Train

Netnet Camomot

TRAIN. Haven’t you had enough of this tax reform? Everyone is talking about it. Whew.

Meanwhile, cloudy days and rainy days are here. You may have to fly above those clouds for some sunshine. That is, if the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) has not affected flight prices yet.

This is January weather, when all you wanna do is stare at trees from the room with a view. Zzzzz. No, that’s not the buzzing of bees. That’s you, sleeping amidst the lazy weather. But there’s no rest for the weary since Train is now felt by the madlang pehpohl even if they’re not buying cars, cigarettes, sugar-sweetened drinks, and fuel. And why is that? Well, there’s that last word: fuel. Increase fuel prices and there’s the domino effect for all other prices, don’t be surprised if one of these days the Sun will charge you for basking in its rays.

It’s called Train because…

Try calling it Turtle. Snail. Crawl. Which can describe the speed of your car—that is, if you can still afford one with Train—while stuck in the Carmageddons of Manila, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, or other Philippine cities that are now on their way to Metro status.

Pinas’ present administration wants the country’s progress to speed up to that of a train. They can dream, can’t they? So, no turtles, no snails, no crawls.

In Japan, train is a good word, it inspires and evokes nice thoughts of bullet trains that follow their assigned sked up to the last second, with their speed at 320 kilometers per hour.

But Train is the worst term for a tax reform in Pinas where it evokes bad thoughts as commuters remember the time they had to walk “along the riles” after their train conked out right in the middle of the railway. Those who thought of using it as an acronym for tax reform and worked from there to insert the words “acceleration” and “inclusion,” must have forgotten that the trains in Manila and Luzon are the exact opposite of the ones in Japan.

The trains in Pinas can cause depression, they’re either in need of constant repairs or they don’t exist at all. Have you seen trains in Mindanao and Visayas? Only in your dreams. And dreaming is best for this cloudy and rainy weather. Watching movies, though, may help lift you up from the blues, especially with “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” as you laugh for Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Dwayne Johnson—the trio that should make more comedy films to help us forget Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey.

There’s something about nerds morphing into hunks which Johnson could easily embrace with his muscles and 12-pack abs. Yes, 12-pack—I counted. Haha!

But in the real world, nerds trying to morph into hunks is Ewww. To each his own.

Nerds have their own mojo—look at Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and the late Steve Jobs.

But not all nerds can be Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs. Again, to each his own.

“Jumanji” is one of the three funny movies showing last weekend, with “Pitch Perfect 3” and “Ferdinand” also promising to be funny. That’s exactly how to start the year—to laugh while issuing checks for the business permit renewal, real property taxes, and the perennial monthly value-added taxes. To lessen the pain. Laughter, after all, is the best medicine.

You’ll be laughing, too, once you’ve been through all the Realization 101s in the world. If today, you don’t know why all these are happening to you, there will come a time, most probably three years later, that you’ll finally have that aha moment: Aha! Time indeed heals all wounds. And then you’ll laugh. Bwahahaha!

2018 should be the year to save money for the Train’s domino effect. Invest in experience instead of material things. I told an acquaintance about this and, a few days later, he told me, Invest in experience, not material things. For a moment there, I thought, Hmmm, that sounds familiar. And then I remembered the advice came from me. Bwahahaha!

If only you can remember where you parked the car. A friend went through this dilemma at the mall on Sunday night when we helped her look for her car. Yes, we, her fellow senior-moment friends, like as if we have sharper brains. We drove from one level to the next, only to find her car at the level where we started. Bwahahaha!

A parking-area expert should invent a device to guide car owners in case they forget where they’ve left their cars. Kind of the “You are here” map in malls. You are here, the car is there, and there’s a lighted pathway to guide you there. Hallelujah!

Yup, that pathway will keep it simple and sweet. But not as sweet as sugar-sweetened beverages whose prices have increased, no thanks to Train which some netizens have called as the “Train to Busan,” the South Korean zombie film.

Realization 101: Prices will increase this year. Since Train has the word “inclusion,” the cost of experiences will also increase.

Watching a movie is an experience. Will its ticket prices also increase? Uh. Abangan.

Still, watching a funny movie is good for your health. No horror movies—“Train to Busan”!—please, so you can bwahahaha your way to sanity.