Three years ago I was employed with a company that regularly sends employees to the US. I got fired from that post and never got to go. With my next employer there were two occasions wherein I would’ve been able to go abroad, first to Hong Kong, then to the US. Neither trips pushed through. With my current employer I got the opportunity to fly to South Africa — that didn’t push through either. Finally, last month I applied for a position that would assign me in either Shanghai, or Copenhagen. I didn’t get the post, and as with the others none of the trips came into fruition.

I don’t really bewail the fact that I wasn’t able to travel abroad. I have done it before, for leisure (my sister and I went to the US a decade ago to visit our late grandparents), and I have some sort of vow that if I’m ever to travel abroad, it would be for leisure. In fact, I do have a written promise to myself that I’ll fight my battles in this country, in an earlier manifestation of this blog hosted by Friendster.

Many times we take for granted things that we say to ourselves, whether or not they are half-meant, but it occurred to me that a big chunk of the realities that we experience were things that we always talk about.

For example, back when I was newly married and had a low paying job in a local bank, I had often wondered when and how I would reach a pay grade like that of my managers’ back then. Now, only four years later, my salary is around four and a half times (before taxes! :p) my pay the day I asked that question. Back when I was a teenager I vowed that, before exploring the world, I would explore the Philippines first. Today, aside from the fact that I was able to visit several tourist destinations in the country within 14 months, my wife actually owns the travel agency that made the trips possible in the first place!

Indeed, that promise — that vow, to stay in the country and work our way to progress despite the difficulty in doing so, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those little promises allowed me, along with my wife (I’m very, very lucky to have a wife who shares my dreams and ideals), to recognize potential, read sign posts in our lives, and take advantage of what to others appear to be an environment bereft of opportunity.

Over the years I have learned not to mind the fact that I haven’t been able to go abroad to work or corner a job opportunity out of the country. It doesn’t matter. I’ve told myself once before that my fight is right here in this country, and the way things are going, I’m really, really enjoying it.

I had the same quandary when my wife put up our contact information for I-NAV Travel and Tours. Naturally, because it was a home-based venture, business and personal contact information was almost one and the same. While there were risks in doing that, the fact that we depended solely on the internet as a marketing tool, as well as the fact that it will be immensely difficult to obtain trust in business transactions if, say, we withheld our real name. The necessity to publish contact information superseded the need to protect ourselves from the risks of online information mining, whether real or imagined.

So far, in the whole year that we’ve done that, the only annoyances that we’ve faced are some anonymous guys trying to add my wife on Friendster. Sorry guys, if you’re not gonna do any business with us, no luck for you. Besides, she’s already taken by me, and if you try to pull anything funny off to get my wife’s attention, I’ll cut yours off. Raaaawwr. Hope that’s clear

So, giving up anonimity is really a risk that we have to take, if only to establish both our sincerity and credibility. Of course, further measures can be taken in that direction; joining business contact repositories like the Asian Business Directory will not only publish contact information, it may benefit online businesses through more extensive networking capabilities.

In the end, it’s really up to you but, as a rule of thumb, don’t give up personal information if you don’t have to.

I have been meaning to do this myself, but somehow, that “passion and excitement” of writing down my dreams has not reached me. For some reason, I find it difficult to write it in serious detail, the most plausible reason of which is not really knowing what I want to attain. I do have some vague idea — the birth of my wife’s travel agency business is certainly part of that. But my inability to do so does not erase the need to write it down.

So here’s my meager attempt at writing at least some of my dreams, and then maybe I would be able to add details unto it slowly in the future:

1. Set up my own ISV (Independent Software Vendor) business – or simply, put up my own software company, which will most likely dabble with the travel and tourism industry which my wife is already in. I have already taken baby steps towards this direction, although I am keeping my day job until I’ve completed some extensive preparations. So far, I’ve been drafting a feasibility study for this, which is a requisite to writing a good business plan.
2. Put up our own resort/hotel – actually this is my wife’s dream, but after hearing of the idea and thought about it, I figured… that’s not a bad idea at all. Perhaps set up one of the real Value Hotels in the Philippines. Considering the fact that the Philippines suffers from a lack of hotels vis-a-vis interested foreign visitors, it’s actually crazy not to pursue this dream.
3. Be a “real” entrepreneur – By “real” entrepreneur, I mean someone who has set up a system or an otherwise efficient business model that creates jobs and generates a decent profit. The two previous items should lead to this.
4. Become a pilot – despite defects on my vision, I still hope to be able to afford laser eye treatment and learn how to fly a real plane, whether for recreational or business purposes. As you can see it’s still quite related to the business we’re in
5. Move/retire to a home away from the city – My wife and I have, at one point, considered moving to the province as an option, but we didn’t push through it because of the lack of employment options for either of us. But that was more than two years ago, when we didn’t have a business on our own. When we visited Puerto Princesa in Palawan last year, we were so impressed that we toyed with the idea of moving there, since we’re in the travel industry anyway and the city’s main industry is eco-tourism. Once I am able to go on my own and really set-up my ISV, it might actually be possible to do that.

So far that’s it. It’s not much, but I figured it’s a start. Wish me luck.

P.S. I’m flying to Cebu City tomorrow and will be visiting Bantayan Island. Not sure if I’ll have internet access there, and my wife and I do intend to enjoy ourselves, so I might not be able to moderate your comments until Monday. I’ll update if I ditch Puerto Princesa for Cebu City, but I think that will be highly unlikely :p

One of the new year’s resolutions that I’ve been wanting to make is to be able to post more regularly to this blog. To say that this is difficult is by itself an understatement — my work schedule only allows me a few blocks of genuinely free time, which are then used up for things like family and genuine sleep, not to mention I-NAV Travel.

So scratch that resolution, it doesn’t seem attainable and realistic — at the moment.

The nice thing though was that starting last year the holiday economics law came in to effect, providing a wide range of long weekends within the year. Not only is it good for our business, but it allowed us to travel to a lot of places without me having to give up a lot of my vacation leaves.

It’s important, because starting last year we’ve been traveling like crazy; it’s the first time where I went to four different beaches within a year when before there are years that I wouldn’t even go out of town. It’s also been the first time that I hopped on a plane to two different destinations within the same year.

To sum up our travels, last year we’ve been to well known destinations like Subic, Boracay, and Palawan, and the lesser known beach in Bani, Pangasinan — a relatively new find which promises to be an excellent place for snorkeling and diving enthusiasts.

I’m excluding Laoac, Manaoag, Dagupan City and the beaches of San Fabian (all in Pangasinan) from this list — we go there practically all the time already.

This year, we’re already slated to go to Cebu in February and Bohol in March, and perhaps Davao later in the year. We’re going to look into other destinations as well.

You might be wondering what all the fuss about going around the Philippines is — well, there are several reasons. Being in the travel industry and not knowing what your clients and suppliers are talking about have proven as a handicap, so we’re taking a “see it from the horse’s mouth” approach and take a look at the different destinations ourselves. Secondly, we’re planning to have another baby by 2009 — so any and all the travel that we need or want to do will be best taken by 2008.

So to hell with the new year’s resolution — I will blog about the places we’ve been to soon (ironically, the Palawan Experience blog of Legend Hotel beat me to my own Palawan post), but I do promise that whatever comes out of this blog will continue to be worth your while — if not worth fighting over at Manolo‘s blog.

Hope to see you around.

Yesterday, Janette Toral of DigitalFilipino.com twitted about “Experience of a first time OFW“, an article on the Kabayan Hotel OFW blog that discusses the thoughts and feelings of first-time OFW Gilbert Roque.

Gilbert’s plight is something that most of us have heard of already: not satisfied with meager wages and limited opportunities locally, he flew to Dubai earlier this year.

However, subtle revelations within the article raised my already-raised eyebrows. Do read the entire article, so that you can correct me if I took the quotes out of context.

First, the article talks about his education and job history:

Gilbert also took up computer programming in college. After he graduated, he worked as a sales executive in Makati for several months only. He quit the job after deciding to work in Dubai and also after much prodding from his mother. Thus, he became an OFW. [Kabayan OFW Blog]

Emphasis mine.

I work as a software developer in a foreign-owned IT company, and I participate in some local IT communities and organizations. The problem in the local IT industry lately has been the lack of skilled labor — too many highly skilled software developers have flown off to Singapore or elsewhere.

As a result, the salaries of developers with merely 3 years of experience and above have been skyrocketing, with local companies almost pleading for experienced developers to at least have an interview with them.

If Gilbert pursued the career path that he chose for college, there are quite a number of opportunities that he could have taken up so that he wouldn’t need to leave the country at all. Unfortunately, he took a job as a sales executive, a job that is certainly not as high-paying as one in the IT profession. Certainly, his job is not one that would easily present opportunities to earn a relatively high salary after only a few years, without leaving the country.

But what did Gilbert get in exchange of not pursuing a career in the degree he finished and dropping the sales executive job? A “robotic” job, apparently:

Q: So now, tell me about your experiences as a first-time OFW.
A: I left for Dubai in May 13, 2007, to work as a service crew at a fast-food restaurant. Upon arrival, we were picked up by a shuttle to bring us to our assigned flat. There were ten of us then. In the three days that we were in the flat, we were not allowed to go out. The only chance that we were allowed to go out is to have a medical check-up.

We started on our job after three days. I thought that they would somehow give us a few days to get used to the job. I was wrong, on our first day, we were treated as seasoned workers and expected to act as such. [...] Eventually, after a month of fearing for the worst, I got used to the job and was doing it mechanically. [Kabayan OFW Blog]

That his mother — herself an OFW for 15 years as revealed in the article — prodded him to take the same path, it appears to me that Gilbert clearly had choices that he either overlooked or chose not to take, because there was a more “tried-and-tested” approach that he could take up.

A subsequent question reveals that he never even entertained the possibility of working locally:

Q: During your early years in school, did it ever cross your mind that you would become an OFW someday? Did your choice of course in college have something to do with it, and your desire to finish your schooling?
A: I may have thought about it then. Because when you are surrounded by people who work overseas you tend to walk that path also. If I remember correctly, there was a time that computer related courses will get you a job abroad fast. So, yes I did choose computer programming, because I had plans of working abroad also. [Kabayan OFW Blog]

It is ironic that Gilbert blindly walked down the same path his mother did, when earlier in the article he shared the pains of growing up seeing his mother only a month at a time every two years. Ironic too, that he said that he knows that his mother wouldn’t have left if she knew “another way” to support her family:

Q: Was it hard for you to have an OFW for a parent?
A: Yes, but not because I despise her for it – but simply because she was not there as much as I would have wanted too. I know she worked so hard to provide a better future for us. I know also that if there was another way, she would have never left.

Q: For how long is your mother working as an OFW? How often does she go home here in the Philippines? How does that feel?
A: My mother has been an OFW for 15 years. She goes home to us every 2 years and stays for about a month or two. I feel that it is not enough, but what can I do. It is always so hard to say goodbye every 2 years, you never get used to that. [Kabayan OFW Blog]

Clearly Gilbert does not know that he is running in circles drawn on the ground by his mother and grandmother (whom he says was also an OFW), which is evident when he says that overseas work is a handed-down “legacy”:

Q: Do you think that OFW nowadays are getting younger and younger? What can you say about that? Do you think it’s a trend or a legacy passed on?
A: I know how it feels to be separated from a loved one. It is one of the reasons why I decided, now, to work abroad. It is better to be an OFW while you are still young, so that you will have ample time later to enjoy life. [Kabayan OFW Blog]

Which makes me wonder: how many OFWs told you that they were only going to work abroad for so and so number of years until they are able to save money? How many of them actually accomplished that feat so they don’t need to work abroad until they retire?

Reading the whole article, there are simply too many things that make me scratch my head: the lack of the ability to recognize opportunities presented, the lack of any real passion or concern for career other than a means to make ends meet, the treatment of overseas work per se as a career option, the acceptance of an abusive, menial, meaningless job just as long as it pays higher than — a job that could be matched financially and attained locally if only people try.

Gilbert is not alone however; how many people get jobs as call center agents, or take up nursing and caregiving, even if they are not genuinely interested in developing their careers in those fields? How many people work for the sake of working? How many people tolerate 8-5 drudgery, here or abroad, just to be able to pay the bills?

In the end, the OFW phenomenon might actually not be driven by simple poverty. Rather, it is being fed by a huge number of mismanaged careers, masquerading as a last resort to be able to feed and clothe one’s family when there are real alternatives that people simply fail to see. People always say that “beggars can’t be choosers”, but there’s a serious problem when a person begins to see themselves as beggars before they even pay attention to the choices they really do have.

There’s nothing wrong with Gilbert working abroad per se. It is the reasons why he is working that has to be questioned and — subsequently — people has to ask themselves about.

Melynn and I along with her barkada have been planning this trip for months, but the latest pair of typhoons, Lando and Mina come way too close of each other, and typhoon Mina threatens to become a super typhoon.

To further underscore the risks, a client of I-NAV Travel & Tours informed us that their flight went back to Manila after two failed landing attempts at Kalibo, Aklan, due to heavy rains. Melynn and her barkada might push through with the trip on December 1, but I won’t be able to come because of work deadlines.

As with anything in life, you win some, you lose some. Our Boracay trip last September was so summery, anyway, despite September being a typhoon month.

Using a thin nylon rope, 12-year-old Mariannet Amper hanged herself in the afternoon of November 2. She was a sixth grader at the Maa Central Elementary School.

…

Along with her diary, the Ampers also discovered a letter Mariannet wrote for the GMA 7 television program “Wish Ko Lang [I just Wish].”

“Gusto ko po sana magkaroon ng bagong sapatos at bag at hanapbuhay para sa nanay at tatay ko. Wala kasing hanapbuhay ang tatay at nagpa-extra extra lamang ang aking nanay sa paglalaba,” she said in her “Wish Ko Lang” letter. [I wish for new shoes, a bag and jobs for my mother and father. My dad does not have a job and my mom just gets laundry jobs.]

“Gusto ko na makatapos ako sa pag-aaral at gustong-gusto ko na makabili ng bagong bike,” she added. [I would like to finish my schooling and I would like very much to buy a new bike.] [Inquirer.net]

What is more unfortunate, however, is that a lot of sectors have taken the death as an opportunity to engage in a blame game, and preach the Gospel of Hopelessness once more.

On my way to work the other day, I took a cab that was tuned to an AM radio station (I failed to figure out which) who had two commentators (who I also failed to get the names of, my bad) who were reading text messages from listeners and making comments themselves. Almost everyone was blaming Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the child’s death, even insinuating that it is yet another evidence for her failure and yet another reason for her to step down. All the while, the commentators continue gloating in agreement, one of them even professing her desire to leave this “hopeless” country because it would be sheer “stupidity” to decide to stay.

In her blog entry about Mariannet’s suicide, Salve Duplito points out Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s comment that “we are all to blame” for Mariannet’s death. Her entry also points out the Senate probe on cash gifts, and an article that mulls over the current state of the middle class in the Philippines, as a “primer” of sorts regarding the nation’s poverty situation.

While I am shocked and aghast with what had happened, I am just as irritated with how people try to use the incident as yet another fault of the GMA administration, nay, the government. As preventable as the incident was, it makes no sense to blame anybody in the suicide. Mariannet was a minor, and one can argue that she does not know what she’s doing, sure, but I do think what she did was the result of misguided thinking.

In the end, it was her and her decision alone to take her own life.

What is more disturbing, I think, is this Gospel of Hopelessness being preached by the media to our people recently. I do not know if this “gospel” reached Mariannet, but I am pretty sure that Mariannet’s death is being treated as a holy sacrifice at its altar. This gospel, has four main edicts, which I will discuss here:

Buti pa sila

First is the phrase buti pa sila; they’re fortunate or they’re better off than us, as embodied by the phrase “the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer”.

I understand deeply the difficulty and frustration the poor face when, with their meager, unchanging income, inflation eats more and more into their salaries while their salaries fail to catch up. What I do not understand is why “the rich are getting richer” is supposed to be a bad thing, when it is based on a very simple principle. When a person earns money, they could invest it in a business or a financial instrument that will earn money, reinvest it again in either to earn even more money, and it reaches a point that the growth of their money is not linear, but exponential. It is very, very clear that there is nothing evil about this, but people always tend to treat it as though it were black magic.

Of course there are “evil” ways of getting rich; illegal activities like drug peddling is one, another would be employee abuse and exploitation: long hours, delayed salaries, workload inappropriate to job descriptions or disproportionate to pay etc. But not every business does this, and I hope I am correct in assuming that majority of businesses do not employ such acts to be able to raise profits. However, to lump rich people who earned their wealth through hard work and perseverance with rich people who committed crimes and exploited others is simply myopic and utterly unfair.

The phrase “the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer” clearly assumes that the rich get rich because they exploit the poor, and thus becomes the root, or foundation, for more negative beliefs about the rich, about being rich, and about how to attain those riches.

Hindi nila kami tinutulungan

Second is the widespread belief that the rich are purposefully doing nothing to leave the poor as poor. Hindi nila kami tinutulunga“; they are not helping us.

When there were reported gains in the country’s GDP, the reduced public deficit, and the strengthening peso versus the dollar, journalists couldn’t help but ask the question “are the economic gains trickling down to the masses?” This infuriated Gloria so much that she lashed back at the reporters, in a press release a few months back.

I do not approve of GMA’s temperament, sure, but neither do I see the question as a valid one. Trickling down to the masses, on the first month of an improved economy? Give me an electric fan in a large, humid warehouse, put it at one end and turn it on, and stay at the far end. Will the improvement in the ambient temperature of the warehouse be different there? Of course not. You have to go near the fan.

The “economic gains failing to trickle down to the masses” mantra has a better analogy, one that comes from Filipino folklore. It is the story of a boy who would sleep in a hammock under a guava tree, mouth wide open, waiting for the fruit to fall. The fruit fell alright, but he wouldn’t be able to catch it while sleeping, of course. We all know who Juan Tamad is, don’t we? And we all know why the guava won’t “trickle” into his mouth.

Too many people seem to think that by griping and complaining, some magical force will elevate them up that tree, in the way that they think rich people got their wealth through evil, magical means, but in reality many of them started at the bottom of the tree, and just started climbing.

If you want to get your share of those economic gains, you have to go and reach out to it. You still have to open doors when opportunity knocks. You still have to climb a tree to get its fruit.

Inaapi nila ako, kawawa naman ako

The roots of the Gospel of Hopelessness has the victim mentality, with this mantra in mind:

Inaapi nila ako, kawawa naman ako! I am being stepped on, I am being put down, woe and pity me!

As emo and drama this mantra sounds, I hear it all the time, even from seven year olds. Whenever we would attend mass in the Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine in Pangasinan, there would always be kids selling stampitas — cards that have the image of a saint or the Blessed Virgin on one side and a prayer on the other — constantly egging you to buy them.

There’s nothing wrong with their persistence in selling, of course. Their dialog, however, goes like “bilin niyo na po Sir, para may pangkain kami mamaya” (“please buy this so we may have something to eat later”). Between those lines you could almost hear them say “if we go starving later today, it’s your fault for not buying our wares”. What kind of sales tactic is that?

I could just imagine Mariannet saying the same thing about herself while she’s pondering to take her life.

Kasalanan nila ang lahat

Unfortunately this kind of thinking is widespread among the poor and those who think that they are poor, who say that every day, in the streets, on TV, on the way to work while you’re taking public transport, in the eateries where you take your lunch. Everyone is saying “I’m so poor, I’m so pitiful, but nobody’s helping me.” Worse, after all their rambling, they then turn to how bad the government is, how corrupt politicians are, and how much better their lives would be if only the government were different.

As if that would really change anything in their lives.

Archbishop Cruz’s elegy that “we are all to blame for Mariannet’s death” is no different. I don’t think we could keep anyone from killing themselves if they really really believed that their lives are worth for naught. Let’s just thank God it’s not anything like in supposedly prosperous Western countries where the suicidal take up arms and go on a shooting spree before they take their own lives.

In the end, however, the deaths, the suicides, the shootings, is the sole decision of the person. The students that took up arms to shoot other students were usually victims of rejection and bullying, sure, but there are a lot of other people who are bullied who do not kill other people over it. Mariannet may have had a depressing situation, sure, but how many people have been in her situation only to become successful and prosperous later in their lives?

How many people have decided that they are sick and tired of being poor, and they will do everything legal and righteous to become rich?

Too few, I think. Too few.

It is time to shed this depressing gospel, especially if we believe it

There are things that can be done to give hope and genuine help to the Mariannets around us; unfortunately too few people realize that that hope and help are not only the responsibility of the government. Yes it may be a responsibility we have towards others, but it is likewise, a responsibility we have towards ourselves. Unless we accept that responsibility, even if we have all the tools to get up and climb the tree of prosperity to pick and enjoy its fruits, we won’t get it until we start climbing.

However, for those who already know this responsibility, or who have prospered to the point where they have the ability to help others, they’ll need to remember where they came from, and educate those who are not aware of the ways to attain financial success.

Salve Duplito’s parting shot on her blog entry is spot on:

It makes sense for everyone’s financial future to wipe out poverty — even the ruling elite’s financial future. Even politicians’ financial future. As you prepare this day to make more money, save more and invest more, please do two things: look around you for someone like Mariannet and do something about it. Then continue to make your dreams for financial independence come true so you can help more like her. [Money Smarts]

It’s time for us to get up and help ourselves. It’s time to change our negative attitudes towards the rich and being rich. It’s time to shed the cultural beliefs that keep us poor. It’s time for us to stop complaining, and start doing. It’s time for us to rise up and help others find ways to help themselves, so that they will not feel Mariannet Amper’s desperation.

It is time for us to stop preaching the Gospel of Hopelessness, and perhaps, replace it with a Gospel of Prosperity.

OT: Do you want to hear the Gospel of Prosperity instead?

If you want to learn some ways on how to obtain economic prosperity without selling your souls to the devil, you might want to look at the Think Rich Pinoy Seminar, conducted by Larry Gamboa, which discusses about the psychology of money, and ways to earn money in real estate.

You can also come to the How to Become Truly Rich Seminar conducted by Bo Sanchez, a seminar for Christians (Catholics, especially) who want to shed their dangerous religious beliefs about money.

I have attended both seminars and learned an immense deal of knowledge and wisdom, which I am slowly trying to apply to my life.

Just for the record, neither have paid me to promote these seminars in this blog.

Like my Dad, I spent many years after college flitting from job to job. I had nothing to complain about. I was making a great living. I was never on the market for particularly long before some new opportunity would come up. I enjoyed my work. But I wasn’t choosing a career path. I was letting happenstance determine what I was, and what I was becoming. [Coding Horror]

I found it amusing because I can relate to it. For the most part of my career (although I did stick to software development) I was also flitting like a feather, and I have been with five different companies in as many years. I was even struck more when Jeff stated his frustrations with his work environment, a frustration I shared back when I was working in Philippine National Bank:

The work was interesting, but it was abundantly clear that software was not the lifeblood of this organization. Outsourcing was in the air. Although my coworkers were competent, nobody was quite as obsessed with the software as I was. My passion for software, and everything around it, was clearly not shared. [Coding Horror]

While I was at PNB, I could count on my fingers how many of my colleagues see software development as a craft and skill that has to be improved upon and learned, while the rest merely see it as a means to an end; just another profession that comes with a check to pay the bills. I hope I am wrong about them though.

Jeff Atwood’s post is devoid of techie jargon his blog is often about so please do take time to read it; I’m sure you’ll find it quite insightful, even if you’re non-techie.

I only left PNB a little over two years ago, and a month before I left I wrote a piece wherein I accused people who were taking up nursing to fly abroad, or taking employment as call-center agents as people who see themselves as having no choice, and taking up jobs that they do not really love or care about just to be able to make ends meet:

This reasoning of a lot of people on why they give up their dreams and likes for jobs not to their liking is something to the tune of “beggars cannot be choosers.” Sure, because of the hardships of life in this country we can’t really choose what career path to take.

But come to think of it, we lost our choice simply because we see ourself as beggars. And we push the choice of “doing what we love most” away because we fear that we would die of hunger if we do not.

However, in the end, it’s all a matter of choice. Push that choice away and you end up with the misery of not really loving what you do. Without love for what you do, you would not excel. Without excellence you would not attain fulfillment. Without fulfillment, you’ll die without really feeling you did anything else but merely survive. [Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX]

In the two years since I wrote that piece a lot of things have changed. For the record, my sentiment with regards to call center agents and nurses have softened somewhat. I now believe that it is perfectly understandable that people take up these jobs if only to better provide for themselves. However, I still believe that they won’t find fulfillment until they finally shift to a job that they do love, or if they use their hard-earned money to set up a company or a business that they are passionate about.

I have a friend who is taking up nursing right now, if only to be able to raise her daughter to a better future (she’s a single mom). But this woman loves to write, and I am sure that if she does get to the US, she would look for opportunities to be a writer there. She’ll need the nursing job to pay for her bills, sure, but that won’t stop her from doing the thing she’s passionate about.

In those two years, I can also say that my passion for what I’ve been doing has paid off. At the end of that piece, I wrote this, and it made me smile:

If all goes well, in time, I can tell myself that I did not merely survive but found fulfillment, despite the ramblings of those who see themselves as “unfortunate.” [Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX]

Today I am earning around four times what I was earning when I was working at PNB. My wife and I have also been able to set up a travel agency business, allowing us to earn (my wife, in particular) revenues that would have been unimaginable back when I was in PNB and she was in her 8 to 5 job. At least in my case, I could attest that there is truth in believing that following your passion will lead to fulfillment, both in terms of doing what you want to do, and in financial terms.

It is perfectly fine to accept a call center job or to take up nursing and go abroad if only to make ends meet. But find out what you love to do, and never lose sight of your passions in life. Use the call center or nursing job as a means to save money until you are able to jump to a career path that you really want to take, or to set up a business built on products you love and rely on. It will not only make you immensely happier, it has the potential to make you much much wealthier than you can imagine.

So for the record, yes, my wife and I have a wonderful sex life. I wonder if knowing that will make them happy.

Of course I digress.

When they prod further, I usually just say that “birth control works”, but what I fail to say is that our chosen birth control method is courtesy of the government. And we got it for a very low cost.

Yes — the government actually has an effective birth control policy, at least for our case. But it’s a loosely guarded secret.

You see, back in 2004, as part of the mandatory pre-marital orientation conducted by the Department of Health as a requisite for getting your marriage license, we got the following information. Note that this is all lifted from memory:

• The Department of Health facilitates various birth control measures at their health centers for free.  For example, a woman can have an intra-uterine device (IUD) planted into her uterus for no cost. This is the birth control measure that my wife availed of a few months after giving birth — however she gave a small contribution of a couple of hundred pesos to the health worker just to make sure she takes extra care of her, if you know what I mean. They can also give away condoms, injectable shots, and contraceptive pills, subject to availability.
• PhilHealth covers the cost for sterilization methods, like tubal ligation and no scalpel vasectomy (NSV). For the “macho” guys here who don’t like the idea of vasectomy but whom I might call sissies for being afraid to put their balls under a knife (wait — no scalpel means no knife, right?), the detailed procedure for NSV can be found here, instruction manual style. If the illustrations make you cringe – don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. It’s not for squeamish pansies.
• Men who avail of no scalpel vasectomy will actually be given money to the tune of 5,000 pesos by the government (not sure if it’s thru PhilHealth or SSS). I was amused when I heard this — be sterile and get paid? And keep your semen to boot? Cool! 

(UPDATE: After asking around, I have not been able to verify this from more recent attendees of the seminar. Has it been canceled? Or does my memory fail me?

UPDATE 2: My wife verified this with the DOH and they say that the incentives system must have been a program of the LGU concerned, but DOH definitely does not give any such incentives. The rest of the information above, however, is accurate.)

For the record, the orientation also included details on natural family planning, for the benefit of those who believe that artificial contraception is a sin or who have medical conditions that prevent them to avail of artificial contraceptive methods.

Anyway I forgot all about these things until a few weeks ago when a conversation with a friend (again, with the dreaded “wala pa bang kasunod yan question”) led to him asking how my wife availed of the IUD. He’s planning to get married and raise a family, and the information proved vital. But then he asked me — is there any article or document that you could show me regarding it. And so I searched.

That’s when I realized that the information is not available online.

I have tried for days searching through Google but all I found was muck; pro-life debates, details of the law in its proposal stages, etcetera, but not the enacting law itself. No Reproductive Health Act of 2003 (HB 812 — which I initially believed to contain the details for this program) search results reveal anything substantiative other than a news article containing comments about the bill.

So other than that orientation, I have no other evidence of the benefits. That leads me to believe that the entire thing is a secret kept by the government from sexually-repressed/deprived celibate prudes conservatives. Unfortunately it has a terrible consequence — many of the people who NEED to know about it do not. That includes live-in partners among the poor, especially those who do not have money to get married or get a marriage license.

Even for those who know about it, religious influences or the belief that it will cost too much money (as if having yet another child doesn’t cost too much money!) prevent them from availing of the program. Access to health centers, and in a broader sense — access to health centers with qualified health care professionals is another problem. Unscrupulous health workers who might ask for “donations” for the procedure might be another hurdle to those who have absolutely nothing to spare.

Now I understand that there are people who would not trust government health centers if their life depended on it. An alternative exists — FriendlyCare clinics are run by a non-profit organization and provide free family-planning related health services, including sterilization procedures I mentioned above, as well as temporary contraceptives such as injectable contraceptives, pills and condoms. They even provide cycle beads for those who prefer natural.

So if you’re running into the trouble of having too many children, avail of these benefits now. Before you (or your wife) gets pregnant again!

Do NOT take my word for it, however — if you want more information regarding the above go to your nearest health center, and your obstetrician-gynecologist as well for good measure. You can also visit your nearest FriendlyCare clinic.

I have to consult my mother, who took these pictures, with regards whether those poses were coached by her or anybody in the room. Otherwise it might be considered unethical photography, or a misrepresentation of 2 year old cuteness.

DISCLOSURE: Sarong from a forgotten stall in 168 Mall, Divisoria. Electric fan from SM Appliance Center. Vertical blinds from a forgotten shop in the razed and now demolished MC Home Depot in Mantrade. This post is in no way sponsored by the above merchandisers and this blogger will in no way profit, whether in cash or in kind, from the said entities.

My child, Carla Jacqueline Limjap, was in no way coerced nor abused in the taking of these photos. However she does not have the ability as yet to express approval or disapproval as to the fair use of these photos in this blog posting, and as such, parental discretion was used by me, Jacinto Limjap Jr., father, in the posting of these shots.

These photographs may in no way be used for purposes other than showing how early my child has learned to cam-whore. As of writing we have yet to determine where she got this trait from, but based on historical evidence, she probably got it from me.

The complete set of pictures (there are more!) can be viewed by clicking here.

Thank you!