IngliseraKuno

I would like to think I am a fiercely loyal person. I set aside my modesty when I say that. Those who truly know me have seen that. There have been times, of course when I falter here and there, when I cannot simply say 'no'. 'No' to what, that is for me to know and you to find out.😜 But no biggies.  Regardless, I consider loyalty as my strength. I am not the church-going type, but I am loyal to my faith. To family. Oh, that may raise some eyebrows, yes.  To friends, with whom I will gladly grab a shovel and dig the grave of someone they killed, just to save them. (That's OA actually because I don't have friends who are the murderous type.) Loyalty, as I see it, is not something that is seen. It is not the constant communication, not liking facebook posts (I am fortunate I have friends in that platform who are discerning and like my posts only if they really do, and point out to me when they don't.) It is not telling on other people who have nothing good to...

Michael Keon, a good friend, once told me I should have been a lobbyist. He described me as this 'formidable b--tch', who would have been good, too, in a negotiating panel for whatever 'talks' there are of general concern to this country. I remember this second or third official meeting with him when he was Governor,  very well. I was requesting for some financial support for a road project in one of his municipalities, because the local government unit could not raise the required counterpart on its own. He said, 'ok, how much do they need?'. I said, 'A million pesos, sir'. He replied, 'oh, that's too much. how about half of that?'. I said, 'sir, what about 800thousand then?'. Again, he said, 'madame, I cannot just give 1million to one municipality and not give the others'. So I said, 'ok, Governor, yes, 500thousand. i will wait for the check'. So he held out his hand to me like we had a deal. I told him, 'not yet...

I am quick to say 'I am sorry'. I am that type. Not the type of 'I am sorry' of a former President, though. That was simply said, as it was the proper thing to do at that time. My apologies are not for propriety. Neither do I say them to quiet the other person I have hurt, the other party I have aggrieved by my words, my actions. This is why perhaps, I expect others to say the words, to me, for example, when I have put forth in not so many words or my behaviour which shifts slowly to uneasy silence, that I am hurt, that I am offended. I have, in not a few instances, hurt and offended other people in my life, admittedly. Conversely,  a friend of mine observed that I am able to 'show', though vaguely, that I am hurt or offended when I wallow in silence. However, she says, the thing is that, I blurt out scathing words when I am the one doing the 'hurting' that when she hears me say them, she would think that a slap on a face is easier to handle.  It is quit...

The days when I don't feel well, like a pendulum I swing from being a weakling  to a monster. Nothing in between. Those who know me well just let me be and laugh at my absurdity, the others who don't, well, they panic.  Much like today. I woke up  at 4am , (that's a feat for me) because I slept  at 4pm , the day before, interrupted only by a meal of carbonara and a slice of pizza I barely remember chewing. I am usually drugged when I am in this state, my medicines make me slide to half coma. But my emotional swings, I do not attribute to the drugs. It is simply the way I am, moreso when I am sick.  So  at 4am , I opened my eyes to the dark room I slept in and it took a while for me to realize where I was. My life is lived off suitcases, I have two homes, and I go to meetings in hotels here and there that I scarcely remember one hotel from the other except in Davao, where I cannot smoke. That place, I remember very well. I was pushed back to reality from thi...

So she was given the Certificate of Good Moral Character by her school, with some qualifications noted on the certificate, I presume. She, (I don't want to know her name, but I do know that she is called the Interrupted Salutatorian on social media? Basta.) contends that the certification given was 'sarcastic'. Now she wants the Public Attorney's Office to have the school officials arrested. For their 'sarcasm'? I suppose so.  I think that the Public Attorney's Office did the right thing: teach the girl to fight for her rights. When they got the certificate, their next move was to have the officials arrested for 'sarcasm'. Now that did not sit well with me anymore. I do not wish to belittle the efforts of the PAO, and reduce their adrenaline-injected enthusiasm in following the case to a mere squabble being mediated by a barangay captain,  yet I suspect that the PAO wants more attention for themselves than for the 'interrupted'. I have this q...

You know those times when you blurt out four-letter words when you stupidly cut yourself in the kitchen? Or when you drop your latest-model mobile? Or when you realize you left the faucet open after locking all the doors to your house and already left for work? These are the times when you become unguarded, and become the bitch that you really are. When you realize people heard you or saw you foul-mouthed with no poise, you clamp your mouth and gasp. You tell yourself, you should not have behaved so improper, because people would now look at you differently.  It's the same with life itself. We live day by day faced with either fortune or misery, and how we deal with either says much about who we really are; not so much like the poster image of poise, grace and elegance or the billboard-type of wall on Facebook where we project the best of whatever in our existence: a beautiful face, a new dress, gifts, food, cars, and God forbid, nude bodies.  I see through people that way. I ...

I have been meaning to ask the candidates for the coming elections, who claim to have been 'poor', or are 'poor' like one of the many many Filipinos, some stupid questions but being in government, I value professional courtesy. So as a citizen, with emphasis on 'as a citizen', I wonder what the answers to my questions would be.  For example, have any of them experienced not having money for food on the table? Because I have. And at that time, I was already in government. We had to 'lista' eggs which we boiled, and salted fish which we fried, from the sari-sari store nearby who wanted to help. Or have they ever put water with sugar in a baby bottle because they had nothing to buy milk with? Because I have, with my eldest. We had to wait for our salaries to buy my daughter a box.  Have any of them worn hand-me-downs to go to work because they could not afford a decent office attire even at 'hulugan'? Have any of them ever been humiliated by those w...