My Philippine Stamps

My notebook covered with Phillipine Stamps

Twenty one years ago (the year was 1987), I happened to make a notebook made out of ordinary bond papers glued together with hard cardboards as back and front covers. I then placed Philippine postage stamps on its face to make it more beautiful. Those stamps were taken from the letters or cards I received from friends and relatives as well as from some of the letters sent to our family. Collecting those stamps at that time were merely done for the purpose of covering the said notebook without even thinking that in due time stamps will become (almost) a thing of the past. I am so glad to have found my notebook still in good condition unlike my other things which were all destroyed by the mighty rodents which have the prowess to cut papers into tiny pieces.

 

 

With the change of time, letters sent through the post office is becoming scarce. The mode of sending letters and messages is now easier and faster compared to the olden days.  Text messages sent via the mobile phone and telephone are more common these days  and e-mail messages is the best option for sending messages for those who are living in the other side of the world. If decades ago it took months before one’s message is passed on to other people, now it just takes seconds to get new messages. That’s the wonder of improved (and constantly improving) science and technology. On the other side, only few people receives snail mail and only few people now have the opportunity to see the beautiful stamps on their mail.

 

I am quite fortunate to have collected Philippine stamps during the early years of my life. I appreciate more the beauty and significance of these stamps as it age (with me).

 

The earliest stamp that I have has the face of Jose Rizal, our national hero, with scripture saying “HELP ME STOP SMUGGLING.   Pres. Marcos” and the amount of postage was just five centavos (P.05). Another stamp which is quite old is a brown colored six centavo (P.06) stamp with the official seal of the province of Capiz on it, then the ten centavo  (P.10) stamp with Father Jose Burgos on it.

 

From a mere notebook cover, these stamps will now have its better place and much better presentation. It will become now a piece of artwork, framed, and hanged in the living room for everyone to see.

 

This is one of my many ways to say that I am proud to be Pinoy!

Sunday is Jollibee Day

As a devoted Catholic, Sunday is the time for me to fulfill my spiritual obligations, that includes going to church and hear the mass. But for my little girl, it’s her Jollibee day. We usually hear the ten o’clock mass at the Redemptorist Church and when the mass is over my little girl would say, “Goodbye Jesus, we’ll be going to Jollibee”. I presume it’s not only my child who makes Sunday as Jollibee Day for I see a lot of children pulling their parents towards the Jollibee outlet just across the church right after the mass. There are some parents who wouldn’t heed to their children’s request, for whatever reason which I do not know, that it make these little kids cry. It makes me sad to see these kids cry but I can’t help them otherwise their parents will slap me on the face for minding other’s business and being pakialamera. If the parents don’t have the budget to treat their child to Jollibee, I guess it would be better if they just hear mass somewhere else so to avoid their kids from seeing Jollibee, that’s what I usually do if I know I don’t have money to spare for my daughter’s Sunday’s Jollibee treat.

 

While waiting for our food, a child – around four years old – seated next to the table where were seated was wondering and asking her mother how many Jollibee stores are there, who owns Jollibee and if there is a Jollibee outside the Philippines. The mother was obviously reluctant to answer the questions and was telling her child to keep quiet. The child continued asking the same questions but the mother never bothered to answer all of them. I wanted to answer all the questions but decided in the end not to for, again, I was afraid to be slapped on the face for minding other people’s business. I also wanted to tell the mother to read the history of Jollibee which was anyway posted in the wall in front of her. Anyway, I have it here to make everyone aware how Jollibee started.

 

History of Jollibee:

1975 – TAN family opens the first Jollibee (ice cream parlors) outlets in Cubao and Quiapo

1978 – Jollibee (JFC) was born as a wholly Filipino-owned corporation

1980 – Chickenjoy is hatched. Jollibee mascot debuts.

1984 – The Champ is launched.

1985 – Jollibee becomes the No. 1 fastfood chain of the Philippines

1987 – Efforts to establish a foothold abroad gain ground with the opening of an overseas outlet in dubai

1991 – Jollibee opnes its 100^th store in Bolton, Davao

1993 – Jollibee becomes the 1^st food service corporation to be listed in the Phil. Stock Exchange (PSE)

1995 – Launch of MaAga ang Pasko sa Jollibee

1996 – Opens its 200^th store in Malolos, Bulacan and open stores in Hongkong and Vietnam

1998 – the 300^th store opens in Bulacan and 1^st in Daly City, USA

2001 – the 400^th store opnes in Intramuros and hailed as the Best Employer in the Phil. By Asian Wall Street Journal

2003 – For the 6^th straight year, the Far Eastern Economic Review ranked Jollibee as the Philippine’s leading Company

2004 – Tony Tan Caktiong receives the “World Entrepreneur of the Year” award from Ernst & Young

2006 – CNBC Asia awards Ernesto Tan-Mantiong the “Corporate Citizen of the Year” award in Hongkong

2007 – 600^th store opens in Cagayan and Las Vegas becomes the 1^st US Jollibee outside California.

 

Jollibee may have received various international awards and recognition but one thing remained the same – the taste of their crunchy chicken. It’s everyone’s favorite but, sad to say, I cannot anymore indulge too much on it for it will definitely worsen my arthritis.

 

14 year old Filipino World Chess GrandMaster

I walked past a group of people, while I was walking along Zamora St., encircling around a table with a chessboard on top of it. People looking at the chessboard were all quiet and seemed to be in deep concentration. I couldn’t help but be curious, so I decided to go back and look at what they were looking at. I learned a little later that they were trying to analyze how to make a mate in just one move and such move made Wesley So win in the 2008 Dubai Open held in the United Arab Emirates. Who is Wesley So, I thought.

 

Wesley So is a Filipino who was born on October 9, 1993. He is a chess prodigy who is currently the youngest World Chess Grandmaster. He is the 7th youngest grandmaster in chess history. He achieved the Grandmaster title in December 2007 at the age of 14 years, 1 month and 28 days during the 3rd Pichay Cup International Open in Parañaque City, Philippines.

 

According to www.chessgame.com, Wesley So nailed his first GM result in the Offene Internationale Bayerische Schaha Meisterschaft in Bad Wiessee, Germany in November 2006 and his second GM norm in the World Juniors Under-20 Chess Championship in Yerevan, Armenia in September 2007.

GM So has also won the World Under-16 Team Championship Board 1 gold medal with a phenomenal score of 9.5/10. In his home country, he holds the record of having been the youngest member of the national men’s team to the Chess Olympiad (2006 – Turin, Italy) at the age of 12 as well as the country’s youngest National Open Chess Champion and its youngest National Junior Open Chess Champion.

In his young but distinguished career, Wesley has competed in World Youth Championships in 2003, 2004 and 2005, finishing equal first in his age group in Belfort in 2005 alongside Srinath Narayanan, Sanan Sjugirov, and Samvel Ter Sahakyan. His other achievements include two Gold Medals in the 6th Asean Age-Group Chess Championship, Vung Tau, in Vietnam; three Gold Medals in 7th Asean Age-Group Chess Championship, Pattaya, in Thailand and competing in the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006.

So won the Dubai Open (2008) in the United Arab Emirates, besting over an international field that included 23 other grandmasters.

The world record of Wesley is indeed astonishingly admirable. We are very proud to our kababayan.

 

Cervical Spine Syndrome

Three days ago, I rode a public utility vehicle – popularly known to the Filipinos as JEEP – instead of driving my own car, when I went to the heart of the city – we call it the downtown – where business establishments are located and is around 8 kilometers far from where I live. While on our way there, the driver picked up five elderly women passengers who were also going to the downtown. One of them, a fat woman in red T-shirt, sat next to the bespectacled classy woman already sitting in front of me. They seemed to be old friends who lost communication to each other. After their Hi’s and Hello’s, this woman in red commented to the classy woman: “Hey, that pink scarf looks good on you.” Then she added, “you know what, I have something to recommend good for that (pointing to her neck which was covered by her pink scarf) which my friend used”. In between that conversation I couldn’t hear the other exact words as the noise of the speeding wheel of the jeep distracted my audio. When the car stopped, the classy woman replied, “This is not a goiter, it’s a cervical spine! It all started as a stiff neck and then I over-exercised my neck. After a while I almost became totally paralyzed that I was not able to walk”. What? Did I hear it right? Or was she saying Cerebral Spine? No! She repeated the words, CERVICAL SPINE”. Okey, I heard it right. I thought to myself, “What kind of disorder is that?” How come her neck is swollen?”

 

It really made me think again and again what is a cervical spine? I tried to make some kind of analysis by extracting the root words. A CERVIX is a doughnut-shaped structure that is the neck of the uterus or the entrance of the uterus located at the top of the vagina. The SPINE is a flexible column of bones called vertebrae that supports the body from the base of the skull to the pelvis and is supported in turn by other skeletal bones and a network of ligaments and muscles. Stacked one above the other and increasing in size from the top, the vertebrae are separated by shock-absorbing pads called discs. Extending from each vertebrae are three bony projections called processes, to which supporting ligaments and muscles are attached and which form a protective channel for the spinal cord. These two parts of the body – cervix and spine – are not in anyway closely related. The spine is part of the central nervous system while the cervix is part of the reproductive system. But the most incongruous of them all is that –it’s her neck which is affected. Unless, of course, the cervix runs through her spine and land it on her neck, then she will have that Cervical Spine Syndrome. Whoever her doctor is, I hope she will be diagnosed properly so she can have the proper medication.

 

I’M NO. 1 IN YAHOO SEARCH

I’M NO. 1 IN YAHOO SEARCH

 

Really!  . .  . . .Yeah, I’m serious.  

What?  . . . .I’m in the top rank.  . . . .  .

Are you sure?    . . . .I am sure! . . . . .

How did you do it? . . .Nothing, I just searched . . . .

What made you number 1?  . . .I made myself no.1 . .  . . .

Are you crazy? . . .  .    . . . . Of course not! .

 

 

Here’s my evidence!

 

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1.                                  Doris Dolina

… · Filed under Personal Blogs · Tagged Antoinette, Dureza, name, nickname, petname … Dureza was my father’s weird choice while the name Antoinette ( from …

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5 Leslie “Dureza” Dimas #6 Jacob “Albedrío” Chacko #7 Maurice “Halción” Davis … 20 Antoinette “Enigma” Camacho #21 Ashley “Noelani” Agron #22 Wester ” …

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5.                                  Unidentified gunmen kill radio commentator in southern Philippines …

… said Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza, a longtime politician from Davao. … ‘Marie-Antoinette‘ at the Grand Palais: A queen of the arts? 6. Cohen: …

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Why is everyone’s so keen on becoming number 1? What’s the fuss of being on the top? As I open from one website to another, I notice that many claim to be in the top rank most often, to have a thousand or more hits per day, to have helped other websites make money for quite a long time,  etc. As a neophyte blogger, I had no idea what’s the importance of all these ranking and I didn’t understand why some site would pay google to make their site number one. An in-depth research made me realize that there is money in being number one. The higher you’re your rank the more money that you get. Advertisers flock to your site and for every advertiser that you get, will make you a $100 (or more) richer per month. In other words, if you have 20 sponsors, then you earn $2000 per month, it’s not bad after all. Aside from the earnings that you receive from your sponsors, you also have the opportunity to increase your sales, expose your wares or services to millions of would-be buyers or clients and create an edge over your competitors.

 

I am not a manipulator of any search engine in the web for I am in no way capable of doing so. In the first place, my web-based knowledge is very limited and my being a self-confessed computer-lingo dumb will literally limit the perimeters of my manipulatory capacity. But I am to dispute if one would say that a computer-lingo dumb is not capable of interweaving layman language to that of the technical terms in the web and create his own niche in the world wide web since I, for one, made it possible.

 

Okey, my being number will not make me famous, will not make me richer nor will my technorati and alexa rating be elevated. But definitely, it will make everyone realize that your website can always be number one in yahoo search if you write in toto the keywords of your own website. Crazy but true!

POSITIVE VIBE ON PROUDLY FILIPINA

“Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible”
                                                                                     Cherie Carter-Scott

 

I saw the last part of  last night’s episode of Proudly Filipina on QTV 11 hosted by Charlene Gonzales and I was impressed by the attitude of one of her featured Filipina. She’s a woman born with Cerebral Palsy and despite of it, she managed to get a college education and have a business of her own. She is married to man who is also has Celebral Palsy and blessed with a healthy seven-year boy. She is very brave and shows no sign of giving up. She and her husband are both working hard to give their son the best that they can, without thinking that they are both physically handicapped. I am so impressed!

Sometimes we forget that we are blessed with so much that we have no reason complain every little problem that come our way. It also reminded us, people born without any physical defect, to appreciate the physical gift given to us.