Author Archives: Issa

Do You Like To Gamble?

September 4 12:19 pm ,
Cockfighting: Some People's Drug of Choice

Cockfighting: Some People's Drug of Choice

Gambling is a topic I would not touch with a ten-foot pole, for very personal reasons.

But after yesterday, I thought I had to.

I was just with a female friend, enjoying spending time with her, when she nonchalantly mentioned that she was still at it – that she spends many a night in a gambling joint. She knows her savings is dwindling because of it, her family life is affected, that she has to get out before all is lost. She does not, and will not. My brow is furrowed and my worry is palpable but she remained unfazed.

I know this. I have seen this.

Gambling, for the past century, have metamorphosed and have taken several different forms, each effective and successfully luring man from himself. For one, owners of gambling joints have become more sophisticated and daring. Despite strict regulations, gambling dens have managed to populate and edge itself into the fringes of society without anyone realizing it is there. Boxed in 80 x 50 rented offices, black hallways with semi-private booths, they are there tucked in your friendly neighborhood. No screaming neon lights here.  Only a constant stream of people, alternately covering their faces and skittish with excitement and guilt, betray their presence.

Read More →

Posted in: Life Stories , Tagged: , , , , ,

The Zahir, Goldman Sach’s 10,000 Women and the Acomodador

September 2 2:01 pm ,

 

The Sky Is The Limit

The Sky Is The Limit

Today I am reading Paulo Coelho’s the Zahir.  He talked about the acomodador.  It could not have come to me at a better time.

I just learned that I did not get into Goldman Sach’s 10,000 Women.  I really wanted to be a part of it, part of a milestone, of women who can, with this training, “spur more jobs and income, for their businesses, their communities and, ultimately, for their countries.”

I prepared my application, lovingly, apprehensively, wondering what to put on it, wondering how to impress the judges.  I dressed carefully on interview day, sharing carefree banter (and my brochures and calling cards) with the other applicants – some out of Payatas who had a cooperative; a social worker who is building a call center from the ground up, cutting up her prices so she can compete with India; a businesswoman who flew all the way from her province, who protested at the class schedule because it will take her away one full week every month from her business (and how will the business survive without her?); and one who sold her soaps to the group and shared to me that she first went to Manila to find the mother who left her, and she did find her and came face to face with her, but she did not want her, not then and not now.  Women in business with their own stories, all strong, some struggling, all deserving.  Out of 97 shortlisted applicants, only 24 were able to get in and I was not one of them.

Read More →

Posted in: Life Stories, Wealth Attraction , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Are You On The Internet?

August 31 5:20 pm ,
Virgin Territory

Internet: Virgin Territory

My mother had foresight.

She had the two of us enroll at a computer school at a nondescript building, with an area not exceeding 40 square meters.  I forgot where it was located, but I remember we had to look over the shoulder of the teacher and we had to share a computer, tinkering with DOS and binary numbers and floppy discs together.  We were no longer mother and child, but two people trying to ride with the times.  I am not sure if I (or she) learned anything.  I know that back at home I continued to type my thesis with an electric typewriter.

Not that it mattered.  What we had learned would be relegated to the annals of computer history, because in a few years, mankind was to take several quantum leaps into the information age.

In his book “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century”, Thomas L. Friedman catalogued the shift of the philosophy of the world – from working hard, man had to work smart.  He said, “… One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big.  And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach farther, faster, wider, and deeper.”

From the computer came the Internet.  And the internet is the new frontier where this is possible.

Read More →

Posted in: Mentors , Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Mothers, Children and Money

August 29 1:38 am ,
Sunflowers

Sunflowers

I wanted to give my mother some money.

“Oh good!”, she says. “I can have your brother borrow it because he just got his credit card statement and he owed so much… You know your brother, he and his wife, they spend so much and they are at the mall all the time, buying this and that, and you know, they spend so much on their children, all the time…” She went on and on.

I was not sure I liked where the conversation was going and I told her so.

I asked her, trying to control my emotions (it is after all my money), “But mom, tell me… what good will that do? What will that achieve? Will that stop him from using his credit card or make him money smart?  And you, what will you gain? She said, “Well, I can nag him.” My mother’s not-so-secret and ineffective weapon. “But that would only make him deaf, mother, not make him learn life’s lessons.”
Read More →

Posted in: Children's Stories , Tagged: , ,

Citibank Free Movie Tickets: A Lesson In Reading the Fine Print

August 25 12:02 pm ,
Where Is Your Road Taking You?

Where Is Your Road Taking You?

Citibank Ad: For a minimum single receipt purchase of Php1500, you can get a free movie ticket of your choice in some designated cinemas.

Aside from being very inaccurate, free is too strong a word.  Okay, okay, the movie tickets have a potential to be free if you can find  Php130 movies at your favorite movie haunt.  But since the advent of THX and reserved seating and glamorized movie houses (great audio! superb video!), this is no longer the case.  Movies typically range from Php170 to as high as Php400 nowadays.

So, Citibank, the right, er, more accurate, word is subsidize.

Let’s begin at the beginning.  When I saw this ad one fine day, which took up more than half the size of a newspaper, and no fine print, my savings!savings! antennae went up and I began, consciously, to put more heart (and thought) into my purchases.  I had a target, and that is to use my Citibank card for purchases Php1,500 and above.   There were times when I would try to sweet talk the salesladies into cutting up my purchases (I remembered seeing in the ad, “a minimum of Php1,500 single receipt”, so I thought there had to be something there) so I would get different transaction receipts for every Php1,500.  But, as I experienced at Charles and Keith Trinoma, I was not always successful.

Read More →

Posted in: Consumer Protection , Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Increasing Your Financial Intelligence

August 21 8:08 am ,

 

The Money Maze: Exciting, Amazing, Discoverable

The Money Maze: Exciting, Amazing, Discoverable

My friend Robert Kiyosaki said I should invest in increasing my financial intelligence.  By invest he meant put in money, effort, and more importantly, time.

Financial intelligence is the foundation of great wealth. It is the understanding of money and how it works in the present day world.  Understanding that debt is not merely debt, but that it could be good or bad; and assets are sometimes not assets but liabilities; and that expenses should be increased and income decreased to maximize the tax laws written by the rich for the rich.  It is seeing not what is there but the totality of the picture.  It is listening to the story of numbers, and using more numbers to create an extraordinary future.

Read More →

Posted in: The Basics of Finance , Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Accounting, Math and Newscasting

August 18 1:34 am ,
The Universe Says Yes

The Universe Says Yes

I used to love numbers and would spend countless hours doing my trigonometry exercises.  I could not explain it except that I (probably) had the genetic predisposition for it – dad was an accountant.  I could have been one too, but for some twist of fate, it was my younger brother who became an accountant (okay, okay, he’s also pretty good in Math) because I wanted with all my heart to become a newscaster, and shunned what I now call my lost inner talent.

In one desperate (yes) moment to get into a tax law firm, I told my interviewer that my dad was an accountant and my brother was an accountant. Silence. Without batting an eyelash, he told me, “Maybe I should hire them”.  He’s got a point.

Imagine my surprise when they hired me.

Imagine my surprise (!) when Robert Kiyosaki mentioned in Rich Dad, Poor Dad that if he were to do everything all over again, he would be an accountant.  And that this is the course he would recommend to kindergarten students.

The destiny that I denied.

Read More →

Posted in: Life Stories, Mentors, The Basics of Finance , Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,