If In Cebu, Do not Miss STK Ta Bay

With the entry of the New Year, you expect people to make new year's resolutions and a nice resolution especially for me would be to eat healthier food choices.

I am delighted to have finally dined in STK ta Bay sa Paulito's Seafood House in 6 Orchid St., Capitol Site Cebu City, walking distance from Cebu Doctor's Hospital.

They offer delicious seafoods and among their specialties is the very delicious Baked Scallops and Tuna Panga.

They have big savings at a very reasonable cost. Not only the servings but with their baked scallops, the plate contained enough scallops to satisfy one's craving.

They also have crispy hot calamares like in the picture below:

They also have dishes which are shrimp-based like gambas and shrimp sinigang.

For 3 dishes, we only spent around P550 and we were full. And we even have not tested the other Filipino dishes like tinolang manok bisaya, tinola and sinigang isda as well as kinilaw and also I heard they also have yummy "kilawin". All of these are expected since after all STK stands for 'Sinugba, Tinuwa and Kinilaw'.

On the outside, you would not think it is a place for dining if you have not seen the signboard telling one that it is STK Ta Bay. 

Inside, the atmosphere is "homy" for I think the place was actually a well-maintained house in the midst of a residential area. It is filled with antique collections and in the entrance, you can see photos of celebrities who dined there posing with probably the owner of the place. One gets the idea that a lot of people do eat in STK Ta Bay.

Getting a reservation is advisable before actually going to the place as many frequent the place to eat lunch and dinner. The contact numbers are 2562700 or 2534732.

Crime and Drugs in our Area are on the Rise. Wake Up!

I thought the day would end well for me. I attended the CIM Alumni Day, had good food, learned that my wife after an operation will be discharged and almost won the CIM Alumni Scholarship for children raffle draw (except that I have no child yet so even if my name was the first actually called, having no child disqualified me from the said raffle.)

So we went home and my wife could finally relax....but going home at an already dark 6PM, we found out the lights won't turn on. The TV does not work. The fan the same. Brownout? But all the neighbors' lights are on and working fine.

Investigating further by going outside, this was what I have discovered...

How thoughtful of the criminals, they were kind enough to put electric tape at the end of the cut wires (150 meters long according to Veco).

The result? Brownout, inconvenience and a feeling of being unsafe, unsecure because of the knowledge that the barbed wire was intentionally bent and the electric cable connecting the post to our residence cut.

Being a CSI, NCIS and other crime TV series that I was, I took pictures of the "crime scene" including portions of the wall that were chipped, disturbed soil and even this nearby scene very near the wall where many "habal-habal" drivers hangout in Guadalupe...

I did not post all the pics here but anyway, I showed all the pics I took to the police station where I reported the incident initially.

A cop assigned at the frontdesk took my statement. Looked at the pictures and wrote a lengthy entry at his logbook and you what he said in the end when he was finished jotting down what I said? (I was waiting for him to say, ok let's go to your house and I'll take a look then I was expecting him also to tell his companion, "Grab your gear" like what NCIS' Gibbs does.

But I was disappointed when the cop instead said, "I'm sorry sir but we can only record the incident as a police blotter which you can use when you have the electric line fixed and the power returned.... But you need to pay at City Hall, get the receipt and return here so we can give you a typewritten police report."

But it is a Saturday so there was no City Hall.

The frontdesk cop added, "If you caught someone in the act of doing a crime like stealing, then you can call us. "

Yeah, that's encouraging.

Last time before the recent barangay elections, I reported a past incident of a teenager entering the gate of the house unlawfully and stealthily so I told him my suspicion that the aforementioned teenager is a "nubain" user and the tanods said, "Yah, there are a lot in your area who indeed uses nubain. There was even this child who is a known theft but we cannot arrest them because of this particular law, blah blah."

Why can't authorities do something about this?

I asked the PDEA or Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency but they said they cannot act nubain users specifically because "nubain" is not under their jurisdiction.

In the Buena Hills-Guadalajara area, laptops, wires, grills are being stolen almost every week. Government officials, we should not wait before a life is stolen too out of their criminal actions and drug-controlled minds.

Nubain abuse and stealing other people's property should be put to a stop.Cops should act like investigators and law enforcers, not as mere secretaries or clerks. Clerks don't scare criminals.