Pencils sans erasers

Two years ago someone gave me as Christmas gift a box of rubber erasers. On the gift tag was written this: “Maybe you can use this to clean your column of proofreading errors.” Until now I’m clueless as to who the sender was.

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This year someone sent me a dozen Made in Korea pencils without erasers. I sat down, looked at the eraserless pencils, and tried to draw the conclusion: Either my columns are now cleaned of typos or the typos are still there and erasers are of no help.

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Our congressmen are mostly called “Cong” by their own staff, their constituents and the press. For example: Cong. Jun Alcover, Cong. Manny Pacquiao, Cong. Eddie Gullas, Cong. Pablo John Garcia, etc. Does it sound nice to you? It does not to me.

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Cong was what the world press called the Viet Cong for short during the Vietnam War. I prefer to use Rep. short for Representative instead of Cong. Anyway Rep. is also the abbreviation of Representante.

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I don’t like to call Ormoc City’s Congresswoman Lucy Torres Gomez “Cong. Lucy.” It doesn’t sound beautiful for a beauty like Lucy.

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Did you know that 90 percent of Filipinos do not know whose faces are on the peso bills they have in their pockets? There are even those who do not know that there is no peso denomination for P30.

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But 100 percent of Pinoys know whose picture is on the P500 bill. Of course, he’s Ninoy Aquino, who the sidewalk vendors in Colon identify as “ang tawong nanampiling.”

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Peter Llenosara, a Boholano freelance journalist, said in his e-mail message which came delayed because of the holidays: “A fellow freelance travel writer from Sydney, Australia and I tried to pass through the subway part of the so-called SRP shortly before Christmas but we were barred from doing so. My companion was here to do a story on Cebu’s tourist attractions, one of which is the subway.”

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I have no comment, Mr. Llenosara. But I want to say something about the controversy regarding Cebu City’s “decline” as the PHL’s top tourist destination. I’ve been told that Camsur (Camarines Sur) which has overtaken Cebu City, according to reports, is giving its tourism drive a much greater push, which includes setting aside funds for advertising and other promotional effort. This according to a PR practitioner of my acquaintance.

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One of my good neighbors Hilario “Larry” Loquinario passed away the morning after Christmas Day. Three days before, he passed by my house and we exchanged Merry Christmas greetings. Suddenly he was gone...Rest in peace, Larry Baby.

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