My Itinerary Tomorrow

My itinerary tomorrow is toxic in more ways than one. Get this:

NSO East Avenue to get my birth and marriage certificates just in case when I go to the NBI and I'm asked for original and current copies I have them to show. Though this pm, just a few minutes ago, I called NBI Carriedo to ask about requirements and was told 2 valid IDs. When I said I needed a clearance for change of name, the person who answered added, "Birth certificate." I asked, "pwede xerox?" He said no. I asked "pwede hindi current?" He said, "Punta ka na lang dito." I insisted, "Gusto ko malaman ang tama kasi ayokong pabalik balik at naka wheelchair ako." He said, "Sandali lang." I heard him ask about requirements and then he got back to me to say "pwede xerox kahit hindi bago." Given how arbitrary the answers were, I better come prepared.

Actually this morning, I had the maid get me my birth and marriage certificates in the hope that she could get them this pm, but no, it has to be tomorrow. The line was very long, she said, snake-like in fact. So tomorrow, NSO, first stop.

Next stop: NBI Carriedo. Where on earth is that? Behind SM Carriedo and Isetann, I was told. Okay. So do I know where it is with that info? No. But hopefully, the wheelmo driver does. I hope it's Arnel because he's better at directions than the other driver.
If I am lucky, per the NBI website, I should get my clearance in 30 minutes. Now if I have a namesake who has an NBI record, then I'll have to go back after a week. Oh boy. A niece's wedding had to be postponed because her groom to be has a namesake who has committed some crime.

After NBI Carriedo, no matter how long I take there and no matter how tired I am, it's back to MAnila City Hall to submit, nay, show the original copies of my transcript of record (thank God for Kathleen of the College Registrar in Ateneo who hurried things up - I requested the transcript THursday, it's ready today. At AIM I asked for a certificate of employment Wednesday, it was ready by Friday. The private sector rocks (wow, what young lingo. Springs from my reading the blogs of the young, hahaha.) Hopefully, the people in Manila City Hall will not find yet another reason for me to go back to their office to submit some other requirement. They're really taxing my patience. My husband, when I recounted my ordeal, said "That's why the country is not moving forward." If getting corrections on a birth certificate is as tedious as this, how much more is it for the apparently rich businessmen to get a business permit or whatever papers they need? NO wonder the prices they charge for their goods are so high-- they must have spent a considerable amount of time, energy, and presumably resources before they could start operating.

After Manila City Hall, if I still have the energy and guts, I'll go to SSS for my SSS ID card. This will mean going back to East Avenue where the SSS head office is. It is the only SSS office whose machines are working. Galing no? Third world. After SSS, granted that I still have some energy left, I'll go to the QC Hall also in East Avenue to get my police clearance. A friend who did said she got it in half an hour. Then if I still have some energy left, I'll go to PLDT nearby to get my phone directories. No connection to getting a birth certificate tomorrow, no? But that's listed in my itinerary because of its proximity to my other destinations. In the past, PLDT issued notices that directories were ready for pick-up. My bill the past two years no longer came with info to the effect. My sister is lucky. She lives in a subdivision so their directories are delivered.

I hope tomorrow will be my lucky day and I can finish everything. Aiming for the stars? I can always dream, can't I?

ADDENDUM: For the continuation of this saga, check out my post "I'm pooped" on this site

Disturbing

A few minutes ago, my husband called. A fourth year college student took his life yesterday after a failed relationship. His ex-girlfriend chose his friend over him.

Did he have to take his life?

It always boggles the mind when one hears of a suicide over a failed relationship. It makes one wonder how a healthy being can choose to end his life while a cancer patient exhausts all means to stay alive.

When we were in college, the advice of a Spanish teacher to a female student whose eyes were puffed from crying over a boyfriend -- for what reason, I don't know-- was: No man is worth all those tears.

Now I'd like to add, even if I am a woman, that: No woman is worth all those tears. Or is anyone?

Desperation, I guess, is what drives a person to suicide. Desperation and the absence of a support group or even one person one can open one's heart to. Or a fragile relationship with God.

Sad. And yes, disturbing.

I feel so stressed

Just this morning, my tutee who's coming for tutoring this pm sent pointers for his Math exam. He also sent his Filipino textbook and texted the coverage for the latter exam tomorrow to be from page 1 to page 145. I wanted to scream. In the first place, I am not an expert in Filipino. In the second place, the book is so wordy that one has to plough through all those pages to get the main points. No idea how much, it being the first time I see the book.

I texted the mom to say I didn't think we could cover everything and she said "OH no. Please try."

Hello. Her son joined the PHilippine team for some sport so he missed classes for two weeks. Friday the son came for tutoring but was constantly glancing at the clock. I asked, "You have to go somewhere?" He answered: "Practice at 3:30." He arrived for tutoring at around 2:10. I asked if he'd come Saturday and he said he'd try but they had a game in Laguna. He asked if he could come Sunday, I said to text. He didn't. So it's this pm he is coming. Why not this morning? He has a game.

I am no miracle worker, am not even a magician/prestidigitator/charlatan. So I don't know...

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Another source of stress: my Manila City Hall trip tomorrow to get my son's birth certificate corrected. I'm truly apprehensive. A friend who's been there, done that intimated that when she was interviewed for a correction on her birth certificate, the interviewer kept asking "KUmpleto na ba yan?" On hindsight, she said, the lady might have been hinting at lagay. But my friend said she was clueless, so she didn't budge.

What do I do if and when I'm confronted with the same? Deadma? I certainly won't give in. Maybe I can call the husband of my friend who's a nephew of Alfredo Lim's. What a dilemma...

Intermediates

Not shorts, not longs, but in-between. Yes, the following post will consists of middle grounds.

1. Michael V is on the cover of Reader's Digest because of his achievements as a comedian. Wow. Given the amount of creative work he puts into it, I guess it's well deserved. Others who may have been qualified would be Willie Nepomuceno and Jon Santos, at least to my mind, considering how well thought out their caricatures are.


2. A Failed cross-cultural romance, nipped in the bud at the very start. A young man proposes to an equally young lady not of his race and she tells him in another world it would have been, but not in this.

3. Gangs who prey ...

a) the other day in the news was an ex-maid or so she portrayed who was arrested after she poisoned fellow-maids or the children of her bosses (the former, the TV version; the latter, the broadsheets' version) so she could steal jewelry and cash. Two of her poison victims were in the hospital for months, the ICU even. Good thing she was caught, all dressed in a trench coat. She has fashion sense, possibly an ukay-ukay purchase? Or did she get it from ZARA using the spoils of her excursions?

b) 3 or four grade school boys from an exclusive boys' school were victimized by the budol-budol gang (is that what you call those who use the following modus operandi?) The account is sketchy but there were these 3 or 4 young boys who played "basketball" in Trinoma. As they left the place where the game was, a man accosted them and said they had broken something and should go back. They were to leave their wallets, cellphones, IPods with one of the boys who was to remain with the man. While the 3 went back to the establishment, the man brought the last boy standing to West AVenue and divested him of the group's valuables. The mall's surveillance cameras purportedly showed that the man had followed the boys from the gaming place to where he finally accosted them.

My takes on the matter: what are surveillance cameras for? Can't malls have someone monitoring them for suspicious characters or activities rather than use what they film as evidence or to catch evil men? Can't they actually be used to effect "caught in the act" arrests like they do in the movies?

Why do budol-budol gangs continue to succeed? Years back, my nephew was a victim. He and his friend were at a gym near Cubao. They were in college by then, I think. Two men accosted the mestizo looking friend of my nephew and said he had done something bad to one of the men's brothers, so to go with them to settle the matter. My nephew is a good person so he didn't want his richer looking friend to go it alone. The men took them to Riverbanks. One of the man pulled down the shirt of my nephew at the back feigning concern, saying "hindi ka pinawisan?" That was a ploy. The man saw the necklace of my nephew. Just as one of the men took my nephew's friend to meet up with their supposedly victim-brother, the other man told my nephew to leave all his valuables on a table and to join his friend. Of course when they got back, the other man had gone, their expensive stuff along with him.

Considering that this happened a long time ago, one would think young boys would have been told to avoid such by their parents, school authorities, media. But either the young victims have refused to listen or there's a problem of ignorance there. I told my husband that maybe the school should hold a school-wide convocation where the 4 victims can recount their experience before everyone so that similar occurrences can be prevented. I don't know. Or maybe the school should write a letter to their parents to tell them to warn the boys. Or teachers can take up the matter with their classes.

Something ought to be done.

Cinderella Redux

No, I'm not talking about Lea Salonga's version, but the version in my own household.

If you've read some of my earlier posts, you'll know I have 3 maids: A, B and C. They're all related. A and C are cousins of B, A and C are stepsisters, with A older than C.

A is a meanie of the first order. B is a lesser meanie. C is the perpetual and proverbial victim but somehow, she puts up a fight.

This post was provoked by an incident this morning. I asked A to look for a bottle of Bravo sardine pate in the refrigerator. When she seemed to be taking some time, I suggested she look in the "pantry". After a while, she stopped, and then rang the buzzer for C. I asked her what in heaven for. She said it was C who had stocked the pantry.

I told her in no uncertain terms that while it was true C did, she, meaning A, could look for it herself. She could read, after all, and it was she I'd charged to get the bottle.

So she proceeded to the ref again and found it. Meanwhile, C came in and asked why. She grumbled, "Bay-i na lang, ako na lang." Hayyyyyy...

Maid B is no saint either. Once I told her to open the windows of my son's room. Within earshot, she told Maid C, in the dialect, "Later, help me open the window's to _____'s room." Peeved, I asked, "Is it so difficult to do?" She answered, "No, but it was she who closed them." I tell you...

Credit Card Shock

This morning, 19 August 2008, at around 3:30, catching myself wide awake, as is my wont I reached for the phone to check on my credit card balances. I almost fainted when one yielded the info that I had used up my credit card limit and had gone over it by over Php150k. I calmly checked if my credit card were in my wallet, saw it and thought hard where I had last used it -- in a resto. Horror stories of how some waiters commit fraud by getting info from their customers' cards and using this flooded by mind, but I prayed for calm.

I called the bank again and luckily a human voice immediately took my call after I dialed the right numbers. She apologetically explained that transactions swiped using the BDO machine from 15 to 18 August were computed in dollars and reflected thus last night. She assured that corrections would be made within the day. They were.

Whew.

Where was I on August 21, 1983 and on...

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Ninoy Aquino's death at the tarmac of the then Manila International Airport. I remember I was watching TV when a news flash reporting on his assassination interrupted my light TV viewing. I was dumbfounded, incredulous, aghast. I was mostly apolitical but a political killing was something I couldn't stomach.


Having been paralyzed for a year and three months by then, I asked God why Ninoy. I even thought God should have taken me instead, although in no way was I a match for the man that Ninoy was, but in terms of any life for someone else's, why not mine?

I guess God wanted the Filipino people to awaken from their lethargy, our lethargy. Because it was only after the death of Ninoy that most of us made known how we felt about the oppression, suppression that haunted our beings since the declaration of martial law.

I am no activist, I am without any intentions to be one, never had any aspirations in that regard either. But enough was enough. And I guess we needed Ninoy to die for us to be shaken out of our apathy.

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Just like I remember what I was doing when I learned of Ninoy's death, so do I vividly remember how two decades or so earlier, I learned of John F. Kennedy's death, he who was envisioned to lead America's version of Camelot. I had just come in from the garden where I had played on the swing when my father greeted me with the news: JFK is dead. The silence was deafening in the house then despite a tape of my sister playing a Scriabin concerto emanating from a reel tape.

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9-11. The latest of the memorable dates in my 52 years of existence. We were watching TV when the phone rang. My father-in-law asked if we were watching the news. We weren't but promptly switched channels. Oh my God, I thought, a scene right out of the movies. When I saw a plane ram through the skyscraper, I thought it was just a replay of the first one. I fervently hoped it was except that the height at which this plane was doing it didn't appear to be the same height as the first plane's. Incredible. How people can just undertake the taking of so many innocent lives. Just like that.

Neither here nor there (wala diri, wala didto)

Apparently, this will be a posting of random thoughts, reflections, occurrences, etc. Individually, they do not merit separate postings, hence the lumping.

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Yesterday, a high school classmate of my son's walked home with him. Then the two of them started jamming, if one could call it that, given that their individual instruments were a flute and a piano. When I joined them as a spectator I asked if they were preparing to play at a wedding or party. The flutist (my son's classmate) said, "No, tita, I've just been experiencing a musical drought." He used to be the flutist of their high school theater group and now that they're in college, he is no longer affiliated with any music/theater group so plays for his pleasure, by his lonesome. I asked why he didn't play to/for his girlfriend. His reason: they're no longer "on" and I asked why. (I'm a very curious tita, if you notice). He said she's leaving for abroad in a year or so's time. Though I said "oh" simply, I was truly impressed. Apparently this young man thinks long term and while others will choose to retain the status quo and just break up when the girl leaves, this young man opted to cut it short as early as now because he said "what for? She's leaving."

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My cousin who's unaffected because she doesn't live in Metro Manila, will be amused but the man in pink has given me and several others another reason not to vote for him in 2010. He has closed down a U-turn in Katipunan thereby crowding the existing one in front of a school. The alternative -- to drive quite a distance to White Plains almost, to make a U-turn so one can get into Ateneo and Miriam if you're coming from the South. Those coming from the north are not similarly penalized, lucky them. My husband, on the other hand, has to leave early to get to school or drive a distance if we're not early enough, thereby spending more on fuel. Someone consequently wondered, "is he a stockholder of Petron or something?" My son suggested that my husband walk instead, which my son does every day, but my husband said he sweats too profusely to take the route -- walking to school that is.

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My soon to be ex-boss came to our table last night to say hello. The last time when we were in a wake together, I realized too late it was he I saw, while he didn't recognize me at all, apparently. When I told this to a friend who also worked for him, she texted him and told him (as I'd told her) that I failed to recognize him immediately because of his new hairstyle. Last night he jested, "O, pareho na hairstyle ko." I interjected, "hindi pa rin eh." He retorted, "Hindi pa rin ba?" Parang hindi. Or maybe I was thinking of his face-sake, a Korea telenovela actor. Now I am confused. Oh well...

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At the dinner table also last night, someone was saying how a priest was like a dead saint in that when he raised the host during Consecration he took a minute. One of those in the table asked, "Inabot mo ba?" I was so amused I laughed a while there, while the man describing the priest kept talking, apparently unaffected by the carino brutal. Meanwhile, the husband of the latter saw how I was so laughing that he said, "ganyan talaga yan" in reference to his wife. The table was a lot of fun, really, and a pity it was that everyone left not too long after.

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My son was at the table with us where there were two other young ones, relative to us old fogies. After dinner, one of my son's kinakapatids (whose family hosted the affair) walked over and asked my son to join their table of young ones. My son promptly stood up to do so, leading one father to remark, "oo nga, ba't dito siya sa matatanda?" failing to realize his even younger daughter was falling asleep in our table. I was so touched by the gesture of the kinakapatid of my son who's two years older than my son.