Archive for November, 2007

Why Globe Broadband sucks big time

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

For one whole year, I was stuck with Bayantel’s DSL service. It gave me frequent, almost regular, headaches — mainly slow and intermittent connection. I was paying good money for Bayantel’s rather expensive service (1,699 pesos for a 784 kpbs connection). I couldn’t wait, as you can imagine, for the one-year lock-in period to end.

And at about the same time that I was planning to abandon Bayantel, somebody dropped a flyer for Globe Broadband into my mailbox offering the ideal DSL plans. Having subscribed to Globe DSL a few years back and was generally happy with that experience, I decided to switch to Globe Broadband.

But the moment the agent told me that the plan I wanted would not be available in my neighborhood, a suspicion crept inside me. But I ignored it because, hey, this was Globe, the second-largest telecommunications company in the Philippines.

The agent told me that the plan I wanted (3 mbps Internet only for 1,995 pesos, which I consider terrific, given what I was paying Bayantel for 784 kbps) would not be available in my area in Quezon City. He offered instead the 2 mbps plan for the same amount but with a landline. Although I don’t need an additional landline, I agreed because the agent told me I can always upgrade later.

Sounds good. So bye-bye Bayantel, hello Globe Broadband!

The second problem cropped up immediately afterward. You see, Globe Broadband promises to convert, for free, the modems for plans 2 mbps and 3 mbps into Wi-Fi modems, which would essentially turn your house into a Wi-Fi zone, which was also one of the reasons why I switched to Globe. We have two computers in the house, and for the second computer to share my DSL connection would be perfect. I called up Globe and asked that my modem be converted to a Wi-Fi modem.

The customer service people at Globe’s call center (171 or 9198888) didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. I talked to two of them and both kept insisting that Wi-Fi only works in Wi-Fi hotspots. I told them that was not what Globe promised. Apparently, they mistook the free Wi-Fi modem comeon in my plan for Globe’s Worldpass, the company’s Wi-Fi service (subscribers like myself are entitled to free 120 minutes of Worldpass Wi-Fi access a month). I made clear to them the difference between the Wi-Fi modem and Worldpass, that I know exactly what Worldpass is and I know exactly what a Wi-Fi modem is. They were stumped — and referred me to a supposedly technical guy, who was also as clueless and was only sort of helpful when he told me to personally go to a Globelines Center. I did and the guy behind the counter told me that, indeed, I could have a Wi-Fi modem. The only problem was, he said, they ran out of such a modem. Great.

(While at this, why couldn’t the guys at customer service know this? This information was something call centers can handle perfectly well, but Globe’s couldn’t and so I had to go to Globelines at North Edsa and brave the horrendous traffic jams there and endure the endless search for a parking space.)

Then, barely two weeks after Globe installed what I thought was my Internet salvation, my Globe Broadband DSL connection began to act up. The connection was intermittent. The dial tone of the Globelines phone disappeared every so often. Naturally, I called up Globe’s excellent customer service and they promised to deal with my problem in 24 hours. Somebody, a guy who reeked with the strong and unbelievably offensive smell of cigarettes, came to my house but only to tell me that the problem was being taken care of and that my nightmare would be over soon.

But the problem persisted for about four days. A cheerful guy then called to happily inform me that my connection troubles were over. He assured me that Globe takes these things seriously.

Two days later — yesterday morning — my DSL connection went dead. I called up 171 again and asked what the problem was. Some lady told me that they were having "corrections." Hmmm. Okay. Any idea when it’s gonna be done? "Nope. You’ll just have to wait." That sounds unfair, given that I depend on the Internet for my livelihood. "Sorry but we’re fixing this. Besides, we will give you a rebate for the time that the connection was out." Sounds fair. Okay. Can I use my account for a dial-up connection? "Yes, but you would have to pay 33 cents per minute." Grr-great.

In the afternoon, two Globe guys came over to check. When I told them I was still offline, they tinkered with the modem. "The problem must be with the modem," one of them said. He replaced my modem with another. Then another. Still no connection.

He gave up and said, "The system must be the problem." Yeah, I told him, it’s always the system.

I also told him that that was exactly what the customer service guys had told me and that, to myself now, your coming over was entirely pointless. They left, their technical egos bruised.

This morning, I flicked on the Prolink Hurricane 9200 modem sitting on top of my table and hoped for those four small, green lights that signal my connection — hell, my communion — with the rest of the world. Only three — Power, LAN, ADSL — were on. Below the white letters that read "Internet" was a small, black void. Strangely, I felt alone, cut off, abandoned. And angry.

I called up customer service again and left no doubt that I was extremely disappointed. I pleaded for them to give me  an idea when all this would be over. All the lady could say was, "We have no idea, sir. We’re sorry," and added that I should get a reb… "I don’t care about your stupid rebate!" I yelled on the phone. "Just give me my connection back!" Silence. Then a profuse apology. Poor girl.

And so I’m on dial-up again, which is like a lifeline but a thin lifeline just the same that offered no comfort to me. As I was typing this rant, my eyes kept darting at the modem. The three green lights looked forlorn, perhaps hoping, like me, for the Fourth Light to flicker back to life.

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Leon’s amazing social skills

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Leon is turning out to be quite a child. For an infant who is barely three months old, he is now able to communicate — and I mean communicate, not just the usual infantile gibberish. He loves to hear people talk, and he responds with shrieks, laughter and body language. When you talk to him, he seems to actually listen.

He knows how to wake us up, which he usually does at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. He would make small sounds at first, then starts thrashing about (hitting me in the face with his strong left arm a lot of times; often, he would arc his back, raise his feet up then slams them on the bed, creating a thud that, to a person deep in slumber, can be quite startling). And if we don’t still react after all this, he would let out an ear-piercing cry, short and strong, that I can only describe as an indignant scream.

I thought for a while that he was just a very active infant. Perhaps it had something to do with the S-26 that he’s been having. Or the fact that, for the past two months, we’ve been treating the acne-like blisters on his face with a steroid-based ointment — I’m not sure what steroid does to an infant but given that the drug is used often by athletes to enhance their performance, that might be a factor. Silly, I know.

Practically all those who have seen Leon do this swear that he is, indeed, unusual. Ayi insists that her niece Aina and nephew Adi were never like that when they were two or three months. My sister Gingging, who has six children, told me none of her child was ever like Leon in terms of his cognitive ability and his way of socializing with people.

But the one thing that dispels my worries about Leon’s hyperactivity and amazing social skills (once, Leon couldn’t take her eyes off her Tita Ninya; he giggled and laughed while looking at her; Ayi told Ninya to talk to him — not baby talk but really talk, because he seems to enjoy it — and a perplexed Ninya exclaimed: “Ano sasabihin ko?”) — the one thing that dispels my worries is the fact that, since he was two months old, he’s been, uh, friends with the paintings on our walls. He would turn to look at the paintings and smile and laugh and giggle, as if something in those frames was talking to him. He loves looking at those paintings!

Leon is our first child, so what do I know, right? But I think only a talented and gifted two-month-old can do the sort of things Leon does. Mana sa ina! :-)
***

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In “Tribu,” real-life Filipino gangs collaborate onscreen

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: Nov. 2, 2007

MANILA — When
Jim Libiran decided to make a movie about Manila’s youth gangs, he was
determined to make it as realistic as possible. So he shot it in a
neighborhood filled with gangs and cast actual gang members as actors.

 

He
said he took this tack because it was difficult to separate his vision
as a filmmaker from his longtime career as a journalist, particularly
one with roots in this subject. "I grew up in the same neighborhood,"
said Libiran, 41, in an interview. "As a journalist, gangs were my
obsession."

 

Six years ago, Libiran, one of the Philippines’s
most respected television journalists, produced a television
documentary on youth gangs. The gangs were still on his mind when he
returned to school to study filmmaking, and he wrote the script that
formed the basis of his debut movie, "Tribu."

 

The film, a
digital production that won several local and international awards this
year, has contributed to the excitement in Manila over a recent
explosion in independent filmmaking, which many here see as the best
hope for reinvigorating the moribund Filipino film industry.

 

The
movie depicts, in graphic detail, the gang culture of Tondo, a Manila
slum notorious for its chaos, filth, poverty and violence. The story is
told from the point of view of a 10-year-old boy who witnesses the
violence as a gang avenges the death of one of its members. The gangs
call themselves "tribes," thus the title "Tribu."

The main roles
are played by actual gang members, who use the real names of their
gangs in the movie, like O.G. Sacred, Young Cent and Raynoa. They
communicate in so-called freestyle rap, which in Tagalog produces a
crude but powerful street poetry.

 

Making a film with gang
members on their competing turfs meant Libiran had to contend with the
problem that some members of his cast were being hunted by rival gangs
or the police. In fact, he said, production was interrupted every now
and then by the news that one of his actors had been arrested or shot.
During the acting workshop Libiran held for the cast, several of them
showed up with weapons.

 

Perhaps because Libiran grew up in the
neighborhood and knew it well, he managed to bring together members of
six rival gangs to make the film. Libiran said they began collaborating
on their rap music. They are now performing in shows in Manila and are
considering cutting an album.

 

Libiran has promoted his film as a "tool for conflict resolution."

 

In
the film’s plot, as in real life, the youths of Tondo have few choices,
Libiran said. The alternatives to joining a tribe are death or
self-banishment.

 

There are more than a hundred such tribes in
Tondo today, Libiran said, "each with their own set of codes of
morality and honor." Most of their members, he said, "are out-of-school
youths whose poverty and lack of education almost assure most of them a
not-so-bright future."

 

In the opening sequence of the film, the
10-year-old boy explains the genesis of the tribes. They exist, he
says, because the children are poor. They are poor because they or
their parents lack jobs. In Tondo, the boy says, you have to be tough
or you die. Even a child needs to be tough. But in the hell that is
Tondo, he says, even a child can be God.

 

In Libiran’s view, the
Tondo in "Tribu" could represent any urban center in the Philippines, a
relatively poor country of more than 80 million people. In the cities,
shanty towns are common, people live alongside open sewers, and women
and children scrounge for food in garbage dumps. It is a dog-eat-dog
world and an ideal breeding ground for crime and gangs.

 

What
Libiran’s film does not explore is the authorities’ response to gangs
and street crime. In many parts of the country, death squads roam the
cities at night, hunting down suspected gang members, with tacit
approval of the police. But the director has addressed this issue in
his public appearances.

 

In a speech at Cinemalaya, the
independent digital film festival here in August, where "Tribu" won the
best picture award, Libiran appealed to the police and the Manila
government. "There are other ways to stop the gang riots in Tondo and
in other Tondos of the Philippines," he said. "Please, have mercy.
Don’t kill these children."

 

Tondo has been featured in films
before, notably in Lino Brocka’s 1976 masterpiece "Insiang," the first
Filipino film to be exhibited at Cannes. As in "Tribu," the Tondo of
"Insiang" is a cauldron of moral decay, hopelessness and, ultimately,
desperation.

 

As Howie Severino, another television journalist,
noted in a blog, "Tribu" is a bleak reminder of how little life in
Tondo and other Philippine urban centers has changed in the last 30
years. "Dead ends then are dead ends today," he wrote. "That’s the real
tragedy."

Posted in Caloy's Stories, Film | 2 Comments »