On January 18, 2011, a new ordinance took effect in the city of Muntinlupa, banning the use of plastic bags in malls, supermarkets, and other business establishments. Muntinlupa is the first city in the Philippines to ban the use of plastic bags in business establishments, joining cities such as San Francisco, Mexico City, and even Bangladesh in this effort. Ever since the unprecedented and severe flooding brought on by Typhoon Ondoy last year, we Filipinos had no choice but to experience for ourselves and realize first-hand just how much discarded plastic bags have contributed to the disastrous deluge that overwhelmed the metro. Just get a load of the photo on the right (courtesy of http://manilareview.wordpress.com/tag/typhoon-ondoy/) and you'll understand how vital it is we get onboard the plastic-bag-ban bandwagon!
In a pioneering effort to help make Muntinlupa almost ‘carrier neutral’ by removing all single-use plastic bags from its stores and check-outs, City Ordinance #10-109 prohibits the use of plastic bags as packing materials for dry goods, and as primary packing materials for wet goods such as fish, poultry and meat. The ordinance covers "sando bags", pouches, plastic shopping bags and plastic film bags, as well as styrofoam or styropor materials such as disposable food containers, cups, plates and the like.
Although there had been signs posted at supermarkets' cashier counters for months previous to the ordinance's implementation, there are still many shoppers caught off-guard, without their personal shopping bags, and in a quandary wondering how they will carry all their purchases, especially the meats and fish that they bought. Most supermarkets provide carton boxes in which their stocks had been delivered in or brown paper bags and give the shopper the option to buy the store's branded eco-bags.
Initially, of course, it will take a huge paradigm shift and a major conscious effort on everybody's part to remember to bring an eco-friendly shopping bag every time one goes out. Yes, it can be kinda inconvenient sometimes. Yes, change is not easy, but it's not impossible. It's not a drastic change of habit or attitude for me since for over a year now, I've made it a habit of keeping a couple of foldable/reusable shopping bags of all sizes in my car and in my big purse — I even have a big bayong made of dried water lilies that my friend's driver had woven. Yet even then, there have been times I've been "caught" without a bag. Then I suddenly decide to buy something and I end up having my purchase put in a plastic bag. Generally, people don't yet have the habit of bringing an extra bag — it will take some time before the habit kicks in and becomes automatic. It's particularly inconvenient to the guys who don't usually go around toting a bag! To many, it requires being mindful and deliberately getting into the habit of bringing along an eco-friendly shopping bag every time, especially if one were intending to go shopping or to the supermarket.
As said in the PlanetGreen site: "We all know how terrible plastic bags are for the environment — they choke wildlife, they don't break down in landfills (or in oceans), they add to our demand for oil, and they aren't easy to recycle." Forget the idea that plastic bags will eventually biodegrade — the typical polyethylene bag hasn't been around long enough (regular use of it started around the early 1980s) for scientists to pinpoint a precise timeline, but so far it seems plastics have not yet been proven to biodegrade at all. In fact, some researchers are afraid that they may never fully decompose, but rather they will just slowly and eventually turn into smaller and smaller and even smaller pieces of plastic without totally disintegrating. And, did you know that the crude oil needed to make 18 plastic bags could drive a car for a mile? That's according to Bags On The Run, a manufacturer of reusable bags.I hate to admit it but plastic bags have made my life simply so convenient! At home, we reuse plastic bags to line our trash pails, to pick up doggie poo, to pack/repack wet stuff and for many other things. Plus, reusable cotton or canvas are a lot bulkier and heavier to carry than plastic bags. But, looking at the big picture and considering the long-term consequences on our world, especially in light of their negative impact on the environment, I think banning the use of plastic bags is a good thing. It is said that to dream big, start small. And refusing to use single-use plastic bags is actually a small thing that can help lead to the bigger dream of a cleaner environment. Bottomline, the inconvenience is worth it all. I hope Muntinlupa's initiative will be successful enough to be carried through to the rest of the country.
And I don't mean pain in the context of Dr. Smith. But pain = pan = tinapay = bread!!! And oh the pain, the delicious pain at Alexandre's French Bakery and Café!!!
I have many many favorite food memories of France. One of them was the aroma of fresh-from-the-oven baguettes wafting through the balcony our room. Leaving our bags unpacked, my traveling companion and I rushed down to the café just beside our hotel, our noses following that enticing bouquet, to grab some of that wonderful fresh-baked bread, smeared with real French butter and gruyere. Another is coming down to breakfast with my friends and fortifying ourselves with baskets of fresh croissants, loads of French butter, and pots of strong brewed coffee every morning.
Restless after more than a week of staying put in the suburbs, I took a needed break and joined my friends at Alexandre's French Bakery and Café - owned by Alexandre M. Guignard. It is located on 31st Street corner 1st Avenue at the Bonifacio Global City. And, trust me, here is where you can find the best French breads and croissants and/or relive the deliciously "pain"-ful memories of France.
I just loved loved loved the croissants! They were the buttery-est croissants I've ever had - crisp and flaky outside, and oh-so-delicious and melts-in-your-mouth soft inside! The owners recommend calling to find out when a fresh batch will be baked and to reserve. Or you could join the Alexandre Facebook Fanpage to get updates on their latest creations and events. The pain au chocolat was very good, too, although my friend RJ wished there was more chocolate in it (but then he's a chocoholic).The quiches were superb! I'd say they are the best quiches in Manila. Pricey, though, but rich and there was no stinting of the authentic ingredients - egg, cream, butter, gruyere cheese! And the crust so light yet so tasty! I've tried both the Quiche Lorraine with Spinach and the Smoked Salmon Quiche and I loved them both.
Alexandre's is open for breakfast. So that must be around 7am, I guess. At night, the boulangerie transforms into a cozy wine brasserie. Day or night, for sure I will keep coming back to get my fill again of these wonderful to-die-for "pains"!
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OK, so the World Bank has foisted on us the "Third World Country" brand. And our systems can be so inefficient and government officials so inept in upholding the rights of the people who elected them that many of our compatriots have no choice but to earn a living abroad. But in spite of the many put-downs and derogations that people (including ourselves) can come up with about being a Filipino, there are more than enough strong points, too. I want to thank Lilit for inspiring me to come up with my own list of reasons why I love being a Filipino :
1. Almost each and every day, we are blessed with and treated to the most gorgeous, most dramatic, most enviably breathtaking sunsets in the world.
2. Our brains are wired well for linguistic agility - we can switch to and from English, Tagalog, a dialect, another foreign language (or two), all in one sentence, and still make sense. For example: "My garsh, ginapalangga ko talaga my querido so much that I can kurot-kurot him forever and ever in the buli!" That's an awful example, I know, but you get what I mean... ;-)
3. Our culture still values the virtue of filial piety (love and respect for our parents and ninunos). We still have a high regard for all the love and sacrifices our parents gave us and believe in taking care of them as they had taken care of us. No stuffing our aging parents in a nursing home and forgetting about them. 4. Segue-ing from that, I am thankful for how we cherish friendship and for the depth of our regard for friends. Of course, it's not perfect -- we've seen how friendships, when taken to extreme, have contributed to the graft and corruption in our government -- but from a broader perspective, it's that friend-is-family attitude that helps us create a solid and loving support system for us all. It's hard to commit suicide when you are always surrounded by caring, usyoso friends and family.
5. Some services that are considered luxuries, and therefore pricey, in other countries are STILL quite affordable here — A home spa/massage service lasting 40 to 50 
minutes in New York would cost over $200, not including tip and tax, whereas here, a minimum 1-hour massage can cost just around P300-350, plus a small tip. And here one might pay between P150-200 for a mani-pedi in the comfort of your home, with matching ooh-eliciting hand and foot massage, whereas in L.A., what with the deluge of Vietnamese "nail therapists" in that city, you'd pay a minimum average of $15 (that's more or less 700-pesos) for a mani-pedi in the salon, sans the hand and foot massage.
6. And while on the subject of service, we can still enjoy and afford the assistance of household helpers in our daily auxiliary tasks and make our everyday lives a lot easier. I love our yayas who have been with us for almost half a decade and I can't imagine my home life without them.
7. We've got more than 7000 lush tropical islands, even at low tide! I haven't even explored one-tenth of them!!! But the few that I've seen and been to make me thankful I was born in this country.
8. We love to laugh! Even in the direst and most desperate of times, we manage to find a reason to smile, crack a joke, see the humor in a situation, and laugh. Nobody can keep you down if you can still find reasons to laugh. As Lilit said in his blog: "We overthrew an overstaying dictator in a festive manner. There was food sharing all around. There was rock & roll music. We stopped tanks with Virgin Mary's statue, rosaries, and flowers!" Here, here!
9. We possess an indefatigable, unflappable, unwavering Faith in God. It's what empowers us to triumph over the trials and tribulations of the world. It's what keeps us going and hoping even when the going is tough and hope seems lost. It's what keeps us up when the chips are down. And it's what gives us the attitude for gratitude, even for the littlest things. As Nancy Missler wrote in the article "Why Faith Is Important": Faith is the telescope that scans the heavens for the majesty of God, and also the microscope that magnifies His hidden wonders.
10. And because if you're Filipino, it REALLY is a small world! Everybody knows almost everybody or at least knows somebody who knows or is connected to you or someone you know. You could be in Zambales or Zimbabwe - if you bump into a Pinoy, the chances are you know or know of each other or each other's family or friends. "Ah, Javier? Of Batangas or Bacolod? You must be related to..." Somehow, there will be a connection. And I think that's great!
(abangan ang susunod na part-2)
2009's arrival was delayed. By 1 second. A leap second, astronomers call it.
"The Register" of UK says: "Timekeepers will tack on a "leap second" to the world's clocks December 31, 2008 at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). ... The time discrepancy is due to the planet's spin gradually but surely slowing down, mostly due to tidal friction."
Not that any of us really noticed that time delay. For whatever reason, it simply meant we had that one extra second in our lives. Did we even feel the difference? How could one second, a blink of an eye, impact on us anyway, especially in these "ADHD" times?
1 second could have been a kiss prolonged just a teensy bit longer. A hug tightened for a loved one. A smile to a sad stranger. A flash of a happy memory. An extended savoring of a favorite dessert. An orgasm spun out just one moment longer. One more set of ha-ha-ha in sharing a good laugh with friends.
One second may have no monetary value but it can hold a lifetime of meaning to some. That one-second delay could have spelled the difference between holding onto a firecracker and throwing it just in time, between a good shot and a bad one, or between saying a mean word and biting your tongue. That one second may seem trivial or inconsequential to most except for those whose lives are ticking away towards death or who are waiting for their homeward-bound flights to take off.
We often say there is never enough time. Time flies when you're having fun. Slow down, you move too fast, you gotta make the morning last. All in good time. Had we known about that extra second added to the our lives' time, would we have done something to make the most of it? Or would we have simply shrugged our shoulders and said "Hah, a mere second. Big deal."?
Well, time is what we make of it. And I hope that we will make the most of the time 2009 allots us. To live in peace and nonjudgmental understanding. To give back for all the blessings one enjoys to those who have less. To take full advantage of each precious moment of each day to give all of oneself to things one believes in. And for me, for that one extra second given, I offer a quick thank-You to God for another year.
I hate to admit it but when I saw the footage of that Iraqi reporter, Muntader al-Zaidi, hurling his shoes at George Bush, I laughed. Yes, I hee-hee-hee'd, because the sight of a startled Bush nimbly ducking the flying shoes ... Twice at that! ... was hilarious.
Schadenfreude! Or should I say, SHOE-denfreude!!! Oh the glee and the nasty satisfaction I felt - "Buti nga sa 'yo!" - kinda mean-spirited, no? But what I felt about the incident was nothing quite like the reactions that that insolent action elicited around the world, especially among Arabs, who hailed Zaidi as a hero, a brave man who did what they've probably been wanting to do themselves but never dared to. I read that the daughter of Khaddafi even awarded him a medal of courage. A Saudi Arabian offered $10-million for just one of the shoes!
Zaidi's gesture - throwing his shoes and saying “This ... is the farewell kiss, you dog!” - is considered a double insult among Muslims. Sad to say but dogs are considered impure or unclean creatures in Islam and are not even welcome in the Muslim home! They believe angels will not enter a house that have dogs in it because angels are supposedly afraid of these animals. Seems like nonsense to us dog-lovers, of course, but... well, there it is. And shoes, too, are regarded as spiritually unclean among Muslims. So what Zaidi had said and done was to insult Bush in the worst way a Muslim could. Poor George Bush!
Yes, I may not like him but I did feel sorry for him. Never has there been a US President so maligned, so scorned and disrespected as Bush is. And for the whole world to watch! OhmiGod, djahe!!! And even your own fellow-Americans not only did not defend your honor, they joined in in laughing at you! Poor Bush! Even though I felt schadenfreude at his disgrace, I also cringed at his losing face in such a mortifying way! I could imagine, maybe even sympathize with, the ngitngit of Zaidi : "Sasapatusin kitaaaa! Etong sa 'yo! Ump!" It's like something many of us would have loved to have done to Imelda but some moral self-control prevented us. Why, we didn't, couldn't disrespect Erap or even GMA to that extent! To reach that point where you are so unpopular - even hated - and people get so exasperated with you that they just lose it and throw their shoes at you - man, I wouldn't have the nerve to show my face after that!
Although I have to hand it to Bush - he sure knows how to duck! He must be so used to getting stuff thrown at him. Maybe Laura does the same thing when he does something that pisses her off! ;-D
“I was blessed with a birth and a death, and I guess I just want some say in between.” (Ani di Franco, songwriter)
I thought I already had a blog in blogger when it used to be blogspot. But since I've been inactive for more than a year ... or two?... I guess that blogspot blog spot is now dead and buried and I've been asked to resurrect myself by blogger... C'est le web.
15 Sept. 2007 / Saturday. This week is filled with news of death and dying.
Yesterday was my dad's birthday. Had he lived, he'd be 82 years old. We used to celebrate his birthday even after he had passed away, and it was never a happy occasion. That's putting it mildly. Usually, a quarrel or a tampuhan within the family would break out, even over the flimsiest reason. I was later told by a friend that it's bad luck to celebrate the birthday of a dead person. I don't know why and neither does she. All she knows is doing so "causes" tension and conflict among the family members. Whatever the reason, if there is any, my mother and I decided, from then on, no more celebrating Dad's birthday. Of course, that doesn't stop us from thinking of him still, wishing he were around, and praying for him.
My friend Loy's Papa died this morning, after being ill for so long. At first I thought, after she's been caring for him day after day after day, her Papa chooses to die just when she goes off on a trip to Europe with her husband for a badly needed break. I casually mentioned to a mutual friend: "i think her dad wanted loy to be away, since she is the closest to him, so he can go na..." Just then, I get another text message from Loy, who was preparing to leave Amsterdam to come home: "it's so like my dad to let me go travel and time his death so that i would be on the way home but spared the trauma of watching him die. still protecting his bunso to the end."
Soon after I received that message, I get a text from my younger brother. His old dog, Oreo (son of my Othello and Cio-cio San), also just died this morning. One of the sweetest dogs I've ever known and loved. We've forgotten his real age. Maybe 15 or 16? He had a lot of good years, had a happy life, fathered a litter with Schublig the love of his life, stayed tail-wagging upbeat despite going blind (a genetic flaw common among Cocker Spaniels). It saddens me but if that were my own dogs that died, I'd be devastated! Weeping and wailing and pouring ashes on my head devastated.
And soon after I received that message, I get a text from my friend Law. His grandmother (the psychic one) just died too. Being psychic, did she know when and how she was going to die. I wonder...
Ano ba yan??? One after the other! A saying goes "death comes in threes". I used to think it was an Asian superstition, but I learned later that it's a more universal belief than that. It's believed even in the West, especially among the Druids of Ireland. Why threes, I wonder? What's the special significance of three, numerologically speaking, I wonder? The Holy Trinity of Christianity. The triangle of divinity among the ancient Egyptians. Three on a match and all that. Must web that.
A week ago today, my brother's friend-since-high-school (and my former agency colleague) died. Buddy Nogoy. Heart attack at 55. His barkada all went to his wake. Funny - they've all been friends for decades, but they realized then that they never really knew Buddy that well. They found out wonderful things about him. Too bad it was too late to pat him on the back and tell him what a great guy he was. But I'm sure Buddy knows that's how they feel, somehow, somewhere.
Hay, death. I'm not scared of death. It's the dying part that kills me.
On January 18, 2011, a new ordinance took effect in the city of Muntinlupa, banning the use of plastic bags in malls, supermarkets, and other business establishments. Muntinlupa is the first city in the Philippines to ban the use of plastic bags in business establishments, joining cities such as San Francisco, Mexico City, and even Bangladesh in this effort. Ever since the unprecedented and severe flooding brought on by Typhoon Ondoy last year, we Filipinos had no choice but to experience for ourselves and realize first-hand just how much discarded plastic bags have contributed to the disastrous deluge that overwhelmed the metro. Just get a load of the photo on the right (courtesy of http://manilareview.wordpress.com/tag/typhoon-ondoy/) and you'll understand how vital it is we get onboard the plastic-bag-ban bandwagon! 
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