Open Letter To The FX Operators and Drivers Association of Binangonan (FXODAB)

Be client-centric you greedy, abusive, retards!

For so long you have abused your captive audience, me being one of them. Gasoline and diesel prices have long since been lowered, but you still arrogantly persist in your high fares. Talk about unfair. Jeepneys have already lowered their fares, but you still have the gall to collect at rates you imposed during the oil crisis months ago. Kapal ng mukha ninyong lahat . Tubong-lugaw na kayo ah..

Your drivers still continue to make our Monday mornings hell : Some don’t go back to the terminal and instead get passengers from the road. The line becomes longer and longer up to a time that one shuttle returns to the terminal, but will not load passengers immediately. The driver still has to take his coffee or eat breakfast. Meanwhile, some of the passengers have been in line for one and half hours already, resigned to the fact that they’ll be late for work. If your drivers had any empathy at all, they put their passengers first. Hm. In any case, isn’t that supposed to be their profession? Their work? No wonder people look to public utility drivers as money-hungry slobs. You show no work ethic at all.

You also don’t respect your customers as well. You show up at the terminal, see the long lines, and OVERLOAD your shuttle. The space that can fit 3, now fits 4 people. You violate not only the applicable terms of your franchise, and basic human rights, but also the recommended seating capacity by the manufacturer of your vehicle. All in the name of MONEY! If anyone wants to see Greed incarnate, they just need to show up at the terminals during rush hour, and see how you drivers make the passengers’ journey cramped, and their day off to a miserable start. You cannot assume that all people are as thin as I am! Actually, I find it insulting that I become the “seat-filler” most of the times. Nowadays I stand my ground. If I’m going to pay an overpriced fare going home, I might as well wait in line and let others board ahead of me until I can get a comfortable seat.

The same problems happen, and more compounded with your association’s condoning of unfranchised shuttles. These “white-plates” overload like mad, and have the gall to refuse to take in passengers on account of police operations against unfranchised vehicles! Not to mention, they do not have Comprehensive Third Party Liability (CTPL) insurance so passengers are not protected from any accidents. Of course, your captive audience does not have a choice in this, as it is these white-plates who frequent the terminal. Paging the Land Transportation Office, there are colorum vans plying the Binangonan-Crossing route. Ask your enforcers not receiving kickbacks from the FXODAB to investigate on this, and you’ll get results.

You people are the main reason why I want to have my own car. Once I do, I’ll be rid of your lot. And you better steer clear of me when on the road, or I’ll ram my brand new Toyota Rav4 into your cheap vans. And I’ll have insurance. You won’t.

Mama’s Progress and Other Stuff

As planned with our oncologist, I accompanied Mama last Tuesday to consult for radiation oncology. As per her doctor, Mama was to have radiation therapy in parallel to her chemotherapy sessions, after her 5th cycle session. The consultation went very quick, but I didn’t see it coming that her CT-Planning ---the actual procedure of CT-scan and other diagnostics before the actual radiation sessions --- would happen the next day. I didn’t file a vacation leave for Wednesday, and so Mama had to go alone. Whatever guilt I may feel , I can’t find a way to work it out. I only asked permission to go on leave on Tuesday and Thursday, the latter for Mama’s 6th chemo session. I’d have asked for emergency leave, but I had already moved a meeting with project leadership from Tuesday to Wednesday. Such is my life nowadays. My vacation leaves revolve around Mama’s medical sessions, but at the same time I try to minimize them. I had missed a lot of crucial management meetings already, plus the fact that my team seems to be needing guidance more than usual. I feel tired, really. I know my mother needs me more than ever, especially since our helper (a cousin twice-removed I think), had no plans of returning after spending New Year’s Eve with her family in the province. Further, I assume the radiation therapy, in tandem with the chemo sessions (we still have 6 more to go), will weaken her further, so I will need to be around her more. While in the office, there’s my work piling up. It’s a bit funny, in a chicken-and-egg kind of argument , that I need my work to fund my Mama’s recovery but Mama’s condition is the one that affects my availability for work. I’m really feeling the stretch, and just thinking about how I can manage all these pulls (my on-going house construction included) makes my head hurt. It’s a good thing that Mama is resilient to the chemo sessions: she started with 4 sessions of Epirubicin and is now on her second session of CMF (Cyclophospamide, Metrotrexate, Flouronracil). I had initially thought that the scenario I am in now would happen during the initial stages, but it didn’t. So I guess I should be thankful I had some months of reprieve.

Sometimes I get to think (and mentally ask), how long and how much is still needed from me, my Mama, my family for her to get really, really better. I can only imagine the total cost of everything so far, from the initial hospitalization to the MRM, to the chemo sessions, to this. I seldom go out now with friends, as I want to be home as early as possible. I prioritize, well, most of the time, the schedule for treatments and check-ups, even if it means delay in some work I do (which I think is not boding well for a newly-promoted manager). My nanay-nanayan and my ninong also help out in managing the house construction and in feeding the dogs there. My mother has been very diligent in following the doctor’s orders (except wearing a facemask), and is now more health-conscious in what she eats: no pork, mostly vegetable and fish. I know I should not be disheartened, because as like everything else that got me to where I am, this is just another test. Another challenge of faith, which then makes me wonder why I seem to be a magnet for life’s tests. Could it be that I didn’t pass most of those I’ve taken? I’m in my thirties, living with my mother who’s ill, no car, house on-going-and-even-if-finished-is-not-that-much, no six-digit-monthly salary, no girlfriend, no kid. To be very honest, that was all I wanted: a family of my own, a wife, 2 kids with my healthy mother doting on them like anything, living in our own nice house, going around in our car. And yet this picture of a life seems to be not meant for me, too, making me wonder what is.

Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy! and the Holiday of Obligation

Looking back at how the holiday season of 2008 went for me, I can safely say that it was different. I can safely say I missed out on the “spirit” of things. And I don’t think my mother being sick has that big an impact on why it went that way. It just became a realization during the holiday rush.

Up ‘til December 22, I was in the malls in Makati, looking for, well, Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy!. Why? Because based on what my mother and I thought, it would be a gift that Jonathan would really like. Jonathan was the son of my godmother, and is one of the kids we usually give gifts to during Christmas. He visited the house once, and like the Chips Ahoy! biscuits that my mother served. After searching three supermarkets, I couldn’t find any, so I settled for the other 3 variants of Chips! Ahoy. That probably best illustrates how the Christmas rush went for me: looking for good gifts, gifts that we know the other person wants and would appreciate as a gift (exceeding expectations if we can), and sometimes settling for the next best thing.

I have been involved in at least four kris kringle events in the office, and so I really felt like a genie most of the weekends I spent looking for those items on that wish list: computer speakers, Josh Groban’s NOEL album, pink and green jackets with hoods, an Eight-ball, and a branded office bag. These items were aside from the gifts to selected officemates, which range from nice gifts to trinkets: a FINO luggage tag; a tiger stuffed toy; gift certificates from Powerbooks; Pizza Hut discount cards, and; chocolates. One can never go wrong with chocolates, so that was basically the vanilla gift for some of my office friends, when I’ve already given up on going up and down SM Megamall and EDSA Shangri-la to find stuff for this specific person. Still OTHER gifts aside from these were my gifts to the kids we usually give holiday gifts to. And that meant another day or two of walking around Toy Kingdom, looking for cheap but “this-would-do” gifts for the little ones. Then there’s the cash gifts still to people we usually give gifts to. These, aside from my own gifts to my mother: several hats, Marks&Spencer biscuits, shopping money. You can probably already imagine the contents of my wallet—mostly credit card charge slips.

Aside from the gift-giving, there was the holiday grocery shopping. For ham, for salad, for pasta, for fruits, etc. , etc. At the very least, I kinda had my arm muscles stretched from carrying that much load. The irony is that, most of the dishes my mother prepared are to be subsequently given out in containers to family friends and relatives. That was actually the main event on Christmas day, accounting for who has not yet been sent what.

And so you see, all these stuff, plus the fact that I was at work up to the 24th of December, arriving at 11PM to a house where the people (my mother, our help, and my aunt’s family who visited for Christmas) are already asleep and had no intention of having Christmas Eve dinner, really dampened the mood for me. For one, I felt that with everything that happened (and is still happening)—my mother’s illness and the house construction I started – I had thought that it would be a more practical holiday season, spending only on the essential things. But no…. the obligation to give gifts was still there, staunchly supported by my mother. There were people we always gave gifts to, and that’s that. My godchildren always got gifts from me, and that’s that. So despite my anxiety on how to fund her medical expenses for next year, I couldn’t really say “No” to her passive-aggressive methods. Make no mistake about it, I do not mind giving gifts, but only to the people who I would really like to gifts to, and considering the precarious situation of my personal finances, it would have been limited only to inexpensive gifts to very few people.
And so, as I mentioned to an office friend before the break for the holidays, this season is lost to me. It has turned into a holiday of obligation. Obligations to think of the best gift for that specific person who you have given gifts to for many years now, as if you were the only one who will give a gift to that person (and so it should be very special). As if you were competing in a gift-giving contest to that person and your entire future depends on giving that person something that he or she will like. Obligations to serve up a feast during Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners. The joy of gift-giving. The excitement of the holidays. It’s not there anymore with me.

My office friend advised me against being a Scrooge. I told her I couldn’t be. Ebenezer Scrooge was rich. Plus, I feel more like The Grinch, especially in that part of the movie where he mentioned how Christmas became more about gifts and spending. Hm. I’m thinking if I should change my blog title now from “Mr. Brightside” to ‘The Underpaid Grinch”. Hm.

The GOOD FOOD of 2008!!!

Hereupon are several tastebud treats I encountered last year, and highly recommend to anyone to try out in 2009.

• Shrimp and Cheese Quesadillas by Chilly Willy’s.
  
• double scoops of Avocado ice cream on waffle cone from Fruits and Ice Cream (FIC).
  
• New York Fish & Chips at Fish & Co.
  
• Pork Binagoongan served in Via Mare.
  
• Another Pork Binagoongan dish from Isdaan restaurant (in Gerona, Tarlac).
  
• This specific grilled chicken dish in Isdaan restaurant (in Gerona, Tarlac).
  
• Fish & Chinese Tofu still available in some Chowking outlets.
  
• Grilled chicken with sweet chili sauce, together with mashed potatoes and bacon rice sidings from World Chicken.
  
• Double Cheeseburger Deluxe from McDonald’s.
  
• S’mores Chocolate Cake from Red Ribbon Bakeshop.
  
• Chicken Crispers with fries and shredded corn by Chili’s.
  
• Cajun Chicken Pasta served in Chili’s.
  
• Onion Rings from Brothers Burger (now in SM Megamall!).
  
• Lady’s Choice Christmas Ham and Cheese Mycaroni Salad as prepared by my mother.
  
• Spicy Tuna Pizza by Chansel Pizza Haus.
  
• Floring’s Pork Barbeque
  
• UCC Vienna Cafe’s Chocolate French Toast.

THE TOP 10 MOVIES of 2008!!!!!

Well, they’re my picks at least. To each his own!

• Bucket List. Inspired me to create my own list (to be shared eventually in this blog).
  
• 3:10 to Yuma. I put this as part of my wish list for Christmas.
  
• Iron Man. It was a toss up between this and Edward Norton’s Incredible Hulk.
  
• Kung Fu Panda. The most hilarious 3D animation I’ve seen so far.
  
• Wanted. I actually never expected to like this movie, but I did. Enough to want to buy a DVD copy.
  
• The Dark Knight. Without a doubt, the year’s best.
  
• Baler. Go Anne Curtis!
  
• Caregiver. Go Ate Shawie! Hehehe. It was really the story.
  
• 100. Too bad it only got shown in a handful of cinemas.
  
• There Will Be Blood. Very good story.