As artists think alike…

“Never fall for someone who’s in love with her past.”

It didn’t happen to me only once. I just don’t know whether I was born this way or I’m too dumb to learn from it. Anyway, this is what I found out. After, having to evaluate those things which happened to me before, I finally knew the answers.

If you fall for someone who’s in love with her past:

…Soon, you’ll constantly feel uneasy.

You won’t be able to feel the assurance that she’s not meeting her past. Knowing what she feels about that guy, you’ll have an uneasy mindset that there may be chances they’ll eventually revive what they’ve shared before. It won’t end there, because for sure, you’ll have sleepless nights.

…You’d break every piece of you whenever she talks about her past.

Definitely, you’ll wish that she’ll no longer open up a conversation wherein the topic will be her ex-boyfriend. Whether the point of the discussion is about the happy or the sad moments they had, the reason you’ll have in mind why the heck she thought of talking about it is because she remembered those things which happened to them.

…Soon, she’ll have an inevitable way of expressing her feelings…

And you just won’t be able to act as if you’re blind or deaf. Her actions and even her means of expression is already an enough proof that her feelings are true. You won’t be able to deny it, though sometimes when you wanted to feel glad and inspired, you’d like to think that they are just her ways to keep you jealous.

…It’ll hurt even though you don’t have the right.

You can’t just stop her from being in love with her ex. You can’t control her feelings or even bribe her to forget about her past. Simply, you can’t completely take over her emotions since she has her own mind and heart, and there’s just this fact that one can never take away someone’s happiness.

…You’ll have an accumulating lesser chance of having her.

Surely, with the factors listed above, you’ll lose the motivation of pursuing that someone you’re falling with. Later on, you’ll just feel that you’re losing your inspiration. Even if the world knew that both of you are meant to be, you’ll know deep inside that there’s no chance between the two of you.

I keep on reminding myself, mistakes are meant to be committed just once, and I’ve proved it a lot of times. I’m not the typical average man who would just leave things without logically realizing it. Somehow, I’m saying these, but this time, I’ll be stupid.

Occasionally, especially during my most boring moments, I would think about the realities in this society. School, happened to be one of those I chose to begin with, came up into my mind whether what could be its purpose. If you would ask a number of students about what really is the relevance of school, they would probably say, “to land on a good job in the future”. Well, this is just partly the truth of a school’s real purpose. It actually includes a much better reason, and it’s the goal of achieving the 7 Aspects of Wellness.

Undeniably, people would have an overview of a school’s purpose on how it plays a very important role in educating citizens. What’s in their mind is: school simply exists for the reason that it is necessary on a job application. Actually, it just serves as an edge among other applicants. The chance that you’ll be hired for that certain job depends mainly on: the University you’ve last attended; your performance in your studies; achievements and experiences; and level of impression from your previous instructors. The cons though: annually, there are thousands of graduates being produced, what if most of them are as competitive as you are? This just means, school isn’t there to only provide you this quality. In fact, even other applicants who have never been in any Universities but are highly skilled as pros, still have a great chance of being hired.

As I mentioned, our schools aim to build the balances between the different Aspects of Wellness. Now what are these?

Emotional Wellness

The school definitely wants to produce students who are emotionally well. Imagine a graduate who’s not even taught how to take care of his emotions; will he really be able to contribute something for the betterment of the society? 

“When we explore our Emotional Wellness, we discover who we are, gain personal insight into why we feel and behave the way we do, and learn new ways to deal with the ups and downs of life.  Emotional Wellness involves learning how to handle stress and understanding when our emotions are off kilter.  It doesn’t mean that we will never have negative feelings.  Instead, Emotional Wellness means being connected to our emotions, being able to name and understand them, and knowing how to handle them, whatever they may be.” - www.anxiety-and-depression-solutions.com

Intellectual Wellness

Primarily, this is what the school really seeks to offer. Mathematics, Science, Culture, History, Current Events, and a lot more topics covered in books are factors of improving one’s Intellectual Wellness. It is usually tagged with the words: “smart”, “intelligent”, and “academics”. Think about the geniuses in your school; those who are “soon-to-be Cum Laude”, who maintains being a dean’s list: well, definitely, they are just samples of those who are intellectually well.

Physical Wellness

Physical Education is one great example of proving the sense of building Physical Wellness. It involves exercise, sports, rhythmic activities, dancing, and even those traditional recreational activities. This is really very critical in maintaining one’s wellness relating to health. Of course, our body is the most important possession we have ever since we were born. We are bound to take care of it for the rest of our lives. What could we be without good health?

You might have thought before in your P.E. classes, they just don’t make any sense. I knew one who’s really intellectually dominant; he failed Physical Education because he can’t find the reason of learning this subject, but what I saw in him is that, he doesn’t have a body as good looking as those who are always involved in sports. Anyway, let’s just not tackle more on to this subject, I’m also not that physically fit.

Environmental Wellness

Talking about nature, yes, our environmental awareness also plays a great role in our growth. Since humans can’t completely live without depending on nature, then humans must also be responsible enough to take care of nature. If you remember your school required you to attend different community services such as tree planting, then they are just doing it because they are concerned about your sense of stewardship to your environment. It’s not really that comfortable if you live in a world full of trash where everything’s just filth.

Social Wellness

I wonder what you will be when you’re socially inactive; no social interaction; no people around you to talk to; no peers; no co-learners; and no teachers. Most probably, you’ll be overly affected all throughout your other Aspects of Wellness. The school is the most perfect place for socialization. I would stress out that this is the most important role of our school. I’d like to meet new people and learn how they see life as it is. Just like the old saying, “No man is an island”, truly, school is the best tool to provide you this very important factor.

When you are socially active and doing great, people will recognize you. People will know what you can do for the society. People can feel your existence. Most especially, people can build an extra special relationship with you, and this will really become your greatest weapon in surviving the real world.

Occupational Wellness

School claims to help you prepare your own career. They’ll teach you how to do great in your job. It includes the different ways on how to successfully work out well with your co-workers, deal with different situations on how to handle them especially when things get worse, and properly maintain your own health avoiding too much stress. Not to forget to mention, school also has the responsibility in making you understand what your future career is all about. Simply, it is there to guide you all the way on how you can really become successful in your career.

Spiritual Wellness

Finally, there is Spiritual Wellness. Ever since, school has taught me how to build my relationship with God. It has been teaching me how to strengthen my faith through prayers. It also involves values education, moral teachings and ethics. Surely, if haven’t been exposed to the thought of the existence of a superior being, I won’t be as well equipped with good values and virtues as I am right now. I still remembered my first holy communion along with my classmates way back in elementary, my school was the sole instrument on how I was introduced to it.

Even just one aspect missing, then the relevance of your school won’t serve it right. If you are in a University fulfilling all of these factors then do be grateful, but if not, you’re free to choose a community which would definitely satisfy you on building your own 7 Aspects of Wellness. If you try to evaluate what school is really aiming for, you’ll find out that they are always indeed attempting to create perfect citizens; Perfect citizens who are emotionally, intellectually, physically, environmentally, socially, occupationally, and spiritually healthy, and in the end build a perfect community.

Source: 7 Aspects of Wellness

Have you ever tried to ask yourself, “What am I really in school for?” Ever since you turned out to be ready for school, your parents or your guardians always have this conviction: build a world on your own where it’ll all be up to you without completely depending for financial support. You’ll be studying for more than six years in elementary, four years in high school, and finally another four or five years in college, just for a single reason: to be employed on a well known company.

This is the reality that we, students, are facing in every single moment of our academic lives. Whether you excel in your studies or not, they all serve a common purpose, and it’s just what I mentioned, again: to be employed on a well known company. We believe that if we’ll do great in school, we’d be granted with our wishes and dreams to have our own cars and houses. We’ll be able to buy ourselves anything that we need and we want. With wealth, we’ll be able to completely enjoy everything in this material society.

To be honest, do you really think that by working alone being employed, we can earn all of these for ourselves? The answer is “No”. You might say, “Of course, it all begins from being employed, then succeeds promotion, and finally, a good business to start with”, but aside from the risks and the lesser chances to achieve this traditional concept, we unknowingly exchange our time. By the moment we’d be managers, or presidents, or CEO’s, we’ll learn that we’ll already be old enough to no longer enjoy the remaining days of our lives. The saddest part is, whether how much we wanted to bring ourselves back to the past, we just can’t, because there’s no turning back.

I’ve not yet been employed on a company, but I would still like to share something I evaluated on my own, and something I learned from the elderly I knew. After you leave your studies as graduates, you will have a hard time searching for a job. You’ll look for Job Hiring on classified ads, browse in the world of information technology, and a lot more means of job hunting. Supposing you got yourself to work under a company, you’ll be able to receive your regular salary. Mind you, for long hours of hard work in a single month, you’ll find out that your boss will hand you a usual pay of 7,000 pesos. This amount will circulate for more than a year, and this just means, as a starter, you’ll have an annual salary not higher than 90,000 pesos.

In fact, the figures I just mentioned is already satisfactory. This is the real world, and you won’t be able to deny it. Now here’s a scenario, assuming you’re aiming for a car, how much time will you spend for you to earn a sufficient amount to buy it? Well, a brand new car could cost for about one million pesos. If your annual income would reach up to 120,000 pesos, supposing you’ve been promoted several times, you would need to spend more than 15 years to achieve a million, considering the fact that you would need to spend some for your daily allowance, bills and other expenses. Can you imagine this reality? Working a minimum of eight hours a day, 5 days a week, not much time for recreation, and you’ll just find out that it’ll take you 15 long years before you’d earn yourself your first car.

Actually, I just explained to you how this becomes a reality. It’s the “time” which acts as an impediment of our growth, simply because, we can’t work on two things at the same time. When you’ll be working eight hours in your office, you can’t work on something else aside from your job. We are directly exchanging our time for our salary, and it would seem that there’s just not enough time to do more things aside from our job.

Well, here’s another fact that you would love to hear about. How come those millionaires are earning that much in a year? Even if you’re working 24 straight hours a day, 7 days a week as an employee, there’s no way you can earn one million pesos in a year, but if you’ll extend your time up to 800 hours a day and 7 days a week, most probably, you’ll be earning an amount more than you can ever imagine. People who can spend this much time in just a single day, we call them as “employers”. Logically speaking, if you’re an employee, then there must be an employer, and you’re not just the only employee your employer has. If you’re boss hired 100 workers, then he just spent himself 100 times 8 hours a day. Remember that we earn money by exchanging our time, so this means, his 800 hours are worth a whopping amount of cash.

Harsh idea that is, but again, this is reality. We, soon to be employees, will just become mere tools to spend our time for somebody to earn more. I’d like to stress this out, guys, let’s make something for a change. The reason that we are always aiming to be employees is because we are always recycling a traditional concept of earning. Our parents kept on lecturing us that we must excel in our studies so that we’ll have a bright future in the corporate ladder. Dream high! I should tell you this; there are thousands of ways to earn money aside from being an employee. For your information, you can be your own boss, but I’m not saying being an employee won’t do you any good. I myself would want to become an employee for the reason that I would also want to socialize. It’s just that, if you have your dreams with you, there’s no way you’ll be granted one million pesos a year if you stick to the idea about working for someone.

Three days ago, I remembered Nadine mentioned to me whether I’d be willing to accept on having a "live performance" in their church for her brother’s homecoming celebration. I thought so, maybe I wasn’t just aware before if I’d really be busy on school for our System Programming class. She told me that the occasion was to be celebrated on a Thursday night, 7pm. Luckily, by that day, I can stay at school only until 6pm, so, I told her that I would be available by that same date, July 10, 2008. I was wondering what specific song she would ask me to perform, and she just said, it should be her sister’s favorite song, "Way back into love". It’s great that I wouldn’t need to bother practicing for that since I am also very familiar with it, but just when I was really excited for the occasion, Nadine later demanded that I would be the one to sing for the male part.

Anyway, performing in front of a group of strangers ain’t new to me. It’s just weird that for the first time, someone asked me to play the piano and sing at the same time. Well, of course, I wouldn’t want to be unprepared for that celebration, so I downloaded a copy of that song and loaded it in my mp3 player. The same routine as before, for me to learn the song better, I’d listen to it a hundred times. Specifically, I was learning the male part. I know I’m not really good at singing, but I think I can pretty handle the voicing since I’m also a bit exposed into different chorale engagements.

And so, it’s already Thursday. I’m on my way to their church at Mintal. Thanks to our First Program Assembly, I arrived at the venue, late. We’ve no time with the singer to practice, but actually, I wasn’t that nervous. It’s just that, Nadine was slightly urging me to be nervous. She was stressing out that she was really tensed for her sister. I thought, if she’s familiar with the song, then there’s no need to shake. It’s our turn for the intermission number and I was already predicting what could be the outcome of our performance. Just the same as the old days, it ended great.  Though it was not really that good, but not bad either. Some of them said that they enjoyed it, and I was glad. Having no practice at all doesn’t mean it would result into shame. And I thought, maybe the reason why it wasn’t a failure, is because I knew the song and after all, I’m proud of granting my ex-classmate’s request.

I’ve been in a warm discussion with my few friends from my previous course in Bachelor of Science in Accountancy. They’ve just stepped fourth year in college which means, they are already slightly exposed to the actual field of accounting. There were two of them picking on me and since I’m already in the Information Technology field, I just can’t completely argue with them especially when we’re already talking about the different anomalies behind taxes.

Taxes or most commonly known as Income Tax is a percentage deduction of one’s earnings per period of time which will later on be forwarded to the National Income. This is primarily a contribution of individuals in the form of money for the sake of the nation’s progress. These taxes are always subject for inspection from authorized internal and external auditors, that as soon as the filing of income tax is questionable, it will thus be given required actions such as penalties from the Bureau of Internal Revenues.

The reality is, these auditors are always the ones in control of our taxes, as proudly stated both by my friends. They have the power to approve the authenticity of the income tax of a certain individual or company. Simply because, as Certified Public Accountants, they are given the authority to claim that each document required for the filing of the income tax proves to be free from fraud and other anomalies. Of course, since they have this official right, they are also capable of presenting fraud as legal.

So how does corruption in accounting really occurs? As I learned from my friends, here’s the most basic explanation: First of all, companies hate the income tax. Suppose they are accumulating earnings presented as Gross Profit with an average amount of Php 100,000,000 per year, the income tax will be taken from this as a percentage. As the current law states, income tax should be 12% of the Gross Profit. This means, Php 12,000,000 will be deducted from the earnings of the company in that certain year. Mind you, Php 12,000,000 is not just a petty cash. Rather than submitting this income for the benefit of the country, they would want it to be used especially for the company’s main interest. Now here comes the auditing process. In order for the income tax to be slightly lessened, they shall be falsifying the different amounts in the financial statements. They are experts, so definitely, they can retain the balances between each account. Now this would somehow cause to present the Gross Profit less than it should actually appear, which also means, less income tax. Well of course, auditors can definitely trace the fraud occurring within these financial statements. To encourage them to prove the authenticity of the financial statements and the income tax, there comes in what we call as "Under the Table" process.

Companies pay auditors to do specific tasks such as allowing fraud to prosper and auditors would willingly accept this money because they are simply amounts which are far greater than the actual salary they earn per year. This is the real salary of the auditors aside from the money they earn from the service they are providing. My friends even tried to tell me, "we earn money far better than any employee there could ever be", and what really pissed me off is when one of them said, "I will definitely work first in the Bureau of Internal Revenues". Why? It’s because he explained to me another reality.

According to my friends, the real job of auditors from the Bureau of Internal Revenues is to wait for the income taxes from different individuals and companies to be filed. As soon as they will notice that one of the income tax documents are fraudulent, they’ll be approaching that individual and interrogate them in a matter related to their profits. The first step they will do is to present these individuals a summary of the probable penalties they will face from the government. By the look of these penalties, nobody would want it to be resolved, because if they do, then they’d completely lose their business. So, in order for them to be saved, they would be forced to settle some amounts to these auditors.

This is reality, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it. The solution to this problem is to simply allow our taxes to be submitted normally as it should be. The reason why corruption occurs is because we tend to break the law for the sake of our personal interests. Auditors just took advantage of our weaknesses and the crime we produce. Still, it proves the saying as what the golden rule states, "Do not do unto others what you want others not to do unto you." We should not allow corruption to be born because someday, we might pay for the price.

Social Networks include MySpace, Friendster and Facebook. By signing up in any of these, we are given the privilege to socialize, meet new friends, interact with other people’s interests, and even search for previous schoolmates and loved ones. This has also been a great way to become popular. Since many people are able to access our individual profiles, they can check out our special skills, talents and other stuffs that each one of us is interested with. Aside from these wonderful benefits, the coolest feature of these social networks would be its full accessibility and of without fees or charges.

You would ask, why are they offering these services completely for free? Actually, it’s because they are earning money out of it. It’s just that, they don’t give a damn trace why and how they earn cash from these social networks. Anyway, to give you a detailed idea about their means of money making, here’s how.

Social Networks earn money out of the information they collect. Users register along with their Personal Identification Information or most popularly known as PII. This include your name, address or location, age, credit card numbers, gender, and other important personal information. At some point, these social networks also become interested with your skills, talents, interests, favorite movies, favorite food, preferred products and a lot more useful information which are basically needed for marketing purposes.

That’s right! The reason is the market. Imagine MySpace, Friendster and Facebook as a huge piece of survey sheet. The only differences would be: survey sheets aren’t as interesting as the features social networks provide; survey sheets aren’t as fancy looking as web pages, they tend to look boring and uninviting; survey sheets do not allow up-to-date information to be disseminated while with just a push of a button on a certain web page, it would only take seconds and the information gathered would already circulate all over the globe; finally, survey sheets only cover a limited region, unlike social networks, data are sent worldwide.

If companies have graphical charts about specific information on what the general public truly needs, they’d determine their target market. They would have control over the people’s interests and wants. This would allow them to have an idea on what, when, where, why and how to distribute their products. Definitely, the key to success is information. Planning is always their first step. They wouldn’t want to waste their investments for projects which would seem to have no direction.

Would you say "there’s nothing to worry, registration is free"? I doubt you would if I tell you there’s a great risk. In exchange for the excitement and joy over socializing, you’d soon deal with losing your privacy.

Tags: Identity Theft, Identification Fraud, Privacy and Social Networks.

This is going to be quite a long story, ‘coz there are really lots of things which happened to me in just one day. Right after I woke up early in this morning, the first thing in my mind was my favorite online game. I had to work on its stats and level my character up to the max. But when I was already about 2 hours facing the computer, I realized that the shows being aired in the TV were different as I expected. I though it was supposed to be "Unang Hirit", but what’s being watched was "Mushiking". Darn! And because that, I realized it is Saturday. Which means, I just missed our weekly choir practice in the Assumption Parish last night. Plus, I have a date to attend to before noon ’till 5 pm, and I’m just sitting here relaxed, all in mind that today is Friday. I even thought that since I’m still quite sleepy, I just have to resume my session after noon. Anyway, I confirmed to my damn calendar, and asked my sister, it’s really Saturday. So I got ready fast, and took a very quick nap, prepared myself for downtown and wait at the meeting place.

Anyway, the downtime was just this morning. The even more downtime was when we had our lunch. Let me tell you guys, if you’ve always been in Penong’s, don’t ever chow there by noon. They’ve got pretty slow and really weak service especially by that time. ‘Coz it took us to wait for almost 30 mins. just to have our orders, 10 mins. to wait for the bottomless ice tea refill, and more than 5 mins. for the ice. I dunno, but usually, by lunch, there aren’t that many customers. The "many" customers starts at 6 pm. Anyway, on the brighter side, of course, we spent 30 mins. to consume the meal. For those who don’t have any patience, don’t dare at Penong’s, but for those who wanted strictly food satisfaction, then just visit any of their branches.

Enough with the criticism, the exciting part is just about to begin. We went to Fair Lanes by tricycle, got in there and took the billiard hall all by ourselves. We just had to wait two of our friends and played billiards. In the middle of my opponent’s defeat, Cathy noticed Guil was already on his way right through our direction. So we finished up already our first game and not to boast, but as a beginner, I beat up Cath with a push from the cue ball using another ball to shoot the 9 ball, and this was totally unaccepted by my rival. So since I though it was no match, hehe, then we decided to play the sport with three of us in the 15 balls. We played up to 3 rounds until time was over. Next trip, bowling. I say, this game is really something which I’m a dope at. I have nothing more to say, ‘coz in the end, Cathy and Paul were the only ones who had the chance to beat us with words (you know what those words were) though I was the one who paid for bills.

Next destination: Gaisano Mall of Davao. Initially went there for the arcade section, and we really did. Just bought 4 tokens for the basketball, and just the same old me, being beaten by a lucky girl. I’m not that used to with short shots, I prefer three pointers, hehe, and I was convincing myself that it was really the sole reason why I was defeated. Anyway, we also got into one of those videoke rooms for more than 30 mins. I really had fun there. Especially when you find yourself having to emote on just a piece of song, though the remote control for the set pissed all of us off, but it was still worth enjoying. And so, after that, we had to set off. Paul and Guil, who owed me 20 pesos, went down and seem to go opposite our direction (as if we won’t proceed to the same exit, lolz). Anyway, it was already 5 pm when Cathy decided to go home first, after she just had with her, her saturday treat. And me, thinking of buying new shirts at Unitop, met Jobeluz and Marian. They were with the same class before as with Guil and Paul. Since Jobeluz had some business to attend to, we only talked for a bit and grabbed the chance to exchange numbers.

So I got in the store, after half an hour of picking my new clothes, I thought of looking for a jack on an extension wire, which I would need for the next choir engagement. I searched by the sidewalks and different stalls, but I found nothing. Instead, I went in on an appliance store and I found there a Piano powered by an electric. It was reaaally awesome. I tried to press on one of the keys, and they were as heavy as the real ones. I thought of buying one of these until I have enough cash. It only costs 42,000 pesos, which I assume previously as 70,000. I was not yet convinced with the quality so when two guys were coming on my way and intentionally turned the piano on for testing, I asked the salesman assigned to prepare the piano which I got my eye into. I need to test it. I need to prove how great it is to play on such an instrument. When I began striking the keys down, the first song that my fingers involuntarily took down was "You are my Song" by Martin Nievera. I heard the music was totally wonderful. So I tried another favorite piece, "Forevermore" by Side A. By then I found the person right beside me was singing it aloud, and so as the guys at the back. They liked it. So the hungry-for-more employee requested me to perform "I’ll be there" by Martin Nievera. I carefully examined his reactions. He was exaggerating that there was like a melody which he originally heard from the song on the actual recording. And what was even more shocking, this guy who’s about at his 30’s, asked for my number, in case I’d have some time to pay another visit, for the reason of teaching him how to do my style. If the store wasn’t closing, I could have been there until sunrise.

Definitely, what a day! Knowing that it happened only for less than 12 hours, I already had a lot of things to remember. I met my old friends. In fact, I thought I won’t be meeting them if I just didn’t have enough powers to convince them. Still, this day, which is Saturday and not Friday, is definitely one of the days which I won’t ever forget.

Professor X. He usually appears by this name in forums and blogs. Sir Ex is simply the formal type of instructor. With his aura which tends the Freshmen (and Sophies?) to shake on with their knees as soon as he stands by in front of the class, the sound of his voice reminding everyone around him, "Fear me! Fear me!", and the praises Karlo and Jopal always show to him, "Hail! Exander the Great!", no doubt, he’s become one of the most respected instructors in UIC.

It was when Sir Ex and the UIC Programming Team went to Manila for a National Programming Competition, I discovered, that he’s not that serious all the time. He seldom smile, only when he shoots himself for a solo photo. In fact, whenever he’s with the team everytime we stroll by the streets, he always feel unsteady and always wanted to make sure that each one of us won’t make a single mistake. He’s concerned about what we’ll talk about, and how we’ll have our conversations in front of the public. This is probably because we usually make use of our native language. He must have thought, "guys, we’re in Manila, I beg of you (sighs in shame)". Anyway, who cares? Aldred and Karlo never bothered. We just wanted to be ourselves. But of course, I won’t blame Sir Ex for that, even I, sometimes wanted to feel uncomfortable of speaking in Filipino, just to act as if we’re from that place.

I bet Sir Ex did have a lot of fun when we were on some place in the North, especially when we visited the Enchanted Kingdom in Laguna. There were a lot of sights to see and a lot of rides to enjoy. And I think, he just had a heck of an excitement after everyone decided to ride on the "Anchor’s Away!".  We ran through the big boat as quick as we can, making sure no one’s getting late for the next trip. I was very excited, and the same with Sir Ex and the team. He even had the guts to sit down in the far right side of the ship. He must have thought he’d get a nice view from that seat even though I know it’s going to be a very bumpy ride. At first, there were just soft and slight swings. And next, there were light yet a bit quicker sways, then it went faster and faster. Then finally, a huge wave followed that the ship flew at almost 90 degrees. It was when that time, Sir Ex yelled, "Jooppzz! Tama na Jooopzz!!" And it seemed that the operators never heard him scream so the ship soared higher and higher that Sir almost waived his white flag while leaning towards Jopal’s shoulders at the same time, preventing himself to have even a slight look at his most wished for sights. Well, I can sympathize to his plead, but I can’t help myself laughing, and even assured that I’ll take one photo as a proof of his excitement.

Anyway, I know he’ll hate me if I’ll let everyone know about his bloopers, so to balance this featured post with the shames and the show-offs, let me mention to you these stuffs: I salute his strong will and perseverance. These are the qualities I’d always look for from a professor. He definitely knows what "job" and "profession" means. A task is a task, and he’ll do it no matter what. Just like our previously featured friend possess, they have common personalities which makes me feel like getting well along with them.

I have to admit, when Sir claimed he’d leave UIC before the next semester comes, I thought about what could happen to our program? I wonder if students would accept the reality that he also have the freedom to go on his way and pursue his happiness. For me, I’d say, "you can go on sir, I understand", but for many, "please, don’t go, we need you". But it all depends on him. I can relate with situations such as these. I don’t want to end up regretting every decision I have to make. But still, I’m happy. Especially when I got the news, Sir will be staying for another whole semester. I could have missed the scent of the perfume he always wear. I could have thought I won’t be able to hear again those silly jokes he wanted me to believe, but I never believed. And most of all, I would have a hard time missing those grades he always love to give to his students.

You might ask why I’m writing this article now. Actually, Sir Ex just PMed me last night that he and his co-faculties would be leaving to Baguio for a retreat. So, like you’re thinking as of now, he won’t be able to read this post until he comes back home here in Davao. Probably, they’ll be back next week, and a week is just enough time for this post to circulate. So guys, would you let this opportunity set off without shouting out what you always wanted to tell him? Thanks and have a nice school comeback!

You might be wondering how these transport strikes affect our economy. You might ask why there is a chance that whatever these transport groups plead to the government, they can be granted with their requests. The truth is, the government fears if there’d be no public vehicles roaming around the streets travelling their routes. Why? Well, here’s an explanation:

The reason is simple: You’d notice that for every transport strike, it would cost a forced holiday. Since majority of the workers commute through public vehicles, then there’d be no way they can proceed to their respective offices. This just simply means, that if there’d be no work on a working day, then there’d definitely be less income (if not, then maybe none) for that certain day. In the view of the economists, this is already a struggle for the national economy. Imagine a country, losing even just a fraction of a probable income, there’d be less funds for different government expenditures.

Well I mentioned above that a single day transport strike means losing daily regional income, imagine if the strike would have to continue in a longer duration, perhaps one week, plus the fact that all transport groups nationwide would have to think in common (National Transport Strike), what will happen to our economy? Take a look at this mini-research I’ve got here:

According to the National Statistics Office (NSO):

Current population as of 2007 is approximately 88.6 Million.
Unemployment rate is 7.4%.

So this means, 92.6% of the total population are earning. That is about 82 Million Filipinos.

Current GDP of our country is P 1,911.3 Billion.

We assume that there are 360 days per year, so this means, we have a national daily income of P 5.3 Million.

35~40% of the total population owns a vehicle. [source].

So, 60~65% don’t have any. This also means that there are about 60% of the working population depend on public vehicles to commute to their offices. That is about 49.2 Million Filipinos (more than half of the total population).

Take out by average income to be lost per day:

P 5,300,000.00 x 60% = P 3,180,000.00

This amount would turn out to be only a slight fraction of our annual national income, but it’s already a great loss of our national economy. Suppose, with the above condition that the strike would be for 1 whole working week, then we’ve already lost the probable P 15 Million income. Well I wouldn’t wonder if the ones who’d hear out these drivers first are the congressmen, major politicians, and especially the people in the Bureau of Internal Revenues (BIR). It’d cost them to suck out less money from our taxes.

Anyway, if the scene would have to stay for a week, then it would also be a burden to the strikers’ part. They are in the poverty class, which means, a day without work would be half a day without meal. That is why, there are still lots of drivers who can’t afford to cooperate with whatever events the major transport groups have to initiate. Well, this is life. We’ve been governed by a mistake. But this does not mean they are all to blame. Remember, we were the ones who decided who has to be in power. If we just exercised properly our right to suffrage, then we could have lived in a better economy.

Guys I’m finally back online. After almost 2 weeks waiting like hell for our PLDT MYDSL to be reconnected, I can now once again update my blogs and do some online stuffs at home. And whaddya know, after spending my Php 2,300 for the reconnection cost, this is what I found out:

Actually, it says in their website that the speed Plan 999.00 offers is up to 1.0 Mbps, that is about 1024 Kbps. But the speed test above (both downloads and uploads) shows that my current DSL speed has been cut down up to almost 18 times. Yeah, after learning that you have to yell at one of PLDT’s staffs by phone just to follow-up the reconnection process, plus the fact that Php 2.3k is an advance payment that has to be billed next week, the speed of the internet really sucks! I don’t know if PLDT is just too confident that they lead among their competitors, or perhaps they are just too busy upgrading their systems, but it seems to be that they don’t even care how their clients would react to their services. It took us 5 times to call them, and include the last one (my brother’s friend who yelled at some PLDT officer), and they kept on saying that they are working on reconnecting the lines.

Anyway, I hope you’d still congratulate me with my speed, even though PLDT doesn’t care their clients could be bloggers. But still, if you would like to apply for a DSL Connection at PLDT MyDSL, then I’d be glad to introduce to you their website at PLDTDSL.com, and welcome to our community.