Happy Nation

The upbeat song of Swedish pop group Ace of Base reverberates inside my ears when I read the News Feature of Philippine Star online edition:‘Filipinos among happiest people’

"Happy nation, living in a happy nation, where the people understand, and dream of perfect man"

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Yes indeed Filipinos are among the happiest people in the world. It is intriguing how the survey was done since Filipinos are often heard complaining about expanded value added tax, corruption in BIR, DPWH and Bureau of Customs, no water supply for 8 hours, flooded streets after monsoon rains, traffic in Ayala and Edsa, unsolved vigilante killings, lack of jobs, credit downgrades, external debt, kidnapping, calamities.. the list goes own. But irony of ironies, the Filipino is among the happiest in the world. What does the face of the saddest people on earth look like? I wonder.

Filipinos are rated as the happiest Asians according to the World Values Survey. Not really number one but among the top ten in the world. Just think about the remark that Filipinos are there because they are very happy with their lifestyles. Lifestyles? That seems unlikely in a culture stereotyped with colonial mentality and unending jealousy. But to be fair, that claim is indeed credible as I myself could attest to it. Many friends decide easily to go back to the Philippines because the way of life is more laid back and you don't have to worry about time. Sounds ironic to me because if you are working around Makati's Central Business District and you live in Quezon City or nearby Cavite province, you will have to wake up early to take the public transport and avoid getting late in the office.

But no matter how pundits mock us for being lazy, easy go lucky and people bound to less direction in the future, we have what man ultimately want, happiness and contentment. Ask Filipinos who lived in America or elsewhere in the world if their lives are comparable to what they used to have in the province. Most probably they would say they miss the native dishes, swim the beaches or hang out with childhood friends and visit relatives. Those who oppose may have the guts to hide their feelings.

In the survey, Venezuelans are the happiest, even if their leader Hugo Chavez is ruling the country with an iron fist and appears to be leaning towards socialism thereby foregoing or limiting the nation's liberty, an essential element to happiness. Nigerians came in second even if the country itself is among the most heavily indebted, civil wars disrupted Africa's biggest democracy and living conditions very evident to be in dire straits that people resort to various means such as the notorious scam over the Internet.

Irish and Icelanders seem to be two justified happy people along with the Dutch who wound up three, four and five in the rankings. We follow them and we're trailed by the Australians (despite the gracious lifestyle they have in Down Under), Americans, the Turks and Swiss nationals.

You are right, the Philippines is the only Asian country in the top ten. Isn't that a wonder?

What seems to hold the key on why many European countries, affluent and assumed to have everything they want, are not in the list lies in the statement by the researchers. "Material goods are considered happiness suppresant", it said in a statement. So you won't expect Japan, UK, France or even Saudi Arabia to be on top if you have this conclusion.

It is interesting that many of the least happy people are found in the region of Eastern Europe. Bulgarians, Belorussians, Russians, Moldovans and people of Ukraine have single digit percentage poins with Latvia as the least happy among the group. Could it be that the diminished power of Soviet Union also meant instability in the region in terms of peace and order as well as economic. It would be noted that a certain group of people in the Carpathians were reputed to have the highest life expectancies in the world, rivalling that of Japan. Could someone be not happy and live long?

Assessing The Trading Day

This is something to do with the NBA trade deadline which took place 3am Hong Kong time. I was then sleepless not because of the trade talks but because of the foghorns (see last blog entry). By midday in the office I learned that after an unorthodox quiet last few days before the D-line, there have been a barrage of transactions taking place within the last 24 hours.

I used to think that the pending collective bargaining agreement among players and team owners made general managers cautious of pulling down a deal. I was wrong because within the last 24 hours there were eleven deals made.

I did not expect Phoenix to join the fray as it made its move weeks ago by acquiring Jim Jackson who refused to play for New Orleans Hornets (in exchange of young Suns Casey Jacobsen, Maciej Lampe and Jackson Vroman, stripping them from the title as the youngest team in the L) and recently Walter McCarty who came from Boston in return of the 2005 conditional second round pick obtained from Golden State in a previous transaction that sent Zarko Cabarkapa to Oakland. The moves is obviously seen as a serious pursuit to the playoffs by giving up youth with playoff experience.

Anyway too much of showing as a Suns fan. Here is my analysis of some trades:

Philadelphia 76ers trading with Sacramento Kings

It does not came as a shock that Chris Webber was traded away but as a surprise as his does not appear in rumor mills (I have long abhorred these gossips). Personally I like the situation of Sacramento obtaining three role players in Corliss Williamson, Brian Skinner and Kenny Thomas against one All-Star in Webber. By earlier emphasizing on offense by trading Doug Christie for Cuttino Mobley, Kings GM Geoff Petrie acknowledged the need for big men to clog inside especially that Webber's health is an issue. An apparent messing up in offense took place when Webber returned from injury and affected Peja Stojakovic's game that a time he demanded trade last Summer. Once considered an NBA MVP contender last season, Peja's chances dimmed as his production sank when Webber returned into the rotation. 76ers also did well in this trade since winning now is imperative and pleasing Allen Iverson is another. By trading the three big men, Webber gets into action with Sixers youngsters Andre Igoudala, Kyle Korver and Sam Dalembert.

Milwaukee Bucks trading with Dallas Mavericks

Milwaukee star Michael Redd becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer and rumors (again!) circulated that Cleveland is serious in its bid to pry Redd from the Bucks. Since he is unrestricted free agent, Redd has the final say on where to sign a contract. This usually boils down to the team who could offer the maximum deal. What Milwaukee did was more of clearing the salary cap rather than get rid of Kieth Van Horn as a player. The trade created roughly 9 million in cap space enough to re sign Redd and other Bucks such as Zaza Pachulia and Dan Gadzuric. It became evident that since Redd wasn't traded Milwaukee took the risk and hope he remains loyal to his word. In Van Horn, Dallas gets a quality player off the bench with better rebounding skill when playing small forward. Along with Jerry Stackhouse, Van Horn makes Dallas bench deeper. The downer is that he is a very expensive backup to Dirk Nowitzki.

New York Knicks trading with San Antonio Spurs

As much as we would laud Spurs General Manager RC Buford for this trade the direct opposite goes to Knicks GM Isaiah Thomas. The Spurs got a real defensive big man in Nazr Mohammed who will play alongside Tim Duncan especially that Rasho Nesterovic is ailing. Mohammed is among the top shot blockers and decent rebounder. While fans felt bad with the trade of Spur Malik Rose, it should be understood as business and for the betterment of the team. After all, fans root for their teams and hope they win the championship. Rose is an undersized four and acknowledging that Duncan is a four and not a center, Rose is better off replaced with someone who could spell Nesterovic. Thomas is notorious for taking bad contracts, filling up the roster with multiple positions (see Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford) and now comes Malik Rose whose a clone of Michael Sweetney. By giving up Mohammed, they lose a true center and significantly became a small team. It will mean even disgruntled forward Kurt Thomas playing the center position, something he publicly dislike as he is more productive when playing as power forward. To me if there is somebody who needs to be kicked out of an organization at the moment, it should be Isiah Thomas. I rooted for the Lakers during the Bad Boys era, but this has nothing to do with it. Thomas messes the Knicks, embarrassing the NBA's hometown.

Population Education

I found it difficult to sleep last night because cargo ships that ply Hong Kong's southern coast pass near South Horizons and as fog limited visibility to less than 200 meters, foghorns were blasting their way through the otherwise serene seas. I learned later that nine out of 23 Hong Kong bound passenger planes were diverted to Manila due to heavy fog and low visibility.

With smog hovering the city for the past days it's inevitable to discuss on its causes. I read South China Morning Post yesterday and today. Yesterday was a bit encouraging: millionaires -- people who have liquid assets (not counting physical properties) -- rose to almost 250,000, a good indicator of the city's turnaround in economy from SARS outbreak in 2003.

The news headline today is a downer: that smoking, scarcity of space (is Hong Kong still the most crowded territory in the world?) contributed to a number of deaths in the tens of thousands every year. That the government was accused of lying on the real quality of air Hong Kong has and cleverly concealing the true values. Which is why Hong Kong fell from top of the index of most livable cities in Asia (my favorite section of Asiaweek then) to Singapore and Tokyo -- because of pollution and natural phenomena.

Then comes the issue of population where Hong Kong's small area is crowded with about 7 million people from all races.

It is believed that by 2050 population will reach 9.1 billion from the current 6.5 billion. And by 2030 India will surpass China as the most populous country in the world according to the United Nations study. While Hong Kong recently released a study on its own population growth that its 0.65% annual gain is not enough to fight off the ageing population similar to Japan and other developed countries. Bulk of the number in that 2050 figure will come from developing countries with particular focus on Sub Saharan countries in Africa. I don't understand why relatively poorer countries such as the Philippines, Chad, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and East Timor has higher population growth than others.

One Hong Kong leader proposed to have families bear three children. That would mean better tax breaks. But with a surrounding already crowded and workloads make a typical Hong Kong worker one of the most stressed in the region, the appeal may fall on deaf ears. In the Philippines, no matter how people get educated and the burdens of a big family population boom is on. Not even the threat of AIDS could get in the way.

My Inclination to Geography

I have been a geography buff as early as I could remember. Always fascinated by places, races, people and cultures once I got hold of an old book called 'A World View' from our old barangay library in my fourth grade, I easily immersed myself inside the book and wander across the grasslands, tundra, taiga, desert and snowcaps. Maps also took a special interest in me. Looking at Midwestern United States map on a scale of 1 cm to 10 miles I would bet with my childhood friends Michael, Dante and Bimbo during subject breaks and recess time. I am not a nerd. I also play rubber bands, marbles, "siatong", a game played individually or by teams with a pair of sticks one 4 times longer than the other and aim to reach a pre agreed score to win the game; and "labo labo" as an individual dodgeball game using old tennis ball.

Long before I graduated elementary school I know the capital cities of many countries and describe what language Mongols or Kazakhs speak. Not because we were required in school but because of my interest. I am not only interested in international geography, I am into local as well. When my grade two teacher Ma'am Papin asked the class "Sino ang nakapunta sa Lallo, Cagayan?" I did not hesitate to raise my hand. Surely I can remember about three years before I went to a place called Cagayan to visit my uncles and aunts. I found out later that Lallo is in Cagayan Valley and not in Cagayan de Oro that I have been to. I tried to find out if there was a demarcation boundary between Mintal and Catalunan Pequeno just like massive border patrol across countries such as Thailand and Malaysia or India and Pakistan. And the only way to find out for me is to go to such places.

There have been no Geography subjects in high school; we have History with special Geography flavors but sad to say I could hardly correct my teacher even if there is a glaring mistake in the lesson taught.

In college, I shied away from Geography and stuck to Engineering feeling that Geography is a limited career and I would prefer to have it as a hobby during my spare time to learn more about it than to devote a lifetime building my future around it. Given the decision I made, I did not turn away from this childhood interest. While I have gained curiousity in other subjects such as astronomy and space exploration, geography is something I am still comfortable at dealing with.

Now that I am somewhere far from home, I still think about those days when I read books; now I try to reach places. I was able to travel with fascination across Asia, spanning Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Chinese territories Hong Kong, Beijing and Macau.

I am trying to go to interesting places such as the remote villages of Tajikistan; Italy's Tuscany provinces; travel to Moscow from Hong Kong via the Trans-Siberian Railway passing through China's interior, the steppes of Mongolia and the desolate areas of Eastern Russia; or the inner jungles of African interior. Sounds ridiculous if not outright ambitious. It's very difficult if not impossible. But dreaming is free and boundless.

I Alone

"It's easier not to be wise
and measure these things by your brains
I sank into Eden with you
alone in the church by and by
I'll read to you here, save your eyes
you'll need them, your boat is at sea
your anchor is up, you've been swept away
and the greatest of teachers won't hesitate
to leave you there, by yourself, chained to fate"
Edward Kowalczyk of Live singing I Alone

Sometimes it's a lonely world for me. With crowds of humanity springing forth upon skyscrapers of Hong Kong, I find myself all alone. It's something I feared of in the past and somehow I got used to it. But as I grow older the feeling creeps rendering me insecure.

In a typical day's work I wake up and leave the house, with my housemates still asleep. In my effort to save money I skip having lunch with colleagues and instead find myself staring at Arizona Republic or ESPN while taking my lunch. When I leave the office I try to call someone or a couple of my friends, talking with somebody whose not visible. Ironic that I sometimes fail to talk to someone in the office which is not that big enough to miss out colleagues. When I reach home late at night I take my dinner alone again.

Sometimes I would prefer to go window shopping and planning things to do by myself where I pace my time and not bother to keep others waiting as I also hate to be kept waiting. But there are times being alone makes no sense to me. I used to go to church with friends but now I am alone. While some friends seek time to be on their own (even if it meant taking a break from a relationship), I seek otherwise.

In a place where I cannot talk to everybody, I need to keep my phone busy, yet it is frustrating to call someone who keeps on ignoring me. It's terrible but I am trying to overcome it. There are things I want to have but are beyond my reach as of the moment and the question remains to as whether I can attain them in the future.

Going to Wan Chai promenade and watch the harbour, Tsim Sha Tsui's Star Ferry pier and see Hong Kong's glittering office towers in a busy metropolis, or stay at the office boardroom overlooking the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter asking myself is this the situation I want to be in. I am glad to be here but I did not expect to feel so lonely as now...

Sometimes.

No competition

Looking at the websites of competing broadcast mammoths ABS CBN and GMA, there is no doubt who is a contender and who is a pretender.

www.igma.tv vs www.abs-cbn.com

From an ordinary surfer (I mean a casual surfer and not like a proofreader), one can tell that while GMA has established a quality presence in cyberspace, ABS CBN is doing itself more harm than good in its overtly unattended web site left to the mercy of neophyte designers. Oh, not too fast.

GMA website is not that too flashy but it's professional enough. Photos are sharp and crisp, in black and white photos, while the Lopez-owned website has huge photo of Hero and Sandara of poor quality on various sections of the site.

I am not against the Lopez conglomerate. Their site simply sucks. Gone are the days where Pinoycentral is the site to see with their gaudy layout, rich content and interesting features. MBA.ph which contains Metropolitan Basketball Association information used to be a nice one (much nicer than PBA website) until its premature meltdown. It's about time they hire a quality design manager.

That Google Adsense panel at the right side simply shows the site is in need of money, well which site isn't? (even www.gawadkalinga.org needs to pay yearly domain names whether it's donated or not). But the fact that the display version is for "sites with less traffic" compared to INQ7.net's less "addy" layout. And who would not notice the ocassional presence of "More" in Times New Roman and bear no link at all. When you go to their discussion boards, you are met with an error message: Sorry, An error occurred processing your last request! C'mon what have I done on your fragile infrastructure? Yehey.com is much more entertaining than this.

Meanwhile, IGMA is not better than Yehey.com. It's more feminine in appeal and is obviously targetted on the teen-youth age bracket. No wonder the promotion of Starstruck is one of the most taken cared of business. But at least the interface is clean and eye-friendly; the competitor's is almost an eyesore.

So I say this: in the web, among ABS CBN and GMA, there is no competition.

Choir!

I have been a choirmember for the first time here at St Vincent's Church in Hang Hau today. Karen e-mailed me if I could join the group. I declined an earlier invitation since I find the place quite far and it takes me an hour to travel by bus and MTR. But in the end who can say no to my best friend?

Apparently tired from the overnight Simpsons CD burning, I woke up at 8.30am and at that time I should be leaving South Horizons for Po Lam. But I am glad I got there 10 minutes after the expected time of arrival. With the Lenten season's call for fasting, my skipped breakfast is justified (yes, it is the best and most important meal of the day). Coupled with the cold weather, I was starting to complain to myself I should have at least a slice of bread.

St Vincent is more of a chapel than a church. It was my first time to be there so I am glad to have the chance to hear Mass there. The community is as usual filled with Filipina worshippers but a handful of Chinese, French, Korean and American parishioners were there including Starworld correspondent Joe Cairns and wife Jenny Lam of TVB Pearl. Due to Chinese New Year's celebration falling on the same day as Ash Wednesday, distribution of ashes was given today. Again I am lucky I have received this rite this year. To be honest, just like receiving lai see it is my first time to receive ashes this year since I came to Hong Kong.

Gino, Mike, Chito, Jay, Karen, Zandro, Charm, Es and I were there. The singing was done well except that Jay who often exhorted us to increase the volume of our voices. The male melody voices often get drowned by the flood of feminine vocals from the crowd.

We later gad a good yum cha though I would have preferred a hot pot for lunch. Nevertheless it was a blessing for my stomach has been in trouble for not having breakfast.

The weather was cold that I wish I had scarf, bonnet or a pair of gloves.

Embracing Open Source

I took a day off today to have "rest" which literally meant going to Mong Kok for those fake GAP shirts and not so bad Diesel bag for my office carriage, trying to replace my Microsoft Devdays 2004 giveaway bag. The weather was a bit rainy in the morning, remained cloudy throughout the day minus the drizzle. It is expected to cool down again to a balmy 12C over the weekend and early next week.

I forgot to mention that in my four years of stay here, it is my first time to receive red packets from anybody. It is a practice that married people hand it out to singles in time for the Chinese New Year celebration; same as our very own pinaskuhan in cash form.The red packets or lai see came from Marcus, Angela, Herman and the company I am working for. Not so big but very helpful.

When I got home, I could not handle Outlook's weak spam filtering option and instead wanted to give Thunderbird a try. So far it did not disappoint me. It loads up quite quickly, has a clean interface and ability to support this blog post. I still have to verify how effective it is in countering spam messages but I am assured it should be fine.

Four Years in Hong Kong

I was on my way to Wan Chai to buy CD cases when I remembered something while aboard the MTR. I did not hesitate to send SMS to Karen, also involved in the milestone I almost forgot."Happy 4th Anniversary Karen" the text goes. We've been four years in Hong Kong. It's the same as taking my high school studies at HCM but I didn't seem to notice that much. It's longer than my tenure at Comcen and one more year and it's equivalent to spending college at UIC.

I have gone through several memorable events in the past four years and will be willing to share it online.

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Talking about college in UIC as mentioned I have been doing the college batchmate website over the past week. It is actually the fourth revision. Doing so is an all around task I did not mind. After all nobody asked me to do it. That is when passion comes over the responsibility. It's not yet finished but I am glad in what I see.

What I didn't like was the lame reaction from the people this site has been devoted for. It's difficult to make a page without gathering facts. So what I did is to e-mail many of them seeking for photos and updates. So far nothing came back to me. Honestly I am upset with these people. Florrey who has been my classmate only in my fifth year has the favorable response so far even if it was only a pledge. We seldom talk back in college but she responds well this time. Maybe because she is in the United States? Save for Ana May and Memem whose parenthood was featured recently in my latest article, the rest have been lame duck. Those whom I have often go to lunch with, those whom I share my secrets where no-shows and simply ignored my pleas. Nevermind, I will still continue to do this "passion".

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It's foggy here for the past two days that from our 34th storey office window, I barely see Central Plaza which is just across Wan Chai.

The Holiday That Was

The holiday was spent mostly on rest and on the updated Batch97 page. I wasn't particularly efficient but nevertheless it was a good break.

One thing that did not materialize that should be was the hiking at Pokfulam. Jenny was anxious about that so is Dei who will be meeting the rest of the guys of SFC. Mike was also in the radar about it and I learned Weng of Schindler and Junjun are also planning to join us. It is one of the rare ocassions that Hong Kong Observatory missed its accurate forecasts. When we found out that the weather was fine many of those who committed already had their plan B in place.

I had plenty of sleep too (and wake up early!). What's puzzling about my sleeping habit is that during weekdays I wake up late and on weekends I wake up an hour earlier (without returning to bed later).

I am tired of burning my Simpsons episodes using the newly acquired CD writer. Will go to bed soon.

Opps, Valentines Day tomorrow.. ;)

Is IE7 Going To Save Microsoft's Face?

Microsoft has decided to release Internet Explorer 7 not bundled with its next release of Windows operating system called Longhorn in 2006. This should come handy as a separate product or as an add on considering the lawsuit that brought the Redmond, Washington based company to submission. Previously the company announced that the browser upgrade will be packaged with the Longhorn operating system.

That is not the main issue though. Constantly receiving complaints, media barrage and dwindling popularity due to security issues and support for world wide web standards change has to be made sooner.

In a "band aid" approach to address the problem, Microsoft released service packs to help avoid the onslaught of security problems like stealing pertinent information (credit card details, passwords). Microsoft's support to a wide range of web services make it a perfect target for hackers; for example, its support for ActiveX is a widely criticized move.

As people become more wary of online threats on the eve of booming e-commerce activity switching to less popular but safer browsers was a good decision. According to W3schools.com Internet Explorer browsers version 5 and 6 take about 69.2% in the market for February 2005, a drop of 0.7% last month. Meanwhile Mozilla Firefox has increased its share from 19.3% to 20% (the 0.7% increase is coincidental with IE's decline).

While most publications point to IE's set of loopholes in its browsers that keep phishing, popup windows displaying and slow page loading, it has its share of insufficient support to w3 standards for XHTML, XML and CSS. Developers have worried that the release of the new version would focus on addressing security issues and retaining problems with standardization. It may come obvious that Microsoft needs to release a counter to the ever increasing popularity of Firefox that dented the fortress Microsoft has lorded over the past decade.

Switching to other browsers bring allegiance to the erstwhile unattended features such as tabbed pages, better search interface which should come as a bonus to the security assurance and faster page loading.

One thing Microsoft has definite advantage over the others is its brand. Firefox or Opera may not be familiar to all, but Microsoft's blue "e" logo almost always symbolize the generic browser application and removing it could puzzle people who use the Internet cafes and browse. :)

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

This is wonderful day. Afterall I do not have to worry about office work for the next few days. I do acknowledge though that the next week will be pretty hectic with at least four projects in tow concurrently. In the meantime let me greet everyone, Kung Hei Fat Choi from where the Chinese tradition is strongly adhered to inspite of the changing times -- Hong Kong.

I just stayed the whole day today. Jun was asking if I could buy some DVDs and VCDs for him. I did it few days ago but found out one DVD has been the wrong item I should haven't bought. Anyway I watched it this morning in my PC. Yesterday was almost like a holiday apart from working until 5pm (I usually leave the office at 6.30ish). I got the chance to walk with Kit, Raymond, Jess and Daniam in Victoria Park amid the afternon drizzle. We went to the open air market where gift items, flowers and souvenirs are on sale.

I spent most of my time on our College website revamp on its fourth revision since 1999. I have been struggling to find time for it so this holiday season is a welcome relief especially that I only have one commitment to do over the coming days (organize the Pokfulam hiking and meet up with a Chinese friend).

One problem I am encountering is that I have a bunch of stale news and unupdated profiles in the list. I invited my college folks to write or send photos but the reaction has been pale as ever. I am lamenting on this because this is not a personal cause and not a credibility-building effort as an individual but as one whole group.

Anyway maybe they are on a short break. I don't want to be branded ningas kugon but this is how I work.. slowly but surely.. for the past six years in this website. No awards or recognitions; those are just bonuses.

Friends in Singapore

First things first. I have been blogging for the past few months, I did not mind if my thoughts are read or not. I have conspicuously mentioned that I own one and I placed its link in one e-mail signature. It's boring since no photo is shown and I don't know how to do it yet. Honest. (Hey there's Edit HTML above and I am a web developer too!) One thing I knew is that someone in Canada entered "Elmer Cagape blog" in Google.

Last Sunday we hosted lunch for our friend Benjie Asidillo who used to work here in Hong Kong, went out to parties with us, heard Mass with us and played squash with us. December 2002, pfft goes his supposed extension (did I mean it for Girlie and Narnie?) and he had to leave Hong Kong with Dah Sing buddy and housemate Tintin. Now he is in Singapore, a place I first wanted to work for.

It was the happy stories of Ana May who pioneered a mushrooming community of Batch97 friends there. Amay went for a vacation in Davao City and told us a glimpse of what to expect in that place once he/she works there. I was carried away and with my geographically-rich mind ready to churn out a scenario, it was something I want. I started poring over JobsDB and Jobstreet while working for Comcen, trying to see how the Internet works for jobhunters. Eventually I left Comcen but I did not go abroad either. The dream has just began and I am constantly in a lookout for opportunity. I befriended Singaporeans Elaine and Sue, with the former becoming a close friend even if we only met thru ICQ. I had some extensive research on Singapore way of life, watched a handful of Singapore movies (I Not Stupid and Living with Lydia).

I was there last September in my so called whirlwind tour dubbed "Amazing Race" (Bangkok, KL and Singapore in 5 days, make it 4 1/2). And I am impressed with what I see. As if my eyes were fully opened to reality, my experience in Singapore revealed Hong Kong's weaknesses that I did not take too seriously though I was aware of them. There, I had dinner with Ana May and husband Francis, Jenny, Rendell, Jose, Butch after a hard day's tour with Karen's best friend Mayi at Jurong Birdpark.

I felt sorry I did not get to meet Toto Celestial nor Elaine Ong whom I used to promise I would be there to fulfill a promise made shortly before leaving Manila to Hong Kong. I did not meet Girlie. But I met most of my friends including Jun Rey my former colleague at PCCW.

What I liked there is the friendlier people (I define friendly as one who can understand what you say, in this context). You can talk to everybody, shopkeeper, restaurant waiter, street sweeper, even a kid. Unlike here where even buses with FirstVision or RoadShow talks in Cantonese and does not mind non-Chinese passengers who cannot read the Chinese subtitles.

Also Singapore is cleaner, cheaper housing provision, shorter period for permanent residency and multicultural. This is a glaring fact Hong Kong has to agree. While I am saying this, I don't mean Singapore is better than Hong Kong. I still love the place where I am now and thankful for everything it offer and its people who surround me.

In 1995, Filipina maid Flor Contemplacion was executed for murder despite appeals from all of us. Our Mayor Duterte even burned Singapore flag then, and I supported his claim.

But since then, I can only rave for Singapore as a small republic with lots of influence in terms of business, good governance and quality of life. Always aiming to be on top, if not first, Singapore Airline is going to be the first airline to use Airbus A380, the biggest airplane that can carry 150 tons of load and 555 passengers.

Just recently Raymond Ona and Weng Micua, former HK expats, settled there. While friends are leaving (see www.sfc-hongkong.org) Hong Kong, Singapore communities flourished with my former ka tropa here. It's like being uprooted from a place and planted again elsewhere. Karen joked "Shall we go there?" in a tone that could be serious to others' ears.