Plastic money
I’m not sure if SM Baguio have Honeywell Barcode Scanner devices installed in their check out counters. But one thing I may be forced to get is the BDO cash card for Maui to use when he is in Baguio. Much as I hate BDO and would not like to give them any business, necessity dictates that I get the most convenient cash card available to us. If I understood the Banco de Oro customer service agents I spoke to, I can deposit any amount of cash on the card and Maui can use the card at a BDO ATM or swipe it at the check out counters at the SM supermarket. However, it takes more than a week to be processed after I apply for one, so I was told.
Unbelievable. Other banks can provide me with an ATM card on the same day that I opened an account. I have till the end of the week to decide on this. Until I’ve decided on one, Maui will have to rely on cold hard cash.
Useless parent
No this is not a rant about parents for one reason or another 
It’s how I felt last May 5, 2009, when Maui and I went to UP Baguio for his enrollment. We were talking leisurely as we trudged through the covered walk only to be met by this sign: “Only incoming freshmen are allowed beyond this point.” And another sign below that: “Parents waiting area here.”
And so I waited, almost uselessly for almost two hours before I saw my son again, because he needed the money, preferably the exact amount, for the cashier after his assessment. And then he disappeared again, returning after another hour with receipts and his class schedule.
In two more weeks we’ll be filling up the Samsonite luggage I’ll be buying second hand from my co-worker Abi with Maui’s stuff and sending him off, for the duration of the semester, at least, to the City of Pines.
I’m trying to be brave.
Maui is the one in the brown coat.
The new graduate
Maui’s high school graduation, Olivarez College Paranaque, March 27, 2009.
A most disappointing year at Olivarez College
My son Xavier goes to Olivarez College High School in Parañaque City. We enrolled him there from first year high school, immediately after we returned from a year of living in Mindanao. He is now in fourth year high school, graduating on the last day of March 2009.
This last year has been most disappointing, with events that seem to be amplified by the fact that this is his last year there.
I must admit there were times when I had to write out a promissory note because I did not have the cash on hand in time for tuition payment, which was mostly during exams. And I credit Olivarez College for allowing my son to take the exams on the times when I did issue one.
But today, Monday I issued a post dated check (dated to Friday this week) to cover the last fees to cover tuition and graduation expenses. Olivarez College accounting office not only refused the check, but told my son that he can only take the exams for the day when we can come up with CASH to pay the outstanding balance.
This for me is the last straw, after the fiasco with the Olivarez College Registrar’s office, when they took me to task for saying that the Form 137 I was requesting was urgent, and blamed me when the document they came up with was so riddled with mistakes.
I admit I am not the richest of parents, and that I have been through several financial lows. But I and my husband have managed to put my son through four years of Olivarez, with all bills paid to the last centavo.
And now this?
Granted, private schools are out first and foremost to make money. They are. Bar none. Schools are business establishments first and foremost, in the real world.
I just wish they were learning institutions first.
About Me
