I would love to go to Gen San for the 2nd Mindanao Summit.  I have actually registered for the first bloggers conference in UP years and years ago, but failed to come because I think I just delivered then…  But then again, I will not be able to come since I have a one year old and though I can afford to take my children with me, I do not think it is safe to travel to Gen San right now.

At any rate, I could only sigh and drool with envy to the rest who are going.  I have no idea who are going and I have no personal connection with any of these people, but at any rate since I am no longer in Manila and blogs now in Mindanao, I am now a Mindanao Blogger but have not officially joined the group yet.  So, what am I waiting for?

Due to the invasion of rats in my house, I have been cleaning out my cupboards in the kitchen and the dining room and found a couple of suspicious dairy products that may be laced with the dangerous melamine. Just read from CNN that Lipton Milk Tea was found to be laced with melamine also. Here is a partial list of products currently being tested by BFAD.  I am shocked to see,  Anchor Products and several Nestle products included in the list.

I have checked BFAD’s website to see if there are any SOP for recalls and if we could still get a refund for products purchased suspected with melamine. However, I only found this memo in their website.  There are no indication that products returned shall be refunded.  Shouldn’t that be in the law?  Years ago, there was a recall for Gerber products in the US and in the Philippines and I noticed a copy of this memo posted on the aisle in Shopwise (memo from the distributor of Gerber) but there was no indication if consumers like me can return the babyfood and get a refund in return. I was deeply disturbed by this since we, as consumers should be able to return any defective products and get a refund for that, right?  I know that the DTI has a  primer for this in their site.  If you find yourself with a defective product, you may return, refund or replace that said product.  Happened to me years ago, in SM Megamall.  We bought one of those huge televisions from Sony and found it defective in less than a month.  We tried to turn the product and SM Appliance refused until we went there ourselves and demanded to see the manager.  The manager chose to hide but they promised to replace the item in a weeks time.  But they only did this after we hassled them for 4 hours.  Costumer is always right, supposedly…

If you have complaints against any establishment, feedbacks about defective products, you might want to file a complaint with DTI’s Consumer Welfare Desk.

I had the opportunity to watch a friend operate her rice business. She owns  hectares of land grown with rice and she co-owns a couple of hectares with other farmers as well. I watched her bargain with a farmer about buying their unmilled rice and drying and milling the rice herself and selling it through her thriving store here in rural Misamis Oriental.

It is really amazing watching her actively bargaining the purchase from P11/kg to P10/kgs of unmilled rice. According to her, one sack of unmilled rice would net her 10-15 kgs of rice which is currently still sold at a thundering P35/kg here. The price of rice has gone down a bit from P46/kg. From where am at, I guessed that she must be profiting P20-25 per kilo of rice. Not bad!!!

I asked her how she manages her farms and she said as usual the key is finding a reliable and trust worthy farmer-overseer. Having worked with a huge production farm in Negros years ago, I had more or less some understanding on land preparation needed for rice production. What I lack right now is land. My friend actually asked me if I am interested in financing some farmers in our area, since most farmers here have problem with money to start seeding, planting to fertilization of their rice. Not mention, harvesting, drying and threshing of rice during harvest season… I asked her how much it would cost to do so. She quickly whipped her calculator out and said more or less P2,000 for 2 square paddies and that usually yields to 30 sacks of unmilled rice, which would in turn yield 12-15 sacks of 50kgs of rice. At the current price of P35 let’s say, gets P1750/sack. In total she’d get P26,250 total for 15 sacks of rice.

I am interested in co-sharing or financing rice production with some of the growers here. I do have P5,000-10,000 to pay around with and with P2,000 or more for a couple of paddies which would yield P20,000 or more… that is actually NOT so bad at all. The thing with rice production is it is labor intensive. Like for example, land preparation and planting would take a couple of days and a couple of people. Not to mention the one week of drying period before the rice is milled.

I asked my friend how she pays her farmers and she said she pays them with rice also. Sharing usually goes 60-20-20. 60 for the financier, and 20 to the farmer and another 20 for the rest who helped with the planting and fertilization. But mostly, these other farmers needed more cash and they end up selling their share to her also.

Not bad at all… Now if only I could find a farmer who needed a financier soon…

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When I woke up and went out of our bedroom to prepare our breakfast, what was infront of me totally ruined my day.

S h i t ! !

I shrieked and woke up the children. The house rats rummaged and totally ruined the place where I keep some dry goods.  Totally reminded me of an entry by Delish…

Instead of cooking breakfast, I ended up cleaning up the mess. The inventory? The rats gnaw open 4 containers of Nestle Cream (mental note: buy them in cans instead of those in tetra packs) and 2 packs of Betty Crocker Bisquick (darn… I sour-graped, the pancake milk could be laced with melamine for all I care… I hoped the melamine kills the rats), 1 pack of Lucky Me Instant Noodles and gnaw open 1 pack of Ram Macaroni. The soiled cream dripped and spoiled the entire cabinet. I was glad to find out that other than that, the others are intact.

I had to take out all the food items and then disinfect the cabinet with a solution I made: Clorox, water and some laundry soap. I noticed some rat droppings and my anger grew a notch higher. While scrubbing the mess I was imagining ways to trap and kill the rats and stop the infestation. The fact that our house is close to the rice paddies where rats hang and eat doesn’t help at all. I am determined and I will lay out my traps later tonight and see what happens. I am also considering letting the cat in as Plan B.

As part of the plan, I will also rearrange the major furniture to trick the rats since I have read that rats are habitual creatures, they get disoriented and they will lie low for awhile to reorient. And when they do, I will be ready to poison them. I have yet to check out the poison bait in the market here, but since the Philippines is infested with rats, the shelves should be well stocked. Now for my weapon of choice… I will decide…

Call me– soon to be Rat Killer…