When the Week is Off to a Bad Start

This is not a good Monday. And to think that it's a "free day" for me because classes were called off in our area due to the transport strike. I had a lot to do-laundry, bank errands, etc. First piss-off of the day ensued because youngest son didn't immediately do the errand of buying dog food and it was already past 8 am. My pets are used to eating their first meal at around 6:30 but I ran out of dog food and the store does not open til 7:30. Son woke up at 8:00, told to eat his breakfast and go buy the dog food but typical of the teenager that he is, stayed on his phone for 10 more minutes. The dogs continued to bark outside because they were hungry and they needed to go out of their cages to poo and pee on the ground. Imagine your mom running amuck on this.

Second piss-off. Payslip is not yet available at the Division Office. I need it to show to the bank where I owe the wrong deductions they made so I'd get a refund.

Third piss-off. Texted the bank re the two deductions I got in the past two paydays (note that we get paid once a month only in public school) and was told I'd get back the first in October and the second in November.  I could get advanced refund bu there will be 3% charge. WTF? I get wrongly deducted from and my refund gets delayed for two months and I need to pay them if I want it earlier? Who made a mistake of deducting? Me? I needed to hear the voice of the representative so I called up instead. And when I am truly mad, I cry in desperation. Enough said. Yes, that was a meltdown I almost didn't recover from.

Fourth piss-off. I bought the dogfood myself and as usual fed the dogs myself. I let out the first couple to the yard, went to feed the dogs at the back of the house, when I came back to let the two dogs back in, one of them is already carrying a kitten. The neighbor has cats and poor kitty was not protected enough by the older ones. It has been the subject of harassment from my dogs for days and this time it didn't survive.

After lunch, I tried to pick myself up by taking a nap. Sleep solves almost anything. I am not talking to my son who has the pride of his dad. He doesn't know how to say sorry. I wake up and go back to Twitter. and there was this Marcos apologist who was talking down on Raissa Robles. When I butted in I was insulted as well. Fifth piss-off? No. Not BBM's lackeys and blind followers. They aren't gonna get into my nerves as much as a greedy bank would or an inefficient payroll system would or a dog who didn't remember it shouldn't kill the neighbor's kitten.

It's just almost 4 pm. I can still save my Monday. Wish me luck.

Marcos100

Those of you who believe there is nothing wrong with commemorating the 100th birthday of a tyrant known in world history as one who , together with his family and cronies, pillaged the country and made life worse for millions of Filipinos til now, shut the f**k up! I have had it with your hopeless ignorance if not utter arrogance. 

You aren't Filipinos because you have no sense of history or you are appropriating history to serve your own vested evil interests. You should join Marcos in hell and please bring his immediate family with you. 

I have had it with so-called highly educated Filipinos who earn their living playing apologists if not outright propaganda machines for this atrocious family who continue with impunity to disturb and derail our socio-political life as a people. Education is wasted on you. Hope you choke on the food and wine you get to afford because you write or speak as you do for this inglorious family. Same wish goes to media elements who even if they weren't old enough to experience Martial Law, choose to contribute to the twisting of facts , past and present.

I have had it with the current president who has no shame in imposing on us the reverence of one most despicable former president. He obviously idolizes the devil and if not for the fact that he's old and possibly dying, this current president is a Marcos wannabe. More than that, he wishes to outdo his idol in scoring more deaths than the late dictator's record. In this aspect, the present evil leader is already successful. 

When are we going to wake up to the evil that surrounds us once again? The present regime is one grave mistake we have once again committed as a people. When are we gonna learn? 

FEAR OR APATHY?

I was just talking to my daughter about the stress the thinking and concerned sector of society suffered from this week. She mentioned the comeback of an ousted exec director who is now bullying the one who replaced him.They (in her office) were also affected not just by delayed salary issues but by the piling up of young victims of EJK and of course the issues involving the president and his son which still many turds refuse to connect to the WOD.

I remarked that in my workplace, a school, these concerns (political and criminal) do not seem to disturb my colleagues and students. If ever they do, my workplace people are good at not showing it. Truth to tell, if not for the fact that I really enjoy my work and my clients (my students), I am deeply saddened by the apathy that prevails esp among my colleagues.

We have just been thru a career fest which ate up at least three days of our school week. This weekend is report card completion for the class advisers. I am not an adviser and I am done with the grades a week ago. Still small talk seldom centers or even mentions the killings which involved young people, same age as our students. No one bothers to mention them. I do, in class, but my students seem to dismiss this as my usual anti-Duterte rant. Or at least that's how they make me feel whenever I mention issues re the president.

This made me recall my high school days (1975-79) in a private Catholic school in our city. It wasn't easy to talk about the state of our country then because of Martial Law. My history teacher in whose class one would expect political and social issues to be discussed , opted to teach on safe mode, so to speak-memorize the who, what, when in history. I think it was only on our senior year that our teacher finally let his guard down and in an after class huddle around his table he admitted his anti-Marcos sentiments. That was some breath of fresh air and hope for me, for us. I think that made me more prepared for my entry to the state university where teachers gave us more dissenting opinions/stance than we could handle. Of course we handled them well , we who were in the thick of anti-Marcos protest either as students or as student council officers.

I now worry about the young in our care in the school where I teach. The teachers just don't deliver more than the content of the subjects that they teach. Young and old alike, teachers now seem detached or opt to detach the classroom from the world and reality outside. This is what happens when many among teachers actually thought Duterte was on the right when he promised to annihilate everything and everyone connected to illegal drugs. He was just into instilling fear so he could govern unopposed. We should now realize that he wasn't actually sincere in solving the drug problem.

More than this though, what worries me is the fact that many teachers and their students think it is okay to kill a person if he is perceived to be a "problem" to the community. Schools weren't built to inculcate this belief. Why aren't they alarmed? Why aren't they grieving? Why aren't they saddened by the loss of young lives? What happened to these schools then?
 

It's moral panic . See wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic Thank you , Mr. Irineo Salazar for this.

Spare me the audio

I don't like listening to news and live coverage of congress hearings or presscons under this regime. The muted quotes by news accounts are enough to stress me out. I wish to lessen the frustration and anger I feel by not hearing the voices of leaders and personalities who continue to impose their narrative of lies on hapless Filipinos.

Unfortunately, a colleague is yet to realize he also should not impose his listening to whatever he fancies from his laptop on us who share the faculty room with him. He found a livestream of the Senate hearing on the Kian Case and is now thinking he's doing us a favor by upping the volume of his laptop for everyone to hear. I needed to plug my ears and allow my Mozart list to protect my sensibilities and restrain me from calling out this colleague.

I see a senate inquiry as useless especially if we have senator-enablers pretending to care for the circumstances surrounding the death of Kian Delos Santos. I saw a photo of the three policemen involved in the murder and I don't want to hear them deny or refuse to answer. I understand Bato is also present and why would I want to listen to the voice of this murderous brainless mascot?

Spare me the audio, please. I have enough info from my Twitter feed. I don't need to hear spawns from hell pretend-investigate one death too many. The presence and efforts of a Risa Hontiveros will just be upstaged by the temerity of the other Senators to even express alarm at the death they could have prevented if they cared for their people early enough.

Not Lovin' It

At my favorite fastfood's newest branch near our place, I was excited to buy some muffin sandwiches and big breakfast. There was no line unlike in the previous week when it opened. Alas, there's no muffin and so I had to settle with crispy chicken sandwich for my sons. I also added two banana pies and one apple pie but I was told only one banana pie is ready so could I just have two apple pies instead? I said yes and then it took the crew eternity to find thirteen pesos to give back as change. Even the manager who has one ear covered with a headset couldn't come to the rescue of the crew who couldn't find the exact change for me. She later suggested if she could just give me rice which I mistakenly heard as "fries" so I agreed. Arriving home, that's when I found out she only gave me one crispy chicken sandwich. I ordered two. The receipt said only one was punched. I don't get it with fast food crew . At another store, I asked for two of a meal , the cashier relays the same to one of their crew and this crew says "one?" . 

Anyway, I am not really pissed because the happiest period of the year has just started . It's the first of September and Jose Mari Chan will soon be lording it over the airwaves with his classic Christmas in Our Hearts. In this country, we somehow forget the ugliness of poverty, corruption , violence, and death that the current regime has been imposing on us since last year because the longest Christmas celebration is upon us. Hopefully though the compromise between complaint and atrocity/blunder would not apply to the supposed magnanimous offer of the biggest thieving family in our history. A few gold bars and whatever could be unearthed says the President. Just like whatever is available on the menu and may we replace your change with some rice instead. Not lovin' it, this fastfood type of settling for things you didn't plan to eat while on your way to the branch. The waiting line to the Marcos wealth and the reparation for their victims are no fastfood stint. I don't know why this current President is forcing us to accept whatever is on their menu. And then some netizens will say, it's about time we sit down and settle with the Marcoses so the country could be given the chance to heal. Just like what a peeved mom tells her kids, "Just eat whatever I have put on the table!" 

I will forgive Ronald's crew for the minor compromises I have to make whenever I visit the store but not Digong and his horrible excuse for presidency whenever he absentmindedly talk of this country's problems as if he owns everything and everyone and could do anything to them as he pleases. While we have Jose Mari Chan on repeat in the weeks to come, let's be mindful of the maneuverings this regime and its cohorts are doing with our lives. No lovin' the manipulation, compromise, and utter twisting of the narrative in favor of or in defense of what they alone will benefit from or in diversion from what we as a country should be angry and protesting about. 

Fastfood service sucks. But government shouldn't go on being this terrible for long.