POPP- a community cooperative enterprise

If poverty is the absence of wealth, then the solution is to create wealth and ensure that it is fairly and equitable shared by those who helped in its creation.

This POPP laundry detergent venture is an experiment on how a people in a community can come together and work towards a common goal of creating wealth through a cooperative enterprise.

The formula is simple: get people together, identify a needed product, produce it, and sell it. All involved will have a stake in the business and a right to dividends apart from fair wage for labor.

Hope this experiment works.

Pleasing customers by underpromising but over delivering

I am one happy and satisfied customer today of a Japanese owned eye glasses shop. Am also grateful about a lesson I learned from them on how to please a customer.

When I ordered a pair of eyeglasses, I was told that I will have to wait for ten working days for my eyeglasses to be ready since it requires special work and that work will have to be done in Japan. I was resigned to their schedule but even if the ten days have not passed, I got a text message that my glasses were ready for pick up.

It may be a trivial thing but I am happy about this because I really need these glasses for relief from constant eye strain and dizziness.

Now I can work and study again. And there is no more excuse.

Our moral and spiritual crisis

wip

Bikes for rent in Pasig

Bikes for rent in front of the Department of Education and Sports in Ortigas. But how does the scheme work?

I passed by these bikes for rent in the Pasig Ortigas area in front of the Department of Education and Sports main office.

I am all for self propelled modes of transportation, including and primarily walking and I support this undertaking even if just on an experimental basis.

I hope this initiative succeeds and that many people take to this mode of transportation. Hopefully, this can spread to other areas also. But local governments must also realize the important responsibility they have to ensuring pedestrian and bikers' safety

Idea for a parol for all seasons

Since the parol is the Christmas ornament most associated with the Philippines, might as well make it a permanent symbol of goodwill and adapt it for greeting cards and tourist souvenirs.

I have been toying with this idea for a long time but I could not work it out. But this candy packaging just gave me an idea and hope that this is a doable project....with the right people.

Learning Spanish

I regret not having taken the chance to learn Spanish seriously when I was in college. But now, I am trying to make up for that wasted opportunity by self studying the language. I am doing fine at the basic level now and happy that I can read with reasonable comprehension many articles written in this language.

Many Filipinos, both old and young see Spain in a dark light as a ruthless colonizer and oppressor of our people. This may be true but this was in the past. Because of this thinking, our people miss out on the many good and positive aspects that Spanish culture and keeping good relations with that country can bring us. Besides, modern Spain is very different from the old one that believed they own half of the world.

I don't know how far I can master the Spanish language but one of my goals in learning this language is to establish a sister city partnership between my town and Mondragon, Spain which has a very successful cooperative model that I hope to adapt locally.

But maybe this idea is just a quixotic dream.

Para sa mga madaling mabudol budol sa Facebook

May epidemya ngayon ng katangahan at Facebook ang pinakamatinding magpakalat nito. 

Sa facebook, laganap ang fake news at maraming tao ang naniniwala rito ng walang tanong tanong. At napakahirap pang baguhin ang kanilang paniniwala kahit may patunay at ebidensya ng ipakita sa kanila.

Para sa mga ganitong tao yata ginawa ang sticker na ito na nakita ko sa isang pampasaherong jeep.

Republika ng Pateros blog video project

Just an idea to work on a blog/video project about my town.

Needed: computer/internet savvy  people, writers, ham actors, artistic people

- promote community building campaigns
-showcase talents
- tell a story drama, commedy
- sell Pateros products and merchandise
- give community and personality development tips
-  citizenship values building

This will be a profit making enterprise operated as a cooperative

2019: Pilipinas ano na?

Lilipas na naman ang isang buong taon habang sumasalubong tayo sa panibago. Sa taong namamaalam, maraming naganap, Mabuti at masama, masaya at malungkot, mga kwento ng tagumpay at mga kwento ng kabiguan.

Gusto ko mang isipin at dalhin lamang ang mga masasaya at mabubuting ala-ala, hindi ko maikakaila na malungkot sa naganap sa aking bayan.

Meron man tayong nakikitang sanhi ng ating kalagayan sa kasalukuyan, sa bandang huli, tayo lamang mamamayan na sama samang kumikilos tungo sa isang layunin ang magpapasya ng ating kapalaran.

Ang ating tungkulin ay hindi manisi kundi magmulat at baguhin ang ating sarili.

Umaasa tayo ng pagbabago. Pero ang pagbabago ay hindi manggagaling sa labas kundi sa ating sarili. Sana maganap ito sa bagong taon na darating para sa pagwawakas ng taong ito, kasama na ang lahat ng masama at pabigat sa atin na ibabaon na lang din sa ala ala.

Mental malnutrition is a real and serious problem

Although we have free education in our country, we do not care much about its quality. We are content to see students go through the motion of an education even though they learn very little and end up not being able to be functionally literate and numerate.