Book Series: SENIOR MOMENTS ARE FOREVER

25th MOMENT: Kissing in Filipino Movies, Unli-Rice & Counterfeits

Kissing in Filipino movies: When we were boys and Filipino movies were just starting to allow kissing scenes, I and my friends would always save money to watch romantic films. One time, while there was a romantic dialogue between the actors, he shouted “lips to lips!” The movie goers turned to us at the back seats. We thought we will be reprimanded. But suddenly one said YEAH! And everyone in the movie house laughed and shouted YEAH! YEAH! in unison! We felt triumphant! ------------------------ Dumbest moment: My dumbest moment came when I was coming home to Manila from my second mission in Liberia. I missed my flight and forfeited my ticket. But since I had my luggage checked in at the airline office in Monrovia it went ahead of me. To punish myself I bought a business class ticket for all the flight routes through Emirates. When I arrived in Manila I checked for my luggage with the airline. The ground crew was able to trace it – it has gone to Beijing and was arriving to Manila at an undisclosed date. I thought I would be allowed to fly to Beijing to pick it up myself, charged to Emirates. My request was turned down - for lack of merit! ------------------------ Unli-rice in India: The southernmost tip of India is the district of Tamil Nadu, and the most visited place is called Kanyakumari. It is a famous tourist spot where the current of three great bodies of water meet – the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea. It is a nice place to go for a break after a hard day’s work. Back in the Philippines, while eating in one of our food restaurants with their unlimited rice gimmick, I noticed that the way the waiters or waitresses distribute the rice from the pot is the same as in Kanyakumari! Is there a theory about cultural soul mates? ------------------------ Counterfeit marketing: Counterfeiters are not good in spelling. Nash, our project driver in Mindanao bought a high-end Canon camera for only P350. And he got more of the bargain because instead of having only one “N” he got 2. The camera was named CANNON! -------------------------- But the counterfeiters in Africa are cleverer. I bought a model of Nokia phone in Monrovia, Liberia. It was a sturdy phone with solid metal casing. But when I started to use it the spacebar was nowhere to be found. I found later that the spacebar was hidden somewhere in the application. When I examined closely the trademark it was not Nokia but NCKIA – the letter “C” was designed to look like an “O”! I brought it home to Manila and bragged about it to my daughters. They were not able to see the difference in the trademark – in fact, they never even liked the phone! ------------------------- Titanium watch: I had a weakness for wrist watches, until one day when I was duped to buy Titanium watch by an ambulant vendor in General Santos City. After lots of bargaining I was able to bring down the price from P3, 500 to P500! I brought it to the watch repair shop at a Mall to have the band cut to my size. I was curious to ask the technician whether the watch was original. Without batting an eyelash and without even looking up to me he said it was FAKE! I gave it to a friend in Cotabato City who was celebrating his birthday. He kept it and has been bragging about me as a good friend by giving him the watch as a birthday gift. I never knew until now whether he discovered that it was a fake. -------------------------- Dumbest moment: My dumbest moment came when I was coming home to Manila from my second mission in Liberia. I missed my flight and forfeited my ticket. But since I had my luggage checked in at the airline office in Monrovia it went ahead of me. To punish myself I bought a business class ticket for all the flight routes through Emirates. When I arrived in Manila I checked for my luggage with the airline. The ground crew was able to trace it – it has gone to Beijing and was arriving to Manila at an undisclosed date. I thought I would be allowed to fly to Beijing to pick it up myself, charged to Emirates. My request was turned down - for lack of merit! ------------------------ Political economy: In the present dispensation it is difficult to define political economy. Is it politics driven by the economy? Or, is it economy driven by politics? ------------------------ How to define macroeconomics: Just be cerebral about it. Macroeconomics uses GDP, GNP, GCR, and Per-capita incomes as development indicators. When your audience ask you to define the terms just tell them to read the speeches of our NEDA officials (in the Philippines). ------------------------ Economics: A friend of mine has a simpler way of defining macroeconomics and microeconomics. He uses an analogy with the skirt of a woman. He said that macroeconomics is like the long skirt where everything is hidden, microeconomics is like the mini skirt where some interesting parts are shown. ------------------------- One size does not fit all: The folly of entrepreneurship or business management training for the poor and marginalized groups is that the tools used are usually taken from the formal business management courses of the academe: long-term business feasibility studies, market research, financial management etc., etc., that the target groups cannot easily understand due to their low educational background. This is usually done when the training is linked with funding from the implementing agencies. So, in most cases the target groups ask somebody to prepare the documents for them, sometimes charging fees. Naturally, the target groups will not follow the business plan because they did not understand the theories behind. Worst of all, the plans are not compatible with the informal and dual system of the rural economy. In our approach we teach the pricing mechanism formula based on adult-oriented and practical short-term business forecasting technique. -------------------------