Philippines

After writing the entry entitled “Magkano Po Ito? (How Much is This?)”, I was struck with the idea of writing something about consumer goods prices in the Philippines (particularly in Metro Manila). Well, it’s really more of a “recording” than “writing”… nevertheless, I thought, this kind of information can be very useful to a lot of people (such as those who are doing research and those who are planning to visit the country).

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Jeepney.jpg/800px-Jeepney.jpg

Being a commuter for much of my life, I have witnessed (and experienced) all sorts of things inside the jeepney… some funny, some scary, some gross … you name it. For those who are clueless what jeepneys are, these are the most popular form of public transportation here in the Philippines.

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“10 centavos was enough to buy you a bottle of Coke and a siopao (包子 or baozi).”

My mother has told me that story so many times that I’ve already lost count… and I still can’t hear enough of it. I don’t know how much the exchange rate really was at that time (that is Philippine Peso against the US dollar), but I think she has mentioned that it was around 2 or 3 pesos to the dollar. In today’s exchange rate, 10 centavos is only US$0.002 (using a rough PhP45.00 to US$1.00 conversion)! The lowest Peso-Dollar exchange I can remember was 7.00 pesos to the dollar… I think that was some time around 1982 to 1984.

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i just read the news from Inquirer.net that Rudy Fernandez one of the famous actor here in the Philippines died because of periampullary cancer this Saturday June 7, 2008 at 6:15am.

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A picture of a true mermaid.

It has just been announced that internet services to the Philippines will not be back to normal until Feb 21st this will be nearly 2 months.

The Philippines National Telecommunications Commission has asked everyone that has no or slow connections to report it to them www.ntc.gov.ph/ so they can make the companies involved charge you a lower rate. The email address is

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To “Ms. Investigative Journalism�? of the Philippines

Before it’s too late, this letter should be read. I would not wait for another incident to erupt.

Dear Ms X,

I also belong to the field of journalism but I am not like you – big and well known. Even before, you are one of the reasons I am proud of my field because you rise above the rest - in terms of ken and most especially in terms of values. I have long been feeling you are the right person to approach regarding possible coverage of something that is quite rotten and needs to be exposed. I don’t know how long we shall be tolerating this problem that is quite eating up society and yet nothing is happening. Sometimes we try to find ways but we couldn’t get through – just because it’s religion that is involved, they say. Especially, a very influential religion at that.

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The message was urgent. It was sent late in the night and was addressed to all, especially the women. "Be careful. When you see a child crying, take that child to the police station. Don't mind the address he is giving. It's only a ploy."
It reported the latest of capers the foolish of this world had cooked up. It explained the modus operandi even. Translated from Tagalog, it said -

A young child would be found in a corner crying as though lost. When approached, the child would provide an address. If you take that child to that address, once you press the doorbell, you would be shocked out of your senses and then dragged inside. There you would be robbed and raped. The child crying is actually a lure.

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He called himself, The Thinker. I would review his work and he would thank me for it. If the corrections required appeared massive, he would say he‘d delete it. I would say, don’t as what were needed are just some deletion, some addition, some elaboration, and knitting the paragraphs well together to project what he had wanted to say. Some of his writings needed little corrections but they are really draining, one has to be patient in reading them. We then thought we belonged to the same pigeonhole: as thinkers.

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Manila- Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan is wanted again for planning a coup (again) and the reward money is five million in Philippine currency (again). And no this is not 1987, neither is this year 1989 -- it's 2006 and we have the same news. Is another freaky deja vu which makes me wonder why the mainstream news still "buy" the story, aside from the FACT that Gringo Honasan is "long shelf life GOOD COPY?".

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Greetings from DownUnder!

I'm a 42 year old Aussie Bloke I come from
Sydney Australia I'm 13 year married and
have a little girl aged 10.

My wife originally came from a little island in
the Philippines before immagrating to Australia.

Half my wifes family live here in OZ while
the other half live in the Philippines. We have
a beach house on the island which sits between
Leyte and Cebu a group of little islands called

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