Mornings on the Rush (Part 2)

FRIDAY mornings always finds me in a rush to get a comfortable seat in an Internet Café where I could sit down and compose my thoughts for Sunday’s Sun.Star Weekend.

Today I am thirty minutes late and by the time I arrive at my destination, it is already fully-booked with college students furiously typing all sorts of school requirements and I have to commute to another favorite Internet Café to beat my deadline. It turns out to be an early morning blessing in disguise as the place is a lot cooler and more spacious.

Along the way, I notice a couple of passenger jeepneys having horse paintings on their sides. One had three horses which seemed to be in a race, as if depicting life in the 21st Century. Caught up in a rush, we find ourselves gasping and panting for breath and oftentimes we are careless. We get off a public vehicle unaware that we left behind some very important personal belongings such as wallets, cellphones and important documents.

These are the moments when we turn to good old radio for help, hoping to touch the conscience of listeners by appealing to their sense of righteousness and helpfulness in tracking down the whereabouts of the lost items. I found myself in such a situation when two of my kids lost their cellphones on the way to school and church last April 14, 2009 and February 2, 2010 respectively. As of this writing, the items have not been returned to their rightful owners and I therefore conclude that they fell into the wrong hands.

For DJ Rico of MOR 101.5, however, loss of his cellphones occurred under more dramatic circumstances aboard these PUVs, thanks to fellow passengers who turned out to be members of the dreaded Salisi Gang. So far, I haven’t been in a similar situation as DJ Rico but I was a witness to the maneuverings of the Hulog Barya Gang as we passed by the Burgos Public Market. Fortunately, no one got hurt or lost something on the said occasion.

An Afternoon Rush

It’s a mad dash to the Bacolod Pavillon Resort Hotel, Reclamation Area, Bacolod City this afternoon for the launching of the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s 2010 Tax Campaign with the theme “Making the Public Know”. Indeed, a lack of awareness of the BIR’s policies will bring a heap of penalties upon a struggling entrepreneur and cause him to shell out a huge fortune which is inversely proportional to the profits he made for a certain period.

Senator Chiz Escudero named the BIR as one of the damaged institutions in our country and based on my own personal experience, I agree with him. It is therefore a great challenge for this government agency to undo its negative image which tends to discourage potential taxpayers from reporting their actual profits. Damn if you do and damn if you don’t because the penalty for non-registration of business is P25,000! Compare this with the annual registration fee of P500 and you can see the great difference.