This is a very rare occasion where two holidays fall in one day. But it’s only the Chinese New Year that don’t have a fixed date because of the use of the Chinese (lunar) calendar to determine the Chinese New Year which is always between January 20 to February 20 of the Gregorian calendar each year. But for determining the Chinese zodiac signs of an individual, the start of the New Year always fall on the 4th day of February (Start of Spring – the first day of the Tiger month).
So for example you are born on February 12 on the year of the metal tiger, your zodiac sign is not Water Ox but Metal Tiger which is contrary to the popular belief of using the Chinese New Year to find the zodiac sign.
So whatever you are celebrating either Valentines Day or Chinese New Year, I wish you the best! Happy Valentines Day and Happy Chinese New Year to everybody!
Do you know what a Gravatar is? No it’s not a mispronunciation of the movie Avatar but it’s the picture appearing on the blog comments by the commenter. GRAVATAR means Globally Recognized Avatar. So you don’t have to register on the blog itself you wish to make your comments in order for you to have an avatar. All blogs that can accept Gravatar will automatically have your own avatar seen on the comments. And also, if you wish to replace your avatar, you only need to do it once and the change will be global. Depending on the blog owner, if don’t have your own Gravatar, the default picture that will appear are sometimes funny cliparts or a silhouette like the one below:
The destruction brought about the typhoon Ondoy kept me thinking……can it be prevented if the canals and rivers were not clogged by garbages? maybe it will not be as worst like what happened last week when houses where flooded up to the second floor. I agree with those people knowlegeable on climate change that this is really an effect were typhoons will be frequent and more destructive. I remember when I’m watching Richard Gutierrez documentary ( SIGNOS ) on climate change although I was frightened that it will happen soon, I never taught that it will happen sooner like what we experienced when Typhoon Ondoy hit our country.
The experts say that this is just the start of the effect of climate change. And I don’t think we can do much about it because we live in a period where we are experiencing natures wrath to those people who have destroyed the environment. Maybe we are one of those who contributed even if we are unaware like using plastic bags and throwing it on the rivers or esteros. The worst is those who live near the esteros who dumped garbages and trash that caused the clogging. Not only that, where are the old esteros where the Spanish constructed? are they now subdivisions and sport complex? Below are the pictures of the old esteros in Manila and I think there is a good purpose why they are there and not for aesthetic reasons only like what our modern society only cares about. Yes there are still many rivers in metro manila but unlike the old times where it is not a garbage dump and many living organism thrive.
It is obvious that our country don’t have an anti trust law. So why create an anti-trust law in the first place? according to the news I’ve read in Philippine Star:
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile pushed yesterday for the immediate passage of the proposed anti-trust law that aims to discipline the country’s market system by penalizing unfair trade and anti-competitive practices and thereby protect consumers from abuse.
In his sponsorship speech, Enrile said Senate Bill No. 3197 also known as “The Competition Act of 2009” would define and prohibit business cartels, monopolies, monopoly power or abuse of market power through price fixing and price discrimination, bid rigging, limitation and control of markets, agreement to limit and or control markets, and tie-in arrangements.
In as much that I wanted to say my opinion about this, I admit that I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to the Philippine laws. Maybe this is good news to consumers and small time businessmen and not so good to those corporate giants. So, to read more about it, you can check it out here.
Since the beginning of the US financial crisis, I’m not sure what is the real reason behind it until I found this video of msnbc.com by Rachel Maddow Show on a segment called “Cops and Robbers Baron”. She was pointing out the effects of deregulating banks which I found very interesting (Robbers on spaceships and cops on horseback). The two legislation that sets the time bomb of the current economic crisis, one was the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act”, enacted November 12, 1999, the other one was “Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000,” which is what deregulated Credit Default Swaps. Those two legislation wiped out the legislation passed during the great depression to protect them from, as we see it today, another great depression?
So what is this got to do with the banks here in the Philippines? although the effect of the US financial crisis was global, financial experts here say we are not totally affected. We still have our own economy. And as far as I know we have regulations imposed by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of The Philippines) to avoid credit risks. One good example is the Circular 389 series of 2003. [click to continue...]
Do you know what a Gravatar is? No it’s not a mispronunciation of the movie Avatar but it’s the picture appearing on the blog comments by the commenter. GRAVATAR means Globally Recognized Avatar. So you don’t have to register on the blog itself you wish to make your comments in order for you to have an avatar. All blogs that can accept Gravatar will automatically have your own avatar seen on the comments. And also, if you wish to replace your avatar, you only need to do it once and the change will be global. Depending on the blog owner, if don’t have your own Gravatar, the default picture that will appear are sometimes funny cliparts or a silhouette like the one below: