FINE, DEPORT THIS MAINLAND CHINESE WHO CHEAT THE GOV'T

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

If the Revenue District Office -No. 4 of the Bureau of Internal Revenue under the helm of its chief Ernesto Mangabat and his assistant chief Aldrin Camba immediately acted on my complaint and penalized by P20,000 each of the more than 80 stall and kiosk owners in 2019 in the then newly opened SM Center- Dagupan for operating without issuing an official receipts (O.R) to their customers, I expect RDO- No. 6 Chief Helen Leaño and RDO- No. 6 Assistant Chief Lolita Salayog Chief to sanction Fresh Fruits, a huge Chinese owned suppliers of imported fruits, that does business in Barangay Nancayasan, Urdaneta City in Pangasinan.

I did not only find its Chinese owner rude in shouting to one of its swarming customers who patronized his warehouse that host three giant cold storage but found he did not issue an O.R from the BIR when my wife and I bought our fruits there.

Please see the photo on this article of its unofficial receipt similar to the hundreds of thousands probably it issued to its customers at the expense of the government.

RDO-6 Chief Leaño, that covers the thriving Northern Luzon’s fruit hub’s Urdaneta City, proved me wrong that under your stint countless businessmen like another huge fruits importer’s Harvest in Xentromart not only issue temporary receipts instead of the O.R for our purchase but would not replace the spoiled fruits like Australian oranges and imported grapes to the unwitting customers who discovered them when they arrived to their stores hours away from the place of the seller. Mind you the buyers are not even allowed to inspect the contents of the boxes they purchased thus the brouhahas of the unwelcome replacement of the spoiled procurement.

“Hinde po puweding palitan ang damage kasi malayo ang pinagbilhan din namin,” the importer-owner or staff of Harvest would tell their sorry clients who came from various cities and towns of the mammoth Pangasinan province.

Now, I am calling too the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Pangasinan Director Natalia B. Dalaten, the missus of my friend Regional Trial Court Judge Julius Dalaten, to check this store about the similar complaints of the buyers.

***

Oh by the way, I want to see the documents attesting the legality of these Chinese like the owner of Fresh Fruits, who haphazardly speak Filipino, from the Bureau of Immigration in Dagupan City.

Fresh Fruits is one of the mammoth four warehouses that supplies foreign fruits in Northern Luzon. They compete with those fruit behemoths in Divisoria and other parts of Metro Manila.

What these Mainland Chinese traders are doing aside from allegedly cheating with millions of pesos of taxes our hard pressed government aggravated by the pandemic’s COVID-19, they deprive the legitimate Filipino businessmen of a healthy competition.

Some of these Chinese traders were raided and caught by the law enforcers maintaining illegally a Shabu (illegal drug’s metamphetamine hydrochloride) facility like in Burgos, Pangasinan and fake cigarette factories in Pangasinan and Pampanga provinces like in the villages of Lubao, Villasis (two), Mangaldan, and Bugallon towns in the guise of businessmen running a piggery or feed mill.

***

By the way, what are the penalty and jail time if those business establishment failed to issue an official receipts from the BIR and fool the government through double or multiple receipts?

As provided by the National Internal Revenue Code, it says that “Any person who, being required under Section 237 to issue receipts or sales or commercial invoices, fails or refuses to issue such receipts of invoices, issues receipts or invoices that do not truly reflect and/or contain all the information required to be shown therein, or uses multiple or double receipts or invoices, shall, upon conviction for each act or omission, be punished by a fine of not less than One thousand pesos (P1,000) but not more than Fifty thousand pesos (P50,000) and suffer imprisonment of not less than two (2) years but not more than four (4) years”.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)

PHOTOS: The non-BIR receipt of Fresh Fruits, the facade of its warehouse and its signage in Brgy. Nancayasan, Urdaneta City, Pangasinan.

BIR Region-1 Leads School Online Tax Quiz

 

The Bureau of Internal Revenue – Revenue Region No. 01 spearheaded by Revenue District Office No. 03 San Fernando City, La Union held its 1st Regional Schools Online Tax Quiz last December 10, 2020.

The tilt was participated by 36 student contestants from 19 colleges and universities from all over the four provinces’ Region -1.

The online tax quiz was made possible via Zoom and Kahoot's online platforms that provided automated scoring and tabulation system. It involved not only providing the correct answers but also speed up on how fast a contestant can give the correct answer.

  

WINNERS. The three winners of the First Regional Schools Online Tax Quiz held last December 10, 2020 at the regional office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Calasiao, Pangasinan. Those who garnered the top three of the tilt, from the highest to the lowest, are Rosemarie T. Abrigo from Colegio de Dagupan, Ivan P. de Vera from San Carlos College, and Franz Josef DS. de Guzman from Kingfisher School of Business and Finance.The winners were flanked by top BIR officials in Region-1.  

BIR Region 1 OIC-Regional Director Josephine S. Virtucio, together with Revenue District Officer Charmaine C. de la Torre and Assistant Revenue District Officer Doris G. Rimando, led the awarding ceremonies last December 16, 2020 at the BIR Region 1 Covered Court, in Calasiao, Pangasinan.  
As the tilt became tougher, the chances of all the contestants who were scored by points narrowed to the top three winners.

Those who topped the quiz from the highest to the lowest were Rosemarie T. Abrigo from Colegio de Dagupan, Ivan P. de Vera from San Carlos College, and Franz Josef DS. de Guzman from Kingfisher School of Business and Finance.

Their coaches and schools were likewise recognized and awarded during the ceremony.

 The online tax tilt was the first and only tax quiz conducted by the Bureau for the year 2020 pursuant to the Taxpayer Awareness Program of the BIR. It was also made possible in coordination with the Commission on Higher Education (Region 1) and the National Federation of Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants (JPIA).

Amnesty for Errant Taxpayer is Until December 31 Only - BIR

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

CALASIAO – Taxpayers who do not want to pay the hefty penalties because they failed to pay their taxes in the past years can avail of the Voluntary Assessment Payment Program (VAPP) of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

According to Assistant Revenue District Office-4 Chief Aldrin Camba, the twenty five percent surcharge, twelve percent interest, and the compromise penalties based on the table that commensurate to the debt of the errant taxpayer to the government can now be availed by paying only the five percent meted to a taxpayer of the entire back taxes since 2018.

“Lahat iyon babayaran mo with this program pag mag avail kayo. Iyong tatlong penalty na iyon ang ma wipe out at magiging isa na lang maging five percent of the basic,” he told this writer.

TAX BRASS. From left is Revenue District Office No. 4 Chief Ernesto Mangabat and Assistant RDO-4 Chief Aldrin Camba of the Bureau of Internal Revenue that supervise Central Pangasinan.  

Camba said the voluntary assessment program was implemented through Revenue Regulations No. 21-2020, signed by BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay last September this year and will end on December 31, 2020.

He said that the program can help add for the BIR's target of 2.61 Trillion this year.

The target is lowered by 16.7 percent from the actual revenues of P3.14 trillion last year.

To collect additional revenue at the least administrative cost, the BIR is granting taxpayers the opportunity to pay additional tax, with or without a tax investigation, through VAPP, the Regulation said.

The VAPP covers all internal revenue taxes including those arising from one-time transactions (ONETT) like estate tax, donor’s tax and capital gains tax (CGT) for the calendar year 2018 and fiscal years ending July 31, 2018 up to June 30, 2019.

RDO-4 oversees two cities and 13 towns of Central Pangasinan.

Because of the rampage of the dreaded pandemic Corona Virus Disease-19, its tax collection of almost P5 billion was reduced to P3.5 billion.

ARDO Camba said as of October this year RDO-4 had already exceeded 6% of the P3.5 billion collection mandated to them by the government.

RDO-4 is under the stewardship of RDO-4 Chief Ernesto Mangabat.

 RDO-4 is considered the biggest in terms of collection and premier office of the six RDOs in Region 1. It has a reduced tax goal of P3.5 billion from the P5 billion for year 2020. Mangabat blamed the new target as a result of the sluggish economy due to the rampage of the lethal phantom pandemic.

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

The Infamous S.O.P (Cut) on Gov't Projects

Aunt Ichu Maceda: Pionerring Force Behind Renowned Film Institutions

BY CONG. TOFF DE VENECIA

I just attended a Film Development Council of the Philippines tribute for my beloved aunt, Manay Ichu Maceda.

She was the pioneering force behind such storied film institutions such as the Metro Manila Film Festival, Mowelfund, Film Development Council, Film Academy of the Philippines, Philippine Motion Picture Producers Association, Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, and many others.

Marichu "Manay Ichu" Maceda. Photo Credit: GMA.Network.Com

She produced the critically acclaimed film Batch ‘81, and many other films under Sampaguita Pictures which was a movie outfit which my grandfather Doc Perez started.

Manay Ichu was a gamechanger and was vital to the Philippine movie industry’s sustainability and evolution in its first 100 years.

Emboldened by her fire and her legacy, and as the film industry faces new challenges today amidst the pandemic and digitization, I will endeavor as best I can and in my capacity as a legislator to continue the fight that she started as we transition into the next 100 years of Philippine cinema.

We miss you everyday Manay Ichu.

***

MY THOUGHTS

1. How do we empower our local MSMEs such that we can transition them from cottage industries into becoming globally competitive brands?

2. Where craftsmen are not in short supply in the 4th District of Pangasinan, how do we upskill them to encourage the evolution of more designers?

3. Better yet, how can we encourage the young to continue the good work their forebears have started and then dare to innovate, disrupt, and transform towards creative industry 4.0?

4. While we are in the thick of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, how can we encourage traditional businesses to develop an online presence and use social media to enhance their B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) engagement?

5. More importantly, how do we encourage our MSMEs to be bold, to dream, to explore endless possibilities, and develop the insatiable curiosity, appetite, and drive to see them through?

I Ain’t Only Write, I Sing Too

 

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I relished some pages of the hard bound I bought The Soul of It All (My Music, My Life) that talks about the life story of rock, R&B (Rhythm and Blues), and pop singer Michael Bolton that I kept all the time in my fatigue knapsack. Damn, I whisked out the stuff whenever I was snagged in a dull situation like waiting for my name being called by a teller in a bank or money remittance center.

The only thing I could not fast read it when I was struck with a dull talker hahahaha!

Since I loved to sing and play guitar and hear (since high school) mostly foreign singers, I was glued with interest what Bolton has to say on the following:

“I heard Stevie Wonder perform recently and it’s amazing how the quality and range of his voice are still as strong as ever. His voice is superior on every level – in its range, flexibility, and power. Stevie’s singing also has an ethereal, inspired soulfulness that may be beyond the reach of most mere mortals”.

Photo is internet grab

I agree about what Bolton said.

The song My Cherie Amour I played for the umpteenth times when the blind Stevie Wonder’s belted Lately and My Cherie Amour when he exhorted the crowd in the latter song to sing its introduction or what musician calls in a song book as “intro” and first verse:

La la la la la la
La la la la la la

My cherie amour, lovely as a summer day
My cherie amour, distant as the milky way
My cherie amour, pretty little one that I adore
You're the only girl my heart beats for
How I wish that you were mine

His iconic voice never stop to mesmerize me. Just like the blind Ray Charles weaving vigorously  his head, where both sport a dark sunglasses, while belting “Georgia on My Mind” I played several times after Georgia State in the U.S.A gave us those breathtaking poll counting how between presidential rivals Democrats Sleepy Joe Biden and Sore Loser Donald “The Donald” Trump snare the 16 Electoral College Votes there and where Biden and Trump got a hair thin popular votes of 2,473,633 (49.50% ) and 2,461,854 (49.26% ), respectively.

“Was that song sang by Stevie Wonder?” I asked folk-rock singer Jun Lahi when I dropped by for the second time to the folk-rock bar’s Cuervo Makati in the Red District's Barangay Poblacion, Makati City in October 13, 2017 after he finished belting the scintillating song.

Before he sang it by the way he told the mostly foreign patrons “This song is dedicated for my media friend Mortz Ortigoza of Dagupan City”.

“No, it’s the song of Ray Charles,’ he retorted.

He added: “It’s your time to sing your favorite Desperado (by Eagles)”.

                                                        ***

Let’s go back to Bolton.

“Technically, Stevie is acknowledged to have the greatest range (of voice) of any singer in the history of popular music. His top notes in full voice after well above high C,” he said.

Talking about the “High C”, Bolton said that Italian consummate operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti Cavaliere di Gran Croce was the greatest tenor ever. His power, his magnificence, his tone, and, behind it all, his personality were combined in a way he had never heard elsewhere, even as he studied, as Luciano put it, “the tenor”.

“One of my favorite moments during the performance was the grand finale, when my turn came to step up to the microphone, following Pavarotti, and sing a verse of ‘Nessun Dorma’. He was gesturing to me to take over, very visibly supportive, smiling, and joyful, which helped ease my nerves. At the same time, everything was accelerated and elevated. The tone, power, and perfect control of his phenomenal voice was felt by all my senses, setting the bar as high as it could go for my entrance. The sensation was both inspiring and demanding. The audience was pleasantly surprised when I hit the high note. Just after that Luciano walked behind me and gave a thumbs-up. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the audience reaction, and of course I’ve only replayed that part of the video six or seven -thousand – times”.

Okay ‘nough said. This yokel has to go back to his room and mimic’s Bolton’s How Am I Supposed to Live With Out You where he struggled on the high toned lyrics:

Tell me how am supposed to live without you?
Now that I've been lovin' you so long
How am I supposed to live without you?
And how am I supposed to carry on?
When all that I've been livin' for is gone

Just like the high note’s chorus of Bruno Mar’s Versace on the Floor, this wannabe singer could conquer someday his frustration on those parts of the two songs.

“Just like Bolton hitting those High Cs of Pavarotti’s ‘Nessun Dorma" this writer told himself for the impossibility and incredibility of his illusion to be a singer.

Hinde naman masama ang mangarap. Ang problema lang noong last na kumanta ako sa Mindanao noong na locked down ako, five junkies or narco addicts were arrested by the cops dahil sa kinanta ko hahahaha!

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

Filipino Folk Rock Singers in Makati

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)

FISHERMEN AND THEIR AUDACITY

 

THE AUDACITY of fishermen in Barangay San Isidro Norte in Binmaley, Pangasinan to encroach with their more or less ten wooden boats half of the stretch of the coastal national highway. Mayor Sam Rosario please look at the matter because your village officials have been giving you this nuisance and accident waiting to happen with the riding public. I took the photo at 1 P.M yesterday while I was traversing the area with my car.

Trabaho Para sa mga taga- San Jacinto, San Fabian, at Manaoag

By Pangasinan Fourth District Cong. Toff de Venecia

Tayo po’y nakipagpulong sa ating DTI Provincial Office na pinamumunuan ni DTI Provincial Director Natalie Dalaten upang talakayin ang mga planong programa ng inyong lingkod at ng kanilang ahenysa. Ang mga programang ito ay para sa promote at pag pundar ng mga ibat ibang negosyo sa ating distrito na makatutulong at magugustuhan ng ating mga kabaleyan.

Abangan sa ating page ang mga programang ilulunsad ng aming opisina sa buong kwatro distrito. Tuloy-tuloy ang #SerbisyongSubokNa na hatid ng inyong lingkod mula sa konsultasyon sa iba’t ibang mga ahensya hanggang sa implementasyon ng kanilang mga programa.

Ating pinaunlakan ang imbitasyon ng Philippine Librarians Association, Inc. bilang isa sa mga panauhin sa “Libraries as Catalysts in the New Normal Environment: Changes. Reforms. Transformations.” Dito, tinalakay natin ang kahalagahan ng isang matibay ng library system at kung paano ito nakakaepkto sa ating lipunan at ekonomiya. Nagbigay din tayo ng mga halimbawa sa mga hakbang na ginagawa Kongreso at Senado sa pag address dito katulad na lamang ng digitization ng mga libro sa public schools. Isa lamang ito sa mga natalakay na solusyon sa kinahaharap ng sektor ng edukasyon kaharap ang COVID-19. Kung nais niyong mapanood ang buong diskusyon, narito po ang link ng Day 1 ng PLAI Congress 2020.

Tuloy-tuloy po ang #SerbisyongSubokNa na hatid ng inyong lingkod, hindi lamang sa sektor ng edukasyon kundi pati na rin sa lahat ng adbokasiya na malapit sa ating mga kabaleyan. Maraming salamat po sa inyong walang sawang suporta!

xxx

Kamusta kayo mga kabaleyan? Nagsagawa po tayo ng inspeksyon sa Binday Dam upang makita ang progreso nito sa pagkakakumpleto. Ang rehabilitasyon ng Binday Dam ay ginawa upang makapabigay serbisyo sa higit 1500 na mga magsasaka mula sa San Jacinto, San Fabian at Manaoag.

Tuloy tuloy ang #SerbisyongSubokNa na hatid ng inyong lingkod hindi lamang para sa ating mga manggagawa ng agrikultura, kung hindi para din sa iba pang mga industriya na mayroon ang buong Distrito Kwatro. Maraming salamat sa inyong walang sawang suporta, mga kabaleyan.

Driver Earns P50 a Day to Feed his Family

INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE BECAUSE OF COVID-19

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

The economics’ stocks of these motorized trike drivers turned ugly after the pandemic’s Corona Virus Disease-19 continues to wreck havoc in and out of the country.

I bumped into Manuel “Amboy” Rivera, 35, the guy I interviewed for our newspaper weeks after the lock down in March, how he fared ferrying passengers near a university in Dagupan to any point of the city and her nearby towns’ Mangaldan, Calasiao, and Binmaley.

“It's getting worse, sir” he told me in Pangasinan

 I asked him how much he pays for a day's “boundary” or rent to the owner of the trike, the gas money he spent, and what dough left him for his family’s expenses.

“Say i-iter kod samay operator P150. Say gasolinak isakoy agew et P100. P50 labat lay atilak ed siak (I remitted P150 for the operator. My gasoline expenses for a day was P100. What left for me was P50),” he lamented in Pangasinan.

“P50?! I reacted incredibly.

“Yes sir P50 na lang,” he retorted.

SORRY DRIVERS. Author poses as motorized tricycle driver while flanked by drivers whose look did not betray them to earn a pathetic sum daily because of the scarcity of commuters in Dagupan City due to the bogey of the lethal Corona Virus Disease-19 that continues to rampage globally.

Another tricycle driver Rommel Lazona,4, a migrant from Mindanao, collaborated what Amboy narrated to me.

“Totoo iyan sir. Sa akin P300 gross kita ko. P120 boundary ko sa amo ko pero sa gasolina P100 na may naiwan ako na P80 para sa pamilya ko”.

Doggone it! I could not imagine how the measly fifty or eighty pesos could buy a meal three times a day to feed a downtrodden nuclear family of five.

They said some if not many of their fellow tricycle drivers used to have – pre-COVID time - a net earning (after they deducted their P120- P150 boundary fee to the owner and P100 gas expenses) of P400 to P300 a day.

These fares' heydays ensued when students from Lyceum Northwestern University, Mother Goose (Special Science School), La Sallete, Dominican, La Maria, Edna School, and City National High School teemed by thousands in the streets where they had all the day's servicing them during those school days.

But all of them disappeared in thin air after the government mandated that schools do online and modular learning for their students to avoid being struck by the lethal pandemic.

Aside from the lethargic number of customers patronizing McDonalds - Tapuac and some food chains like the famous Nigerian owned Shawarma nearby, banks like BPI, China Bank and BDO, and money and cargo carriers' Palawan, Cebuana Lhuillier, and LBC the human traffic significantly dwarfed to the magnitude of people that appeared on the streets there before COVID-19 wrought havoc early this year.

“They should be shifting their jobs like working in the construction,” my son Niko butted in when I told the deplorable story of these drivers to my wife Miles.

“But there are no construction jobs available in the city and the nearby towns. Even in Manila jobs are still scarce,” I told Nico.

But Hernan “Balong” Cabunot, 26, my other motorized trike - interviewee last March and May 2020 for our newspaper, told me that the income of each of the more than a dozen of his fellow drivers who parked their vehicles across McDonald fluctuated everyday.

“Depende sa araw. Gaya sa akin P350 kada araw halos akin na lahat iyan kasi ako ang may ari ng tricycle”.

He said if he deducted the P150 a day gas because of the lenght of time picking up passengers. He has P200 a day without worrying about the day’s rent of the vehicle.

He said the lease of the tricycle is P150 to the operator if the driver brings it home after the dusk trip and P100 if he returned it to the owner after the 6 P.M service.

Manuel “Amboy” Rivera and Davao Fruits' employee

Galman Torres in a huddle while both wait

for their customers.

“Before the pandemic I can earn P500 a day net because there were students and other people in the periphery,” he told me in Tagalog.

He cited that some of his fellow trike drivers left the trade for construction sites work in the city and Pangasinan Province because the daily pay there is P400.

“But it is a tough job because you have to labor under the scorching sun and you have to lift heavy loads”.

The drivers told me they envied the 43 years old Galman Torres – the all-around employee of Davao Fruits located just across McDonald.

“Mabuti pa si Galman walang asawa tapos nag sasahod ng arawan ng P400 (Davao Fruits gives him his pay daily not monthly, higher than the P282 minimum wage of 1-9 workers’ business in Region-1, because he spends whatever money in his pocket to booze with friends after store closes at 5:30 P.M)".

 "Kami P80 a day lang ang kita may pamilya pa,” Rommel grudgingly admired Galman – known as perennial drunkard at dusk because of his alcoholism problem.

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

                Drivers Resort to Loan to Avoid Hunger

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)

My Dad Wanna be Horatius at the Bridge

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

My dad almost became a Horatius at the Bridge during the Moro Secession War in the late of the 1970s in Cotabato.

Horatius at the Bridge, what is that?

Publius Horatius Cocles was an officer in the army of the early Roman Republic who famously defended the Pons Sublicius from the invading army of Etruscan King Lars Porsena of Clusium in the late 6th century BC, during the war between Rome and Clusium. By defending the narrow end of the bridge, he and his companions were able to hold off the attacking army long enough to allow other Romans to destroy the bridge behind him, blocking the Etruscans' advance and saving the city (Wikipedia).

War between Rome and Clusium. Horatius in the Bridge. Photo Credit: Alamy.com

Here’s the story why my dad wanna to be Horatius:

“ The first time I saw my military father ready to die for the motherland or probably for my mother, I was in Grade 5 in M’lang, Cotabato Province.

He was then on a soldier’s pass when he brought me and my kindergarten brother Gabriel to a rickety worn out wood walled barbershop which, I still remember, was owned by the father of my playmates Stephen and Toto Felipe.The latter, a rugged boy, had fisticuffs with me, but that’s another story.

When we were seating at the worn-out barber couch elevated by small wood boxes to raise our heads, some peasant women running and shouting with their lungs out that the Black Shirts (precursor of the Moro National Liberation Front) were already at the periphery of the Peñaranda Hospital.

The hospital was more than a kilometer away from us.

Immediately my father told the frail looking barber Mr.Felipe to forego our military white style wall haircut (that I detested because I envied the mop haired Beatles) because he had to secure us and promised to return with his weapon and later with us whose side of the heads were already shaved just like those plebes at the Philippine Military Academy where my siblings and I were born.

When we were at our salunggi (flat bamboo trunk panels) walled and nipa roofed house near the bank of the Mlang River in front of our school Southern Baptist College, I saw my father rushing from his room and running toward the hospital with two hand grenades firmly clasped by his hands that were Vietnam and Word War II vintages.

“Don’t follow me or else I will “palo’ (spank)” you!” he shouted at me as I followed him running.

I stopped for five minutes deciding if I would acquiesce on his order, but I ran again to where he was going.

I wanted to see how he would throw those “frags” and how those Muslim rebels would shout like “fags” and explode to smithereens just like those Japanese soldiers I saw at the Sulo and Paraiso movie houses in the town.

Near the barbershop, I saw my father exasperated and embarrassed with amused matured men and my relative Alex Paulo, who was in Grade 5 then who later turned as ladies’ man, milling around him and looking curiously at his green and rusty colored grenades he held in his hands.

“No, there were no Muslims. They did not attack the hospital but the next town Tulunan,” the long haired father of Alex, who was an RCPI Man, told him in the singsong Ilonggo vernacular.

 But despite that “Radio Puwak (False News, just like the Fake News online), I just realized lately that my father, a Korean War Veteran, was gungho.

With all his reckless bravery, I just realized lately that he could be mowed by the assault rifles of the bad guys as he attempted, son of a gun, to throw those grenades at them.

Where could you find a grenade man rushing to a company of armed trigger happy warriors ready with their rifles’ World War 1 Springfield and World War 2 Garand and Thomson Sub Machine Guns.

***

But my father’s courage could shame the anecdote of a police general who told us media men, over bottles of beer, in Pangasinan about his exploit, when he was a captain, with armed communist rebels in the Quezon Province.

He told us that when a police substation were peppered with bullets by the New People Army and killed those cops assigned there, somebody frantically flagged his owner-type jeep.

His driver immediately revved the jeep for 100 kilometers per hour (KPH) speed so they could catch and shoot those rebels.

But the captain, a graduate of the elite Philippine Military Academy, was not amused by the bravado of the sergeant.

“I chided him. I told my driver to drive 40 KPH.

When the driver posed why 40 and not 100 where the latter speed could overtake the rebels on their dilapidated jeep, the captain explained to him:

“The 100 KPH would surely make us catch them. But we would surely die there because we are two and they are superior in number”.

“Do you want to die?” he barked at his sergeant.

“No sir!,”the sergeant shouted back and saluted, that nearly made the jeep bumped a huge acacia tree, with gratitude and with a new found wisdom called “common sense”.

(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN

THE GENERAL WHO SAVED MINDANAO