I made a mistake so please give me a break!

If only the bakasyonistas at the Tarlac Provincial Jail can say this line to their accusers then at least one problem is solved - prison overcrowding. This December, on the list is 246 inmates; 80% male, 12% female and the balance, well they haven't decided yet. Age range is from 18 to 73 yrs. A great majority belong to the lower income bracket. Top reasons for incarceration include rape, murder & drug pushing. Now here's the clincher, majority of them claim to be innocent. The plea: Not guilty, your honor!

Escape from Baras Baras.

"Yours is a unique community service." – Darwin Flores, Smt Public Affairs Manager.

Last December 25 marks the 46th year we served Christmas breakfast for the Tarlac Provincial Jail inmates. The penitentiary is located in Brgy. Baras-Baras, Tarlac City. Come to think of it, the Soliman family's annual routine is leaning towards the extraordinary. While most extend their arms to the underprivileged youth, our family opts for delinquent adults. You might say, they committed a crime so why feed them. Well, its a choice... an underprivileged is an underprivileged no matter what angle you look at it. They made a mistake, graver than most individuals, so let's cut them some slack and pamper them at least once a year. Christmas IS a time for giving.

The day starts with the breakfast preparation. This year, the menu was torta, 3 pandesals, an egg and hot coffee. Compared to the P40.00 daily meal budget for the bakasyonistas, the meal served was relatively a feast. This is then followed by a program with majority of the time spent on parlor games. The games hep-hep, trip to jerusalem and paper dance are permanent fixtures. Since Y2002, this blogger has been providing free calls worth P2,000.00 and that’s equivalent to 60 - 80 calls. Teamwork among the family is at play at least during the activity. There's a group that handles food preparation, free calls, games, emcee and prize custodian.

The program usually caps around 12nn. Then its see-you-again-next-year for most of us. The Baras-Baras community service unifies the family at least during this special day. Indeed, Christmas is a time for giving (and forgiving).

Michael “Air” Jordan: He’s all over

There's Michael Jordan and then there is the rest of us. – Magic Johnson

Michael Jeffrey Jordan is my basketball idol. In his prime, they say that either you’re a Jordan fan or not. When I was younger, one of my must-do-before-i-die list was to watch my basketball idol play a game. Now that he has retired, my list has been modified and it now states that I should meet him in person, shake his hand, have a picture taken and ask for his autograph. I hope that’s not asking too much.

While MJ is no longer playing basketball, it no surprise that he’s still active in the basketball world. He partly owns Charlotte Bobcats. With the wealth that he amassed during his playing days, he probably can buy his own ball club. It’s pretty obvious that he is managing his resources very well. When I was in NY this year, I saw his Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse in Grand Central Station. And while searching the web, I noticed that he has a Michael Jordan’s Nissan car dealership in his home state North Carolina.

He’s not only my idol in basketball but also in managing his financial resources.

Wrong car, right car: Using Factor Rating in choosing

My inspiration for this blog entry came from Top Gear Philippines magazine. They have a portion called “Wrong car, right car” by Botchi Santos.

When I took my Masters in Management in UP Clark, Pampanga from Y2000 to Y2003, one of the important lessons that I learned is a management decision technique called Factor Rating. Factor Rating has numerous applications such as choosing a school for your child, to accept or reject a job offer or when choosing your new car. The steps below will hopefully aide you in your decision:

1. Identify your requirements. For example, when choosing a car, what are relevant to you: vehicle type (sedan, wagon, SUV), transmission (automatic, manual), body color (red, white, black), displacement (1600, 1800, 2000), safety features(airbags, abs). You should have a minimum of 4 factors. There’s no maximum number of factors however it gets a bit complicated if you exceed 10 factors.
2. Assign a weight per requirement. Using the example above, which requirement is the most important? Personally, my table will look like this: vehicle type 30%, transmission 25%, safety features 20%, displacement 15% and body color 10%.
3. List down your choices. Let’s say your choices are Toyota Corolla, Chevrolet Optra and Honda CRV.
4. Using a point system, 10 being the highest, identify the points per requirement. For this exercise, we will focus on the Toyota Corolla column and my scores will be: vehicle type = 7, transmission = 9, safety features = 10, displacement = 10 and body color = 7.
5. Multiply the weight with the score and get the sum of each choice.
6. The vehicle with the most number of points wins!

Fundamentally, the approach of Top Gear is the same in factor rating with a dab of mathematics. Still too complicated? Send me an email dslhummer2002@yahoo.com and i'll send you a template. I'm sure that would help.

Love ko Busko

I have a statement shirt that says “Love ko Busko.” I like it so much that I gave my father and all my uncles the same shirt. I just hope they won’t wear it at the same time lest it be mistaken as a family reunion shirt. The shirt was probably copied from the Bench shirt collection with “Love ko Bench” printed on it.

Busko is a street name for Don Bosco where I finished my elementary and high school. I should have received a loyalty award for that achievement. Anyway, I have a conduct award and perfect attendance award to boast. Being a Bosconian is in the family. My father, uncles, cousins, brothers-in-law are all Bosconians. That can be attributed to the fact that in Tarlac City where I grew up, there are only a handful of good school and arguably Don Bosco was the best. I used the word WAS because I heard that Tarlac Montessori, Bayanihan Institute and College of the Holy Spirit (yes, that exclusive girls school opened its doors to male students) are giving DB a run for their money.

Personally, I still believe in the Don Bosco system that’s why when it was time to choose a school for my son, Don Bosco was a unanimous choice. When we got married, we made sure that the officiating priest was a Salesian. When I need a padrino because of a problem that beset me this year, we turned to a Salesian priest. Don Bosco and the Salesian community will always be a part of my life.

Deal or No Deal?

Pa says go, Ma say no. My wife and I were undecided. The title connotes a difficult question that faced us this year. While in search for the answers: opinions varied, factor rating didn’t work and divine intervention gave us unclear signs. In the end, we said “no deal!” Did we make the right decision? Let's wait until the last brief case opens.

There is Money in Comedy

What are the common denominators of Dolphy, Mr. Bean and Jay Leno? They make people laugh and they drive expensive cars. While checking out the net for the most expensive cars in the world like the Ferrari Enzo (P50M sans tax), Saleen S7 Twin Turbo (P30M sans tax) and Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren (P23M sans tax), I saw the names of Rowan Atkinson and Jay Leno as proud owners. Rowan Atkinson, more popularly known as Mr. Bean is an English comedian while American talk show host Jay Leno is the star of The Tonight Show. In the local scene, the King of Comedy septuagenarian Rodolfo “Dolphy” Quizon drives a fleet of Mercs. I saw him about 4 times in person already and the last time was last year at the Fort. He was chauffeured on his Ford E-150 Mark III custom van which cost around P3M.

My mother once said that the prudent Chinese businessman would invest on a certain car only if he had 10 times as much in the bank. Therefore if a Chinese drives a 2006 Honda CRV, that means he has at least P10M cash on hand. If we follow this ideology, that means Dolphy is at least worth P30M, Mr. Bean about P230M and Jay Leno P500M. I’m pretty sure they are worth more than that figure. And I’m also sure that despite having Chinese blood running through my veins and driving a 2002 Toyota Revo, I don't have P4M in the bank!

A Few Good Men

“Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.” – Larry Flynt

U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was convicted to reclusion perpetua last week in a Philippine court. He’ll be locked up in a cell a maximum of 40 years. Whether here in tropical Pinas or cool climate USA is still a big question mark. He reminds me of Private First Class Louden Downey portrayed by James Marshal in the 1992 hit movie A Few Good Men. He is one of the co-accused and being defended by Lt. Daniel Kaffee played by Tom Cruise.

Anyway, I though of the title because of the circus that I watched on TV in the lower house the past 3 days. It was a virtual show of force for the administration congressmen. They controlled the session in a manner similar to an aquarium filled with starved piranhas with just a guppy to share or a formula one race with a beat up Volkwagen Beetle entry (even if Michael Schumacher was driving it). The item being tackled is the con ass whose output should be the shift to the parliamentary form of government. My thoughts about this is that it won’t change a thing, graft and corruption will still continue. To borrow a famous adage, what we need is not a change of men, but a change in men.

It could be the milk

BRIGHTWOODS SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES
Fontana Leisure Park, Clarkfield, Pampanga
March 2003

Speech for B5’s Prep Graduation

Good afternoon to my fellow parents, Bright Woods School educators and the star of today’s program, the prep graduating students.

Today is a very special day for all of us. For the parents of B5, no words can describe how happy we are for our child and his achievement. We are extremely delighted at the fact that our little boy is the only prep student in his class that got the award and is the latest addition to this core group of prep students. We were told that the 6 other students received the award last year. Until last night, JML and I can’t still figure out where B5 inherited his academic competence. The best scholastic achievement we received during our school days was a “Best in Conduct” for me and my wife received a “Loyalty Award.” We’re starting to believe the Gain Plus milk TV commercial featuring 3 fathers in a vehicle, arguing that their son’s achievements can be credited to the genes. Then finally one of them said, “It could be the milk.” Genes. Milk. Come to think of it, it could be the school.

Speaking about “the school”, let me just share with you why we chose Bright Woods over the other schools in Angeles City. There’s this Decision Making technique called factor rating where you identify a set of factors then you put a weight for each factor. The factors we identified then where: 1- school background, 2- student teacher ratio, 3- proximity to our house and 4- comfort of our child (such as air conditioned rooms, school bus availability). From a list of 5 schools, we narrowed down our list to 2 and these were - OB Montessori and Bright Woods School. The fact that I am speaking to you right now means that we picked the better school. I hope I won’t eat my words later on, right teacher Ana?

To Bright Woods School, we have 3 requests: First, please continue to make education your primary concern and making profit last on the list. Secondly, feedback, from students, parents and teachers, is a key factor in the growth of your business. Your receptiveness to feedback and reaction to our son’s unfortunate experience during his kindergarten days was very much appreciated. Pls. maintain that trait. And lastly, please continue to “make learnings fun and lasting” as your tag line suggests.

To Teacher Naomi and Teacher Kim, thank you for tapping into the academic potentials of our son B5.

To my fellow parents, let’s continue to work hard and guide our children into responsible future citizens and make our country, a more meaningful place to live in.

To my wife JML, majority of the credit should go to you as B5’s mommy. If not for your patience in teaching him every night, he may not have received the academic excellence award.

To our son B5, we are very happy for you. We love you very much, with or without this academic award.

To the prep graduating students, the star of today’s show, congratulations to all of you.

Thank you.

Reming’s Wrath

The Bicol region is just recovering from typhoon Milenyo who visited the region in late September packing winds in excess of 140 kph when it was again hit by a pumped up typhoon called Reming with winds in excess of 200 kph. Everybody had their own description of the devastation: it’s reminiscent of the tsumani that hit Asia 2 years ago; it’s like a scene from the movie Twister, it’s similar to the lahar in Pampanga but the sand deposit is black in Albay.

I’ve been to Legaspi City at least 7 times the past 2 years. In those 7 visits, I probably saw the Cagsawa ruins in Tobacco, Albay 3 times and Mayon volcano with its perfect cone (sans the clouds) about 4 times. I was told that the pictures that I have of the ruins are worth keeping since the ruins are now literally, totally ruined. It was covered by the mudflow last December 1 which was caused by the typhoon. That’s so sad. There’s really no stopping mother nature when she’s on a roll.

Double or Nothing!

When I was in college, I read a book which was specifically for teenagers about setting personal goals. You must center your efforts, skills & competence building and actions towards the attainment of your objective. When I was in my teens, a goal that I set was to be the Mayor of Tarlac when I reach 40 years old. I’ll be 40 in 6 years time and I don’t see myself close to that goal at least financially. There are also other factors I have in mind that makes me say that the goal is unrealistic at this point. But who knows, funny as it may seem, I might just give a shot at it in Y2013!

I’m setting a more realistic personal goal, that by Y2010 our supplemental earnings should be equivalent to my monthly salary. As of this writing, one supplemental source of income is the agri-farm in Tarlac which merely gives around 5% of my current salary. At least, it’s better than zero. How do I plan to achieve my new goal? Through small business franchises, partnership with friends or relatives, maximizing existing resources and trading. Too general for the reader? Check my laptop, the details are all there. The question now is if the ideas will work. Then again, I wouldn’t know if it will work if I don’t try.

Just in case my superior reads my blogsite: Don’t worry boss, I won’t let my performance down. And I know better than not using the resources of the company to meet my goal.

How to stop a bully

“You bullied me back in college.” I was appalled by this statement a few days ago when I came across an old acquaintance. Thinking about it, maybe I was bully, maybe I still am and probably every one of us experienced this at least once in our life whether as the bully-er or the bully-ee. Bullying comes in many ways; an older sibling throwing his might over a younger one, a tenured employee delegating his responsibilities to a newbie, an oversized kid overpowering a pint sized kid, the list goes on.

I’ve encountered bullies throughout my life and probably almost everyday. The earliest recollection was in grade school when as a pint sized kid, this overpowering, oversized, bird brained kid had a knack of head locking me. My mother wrote a letter to my teacher, the bullying temporarily stopped but continued after a few days, this time with a mama’s boy label. This bully who was always wearing oversized “short pants” or was it undersized “long pants” (laging bitin ang pants niya) finally stopped after I accosted him and shouted with all my might to stop bothering me.

Here are some anti bullying strategies that I employed that seemed effective for me:

1. Fight fire with fire. If he calls you names, throw your hat in the ring and call him names too. It’s always the case, good teasers easily gets teased. Ang pikon, talo. Give him a dose of his own medicine.
2. Buy his friendship. Befriend the bully and either tell him that there are other individuals he can bully or engage him in a responsibility that would keep him busy and not bother you.
3. Offer your other hand. If he teases you, laugh with him and offer him another funny part of you. If he sees he’s not earning your ire or his wicked ways is not effective, chances are, he’ll stop.
4. Tell the authorities. Assess the situation properly before employing this tip because it depends on the environment. If there are measures in place that will protect you, by all means report him to the authorities (like a superior, a teacher) however if you feel uncomfortable, trust your instinct and try another approach.
5. Ignore him. Pretend that he doesn’t exist. Chances are, he’ll get fed up doing his non sense thing and find another person to bully.
6. Shout to the top. As shared earlier, accost a bully. Without batting an eyelash, as serious as possible, shout to him at the top of your lungs, “Stop bothering me!”
7. Pray for him. Pray that he gets enlightened and channel his obnoxious ways into more productive means, like doing his assignments or focus on how to continuously improve his job.

The reality is that you’ll face a bully every point in your life so it’s best that you be always prepared. In general, you should be one step ahead of a bully to be able to stop one.