Pedro 'N Coi Pinoy Pop Chibog at the Fisher Mall

When Kris featured Miss Universe Third Placer Shamcey Supsup’s and her businessman hubby Lloyd Lee's restaurant, everyone just got ecstatic to try it out, as if the dining populace is bitten by a gustatory bug. 

That is true with my lady cousins as well. So the natural gesture of them having to have lunch with me is to go to this place nestled in the nook of the Fisher Mall, Quezon City. 

The nomenclature Pedro ’N Coi is derived from Lloyd’s second name and Shamcey’s nickname. The place is teeming with Filipino motifs, from our national transport, a Jeepney-inspired tables and condiment holders to the typical Filipino community as depicted in famous TV shows like Okidokidoc and Ok Ka Fairy Ko, featuring Doc Aga and Entering Butingting in their design elements. 

It is an unassuming, homey place that is imbibed with are Filipino spirit and tenacity, a fragile balance of Filipino satisfaction despite the scrimmage, with signages like Tubero and other means of living. Obviously, a brainchild of an architecture summa cum laude graduate in Shamcey is what is being exuded in the entire design tapestry -  a personal touch, a detail to the minuscule, a labor of love. 

Even their menu is somewhat iconic: Inasal Raymundo, Joey de Lechon, Belly Flores, Ihaw Moto, to name a few. But let’s look at what we have ordered. 

Peanut as a courtesy appetizer. 

Sizzling Sisig Awww. 

Shooli’s Chapseuy. 

The rice. 

Pata Kang Kare Kare.

Pinoy Lemonade. 

The hungry gastric tank satisfied and so we head down to the only coffee shop in the mall. Surprisingly, the mall is not yet graced by Starbucks, and perhaps the only mall in the metropolis without it, so we ended up sauntering at the SBC instead. 

The Plight of Pedagogy

The reason why the nourishing of the mind, particularly that involving the development of the science and technology, didn't take off is that the learning source is economically malnourished. In order to augment a meager income and take home pay, school teachers ended up selling tocino to each other, or some, by means of offering a cellphone load to their students. 

But the insitutionalization effort to make this happen is more than meets the eye. It doesn't only take increasing an across-the-board wage hike to school teachers. It doesn't only take improvement of the classroom conditions. Or of the modernization of the the schools' learning facilities such as free online research kiosks to those students who can't afford to pay monthly internet subscription bills. Or of appropriating budgetary allotment for the expenditures concerning education, and not so by buying Pentium 4 computers worth Php400,000 each. Or of curbing the glaring corruption which actually happened at the grassroots(I would like to mention that the Quezon City's Occupational Permit is a classic example of atrocious corruption right up to the face). It doesn't only take putting the budget level along with the spectra of our budget for militarization. Defending the country from territorial aggression doesn't necessarily equate to defending the country from ignorance. 

The country produces engineers, but they were nowhere to be found except in call centers, or worse had gone exodus outside the country for a greener pasture. Not that there's nothing wrong with that but it only means we're bleeding with those intellectual resource that we have been teaching for five years only to have ended up not being directly used for the infrastructure development this country needs. 

I want to be a tacher, my heart longs to teach science, particulalrly physics, or something to the sort that will have a direct impact to the understanding of the phenomenon around us, which will similarly impact to the understanding and fruition of technology that will harness the advantage and produce products for the general welfare. But I don't want to end up as a national carabao by working hard but with a deficit reward. Such is the plight, their plight.