Phil. HB 2387

About a week ago, I came across a news article about a bill in the Philippine congress, particularly HB 2387 seeking to impose additional requirements from foreign men who wish to marry Filipino women.  Specifically, the bill proposes that in addition to a proof of legal capacity to marry, foreign men must provide the ff:

• Certificate of Good Moral Character
• Proof of Employment, Business or other Trade with gainful income

Being a Filipina married to a foreigner, I took offense at this bill.  It is making a mockery of my marriage and all other bona fide Filipino interracial marriages.   The premise is faulty.  As a Filipina bride, I am being depicted as a hapless victim incapable of taking care of myself and whose only chance in life is through marriage to a richer foreign man.  In short, Filipina brides are generalized as gold-diggers.   And by asking for proof of of an income stream, we have just solidified that ugly image of Filipinas to the world.   Don't be surprised if racist remarks against Filipinas persist.

This I think is a form of discrimination that I have to endure.  The truth is many narrow-minded people think that marrying outside your race is an act of desperation, either because you can't find a lover in your own color or it is your ticket out of poverty.  Many also seem to think that such marriages are devoid of love, equality, companionship, respect and all other virtues and principles that good marriages are made of.  Instead, they think that it is merely based on a penchant for exoticism.   Call me color blind then, because I can't see any problem in the fact that Ben is white and I am brown.  Abuse in marriages can happen anywhere.  Even Filipino men are capable of it.

I do acknowledge however that abuse of Filipino women does exist and I give credit to the intention of the bill.  However, the measures it proposes to protect Filipina brides are just simply pathetic. What is good moral character?  Is it simply the absence of a criminal record?  What if the foreigner has liberal,  progressive views like advocating same sex marriage that counters the predominantly conservative and catholic views of the Philippines? Will he be immoral?  What if he does not believe in God?  By whose standard is morality defined?

I would liken the government to a father wanting only the best son in law for his daughter.  My dad never asked me how much Ben makes.  He didn't have to because he raised me well.  He made sure I can fend for myself and look to my husband as an equal.

And that is where the fault of this bill lies.  It ignores the bigger problem of empowering Filipino women.  What we need is a comprehensive program that will give Filipinas access to education, protection of their own reproductive health, promotion of gender equality especially at work, etc,  and not a band aid solution like this bill.

There are no shortcuts and cutting corners where protection of women is concerned.

Bumming Around and Turning into a Couch Potato

I've been a bum since February.  That's 7 long months.  It may sound like a great long vacation or sabbatical, but it sometimes drives me crazy.

I didn't mind the first 3 months as I was busy preparing to migrate as well as planning for the wedding.  The 4th month was the best as I had my family here for the wedding.   But when they left and Ben went back to work, I cried for days.  It felt like everything just became so quiet and empty.   I eventually got used to being alone during the day again, and that's when I reconciled myself to the fact that I will be a bum for a while.  I embraced "bum-hood", or whatever is the right term for the art of being a bum.

So what does a bum do?  You turn to the TV and internet of course.   I transformed myself into a couch potato.   Imagine me in my pajamas with my uncombed hair and eating meals in front of the TV.   Not a lovely sight, I know.  Only Ben can see me anyways, haha.

I turned to TV series because obviously that would mean a lot more hours of watching.   Here's a list of the TV series I watched since migrating to the US in April:

This is a given.   This is probably my favourite TV show of all time.  My first Sunday here in Albany was the season 4 premiere telecast.   Ben and I would look forward to Sunday nights because of this.   After the season 4 finale, Sunday nights started to suck.  It was hard to think of what to watch in place of GOT.  I dare not say who my favourite characters in the show are, lest they die!

Photo from the official Facebook page of Game of Thrones.

I know this series aired in 2005.   I've always heard it was good but I never got around to watching it until now.   Ben and I really enjoyed this.  We went through the 2 seasons in a week.  What's funny is I recognized characters in Rome from TV series they starred in much later, e.g.:
   Julius Caesar = Mance Raydar in Game of Thrones
   Mark Antony = Joe Carrol in The Following
   Niobe = Ellaria Sand in Game of Thrones
   Brutus = Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones
   Marcus Agrippa = Tom Branson in Dowton Abbey
   Titus Pullo = Isaak Sirko in Dexter (pointed out by Ben)
Photo from IMDB

This is another good one!  Ben and I breezed through 4 seasons in 2 weeks, that's how addicting it is.  It's so refreshing to see Steve Buscemi not play a comedian and he really does a great job here.   My favourite characters are Nucky Thompson, Chalky White, Eddie Kessler,  and of course, Richard Harrow.

I can't wait for Sept. 7 for the start of Season 5.   It makes want to go to the real Boardwalk in Atlantic City to soak in the real thing, sans the liquor and violence, of course.

Photo from IMDB

This was a surprise hit for me.   I thought it would be somewhat like Prison Break,  but it's a lot lighter than Prison Break and some characters in the show are very endearing.  I particularly like Poussey, Red, Crazy Eyes, but don't care much for the lead, Piper Chapman.   I'm happy that Crazy Eyes (Azo Aduba) won an Emmy for her performance here.

Having learned from binge watching and feeling the series is gone all too soon, Ben and I took our time with this one.  Only 1 or 2 episodes per day.  Stretched it as far as we could.

Photo from IMDB

Watching this is a product of the vacuum left by Game of Thrones.  It's on Sunday nights and with nothing better to watch, we tuned in.   I don't really like this show.  There is the burning question that is left unanswered, and from the looks of it, it will never be answered.   Why did 2% of the population vanish into thin air?  They focus on too many seemingly unrelated subplots and all the while ignoring the elephant in the room.   I am worried it may go in the direction of Lost.   Too many theories about where the plane landed and in the end it got convoluted   But yeah, I'll watch this till the season ends.  Just because I'm a bum.

Photo from IMDB

I heard great reviews about Vikings.  It airs from the History Channel so I thought that brings credibility to the show.  The first 2 or 3 episodes of Season 1 were exciting, but soon after our praise for the show waned.   It just seemed too easy for Ragnar Lothbrok.  I couldn't make a connection with any of the characters.  People who watched this show tell me to keep on watching as it gets progressively better.   Ben and I watched till S1E9, but it still did not improve for me.   I need to force myself to watch this again.  Maybe when I'm bored enough I will.

Photo from IMDB

My former colleague from back home (Jeff Ong) highly recommended this series and so off we went and watched it.  The verdict:  Liked.    Not by a lot, but enough to make me look forward to a second season.   Mike Judge of the Beavis and Butthead fame is the show's creator.  I must confess, I didn't really dig Beavis and Butthead when it aired during the 90's.  I was too young, naive and didn't understand dry American humor then.  Now, much older and supposedly smarter, I can finally understand the wry, highbrow humor of Silicon Valley.

Photo from IMDB



There is a K-Drama channel on Roku so I did watch my share of Korean telenovelas too: Pasta and I'm a Flower Too.  They're old but entertaining enough.  Ben doesn't understand why I watch shows like these.  I would argue that I don't get why he watches wrestling.   I watch K-dramas when I want light, romantic comedies.


There were other shows that I attempted to watch but ditched later on such as:
- Flight of the Conchords (too much singing)
- House of Cards (too complicated, I can't follow American politics yet)
- Australian series Secret and Lies (too formulaic/predictable)
- British series Southcliffe (too dull)
- Canadian series Orphan Black (not interesting enough)
- The Mind of a Chef (torture to watch shows like this when dieting)

Dates I am looking forward to:

Sept 7, 2014:  Start of Final Season of Boardwalk Empire

Oct 12, 2014: Start of Season 5 of The Walking Dead

Sept 21/Jan 4:  Start of Downton Abbey (UK and US air dates)

This turned out to be a very long post.  Proof that I am one couch potato!  

Low Carbing Again

I lost 14 lbs. for the wedding and after 2.5 months, I have gained 7 lbs. back.   Ben has gained a lot of weight too, so we both decided to go back to low carb for 1 month.  Ben has decided to do Atkins induction type diet for 2 weeks (limiting carbs to 20g per day), while I decided I will just do induction for a week, then increase my carb limit to 30g to 50g per day.   I intend to stay on low carb for a month.  

We then upped the challenge by adding at least a 30-minute workout on weekdays.  There is a $1 fine for not working out per day, but you can collect a dollar back if you workout during the weekend.   

We started Saturday, Aug. 16 and after 6 days, I have lost 5 lbs while Ben has lost over 8 lbs.  We both attribute much of it to water weight.   It remains to be seen how much we can lose after one week.  

The hardest day for me was day 5.   I was expecting to feel weak over the first 2 days of the diet, but I only felt it after 5 days.  For me, the hardest part of low carb is the breakfast.  One can only eat so much eggs.   All too soon, I was tired of eggs on day 5.  Thank goodness I found a low carb pancake recipe from IBIH which tasted more like french toast than pancakes.  But that is good enough for me.  At least it's not scrambled eggs.  

The best part about these low carb pancakes are they are so easy to make and they have less than 3g of carbs per serving.  Here's how my take on the cream cheese pancakes.  Sorry for the bad plating.

Our carbquik order arrived today so I am thinking of making eggs benedict with low carb biscuits this weekend.   Not sure though if I can pull this one off.  I have never ever made hollandaise sauce nor poached an egg in my life.   But ever since my cousin Patty told me she made Eggs Benedict for my Tita Lulu on her birthday, I have been craving it.   Guess I'll find out if I can make my chef cousin proud.  

Another thing I find so difficult in low carb dieting is the lack of desserts.  Supposedly, the cravings for sweets and starch should be curbed.   I guess somehow my cravings have lessened, but they definitely have not disappeared.   During my last low carb run before the wedding, I survived because of almond butter, sugar free jello, Atkins chocolate bar, and low card fudge ice cream (Breyers).   This time, I want to make my dessert list longer.   Ben is going to mill almonds to make almond flour this weekend so I am excited to whip up some low carb treats.   

I am thinking of making low carb apple crumble.  I will use chayote (sayote) as a substitute for apple.    I tried sautéing chayote in butter, cinnamon and lemon extract, and it almost tasted like apple pie filling.  I did this about 2 weeks ago when I was making a batch of lumpiang shanghai.  I had leftover spring roll wrappers so I thought of putting the chayote filling and making turon out of it.  I was too lazy to fry it so I just baked it in the oven toaster.   Now that I am on low carb, instead of rolling it in wrapper, I will make a topping to cover it so it becomes like an apple crisp or apple crumble.  

Here's my chayote turon a few weeks ago:  They don't look good because I have no skills in assembling and plating food, but they came out good.

It is also difficult to dine out when you're on a low carb diet.  I guess that should be a positive since it spares me the expense of dining out which can add a lot.   Oddly enough, I do not miss rice that much.  I miss bread and pastries more.   

The good thing about low carb is I can eat a lot of fats, dairy and meat, so the food I eat is almost never bland.  I can eat as much bacon and butter as I want.  I even use bacon grease a lot in cooking other things, and it renders so much flavour.    I am also forced to eat more vegetables.   I hated cauliflower, but not I appreciate how versatile it is.  Ben and I have been using cauliflower as a substitute for potatoes.   We have made mock potato salad, mock mashed potato and mock latkes using cauliflower and they were excellent.  

Low carb is certainly hard, but not insurmountable.   I can get through this.  I am cheering myself on.