my|heroes - The Ninoy and Cory phone

At the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee hearing yesterday at the Senate of the Philippines, I saw the my|heroes phone by my|phone, a locally made phone, from Sister Mary Jo of St. Scholastica’s College and Jun Lozada, a controversial witness to the foiled the NBN-ZTE deal.

There are two kinds or designs of the phone (see photos). One of the phones is a slide down, while the other one is a QWERTY phone. Meanwhile, both of them are colored yellow, with a yellow ribbon cellphone holder with it. As we all know, the yellow ribbon is a symbol used by Tita Cory, especially after her death, and now used by Presidential candidate Senator Noynoy Aquino, son of the two.

Both camera phones have the digitized cartoon faces of Ninoy and Cory Aquino. Sister also said that the phones come with very cool and useful applications, which I forgot to ask about. I know that both phones come with the Holy Bible in it.

The QWERTY phone comes with a yellow cover/casing with the Philippine map engraved on one side, and the glasses of Ninoy Aquino and “iamninoy” and “iamcory” on the other side. Sister Mary Jo said that there are just a few thousands of these phones made, making it a limited collectors item. The slide down costs around 4 thousand pesos, while the QWERTY around 5 thousand pesos. Message me if you want to order. Stocks are limited until supply lasts.

Hallowed Halls of my next House

While the whole UP population in Diliman were rejoicing about the cancellation of classes, which they only knew when they were in UP already for their classes, we were south-bound to the hallowed halls of the Senate (as Tenai said) "in pursuit of knowledge" and experience.

The itinerary was a.) to meet up at Quezon avenue MRT station (9am) b.) to discuss with the Senate Secretariat the process of passing a law "How A Bill Becomes A Law" (11am) c.) to have lunch with Senator Miguel Zubiri (12nn) d.) to attend either of the two committee sessions *on the discussion regarding OFW labor issue or the privileged speech of Senator Joker Arroyo regarding Trillanes’ status as Senator (1pm) e.) to attend the plenary session (3pm) and f.) to go home (5pm).

But with the relentless and unforgiving strength of Storm Karen, the Senate staff and the people in the Senate were already allowed to go home 1pm. The afternoon itinerary was destroyed. The Committee and Plenary sessions were cancelled; thus, we were left to touring the Senate Museum and roaming around the Senate instead.

The Senate museum was great, though it housed fairly small amount of tokens, memorabilia and displays, I find it very educational and awesome.

All the Senate Presidents have portraits lined up on the walls of the museum. I took photos with my favorite Senate Presidents - Manuel L. Quezon, grandfather of Manolo, The Explainer, and Ferdinand Marcos.

We were called back to the Senators Lounge because Senator Zubiri was already there for our lunch. We hurriedly went back to the lounge, and he arrived shortly after us. I shook the hands of the senator. We discussed about pertinent issues the country is facing, and I think, with that encounter, I can say that he's really knowledgeable and is hands-on with his work. He's also very game in answering whatever we ask about.

After the lunch, we were left to ourselves, to wander (well at least that's what we did) and take pictures of or with the stuff along the corridors (like the photo above with pictures of the senators on the wall).After a while, we left already and went on our own separate ways. A lot of us, on the other hand, went to the Mall of Asia (including myself). Some of us haven't been there before, and thus, they were really excited stepping on the grounds of the largest mall in Asia, for the first time.

You can see more pictures from the visit here at my Multiply Account. Photos of the event were taken using Athena's camera and can be viewed here. The title of this post has no pun intended.