Before Camella Homes, there was Crown Asia. I wonder why they keep on changing the name of their company?

I would like to bring this complaint to the rest of the world, to the media men who read my blog and to everyone else who has the same problems with the services offered by Camella Homes, which made promising offers to all buyers and its residents.

We need the company to improve their services. May the company provide water and street lights to all its residents. May they provide trash bins as well. May the company solve all the theft incidents reported. We paid millions of pesos for a good service. Yet, until now, nothing has changed. In fact, it became worst.

If my memory serves me right, the concerns of the residents of Solariega were brought to light when they asked the help of the media yet these people are not afraid of the media anymore.

Let us try new media now.

ps. I am so sad for the kid in their commercial.

Camella Homes,owned by Manny Villar and managed by his daughter, has the worst service. They don’t act on the complaints of the home owners, which are 90% OFWs, who paid millions of pesos for a 40 sq.m. house.

The complaints were never acted on. In fact, they do not even act on the fact that part of their contract states that the house will be built within 6 months and unfortunately, other houses were built for almost a year. OFWs who already believed that when they get back here they already have a house to stay, went somewhere else because, there is no house yet!!!

Bago siya magpa-uwi ng OFWs, ayusin niya muna ang problema ng mga OFWs na kumuha ng bahay at lupa sa kanyang subdivisions.

Huwag magpaloko!

Yes. For three straight years, Moscow is still the most expensive city in the world which means, cost of living is SO HIGH that a cup of coffee will cost you 495 pesos.

But wait here is more, second in rank is Tokyo. In fact, there are other two Asian cities included in the top 10 and these are Seoul and Hong Kong.

For the complete story, click here.

Here are the top 20 most expensive cities, with their 2007 places in brackets:

1 (1) Moscow

2 (4) Tokyo

3 (2) London

4 (10) Oslo

5 (3) Seoul

6 (5) Hong Kong

7 (6) Copenhagen

8 (7) Geneva

9 (9) Zurich

10 (11) Milan

11 ( 8 ) Osaka

12 (13) Paris

13 (14) Singapore

14 (17) Tel Aviv

15 (21) Sydney

16 (16) Dublin

16 (18 ) Rome

18 (12) St. Petersburg

19 (19) Vienna

20 (20) Beijing

Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080724/tts-lifestyle-economy-world-cities-c1b2fc3.html

Caregiver is the latest film of Miss Sharon Cuneta under Star Cinema Productions.

My Reactions

This is a story of an English Teacher in an elementary school who took a short course in care giving for her to follow her husband in London.

The story opened with a conflict between the protagonist and her son Paulo who doesn’t want his mom to follow his dad in London.Then again, the protagonist explained to her son the importance of her leaving with exact reference to social reality – POVERTY.

When she arrived in London, several problems unfolded – personal, professional and marital. It seemed as if this film never ran out of conflict. But I can’t really identify the conflict in this film because it’s like a pot of all problems Atlas wouldn’t want to put his hands on.

Here are some of it:

1. The protagonist, before leaving the country, had issues with her immediate family and that includes her son.
2. The protagonist, before leaving the country, was offered with a promotion to be the English Department Head.
3. Her personal issues with her work – its difficulties and racial discrimination.
4. Her husband is ONE BIG PROBLEM.
5. Her self (yes. her (space) self)

The film showed the difficulties an OFW suffers in a foreign land. The film was promoted in this manner. Miss Cuneta even mentioned in one her many interviews that “you will surely have more respect to caregivers after watching this film.”

But looking at it closely, this film is not just about caregivers. Caregiver as a profession was used as a facade to show to the rest of the world both the good and bad sides of the Filipinos. The perseverance and dedication to the work at hand and on the other hand, how pride, a positive Filipino trait, can be so destructive. This film showed the Philippines as a Patriarchal society flooded with male chauvinists. This is not just about economic poverty, it is more of a cultural problem – how the colonizers implanted in our minds the wrong way of running a country, how media defined what is good and bad, how society dictates the definition of every word that runs the Filipino people – family, husband, wife, son, rich, poor etc.

The protagonist, at the end of the movie, triumphed not just as a Filipino in a foreign land, but as a Filipino woman in general against patriarchal society and male chauvinism.

Let us not take films lightly. Just because it is the story of a caregiver doesn’t mean it is all about caregivers.