Monday, July 30, 2007

Rally

In a bit I'll be going to the rally against PELCO III, started by our local parish priest and supported by the mayors of the six towns (Apalit, San Simon, Macabebe, Minalin, Masantol, and San Luis, all in the province of Pampanga) supplied by the said company.

Three Sundays ago, Fr. Larry Sarmiento complained about the overly increased price of the electric bill he gets monthly after his homily. From 8000/month during the last several months before June'07, his bill for last month turned to 31,000. Then a week later, the power company (PELCO III) sent him another bill statement for 23,000 for the same month. No explanations whatsoever why the fee lowered suddenly. Fr. Sarmiento's case is just one among many similar cases all around our town and the other 5 towns supplied by PELCO III. Fr. Sarmiento knows of a family who only consumes 200+ every month have their bill turn to 1200 last June then recharged back to 200 for the same month with no explanations given.

We've been victimized as well. Our electric bill several months back started to increase from 2000+/month to last month's 6000+php. We haven't increased our energy consumption in the least. We've used the same appliances for less time duration coz we were trying to lessen our electricity bill to no avail. I read last month's bill, saw that with the system loss (and its VAT) is around 1000+ alone, add their other operational fees and you get around 2000+ added to your monthly fee. If we're charged for only what we consume our bill would only be around 2000-2500php. Then since this protest started, our July bill came two days ago with only 3000+ for our electric bill. Same thing happened to our relatives and other home owners.

The company changed administration a few months back. Most of the employees who live in Apalit were dismissed and new non-Apalitenos were hired from Manila. That's all I know about the situation for now. I don't know all the issues so I'm going to the rally. I can hear the sound system being checked from my room at home. It's getting really loud. The PELCO III office is just a few minutes walk from here. Wonder how many people will go? I'm hoping everyone turns out and supports the rally. It's not everyday that a rally supported by the Church and government churns out. I feel kinda gleeful about it heheh ^_^ I'll add more about this later when I get back.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Sometimes Spoilers Aren't So Evil

I was basically grinding my teeth in irritation while watching the first 10 episodes of Fate/Stay Night. Emiya Shirou's every word and action basically got on my nerves. I wanted to hit the screen, somehow pluck him off it, then bash and cut him to pieces with a very dull and rusted knife. I haven't felt so irritated with a main character since watching Shin of Gundam Seed Destiny. I was getting so pissed off that I went to Garten's site just to see how he and other viewers thought of FSN, and to find out if the rest of the episodes are worth watching at all with Shirou being as frustratingly naive and stupid as he was. Thank God I did that! Learned a few facts from Garten about the FSN game (then read more about it at Wiki) that somehow thankfully dissipated my anger with the main character. I ended up watching the rest of the anime just feeling curious about how they'd go about the series with three possible stories from the game and somewhat understanding the subplots better than I would have if I didn't read those spoilers.


On the other hand, having watched the NANA anime till episode 47, made the second movie's plot easier to understand but a bit of a disappointment. It was just too fast! They condensed so many episodes (and manga volumes) into an hour or so of the movie that had I not watched (and read) it beforehand I would've been clueless about how some of the characters were feeling. They left out Reira's, Yasu's, and Shin's subplots and focused on Hachi's and Nana's instead. Guess it's understandable that they did that, but am still left somewhat disappointed. More so because I missed Aoi Miyazaki as Hachi. But what's this I hear about there being a second season to the anime? Is that true?