i've always hated the system. the corruption, the mentality, the government, etc..but the saddest part of it is that i have to live with it. it's like i'm obliged to accept it and take it as a normal thing. my principles though, dictate me not to support any of this kind...oh well..
when taxi drivers ask a minimum of P20 tip, you'll say, it's nothing. but then, when i work longer than the required time, do i get a raise? do we really have to negociate each time we pay? dont you find it tiring?
the last time i was in the phils, i asked a favor from one of our secretaries (to change my plane ticket), i was told to give 'pasalubong' next time i will be assigned there (the one who told me was her fellow secretary, who happened to be my so-called 'friend'). take note, that was in 2-wks time. and i told to myself, what the heck, i should have been a secretary then. they rule! i hate this mentality of 'suhol'. i really hate it. my former colleagues actually brand me as 'kuripot'. and take note, each time we go out, i pay! what the heck!
my thai colleagues once visited pagsanjan falls. they paid P1200 for the boat. after the visit, the boatmen wouldn't let them go because they were asking for a tip, a soaring $50 tip! wow! with the news about the philippines, plus the fact that the thais couldnt really express themselves, they were really afraid but still tried to negociate. in the end, they just gave $30 for EACH boatmen. in a day, they spent more than P14,000. and i tell you, this is not remboursable from the company. with this, why are the filipinos still ask why thailand have a 25M visitors each year while the philippines have a hard time reaching their 2.5M target on tourist??? aren't we killing our own business? these boatmen thought about what they could gain on that particular day, they just forgot tomorrow.
im tired of hearing colleagues complaining about the philippines while praising our neighbooring countries. yes, we speak english...but it's not enough to gain the trust of those 'blessed ones'.
another example is the interest rate practiced in the phils. when i was in a discussion with these same thais, i was stunned to know that the 2 operators with us have their own car back in thailand. filipinos are normally paid higher than the thais, so why is that? me who is an engineer didnt even have my own car when i was still working in laguna. the thing is, they could loan from the bank, and charged only with 2 - 4% interest. in the philippines, we're already happy if we could find somebody who could lend some money to us at 10% interest rate, yun ang sistema e. their country prefer having more sales volume than having too high interest rate which scares away all potential clients. i thought, that's a better solution. business à la chinese. could filipinos do that? i guess they would still prefer bigger profits in a very short span of time, anyway, there will still be some clients...those who earn dollars. and those who couldn't afford, pasensya na lang?
im quite bitter about our system. it's like opportunities are exclusive to those priviledged ones. even education is inaccesible for us to think that after graduation, we dont even have a guarantee of what future awaits for us.
it's like there's no sense at all...where are we going?
13 years ago
