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.