The budget deficit is going through the roof. Banning Filipino contract workers from going to Iraq will cost the Gov't $100m in lost homeward remittances a year. A newly confident re-elected President negotiates with terrorists in Iraq holding a truck driver hostage and pulls her troops out of the country to get him back, thus understandably at a stroke inflaming the coalition and coddling the hostage-takers, yet did little or nothing about the Western hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf, who were bought out, with the local Army commander taking allegedly 20% of the several million $. He's still got his job.
A strongly Catholic country with 84m people already and growing at 2-3% a year yet the Church frustrates any attempts at birth control, with bishops and cardinals meddling in politics at every turn. No divorce, thus abandoned wives and illegimate offspring keep on rising in numbers.
Uncollected customs duties run into billions. Try bringing a motor vehicle into this country (we just brought a bike). Money under the table at every stage. Even when you get as far as the gate to leave the Customs yard, the guard requires a "consideration" to let you out. Companies and individuals routinely under- or fail to declare income for tax purposes with impunity. Congressmen have annual pork barrels. Many use these wisely and well, many just pocket them. Most declare assets (as they have to annually) as a modest few thousand dollars, yet somehow manage to live in $20m homes in Forbes Park, have about 6 Landcruisers and an army of retainers and bodyguards. Our best doctors (and they are very good) re-train as nurses and you'll find them in the NHS earning 15 times what they get here.
Well that's all a bit contenttious to address so to boost revenue our good Lady President decides on tax increases: a new tax on text messages in a country which has the world largest text message volume, an increase in transportation fares, taxes on cheap alcohol. The necessities and comforts of the chap in tthe street. Needless to say in a poor country the rich keep the goldmine but as usual Juan de la Cruz gets the shaft. So considerable discontent. Yes, I'm getting to the motoring bit........
And the Philippine Daily Inquirer's huge banner headline today in reaction to all this surely out-Suns The Sun for arrant tripe:
GOV'T TO ISSUE VANITY PLATES.
Rationale: (sic) reduce the tax burden on the individual.
Well at $800 a throw I'm sure that's really going to impress both the IMF and that little shop girl on $3.50 a day minimum wage and no pay if she gets sick waiting out there in the rain trying to find a bus to get home.
And no, I won't be buying one.
Ah well, the women are beautiful, the weather's warm and the beer's cold......
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Hi Growler,
Doesn't the inequality and corruption get up your nose? I appreciate it can be a comfortable place to live materially for someone with a western level of income but I think I would get angry that nothing was done about it. But then again, what's the point on getting irate, you can't change a country.
Presumably it's a cultural thing. I knew a guy who worked all over the world as a management consultant and he reckoned the Philippes was only second to Nigeria for corruption. I suppose if you grow up with it, it seems normal and life goes on.
Still on a lighter note, did you consider ripping all the electrics out of the mustang and fitting a new loom from scratch? It seems a shame to get rid after spending so much sorting the rest of it. It shouldn't be too difficult to fit a loom with a wiring diagram, they're not very complex cars electrically.
Cheers from a rainy Lincolnshire
Nick
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>>>>>>Still on a lighter note, did you consider ripping all the electrics out of the mustang and fitting a new loom from scratch? It seems a shame to get rid after spending so much sorting the rest of it. It shouldn't be too difficult to fit a loom with a wiring diagram, they're not very complex cars electrically.
Hi Nick: actually we're not that far down the corruption list...I think Bangladesh is nearer the bottom....
Yes I considered shipping a new loom and some light units in from the US but Herself has taken such a dislike to the car (that plastic smells horrid inside and it's hot on my legs when I wear shorts and I'm not riding in that thing and so on and so forth, you know how it is ....) that I thought cut my losses and unload.
Then again the local sofa upholstery place down the road does car seats, but then again, a pension peso pit....what to do.
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A tax on text messages - there's a potential earner. For gawd's sake don't let Uncle Gordon see this.
Still, it might help prevent a bit of RSI in adolescents!
--
Terry
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True. This is OT but when cellphones emerged in the Philippines around 1995/6, in order to get people interested in them (sounds hard to believe now) the telcomms companies offered free texting. In a nation which thrives on gossip, innuendo and general talk, this was a master-stroke and of course texting and thus the sale of clumpy old Motorolas and Nokias took off like a rocket.
To this day every time I reload I have 35 free texts before I start to get charged. The phone companies tried hard to take the "free" element away, but never quite managed it. This led to, I believe, at one point a Guinness Book of Records entry for the Philippines. 3 out of 4 people have a cellphone or access to one, which is quite amazing in a country like this.
Not to mention that texting helped to bring down a corrupt President via peaceful demonstrations by thousands of people. Now of course come the add-ons, SMS, traffic reports, text-ins to TV contests, sports results and so on. Certainly we had at one time produced the world's highest volume of text messages and I wouldn't be surprised if we are still up there. Figures I have show last December that UK text traffic was 756 million texts for the month while the Philippines managed 1.8 BILLION!
And then the tax potential of that is huge, even if it's only a few centavos.
OK...motoring, before I get booted off. That guy in front weaving all over the road? Odds on he's texting his mistress with the time and the motel location, then texting his wife to say he's working late.....
Indeed, don't tell that miserable Scot sadist in No 11......
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Still, it might help prevent a bit of RSI in adolescents! -- Terry
No comment. The avaerge yoof can spl pfctly in TXT MSG. (see this week's sniffpetrol!)
Anyway, what's this got to do with ostriches?
In fcat, there is an ostrich farm on the road near my house. Big sign outside "Drive carefully. Ostriches getting laid".
Always good for a giggle on sunday afternoon drives ...
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>>>(that plastic smells horrid inside and it's hot on my legs when I wear shorts and I'm not riding in that thing
Got to agree with Growlette there! It can be downright painful to sit on a plastic seat when the car has been parked in the sun.
In the days of short 'minis' SWMBO's friend had black plastic bucket seats in her Fiat. She parked the car on the road when visiting. One afternoon she shimmered in gracefully and sat on the seat with a scream and sizzling noise. The next day she left the window open to keep the car cooler. Repeat of graceful sitting in, only to sit in a pool of water from the usual afternoon tropical rainstorm.
Be a gentleman! Have the seats recovered and get one of the local electricians to make a wire loom. I've always found Philipino artisans to be quite expert.
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Growler, second thoughts...
In hot climates plastic seats make your back sweat most unpleasantly. There used to be available, and I've seen them again recently, covers for the seat and the back, made up of a network of plastic spheres (about one inch dia), strung together. I've never tried one, but they used to be quite widespread in Central Africa. One of those and a cosy cover might do the trick. Cheaper than reupholstering.
If though, Growlette has made up her mind that "..no way will I ride in that thing!...you are on to a loser anyhow.
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Yes Hillman we have those things with beads on them here, but I fear your last sentence is to the real point...
Ostriches for Ian by the way....heads in sand...that sort of thing?
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We're having a crisis here with avian flu - the same sort of thing which wiped out all the chinese poulrty last year. 30 000 Ostriches are to be wiped out and buried. Which means that Ostrich steak - my favourite - will become either unobtainable or very expensive.
As far as those carseat covers go - they are known to produce a strange condition known as "Golf Ball Bum"...
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Ian, greetings.
That sounds delightful! Sorry about your ostriches, though.
Do you still get the \'Cape Doctor\'? Might be good for both.
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Cape Doctor? Yep! But at present we're in the rainy season, with just gusty wind, not the all-out hurricanes of the past! Very interesting to see how much people have forgotten since last rainy season!!!
Driving to work this morning, saw about 15% of cars with no lights on ...
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"with bishops and cardinals meddling"
As the great Earl Butz (US senator brought down by his own plain speaking) said of His Holiness: "he no playa the game, he no maka the rules!"
Sorry mods - OT and non-PC, but still worth repeating, IMHO.
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