TWO RIGHTS CAN’T MAKE ONE WRONG

I have often heard of Filipinos complaining about the unfairness of the world at large towards them. I have also heard of emotion filled testimonies of people ranging from convicted killers to seemingly devout Christians, giving explanations and reasons for their seemingly vile actions after such have come to light. What amazes me, and would never cease to have said effect on my mind, is the fact that, instead being resigned and admitting guilt to the acts they have committed, say their amends, and face the consequences of their deeds, they berate other people; push the blame of their continuing misdeeds as a reactionary effect to other people’s acts and deeds. As the saying goes, “you do the crime you do the time” is sorely unapplied here. What I see is the total disregard for fair and just cause and the apparent unrepentant nature of these people, the moment they try to justify their heinous, dastardly acts. What do they want to gain by their emotional outburst? Some form of camaraderie, solidarity, or people’s compassion by using their own emotions against them? Or is it just within our culture that as long as one’s actions are explainable to cause and effect, no matter how outlandish the explanation would seem or be, it will and should absolve the doer of the criminal nature of the crime thus making it a crime of human passion? Are not all crimes a crime of passion, borne out of one, or a combination, or of all of the seven deadly sins inherent in all human beings, that Dante so explicitly described so long ago in a classical way? It is said in the Bible, that a crime no matter how small, a theft no matter how miniscule the monetary consideration, a slight to a man’s dignity, family and humanity are all considered mortal sins. Sin is sin. And wages for sin is death. Then why do so many people get away with only proverbial slaps on their wrists, mostly with no verbal or physical rebuke from peers when they commit such crimes on a daily basis? Just because of their glib and sugary tongues? Or is it just because they can appeal to the collective Filipino humanity which spurts out of a dominantly docile natured people? A few people stole my friend’s computer servers and cleaned out in totality his Davao satellite office of all furniture and computer equipments. And to my amazement I saw a 100 seemingly educated, working class Filipino people believe in the righteousness of the thieving group, just on the flimsy explanation that the thieves are Filipino, and seemingly devout Christians, whereas the one that they stole from is a foreigner, who just happened to be their past employer, provider of their daily bread and for their families for a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 8 years. They then slandered his reputation by alluding to the foreigners weaknesses of the flesh. If you are a devout Christian as you profess, then do like Jesus. Let he be the first to cast a stone that is without sin. Again in Romans, it is said “a man is born of sin”. Christianity teaches it’s devout that sin is our daily staple. We indulge in it as naturally as breathing. But by setting examples, Christians should show the world that it is possible to break out of the yoke of sin, which is man’s birth curse. And even if, for arguments sake, we were to say that the foreigner is wrong, does the crime of stealing from him make you a better person, or a better human being, leave alone a better Christian? You are supposed to be an exemplary example to your people and to the world as a self professed Christian. But all you turned out to be is a lowly thief!!! So stop masquerading as a Christian Mr. Gus Rodano, and stop blaspheming the Filipino people by using the Filipino name in your fight just so as to justify your sins and garner public support. Who do you think you are? Rizal? Lapu-lapu? You are no class hero. You are just a lowly criminal. You are so weak that you want to disillusion the masses into thinking you are fighting for them, when all that you have ever done is line your pockets and those of your close friends and cohorts with the ill gotten wealth, stolen from people who earned it by the hard work and skill. You live in an upscale sub division while the people who toil for you are not even paid their due wages. I don’t see your mortgages on your cars and houses being foreclosed, for I know you are getting paid in US dollars every 15 day billing cycles via your BDO Velez and Robinsons Bank Account. The reason you give your workers for partial payments is that you were not ready to take on 90 fully trained people working for your new corporation? But you are getting paid for the links and connects of said 90 people in full are you not? You are billing GearySEO, DiscoverySD and other clients of Mike for all the work delivered and you are getting paid on time. You tell your people that the money for your legal bills is coming from family funds and not from corporate funds? Bullshit!! All that you have been spending from August 2011, and will spend up to the better part of next year, will be coming from money gained from the work of these 90 plus foot soldiers you have. They say that the devil has a way of making people believe he doesn’t exist. He garbs himself in righteousness and pure ideals, which all turn out to be a façade and as fallacy in the end. A thousand lies can’t deny one truth. Truth takes time to reveal itself, but reveal itself it will. Lies can only serve as temporary smoke screens, for in the end it shall clear and be blown away to the four corners of the world by the truth. You have poisoned the 90 employees’ minds into believing that the other side can’t pay them any better. But the fact remains, the other side pays on time, and in full. No deductions for some fairy tale yarn of a co-operative, no training bond, no phantom SSS, Philhealth contributions. All the deductions are remitted by the other side immediately to said Government agencies. The other side is more transparent than you ever were or are capable to be. You have, for your personal convenience and gain, effectively destroyed the livelihood and seriously diminished the earning capacity of 90 families in this way. Pity the workers who believed in you. For they will lose their livelihood, face criminal and civil cases and to add insult to injury, never get fully paid by you and your partners in crime, for the work they have religiously done and will continue to do at your behest. Their only fault: They believed in a person who is a thief, a liar, and a con artist.

THE STORY OF THE MONKEY WHO WOULD NOT LET GO OF THE BANANA

This is an Asian fable, a Bodhisattva (Buddha reincarnation) tale actually, based on an existing negative trait in monkeys. It goes like this…. Once upon a time there was an overly greedy monkey. He just couldn’t get enough of anything. The more he had the more he wanted. One day on his food prowl he had a chance sighting of a big heavy glass jar (the kind used for making pickles in Asia Major or Asia Minor). It was full of oversized bananas. The jar had a thin neck, the opening just small enough for a banana to slide through. Greed overcame the monkey. He wanted the bananas in spite of the apparent peril. He slid his hand through the neck of the glass jar and grabbed a hold of one oversized banana. But, once he closed his palm into a fist around the banana it was impossible to pull his hand out. He tried to run away with the jar but could not reach far due to the jar being extremely heavy. Buddha, as a reincarnate monkey, advised the erring monkey and ends up giving a long discourse about the trappings in life to the banana enamored monkey, and tells him to let go of his greed, which was being symbolized by the oversized banana, and thus save his own life. The greedy monkey does not heed Buddha’s words. Dejected, the Buddha reincarnate monkey leaves. The monkey with his hand stuck in the jar just couldn’t overcome his greed. So he tried and tried to get the banana out of the glass jar, never realizing the futility of his deed. Thus he was eventually caught by the owners of the jar, who kept on beating the monkey with sticks to no avail, for the monkey would just not relinquish the banana. The monkey died from a severe beating, but even in death, would still not let go of the object of his greed, the banana. Thus the saying in Asia major and minor, a monkey (a greedy human being) won’t let go of the banana. It has no racist slur or pun intended, for these fables originated from the primary races or creeds that suffered from British and European racism and bias, and bore more than 200 years of colonial rule under them. Please read story at message.snopes.com regarding the greedy monkey or just type in on the GOOGLE bar “How to catch a monkey” or “monkey trap hand stuck” to read the real life applications of said fable in catching monkeys.

How to steal from a foreigner in the Philippines and get away with it

Let us begin with a story. A foreigner (American in this case) by the name of Mike, starts an online negotiation with a Filipino (a Filipino-chinese in this case) named Gus, sometime around the year 2003. The Filipino-chinese (tsinoy) named Gus, with 3 other Filipinos, start working on a contractual/per diem basis for the foreigner Mike over the internet, and in a few weeks their business is flourishing. The foreigner comes down to the Philippines around 2004 and personally meets the tsinoy. They negotiate how to increase their output and how to enter into a symbiotic business relationship. The foreigner is deeply impressed by the tsinoys humbleness and straight-forwardness. He also meets a few women he met “on line” and decides on one named “marisyl” as being the best choice and enters into a personal relationship with her. A few months pass and there is bliss in their lives. Marisyl then becomes head of the foreigner’s business office in 2005, and the Filipinos have a clash of personalities, for a middle class Filipino, especially a tsinoy, would easily take orders from a foreigner but from a Filipina….. Well, they won’t. Thus a fight ensues between the foreigner and Marisyl, unbeknownst to both that it is this tsinoy Gus who is fanning flames on both sides. The foreigner sides with his tsinoy worker over his girl friend, and a new business office is born. The tsinoy has gained the foreigners total trust by this time. He is given free hand to hire and fire people in the new business office, and to run the day to day affairs of the business in a way that has the least resistance from the foreigner. The tsinoy can make decisions without conferring with the foreigner first. The foreigner trusts this tsinoy so much that eventually when he gets married to a local girl in 2006, named Marissa, his best man is said tsinoy. He even makes this tsinoy Godfather to his only child, a son named Horace, at his Roman Catholic baptismal in 2009. The foreigner gives lavish salaries and bonuses to this tsinoy and his group of chosen people from 2005 to 2011. The tsinoy runs the foreigners business as if it were his own. He and his wife Riza sometimes publicly call said business their own, and because the foreigner never reacts due to his total faith in said tsinoy, people believe their claim. In 2009, the foreigner expands by opening another office in a city 7hrs away by land from the first in a city called Davao. Mike spends money on furnishing and computer equipments and sets up office and a staffhouse in Davao. He puts Gus and his cohorts in full control there too. Soon business is booming. The tsinoy, seeing the viability of both offices, suddenly gets an ambitious idea to start a company to compete with the foreigners company. Thus for more than a year, he, his wife, and his chosen people, in tandem, embezzle as much as they can from the company accounts and finances, billing even personal accounts such as credit cards, personal cellular phone bills, internet bills, restaurant bills and such to the foreigners company expense and bank accounts, all in the guise of corporate expenses. They also start opening bank accounts in the foreigner’s company name, but in which they are the signatories and not the foreigner. To accommodate this they make themselves Board of Directors of the business corporation and convince the foreigner that his name will not be included in the board to save him from any legal duress arising from legal claims and employee suits. All along the foreigner tags along like an unsuspecting child in a Grimm brothers horror fairy tale. The bubble bursts when in 2011 the tsinoy asks the foreigner to pay millions to their uncle who poses as a businessman who allegedly owns all the computers in the foreigner’s offices. The foreigner asks for accounting for he knows all the equipment should already be paid for. The tsinoy pressures Mike to no avail. Mike wants accounting for the last 6 years and is adamant on it. The tsinoy Gus knows the game is up. Thus he rallies his tsinoy family, conspires with his underlings, and raids the foreigner’s offices at an opportune time, trying to get all the main servers and data of the foreigners clients, without which the foreigner can’t operate nor can he collect past due accounts. The foreigner tries to defend himself, but as his lawyer has just left for a month long vacation to Europe, there is not much that he can do. And the tsinoy knew that. For he and his cohorts have planned everything well, from execution of the raid to tactical support in the aftermath. He has already prepared a new office and he transfers all the stolen equipment there. He then sends his underlings, who have been poisoning the minds of the workers working for the foreigner for the past year and a half, and thus have maintained people totally brainwashed to their cause. He uses the age old “oppressed pinoy by an exploiting green-eyed devil foreigner” formula to a great extent, and as all his workers being pinoys, have long fallen for his wily tricks. The tsinoy has also used the same trick on members of the Rotary civic club of which he and the foreigner Mike were members and on local politicians too. He is successful in painting an extremely bad picture of the foreigner. As Mike is not well versed in local customs and ways, he is no match to the wily ways of Gus and his 11 cohorts. The tsinoy has thus taken the foreigners business, by taking his equipment, his accumulated data, his time tested processes, his well trained employees, and all his international clients. He then starts serving said clients as if nothing happened, and sure enough, the clients start paying the tsinoy for past due and due work done, for the tsinoy is the only one now who can deliver work direly needed by the clients due to close business deadlines. All the while the foreigner is trying his best to get his business and his clients back. He reaches a low point for his clients won’t pay him his past due billings of 3 months and in one instance 4 months, for which he had already made payroll. The foreigner now realizes that he has to start afresh and that he has lost his clients and 8 years of painstaking labor to the tsinoy. All the foreigner can do now is file multiple criminal and civil cases and wait for the justice system to grind its wheels slowly towards an end in which the foreigner might not be the victor. All this while the tsinoy Gus will be making money from Mikes clients, procuring Mikes business processes and tools, all this for no investment, be it in capital or in time resources, at all. He can easily pay a battery of lawyers (8 lawyers in this case), and can delay the justice system, for he is making good money from the business that he stole. The ironic thing is that pinoys, educated ones at that, still fall for the brown man vs. white man routine or propaganda, they still think in colonial ways in this modern time and age, and thus swayed, support the wrong elements within the Filipino people, just for the mere fact that the offended party is a white man. What happened to right and wrong? Where is fair play? Are these forgotten terms of the old? Do we start ganging up on all foreigners who try to invest in the Philippines now, even though they try to elevate us from our economic dire straits? Then how can we blame these well wishing foreigners, who go back to their respective countries after getting royally screwed here in the Philippines, from ganging up on pinoys there? Or is this another routine of “I can do to you but you can’t do the same back to me or mine?” We then start labeling these foreigners as tyrants and racist but we don’t seem to realize that we started the buck moving and these foreigners are just passing it forward. Either we start realizing that condoning such thievery has a long lasting effect; where innocent, hard working migrant Filipino workers will suffer for our misdeeds here while they work and toil in foreign lands, or we should all join the club of Gus and his cohorts and steal all the foreign investor’s blind. This way we could alienate our whole race from the outside world and no one would ever invest in or hire pinoys. The choice is ours. So is the shameful outcome of our bad choices.