The Philosopher's Tales

Back in college, I had this nice old professor as my teacher in Ethics (let's call him Mr. R). His requirements were greatly relaxing; it only consisted of a midterm and a final oral exam as well as an optional final paper. Though it seemed that the topics would pile up due to great intervals between the tests, it was actually a breeze to review if one would take down notes from his lectures. Indeed, his class was so relaxing that most of us had, at least in one point in the entire semester, dozed off to his still, small voice. On other occasions though, he had us up and alert with his life stories that he links to his Ethics lessons. What those lessons were, I'm not so sure anymore, but his stories I can still vividly recall...

-oOo-

On his being a philosophy professor, he recalls the time when he was about to graduate. I'm not sure about the details, but it appeared that he had an immersion in a community of indigenous people somewhere in Northern Luzon. He lived with them and taught their children, and he felt fulfilled. Later, when he was back in Manila, he got a job offer from Procter & Gamble (a managerial position perhaps). It came with generous compensation that would make him well-off for the rest of his life. However, in his heart he yearned for the fulfillment he felt in his short stint in teaching. He confided his dilemma to a Jesuit teacher of his, and the priest asked him what he would think of a life of "selling soap" and the rest was history.

-oOo-

Mr. R once had a French girlfriend when he was studying in France. She was blonde, fair and beautiful, but what troubled this teacher of mine was that she was a bit taller than him. It was because in his family, the men would be consistently taller than the women. He went on with the dates, dinners and all those relationship stuff with this nagging quirk of his. Why was it that she, almost the perfect girlfriend, had to be taller than him?

At one point his girlfriend was already entertaining thoughts of marriage. She was willing to undergo surgery to be shorter than him! Even her father had approached him. "I want you to marry my daughter," the old man said.

Mr. R replied, "I'm sorry, monsieur, I can't." Just because she was taller than him.

-oOo-

Still in France, Mr. R had a terror teacher for one of his philosophy subjects. In European universities then, the teaching style was to hold lectures and provide reading assignments throughout the entire term and the student will be grilled in the final exams. A whole month was devoted to the finals and the students would sign up for their preferred schedule.

Mr. R strategized that he should sign up with the terror teacher as his last exam, so that he had all the time to prepare for the encounter. However, upon re-checking his schedule, it turned out that he actually had to take the unwanted teacher's exam first!

It was a common practice then that the French professors hold exams at their homes, and so he went to this teacher's house for his oral test. The resident had just finished his morning rituals when he led the timid and nervous student that is Mr. R to his home office, where there was a pet canary at one corner. The older students had told him to hope that the bird would sing a pleasant tune during the exam. This would put the usually gruff professor in a good mood that would consequently result to a passing grade.

"First question," the professor began (the test was in French), "what kind of man are you?"

Mr. R, frightened at that time, hurriedly wracked his brains to recall everything he learned in the Philosophy of the Human Person. He muttered the beginning of a lengthy spiel, "s-starting off with S-Socrates..."

The examiner banged his fist! "No, no, no!" He growled. Mr. R was beyond horrified.

The professor repeated: "What kind of man are you? Are you Chinese? Japanese?"

"I-I'm Filipino, sir," he answered with great relief.

"Ah, the Philippines. You do happen to have a pineapple party after the finals, don't you?"

Incredulous as the student was to the query, he could only answer in the affirmative.

The real test followed, and the canary did sing a wonderful tune. Later on, though, Mr. R would be unsure whether it was on his own brilliance or the assistance of the canary that he had made the passing mark.

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ABNGTTGLOGN Blogger Ko!

Kakaiba talaga ang bumulaga ba naman sa akin nang tinungo ko ang website ng Blogger. Aba! Ang Blogger ay ispokening piso! Bahagyang baluktot man ang pagka-salin (dahil literal o kaya'y gumamit ng program na pangsalin) ito'y kyut para sa akin. Kung may oras pa ako, marahil itong template kong ito ay isalin ko rin sa Tagalog. Ngunit sadya akong tinatamad ngayon. Kung hindi lang dito sa pagbabagong ito e marahil sa katapusan ng linggong ito pa ako makakalathala ng bagong sulatin.

-oOo-

Garo maray kun an IP address nagtatao kan pinaka-eksaktong lokasyones, bako lang itong kun aring nasyon kita haen kundi pati itong ronga ta. Maurag baga kun sa Bikol ako, ma-Bikol man an Blogger.

-oOo-

Bitaw gyud! (Gamay lang kabalo ko Binisaya. Samuk!)

-oOo-

Hablo y escribo en español un poco tambien, pero tengo que escribir para un demonstracion de mi abilidades, jeje.

-oOo-

Ah crap, enough with this Babel of a post. Feel free to point out my shortcomings in these languages. Admittedly, I write best in English. Besides, my MS Word can only check English.

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Naga at Random - In the City

A quick glance at my sidebar shows how long I've been counting up since Election Day. As of this writing it's been about 24 days and only ten senators have been proclaimed so far.

-oOo-

One of the activities I assigned to myself in my trip back in the home city was to monitor the local elections. My past entry had presented the background for this: on a widely-criticized decision from the local Comelec Division, the Villafuerte camp, whose politicians were contesting key political positions in Naga and Camarines Sur, had managed to succeed in troubling Naga's favorite mayor Jesse Robredo, with a citizenship issue that had failed many times in the past. I was expecting Naga to be a little bit more abuzz than usual with this new development. Instead, it was business as usual in the city. Those I had asked would say Robredo shall win and they say it in a calm and confident manner, no worries at all.

Well, if there was one barely exciting event, it was a fairly massive motorcade organized by the Villafuertes that snaked from their headquarters to the downtown plaza a kilometer away. Ferried by the vehicles was an obvious non-Nagueño hakot crowd carrying placards screaming disgusting sacrilegious nonsense like "Abang Mabulo supports Villafuerte." Surely, those caught in the ensuing traffic jam must have cursed the Villafuertes to hell many times over.

It's still debatable, though, whether the old man Villafuerte would care about his afterlife, but his son Jojo was surely politically damned in the ensuing city elections. To the further chagrin of the elder Villafuerte, the renegade son L-ray was re-elected as governor of Camarines Sur (the people of the province recognized, at the very least, that L-ray had improved tourism with the CamSur Watersports Complex). As a consolation, the old man Luis also retained his spot in Congress, and judging from his appearances in news stories, he currently seemed more interested in pursuing his national ambitions.

It seems all's well that ends well as the status quo is maintained, but what worries me is how the Villafuerte's political clout had suddenly strengthened, notwithstanding the apparent schism of the governor-son from the patriarch. In fact, even though Robredo won with a huge margin, it still took skilled bureaucratic acrobatics from a few good persons to outmaneuver moves to prevent a proclamation, and I'm damn proud that Nagueños are capable of standing by their principles and, more impressively, of keeping cool and refusing taunts that could spark civil unrest. However, what would prevent the Villafuertes from raising another issue against the mayor, or stifling government funds, even those for disaster relief? Clearly, typhoons are not the only challenges to Naga's development boom (recently affirmed with a soon-to-rise SM mall, the first in Bicol).

It would be such a tragedy to reverse efforts to make the local bureaucracy a well-oiled machine. For instance, I liked it that my transactions at the Naga SSS office to apply for an ID took less than an hour even with a lot of people there. Also, it would really hurt if the commercial development popping left and right would suddenly find a less conducive business environment. I would not want thriving spots downtown (called centro by the locals) return to the idle lots that they were five years ago.

-oOo-

Okay enough with the seriousness.

Speaking of the new commercial spots, I'd first like to comment on one edifice that catches my attention everytime I pass it by. And no, I don't quite mean it as a good thing. I can't help but make a second look because its facade is a small-scale replica of the one in Greenbelt 3. Aw, come on! Greenbelt 3 is Greenbelt 3, and imitating its facade is not impressive but tacky! In the first place, there won't be any patrons in there that's as high brow as in Greenbelt. Besides, I don't think conservative Naga is ready for commercialism as blatant and wanton as in Metro Manila. Actually, one Metro Manila is enough; I wouldn't want to come home to another one. A place could be cosmopolitan without losing its identity. Thankfully this aberration is just found in one city block (or maybe I haven't gone around that much).

And then there's CamSur Watersports Complex. If Mo Twister hears about this (perhaps he already did), he'll be riled up like he always does about "Bora." He does have a point about the abbreviation of Boracay: there's such a place called Bora Bora and it's not in the Philippines, so alluding to this foreign beach (again, tacky) does not help local tourism one bit. Now unlike the one-syllable-longer-than-Bora "Boracay," "Camarines Sur" is indeed a mouthful (not to mention it eats up texting space at 13 characters long.). I may excuse it in text messages, but I'd prefer that the name of the province be said in full. The people from that place have grown up calling it "Camarines Sur" even back when it's just a nondescript province that one passes by on the way to Mt. Mayon as well as the province that gets mentioned in typhoon reports. Oh, so it's like a transformation: with newfound "glamour," the province is now called CamSur?

I also passed by the well-known Avenue Square (temporary link because the main URL has expired) along Magsaysay Avenue. Currently lording over the strip of restaurants, Avenue Square boasts of the hottest gigs in the city, drawing in celebrities like Parokya ni Edgar, Brownman Revival, Heart and Echo, Imago as well as wholesome Spongebob to scandalous FHM models. (Are they cover girls or just extras? This shows that I haven't read the magazine for a long while.) Pictures over the Internet give me the impression that this prime location in Naga could be what Metrowalk is for Pasig (heck, locals are proud enough to compare it to Greenbelt, again Greenbelt). However, it was the afternoon of Election Day when I passed by, so all I saw was a plain two-storey building housing new-in-Naga establishments half-full with customers (some enjoying free WiFi). Maybe I should drop by again in a full-blown gig and see Avenue Square in all its pimped-up glory.

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