THE response to my initial blog on the Ashitaba Medicinal herb, otherwise known as the Tomorrow Leaf, seems to have generated a great amount of interest. This is probably an indicator of the number of people who need assistance in the healing of certain physical ailments. This particular blog will serve only as a quick response to some of the queries posted by those who read of the wonderful qualities of the Tomorrow Leaf. A longer response will be forthcoming, complete with pictures of the plant – albeit, a small one at that – and the turnover of a number of them by Ms Charlene Ang, daughter of my classmate Wilson Ang of Bio-Research, to our village Garden Club.

First, Wilson Ang propagates the Tomorrow Leaf as an avocation, and distributes the plant (one plant for each visitor or depending on need) FOR FREE to those who go to his Bio-Research plant in Sucat, Paranaque.

Second, Wilson Ang DOES NOT SELL the Ashitaba plant, but makes it available to those who go to his 4-hectare office FOR FREE as an advocacy, his own way of giving back to the community that has supported his business for so many years. The staff of Bio-Research also hand out a primer on the Ashitaba plant that contains some instructions on how to consume it. But for the sake of clarity, I will make some other recommendations based on what I have heard from Wilson and Charlene, and my own observations after a few weeks spent with the plant.

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WHEN times are tough….people buy lottery tickets! Even with the most recent huge jackpot of about P347 Million (a little over $7 million), long lines can still be seen in lottery outlets as the public hopes to be the next lucky person to win a big prize in the other games still playing with relatively large jackpots.

Many times, people ask me if I have ever won in either the Lotto (pari-mutuel game) or the Numbers (fixed odds games) games, and I have had to answer in the negative. I am not, after all, a gambler at heart, but do wander off to a nearby lottery outlet to take my chance once in a while. Those who ask the question are the ones who somehow know of my involvement in the conceptualization of the online lottery game in the country.

It began with an invitation by my uncle Norberto Quisumbing, Jr. to help him when he had just taken over PAGCOR upon the assumption of power by the Cory government. He had in mind the transformation of PAGCOR into an authority able to operate like the Nevada state gaming authority.

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WHEN certain buddies of mine decided to once again take up the hobby of setting up and maintaining tropical fish aquariums, we vectored directly to our usual complete source for this enervating undertaking, our schoolmate Wilson Ang, founder and head of Bio-Research. This was after a fairly long hiatus, mind you, because time and circumstance had managed to pry many of us away from this hobby. In my case, I lost all my fish (accumulated over many years and placed in a humongous 400 gallon tank and a smaller 110 gallon tank) to a wrongly applied cleaning agent by a contractor many moons ago. Right then and there, I decided to spend more time – and money – in my other hobby, serious amateur photography, with the Camera Club of the Philippines as an ideal venue for this avocation. But this is another topic for another time.

While in the main corporate offices of Bio-Research in Sucat Road in Paranaque, we realized that our good friend Wilson had gone beyond his traditional setting of tropical and marine fish. He had managed to accumulate distributorships for what looked like a serious water pump and waste-water treatment business, among other things. But more important, he managed to convert his 4 hectare property into what he hopes will be a suitable habitat for the various flora and fauna he has accumulated – and continues to accumulate – over the years, some for sale and some for keeps. (Read about some of what he is doing in this area in my son Jayvee’s blog, A Bugged Life.

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One of the unintended casualties of the free fall being suffered by banks and the finance sector in general is the increasing lack of good places one can expect to park cash and hard-earned funds.

Many banks, especially in the US and Europe, remain in business only because of extreme measures taken by their host governments by way of direct cash infusions (in tens of billions of dollars and euros) and guarantees. As a result, many people are probably contemplating putting extra cash under the proverbial mattress in anticipation of worse days to come.

The folding up of the Legacy group of banks locally calls to mind a similar spate of bank closures that arose from essentially bad management practices and the tendency of many bankers to treat deposits as a private piggy bank into which they can dip their grubby hands. Banking is a business built on trust, faith that the money deposited there will be used wisely by way of loans to productive enterprises or investments in high-grade bonds or other financial instruments. Now, depositors have to think twice before committing funds that may never get back to them.

That is why it pains one when failed banks–that were closed for obvious mismanagement or the use of bank deposits to fund owners’ and management’s personal ventures, adventures, or peccadillios–are allowed by government or the legal system to get away with their crime and even file cases against regulators. In a legal system that is fraught with illicit transactions that favor those who are willing to pay the price, it is highly possible for a failed bank to reopen for business, to the future distress of new and unsuspecting depositors.

I sincerely hope that our local banking system remains fairly solid, and able to withstand the buffeting that they will get because of the malaise that is affecting their counterparts abroad. On the other hand, depositors should be prepared to ask tough questions of their bankers: Their policies on investments and lending, their exposure to bad debts, whether any garbage is hidden away in the contingent accounts, actual exposure in potential land mines like (the bad kind of) derivatives, and so forth. This should set bank managements to thinking too, and keep them on their toes, as both the depositing public and the regulators act to keep the banks and bankers honest.

SOMEONE sent me an article written obviously from the point of view of a member of the Jewish community, lamenting the rip-off pulled by Bernard Madoff against many of the rich and famous denizens of both Wall Street and residents of the rarefied gated communities like Palm Beach in Florida. But what seems to incense the author of the article is that this fellow Madoff scammed even Jewish organizations and charities.

On the other hand, others are simply incensed that this fellow managed to create an aura of investment invincibility around him, to the point wherein people would join exclusive clubs like the Palm Beach Country Club just to have a chance to “invest” in Madoff’s fund…which, of course, turned out to be nothing but another glorified Ponzi scheme.

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