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.

Life in slow motion

Once, while looking up a potential vacation destination, I chanced upon a blog which warned would-be travelers that services were slow in that part of the world.

It had to do with waiting time at eating places. I remember particularly that the blogger said something like "there's no sense of urgency to serve you your food" and that visitors "would do better to conform with the pace of life in the locality and not to expect the kind of speedy services that they are used to in a cosmopolitan setting". Something like that.

I think I understand that better now.