Baker Bids Adieu......

....but not to you, folks. The Baker is simply bidding Adieu to the Blogger platform.

The Baker has finally found a new template for his blog. However, the move to a new template also meant that the Baker will also be moving to a new blogging platform. Moving forward, please update my blog address on your links so that they now point to this new bakeshop address.

There are still some kinks I need to iron out while I make the transition to my new bakery courtesy of Wordpress. One of which is that I still have to find a way to migrate your comments on my two most recent posts "Someday" and "Pictures and Thoughts From a Break" to the new blog. Any inputs on how to sort this problem from the Wordpress veterans among you will be deeply appreciated.

Although this will be my last entry on this platform, I will keep it open for the foreseeable future. I will also be downloading all my posts and your comments so as not to lose them just in case Google decides to zap this little site out of the blogosphere someday.

I hope that this switch to Wordpress will work for the long-term. Thanks and I hope to see you all again in my new neighborhood.

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Pictures and Thoughts from a Break

During my last stay in Manila, a break I desperately needed, I took some photos of the area around the hotel I stayed in. Ever since childhood, I've always looked out the window whenever I needed to do some serious thinking. Somehow, the sight of all the life that goes on around me helps stimulate my mind. Although I'm going to present the photos I took, I'm not really going to talk much about the places shown on them. Instead, I'll write some of the thoughts and memories that came to mind as I cast my eyes on them.


The photo above shows the northern portion of Makati Avenue. This was the view from my hotel window. On the left is the Millenium Plaza Hotel. It looks spanking new but when the SO and I did some research about it on the internet, the hotel got some pretty bad reviews for customer service, safety, and in-house dining.

On the right side of the street, one will see a small white building with a maroonish-colored roofing and where the top three floors are all glass. That building houses the Great Eastern Hotel and the only reason I mention it here is that its first two floors also house the Aberdeen Court restaurant. This restaurant was a popular place for wedding receptions back in the 1970s. An aunt and a couple of cousins had their wedding receptions there at the time.

Back to the left side of Makati Avenue above, you probably won't see it but there's also a branch of the Barrio Fiesta restaurant where the SO and I had lunch one day. The kare-kare was still very good, exactly how I remembered it to be. We also enjoyed tall glasses of sago't gulaman.


Above photo shows the southern part of Makati Avenue. The SO used to work in one of the buildings shown, one where she got her start in the industry she's currently in. Yours truly used to work on Dela Rosa Street, right off of Makati Avenue. The building I used to work in is no longer around for it was demolished several years ago to make way for a high-rise condominium.

I absolutely love the area I stayed in. There was an abundance of 24-hour restaurants and fastfood places to pick from for a jet-lagged guy like me. So many changes have taken place in this town ever since I left years ago. No doubt that there will be more changes in the coming years for such is the way of Life.


I took the photo above to document, in my own small way, the passing of an old Makati landmark, the GilArmi Apartments. GilArmi was said to be one of the first serviced apartments and/or condotels (condominium-hotels) in Makati and in Asia. It was built in 1962 and was owned by the late Filipino millionaire businessman Virgilio Hilario and his wife, Armi Kuusela, who gained worldwide fame back in 1952 when as Miss Finland, she was crowned as the first Miss Universe.

Please accept my apologies but due to rather severe technical limitations, my camera wasn't able to zoom in enough to provide you with a much closer view of the building. It is the smallest building you will see in the middle of the picture, specifically the one immediately to the right of Rustan's, the one with a construction crane on it. You won't miss it while driving on Ayala Avenue because its demolition is in full swing. I believe that a high-rise hotel and condominium will soon rise on its site.


The photo above shows the stretch of Kalayaan ("Freedom") Avenue that lies west of Makati Avenue. Immediately to the left of Kalayaan Avenue, one will see the roofs of houses in an area that's part of the Bel-Air Subdivision. The vacant lots one sees to the right of the avenue mark the spots where the old International School of Manila used to stand. Kalayaan Avenue in Makati City ultimately leads one to the old Pasig Line in the neighboring Santa Ana district of Manila.

"Pasig Line" referred to a tram (tranvia) line that used to run on the entire stretch of what is now Kalayaan Avenue during the early part of the 20th century. The "Pasig Line" tranvia route began its operations in 1908 and commenced from Paco Station in Manila and ran all the way to Pasig. The destruction wrought by World War 2 permanently ended the line's operations. But as recently as the early 1990s, sections of that old tranvia line were still present on that stretch of Kalayaan Avenue that lies east of Makati Avenue and leading to what is now the Rockwell Center.

Going back to the picture above, a lot of the land around Kalayaan Avenue, specifically the sites of Bel-Air and the old International School of Manila (which opened its Makati campus in 1960) were developed in the latter part of the 1950s. Our family has had a presence in Makati since the 1930s back in the day when Makati was still part of Rizal Province. I was told by my uncles that prior to their development, a lot of the land surrounding Kalayaan Avenue consisted of wet fields of kangkong (water spinach) and rice fields.

It was a story related to me tinged with quite a bit of regret because some time during the late 1940s, way before the above land was to be developed into what is to become the Makati we all know today, some parties had approached my grandmother offering to sell some of the land for 10 centavos per square meter. My grandmother turned them down by remarking, "Ano ang gagawin ko sa kangkungan?" ("What am I going to do with a kangkong field?") Looking at the photo above, apparently a lot.

It was a lesson learned. For us, my grandmother's words have come to symbolize an opportunity lost and the need for foresight in planning out our lives. Thus, growing up, my father taught me to not only look at things the way they are, but to also consider the possibilities and opportunities that could arise out of them.


Above is one of the sights that greet me whenever I looked out my hotel window. Upon seeing it, I immediately thought to myself that here's another man's dream rudely interrupted. Except that I didn't realize until later how grand the dream was.

The property is now surrounded by GI sheets used as temporary fencing and on one of those sheets, hangs a sign that said "Eaton". Once I got back to the States, I did some research and found out that this was planned to be a 64-storey building and envisioned to be the tallest structure in Makati. 28 floors would have been allocated for a Holiday Inn Hotel and the rest would have been for office spaces, amenties, serviced apartments and residential suites.

I feel a certain sadness when I see projects such as this come to a standstill. Not only do I feel bad for the people who dreamt about it and planned for it but I also feel bad for the people who are desperately in need of jobs who could have found gainful employment in such a place. I hope for everyone's sake that the dream that fired this project up has not flamed out permanently.


Above is a shot of the northeastern view from my hotel. In the foreground it shows Makati City with the high-rise condos of Rockwell Center surrounded by homes. On the other side of the Pasig River is Mandaluyong City with its now impressive skyline. Took this photo mainly because my sister works in one of the buildings shown. The hills in the distance are the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains. It is in one of those foothills where the school I spent my elementary and high school years is located.


This photo of the Touch of Hands Clinic & Spa was also another sight that greeted me whenever I looked out the window. Given its proximity to Makati and Kalayaan Avenues and to lively Burgos Street, this place must be doing very good business. A Korean restaurant on its ground floor called Gela caters to the Korean community in the area. Although smaller when compared to other Korean restaurants in its immediate vicinity, it also attracts a fair amount of customers judging from the number of cars I always saw parked in front of it whether day or night.

Tucked in one corner of this property is a Money Changer. There seems to be a lot more of them all over the metropolis these days. It's a good sign really because of the convenience such businesses provide. It allows one to exchange one's dollars to pesos in a legal, arms length transaction and a lot of them stay open 24 hours a day. This money changer was my favorite because I noticed that its rates were often better than the others in the area. Plus, it always advertised its conversion rate for the day through a sign it hangs prominently on its front window.


Finally, a shot of someone who left his bakeshop for a few days for some much needed R&R.

Someday

I was still in college when the following song from the Canadian band Glass Tiger hit the airwaves:

It was 1986 when this song came out. Funny but it always reminds me of a particular college classmate. I first heard this song from him. He was softly singing it in the classroom one afternoon while we sat waiting for our professor to come in. I asked him what song it was and he said that it was called "Someday" by a group called the Glass Tiger.

He was an amusing and very interesting character to say the least. He was a year older than I am but I always had interesting conversations with him. He was the type of person one can have endless conversations with about any topic under the sun. Like a number of people I know, he was outwardly geeky and a bit obese. In class, he would often just look around, silently observing the goings on around him. Thus, the average person might ignore him or assume that he's just like any other nerdy guy. But he certainly wasn't.

Highly intelligent and possessing a bit of a wild streak, he was also an amateur palm reader. He had a wacky and irreverent sense of humor. He came up with a list one day of sexual positions that obese couples can engage in. Some of them, he himself came up with. When he was in the mood, he could let loose with four-letter words and indulge in dirty jokes just for the heck of it. No subject was taboo.

My day's coming to an end. I'm feeling quite drained, both physically and emotionally. Unfortunately for me, this day was not unlike many that came before it. I hope this song will make me feel better because of memories of a happy friendship that it brings to me everytime I listen to it. I haven't had much contact with him ever since we graduated from college. But knowing him and his family, I'm sure he's doing quite well.

When I come home you telephone
To say you're waiting for me
I ask you why - I hear you cry,
But you're still waiting for me

Someday you'll be shedding your tears
To cry over me
Someday I'll be losing this fear

Now I'm alone, you telephone
To tell me you don't need me
I ask you why, you tell me lies
And say the truth would hurt me

Someday you'll be shedding your tears
To cry over me
Someday I'll be losing this fear

Oh, Oh . . . someday

Down in the street where lovers meet
That's where I'm waiting for you
In the streets where lovers meet
I'm still waiting for you

Someday you'll be shedding your tears
And then you'll cry over me [cry over me]
Someday I'll be losing this fear

Someday you'll be shedding your tears
And then you'll cry over me [cry over me]
Someday I'll be losing this fear

In Search Of A New Template

I've had this template for a few months now and although I love it and have managed to keep it looking neat and tidy, I'm now seriously thinking about replacing it.

It's now beset with technical problems. Although my blog posts and pictures show up fine, I can't say the same thing for the various stuff that I want displayed on the right column. I noticed over the last few months that this template only works well when viewed using Internet Explorer. When I try to access it using Firefox, I run into some technical problems.

For example, except for my profile on the right, everything else gets pushed way, way down on the screen. My blogroll and all the other links are only displayed after my last blog entry on the page.

In addition, its code is written in Spanish. I've found it hard to make some tweaks and adjustments to its overall appearance due to the simple fact that any tweaks I do will have to be done on a "trial and error" basis and thus could be quite time consuming.

My search for a new blog template has gone through fits and starts, mostly a result of a rather busy yearend work schedule. I haven't really had the time to sit down and focus on searching for a new template yet. I need to focus on it more one of these days.

Sick As a Baker's Dog

After struggling with headaches and an upset stomach all week, I was hoping that I'd be spending this weekend recovering. Well, I guess I had hoped for too much. Although both my headaches and stomach irritation are now gone, they were both promptly replaced with a head cold and chest congestion. And this duo was converted into a horrible trifecta by an irritating sore throat. Just my luck. It truly sucks to have to spend the weekend this way.

I had planned to do quite a lot of things around the house this weekend. I even brought some work home because there were some annual staff appraisals I needed to work on. But instead, I'm feeling so lethargic that the only things I was able to achieve all day today were my "Must Do's" namely, stop by the supermarket for some food shopping; make a quick run to the bank to get some cash for the week ahead; and drop by McDonald's to get myself some lunch. On top of all of that, I had to battle the cold for it was -2 degrees Celsius (about 29 degrees Fahrenheit) this morning when I went out for my errands.

Once I got home, I immediately put the grocery stuff I away, had my lunch and quickly went back to bed. I hope I'll feel much better when I wake up later today or tomorrow. I hate being sick and I hope that this bout with the colds doesn't worsen to a flu. I hate having to use up vacation days for an illness. It's just a total waste of a day off from work.

And to make matters worse, I am missing you terribly.

That Familiar Lonely Feeling

This is something I've always felt whenever I leave Manila. Call it strange or weird but whenever I fly out of Manila, the worst stopover for me emotionally speaking is always the first one.

A lot of my countrymen board the plane with me in Manila. As one checks in for one's flight or while one waits in the transit lounge, one hears all the friendly chatter and jokes. I would even strike up a conversation or two with some fellow travelers to while away the wait time. These talks tend to continue onto and throughout the flight.

But once we get to our stopover, (be it Hongkong, Tokyo, or Beijing or wherever else it may be) where we all start going our separate ways to different connecting flights that would take us to our respective destinations around the globe, that's when a feeling of sadness and loneliness comes over me.

Most of them stay together bound for destinations either in the Middle East or in some other Asian country. Very few, if at all, remain to continue their flights towards the United States. Thus, as the sound and presence of my kababayans (countrymen) both fade, I find myself feeling increasingly alone.

It is at such stopovers where I get to see right in front of me how we, as a people, physically part with each other to fulfill our own dreams in our own little corners of the world. It is sad and yet it is a reality that a lot of us deal with. I know a lot of us wish that things were a lot different but since fate dealt us all a different hand, we have no other choice but to make the best of what's available to us.

Having lived away from the country for many years, I thought that such lonely feeling would go away because America is now a place I call home. Or if the feeling hadn't gone away, I had at least expected that its intensity would have been reduced by the passage of time. But my last few trips showed me that I still feel the same way after all these years. The feeling is still there, still intense after all these years. I no longer think that it'll ever change. America is what I call my legal home now because of what I need to do with my life. But that familiar lonely feeling I get at that first stopover is proof positive that a part of me still longs for my old home.

A Stopover at Beijing Airport

After close to a week and a half of being away from this blog, I'm back. After a 23 hour-long trip, my plane landed in New York at around 5:30 p.m. last night (Sunday night, 6:30 a.m. in Manila). It was a long and exhausting trip. It would have been a much shorter trip were it not for my five-hour stopover in Beijing.

I took a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight out of Manila for Beijing early Sunday morning. It wasn't a full flight. At the most, the flight was only 40% full which made me wonder if the Manila-to-Beijing route was a profitable one for PAL. The stop at Beijing involved a transfer to an American airline. Once my plane landed at Beijing Airport, I was surprised to find that even though I was only there for a stopover, I was still required by Chinese immigration law to fill out immigration admission and departure forms. I asked the lady at the immigration desk why this was so but she barely spoke English. It was mainly through hand gestures that she was able to partly answer my questions.

As they say, one can't fight city hall so I decided to comply, albeit reluctantly. I also had to watch my behavior for being in a strict communist state, I knew that the authorities there have a very low tolerance for dissent. The last thing I needed was to spend months in a dirty, cold and crowded Beijing jail simply because I questioned the wisdom behind some of their immigration laws.

Beijing's airport was quite huge and it was made so in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. However, in my humble opinion, the place didn't really offer much in terms of entertainment or shopping. I didn't see a lot of souvenir shops. Most of the ones I saw sold cigarettes, liquor and perfume. Pretty much just the basic stuff. The signages on the shops were not pleasing to look at either. Most of the shops' names were simply painted over an awning above a shop's entrance. Televisions all over the airport lounge I was in only showed programs in Chinese without the benefit of English subtitles. In short, the place was big but boring. I'm just glad that I brought a good book with me to help while away the hours.

Except for the immigration officers and people who manned the airline desks, communication in English was definitely a problem. At one point, I needed to go to a restroom and had to approach one of the airport workers to see where I could find the nearest restroom. Our brief conversation went this way:

Baker: Excuse me, could you point me to the nearest restroom?
Airport worker: No. (Shakes his head while responding.)

Thinking that I might have been misunderstood, I immediately rephrased the question to see if I could get a different answer out of him.
Baker: Is there a comfort room around here?
Airport worker: No. (Shakes his head again.)

I searched my mental dictionary for another word he might be able to understand.
Baker: Is there a toilet around here?
Airport worker: No. (Shakes his head again and smiles this time. The "smile" was probably his way of confessing that after all this time, he didn't really understand a word I was saying.)

The only option left to me at this pont was to use some hand or bodily gestures to show what I needed to do but again, this was Beijing. I have to admit that since it was my first time in a Communist country, I was a bit paranoid and didn't want to do anything that would offend the "authorities". Thus, by resorting to gestures, I ran the risk of being misinterpreted in a big way and it will probably land me again in a dirty, cold and crowded Beijing jail. So, I just kept walking until I eventually came across a picture symbol for a restroom. Good.

Walking into the men's room, I was greeted by a male attendant who, in contrast to the airport worker I dealt with a few minutes earlier, proved to be a shining example of extreme helpfulness. With a smile, this attendant courteously directed me to one of the available urinals. (As if I needed to be shown where they were. Hehehe) Once I was done, he immediately walked over to one of the sinks and proceeded to turn the faucet on for me. I appreciated the service and put my hands under the faucet. As I began to wash my hands, he immediately proceeded to turn the liquid soap dispenser (which was immediately to the right of the faucet) on for my use. With that, I completed washing my hands.

However, the gentleman wasn't done with his service. As soon as he saw that I was done washing my hands, he immediately swiped two paper towels out of the paper towel holder on the wall and handed them to me so I could dry my hands with them. I wasn't sure if he was expecting a tip from all of that great service he provided but I sure appreciated his help. He smiled and respectfully nodded his head at me as I thanked him while walking out of the restroom.

Finally, no Baker activity would be complete without a visit to a cafe or restaurant. Midway through the five-hour wait, I got hungry and decided to have an afternoon snack at an airport coffee shop called "The Lei Cafe". I ordered a couple of hotdog sandwiches (Did I say that I was VERY hungry at this point? Hehe) and a can of Coke.

As I was waiting for my order, I came across the following sign that was posted by the coffee shop's main entrance. It attempts to explain the rationale as to why The Lei Cafe was named the way it was. Word for word and down to the exact spelling of each word, here is what the sign said:

"Lei are used to signify Peace, Friendship and Love. It also should be a welcomed, parting, thankful or congratulant celebration of one person, is affection to another."

I couldn't have said it better myself. :D

I'm slowly easing my way back into work mode after having been away for 10 days. It doesn't help that I'm dealing with a severe case of jet lag and to a lesser degree, an upset stomach. But I should be ok within a few days. I hope.

Baker's Going On A Break

Folks, I will be away for a few days to take a much needed break.

To those of you who reside in the US, I wish you all in advance a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday!

To everyone else, take very good care of yourselves.

Although I won't miss my work, I'll certainly miss blogging and bloghopping through your sites. But I'll see you all again in a couple of weeks. Until then, take care everyone!

A Couple of Sentimental Favorites

It's a quiet Saturday evening where I am so I decided to enjoy the moment by listening to some favorite songs. My CD player has been quiet these past couple of months because thanks to a rather busy work schedule, I wasn't able to spend some time listening to any of my CDs. Anyway, with some free time on my hands finally, I decided to end the quiet streak to once again listen to some old favorites.

I've loved this Free Movement song from the very moment I first heard it played on DWRK 96.3.

It was the mid-eighties. I was in college and at the time, RK 96 (which was how DWRK 96.3 was known then) was the station I listened to whenever I needed my "oldies fix".

The radio station was still rather new at the time and during my first couple of years in college, the station broadcasted out of a building at the corner of Senator Gil J. Puyat Avenue (Buendia Avenue) and Bautista Street in Makati City. If my memory serves me right, the building's ground floor was occupied by a branch of the United Coconut Planters Bank. ("UCPB") The radio station set aside Wednesday of every week to play nothing but oldies songs all day. The folks at DWRK called this program "Oldies Wednesday". Or maybe it was "Sixties Wednesday"? Hahaha! I can't exactly remember now but anyway....

It was through RK 96's oldies Wednesday program that I was introduced to the song above. It's called "The Harder I Try (The Bluer I Get)" and was a tune that The Free Movement released back in December 1971. I love the song for the simplicity of its lyrics and the beauty of its music. Talk about true "easy listening". Too bad though that as a group, The Free Movement didn't last long for the group had ceased to exist by 1973.

Anyway, let me just share with you the lyrics of this little musical gem a great vocal group gave us from the distant past:

At night I find that I can't sleep
All day long I walk the streets
My heart is filled with misery and pain
Tears fill my eyes when I speak your name

The harder I try,
The bluer I get;
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

I can't get over losing you...
I can't get over losing you...

I'm so lonely I've lost my pride
And I've got tears that I can't hide;
Every day I'm so sad and blue
Without your love, what would I do?

The harder I try
(The harder I try)
The bluer I get
(The bluer I get)
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

Last night I held someone new
But when I kissed her lips I was seeing you
A kiss like this has no meaning you see
And life without you has no future for me

Oh, the harder I try
(The harder I try)
The bluer I get
(The bluer I get)
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)
I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)
I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)

As for the radio station DWRK 96.3, I was a junior in college when it moved from its humble digs in Buendia to its new and current location at the FEMS Tower 1 Building on Zobel-Roxas Street. I still make it a point to listen to the station whenever I'm in Manila. The building that used to house the station at the corner of Buendia Avenue and Bautista Street is still there. A UCPB branch still occupies its ground floor. Like the song above, this station has remained a sentimental favorite of mine because I remain grateful for the countless songs it introduced to me many years ago, songs I still love listening to to this day.

Lost Them..... For Now

I don't know how many people find themselves in a similar predicament but what has long been a source of personal frustration for me is the fact that I do not know enough of my family's history and heritage. And by this, I'm not just referring to one side of the family. I'm referring to BOTH my father and mother's respective sides of the family. I find it quite pathetic not because I didn't care enough to find out but it is mainly due to the very limited information available from close relatives.

Let me start with my mother's side of the family. My mother does not know where both my grandfather's parents are buried. My maternal grandfather, an only child, was born in 1897 and died in 1983. Both his parents had passed away by the time he was in his early 20s in 1920.

Being the seventh of eight children and having been born in the latter part of the 1930s, I can understand and even forgive my mother for this lapse. However, the situation becomes quite absurd when one learns that none of her older siblings also know where their grandparents are exactly buried. All I was told years ago was that the poor, almost forgotten couple were buried in a cemetery somewhere in Malolos, Bulacan.

However, when I asked my mom the very same question just this past week, she said that there isn't even a degree of certainty that my maternal greatgrandparents' remains even lie in a Malolos cemetery. All she now knows is that they were buried somewhere in Bulacan. Oh great. Just effing great. Now, all of Bulacan's cemeteries just became search candidates. If I had to start my search at this very moment, I would have to first come up with a master list of all Bulacan cemeteries that have been around for at least a hundred years and are still used today. God knows how many such cemeteries are out there. And worse, there's also the possibility that the cemetery those poor folks were buried in nine decades ago may no longer be a cemetery today. For all I know, on the cemetery's old site could now stand any of the following: a children's playground, a subdivision, a tiangge (flea market) or worse, perhaps a row of uber-trendy restaurants. I certainly hope that that's not the case.

At least I know my greatgrandfather's full name if in case I have to search through some birth and death records. Researching about my greatgrandmother would be more of a challenge. Although I know her first name, neither my mom nor any of her siblings know what her maiden name was. I guess I could attempt to find a marriage license somewhere that has both my greatgrandfather's full name and my greatgrandmother's first name on it.

On my father's side of the family, things are only slightly better. In contrast to my mother's side, both my greatgrandparents' names, their birth and death dates are well documented since they're both buried in the family plot at Manila's North Cemetery. However, even though I was told that my greatgrandfather was part of a rather large brood, I do not have any information as to the names of any of his siblings. Neither does my father nor any his surviving siblings.

I also know next to nothing about my dear greatgrandmother. I do not have any information as to who her parents and her siblings (if any) were, and where exactly in Manila she grew up. At least I know her maiden name and that would be a start. She was quite entrepreneurial according to my father. She was the brains behind a successful family business that operated in both Manila and Makati City back in the 1930s. She passed away from old age when I was four years old.

As for my greatgrandfather's heritage, I have mixed information. Looking at old family photographs from the early 1930s, my greatgrandfather had very strong Chinese features. From the photographs I saw, he possessed a rather fair complexion and Chinese eyes. I was also told that my greatgrandfather's father had worked as a cook somewhere in Binondo during the 19th Century. My father and relatives say that we are of mixed Chinese and Filipino heritage. That's probably right because it's quite common in the Philippines.

But again, nobody knows where my great greatgrandfather lies buried. I don't even know the name of his wife, my great greatgrandmother. No one in the family knows what her name was. I have no real information on any of my greatgrandfather's siblings either. My father has second cousins but I didn't find out who and how many they were until I visited Manila last year. What makes matters worse was that in all the many years I lived and grew in my hometown, I never knew (and my father never bothered to tell his children) that those folks had been living in a neighboring district all that time!

As for the origins of our family name, the answer I got was that the name was/is quite common in Batangas. In particular, our ancestors were supposed to have migrated to Manila from Batangas, Batangas. How nice and yet how generic. But here again, growing up, none of my cousins and I were ever introduced to any Batangueno relative. None of us were even taken to Batangas on a single sentimental trip to see an ancestral home. The only memories I have of Batangas were of family excursions to beach resorts in the summer. But no memories at all of any single trip that was taken for the sole purpose of meeting up with a Batangas-based relative.

Seriously, I have my doubts about our family's Batangueno roots. And the reason I say this is based on our family's collective command of the Tagalog dialect. Whenever we speak to each other, we hardly use deep or profound Tagalog words. Our vocabulary is pretty much limited to common or everyday Tagalog words. The deeper Tagalog words we learned along the way often came from school and from people who married into the family.

If still possible, I also want to find out what our original Chinese name was. This is due to the fact that our Chinese features are so strong that people often mistake quite a number of my cousins and I for Chinese rather than Filipino. When I was in Hongkong earlier this year, a lot of locals came up to me and spoke to me in Chinese. It may be close to impossible at this point but I still hope to set the record straight someday.

Given all this family history mess, I definitely have my work cut out for me. I plan to spend a good deal of time in Manila someday to work on sorting these things out. I hope I will still be healthy enough if and when that time comes. I want to know more about my family's past. I'm not very happy with the very limited information I have right now. I feel bad for my long deceased relatives whose names are almost lost to history. I feel bad that as a family, we haven't done a very good job of remembering the people who came before us.

I believe we owe it to our ancestors to keep memories of them alive. I also believe that we owe it to future generations of our family that they get a sense of where they came from and who they are. I fervently hope that records still exist in some government or municipal office somewhere that would provide me with leads or clues as to who they were, where they lived, and aside from us, who their other descendants are.

I'm still not certain as to what I'll do when the day comes and I finally have all the information I've long sought for in front of me. All I can say right now is I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

A Very Big Thanks!

I would just like to pause for a moment and thank a few blogger friends who, over the last couple of months were very kind to award yours truly.

First of all I would like to express my deepest thanks to both Blogusvox and Ever for sharing with me the Oops Award.

Accoding to the folks who came up with the Oops award, the award was created and is to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their humor and their talents, also for contributing to the blogging world in whatever medium. When you receive this award it is considered a “special honor”.

The following Uber Amazing Blog Award was given to me by one of my first blogger-friends, RDL. The Uber Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:
~ inspire you
~ make you smile and laugh
~ or maybe gives amazing information
~ a great read
~ has an amazing design
~ and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

Her blog was one of the first I enjoyed reading and visiting when I was still new to blogging. As such, a very big THANKS goes out to her.

Last but not least, the following Friendship Award was given to me by Madbong23 all the way from New Zealand. I enjoy reading about his life stories and experiences in that special part of the world.

Friends, thank you very much again for these awards. I apologize that it took me quite a while before posting them on here but please know that I appreciate the thoughts behind them very much.

Oh Those Republicans

This is a piece that I will write straight from the heart. It will also be my last write-up on last Tuesday's election

After suffering a devastating loss last Tuesday, the Republican Party is said to be doing some soul-searching as to the causes of their defeat. They are trying to figure out how to rebuild the party after two consecutive election losses that led first to the Republicans' losing their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2006 and second, the loss of the White House to the Democrats with the victory of President-elect Barack Obama.

Although Mr. Obama scored a landslide victory over Senator John McCain, the Republicans are consoling themselves with the thought that even though Mr. Obama garnered 53% of the popular vote as compared to Senator McCain's 46%, Senator McCain's percentage of the total vote was still higher than the 43% former President Bill Clinton got when Mr. Clinton won the Presidency in the 1992 elections.

The Republicans still think that they can win the electorate back in future election by emphasizing conservative principles such as their beliefs in smaller and more efficient government, lower taxes, a strong military, meritocracy, strong religious and family values, and the capitalist economic system.

On the surface, those conservative principles the Republicans espouse ought to be attractive to a lot of people, especially immigrants who want to start a new life in a new country. But the problem with the Republicans is that there are sectors within the Republican Party who are racist and stridently anti-immigrant. Although these bigots (let's call a spade a spade here) do not make up a majority of the Republican membership, their voices were loud enough and their numbers were big enough to prevent President George W. Bush and Senator McCain from enacting a comprehensive immigration reform law back in 2006.

President Bush, in the early part of this decade, realized the need for the Republican Party to be a more racially inclusive political party. For all his imperfections, Mr. Bush was a politically moderate man who wanted more minority groups to be welcomed and represented within the Republican Party. He knew and understood that a lot of minority groups share the same socially conservative and pro-family values that the Republican Party stands for. Thus, Mr. Bush worked hard to win the support of minority groups and promised them that he will work to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill into law.

The bill was basically aimed at attracting illegal aliens to come out and register with the government authorities. Mr. Bush wanted the illegal aliens to pay taxes on income earned in the US but in exchange, they could gain a path towards permanent residency. His proposal enjoyed widespread support among Democrats and moderate Republicans such as Senator McCain. However, Mr. Bush ran into stiff resistance from members of his own party, specifically Republican congressmen who hid their racism under the guise of respect for the rule of law.

To make a long story short, the bill was defeated in Congress because of the hardline stance these anti-immigrant Republicans took. As a result, minority groups, especially the Hispanics, who helped Mr. Bush win reelection in 2004, switched their support to the Democrats and thus contributed significantly to Mr. McCain's defeat against Mr. Obama.

The irony from last Tuesday was that the Hispanics and other minority groups punished the Republican Party by voting against Mr. McCain, the man who helped Mr. Bush champion the ill-fated comprehensive immigration reform law. In addition, the Republicans are rapidly losing their hold in the most racially diverse areas of the nation. In the Northeastern region of the US where I live, with the lone exception of Maine, all Northeastern states (New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticutt, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) are now represented by Democrats in the US Senate. The same is true of the West Coast. As of last Tuesday's election, the entire West Coast region (made up of the states of Washington, Oregon, and California) are now likewise represented by Democrats in the US Senate.

If the Republicans seriously want to win back both the White House and Congress in the coming years, they need to reassess their attitudes and policies towards ethnic minorities. The demographics in the US are changing dramatically. According to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, 44% of American children today are ethnic minorities, almost a 1-to-1 parity. The bureau projects that by 2050, non-Hispanic whites will make up 46% of the US population, down from 68% today.

But in spite of such statistics and projections, a number of Republicans still continue to ignore the immigrant community. They still pursue policies seemingly under the assumption that what worked well for them in the past in a predominantly white America will continue to work for them in the future.

What a lot of Republican politicians and their followers fail to realize is that by continuing to ignore immigrants and minorities, the Republicans run the risk of being reduced to a regional political party and worse, probably an irrelevant one in the years to come. Over the last few days, I read several reports on the web and on newspapers as to how the Republicans plan to revive their party. However, most of the Republicans' plans still fail to mention the urgent need to reach out to minorities. Some voices of reason and moderation within the party see the need to do so but for now, it seems that the Republican Party leadership is still clinging to their old ways.

I said at the beginning of this piece that I was writing it straight from the heart. I did so because of feelings of anger and sadness for the very sorry state the party now finds itself in. This Republican Party was a party that was once led by the great Abraham Lincoln. This Republican Party was the party that had once fought so hard to free the slaves and effectively ended slavery. It is highly ironic then that a hundred fifty years later, due to the narrow-mindedness and bigotry of some groups within it, this Republican Party is a party that now finds itself shunned by the very people it once fought so hard to free.

Congratulations, President Obama

This blog takes a few moments to congratulate former Senator and now President-elect Barack Obama on his historic victory. After a campaign that was remarkable for its discipline and consistency of message, his victory was indeed sweet and definitely one for the ages.

African-Americans have gone through a lot of pain, suffering and injustice since they were imported from Africa as slaves in 1619. It's been close to 400 years since they first set foot on American soil and yet, millions of them remain impoverished, unemployed, trapped in broken homes and live in tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods. The income of the average African-American family lags that of the average white American family. A disproportionately large number of inmates in American prisons are African-Americans.

I just hope that all African-Americans, especially the kids, will find inner strength and inspiration from Mr. Obama's achievement. I hope that a lot more African-American kids stay in school and do good for themselves so that someday, more of them will get to achieve what Mr. Obama did last Tuesday night.

Discovering Me

I want to live, I want to give;
I've been a miner for a heart of gold.
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old.

I guess everyone goes through a phase where a person starts to depart a bit from the person his parents want him to become to that of the type of individual he thinks he ultimately wants to be.

I wasn't introspective at all during my childhood and early teen years. My needs were simple and shallow: I wanted to have fun but at the same time, I wanted to stay out of trouble, especially with my parents. Having fun was easy because I was an easy-going and gregarious kid. I stayed out of trouble with my folks by observing the appropriate conduct when in the presence of other people (except in the classroom), by doing my fair share of the housework (we stopped having maids when I was eight), and by trying my best to earn good grades at school.

Although I passed all my subjects in school, I must admit I passed a few of them without really internalizing or understanding them. I thoroughly studied the subjects I loved but for those that I didn't, I used fear of my father's wrath to motivate myself to study and pass them.

I made a lot of "friends" in school without really giving much thought as to why I even considered many of them as such. I ended friendships either through heated arguments or through fights and didn't think much afterwards as to why those friendships ended. I disliked and viewed some of my teachers with utmost contempt and yet at the same time, I wasn't certain as to why. At home, I did and accepted as truth a lot of things my folks told me.

But my education and all the experiences I had up to that point were all catching up to me. After all the studying and living, I was starting to learn. I started to develop my own views and I started to question long-held beliefs especially in matters of faith, culture and tradition. I started to develop my own interests and views but yet lacked the confidence to voice them to my parents out of fear. In countless talks over the dinner table, I realized that although my parents worked hard to send their children to schools they believed would provide quality education, they were not exactly prepared to hear statements or assertions that went against their own beliefs and biases. Thus, ever the diplomat, I largely kept my views to myself. For the sake of maintaining harmony at home, I felt I had to maintain a semblance of conformity.

But outside the home, things were different. I became a lot more selective with my friendships. Although I continued to outwardly maintain a friendly demeanor, I became more guarded within. I distanced myself from people I deemed were mere users. I shunned people who felt the world revolved around them. Whereas before, I used to hang out with almost anyone in my class, I now started limiting myself to just four or five really close friends. Whereas before, I had accepted the majority's view as truth, I now started thinking on my own. I became more vocal with my friends about the hypocrisy I saw around me.

The process of self-discovery undeniably brought with it a fair amount of loneliness. Everything comes at a price I learned. My struggle and effort to become my own person brought with it a lot of arguments and misunderstanding both within the home and outside of it. I love my parents a lot but there are things in this world where they and I will never agree on. With other people, the process was a bit easier in a way because all it took was to cut off all contact with people I no longer trust or agree with. With the friends I have left at this point, they will probably remain my friends to my dying day. The relationship I have with them is such that they're never afraid to tell me things I may not want to hear and vice versa.

But outside of books and friends, music became a refuge for me. It was through music where I found strength and validation. One of the songs I listened to a lot during this time was Heart of Gold, a 1972 hit by Neil Young. This song had been around for many years when I first heard it as a sophomore in high school. The opening guitar and harmonica riffs conveyed the sense of loneliness one felt while in search of a true friend or a true love. I listened to this song a lot during those days when I needed gentle, caring souls to understand me. This song remains one of my favorites to this day.

Heart of Gold was a single cut from Mr. Young's 1972 album, Harvest. Let me just share with you below Mr. Young's beautiful live performance of this song from the early 1970s. Enjoy.

McCain and "Palin" on SNL

In what could be their last joint appearance on Saturday Night Live, Senator McCain and Governor "Palin" were on the show last night to "raise" additional campaign funds to help counter the Obama campaign's tremendous advantage in campaign finances.

Earlier in the week, the Obama Campaign purchased a half hour of air time on three major networks. Presented as "infomercials" on Senator Obama, these were supposed to package the Senator's "closing statements" in the dying days of this historic campaign. It is known that the state of the McCain campaign's finances compare poorly to Senator Obama's. Thus, the following comedy skit from SNL shows Senator McCain's two-fold "response" by not only getting some air time but also raising some much-needed campaign cash:

I must say that Mrs. McCain did some pretty good acting in that cameo appearance, didn't she? :-)

One very positive thing about these American politicians is that, unlike their counterparts in many Third World countries, most of them don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of screaming, debating, arguing, and insulting may occur between them during the heat of the campaign. But once the campaign is over and the election results are out, the will of the voters is respected and the losing candidate promptly concedes and congratulates the victor.

Sometimes Work Does Get In The Way...

..... of blogging and bloghopping. :D

My apologies dear online buddies because save for a few, I really haven't had the chance to stop by your blogs lately. I've been swamped with quite a bit of work these past few weeks that except for the occasional blog entry, I haven't really been able to visit your respective sites.

I had tight deadlines to meet that in fact, my recent blog entries were drafted and developed while I was on train rides home. Thus, an entry that would normally take a few hours to develop and complete took quite a number of days to conclude. In addition, a case of writer's block didn't make writing any easier.

Since my mind was tied up with work-related stuff, I decided to skip on the bloghopping for some time just to get a number of things off my desk. In addition, I didn't want to post half-ass comments (please pardon the expression) on your blogs knowing that I simply breezed through something that you took the time and effort to write and post.

Take care of yourselves, dear folks. My load at work is starting to lighten at this point. Thus, I should be able to visit your sites soon. I look forward to again reading the stories you wish to tell. I wish everyone well.

Playing Things Safe at San Miguel

I was reading the Business Section of yesterday's issue (October 29) of the Inquirer when I was struck by an event that was reported in this article. The article reported on the UK-based investment firm Ashmore Group's move to increase its control over Petron. I have no problem with foreigners increasing their level of investment in Filipino companies as long as the investment would lead to the creation of more jobs and better incomes for our countrymen.

However, I was not too happy to find in the same article that San Miguel Corporation, that long-time food and beverage conglomerate, has plans to buy into Petron too. In fact, reading further, I found that San Miguel was seeking more than 50% control of Petron, this planned move was announced right after acquiring a 27% stake in Meralco last Monday.

I am no strategic genius or business whiz but San Miguel's foray into power distribution and its planned entry into the oil refining business should not impress any serious student of Philippine business. This company has been able to lord it over the Philippines for many decades due to its sheer size and lack of true competition. Given its reputation and the resources at its disposal, I expect a lot more from a multi-billion dollar corporation who has been around since 1890. But aside from the Philippines, its premier product, San Miguel Beer, still does not have a significant presence in any foreign market save for Hongkong.

I love San Miguel's beer and I strongly believe that the product has the potential to compete with the world's best. But San Miguel's management hasn't done a very good job of introducing and marketing its premier product into different foreign markets. It seems content playing a conservative game of marketing San Miguel Beer only in places marked by a large Filipino presence. Instead of trying to compete in the global market against foreign brands, San Miguel's management seems content to just play it safe within its home grounds.

In my humble opinion, this is the problem when a company the size of San Miguel has never operated in an environment where it had to seriously compete to either maintain or expand its share of the market. Although the security afforded by a protected business environment may seem reassuring to a company's investors, the lack or absence of challenges or fights from a serious competitor never truly forced San Miguel to seek greater efficiency in resource allocation to lower its costs and boost its market share. It never had to mount a serious counterthrust to any competitor's moves. In short, it has a management that by international standards has never been truly battle-tested.

Instead of growing the company's revenues organically by expanding the market share of its products locally or by expanding into foreign markets either through strategic acquisitions or strategic alliances, San Miguel's management decided to pursue the path of least resistance by growing the company through investments into other industries WITHIN the Philippines even if these companies are in businesses outside of San Miguel's core competency. Even its selection of industries to invest in (power distribution and oil refining) are "safe" industries in the Philippine context. Both are practically cash cows and both are environments with limited or no competition.

In a previous job many years ago, I had the chance to be part of teams that analyzed parts of San Miguel's operations in a couple of its divisions. Typical of problems in a virtual monopoly, we found bloated bureaucracies, operational inefficiencies, waste, and even corruption. Due to the absence of competitive market pressures, we sensed no urgency on the part of both management and employees to fix their problems. I don't mean to paint a broad brush but a culture of complacency certainly prevailed. The place ran like a government office. I have no reason to believe that such mediocrities and problems have gone away because the environment San Miguel operates in remains virtually unchanged.

San Miguel is a company that can do more and achieve more. A lot of foreigners I know who have tasted its beer love it. Aside from beer, it has a wide array of products that are of high quality that competing in foreign markets and gaining the acceptance of foreign customers should not be deemed an insurmountable challenge. Instead of pouring its resources into businesses it knows next to nothing about, the company ought to focus its energies on its core competency. Instead of focusing on protecting its local market share and stifling local competition, San Miguel's management owes it to the country, the Filipino people, and themselves to prove that the people behind San Miguel are made of sterner stuff. The only way to do so is to unleash the competitive spirit within them and do competitive battles on foreign shores.

Oh Well....

A week from today, people in this part of the world will be exercising their right to vote for the man who will occupy the most powerful office in the world for the next four years.

National polls and trends point to an Obama victory. They may very well be proven right.

But as a lot of these electoral exercises go, different motivations and situations will drive people to prefer one candidate over another. The motivations could be any of the following: economic, political, social, or emotional.

Some people will base their decision on which candidate's campaign proposals would better address the nation's economic problems. Some people will vote upon due consideration of each candidate's resume and professional track record. Some people will vote because they share the same social experience and history with one candidate. Some people will exercise their right of suffrage and vote for the candidate simply on the strength of the endorsement of celebrities and other pop culture figures. Some people will vote for one candidate simply because his election will make history.

Regardless of who wins, the next President and Presidency will be consequential for the world if it isn't so already. The next President will either be one who was a celebrated war hero who served with distinction in the US Senate or one who has become a favorite among glitzy Hollywood celebrities and the media elite because his campaign style has been nothing short of "cool". But for many people in this world, things boil down to how a President's decision would impact their economic well-being.

For all the people's talk of how much they care for their lives; of how much they love the things that they get to enjoy in life that became possible as a result of either their job or business; of how much it means to them that future generations grow up in a morally upright environment; and of how much it means to people to have a goverment that would continue creating economic opportunities for those who seek them, it bothers me that from all indications, they will vote into office the one candidate who stands for social and economic policies that go against the very things they care about.

Oh well, as the say, "Be careful of what you wish for."

W Endorses Mac and Palin

McCain finally got a much needed campaign "boost" from the President last night.

Enjoy. :)

Satirists often provide a good gauge of the public mood. Senator McCain has indeed tried his very best to distance himself from the President Bush since the beginning of the year. However, except for a few good weeks for him in late August through early September largely brought about by "Palin Mania", his awful handling of his campaign, the Palin candidacy, and his continued failure to sell his tax proposals are all helping to pave the road for an Obama landslide victory in less than a couple of weeks.

Sorry, Mr. McCain.

A Presidential Inauguration in 1935

This event was a first in Asia. This event marked a crucial milestone for a region that was lorded by Western powers at the time. Some of the colonial powers even expressed their concern over the event's impact on the peoples of the region. Time Magazine reported that the British voiced displeasure over this development because it could signal the demise of the white man's rule over that part of the world. The event I'm referring to is the subject of the following newsreel from 1935 that reported on the inauguration of Manuel Luis Quezon as President of the new Philippine Commonwealth.

President Quezon's inauguration was held at the steps of the neoclassic Legislative Building on November 15, 1935. As can be seen from the video, the occasion was graced by then US Vice President John Nance Garner (1868-1967) who served under Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941. According to Time, Mr. Garner led a party of 17 senators, 26 representatives, and 34 American newspapermen. Secretary of War George Henry Dern (1872-1936) also attended the event as President Roosevelt's personal representative. It was estimated that about 15,000 official guests were on hand to witness history being made.

Mr. Quezon was sworn in to a six-year term by Justice Ramon Avancena (1872-1957) who was then Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court. The 1935 Constitution, which the Filipino people had approved in a plebiscite held in May that same year, called for the election of a President to a single six-year term with no reelection. It also called for a unicameral National Assembly. These provisions were however changed later that same decade (1939-40) when the Constitution was amended to allow for a bicameral Congress and to allow a President to govern for a maximum of two four-year terms.

One can see from the video that it was a very well attended affair. It was estimated that about a quarter of a million people attended the ceremonies marking the inauguration of the President and the birth of the Commonwealth. It is to be noted too that President Quezon's inaugural ceremonies were held on the steps of the Legislative Building and not at the Luneta Grandstand as succeeding Presidents have done since 1946. I am assuming that the decision to hold the inaugural ceremonies at the steps of the Legislative Building was patterned after the American tradition of holding Presidential inaugurations at the steps of the US Capitol Building.

The Legislative Building stands at the corner of Taft Avenue and P. Burgos Street. Thus, I'm assuming that the impressive military parades shown on the newsreel were held on P. Burgos Street. It can also be seen from the joyous and excited attitude of the crowd that the move towards independence enjoyed broad popular support.

The newsreel also briefly showed President Quezon's son, Manuel L. Quezon, Jr. (1926-1998), standing attentively and smartly dressed in an aide-de-camp's uniform. Unfortunately, due to the age of the film, it was quite difficult for me to identify the elegantly dressed couple MLQ Jr. stood next to.

I don't mean to deviate from the historical significance of this newsreel but there is one last observation regarding its content. It can be observed from the video that as President Quezon took his oath of office, one of the microphones that stood before him prominently showed the call letters KZRM. Quite a bit of historic information can be derived from the call letters on that microphone stand.

Note that this was the 1930s, a period before the birth of television broadcasting. Thus, all events of historic or national importance were broadcast over radio. Unlike today where call letters of radio stations in the Philippines begin with the letter "D", it is to be noted that during the pre-war years, specifically from 1924 through 1947, the call letters of radio stations in the Philippines began with the letters "KZ". This designation was in accordance with the radio broadcast laws of the US which applied to our country being an American colony.

KZRM was one of six major radio stations that operated in Manila during the pre-war years. The others were KZEG, KZIB, KZRC, KZRF, and KZRH. KZRM was owned and operated by the Radio Corporation of the Philippines (which later became known as RCPI) and began broadcasting in 1928. The Radio Corporation of the Philippines was then a fully-owned subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America, or more popularly known to radio and music enthusiasts as RCA.

Of the six stations mentioned, KZRH, owned and operated by the Manila Broadcasting Company is the only one that is still around to this day. This radio station began operations in 1939 atop the Heacock Building in Escolta and is now known to Filipino listeners by its call letters DZRH.

It was at a 1947 International Telecommunications Union conference held in Atlantic City, New Jersey where the radio call letters for the Philippines were changed to begin with the letter "D". Radio stations that broadcast from Manila were assigned call letters that begin with "DZ"; radio stations in Luzon were assigned the letters "DW"; Visayan stations got "DY"; and Mindanao stations were assigned "DX".

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this newsreel. Though it runs for less than a minute, it still manages to provide us with a wealth of historical information about our beloved country.

Live From New York.... It's Sarah Palin!

Well, it was just a matter of time before the real Sarah Palin made an appearance on Saturday Night Live and last night, she did just that. This was the opening skit:

Though both Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey have both expressed support for Senator Obama, everyone deserves a lot of credit for being such a good sport. It's obvious that everyone still had a good time. Third World politicos can learn a lot from these people in terms of civility.

Anyway, it wasn't the only skit for Ms. Palin. About 45 minutes into the show, she again appeared on the Weekend Update skit and danced to a hilarious rap tune the folks at SNL wrote up for her:

Enjoy. :)

True Freedom Denied

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) "On Liberty"

I will keep this post brief but in the Philippine context, it is pretty obvious that my country has failed to live up to Mr. Mill's definition of what true Freedom means.

As a people, we have been denied for so long the right to pursue a life of happiness and good on our own terms. We have always been denied the right to decide what would be positive or negative for us individually. Certain sectors within our society such as the Catholic Church and its lackeys in government, along with the oligarchs, have taken it upon themselves to decide what would be good or bad for all of us.

The examples are all around us and come in various forms: press and movie censorship; the absence of a divorce law; the absence of a comprehensive reproductive health bill; a "cheap labor" economy; systemic graft and corruption; the absence of strong anti-discrimination and anti-sexual harassment laws in the workplace; dirty and violent elections; and the unfair and unequal administration of justice. These are but to name a few.

The absence of true freedom has set our country back. In my humble opinion, denying the people the chance to decide what makes them happy and what is good for their own well-being tends to demoralize them and kill individual initiative.

The country has so many structural problems that require immediate attention and meaningful solutions. I've often wondered if we will ever see the day when these problems will finally get resolved. Millions of our countrymen have already lost all hope that they're now leaving the country in droves to fulfill their dreams elsewhere. People will always go where they feel their skills are needed and where they know they will be fairly compensated for their contributions.

We will never be able to fix our nation's problems for as long as we fail to conduct intelligent and open-minded discussions in an environment that's free from fear and intolerance. It is only through open, honest and thoughtful discussion of issues will many brilliant ideas see the light of day. But until then, our nation's problems will remain simply because certain powerful sectors of our society have decided that what's good for them ought to be good for the rest of us.

The Latest McCain-Obama and Hall & Oates Debates

As they've done in previous Presidential campaigns, the people behind Saturday Night Live (SNL) launched the first of their Update Thursday Specials this week to tap on the wealth of comedic material both campaigns have been providing.

Last night, they showed their parody of Tuesday night's debate between Senators McCain and Obama. The parody focuses on the rather awful way Mr. Tom Brokaw (former NBC News anchor) selected the questions and moderated the debate. The parody was based on the fact that right after the debate, a lot of news and political analysts complained that the questions Mr. Brokaw picked were predictable and that the candidates' answers to the questions revealed no new information about their personalities and their campaign proposals. In addition, Mr. Brokaw was rather strict with the time he allowed for each candidate to speak. Anyway, here's the SNL skit:

It seems that the pop duo of Daryl Hall and John Oates also got into a little musical debate about their respective choices for President:

Two more Update Thursday Specials are planned for the next two weeks. (Oct. 16 and 23)

Enjoy. :)

Mr. McCain Failed To Connect

In the debate Tuesday night in Nashville, Tennessee, one that he desperately needed to win in order to turn back the Barack Obama tide, Senator John McCain utterly failed.

In a debate that was set in a townhall type of meeting where the presidential candidates fielded questions from an audience of undecided voters, Mr. McCain failed to deliver. The knockout blow he needed to assure Americans that he would be the right President to deal with the nation's economic problems eluded him. It was ironic because the debate's townhall format was supposed to play to Mr. McCain's strength.

But unlike Senator Obama who was able to articulate the economic issues down to the level of how such issues affect family's budgets, their access to credit, their retirement funds and everyday lives of millions of Americans, Mr. McCain pretty much stayed within his comfort zone. He stuck to his favorite talking point that freezing government spending would lead to lower deficits and therefore, lower taxes.

However, McCain's line did not and still does not resonate well with the average American. In a time when people are gravely concerned about the impact of the financial crisis on their family budgets, their access to credit, their purchasing power, and their ability to save for retirement, education, and health care, Mr. McCain failed to directly address such concerns. The impact of reduced government spending on the lives of taxpayers are not immediately felt when compared to reduced witholding (or payroll) taxes that people will immediately see on their paychecks.

There's a lot of anxiety and worry over the financial crisis. People are cutting back on spending. I take the train to work and I noticed recently that there are a lot more cars on my train station's parking lot these days, a sign that more people now commute than drive themselves to work. Last week, a report came out that car sales in the US which normally average about 1.3 million units a month registered September sales of 965,000, roughly a 26% drop. All carmakers, even the Japanese, reported double-digit drops in sales figures. ABC News recently reported that more than 500 car dealerships have closed since the start of the year. The lower sales was attributed to customers cutting back on spending and tighter access to car loans. Restaurants, department stores, airlines, jewelry stores have all reported drops in revenues.

Mr. McCain was correct when he stated that there was too much anger out there at Wall Street and at Washington because by failing to prevent the financial crisis, both institutions failed the country. However, as in the first debate, Mr. McCain failed to strongly explain to the people how his proposals to reduce taxes and government spending would benefit them. He failed to raise people's doubts on how Mr. Obama's proposals, specifically on how his (Obama's) plans to increase government spending on social programs while simultaneously reducing taxes would not further increase a trillion-dollar budget deficit.

Mr. Obama's plan to reduce taxes on 95% of the population, specifically the ones who make less than $250,000 a year, hopes to stimulate spending among the middle and lower classes. The plan is also aimed at helping small businesses expand and create jobs. It's true but only up to a certain point.

The problem with the Obama tax proposal, as Mr. McCain has correctly and repeatedly pointed out, is that to make up for the tax cuts on the middle class, Mr. obama will increase taxes on the 5% of the population, that segment of society we used to call "rich" but are now known as the "investor class".

It is correct that small businesses generate many jobs. However, it is outdated and folly to think that a nation's economy will significantly progress if one sector is awarded at the expense of another. That, for me, is divisive politics. One also needs to see the big picture here. It is the large corporations that create the better-paying jobs and consequently, higher quality and quantity-type of demand that help make a lot of small businesses thrive and grow. It is the large corporations, with their big-ticket capital expenditures in facilities, people and equipment, that contribute to a significant portion of a nation's wealth. In addition, that 5% of the population Mr. Obama plans to raise taxes on are already shouldering, according to some estimates, roughly 80% of the nation's tax burden. The plan to further increase their share of the country's tax burden could prove to be a disincentive to infusing more capital into the economy at a time when such investments are badly needed.

I do agree with Mr. Obama that in order for a capitalist economy like the United States to continue to thrive and maintain its standing as the world's most trusted financial system, that a certain degree of industry regulation should be put in place. I strongly agree that the trend towards deregulation that began roughly in the early 1980s under the Reagan administration has led to spectacular abuses of power among corporate executives and to a decline in certain industries such as the US airline industry. The current financial crisis ought to change a lot of people's views about deregulation. Every game needs a referee.

But going back to the debate, I was quite disappointed in Mr. McCain's performance because his proposal to cut taxes for all Americans to create more jobs and generate investment and his plan to curb government spending to address the growing budget deficit stand on solid ground. In addition, Mr. McCain has long been an advocate of regulation, much to the chagrin of his colleagues in the Republican Party who believe otherwise. He has also gone against his party numerous times on critical issues such as the waste of government money on pork-barrel spending. The campaign finance reform law that carry his name and that of Democratic Senator Russ Feingold aims to reduce the corrupting influence of lobbyists in Washington DC. He successfully fought for the passage of this law in spite of opposition from the Republicans, including President George W. Bush.

In contrast, Mr. Obama's track record in the US Senate in his four years there does not show a man who has gone against his party to address issues of corruption and excess. He has not authored or even co-authored a single law of national significance. In addition, in his four years as Senator, he spent the last two years running for President. As a result, among all the men who have run for US President, he has the thinnest resume. But thanks to Mr. McCain's failure on Tuesday night to strongly argue the merits of his (McCain's) economic proposals, it seems a certainty now that Mr. Obama will become the 44th President of the United States.

That's not to say that Mr. Obama does not have the intelligence to hold the most powerful office in the country and in the world. His Harvard law degree and his cool and poised demeanor during the debates showed unassailable evidence of it. Like all the Presidents that have come before him, he will certainly tap the best minds within the Democratic Party to advice him on domestic and foreign policy. He will certainly make history once he gets elected as the first African-American President. However, due to the absence of a defining professional track record that reveals his thought and decisionmaking processes, he is leaving millions of voters no choice but to simply rely on his promise of change not only in the US but also in the world. That would truly be the Audacity of Hope.

The Biden-Palin Debate

Just to share last night's Saturday Night Live (SNL) parody of the Biden-Palin debates that were held this past Thursday, October 2.

In addition, the show also presented a parody of last Friday's announcement that the US Congress has finally passed the bailout (or rescue) package which President Bush signed into law immediately thereafter.

Enjoy. :-)

Fire and Rain

"I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again."

A sad one but this is my favorite James Taylor song.

It's an introspective song that speaks of heartache, personal loss, and broken dreams. This is one of the songs I love to listen to whenever I find myself in a reflective mood. I was already a student in college when I got to know and love this song. I was working on recovering from a relationship that had ended much too soon. I found comfort and, eventually, strength in the song's words.

To this day, I still listen to this beautiful song whenever life's troubles decide to spend time with me. The song's words help me face down the challenges that come my way. A lot of times, I look to its words like a prayer that will help get me through the rough times.

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus.
You've got to help me make a stand.
You've just got to see me through another day.
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way.

However, it is not only during such moments that I listen to this tune. There are also times when I turn to it to simply enjoy a quiet moment.

Fire and Rain was James Taylor's first hit. Released in February 1970, the song was released as a single from his second album, Sweet Baby James. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard charts that same year. The clip above was from a live performance of the song that Mr. Taylor did back in 1970 on British TV.

I like live performances done in intimate settings such as the one in this clip. I chose it because Mr. Taylor's fine live performance was complemented by an appreciative and yet very respectful audience. The words, music, and the emotion expressed resonated with the audience.

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone.
Susanne, the plans they made put an end to you.
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song;
I just can't remember who to send it to.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end;
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again.

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus.
You've got to help me make a stand.
You've just got to see me through another day.
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way.

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end;
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again.

Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun,
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around;
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things
to come,
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end;
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now.

Thought I'd see you one more time again....
There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now....
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now....

Katie Couric's Inteview with Sarah Palin

This is the latest SNL spoof on Sarah Palin. This time it focused on Katie Couric's interview with Mrs. Palin earlier this week. Enjoy.