888 for Smart people

PLDT Chair Manny Pangilinan and Johnny Litton are hosting an exclusive party for smart people who use SMART’s "Infinity 888 Number Series". Society doyenne Chito Madrigal Collantes graciously agreed to lend her home for the event. The number 8 resembles the theta symbol for infinity. Albeit, in an upright position. Further, the number 8 stands for unending good fortune and prosperity because the strokes flow with fluidly, without interruption. Just like the communication privileges that select customers can avail of as a member of SMART’s Infinity Club.

RP export to Iraq

It isn’t common knowledge that the USAID sponsored 15 Iraqis to undergo seminars on how to conduct local government administration in the country. They have come and gone without much fanfare after being tutored by experts from our local government academy. This is quite a feather in the cap of the Philippines as a bastion of an American-style democratic system because we’re being used as a model of local governance. Who would think that the Local Government Code would be exported to the Middle East. This is one of the unheralded ways that RP is helping the US in the partnership to rebuild Iraq and to fight global terrorism. Maybe Ambassador Ricciardone is training Administrator Paul Bremer on the Philippine model.

Doctors have ‘Plan B’

Here’s another one for the "Only in da Filipins" file. Eyespy Musashi reported that with the likelihood of an FPJ presidency in a few months, many doctors have been quietly working on an exit strategy. And what is but the pride-swallowing path to become a R.N. By that, we mean registered nurses, not Richard Nixon. As a professional group, doctors have the innate ability to survive political and economic instability. They have the original "recession-proof" job. If doctors are leaving their stethoscopes behind to exchange them for nurses’ caps abroad, Musashi wondered loudly if, like lemmings and other critters before a natural disaster, they sense something that most of us don’t. A new fact of life in RP that we have to roll with: a medical degree is a pre-requisite for nursing. Strange, but true.

Caring for Blue Eaglets

With La salle having released its Animo magazine, some ’70s alumni joking in one of their reunion parties suggested that Ateneo counter this by publishing Inamo! magazine. Sports and alumni get-togethers are really bonding the Loyolans. There is even talk of importing a black player for the 2004 Blue Eagle team! But joking aside, some parents have shown concern over the refusal of the Grade School administration to install airconditioners in the classrooms. There have been cases of dengue among the prep students. The school has remedied this by having prep students wear long pants. Is this enough? The nation’s elite send their sons to the Jesuits so they can be groomed as future leaders. With the current crop of leaders, we certainly wouldn’t want the next generation of leaders wiped out by something school officials can control. Please provide more thorough care of the eaglets. Otherwise, the Loyola campus might see an exodus to Greenhills and produce more of Jose Velardes and Jose Pidals, instead of Jose Rizals. Paging Manny Pangilinan.

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