Proudly Pinay.

Ok. This would probably sound off as another Pacquiao fight plug but no, not really. :)

Even though Pacquiao will be facing off another match, which I probably think he will win again, there is so much more in the country that we Filipinos can be proud of. Like natural resources.

At this hour, I know I am not supposed to do anything but sleep the night, to avoid yet turning in late at work again for the nth time in the last four weeks. But could you blame me for watching the late night news? It's really nice to watch the news once in awhile (and I do mean once in awhile, and not everyday as some people do so), specially now, when pretty much the whole thirty to forty-five news air time consisted of the same subject for the last five days.

So while the reporters yapped about election stuff, I tried shaping my brows. I stopped when they showed that they will be showing the segment about giant tunas. At first I thought it would be one of those exposes about illegal fishing and other negative reports about the locals, but no. Not tonight.

The news anchor, of which I do not know his name, mentioned that "GenSan is the 'Tuna Capital of the World'". I usually don't care about trivial facts about our country but hearing that tonight, I could not give any other reaction than "WOW." And I'm serious, and now suddenly realizing that Manny Pacquiao is also from GenSan.

I didn't know that we have that much fish swimming in our local seas. (And just tonight, I was at Bio Research trying to fight the urge to buy those 3-peso fish as pet.) And the tuna isn't your regular tuna in the sea, tuna from our country are really huge. Dyan Castillejo mentioned the fishermen were carrying tuna that weighed around 50 or 58 kilos. That's practically as heavy as one human being!

Unfortunately, for every glory I can brag about our country comes a negative side. As Dyan said a lot of things about the tuna and the fishermen, she mentioned that "Triple A class were shipped and sold to Japan, while classes A, B and C are sold in the Philippines," and my reaction was "What? The I-don't-know-how-many-because-I-lost-count cans of tuna I ate last week was not the best tuna in the market?"

For a second there I felt bad that the Japanese are having better tuna than I am. But I guess that's what I get for not knowing that most tuna in the world come from our country. Fair enough. And right now, I think it's okay that the Japanese get better fish, because they eat theirs raw, right? :p

So the next time I eat tuna, I will always think of the huge ones caught in the Philippines and remember that GenSan is home not only to Manny Pacquiao but also to the world capital of tuna. :)