Booming industry

It's not only the government hospitals like the CCMC and the VSMMC that are always full of patients, which a friend of mine calls "customers."

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This friend of mine also calls hospitals "business establishments" because people have to pay to get admitted and to stay admitted. Hence, these people he prefers to call customers. His take, not mine.

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We're not a sick community, that's for sure. But this businessman friend of mine is not sure. "If I'm sure," he said, "can I explain why the hospital business is booming?"

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Oh, well, that's my businessman friend's view. His view, his stand, his take. To-morrow I might get hit by another misfired attack for his opinion. But OK lang. I've got-ten used to it.

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Two housemaids of a rich family in Makati City are in hot water for doing their patriotic duty aside from cleaning the toilet.

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They're seeking police protection from someone who is treatening them with bod-ily harm because of their affidavits where they exposed a fraud in the last barangay elec-tion. And they're standing firm on their exposé.

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It's little people like these maids we should look up to as role models, coming though they may be from the ranks of the timawa. The protection they seek must be given to them.

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I am very liberal with my space for readers views and complaints about bad peo-ple in the government. But I always tell the aggrieved reader that when you attack some-one, do not end your letter with: "Please withhold my name, I fear retalization."

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Now, that's pretty unfair. That's not playing things fair and square. You want to save your neck and put mine in the guillotine. Let's have our heads chopped together. That's what fair and square is all about.

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I once received a letter hitting a government official with everything including the proverbial kitchen sink. Isog ning tawhana dah, I said. He even challenged poor me to publish his letter en toto but instead of signing it he wrote: "Ayaw lang ibutang akong ngalan ... Pero kon isog ka ipatik ning akong suwat anonimos."

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I said to myself: Ah, dili ko isog. Mas isog modawat ang waste basket. That was years ago. Until this day, dili pa gihapon ko isog. Hehe!

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