What to Do If a Thief Forces You to Withdraw Money from the ATM

"The Cunning Thief" by Paul Charles Chocarne-Moreau

A public service advice from BPI.

When a thief forces you to take money from the ATM, do not argue or resist. You might not know what he or she might do to you. What you should do is to punch your PIN in the reverse mode. I.e. if your PIN # is 1254, you punch 4521. The moment you punch in the reverse mode, the money will come out, but will be stuck into the machine half way out and it will alert the Police (security) without the notice of the thief. Every ATM has it; it is specially made to signify danger and help. Not everyone is aware of this. Forward this to all your loved ones, friends and those you care about.

I'm not sure how accurately punching in PIN in reverse order works, and I don't want to test it with my ATM then find cops or security personnel ganging up on me. But just in case, the advice might be worth a try. If it doesn't work, poke the mugger in the eye and run like hell.

UPDATE: The "advice" above is a hoax. I knew it was too good to be true, but what was I thinking when I posted it. And what was that BPI security officer thinking in the first place? As it turns out, the best way to deal with an ATM mugger is to poke them in the eye, then kick them in the groin or ram your heel on their shin, and run like hell while screaming for your life.

The Internet Gets Boring Sometimes, But...

Source:xkcd

A Family Tale

Aside from the fact that the writer is an uncle who won this year's Palanca Award for short story for this piece, I am proud of my father's side of the family's background. Whatever strides the family has taken over the decades, nobody forgets their humble beginnings. My generation is a considerably lucky lot.

I have often listened to my grandfather talk about his exploits as a soldier and the harshness of war, especially the Japanese invasion. At 20, he was recruited to the United States Army for the Far East (USAFFE) and was immediately called upon to defend the country when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached the Philippines. He fought in Mt. Samat in Bataan, and from the time that the peninsula fell into the hands of the invaders, he cheated death twice by breaking away from the Bataan Death March near the Pampanga-Tarlac border, all the while suffering from starvation and malaria, with Japanese guards on his heels ready to shoot him and his comrades on sight. Out of the group of seven or so men that left the March, two did not survive.

Years later, Japanese soldiers rounded up every able-bodied male in his town, Victoria, Tarlac, to be tagged as a traitor or conspirator for the Americans by a makapili. Thanks to sheer luck, his former employer, a Japanese intelligence officer who set up a shop in town as a cover, recognized him and asked the Japanese guards to let him go. At that time, he was either working for or had been involved with the guerrilla campaign.

I do not know how he and my grandmother met, but years ago, I discovered a photograph kept by my grandmother in one of the family albums. At the back of the photo was a loving dedication to Lola, dated 1948.

My grandmother, a loving woman around whom the family revolves, is a devout Catholic who still performs certain religious practices that would make the Pope squirm in his frock.

---

Life on the Sierra Madre
- Sigredo R. Iñigo

"You forgot to check the traps," Father was chuckling, shaking his head as he came up from the meadow. He held between his two fingers a tiny feather-covered skeleton; a quail had been caught and gone unnoticed for days and the ants had picked it to the bone. He was not a big man but he could roam by himself through the woods for days with only a box of matches and a sharpened machete.

I was perched on a log on top of an outcrop, watching sundown. I just cut a sackload of sakate grass for Pandora, our carabao, so named after my dog who had died that summer. I had left her half-submerged in a mudhole near the stream below, tethered to a sapling. From our little hut the aroma of rice and vegetables being cooked drifted to our nostrils. Mother had gathered eggplants and bitter gourd and green chili from the field and singkamas leaves from the bank of the stream and these she now boiled in a clay pot, seasoned with fish sauce and topped with the catfish caught in our buho trap which she broiled over the glowing coals. We were in a mountain farm somewhere in the Sierra Madre.

"Supper's ready," Mother finally announced. She was forty and had given birth to five children. I was sixteen, the second to the eldest.

"You better bring the carabao over," Father said.

I returned to the stream in the gathering dusk, but saw no carabao. The sapling to which I had tied its leash had been uprooted. I saw hoofprints beside the creek, going downstream. I should have tied it more securely. Feeling myself guilty as Iscariot, I called Father and told him about it. He came down immediately, and we hurried along to catch the runaway.

Most carabaos - or water buffalo - are tame as dogs, never running away even if left untethered, but a few, like ours, had the nasty habit called ag-garot: left untied it would run for miles like a fugitive. Farmers hated such animals, and I too began hating it as I stumbled repeatedly in the dark, sloshing in the knee-deep water.

II

This was 1970: Father had just retired from the army. He was a master sergeant. Most retirees were content to reminisce about the war, but not my father. With his savings he bought the rights to this homestead. Our folks thought he had been shell-shocked and wanted no part of civilization, but I knew there was something else on his mind: he had grown up in a farm near a forest that teemed with deer and wild boar and python whose bodies grew thicker than coconut trunks; maybe he wanted to relive his younger days.

Mother had tried to dissuade him from retiring; a family with five children could not live decently on a soldier's pension. But he was resolved to leave the barracks for good. For years he had grown bitter serving the army, tired of being ordered around by lieutenants fresh from the military academy, those upstarts who swaggered around like heroes while he, who fought in Bataan and saw his comrades shattered by mortar and cannon, he who walked the hundred miles from Bataan to Tarlac - the Death March - that claimed almost as many lives at those that fell in the battlefield - barely survived on a peon's wages drilling recruits to the ground. Before I was born he went to Korea as part of the Philippine contingent sent there to fight the reds. In Mindanao he fought the mujahideen, those fierce Muslim warriors who wielded the kris, the ancient fire sword that could hack cleanly through rifle and man. After a quarrel in the barracks with a drunken corporal whom he almost shot he packed his bags. His aging comrades waved him through; they never expected to see him again.

III

The homestead lay in a hidden valley up the mountains, so far only a few kaingineros - slash and burn farmers - lived near there, much farther than the tiny village of Mal-lungoy where as a child I used to go on summer vacations, staying in my uncle Ulep's hut. My parents thought I was frail and that life on a farm would make me strong like my cousin Simo who was asthmatic until the mountain air cured his lungs. I remembered mornings when I took the carabaos to pasture with Simo, clinging for dear life to their slippery backs. He always warned me to carry a stick and watch out for the brownish yellow kara-saeng lurking in the tall grass, venomous and deadly. He told me to watch my footing in the swamps lest I step on the dreaded gayung-gayung - quicksand - that could swallow a man and his carabao if he was not careful. On moonlit nights I played hide and seek with other children among the haystacks and the wooden carts.

When I asked my uncle Ulep where the homestead was located, he replied "Just over there" which was a way of speaking among country folks. If you asked them how far it was to the next village they'd say it was "only a little way up there" and you'd better not go unless you're prepared to go on a day-long hike. When I was a kid, my playmates in Mal-lungoy told me that an ocean (the Pacific) lay just across the mountains. Excited, I said I wanted to see it for myself, and proceeded on my little expedition. The other boys followed gamely behind. Perhaps they wanted to see the ocean too and believed I could take them there; I must have looked so determined. "Let's go home," I said after a couple of hours walking. The boys said nothing; they seemed relieved.

The days went so slowly in Mal-lungoy. When my cousin Anton celebrated his birthday, there was much excitement over a dance party in his honour. The yard was swept of debris and splashed with water to keep down the dust. That evening, a single kerosene lamp on a bamboo post illuminated the dance floor. My aunt Binang and my cousin Luzviminda who was fourteen prepared rice cakes and boiled banaba leaves flavoured with molasses to make tea. The girls of the village sat on benches and inverted mortars, barefoot and sunburnt like the men, their long hair glistening with fragrant coconut oil. I watched them dance with the men to the dull rhythm of a guitar that went dyal-dyal teng, dyal-dyal teng, dyal-dyal teng until I fell asleep; the dancing went on till dawn.

IV

I was aghast when my father told me I would have to help him work on the homestead. I was newly graduated from high school. I was itching to join my eldest brother in college and find my destiny. But we were poor, and my parents assured me I would go college like the eldest who was taking up Liberal Arts at Wesleyan. She made it sound like a long vacation.

Everyone in the family had seen the land, been to the mountain as if on a picnic, except myself. Resigned to my fate, that summer while Father was away on some business I went up the mountain with my younger brother Thelmo to help clear the land. We carried scythes with long handles and our food in a rattan basket strapped to our backs. We hiked the first ten miles over trails, skirting the village of Mal-lungoy, and the next ten miles to our homestead. We had to cross a river, which was dangerous during monsoon rains, and we trudged over trails and rice paddies. To take a short cut we had to climb over a mountain ridge: we were breathless when we reached the summit. We were trudging over trail of sun-baked earth when Thelmo called out "Kara-saeng!" and took to his heels; I followed, laughing at him for his cowardice, not believing a snake could ever outrun us. Later in the mountains I would see how the kara-saeng could move like a blur through the grass, and I knew then why some people dreaded it so much.

We were drenched with sweat when we reached the homestead. I saw rolling ground covered with lush cogon. Only six acres and a half, this homestead was, consisting of rolling terrain. Heavy rains have created dry gulches, but the soil, though soft and rich, was sticky as clay, and the thick mat of cogon roots kept it from being washed away. Where a mound of soil had been deposited by rain from the overhanging bank, one could stick a piece of stem cutting from a cassava plant; in a few months, it would grow tubers as thick as a man's thighs. Here the sabawil, a wild vine that bore bean-like fruits, grew in profusion. Its fruits could be cooked with vegetables when fresh; the dried seeds could be ground and brewed like coffee.

My brother and I mowed the cogon all day and went home to Rizal, our town, by sundown. We did not want to spend the night at Mal-lungoy, not wanting to be a burden to anybody. We were more tired from the walking than the mowing. I knew then why the feet of farmers were cracked at the heels. This continued for several days until vacation was over and Thelmo had to stay in town to attend school. All through the remainder of that summer I trekked to the mountain alone, going there at dawn and returning at nightfall, not wishing to be seen by my former classmates who might be returning home for vacation, having enrolled in colleges and universities, pursuing their dreams while I languished in the wild.

V

When my father returned with the carabao - he had bought it for three hundred pesos - he decided it was time to build a hut so we would not have to hike everyday, and Mother could come to help with the cooking and house chores more often. There were plenty of cogon for the roof, and the nearby woods abounded with diverse species of bamboo. For posts Father scoured the forest for the molave, a tree so dense water would not penetrate it even when soaked. My father once hauled a molave trunk that had drifted downstream and fed it straight to the fire; it burned steadily for hours. We gathered rattan vines and cut them into long strips; with these he lashed the beams and rafters to the posts. He spread the cogon evenly over strips of thin bamboo, their roots still intact, until sufficient mats were made for the roofing. With a pole I flung the mats to my father, and he lashed the thick mats of cogon to the rafters, layer upon layer. The sides of the hut were covered with sawali - strips of beaten bamboo woven together, still green; in time they would turn to dull yellow. There was no flooring but the compacted earth. We made a bed and a table out of bamboo which also served as my bed at night. Our utensils consisted of tin plates and spoons, coconut shells for drinking cups, wooden ladles, and fresh banana leaves to cover the table. We sat on a makeshift bench, made of a small log, whose feet were driven to the earthen floor.

Piled high next to our hut was an enormous stack of firewood taken from long dead trees. Everything that we used came from the farm: we drank from coconut shells and ate rice from banana leaves. Our clay pots and the stove itself were made from the strong red clay of the jungle. When going to town or to the woods, Father carried a backpack made of woven rattan. Among his treasured possessions were a stainless steel coffee mug and canteen marked U.S. army. He also kept hidden a .45 pistol and a bayonet, relics of the last war. At times when I strayed far from the farm, he warned me not to shout or I might attract the tulisanes - armed outlaws.

VI

Here in the mountain, native rice is usually sown in mountain slopes, and now Father began tilling the soil in earnest, using an ancient plow to break the soil. He was clumsy at first, not having touched a plow in years, and as the plow went this way and that he cursed the animal, and the fresh mountain air reverberated with his curses.

Mountain soil is rich with centuries of accumulated loam but sticky as gum; chunks of it clung to the passing plow. Underneath the soil were thick mats of cogon roots and hidden boulders that sometimes snapped the plowblade.

The sticky ground finally yielded to the plow and harrow, ready for sowing. Father had obtained a sack of rice seed, the aromatic balatinao, rich and glutinous when cooked, and he soaked it in the stream. A day or two later Mother placed the seeds in baskets and cast them into the broken earth; Father passed the harrow over the soil, covering them.

That night, a soft rain began to fall, lulling us to sleep as we kept thinking of those seeds buried in the sodden earth.

VII

We obtained our drinking water from the stream: with our hands we dug at the sandy bank and waited for the water to gush from the hidden spring. The water that flowed was cold and fresh and clean and tasted of wild roots. I spent my days fishing in the stream, which wound its way up the surrounding hills, ending up in a twenty-foot waterfall. I learned to make fish traps out of bamboo which I placed on flooded rice paddies. To catch quails, I was taught to make tiny fences of twigs in places where the tiny birds pecked for food so they would try to look for a way out. I left a small opening where I put in place a tiny noose. I improvised further, sprinkling a bit of rice on the ground leading to the trap. But you had to be alert for flapping noises or the bird would be strangled to death and rot.

VIII

The balatinao appeared - tiny pale green shoots peeking from the moist earth - a few days after sowing, bright and gay, as if calling on us: "Here we are, look at us, we're coming!" We kept staring at them that morning like kids who have just planted their first garden crop. My parents had a new spring in their steps, clearing more land and planting fruit trees and vegetables. Father tried his hand at carving terraces out of a hillside, although he could not make them perfectly level so that water gathered at their lowest parts; he even dug tiny canals so the rainwater from the top would flow to the new paddies. Mother planted rice seedlings on the soft muddy ground and stocked the flooded portions with edible snails.

I never felt the need for company: I had always been a loner. I had fun building a small dam to make a pond for fish and shrimp. I found I enjoyed taking Pandora to pasture and gathering sakate for her evening meal. I enjoyed building my quail traps, finding more ingenious ways to lure the birds. I was always thrilled to see labuyo nesting in a thicket, or a jungle hornbill perched on a tree limb, or a thin red snake slithering along the bank of a creek. At nightfall when I went to the stream to fetch water, I listened to the chorus of insects from the nearby woods, sonorous and endless, and I imagined the time when no man had ever yet set foot in this place and defiled it.

Have you ever heard of a deafening silence? Here in the mountains the sounds are so muted, the silence so oppressive at times your ears seem to rebel at the absence of sound. Even at noon on a cloudless day during summer one hears nothing except the occasional cawing of a crow, or the vigorous whir of a quail's wings.

IX

In the farms the poor never starved: it was considered the worst sin for a farmer to allow his family to skip meals, for food is all around him to gather, from the ubiquitous malunggay to the lowly saluyot which grew in abundance in the meadows. Along with other greens and sour fruits these are boiled with fish sauce; with a plate of rice these were enough to silence the stomach and enable a peon to keep on working. Here, nobody who is willing to work dies of hunger. Even the old women, stooped and barely able to see, spin cotton thread into cloth and repair mats woven from palm leaves.

In the cities, people might go hungry, but in the country almost everything could be brought to the dining table - snails, crabs, fish, and shrimp from the stream, edible beetles, called abal-abal, which swarmed during the month of May as they emerged from the sandy soil along river banks; cooked with salt and tomatoes it is eaten by squeezing its fat belly into one's mouth. Once a week Father went to the forest to snare labuyo - wild chicken - and I caught fish from the stream and quail from the meadow. But without rice, the native variety, which is white and fluffy and aromatic when cooked, a man would not be able to work. A man's social status is determined by the size of his granary. Thus, a town's tradition and culture revolved around rice, which we called in reverence "Apo Innapoy." Rice was the staff of life, the thing for which we have come to work with our hands in this forgotten wilderness.

X

Our first harvest came in the month of November as the nights became longer and the cold easterly wind began to blow. The morning sun revealed the balatinao in all its glory, wearing its precious crown, the clusters of seeds dangling heavily from each stalk, shimmering in undulating waves, cascades upon cascades of golden grain, ready for the reaping. With scythes we began amputating the stalks, leaving the sheaves exposed to the sun. We reaped till dusk while the earth and the sundered stalks smelled sweetly, and the chilly breeze refreshed us. The next morning we allowed the sheaves to dry some more, then gathered them in the afternoon. By nightfall we had a mandala - a pile of sheaves seven feet high, our trophy after six months of toil.

We did the threshing by moonlight, pounding the sheaves against a wooden frame over a mat spread on the ground to catch the falling grain. Father had planted a small portion of the farm to glutinous rice, the variety used to make rice cakes and pinipig: fragrant and sweetish rice treat made by roasting fresh unhusked grain and pounding them over mortar and pestle. Mother picked a handful of the grain and made pinipig for us. We ate the rice and drank coffee brewed with ground roasted peanuts and newly harvested sugar cane molasses. Father loaded our harvest on a borrowed cart the following day, making two trips to town.

XI

That summer following our first harvest I stayed in our farm most of the time, seldom visiting town. I spent most days hunting for quail in the meadows and fishing at the waterfall. This land had become my Shangri-La. Here I could sit for hours and not feel bored, gazing at the green stillness, inhaling the earth's breath, drinking in the sunshine.

On afternoons I would sit over an outcrop contemplating the land, and I began thinking how, if I were Father, it could be improved. First, I would have to build better rice terraces so that the land would not be eroded by rains. I could bring down water from the waterfall using bamboo pipes to irrigate my paddies. I could catch rainwater by damming the gulches, and raise fish in the ponds formed by the rains. I could plant a grove of coconuts and mangoes and coffee where it was not possible to build rice paddies. I could bring some animals over here, like pigs and poultry. I could build a herd of cows as the grass here was plentiful. The only question was the absence of roads to take our produce to town, but I was sure there had to be a solution.

In time I realized I could stay here all my life like the few people I had seen who dwelt in far-away huts. To wake up each day to the call of birds, to watch the daybreak over the Sierra Madre, to admire the work of your own hands - won't those be enough for a person to be happy all his life?

XII

We had been running for sometime when Father stopped and hurried back to our hut to get a flashlight. The hoofprints we were following had vanished. I was left alone sobbing in exhaustion, hating the runaway that had ruined our evening. During the next two hours upon his return we went around the distant farms, wary of the fierce dogs that rushed upon us. The folks were courteous; they saw no animal. They probably did not tell us they were worried the runaway would go over their farms and trample the sprouting grain. We returned to our hut in silence. Mother had been worried so much, knowing I was hungry and probably had been scolded repeatedly. That night I dreamed of myself pursuing the beast until I overtook it, and I was so happy to take it back I promised not to beat it anymore for having ran away. Dawn came and again Father and I visited farmers around, inquiring, but none had seen our buffalo. Worse, rain had fallen the previous night, erasing most tracks. We hunted in all directions until nightfall. Father was worried the animal's leash, which was tied to a rope to allow it to graze, might get snagged in some rock; left under the sun, the animal would die of thirst.

To cover more ground (although in reality I wanted to avoid Father) I volunteered to go on a separate hunt. Until that time I had been afraid to walk through the dense cogon, dreading the kara-saeng, or slosh through the muddy ground, wary of quicksand, but now I flung myself into the search as if our life depended on it, feeling envious at the farmers I passed by who seemed leisurely plowing their bit of land while ours lay unattended. I recalled how my cousin Ofreng came to our house in town one night when I was ten, looking for a lost carabao. I did not give it much thought at that time, but now I suddenly recall he had come all the way from his hometown in the province of Pangasinan, a hundred miles away.

Cautiously I entered the jungle, faintly hoping to find the animal in its gloomy depths. I followed a mountain stream where silvery fish with long bristles frolicked on the surface. In the forest depths you could sense an unheard bidding to be silent, as when you enter a cavernous cathedral. I looked up furtively at the overhanging branches for pythons that might be lying in wait. I followed the stream, but when it forked and branched I turned back at once, afraid I would get lost. I began to dread this wilderness which had suddenly became hostile, strange, watching, deadly.

XIII

That night, Mother and Father spoke softly so I would not hear, but in the mountain the tiniest whispers had a way of being heard. Father suspected somebody had stolen the carabao, which seemed unlikely, but perhaps he only wanted to lay the blame on somebody else. He cleaned the .45 that evening and loaded it, hiding it under the canvas bag that was their pillow. Perhaps he was tired of blaming me for my carelessness. What would you expect of a boy unused to the harsh life of the mountain farm? As I drifted off to sleep, I heard Father saying he was through: he wanted to return to town. "Just like that?" Mother was saying, with sarcasm. She had been silent since the animal ran away, but now all the bitterness came out.

A quiet, strong woman, she served as nurse to sick and wounded guerrillas who fought the Japanese during the war, applying ground sulfathiazole tablets on wounds to fight infection and bandages made from clean strips of cotton shirts. Looking back now, I can understand why Mother wanted so much to succeed in our little farm. In town we had no house of our own, our family staying with my grandfather in his old house, and she wanted to do something for a change, not to be dependent on his measly pension. When times were hard, she was not ashamed to go planting rice with the peasants, her legs buried in mud to the knees all day, stooped and bent, just to earn a few pesos to buy us rice.

XIV

When I arrived at the hut that evening, Mother had gone to consult some seer in town. Father spoke very little, which made me nervous. I woke up very early in the morning, drank a little coffee and went off in search of Pandora.

As I hiked through the outlying farms, seeing the abandoned huts, the barren fields, the monotonous vista of rolling cogon-covered land, I saw my plans to develop my Shangri-La fade away. In my mind I saw the people of Mal-lungoy, unlettered peasants who had migrated from the scorched plains of the North, frugal and industrious, scrupulously picking up every grain of rice spilled on the ground, every bit falling from their plate as they sat hunched on their squat tables. I saw them clearing the land of trees, carving terraces out of the mountainsides. But rice plants needed a lot of water, and without rains the paddies dried up, the crops often withered and died. The people hoped for rain, prayed for rain. The land was a god that demanded constant servitude, and a young man in the peak of health, able to carry three sackloads of rice on his shoulders for a mile could be a mere bag of bones by the time he was fifty. My cousin Pidot died when he was seven, bitten by a kara-saeng as he took a carabao to pasture. In the years to come, his brothers Anton and Simo would join the army in search of a new life, to run away from the harsh god that was Mal-lungoy.

But for the old-timers who had forsaken the lowlands, Mal-lungoy was a sanctuary from the landowners who in the lowlands always demanded the greater share of harvest - the rich and pampered fools who never even pulled a weed out of the rice fields, who did nothing but strut around town in their embroidered ternos, covering their noses at the smell of the labourers returning from the fields - the wretched of the earth who plowed and harrowed the fields from dawn till dusk - turned grey over the years as did their forefathers before them. Here in the mountains no landlord could grab the land they had hewed painstakingly from the virgin forest, and if anyone would be foolhardy to dare try, every farm hand always carried a bolo, and the mountains could be a stronghold to the oppressed.

I wanted no more to be part of this forgotten land. I resolved to tell Father about my plan to enrol the next summer, to work for my tuition if necessary.

I searched through the afternoon till dusk. Spent and hungry, I arrived at the hut where Father was cooking supper. He had a most pleasant look on his face. Then I saw Pandora tied to a tree, munching sakate grass.

XV

The buffalo had been caught in a village some ten kilometres from our hut, and Father had to pay for the damage it caused to some farms. I went to town early the following morning to tell Mother the good news. She had just attended mass, and I kissed her hand in respect. The seer had told her the carabao had gone west, taken by cattle rustlers most probably, and west pointed to the town of San Jose; thither she was about to go that day to plead with the mayor for his intercession with the bandits. As I told her about Pandora's return, she just sat there, a thin veil on her shoulders, saying nothing, but her eyes were misty. She patted my head, smiling.

XVI

I went to college that December after our crop was harvested. Father almost got killed when a band of tulisanes barged into our hut one night while I was away, but he managed to escape, firing at them with his .45 as he ran. Armed with old rifles, the bandits did not pursue but Father knew they would be back and he returned with Pandora to town the following day.

Two years later, Marcos declared martial law, and the mountains around Mal-lungoy as in many other parts of the country became the refuge of youthful rebels who believed in the worthiness of their cause. Here they roamed at will visiting huts and befriending the farmers. They enforced vigilante justice in villages, meting death to even petty criminals until nobody would dare touch even a sheaf of rice or a hoe left lying in the field. In time government troops went after them, and the terrified homesteaders left their farms for Mal-lungoy where a detachment of soldiers was permanently assigned.

My Shangri-La had become no man's land.

Not long ago I found the courage to go there. I found our hut still intact, though the roof was in tatters, but an angry gecko was now its tenant. The cogon had grown tall and lush. The stream was dry. It was noon on a summer day when I arrived; there was a cloudless sky.

And a deafening silence.

Oi Balls! I want the ATP Tour Masters 1000 on TV

Because Balls Channel is not airing Cincinnati this year, post-game torrenting and Youtube highlights are all I rely on. Why don't they show the tournament when my manok is doing well?

The last time I watched Cincy Open, Fed lost to Karlovic in fourth round and his top ranking. This year, there is something different in the air. Federer won the semifinals match vs. Andy Murray last night in straight sets 6-2, 7-6(8).

As Jessica Zafra blogged, of all our obsessions, Federer is the least disappointing. I agree. Bless his heart, may he get his third Cincy title this year.

UPDATE:
Federer captured his 16th Masters Tour 1000 title in Cincinnati by serving breadstick to Novak Djokovic, 6-1, 7-5.

Book Blockade of 2009 is still in effect

Book burning by Nazis in 1933

Check this message published by PDI last Friday:

On May 29 one reader of my blog, Dondi Imperial, was assessed customs fees for three books he ordered from abroad. In early June he was told to apply for a customs exemption if he didn’t want to pay the assessed taxes. Things dragged on in the following manner:

"My dad volunteered to go to the DOF to apply for the exemption. The first time he went, they said to come back another day because the person who signs these documents was not there. When he told me of this, I told him that maybe it was better for me to just pay whatever the customs official was charging me but he refused and went back another time. They made him wait for over half a day and on top of that charged him P200 for what the receipt says is ‘FF’ (who knows what that is?). He had to photocopy a few documents and asked where the machine was. The person he asked had someone take him to the photocopier and said, ‘Ikaw na bahala sa kanya.’ The photocopier was about 20 feet away.

“In the end with the certificates from the DOF in hand the post office still charged a total of P515: BIR taxes-P15; Proceeds-Auction Sale (the letters IPF are written beside this line)-P250; Miscellaneous (the letters CDS are written beside this line)- P250

“So P500 + P200 + over a day and a half of my dad’s time + the cost of gasoline for two drives both ways from Parañaque to the DOF.”

And a comment posted by a friend who sent books to her husband from Ireland:

Nabiktima na din ako/Paul neto e (my book but Paul had to claim it). He refused to pay the tax and told the post office na they can keep the book na lang. Hiningan na lang sya ng whatever na mabibigay nyang pera. (The people at the post office asked him for whatever amount he could give [just so they could dispose the book].)

When I dropped by the Makati Post Office to claim a parcel the other day, a guy next to me who was picking up three books was asked to cough up P1,200. He said he thought that there was no taxation on books anymore, but the man in charge of disposing parcels told him the order from Malacanang to stop taxation on books had been lifted and gave him a copy of the new order, where Arroyo yet again reneged on her word, passed in June. A long discussion over the phone ensued because it turned out that the guy was only picking up the books for someone else.

Based on these examples and my experiences, here are a number of tips:

1. Haggle. Just because the people at the counter told you to pay thousands of pesos on personal items that family members or friends from abroad sent you doesn't mean that you have to cough up the same amount. Ninety percent of the time, the post office people give you "guesstimates" of the values of your parcel, so why line their pockets? Tell them you don't have the money (because most likely, you really don't). Tell them the items in the parcel are not new.
   
2. Threaten. Tell them they could shove the books up their sorry a--es. They are not interested in books, and keeping the tomes in the warehouse is a lot of hassle for these people, so chances are they will ask you to pay whatever amount you are willing to give just so they could dispose those worthless things that take a lot of space.
   
3. Look humble. There is an advantage in dropping by the PO looking like you traveled all the way from the far corners of Metro Manila on foot. I managed to look harassed the other day. The man on the counter gave just one glance and immediately disposed my parcel after asking for a measly 35-peso handling fee for the stuff that cost P3,000+. Read: No effing taxes. On the other hand, the guy beside me looked like he had just stepped out of a spa. Sure, looks matters, but in this example, there is a bonus for looking like you had camped out for days to get a spot in the audience section of a Wowowee anniversary show. A fashionista friend picked up a pair of lingerie worth P1,600 one time and she was asked to pay up P800. No receipt was given.
4. Capture. If the person on the counter tells you to pay suspiciously too much and/or unnecessary dues on your parcels, especially books, tell them to smile for the camera phone because if it turns out that they are lying, their faces will be all over the blogs, social networks, and Twitpics.
   

But the real issue is: The smarty pants among us have to pay taxes on books because the Department of Finance is scrounging for extra cash, while some twat in the palace makes toma in New York on $500-per-bottle wines. Amp!

Federbear is here

Ayeee! After five weeks of waiting, the claim stub for my Tennis Warehouse package arrived yesterday. Inside was the cute "Federbear" beanie baby bear and a white cotton shirt with gold monograms. Don't ask who; it should be a dead giveaway. The shirt is a tad bigger than my size since it's a men's shirt, but that's okay, I can have it fixed. I think.

Part of the Beanie's proceeds goes to charity, so buying the Federbear is a good way of splurging on something that on the outset looks inconsequential. But ja! I want to join UNICEF's effort to promote world peace and feed hungry children everywhere. There are millions of starving children in the Philippines alone because of runaway pro-creation among irresponsible and/or ignorant parents. Anyway, Mr. Bean is not the only one allowed to keep a teddy bear all the time. Plus, there are tennis champions who also advocate world peace, not just inspire online retail therapies.

Wanna Watch: Legion

I don't have high hopes for the quality of this film, but I'd like to see some action thriller flick that does not involve robots and inter-galactic battles for a change. Judging by the comments on Youtube, however, this film will incite inter-galactic flame wars among the religious, non-believers, and those who are only there to enjoy a good flick, dogma notwithstanding. Legion of course smells of Constantine (which I enjoyed watching in spite of Keanu Reeves) although it is set in some remote small-town with small-town folks fighting off legions of angels instead of half-breeds with only their guns and archangel Michael.

Moreover, I'd like to see a movie that has Paul Bettany in it as a main character. I think this guy is one of the most talented but very under-appreciated actors in Hollywood. I liked him as that doctor in Master and Commander, the tennis pro in Wimbledon (even enjoyed it!), and as the freaky albino Silas in The Da Vinci Code. However, his character in Legion will have worked better for me if the make-up team left his hair alone. In an attempt to make him edgy, they forgot that he was playing an angel for which his super white super blond looks should have been perfect.

Hello...tech support ma'am? Listen and weep

Oh my Holy G! This is what happens when you field out people without (1) proper screening and (2) proper training. Remember that in outsourcing, it is not just headcount alone that matters, but also the quality of people in your team.

It's not the technical support guy's fault that he's an idiot who happened to have been handed a job that required analytical and verbal communication skills, and for which he was obviously ill-equipped. At least, it was not his fault entirely; the guy needed work and call centers are lifelines to thousands of people on this part of the world.

What is at fault here is the outsourcing firm that employed him and allowed him to hold court without the necessary preparations. And to be honest, this is a good example of why we should quit calling people "sir" or "ma'am," and for older people or people of higher positions to stop expecting others to address them as such. There is a fine line between providing good customer service and servitude.

It's the same guys every week

Federer is back to number 1 by winning Wimbledon, while Nadal slips to number 3 by failing to reach the semi-finals of Rogers Cup last week.

NY Times' tennis blog, Straight Sets muses on the level and intensity of the sport's top players. By quarterfinals of last week's Rogers Cup, all top 8 players were the only ones remaining.

Beyond the considerable shadow cast by the two greatest players of their generation, the rest of the top 10 remains deep and dangerous. Perhaps not since the days of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, among others, has there been so much talent clustered at the top of men’s tennis.

“This is as deep as the men’s game has been since the early ’80s,” said Larry Stefanki, a coach and pro for 30 years. “This is as good as I’ve seen it. You have 10 guys every week challenging for titles.”

I'm kind of deprived of tennis TV, thanks to Balls' choosing boring WTA over ATP, so I'm relying mostly on online feeds. Read the rest of the story: "An Era Defined by More Power, More Speed and Unmatched Depth"

On another note, Nike compliments Federer by adding twin baby figures on his US Open shoes.

Seat-All-You-Can

Malacañang cancelled the order for a P1.2-billion "presidential jet" that would have alleviated worries that riding in a civilian airplane "poses high-security risk that may jeopardize life and limb of the President." As if that wasn't exactly what Filipinos wanted Macapagal-Arroyo to do.

Here's a nice tip to Malacanang, courtesy of Philippine Airlines.

This is a slap in the face of local carriers that have enormously helped local and regional tourism prosper by providing affordable rates so Filipinos could travel to various destinations in the country and Southeast Asia. What does Arroyo think makes her different from the rest of us? Oh yes--a $20,000 feast for a "working visit" to the US. Using tax payers' money. Maybe Lucio Tan and the Gokongweis should not make any contributions to the campaign funds of Arroyo or her party. Hindi daw safe ang eroplano ninyo.

Source: Jet purchase too ambitious for leader of a poor nation (PDI)

UPDATE:

I have just found the best airplane for La Presidentita:

Thirty-Two

Birthday cake by Bluenettle

"To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguing obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence.

"Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic leve. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't actuall care about you--indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive...Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarching impulse: to keep you you.

"The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting--fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to beo ther things. And that's it for you.

"Still, you may rejoice that it happens at all. Generally speaking in the universe it doesn't, so far as we can tell. This is decidedly odd because the atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere. Whatever else it may be, at te level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen a little calcium, a dash of sulfur, a light dusting of other ordinary elements--nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary drugstore--and that's all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life."

--Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.

Arroyo and friends' dinner in NYC cost $20,000

From today's New York Post. So is this where Filipinos' taxes go when Gloria goes on an R&R in the Big Apple? By god, that goblin is shameless.

THE economic downturn hasn't persuaded everyone to pinch pennies. Philippines President Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was at Le Cirque the other night with a large entourage enjoying the good life, even though the former comptroller of her country's armed services, Carlos Garcia, was found guilty earlier this year of perjury and two of his sons were arrested in the US on bulk cash-smuggling charges. Macapagal-Arroyo ordered several bottles of very expensive wine, pushing the dinner tab up to $20,000.

UPDATE: Inquirer picked up the story:

"The purported menu included caviar; such appetizers as lobster salad, wild burgundy escargot and soft shell crab tempura; main courses of black cod, halibut, Dover sole, saddle of lamb and prime dry-aged strip steak; and Krug champagne at $510 a bottle." More on Inquirer.net.

Arroyo's people at Malacanang explained that the bill was footed by Congressman Martin Romualdez from Leyte, who unfortunately could not be reached for comments because he was busy. Ipabayad daw ba sa bayan ang paglamon at pag-toma sa New York.

When Vic and Joey Sniped at Willie

It all began with the infamous clip of Willie Revillame in his noontime rubbish-fest Wowowee where he yet again managed to sink lower by telling his technical crew to remove the live feed of President Cory Aquino's cortege on its way to the Manila Cathedral, off the screen. Apparently, he didn't want to share screen space with the former president.

How none among the top execs at ABS reacted soon enough to the boo-boo and restored the live feed is baffling. Didn't Willie and ABS-CBN executives know that they would not have a media business to speak of if it were not for Cory Aquino and what she fought for? What a way to repay the person that handed you bread and butter.



At yesterday's Eat Bulaga, Joey De Leon and Vic Sotto made a swipe at the controversial host.



It's okay to be frank, but don't be rude. I guess that TV viewers have been waiting for De Leon's reaction on the incident, and boy, they were not let down. Willie "apologized" on Thursday about the incident, but heaven knows he did it only to appease TV viewers instead of express remorse over his actions.

A Willie Revillame Haters group was created on Facebook (everyone is free to join) and an online petition was published to remove Revillame from Wowowee and if at all possible, from ABS-CBN and off our screens for good. Let's hope advertisers will heed the call. Feel free to sign.


Side note: I'm not too pleased about using Ruby as an excuse to utter the word baboy (pig), which clearly referred to Willie Revillame. Do Vic and Joey have a thing against fat people?

Damn Good Woman!

This is the eulogy that Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist and formerly ardent critic, Conrado De Quiros, gave at last night's necrological services for President Corazon Aquino.

I’ve written a good many things about Cory this past couple of weeks. I guess it’s time I got a little more personal.

I wasn’t an ardent fan of Cory at the beginning, I was an ardent critic. I came from the ranks of the red rather than the yellow, and looked at the world from the prism of that color. It got so that in one program Kris Aquino invited me to (I don’t know if she remembers this), she took me to task for it. It was an Independence Day show, and during one break, Kris turned to me and said: “Why are you so mean to my mom?”

I was, to put it mildly, taken aback. It’s not easy finding a clever answer to an accusation like that put with breathtaking candor. I just flashed what I thought would be a disarming smile. I don’t know if it disarmed.

What can I say? Maybe I’m just naturally mean. Or maybe I just say what I mean and mean what I say.

Years later, when the world had turned, and not for the better, I got an unexpected phone call. Cory was at the other end, which awed me. She said she was calling just to express her appreciation for something I had written about her. I do not now recall what it was. What I recall was mumbling something about not being the best person to say those things in light of what I had been saying before. She said that wasn’t true: I was the best person to say those things because of what I had been saying before.

I appreciated the appreciation.

Still years later, I would have cause to appreciate yet one more thing. That was February this year when, from out of the blue, Cory visited at the wake of my mother. I did not bother to ask, “Why are you so kind to my mom?” I knew by then it was her nature to be so.

She stayed for about an hour, and did much of the talking. Boy, could she talk! I didn’t know that before. But I’ve always been a good listener. She talked, I listened. What we talked about is best left for another time. But afterward, I thought: What strange directions life takes. What strange forks, detours, and crossings life takes.

I’ve seen activists who began by serving the people, or exhorting the world to, end up serving only themselves. And I’ve seen students who thought only of saving their families end up saving the world, or trying to. I’ve seen the best and the brightest turn only into the worst and greediest. And I’ve seen someone who was walang alam, or who was made out to be so, teach the world a thing or two about honor and courage and grace.

Maybe it’s not so strange that people who start out being enemies on grounds of principle end up being friends on those same grounds. And people who start out being friends without principle end up being enemies on that same ground.

I wondered, like someone who had come back to where he started and saw the place for the first time: Maybe colors are there to unite us more than separate us. Maybe red is just the blood that pulses in the veins in love and war. Maybe yellow is just the pages of a letter from a loved one that magically bring him back to life. Maybe blue is just the sky, however cloudy, when looked at through the bars of a prison cell. Maybe green is just fields promising plenitude. Maybe black is just the tangle of our fate, the twists and turns of our life, as we grope our way forward. Maybe white is just the grace to push on, amid the darkness.

I wondered with the wisdom of innocence and the naivete of age: Maybe we’re divided only into good people and bad people. How people are so, or become so, I’ll leave others to divine. Maybe they are just born that way, maybe like scorpions they sting because it is in their nature to sting. Or maybe they are made that way, as much by the circumstances that mold their character as their character that molds their circumstances. But bad people are there; we know that only too well. Just as well, good people are there too; we know that even more so.

We know the latter because we had someone walk with us who was so. Someone who was so disinterested in power she accepted it gravely as a matter of duty and gave it up gracefully as a matter of trust, for which she remains an awesome force even in death. Someone who, while she lived, showered not very small kindnesses on others in their hour of need or bereavement, having known bereavement herself and the comfort of empathy as much as the empathy of comfort, for which she continues to live with us even in death. Someone who proved once before as Joan of Arc and who will prove once again like El Cid the terrifying and wondrously prophetic vision of her faith: The exalted shall be humbled and the humble exalted.

In life and in death, Cory has been—pardon my French—one damn good person.

Good persons of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your bane.

---

Two more very good and touching eulogies were those by Teddy Locsin and Mel Mamaril.

From Teddy Boy Locsin, Cory Aquino's former speech writer:

Because she doubted my capacity for self-reformation, she made it effortless for me by being herself. I did not notice that I was doing right by serving a woman who never did wrong. I am not sure how to take this moral self-discovery. It is so unlike myself. But if it will bring me before her again, I am happy.

More on Jessica Zafra's blog.

To me, the most touching eulogy was that of Cory's close-in security of 23 years, Mel Mamaril. After his eulogy, he gave the flag-draped coffin of "Ma'am Cory" a salute for the last time.

Inspector Mel Mamaril, Aquino’s security detail, recalled one afternoon, in 1998, shortly after she had become Citizen Cory, “we arrived at her home after coming from her painting lessons in Forbes Park, Makati.” When they arrived, there was no food for the household help and Cory prepared the food and served them herself.

“She takes care of people around her no matter how big or small. She didn’t treat us like employees but she treated us like a mother who took care of her children.”

Even when she was very sick, Cory “was always very concerned about us,” he said. (Business Mirror)

"Nahihirapan na nga sa kanyang sakit, kami pa rin ang iniisip."

Watching Cory Aquino's funeral convoy on Buendia

Yesterday, I witnessed a piece of history. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined--nay, flocked to--the streets to get a glimpse of Cory's funeral convoy on its way to the Manila Cathedral. Yellow ribbons and confetti rained on the scene, and people flashed Cory's L sign, which many had forgotten about in the years following the EDSA People Power revolt.

Hers was not a perfect presidency. But given the challenges she had to deal with, it was even surprising that she managed to survive those turbulent six years at all. Cory Aquino was, and is, one of the most loved presidents in Philippine history. Filipinos are a deeply divided bunch. But even in her passing, Cory still managed to unite the country.




Photo by Wengee Bayhon

As always, there are a number of politicians who couldn't help but take advantage of the affair for free election publicity. The Binays just lost my vote.


Naman Jun-Jun. Huwag ka muna magpa-photo-op.