Too Much Politics

     It's ten days or so before filing of candidacy for May 2025 election but politicians have started the ball rolling. Several potential candidates for senators have aired their ads on TV since last month The Commission on Elections cannot do anything about it, it seems. The trapos (traditional politicians) are like having a feast.

     It's saddening how much they try to portray how much they've done for the country but it's all words and the lives of the ordinary man remains the same. There is so much poverty in the countryside yet politicians are busy with their scoring points to get the masses' support come election time.

     What is even more saddening is the return of the Marcoses and Romualdezes into power and their perpetration of old ways of politics not different from the politics of the Marcos-Imelda era. 

     The Romualdezes are using government agencies like the DSWD to dole out cash incentives to the masses. I am so perplexed because initially I thought they are giving out the monetary based on their plan, later I found out all of them are existing programs of MSWD and they are abusing them to their advantage. The poor masses think they are able to receive because of them, without any idea that they are actually existing programs of DSWD. If only following to the letter, anybody can go and apply at DSWD. What they did is organize MSWD to dole out in the countryside with their names and party list prominently displayed.

     I was listed as recipient of a certain monetary incentive, which later I found out is a DSWD program for former OFWs. I went to receive not knowing it is for ex-OFW which actually aptly suits me, and the speech before giving out the cash, was as if it is an initiative of TINGOG, a Romualdez-led party list. Something is very wrong.

     In May 2025 is the mid-term elections where it is an election for half of the senators, congressmen and all local officials. This is going to be a make or break exercise for the Filipinos. If they elect still the people of the Marcoses and Romualdezes, it is going to continue the downward spiral of this country. If the electorate chooses alternative politicians to eliminate vestiges of the Marcoses and Romualdezes, it will be an action in the right positive direction, hope for the country's future.

Happy Teachers' Month

     It's the month for the teachers, those responsible for nurturing the education of the young before they plunged into bigger roles in the society. My elementary and high school teachers were my foundation. They started my education and molded me to face the struggles up to college.

     I learned my 3R's from my elementary school teachers. They were instrumental in shaping me. Then my high school teachers drew out the best in me. Aw

My teachers growing up

     In my elementary days, if there was a teacher who was instrumental in my educational growth, he was my science teacher in Grades Five and Six. Studying in rural elementary school, he would lend me science encyclopedia. I didn't know why but I would read them cover to cover. Those stock knowledge helped me a lot when I went to high school. It helped me fight the competition from students who were from the city as I was purely educated in the rural school.

The King of Fruits

     I wonder why the Philippines has never been really into eating the king of fruits, durian, like its neighboring ASEAN countries. Thus, when someone who works in the nearby town was given two pieces of durian, they can't eat when they opened one so they decided to give away the other to whoever wanted. I quickly told them I can eat and so they gave me the unopened fruit.

The King of Fruits

     I didn't learn to eat durian from young, as we didn't like the pungent smell for being too offensive to our noses then. During those times, I've not seen any fresh durian fruit. The closest encounter I had was with some local candies that were durian flavored.

     When I moved to Malaysia to work, for three years I never indulged durian eating as a habit, as it was, among the locals, a tradition to feast on durian when in season. Thus I vividly remember my gang had dinner together, and when it's season, they would feast on durian after dinner. I would leave them to go back home and rejoin with them after their durian feast, until one time, they managed to psyché me into eating durian. 

     When I tried it first, I fell in love with the taste. Forget about the aroma but the milky taste, sweet, a tad bitter in some species, is to die for. Since that day I have become a part of their durian session. They taught me how to eat like a pro with bare hands, as well as how to get rid of the smell that sticks to your fingers.