Sometimes I Post Shit Like This On Facebook Haha

I hate to phrase it this way, but majority of us have sucked corporate cock just to put food on the table. I mean this figuratively, of course, in the way that we are viewed as mere TOOLS (pun intended) who reluctantly latch on to the capitalist system's shlong and subsist on watery precum just to survive while the multimillionaires and billionaires fatten themselves with rich and creamy Grade-A cultured whole buttermilk (our own jizz, the sweat of our brows, when you think about it -- oh the irony!).

(Of course others [male or female] have unfortunately had to LITERALLY suck corporate dick to survive, but who am I to judge?)

What I have a HARD time (again, pun intended) not judging is figuratively (or literally) sucking a corrupt politician's cock. Surely there are other less-degrading ways to earn a living? Some people will say (most probably those who work for politicians), "You pimp yourself to capitalists, anyway. What's the fucking difference?"

Well, the fucking difference is that at least I can jump from one corporate cock to the other. I've worked for both big dicks (large corporations) and tiny peckers (small start-ups), and while both experiences were soul-SUCKING (pun definitely intended), I won't live and die latched on to any particular corporate wang (Yo, Alexandr of Meta, are you reading this? I wish! LOL), unlike those who have to stay with one politician for the rest of his/her career even while said politician's willie of a reputation is whittled down to a useless, flaccid inchworm.

I have a few nephews and nieces, by the way -- some of them minors -- who have tried to add me here on Facebook. I haven't approved their requests, for obvious reasons (mainly because of posts like this). It's for their own good. But seriously: I hope and pray, though, that they inherit a better world where they have a choice to not work (I'm not too optimistic about this, obviously) for either capitalists or politicians (especially the rotten kind). This is my wet dream.

The Philippines' Commission of Higher Education (CHED) Is a Disgrace

 

I just heard the stupidest thing the other day, that people don't have time to read novels anymore, relying instead on "book summaries" sold on Amazon, with such titles as "50 Books You Don't Have Time to Read, Briefly Summarized."

And we all know that people don't have time to write anymore (and when I say WRITE I mean write from SCRATCH, which actually requires you to USE your brain), relying instead on ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot to "produce" "content" for them.

People don't have time to philosophize about life, they don't have time to study history (and so, naturally, they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes), they don't have time to learn a new language, they think that making art and literature and music is useless.

They don't care that teachers who actually teach you how to think are going to lose their jobs. They don't realize that everyone is going to lose their jobs anyway because of artificial intelligence -- and that replacing GE subjects with something that will make them more "employable" is actually bullshit -- thanks to the shortsighted idiots who actually spent a lot of time and energy creating these Gen AI agents that are now eventually replacing them.

Sure, feeding the capitalist system with more corporate drones who can't think for themselves and are only good for "training" AI and writing prompts is just what the doctor ordered. 

We have the Commission on Higher Education to thank for that.

A Virgo Thing

Is it a Virgo thing, this penchant for thinking about things you've lost over the years? For instance, I suddenly remembered this blue American Eagle polo shirt that an uncle gave me several years ago, which I can't find in my closet anymore. It's not even one of my favorite shirts; I didn't like the size and the cut particularly, especially in the tummy area, because it made me look fat. I was lying on the couch the other day, taking a nap, when in that zone between wakefulness and sleep I was suddenly jolted awake by the realization that I haven't seen the shirt in a while. And so instead of trying to go back to my nap I cut it short and headed to my room -- and my closet, of course -- to try to find the shirt.

Of course I didn't find it. There seems to be a Twilight Zone dimension where lost objects from all over the world just find themselves teleported to, never to be seen again by their original owners. And for majority of those owners, unless it's a brand-new car or an expensive watch or an entire home, losing those things isn't really a big deal. But of course, I'm not one of those majority of owners who really don't care. Otherwise I wouldn't bother writing a blog post about it.

I am conscious of this preoccupation or fixation of mine on things that get lost in the ether. I remember not just shirts but -- or more importantly, because for me they are more important than any article of clothing -- books. I've lost countless books over the years: some lost while traveling, some lost to friends who never really had the intention of returning them anymore (I guess they have a different definition of "borrowing"). And of course, some books I've lost to that Twilight Zone dimension where lost objects from all over the world just find themselves teleported to, never to be seen again by their original owners. This I've remedied by downloading PDF copies of those lost books -- regardless of the reason why I lost them. And of course, I've never read majority of those PDFs anyway. It's just that the thought of having at least digital copies of those books makes me feel better at least -- or so I believe.

And then there's the matter of money, which for me is worse. I keep thinking about the money that I lost over the years, and in this case there's no Twilight Zone dimension where lost MONEY from all over the world just find themselves teleported to, never to be seen again by their original owners. In the case of money -- in the sense of both physical cash (which they call "efectivo" here in Mexico) and digital money -- I know precisely where the lost money went. Especially money lost by way of purchased things that I believe could have gone to more useful things. Is this a Virgo thing? I suspect it is.

I also suspect that this is the reason why -- even though a lot of Filipinos are now, sadly, addicted to it, especially the online variety -- I'd never really been drawn to gambling. If you're the type of person who keeps on thinking about the money you lost buying so-called frivolous things (which weren't actually frivolous at the time of purchase), then how bad will it be when you lose money instantaneously through gambling, no matter what variety? I remember our one and only trip to Las Vegas, when my uncle and aunt graciously drove us there and booked us a hotel room, and my aunt was enjoying her favorite (occasional) pastime of playing the slot machies, I decided to give it a try. After losing a couple of games, Diana, my wife, was so amused that I cashed in a ten-dollar win instead of powering through. That was it for me. As my uncle parked himself in the bar enjoying cocktails while my aunt kept on playing, I took my wife by the arm and led her outside to the strip, which we toured with a freshly won ten-dollar bill tucked inside my back jeans pocket. 

There are a lot of things going on in my mind. I am an extremely anxious person, and the last thing that I need is to keep on looking back, especially at things that I've lost over the years -- money or otherwise. I've been prescribed Xanax for my anxiety, which works swimmingly well for me, but which is extremely addictive -- and so I've been trying to wean myself from it totally. It would, therefore, be a big load off my mind if I could just let go of this bad habit of mine of looking back at things that I've lost over the years. 

Sometimes I just want to look ahead, but then again when I do look far ahead, I get anxious of what the future might bring. They say that you should take it one day at a time. But then if I focus on the present, I worry that I'm not planning enough.

I don't want to chalk this up as a Virgo thing, but I think that's just what it is.

It's a Virgo thing.

(PS: I never used to believe in the Zodiac, but I blame my anthropology professor in college -- him of all people! -- who checked his horoscope religiously and shared it to the class every chance he got. And no, I don't remember if he was a Virgo. He probably was.)

NPA Recruitment in UP? That's Not the Biggest Problem

To the parents who are worried about sending their children to UP because of the potential "NPA recruitment" that's allegedly going on there, I'd say there's nothing to worry about. In the '70s and '80s, at the height of its powers, the NPA supposedly had around 25,000 active guerrillas (thanks -- or no thanks -- to its biggest indirect recruiter, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his Martial Law). Now government estimates peg the NPA's armed members at around 1,000 or fewer. If these recruitment drives by the communists were really that effective, shouldn't they still have 25,000 guerrillas now -- or more? 

I'd actually argue that if your child decides to go to the PMA rather than UP, you have a BIGGER PROBLEM on your hands.

Heartless

These people (I'd call them heartless but I'll settle for animals; they should aptly be called animals -- my profound apologies to animals) who throw the words “bopis” or “corned beef” around, especially on social media, while feeling so slick about themselves like they just spewed some words of wisdom don't realize that it was the struggle -- yes, even (or especially, whether you like it or not) armed struggle, you ignoramuses -- of people like RJ Nichole Ledesma and Alyssa Alano (of course the same like-minded people all over the world, not just in the Philippines, who came before them, but people like RJ and Alyssa, in their own selfless way that majority of us don't even have the courage to do, them deciding to continue the fight and eventually costing them their lives) that has brought us hard-won victories that the modern middle-class workers enjoy right now: the 8-hour workday, the weekend, overtime pay, minumum wage, social security, workplace safety, employer-provided health insurance, laws against wrongful termination, etc. etc, just to name a few. These are not just your run-of-the-mill “HR concepts” or the things that you commonly see when you sign that employment contract. They are there because they were literally bled for. People over the years have literally died for those things to appear on that fucking contract that you affixed your analog or digital signature to.

Do you think -- and I'm addressing the “sumunod nalang, wag pasaway crowd” -- if all those people who fought the Good Fight to bring us all those labor standards and statutory benefits didn't push back and just complied without being pasaway, the people in power would proactively go out of their way to treat the common manggagawa with dignity? Hell no -- fat fucking chance. They'd take all they could and leave everyone else with breadcrumbs. Or peanuts. Or, more aptly in Cebuano, mumho.

And there are people still getting mumho after all these years, especially in the rural areas where big corporations who grow fat from the land while leaving nothing to the lumads wreak havoc using private armies that are kept unchecked because of State complicity. Guess why there are more RJs and Alyssas in the pipeline, no matter how slick you think you are to call them “bopis” and “corned beef” behind your keyboards and smartphones and tablets? Most of these “sumunod nalang, wag pasaway crowd” are also the ones who believed (and still believe) that Rodrigo Duterte did a great job, was the “best president ever” – “Kay Bisaya man” -- but who in reality hardly made a dent in improving large parts of the Visayas and Mindanao anyway, even if he promised that he'd bring the people there a better standard of living. Most of Mindanao is beautiful, of course (as is the Visayas) but -- as a friend who's from Davao City but who's also sane and intelligent enough to know the real score recounted to me -- large swaths of Mindanao remain almost uninhabitable because of the grinding poverty that you find there, while mayors and governors who've ruled for decades pass down their government positions to their kin and offspring as though they were passing on a vintage razor or handwoven silk scarf. They can pass on the mayoralty or governorship to their kin indirectly because they rule like warlords in the howling wildernesses that they consider their fiefdoms -- dare to run against them and, well, just refer to the Magindanao Massacre and I'm sure you'll know what I mean.

So what the Alyssas and RJs and the other faceless people who have been gunned down in the service of the people are, believe it or not, doing just that -- serving the people. It's a simple concept, even if a lot of us can't wrap our heads around it. Trying to improve the lives of those who still don't have the luxury -- unlike us, we who work behind computer screens and earn a decent wage at least -- of signing an employment contract with those “HR concepts” thrown in, while unfairly and maliciously (they just can't hide their true nature, can they?) being called “bopis” and “corned beef” to their bullet-riddled and mangled faces.

Robin Padilla Wants to Leave the Philippines. Good.

The fact that you won as the #1 senator is proof that the system is broken. Like I've repeatedly said before on social media, one big step to fixing the political system in the Philippines is if all DDS voters just somehow died suddenly of natural causes. The same voters, by the way, who put you in that #1 spot.

So go ahead and leave. Nobody's gonna miss you anyway. And while you're at it, take the rest of the DDS senators and other politicians with you. Good riddance. 😂

An affordable, reliable mass transit system in the Philippines: We can still dream, can't we?

When I go to work here in Mexico City, I take the Metro Bus. It's a bus that has its own lane, like the BRT that Cebu City has been trying to construct for many years now, without much success. When I go to the boxing gym, I take the subway. For a one-way trip, the fare for the Metro Bus costs 6 Mexican pesos or 20 PhP, while the subway costs 5 pesos or 16 PhP. The Metro Buses and the subway system will take you virtually anywhere here in the city, and are supplemented by smaller feeder microbuses and vans called peseros or transporte colectivos (what used to be the Volkswagen Combis of old, but which have since been replaced by newer vans or shuttles). 

Both the Metro Bus and subway are affordable, practical, and relatively reliable mass transit systems that ensure mobility for Mexicans (and immigrants like me) living and working here in the capital, particularly for those in lower-income areas. (Side note: both systems are not perfect and they have their flaws, and I've heard a lot of people complain about the subway in particular. But I dare them to take the subway in New York. Or the one in the Philippines. We'll see if they still complain after. Lol) 

Public transportation here in Mexico City – I'm not sure in other Mexican states, though – is heavily subsidized by the government. The city sets fares below the actual operating costs to ensure affordability, with the local government covering a significant portion of expenses through tax revenue.

I'm hoping to see something similar in the future, both in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu. We can still dream, can't we? 🤞🏼