Making do, but not without

The next time your child complains about his allowance, tell him that children in public elementary schools are allotted only P15 per meal under the Department of Education’s (DepEd) school-based feeding program (SBFP).

Milet Esguerra, who heads the
STLC feeding program,
interacts with the kids.

“We’re giving a little more per child at the Tabangao Elementary School,” says Milet Esguerra, who heads the feeding program of the Shell Tabangao Ladies Circle (STLC) in Batangas City.  She smiles when I appear shocked, but she’s done her research. 

The DepEd’s SBFP allocates a total of P16 per child (P15 per meal; P1 for logistics like cooking utensils, office supplies for reports, minimal transportation expenses, water, LPG, charcoal, firewood, and kerosene) for 120 days. Even privately-funded feeding programs like Jollibee’s “Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT)” and Ateneo de Manila University’s “Blueplate” allot P11 and P11.50 per child respectively.

I cannot teach you

Image borrowed from Duke TIP website

In my years of editing, I have been blessed to work with writers who are able to discern their mistakes through the edited work, and be guided accordingly.

On occasion though, I have also found myself actually writing down the mistakes, pointing out the grammatical errors, explaining why it is wrong, and showing how things can be simpler and more cohesive. It is during these instances that I realize that there are just some things that I cannot teach:

Birds cry, too

I’m one of those who frown on making pets out of birds. I think it is cruel to restrain them in a cage when they can have the whole sky.

However, I found myself reviewing that notion when workers found a kilyawan (Black-naped oriole) hanging by its leg from a branch on a tree beside our house.  At first, I thought that the men were reaching up with a stick to get at a mango before I realized two things: it wasn’t a mango tree; the “mango” (the kilyawan is a yellow and black bird), was fluttering its wings.

50M on Opening Day

Fifty million pesos does not make a blockbuster when it comes to film, but it certainly does for an exhibit.

Shell’s multi-media exhibit “Beauty, Bounty and a Shared Heritage: 25 Years of Protecting Tubbataha” at the Atrium of SM Mega Mall did not mean to make money.

In the strictest terms, it hasn’t.  All it’s done is to provide a venue for Environment Secretary Ramon Paje and Tubbataha Management Office (TMO) Head Angelique Songco to come together during the opening ceremony and talk. Since they were both early, there was a LOT of time for Songco to make her case and “catch the worm”.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje gives a silver award
to Tubbataha Management Office Head Angelique Songco.

Paje pledged to provide the P50 million needed to build a new station for 10 to 12 marine park rangers tasked to protect the 97,030-hectare Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (TRNP) and World Heritage Site in Palawan from illegal activities including fishing and collection of precious and lucrative marine life such as top shells. 

I'm a Lola

One thing I both dread and love during the holidays is the family gathering. I dread all the preparations - from buying to wrapping gifts, to finalizing menus, preparing the house, etc. and I love the warmth, love and laughter that ensues when everyone is together despite all the cleaning up and settling down that eventually follows.

Because this is the one time of year when almost everybody shows up, I am always surprised by the changes. How much one has grown, or expanded or slimmed down, turned ravishing and cleared up acne. I am almost always reminded of how old I am when a kid once knee-high turns up at the doorway tall and slim. Or how a once smiling but silent teenager has become quite chatty and my golly gee - engaged and definitely still smiling.