Bandology

Making everyday a celebration.

Those words were etched on a metal plaque displayed on one of the walls of the San Miguel Management Training Center in Tagaytay. San Miguel’s motto caught my attention. Why not make everyday a celebration?

The idea is so appealing for a beverage and food company. Filipinos equate celebrations with food. Good food. (Too good that I myself imagine gorging on buco salad, calderata,letchon and the likes while I’m writing this article.) Good food necessitates expenditure. It seems, one of my classmates in college remarked, difficult to enjoy life if you don’t have any money to spend on the things you want to buy. Happiness has a price, and she imagines, poor people can’t possibly afford it.

How much does it take to be happy? I wrote a few things that create the rainbows and sunshine in my life.




1. reading a classic while sipping hot coffee Php 40.00
2. having a good conversation with an old friend Php 0.00
3. saying I love to you to the person I love Php 0.00
4. going to a garden show and appreciating the rare orchids Php 20.00
5. writing poetry Php 0.00

Receiving a compliment, according to Mark Twain could make him go on for two months. And such things are beyond monetary values. Clearly, happiness is within the grasp of anybody, across the income brackets. The Philippines might rank way below the world’s top twenty in term of per capita income, but it holds the distinction of being the 17th happiest place on earth.


Happiness is never reserved to the people with the most money. Some people who have money, eventually, after having so much of it, eventually realize there is a limit to enjoying their money. Gokongwei eventually distribute his money to scholarship grants, and Bill Gates is doing the same. Bill Gates is the greatest philanthropist of all time. His foundation is already credited with the saving of millions of lives through vaccinations.

If having lots of money is the peak of happiness, how come these people are finding fulfillment in sharing their money?