Marvin Isidore "Sid" Macatol Weblog

It's the Holy Week in the Philippines once again. The word "Holy Week" translates to many languages in the multi-lingual Philippines. Photo from boston.com To some "Holy Week" translates to "spiritual retreat" after a whole year's work. It can also translate to "pabasa" and "processions" that slow down traffic in the provinces.

Chinese New Year on February 14 coincides with Valentine's Day. I find that interesting. So, let me honor Chinese Filipinos who celebrate Chinese New Year that day. I have lots of friends these days from their ranks and I wish I can greet each one of them by name here. The list is long and that's heart-warming. Photo courtesy of www.zazzle.com My wife spoke about her first impressions of Chinese-Filipinos in her first Toastmasters meeting around two weeks ago. She told the audience about saying "No" to a Chinese-Filipino suitor because she knew back then that Chinese parents wanted Chinese in-laws. She didn't want an unwelcome look, from anyone.  Now, here's the thing: most of those in the audience were Chinese Filipinos LOL! I benefited sometime later from my wife's decision. Good decision, Dear! Couldn't be better! He he.

My business partner introduced me to Blackberry. At first I thought this thing was l-ux-u-r-y. I knew nothing about Blackberry, except that Obama had one and the Secret Service wanted him to give it up. The US President had a Blackberry. It therefore had to be costly. I was wrong.

More than 50 dead in Maguindanao on November 23, 2009. Was it a human encounter? or an encounter with the undead ? Worse, was it an encounter with Satan himself? As bodies from the worst political massacre in the nation’s history were being uncovered from freshly dug mass graves, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Tuesday declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and in Cotabato City. ( Source: Inquirer.net ) I have the feeling the President should have called Sector 7 instead. Too bad that Sector in the US government was disbanded in Transformer 2. I think our Catholic President should perhaps ask the assistance of the Vatican in exorcising Maguindanao and cast Satan himself out of those lands.

Relief goods in the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) allegedly gathered dust in four warehouses, one month after typhoon Ondoy. There was indignation about this in blogosphere lately. The October 29, 2009 post entitled " Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo " at ellaganda.com lambasted DSWD for alleged hoarding of relief goods in DSWD warehouses. Overzealous people in Facebook and eGroups circulated the link to this post. But earlier, on October 26, 2009, DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral has already made a statement on these relief goods , admitting that the DSWD "warehouses are indeed full" but that this was . . . "inspite of the fact that we have distributed 500,000 food packs and 200,000 clothing packs as well as thousands of sacks of rice, blankets, beddings, and items of personal hygiene in the past almost 4 weeks." Let me say my piece.

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—Angry mayors Monday called for the decommissioning of the San Roque Dam , fearing its location near a fault line raised the possibility that it could collapse during an earthquake and wipe out Pangasinan province. (Source: Inquirer.Net ) Mayors of Pangasinan actually thought it was cool to damn the San Roque dam. As an ordinary citizen who studied land and water resources engineering in college, I could not help but wonder how the San Roque dam was built in the first place . . .  if the mayors' claim was correct: that the dam was built on a fault line!

I have much more respect now for Metrorail Transit riders from Quezon City to Makati City. After several rides myself at 8 or 9 in the morning, I have experienced for myself the ordeal each one goes through. Take this trip that I made for example . . . 7:30am - left home to Cubao station on a jeepney 7:50am - arrived at the Cubao Metrorail Transit station, saw that the south-bound platform was jampacked, saw that after two or three trains there was no obvious dent on the number of people on the platform 8:00am - decided to come down the platform and run to the other side to take the train going to the opposite direction; that is, to North EDSA Metrorail Transit station