I was browsing through my facebook looking for triton wedding bands for my best friend’s upcoming wedding when a desperate appeal from Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) caught my attention. *WARNING: The picture below might upset some readers because of the sad, sad state of the dog in question*

She was named Suzie. She was abandoned and left to die along the South Luzon Expressway by a heartless former owner. When the PAWS rescue team found her, she was very much dehydrated and almost dead. The picture below shows Suzie how she was found by her rescuers and three days after her rescue. The dog’s prognosis is good and she needs all the help she can get to survive. If you have something to spare, please donate any amount to PAWS or visit Suzie and the rest of the rescued animals at PARC Shelter in Marikina. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to see you. =)

I want to live. Will you help me? =(

You may be a newly minted physician, lawyer, nurse or any licensed professional eager to get your first job. You’ve prepared all the necessary documents you need but alas, you’re asked to present your PTR. Huh? You ask. The what?!?!

In the Philippines, some professions need to pay an annual tax for the privilege of practicing their profession (Professional Tax). The PTR or the Professional Tax Receipt, as the name implies is the document that proves you’ve paid your annual dues. I don’t exactly know the importance of the PTR in other professions, but for physicians like me, just for simplicity’s sake, it’s the second set of numbers we write on our prescriptions aside from the license number (fyi, there’s a third set of numbers called the S2 license). The PTR is important especially for giving out prescriptions to senior citizens since the senior citizen’s discount will not be honored or applied if the prescription didn’t have the doctor’s PTR. This is the main reason why I rushed to the city hall to pay my tax this afternoon aside from the fact that I might need it for residency training purposes.

Getting your PTR is easy, at least at our city hall here in Las Pinas. In fact, my transportation time was longer than my actual stay at the city hall. LOL. I was asked to present two documents: 1) a cedula and 2) my PRC license ID. I used the same cedula I presented at PRC way back in July when I filed my application
for the board exam. So if I were you, I’d start looking for that little piece of paper in your stash. =)

Here’s the step-by-step guide on how to pay for the professional tax here at Las Pinas City Hall.

1) As soon as you enter the city hall, there’s an assistance counter to your left after the three cashiers for “miscellaneous transactions”. Approach them and tell them you’re paying for your professional tax receipt. They will give you a number. They will also hand you a small info sheet if you don’t have your cedula with you. To get a valid/legal cedula, present the filled up info sheet at the counters across the assistance desk and pay your community tax.

2) Prepare your cedula and your PRC license ID/IBP lawyer’s ID. Wait for your turn at the queue. The cashiers you’ll be approaching are cashiers 19, 20 and 21 (if I am not mistaken) or the cashiers servicing the “miscellaneous transactions”.

3) Pay the annual tax. It was my first PTR and I was charged 250 pesos. I don’t know how much it will cost if it’s your 2nd, 3rd, and so forth year.

And… YOU’RE DONE! Keep your PTR in a safe place because I heard you’ll need to present it when you’re paying your dues next year.

It took me less than five minutes. It might take you longer depending on the queue. =) I hope I helped! Oh, before I go, you might want to check out this site for funny t shirts being sold online. Thanks and God Bless!

Certain professions are charged an annual tax for the privilege of practicing the profession. These are lawyers, accountants, doctors, engineers, etc. The taxing authority is the city or province where the professional is going to practice, so you go to city hall to pay. To enforce compliance, some professions are required to display your PTR in documents.

I am a believer of signs and divine intervention. For how can one explain why I got high grades in that board exam subject I honestly thought I’d flunk? Or how could anyone explain why I suddenly had the urge to look at the side mirror and see (to my surprise) how my car’s just a few inches away from another parked vehicle while carelessly driving in reverse this evening? I could even cite how my cousin ended up with ” The One” after she received the sign she had been praying for. Truth be told, at those certain moments when we’re unsure of what to do next, we always, always wish or pray for a sign as an assurance that our next step is the right one.

So, imagine my confusion when I realized this evening that I’m missing a heavy, huge, hardbound, thousand-pages book from my library. I’ve already searched high and low… even called up my mom to look for the book in my room just in case it decided to go home on its own. I even had to ask my former housemates if they had unintentionally brought it with them when they moved out months ago. But so far, hours after I began a frantic search for “The Book”, I’m as clueless as I had been three hours ago. I’m now even considering the idea on how we have a naughty house elf hiding our stuff every now and then.

Or perhaps, just maybe, this is one of those not-so-subtle signs from God telling me that the road I am to take is not the best road out there for me.

Should I seriously take this as a sign then?

I hope playing with new wii games would clear my mind a bit. Anyway, here’s John Lloyd Cruz and Solenn Heussaff in a short vid about signs and sign seekers. Enjoy! (‘coz I did)

After such a long time, I finally paid a visit to my dentist this afternoon. Doc Mary Grace was not around and I was told she recently gave birth (Congrats!) so I was seen by the more senior dentist attending the clinic today. If there is something I am really very anxious of doing, going to the dentist is one of them. I had such a horrible childhood experience with the dentist that the memories of my visits to the dentist as a child continue to haunt me to this day. Anyway, today, I finally mustered enough courage to visit one. I had oral prophylaxis and dental filling of my two incisors done. The dentist remarked on how good my teeth were naturally aligned with each other but… (of course, there’s a “but” in here) she also remarked on how I had an “overjet”. I just nodded in agreement despite not knowing what the hell she meant. LOL.

I looked up the word in google and my teeth fit the definition alright:

overjet [o´ver-jet]
extension of the incisal or buccal cusp ridges of the upper teeth horizontally (labially or buccally) beyond the ridges of the teeth in the lower jaw when the jaws are closed normally.

To give you a better understanding of what an overjet is I also managed to get a picture from the internet:

Of course my teeth aren’t in such a sad and sorry state but I had also inadvertently discovered how something was going wrong with my teeth over the years. Being a nail-biter, I noticed how I had been having increasing difficulty biting my nails over a certain portion of my upper and lower incisors! How’s that for a eureka moment? LOL.

My dentist told me that the only way to get around this is to put on braces to slowly correct the problem. I can almost imagine how my teeth would look like in ten years or so and the outlook is very grim so I’m bracing myself for the possibility of wearing braces soon. I’ve learned that braces would cost from 15,000 to 30,000 but it’s not the cost that bothers me. It’s the unsightly appearance of having metal wires on my teeth whenever I flash that smile. Then, I learned that lingual braces are now available in the Philippines. Unfortunately, it costs an arm and a leg so I better hurry up getting a job or a good-paying residency training somewhere if I want one. *sigh* Either way, I can almost hear the POS system at my dentist’s clinic doing a kaching.

Grrr… why does looking good have to be so expensive?!?!?!

Harry Potter fans, we’ve got only four days left to register at Pottermore. I bet you were just like me who waited in agony for the registration to open for a few hours per day and searched high and low for the right answer to find the magical quill. Some were lucky enough to register while some faced a rather peculiar problem at the last step of the registration process.

How many of you encountered this annoying message?

When I first reached the last step, I was thrilled. I happily chose a username and clicked the register button but to my dismay, this annoying little reminder popped out of nowhere. I thought it was my browser so I did the registration process again on a different one and again on the last web browser I had on my laptop but they were all the same. It was frustrating. I thought I had to wait for another day to register. Until I decided to change my internet connection from smartbro to globe (my phone has wifi capabilities), refreshed my browser and there it was. The captcha that had been missing for an hour. If I only knew that my smartbro had got to do with the problem, I would have had saved myself an hour’s worth of frustration. =)

If you’re also facing the same problem, try switching to another internet service provider. As per my experience, the captcha disappears when I use the smartbro prepaid dongle (I verified this when after I had successfully registered, I refreshed the other open registration form in another browser and the captcha again disappeared). Using globe’s internet service, however, does wonders. =)

Best of luck everyone! See you at Pottermore!

I hope I was able to help. Now, excuse me while I search for cash advance sites.

Today, President Benigno Aquino III will face the nation to deliver his 2011 State of the Nation Address (SONA). Looking back at how the nation fared in the last year, I’d say there’s not much difference at all. If not, we’re in a worse off situation – year in and year out. I envy how our neighboring countries have gone up in terms of economic development through the years. When Mela and I went to Hong Kong last month, I was told by my mom how I’d be amazed with how things are in Hong Kong. True enough, I found myself in awe at how efficient their mass transport system was and how law-abiding the citizens were. For a first-time visitor like we were, getting lost in that little piece of modern land was not a problem – as long as you know where to get off when you board the MTR [or, if matters really get out of hand, hail a taxi cab. ] But during our four days and three night-stay in the shopping mecca of Hong Kong, we realized how much we missed the Philippines even if there are more than a hundred and one negative things we can associate it with (including tourmaster-clad motorbike riders aka street nuisance). We missed eating McDonald’s chicken with rice. We missed hearing back coherent English when we ask around in the language. We missed buying stuff without mentally multiplying by 5.6. And most of all, we terribly missed the culture of hospitality and the culture of respect of Filipinos.

So despite the hundred and one negative things one can easily muster about this God-forsaken (?) country (ChaCha, Hello Garci, TRAFFIC!!! et al), I know there’s truth to that old song about this beloved city… I’ll keep on going back to Manila.