Planet Philippines (Calgary edition) - May 1-15, 2011 issue

MAY 1-15, 2011Calgary Edition PLANET PHILIPPINES1

MAY 1-15, 2011 Calgary EditionPLANET PHILIPPINES2

NANNIES’ NEW CONUNDRUMThe Canadian government seems bent on simply exploiting temporary foreign workers every four years based on supply and demand instead of opening up opportunities for skilled workers to migrate permanently to Canada which the country really needs to replenish its greying population.

There are many cases where the PR applications of live-in caregivers have been unnecessarily delayed. Many of these caregivers have already received removal orders.

BY JOE RIVERA

Effective April 1, temporary foreign workers in Canada, including live-in caregivers, may only work for a maximum of four years.

HEY THOUGHT the program offers them a pathway to perma-nent residence after completing their work contract. But the new rules for temporary foreign workers which took effect last April 1, 2011 say otherwise.

It’s not with certainty. The devil is in the details, as the idiom goes.

Effective April 1, Canada will now sub-ject temporary foreign workers to a four-year cumulative duration limit. This means that temporary foreign workers in Canada, including live-in caregivers, may only work for a maximum of four years. After reach-ing this limit, temporary foreign workers must go back to their home countries, wait for another four years to lapse before re-entering Canada again as temporary work-ers.

This must be a big blow to Filipino live-in caregivers and their advocates who have embraced Canada’s Citizenship, Immigra-tion and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney as their hero. Mr. Kenney, who has been riding high on his status as a folk hero to many Filipino women workers in Cana-da, is guilty of Orwellian doublespeak. He has promised before that nannies will not be covered by the new regulations, but the details clearly say that that would be sub-ject to certain preconditions. Just like the time when Mr. Kenney said there would be no more need for caregivers to undergo


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This year, there are over 150,000 people waiting for 11,200 visas. That would take about 14 years to process.

a second medical examination when applying for permanent residence, yet the rules still state that medical officers overseas re-tain the right to examine for ex-cessive demand. This includes, for example, those who may have illnesses or other inadmissibility issues which may impact on the ability of the government to pro-vide health and social services.

Of course, there are exceptions to the new rules but not enough to guarantee that live-caregivers will not be subjected to the Con-servative government’s policy of treating immigrants as mere eco-nomic units that they can dispose at will. This government seems bent on simply exploiting tempo-rary foreign workers every four years based on supply and de-mand instead of opening up op-portunities for skilled workers to migrate permanently to Canada, which the country really needs to replenish its greying population.

In the words of Minister Ken-ney: “We saw a need for clear reg-ulations to better protect workers from poor treatment and to en-sure that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program continued to ad-dress short-term labour and skills shortages.”

Seasonal agricultural work-ers who come to Canada to work during harvest time are exempt from the four-year limit. Live-


in caregivers who have applied for permanent residence after completing their contract are not covered by the rules if they have received an approval in principle letter. And so with other tempo-rary foreign workers such as those in managerial or professional oc-cupations, those employed under an international agreement, and those exempt from the Labour Market Opinion (LMO) process.

How will the new rules nega-tively affect Filipino caregivers in Canada?

Under the new rules, visa of-ficers will issue initial work per-mits to live-in caregivers that will be valid for four years plus three months. A live-in caregiver must complete the employment re-quirement in her contract within four years in Canada, while the additional three months allow for a transition period to apply for permanent residence.

Most live-in caregivers can easily complete their contract of employment in less than three years, allowing them enough time to apply for permanent residence and continue working as caregiv-ers while waiting for the approval of their applications for perma-nent residence (PR). But herein lies the problem: when is that ap-proval-in-principle letter going to be in the mail?

Not all caregivers are in simi-

lar situations and would expect smooth processing of their PR applications. Some would have problems with family members such as their spouses or children who are supposed to be examined before a live-in caregiver’s PR ap-plication is approved. A live-in caregiver’s spouse in the Philip-pines, for example, could be stub-bornly uncooperative and would not bring him and the children to a medical examination. Or he would not simply fill out the re-quired documentation.

Or, the marriage between the nanny and her husband has bro-ken down due to the strains of a difficult and long separation or perhaps, either one of them is now in a relationship with another per-son. The wife then decides to ap-ply for divorce which she needs to show to Canada Immigration as proof of the marriage break-down. This again will delay the processing of the PR application. Let’s also mention that if there are minor children involved, the lon-ger the process will take especial-ly if the husband refuses to allow the children to travel to Canada in order to join their mother.

As in some cases, one of the children would have medical inadmissibility issues such as a child having Down syndrome or has a heart problem which the visa officer deems as imposing a

heavy burden on Canada’s health and social services. So, the PR ap-plication will be denied. Under the rules, all family members of the live-in caregiver, whether ac-companying the principal appli-cant or not, are required to be ex-amined. Live-in caregivers cannot become permanent residents if any of their eligible family mem-bers are inadmissible.

I have encountered a number

of cases where the PR applica-tions of live-in caregivers have been unnecessarily delayed. Some of them have been here in Canada as temporary workers for over five years because their PR appli-cations were either delayed due to bureaucratic red tape or disal-lowed because of medical inad-missibility issues. The new rules will not protect them as Mr. Ken-ney has promised. Many of these caregivers have already received removal orders.

It is not important for immi-gration officers to know whether live-in caregivers will seek per-manent residence after complet-ing their work contract. The ques-tion is whether an immigration officer is satisfied that the person would not stay in Canada illegal-ly. This is what their Operations Manual directs them to find out. Advocates of Filipino caregivers in Canada should wake up and face this grim reality, and stop cuddling Mr. Kenney and the Conservative Party.

The present Conservative gov-ernment under Stephen Harper has not done much for the benefit of immigrants. Mr. Harper tried to overhaul Canada’s system of accepting refugees and skilled workers. He cut the right of land-ing fee to half of the old fee of $975, and many ethnic minori-ties shifted their support to the

Conservative Party. The Conser-vative government has imposed stricter conditions for refugees to enter Canada and cut funding for group sponsorships for refugees from countries ravaged by civil strife. Temporary foreign workers will now have a four-year limit on the length of time they may work in Canada.

This year, there are over 150,000 people waiting for 11,200 visas. That would take about 14 years to process. Sponsorship of parents would be next if the Conservative Party wins a major-ity of Parliament’s seats the May 2nd federal election. They have already made known that they prefer to bring in younger fam-ily members who can work and therefore pay taxes, rather than older parents who would only sap the country’s pension or so-cial assistance programs.

Canadians, especially the blocks of new Canadian voters who may likely make or break a government, need to hear solu-tions to our immigration dilem-ma. We’re tired of hearing the same pledges every time there is an election from both the Liber-als and Conservatives. There are gaping holes in their credibility fences. We will need a giant grain of salt if we would only listen to their promises. (From the author’s blog, An Uncomplicated Mind) n

Most live-in caregivers can easily complete their contract of employment in less than three years.


ITH RISING oil prices and wors-ening air pollution, Filipinos are looking into clean and green technology as the only viable option for the country’s trans-port industry. This is gladly manifested in the people’s grow-ing fascination with and accep-tance of the electric jeepney, or e-jeepney, that environmentally-

friendly version of the iconic, World War II-era pub-lic vehicle.

BY PEPPER MARCELOMAKE WAY FOR THE

E-JEEPNEYPowered by lead acid batteries, e-jeepneys can run for about 65

kilometers at a maximum speed of 35-40 kph after each full charge. Aside

from being emission-free, they offer a far more comfortable ride because they

have less noise and vibration than the traditional jeepneys.

Imagine the jeepney as a purely electric machine that belches nothing, makes no noise, has a high headroom, comfortable seating and large windows, gushes a proponent.

Spearheading the move to propagate the e-jeepney is the Institute for Climate and Sus-tainable Cities (iCSC), a non-government, non-profit orga-nization working on sustain-

able energy solutions and fair climate policy. iCSC

is the proponent of the pioneering Climate-

Friendly Cities (CFC) initiative, which in-tegrates waste man-agement, energy generation and sustainable trans-port programs for sustainable, climate-resilient city and commu-

nity development. The e-jeepney is a

central part of the CFC initiative. After the e-jeepney’s debut in the Makati financial district in 2007, iCSC has wid-ened the deployment of electric public utility vehicle transport alter-natives in the country through the develop-ment of eTrike, eQuad

and eCoach applications as well as different e-jeepney

models. “We chose the electric jeepney

not because we’re fixated with jeepneys, but because we want-ed to start with something that makes us go the distance. That means choosing a vehicle that has iconic status in the minds of public, realizing that there could be other applications in tricycles and buses,” says Red Constanti-no, iCSC Executive Director Red Constantino.

He adds: “Compared to pri-vate vehicles, mass transport by itself - whether it be rail or indi-vidual vehicles like the jeepney - already reduces pollution. But of course, they even out because most of the jeepneys in Manila are terribly inefficient, which also means they produce a lot of pollution.”

iCSC’s studies have shown that every liter of diesel avoided results in a reduction of 3,140 grams of CO2 (carbon dioxide)

Already, more than 30 e-jeepneys are operating in Makati City and Puerto Princesa City in Palawan.


Vice President Jejomar Binay arrives in style at his inaugural at the Quirino Grandstand aboard an e-jeepney.and 16 grams of NOx (nitrous ox-ide) that are released to the atmo-sphere. At excessive levels, these harmful emissions could result in climate change that has recently been blamed for the typhoons and floods that wreak untold havoc and destruction all over the world.

iCSC believes that sustainable transport should not be driven by technology, but by city planning and systems. In other words, their initiative is more than about the inventions themselves, but rather their application.

E-jeepneys comprise one-third of a far bigger project in iCSC’s Climate Friendly Cities Program; the other two being a “biodigest-er” that is fed with biodegradable solid waste and decomposes it into gas, as well as a depot and terminal that transforms the gas into electricity which then powers the public vehicles.

Already, more than 30 e-jeepneys are operating in Makati City and Puerto Princesa City in Palawan. Launched in July 2007, the Makati Green Route (MGR) project is expected to help reduce noise and air pollution in the coun-try’s central financial district.

The e-jeepney is powered by lead acid batteries which takes approximately eight hours to charge. It can run for about 65 ki-lometers at a maximum speed of 35-40 kph after every full charge. Though it might seem slow, Con-stantino argues that speed is rela-tive, especially commuting within a typically congested area.

“Say you live in Metro Manila and drive a Porsche or the latest Audi. I drive an e-jeepney, with a maximum speed of 40 kph. Let’s go out at the same time, 8 a.m. to go to Makati. I might even get there before you if I drive well,” he points out.

E-jeepneys can comfortably seat 14 passengers and have a

dwell time of only 10 seconds per stop, so as not to contribute to traffic. Aside from being emis-sion-free, the e-jeepney offers a far more comfortable ride because it has less noise and vibration than the traditional jeepney.

“It’s very easy to ride. Because it’s lighter, the jeepney drivers who are so used to the heavy diesel engines will feel a little weird at first, but it only takes a short while to get used to it,” said Panch Puckett, president of Solar Electric Co., manufacturer of the lead acid batteries that power e-jeepneys, at the launch of Maka-ti’s MGR project.

“You do not hear the engine running. It’s very silent and there’s even a radio for you to check if it’s on,” noted Joey Salgado, Makati city’s infor-mation and community rela-tions department chief, on the same occasion.

As with any new and game-changing concepts and projects, e-jeepneys face a number of obstacles. For one, there is the matter of numer-ous administrative and bu-reaucratic regulations in reg-istering them. “It took us two years just to get registration plates because the papers required [the vehicle] to have a tailpipe and an

engine number, which electric ve-hicles don’t have,” Constantino says.

Ultimately, the iCSC worked patiently with government to come up with regulations catering to the new model. “We started with clas-sification categorizing them as low-speed vehicles. That’s just the start, because there are a whole lot of regulations that need to be revised over time,” he adds.

E-jeepneys also carry an enor-mous tag price that many divers and operators may scoff at: rang-

ing from Php350,000 to 400,000. But Constantino argues that over time the savings of switching to electric will eventually add up. “A typical driver would be pay-ing Php450 in gas for every 100 kilometers. For electric jeepneys, you only pay Php150. That’s the savings you get.”

He adds: “People have grown used to a certain way of doing things. Economics are skewed to-wards things that harm us. For in-stance, when you drive a vehicle, the big costs are off the books - health costs, the pollution, the noise, fuel price fluctuations. Maintenance is staggering. People are so used to things that are artificially cheap, be-cause the companies that involved in these efforts have passed on the costs to the consumer.”

Constantino emphasizes that the e-jeepney should not solely be looked at as an environmen-tal option, but a financial oppor-tunity that could provide great dividends to businesses and the government willing to invest in a sustainable public transport.

“We’re trying to focus on telling people we have economic alterna-tives. Green alternatives, that’s an add-on. Even though we’re an institute for climate change, we

would like these transport op-tions to be seen as mak-ing commercial sense. If

it helps the environment, that’s a bonus, he says”

He adds that utilizing the new technology can poten-tially benefit many sectors of society. “It can boost income in the locality, whether it be tourism, or a better work-

place for professionals and working class Filipinos.”

Now more than ever, eco-friendly vehicles such as the e-jeepney are the “steady green hand” that can confront the escalating problems of a “jittery oil market,” Constantino con-cludes. “We face a future that is more constrained. With the kind of resiliency

a locality needs in the face of uncertainty like energy security, we feel that the time of electric-powered vehicles has come.” n

Red Constantino, iCSC Executive Director

The iCSC worked patiently with government to come up with regulations catering to the new model.

The Makati Green Route (MGR) project is expected to help reduce noise and air pollution in the country’s central financial district.


ROM MANILA to New York, from finance to fashion, and from art to real life, Philippine-born Josie Na-tori crossed the frontier. When she founded

The Natori Company, she empowered women to dress beautifully right down to the bare essentials, and estab-lished lingerie as a category in luxury wear. Thanks to her, “Made in the Philip-pines” has become a mark of global pride and distinction.

It was 1977. Josie Cruz Natori was the first female vice president of investment banking at Merrill Lynch. She was earning six figures on Wall Street. Then, she dropped everything to sell nightshirts.

She was an expert in finance at the time, but in the fashion in-dustry, not so much. But a box of peasant blouses – hand-embroi-dered from the Philippines, along with a lingerie buyer at Blooming-dale’s and a Japanese-American

JOSIE NATORISHE EMBROIDERED

PHILIPPINES ON THE FASHION MAP

BY IVY ONG

Although she has lived abroad for most of her life, Natori says, “the heart and soul of a Filipino never left.

I think that my biggest assets have been, first, being a woman, and second, being a Filipino. Filipino women

are very strong and very independent.”

“I’d really like to see more things out there made in the Philippines. I think it will happen.”

Natori’s Fall 2011 collection in New York.

husband with a striking surname plus a series of fortuitous events led Natori to launch a fashion house with her own label of luxu-ry lingerie: The Natori Company.

By chance or by fate, Natori showed the peasant blouses to a Bloomingdale’s lingerie buyer who suggested she lengthen them so they could be worn as night-shirts. Those nightshirts, plus a collection of handcrafted lingerie which would become The Natori Company’s signature style, made it to New York’s elite department


Natori’s collection titled The Way of the Warrior in New York.

Josie takes a bow at the end of The Art of Natori Gala Dinner and Benefit Show, a fundraiser of Asia Society Philippines at Makati Shangri-la in February 2008.

stores. Though Natori was new to the industry, the artistry of her designs and her responsiveness to women’s need for stylish, tasteful innerwear and sleepwear placed her lingerie among clothing lines in high fashion.

“In the beginning, I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says. “I just started in lingerie and it was all based on embroidery from the Philippines.”

Thirty-three years later, The Natori Company retails not only in New York and the Philippines, but all throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. It has grown from an exclusively lingerie line to include collections in ready-to-wear and home décor as well as eyewear and fragrance.

“The kind of upbringing I had and the kind of culture here (in the Philippines) have been instru-mental in bringing me where I am today,” Natori says.

The Cruzes are a big and tight-ly knit family. Natori is the eldest of six siblings who were raised with the help of their grand-mother. “My grandmother was very strong – a matriarch,” recalls Natori. “She ran many businesses and never left the house without a flower in her hair, perfume, a handkerchief and dressed to the nines.”

A 17-year-old Josie left her home in Manila to study college in New York and pursue a career in banking straight afterward. Because New York is also the home of the man she married, it is where they settled to raise their only son. After the birth of The Natori Company, 34th and Madi-son streets became the fashion house’s headquarters.

With another office in Paris to manage nowadays, Natori gets to come home to the Philippines only three times a year and only for a few days at a time. She has lived away from the country for most of her life.

“But the heart and soul of a Fil-ipino never left,” Natori declares. “I think that my biggest assets have been, first, being a woman, and second, being a Filipino. Fili-pino women are very strong and very independent,” she asserts.

Natori actually only just re-gained her Filipino citizenship a few months ago. She lost it when she married Ken, an American, and in effect acquired his citizen-ship. With the passage of the Citi-zenship Retention and Re-acquisi-tion Act of 2003, Natori and many like her were able to reclaim their Filipino citizenship.

Despite spending so little time in her own country, Natori shares so much of it in her life and work. The Natori Company maintains 50 percent of its production in the Philippines with a staff of 500 employees. A few of these people have been with Natori from the day her very first collection was

conceived.“The most expensive things

we have are made here,” she says. “It’s not just the quality. It’s the detail. I think we have a way of handling the finer things.”

As she sits by the small gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philip-pines resting after her photo shoot, she looks striking in a piece from her Spring 2011 ready-to-wear col-lection: an Inka gold dress in Italian fabric with an obi belt, made in The Natori Company’s Philippine pro-duction facilities.

“I’d really like to see more things out there made in the Phil-ippines,” Natori says. “I think it will happen.”

Indeed, The Natori Company has opened up women’s fashion options with its distinctive East-meets-West flair. Oprah wore an

embellished yellow Natori tunic on the front cover of the July 2010 issue of O Magazine. Glee’s Lea Michele wore Josie lace briefs on her cover story shoot for Glam-our October 2010. Marie Claire, In Style, Vogue, Elle Décor, and Town & Country frequently feature fashion, as well as home décor and accessories, from The Natori Company’s collections.

The Natori Company has add-ed several lines of clothing to its brand over these three decades, while its lingerie line has devel-oped into the Josie Natori, Natori, Josie and N Natori collections. It grows ever more as a brand and as a concept in fashion. As it does, Natori’s view of what makes a garment worthy of a woman to wear – the one she had when it all began – remains.

“Natori is about details, arti-sanship and craftsmanship,” she says. “There’s a running thread through it of femininity and lux-ury. It’s in the details – an indul-gent feeling. I don’t want to just do anything in Natori. It’s really a gift. Special. Whatever we do is special. I remember embroi-dered tablecloths at home. Every-thing was bright in the house. My mother’s an art collector. Now, I have quite a huge collection of antique textiles from the 16th and 17th century.”

Aside from collecting art, Na-tori also plays the piano like her mother, famed Filipino concert pianist Angelita Almeda. Natori, who performed solo with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra when she was only nine years old, still makes time to take piano lessons to this day. Obviously, her mother’s musical influence is strong as Natori also learned to play the xylophone, organ and marimba when she was a child.

“I’m an artist at heart,” she says. “I love art. I love antiques. And I want to bring them into everyday life, whether it’s just a robe or details on the accessories.

All her loves, passions and interests, from her country to the arts, inspire Natori’s sense of fashion. She built The Natori Company upon everything that means most to her.

“The East-West aesthetic is there for sure, from day one,” she says. “Just because I can’t help it. I look for it from my background. I am driven to create things that enhance a woman’s life and make her feel good about herself.”

Her success is almost like a fairytale, finding herself with an embroidered blouse at the perfect place and at the perfect time that has since become fashion history. But through it all, hard work has made The Natori Company what it is today.

“Fashion is a very difficult business,” Natori says. “But at the same time, I had a long-term vision. It wasn’t about making money in the first year or with the first line. It was really having a vi-sion of building a brand that will live beyond me.”

The Natori Company was re-sponsible for revitalizing wom-en’s lingerie as luxury wear. Women’s inner clothing became a fashion statement, something to be proud of as part of an outfit. Thanks to Natori, the Philippines has become a distinct presence on the global map of high fashion. (People Asia) n

The Natori Company has opened up women’s fashion options with its distinctive East-meets-West flair.


LAYFUL Filipino names need getting used to, especially if you’re a foreigner with a more predictable Western nick-name like Kate.

In a recent article published on the BBC (British Broad-casting Corporation) website, amused British journalist Kate McGeown writes about a favorite topic of first-time visitors to the Philippines -- unusual, invented, or just plain funny Pinoy names, the kind she has been coming across since her first day in Manila when she was served by a waitress named Bumbum.

SENATOR JOKER?

PINOY NAMES TICKLE

FOREIGNERSAfter living in the Philippines for a while, a British

journalist is no longer surprised. “When I’m introduced to a Dinky or a Dunce, or read about

people called Bing and Bong, it seems almost normal. In fact, if anything, I rather like the fact

that Filipinos are self-assured enough to use these names, no matter how odd they sound or how

senior the person’s public role.”BY CARMELA G. LAPEÑA

No one questions the integrity of Joker Arroyo, “one of the country’s most respected senators.”

“I did a double-take, then smiled back, deciding it was probably a joke. But if so, it is a joke that practically the whole country seems to be in on,” writes McGeown.

Like fellow Briton Matthew Sutherland, whose tongue-in-cheek article A Rhose by Any Other Name listed common catego-ries of Filipino names, McGeown observes that these bizarre names can only be found here, and are “as quintessentially Filipino as the country’s Catholic faith, friendly smiles, former US military jeeps knows as jeepneys, beautiful beaches and love of ka-raoke.”

“Even the president is not spared,” writes McGeown. President Benigno Sime-on Aquino III is casually referred to by his

nickname Noynoy. Since his election, the nickname has evolved to PNoy, short for President Noynoy.

Even the country’s top officials have Pi-noy nicknames.

McGeown notes that no one seems to see the need to ask why two of his sisters are called Pinky and Ballsy, or question the integrity of Joker Arroyo, “one of the country’s most respected senators.”

Indeed, no one seems to think twice about such nicknames. After all, we have grandmothers we call Baby and grand-fathers we call Boy, as if their parents thought they’d be infants all their lives. We have families named after flowers, or ac-cording to a single letter. When we repeat


We have families named after flowers, or according to a single letter. When we repeat sylla-bles, we find it more endearing than annoying.

Is that really your name, or is

this a joke?

syllables, we find it more endearing than annoying. Kids are named after food their mother craved for, or their favorite food. So if you know someone named Hershey, you can count on having a Nestle in the family.

For families with several people inherit-ing the same name, perhaps nicknames are necessary to be able to differentiate. After all, simply adding a number to the name would be so impersonal. Some parents, it seems, can’t be bothered to think up names for their children, and simply name them according to their birth order. Una is fol-lowed by Segunda, and so on.

Kids are often given religious names, like Maria. But why settle for one when you can have three, as in Jejomar - Jesus, Joseph and Mary - as our vice president Je-jomar Binay is called?

Other parents see their kids as combina-tions of themselves, so they name them by combining their own names. For instance, Elovel sounds exotic and foreign, but it’s really because her parents are named Ed-win and Lani, and well, E loves L.

For some Pinoys, it’s only logical. We once entrusted our religious guidance to someone called Cardinal Sin, and we’ve had classmates like Edgar Allan Pe and Chica Go. None of this is surprising to us.

McGeown attempts a sociological take and writes that perhaps the strange names came about because the Philippines is a melting pot of different cultures. Spain gave us Catholicism, America taught us to shorten everything.

“The president himself is a good exam-ple, whose full Christian name is Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino, names which are Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese respec-tively. His nickname Noynoy is the only part that is truly Filipino,” says McGeown.

Could it be that the Pinoy penchant for

strange names is good old Fili-pino creativity at work? In the same way that we took former US military jeeps and came up with a wildly colorful mode of transpor-tation, we came up with names you won’t find anywhere else.

Some names just evolved. Bok almost never answers to her real name, which is Tanya. “Nung nagkamalay-tao na ako, Bok na ang tawag sa akin eh,” she says. “Bokyo yung buo. May phase din na Atoy tawag sa akin, o Bill,” she says. Her mother still calls her Tanya, but ever since fifth grade when a classmate overheard her being called Bokyo, her friends called her Bok as well.

Ping, whose real name is Rafael Miguel, got his nick-name from some high school friends who initially called him Paeng, the standard local nickname for Rafael. “Eventually, Paeng turned into Ping and I kept it. Ob-viously way cooler than Raffy,” says Ping, formerly Paeng and definitely not Raffy.

“I’m so not a Raffy.”At Starbucks, Ping is

often asked, “That’s Pink, sir? Pink po ang name nyo?”

“I’m 6’ tall and 190 pounds.

Yes, of course my name is Pink,” he jests, but still he keeps his nickname. “Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through college with Raffy as my nickname. Who would?”

Most interesting names have stories. Bamba, whose real name is Jezreel, got her nickname from the popular song La Bamba, to which she would sing and dance when she was eight months old, even when she wasn’t feeling well. “Tinakbo na ‘ko sa clinic, tapos biglang pinatugtog yung La Bamba sa radyo ng sasakyan kumakanta at sumayaw pa rin daw ako kahit tumitirik na ang mata ko,” she said.

Now 25, Bamba still prefers her nick-name. “Mas cool. Hindi mo alam kung sur-name o nickname eh,” she says. Also, it gets

her instant entertainment. Whenever people mistakenly call her Bambam,

she says as in La Bamba, and they au-tomatically start singing and danc-

ing.Sutherland devotes

a paragraph to “the fabulous concept of the randomly-in-serted letter ‘h’” - which he thinks is designed to give a touch of class to an otherwise only typically weird name. As it turns out, the ‘h’ may just be there for

luck, although it is unclear where this belief comes from.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but

a rhose is even bet-ter.

Dharlene’s name evolved from Darling,

which was her father’s term of endearment for her mother.

“Nilagyan ng h kasi maswerte daw pag may h,” she explains. Dhar-

lene was eventually shortened to Dhang, which she didn’t bother to change. “Kumalat

na siya so nakilala na ako ng buong madla na Dhang. I got used to it, so keri na,” says Dharlene-turned-Dhang.

After living in the Philippines for a while, McGeown is no longer surprised. “When I’m

introduced to a Dinky or a Dunce, or read about

people called Bing and Bong, it seems almost normal. In fact, if anything, I rather like the fact that Filipinos are self-assured enough to use these names, no matter how odd they sound or how senior the person’s public role.”

But don’t count on her chang-ing her name to Kat Kat (Kat2) anytime soon. “While I think it is great that Bumbum can wear her name badge with pride, I’m not quite ready to adopt a Phil-ippine nickname myself just yet,” says McGeown. (GMA

News) n


STRANGERS IN OUR OWN

COUNTRYI am an OFW but I am not a hero. I did

not come here (Saudi Arabia) out of my sense of patriotism but as a husband and a father who wanted to see a new dawn

for my family, no matter if that dawn unfolds in some other country.

EDDAH, SAUDI Arabia—Two items which appeared in Saudi newspapers prompted me to ponder about our wanderings as migrant workers. One was a photograph showing Fili-pino women in an employment agency seeking job placement overseas. The other was a news report about how Filipino families back home are slashing their spending on food, to stretch the family budget for other basic necessities like fuel, electricity and water.

BY CASIANO MAYOR JR.

More than 2,000 Filipinos leave the country every day for greener pastures in some foreign lands.The two items underscored

how difficult life has become in our country. The queue of over-seas job seekers had given flesh to the government statistics that more than 2,000 Filipinos leave the country every day for greener pastures in some foreign lands. Those who saw the photograph could have felt a sense of empa-

thy with the job seekers.We have had our own share of

experiences similar to theirs be-fore we came to our new job sites in the Kingdom.

Many of us had queued out-side job placement agencies in Manila or other key cities in the archipelago, braving the scorch-ing sun and eating banana cue for

lunch with high hopes that life would turn for the better when we find our dream jobs overseas.

My own family did feel the pinch of hard times before I came to Jeddah in 1999. Although we had made it a point not to miss paying our electricity bill because we knew that Meralco would have cut our power line with neither

Planet Philippines (Calgary edition) - May 1-15, 2011 issue

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Transcript of Planet Philippines (Calgary edition) - May 1-15, 2011 issue