Thursday, April 15, 2010

SAMUT-SARI

The word "elderly" has been deleted in favor of 'senior citizens" in our country. I have misgivings about that the latter. It implies that there are "junior citizens" which then makes it a biased term. Why should the idea of the latter intrude into our concern with the elderlies?

Those who crafted laws apparently are mocking the state of the elderlies. This is why when I take a public vehicle and say "senior" inevitably the other passengers look at me. And the youth have taken cognizance of this discrimination by riding on it.

I was at Mercury drug store in Kamuning and the sales guy, a certain Marlon refused to answer my question as to how much Vitamin B Complex was. Three times I had to ask him before he would give me an answer. But when a young woman approached him, he readily answered. I pointed this out to him and he gave a lame answer that he was still attending to another customer.

As I was leaving, I told him, "Maybe you are afraid of old age. Don't be afraid of physical disintegration. Because growing old without wisdom is worse." The other senior customers looked at me as I mentioned that. I hope the owners of Mercury would read this.

There are other forms of discrimination. At SM Centerpoint, the janitors hover around me with their mops, as if I have to move out of the premises right away. I think the administration does not do this per se but the guards who are connected with Crame -- as their companies have to get their licenses from them.

So you see Folks, when we have to be true to our politics, we meet all kinds of obstacles especially when we grow old. Our country is not a place for retirement -- except when you have dollars, as the elderly foreign tourists who are being enticed to retire here.

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I watched Clash of the Titans film, and found something wrong with the word Hades, as the name of the god from the netherworld. Hades in mythology is the name of the underworld and the god there is Pluto. I wonder why the filmmakers changed the name.

Also as I watch those digitally-made animation films, as "How To Train Your Dragon," I find too many objects on the screen, which make them too clattered up. I hope that the filmmakers would use fewer figures, and concentrate on just plain storytelling visually.

Going back to the elderlies, I hope that before Mayor Belmonte gets out of the mayorship, he would allow us to view films at any day and any time as Makati provides her constituents. Quezon City is the richest city in all of NCR and there is no reason for it to be able to be more generous to those who have contributed a lot in making this country a better place to live in, democratically.