Let Mali Stay in Philippines

Elephant Mali has stayed in the Philippines' Manila Zoo for 36 years after she was brought to this country when she was 3 years old. She is now 39 years old and if she was brought up in the wild or in the forest, she would have just one more year to live. But since she was under domestication in the zoo, she can live longer, and can even possibly live till 75 years old.

The newly elected mayor of Manila, Mayor Erap Estrada, has wonderful plans for Mali and the whole Manila Zoo. A new foot gear for Mali is of course on the list. and the upgrading of her habitat, with the possible inclusion of "friends".

Transferring Mali will just subject her to stress and might not even reach the destination alive. For 36 years, she has adapted to a life with a lot of people around. She has heard the laughter of children who had fed her with fruits or vegetables. Just like my special child on the photo who is blind and has cerebral palsy, but kept laughing while feeding Mali because she could feel the "sucking air" from the snout of Mali to get the banana from her hand. Mali surely has a happy soul because she had made so many people happy, even those with disabilities.

Weekend in Bacolod

I can't believe that it has been almost two months since I last posted in this blog! I should have at least posted about my weekend in Tanza, a barrio near Bacolod City. I'm doing that now, and the only reason for the not-so-precise title of this post is to get attention since Bacolod is a well known city internationally, because of its Masskara festival held every 2nd week of October.

I had been requested to go to Cebu last month, so passing by a client in Iloilo who has written requests to visit them months ago was finally practical. A team mate with me who would be assigned in Iloilo for some time lives near Bacolod City so I requested to stay at their house for the weekend in between my Iloilo and Cebu trips. We rode a ferry boat from Iloilo to Bacolod, but since Bacolod was not in my official itinerary, I had to shoulder all my expenses in that trip.

My weekend in the house of my team mate was not an ordinary weekend because I had a personal objective unknown even to her. I wanted to know her condition in her own hometown because she will be 60 years old next year and may retire. I wanted to discourage her to retire but I would like to be sure if that will be the best advice I can give her. She has a nice house, but she expressed her desire to renovate her kitchen when she retires. Their barrio looks like a subdivision in Metro Manila. Her siblings and grandchildren by them live next to or near her house so she won't be lonely in case she decides to retire.

Though her hometown is an ideal place for retirement, I hope I can still work with her longer because so many clients expressed their need for her expertise.

I can't end this post without mentioning the sugarcane plantations all around their barrio because I was overwhelmed with the vast area of the plantations. The winds coming from the plantation was very refreshing!.

My favorite foreign song is a Christmas song

I didn't have any idea that "Frohlocket Ihr Folker auf Erden" is a Christmas song since I can't understand German, until the Christmas season last year. Maybe this is one song I'll always appreciate regardless of the choir who'll sing it, though I was used to the interpretation of Arwin Tan, the conductor of Novo Concertante Manila, and who was also the former conductor of University of Asia and the Pacific Chorale from whom I first heard the song in July 2005.

I am touched whenever I hear this song, I can't explain why until I learned that it was originally sang during the Christmas season. This composition by Mendelssohn exclaims the joy and thanksgiving of the world for He has sent His son for the redemption of mankind.

I'd like to share this version sang by Novo Concertante Manila, during their Thanksgiving concert at the Holy Family Chapel at Kamias, Quezon City, and another one shot last night during the "Merry Novo Christmas" concert of Novo Concertante Manila and friends at the Holy Family Chapel at Eastwood City, also in Quezon City. I used my Sony P72 camera to record the one sang during the Thanksgiving concert and my Samsung U600 cellphone to record the latter, so you'll notice a big technical difference as far as the audio is concerned. I'm happy though that despite the far shot, my Samsung cellphone gave a bright picture.

Passion and Persistence

When I was new to Toastmasters Club in the Philippines in 2002, I was surprised to hear from the district officers of the club that my father was behind Manila Bay Toastmasters Club’s consistent status of belonging to one of the top Toastmasters clubs in the country. When I became the VP for Education of another Toastmasters branch, the Makati Toastmasters Club, I felt I had to achieve for my club what my father was able to accomplish for his club, even just for the duration of my term and I succeeded. Another success followed the succeeding year, which resulted to our club being included in the Hall of Fame of Toastmasters International.

Whenever Toastmasters Club had a speech contest and I was a contestant, my father consistently supported me, till I reached the division level. When I was retired from work, I had to resign from the club to study, while my father became sickly and also had to resign from the club.



Shown are photos of Taal Lake surrounding Taal Volcano where only a small crater is shown but it is only the mouth of the volcano, because its body is immersed in the lake. It is one of the active and famous volcanoes in the Philippines. I can say it is one of the most visited tourist spot in the country because it is in Tagaytay City, the second coldest city in the country.


The second photo which included my son O.C., and our adopted special child, Lyca at the foreground, was shot at a "viewing strip" that are occupied by restaurants, like the one shown in the third photo which included some members of my husband's clan, the Venida clan, with an overlooking view of the lake and volcano. All these first three photos were shot in January 2005, at the same time my father was exclusively selling lot properties in a subdivision near this viewing strip of the lake and volcano. My father was a real estate broker almost all his life and even in his 70s, almost every weekend he would bring clients to Tagaytay City or meet them there, until all the lots in this subdivision were sold out. It was his usual passion and persistence that made that possible.

When my own family had acquired real estate properties, my father not only had time to always personally meet me to answer my real estate property queries but would even always remind me to immediately attend to concerns related to real property before they become big problems. Even during this time that my father is now sickly, I don’t expect him to exert an effort to help us sell our townhouse unit, but he still continues to help us look for a buyer.

Most people who didn’t know me before I got married were not aware that my parents had separated a long time ago and had their own families. In spite of that, I consider myself very lucky because both my mother and father had spent considerable time to show their love for me, and most of all, to inspire me to do my best.

My father wasn’t present during my growing years but maybe that was meant to be. It was during these past years, even in my 50s and my father in his late 70s, that I needed his presence and advices the most, and I’m fortunate he was always around to guide me.

From my husband Renz and me, and grandchildren Lauren, O.C., and Lyca,

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to my Dad and the rest of the fathers in the world!

Feng Shui Rule for House Colors

Yesterday and today, I was out of the house the whole day to work at our townhouse unit that was vacated by our last tenant. It is located in Taytay, a town beside Antipolo City, a popular city on the hills in Metro Manila here in the Philippines. Though not as popular as the mountainous Antipolo, Taytay is well known for its wood and clothes industry. At the far background of the second photo are the hills of Antipolo and some parts of Taytay, then the longest road in Taytay better known as "highway", and the Taytay branch of the most popular mall in the Philippines, or SM City Taytay mall, at the right. The mall has two buildings on each side of the highway and an enclosed bridge connects them (where I shot the photo). It is about two kilometers away from our townhouse unit.

We’re selling the townhouse unit now, so my husband and I started to work on some minor repairs that have to be done. I remember when we renovated the house two years ago, to make it easier to decide on the colors of the paints, I followed the rule of Feng Shui. It was not hard since I’ve done that to two other houses, ours and my in-laws’.

At first I just memorized the colors auspicious for every location of the house: green for the eastern part, blue for north, orange for south and yellow for west. Of course that doesn’t have to be strictly followed otherwise it will be hard to imagine how a small house will look like with all those colors.

If there are walls that will divide the locations, a different color after a wall will separate a room from the rest of the house thus making the house look bigger, contrary to what others thought that using just one color for the whole house will make it look bigger.

As an actual example, the photo shown is from our small townhouse unit. I can’t do much with the other structures of the unit, except for the arched doorway and window that I designed. You’ll notice that the walls of the small kitchen which is after the arched doorway is light green because it is at the eastern part of the house. The cupboard at the right before the arched window is light orange because that is where the south is. The color of the larger area now became light blue because it is the color for the north, which has the biggest wall area in the whole unit. I also applied what I learned from my Interior Design classes. Blue is the complimentary color of orange, which is the cupboard’s color, and the blue color also has a tinge of violet that matches with the other secondary colors orange and green. All colors were lightened with white (tints). The design rule for complimentary colors is to use either all tints or all shades (darkened with black), or matching tints with small amounts of bright or dark complimentary colors that serve as accent colors.

Going back to the rule of Feng Shui, I just acquired additional information that can associate the colors to the locations: green for wood, the element for the east; orange for fire, south’s element; blue for water, north’s element; and yellow for metal, the element for the west. How about that?