Dearest Elize,

Did you know that I have a girl cousin, Ophel? Her name meant, “the helper” (not maid or domestic helper. But close.) Dark skin, pig ugly uncombed frizzy hair like an ersatz female egoy and a stupid look about her. You’d never have suspected with all her activist-activist front, when we were in college many years back, she was working for the Fabian Ver intelligence mean machine.  She appeared to be way too unconventional in my eyes that as a young spoiled brat she became my role model.

Each time my dad complains, she compares me with Oppy, this girl cousin of mine. And he used the word. Het. Don’t get too het like Oppy, he said.

Just recently, I said sorry to a long time friend and used dad’s word too: I miss getting het, heh heh heh, I said in my note to her. I wonder what my long lost friend would say (I used to quarrel with her for no reason at all. Just het.)

I really didn’t know it was exposing myself too much to many interpretations. Het pronounced as / hɛt / is slang when used as “het up” meaning heated or agitated, but it is also the short of heterozygote and heterosexual.

Of course, in biology, heterozygote means having a recessive gene – so that one has a different skin color than her own close relatives, short of looking like an illegitimate child.

Het is also used in short form for heuchera americana and  heuchera cylindrica – or alumroot, that Wikipedia says is “a small (under 2 ft. high and wide) evergreen perennial native to Central United States. Lobed semi-palmate green, purple, or brown leaves are often veined or marbled. Loose racemes of insignificant green to cream flowers are born on 3′ stalks in early summer.”

In the Middle East, it is also another short for heswedeh, a very popular MidEast slang that means “anything and everything.” Sometimes it means “damn,” or else “hell” or “shoot.”

Or else it is used with suffix neh, as het neh, that literally means “fuck that”.
Dad’s use of het is actually in the context of “don’t get too het up”, or don’t get too agitated, too angry over something.

In another milieu, het is the abridged form of hetaera, that means prostitute, courtesan, or geisha in Japan, changnyeo in Korean or Jìnǚ in Chinese. I used to be just familiar with hetaera as an unusual word play in scrabble.  Really didn’t imagine a hetaera stood for merchant of flesh.

Dad’s word keeps ringing in my ears for some time. Perhaps it’s because I sorely missed my flight one day in September when there was a huge storm and flooding to boot. Oh, how I hate those PAL peeps who went on sudden strike! They did that mind you when me and my fellow passengers already boarded our flight. We were all trapped for several hours, it seemed like centuries inside a hell hole!!! Jesus H. Christ!!!  I missed several scheduled interviews outside the country, broke up with my boy friend and fought  a tooth and nail battle with my mom. (Dad’s been gone a long time and my mom and I seemed to have made quarreling our favorite past time.  The fights have been more frequent and longer, even Manny Pacquiao would be ashamed.)

But just see what they did to poor little me?

A slim, good looking Eurasian was beside me as I was cursing the soulless, inconsiderate, beastly striking PAL workers. He pitied me, I could tell, but never had the courage to tell me he liked me. Maybe I’m too good looking for that.

But going on strike at the expense of everyone in the airport who had their important schedules to satisfy, really got to my nerves. I’ve been contemplating changing jobs and becoming an assassin after that shitty experience. How could those animals be so coldhearted?  Ah, they must have been born reptiles.  And I really hate reptiles; they’re my panic button. It’s as if, when God made the world, God placed me somewhat at a distance, (really, farther than that) so I was too good to be beside reptiles.  That’s how I justify why reptiles are so anathema to dear moi.

So those PAL peeps got their way, and like so many cussing passengers, I was left to my own designs.

Of course, I did not have the nerve to hitch on another airline to my destination. Right now I’m so dirt poor, I can’t even afford a ride to Boracay. I’ve quit two jobs in a span of just over a year and knowing my track record well, I really did mess it up big time!  And now these striking reptiles let me fail in landing myself a job, even if turns me into an OFW. (What the f____!)

Hey Mr. Lucio Tan, can’t you please do something about the reptilian crawling all over your airline?

I bet that your beloved President cares just a bit about what’s happening here, despite the huge, huge embarrassment the PAL workers brought to the country! Hell to pay!!! But he couldn’t care more, what with his pol adviser singing another song with his leftist comrades?

Imagine paralyzing a national flag carrier! OMG!!! What kind of mentality do these spineless bastards have?

Obviously the PAL reptiliana are harping about something that their reptilian brains cannot fully fathom: outsourcing. Something the Japanese have been practicing for the last forty to fifty years!

Who is giving seminars to these reptiles?  Aren’t they teaching them to give honor to the national flag carrier, just because?

If I only lost a job, what of the other passengers who suffered in monstrous proportions from the action of the PAL in house reptiles?

Where can I get a calamity loan? Surely, the reptiles will just laugh at me for even imagining such obstreperous arguments, mindless that I am aching to get back on my two feet after the disaster they put me into.

I cannot even scratch their faces and leave scars in their hideous reptilian skins.  They’re too thick for my nails, plus I can’t afford getting myself pampered at my favorite beauty salons at this time. I’m poor, remember?

With all that water in the floods that hit Luzon and elsewhere and like the Fukushima shit, governments become inutile in the face of enormous challenge, with my unemployed status and the shit I got from palea reptiliana, supported by venoma fasapa, all the stupid brouhaha over petty issues whirling in the political stratosphere, no wonder I’m all so het.

Of course, a lot of other creatures are all het up but I still can’t understand why I’ve been a failure at moving forward this time.

Wallowing in the het is killing me, I really hope a reptile dies tonight. One down.

I really hope I depressed you.:(

your godsister,

Liling

Who could have imagined that the superior court of the land will become victim to the debate between employees and big business?  The proverbial slave vs. masters battle. PAL vs. PALEA, PALEA and FASAP vs. Supreme Court.

Reduced to its real significance, the question is actually just about lifetimers or casuals, permas (permanents) and temps (temporaries).  But this issue is mired in obsolescence. I remember my grandfather, a small cog in the labor organizing sector, used to tell funny stories and tall tales of how lifetimers and temps fought it out during the Great War of Permas and Tempoes.

Grandpa used to repeat himself over the story of angels and demons in Heaven. One day, St. Peter had a conference with Jesus, God the Father and the other top notch Executives of Heaven.

St. Peter looked worried. “What is the problem, Peter,” Jesus, God the Father and the others asked in unison. St. Peter blinked several times and reported: “Lucifer sent a community organizer and it seems that our worker angels are now convinced they will go on strike!”

Jesus laughed out loud, “Oh my goodness, Peter! Ye of little faith!”

St. Peter was shocked at Jesus’ light treatment of his serious problem. “What is so funny, my Lord?”

Jesus threw his hands over Peter’s shoulders and calmed the Heavenly Administrator, then gave St. Peter solid advice: “Terminate the Lifetime Employment Contracts of all worker angels, even Arch Angels, and hire a manpower agency specialized in heavenly duties.  Replace the workers with temps.”

St. Peter slapped his forehead and ran off, calling the name of his secretary. The Executives of Heaven talked about the other agenda for the day while in the next room St. Peter was talking to Lucio Tan, er, a manpower and staffing expert.

Grandpa also told a story about Tubal, an old man at a factory who always gave a hard time to his younger colleagues.  Most of the young workers he suffered either came from other companies or were neophytes fresh out of school.

The elder worker held power in his hands.  He recommended who would be hired and fired to his bosses. He diligently worked this power and caused the hiring and firing of tens of thousands workers during his prime in his own factory and his bosses’ friends’ factories. All the young ones therefore feared him, but also held him in awe.

One day, the boss whose name was Don Johnny, approached the old man and asked about a new recruit: “Supervisor, what do you think of our new worker William, is he fit for hiring after training?”

The old man told his boss, “Don Johnny, I honestly don’t know.  To be frank with you, I am tired of doing this job!”

“Please don’t do this to me, Supervisor! Please just tell me what to do with William, will we hire him or not?”

The old man took out a calling card with the name, “Don Antonio, Psychic Master.”  The card showed a company called the Original Horoscopes of Love, Career and Marriage, Inc.

The company owner asked the old man, “What? Why did you give a card?  I need an answer.”

“Then ask the man in the card, his answer will be garantisado, sigurado, eksakto.” The old man advised.

“What is the meaning of this? Why are you doing this? Why are you being a problem to me?” Don Johnny snarled.

Tubal roared back, “You are the problem! You think I am a fortune teller! But I am your supervisor and I have my work here! Why don’t you hire a crystal ball or card reader instead of a factory manager? Darn!”

In the days to come, the Supreme Court would be in the news for dismissing the case filed by the old factory supervisor Tubal against a certain Don Antonio, Psychic Master and factory owner Don Johnny, who fired Tubal and replaced him, with retirement pay, with Don Antonio, fortune teller doubling as talent scout.

Every newspaper in town reported that millions of people threw rotten tomatoes at the Supreme Court Building for taking sides in the case of the old Tubal vs. Don Johnny and Don Antonio, Psychic Master. On that day, the young workers of Tubal’s company went on strike against the owner and psychic fortune teller and the factory closed down.

And so like my grandpa narrated over and over, in the old times, the Great War between the Permas and the Temps smoldered and erupted into full scale war on many occasions.

Permas held qualifications and were lifetime employment people, such as majordomos, loyal household maids, slaves and government or civil servants, popes, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, pastors, pastoras, priests, nuns and lay brothers – not necessarily in that order.  More or less, they were somewhat upper class or within the middling classes.

Tempoes did not have enough skills and were unable to fill jobs with lifetime tenure, so they either flit from one job to the next or enter one job, get fired and be able to find another job several months later or else only after several years.

It was hard to be a tempo, grandpa says, but it wasn’t easy to be a lifetime employment worker either.

Grandpa used to say, hooray to lifetimers, they get jobs for life.  But hooray for the temps, casuals, contractuals, they get jobs but are not in the same kind of prison that lifetimers are. At least, they’re free birds, grandpa said.

To be continued . . . .

Philippine Weather, Outer Space and renaming PAGASA

  

The Philippines has a long way to go in weather forecasting. For a long time, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or popularly known as PAGASA has been waiting for its order of at least ten S-band Doppler Radars. The first delivery being half of the lot. This has not happened. More about this post here. 

 Footnote to Archangel:

I used to be part of the DOST scientific network myself, but I saw how much room there is in the department and its network for expansion and growth. True, on many occasions it used to be the only place in the bureaucracy where talent is clearly rewarded (I used to get as many as eight to ten cheques on certain paydays because of my work in various projects in our division alone), still the accomplishments of the department leave so much to be desired. 

 Satellite Feature For February 2002

Two mind-wracking events in 2010 occupy my time right now:

One is the 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in Manila, on Apr 8-15, 2010

The other is my brain child, the One Festival, Rock Concert for the benefit of the victims of Philippine typhoon, earthquakes and tsunami in the ASEAN Region in Rizal Park Grandstand, April 16, 2010.

We encourage the Philippine Government, Asian Governments, combines like the United Nations, ASEAN, financial institutions like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, to support this milestone activity the 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit in Manila from the remainder of 2009 up to 2010. The actual even is as mentioned above.

We encourage everyone to support the One Festival, to raise token assistance for those that were victims to the Philippine floods, the tsunami and earthquakes that rocked many nations in ASEAN.

ANNUAL ECOLOGY CRISIS CONFERENCE

The Resource Recovery Movement will hold the first 2010 Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit (Eco 2010 Summit) in Manila, Philippines. This is ultimately borne about by the tremendous changing of the Philippine landscape and those of other countries in the Pacific Rim in the last few decades. All efforts towards risk mapping in relation to calamities and disasters in the past should now take into consideration the great shifts and transformations in land mass, the enormous amount of rainfall brought about by Climate Change and many new factors that were heretofore not factored into national and sub-national planning by governments as well as even by business establishments and non-government organizations.

Click this link to sign up: Join Resource Recovery Movement!

The 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit (HMES) is intended to develop better approaches to mapping risks and dangers to communities in the Philippines and other countries with tropical climates. It takes a cue from the recent experience in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, notwithstanding the previous experiences in Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan where scores of people died due to unforeseen occurrences during the incidence of a natural disaster: earthquake, typhoon, tsunami and other calamities. The databasing, mapping and full coordination of efforts towards use and sharing of a full function GIS on hazards, volcanoes, water, flood, forests in the Philippines and Asia, vulnerability areas, liquefaction potential, crisis and hot spots is long due because of the long-running phenomenon of Climate Change in the planet. This is also significant in that the Philippines, among other countries, lies in the Pacific Rim of Fire where a large number of earthquake faults lie.

The most important value of the conference is to determine the plan and the cost of implementing such a plan to make the Philippines and other participating nations safer from increasingly hazardous calamities.

Note: The organizers reserve the right to make minor changes in the Conference details prior to the actual Event.

HMES 2010 Organizers

ONE FESTIVAL LIVE MANILA 2010 (OFLM)

I conceptualized this Event as a music festival, with a concert and some side lights. A side exhibit on ecology and related subjects will be put up by professional event managers for the organizers. This is basically a marketing strategy.

As an added come-on, separate exhibits for culture, performing arts, similar disciplines with a focus on the global ecology, the Philippine environment, and other featured side shows will also be part of the undertaking. The venues will need not be in one place, except that the entire idea is to internalize a sentiment of “one-ness” in concern for the environment.

This festival, OFLM, is the culminating Event of the 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in Manila. The activity is a Music Festival intended to raise funds for the victims of man-made and natural calamities such as Philippine Typhoons, IDPs in hostilities in various areas in the Philippines, victims of the tsunami in the ASEAN-Pacific Regions, and to support the Private Sector Led database development and the creation of a full-functional integrated geographic information system that will include the ASEAN Flood GIS, Forest GIS, Water GIS, Volcanoes GIS, Earthquake GIS, Typhoon GIS, Political conflicts and hostilities GIS.

I hope and pray to see you all there. Come everyone!  You are dearly invited!!!

Click here to Join and Sign Up: OFLM2010 Sign Up

Maybe carrie’s raving and ranting that they are satanic is just so-so true…

Better do that before the scandal blows over!!!

I like the things that I believe in. So I stick with them. I get not to read so much from what comes from other people’s thoughts anymore. With the exception of the plastic bloggers around, probably the only blogger with sense is the professionalheckler. The rest is shit and garbage. How that happened, I don’t know. I read Filipinovoice.org and it’s the epitome of pure polyethelene. PCIJ is like styropore. Inquirer, sunstar, many other bloggers are simply out of synch. Thank God for sensible posts. At least I get my coffee shot even without the coffee sometimes. (pardon the pun mr. pf lol!)

I am awed by a guy with a minus 9000 IQ who kept presenting drawings in a blog post as if the readers are all in possession of extremely low intelligence like secretaries in the cabinet. I wouldn’t be surprised why Allevii is so incensed with the shit. Read about this post here…

It seems unfair and uncalled for. The senador-senadora mafia from the Upos-session, probably think that Esperon is battle-weary, fatigued (not the uniform, dumb, dumb!) and therefore he must resign from his post.  Their kakampi, Gov. Sacdalan ang pamimigay ng pera sa Korte Suprema, his partner, Vice Gov. Piñolitika ang Korte Suprema, whose first name is Bro. Mike Velarde’s most favorite term:  Emen!… read about the post here…