We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
Hey, it’s been awhile but anyway, I just wanted to plug this new project of mine: an online zine called New In Manila
It’s basically a zine where I try to cover various scenes of the Manila design and art scene. You can check out some of the features we have right now like Manila Design Week and the Versus 2 Exhibit which was held in Alliance Francaise De Manille.
Okay, this is some next level breaking news!
Manny Pacquiao was just awarded an honorary doctorate in human kinetics by the Southwestern University in Cebu.
SAY WHAT?!
That’s right, read ‘em and weep. It’s now Dr. Manny Pacquiao! Apparently his success in the boxing world makes him the perfect example of great human kinetics. Human kinetics as described by an article I read is and I quote, ” Human Kinetics is a study on sports, fitness and health. It aims to provide a dynamic environment that supports academic excellence in sports, recreation and physical activity through inspired teaching, creative research and and meaningful achievements.”
Man, don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of what Manny has done in the field of boxing, but seriously, all this hero worship is a bit much no? Many times, he has been touted as a National Hero, a savior and inspiration to the poor. Are we that desperate to find our modern day heroes that we resort to Manny? Can’t we have any of those NGO volunteers? Or those who really have an impact in changing lives? I can accept the OFW being touted heroes for their sacrifice, but sorry Manny, as much as I like you as a boxer, you’re no hero. Maybe someday you can, but presently. No. But I digress.
To be fair to Manny, although he wasn’t able to finish his secondary schooling (or highschool as we call it here in the Philippines), I give him props for taking the Department of Education exam to acquire his highschool diploma. And supposedly he’s now trying to finish his degree in some school. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he really took and passed that exam and not just because he is the Pacman.
I recently found out that Anthony Bourdain, host of No Reservations, a show on Discovery Travel & Living, came to the Philippines last October 2008. That’s pretty cool!
I’m a very big fan of Discovery Travel & Living and I regularly watch and follow shows on that channel. One of my favorites are the cooking shows by Jamie Oliver and Nigella. But I digress.
Like any other typical Filipino, I was excited about Discovery shooting an episode about food in the Philippines. When I heard this news, I tried my best to find out when it was showing and sadly it will only be shown in the US first around late January 2009 and in SouthEast Asia later in the year or 2010. All I read so far is that they will be bypassing balut or a fertilized duck egg, which is kinda played in terms of Filipino food anyway.
In my searches, I found that Discovery had shot an episode about Philippine food earlier via Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods show. That’s one thing that the Philippines will never have a shortage of, bizarre food. While for most of us locals, it may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, a lot of people living outside of Asia might find it weird. I found the whole episode on YouTube (oh, the wonders of technology!), you can watch the first part below. I’ve also included links to the rest of the parts. Enjoy!
Part 2 – here
Part 3 - here
Part 4 - here
Part 5 - here
Part 6 - here
Well, that would be the day. I actually don’t know much about all the financial terms save for what I’ve read, heard and seen on TV. And this is my disclaimer that everything I will write, wrote or writing is simply based on my uninformed opinion.
So, the past 1 month or so, we’ve all heard about the great financial crash. Lehman going bankrupt, AIG almost succumbing to it as well if not for the timely save by the US government and yet we see AIG executives blowing money on retreats and massages, how swell. Even locally, we have seen a couple of big giants affected. Ayala Corp. apparently has lost quite a sum on the financial markets, all stocks are down as such in all other internatonal markets. Even 2007 1st time billionaire Andrew Tan of Megaworld fame, fell down the ranks of billionaire and joined the multi-million ranks once again. People are scared and panicky, understandably so, because it’s about money. You know how it is, Man and his relationship with money. It goes a long, long way.
Well, relationships aside. The reason why I’m ‘blogging’ about this is because how I think it can affect the local economy. For the past few years or decade, the Philippines has slowly becoming synonymous for outsourcing. Ah yes, the great outsourcing race, where every bank or big western company has been forwarding all the calls to their service hotline into other countries that have the ’skill’ to speak like an American or British, really depends on where you are calling from. Aside from outsourcing, some of the more major industries we have that are very dependent on the international market (read: US of A), is export. More specifically, the export of two things, electronics and manpower. Though not really consider a commodity, overseas foreign workers send a lot of money home and really helps in boosting the economy as the money they send is used to spend and spending means more money going around, which I heard is generally a good thing. The export of electronics is another big market, 60% of total exports big. This includes electronics used in hospital, cars, radio, computers and among other things, while the next biggest is garments which has been experiencing quite a downturn for the past few years due to the emergence of cheaper manufacturing options in China & Vietnam.
So now that we got that intro out of the way, what’s next? Well simply put, when banks start going bankrupt and their stocks go crashing, there’s gonna be some belt tightening involved. Of course I think the 1st batch of people they would cut or retrench would be the executives. Things that they can do without and in the current business focus on service, the outsourcing scene in call centers and BPOs would probably one of the last groups to experience any major cuts in jobs. Again, it’s still gonna happen, I’ve already heard of some multi-national banks retrenching a certain percentage of their staff. Same thing for all those people who went to Singapore or Hong Kong to work in these big financial firms, some of them are gonna get cut. And once they do, that cuts into the remittances which in turn affects the local economy. It’s the same principle for people in other industries working overseas. The nurses, maids, engineers, doctors.. when people start cutting down their costs, the 1st thing off that list are luxury items, and personal nurses and maids are considered luxury in foreign soil.
Now the export of electronics is very connected to the root of all evil, money! You know we love it, money! Recently there has been news about GM and Chrysler talking about a merger, car sales have been dropping for quite some time now with the big gas hike a few months back and now this financial crash going on. Lots of job cuts that happened and by the end of 2008, GM will cut even more jobs, like 5,000. So more unemployed folks, less spending on consumer electronics, less car buying. Which means less demands from factories locally and we all know what happens if supply is > than demand. Basically less spending will decrease the need to manufacture some of the things such as microchips, ABS brakes or power supply adapters, and it will definitely affect the local electronic manufacturers and it’s workers. Garments is on the same boat. Not only is it a declining export commodity, clothes are also one of the things removed from the list of ‘what do I really need’ and ‘what are the things I can afford to buy’.
I admit I’m worried, I run an integrated marketing firm. Advertising costs are the first things that get cut out from annual budgets. And considering we are only about to enter into our 3rd month of operations, it’s going to be a tough ride and we’re going to have to grind it out. I just hope that our flexibility will allow us to move through the upcoming tough times ahead and I feel that if we can survive this, we can come out bigger and stronger.
On business related things, I think I’ve mentioned it before, I’m still quite interested in opening up my own gallery space/bar/event space and I’m considering in going to Singapore to open one. I think the market there is more ready, it’s art scene is growing and vibrant and it has lots of international exposure. Rent will probably kill me, though I hope with the financial crisis going on maybe i can get a better value. Spending might be down so that might kill me, but I don’t really need it to make a lot of money at the start. I just want something that people can come down, listen to some music or see some art. I gotta find some investors in this but I think it’s definitely worth doing. I hope there’s news to share about this once 2009 kicks in.
I’m a little late but wow! This explains it all! Look for her in the lower right side. 
*edit: here is a cropped image
In the latest issue of the on-going Secret Invasion series, our very own President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is shown joining influential people such as Steve Jobs, John McCain, Barrack Obama, etc. to ask the people of Earth to succumb to the Skrull empire.
Secret Invasion is an on-going Marvel Comics series which is written by Brian Michael Bendis and pencilled by fellow Filipino, Leinil Yu. It is about an alien invasion by shape shifters known as Skrulls, who secretly have been posing as various Marvel characters to throw off the real heroes by having them doubt their own comrades. The issue 5 of Secret Invasion came out last August 13,2008.
Alas, having President GMA revealed as a Skrull is too good to be true, the truth is revealed by Leinil Yu.
“To clarify misconceptions about the double page spread in Issue 5 particularly the inclusion of GMA, the Philippine president:
Filipino bloggers seem to revel in the fact that “she is a skrull”, heck I thought it was fun as well but it may go out of hand. Tho I may share your views on our current government, this particular instance is quite innocent and is merely a shout out to Filipinos. Heck, Stephen Colbert is there. I think she’s in good company.
The skrulls merely used the likeness of influential/recognizable people/characters to convey their message, and is not a revelation of the identities of skrulls in the Marvel Universe. They may or may not be skrulls. Tony Stark and Reed Richards are in the Savage Lands while this broadcast is happening and this should’ve clearly established this.
The list contains people who I find despicable, who I merely view with indifference and ones who I admire. (feel free to guess which is which).
The only criteria Brian Bendis gave was “influential” in different parts of the world and fields.”
Thanks to FilipinoVoices for the picture. Also take note of the FMCC ad drawn below the Colbert ‘08 ad. Sneaky, sneaky Leinil. I also saw the original pencils and it should’ve been a Jollibee ad instead of the Colbert ‘08 ad, not sure why they changed it.
I’ve always believed in the Philippines. That’s one of the reasons I came back, I want to be part of the change. I was to contribute. Unfortunately, this is not an easy task. One of the few things I realized since coming back is that change in the Government isn’t enough, the very root of Filipino society must be shaken apart. We absolutely don’t have any love for our country, there’s no REAL pride in our people, and NO, Manny Pacquiao doesn’t count. I guess it’s the result of our colonial years under the Spanish, Japanese and American rule, where we look down on ourselves and have this great notion that all things western-made is great and everything that we can do pales in comparison.
Another thing is that we are selfish, human beings are naturally selfish but Filipinos are on some next level “me me me me me” shit. I rationalized it to the thinking that because it seems so hopeless, that looking to the future isn’t an optional anymore, which leads to this type of mentality. If you’re looking for sacrifice for the greater good, well, don’t bother to look here friends. Granted that any significant change possibly won’t be seen by the current generation, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to improve our situation, and improving our situation can’t be done by changing Presidents, it can’t be done by changing policies or lowering the prices of electricity and food. All those help but our attitude and our philosophy must change, society itself must change, because we are to be blamed. Yes, me, you, all of us are to be blamed for our situation, in our own little way, we have slowly damaged and corrupted our society. By listening to crap ass songs and crap ass shows that hold little intellectual value, by saying don’t take those stupid shows away because it’s the only avenue of happiness that we can afford. That’s bullshit, because by saying that, we again are looking down upon ourselves.
And with that introduction, there are some topics I’d like to tackle for today:
1. Increasing oil prices -
With the past few weeks, one of the major issues in the world is the big increase in oil prices on almost a daily basis. And I believe, currently it’s hitting slightly above the USD 120 mark. And naturally 3rd world countries like ours, the Philippines for my international readers, will be heavily hit. Not only will the increase in oil prices affect our petrol consumption, it also affects prices of goods and services. People will grovel most at the fuel prices increasing on an almost bi-weekly basis. And the reason why it’s terribly bad on our side of the world, is that we lack the proper mass transportation that is available in most metropolitan cities around the world. Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the like, because of good mass transportation facilities, there are less cars, because simply, the need isn’t there and add to the fact that car prices are mad expensive. The math is simple, due to less cars, the consumers won’t be affected that much by the increase in fuel, unlike in our situation, our people depend highly on non-efficient consumers of fuel such as the jeepney and the tricycle. Funny how proud we are of our jeepneys, when these things are badly engineered, cause tremendous traffic with their unruly driving and probably are cause for many car accidents on the road. The message is there, WE NEED BETTER MASS TRANSPORTATION. Enough with the “para po, manong”.
2. Kontra Magazine -
Okay, still trying to get this ball rollin’. I kinda have my sections in mind and some concepts written down. Interviews and articles still need to be started on. What I really need now is somebody who can do basic layouts and who’s willing to do it pro-bono. If you’re looking for an opportunity to work on something different and fresh, this is going to something you’ll enjoy, I promise. So layout gurus and artsy folks, hit me up now now now now!!!
3. NBI Clearance -
Related to the bureaucracy and redtape that our government and our professionals are oh-so famous for. Today I went to the Carriedo office to secure my NBI clearance which is something like a police clearance in other countries. I was relatively surprised that despite the shabby structure of their offices, badly placed signs and slightly messy queue structure, I was able to finish within just slightly over an hour’s time. This is the same clearance, that used to take at least a day to finish. I applaud the effort but definitely there are many things that could’ve been done to cut down the time even more. From what I could see, there was definitely an inefficient use of space, the process flow is still kind of messy, even though it helps that there were big ass cardboard signs saying “STEP 1″. Lots of things that can still be improved upon, but props must be given for the effort in improving the system. Oh, automated payment machines were available too, that impressed me a bit.
