Category Archives: fast facts

blacklisted

Posted by rob on

pesos

g20, the group of 20 leaders just ‘blacklisted’ the philippines as an uncooperative tax haven.  the philippines is well known as a country of corrupt government officials hiding their own funds which most likely was sourced from taxpayers.  non-compliance of the rules of sharing tax information may result in the withdrawal of financing of the world bank.  banking secrecy worsens the economic crisis, and considering that my own home country is one of the four major offender – is downright embarassing.

korean suicide

Posted by rob on

suicide-by-cbd

six in every 10 south korean teenagers have thought about taking their own lives at least once . . .

according to statistics, there were 12,174 suicides representing 5% of all deaths in 2007.  it’s also said that an annual average 23.6 koreans committed suicide out of 100,000 people in the last five years, which is one of the highest levels in the world.

i have read on the web of ‘copycat suicides’ becoming a common thing among young south korean actors and actresses.  they say in korea, there exists a high mental and emotional pressure that roots out from their society itself.  depression in fact is a primary factor which triggers them to end their own lives.

suffocation

suicide affects everyone, directly or indirectly without regards to one’s own culture, social status, education, race nor religion.  suicide is a form of a permanent escape – an irreversible solution, an act of cowardice and a waste of human life.

oversupplied

Posted by rob on

nurse1

i took my board exams almost 4 years ago, as i remember 5,210 out of 12,100 made it to pass.  when i read an article about the new board passers last year, the first thing I noticed were the figures:

manila, philippines – – around 39,455 passed the nursing board exams taken last november, 2008 and more than 88,649 aspiring nurses took the test.

imagine that!  i think we’ll be having an oversupply of underpaid nurses back in my home country.  in actuality, a number of these licensed nurses even don’t find a job related to nursing for some of them resort on working as a call center agent or a medical transcriptionist for the pay is better.

our country has so many nurses that new nursing graduates are finding it hard to find jobs.  the competition among nursing graduates is so stiff that local hospitals can now afford to hire nurses for free.

sad, but true.