Sarap ng buhay

By Netnet Camomot

A NEW year’s resolution to stop checking out Facebook would have failed by now. When I told a friend that I was planning to take a break from FB, she asked, But why? Hmmm. Because I want to read books.

I log in to my FB account upon waking up. It’s a hard habit to break. Considering I still have time to write, I may be reading less and Facebooking more. That’s leisure time divided into two, with FB as the first half, and reading/writing occupying the other half.

January, however, may require lesser leisure time since it’s the month for paying business taxes where the garbage fee is P8,800. Gasp! And major tax payments will go on and on till April. If you’ve not availed of the 2020 real property taxes’ discounted rate last December, their regular rate will be due in March 2020. Then, there’s the income tax on April 15. Inhale. Exhale.

Those who use their legal businesses to launder money from their illegal businesses may not have to inhale and exhale as there’s more than enough cash in their vault for their tax payments. The term “sarap ng buhay” must be for them. But the truly “sarap ng buhay” are the politicians who steal from the national treasury. They don’t even have to manage a business unless they need that to launder money received as “commissions.”

Can’t help imagine where the taxpayer’s money is going now that President Rody Duterte has signed into law the P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020. Ang saya-saya! But are the madlang pehpohl happy? Well, they gave Duterte an 87-percent approval rating last December, so, yes, perhaps they still are.

But I wonder if the LGBT community is happy now that the Supreme Court has junked “with finality” the same-sex marriage petition in Pinas. I do tend to tell gay friends to go abroad if they want to marry the love of their life since it’s impossible for Catholic Pinas to say yes to same-sex marriage. Pinas and Vatican City are the only two places in this whole wide world that don’t allow divorce. So, expecting the conservative Pinoy to go from having no divorce laws to approving same-sex marriage is the highest level of wishful thinking. To dream the impossiboooool… dream. To fight the unbeataboooool… foe. That kind of impossible.

Expecting US President Donald Trump to stop the US-Iran conflict is more of a reality than Pinas having a divorce and same-sex marriage.

People who have reached a certain age do have their own impossible dreams that turned out to be possible along the way, thanks to hard work, faith, and luck. For example, there’s Dennis Uy, the country’s newest tycoon. One of his bright ideas is Mislatel Consortium, Pinas’ third major telecommunications firm. Yes, you may soon have an iPhone 12 through Mislatel, that is if Apple will release a new phone and Mislatel will start accepting subscribers this year.

Unless Uy will choose to offer only those phones made in China. But iPhones are assembled in China as somehow revealed by Ricky Gervais in his 2020 Golden Globes monologue: “Apple roared into the TV game with ‘The Morning Show,’ a superb drama. A superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China.”

iPhone users tend to be loyal to Apple since they’re already familiar with its products. Replacing their iPhone with another brand means learning the ABCs of that brand, which could be taxing to the senior-moment level of patience. If only patience can be made in China. But it’s not even learned. I think the more challenges you’ve conquered, the more patient you become since you can now empathize with other people.

It’s called a smartphone because it’s smarter than its owner. Do you know the latest news about JaDine? Of course, you don’t if you’re not their avid fan. But Google knows whom to ask. And your smartphone has Google.

The smartphone also has an app for your favorite clothing store. If your closet is filled beyond its capacity, with the clothes in there now having claustrophobic episodes, ignore that app and listen to a decluttering podcast instead. Hey, that’s a new year’s resolution right there. Better late than never.