. I work in my pajamas and I don’t have to squeeze into a sardine can of a jeepney to get to work. I also have mostly great clients who pay on time and I never have to participate in those blasted company parties where song and dance numbers are mandatory.

Not as easy as you think.

It’s not quite accurate to think though that my life is a breeze and that online work is chicken pie ala mode. I’ve been on both sides of the employment fence and I know that online work can be as much a cause of temporary insanity as an office cubicle.

Place yourself in the shoes of a would be online worker. Here are five very real challenges you might have to face:

1. No Work, No Pay

Online, there is no Department of Labor that’ll ensure workers are paid during holidays, maternity leave and sick leave. A good, regular boss might give you some of that but the default setting is no work, no pay.

In some cases, clients may even require the installation of time trackers so that more than five minutes of not typing, moving your mouse or staring at the right website will be recorded as time not worked.

Can you hear Sting singing, “Every breath you take… I’ll be watching you”?

2. Extra Fat

Years of working in a sitting position can give your belly fat and thigh cellulite lives of their own and they’ll start reproducing faster than rabbits. Exercise you say? If you choose to work 12 to 14 hour shifts of brain draining technical work due to economic reasons, all you’ll want to do after is to sleep. That’ll only make things worse for you. After maybe 7 years of online work, you’ll be unable to feel your legs.

3. Bosses from Outer Space

Again, I’ve been lucky to have great clients but who says online workers never have bosses/clients who spit fire. Some even spew toxic chemical substances and shrapnel. The worst of them will have come from seemingly distant planets such that no matter what you do, you will never be able to decode what they want but somehow it’ll still be your fault.

A number of these out of these world bosses also follow different calendars in their places of origin so your pay will never be on time.

Trying to figure out the inside of a client's brain.

4. Legal Mumbo Jumbo

Want to stay in the right side of the law? You’ve got to get registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Good luck with that. You’ll probably need that Da Vinci Code guy to help you figure out what you need exactly to get your papers and payments right. The system is so complicated, it’ll pass as script for an overdrawn prime time drama, one that’ll reduce you to tears.

5. Little to No Socialization

Because every minute spent online is 100% unadulterated work, there will be no water cooler breaks, small chitchats or company parties. You’ll forget what people are and in the rare instances when you’ll be able to go out in the mornings, you’ll even start wondering what that bright, shiny disk up in the sky is.

Yes, I’m exaggerating. Be mindful that this is a humor blog, but you know what I mean. Extroverted people will writhe in pain when they realize they only have their reflections on the computer monitor to talk to.

I don’t mean to show only the negative side of working online. As I said, I’m grateful for this kind of work, but this is in answer to those who think my world is easy and that I’m not entitled to complain sometimes or feel tired.

Ten Billion Pork Barrel Scam – The Never Ending Story Again

2013-09-01T14:46:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, we were all on the lookout for Janet Napoles. Well, she has finally surfaced. Which lines do you think President Aquino sang the night she surrendered?

a. Betcha by golly wow, you’re the one that I’d been waiting for forever; OR
b. Thank God I found you. I was lost without you; OR
c. The search is over, you were with me all the while
Looking at Napoles’ surrender photo however (or is that her official Instagram look up photo), could she have had an entirely different song in mind?

Lord, patawad (God forgive me)

Is she going to sing Lord, Patawad, or is this just her Instagram look up photo?
Original photo by Rodolfo Manabat.

Which brings us to the question: Will it all soon be over when the fat lady sings? Hardly. We’ve only just begun. She faces charges for the illegal detention of the pork barrel scam whistleblower, Benhur Luy. She has yet to face charges for allegedly stealing our money. She has yet to expose the congressmen and senators involved in all this and then these legally sanctioned hoodlums have yet to face the gallows.

At the rate we’re going, I have a higher chance of being crowned the queen of England than seeing this issue resolved in this century. Just like so many other political scandals that have unfolded before us, this one might just become the latest instalment to The Never Ending Story, following these yet unresolved cases: the Jose Pidal account, the NBN-ZTE deal, the fertilizer fund scam and the AFP corruption scandal.

In the meantime, as the story unfolds, we all wonder if Napoles will be the next Philippine Top Model in a wheelchair? Every high profile individual who has been suspected of corruption has used the wheelchair strategy before.

Our only real hope is for the Filipino people to never forget the injustice done to us but we all know Filipinos have a combined memory the size of a peanut. Tomorrow, will we forget that our lawmakers stole our money and go back to regular programming? It’ll be an easy switch from the heightened awareness channel back to the mind-numbing telenovela channel where our collective intelligence is frequently stolen in installments as well.

Ten Billion Peso Pork Barrel Scam Chapter 2 - Finding Janet Napoles

2013-08-17T15:26:00.000+08:00

My parents once offered me advice on how to get rich.

Mom’s tip: Start your own school.
Dad’s tip: Start your own religion.

Napoles in her "wanted" photo

Now that I’ve grown in wisdom and sarcasm, I’ve got my own piece of advice for would be millionaires: Start your own fake non government organization (NGO).

Clearly, I got my irreverent streak from my dad, but I’m really only half joking. After all, that is supposedly how Janet Napoles made her billions.

Napoles allegedly created fake NGOs that each became the recipient of a number of law makers’ Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF/pork barrel), then purportedly split the funds between herself and the Legion of Doom in senate and congress. Thus was born by covert caesarian section, the 10 billion peso pork barrel scam.

Tagle: Send them to the slums
(photo by Baltazar)

It’s in instances like this when I feel the pain of paying taxes most acutely. I pay with my blood, sweat, tears and sanity every year, only to find out that other people are living la vida loca with my taxes.

* * * * * * *

Like me and countless other taxpayers and citizens, Cardinal Tagle is also heart broken over this. He suggests that those involved in the controversy should immerse themselves among informal settlers so they’ll see for themselves how the poor live. I’ve got an even better suggestion. For those found guilty, their penalty should be permanent immersion.

* * * * * * *

As of this writing, Napoles is apparently in hiding and the authorities are hot on her heels with a warrant of arrest in relation to the illegal detention case of scam whistleblower Benhur Luy. The PNP has joined the NBI in the chase. In my city, the police might be looking for her underground.

Police 250 meters... underground? Are they looking for Napoles there?

* * * * * * *
While we all wait, I suggest movie producers take this chance to revive the action/suspense movie genre and produce a film based on recent events. Since our movies are notorious for having total title rip offs, this movie’s title options should be promising:

1. Catch Me If You Can (cameo by Leonardo DiCaprio OR Cesar Mancao)
2. Where’s ~~Wally~~ Janet?
3. Finding ~~Nemo~~ Janet (cameo by Nemo in a fishbowl)
4. Nasaan Ka, ~~Elisa~~ Janet?
5. The Untold Story: Pork Barrel Scam – God Have Mercy On Us (by Carlo Caparas)

Yes, I excel in making fun of heartbreaking news but if you want to experience depression, go ahead and read these news articles for the story so far:

Pork Barrel Scam: A Billion a Year
What Made Cardinal Tagle Cry
PNP Joins the Hunt for Napoles

The Incredible Slug at Janette Toral's Digital Influencer Bootcamp

2013-07-31T13:33:00.000+08:00

Last week, I bought a ticket to the Wolverine premiere and that got me thinking, if I were a superhero named after an animal, I would probably be The Incredible Slug. Without a doubt, I would petrify my enemies with my sedentary lifestyle.

The ticket that got me thinking.

This is hardly an exaggeration. I sit eight to ten hours a day in front of the computer watching my life pass me by... er... I meant, optimizing other people's websites for search engines. In Internet lingo that's SEO. It involves so much sitting that there are days my butt muscles hurt. I've begun to think I should get my bum insured because it's obviously the most overworked part of my body.

I've been over using my behind for five years now, but lately I've been thinking, unless I want the fat in it and in my tummy to grow and start cascading around me like the folds of a ball gown, I need to plan for a career that'll involve fewer hours of sitting. Besides, if I stayed in SEO for good, what kind of stories would I tell my grandkids one day?

You know what kids, when I was a young lady, I was living the dream, I stared at thousands of backlinks every day while patiently cultivating my internal fat farm.

I don't mean to leave the online world entirely. There's always the option to earn passive income or hire other incredible slugs to do the sedentary work for me. Also, I have moderate and completely legal ambitions. I don't plan to become the country's president like Manny Pacquiao or the maker of imaginary friends in need like Janet Napoles (allegedly). I just want to be the master of my own home work cubicle and my loyal constituents, the dust particles on my desk.

So over the weekend, I attended Janette Toral's live Digital Influencer Bootcamp in the hopes of picking up a few tips on how to become my own boss. I like learning from Toral because she is an expert of guru proportions without the ego to match and she never holds back.

Eye bags contest with Janette Toral

True enough, she took us through everything an online entrepreneur needs to know from evaluating one's passions, goals and personal business model to outlining legal requirements, SEO strategies and modes of social media promotion.

At the end of the day, I must admit, I was in a bit of a daze, as if I'd eaten a bucketful of food seasoning. My blogger pal, Carlo summed up what I felt when he said he needed Simeco for the brain. The mild mental indigestion was well worth it though because the bootcamp drove home what I really need to do first, that is, identify what I truly want to do online.

Carlo has an advantage over me because he knows where he wants to go and only needs to review the strategies Toral taught to make a headway. I, on the other hand, am totally clueless, so I shall have to remain an incredible slug until I figure out this first crucial step.

If you want to take the journey to becoming a digital influencer too, you can check out Toral's online bootcamp and if you already know what you want to do, you'll only need half a dosage of Simeco.

Top Five Mom Upgrades I Wish I Had

2013-06-30T21:29:00.000+08:00

I’ve lost my nanny.

To full time working moms with kids this translates to the end of time --- as in never having enough time for almost everything. Brushing one's teeth and bathing must now be considered luxuries.

This explains why I’ve missed giving my opinion about various developments:

Vice Ganda stuffing his hoof in his mouth with his r*pe joke
Charice transforming from a butterfly into a happy caterpillar
Pol Medina Jr.’s unceremonious exit from the Inquirer and his near fatal allergic reaction to nuns
Congressman Benjo Benaldo’s gunshot wound on the chest and that new song playing in the airwaves, Straight Through the Lung

It’s all well and good that I didn’t have the time to write about these incidents. Only Medina would have welcomed being made fun of. If I joked about the other three incidents, I would probably get tomatoes and eggs thrown at me on Facebook. Not a bad way to make omelet really, if I didn’t have to wipe the ingredients off my face first.

So what should the rest of this post be all about now? How about top five mom upgrades I wish I had so I can have more time and energy to write sarcastic humor even without a nanny.

#5. An External Brain – Just like an external hard drive. So I can have enough mental room to swirl ideas for hundreds of web articles while never forgetting immunization schedules, PTA meetings, kids’ school projects (that only parents can really make) and my kids’ names of course.

#4. An Extra Eye – I need one that can extend and retract so I can send it downstairs while I work on my articles upstairs. It should have a nicely arched frowning eyebrow so the kids know it’s time to stop fighting over who gets the last cookie.

#3. Four Arms – I know a mom who can juggle babies and bales of fish while hanging on for dear life inside possessed jeepneys. My arms though, just aren’t as strong. I need an extra two so the two I have now don’t have to go into the intensive care unit.

#2. Lithium Batteries – I need these because all this stress has made me perpetually sleepy. I’m always so sleepy I can sleep anywhere --- in jeepneys, restaurants, movie houses, heck, I bet I can even fall asleep in a roller coaster. My husband says if he could paint me black and orange using Photoshop I’d look exactly like Garfield --- fat and always sleepy.

#1. Patience on IV Drip – Is this all really going to last 20 more years? If only I can order extra patience as easily as I can order extra rice.

If you're a busy mom or dad too, what parent upgrades do you wish you had?

Manila - The Gates of Hell

2013-05-25T13:51:00.000+08:00

Manila the Gates of Hell. From Mr. Lagasca's Facebook page.

I don’t like Dan Brown’s books. I once made the unwise decision of reading one. It left me feeling as if I had lost parts of my brain and my intelligence had been stolen. His writing style is bloated and repetitive and his logic is flawed. I vowed never to read any of his novels again for fear I would lose my ability to construct even simple sentences.

Recently however, despite my resolve to stay away from Brown’s mental junk food, I felt I had to read two pages of his new book, Inferno. If you haven’t heard the news yet, the current uproar among some residents of Manila is “sponsored” by Brown.

In Inferno, he described Manila as having,

“…six-hour traffic jams, suffocating pollution and a horrifying sex trade…”

He then placed his female protagonist in the midst of it all,

“All around her the wails of crying babies and the stench of human excrement hung in the air. I’ve run through the gates of hell.”

Tolentino's letter to Dan Brown

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the Filipinos’ inability to take anything negative kicked in. Sure enough, no less than MMDA chief Francis Tolentino expressed in a letter to Brown that he was “greatly disappointed”, arguing that Manila was instead “an entry to heaven”.

I find both Brown’s and Tolentino’s metaphors faulty.

A gate is simply an entry way. If conditions are already awful at the gate, everything must be worse inside. In Manila, what can possibly be worse than what he described? Oh, I know. Perhaps being stuck in a car stuck in traffic with five people farting simultaneously is worse? How about the punishment of life imprisonment in Bilibid with mandatory eight-hour daily readings of Brown’s books?

Obviously though, Tolentino’s impression of Manila is more skewed. He needs his eyes, ears and nose checked. He must have lost his senses due to frequent exposure to the streets of Manila. If we were to redefine heaven according to Tolentino, it would be a lot like hell, only better perhaps because our twisted understanding of what is heavenly includes seeing a lot of people going to church and thinking reproductive health is sinful.

I’d like to think Manila is neither heaven nor hell. To me, it’s just the armpits of despair, needing truckloads of deodorant and political will to sanitize.

Regardless of what anyone thinks though, what’s more important is what we realize. Unless we see Manila for what it truly is, there’s no fixing it.

Mark Bautista's The Sound of Love Album - Standard Songs in Unstandard Times

2013-04-27T12:39:00.000+08:00

Standard songs are defined as masterpieces that are so popular, they have endured through time. Hereabouts though, the term conjures images of pomade, high waist pants, rheumatism, drunken grandfathers and retirement homes. There is no question that standard songs have some socio-cultural value, but hey, it’s not my fault that in my circle, people think it’s just a synonym for old.

When I heard that a local artist released an album of standards, I fell into contemplating the mysteries of the cosmos. Shouldn’t this artist with an old spirit have been born seven decades earlier?

Mark Bautista isn’t your tottering grandfather’s dentures dependent best friend. At thirty, he’s at the prime of his youth and in the age of YouTube where some of the more popular fare include an impertinent man who dances like a horse, a possessed diva who keeps on forgetting to wear pants and a misguided young boy who repeats four lines of lyrics indefinitely as if he’d forgotten the rest of the lyrics of his hit song, shouldn’t Mark be pandering to the desires of the masses?

But therein lies his appeal. I’m going to buy his album and it’ll be among the few oddities in my otherwise angst-ridden music collection because I like supporting artists who have the courage to take the risk to stay true to their spirit regardless of what the times say they should do.

Of course, that’s not the only reason I’m buying The Sound of Love. Mark’s ethereal voice is the perfect cure for all sorts of mental maladies such as, but not limited to, seeing dead people, hearing voices and imagining being stuck forever in the pits of workstation (a.k.a. cubicle) hell.

Mark’s voice is better than Prozac, Valium and San Miguel Beer.

Album song list:

Click here to get The Sound of Love songs on iTunes or grab his album at record bars nationwide.

You can also get his other albums on iTunes.

Elections 2013 Senatorial Candidates - Easy on Substance, Heavy on Fluff

2013-04-04T17:38:00.000+08:00

Political ads are like cotton candy, sweet, colorful fluff with very little substance and nutritional value. Sadly, for time poor virtual workers like me, that, and the candidates’ ability to dance like uncoordinated quadruped sticks during sorties are almost all the criteria I have to pick who to vote.

Think about it. If voters didn’t take the extra time to research, what they’d know of each candidate based on TV ads and bits and pieces of sensationalized news isn’t very encouraging.

facebook.com/jackenrile

1. Jack Enrile

Son of incumbent senator Juan Ponce “I’ve-been-ambushed” Enrile, Jack now also goes by the nickname “I’ve-been-ambushed-too-really”. Like father like son.

Notwithstanding the bullet holes, what really stands out with Jack is his campaign slogan. Translated in English: Cheap food. Lots of food. I want you to have food. I wonder if his copywriter was experiencing extreme hunger pangs when he wrote this.

twitter.com/jvejercito

2. JV Ejercito

What’s with the sign JV? His logo of three extended fingers that accompanies the slogan “Like Ko Yan” (I like that) looks a lot like arthritic claws and nothing like a Like sign. Its mysterious significance is something even Sherlock Holmes will probably never fathom.

twitter.com/nancybinay

3. Nancy Binay

The vice president’s daughter’s work experience can be summarized in a phrase - personal assistant to her father. Oh and she knows how to feed poor kids too. Nuff said.

cynthiavillar.com.ph

4. Cynthia Villar

Villar’s PR team churned out excellent campaign ads that connected with me despite Villar’s dispassionate speech about her passion in life, but in one fell swoop, she nearly demolished her team’s efforts by belittling the nursing profession. She implied it was alright for substandard nursing schools to continue operating because, “Nurses… don’t need to finish BS Nursing. These nurses want to become room nurses… They don’t need to be that good.”

Her PR team should have been part of the audience when she said this on national television. They could have made Villar read their lips for the right thing to say.

teddycasino.org

5. Teddy Casino

He used to be known as the outspoken activist and champion of the marginalized. Since his senate bid started however, I seem to associate him more with jogging in the rain. A little hair flip and he’d qualify to audition for the senior edition of Boys Over Flowers. Honestly though, his wet look is mildly unsettling. He looks more like a sick puppy than Lee Min-ho.

jambymadrigal.com

6. Jamby Madrigal

She says she’s the champion of the poor too and is anti corruption but having been born with multiple silver spoons, she has no sob stories to tell. To make up for that, her ad shows her standing wet after having been hosed by a water canon during a protest against then President Arroyo. Her wet look actually looks better than Teddy’s.

twitter.com/Aksyon_Gordon

7. Richard Gordon

This guy’s got more going for him because of the work he’s done for Subic and the Red Cross but really, do we need another wet senatorial candidate picture? Really, what is it with senatorial candidates and the wet look? There must be a study somewhere proving that voters are more likely to vote for the wettest of them all.

kokopimentel.org

8. Koko Pimentel

So far as I’ve seen, all this fellow Cagayanon has is his father’s name and the story of how he got cheated out of a senate seat in the 2007 elections. He uses a zombie pig (scarier than Kris Aquino on a tantrum) in his TV ad and asks us voters to use our coconuts. Hmmm. Okay, I’m voting for Zubiri.

twitter.com/EdwardHagedorn

9. Edward Hagedorn

Hagedorn has an impressive track record as the mayor of Puerto Princesa and is largely responsible for making the city known globally for its cleanliness, orderliness and eco tourism. With all that he has to boast about though, all I’ve seen so far are images of him on motorcades surrounded by beautiful girls, like some sort of playboy Captain Planet.

This list is incomplete because my tolerance for inanity has limits. Let’s just hope these candidates perform better in office than they do in campaign ads and events.

Senator Chiz Escudero and Grace Poe in Cagayan de Oro

2013-03-13T15:53:00.000+08:00

The elections are upon us. Who are you gonna call? By all means call the Ghostbusters and maybe some exorcists. Politicians have once again become possessed by such powerful spirits that they have begun dancing out of step and singing out of tune in campaign sorties.

I'd like to believe Filipino voters are intelligent enough to deserve more than the sing and dance routine and the flatulent rhetoric. That's why I appreciate candidates like Senator Escudero and Grace Poe who sat down with the Cagayan de Oro new and traditional media to answer questions. While I do not wholly agree with everything they said, their press conference beats having to document proof of candidates' lack of talent in the performing arts.

The encounter was not without its entertainment value. Escudero and Poe brought with them a treasure trove of intriguing bits from the capital, the senate and the campaign trail. Watch all 21 clips from the playlist above and you'll find out:

Why Jack's beans grow faster and better than Philippine rice
Whatever happened to UNA
Why their faces are plastered in all the wrong places
Why Poe isn't using her neighbor's name
What Da King's daughter can and will do as a senator
What Escudero thinks is better than singing and dancing
Why Escudero will make one hot vampire er... I meant... what he thinks about being listed among the (un)dead (Team Patay)

Let it be known that I do not exclusively endorse these two candidates. I'll shoot any candidate('s video) if he wants to sit down for a chat with the local media too.