Category: Philippines

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How Good a Lakbayan-ista Are You?

Are you well-traveled?

This site (Visited Countries) allows one to click buttons beside countries one has been to. I tried it out and got this generated map. Neat! From the looks of it though, it seems like my past travels have been limited to North America, Europe and South Asia. The still unconquered lands of South America, Africa, North Asia and Australia await.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

The exercise got me thinking about the Philippines and whether I actually saw as much of it already as I think I have. After all, I was born in the Visayas, spent my childhood in Mindanao, and am living out the rest of my adult life in Luzon. There is this common notion too that most often, one sees more of other countries than his own.

Did I really see enough of my own country?

Well, the answer came in the form of Lakbayan, which I stumbled upon during my blog hopping. Eugene Alvin Villar, who describes himself as “a not so innocent yet naïve hardware engineer”, got the idea for Lakbayan from the Visited Countries site. Continue reading “How Good a Lakbayan-ista Are You?”

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Why It’s Great to be a Pinay

Two guys (Jun and Chuck) tagged me with this meme. Thanks a lot, guys! You just gave me something to chew on this weekend — right around the corner to Independence Day!

I think this meme is going around pretty fast as I’ve already chanced upon several blogs with this theme. I would have put all their answers into this blog post (family, faith, humor, forgiveness, hospitality, etc.) . Now I’m wracking my brains trying to think of something someone has not yet enumerated — and NOT SUCCEEDING, haha.

So instead, let me give my answers a little twist by looking back at the occasions when I traveled and situations that made me proud to be Pinay. Continue reading “Why It’s Great to be a Pinay”

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I Just Voted — Part 2

The rains did not come and I got my daughter C2 to tag along for company (with the promise of coffee at the nearby coffee shop afterwards) so off to the school we went to get a feel of the canvassing. She was not yet qualified to vote but I wanted her to experience a part of the entire electoral process.

We got to the school just as the different precincts were setting up for canvassing. By this time, the crowds had thinned out and I think we were one of the few “usiseras” inside (all the others were wearing IDs and tags identifying them as poll watchers of this or that party).

So, we just walked around and observed. I was happy to find some friends at our precinct area (they were PPRCV volunteers). C2 was excited to see how the counting was progressing. A COMELEC person would be holding out a ballot in view of the poll watchers while calling out the names slowly; another person would be putting sticks beside the corresponding names. Continue reading “I Just Voted — Part 2”

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I Just Voted!

I know, I know….I said I normally do not blog about politics. But exercising one’s right to elect the RIGHT people to try and RIGHT what is WRONG in this country was so important to me that I just had to blog about it (with photos to boot!).

It seems so easy to just shrug our shoulders and say “What’s the point?”….

It is even more discouraging to see hardly any new names in the choices — just the same old trapos (traditional politicians) — who make promises written on water…..

It is frustrating to see the blatant corruption that mark all past elections (this one included), where vote-buying in the guise of insurance cards, membership cards and the like are used (and COMELEC actually rules that these are NOT in violation of the Elections Code)

It angers one to see legitimate party-lists being harassed with threats of disqualification while obviously vested NEW party-lists are easily accredited with qualification rules being “bent” to accommodate them.

YES, any of the above were good reasons for me NOT to vote.

BUT I DID.

And you know why? Continue reading “I Just Voted!”