Puzzling signs in QC

Our proofreader is clearly a closet fan of Fernando Poe Jr. and associates every woman named Susan with the actor’s wife. As a result, Susan Reyes, who has a company which offers hospice care services, became FPJ’s actress-wife, Susan Roces.

Here is how that March 27 column item should have read:

"Susan Reyes has set up a company that puts to good use what she learned while taking care of Benpres Holdings chairman Eugenio Lopez II the last months before his death at their Alabang home.

The hospice service targets the families of the terminally ill who have decided to take their loved ones out of the hospital so they can die peacefully in their own beds."

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Those are strange and puzzling signs carried by some sari-sari stores in Quezon City – that they carry and sell La Suerte Philip Morris. Although the price per ream is at least P20 more expensive than the retail price of the cigarettes made at the Batangas factory of Philip Morris Phils., sales are reportedly brisk.

As everybody knows, La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Factory used to have the Philippine license to manufacture the Philip Morris and Marlboro brands.

Even more strange, the sari-sari store owners and buyers call the La Suerte packs the "real" one while they call those made in Batangas as the "fake" one, largely because of the perceived difference in taste. Of course, both are genuine, with La Suerte being old stock and Batangas being new stock.

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Did you know 1: US expatriates, including those at the Asian Development Bank, seem to have taken their summer break earlier than usual. Either that or they’re attending unusually long conferences or seminars outside the country.

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Did you know 2: The Spanish consulate is indeed handing out Spanish passports to Filipinos – but only if one of the parents of the applicant was born in Spain.

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Bank notes 1: Aesop wrote a fable like this one.

Philippine National Bank president and chief executive officer Lorenzo Tan and his guys thought of the idea and came up with the funding. Globe Telecom president Gerardo Ablaza Jr. agreed to provide the phones. And Overseas Workers Welfare Administration led by Administrator Virgilio Angelo provided the venue.

The idea – which is now being branded as an OWWA-initiated project – is to provide overseas Filipino based in Iraq and in nearby Middle East countries with communication lines to assure their families here that they are okay.

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Bank notes 2: Before, it was just Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho, when he is between appointments in Makati.

These days, Development Bank of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Simon Paterno also has to welcome the senators and congressmen who’ve decided to meet half way in Makati for their bicameral sessions.