Crazy about Choc-nut

Did you know 1: The Bureau of Immigration and Deportation has sent out letters to registered aliens that the new official ID (with an imbedded chip similar to that used in Hong Kong) will supercede middle of this year the old booklet which can be easily forged.

Here’s the funny part. The new IDs will be released on a staggered basis over the next six months or so.

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Did you know 2: The Iglesia ni Kristo has already completed its own nationwide survey on who will win the presidential election this May. The survey is said to be so detailed that it includes electoral breakdowns by province.

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Did you know 3: Customers of 5-6 lending investors pay a cheaper interest of 240 percent per annum if they pay on a daily basis compared to the 350 percent per annum if they pay on a weekly basis. Borrowers can borrow for both business or personal needs.

Microfinancing institutions subject to Bangko Sentral regulations charge two percent a month or 24 percent a year – but only for business loans.

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Bureau of Plant Industry director Hernani Golez is exploring the possibility of shipping Philippine Super Mangoes (these are carabao mangoes which used to be Manila Super Mangoes until somebody noted that urban Manila doesn’t grow mangoes for export) to Hawaii and Guam.

You see, these American territories already have those boll weevils that afflict Philippine mangoes except for those grown in Guimaras Island. As such, strict guarantine is unnecessary.

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Oh, oh. New Unity Sweets Manufacturing Corp. has made it known that it has not authorized any individual or food maker to list down the name, "Choc-nut", as a raw ingredient.

Choc-nut is a registered trademark that has also become the generic term for a ground peanut-based chocolate confectionary that is part of almost every Filipino’s childhood.

Catering to this nostalgia, upscale restaurants have come up with Choc-nut ice cream as well as cakes and cookies.

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Last March 30, Knowledge Channel Foundation chairman Rina Lopez-Bautista e-mailed her Assumption high school classmates (Batch 1977), which included Vice President candidate Loren Legarda and Citibank officer Raissa Hechanova.

Aside from a Q&A on the compromise agreement between Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System and Maynilad Water Services Inc., Ms. Lopez-Bautista talked about:

• how her mom was promised by the chairman of a major broadsheet while both were in church "a more balanced paper starting last Saturday but it didn’t happen";

• how disappointed she felt when a "friend" shoots her mouth off about my family, many members of which she knows personally, without clearing stories with them or me."