Sounds Nice, Right?

This post will be one where I tackle some laws or pieces of legislation that sound really good but have unintended negative effects. These effects should be enough for us to give these a second thought.

1. Three months maternity leave - Let's start with a big one. This is great for employees! However, employers will feel the burden on this law when their female employees decide to start families. What's the unintended ill effect of this? Simple. Employers will be less inclined to hire female employees. It's not discrimination. It's just math. If two young applicants apply for the same position (one male and one female), keeping all other factors constant, there is no reason why the company shouldn't hire the male applicant over the female one. Reason? Cost! A female employee will cost more to a company as it will have to pay her while hiring another person to do her job for her during her time off.
2. CARP - oh CARP. CARP's aim was to let the farmers own the land they till. Sounds good right? Until you realize that CARP has made it so that big farms that used to produce lots of food now aren't able to produce as much. CARP distributes the land without much thought to the equipment and labor needs for each plot of land. What you end up with is many parcels of land unable to produce to the levels they used to.
3. SOGIE or (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression) - The anti-discrimination bill in congress is one I'm unsure we really even need and one whose implementation might be difficult in light of provisions on religious freedom. In job hiring, I don't know of businesses who discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity expression. This bill makes out the LGBT community to be weaklings who somehow need this kind of law in place and would actually further divide us. Filipinos are generally very accepting of the LGBT community.
4. End ENDO - gasp! Yeah, endo. Years back, I would have fully supported the End Endo movement. Endo might take up another future post all for its own. For now though, here's how Endo could possibly have some ill effects. Regularizing employees is expensive. They have benefits and it makes terminating them difficult if they ever become problematic in the future. What are businesses to do with growing costs of labor? They can go in one of two directions. Raise prices or Go automated. Going automated is what I see the bigger companies doing in order to keep prices low which would all but assure that smaller companies who raise prices would simply lose the competition.
5. Anti-Political Dynasty - for this, I've already made a post about this but in short, an anti-political dynasty law could possibly deprive us of having two completely competent politicians who just happen to be in the same family. I've also explained in an earlier post how to silently kill political dynasties without attacking it directly.

These are just some of the laws in the pipelines I decided to cover in this article. I could be wrong but I just want to put it out there.

Dice Game Probabilities

Every year, around September, the Filipino Chinese community plays a dice game. I didn't grow up with this tradition so it was a real shocker for me. I didn't understand how rolling dice could be so fun. Nikki told me, "What's not to like, you roll a dice and you get a prize!" Now, I'll admit, the whole affair really is fun. People can really get into the spirit of trying to affect the roll by touching someone who's been lucky, or rolling the dice slower or faster, or not looking while rolling. People's superstitions come alive when they roll the die with their left hand when they've had an unlucky streak rolling with their right.

Obviously, the best roll would get the first prize, second best combination gets the second prize and so on and so forth. The winning combinations are set in stone and one need only consult Google to get a copy of the winning combos. Common wisdom would dictate that the rarer combinations would get the better prizes (i.e., a four of a kind would have a better prize than two fours, for example). As such, when I asked a friend how many of each prize to prepare, she gave me a very easy way to remember:

• 1st prize - 1
• 2nd prize - 2
• 3rd prize - 4
• 4th prize - 8
• 5th prize - 16
• 6th prize - 32

Basically just double the previous number. She also said that this isn't set in stone and you can have more than 1 first prize or more of the 5th and 6th prizes as consolation prizes. I generally like to prepare 20 of the 5th prize and up to 50 of the 6th prize - you see, I'm quite unlucky in these games and so I want to at least stock up on the consolation prizes.

In the few years I've played this dice game, however, I've always noticed something odd. I noticed that the last prize to be snatched up is almost always the 4th prize (you need to roll a four of a kind to get this one). The third prize combination (three fours) somehow get rolled way more often than the fourth prize combination (four of a kind). I had a gut feeling there was something wrong. The math wasn't mathing. So I started doing calculations on the probabilities but I realized I had forgotten my lessons in combinations and permutations and so my gut feeling remained a gut feeling.

That changed when I started using ChatGPT as my personal assistant. I threw my question to ChatGPT and all I needed to do was check if the math was sound. It was indeed and I was in fact correct. In fact, winning the 3rd prize is 1.67x more likely than winning the 4th prize. I then asked ChatGPT why a higher premier was put on rolling 3 fours than rolling a four of a kind. The reply was pretty straight forward - symbolism trumps rarity. The number four was simply given more weight.

I'm not one to change up the order - this is tradition after all. So I thought the best way around this is to simple change up how many of each prize to prepare. Here is my proposal:

• 1st prize - 1 or 2
• 2nd prize - 3 or 4
• 3rd prize - 6 to 8
• 4th prize - 6 to 8
• 5th prize - 20 to 24
• 6th prize - 40 up

Most likely the 3rd prize will still be snatched up before the 4th prizes will be taken but at least the wait won't be that long. What do you think? Yay or Nay? Will my Chinese ancestors disown me for changing up the number of prizes? I hope not.

Pia had a little Accident

My little Piababy had a little accident at my parents' house last Sunday evening. It was nobody's fault really. She wasn't being careless, nobody pushed her, no sharp edges were exposed. It's on of those things that just happened. Pia got a cut on her eyelid after she fell after losing her balance and her eye hit the edge of a wooden coffee table.

Me and Nikki were in the dining table just chatting with my sisters when I heard a loud thud then we heard Pia cry. A crying baby is a normal sound for us to hear. What isn't normal for us is the sight of blood. We rushed to her and Nikki told me to stay back - she knows I get queasy at the sight of blood. I stayed back for a bit. I saw the blood on the cloth they were using to apply pressure and keep the wound clean but I dare not see the wound. While everyone around me was running around trying to help Pia, I knew I needed to face the music. I saw Pia's eye and there was a gash on her eyelid that was the length of half her eyelid. I made a conscious effort not to be affected. I had to man up for my kid. I was actually very shocked how much I could put my fears aside when it came to my kid. If it were anyone else, I'd have been vomiting. But my kid needed me to be strong for her so be strong for her, I did.

Nikki had contacted her aunt who was a doctor to ask her what we should do and I had tried to contact our pedia through messenger as she was out of the country. While we were trying to keep a level head, admittedly, we needed someone else to tell us that we needed to go to the Emergency Room. My sister had the driver prepare to leave right away. As I was in slippers and a sleeveless top, I decided to change for the hospital.

It might seem unimportant what I wear to the hospital when my kid's eye was bleeding but I thought this might be one of those times I can make a hospital trip a little bit more fun. I had recently bought socks that had a smiley on the side. I decided to wear those. I found a mickey mouse T-shirt I rarely wear as well and thought of wearing it to the hospital. After changing, we prepared some other things as we knew it would be a long night. We were then off to the hospital. We were told to go to Cebu Doctor's instead of the usual Chong Hua as Cebu Doc is the only ER with an Optha 24/7. We left the house around 7:30pm.

We arrived at the emergency room and as luck would have it, two other people came in with the same thing. All of them requiring a surgeon. We were number 3 meaning we'd have to wait for the first two to be resolved. It was going to be a long night indeed. We were given some gauze for the bleeding. We had to return several times as the gauze was getting soaked in blood.

Several doctors and nurses came in and out of our little ER room. The doctors would come in, take a photo of the gash and send it to their boss. Every time a doctor came in, I felt so hopeful she'd get treated soon but then someone else would come in and do the exact same thing - take a photo, send it to their boss and leave. I later found out that our case was being thrown around from one department to another. To be clear, I wasn't mad. I understand the doctors need to be think through these things and be careful for the sake of the patient. Was a surgeon needed to perform this? Or a pediatric surgeon? The gash is on her eye, does an Ophthalmologist handle this case? She had hid her eye but her eye is in her head, does the neurologist need to see her? In an ideal world, it would've been very quick and painless but I understand procedure.

The case did end up with the Ophthalmologist and as luck would have it, he was a friend of Nikki's brother! And we had hung out a few times. Another one of the doctors who assisted with Pia was a relative of mine. I'm ashamed to say I didn't recognize her but it's been more than 20 years since I last saw my relatives on that side of the family.

They basically gave us two options. The gash would need to be closed up but the option was to do local or general anesthesia. His preference was to do general anesthesia since it would assure that Pia wouldn't be moving so much during the procedure. But the whole thing would mean that she needed to be checked in and the procedure would happen the next day. It would obviously mean that she'd be on more anesthesia and that was something I wasn't willing to do at her age.

Local anesthesia meant she'd be up for the whole procedure but it meant having it closed up quicker and we could go home quicker as well. I knew Nikki well enough to know she'd just go with what the doctor recommends so I asked them to give us time to decide. To be fair, the doctors told us that one hybrid solution was to try local anesthesia and if we see it can't be done, we can opt for general later.

So they left us alone to discuss and I told Nikki that I wanted it stitched up ASAP. Local anesthesia all the way and that we wouldn't stop it for anything. We both agreed and Nikki went out to tell the doctors. Around this time, Pia wasn't as fussy anymore. She'd had a nap in the hospital bed and was being her more normal self. She saw my socks and laughed so much. She said, "Daddy, funny!" I'm glad to know my funny socks worked. Later she commented, "Mickey Mouse!" while pointing at my shirt. Glad to know my old shirt could still bring a smile to my baby's face.

Now, one of the medicines for Pia's surgery was something that could make her drowsy just so she doesn't fight back as much. They didn't have any on hand and it was the only thing they needed before we could start. I had to go out and buy this medicine from a pharmacy but the trickier part was I had to find a pharmacy that would still be open. It was already 11:30pm. I went out and found a pharmacy but they didn't have it. So I asked them what pharmacies would still be open at that time. The pharmacist told me that Mercury Drug on Fuente would still be open. So I called the driver and had him drive me to Fuente. I lined up and I was number 15. They were currently serving number 4 so I thought it would be some time before they'd get to me. I went out of Mercury and saw a Rose Pharmacy nearby and thought I'd go to Rose while waiting for my turn at Mercury. Good call too since the line at Rose was super short. The pharmacist was about to tell me she didn't have the medicine when Nikki called me saying they were able to borrow some from the ICU and to come back.

I was relieved to know the procedure would happen soon and that we didn't need to wait too long anymore. I got to our little ER room and Pia was still up though she wasn't at a hundred percent. It took some more time but the doctors came in and we would start the procedure. They wrapped Pia in a blanket so she wouldn't move so much but Nikki needed to hold her hands. I was in-charge of her legs which were trying to kick me away. My cousin doctor started putting some antiseptic on her eyelid and Pia just cried and screamed. She told Pia that it was just like make up. Pia then shouted, "Remove make up!!!" I thought that was such a smart thing to say for a kid who did not like what was going to happen next. My cousin doctor then held her head for the procedure to make sure her head stayed still. The Ophtha then started sewing up the gash.

Now, I can't give a blow by blow even if I wanted to. Watching a gash being sewn up is still something I don't have the guts to do. But Nikki watched the whole thing and she later said she was so amused as it was just like regular sewing. I was just concentrating on pinning Pia's legs down. I could feel her hands move as well so I proceeded to pin those down too. All I could hear was Pia screaming, "Enough na!" for the whole thing. I could see why some parents don't want to go through that. I still feel a bit guilty about letting her go through something like that. Her screams broke my heart like they could only hurt a dad's heart. She was going through some pain and suffering that I couldn't do anything about and I technically signed her up for it. People tell me I did was I thought was best but it still does sting.

The whole thing finished within 15 minutes. It was sewn up, patched up and everything and we just needed to pay and get the clearance before we'd leave. Pia was tired and so were we. The doctors commented how brave she'd been. She was screaming and everything but she didn't move her head much which made the doctors' job that much easier. I'm so proud of my Piababy. We got home 1:30am. We were all tired but Pia was fast asleep. Me and Nikki took a shower and got into bed. At 2am, I couldn't sleep. My brain was still up and it was hard to calm down. I found out the next morning that Nikki had slept at 4am.

The next day, in the office, Atsi commented that I should've stayed at home since I seemed like a zombie in the office. I went home that afternoon. Me and Nikki just caught up on sleep. For her part, Pia was afraid of anything needing to have her lie down like when we needed to apply an ointment to her eyelid. It would take many more days for her to realize it wasn't painful. What's amazing was that that day, Pia wanted to go to the mall and go shopping. We didn't but it was comforting to know she was quickly going back to her old self.