what the president had to say....

I am not anti-Gloria. I am just not interested in politics. I think the politics and the state of our economy are tiring to talk about. Every time I go out and see the situation of our country – poor roads and bridges, dirty public restrooms, the slums, and all the corrupt officials – it’s disheartening. I wish I am living somewhere else like in the US or Europe where you can see where our money is going.

When I spent a year of studying in the US, I realized that only if the government cared too much about our people then there would be enough chairs and teachers for one classroom or that every child will be educated. But it isn’t like that and I hate to know that the government only made promises but was never faithful to them. I lived in the state of Washington where they include taxes for anything you purchase. That was okay I guess because you can see where those taxes go. But to do taxing here in the Philippines would not be good. I mean can you actually feel that our economy is improving? Pres. Arroyo had this statement to say about denouncing the issue of scrapping Value Added Tax (VAT) in our country: "If we remove the VAT, business confidence will decline, interest rates will go up, the more the value of the peso will fall, and the more commodity prices will rise. If we remove the VAT on oil and electricity, we will lose P80 billion for the poor. It will strip the majority of our people of the means to ride out the world food and energy crisis." Oh yeah P80 billion for the poor? Like where did that money come from? And how come the poor have not benefited from that still? In my opinion, there is no way that poverty will be diminished in our country if the government will not do anything about corruption. I think they should practice honesty and sincerity.

The president also mentioned that she would impose stricter policies on the Anti-Graft Law. I think she should do that in her family as well. I don’t mean to be really cynical about this but if I were the president and I knew I did something really bad to our country, I wouldn’t have the guts to speak in front with the whole Philippines as my audience and boast about the improvements I’ve done in the country. I mean people do not want to hear promises anymore. We want action and making sure the promises will be done.

On the other hand, one good thing I heard is that the cost of texting has gone down to 50 cents but would only last for three months. And this would be effective starting last night. I tried it actually but I guess the telecommunication companies have forgotten what the president ordered them or they completely ignored it. Anyway, at least that would be a good change.

A president could keep having speeches as such every year but what should matter is that these plans would become a reality or else she just wasted the people’s time in listening to her speech. I really hope good things will come.

My Surfing Experience

Today I spent most of the time in the computer lab simply because all of my classes are held there. I love surfing the net. In fact, it’s one of the best boredom busters I could think of, especially when I’m in school, doing nothing during my free time. But I’m not a computer addict as well. I don’t spend most of my time playing in the computer or chatting with friends. I think I have gone away from that hobby. Now, I mostly use the net for school purposes, personal agendas and for entertainment.

One of my most favorite things in the net is to search for the latest entertainment news. Yes, I love gossip news but not the local ones we have here. I’m more interested in knowing the latest in Hollywood. Aside from that, I like checking out business sites such as e-bay or online shopping sites like kohls.com or ae.com. My biggest problem in these sites is that they are only available in the United States. I wish Asian people like me could also avail of their products. Anyway, I noticed that clothing and apparel brands here in the Philippines do not really have their own websites or they have one but not updated. Among the brands that I have visited are Kamiseta and Team Manila. I could say that I did enjoy visiting them even though the stuffs are kind of pricy.

It may not come as a surprise but apparently, the first thing I do when I use the computer and I’m connected to the Internet is to check my friendster account. Actually, I check it more often than my email accounts. I guess there’s excitement in anticipating who has left a comment on your profile or the new friends who have invited you as a friend. Thanks to friendster, I am connected to my friends date back to my grade school years. Alongside checking out social sites, I also enjoy visiting the Real Madrid website obviously because I am a big fan of the team. I don’t get to watch soccer that much compared before now that I’m back here in the Philippines and so I only get updated when I visit soccer sites such as that.

Utilizing the computer in school is a different experience than using the one at home. Why? First of all, as students who pay for our computer and internet fee in school, we don’t get to use the computer all the time especially when classes are being held in the lab. To be honest, it is only in this term that I got to really use the lab very often. At least, I know that what we are paying for does not go to waste. Another problem is Dansguardian. It’s one of my biggest complaints because there are some sites that do not need to be censored by the school. Particularly, I find it difficult to access in Yahoo images because some computers in the lab don’t allow it. it may sound exaggerated but it actually eats your time especially when you’re doing a complicated activity in Compart and you don’t have enough time to finish it.

Games2girls is one site that I love to visit. It’s a site that offers the coolest games for girls (as the name implies). The dominance of the pink color, I think, is one of the reasons that attracted me to it. Well, it’s not because my favorite color is pink but it’s that feeling of going back to being a child again every time I visit the site. Nevertheless, most of the games are also good and fun.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of my time using the computer because most of my classes this term require me to do so – from searching for topics and what could be reported to finding a solution for my boring and “pathetic” drama script. It just shows that you can find answers to almost all of your concerns on the net. You can even find gazillions of apple-pie recipes that sometimes you don’t know which the best is. Thanks to Bill Gates and the inventor of Yahoo and whoever is involved in the cyberspace technology, Internet does makes complex things easier and life better.