Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

Into the Labyrinth of the Philippine Tax System

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What’s scarier than a Red Bull overdosed zombie? It’s a Red Bull overdosed Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares. The lady is an absolute maniac— er— machine; running after tax evaders, left, right, in, on, over and under; utilizing the full extent of the law to squeeze the last cent from every taxable entity. From what I’ve heard, that includes the dead and people who just happen to accidentally come across money lying on the street. I wouldn’t be surprised if she manages to uncover some obscure legal basis for taxing animals, inanimate objects and fictional characters.

Starring Kim Henares

Do consider though, she’s just doing her job and within legal boundaries, which is exactly what we demand from other government officials moonlighting as clowns/thieves/scoundrels. Personally, I’m not the type who complains about things I can’t change and taxes are as inevitable as stress in a call center.

Acceptance for the tax man’s job however, does not mean I take great pleasure in paying taxes. I would equate the experience to having to run a marathon in five inch stilettos, doable but painful and frustrating, and it’s not because of the maddeningly high figures taxpayers have to pay. The real reasons why I am regularly visited by nightmarish visions of a nude Henares atop Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball are the convoluted payments systems and the knowledge of where my payments go.

Tax payment systems here are a labyrinth of epic proportions. You will get lost. You will weep and pull your hair. There will be a lot of BIR personnel to ask information from but they’ve all majored in ancient languages and will insist on explaining what you need to do in Latin.

Just when you’ve begun to learn the when, where, how and why of it all; they’ll add levels of difficulties in the form of new regulations, policies and requirements so that you will once again start rocking back and forth, dazed, confused and a shadow of your former self. Cases in point are this year’s new rules on receipts and withholding taxes, non compliance with which will probably land businesses and professionals directly in front of Henares’ ball(s).

For Kim, nearly everything is taxable. Photo from Pesos and Sense.

Despite all this soul crushing convolution, I would still have happily complied if I knew my money was put to good public use. As matters stand however, mine is compliance minus the happiness. There is simply no joy in knowing I’m paying for some politician’s daughter’s Hermes collection while many of my fellow Filipinos who should be benefiting from my taxes wallow in hell on earth.

I’d imagine that because our taxes aren’t going where they should, Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua might just be enjoying better food, water and living conditions than many Filipinos. Heck, the lucky dog might even be receiving better education.

It’s almost Christmas. Why am I thinking like this? I should be thinking of less distressing thoughts like the prospect of walking into a lion’s den or falling into a snake pit, but there are no holidays for the tax lady. Already we’re preparing new accounting books and papers for next year’s labyrinth.

Merry Christmas to you too Kim.

Janet Napoles Says Nothing at all at the Senate Hearing

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Janet Napoles should get a Guinness record for most evasive maneuvers in a senate hearing. No amount of prodding, imploring and veiled begging could cure Napoles’ severely impaired memory in relation to the ten billion Pork Barrel scam.

You could have gotten more juice out of a raisin than information out of Napoles

The senators employed a variety of interrogation strategies. To paraphrase and recap some of the more notable ones:

  • Santiago’s strategy: You poor little thing. Let me help you. Here are your legal options. Now tell the truth before the mastermind, whose initials by the way are JPE, assassinates you. Take revenge while you’re still alive. (Patayin sa Sindak si Barbara Janet)
  • Escudero’s strategy: I’ve read and watched every single interview you’ve given to the media. I know everything, including what you did last summer, so don’t lie to me. (Big Brother ang peg)
  • Poe’s strategy: The all merciful God will forgive you, so tell the truth. (To the tune of: Ipagpatawad Mo)
  • Cayetano’s strategy: Can you please implicate the people who have wronged me? (To the tune of Nanggigigil Kami)
Image from 8list.ph

To all these, Napoles repeatedly replied:

  • I don’t know (Hindi ko alam)
  • That’s not true
  • I can’t remember
  • I invoke my right

Reminds me of pop songs. Repeat four lines of lyrics for two minutes until fade, but imagine listening to the same four lines for six hours! And after all that, what did the senators gain?

Nothing.

The hearing was not intended to establish the guilt or innocence of Napoles and others allegedly involved in the scam. It was supposed to have been conducted in aid of legislation so that the senators could craft better laws to prevent future similar scams. I can’t imagine now what kind of legislation they can form out of that session. Maybe they can pass a law that will make the statement “I invoke my right” illegal in senate hearings if the invoker can’t pronounce self-in-cri-mi-na-tion along with it.

Napoles making her cheat sheet before the senate hearing.

But come on, we’d be kidding ourselves if we think the senators were thinking of legislative work when they questioned Napoles. You could see from the way some of them ground their teeth to dust in frustration that what they were after was a confession from her and for her to name names, but Napoles did not crack.

If anything, she may have been successful at showing she needed more serious medical attention. She may have been lobotomized and is suffering from severe amnesia or she may have become delusional, creating a fantasy world for herself. In her insane, upside down world she thinks:

  • scams are fairy tales;
  • thieving senators deserve tea and sympathy; and
  • people with 7 cars and 3 houses (daw) like herself are considered not rich

Now that we’ve wasted six hours of our lives listening to Napoles’ ala pop song chorus reply, what are we to expect next? They say the senate might call Napoles or her husband back in for another round of questioning. My tip to Napoles: She should study and adopt Pinocchio’s method of evading questions which he demonstrated in the movie Shrek. Those who have tried his technique swear that it’s guaranteed to prevent noses from growing while lying.

Watch the senate hearing replay here:

Finally Found the One

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My parents are pretty cool, if only because, growing up, they could hardly care less if I brought home an academic medal or guavas. So while other kids had to endure advanced classes in some seemingly esoteric subject; maintain grades achievable only by those close to insanity; learn 99 ways to pain through ballet and karate; and master a foreign language, I was in the backyard making mud pies and getting acquainted with primitive organisms in pools of rainwater. In short, I enjoyed being a kid. It wasn’t until college that I was advised to do my best.

Twenty years from now, nobody will care how many ribbons you got in pre school

Of course I know the importance of training kids to aim for academic excellence. It develops confidence and instills discipline. I do believe in encouraging kids to do better in school, but only if kids really want to and not just because their parents desire it with a violence bordering on criminal, in which case, the parents, not their kids, should be standing on the school stage with medals round their necks.

Most importantly, I think the pursuit of good grades should not be made at the expense of values formation. When kids are made to feel that they must achieve something by hook or by crook, there’s a 50% chance they’ll turn into crooks. If they aren’t taught to achieve goals legitimately and honorably, they will be swine in the making, heirs to Janet Napoles and Mark Solis.

My friends joke that I secretly like to collect school uniforms because I’ve moved my child to three different schools already. Her two previous schools focused more on developing the mental abilities of students to the point of developing telepathy than on stressing the importance of honest, hard work.

I think I’ve finally found the one though. A small indication of this is the Models of Honesty list, of which my kid is a part of, on the school bulletin board where normally, other schools display top ten lists. Side story: Yes, my daughter is in that list because she is super honest. She never fails to tell me in public how fat I am and how much I need to exercise.

To be clear, I’m not saying I’m leaving values training to the school. I’m saying I want my kid to be in a school where its values are aligned with mine so that training is consistent even when I’m not looking.

I just hope we can afford this school long term. Apparently, charity is not one of their values.

No Fifty Shades of Grey Here Except if it’s Television

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One book that will never find its way to my bookshelf is Fifty Shades of Grey. For the record, I haven’t read it, but of course I’ve heard what it’s about. My husband though hasn’t. He actually thought the book had something to do with the history of black and white television. Just so you know, he’s from earth, but mentally he lives in Mars sometimes.

The real 50 shades of grey.

When I posted my husband’s quip online, some of my friends got even funnier, mixing creativity, cluelessness and critique.

Rex: I’m afraid that what he’ll be reading is a story about two people getting creative on top of a black and white TV while using the antenna as a whip.

Nikki: I actually thought it was an x-ray book.

Edu: I thought it’s a book for color matching.

Me: Is the writing style in the same level as (as bad as) Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown?

Rocky: It’s not even Dan Brown… It’s (like) a 17 year old girl writing fanfic.

That last comment from Rocky got me wondering, if there’s nothing outstanding about the writing style and there’s nothing special about it, why is the book selling like potato chips? Don’t people know there’s a great deal of this stuff for free online? Fancy some tentacles, pogo sticks or creatures from outer space? The internet has got all that covered and more by fan fiction or fantasy writers ranging from 17 years old to forgotten years old.

The ready availability of such unusual reading materials online however, is not the reason why I feel I don’t need or want Fifty Shades in my collection. Just as they say, “You are what you eat,” I believe, “You write what you read.”

I don’t mean you should Sotto copy or do the Solis. I mean if you read multiple books from a certain genre or author, you imbibe part of the vibe and style. Try this. Read 19th century Russian literature for two weeks. After that I’ll wager, you’ll start writing such brooding stories your mother will call a psychiatrist for you.

If I read Fifty Shades, I might start inserting whips and leather boots in my clients’ blog posts.

Top Five Challenges Online Workers Face

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Some people seem to think I have it easy. I work in my pajamas and I don’t have to squeeze into a sardine can of a jeepney to get to work. I also have mostly great clients who pay on time and I never have to participate in those blasted company parties where song and dance numbers are mandatory.

Not as easy as you think.

It’s not quite accurate to think though that my life is a breeze and that online work is chicken pie ala mode. I’ve been on both sides of the employment fence and I know that online work can be as much a cause of temporary insanity as an office cubicle.

Place yourself in the shoes of a would be online worker. Here are five very real challenges you might have to face:

1. No Work, No Pay

Online, there is no Department of Labor that’ll ensure workers are paid during holidays, maternity leave and sick leave. A good, regular boss might give you some of that but the default setting is no work, no pay.

In some cases, clients may even require the installation of time trackers so that more than five minutes of not typing, moving your mouse or staring at the right website will be recorded as time not worked.

Can you hear Sting singing, “Every breath you take… I’ll be watching you”?

2. Extra Fat

Years of working in a sitting position can give your belly fat and thigh cellulite lives of their own and they’ll start reproducing faster than rabbits. Exercise you say? If you choose to work 12 to 14 hour shifts of brain draining technical work due to economic reasons, all you’ll want to do after is to sleep. That’ll only make things worse for you. After maybe 7 years of online work, you’ll be unable to feel your legs.

3. Bosses from Outer Space

Again, I’ve been lucky to have great clients but who says online workers never have bosses/clients who spit fire. Some even spew toxic chemical substances and shrapnel. The worst of them will have come from seemingly distant planets such that no matter what you do, you will never be able to decode what they want but somehow it’ll still be your fault.

A number of these out of these world bosses also follow different calendars in their places of origin so your pay will never be on time.

Trying to figure out the inside of a client’s brain.

4. Legal Mumbo Jumbo

Want to stay in the right side of the law? You’ve got to get registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Good luck with that. You’ll probably need that Da Vinci Code guy to help you figure out what you need exactly to get your papers and payments right. The system is so complicated, it’ll pass as script for an overdrawn prime time drama, one that’ll reduce you to tears.

5. Little to No Socialization

Because every minute spent online is 100% unadulterated work, there will be no water cooler breaks, small chitchats or company parties. You’ll forget what people are and in the rare instances when you’ll be able to go out in the mornings, you’ll even start wondering what that bright, shiny disk up in the sky is.

Yes, I’m exaggerating. Be mindful that this is a humor blog, but you know what I mean. Extroverted people will writhe in pain when they realize they only have their reflections on the computer monitor to talk to.

I don’t mean to show only the negative side of working online. As I said, I’m grateful for this kind of work, but this is in answer to those who think my world is easy and that I’m not entitled to complain sometimes or feel tired.
 

Ten Billion Pork Barrel Scam – The Never Ending Story Again

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A couple of days ago, we were all on the lookout for Janet Napoles. Well, she has finally surfaced. Which lines do you think President Aquino sang the night she surrendered?

a. Betcha by golly wow, you’re the one that I’d been waiting for forever; OR
b. Thank God I found you. I was lost without you; OR
c. The search is over, you were with me all the while

Looking at Napoles’ surrender photo however (or is that her official Instagram look up photo), could she have had an entirely different song in mind?

Lord, patawad (God forgive me)
 

Is she going to sing Lord, Patawad, or is this just her Instagram look up photo?
Original photo by Rodolfo Manabat.

Which brings us to the question: Will it all soon be over when the fat lady sings? Hardly. We’ve only just begun. She faces charges for the illegal detention of the pork barrel scam whistleblower, Benhur Luy. She has yet to face charges for allegedly stealing our money. She has yet to expose the congressmen and senators involved in all this and then these legally sanctioned hoodlums have yet to face the gallows.

At the rate we’re going, I have a higher chance of being crowned the queen of England than seeing this issue resolved in this century. Just like so many other political scandals that have unfolded before us, this one might just become the latest instalment to The Never Ending Story, following these yet unresolved cases: the Jose Pidal account, the NBN-ZTE deal, the fertilizer fund scam and the AFP corruption scandal.

In the meantime, as the story unfolds, we all wonder if Napoles will be the next Philippine Top Model in a wheelchair? Every high profile individual who has been suspected of corruption has used the wheelchair strategy before.

Our only real hope is for the Filipino people to never forget the injustice done to us but we all know Filipinos have a combined memory the size of a peanut. Tomorrow, will we forget that our lawmakers stole our money and go back to regular programming? It’ll be an easy switch from the heightened awareness channel back to the mind-numbing telenovela channel where our collective intelligence is frequently stolen in installments as well.

Ten Billion Peso Pork Barrel Scam Chapter 2 – Finding Janet Napoles

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My parents once offered me advice on how to get rich.

Mom’s tip: Start your own school.
Dad’s tip: Start your own religion.

Napoles in her “wanted” photo

Now that I’ve grown in wisdom and sarcasm, I’ve got my own piece of advice for would be millionaires: Start your own fake non government organization (NGO).

Clearly, I got my irreverent streak from my dad, but I’m really only half joking. After all, that is supposedly how Janet Napoles made her billions.

Napoles allegedly created fake NGOs that each became the recipient of a number of law makers’ Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF/pork barrel), then purportedly split the funds between herself and the Legion of Doom in senate and congress. Thus was born by covert caesarian section, the 10 billion peso pork barrel scam.

Tagle: Send them to the slums
(photo by Baltazar)

It’s in instances like this when I feel the pain of paying taxes most acutely. I pay with my blood, sweat, tears and sanity every year, only to find out that other people are living la vida loca with my taxes.

                                        * * * * * * *

Like me and countless other taxpayers and citizens, Cardinal Tagle is also heart broken over this. He suggests that those involved in the controversy should immerse themselves among informal settlers so they’ll see for themselves how the poor live. I’ve got an even better suggestion. For those found guilty, their penalty should be permanent immersion.

                                                                      * * * * * * *

As of this writing, Napoles is apparently in hiding and the authorities are hot on her heels with a warrant of arrest in relation to the illegal detention case of scam whistleblower Benhur Luy. The PNP has joined the NBI in the chase. In my city, the police might be looking for her underground.

Police 250 meters… underground? Are they looking for Napoles there?

                                                                       * * * * * * * 
While we all wait, I suggest movie producers take this chance to revive the action/suspense movie genre and produce a film based on recent events. Since our movies are notorious for having total title rip offs, this movie’s title options should be promising:

1. Catch Me If You Can (cameo by Leonardo DiCaprio OR Cesar Mancao)
2. Where’s Wally Janet?
3. Finding Nemo Janet (cameo by Nemo in a fishbowl)
4. Nasaan Ka, Elisa Janet? 
5. The Untold Story: Pork Barrel Scam – God Have Mercy On Us (by Carlo Caparas)

Yes, I excel in making fun of heartbreaking news but if you want to experience depression, go ahead and read these news articles for the story so far:

Pork Barrel Scam: A Billion a Year
What Made Cardinal Tagle Cry
PNP Joins the Hunt for Napoles

The Incredible Slug at Janette Toral’s Digital Influencer Bootcamp

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Last week, I bought a ticket to the Wolverine premiere and that got me thinking, if I were a superhero named after an animal, I would probably be The Incredible Slug. Without a doubt, I would petrify my enemies with my sedentary lifestyle.

The ticket that got me thinking.

This is hardly an exaggeration. I sit eight to ten hours a day in front of the computer watching my life pass me by… er… I meant, optimizing other people’s websites for search engines. In Internet lingo that’s SEO. It involves so much sitting that there are days my butt muscles hurt. I’ve begun to think I should get my bum insured because it’s obviously the most overworked part of my body.

I’ve been over using my behind for five years now, but lately I’ve been thinking, unless I want the fat in it and in my tummy to grow and start cascading around me like the folds of a ball gown, I need to plan for a career that’ll involve fewer hours of sitting. Besides, if I stayed in SEO for good, what kind of stories would I tell my grandkids one day?

You know what kids, when I was a young lady, I was living the dream, I stared at thousands of backlinks every day while patiently cultivating my internal fat farm.

I don’t mean to leave the online world entirely. There’s always the option to earn passive income or hire other incredible slugs to do the sedentary work for me. Also, I have moderate and completely legal ambitions. I don’t plan to become the country’s president like Manny Pacquiao or the maker of imaginary friends in need like Janet Napoles (allegedly). I just want to be the master of my own home work cubicle and my loyal constituents, the dust particles on my desk.

So over the weekend, I attended Janette Toral’s live Digital Influencer Bootcamp in the hopes of picking up a few tips on how to become my own boss. I like learning from Toral because she is an expert of guru proportions without the ego to match and she never holds back.

Eye bags contest with Janette Toral

True enough, she took us through everything an online entrepreneur needs to know from evaluating one’s passions, goals and personal business model to outlining legal requirements, SEO strategies and modes of social media promotion.

At the end of the day, I must admit, I was in a bit of a daze, as if I’d eaten a bucketful of food seasoning. My blogger pal, Carlo summed up what I felt when he said he needed Simeco for the brain. The mild mental indigestion was well worth it though because the bootcamp drove home what I really need to do first, that is, identify what I truly want to do online.

Carlo has an advantage over me because he knows where he wants to go and only needs to review the strategies Toral taught to make a headway. I, on the other hand, am totally clueless, so I shall have to remain an incredible slug until I figure out this first crucial step.

If you want to take the journey to becoming a digital influencer too, you can check out Toral’s online bootcamp and if you already know what you want to do, you’ll only need half a dosage of Simeco.

Top Five Mom Upgrades I Wish I Had

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I’ve lost my nanny.

To full time working moms with kids this translates to the end of time — as in never having enough time for almost everything. Brushing one’s teeth and bathing must now be considered luxuries.

This explains why I’ve missed giving my opinion about various developments:

  • Vice Ganda stuffing his hoof in his mouth with his r*pe joke
  • Charice transforming from a butterfly into a happy caterpillar
  • Pol Medina Jr.’s unceremonious exit from the Inquirer and his near fatal allergic reaction to nuns
  • Congressman Benjo Benaldo’s gunshot wound on the chest and that new song playing in the airwaves, Straight Through the Lung

It’s all well and good that I didn’t have the time to write about these incidents. Only Medina would have welcomed being made fun of. If I joked about the other three incidents, I would probably get tomatoes and eggs thrown at me on Facebook. Not a bad way to make omelet really, if I didn’t have to wipe the ingredients off my face first.

So what should the rest of this post be all about now? How about top five mom upgrades I wish I had so I can have more time and energy to write sarcastic humor even without a nanny.

#5. An External Brain – Just like an external hard drive. So I can have enough mental room to swirl ideas for hundreds of web articles while never forgetting immunization schedules, PTA meetings, kids’ school projects (that only parents can really make) and my kids’ names of course.

#4. An Extra Eye – I need one that can extend and retract so I can send it downstairs while I work on my articles upstairs. It should have a nicely arched frowning eyebrow so the kids know it’s time to stop fighting over who gets the last cookie.

#3. Four Arms – I know a mom who can juggle babies and bales of fish while hanging on for dear life inside possessed jeepneys. My arms though, just aren’t as strong. I need an extra two so the two I have now don’t have to go into the intensive care unit.

#2. Lithium Batteries – I need these because all this stress has made me perpetually sleepy. I’m always so sleepy I can sleep anywhere — in jeepneys, restaurants, movie houses, heck, I bet I can even fall asleep in a roller coaster. My husband says if he could paint me black and orange using Photoshop I’d look exactly like Garfield — fat and always sleepy.

sleeping cat

#1. Patience on IV Drip – Is this all really going to last 20 more years? If only I can order extra patience as easily as I can order extra rice.

If you’re a busy mom or dad too, what parent upgrades do you wish you had?

Manila – The Gates of Hell

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Manila the Gates of Hell
Manila the Gates of Hell. From Mr. Lagasca’s Facebook page.

I don’t like Dan Brown’s books. I once made the unwise decision of reading one. It left me feeling as if I had lost parts of my brain and my intelligence had been stolen. His writing style is bloated and repetitive and his logic is flawed. I vowed never to read any of his novels again for fear I would lose my ability to construct even simple sentences.

Recently however, despite my resolve to stay away from Brown’s mental junk food, I felt I had to read two pages of his new book, Inferno. If you haven’t heard the news yet, the current uproar among some residents of Manila is “sponsored” by Brown.

In Inferno, he described Manila as having,

“…six-hour traffic jams, suffocating pollution and a horrifying sex trade…”

He then placed his female protagonist in the midst of it all,

“All around her the wails of crying babies and the stench of human excrement hung in the air. I’ve run through the gates of hell.”

Tolentino's letter to Dan Brown
Tolentino’s letter to Dan Brown

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the Filipinos’ inability to take anything negative kicked in. Sure enough, no less than MMDA chief Francis Tolentino expressed in a letter to Brown that he was “greatly disappointed”, arguing that Manila was instead “an entry to heaven”.

I find both Brown’s and Tolentino’s metaphors faulty.

A gate is simply an entry way. If conditions are already awful at the gate, everything must be worse inside. In Manila, what can possibly be worse than what he described? Oh, I know. Perhaps being stuck in a car stuck in traffic with five people farting simultaneously is worse? How about the punishment of life imprisonment in Bilibid with mandatory eight-hour daily readings of Brown’s books?

Obviously though, Tolentino’s impression of Manila is more skewed. He needs his eyes, ears and nose checked. He must have lost his senses due to frequent exposure to the streets of Manila. If we were to redefine heaven according to Tolentino, it would be a lot like hell, only better perhaps because our twisted understanding of what is heavenly includes seeing a lot of people going to church and thinking reproductive health is sinful.

I’d like to think Manila is neither heaven nor hell. To me, it’s just the armpits of despair, needing truckloads of deodorant and political will to sanitize.

Regardless of what anyone thinks though, what’s more important is what we realize. Unless we see Manila for what it truly is, there’s no fixing it.