It’s summertime finally as the kids stay home away from school and I get to have some extra time for myself; like watching wide-winged birds navigate the sky– which at times can be muddled these recent days—while sipping coffee near our front porch. I don’t know if it’s climate change that should be blamed for this queer weather behavior but even others I have spoken to had wondered why despite the onset of what is supposed to be a season of warm sunny days and windy afternoons, the rain and cloudy skies have found its way into our part of town.

Yet to think, our area hasn’t had experienced any sizable rainfall for a number of months already and it is so ironic that it would be at this particular time that they’d have to come. Maybe we’ll need the rain now more than the expected summer days since the farmlands in our vicinity need them for ideal food productivity; otherwise prices of vegetables and fruits in the market would go haywire soon. Perhaps now, we need to do away for the meantime the innate joys that can be had when flying kites on wide grassy area or playing ball under a rainless sky—on supposedly warm sunny days.

My mom came visiting the other day and had brought a basketful of goodies to the kids. In the afternoon, I asked my eldest son Sef-Sef what had happened to the candies their grandmother had brought them since I didn’t noticed any traces of them while warning them about their teeth and how it will rot for eating too much sugary food. He told me that he had put it in a jar and tried to sell them to the kids outside. Well, I said that was a good idea and asked him eventually about how much he had profited so far. He didn’t answer that and with a sly smile on his face, he just went by with what he was doing outside together with his brothers and sister, along with a couple of kids from the other apartment unit in our compound.

The following day, Sef-Sef asked me to accompany him to buy the goodies they need to sell. I asked if he had the money, the ones he had gained selling the candies his Lola Dol had brought them. He said that he had it in his hands but he wanted me to buy the new inventory using my own money. Now I said, that’s a very cunning way to enter the business of selling; you keep all the money while your Papa buys the goods. I said I’ll buy the stocks this time but the next time, he had to show some money from the sales he had made or otherwise it’s just a thoughtless activity. I demanded that he make a profit this time around. He promised but the sly smile is still stuck in his face.

The next day, Sef-Sef wanted to buy more goods since he told me that the kids playing outside have already consumed most of the stocks I’ve bought the night before. I asked him about the revenues he had made so far and he showed me that, holding a jar full of coins and some orange-colored bills. I got to have them I said so that we can buy new stocks for his makeshift store but he fretted demanding once again that I use my own money once again. I told him that in business, one got to use his own capital and recycle them and that his idea of a business enterprise is not sound at all and it is not the way it is in real stores. But he really had wanted to keep all his earnings. I said to him that his Mom will buy the new stocks this time and she will have to explain how this thing really works. He just smiled and walked away.

My seven year-old eldest son knows how to sell alright but there’s just one thing he needs to learn and that’s accountability and financial forthrightness; like not spending his revenues in a way that he had bought more than what he had sold for the day and that he must be ultimately be aware of establishing trends for profits as against the cost of goods sold. It is clear that for now he—together with his siblings and friends—are just doing it for amusement but I see in him a natural entrepreneurial skill that could be inherent in most successful enterprisers. He would sit there near our front gate for just a couple of hours and I can see how the goods are consumed so easily. The last stock I bought him was worth approximately 85 pesos all in all and he told me that he already had about 115 pesos in hand while there are still some candies left on his tray. I calculated in my mind that his business is earning at more-or-less twenty percent (20%) profit margin, which is not already bad at all.

In my college days, I’ve learned from my accounting subjects that the usual profit margin goes around 25% and anything less than that could mean an unsound business practice since a lot of supplemental expenses goes with the basic cost of goods, like fares going to the grocery store to buy the stocks and in real business, there would also entail other cost like those for plastic packaging and in big businesses, that would mean overhead expenses for salaries of storekeepers, electricity, fuel for delivery, water, rent of stalls or business area, and so on and so forth.

In my last business endeavor, that is buying dried fish products from farther down south and selling them to volume buyers here in the city and as well as in cities up north, the profit margin did go as high as 100% where we can get the much sought after product at 45 pesos per kilo and if we were lucky, at 40 pesos at that and then we can sell them at 90 pesos per kilo in this city and possibly about 115 pesos if we sell it on credit to individual buyers. A friend in Davao had informed me that it could even get to 120 pesos in there in their area only if we can find a way to ship him the goods.

At that profit margin, we have overhead expenses like 5 pesos for each kilo transported by ship and about 3 pesos more for each kilo for laborers and carters who would transfer them from ship to dock and towards a waiting transportation. The dried fish business was so viable in hindsight but it was so short-lived since in business, I have learned that it was not merely as convenient as buying them from one station and selling them to another. It was more intricate than that and even problematic than what could initially be expected. Apparently, we were in competition with big players from capitalists from cities like Pagadian up north and even from Davao and they can afford to release huge advances to fishermen who processes the dried fish products, that what those fishermen produces becomes exclusively set aside for those buyers up north and new players like us couldn’t gain the much needed volume in order to profit handsomely per trip made and even if we have to cajole the fishermen there to sell us their products, they would decline the offer, even at a much higher price than the usual. At that time, we just couldn’t match what those big players were advancing the fishermen there, which did go as high as 200,000 pesos each.

My uncle had advised me that in order to make good in the dried fish business, I might need to stay about a month in the islands at a time but I found that to be extremely not ideal considering the responsibilities I have here in the city and besides, I just couldn’t see myself living without regular electricity and water for that stretch of time.

But the dried fish business was to me a very viable enterprise if only one has enough patience and persistence. Now that I was able to size it up and learn about its intricacies and idiosyncrasies, I might make another attempt at it and make a reasonable fortune and then consider myself not to be always unlucky in every endeavor I find myself in.

But for now, I try to see how my son Sef-Sef do with his candy store business and see if it becomes viable in the long run.

While military authorities have found yet another mass grave site in Leyte, a group of lawyers and human rights activists based in Hague issued a verdict against the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the unsolved killings of militants in our midst, making her responsible for them in a huge way .This development happening just about a week after United States lawmakers started a formal inquiry into such circumstance.

The Permanent People’s Tribunal ( founded on 1979 in Italy ) has found President Arroyo—together with U.S. President George W. Bush—-to have “colluded with each other in implementing the US’ so-called ‘war on terror’ in Southeast Asia.”, and more specifically for:

• Gross and systematic violations of civil and political rights: extrajudicial killings, abduction and disappearances, massacre, torture.

• Gross and systematic violation of economic, social and cultural rights.

• Gross and systematic violations of the rights to national self-determination and liberation. Now it can be told that this domestic issue on political killings has finally gained heavy international shade, as repeatedly over and over again, governments and international forums have issued their revulsion towards these mysterious and gruesome killings in the countryside.

Of course, the Arroyo administration would for certain disparage these most recent pronouncements on this issue and may even vilify it, as one administration aligned lawmaker have already done, accusing the Hague-based Permanent People’s Tribunal to be having a “biased nature”, citing the role of Senator Jamby Madrigal as testifier in the said forum.

Patently—like I have said in previous posts on this issue—these killings (or the circumstances behind it) had already gone towards haywire level that those concerned—like our lawmakers or our judges, or even the civil society—ought to intercede, or at least make a howl about it. But nothing like that happened and it took the inquisitions of foreign governments and international organizations for it to be put to the fore and be presented to the general public’s awareness. I wonder if President Arroyo is ever concerned right now that there’d be a day coming, probably after her years in Malacañang, that she’d be more well-remembered for this malevolent issue, these so-called political killings, than for whatever gain she had in her presidential tour of duty, not only here in our territory, but as well as across the continents, even if she would have nothing to do with it or have tolerated it.

While it can be told that this particular forum, the Permanent People’s Tribunal is one that had not yet gained enough international credence and reputation (despite being peopled by law experts and ardent rights activists from around the world) and therefore its verdict couldn’t be of much weight, still the Arroyo administration should take this as one final hint, that these killings has got to stop, before it get far too worse; if it is not already.

Days after making Internet history (for that momentous YouTube testimony before a U.S. Congress committee panel), and becoming a momentary fugitive, Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo got the ride of his life—the plane ride that got the Philippine Daily Inquirer bannering how he ‘was taken for a ride’. I can probably surmise how Satur Ocampo should wish that in fact he was just ‘taken for a ride’—where in street parlance could mean to be lied upon—and none of these recent occurrences are true; that policemen suddenly knock on his cell and inform him that they were sorry for the lengthy inconvenience and all this was just a huge mistake and that he should ready himself and go home as soon as possible.

But actually, the murder charges against him remains and it is no lie or merely a result of what one calls a huge mistake. The plane to Leyte suddenly turnaround halfway from its destination because the judge in Leyte (the one that issued the warrant of arrest against him) had ordered the authorities to return the on-flight Ocampo to his original place of detention, citing the ongoing certiorari protest which the latter had filed with the Supreme Court the other day.

It could possibly be among the most unforgettable plane ride that Ocampo had ever had in his entire lifetime. Inside the plane—while navigating the skies between Manila and Leyte—there were some dramatic conversations that had arose; including the one when police officials aboard had urged him to wear a bullet-proof vest. Ocampo refused it and said to them ‘Who will shoot me? You are all here.’’

I am not putting malice upon anyone who have participated in this latest political drama, but the above conversations immediately reminded me of the slain national hero Ninoy Aquino, and the circumstances before his horrendous death, where he was wearing a yellow bulletproof vest inside a Korean airliner moments before shots rang out in the sky above the airport that is already named after him, and conversing similarly in the same dramatic and pointed dialogues with the people around him then.

It is a relief that nothing like that had happened, as what had occurred on that fateful August day in 1983 and that Rep. Ocampo is safely back in his cell in Manila. Or else, the headlines on all dailies today would have been dreadfully wicked.

I just receive an award just recently and it’s a very exclusive title since the giver is someone that I patronize so much for her writings, with her blog presenting significant issues that truly concerns the world today, like conflicts in Africa, the AIDS menace, spread of modern diseases, today’s feminism as well as many other topics like third world economy especially in the African continent. Ipanema had named me to be one among five blogs that she decided to be a thinking blog and I am so greatfully honored for that. I said to her that being on her list felt like winning the Oscars all by itself and although stated in a humorly fashion, it was in fact so close to the truth since I don’t usually get noticed or reffered to like this; and for one, we don’t get this kind of awards everyday and it becomes all the more significant that the reverence comes from a colleague I kno, she who is a thinking blogger herself. So to ipanema, thank you very much for this award. For this, I get to display this button on my site.

Now it’s my turn to name five blogsites or bloggers that I reckon to be a Thinking Blog and they are:

1. Inside The Mind of A Singl Guy—In the entertainment world, many says that it is so much harder to make people laugh than to make them cry. But in the blog world, sngl writes hilarious jottings of factual circumstances without any hint of difficulty, like humor runs in his veins and it’s undepletable, perhaps like fossil fuel underneath the hot arabian desert. Inside for me is a thinking blog because it captures everyday issues and turns it into a morsel of delectable posts that is easily readable but tells so much about what’s wrong or what’s right about a particular issue.

2. The Warped Zone—If I remember very well, Buffwings have never posted even a single posts that merely relays some passing things. I have such kind of posts once in a while; not very many but I think I had some posts that relates to no specific significant issue or issues in the past, those that merely connote a passing and temporary thing or occurence. We all do that once in a while. But in The Warped Zone, BW is so consistent with coming up with posts that tackles a singular issue, provoking thought and deepening insights. For that alone, it becomes a major feat for BW.

3. Wish You Were Here—Eric should have been writing for a daily for a long time now since his postings are often mind-opening especially his take on history which detail and intricacy is unparalled in the blogosphere and starkly reminds the reader of the special writing prowess of Ambeth Ocampo, the columnist from Philippine Daily Inquirer. For this, Wish You Were Here is for certain a Thinking Blog.

4. Under The Canopy—Ipanama had already garnered this Thinking Blog award twice already and it’s not difficult to see why her blog often becomes distinguished by her avid readers. I for one agree with that reverence to her 100% percent and as I stated above, Ipanema discusses issues that are very significant globally today and that makes her blog special and unique since nowhere else can you find that amount of focus to such issues and topics—at least not here in our sphere.

5. Ang Anino Ni Abaniko—Niko as he is fondly called by his close readership is statistician and we know that people who knows their math are surely smart enough to be part of a rocket making project. Niko’s blog is a Thinking Blog because for me he writes with a lot of confidence and becomes master of his own creation, like the combination of humor and sarcasm in his writings is an art form by themselves.

Like the ‘meeting bloggers’ meme, it becomes very hard for one to realize that one might forget to mention some important bloggers, those that should have been in the list, but for reason of forgetfulness, they weren’t. And in this meme (this is also a kind of meme by the way), it makes me doubly wary since I only have to name five bloggers whom I decide to be Thinking Bloggers. If I could have gone on with the list.

So to sngl, BW, eric, ipanema and Niko; congratulations for you have been awarded the Thinking Blog Award by The Citizen On Mars blogsite and you all deserved it to be sure.

My father is 60 years old today but he is not here to celebrate it. As some of you might be aware by now, he had passed away August of last year when the night was often cloudless in the night, and the days were windy like a summer that had lost its way and found itself in the valley of spring.

He should have died entirely unexpectedly but thinking that he had been struggling and even combating a lingering illness for decades previously, one that had also bothered my grandfather so gravely in the past, causing the amputation of his legs before he finally ceded his breath into the great unknown, one could also say that his time must have already come and that he was bound to depart into the afterlife in an earlier time than what is usual.

When my father died, I had a short passing post in this blog announcing the unfortunate circumstance and went on a hiatus that was one of the longest I had taken and one that I almost thought I wouldn’t get out from. In my mind, I was thinking of writing about him, all the things he was to me and how had lived a life in his own way, as I saw through my eyes, truthfully and sincerely. Perhaps, he needed a last requiem from his eldest son who he had named after his own father.

Months had passed since that fateful August day but I could not seem to bring myself to write about my dead father. It felt so heavy to elaborate and make way for the emotions that sadness and sorrow still hinders and obstruct; like a sacred thing that could not be touch by mortal hands. Even up to this very moment, I am still struggling for words and ideas, on how to go about in commemorating the natal day of the man who had sired me, and still feel that I may not be able to write the requiem as I had intended it in the first place.

But maybe I have some other ideas in my mind at this moment. Maybe I’d write about some conversations I had with my father, especially those that I had with him even after he had already gone. Yes, for a number of nights, on separate occasions, my father spoke to me in a number of dreams and the words he had said to me there were vibrant enough that it felt like he was speaking to me in real life; like he was alive and well.

They were all very short dreams, but they all came in very uniform manner, wherein he was always wearing a white undershirt and a pair of white pajamas, and his skin was whiter than I had seen him before and his hair was black like shoe polish. And everywhere around him was shining with bursting white light and silvery rays that I could not reckon other images other than his facade. Imagine a fluorescent light that could be thousand of watts in illuminating power and be standing so near it.

In the first dream, my father intimated to me these words, “Why don’t you buy yourself a new wristwatch”. That was all he had said to me and the dream ended even before I could even answer his question. When I woke up I was a little wary why the dream ended so soon and why I felt like it wasn’t like a dream at all but an incident in real time. After that, I had pondered on the question about the wristwatch and indeed I had remembered him to be fond of buying watches, and had given a number of them to me, to my brothers and sister and also to my mother. The last one he had given me was a Seiko Kinetic that I kept even upto this time but have not used for sometime now after it had broken down in functionality.

In the second dream, after about a month from the first one I narrated above, my father reappeared in a dream similar to the initial one, with him wearing white shirt and long white pajamas. This time his voice was more patent and was keenly profound and he said to me: “I have already read your book, my son. I have already read it”. After that the dream disappeared suddenly that I woke up wondering what he had actually meant by those words; or was it in a positive note like he had approved of the said “book” or was it worthless that he hadn’t appreciated it at all? I had recounted over and over again how he had asked that question, what tone it had came to me, and if he were glad about it or on the one hand, was actually mad about such idea; that of reading my book.

I had remember that once when I went to our house in Cawit, I was bringing a copy of a rough manuscript of a book that I had completed among other things and had left it there for more than a week. Maybe he had tried to examine the things I had left there and found the manuscript binded loosely in an orange-colored folder. Maybe he really had read it once before. And in that dream, he had wanted to let me know about it make known his reaction to me; but somehow, the reaction wasn’t so clear and had left me wondering even up to this time. It even got me worried for some reason.

There was another still dream after the second one but somehow I could not remember now the words he had said to me there.

So these were the conversations I had with my father months after had gone away. When he was alive, these were the words he had often said to me and it goes, “there is no success without sacrifice”. I could not say right now that I have already reach the peak of success, or anywhere near it, yet these are words that flashes in my mind whenever I am confronted with squabbles and hurdles and difficulties in the past, and even up to this time. Maybe success will one day come to me but right now it had not yet come despite that I have lived by the term of sacrifice for most of my life. I hope someday, my sacrifices will bear the fruit of success.

I am not really fond of chain letters and whenever I received them, I’d either just take a short browse on their content or at times, just completely disregard them and not read them at all. But here’s one chain-letter that I received from my fraternal brod Michael Lopez that got me reading with a focus eye and I found it most interesting and certainly relevant, especially now that we are within that proverbial time called ‘the election period’. So insightful that in fact I have thought about blogging it and share it with my readers. We may not agree on all its content, but it’s worth pondering on.

Here’s the exact content:

Dear Fellow Filipino,

Good day to all of you! Before I begin my letter… just a disclaimer, for people who know me they know that I love the Philippines very much and I am not really one who rants and complaints to high heavens about what is happening to our country and does nothing about it, in fact, I feel that at my relatively young age of 27, I have done much service to the Philippines by setting up Pathways to Higher Education which has sent more than 500 poor but deserving students to college and AHON Foundation which has already built two public elementary school libraries that have benefitted more than 3,500 students. Yet, after seeing how events in our nation have transpired the past few weeks and talking with some friends, I feel the urge to share with you my own thoughts and feelings.

Over the weekend, we saw the completion of two major political alliances for this coming Senate Elections that has just began here in the Philippines . Now we have two political forces with familiar faces nonetheless on opposite sides of the fences. On one end, you have Tito Sotto and Tessie Aquino-Oreta who were two major stalwarts of the opposition and the FPJ Campaign in 2004 hobnobbing with the woman (Pres. GMA) whom they claimed to have cheated FPJ in the last Presidential Elections.On the other side of the fence, you see Manny Villar, the former house speaker who was actually responsible for impeaching Erap now part of the United Opposition who is led by no less than… Erap himself. Now if you don’t see anything wrong with this picture then you must be one of the many Filipinos who have accepted this very sad reality that there is indeed no permanent ideals that our government leaders stand up for but rather they just go where there self-interests can best be served. It is this kind of politics why I no longer wonder why good people like Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Mayor Jesse Robredo of Naga City or outstanding Bulacan Governor Josie Dela Cruz will find it hard or worse, never be elected to national positions.

It is with these in mind that I’d like to share with you what are events this coming May elections that will make me consider leaving the Philippines :

1.) If former COMELEC Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano of Hello Garci fame wins in his bid to become Congressman of Bukidnon…seeking to replace a good man no less in incumbent Cong. Neric Acosta… We would really be the laughing stock of the whole world if we allow a man with the reputation of Garci to be one of our so called “Honorable Gentlemen”.

2.) If Dancing Queen Tessie Aquino Oreta reclaims her seat at the Senate… I hope that all of us would still remember that dance that she did during the 2001 impeachment hearings after they voted to overrule the decision of then Chief Justice Davide… let us make sure that people like her never make it to the Senate again.

3.) If Richard Gomez becomes a senator… what does he know about making laws? We already have the likes of Bong Revilla and Lito Lapid in the Senate and their performance or lack of it would be reason enough not to elect another actor who has no prior experience in government to the distinguished halls of the Senate.

4.) If Gringo Honasan wins again…. have we not learned our lesson? I cannot believe that just because someone is charismatic then we will just elect him to become one of our senators despite the fact that he has time and again caused so much instability in our country… if we want a military junta similar to that of Thailand … then lets all vote for this guy….

5.) If Manny Pacquiao becomes Congressman of General Santos City… everybody loves Manny the Boxing Champ but Manny the Lawmaker? Lets be realistic here, Manny is our Hero alright but I think it takes more than just great boxing skills and a desire to serve to be able to make appropriate laws that would help uplift the lives of the many Filipinos who live in Poverty.

6.) If Lito Lapid wins for Mayor of Makati City… I don’t like Jojo Binay as well but Lito Lapid as city mayor of the country’s finance and business center?!?! And do you really think he is from Makati and has good plans for the city? The Arroyos asking someone like him to run just goes to show you how much love and concern this government has for our country.

7.) If Chavit Singson becomes a Senator, …. enough said.

Now if all of these 7 things happen during this coming elections then don’t be surprised if I decide to leave this country that I love dearly. Like I said during the first part of my letter, I feel that I have done much for this country but I think its time that Filipinos become more vigilant and critical in selecting our leaders for the sake of our future and the generations that will go beyond us. So I appeal to every Filipino who asks what can I actually do for my country… Choose and vote for the right people this coming elections, huwag na tayong magpaloko sa mga kandidatong maganda lang ang jingle o gwapo lang sa mga poster. Let us choose leaders who have a good track record for service and who are genuinely committed towards serving our country.

Manindigan naman tayong lahat para sa ating Kinabukasan at para sa Kapakanan ng ating Bayan!

Thank you very much for your time in reading this letter.

Sincerely,

Harvey S. Keh
Email: harveykeh@gmail. com

KAILANGANG MABASA ITO NG 80 MILLIONG PILIPINO !!! IPASA NYO NG IPASA !!!

P.S. I don’t mean to say here that the people mentioned in this post are are fools in actuality, baka ma libel ako mahirap na. I just thought about the cool sixties song “Chain of Fools” the moment I posted the content of the subject chain letter. Chain letters….chain of fools….Philippine elections…..it make some sense, doesn’t it?