Cogito Ergo Sum or Getting an ID in the Philippines that’s acceptable in banks et al.

In college Philo class, one line that most Ateneans never forget is cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. Were that sufficient in the present day world, one wouldn’t need an ID, but no, these days I wonder if I do exist in the eyes of government, banks, anywhere where an ID, no, make that two IDs that are government issued are required.

A few posts ago, I wrote of how Citibank Savings refused to allow me to open an account as I couldn’t present a government-issued ID. I have an old SSS card, but this was not considered valid. They want the newly issued ATM-card like SSS card. I told my sister this and she excitedly told me a few days later that passports could now be applied for online. One just had to pay P1500 and go to the DFA for 15 minutes for one’s thumb (finger?) print (prints). The service provider that allows you to have your birth, marriage and death (of your relatives, haha, not your own) certificate also facilitates the passport service. I was excited. Finally, I’d have a passport not for traveling but for ID purposes. A passport is always a preferred option of banks when they ask for IDs.

So I called the service provider and I was told I needed an SSS card or any government-issued ID. I felt like I was going around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. So I called the SSS. Guess what? They also asked that I submit two valid IDs like a passport. Duhhhhhhh. Poor disabled me, I thought. But I pressed on and finally the girl said I could bring my birth certificate. I asked, what about marriage certificate? Ok rin, she said. I think she thought that because I earlier mentioned I was disabled that I couldn’t possibly have been married.

Will I ever get the two valid IDs — a passport and an SSS card? While processing for a passport takes two weeks, processing for an SSS card takes a month at least. Banks can issue ATM cards in 20 minutes. Another duhhhhhhh. But I haven’t yet answered the question, will I ever get the two valid IDs? One of these days, when I feel patient enough, I just might go to the SSS. Except that there are so many people lining up in the head office. Perhaps, I’ll try the Cubao branch where I called yesterday, except that their capturing machine (camera) is broken. Darn. Anyway…

Cogito ergo sum — Rene Descartes, it’s author, would be shocked: these days, it’s not enough to think that one is to be considered as existing. Rather, one needs two valid, government-issued IDs to be acknowledged as extant. For now then, it will have to be Edo ergo sum for me, I eat therefore I am… and I have proof, too much in fact…

I have company but for different reasons as the two cartoons below show:

i-studio Shangrila

We excitedly went to i-studio in Shangrila to check out i-touch because my son said he saw one the night before and was enamored. I asked the male clerk, “Do you have a brochure?” He immediately said, “wala, ma’am, pero eto o”, while handing me a flyer comparing the different models of i-pod. I was impressed.

Then I saw the price tag of the i-pod nano and was alarmed. It seemed lower than when I had bought mine. My husband assured me it cost the same, but I was not to be so easily dissuaded.

So I asked the sales clerk whether the price had gone down and he just looked at me. Desperate to have an answer, I went to the lady behind the cash register to ask. She said, “basta ang presyo ng nano na 8 gigs, kasing presyo na ng 4 gigs dati.” But I pressed, “magkano siya dati?” And she again told me, “basta pareho ng 4 gigs dati.” Kulit ko no? I guess she knew I was still waiting for an answer so she turned and asked another clerk who was equivalently clueless. What a store. As we left, my son said that the previous week, he had asked a question (I cannot now remember what) and all he got was a blank stare. He said Apple would be so aghast that their products are being sold by uninformed clerks. According to him, in the States, stores that sell Apple stuff have Apple experts. Oh well, it’s back to Mobile 1 then, except that when I called Mobile 1, sure their unit was cheaper and they could tell me everything about the i-touch but the battery they promised for my husband’s treo wasn’t yet available. It has been 2 or 3 weeks since the unit was bought. Where is the perfect store? In Utopia?

Darn…

A Caveat: Fully Booked prices/ Go National Book Store

Around noon today, my husband was pleased at having been able to find and buy a book bundle costing P500 plus at Fully Booked. The bundle consisted of Wind Up Bird Chronicle which our son had long been wanting to get hold of, and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll’s stories came in one book).

This afternoon, we went to Shangrila (some 15 years back, we were in Shang so frequently that a guard asked if we had a stall there (we don’t)— and our Shang saga cum love affair lives on) and lo and behold, National Book Store carried the same bundle at P405 or more than P100 pesos cheaper.

Inis…. It’s just that the titles in National sometimes seem so mundane one doesn’t expect high brow books (or so one thinks) in it. Lesson learned.

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Wrote the above post some time ago. A few days ago, Fully Booked surprised me. I needed the book Asian Godfathers and FB had it in paperback for P599. National had a hard-bound one for P995 and A Different Bookstore said it formerly sold the paperback at P700, more or less. 

I’ve also noticed that FB’s Golla products are now similarly priced as those in non-FB outlets like Power Mac.

 

Serendra on a rainy night

The entrance to the parking area at the basement was barred, as usual, by a FULL sign but we patiently waited for the security guard so my husband could ask if we could go in, pointing to the disabled sticker on the car windshield. The guard grudgingly lifted the sign away so we could go in.

We parked in the disabled slot and proceeded to the elevator. There a notice was hung: Sorry for the inconvenience, but please use the other elevator. This other elevator was in the other side of the world. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it was quite a distance. thankfully, however, the elevator was spacious and so we rode up to the second floor where the gallery “1of” was. Quaint name, no? When I saw that in the text of JoMike to my husband, I thought it was a text short-cut for something.

The gallery is small, maybe two meters wide. It wasn’t too deep either. But on its walls hung JoMike’s acrylic works on banig. They told a story which was printed and perched on an easel near the paintings. 

The gallery curator was very competent. She regaled us with stories about the sale of the paintings. Half of those marked sold were bought by foreigners, she said. Good for JoMike who’s a nice boy, er, young man. He has a comic strip in the Inquirer. Mikrosmos or something. He also occasionally (or regularly) appears on TV teaching art stuff. I’m not sure what channel, though. 

After viewing the paintings, we went back to the elevator to go down for dinner at FU’s, just my husband and I. Now, Serendra has a lot of open spaces. The roofed areas fronting the restaurants have tables so finding shelter in them as one negotiates the place can be a challenge where one is defeated a lot. Worse, crossing to the other side if one is in a wheelchair means having to use the unroofed ramp. So, without an umbrella , we braved the drizzle for dinner at Fu’s, where only one table was occupied. 

Anyway, dinner at FU’s was okay, but not as exciting as the first time. We ordered the suckling pig, 3 ways. no, it’s not like Peking duck done 3 ways where one gets 3 variations of peking duck: as soup, cooked with vegetables, and served with pita and hoisin sauce. Here 3 ways meant a combination of suckling pig and two other dishes, choices being soy chicken, pork asado and seaweeds. we ordered soy chicken and pork asado with the suckling pig, a decision I regretted as we labored through the dish which seemed redundant after the first few bites. On the side we also ordered hakaw (shrimp siomai) and asado siopao, plus the FU special fried rice which the waitress said had roast duck slices (I barely tasted them). The hoisin sauce that came with the combination plate tasted lame; it didn’t have the kick of other hoisin sauces I’ve tried. The asado was all right, the soy chicken looked frail, the skin of the suckling pig looked a tad overcooked. The siomai was okay, I gave my share of the siopao to my husband who was craving for it, but took 2 of the three pieces of siomai.

Before paying our bill, I asked the waiter to compute as on the door I saw the poster of Citibank which had been there months before: a minimum food bill of something entitled diners who paid using Citibank to free dessert. Same dessert as months back, but good, nonetheless. Remember what it was? Three colored balls atop the white ceramic spoon given when one orders soup. One ball was green, another was orange, and yet another was a dark hue– ube. The green, I think, was pandan rolled in dessicated coconut and stuffed with sweet mango. The orange one was carrot (Vitamin A!), while the dark-hued one was ube. All were rolled in desicated coconut and stuffed with mango. Served on the side was a small bowl of mango-sago, the mango liquid in consistency, not pureed but juice-like. Floating on it aside from sago were orange peel. Very refreshing if one takes it on a hot summer day as the concoction was cold. 

QTV shows 1

I have taken up the habit of watching MOMS and The Sweet Life on QTV. MOMS is okay though Manilyn is too saccharine for comfort sometimes (my sister thinks all the time), not only in her tone of voice but in the way she moves her head and body. But what really amused/annoyed me once was her closing spiel in one of the shows. She said, “Please give your message to your children telling them that you’ll support them no matter what.” What a host. She even tells her guests what to say. Otherwise, however,the show is interesting because of the topics and the guests. Showtime is from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.

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The Sweet Life with Lucy Torres and Wilma Doesnt is a riot. Lucy constantly ribs Lucy about her color and Wilma sometimes acts like she’s hurt but only briefly. When Lucy does her bit she doesn’t sound insulting. It’s more like carino brutal and she’s so sweet in the first place so that I don’t think Wilma is truly offended. More often than not Lucy teases Wilma about her color, her single parenthood, her failed love life, etc. The show is also worth watching because it has a cooking portion and a project portion. The effort to make the show interesting is apparent and makes the show work very well. I feel a bit sad that I didn’t discover the show earlier. Show is scheduled at 6:30 to 7:30, Monday to Friday.

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Ka-Toque. Yes, it’s a cooking show that’s on every Saturday morning, from 11 a.m. to 12 noon. The hosts are young chefs, very good-looking and animated. They have a whole menu — from appetizer, to soup, to the main course, to dessert/desserts. And they usually have a featured guest. Two weeks ago, it was Cindy Kurleto. Last Saturday it was Tessa Prieto-Valdez, who it seems felt like an alien in the kitchen. She was frank. While she praised the first entree, after she tasted the second, she said, “This is better than the first.” And she said that with a straight face. One good thing about Ka-Toque is that it keeps it word. Before the show ends, the hosts give their email address and invite viewers to email them for the recipes. Twice I did, and each time they sent me the recipes. This is not true with some other cooking shows that promise to send you back recipes but don’t. I can’t remember now, but one show asked viewers to text them for the recipe. Yes, they also sent the recipe back via text which felt a bit weird because a cell phone’s screen can only accommodate so many words. Ka-Toque’s email address is katoque@gmanetwork.com. Their recipes are a bit fancy so I haven’t tried any.

Math and Marketing, Cafe Mediterranean and Fish and Co

Lust, Caution, Mahjong…

Hahaha. Couldn’t help but add Mahjong to the title. While the country was in disarray, the Chinese ladies were playing mahjong perpetually. And the title of the movie says Lust, Caution. But it should have simply been titled Lust. The sex scenes and nudity were long and drawn-out. I found them too explicit and excessive. The caution part was hardly evident. The collaborator aspect of the main character wasn’t fleshed out; his body and lust were. It was a long movie 2 hours 37 minutes, the female lead looked better without makeup. With makeup she looked like Christine Bersola. The male lead wasn’t the type ladies would swoon about, looks wise. The young head of the rebel group looked so much better.

Ang Lee — I’m not sure he is my type of director, plus his choice of movies to make are outre. First Brokeback Mountain, now Lust, Caution. I didn’t see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (oohhhh notice how he loves to pair words), maybe I should if only to appreciate why Ang Lee is so talked about and lauded.

Oh, and the female lead showed armpits with hair in them like a man’s. At first I thought they were her male partner’s. Whoa.