ASHA opens Barista Course in West Avenue Quezon City

Asian School of Hospitality Arts, one of the first hotel schools in the Philippines, announced the opening of its Certificate of Barista course beginning August 2, 2010.

This 3-month intensive course aims to train students on the rudiments of bartending, and other job-related responsibilities which an aspiring barista needs in order to cope with the standards of 5-star hotels, restaurants and bars.

The Barista course fuses theory and practice, with most of the time spent in learning the true arts of bartending and perfecting beverage concoctions. Students enjoy the advantage of learning the arts and science of bartending in a real coffee shop/bar setting. You get to be a real-life barista while completing your certificate program. Learning is easy and fun since ASHA offers a ladderized and modular-based Barista course. Students learn based on their own pace.

After undergoing training and barista education, some of the best students are immediately immersed into the hotel and restaurant industry as apprentice. They enjoy an apprentice salary while studying in ASHA. The school also offers immediate job placement after graduation.  

ASHA is a strong partner of The Coffee Beanery (TCB) along West Avenue, Quezon City. ASHA is a strong advocate of spreading Asian Values, World Class-Education.

It is also affiliated with Seven Suites Hotel Observatory, Classic Cuisine (C2), The Orange Place (TOP) and C3 Events Place.  

ASHA opens its Certificate of Barista at TCP West Avenue, Quezon City. Classes start August 10, 2010.  For inquiries, please call +6325066474, 5067007 or 09175907425. Check their website at http://www.asha.edu.ph.

Death and the limits of space

Death comes to every single one of us. Death is something dark, something unknown, yet, something expected. That very moment, that very second you came out of your mother's womb, begins your ultimate journey to death. 


Death comes when your life is nothing more than an ordinary wild flower flying like any other dust out there, swept by the wind. 


Every one has his own idea of what death is. For most, death is liberation. It is freedom from wants. 


Others say, death is the end of everything. That everything tunes out when you die. That there is nothing out there. That it is just empty space, black to some, grey to others. That life is like television. When someone pushes the remove, and turns out the tele, things and images vanish and all you see, is grey or black.


Some of those who experienced near death events say, your life ebbs out and passes through a channel of light, not blinding, but soft, warm and inviting. 


At the end of that channel, they arrive at a place of light, where they are greeted by friends and foes alike. It always end up with happy stories and tears of joy. 


Others like Dante warns of a cold and desolate place, where souls freeze to death, and where love does not exist.


Is life like a radio signal eternally travelling through space and finding a receiver? And that death occurs when the signal fades into the very limits of the universe?


The universe, according to astronomers and astrophysicists, is expanding. It is likened to a band which is being stretched by itself, and filling a space which is in-determinable.


If the universe behaves like that, is it entirely possible for life to be stretched like a band and occupy an in-determinate space? 


I believe that space does not have a limit, that it goes on forever, and like the laws of the universe, exist to create forms and order and disorder and peace and chaos. 


Death comes to us all, yet, cells which die, are revived. Energies are created and re-created. If life is like energy, then, life can be revived, and exist throughout the end of time. 


The law of echoes say that when you shout something, it goes back, especially when you do it in a cave. If we apply it in our universe, does it mean that life, like an echo, travels like sound in the vast expanse and comes back in a definite time?


Death, like others in this universe, has its limits. 

Why leave your mother?

Why leave your dear mother?


More than 3,000 Filipinos leave their families behind to work abroad. If you ask one of them, the usual answer is, they don’t want to leave, but there’s no opportunity here. Government says they leave because of the money.


I say, it’s not just the money—it’s the uncertainty of life that they want to leave.


Escapists, that’s what other foreigners say about Pinoys. A racial slur this is? Ask me how many Americans are out there, trying to carve their own futures in someone’s land. You’ll be surprised that there are more Americans than Filipinos out there living their own lives outside of America. The Filipino Diaspora is not a phenomenon, oh no. It is as ordinary as any other Filipino tradition.


Droves left the country at the height of the Marcos regime. Some left due to political persecution. Most, well, did so out of economic frustration. However, they are not the first OFWs. No. Since pre-colonial times, we already know how many Filipinos left the comforts of these lands to explore other lands. It just hugged the headlines because of the sheer number of Pinoys who left Manila International Airport all at the same time and day.


Some went to Japan and sold their souls to the highest sex bidder. Others sang their way to the hearts of many and others still used their cooking skills to satiate someone’s hungry stomach. Some were doctors and engineers. While many suffer from diseases and illnesses here, no one takes care of them because those doctors and specialists are out there, curing a foreigner’s liver or transplanting a European’s heart with a dead Pinoy.


Most were ordinary mothers and fathers who left their children in the care of their parents for that measly S$350 a month salary or a HK$3,000. Some get their salaries right while others serve as slaves. Better to be slaves in someone’s palatial house than be freemen without the chance to eat three times a day.


When Cory won, several thousand went back to live their lives here. I know of some who grew up in America, went back to North Greenhills and resumed their lives, only to find themselves getting their clothes back to their suitcases and leaving when Gloria assumed power. Those nine years saw the prostitution of the bureaucracy and the destruction of the entire social structure.


Ask a college student out there and the usual talk is how fast visa processing in Canada is than the US. Ask a beautiful and dusky Pinay from the North who is her ideal husband and you’ll be shocked to know that it’s not Piolo Pascual, but an Indian or an old American retiree. As they say, some young Pilipina wants somebody who is a Foreigner, an old one, ready to die and leave his dollars behind. Most who’ll read this will surely disagree. Most will even chastise me for saying these things. Ask around and like what Gloria said, look around you. Those who’ll disagree are usually your post-graduates or born with a silver spoon in their mouths. What I know is even post-graduates marry foreigners. It is only foreigners who appreciate what it means of having a post-graduate diploma. Government does not.


How hard it is to live here? Just look at the faces of those who ride your MRT, your jeepneys and your buses. Look at the stressed out faces of those who drive their own cars. Look at those who work their asses off in some call center office. Or, just look at the faces of those who buy stuff at groceries and supermarkets. It was better when Makros were around. Now, SM dominates the retail business and imposing those exorbitant food rates. Before, your thousand will get you five or six plastic bags. Now, your thousand will only get you two. And it’ll last for just two or three days.


People leave because they want to feel secure. People leave because they see no hope. People leave because they find other places wonderful, secure and lively.


Eighty eight percent believes that something beautiful will happen in the next six years. While those 88% feel that there is still hope, the numbers of those who are leaving remain pretty much the same. Only half of the population thinks that Pnoy will do what he promised and that is just swell. The reason why many feel there is still hope because they lived throughout these past nine years devoid of it. When you lived in the deepest and darkest pit, even a dimly lit room is better.


Our concept of hope has changed. Our standards are well below the average. Since we saw how government has ignored us for the last couple of years, even just a semblance of change, we so think as better than before.


We’re already satisfied when our president calls for the arrests of those with wangwangs, forgetting that there are hundreds of smugglers, drug lords, jueteng lords, oil cartels, food and rice cartels and what-have-you, moneyed people who exploit our weaknesses almost every single day.


We’re just satisfied when our president conducts weekly press conferences or when we hear our new officials apologizing for their mistakes. In other countries, when a government official commits a moral faux pas, he leaves government with his head bowed and his stomach disemboweled. Here, a mere apology is enough.


No amount of listening to classical or Buddhist music can ever drown out the ever so loud and blaring sounds of Filipino reality. No amount of a stirring speech from Pnoy can ever displace the real sounds of groaning and moaning of Filipinos who voted for you but are now suffering due to rising prices.


Is it enough for us to know that Pnoy also suffers from text blasts? Does it worth our while to know that he too, suffers from traffic jams every single day? It would have been shocking even to read that Pnoy is suffering from hunger pangs. That is, unbelievable already. That’s why his propagandists have avoided such silly lies.


If the President suffers like an ordinary Pinoy, then, why is that? It is discomforting to know this. He’s supposed to provide solutions. Why is he allowing such things to pester him and us?


No one leaves a country full of honey and milk. No one leaves his mother for another. Dress my mother well, give her food to eat and water to drink. Provide her with a roof over her head. No one wants to leave his mother behind.

Owning a house in the Philippines

One of the simplest dreams of a Filipino is owning a house and lot. For him, it is most crucial that he at least, gets his dream house up during his lifetime. Scouring the land, he sees a huge and vast landscape, still without a house standing. Unknown to him, however, those huge tracts of land he sees are now either owned legally by someone else or illegally by those who manipulate land titles over at the Land Registration Authority (LRA).

The images that the Filipino nowadays see are images of Mediterranean or American inspired houses. Camella Homes, Filinvest and Ayala Land are very good in advertising their model houses. They always look like American houses or Italian. When you go on a "tripping", meaning the Filipino term for a house look-up, you'll find that each and every house is modeled after a foreign house concept. And why is that?

Because most house buyers are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). Why are these houses designed like foreign ones?Land developers and real estate companies think that OFWs actually aspire to have the same house as that of their foreign employers abroad.

Observe and you'll find that a foreign designed house actually says much about the place where the owner usually works at. If he works in Italy, there are several housing projects with Italian inspired houses. If he works in America, chances are you'll find an uber modern house constructed for him. And if he or she is a Japayuki, chances are, her house are adorned with Japanese items and inspired by the Japanese.

There is nothing, however, for Filipinos who work and sweat it out here. Those offered to locally employed Filipinos are Pag-ibig houses, with just a roof and a dubiously strong foundation.

Now, why is it that real estate companies sell houses mostly with OFWs than locally hired Filipinos? There is a misconception that Filipinos who work here cannot easily afford to buy their own house. And there's a basis for believing and saying this. (wait for my next entry)

The Pinoy Dream

Let me start by asking--what is your dream for our society?

Is it ideologically-driven? Are you asking for transformation of Filipino society, from a capitalist form into a socialist one?

Is it politically-inspired? From a democratically formed government into something more akin to an interventionist one?

Is it something sublime, like a society where everyone enjoys equal rights, when everyone enjoys eating three square meals a day and where every single one goes to work and sees his kids off to school?

Let us talk amongst ourselves and try to really determine what the Pinoy dream is.

When my grandmother was still alive, she told me three (3) simple things every single Filipino aspires for: to have his own house and lot, to drive a car and to finish his education and carve a career. 

Simple, is'nt it?

All these dreams however, as time goes by, becomes more and more distant to reality. Fact is, millions of Filipinos are starting to see these simple aspirations turn into simple frustrations each and every single day.

A house and lot nowadays, cost between a million to 3 million each. One decent and new car costs 800,000 while it will take you close to 5 million pesos to finish a 4-year course.

You need close to 10 million pesos to achieve all these things in your lifetime. Is it possible, even if you are being paid 12,000 pesos a month?

If your salary is 12,000 a month (let's just put it as is, sans the taxes), you get 144,000 a year. You'll reach a million only after 10 years, or worst, not at all.

If you're being paid 12,000 pesos a month, how would you buy your dream house? You'll probably settle for a low-cost housing program which are actually sited outside Metro Manila. You'll either choose to live in Cavite or in far-away Bulacan.

You'll probably go to Pag-Ibig and get a housing loan. But with a 12,000 peso salary, how would you afford to pay that monthly amortization which ranges between 4,000 to 10,000 a month?

And the simple truth is---that salary of yours will not really get you that dream house, even if you work for 10 years.

Go to the National Statistics Coordination Board website and you'll find that most of your salary goes to paying food stuffs, then house rent and utilities. Food stuffs amount to 45% of your monthly pay, while house rent comes close to 30%. Yet, with Meralco jacking up their electricity rates, you'll be surprised that payment of utilities will really come as close as what you pay for food. That's reality.

6,000 pesos will go to food, 4,000 to rent and the rest to Meralco. You'll probably be left with 1-2,000 pesos, and usually, that amount goes to SMART and Globe. That's reality.

Ordinary Filipinos, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, has about 1-5,000 pesos in their savings account. That money only earns roughly a fraction of 1%.

Okey, granting that, every month, you save up to 1,000 pesos. You will need to do just that for at least 60 years before you can even come as close as buying a brand new car. By that time, car prices would have shoot to more than a million. And a house and lot would easily fetch two million or more.

So, the more you age, the more unlikely you'll get your dream house and your dream car. And even if you work as doubly or thrice or even 10x your supervisor or your manager does, you'll simply achieve a fraction of what they get.

And, really, this is not your fault. You are not to be blamed for this.

If only you get what is due to you, meaning, the correct prices of foodstuffs, the correct electricity rate and the correct and equitable call rates and gas rates, this dream of yours would not really be as distant as a nightmare as it is right now.

If a truly just and humane society exists, where each Filipino is given his just due, then, everything is within reach even by ordinary Pinoys like us.

And, I repeat, this is simply, not your fault.

If Pinoy owners of companies just give you the right wages and food manufacturers equally price their products, then, you can save enough for that dream house and lot.

If Pinoy owners of companies will just give you free text like other foreign telecomms do, you'll save enough 50 pesos for the allowance of your kid to school.

If Pinoy owners of companies will just lower electricity rates and give you the right rate, the same rate, other Asians enjoy, then, you'll save more and be able to say that, yes, you can get your dream house in as little as five years.

I say, these dreams, for us to make it a reality, must simply be modified. Since we have an unresponsive government and in fact, government's presence is actually invisible, we, all must agree that the dream which demands our most immediate attention is the dream of just living in an equitable society.

Our dream must simply be--to live as decently and as honorably as other Asians do. What does this mean?

It means eating 3x times a day, enjoy watching television without incurring a 2,000 peso electricity bill, going to work with less hassle, and trying to worry about higher priced gasoline and diesel and simply enjoying the simple pleasures of life without spending an exorbitant amount.

That dream, really, is for us, everybody, to be treated like they are supposed to be treated-as humans.

This blog will try to reflect our simple dreams as a Filipino and will try to provide some solutions on how we can get our simple dreams realized--without government.

From these simple dreams, let's hope to get our aspirations realized. Then, from achieving our aspirations, let us then, target how we would try to regain the greatness of our country. This is a step-by-step thing. Let's hope that from this, we'll be able to secure the future of our children and our children's children and make our society a better place for them.