Overseas Phone Cards

I've been getting a call at my home office from a gal in the Philippines who has been trying to sell me an overseas phone card, essentially a calling card that you pay for in advance so you can call the Philippines without worrying about racking up a phone bill (and I know about racking up bills, I once ran a bill into the thousands of dollars and got kicked out of the house for it). What bothers me is not so much the girl calling, which she has called three times, but her asking me personal questions, such as what is my email address, do I have a wife, etc. I am not so much angry at her, but more so I am angry at the country that is so rich yet many of its people are so poor. In her calls, she gets a bit personal, asking me if I've been to Bicol region where she is calling from (I haven't) or if I've been to Palawan (I have), how old I am, that sort of thing. I freely answer the questions she poses, but I get the feeling that in her job, she must also be looking for a way out of the country. Because although there is high fashion, fancy cars and gated communities, there is also corruption, loose moral values, and there is extreme poverty. I am not saying that I have the higest moral values, because although I would like to believe that I do, I don't, though there are certain standards that I'd like to maintain, and not in a monetary sense.

For every person who does well and finds a decent job at a living wage, there are thousands of others who look to escape what is a beautiful country. I don't think that the average filipino really knows what a great country it could be, given the appropriate leadership. The filipino though finally woke up and decided not to vote for movie stars this election, which is a good thing because I don't see what if anything those people have accomplished while in office, except maybe Vilma Santos. I even came across a blog advertising jobs in Iraq for Filipinos. They were paying $80,000 just to drive a truck in Iraq. Imagine that. That's a freaking good salary here in the US. Imagine 80k in the Philippines. Will they go for the carrot dangled in front of them in exchange for putting their life on the line? Many have.

Which brings me back to this girl. Even though I am happily married, I am still drawn to the filipina voice. Some have voices that are so magiling parang soothing when you hear it, but there are others that are really just annoying. I have an aunt who has the most annoying voice that you'd ever hear, but then one of my cousins has that voice. The girl on the other end of the line has that kind of voice, so I entertain her, answer her silly questions, just to keep her on the line to listen to that voice. And she doesn't seem to mind because it isn't her dime (or peso), but PLDT's, and who owns PLDT anyway, some Malayasian or Indonesian Chinese who has nothing better to do but pay shitty salaries to filipina women with lovely voices.