The first national automated elections is three months away and with impeccable timing, problems have come gushing in with the force of class VI whitewater rapids. For the first time, those of us who have envisioned our country finally catching up with the rest of the modern world sit down and wonder. Wait a doggone minute. Was there a thorough proposal, a comprehensive study or at least a drinking session among government entities to discuss the applicability of automated polls in the Philippines?

We’re almost done debating (or throwing sticks) over the issue of hacking election results. The most recent issue is signal jamming. Yes, those misfits in power, or any kind of misfit for that matter can jam electronic signals just as well as they can ram concentrated, MSG-flavored lies down our throats. Globe Telecom says, “Aw shucks. No worries. We’ll take care of that.” Yippee! So full automation will push through? Sure, that is if Globe can stretch its arms and declare, “Let there be light.”

My baby’s nanny comes from a province where there is no electricity and no modern wonders. She came to the city and experienced for the first time the magic of electric hand driers, the delight of car doors and the power of toilet pumps. She has yet to explore phantasmagorical electronic thingamajigs like computers and her town has yet to discover the incandescent bulb.

Seeing how far behind we are, only Merlin the magician can whip up full automation in this decade.

*Photo by Maureen CC license

I don’t like the idea of getting hired help. This is not because I am too finicky. I just hate the idea of hiring someone who has to stop going to school so she can work. I feel guilty that I seem to have an unfair and unfortunate advantage over someone. Hiring help here seems almost like enslaving someone especially since the wage for nannies isn’t enough to pay for a pair of Levi’s jeans.

I am in a rock and a hard place. It’s either I send her back home so she can go back to school or I stop working so I can take care of my kids myself. If I stop slaving over a keyboard my family will go hungry. So what will it be?

I wish I lived in a country where education is a right and not a privilege and where married moms with kids can work without having to hire out of school youth.

You can easily find out who spends the most on presidential ad campaigns. Have some toddlers watch T.V. all day and the owner of the jingle they start singing at the end of the day is your best bet. I have a kid who sings Manny Villar’s jingle with so much energy you’d think she was a walking ad commissioned by Villar.

It’s scary really. I work at home where the T.V. is on for fifteen hours a day so I know for a fact that Villar’s ad recurs with the same level of frequency as untreated bad breath. At first, you squirm at the cheesiness but listen to it long enough and you start to imbibe the kind of desperation that might just push you to darken the circle beside Villar’s name come election day. This is hypnosis at its best and proof that candidates in the Philippines don’t need to speak candy-coated trash to be convincing. They just need to know how to swim.



“Have you ever gone swimming in a sea of trash?” Villar asks. No, none of the other candidates have or those that have may have died of leptospirosis. Only he has ever done that, evaded bacterial infection and gone on to become a top presidential bet we should all vote for because he bears the scars of poverty. Villar knows one must woo the poor to win in the next elections, hence that excellent swimmer’s form. All the candidates know this but not everyone can look good in a sea of trash.

I don’t know if I’d like to take swimming lessons from Villar. I get bothered by the thought of voting for someone who has no qualms about spending millions to appear one with the poor.

*I saw the photo on top a couple of days ago in the news and I found a copy in Facebook. I don’t know who made the photo but I must say that it gave me quite a good laugh. Thanks to whoever is the artist.

My husband just got a drinking table for our new apartment. This simply means that either hell has to freeze over or heaven has to go up in flames before he changes his stripes and gives up the artificial source of his spirited self. The old snob in me who used to have tea and cakes with dead classical musicians and writers would have quoted the raven’s “nevermore…” and promptly descended into madness. But I am not my old self.

I have seen the light and logic behind his band of drunk brothers. It is thanks to his brotherhood that we were able to transfer all our things to our apartment for free, get a cable internet connection where no lines exist and get price cuts on expensive appliances. I suspect his brotherhood will soon also assist us in getting discounts for the new baby’s infant formula.

Lo and behold the wonders of bonds formed over alcohol. Maybe I should learn how to drink too.

Because I live in the Philippines, I have never met or known of anyone who has a prenuptial agreement. When there are more poor people than ants, a prenup is a word encountered only in the dictionary. Which is why for me, the current development to the Tiger Woods drama is nothing short of strange.

Rumor has it that Tiger had a car accident because his wife, Elin chased him with a golf club and actually managed to smash his windshield. Rumor has it that Elin finally cracked after discovering Tiger’s extramarital transgressions. Rumor has it that Elin is now renegotiating their prenuptial agreement. The initial agreement was for her to receive $20 million after twenty years of marriage. Rumor has it that she’s asking for an outright payment of $5 million and $55 million more to stay with Tiger for two more years.

The numbers alone are staggering but what I find even more perplexing is how anyone can go down on one knee and ask for someone’s hand in marriage with a diamond ring and prenup papers. So much for, “I’ll love you no matter what.” This just supports the theory that romantic love is really a fairytale.