In a speech at Guildhall on Nov. 24, 1992 celebrating the Ruby Jubilee on the throne of the late Queen Elizabeth II of the Great Britain, she quoted one of the “more sympathetic” British correspondents at the Buckingham Palace. Said she: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure… it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.” She referred to the series of misfortunes that took place in the course of 1992 – when the Royal Family endured the breakdowns of three royal marriages one after the other plus a devastating fire at Windsor Castle.
Echoing the same “annus horribilis,” the year 2023 just ended was my own horrible year. It was the same year when the Philippines experienced a very severe long hot summer. Called as El Niño phenomenon or the long dry spell period, it did not only cause huge losses for agricultural products but also deadly for affected animals.
Three of the animal casualties were my senior dogs, all nine years old. Big dogs usually have longer life spans. All pure breed dogs, I’ve lost my three pet dogs one after the other. Despite being supplied with plenty of water and covered cages, the extreme heat was simply too much for their heavy fur- covered bodies. Like human beings, the age factor makes it difficult for dogs to adjust to hot temperature of their surroundings.
Although my senior dogs were a bit overweight after not being able to walk around our village during the two years of pandemic, my veterinarians suspect the effects of the very hot weather could not be eliminated as secondary cause. Their hearts gave way and they eventually succumbed to stroke.
My male German shepherd – named Barack – and my female half-husky aspin (asong Pinoy) – named Britanny – were both housed in a covered cage. But my female beagle named Daphne lived inside the house with us. She even slept in bed with us in an air-conditioned bedroom.
Despite her being obese, Daphne could jump with ease onto the bed. She had twice given birth and gotten so huge with post-natal vitamins we gave her. Trouble began when she went in heat and the boys in the pack fought over her. So we had to isolate and separate her in a room where there was no air conditioning. But we made sure the electric fan was on to cool her. But the heat was just too much for her apparently. And the next morning, we found her lifeless body.
With their demise, my pack is down to eight. The most senior is my 11-year-old jack russel named Buknoy, the alpha dog of my pack. The rest include beagle Charlie (Daphne’s mate); Tiffany, the female sibling of Britanny; a male golden retriever George; another half-aspin male canine Phil; a female corgi we named Kylie and a male shih-tzu Chuwee. The youngest of the pack is my two-year-old Chuckie, (half-corgi, half-beagle) sired by Charlie and Kylie.
Pardon me if my topic today has gone to the dogs. But really, the year 2023 was a terrible year for me.
The most terrible and horrible part of last year came to me before noon of Nov. 16. It was a Thursday while I was busy attending to my job when I got scammed. I got conned in the Private Messaging (PM) of the Facebook, the most popular social media giant owned and run by American billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
I chose to keep quiet about it because it is difficult to fight a faceless enemy who stole the identity of my younger brother in his personal account on Facebook. Not knowing his account was hacked, I replied to a chat supposedly started by my brother at noon. The hacker started the conversation with “Saan ka na?” (Where are you?).
Thinking it was my brother, it was a legitimate question from him because we just moved in a few days back to the new office building of The STAR in Parañaque City. After hooking me in to that conversation, the hacker asked: “Makapag send Kaba ng 30k sa online bank? nagka problema kasi bank ko balik ko lang mamaya.” (This was his PM verbatim.)
Knowing my brother who usually comes to me for financial help, I did not doubt it. It was not as if that was the first time he borrowed a big amount of money from me via PM. And just like my brother, he promised to immediately pay back the amount as soon as he is able.
As we always say, blood is thicker than water. But not after I nagged him first about being prudent to avoid money problems, etc. etc. in our typical sister-brother conversations. To be exact, I told the “pretender,” I can send you only half of that amount. Fortunately indeed, I had only P20,000 balance in my GCash account.
The problem was, I replied truthfully, I do not know how to do online bank transfer. Then the hacker suggested to use instead GCash, citing bank transfer can be done through such e-wallet accounts. When I asked for his bank details, he sent the following PM one after the other:
“0636444595.”
“Bpi”
Then the name of brother, without the middle initial.
“Ayan”
At first, I told him, my GCash had signal troubles. Then he pleaded:
“Kaya ba before 12:30?”
“Ngayon kasi need”
“Send mo lang Pag okay na”
“Okay Naba?”
To which I replied: “You wait, may trabaho ako.”
After I finally was able to transfer the amount, I sent him a screen shot of the GCash bank transfer.
“Thabks” (sic)
Then I reiterated my demand for him to pay me back immediately. His PM reply came one after the other:
“Oo”
“Kulang nalang ako 3l”
“3k”
“PWD ba ako maka add 3k?”
“Yan na lang talaga need ko.”
It was only around 12:30 p.m. when my brother’s daughter alerted us in our PM family chat group that her Dad’s Facebook account had been hacked. As it turned out, his daughter got nearly scammed too by the same hacker. By Divine Providence, her Landbank account was offline.
That’s how the scammer was found out when my niece called up her Dad about her offline bank. Sadly, her brother got scammed too at the same time he was scamming me. My nephew got conned for the full amount of P30,000.
Looking back, it is still a blessing from a positive point of view – I’ve lost only a material thing, money that I can earn back through hard work.