A Slice Of The Filipino Diaspora – Part II

Continuing on the initial piece on the Filipinos in diaspora here in the West Coast of the US, particularly in the San Francisco-Bay Area of northern California, here is another rich and revealing slice of how the Filipino away from origins continues to exhibit his Filipino-ness, all social and political pressures and nuances notwithstanding.


Pacific Super Grocery: (Click On Images To Enlarge)


Pacific Super - Another View:

Pictured herewith is a place quite well known and frequented by our compatriots, when they shop for their food items. Located in the “newer” side of Daly City, the sector close to famed SerraMonte mall, and where the later houses in Daly City have been built – bigger and more expansive.

These pictures show the Pacific Super grocery store, euphemistically called an ethnic grocery store because it caters to ethnic minorities but in this particular instance more to the FilAms in their predominantly controlled area and city. Ironically, it is owned and operated by Chinese entrepreneurs, uncharacteristically employing Chinese nationals and Hispanics, but no FilAms. Another store location is on the other side of town, which is geographically still part of San Francisco, though patronage-wise, it also caters to the predominantly FilAm areas on that side of town.

Because food and its partaking is such an integral and basic part of one’s Filipino-ness, this grocery store which is located on a strip mall is always a busy beehive of activities by mostly FilAms with Lolo or Lola and little pre-school kids in tow, during most days of the week but most especially during Fridays and/or paydays. It is a place where pesky nostalgia about yearned-for food and food items of the old homeland can be set aside and satisfied, because many of the old familiar items can be found and purchased here. Pan de sal and pan de leche, and even pan de coco wrapped fresh in plastic and baked by FilAm bakers. Popular saltine crackers in tin cans, reminiscent of happy merienda time of the past. Various packets designed to add flavor and local touches to home-cooking menus such as dinuguan, kari-kari, tinola, etc. Fresh tropical fruits such as frying bananas, guavas, mangoes, etc. And what about rice, in its many varieties from as far away and exotic as Thailand and Burma, and as close as the lush farmlands of California with its famous CalRose brand.

And most other necessary items found in a typical Filipino meal setting, though not necessarily imported from the old homeland, since the other Asian neighbors have also gotten wise to this heating lucrative market. Lucrative, because comparatively speaking, many items here, not necessarily imported, sell for far more than comparable items in other grocery stores. For example, a loaf of American bread may have been baked and may weigh similarly to a package of pan de sal, but price-wise, the pan de sal may cost twice as much.

St. Francis Square:

St Francis Square - Another View:

The entire strip mall itself has been abundantly Filipinized. Named St Francis Square, many business tenants are FilAms and I was told when we first chanced upon this mall in the 80’s that the owner of the mall was the late Antonio Villegas, noted former mayor of Manila.

In the pictures, notice Kadoks selling what else, lechon, and other usual short orders. There is a freight forwarding office named Johnny Air. There is even an RCBC office engaged in money remittances and allied services. And next door to Pacific Super is the now homely-looking Tito Rey of the Islands, which used to be the Filipino restaurant and club to go to be noticed by your fun loving away from home compatriots. And where visiting “stars and celebrities” had as their venue of choice for enticing local FilAms to part with their hard-earned dollars to witness them perform, or just simply to see them live and in person. And there are also a number of FilAm mom-and-pop operations behind the front façade and parking lot of the mall.

Notice also on the surrounding hills the confining clusters of both new and not-so-old residential buildings erected close to each other, mute testimony to the scarcity and dearth of land in this part of the land-strapped San Francisco peninsula. You bet most of those houses on higher elevation are owned by our FilAm compatriots.

The Lowly Philippine Half Centavo

The current day Philippine peso definitely cannot get one a bagful of pan de sal, the islands’ bread staple. Imagine what a half centavo could purchase!

Next to nothing. Plus, there is no issue of half centavo on the current set of coins.

However, once upon a time, half centavos were in circulation and did have real purchasing value.

Click to read on.

Making Sense Of The Da Vinci Code Phenomenon

Some Candid observations.

The early works /books on the Shroud of Turin, including the recent one that also tied the name of controversy-magnet Da Vinci to an alleged hoax, and which work is alleged to be not fiction, made very tiny splashes compared to the deluge created by DVC, both in book and movie form.



Enjoying its late-blooming successes at the tills, the DVC is now being compared to Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, which also created quite a stir during its time. Now its precursor book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which many concede was better written and had a more exciting storyline, is following suit and generating more sales because of the DVC. And needless to state, the other works of fiction of author Dan Brown are also garnering reflected glory and late financial successes.

You know what might be the most primal and elemental thread that piques people’s interest to read and/or view these particular stories, whether fictional or factual, and not the others?

Let not anybody, least of all the fainthearted and shaky of faith, be shocked and scandalized. But it is my lowly hypothesis that it is the sex angle in them that sparked their great following. The eye-popping revelation that Jesus Christ could be involved in any human sexual relationship! That’s what piques and titillates the interest of most everybody, sufficient enough to make people want to set aside time and resources to read or view those works.

I have witnessed the randomly-picked man/woman on the street being asked on TV, sheepishly say that that is so. And of course, the image of Leonardo Da Vinci over time has been defined and inured by sexual innuendos. And as the unwritten but revered advertising code declares and confirms: Sex Sells!

The Passion of the Christ was also a box-office success, narrating a very oft-told and reflexively familiar story, already known to most of the world. Granted that the antecedent stories about the unparalleled gore and barbarism made for a compelling intro and come-on for the patrons to see the movie. But there may be more to it than just that.





Producer/Director Mel Gibson hired his cast composed mostly of virtual unknowns in the US, and thus not noteworthy not only in renown but also in looks, except possibly for James Caviezel. And of course, the very beautiful and voluptuous Italian siren, Monica Bellucci, cast in the role of Mary Magdalene. So, why her for that specific role? Even the role of Mother Mary, who may have only been 47 when Jesus died, is given to an older-looking woman who though possessed of striking features paled considerably when compared with the former.

The news reported that Miss Paris Hilton in her recent holidays in Europe was paid a cool 1.2 million bucks, just to be present in a couple of events and to wave her dainty hand to the public.

So what kinetic attraction value do you think she has? Most everybody knows.

What could possibly develop if we all simply “get out of the closet” and recognize the very strong, maybe immutable and inescapable, magnetism sex and its many allures exert in the everyday and workaday lives of most humans? Is it time maybe to let it all hang out in the open, and maybe somehow strip away (puns intended) some of the puzzling mystique of guilt pleasures clandestinely associated with it?

For after all, isn’t it that most everybody, experts and lay people alike, already swear that sex is good and should not be viewed as dirty and shameful?

In The Not Too Distant Past . . . .

Oh, how we easily take things for granted.

We sit smugly in our own little world in front of a comfortably small machine that speedily and unobtrusively transports us to the vast frontiers of cyberspace, in matters of seconds. And oh, we can say, in nanoseconds.

A machine that in its tiny physical parameters can list really stupendous capabilities and powers – a processor that boasts of speeds of over 3Ghz, storing processed information in random memory of over 1Gig, and permanently storing files of any format or flavor into a hard drive with a capacity of over 200Gigs, and whatever new-fangled bells and whistles we have accessorized it with.

We of course, do not necessarily gloat over this prized possession because we know there are out there machines that can run circles on our own. Machines that may have multiple processors, or even multiple-core processors, and even faster and larger memory chips, and multiple, faster, and larger hard drives.

But we have reasons to take these for granted – because they are now quite commonplace, and relatively cheap for the typical consumer to hanker for and acquire.

But in the not too distant past, the world was a lot more primitive, coarse, and snail-like in motion. And we do not mean centuries or eons past. What about in the early 80’s?

In 1982, working for a first-class hotel in downtown San Francisco, one had the opportunity to work in EDP (Electronic Data Processing) and toy around with a mini-computer the size of a small refrigerator. It was the heart of a network connected via co-axial cable with nodes attached to dumb terminals. The computer itself (named Four Phase and made by a company named Datahost) had two spinning drives, one live and the other back-up. Anyway, measuring against current technology, it was so old one hardly remembers much about it.



Then by 1985 came the IBM System 3x (34, 36, 38), technically marketed as mini-computers though larger than the previous one, measuring at least like a big commercial-size freezer. And the tandem printer measuring and weighing just a little bit less. Still networked via co-axial cable with nodes attached to dumb terminals. But at this stage, progress signs were already evident, with the use of sub-systems on a token-ring model with exchanges of data coming from outside via circuit-switched phone lines, with registered speeds of 4-6 MHz.

In late 1994, hotel management decided to try IBM’s newest but mysterious and incredibly small and squat machine labeled the AS400 (Application System). Unfortunately, its introduction and marketing was at the cusp of the breakout of the personal computer as the machine of choice for business. Thus, we never really had time to get acquainted with the black console, which if located on the floor required back-stretching motions to operate its buttons and view its tiny console screen.

But backtracking a bit, in 1981, IBM launched its first Personal Computer and in the process coining the word, PC. x286, x386, x486 – terms most probably now lost in current-day tech-jargon. But it will be decent to remember that a computer with an x486 processor powered the original Mars rover that did many of that wonderful stuff for earthbound operators, doing so many millions of miles away. Is this the same rover that to this date continues to receive commands from earth stations? I can’t say.

But by 1993, the first Intel Pentium chips had been launched with initial processor speed of 60-66 MHz. and quickly progressing to 90-100-160 MHz.

And quickly by 1995, the PC had already firmly established itself as a business tool, and faster and more efficient network models were very well into their seamless integration with the PC. Thus, we had our auspicious introduction to the Server/Workstation model via Ethernet, using the then popular server operating system, the Windows NT 3.1, in tandem with Windows 95 for the deployed workstations.

But even well into the start of the new millennium, our server PCs were still running with single processors at speeds of no faster than 400Mhz and we had workstations running at 200Mhz , with a good number still chugging along at 160Mhz.

But the following years up to the current one we have witnessed the remarkable explosion in processor speed that had most everybody worshipping Moore’s law on its evolution.

Now thinking and planning beyond the physical limits imposed by nature on silicon, people in the industry are now talking about nanotechnology – venturing and striking into the molecular or atomic level of matter.

Are we now approaching what has been projected and termed by some scientists as Singularity? – An exponentially expanding future from an exponentially shrinking technology.

Who can say? Another projection for Brave New World Revisited 2x?

Genocide, Genetics, Genome, And Genealogy

At no time in man’s short history of civilized living has he arrived at the same breakneck speed that he has exhibited in this current attempt to decimate and annihilate his own kind, with such unparalleled magnitude and barbaric ferocity. Societies now talk about wiping out of the map entire countries, and even civilizations, if and when given the opportunity. Never has man except now been so enamored with barbaric violence that beheadings and executions taped and nonchalantly played on media have become commonplace.

Any reasonable earthman may be impelled to surmise that any similarly-gifted alien chancing upon this beautiful-looking “pale blue dot”, a puny resident of the universe’s Milky Way, might be stultified in grave wonder when he takes a closer look and realizes that its inhabitants are locked in mortal self-assured mutual destruction. Appearing too eager to drive down the inexorable path of self-annihilation.

But what is not easily discernible is that this same species is a hopeful one. Infused in his nature as one of his emergency passions, he is eternally and inveterately hopeful, regardless of the countless vicissitudes confronting him. At times maybe reacting out of fear, but definitely as part of the inborn instinct of self-survival.

Thus, amidst all these troubling developments, a good many humans continue on with the task of finding ways and means to improve the common lot of humankind. People searching and discovering novel ways to extend the life of man, improve his cognitive skills, assist in his dominion over creation, and overall, improving how he can experience life.

One such global endeavor is the tracking and recording of the human genome, man’s complete set of genetic information which includes his DNA and RNA. Already scores of organizations are thick in the progress of tracking down to the gene level certain common diseases and predispositions that man has been plagued with, with the earnest hope of finding not only cures for them, but eventually of preventing their onset by learning about genomes in a family’s genealogy and looking for possible prevention on that level.

Thus the study of one’s family history, or genealogy, usually borne out of curiosity has taken on more profound dimensions and is now being engaged as an integral component in this big joust to combat human diseases.

As one intermittently preoccupied with my own family’s genealogy, this new development certainly buoys one’s spirits to concoct grandiose dreams of someday seeing this little hobby or avocation take on an exalted place as one of man’s critical tools in his deep strides toward improving his species’ progeny.

And what is happening in Iceland today shows the extent and promise that this project brings.

And this island nation, tucked close to the icy North Pole, is most unique and apropos in many ways, for precisely this kind of project.

It is a small nation with population of only 275,000. And its public health system has been most thorough and meticulous keeping individual medical records since 1915.

About 80% of the present population can trace their lineage, all the way back 1200 years ago, when a few hundred Vikings and some Celts settled in the island. Thus, genealogy has been an integral part of family culture and tradition.

Being a rather geographically isolated place, there has not been much migration to the island since the first settlement, making the population as homogeneous as one can get. And because of this isolation outside disasters such as famine and plagues have been precluded from adding new genetic input into the local gene pool.

Homogeneity is believed to be a big help in studying genetic disorders in populations, rather than just on individuals since it is further claimed that change or mutation over time occurs in populations not in individuals.

All these factors pooled together have made possible the following development.

Started in 2000, the government now has created a centralized national health database of all the Icelandic peoples' genealogical, genetic, and personal medical information. Thus, family histories are included in this database. It was the initial intent of Parliament to gather genetic data of all Icelanders to facilitate the identification of genetic traits and inherited diseases with the ultimate purpose of finding drugs to arrest such diseases at the gene level.

deCODE, the company contracted by the government to undertake this study, hopes to market to interested parties whatever important and useful information may be derived, including but not limited to pharmaceutical companies and health care providers