The Cabinet of Pinoy Curiosities

There's a lot to rejoice about our latest YouTube Pinoy stars -- Charice Pempengco (a 15 year-old singer who got a standing ovation in Ellen Degeneres's show) and Arnel Pineda (the new lead singer of Journey). They follow the footsteps of Alyssa Alano, but have gone way beyond Alano's league.

Government and big businesses need to think differently to find a way out of persistent problems. Let's think backwards and sidewards -- a technique that Edward de Bono called Lateral Thinking.

What if instead of spending lots of money on policemen and NBI to raid vendors of fake software and DVD movies, businesses instead collected money from the vendors?

I am a very average citizen, but sometimes, things just go haywire and I snap. I turn from a timid Pinoy to a blood-thirsty Roman waving his thumbs-down sign on a dying gladiator. After venting off my rage by writing, I revert into an average guy again.

Metro Manila is a place where there are many reasons to snap. And if you snap many times, then reverting back to normal becomes more difficult. I've recently snapped in favor of BITAG -- a television show that I once hated, but I now watch with pleasure and even encouragement.

On the day I was supposed to graduate, chicken pox kept me in bed. But that didn’t stop my family from throwing a party.

Father flew back from Saudi. Carpenters came for house repairs. Three cooks were hired and a grand feast was designed.

“Can’t we just postpone it for when I’m feeling better?” I asked my parents.

“We suffered to get you educated,” my mother said. “Now we celebrate. Get back to bed,” she added and went back to listing the dishes they wanted to cook.

The issue of Filipino-American friendship always brings out difficult questions like “What is friendship?” and “Do you believe in long engagements?” Describing it can be likened to the answers you once wrote on those high school slum notes: serious to the point of madrama. They gave you pride at the time you scribbled them. And then you grew up they became embarrassments.

If you were to ask me how to sum up Filipino-American relations since they imposed themselves upon us some 100 years ago, I can do in two words: Virgin Forest. By this, I don’t intend to evoke poetic imagery connoting “unexplored” or “rich with wealth” or whatever. I simply mean the award-winning 1982 movie that was directed by Peque Gallaga and written by Uro dela Cruz from a story by T.E. Pagaspas. This film sums up the saga of Fil-Am friendship: it begins with wide-eyed, open-armed hospitality that leaves us beaming with pride. Then it degenerates into treachery and deception, much to our collective chagrin and shame.

Sign of aging: you begin to prefer soothing music over loud, noisy ones. So I've been listening more of Jam 88.3 rather than NU 107. Of course I still listen to the Master's Touch (classical music) and RJ 100, but NU has been dropped from my list.

My gripe against Jam is the disturbing English grammar. Examples:

They have two segments called:

• Shelve It. This is a book review show. My understanding is that when you tell someone to "shelve it," it means not to bother reading it at all.
• Jam It In. Supposedly a segment for witty or important quotes, but the phrase negatively implies forcing something on someone.

They have other problems with their plugs but I can't recall specific examples right now. Maybe you can help me. Just post a comment.