Some Sketches

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Originally uploaded by avnerijr.

During some lazy afternoons, boredom becomes the lonely hunter.



What better way than to put charcoal pencil on paper and do some sketches.

A Personal Look At The Current US Economy

Having now lived a total of 4 months since the start of this year in the old homeland, two points of personal observation stand out markedly in the local scenes.

First is the frenzied and incessant discourses both in media and among educated and interested local residents of the hot-button political flashpoints that have mesmerized the collective consciousness of a nation, gripped in some kind of political addiction that stubbornly refuses to be shaken off. Wherever one strays, or whatever printed materials one can come across locally, or whatever one sees or listens to on cable TV or radio, the riveting topics are about the many egregious manifestations and ramifications of politics as conspicuously played out both locally and nationally.

Next is the almost desperate and hopeless tone of the somber discourses on the state of the Philippine economy, ironically not in the usual areas of GDP, productivity, dollar reserves, etc, since their figures are quite encouraging, but more on the areas of pervasive poverty and ignorance which have cast a very large and ominous pall on the collective moral soul of the entire country. The various partylist causes and protests are a good representative, avowedly all done in the name of the poor and dispossessed. And by association, in the name of the ignorant masa, who it would appear can easily be led into causes that at first blush lack depth and careful study.

But I have observed with some degree of consternation and wonder how it is that these same sources, both media pundits and local educated elites, can discern so much about local politics and the adverse social conditions brought on by flawed economic policies and practices, yet are almost functionally illiterate about the current state of the US economy.

Many media pundits and many of my relatives and local acquaintances are both very articulate and incisive about local economics and usually have sufficient intellectual capital to make reasonably informed judgments on the politics and its practices of other countries, most especially the United States. The same sources are never at a loss of scholarly comments and opinions about the political actions of leaders of other nations and their local impacts.

Yet one can surmise from their commentaries and other public statements that at the very least, they are most disinterested in the US economy, though fully cognizant of how interdependent the US economy is with the rest of the world.

Ironically, one could probably surmise with some certainty that the US economy and the way it works is the primary reason why many of our compatriots can find the resources and energies to move heaven and earth to try to land a visa to the US. I doubt that US politics ranks high in the reasons for emigration.

When media pundits in the local press blurt out the cliched comment when asked about their incendiary kibitzing on US affairs that, when the Pentagon sneezes, the rest of the world shakes, it is precisely its allusion to US politics wittingly and unwittingly having worldwide repercussions.

Yet the state of the US economy and its economic policies may just be as crucial or maybe even more, as any of its political maneuvers in impacting the rest of the world, both for good or bad.

Given the above, maybe detailing some concise facts about the current US economy may aid open the gate for more serious and thorough reading and learning by the locals of an economy that from all comparative analyses works, albeit warts and all; and more appropriately, an economy that "when it sneezes, the rest of the world shakes".

First and foremost, one sterling quality of this economy which many knowledgeable persons ordain will continue to carry the US through centuries and any bumps along the way, is it free markets. Considered among the freest in the world, it has garnered many enviable records along the way. To mention one, since 1991 it has registered positive GDP growth, and in decent percentages for most periods but surprisingly vibrant in some instances. This, amidst most unusual and costly times, formidable vicissitudes that could easily stagger and down any economy of lesser caliber and resiliency.

The march to progress of this economy is also reflected in ways that benefit its consumers:

Reports of increasing labor productivity among other things could gauge the overall status of the workers within this economy.

With the above, we have been shown that overall household wealth is up.


And aligned with the above, we also have been shown that per capita consumer spending is up.

Leading to the concluding data that the number of rich people in the country has also been raised significantly.

But for the coming year, now only a notch away, this lumbering behemoth faces some tough concerns on the domestic front. The more important ones are enumerated below.

The US Housing Market - Soaring prices of houses in the entire country but more pronounced and unbelievably astronomical in some hotspot areas like California, New York, and Florida, have gone unabated for many years now. Many are now judging this as a bubble, ready to burst any time now. Without a doubt, the added equities on houses have fueled more consumer spending greatly boosting overall economic activities. If indeed this is a bubble, what would happen when it bursts? Many possible dire effects are easily identifiable.

Job Insecurity - While at present unemployment is down at 5%, considered full employment level by many, there continues a growing reality of job insecurity. A very real or possible consequence of globalization, which has spawned outsourcing.


Downward Trend for Real Wages - While labor costs indices continue to show increases, real wages have actually been stagnant. Funny but inflation is being kept down by keeping track of and trying to hold down labor costs.

Public/Private Pensions - The baby boomers are ready to retire in masse. And social security could go bankrupt if not reformed.


The Health Care System - Does not cover enough citizens and rising costs have to be controlled to continue to be affordable.


This economy then has to respond to the following pressures occasioned by the above and by forces extraneous to it:

Rising Competition From the East - China and India. Economies of both are growing in leaps and bounds. Soon they will be on the same size levels as many of the big economies of the world like Japan and some countries in the European community. We have seen how the unprovisioned surges in oil demands of China have wracked havoc on world crude prices. Even the Internet, which respects no geographical boundaries, is a major threat.

Shortfalls in Pension Funding - The day of reckoning is sooner than anybody thinks. Proposed SS reforms were shelved because of strong opposition, especially the part on "private accounts".


Global Financial Markets - To be competitive this economy will have to keep costs down,

Health Care Costs - Skyrocketing costs will have to be curbed.

Some possible recommendations to keep this economy going on its merry path.

Continued Good Monetary Policies - A new Fed chief will take the helm come January. One re-alignment move this new chief will have to confront is the mistaken notion that the Fed is the elixir of all the nation's economic ills. Because it is not. Other major branches of government will have to share the burden, in such areas as runaway expenditures, reckless fiscal policies, etc.

Better Graduates (High School) - To be competitive with the rest of the world, the US will have to revisit its education programs and determine how they match up with the rest of the world. Outsourcing is both friend and foe.


Somehow health-care costs will have to be held down and/or brought to affordable levels, or at the very least better allocation of available health services will have to be implemented.


Prudent ways will have to be found on how to adequately fund pensions, both private and public, without necessarily running to the ground those companies that have to carry them. Tax hikes? Prudent ones, maybe. And reforms to the present SS system will have to be re-introduced and passed before they are too late.

And lastly, government's borrowings as percentages to GDP appear to still be sustainable over the short haul. But over the long term, more borrowings especially from foreign sources will have to be curtailed, since they may not be tenable. Those trillions of dollars in instruments held by foreign countries like Japan and China may not in the long run bode well for the interests of the US. Government deficit spending is primarily accountable for the ballooning public debt.

Cebu's Least Known Face

Most of us are quite familiar with the enticing allures that the geography of Cebu has proudly laid out for the many visitors, both domestic and foreign, who troop to the island.

A strip-lean island, surrounded in most of its long and still enviable coast lines by one of nature's most fascinating wonders, the living, breathing and growing structures humankind loves to explore and gaze at, the coral reefs.

A fly-over on the tiny island strip, charted on a north to south orientation, will readily reveal how these coral reefs have encircled the entire island in a tight embrace. Easily distinguishable by its whitened outlines, hemmed in by landmass on one side and the dark-green deep on the other. Giving Cebu a much stouter outline than the land-bound observer would normally discover.

The old native residents of the place call the place Sugbu and the residents, Sugbuanons, which loosely translated mean "to wade through" and "those who waded through". Obviously describing how people got to the island, by wading through non-navigable and shallow portions of the foreshores and beyond.

But apart from the sea level or below sea-level natural wonders of the place, I soon discovered another physical wonder way up from the low-lying land and consorting with the low-flying clouds. These are the ruggedly steep, high and jagged, mountains as one travels across from east to west. From Cebu City to the City of Toledo, and specifically to the town of Lutupan, site of the defunct mining company, Atlas Copper Mining Corporation.

Words cannot amply describe both the beauty, the jagged peaks, and the possible perils that these ominous mountains hold for the many wary travelers.

As one ambles up from the flat areas of Cebu City and approaches the mountain ranges that provide natural delineations between the west and east, a stretch of about 20 kilometers is the timid and fearful traveler's answer to what it must feel like negotiating the most winding and treacherous mountains of the Himalayas if roads were built all the way to their tops.

Suffice it to say that that stretch is called Manipis, which translated means very thin or skinny. Which, applied to the road, means very narrow and winding. Very apt description given by old travelers who used to work in the mines. Now the road has been widened a bit, but still too narrow for comfort and safety. After all, a vehicle has to stop at many points along the way since some stretches do not have enough road space to allow traffic to pass each other.

One's deep fears of heights and of falling are generously heightened and exposed in the many hairpin turns that dot that perilous stretch. Laying bare gaping and steep chasms that stretch all the way down to the bottom of the mountains, at times maybe thousands of meters down. Sheer drops that make grotesquely unimaginable the catastrophic consequences of vehicles free-falling all the way to the bottom. Sheer drops with only a few feet of God's earth protecting and supporting the mindless vehicles negotiating through them.

Time seems to stand still as one's vehicle snakes through them, cautiously taking each dangerous turn with white bare knuckles and rapidly pulsating hearts.

In the end, however, the trip ends without any untoward incident and appears well worth it, experiencing in the process some novel pleasures interspersed with great fears and anticipation.

The entire mine complex, which used to be a thriving and throbbing hub of frenetic activities, appears now quite decrepit and mute. If I remember correctly, Atlas used to be the No. 1 copper producer in the world, supplying a good percentage of the world's demands. But the general declines of metal prices during the 90s took a grave toll, so much so that in that same decade, the mine, which had operated pre-WWII, had to close and lay off most of its operating personnel. Now only a couple of hundreds are left to secure the huge place and to do some basic regular maintenance chores.

The good news is that various talks are afoot for the re-opening of the mine under new ownership, with possible financial and operational participation of foreign investors. The prognosis is very good because metal prices are again riding on record-high crests, and there appear no ready suppliers around the world to fill in the slack in the renewed demands for copper.

This will be a very welcomed development for an island that has traditionally prided itself as the gateway to the south. But which of late has slyly referred to itself in tourist brochures tersely as simply an island in the Pacific, with the obvious snub of and dis-association from the rest of the island archipelago now mired in deep social and political problems; and getting very negative press in the rest of the world.

Not a very ideal situation in the island's drive to attract more tourists, and garner more revenues for its development projects.

In Memoriam: Nilda Neri Veloso

(Nilda Neri on the right)
During the funeral services in Baybay, in Southern Leyte, I was asked to deliver a short memorial for my late aunt who was buried last November 12, 2005.

This entry is intended as a more or less permanent memorial of or testimony on the life of the deceased. Any relatives and friends then who chance upon this blogsite are invited and encouraged to lend their own words under the Comment section of this entry.

Thanking you in advance.

I am one of the sons of Amadeo R. Neri, an elder brother of our late departed aunt, Nilda Neri Veloso. I, my brother Philip, and sister Esper, who are here with you today on this most solemn occasion, are all originally from Cagayan de Oro, the same place where Tia Dedith, or Nilda to many of you, also first saw light.

With her death, we have witnessed the auspicious passing of the last surviving sibling of my father's family. And I understand the same is also true on the Veloso side.

Tia Dedith's passing marks a significant milestone - the complete transfer of legacy from one generation to another. We could say, the passing of the proverbial torch to the next generation.

Relatedly, this aspect of her passing has also been quite a revelation for me personally. Our waking up one day to confront the knowledge that we are now the older generation. That many of our cherished elders have passed on, leaving us veritable orphans.

Regarding our own unique and special relationships with Tia Dedith, these are what I can say based on my best recollections.

For most of us brothers and sisters, growing up in idyllic Cagayan de Oro during the early 50's, we may be able to say with one voice that we share the same recollections of Tia Dedith.

To us, Tia Dedith was an aunt we saw only on quite rare occasions. We formed our images of her as the youngest and best-looking sister of our father, who married an important person from Baybay. That with her husband, she split her time between Baybay and Manila. In due course, of course, we learned that she had married our late Tio Minggoy Veloso, who in his political career went on to become Speaker ProTempore of the House, aside from presiding over and tightly operating a thriving shipping business.

The rare visits of Tia Dedith to her old hometown were always welcomed and eagerly anticipated events by us, her nephews and nieces. And because of her vaunted generosity which reputation preceded her, we kids may even have regarded those visits as Christmas times for us. Since we wasted no time milling around her and doggedly continued on till our hands or pockets were filled with our generous shares of her pasalubongs.

Tia Dedith always rose to the occasion, leaving us with kind and lasting thoughts of her generosity.

When the years passed and we had developed our own travel wings, my brothers and sisters got the coveted opportunities of being able to visit with her in Manila. And at times stay with her as her non-paying quests in her hospitable house in Cortada, Ermita. Two older brothers even worked for them for some time. And as I learned last night, even my father was allotted office space in Cortada for a time.

In fine, we collectively got to know Tia Dedith better, through these intimately close contacts.

And as more years passed and the number of her surviving siblings dwindled, we individually got to know her even better - from her occasional visits to Cagayan to attend the fiesta and in turn from our visits to her in Baybay from the time she got widowed.

Today we are paying our last visit and our last respects to our last connection to our parents' generation, and eventually to that part of our past.

We take this once in a lifetime opportunity then to reflect on the long life of Tia Dedith and longingly offer her back to her God's warm embrace, laced with our equally loving testimony on a life well lived.

A life quite deserving of honor, respect, and the eternal reward promised to each one of us.

May God bless us all.

A Little Bit Of Back To The Past

If one rummages through one's spent youth, what would one find in the attic or closet?

Invariably, one could find a typical assortment of discarded trinkets, old-yellowed scrapbooks and yearbooks, maybe some once-invaluable toys. Some science projects that got honorably mentioned maybe? Or little art objects created and molded by one's little clumsy hands? Maybe some remnants of a philately or a numismatist collection rendered inactive many years ago?

Well, maybe all that and more.

But would one typically find objects that required endless hours to create and prided then as great beauties deserving of some enviable place in one's little room and eventually in the cavernous hallowed halls of one's memory?

Maybe little inconsequential objects that could be likened to currency or legal tender, or even antiques, because they now possess intrinsic values frozen in time and residing in them?

And for me personally more than just invaluable memory stored in them, the strictly financial aspect of countless time invested in them, debited and withdrawn from the finite number of hours in one of life's crucial phases which we call youth.

And this is exactly what I felt during one of my trips back to the old homeland and discovering in some obscure corner of the old house that I used to call home, some of these objects that used to occupy and consume my youthful idle time with such serious vigor and passion that at times made me oblivious to time and its many youthful allures

I well remember that armed only with a several lead pencils (they were actually made from graphite) and ordinary manila folders or any blank pad available, I would sequester myself in some quiet and secluded nook, and with nose to the grind, be completely lost in the creation of those objects.

Now I wonder if I had wantonly misspent so much of my youth on such petty pursuits. And worse, because a good many of these objects have become hapless victims of time and humidity. The little unseen things spawned by the blistering humidity of a tropical place have ravaged many. Realized too late that those little insects (?) could make happy meals out of shades and lines created by lead pencils, leaving only as left-overs the paper they were etched into.

Anyway, discover them I did. And floods of memories immediately rushed out like careening waters from a broken dam. And before assigning them back to oblivion, I now commit pen and space to reliving those then priceless memories

Oh, by the way, these objects are drawings or sketches, strictly of people's faces, heads only.

My favorite subject was the Greek god-like features of Elvis Presley, who was likened to old filmdom's great profile, John D. Barrymore. It was such an easy pleasure etching on paper the prominently chiseled features of the late great rock and roll singer, with his deep-set eyes, full-blown pouty lips, great pompadour, etc.

Several of my drawings of him were saved from completely being lost. Here are those that were spared:



















On the distaff side, now old and craggy Liz Taylor was the darling, not only with the puzzling eyes that change colors, but again with the perfectly chiseled features earning for her the title as the most beautiful woman of Hollywood and beyond. Here's a couple:




















A little bit of ego played in it too, so here's a self-portrait:


















The wife figured in it, too, feeling quite compelled to include her in the odd collection though at a much much later period:

Now, I recall several sketches of pretty local girls were gifted to their admired subjects.

The other sketches quite dutifully followed both the usual shallowness and profundity of youth, both in its crassness and idealism, its zany-ness and logic. There's John F Kennedy, local movie idol Jose Mari, Shirley MacLaine, B-actor John Saxon, clean-cut Pat Boone, talentless as a singer but beautiful Fabian Forte, local star Lourdes Medel, and Bing Crosby's youthful wife Kathryn, etc.




















Lastly, harried restoration work was attempted on those saved using the much darker imprints and shades of charcoal pencils. The sketches then are not how they looked originally. And with the scary results, it may have been a great mistake to retouch them in the first place.

Oh, well!