Hello September!

September has always been a beautiful month.  Although it's the end of summer in Canada and the U.S., it signals the start of Fall, the season of changing hues, of falling leaves, of cooler days and nights, of falling back into routine, of cheaper air fare, of football and hockey, of a new TV season, of seeing friends back in school, of reminiscing about summer vacation and of friends/love found during that brief time.

I'm flying back to Toronto in September for a visit. My flight stops over at HK, and I hope they'd be friendlier over there by the time I fly.

Last year, I was here in Manila from September to October, to see my late mother and to attend to very important matters.

Travel is cheaper from September.  People usually visit Europe or take a cruise of the Mediterranean in September or early October. 

Land travel is cheaper, too, either by bus or train.  If you're driving, take note of road construction and detours because road repairs done during summer may have extended into fall.

If you're using a GPS, download the latest updates from the internet.

I brought my GPS to Manila but I'm not sure whether it works here, since Manila may not have satellites in place and because of the confusing street configurations here. I maybe wrong.

For instance, in our hometown in Nueva Ecija, the streets have no names.  Our ancestral home is located in a Barrio called "Pulong Matong."  The old church was simply referred to as the "simbahan, or Plasa." The approach to my grandparents' house is called "Luwasan."  How would a GPS locate these streets?

Few days ago, I fetched a carpenter from Avenida Rizal.  My cousin gave directions from Santa Mesa. She said, "at the Rotonda, make a right on Lacson Avenue."  I said, "that's Legarda."  

"No," she said, "there's another first right. Don't go straight because that will take you to Malacanang."

So, I drove last Saturday. The old Sta. Mesa Rotonda was unrecognizable. There was a flyover, and there was street below with a sign to "Espana."  I went up the flyover which says Mendiola, and turned right. Oops, I ended up in Legarda.

Luckily there was a break where I was able to make a U-turn. I had to take the street below the flyover to make a left turn. I asked a "tambay," if I could make a left.  "Yes, you can, just follow me."  Like a cop, he went near the middle of the street and before the green light, he directed me to make a left on Lacson. But there was really no left turn in that intersection.  Whew.

The carpenter knew the side streets of Manila. He directed me to less traversed roads where there's no traffic. But going home in the afternoon, he confessed he didn't remember the streets in the subdivision. The household help had to accompany him to the marketplace where he took his ride home.

If the GPS were functioning, it would have been a breeze going from point to point, province to province. 

I remember years ago when we all drove to Nueva Ecija for the town fiesta. It was mid-afternoon just after a hearty lunch and we were playing black jack when an avid suitor of a sister came huffing after a long drive from Manila. We couldn't help but admired his guts for driving alone and for having found our house. He showed us a map - that's how he found my grandparents' house. We were thinking, map?Did Pinoys ever use a map?  Or maybe he just trailed a Baliwag Transit into our barrio. 

I didn't do it.

LEFT - DR. CONNIE Mariano, a Filipino American doctor, has achieved historic feats throughout her career as she broke barriers and shattered the glass ceiling. She is the first military woman to become the White House Physician to the President; the first woman Director of the White House Medical Unit and the first Filipino American in US history to become a Navy Rear Admiral.


Someone was googling "Philippino immigrant criminals,"and the engine pointed my blog.

Obviously, the googler was not a Pinoy, or it could be a second/third/fourth generation Pinoy who didn't know how to spell Filipino.

Now thinking about it, I remember a Pinoy immigrant in Toronto who was nabbed for knifing and killing a co-passenger in the Metro subway about four years ago. The young man apparently was pissed off by the victim's glare, and an exchange of words escalated.

On the other hand, there was a young Pinoy boy, about sixteen, who was gunned down by the Toronto Police because they thought he carried a knife and was about to lunge at a policeman. The boy had a stone in his hand; before the police was summoned by an area resident, there had been a fight between some Pinoy boys and some Russian kids.

The police force had been sued by the parents of the boy, but the policeman who was not on duty and in civilian clothes at the time of the shooting, went scott free.

Then there was the unsolved crime of the Pinoy teen, Michael Santos, a student at the Marc Garneau Collegiate who was found dead in the vicinity of the school. Circumstances surrounding the crime pointed to murder, but the police ruled it was a suicide.

In the U.S., a famous crime which had been committed by a haf-Pinoy, half-American was the Versace murder. Andrew Cunanan went on a killing spree, and his last victim was the famed designer Versace. He committed suicide in a luxury boat before the police could get to him.

In Canada and in the U.S.A, anytime a crime or misdemeanor has been committed by an immigrant or someone with a mixed parentage, the media would not fail to mention the accused or criminal's ethnicity.

If the perpetrator had been a white guy, media would not mention his origins, (e.g . Irish-American, of Scottish descent, etc).

My former boss, a feisty lady from India, was at the forefront of fighting media stereotyping of immigrants into Canada, and one of the studies her group produced pointed to media's preference for this ethnic coverage.

But anytime an immigrant excels in sports, in arts, sciences or other fields, media would not bother mentioning the other half of the person's ethnicity. For instance, Americans don't bother noting that Tiger Woods is half-Thai, nor that Cristy Yamaguchi is Japanese-American. But Andrew Cunanan was splashed in the news as a Pinoy killer. Or that the guy who was gunned down in a hail of bullets by the New York Police in a building vestibule, who carried a cell phone instead of a gun, was a Haitian-American.

There are thousands of high achieving Filipinos all over the globe. The ex-family physician of President Clinton at the White House was a Pinay, the present chef at the White House is a Pinay, and there are thousands of medical practitioners working the hospitals in Canada, U.S.A., U.K. and other parts of the world.

Pinoys should be drumbeating instead of flagellating ourselves.

The recent hostage taking at the Quirino Grandstand, while it should not be forgotten, and should be the basis of credible change in policing, should not be a cause celebre among the opposition, and not to be used as a bullet to kill the changes which President Aquino had boldly begun and the growth potential which his two-month presidency has already shown.

I could not imagine President Barack stepping in on a bus hijacking situation, even if there were foreign nationals on board. He would have left it completely in the hands of his police force. And nobody would have questioned him.

The Manila police force fumbled big; there's an investigation going on. Enough of these "I'm sorry stuff" from the high ranking government officials, already.

Un Moment.

By Anonymous.

Luckily I was seated

or I could have fainted,

Your sight was too excellent,

Your smile, 'tho stilted

still had me captivated,

Your eyes were a slit

that's when you were laughing

so hard,

Your mouth was caressing as 

you talked in miles, 

You cuddled a baby so lovingly

the thought you hated babies didn't play out,

The hands, 'tho I was afar

could've made me mad,

I heard the Glee chorus in mind

while you sipped the noodle in air,

I whistled Air Supply

as you stood and sat in rhyme,

I did a David Letterman laugh

as you passed my table by,

Then I saw Epponine cry

as you walked finally into the crowd.

I know that.

It seems the whole nation has something to say about Venus Raj, and that includes me.

I see the girl as elegant, beautiful and confident. In my book, she should have gotten the title of Ms. Universe had she answered the question in a slightly different manner.

This is the first time I've watched the Ms. Universe contest in about twenty five years.  Beauty contests are no big deal in Canada and the U.S.A.  

But I'm here in Manila and instead of watching more news of the Quirino Grandstand carnage, I opted to see beautiful women. 

Yes, Venus should have used an interpreter.  Why?

English is not her first language.  It is her third language. Her first dialect/language is Bicolano, second, Tagalog, and third, English.

So when the question was read to her and before she answered, she did some translation in her mind - English to Bicolano, then Bicolano to English.  That will take several seconds.

Her enunciation or pronunciation was great; she was easily understood.

If she used an interpreter/translator, she would have gained more time (first, she already understood the question read in English, second, she could already have formulated the answer by the time the translator read the question in her native dialect).

If she used an interpreter/translator, she would have blurted out the answer in 

Bicolano, not worrying about grammar or use of adjectives or nouns,  Then the interpreter/translator would have used the right adjectives, adverbs, whatever else is needed.

I had several experiences interpreting for Filipinos while working in Toronto.  In my first job in Canada, I was called one time to interpret/translate for a young Pinoy who was a client of Goodwill Industries.  The teen suffered from mental disorder and was being rehabilitated and placed for employment.  His counsellor sought an interpreter to understand him much better, so he could be given better intervention.

In a second place of work, we had a unit called Interpretation Services.  This unit did interpretation for immigrants and new Canadians.  I did several interpretation assignments for this organization.  I remember interpreting for an old Pinay who was being interviewed/assessed in a hospital.  Again, the interpretation service was very vital because the interview/assessment was the basis for medical care she would receive later. 

Although Filipinos are more fluent in English than most immigrants or citizens of other non-native English speaking countries, some Pinoys still need interpreters/translators to be better understood.

In the Ontario province, immigrant tradespeople (skilled labour) who are going to take the certificate of qualification exam to be accepted into their trade are allowed to bring an interpreter during the exam, provided the interpreter is not a tradesperson (e.g not an electrician, nor a millwright, etc).

Having an interpreter in crucial moments is a must.

Remember Mr. Gorbachev, a former Prime Minister of Russia and husband of Raisa Gorbachev?  

He visited the U.S. just when Russia was opening up to the West and the Americans were amazed and ultimately loved him because he gave such beautiful speeches and answers to interviews using an interpreter. President Ronald Reagan who wore a hearing aid heard every bit of word he said. 

You're Fired!

Don't you love how Donald Trump say it?  "You're fired!!"

This catch phrase is the signature line of his hit show, The Apprentice, which  enjoys top rating and employs both wit and drama.

Yesterday, one fellow who was "fired" from his job, ex-

Captain Rolando Mendoza took 25 people hostages and demanded that he be reinstated from his job as Manila mobile cop.  He was dismissed by the Ombudsman because he robbed, threatened, and manhandled a chef for illegally parking his car.  Mendoza's group demanded money from a certain Christian Kalaw, a chef of Sheraton Hotel, who was accused of illegal parking, and from whom 100,000 pesos was extorted from, and whittled down to 20

,000 and who was forced to swallow shabu.

Mendoza, due to retire next year lost his salary and benefits because of the dismissal and wanted a payback.

The hostage situation lasted more than ten hours and only ended when Mendoza shot his hostages, and the Manila Police's SWAT team swooped down on him.

Early on the hostage situation, I was thinking why media had been allowed to record and capture every bit of the "crime" scene.  I thought the police should have cordoned off the area and only tell media what it ought to know.

It's hard to analyze the situation after the fact, I know.

But I was expecting the SWAT team to have taken an early posture of "ending the gunman's" show by taking him down at the first opportunity and there was plenty of it.  Early in the morning, the gunman stood at the bus door and even waved at the camera.  As the day progressed, he shied away from the camera and hid, knowing full well, as a cop, that there would be snipers snooping at him.

The police force could be thinking, like most TV viewing public, that the hostage taking situation was one for public consumption just like the "cop reality TV shows of America," or the movies of Keanu Reeves or Bruce Willis. Or, because

 the police force is still in the limelight accused of brutality, they wanted to display transparency in the way they engage criminals and the way they arrest them.

Or they thought Mendoza, being a cop, would still have shown some respect for human lives.  Or they treated him differently because he was one of them.

I was thanking God aloud each time I saw a hostage being pulled out alive from the bus. But then, 8 people died.

This thing happens all over the globe. Yes, it's an embarrassment for the country, but Mendoza is not the Pinoy.  He is the exception.

In Pakistan, Iraq, India, Iran, and Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, both locals and foreigners are being murdered. In the U.S., some teens kill their classmates, teachers and their parents.  In the U.S., certain parents murder their own children.

Violence is everywhere.  Insanity is everywhere. 

Republika.

I didn't notice it until yesterday.  There it was, at SM Megamall.  Kids of all sizes, adults of all classes - milling around the section that looked like a mini-perya.

At the centre were some carnival rides; then there was a unit full of game consoles, reminiscent of the 80's craze.

I saw a young Dad seated by one game machine taking a break from playing and bottle feeding his infant.  There was a Lola seated by the stairway step, just staring at passing people, maybe waiting for his apo to finish playing.  There were hundreds of parents chaperoning their kids, giving them fun at the indoor "mini carnival."

The way SM is developing its malls is akin to building a nation. Or is it, SM is building its stores so rapidly that this Republic will look like an SM nation?

In the U.S., Walmart is SM.  The corporate strategy is to build stores in a site where there are clusters of little towns, or cities.  Wherever Walmart builds, the little merchandisers in the so-called downtown always protest because they know that Walmart would ultimately lead to their demise.

Their worry has been proven time and time again to be true. 

I don't have anything against SM; in fact I'm a regular maller there.

I'm amazed, in fact, how the store has changed the way people shop.  Now, people go to the mall not just to buy but to live.

The SM big malls could be a small town in itself.  How?

There's a parish inside the SM. There are rows and rows of restaurants and diners.  There's NBI and LTO offices.  There are doctors, dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons.  There are beauty parlors and spas.  There are bakeries.  Of course, the SM supermakert and department store are there.  Travel agencies, a whole section of computer and computer stuff stores. There are movie houses, skating rink, a "plaza," art stores/museum, library-looking book stores, and park-like ambience where people sit at benches whiling away time, meeting with friends, picnic-ing.

SM has its own police force of security guards who man traffic, the gates, the "republic."

With such mini-city components,  SM should have its own charter, and elect its own barangay. Of course, this would spell trouble.

I am reminded of the GOCCs which have their own charters, and thus, their own abuses. 

Private entities can do what they want to do with their property, run these the way they want to run them - and spend and earn from such.  GOCCs, financed by taxpayers, should be monitored and made to toe the line.

Jamon.

Last Thursday, we went to the place of our childhood, Sta. Ana.  On our way to Shaw Blvd., at Gen. Kalentong, I suddenly remembered the ham of our childhood, Adelina's.

I had to drive slow, ignoring the jeepneys at my tail so I could properly locate the tiny store. It was still there.

Years and years ago, when my father didn't get his usual Holiday gifts of raw Chinese ham (pata ng jamon), my mother used to buy the Chinese ham at Adelina's.  It was similar to the ham sold at Echague's and my mother bought it 

here because she didn't want to travel all the way to Quiapo.

If my father got ham as gift from his Chinese clients, my Ate cooked it 

on New Year's eve.  

She boiled it in a mixture of beer, pineapple juice, muscovado sugar, sometimes with Seven Up, until fat comes dripping out. During the Media Y Noche, that ham looked as yummy delicious as the Echague ham. We usually enjoyed ham until February because Father sometimes got more than one ham as gift. 

Ham reminds me of the Spanish film Jamon Jamon, which star Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, a 1992 Spanish drama/comedy film directed by Bigas Luna. " It centers around a young woman named Silvia played by Cruz. The film is bursting with sexual energy and twisted romantic relationships. The film is an allegory for Spain itself and the director engages in word play and pun. It rhapsodizes on the juxtaposition of old and new in Spain and many other emotional contrasts such as erotic desire and food."  Even the director's name, Bigas, (rice) connotes food. 

At Adelina's, the store clerk asked if we wanted the scraps or the sliced ham. We bought the sliced ham with the honey sauce that goes with it.  The following morning, breakfast consisted of raisin bread, ham, pancakes and coffee.

So the TV commercial I ranted about in a previous post,  the one about Christmas in December and fruit cocktail today, somehow stirred memories of the Holiday Season in my subconscious.  

Ham is an everyday staple in North America and Canadian ham/bacon is well known throughout the world.  But although ham is readily available in Toronto, there would be times when I longed for the jamon back home.

I remember some Christmases in Toronto when I bought cooked ham but cooked it again in maple syrup laced with pineapple juice to get the jamon taste I liked.  Of course, I was fooling myself.

After tasting the Adelina's ham, I now look forward to the Echague ham.

UPPER LEFT, Canadian bacon/ham.

Pre-Christmas Sale.

I saw this TV commercial raving about how we can have the Holiday spirit right now. How? By enjoying a fruit salad today.

True. Pinoy's Holiday food always includes fruit and buko salad.

In Toronto, if you visit Philippine stores around Christmas time, you'd see huge cans of fruit cocktails and Nestle's cream.

Somehow, although I've seen the TV commercials a few times, the Holiday mood could not kick in yet. It's still the monsoon season, for crying out loud. And being Canadian, my body clock is still feeling the summer that's going on in Toronto right now.

And that TV commercial is too lame. If you go to any restaurant or food court, you can always order a fruit salad. And the Noel chime would not suddenly ring in the ear.

I hate TV commercials that are too trite or obtrusive. Like a detergent commercial which pits one tablespoon of one brand vs. two of another brand for rinsing out grime out of a dirtied shirt collar. Or another detergent which supposedly brings out a brand-new-shirt-look. Or another wherein a popular TV host gets high sniffing the bath soap out of a detergent.

These commercials are all too coy and pilit na pilit, ika nga.

I love commercials that are witty and funny. They don't even have to show or talk too much about the product to be effective. Like the old Zazoo condom commercial.

I await the CLIO international award winning commercials. These commercials are the real prime time shows

Selda.

I watched parts of the documentary about Ninoy Aquino last night over at ANC.  It had interviews of Lupita Kashiwahara, Butz Aquino, Noynoy Aquino, and friends and colleagues of the late Senator.  It showed his speech in an American University, his trial, his campaign for the Batasang Pambansa seat, his younger days and his last days. 

Ninoy was incarcerated for a total of seven years, and some of these were in isolation.  His tiny prison cell had been replicated at the Aquino residence in Times St.

A person dear to me was also imprisoned during the Martial Law years; she was a member of the cultural group of SDK.  Their group had just finished performing when Martial Law was declared, and they were promptly arrested and brought to Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac.

This brings to mind movies where the setting is a prison camp.  I enjoy watching these types of films.  I've seen several times the movie, The Rock starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery, Green Mile starring Tom Hanks, Papillon starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve Mcqueen, the old movie, Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood, and the even older film, Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman.  

But the prison movies which really left an imprint in my mind are the Midnight Express which starred Brad Davis, a movie about a young American student who tried to smuggle hashish out of Turkey, and showed abuses and violence inside the Turkish prison, and Papillon starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen, a movie about two convicts who agreed to protect each other while waiting in prison.  

In Papillon, "a man makes friends with a fellow inmate while they are serving sentence on a notorious island prison and he plots his hellish escape. The petty criminal known as Papillon is unjustly convicted of murder (specifically, murdering a pimp) in the 1930s and sentenced to life imprisonment in a French penitentiary on Devil's Island in French Guiana. He attempts several escapes, which result in many punishments, but after more than a decade (at least seven years of which were spent in solitary confinement as punishment for his escape attempts), he eventually succeeds in escaping to freedom." 

Ninoy Aquino didn't escape from prison; he was released to undergo heart surgery in Boston. Then he was murdered on his return to the Philippines. His captor and jailer, Ferdinand Marcos was flown out of the country into Hawaii, during the People Power I and was brought back to the Philippines in a casket. 

New Designs.

I've never tried landscaping.  Now, I'm contemplating doing the backyard once the topsoil and up gradation is finished.

How should I go about it?  There are many Home Improvement and Garden magazines lying around so I'd probably consult and copy some designs.  

Cleaning the yard is the hardest part. There are two huge trees, Banaba and Kamias, which dump tons of leaves all day.  There are caterpillars which have become pests. There are left over wood and trash from previous renovation. There are three dogs creating a mess.

The front and side of the house is allright. They've got tiles and plants, and there's a grotto which is lighted all night.

There are those who want to live in a house because they want the feel of the soil. They want to do gardening, they want to arrange and keep on re-arranging furniture and decor, they want huge bathrooms, they want industrial kitchens.

But then there are those who want to live in condo and apartment buildings.  They want spartan spaces, they want garbage and snow removal, they want 24-hour security, they don't like raking the leaves nor watering the plants.

I am adaptable; I can live anywhere, in a condo or in a house, as long as the structure and surrounding are clean and organized.

My next project is the landscaping of the backyard. 

Love Thy Labour.

It's true. We, Pinoys somehow abhor blue collar jobs or labour. So, we send our kids to school and they end up taking courses that will lead to professional jobs such as accounting, teaching, nursing, engineering, law, and medicine.

Vocational courses which lead to skilled labour is avoided. When I was about to enter college, students entering vocational or technical schools were looked down upon.

Then, the oil scent from the Middle East started to blow into to our shores. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other mid-east nations started recruiting in the late 70's for people to run their oil rigs, hotels, hospitals and other industries. Much later, southeast Asian countries recruited our manpower or OFW as they are known today.

My closest encounter with OFW's came in the person of an uncle in law. He got married in his teens and didn't finish high school, so he ended working in a factory. He got recruited in Jeddah as an assistant cook. My aunt was so happy because they were able to build a house and buy appliances, and send a son to dental school. But after several years of working overseas, he quit and was not able to earn again.

Although many of the Pinoys work in high level professional jobs overseas, many more are working in menial jobs. In our hometown in Nueva Ecija, there are lots of men and women who work in factories in Taiwan and Indonesia, and in sorry jobs in the Middle East. Most didn't finish college.

In Hongkong and Singapore, our teachers are working as nannies. In the Middle East, our engineers are working as technicians. In the Philippines, our college and university graduates are working in call centres.

In Canada, young people get early education in working. At eight or ten, many get paid delivering newspapers or walking dogs, or mowing the neighbour's lawn. By the age of twelve, they are baby sitting. At fifteen, they work part time in supermarkets and groceries. By the age of eighteen, they work full time jobs in garages as service tech, or in offices as bookkeepers, insurance underwriters, and in labour jobs as automakers, steel workers, coal miners, sanitation engineers, etc. Others go to universities.

Labour jobs are decent jobs. They bring food into tables. Labourers in Canada and the U.S. can afford to buy cars and take vacations.

It is the way people look at their jobs that determine their success and contentment.

When my father eloped with my mother, he was nineteen and in the middle of his law studies. While my grandparents continued financing his studies, he had to find a job to sustain his growing family.

He worked as market collector at the old Central Market during the day, and pursued his law studies in the evening.

Pinoys are not used to working early, and at odd jobs. While young, we are not even expected to water the plant nor feed the cat or dog. The household help does those kinds of things. So, we look down upon labour. It is not something we look forward to doing as our means of livelihood.

If the OFWs were working here and not abroad, they probably would not do what they're doing right now. In Paris when I was visiting, the "maitre d" was a Pinay who'd worked and lived there in the last fifteen years. In most cruise ships almost 80% of the crew are Pinoys, and even in Portugal, I met Pinays who were working in labour jobs and trying to get to other parts of Europe, and in Spain there are so many Pinoys you'd bump into them at malls and train stations.

They don't mind working as nannies and in factories, because the pay is decent.

The twelve year primary and secondary education will soon be adopted in the Philippines. While there are parents who resent the fact that they'd be spending more for those two additional years, there are more of those who realize that the new plan would make Pinoys more "educated," and more competitive.

After high school, Canadians and U.S students just take one-or two-year courses, and after that, work as bookkeepers, vet med assistants, legal secretaries, LPNs, and general office workers, or in blue collar jobs. They have pride in working, at odd jobs and in professional ones.

If we start improving our educational system, people will be more educated in choosing their leaders, and in understanding their rights and privileges, then down the road, be more demanding of their government and of private employers, which could ultimately lead to better services, and wages, a more effective management of national talents, and more inventiveness and an entrepreneurial spirit which could trigger development of new and more industries.

So, let's dream that later on, whether one is doing labour or professional job, the quality of their lives could be at par with each other.

I Love the Rain.

It's pouring. The huge garden umbrella is soaked, and the pup, Shadee is comfortably sleeping under the car. I frantically moved her from the lanai where she still gets wet despite the roof, into the carport when dark clouds started to form. Typhoon Esther is raging. At least there's cold wind to drown the dreary afternoon.

I was up before six this morning and started surfing the net looking for information on natural sources of calcium. This, after I read an article that calcium supplements increased the risks of a heart attack and stroke.

What will the doctors say now about the calcium supplements they've been prescribing all these years?

Another medical article talked about how sleeping less than and more than seven hours a day increased the risks of a heart attack. Now, whatever happened to the medical advice that we need eight hours of sleep?

I am writing about the rain, calcium, sleeping and my dog, Shadee in the same post, because Shadee has completely recovered from her wound and broken leg.

You see, I ran over Shadee when I was backing out of the carport. She was tied to the garden bench and because it was the morning after Typhoon Basyang, she didn't want to get into the wet part of the garden and preferred to stay under the car.

It was too late. The front tire rolled on her and she bled. I was only leaving that morning because a neighbour asked for help to jump start the battery of her car.

I wrapped Shadee in a blanket and dried her wound - on her right hind. Then I broke an antibiotic capsule and poured the medicine directly onto the wound. Then, I gave her milk (calcium) laced with Ibuprofen to ease her pain.

I repeated this procedure for one week. Shadee who had a big appetite soon lost weight because she didn't want to eat.

Then, she started to get better, and started to walk - no, she was limping.

Today, when I unleashed her, I yelled for her to run because the rain was about to fall. And she did. Her right leg has healed and it's strong again.

I am happy.

No more Robinhood.

I am not an authority in Philippine cinema nor TV, so this post is just an ordinary observer's observation.

I read awhile ago that Robin Padilla might not go back to his hosting job at the new television show, Pilipinas Win Na Win (PWNW). It's Ramadan so he'll be off for five weeks.

The PWNW show which is really WOWOWEE, re-titled and re-packaged, has had difficulty getting a male host since its original host, Willie Revillame went on leave. The producers tried Billy Crawford, Luis Manzano, Robin Padilla and a host of others.

Now, re-titled, the show got back Robin Padilla.

I have some assumptions about this new show. First, it may have been re-titled, because the network didn't plan to get back Revillame. Second, the network didn't intentionally hire back Revillame because it wanted to wean the show away from its "too masa" appeal.

Weaning the show away from its excessive "for the poor show" image bodes well for the network. First, Revillame boasted of having conceptualized most of the show's game segments, which he targetted to appeal to the "masa." Second, the tragedy which killed many people left a bitter taste in the mouth (what a way to die when all they wanted was to get a chance to earn quick money).

Third, and I think the most powerful one, is that the show sponsors could have clamored for a change in the show's image.

Sponsors. A show's sponsors make the show. They pay for airtime, which pays for production costs including costly talent fees. PWNW, like the original WOWOWEE has plenty of these sponsors, such as Rexona, and others I can't recall.

Now, these sponsors pay big airtime money so that their products could be seen and heard, and ultimately be patronized and bought by the viewers. Now, if a show is so targetted to classes C and D, which have limited purchasing power, will the products have a BIG chance of being purchased by the magta-taho, or magba-balot, trycicle drivers, etc?

The old show WOWOWEE had been heavily promoted overseas thru the TFC. My own sisters in Seattle and San Jose and their apo's tune in to the show. Yes, the sponsors over there may be different, but where there are built-in promo segments, such as Rexona's, they are the same products and sponsors.

What I'm saying is that the mix of TV viewership and thus the sponsor/product mix may not work out well for sponsors. In marketing, there is what we call "niche," or market segments.

Look at it this way. If I were an advertiser of an expensive car, would I choose WOWOWEE/PWNW to advertise? I might, because its viewership is high, but can these people afford to buy my car?

This, I believe, is what happened to WOWOWEE/PWNW. The network wanted to "up" its target market. That's why it brought Kris Aquino, who is a cross over host, and appeals to a wide range of markets and segments, ABCD.

Before Kris, it tried Luis Manzano, who is another cross over host. But Manzano was replaced because the network wanted a co-equal of Revillame for a male host - a Robin Padilla who also has the "masa" appeal.

So the host mix is a de-klase and a masa, Kris and Robin, to appeal and target a mixed target market: ABCD.

Watch for more quality segments from this show.

It's purely economics.