I know. I haven't been writing at all. It's just one of these phases. Let me just sort things out. I'll be back. Definitely.
:)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The authentic and the counterfeit
published Oct 4, 2010. Manila Standard Today
Imagine being 79 and being a diva, still.
At the Escaler Hall of the Ateneo de Manila on Friday afternoon, soprano Irma Ponce Enrile-Potenciano sang three German art songs, two operatic arias, two songs from Broadway musicals and two Filipino pieces and gave two encore performances. The recital, organized by the Loyola School’s Interdisciplnary Studies Department, was called A Sentimental Journey -- celebration of Mrs. Potencianio’s 62-year singing career.
Mrs. Potenciano has performed in numerous sarsuwelas, musicals, operettas and operas since the 1940s. She was the only Filipino to record an album with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also taught music, in fact headed the Music Department, of the Ateneo Grade School in the 1960s. She was forced to stop for a few years when doctors discovered she had developed vocal nodules – but she had them removed, slowly recovered and resumed her passion. Now she teaches voice at the UST Conservatory of Music and is famous for her vesuvian temper. She is reportedly hard on her students – but claims she is even harder on herself.
Providing accompaniment to Potenciano was concert pianist Jonathan Coo who teaches at the Ateneo and St. Paul University Manila. Coo, an alumnus of the Philippine High School for the Arts, is currently a voice student of Potenciano’s and is a contributing editor of a magazine for Filipinos in Europe. This month, he will be on a Scandinavian concert tour promoting the solo piano music of Lucresia Kasilag.
I have no illusions of being half an expert in classical performances, but I liked what I heard even as some of the songs were in foreign languages. Or maybe especially so. (For me, the music was a respite from all the bickering and blame-tossing in government that I soak up every day). Potenciano lived a full life, pursuing her passion when not that many people are given the chance. No wonder she sang so beautifully, despite her age.
**
What do you do when you realize that you’ve been given counterfeit money?
That was what happened to me last week when I asked my helper to have a P1,000 bill broken by buying something from the wet market. The vendor handed her a change consisting of a 500-peso note, a 200-peso note, a 100-peso note and some coins. When my helper got home, she put the change on top of the dining table. Moments later, while making a mad dash to the door to have lunch with a friend at the other end of the metropolis, I scooped up the money and hastily put it into my pouch. It was only when I was inside the cab, fixing the bills into my wallet, that I saw, and realized instantly, that the 500-peso note was a fake. Quite visibly so. The paper's texture was different, the fonts seemed smaller, and there was no image of Ninoy Aquino that appeared if you held the paper against the light.
But I got home at 10:30 that evening so my helper was only able to return to the wet market the following morning. The vendor who had given her tha change was an old, slightly-built woman who operated a modest meat stall. My helper got a good dressing down from the vendor, who blamed her for not returning the money right away. “There are only two kinds of people,” the vendor lectured, within earshot of anybody in the public market who was close enough to listen. “The ones who fool others, and the ones who are fooled.” An hour later, my helper returned home, tired and humiliated and very nearly in tears. She was also terrified I would take the P500 out of her salary.
She then told me that the vendor advised her to just use the fake money in paying for something else, or to try depositing the money in a bank. Expert advice? When I heard this part of the story, I doubted my initial theory that the fake money was just passed on to the vendor by some scheming buyer.
We had lost our chance and could not prove anything anymore. I absorbed the loss and comforted myself with the thought that what goes around comes around.
Later that afternoon as I was doing some banking errands, I asked the teller what I should do. She told me there was no way I could exchange the fake bill for a real one. Well, she did not need to tell me that. I was simply asking whether the bank took counterfeit notes in an effort to ensure that these don’t get infused back into circulation. I certainly did not want to keep it as a souvenir.
I called up the Bangko Sentral the following day. I narrated my sob story and a woman from the cash department advised me to go to either the Manila or the Quezon City office to fill out a form narrating the circumstances surrounding my receipt of the fake bill. If the alleged facts so warrant it, I understood, the BSP would then send people to investigate the purported source of the counterfeit note. The BSP people would also be the one to confirm whether the bill was authentic or not.
The Web site of the Bangko Sentral gives several advisories regarding counterfeit currency. A PDF file called Know Your Currency tells readers about the distinctive features of each denomination of the Philippine currency. Moreover, a June 2010 Q&A-type document from the cash department devotes several items to the matter. Anybody who receives fake money, the bSP says, should issue a temporary receipt to the holder and take note of the holder's name and other means of identificatioin. The case may be brought to the police. Arrests can be made pursuant to the Rules of Court. The fake bills, in the meantime, should be disposed of in a manner adopted by the central bank.
Then again, not everybody has the time to personally go to the Bangko Sentral to turn over a worthless piece of paper, much less issue so-called temporary receipts. I am sure there are even fewer people who realize that there are steps to take when the unfortunate situation arises and that simply passing the fake money to the next unsuspecting individual is not only illegal but wrong.
I’m P500 poorer even as my experience was probably an isolated incident. But it could get worse in the coming weeks as the Christmas holidays approach. This incident has taught me to be even more careful and to never take anything for granted anymore. So much for presumption of regularity. Everybody be warned.
Imagine being 79 and being a diva, still.
At the Escaler Hall of the Ateneo de Manila on Friday afternoon, soprano Irma Ponce Enrile-Potenciano sang three German art songs, two operatic arias, two songs from Broadway musicals and two Filipino pieces and gave two encore performances. The recital, organized by the Loyola School’s Interdisciplnary Studies Department, was called A Sentimental Journey -- celebration of Mrs. Potencianio’s 62-year singing career.
Mrs. Potenciano has performed in numerous sarsuwelas, musicals, operettas and operas since the 1940s. She was the only Filipino to record an album with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also taught music, in fact headed the Music Department, of the Ateneo Grade School in the 1960s. She was forced to stop for a few years when doctors discovered she had developed vocal nodules – but she had them removed, slowly recovered and resumed her passion. Now she teaches voice at the UST Conservatory of Music and is famous for her vesuvian temper. She is reportedly hard on her students – but claims she is even harder on herself.
Providing accompaniment to Potenciano was concert pianist Jonathan Coo who teaches at the Ateneo and St. Paul University Manila. Coo, an alumnus of the Philippine High School for the Arts, is currently a voice student of Potenciano’s and is a contributing editor of a magazine for Filipinos in Europe. This month, he will be on a Scandinavian concert tour promoting the solo piano music of Lucresia Kasilag.
I have no illusions of being half an expert in classical performances, but I liked what I heard even as some of the songs were in foreign languages. Or maybe especially so. (For me, the music was a respite from all the bickering and blame-tossing in government that I soak up every day). Potenciano lived a full life, pursuing her passion when not that many people are given the chance. No wonder she sang so beautifully, despite her age.
**
What do you do when you realize that you’ve been given counterfeit money?
That was what happened to me last week when I asked my helper to have a P1,000 bill broken by buying something from the wet market. The vendor handed her a change consisting of a 500-peso note, a 200-peso note, a 100-peso note and some coins. When my helper got home, she put the change on top of the dining table. Moments later, while making a mad dash to the door to have lunch with a friend at the other end of the metropolis, I scooped up the money and hastily put it into my pouch. It was only when I was inside the cab, fixing the bills into my wallet, that I saw, and realized instantly, that the 500-peso note was a fake. Quite visibly so. The paper's texture was different, the fonts seemed smaller, and there was no image of Ninoy Aquino that appeared if you held the paper against the light.
But I got home at 10:30 that evening so my helper was only able to return to the wet market the following morning. The vendor who had given her tha change was an old, slightly-built woman who operated a modest meat stall. My helper got a good dressing down from the vendor, who blamed her for not returning the money right away. “There are only two kinds of people,” the vendor lectured, within earshot of anybody in the public market who was close enough to listen. “The ones who fool others, and the ones who are fooled.” An hour later, my helper returned home, tired and humiliated and very nearly in tears. She was also terrified I would take the P500 out of her salary.
She then told me that the vendor advised her to just use the fake money in paying for something else, or to try depositing the money in a bank. Expert advice? When I heard this part of the story, I doubted my initial theory that the fake money was just passed on to the vendor by some scheming buyer.
We had lost our chance and could not prove anything anymore. I absorbed the loss and comforted myself with the thought that what goes around comes around.
Later that afternoon as I was doing some banking errands, I asked the teller what I should do. She told me there was no way I could exchange the fake bill for a real one. Well, she did not need to tell me that. I was simply asking whether the bank took counterfeit notes in an effort to ensure that these don’t get infused back into circulation. I certainly did not want to keep it as a souvenir.
I called up the Bangko Sentral the following day. I narrated my sob story and a woman from the cash department advised me to go to either the Manila or the Quezon City office to fill out a form narrating the circumstances surrounding my receipt of the fake bill. If the alleged facts so warrant it, I understood, the BSP would then send people to investigate the purported source of the counterfeit note. The BSP people would also be the one to confirm whether the bill was authentic or not.
The Web site of the Bangko Sentral gives several advisories regarding counterfeit currency. A PDF file called Know Your Currency tells readers about the distinctive features of each denomination of the Philippine currency. Moreover, a June 2010 Q&A-type document from the cash department devotes several items to the matter. Anybody who receives fake money, the bSP says, should issue a temporary receipt to the holder and take note of the holder's name and other means of identificatioin. The case may be brought to the police. Arrests can be made pursuant to the Rules of Court. The fake bills, in the meantime, should be disposed of in a manner adopted by the central bank.
Then again, not everybody has the time to personally go to the Bangko Sentral to turn over a worthless piece of paper, much less issue so-called temporary receipts. I am sure there are even fewer people who realize that there are steps to take when the unfortunate situation arises and that simply passing the fake money to the next unsuspecting individual is not only illegal but wrong.
I’m P500 poorer even as my experience was probably an isolated incident. But it could get worse in the coming weeks as the Christmas holidays approach. This incident has taught me to be even more careful and to never take anything for granted anymore. So much for presumption of regularity. Everybody be warned.
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