I got this email a few days ago. Not even half way reading it I knew it was a scam. I was getting ready to delete it, but thought in a few minutes it’s a good topic to write here. Having said that, how many people do you think will help this girl out?

Here’s the email:

***I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, my family and I came down here to (Buckingham shire) United Kingdom for a short vacation,unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed all cash,credit card and mobile phone were stolen off us but luckily we still have our passports with us. We’ve been to the Embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping issues at all the bad news is our flight will be leaving in less than 8-hrs from now but we’re having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won’t let us leave until we settle the bills.  Am freaked out at the moment! I’ll need your help (LOAN) financially of 2,500 Pounds. I promise to make the refund once we get back home. Please let me know if you can help and i need you to keep checking your email because it’s the only way i can reach you. Regards, Annie ***

Scam? I think so!

I was thinking, out of how many people this person was sending this message to. Do you think one of them tried to help her out? As you know, being human the feeling sorry for these people kicks in. Really, if they sent out these email to the old folks, they will believed in it. Maybe some of them will send some money. As you know sometimes on the spam some emails that goes to your account half of it the names were of your friends. The older folks will really believed that its their friends that are in need and will help out. Little did they know that they are scammed already. Problem is some of them will even give their credit card number or bank account number and they end up with zero balance on their account. Sad but could happen though.

It really reminds me of the scam letters those Nigerian people were sending a few years back. It was even on the news and one of  those night time shows like 20/20, Prime Time or  others. It was a big scamm then. I think this is the new thing now. They will email you and ask you personally. Gosh, I was hit by one of those before. At first i thought it’s one of our readers here. That one she said she’s stuck in the Middle East and  can’t get out until she pays the said amount of money. The name was so familiar because she’s my friend on one of those friendly sites. Later she found out that someone’s using her name and she makes a big post that it was not her. I believed her because she’s not that type of person.

Dear Friend, I want to scam you!

Right now something similar like these were going on here in the Philippines. The certain number will text you and asking you to send load to their number.  And they want high denomination like 300pesos or more, they will even say that they had an accident and they want to talk to you. Hmm, they will get load from you and also get lots of your information and can even get to your bank account. I’m pretty sure they know how to talk you out of giving your money to them. Another scam here, a certain number will text you and they will say that you won a lottery on certain company. And have to call them before you claim the price. I know for sure if you won something from some company, definitely they will be the one to call you.

It must be a big money making thing. People somehow giving money or else this thing will not continue on. It’s sad that most of the people that will be falling for these kind of scammed were the elderly. They will be wipe out with their savings and end up with nothing.

So with the active internet scamming right now, be very careful on who you are dealing with. Just a reminder you guys.

Cheers!

I was helping my niece take care of some orders on one of our site. We were packing the packages that would be shipped out after our flower guy comes here to our house to deliver the arranged flowers. It was just a simple and regular day for us. Packed the package good in the box and taped it good as well. One of the boxes that we prepared would be a box for an arranged flowers with a vase securely taped inside the box. So while we are waiting for our flower guy, me and my niece were chatting a little bit with the helpers. They really got curious on all the stuff that we were doing. They said they didn’t see flowers yet being shipped out inside the box. Like watching them, they could never believe it. So me and my niece Glenda just told them to wait and see.

Floral Arrangement

Like less than half an hour later our flower arranger guy showed up with a few bouquets of flowers in his hand. Seeing the looks of my helpers confirmed it what they were telling us. When Glenda was holding the bouquets, they asked our flower guy that if the flowers were real flowers? Our flower guy told them that yeah it’s really real. They argued with him that it’s not. So my flower guy took 2 petals and gave each one to both of them and he cut it in front of them using his fingers. Still they didn’t believe him. I had to tell them, for them to believe it. They thought to have the arrangement that my flower guy did, it had to be fake flowers to do it. They never really realized before that nice arrangement can be done with real flowers. Just like what one of my helper comment she saw lots of the flowers in their neighborhood but never in her mind that the real flower arrangement could be that beautiful. See, she lived in Bukidnon with lots of flowers and vegetables growing. It’s really cute that they are so innocent and still learning. It’s fun to be teaching them. Really both my helpers were not so exposed in the city. My helper that came form Bukidnon lived near Father Franco, the Italian priest that we knew in BUDA that has big farm there. He grew all the stuff that they ate there including rabbits. I tasted rabbit for the first there at Father’s place. I will tell you more about it on my blog.

My other helper, she’s from Sarangani Province. She’s half Bla’an and half Ilonga. It’s fun listening to her when she’s talking to her family. I guess by listening to her I miss my childhood classmates in the farm. I had many Bla’an classmates during my grade school days. It really brought back memory lane for me. Her place that she’s from, some of my family resides in that area too. So it was fun knowing my helpers.

Here at the house, the 2 of them had so much fun learning their firsts here. First time seeing the fancy washing machine, the microwave oven, the kitchenaide mixer, bread machine, really lots of my gadgets in my kitchen and also seeing the different ingredients and spices they saw for the first time here at my house. Of course first time seeing some of the menu that I cooked here and tasted it too first time. Both of them wants to go to school later. Both of them were high school graduates. So that’s easier for them to enroll for college even just a few units per semester, or the weekend class here.

Same as always, I am hoping for the best for these girls. Like I told them always I would not want for them to be maid forever. They really need to finish up their studies and try to get a job of the field they were choosing. They still are young. Big things will come their way if they work really hard and aim what they want in life. Hopefully they will not get married this early and be sorry later. When Bob and I went outside the city proper a few weeks ago, I’ve seen and talked to young girls regretted of marrying at the early age and had kids early. They were sorry that they didn’t finish school and did not enjoy life. So I hope my helpers will not go to that path too.

Have a great day everyone!

I’ve been going to the market every weekend lately. Really ever since our wash lady quit working due to she has to take care of her grand child. Before she quit she used to go to Bankerohan almost everyday. As you know to get the fresh fish and the veggies. But since she quit we don’t have many people here in the house that go to the market everyday. So me and my niece go to the market with the maids every weekend, to buy our veggie and meat supply for the whole week. Sometimes we go there early Saturday or early Sunday morning. It really depends on when we wake up early.

Two consecutive weekends ago Aaron went with us. It is much easier to have male companion to go there, at least somebody will carry the heavier stuff. The kids are not really a fan of going there. As you know the wet market in the Philippines has the tendency to have some smelly odors. But he had been kind enough to accompany me, my niece and maid to the market. What he does was just put his cell phone with MP3 on and just didn’t worry a thing and just follow me there where ever I shop. We went to the Bagsakan area (where they drop off fresh veggies from the mountains) for our veggies. It really is fresh. Just came from Bukidnon area. We like to buy the big potatoes (hmm not as big as Idaho potatoes though), onions (red & white) good for onion rings, beans, celery, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, green onions, and many others.

Veggies at the Market

One time when we went to buy the onions. The table/stall was loaded with people. When time for me to have my onions be weighed, the sales lady asked me if Aaron was a mestizo (Fil-Am) I answered her yeah. I could tell she had a sparkle on her eye. I guess she kept staring at Aaron the whole time when we were at her stall, and continued on when we moved to other stalls. I didn’t tell Aaron that he had an admirer there, he might not go with us there again. Really when we went to the veggie section, meat section or the fish and the fruit section some people were looking at him. I just not make a big deal out of it because knowing Aaron he will not go back there again if I said something. I like it when he goes with us, it is easier for me to roam around with the lighter load in my hand and he had the heavier one.

At the Market

It’s really nice to go there so early in the morning. Almost everything that’s being sold there is so fresh. Now we like to buy the meat like the beef tenderloin. It’s way cheaper there than the supermarket. I bought just a small amount last week of the tenderloin, I aged the meat in the fridge for 4 days, I cooked it after 4 days and the meat was really super tender and just so good. Slowly I will try other cuts of meat from there and just age the meat at our fridge. My niece also bought other cuts of meats from beef and pork for Filipino soups thing. It taste good too.

One place that we usually go there too was a place for Filipino delicacy (kakanin-snacks). They make good snacks food there. It’s really a family business. They only sell the snacks during weekends. The dad told us that his son cooks all the foods, so him and his daughter were the one selling it. It really helps out for the schooling of his kids he said. I think they also owned farm lands. I like to buy there to support them. Last week the son that cook all the foods was there. We were talking to him a little bit, the whole family seem nice people. I have to see next time we go there if they had a sign/name at their stall. I didn’t notice it though. I must have overlooked.

We also bought a whole tray of good sized eggs there with the lesser price of the egg we bought here at our sari-sari store. Since we like to bake and use a lot of eggs here in our house, it’s wiser for us to buy eggs there at the market. We already had a suki (place to buy a lot) there. They already know what eggs we want to buy. We also like to buy a good kind of rice there as well.

Its really is fun to go to the market. Lots of good stuff to see and lots of new people to mingle with. I might bump with one of you there too.

Happy shopping!

Wow, we got our big shocking earthquake a few nights back. My God,  felt that it would never end. It was really scary. I’ve been experiencing earthquake here and abroad, but never felt like forever until the other night. It’s one of the unforgettable experiences for us here. Just by looking at the faces at the people at my house, we had one thing in common “very scared”.

Because of the intensity of the quake, we decided to try to watch on our TV stations here in the Philippines. My goodness we didn’t see any breaking news from our local TV stations or the stations from Manila. Are you kidding me? Did you know where we got some of the warnings and the size of the quake? Of course from the cable news channels abroad like CNN, BBC, FOX NEWS, AL-JAZEERA, NEW ASIA, BLOOMBERG. Can you imagine no cable news channel from the Philippines takes the news on air minutes after the quake? We have ANC and other news network that are similar to CNN here. But unfortunately they still continue on with their regular programming. Solar TV get live maybe like 45 minutes after. I was even turning on our local radio FM and AM. No live feed from them either.

Earthquake shakes the Philippines

So it got us thinking, is it because the event was outside Manila. Is that why the cable news station in Manila didn’t make any effort to feature the event? It was really frustrating that you have to know from abroad of what’s going here in our country. Like a lot of people were really tuning on to see what was the announcement from PhilVocs, is there a tsunami on the way? We saw on CNN and other cable news abroad giving a tsunami warning. It would be nice to see our very own TVstations (local & cable channel) here in the Philippines featuring people from PhilVocs and have their advice relay to people. Some people say that you can see it on Twitter of what’s going on, hey the people in the mountain don’t have twitter account and cable news channel. They just rely on our local TV and radio stations here.

Just like when they had that tsunami warning. I told my family in GenSan right away. So they were up just to make sure. Those neighbors that don’t have the access to any information just went on to sleep and just didn’t think of any danger. Well, it turned out that the tsunami warning was lifted like an hour or so after the quake. But still, what if there was really a tsunami and people didn’t know about it because no TV and radio coverage from the local stations. Many people might die then. Really its annoying to know that everything will be decided by the Manila office even the event were outside there. As everything goes here in the Philippines all the stuff had the decision of the Manila office or something.

Earthquake damage in the Philippines

I think I’m not the only one that’s frustrated about it.  I saw all of those frustrations too from some of my friends on their walls on Facebook. We have the same thoughts, when something happened in Manila the stations there feature everything right away. Why can’t they do like that to the people in the other places here? Are they thinking we are just not as good as them? They should think where they get their food everyday. They don’t grow veggies and meat in the big city. Those things came from the provinces like Mindanao and the Visayas too. We work hard here like they do.

As if it’s not worth it to subscribe to the cable channel from Manila. But I know its needed too. I’m just so annoyed I guess. I have to vent a little here. Thank you guys for listening.

What do you think though? Are you okay that the stations here don’t bother to feature any event outside Manila? Let me know!