I just got home from a meeting at the Presidential Management Staff Building at the Malacañang Palace Complex. Just how good a government employee am I!

The meeting was about a new program of the President -- microfinancing for government employees. How this came about was quite amusing. During the Women's Day Celebration, the President -- in her desire to involve the crowd in her speech -- asked the people present how many have availed of MICROFINANCE loans. The answer was a resounding "WALA!!" -- NO!!. Apparently, the President was misinformed about who the people in the crowd are. She expected that it would be NGOs, but it turned out that they are mostly government employees. As I've read from the news, she asked another question..and another, but the answer was still "WALA!!". There and then, she directed that microfinancing should be made available to government employees -- and so this meeting that I attended.

However, the plan was to make the loans available to employees meeting these two criteria: One, that they be permanent personnel and, two, that they should at least be 2 years in service. In two counts, I am disqualified. I started working on October of 2006. My boss was the Secretary of the Cabinet (with all the perks like attending Tuesday Cabinet Meetings with the President and meeting other high profile government officials, and even bishops, etc.), and our office was at the PMS Building. This February, I transferred to the Department of Agriculture when suddenly the President re-assigned the PMS Director General back to the DA. My boss (who is a Romulo-Puyat; grand daughter of the great Gen. Carlos P. Romulo) was then invited by Secretary Arthur Yap to be his Undersecretary and to transfer to the DA with him. We followed a few months after -- on the 1st of February. Right now, I work with my MA Economics classmate from the University of the Philippines School of Economics Jacinta Bernadette Rico (BS Legal Management, Ateneo de Manila University), Charry Em (Political Economics, University of Asia and the Pacific) and April Lacson (Political Economics).

So bottomline: It's my Birthday and I'm at Work. But it's fun.. at least I am being a very good government employee (I think I deserve that microfinance loan they were talking about, right? And please make it interest-free! :) )

It's my Birthday.. and I'm at Work!
Translated into Spanish by: DLE Caytiles
I just got home from a meeting at the Presidential Management Staff Building at the Malacañang Palace Complex. Just how good a government employee am I!

The meeting was about a new program of the President -- microfinancing for government employees. How this came about was quite amusing. During the Women's Day Celebration, the President -- in her desire to involve the crowd in her speech -- asked the people present how many have availed of MICROFINANCE loans. The answer was a resounding "WALA!!" -- NO!!. Apparently, the President was misinformed about who the people in the crowd are. She expected that it would be NGOs, but it turned out that they are mostly government employees. As I've read from the news, she asked another question..and another, but the answer was still "WALA!!". There and then, she directed that microfinancing should be made available to government employees -- and so this meeting that I attended.

However, the plan was to make the loans available to employees meeting these two criteria: One, that they be permanent personnel and, two, that they should at least be 2 years in service. In two counts, I am disqualified. I started working on October of 2006. My boss was the Secretary of the Cabinet (with all the perks like attending Tuesday Cabinet Meetings with the President and meeting other high profile government officials, and even bishops, etc.), and our office was at the PMS Building. This February, I transferred to the Department of Agriculture when suddenly the President re-assigned the PMS Director General back to the DA. My boss (who is a Romulo-Puyat; grand daughter of the great Gen. Carlos P. Romulo) was then invited by Secretary Arthur Yap to be his Undersecretary and to transfer to the DA with him. We followed a few months after -- on the 1st of February. Right now, I work with my MA Economics classmate from the University of the Philippines School of Economics Jacinta Bernadette Rico (BS Legal Management, Ateneo de Manila University), Charry Em (Political Economics, University of Asia and the Pacific) and April Lacson (Political Economics).

So bottomline: It's my Birthday and I'm at Work. But it's fun.. at least I am being a very good government employee (I think I deserve that microfinance loan they were talking about, right? And please make it interest-free! :) )