With my more than 30 years of existence living a life in the Philippines, I do not recall a moment when the jeepney fare has gone down.  At present, minimum fare is pegged at seven pesos and fifty centavos (Php7.50).  But come Monday, December 11, 2006 the jeepney fare will rollback to Php7.00.

This good news enthuse me to take a jeepney ride on Monday when going to the office to validate if the report is factual and to test if the driver will go bonkers when I hand over my seven-peso payment.   

At this early point in time, I am trying to consider where is the best place to sit when taking this exciting ride.  Two spots easily entered my loony brain.  The back most seats and the one right in front (not in the middle beside the driver but the one on the leftmost portion).

Common obvious reasons for these two seat areas are:

1. You can get into the vehicle with no trouble of slamming into other passengers’ knees while moving inside in an awkward posture
2. You can have a 180 degree peripheral vision of the sights outside the jeepney
3. You can easily alight from the vehicle when you reach your destination
4. When there is a holdup situation, you can jump out in a jiffy and spare yourself from losing your money and your cellphone. (Never mind the plastic cards in the wallet since you can easily block them by immediately calling the bank/s.  I will also not mind losing my pictures in my wallet, since I can always cut those out from fashion magazines.  Joke!)
5. You will be the least victim of smelling the gas of other passengers who relieved themselves from flatulence! Thus, there’s no need to shout, “Sino umutot?!”

Other reasons for selecting the backmost seat:

1. It’s a custom for commuters when seated in the middle or inner most portions to assist the driver in handling over payments of passengers seated on the backmost spots.  Thus, you need not have to bother passing other’s money/fare to the driver.
2. You would not suffer from smelling the stench emanating from the driver’s or co-passenger’s kilikili (translation: underarm)

Other reasons for selecting the seat in front (a seat away from the driver):

1. You can easily handover your pamasahe (translation: jeepney fare) to manong driver
2. Jeepney’s side mirror is right in front of you! Instead of looking into the sullied, grubby and polluted metropolis, you can always look into the mirror and check your face out.  (It always gives me a good laugh when I see passengers busy looking into the side mirror and would check their teeth out or would pluck out their nose hairs!)

Philippines did a great job!  The World Economic Forum recently identified the Philippines being the top 6 among 115 countries to have the smallest gender gap.  This means that our country’s hoi polloi – male and female – seem to have an equal standing in society compared to other nationalities.  Our stupendous country is the only Asian country to have made it in the top 10.

The size of the “gender gap” study was based on educational attainment, access to high-skilled employment, political empowerment, life expectancy and level of salary among others.

Here’s a bunch of my zany personal suspicions why we were included in the top:

1. Our president – though a midget – is female.
2. A stupid British Dictionary in mid-1990’s defined Filipina as “domestic helper”
3. In 2004 Asian Development Bank study shows that 65% of OFWs are women
4. The Bar exam topnotcher for 2004 and 2005 were female
5. According to 2000 census, there’s more loony dudes than dudettes
6. In every Pinoy showbiz awards night people would franticly wait for the announcement of the best actress award and would not care who won best actor
7. Pinoy Superstar, Megastar, Diamond Star, Star for All Seasons are all female
8. All Pinoy Big Brother winners were female (Nene, Kim and Keanna)
9. Or maybe, general portion of this generation’s male population of the nation is simply stupid!

Kudos to all folks!

It was that day when I craved for a Calzone stuffed with ham and cheese from Sbarro.  When I finally got one, I shared a portion of it to Ariel (an officemate) since I normally cannot finish the whole thing.  He told me that such chow is so darn filling and heavy in the stomach like the popular bread served during our grade school days called “nutri-bun”.

Nutri-bun sold compulsory to all students during break time made me recall some possessions I had when I was in my grade school days.  Being the 5^th child, it’s quite hard to possess an item during my childhood that I can actually call my own since I am part of those jackass creatures who benefited from the very cost worthy hand-me-downs. 

If these items are still present, these can be considered vintage by today’s generation.  Some of which are…

1.  Superman T-Shirt

I still remember I was with my mom buying this piece of clothing at Harrison Plaza.  Harrison Plaza during that time was the hippest mall then.  She let me chose the color.  I pointed the light yellow colored one.

2.  PanAm Bag

This light blue colored bag was the one I used and brought to school when I was in my 3rd grade.  My parents allowed me to use it.  My father got one in the 70’s as a giveaway from the PanAm airline when he went back from Saudi Arabia from one of his annual vacations from his job.

3.  Game & Watch

When I was eleven my mother purchased me this handled electronic game unit.  You will be considered one of the cool dudes in school if you own one.  Mine was the Octopus game with a clock and an alarm.  After a little more than a month, I got so familiar with the game that the score would go back to zero when you reach the score of 999.

In the office this afternoon, busy and stressed with work – opening 5 restaurants this month, running a training center, operating the HR needs of 14 existing restaurants – I suddenly hear myself humming a rhythm.  While working focused on something at the computer, without any clue and external clout, I was uttering the lyrics and humming the haunting classic Pinoy song "Payapang Daigdig" (translation: Peaceful World).

Ang gabi’s payapa

Lahat ay tahimik

Pati mga tala sa bughaw na langit

Kay hinhin ng hangin, wari’y umiibig

Sa kapayapaan ng buong daigdig.

Payapang panahon

Ay diwa ng buhay

Biyaya ng Diyos

Sa sangkatauhan

Ang gabi’y payapa, lahat ay tahimik

Pati mga tala

Sa bughaw na langit.

This song as I researched from the internet was written in 1945 by the great Philippine National Artist Felipe De Leon.  It was originally not a Christmas hymn but was written in "the morning after thousands have died and saw that bombs during the Second World War had leveled the entire city of Manila".

At first I thought I was just buzzing it because Christmas is nearing.  But after learning this significant fact, I knew that my subconscious is actually trying to convey that after all this demanding, stressful and taxing condition in the office peace and tranquility will soon follow. 

I guess it’s my spontaneous way to avert my nutty self from imploding!