Nothing is certain in life, except death and TAXES!

ohhh yeah, ben franklin got that right

claiming my ITR (and knowing that the taxes I paid will mostly end up on some corrupt politico's pocket) is probably the most depressing thing next to the news that we will be leaving JG for good. Next week, we're now going to be officially denizens of the PSC's maximum security compound.

if you read Manila Times, you would be horrified to find out that, "As of end-August 2007, the National Government (NG) Outstanding debt was pegged at P3.871 trillion, or US$81.91 billion. The bigger part of this debt was acquired domestically (55.98 percent), with Treasury Bonds debt pegged at P1.55 trillion. This is worse when Mrs. Arroyo acknowledged that the country was suffering from a fiscal crisis. In 2004, National Government debt was P3.81 trillion.
As of mid-2007, the total National Government debt per Filipino is P43,649.57 with each individual coughing P7, 012.12 just to service the debt. "


i will not quote the entire article for i don't want to aggravate you further with the information that,
"From 2001 to 2006, Mrs. Arroyo borrowed a total of P2.83 trillion shaming the total P1.51 trillion combined borrowings of the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada administrations spanning 14 years. "

if that doesn't depress or anger you, i don't know what will. it's as equally depressing as seeing that you paid more than a hundred grand in taxes last year and there is no tax refund.

on the up side (if you could call it as such), someone got creative in proposing tax reform laws. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but...

apparently our legislators have finally found a way to pay off all our country's debt. As proposed by law, sex (yes, you read it right) will now be taxed.

(1) Upon penetration (VAT - Vaginal Access Tax)
(2) More than 10 minutes inside (Burial Tax)
(3) Upon withdrawal (Exit Tax)
(4) Those who do not have sex life (Idle Tax)
(5) Those who practice withdrawal method of birth control (Withholding Tax)
(6) Entering other than wife (Road Users Tax)


If this is enforced, this might just solve all our national debt problems.




Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." - Russell Long

The longest journey is the journey inward.

February 14

Valentine's Day traffic nearly caused us to miss our bus to Bicol. we attended the service for my mother in greenbelt and the traffic back to pasay was the kind of traffic immortalized in every story about traffics in manila. the bus was suppose to leave at 8:00 pm and we arrived at the station a few minutes after eight, less our coats and my phone charger. it's going to be a cold and long trip.

there's a certain melancholia attached to these trips to naga. a little dose of excitement, a little dose of apprehension, relief and then nostalgia. like coming home but it's not because we no longer live there. we no longer have a house there. our belongings have been scattered with the four winds. my mother would not approve. but when we lost our mom, it seemed we also lost everything else.


February 15

it was a cold trip but it wasn't the long trip i feared. arrived in Naga at 3 bloody 30 am. the earliest i've arrived since time immemorial (trips to bicol usually take more than 8 bloody hours). my brother left the plastic bag with my cute metallic blue shoes (thank goodness it was the old one), slippers and my nephews' new shirts on the bus. we weren't able to retrieve the stuff. may the person who took it suffer from athlete's foot in his/her entire life. amen.

as we boarded the padjak to take us to my aunt's house, my brother told the dirver to take us to magsaysay. i had to tell the driver to take us to osmeña instead because we no longer live in magsaysay. not since my mother passed away. another family is living in that house. in the course of our 4 -day stay there, my brother made the slip twice and i guess in our minds have yet to catch up with the reality we no longer live there.

left for buyo in the afternoon to visit the living and the dead. it has been raining since we arrived early in the morning and still raining in the afternoon and it rained all through out the night. i'm never gonna see the sun until the end of my stay here.

i was freezing during the trip to goa. because of the cold front, the sun has not shined in naga or in goa for that matter. i always take the bus to go there and my hermano knows this. i always like to take these trips after the sun has set. i like travelling with my windows open, no matter how cold. i like to see the fields, the mountains, the road as it is lighted by the bus' headlights. i like to smell the burning dried leaves, sweet and nostalgic.

i like seeing the bus' headlights chase the darkness off the road, the shadows converging again as we move on. the mountains and the fields of palay covered by the dark and intermittently lit by moonlight (when there is one). otherwise the only lights in the distance are the lights from the lamps inside the houses scattered all over the plains but they are often times far apart that they look like glowing yellow stars from the distance.

the wind was unforgivably cold. the kind of coldness that seeped through your bones and reduces you to feeling and thinking about nothing but its coldness. it's no use trying to concentrate about getting warm because there is nothing warm in the wind or the cold seats of the bus. Or the thoughts that ran through my mind. i did not close the window until we got to tigaon when it started to rain again. i wanted to be numbed before i get to my grandmother's house. the less i feel, the better it is for me.

buyo is a sad and happy place for me. the place where everything begun and ended. a trip there at night is always like a slow walk down memory lane. as a rule i never took the van because the windows are always close. i want to feel the wind and the night as it merges with the darkest side of my mind. while the bus negotiates the bumps on the road, i try to make sense of where i am and what lead me to this place.

it's during the hours, the minutes and the seconds on every trip that i go over everything that happened on the past year. everytime i get on a bus, my mind takes this trip. whether i take the bus from manila to naga, from naga to goa, from naga to legaspi - my mind goes on another trip at another time. wherever i am i can't seem to shake it off of me. this melancholy. i can't let go. so i let the melancholia drown me as every thing that happened in the past flashes in front of my eyes like it was just yesterday. whoever said that time heals all wounds...is lying. it's been 9 months and a day and still it feels like it was only yesterday.

it reminded me of another night trip to goa 9 months before, the darkest and saddest trip i ever took with the heaviest heart.

we arrived at the centro of goa at past 7 pm. my uncle was not there to meet us because it was freezing cold to be driving the motorcycle in this rain. so my brother and i hired a tricycle to get us to buyo. since we're going up the south eastern slope of mount isarog, it was colder and we were shaking by the time we got to my grandma's house since there wasn't much in the tricycle that can protect us from the cold. my grandmother scolded us again for arriving that late and taking our chances with such a bleak weather.

dinner was ginataan and adobong manok. then i went to bed and fell promptly asleep.


February 16

visited my mother. i don't remember doing anything else on this day aside from playing with my nephews.

we were suppose to go back to naga in the afternoon but woke up very late and even my brother doesn't feel like returning to naga yet. we ate at my cousin's paternal grandmother's house (the Pan's) because they have laing for lunch and i have not eaten a good laing for some time. then when we returned to my grandmother's house, we ate the fish and the sauteed ampalaya they had for lunch. i was never a fan of ampalaya. life is bitter enough for me.


February 17

returned to naga before lunch. went to san francisco for the mass with my aunts and ukay ukay later. bought myself a cap and pants.

slept the afternoon away and met with my friend love in the evening. spoke with pres over the phone and some plebo he dragged over to seal a bargain. i was assured he walked on 2 legs but apparently the cat got his tongue.


February 18

the last day. it was still raining so i slept the day away and later met with love again and my brother for dinner at bigg's. went back to my aunt's house to pack and left 15 minutes later to take the bus that will take me back to manila.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. - Nelson Mandela

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

feb 8: Webhosting Party 2008

i went to this party not knowing what we were celebrating. it was almost 10 am when i arrived at gerry's grill along ayala. beer and margarita flowed freely. since i have not taken breakfast, i declined the preferred beverage. some were already drunk while the remaining some were already getting there. i was probably the only one who left that party without imbibing anything alcohol. it ended at around 1pm. after that went to the mail with Jade.

my blue shoes was having 'gaping' crisis so i decided it's time to get a back up since i don't have time to make it to mr. quickie to patch it up (that's the excuse i tell myself). unfortunately celine glorietta doesn't have my size but i ask the nice saleslady to check with their other branches and voila, they have my size in rockwell. so i dragged jade over to rockwell to pick up my shoes. and what do you know, they have a silver gray version of the same design and more importantly, they have my size. so there goes my two grand. but they're cute so i shouldn't complain.

feb 14: v********* day

Kix was asking if valentines is spelled with an apostrophe s or what not. i said "i'm sorry i don't celebrate it." haha! kelangan talaga sarcastic.

well this day reminds me of another day i would rather forget. it's an anniversary i wish i never have to celebrate (maybe at a later time but not at this point in my life).

it was a black valentine's day at the office. nearly everyone wore black. but that decision does not necessarily reflect the love lives of everyone who works here. some of us just felt like wearing it (plus i don't own a red shirt).

i'm going home tonight. 8 hours away. i miss my my dog. and i miss my mom. more. whoever said that time heals all wounds...


is lying.





Dance like it hurts, Love like you need money, Work when people are watching. - Scott Adams ( The Way of the Weasel )

uberworked and uber utilized (...sabi ko lang)

i'm glad this week is over.



it's been a helluva week of seemingly endless escalations with screeching customer (yes they screech, unbelievable) , a week of issues cropping up after the other (like mushrooms after the dog has pissed on the earth) and unresolved issues piling up like the college book reports you wish you never had to do


i want to go home. eat my chocolates and dip it on a vanilla ice cream. i'm exhausted.

An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions. - Robert Humphrey

hmm... the blondes did it

it's only the start of the week and i've had two upsets already. like january, my february seemed to have started on the wrong foot.

first, i just had to have the luck of boarding a taxi where the driver talked my ears off from libertad to ayala. i was still sleepy but he woke me up better than coffee did. i couldn't wait to get out of the car. he was selling cellphone holders. thinking he would shut up after i agreed to buy one, boy was i wrong. he discussed warranty and the shows he's been featured in until we arrived at my destination.




second upset: giants 17, patriots 14
another Manning with the vince lombardi trophy. when his brother won with the colts last year, there were some speculations whether he could deliver a superbowl win to the giants just like what his brother did to the colts. now we know because this year, eli manning is mvp of superbowl XLII and the giants took the vince lombardi trophy home.



his brother won the superbowl XLI mvp last year with the colts. i was rooting for the Patriots this year but now i know i should never root for quarterbacks with blond girlfriends =) or underestimate a team with a manning for a quarterback. they just ended the pat's 18 game winning streak. amazing.


jessica simpson was blamed when the cowboys didn't make the play offs, so do we blame giselle bundchen for this? =)


on the upside, i finally nailed my 153rd and my 154th stone puzzle today. at last something to cheer me up this week. this 153rd puzzle has been stting on my plate for a week now and by the time i got to the answer page, i had a serious case of hypothermia and my ears were about to fall off from severe frostbite. but the 154th puzzle was a scorcher, nailed the answer in a couple of hours. now i can feel my fingers and my toes again.





the blondes did it. - sabi ko lang