“Pearl of the Orient Seas”

That’s how we call the Philippines before. But aren’t pearls represent opulence? Why on earth more than 70% of our population live below the poverty line, despite the rich natural resources?

Are pearls associated with landslides, flash-floods and typhoons? Are we pearl no more?

“Love of country”

The Preamble of the 1987 Constitution contains the line “Love of Country”. Most, if not all, of other country’s constitutions do not include love of country in their preamble or other parts thereof. And the result? We belong to the Top 20 among the most corrupt government, according to Transparency International’s survey.

The recent typhoons that hit Northern Luzon magnified the effects of corruption. We had the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) cramming on their feet to cope with the onslaught of emergency calls from all sectors. Even the national capital Manila, rescue equipments were so few, compared with the number of flood victims that needed to be rescued. Evacuation quarters were available, but how would rescuers transport the evacuees over rushing flood-waters? Reflecting from all of these, one can say that what happened was a disaster from the beginning. Ironically, the P50 billion-peso annual budget for NDCC was reduced to P10 M pesos at the time of the disaster.

I’m not saying that other countries are not corrupt. Mostly have their own version of corruption. The difference is – they truly love their country…Love of country is not mere lip service…It must be practiced…

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

We boast of the fact that the IRRI is situated in our country. Why are we importing rice from Vietnam and Thailand? To think that these countries used to send their agriculturists to IRRI, to study and attend trainings on rice research. Now, they are supplying us with the product we taught them to research…

Highest literacy rate in Asia

We used to identify ourselves to have the highest literacy rate in Asia. But where are these bright guys now? Why can’t they solve the endemic corrupt system in the government? Why do we have to send our human resources abroad when they are needed here most?

We’re history. Neighboring ASEAN countries now edged the Philippines in terms of education and literacy rate…Our country is experiencing “brain drain” due to graft and corrupt governance…

Philippine Airlines (PAL)

PAL was once our national flag carrier. We pride ourselves to have PAL as the first airline in Asia. Ironically, PAL is now privatized. Only minimal shares are owned by the government and the rest belong to the Lucio Tan Group of companies and other private shareholders…

Is this our idea of national pride? Selling government properties to private entities because, according to our leaders, management will be better in private hands? Why are we privatizing government properties and businesses in the first place? Isn’t that a government under able hands acquire properties and take over businesses of private entities? Whatever happened to the theory of “Reinventing the Government” by Osborne and Gaebler?

English language proficient

Among Asian countries, we are one of the most proficient, if not the best, to speak and write the English Language, considered as the universal language. in fact, we send our local English teachers to other countries to educate them of the language.

If only our leaders translate this unique skill in following the letters of the law on legal ethics, morality, and nationalism, we can have a better Philippines.

Conclusion

These and other things not mentioned are manifestations of poor governance and corrupt practices. We are a people of versatile skill. Our Overseas Workers are preferred over other nationals because of such traits. We are a people of unique talent. We have the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Charisse Pempengco and Lea Salonga, to name a few, that gave us national pride in their fields of excellence…

We are indeed a nation of ironies and inconsistencies. We have it but we refuse to have it. Its all there all along, but we failed to make use of it. Love of country, that’s the bottomline. If only our leaders will pause for a while, stop thinking of enriching themselves and think of what they could do for their country, we can have a better Filipino nation. They can even declare a national holiday called “love of country day” and spend the whole day thinking or doing things for our beleaguered country, then, presumably, we can better off than today.

We should see opportunity in adversity…We must unite in diversity…This coming elections, our voice will be counted. Let us vote for somebody who loves our country…And let us hope that this somebody files his/her certificate of candidacy…

Thank You for reading at Bottom Lines. I look forward to your return visit.

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What could be better in a bachelor’s life when,  after graduating from college, he lands in a high paying job, having an income more than enough for himself and more for night life and life savings? I was just on that same fix when some few years back (actually, decades ago), I partied here and there, with friends and kin, girls and women. Saturday nights seemed timeless and more often than not, we ended up in the wee hours of the morning…It was a dream life for singles, I would say. Booze are a-plenty and no commitment to look up to whomsoever you end up with when you feel like going to bed… It was a purely a care-free life back then…

“Every night seems, dinner and wine Saturday girls,

I was never in love never had the time in my hustle and hurried world.

Laughing myself to sleep, waking up lonely,

I needed someone to hold me, Oh…”

“It’s such a crazy old town, it can drag you down, till you run out of dreams;

So you party all night to the music and lights, but you don’t know what happiness means.

I was dancing in the dark with strangers no love around me,

When suddenly you found me, oh… “

My golly, looking back with my life, I spent more than eight years of my bachelor days fooling around in bars and friends on weekends and back to work on Mondays to Fridays.

But lo and behold, and quite unexpectedly, on a fine and exquisite summer day, I was sent on a training to the “City of Smiles” (Iloilo City) where I met this girl who changed everything in me…changed the world around me…where fantasy and reality are at par with each other… you can’t tell the difference…

“Girl you’re every woman in the world to me.

You’re my fantasy, you’re my reality

Girl, you’re every woman in the world to me.

You’re everything I need, you’re everything to me, Oh girl”…

She’s a girl all right, but not quite…She’s the type of a young woman capable of challenging my choosy taste. She stirred me intellectually and ahh, biologically, I may say…No wonder she’s smart and eloquent. She’s a UP graduate…Need to say more?  She got the body and physique that passes my personal criteria … She’s perfect, in and out…my ideal woman, for all legal intents and purposes…

For a very desperate heart of a bachelor, no woman can be as hard to get as the Helen of Troy….Well, her beauty may not launch even a single ship, but beauty is relative and and I would say, she’s relatively cute…

It was a whirlwind romance, and our engagement didn’t take long as we were already ripe of age at that time. She being twenty six and me, twenty nine. Legally, under the Family Code, both of us may proceed with contracting marriage even sans parental consent. Finding sense to my proposal, she interposed no objection thereto. I can’t simply let her go. I can’t afford to…So, on one rainy day in December 1993, we got married…

“Everything’s good, everything’s fine, that’s what you are

So put your hand in mine and together we’ll climb

As high as the highest star

I’m living the lifetime in every minute, that we’re together

And I’m staying right here forever, Oh”

“Girl you’re every woman in the world to me

You’re my fantasy, you’re my reality

Girl, you’re every woman in the world to me

You’re everything I need, you’re everything to me, Oh girl…”

I have to reveal, I am married to a star. Not in the real sense but literally. She’s neither a starlet nor a TV personality or an athlete of some sort.  She’s a star simply because her first name is Starjoan, Star for short, and she’s my every woman in the world…

I was lucky, I came across with the website GenSan News Online Mag where it was announced that there will be an Air Supply Concert in GenSan sponsored by the deliciously prestigious Grab A Crab Restaurant and also featured a blog contest entitled What Air Supply Song Are You? Blog Contest. This will be a golden opportunity for me to strengthen the bond with my Star and a good time to relive our past and renew the flame of passion we initially shared…

Of late, however, owing maybe to the moral orientation and the present culture of liberalism and boldness of youth, a young third party had emerged – threatening to snatch my all out attention to my star…she got the better looks, more passionate, aggressive and charming, whose closeness to me easily melts my fickle heart…But I will fight this feeling…I was married to a star and will always be…I will live a day at a time, in rhythm with the passing of days…and the other woman?  Well…she’s still young and more is in store for her in the future…

She’s very close to my star too…In fact, the three of us are very close with each other…

Finally, my two every women in the world had come to some kind of understanding and posed for posterity…

My gratitude to the following ad logos…

Dreamwork Ventures Inc.’s Platinum Concert Series 2009, in cooperation with the City Government of GenSan, the GenSan City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc., ABS-CBN. Other partners are Grab A Crab Restaurant, MISO Hardware, San Miguel Corporation, Coca Cola Bottlers Inc., East Asia Royale Hotel, Coffee Dream, Giacominos, NY Fries and Dips, Giacominos, Gaisano Mall of GenSan and Gregoria Printing Press.

Thank You for reading at Bottom Lines. I look forward to your return visit.

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Speaking of beaches, the Philippines is endowed with many.  What with the 7,107 islands on low tides and 7,100 during high tides, one can just have so many options to look up to.  So, last weekend, by unanimous decision, my family decided to spend a day in the nearby Gumasa beach, about an hour drive from where we are, Gensan City.

Undeniably, the white sand beach of Gumasa is a far cry from the world-class Boracay beaches in Caticlan, Aklan. But it’s the cheaper alternative hereabouts.  No fancy hotels, foreigners, cottages and bars.  Just plain, natural white sand beach with affordable native-inspired budget rooms and food suited for lowly government employees trying out a little luxury take home pay can buy.

So, when we reached the area, we settled at Coco Beach Resort, one of the budding resorts being developed in the area.

An open cottage of this type costs around 500 pesos (USD 10).

We chose this type,  cost  us only 200 pesos (around USD 5)…ha ha ha, cheap? You haven’t seen the best yet.

The magic of seaside breeze is truly a gift of mother -nature to mankind.  Value-added on  the physical and mental relaxation you get when lying down on the shore is the chance to make bonding with the children, whose school schedule and requirements so cardiac nowadays, and with dear wife, who lately, had been nagging me for a date, alone,  with the kids…

But surprise of all surprises is meeting a long lost relative in an unlikely place such as Coco Beach.   Perhaps,  not long lost but, more accurately, a newly found relative,  Dr. Delfin Besquillo, Jr., whom I never had a chance to meet  before.  He’s  a retired skin doctor a la Vicky Belo, according to him.  Now, a senior citizen at 78 years of age who finally decided to spend his retirement days developing a beach resort.  Ironically, he owns Coco Beach!

It’s like this.  My late paternal grandfather Juan, may his soul rest in peace, was such a Valentino in his younger days had  he had three wives.  Not at the same time, of course, but successively married  one after the other.  In his first wife, he had 3 children and one of whom was the mother of my aforesaid cousin, Dr. Besquillo   My father was an offspring of my grandpa Juan with his third wife, Grandma Vida…That makes me and Dr. Delfin Besquillo, Jr.  first degree step-cousins…proud descendants  of the great playboy Grandpa Juan…  Interestingly, he looked so closely similar with my late father that I had goose-bumps looking at him.

So, by late afternoon, after a few hours of catching up family affairs with cousin Doc over some bottles of San Miguel Lights, plus tuna sashimi and  grilled panga (tuna jaw) and after finding my kids sun-burnt already , we decided it was  time to head back home.

Whew, what a day…It’s not only that I found a relative and a father incarnate in one person, I did get 50% discount off the regular rate everytime I show up there, courtesy of cousin Doc!   Lol…You never can tell what will happen in any one day away from home. It was one unforgettable weekend for my family.

In fairness, I love Coco Beach…

Thank You for reading at Bottom Lines. I look forward to your return visit.

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