better late than never

happy birthday, chammy!

since late man, dapat duha ka pictures...

happy birthday, leapling!

bittersweet

from tuesday's healing mass presided by msgr. cris garcia held at the carmelite's monastery chapel with the relics of st. therese of the child jesus:

"Your sickness is your healing."

wet summer?

or so pag-asa warns. not that i have little confidence in this country's weather bureau, but whatever... sunshine or no sunshine, summer, here i come!

glorious mornings and delightful evenings in siquijor

chasing winds and waves in guiuan, eastern samar


people-watching and paraw sailing in boracay


late jacuzzi nights in bohol


snorkeling and kayaking in palawan


playing golf (as if!) and sunbathing at the mactan shangri-la


jumping on a speedboat to the camiguin sandbar


carpe diem!

guilt

last saturday, my mother and i embarked on a two-hour trip to lugo, a sleepy (as in!) northern town, to visit her doctor-friend for some professional advise and more catching up. we arrived late enough to find almost a dozen of his patients lining up at the clinic, most of them from far-flung barangays, and others even had to cross mountains and rivers (no kidding!) just to get there, we later learned. we got the chance to talk to a bubbly mother in her forties who, together with her husband and daughter, descended from the hills of neighboring town, bogo. apparently some unidentified object got caught in the little girl's eye, bothering her no end, thus prompting them to seek medical help to finally get rid of it at once. we were talking about other sickness and disease and how people should not let it get the better of them since we all have the same chance of dying the next minute, either by some terminal illness, or by getting hit by a speeding bus. brilliant. in the course of our conversation, the mother revealed that she, too, has a rather huge lump in her left shoulder to which my mother was quick to advise that she should just have included that in today's consultation, saving them another trip. she can't, since according to her, "200 ra man gud among budget, kuhaan pa sa 100 nga bayad sa doctor, unya plete... sige lang, mobalik ra unya ko ug maka tigom na sad." i had four or five 100-peso bills with me that time, but the fear of her feeling insulted overcame me. really, 200 pesos may just be pang-taxi for some, but for the marginalized many, especially those in the countryside, it could spell the difference between life and death. and now that i think of it, i could only ask, wherever was my sense of charity, the christian "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me" value? whatever happened to the UP "giving back to the people what you owe them?" her painful confession irreparably broke my heart and made me so guilty, i don't know when or if i could get over this shame, self-reproach ever. if it's any consolation, i hope my daily prayers could somehow ease their burden and lighten up my conscience.

nanie

i practically spent the whole day just chatting about anything with nanie, in between browsing through pep, femalenetwork, abs-cbnnews, cnn, and time. wasting company resources!

at the end of the day, we resolved to soon have pictures of some of our body parts photoshop-ed and made into one wet, sexy fhm centerfold. her legs, my boobs, and... we haven't agreed whose face, maybe gly's.

before i die

ten things i have to do before i die:

1. adopt a child, or at least send one to school
2. physically participate in humanitarian efforts (if not in africa, war-torn mindanao or a remote area in northern luzon will do)
3. treat my mother to a month-long vacation most probably in spain or canada
4. backpack in another country, maybe africa or south america
5. join a reality tv show and stay long enough to enjoy whatever the show has to offer (Big Brother!)
6. paraglide and parasail
7. fire a gun
8. win a gold medal in a sporting event
9. pose for fhm, or any men's magazine (classy, not slutty... hehehe...)
10. pole dance in a stage play

money, indifference

below is the controversial essay of jun lozada on the supposed reasons of former neda chairperson romula neri's deafening silence. he now says this was "written in different context," presumably when death threats started to flood, when he never thought he'd still live to see the day when he'll tell his side of the story, the side that malacañang will move heaven and earth to cover. entrusted to black and white movement co-convenor enteng romano, this was composed some time in october 2007, around the same time neri testified to the senate accusing former comelec chairperson benjamin abalos of attempting a 200-million-peso bribe to approve an anomalous contract.

romano's note:

Dear Friends,

Here’s a short write-up that Jun Lozada wrote sometime in October. He wanted me to disseminate it without attribution. I believe he was motivated both by his genuine concern for a beleaguered friend who was being maligned no end, and his desire, even then, for the truth to somehow surface. He left it up to me as to how and when to disseminate it.

I did not find any compelling reason to get it out then. But now that Jun has told it all, and Neri is being invited back to testify, I believe the public deserves to know what was (and maybe still is) in the mind of Neri – at least from the point of view of a friend. I’m sure Jun will not mind.Let’s get this out in the open.

God bless,

Enteng

lozada’s essay:

What is Neri afraid to say and Why?

Many speculations have been made as to what Neri knows about the ZTE-NBN most particularly the direct involvement of Pres. Gloria Arroyo in this abominable affair. After his damaging “Sec. May 200 ka dito” demolition of Abalos, the discredited former Comelec Chairman, many were left disappointed when Neri suddenly clamped up when the Senators started asking him about the nature of his conversation with Arroyo, no amount of coaxing, cajoling and threats was enough to break his Code of Omerta. The question on many people’s mind was, What was Neri trying to protect when he repeatedly invoked “Executive Priviledge” during that gruelling 12 hour Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on live television?

We have known the Truth all along as one of the few people that Neri confided his predicament during those fateful days of April 2006, and how he wanted to resign his post of NEDA Director General and Secretary for Socio-Economic Planning over this incident where he lost all his moral respect for Pres. Gloria Arroyo.

We are doing this document to give the public an understanding of this predicament.

What is Neri afraid to tell the public? He is afraid to tell the public that after he reported the Abalos P200 million peso bribe offer, Arroyo casually told him to ignore it and work for its recommendation for approval anyway. That when he protested that it is too controversial and may attract the wrong kind of attention from media, Arroyo retorted back “Pakulo lang ni Joey yan and his father”. When he tried to reason that it may not be accommodated in the Chinese ODA package because it has been filled up with a list of projects already, Arroyo again ordered him to remove the low cost housing project and some water project to accommodate the ZTE-NBN deal in the ODA loan. That when he attempted to reason that it may not be approved in time for the Boao Forum which was only two days to go from that fateful April day, Arroyo with raised voice told him to include the ZTE-NBN project in the agenda of the following day’s meeting of a combined NEDA Board and Cabinet Committee, who as expected promptly approved the project paving the way for the contract signing between ZTE and DOTC in China the next day. Neri is afraid to tell the public that this conversation took place between him and Arroyo because it might spark another impeachment complaint against Arroyo.

Why is Neri afraid to tell the public about this conversation with Arroyo? He is afraid that another impeachment will simply result to more expenses of public funds similar to the Hyatt 10 impeachment crisis, because as DBM Secretary who replaced Boncodin, he was entrusted with the large scale DBM payola operation of Arroyo to Congressmen, Senators and Governors not quite similar to the crude Panlilio incident that the public is witnessing now. He is afraid with a more partisan Andaya at the helm of DBM, more public funds will be spent to buy the silence and favour of these greedy legislators and local executives. He is afraid that with Arroyo’s firm control of public funds she can buy all the necessary support from most sectors of society to keep her in power.

He is afraid that even if the opposition knows about this conversation with Arroyo, he is afraid that the opposition will not pursue a serious impeachment proceedings against Arroyo, because it is not to their political interest that Noli de Castro becomes President in case Arroyo is impeached and becomes a more formidable political opponent in 2010. This insincere and unpatriotic goal of the opposition is already being manifested by the malicious speed that the Erap pardon is being cooked by Ronnie Puno together with the Erap camp to hastily put a united front of “Birds of the same corrupt feather” coalition against the emerging JDV led political opposition.

He is afraid that even if the Church knows the truth about Arroyo’s direct involvement in the ZTE-NBN deal, the Church will still not call for her resignation due to the closeness of Arroyo’s trusted lady liason to the Cardinal of Manila who was very effective during the “Hello Garci” crisis. That Arroyo’s Religious Affairs Operators have the Bishops firmly in their “donation” graces, as again manifested by the quick rebuttal of the Mindanao Bishops’ of the call of their fellow bishops in Luzon who where calling for the resignation of Arroyo just after Arroyo gave them a visit in Mindanao.

He is afraid that even if the military knows the truth about Arroyo’s direct involvement in the fraudulent ZTE-NBN deal, the AFP brass is much to indebted to Arroyo for their position and the perks that goes with their position, that they have demonstrated this twisted loyalty with their willingness to detain, remove from the service and even shoot their own men for voicing out their legitimate concerns regarding the corruption and moral authority of their Commander in Chief. It is a sad spectacle to see the respected warriors of the Marines & Special Forces rot in jail with their ideals, while their men are dying even without receiving the measly P150 per day combat pay that was promised to them by Arroyo due to lack of funds & generals gets a gift bag similar to those given to the governors and congressmen just for having dinner with Arroyo the day after that infamous breakfast & lunch meeting where bribe money flowed scandalously free.

He is afraid that even if the Media knows the truth about Arroyo’s direct involvement in the ZTE-NBN scam, Media will simply wither in the torrents of cash and favors similar to how the Hyatt 10, Hello Garci crisis were killed in the media headlines and Radio& TV coverages. Although he believes in the integrity of a handful of Journalist, he believes that a handful of these mavericks cannot withstand the hordes of paid lackeys of Malacanang. Especially that the Arroyo crisis team is now being handled by the best mercenary money can buy, from Ramos Sulo Operation, Erap’s DILG and now Arroyo’s troubleshooter, Ronnie Puno. Ably supported by the Media and PR money from PAGCOR being handled by Cerge Remonte to buy positive airtime, headlines and editorials.

He is afraid that even if the Business Sector knows about the truth of Arroyo’s direct involvement to defraud the coffers of the taxes they are paying, the businessmen will be reluctant to rock the boat of the current economic uptrend, especially with the very close personal and business relationship of the so called leaders of the big business like Ricky Razon of ICTSI, Donald Dee of PCCI and Francis Chua of the Filipino-Chinese Federation to Arroyo herself. He is afraid that the hard earned remittances of Filipino OFWs that is keeping the economy booming and that can keep the economy afloat even under any administration is being wasted under this unholy alliance of Arroyo and her favoured businessmen.

He is afraid that even if the Civil Society knows the truth about Arroyo’s direct involvement in the ZTE-NBN deal, that the Civil Society is now tired of mass actions after witnessing two failed EDSA revolutions, that Civil Society is now afflicted with a “Rally Fatigue” and cannot muster enough public outrage to denounce Arroyo’s “corruption with impunity”. He is afraid that the middle class is now indifferent to the corruption that goes around them, not realising that the middle class are the ones mainly carrying the burden of the loan payments for these corrupt deals. He is afraid that the middle class are more interested to become an OFW & to leave this country leaving their family and children behind, and may not care anymore about the crimes being committed against their country by its own President.

He is afraid that even if the Masa, the students, the workers knows the truth about Arroyo’s direct involvement in the ZTE-NBN deal to steal precious resources from public funds, that they are now too poor and impoverished to be able to afford the time to join mass actions against the abuses of the Arroyo administration, that these former vanguards of mass actions in the country are now completely dependent on financial resources of professional organizers and have turned themselves into a “Rally for hire” groups rather than a true and genuine political gathering shouting for reforms.

He is afraid that the public may not know the extent of corruption in this country and may wrongly believe that they can cure corruption by simply replacing Arroyo with another person. He is afraid that the public may overlook the systemic and institutionalized nature of the source of corruption in this country, he is afraid that the people will again opt for a regime change without concern or a plan to correct the root causes of corruption in the country. He is afraid that people may not realize that it is not bringing Arroyo down that is difficult, it is establishing a new order that is the difficult task.

This is the predicament of Neri which I want people to realize especially to those who are asking Neri to tell the truth.

puffed

my mother just called to say sorry that she wasn't able to buy the nice pair of bronze earrings i will wear for my cousin's wedding tomorrow since she was glued to the television the whole afternoon, watching the live feeds of the senate inquiry on the bloated nbn-zte deal, where controversial witness jun lozada is testifying. after seven hours of true-to-life drama, the hearing finally ended at 5:55 pm. it's now 6:49 but she's too embarassed to go to the nearest mall since her eyes are still puffed from crying.

moderating greed

a writ of amparo, a writ of habeas corpus, and a grand media circus later, high-profile witness jun lozada of the nbn-zte anomaly was finally released from prior police "protection" and surfaced at the la salle greenhills accompanied by several nuns and priests. i have just read the transcript of lozada's statement. i am no political science expert. and not that my opinion matters greatly, but anyhow, i feel history is taking place here, so here's my random take on the more exciting teledrama that is pinoy politics as of 6:17 pm, feb. 7, 2008. i'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts and putting them in a whole paragraph, so i'm doing this in numbered form. now, pass on the popcorn.

1. "Jun, you moderate their greed." from romulo neri to lozada, implicating former comelec chairperson benjamin abalos and his cohorts of getting millions of "commission" from the overpriced telecommunications deal. this is my favorite line in lozada's statement since it basically summarizes what this latest political hullabaloo is all about. but any respectable citizen, upon hearing that, will never see anything moderate in there! they're talking about a 130 million DOLLAR kickback that they're going to get from, where else, but our taxes! and then lozada said, "siguro kalahati pupuwede..." no, sir, it's not pwede! do the math. if there's anything it's not, it's MODERATE!

2. it is in times like these that i am actually happy to have the opposition senators in the background, some of them i find too talkative while making too little sense in ordinary days. i don't care if it's political ambition that makes all of them want to endear themselves to the public and drives them to have something to boast come 2010 campaign. whether in aid of legislation, or pure grandstanding, this is just going to be like getting rid of the higher-level monsters first, then going after the other bad guys later.

3. prior to this "miscommunication" or outright kidnapping event, filipinos watched the marathon congressional session that eventually led to the ouster of JDV. close to an hour of "valedictory" speech full of accusations, pinpointing, and sour-graping... too late a hero now, they say. and i wonder if de venecia still has the credibility after keeping the truth all these years and after getting every chance of photo op with the president just a few days ago, all in the name of political survival. anyway, upon seeing the satisfied faces of arroyo's kins thereafter, i have never felt more politically helpless since justice davide empathetically declared, "the no votes have it." and to complete the comparison, JDV, neri, and lozada to me are this administration's atong ang, chavit singson, and clarissa ocampo. we all know what happened next.

4. this may strike as kind of off-topic but i'd like to think this is a vindication of sen. antonio trillanes, and the rest of his disillusioned lot. his advocacy has always been that against corruption. you could hear it in his speeches, and it's all over his website and master's thesis. i may be biased since i voted for him (although i am not really agreeable to his means of getting his point across), but why do you think all this stealing and corruption reached the highest scale and record magnitude? i'd say because filipinos have ceased to be as vigilant, there is so much apathy, and we choose to stay in our own comfort zones, secured, happy, employed, and entertained. i'd like to reiterate the soldiers' cry at the height of the manila pen incident, "just because you are comfortable does not mean nothing is wrong."

5. from garci, to lintang bedol, and now this... i can't see any way for gloria to get out of this mess. she can't pull off another televised admission of crime now, this is too heavy an issue, and it is not even sure if she's directly involved or only her husband is. she can use little power in the senate since her camp is an obvious minority, with some who are non-solid pro-administration and who also have, understandably, 2010 ambitions. she can order the full implementation of EO 464 to supress other officials should they want to expose more skeletons and further derail her sinking leadership. but the depth of this issue does not only involve active senior officials which this memorandum covers and, add to that, the previous testimonies of neri and lozada had already caused a lot of damage. so i'm thinking of two possible endings to this worst ever controversy: gloria will file an annulment, then subjects mike to senate and court inquiries that will both eventually find him guilty, and he'll rot in jail with abalos as his cellmate OR gloria and mike will stick together through thick and thin, they'll make sure abalos will forever shut up (whatever it takes, paging esperon and razon!), then new house speaker nograles will railroad the approval of the cha-cha, and we will all see ourselves in the subject of international headlines for yet another (inevitable) EDSA 3. or is it 4?

haaaay, i never thought i'd live to see the day when my mother would tell me it's looking a lot like martial law AGAIN. creepy.

best buy

this for only PhP 300.00!!!

just have to find myself a nice pair of bronze earrings and i'm all set for rocel's saturday wedding!

haaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!!!

i am so pissed at the way things are right now in philippine politics! it surely has all the drama of a celebrated russian mafia fiction and the complete ingredients of your favorite political blockbuster...

my social climbing aunt seems to be right after all. i should just have married an american when i reached 20. by now, i would have already been a naturalized US citizen and would have voted for obama just a few hours ago.

juicy

i've always thought any news of a politician's romantic tryst will surely fail to draw interest from me. and in this post-Erap period, i can only remember but two that had somehow found their way to the front pages of media broadsheets. one being the supposed more-than-political liaison of the president and then justice secretary nani perez, earning the latter the moniker "first boyfriend" by the malacañang press; and the other brought about by the controversial disbarment case filed by a certain celia suarez against, this time, the first gentleman, citing immorality, claiming they were steady lovers, and providing rather graphic details of their, well, "carnal relationship." but all these issues died a natural death and were put to the trash bins like a typical tabloid report.

romy and tom. not a usually catchy title for an article, but i've been lurking around ellen tordesillas' blog for months and decided to read what she's up to this time. in utter surprise, a new exciting twist in the series of events following the NBN/ZTE anomaly almost made me fall off my chair this otherwise boring afternoon. from what i gather, it looks like fear of a personal scandal, and not physical threat, is what's preventing romy neri from turning opposition witness and had him repeatedly invoking executive privileges in this huge political row. presidential representatives allegedly relayed the message to neri that he can talk about what he knows of the telecommunications deal "up to the level of COMELEC chairperson benjamin abalos" (hahaha, sacrificial lamb!) but restricted him from going up the ranks of gloria arroyo and mike arroyo or he'd risk having the juicy details of his same-sex love affair (with "tom", thus, romy and tom) land in the headlines.

again, i personally find this issue too tabloid-ish, but here's my forecast: either neri goes to senate, testifies and implicates the first couple in this scandalous deal, and i declare him my personal hero, or he leaves the country in the classic garci fashion, and continues to allow the present administration to hold him by the balls, literally. oh, and i can also see ellen adding this issue in her stack of libel suits... but did the supreme court not just released a circular favoring fine over imprisonment in libel cases? that's going to be chicken for ellen then.

but seriously, you see? i believe that in the long run, it's just hero or no hero for neri. his sexual preference is immaterial. and in this day and age, even uttering a single gender slur is a crime!