Welcome Home Party

The family tendered a welcome home party for Roy. Relatives from both the Tan and the Ledesma families came - a happy homecoming gathering.

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The Ledesmas

The Tans

The young ones

With Boy and Ollie at the buffet table.

More food to partake

The lechon was everybody's favorite. Oh so yummy!

Family Vacation at Pico Sands, Batangas

Roy came home from United States for a vacation. He came during the time when Philippine was hosting the APEC meeting. Because of APEC traffic congestion problems, his connecting flight from Japan to Manila was held for 7 hours. It so inconvenient him and many other people including us, his family that the plane landed at Manila International Airport at two in the morning. Because of the delay, everybody else had to suffer the consequences. Roy's siblings fetched him from the airport late at night and everybody else was not able to sleep well because of it. Despite that, our trip for a family vacation had to proceed that same day because the hotel was already pre-booked many months ago. Poor Roy, he suffered a much prolong jet lag because of the continuing journey. So sorry for him and also for Emil who was driving, but the land trip must go on. Probably they could rest at the resort, or so I thought. Roy said the vacation was worth it though. Here are some pictures taken from Pico de Loro:

Pico de Loro Resort is a very picturesque place. The gardens are beautiful and well maintained. They have three dining places that carter to their eating patronages. They have shuttle buses that do not let you wait for ages to come to pick you up. The beach is clean and the sands are very very nice. There are however partitions for the use of the beaches between the resort's members and the hotel guests. (Of course we did not go beyond our limits.) We are a family of beach persons and I can say I really love the sands of Pico de Loro. It extends from the shore to the far sea just like those of Boracay. You can walk the shore barefooted without fear of rough stones and sharp corals. The beach shore is very very enticing. By the way, there is also a chapel inside the resort where you can attend the Sunday mass. It is overlooking the sea and the beach front. The scenery is quite breathtaking.

However there are down sides to the resort hotel. Number one is the poor housekeeping services - Housekeeping forgot to clean our room and they did not provide the proper amenities for the number of occupancy. There was no hot water for showers. My first time to stay in a hotel without hot shower and the staff forgetting to clean the room. I called up their attention on the second day of our stay but still no hot showers on the succeeding day. I felt I was robbed out of my money. I may not go back to Pico Sands, if not only for that beautiful beach and the fine sands.

APEC in the Philippines

It is such a farce, a fiasco that hosting the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in the Philippines, the nation has to suspend classes, declare bank and working holidays, cancel local flights, reroute highways, delay regular international flights, round up homeless people... etc to impress dignitaries from participating foreign countries. It has so inconvenienced many ordinary people, that in some instances, commuting public opted to walk the distance because of the horrendous traffic caused by the rerouting. They advise people to go out of town during these APEC-declared holidays but how can you go out of town when most local flights are cancelled. Who among those silly foreign countries would intentionally come to invest in such falsehood and false scenarios of window dressing. And if the government can make good cleaning during the APEC, why can't they do it for the ordinary people on daily basis, spending as much money anyway.
I am beginning to hate this administration which I verbally supported during the first few years of its "Daan Matuwid" system. Now I say, it's hopeless because many things have gone worse. The president after all was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has proven that he does not empathize nor understand the plight of the hard working ordinary citizens of this country. What can we expect from him now, only self serving rhetoric.

Updates: And his Marie Antoinette of the Philippines sister Kris Aquino compared her supposedly blemished skin from hosting dignitaries wives under the heat of the sun, equal to that of the suffering thousands of traffic stranded walkers caused by this APEC fiasco. Shame on you, off with your silly head and your blemished skin!

Condemning the Paris Attacks

I strongly condemn the disgusting attack of civilians in Paris. It is detestable and sickening to attack innocent defenseless people. They are evil and cowardly acts. What kind of culture and mentality do these insane group possess? They are no religion, they who take and use the mighty name of God in vain.
Oh France, I grieve with you...... O Lord, keep the world safe.

Roof Deck After Repair

This is how my roof deck look after a month of waterproofing treatment:

Hopefully it will last for more than another 35 years and keep my love ones and family safe all through out the years.

Source of My Mysterious Pain

It's been two years now since my mysterious breast pain occurred. I had mammogram twice: one in January of 2014 and another one around February or March this year 2015. The results all came out fine, although occasionally I could still feel some kind of pain or soreness now and then.
Then this October, while I was about prying open a big durian fruit with my two hands on the table, I felt something underneath my left breast pulled too. It felt like a pull and a snap. For a while I thought my bone snapped and would render my left hand immobile. I slowly raised up both hands and arms.Thankfully I could move them freely without strain. But somehow after the incident, my breast began to feel more painful specially when I lay down on my bed. The motion of getting up from bed was also strenuous. 
So I went to visit a bone doctor in Manila this time, and found out that the pain was coming from a lateral big muscle on the left side of my back. Nothing really serious. I was prescribed pain pill and physical therapy to ease the soreness.
After two years, now I know that the back muscle is the source of my mysterious breast pain. I am back home in Cotabato from Manila and will start my physical therapy tomorrow.
Thank you God for being kind to me. Thank you.

Two Cents Worth

This is my two cents worth of supposition regarding the "laglag bala" scam, this scheme of implanting bullets on passengers' luggage and hand-carried bags by airport personnel at the international airports of the Philippines..........

This scam I think began many years back, when x-ray personnel at the airport realized that there was a great deal of charm practice in the Philippines. Filipinos like to insert used empty bullet shells inside the bag or carry them as pendant, some kind of amulet called anting ating. These people who put them inside their bags, oftenly, after a long period of time forgot about the existence of that tiny metal possession. Because of airport restriction regarding ammunition, the personnel discovered that they can easily terrorize and extort money from departing passengers who carried them. So a modus operation began! And until one day their greed could not be satiated, that they resorted to implanting previous confiscated bullets into the side pockets of unaware passengers' luggage and bags. This is such an easy scheme, as they could clearly see from the x-ray machine whom to victimize: You know those bringing plenty of cash and/or those easy preys on connecting flights and helpless workers and travellers, etc., aside of course from those people who really absentmindedly possessed them.

I tell you, when St. Martha School was still operational, one Edil Fitir gun firing morning, two bullets from the sky dropped into the school rooftop, punctured the galvanized roofing and fell on the floor without hurting anybody. A teacher advised me to keep the spent bullets to ward off from bad incidents. So I kept them and put them inside my drawer. Luckily I have no penchant of carrying them around as good luck charms. And yes, the bullets are still in my study room to this day.

I will also tell you, that in some recent travels, I was more than once asked by some airport guys in uniform at Naia 2 for some "pangkape". I pretended not to understand them by turning on my blank stupid stares. What a shame!!! Thieves and uniformed mendicants at manila airports!!! You don't feel safe in your own country.