Angel Tugado's syndicated column on current and recent news.
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WHAT
KIND OF PERSON TARGETS CHRISTMASTIME TO ROB FILIPINO
CHILDREN OF THEIR HAPPINESS? According
to the Philippine National Police, crime always increases
during the Christmas season. This is mainly petty crime,
but it can be significantly traumatic and damaging to
victims. If criminals are cruel enough to target ordinary
families in the season of goodwill, the affect on children
especially but also on parents is multiplied many times
over. Youth gangs causing trouble during Simbang Gabi,
pickpockets and bag snatchers in stores and malls, thievery
in churches, mugging and other thefts with violence
in city streets, burglary of family homes when the families
are Christmas shopping - all these and more are typical
of seasonal crime that turns Christmas into tragedy
for so many ordinary Filipinos. Our legacy from corruption
and robbery of the people on a grand scale at the top
of the political hierarchy inevitably contaminates the
whole of Philippine society, and we all need to support
President Aquino's war against political corruption.
In the meantime we must also be alert to the everyday
activities of petty criminals who seek to emulate it. It cannot
be overemphasized that corruption is a disease, an evil,
and a sin. It's highly contagious and destructive. It
needs to be totally eradicated. Once our society is freed from strangulation and robbery by corrupt politicians and public officials at every level, there will be no limit to what every Filipino as a unique individual and the Philippines as a unique nation can achieve. We have the creativity, the intelligence, the moral and physical strength, and the work ethic to succeed in any field of human life. This has been proved over and again by our breakthrough Filipino pioneers, and the time has come for us all to follow their lead. All it takes now is the will to win against all the odds that corrupt politicians and officials have piled up to stop us.
To borrow and expand the campaign slogan of Dr. Martin Luther King many years ago: "We shall overcome, and we are already doing it NOW!"
The corrupt are on the run like scared dogs with their tails between their legs. We will catch them all, and we will bring every single one of them to justice.
NORMALLY
I'M A GREAT FAN OF GOOGLE, ITS VISION AND ITS PRODUCTS,
BUT I STRONGLY OBJECT WHEN THE WEB BROWSER GOOGLE CHROME
TRIES TO TAKE OVER MY COMPUTER AND MY LIFE JUST AS MICROSOFT'S
INTERNET EXPLORER DID PREVIOUSLY.
So goodbye Internet Explorer, goodbye Chrome, and good
riddance to both. The non-profit open-source Mozilla
Firefox is vastly preferable to either of them.
It does what I want it to do, not what the anonymous
grey executives of Microsoft and Google want to force
me to do.
MEGAUPLOAD
- A FREE, SIMPLE, AND GREAT WAY TO PUT YOUR VIDEOS ON
YOUTUBE - AND MUCH MORE BESIDES. You
must have seen in the news on Philippine TV some of
the onlookers' videos from Russia, China, India, Bahrain,
Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Libya, Syria, Egypt and
several other countries of citizens protesting against
unpopular governments, and of how those governments
responded with excessive military force, often killing
and injuring unarmed protesters including women and
children. Most of the videos had been posted on YouTube
in unspoken pleas for help from the rest of the world.
And most of the governments involved have attempted
to censor the internet and stop their citizens making
contact with the rest of the world. Below is the promotional
video from MegaUpload
which itself has been subjected to a censorship attempt
in the USA.
The
Marcos and Arroyo clans are rumored to be leading a
conspiracy to regain dictatorial control of the Philippines
by military coup, and it is important that we protect
our rights to express our views and keep access to the
internet available to every Philippine citizen. We are
fortunate in having a popular anti-corruption President
elected by a landslide, but this makes P'Noy the arch-enemy
of the Marcos and Arroyo clans. They are not interested
in our people or our votes. They are interested in seizing
power by any means, however unlawful, and they are interested
in self-enrichment at the people's expense because corruption
is the only way of life they understand. Every
Filipino with a cell phone can be an independent reporter.
Anyone who sees something wrong and takes on-the-spot
photos or videos of it can upload them to the internet
for the world to see also. This is the ultimate protection
of our personal freedom, our human rights, and our nation's
future.
IS
THERE NO END TO THE ARROYO CRONIES' HYPOCRISY?
To
start with, let's get our facts straight. Gloria Arroyo was
the most unpopular president in our history except for deposed
dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Right? Gloria Arroyo was acknowledged
and recognized throughout the Philippines, all of Asia, and
the entire world as the most corrupt Philippine president since
Ferdinand Marcos. Right? In a clandestine midnight appointment
immediately prior to stepping down, Gloria Arroyo made Renato
Corona our so-called Supreme Court Chief Justice. Right? Midnight
appointments by outgoing presidents are unconstitutional and
unlawful. Right? Philippine voters throughout our whole nation
in 2010 voted for Benigno Aquino by a landslide to become our
new President. Right? He promised to rid our country of political
corruption. Right? So who does Renato Corona think he is? How
many Filipinos voted for him to unlawfully block President Aquino
from doing what the people want and ridding our country of the
crimes of political corruption? Corona is himself corruption
personified.
Protesters' placards outside the Supreme Court
confirm the people's support for President Aquino.
Renato Corona was
appointed by Gloria Arroyo for one reason, and one reason
only: to prevent her arrest and prosecution as the criminal
traitor that she really is, and that her corrupt actions
already had proved over and again beyond reasonable
doubt. The midnight appointment of Corona was merely
one of her many corruptions.
In collusion with the Marcos
clan, Corona is now going so far in his attempt to block Arroyo's
prosecution that he and others like him have launched a gross
and laughable suggestion that P'Noy wants to create a dictatorship.
Former dictator Ferdinand Marcos plundered public coffers and
ordered the murder of Filipinos who opposed him, including Aquino's
father. Later he made a clandestine chicken run into exile to
escape prosecution following the successes of anti-dictator
People Power inspired and led by Cory Aquino, our current President's
mother. Gloria Arroyo's "rare bone disease" was a
scam to make a similar escape. P'Noy won the
presidential election fairly and squarely and is now doing what
the voters elected him to do: rid our nation of the evils of
legalized political corruption. It is the corrupt judges who
are at fault, not our popular President who has a landslide
mandate from the people to bring corrupt politicians to genuine
justice, not to a charade of justice faked by corrupt cronies
that Gloria Aquino set up in midnight appointments to save her
skin.
NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS CAN
BE SURPRISED BY THE UK'S REFUSAL TO ALLOW THEIR COUNTRY
TO BE DICTATED TO BY A PRESSURE GROUP OF DESPERATE SELF-INTERESTED
FOREIGN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS.
Would
you want the Philippine government to be controlled
by foreign Asian governments such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
and Myanmar, not to mention China and India?
This is the UK's dilemma.
Despite being on the winning side in 2 World Wars, the once
invincible British Empire on which "the sun never set" rapidly
disintegrated as the UK's strained domestic economy could no
longer be stretched further to maintain its farflung global
outposts. One by one the former colonies of this small island
in the North Sea claimed and were all granted Independence.
To give credit where it's due on every side, this potentially
painful process was mutually agreed with very little violence.
Brits had learned their lesson, and there was no need for anyone
to emulate the American War of Independence.
Following creation of the
European Common Market, which the UK later joined, strong opposition
to it among British voters has never given up hope of reversing
the decision. After all, throughout history Europe has been
a hotbed of conflict and turmoil that surpasses any in Africa
or Asia. Since the birth of Christ, Britain has been occupied
for centuries by the Romans (Italians) and later the Normans
(French), and has fought in 2 world wars against the Germans.
In medieval times its arch enemy was Spain, and at various other
times it has been invaded by Vikings (Scandinavians), Saxons
(Germans) and many other Western Europeans. During the "Cold
War" it was under threat from the USSR (Soviet Union) which
then included most of Eastern Europe.
But
Britain is very different now. After decades of immigration
from all over its former Empire, it is now a truly multinational,
multiracial, multicultural society. The young people
now of voting age have their own fresh ideas, and no
longer support the old-style stuck-in-the-mud politicians.
They DO want to change Britain for the better, but they
DON'T believe the answer is to go to bed with the European
Union. They have peacefully revolutionized British society,
and they prefer close ties with Africa, Asia, Caribbean,
and wherever their ancestors came from in the developing
Third World.
Prime Minister David Cameron
has read the situation correctly, and it would be a mistake
of the most gargantuan proportions to surrender the UK's national
sovereignty to the European Union. Other countries are also
having very serious doubts. Among them are Ireland, the Netherlands,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Sweden and Denmark.
Ask European economic or
political analysts and they will tell you that the Agreement
in question was created by Germany, with France making minor
amendments to jump on the bandwagon. Even in Germany and France,
the two countries whose leaders Angela Merkel and Nikolas Sarkozy
are pushing hardest for Europe's total economic and political
integration, millions of their own voters strongly oppose it.
After all, they have the experience that Hitler failed to take
over Europe, as did Napoleon before him, both with disastrous
consequences - so why should the Germans and French suffer further
from the failures of their current overambitious leaders to
now take over Europe in tandem? From
the point of view of every free, independent, self-governing
European nation, why should their taxpayers bail out
and refinance incompetence (and often corruption) of
foreign politicians and bankers whose continuously repeated
bad performances lead to bankruptcy? (Many thanks to
the OFW network.)
THERE'S A NEW LOVE IN MY LIFE - OR IN MY WIFE'S LIFE, TO BE MORE EXACT, BUT I CAN'T KEEP MY HANDS OFF IT EITHER! It's the cutting edge Asus N43SL Special Edition laptop produced in association with Taiwan's award winning singer-composer-actor-director Jay Chou. For readers outside of Asia or in parts of Asia not yet familiar with Jay Chou, both his parents are teachers, but his talents are natural. In other words they are not the result of advanced formal education in creative arts or anything else. His style is often a mixture of Asian and Western, making his music totally unique, and the culture shining through all of his creative work is fundamentally Chinese, yet its appeal expands on Eastern tastes to attract millions of fans in Europe and the USA. The laptop he designed for Asus - as well as a distinctive case that makes it look more like a work of art and a soft keyboard that makes it feel more like a musical instrument - has an amazing specification under the hood, with all the excellent performance to match. Just take a quick look at this PDF - it will make your mouth water. And for a lot more info visit the Asus website.
Jay Chou has sold more than 30 million albums
and has won the World Music Award 4 times.
RING ALL THE CHURCH BELLS IN THE PHILIPPINES TO CELEBRATE EVERY VICTORY THAT GOD WINS FOR US AGAINST OUR PUBLIC ENEMY #1 -- THE GODLESS GREED OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION!!! What could be worse than a so-called president who got there by election rigging, who during her fraudulent term of office was totally and remorselessly corrupt, who brought our nation the deplorable worldwide ill-repute of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, who set us back decades in regard to progress with improving our infrastructure and eliminating the abomination of mass poverty, and who gave every level of government the role model of corruption to be emulated with her official approval? The contaminations and infections of Gloria Arroyo's corruptions tainted all our lives. It is a great victory for good over evil that she has been charged, was arrested before escaping, and must now face justice in court.
THREE CHEERS FOR PRESIDENT AQUINO!!! He promised to take action against political corruption and he is doing just that. Gloria Arroyo is universally recognized as far the most corrupt president our country has ever had the misfortune to endure, except for Ferdinand Marcos. We must never be fooled by any mysterious fake rare disease that her cronies pretend has arrived by coincidence out of nowhere just in time to keep her out of court. Did any of the innocent people massacred by the Ampatuan army financed by Arroyo's administration get any sympathy from her? No! She shrugged off their deaths as a means to an end. An end to benefit herself. She deserves no sympathy from the Philippine people, and the court must not let her off lightly.
DON'T ALLOW HER TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY! Gloria Arroyo is playing out a pathetic charade to attract sympathy and give cronies she appointed to the Supreme Court a plausible basis for defying our democratically elected President Aquino's directive to the Bureau of Immigration to prevent the Arroyos from leaving. What a fraud!
Why did she never wear these fashion accessories when she was in office? Why did her so-called rare disease suddenly manifest itself after revelations about her corruption began to appear in the media? Why is she is now in such a panic to leave the country just as she is about to be charged and brought to justice? What a fraud! Leaks have already been spreading that the Arroyos are planning a coup d'etat from abroad enabling Gloria to return as a Dictator -- a female Marcos, and this is why she placed so many cronies in positions of power before leaving office. Proceeds of the Arroyos' corruptions have certainly given them funds for it.
AS
THE SAYING GOES: "THE TRUTH WILL OUT". What better describes the deep dark hole that
Gloria Arroyo has dug herself into? I deliberately do not refer to her
as a former president because this would falsely imply that she
recognized, understood, and carried out the constitutional duties and
responsibilities of a President to the nation and its people. The truth
is, she took the oath and immediately ignored it.
This is a
clear example of the legacy handed down by Dictator Ferdinand Marcos,
who believed that once elected he could do anything he wanted merely
for his own personal gain, with total disregard of his nation and
people, or even of basic human rights.
Revelations
of the Arroyo administration's corruptions go on and on, complete with
witnesses and documentary evidence. Sadly it doesn't stop there but
filters down through senate, congress, provincial and municipal
governments, barangay and SK officials. Her funding of the 2000-strong Ampatuan
private army in Mindanao amply demonstated this point, as did her appointment before leaving office in 2010 of so many cronies to positions of power, including justices placed in the Supreme Court to protect her from later prosecutions and convictions on charges of graft and corruption.
And now she claims to have
a rare bone disease and must leave the country to get medical
treatment. Come on! How often have we heard that one before?
It's a common cliche that corrupt politicians everywhere in
the world suddenly discover they have a rare virus or a rare
disease just in time to prevent their appearance in court and
enable them to escape into exile, knowing that their secret
Swiss bank accounts are overflowing with ill-gotten gains, and
that nearby corrupt Swiss doctors can be bought at any time to corroborate their
false claims. It is not a coincidence that Switzerland, the home of secret bank accounts, is also the home of secretive private clinics.
Rightly the government has rejected Gloria Arroyo's request for a waiver of her present travel ban. Despite the well-bribed bleatings of her Supreme Court cronies, the high standards of Philippine medical care attract thousands of foreigners to come here for treatment. Gloria Arroyo must not be allowed to evade justice. She must face trial. We have had more than enough of so-called unalterable Philippine corruption. I believe that People Power can and will not only alter it but eradicate it.
All it needs is vision and determination. It's so easy to see for ourselves
how much better our lives would be with honest transparent governance
at every level from national to local. The solution to corruption is in our own hands, not anyone else's. Our individual vote is the nation's most powerful weapon. That's why the Arroyos nationally, and in Sta. Rosa Laguna the despicable Manuel Manoy Alipon gang, have falsified past elections by a combination of diverse methods including bribery of officials, buying some voters, threatening other voters, and stealing the ballot boxes that they knew contained the majorities of votes for their opponents.
We need to
be constantly alert and aware. We need to know the truth about crooked
candidates in order to trash their deceitful lies and propaganda,
whether on printed flyers and tarpaulins or on Facebook or in newspaper and TV advertisements, or rammed down voters' throats in house to house election campaigns. Who did you vote for last time? What is your situation right now? Has it improved or got worse? Did your preferred candidate fulfill her or his election promises? If not, why not? And would another candidate have done better? Remember that no individual candidate can ever control every conceivable circumstance -- and that the losers are still doing their damnedest to sabotage in the background, sometimes funded by ill-gotten gains that they previously stole from public coffers. What you really need to be absolutely 110 percent sure of is that your candidate is honest, responsible and doing her or his utmost best to carry out transparently the sworn duties of public office.
A
RECENT SURVEY INDICATES THAT MANY PEOPLE STILL THINK PHILIPPINE
CORRUPTION CAN NEVER BE ELIMINATED BECAUSE ALREADY IT'S TOO ENTRENCHED
IN OUR CULTURE.
These doubts are understandable, because it's true
that corruption is entrenched, but what we all need to realize is that
ordinary people like us can change this situation ourselves if we
really want to.
Most of us
have lived at least part of our lives in a kind of apathy and lethargy
in the face of all the endless corruptions from public officials. In
the past we've all felt powerless to do anything about it and have just
accepted that it's unchangeably "the Philippine way".
But isn't
it time we questioned and updated our negative national mindset? Isn't
this mindset itself a big part of the corruption problem? It's what
keeps corruption going. Why not start by simply telling ourselves that
corruption can be eliminated and at last we now have the opportunity to
see it through?
Nothing is
impossible. Especially in the Philippines. Look at all the
extraordinary successes that individual Filipinos have achieved both
here and in the wider world against odds that most people thought were
impossible. There are so many for us to be inspired by and positive
about. Let's change ourselves first by giving ourselves a fresh new
mindset. Why should we allow past corruption to control our minds and
brainwash us? Wiping the slate clean is not impossible. Each
of us has the ability to create a fresh new mindset, and together we
have the ability to create a fresh new society in a fresh new culture.
All it takes is to start with one simple thought: "nothing is
impossible". Empowered by government-declared all-out war against
corruption, elimination will succeed.
WHAT
GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. This
popular saying, however trite and inconsequential its
description by critics, nevertheless returns perennially
to haunt everyone that it applies to.
Here in Santa Rosa
it includes the deposed criminal gangster vice mayor
Manuel Manoy Alipon whose bottomless corruptions backfired
on him to energize the massive Voter
Power that ousted him permanently from City Hall.
On a national level
it includes the ruthless Marcos clan and more recently
the nefarious Arroyo clan for innumerable corruptions
on a bigger scale. Without the popular efforts of People
Power these two criminal clans would both still
be dictating how others must obey the law whilst they
continually broke the law themselves for their own benefit
and profit.
The worst aspect
of all this is that it's so universal. Corruption is
not a Philippine phenomenon. Our corrupt politicians
and corporations are merely copying what's going on
in the rest of the world. This never makes it right,
but in their eyes it justifies their lack of ethics
and morals because they've been conditioned to believe
this is what will make them competitive and that competition
is what it's all about.
But is this true?
I for one don't believe that it is. I believe that their
ruthless cut-throat competitiveness is merely greed,
and that their greed is destroying our lives and our
planet.
I don't blame our
people individually. Our thoughts and actions have been
conditioned by our education and training. I blame government
institutions that created this false situation and continue
to sustain it despite all the many years' irrefutable
evidence of its abject failure. Consider
what's happening right now in the USA and Europe. Their
greed-based economies are in shambles. Their greed-based
banking systems are collapsing. Their greed-based societies
are falling apart. So in God's Holy Name why are we
in the Philippines attempting to copy them? Are we insane?
China is making mistakes, but at least China is attempting
to modify the extremes of communism and capitalism into
a new economic blend that might finally lead to harmony
and prosperity for all. No other country is trying to
find a new solution that might work.
P-NOY IS RIGHT TO REJECT CALLS FOR ALL-OUT WAR VS MILF IN MINDANAO, and before you throw up your hands with exasperation, just take a little time to browse the internet on this subject and try to imagine what your feelings would be if you were living in Maguindanao instead of Metro Manila.
These people have been oppressed and kept in abject poverty for decades by corrupt national, provincial, municipal and barangay administrations. Whatever advances have been enjoyed elsewhere in the Philippines, theirs is still our nation's poorest region.
How would you feel if you could not find work and you could not feed or clothe or shelter or educate your children? How would you feel if your kids got sick and you had no money to pay for doctors' fees or for life-saving medications?
How would you feel if the community you were born into and grew up in was ravaged by your local politicians who took under-the-table payments from commercial and industrial interests, with callous disregard of the people living there?
I do not believe this is a question of conflicting religions, as many people think. It's a basic matter of life and death. Decades of unceasing corruption, suppression and oppression have understandably made these people desperate, and the situation has been exploited by criminal gangsters posing as Muslim rebel leaders. The rebel leaders are not true Muslims. They are criminal gangsters taking advantage of a downtrodden people. They are as corrupt as the criminal politicians who have been taking advantage of the same people for decades. It is the corrupt gangsters and the corrupt politicians who are responsible for killing our soldiers in Mindanao. Just imagine what it would take for you to sacrifice your own life as a protest against the government. This vulnerable degree of desperation would also make you open to exploitation by ruthlessly corrupt gangsters and politicians who promise to improve the situation while secretly making it worse.
All-out war against the MILF would fail because it would target the wrong enemy. What we really need is an all-out war against corruption, not only in Mindanao but everywhere in the Philippines. Corruption is the true public enemy no. 1 of the entire Philippine nation. We need stringent new laws against corruption, with stringent new punishments, and we need them fast.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, FERDINAND MARCOS JR. WISHES TO OVERTHROW THE AQUINO ADMINISTRATION. His exaggerated stories of plots and coup d'etat plans are devious ways of describing his own desires, and it is rumored that he is secretly financing troublemakers to stir up violence and attract media attention. He should be closely watched. If money stolen from the Philippine people by the late dictator Marcos is now being used to fund criminal elements in a series of attempts to destabilize our democratically elected government, it is a very serious matter indeed. This demonstrates the urgency and importance of declaring all-out war against corruption, which is the real killer behind the deaths of so many of our soldiers and civilians. The AFP and the PNP need to be redirected and re-energized with the clearly defined target of eradicating corruption, the Philippine public enemy #1. Many people are demanding the death penalty as a just punishment for politicians and public officials convicted of graft and corruption.
TOGETHER WITH MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD I HUMBLY ADD MY SINCERE CONDOLENCES TO FAMILY, FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES OF STEVE JOBS, WHO DIED ON OCTOBER 5.
The life story and life achievements of Apple Inc's co-founder abound on the internet, so I will just make a couple of observations about his creative genius from my personal experience.
Way back in time when Microsoft's Windows operating system was dominating the personal computer market and when it was a joke -- a serious joke -- among corporate executives that they would never be fired for recommending or purchasing the Microsoft Office suite of software, it was very noticeable that in movie making, television production, magazine publishing and the pop music industry Apple computers not only retained the loyalty of existing owners but increased their sales with every year's batch of new graduates majoring in media subjects and seeking careers in the media.
The reason for this was Steve Jobs. Whilst Bill Gates was focused (very successfully) on making businesses and their office work more efficient, the creativity of Steve Jobs and Apple introduced typesetting, photo editing, illustrating, music production and video production. The Windows pc was a tool for office work, Apple was a tool for creative work. Steve Jobs' innovations enabled, stimulated and empowered every aspect of creativity.
And there was more. Microsoft's concentration on software made it possible for mass production of cheap IBM clones that flooded the world and helped millions of people to become computer literate. But Apple computers, though more expensive, were more user-friendly and better designed.
As software differences narrowed, with versions becoming available for both Windows and Apple operating systems, it was Apple's elegant and innovative hardware designs that maintained the appeal to media users like me. Looking at them makes me feel good, and they make my work a pure joy. They make the spirit soar. So I thank Steve Jobs with all my heart for what he created in his lifetime, and for the difference it made to my life. I pray that after his long and painful battle with cancer, his soul will now rest in peace. May God bless him forever.
Steve Jobs, creative genius, 1955-2011. R.I.P.
WE ARE NOW TOLD THAT MANILA IS THE WORST LOCATION IN ASIA FOR PROPERTY INVESTMENT.
Why? Not because of the property situation itself, but because the Philippines in general has such a bad image that international investors don't even rate it. And why does our nation have such a bad image in the world? Do you really need to ask? It's our appalling record of political corruption.
Don't blame me for plugging away on this subject. If you've purchased or leased a property or are thinking of doing so, you and your wallet and your bank account and your lifestyle are all directly affected if the value of your property is steadily declining instead of increasing.
Why should you or any of us suffer personal financial losses because people claiming they want to be public servants immediately switch to serving themselves if they're elected? Is it not long overdue that all politicians are made transparently accountable by law for every public peso they spend? This is certainly not the case at present.
Have you ever seen a poor Barangay Captain or Municipal Mayor or Provincial Governor or Congressman or Senator? A surprising number of them have come from poor or middle class backgrounds, and the riches they've acquired in public service are far in excess of normal public service salaries and expenses. Where does their disproportionate wealth come from?
It comes from you and your wallet and your salary and your bank account and your lifestyle and your property. It's stolen from taxpayers like you. It's your money they're lining their pockets with. Work it out for yourself.
If you have your own business or plan to start one, the situation is worse yet. Being an entrepreneur is never easy with so many economic factors to contend with, like inflation for example, that are outside your control. You need dedication, skill, hard work and determination to succeed. What you don't need is corrupt politicians and public officials who handicap and rob you at every turn. These blood-sucking parasites pretending to be public servants undermine our national economy and are a menace that threatens every facet of Pinoy society. Thank God that President Aquino is beginning to take action against them. BIR rightly clamps down on tax evaders, so why not give BIR powers to clamp down -- at every level from top to bottom -- on every politician and every public official who in any way misuses the taxes after BIR has collected them?
***
***
PARENTS BEWARE! YOU MAY THINK YOUR CHILD'S ONLINE GAMING IS A WASTE OF BOTH STUDY TIME AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, BUT ONCE AGAIN THE GLOBAL GAMING COMMUNITY HAS PROVED THAT YOU ARE OUT OF TOUCH.
Professor Anders Ynnerman received a Ph.D. in Physics from Gothenburg University. During the early 90s he was doing research at Oxford University and Vanderbilt University. In 1996 he started the Swedish National Graduate School in Scientific Computing, which he directed until 1999. From 1997 to 2002 he directed the Swedish National Supercomputer Centre and from 2002 to 2006 he directed the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC).
Since 1999 he is holding a chair in scientific visualization at Linkoping University and in 2000 he founded the Norrkoping Visualization and Interaction Studio (NVIS). NVIS currently constitutes one of the main focal points for research and education in computer graphics and visualization in the Nordic region. Ynnerman is currently heading the build-up of a large scale center for Visualization in Norrkoping.
In a description of his work, Ynnerman says: "And this is a bit of science fiction now ... So in this particular situation, it's a scan of a living person. I have this pen, and I look at the data, and I move the pen towards the head ... And then I can feel the brain inside ... Now we're going even further into science fiction ... He's seeing his own brain."
And Ynnerman has no doubts about the value of gaming. "This is my daughter," he says with great fatherly pride. "She's playing a computer game. She's only two years old, and she's having a blast. So she's really the driving force behind the development of graphics processing units. As long as kids are playing computer games, graphics is getting better and better and better. So please go back home, tell your kids to play more games, because that's what I need." INGENUITY OF GAMERS LED TO MAJOR MEDICAL DISCOVERY THAT DEFEATED THE WORLD'S TOP SCIENTISTS. In September 2011 it was no surprise to Ynnerman that online gamers had deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that some of the world's top scientists had struggled unsuccessfully to decipher for a decade. In a a fun-for-purpose video game developed by the University of Washington, gamers were divided into competing groups to unfold chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. To scientists' great astonishment, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
It's the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem. "We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," said Washington University's Firas Khatib. His next statement was the most perceptive I've ever heard on the subject: "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."
TRY TO GET YOUR HEADS ROUND THIS ONE. YOU'D EXPECT SENIOR CAREER DIPLOMATS FROM MAJOR DEVELOPED COUNTRIES TO BE DIPLOMATIC IF NOTHING ELSE, RIGHT? Yet after the last US Ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, slagged off the most popular and revered Phippine President of all time, the late Cory Aquino, the United States Foreign Service dumped another arrogant ignoramus on us.
Harry Thomas is the replacement Ambassador from Washington. After studying the Benigno Aquino government's efforts to grow our tourism industry, with special focus on expanding the eco- and cultural tours which are our strengths, Thomas slagged off Philippine tourism by stating that it was based on sex.
How much less diplomatic can US Ambassadors possibly get? Are they on dope, or insane? Just compare their performance with that of Australian Ambassador, Rod Smith, who leads an environmental cleanup drive and physically helped to clear garbage from the polluted creek at Taguig, or that of British Ambassador Stephen Lillie who speaks tagalog and makes videos helping attract European investors and tourists to the Philippines.
Has Harry Thomas ever visited Cebu or any of the other places with a large number of American expatriates? Following approximately 50 years' occupation of the Philippines, then maintaining its huge US Air Force base at Clark and huge US Navy base at Subic for a further 50 years, is it surprising that so many American servicemen met up with Filipinas and after being posted to the USA came back to visit and marry their Philippine girlfriends?
I have a personal friend who did this. He and his Filipina wife lived first in the States and are now living here, still happily married after 28 years. No doubt Harry Thomas would have described my friend as a sex tourist, but he revisited the Philippines for love, not sex. This made him a love tourist, not a sex tourist.
No doubt Harry Thomas would describe as sex tourists all the men who come here for scuba diving or swimming with dolphins. What does he call the women who accompany them and enjoy the same activities? Does he think they all have sex with the dolphins? He may like to try it himself one day, but our dolphins prefer the Germans, Australians, French, New Zealanders, English, Swedes, Canadians, Japanese and Koreans. They're not so crazy about Americans, due to all the American dynamite fishing years ago that destroyed so many of our coral reefs and other coastal ecological systems. Anyways, American men have no need to come here for sex. They can get as much sex as they want in the red light district of Washington DC, where so many US diplomats get theirs. Rumor has it that in the cocktail circles of foreign diplomats posted to Manila, there's now a special corner reserved for US Ambassadors complete with a child's wooden stool and a dunce's cap.
"EAST IS EAST AND WEST IS WEST, AND NE'ER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET" commented the American writer/philosopher Mark Twain after a brief visit to British occupied India, which at that time included Pakistan and Bangladesh, and "THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING" was a wider comment of the popular 60s American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan long after Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi independence. Is there any connection between them? Do these quotes have any significance in a modern world, or are both nothing more than narrow-minded trite observations expressed during their creators' limited personal life experiences in the remote past?
An interesting illustration of what's happening today is the Russian (Eastern) authorities' attempt to improve the food supplies to their armed forces that even their poorest citizens consider to be disgustingly inedible. Meanwhile American (Western) authorities are shocked and are seeking to restrain the wasteful and extravagant spending of their -- proven by evidence to be unjust -- Justice Department, which paid 16 US Dollars for each muffin eaten by its delegates at an official seminar.
In case you might think that at least the two authorities are aware of what's going on and are trying their best to rectify their respective situations, take a look at two more:
Spain (West) is famous for its culture of bull fighting which has long been subject to criticism for cruelty to animals. Spanish authorities are finally starting to ban their tradition. India (East) on the other hand regards the cow as sacred and accordingly permits cows to freely create total havoc in towns and cities, regardless of any damage to people or property from traffic accidents and injuries directly caused by them. Indian authorities are taking no action to prevent tragic consequences to humans of their tradition concerning cows.
Here the difference between East and West remains. Spain does, albeit belatedly, respond to the pressure of changing times, whereas India remains solidly stuck in the mud of outdated customs despite the fact that gently guiding cows into safe zones would not in any way detract from their religious sacredness. East is West and West is East may not be desirable to anyone anywhere anyway, but signs are appearing that each can learn to appreciate the other's identity and value without the slightest detriment to their own. The same thing, although at a less advanced stage, is definitely happening between Africa and the more developed continents. However long it takes and however many past mindsets need updating, this bodes well for the future of our planet.
THE
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
in July
2011 described the Philippine outlook as
favorable and praised the Aquino
administration for its reforms,
particularly those that will bring
faster economic growth and alleviation
of poverty. High marks both for
their observation and for our
performance.
But in September 2011 the IMF criticized China's economy because it's controlled by government. It seems to me that the IMF in this case is simply wallowing in Capitalist economy conventional wisdom, which is falling apart in the West. I can't claim to be an economist with a capital "E", but I have eyes, and without asking any experts I can see for myself in the present world financial crisis that the USA and Europe have got things terribly wrong.
China is thinking outside the box. It's clearing a new path that no country has ever trod before. It's combining Capitalism with Communism in a unique way that the USA and the USSR in their long and futile "Cold War" never ever considered. Zero marks for IMF's lack of perception and high marks for China's performance.
BANKS ACT VERY HIGH AND MIGHTY WHEN ANYONE APPLIES FOR A LOAN. They talk to individuals, corporations and even governments as if they (bankers) are the only people on the planet who know how to handle money. They demand household income and expenditure plans, business income and expenditure plans, government income and expenditure plans. They demand collateral and guarantors. They want to control your life down to the last peso, as if they are appointed by God as the ultimate arbiters of how money should be managed.
How then can "rogue traders" operating within these banks' own internal management and accounting systems lose billions of dollars of clients' money?
Sari-sari store owners know at the end of the day if they're 20 pesos short. If it was 200 pesos, they'd be tearing their hair out. If it was 2000 pesos they'd be in deep shock and rushed to hospital. Yet right under the noses of his bosses at UBS, one of the biggest Swiss banks, a "rogue trader" has apparently lost not 2000 pesos, not 200,000 pesos, not 2,000,000 pesos, not 2,000,000,000, but 2 billion United States Dollars (more than 80 billion pesos)!
Are we to believe that nobody anywhere in UBS management knew what was happening? Are we to believe that nothing anywhere in the giant UBS computerized accountancy control systems picked up the slightest hint of anything going amiss? I DO NOT BELIEVE IT. I don't believe there is such a thing as "rogue trading". I believe that "rogue traders" are the fall guys who take the rap for their managers who condone and approve every trade, and I believe that computerized accounting control systems record every detail of every trade and issue warnings in programmed reports that managements knowingly and deliberately override.
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THE UBS DEBACLE IS NOT THE FIRST GLOBAL FRAUD OF SUCH MAGNITUDE BY THE SWISS, WHOSE SQUEAKY CLEAN IMAGE IS TOTAL HYPOCRISY. Another giant Swiss Bank, Credit Suisse, was recently reported to be aggressively soliciting business from American and other countries' tax evaders, as was UBS.
Branches of Credit Suisse in 13 German cities were raided as part a probe of 1,100 clients and bank staff suspected of hiding funds from German tax officials after a computer disc from Credit Suisse was purchased with information on wealthy Germans linked to the official investigation.
The Swiss conglomerate Nestle, which has multiple operations in the Philippines, was once notorious for profitably flooding the Third World with baby format milk that had been banned by Western governments as dangerous to infants' health.
Sadder yet than this, the murky past of Swiss immorality goes all the way back to when its government decided to declare the country officially neutral and to give government backing and legal protection to the infamous secret Swiss bank accounts, offered as a safe haven for deposits from either winners or losers in any war so that Switzerland would profit from both.
As the famous saying goes, "the rest is history". These secret Swiss bank accounts guaranteed and protected by its supposedly neutral government were in fact open invitations not only to warmongering dictators like Hitler and followers like his Nazis, but also to criminal gangs like the Sicilian Mafia and their American cousins, and also to every other criminal and corrupt politician everywhere in the world -- including a very large number of corrupt Philippine politicians and public officials.
Any criminal could deposit ill-gotten gains in Switzerland with no questions ever asked about the source. It was an immediate recipe for success. The government protected Swiss banks made enormous profits that soon made Switzerland the richest nation per capita in the world. And the most corrupt from the top down.
The fact that the Swiss formula for gaining national wealth was based on murder, robbery, kidnapping, torture, extortion and every conceivable evil and corruption in other countries did not deter the Swiss for a single second. On the contrary, they gleefully congratulated and rewarded themselves.
They developed a national arrogance and aloofness in the misguided belief that their crime-based wealth made them superior to people in countries with higher standards of ethics and morals, even though Switzerland would have been rapidly crushed and occupied by the Nazis if people of other countries had not sacrificed their lives to fight for freedom and defeat Hitler's ruthless attempt to conquer and oppress the world under his tyrannical dictatorship. If you ever buy Swiss cheese, you'll see it has holes in it as if mice and maggots have got there first. The Swiss response to criticism is the same. Their feigned declarations of purity and innocence are as full of holes as their cheese.
SOME
FOREIGN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE in Manila, led by
the USA, have applauded Aquino's
anti-corruption reforms just one year
into his administration but demanded
assurances that laws and policies will
remain stable and not be abruptly
changed after his 6-year term.
What
I'd like to ask these foreign chambers
of commerce is: whose negligent laws and
policies caused the 3-year-old and still
ongoing world financial crisis, ours or
theirs? IT WAS THEIRS!
And
now, after bailing out (rewarding)
instead of imprisoning (penalizing) the
culpable executives in banking and
financial services, thereby not only
failing to induce recovery but driving
their countries deeper into recession,
what assurances can the chambers of
commerce give us that their countries'
laws and policies will remain stable and
not be abruptly changed as more and more
of them follow Portugal, Greece, Spain
and Italy into national bankruptcy?
President Obama himself has given public warnings
of imminent deeper American recession.
So, when our Monetary Board points out
that the Philippine peso is at a 3-year
high against the US dollar and foreign
portfolio investments in Philippine
stocks and securities have doubled to
$9.1 billion in the past 6 months, why
should we listen to chambers of commerce
who still think they're expert enough to
tell us what to do? AFTER
GETTING THEIR OWN ECONOMIES SO
WRONG?? AND GETTING THE WHOLE
WESTERN WORLD INTO ITS PRESENT
FINANCIAL CRISIS??? This time it's low marks for their
flawed observation, and high marks for
our economic performance despite their
own countries' appalling lack of it.
When they get their own acts together,
they can dish out advice to others,
but not before.
THE WORLD BANK, in its latest update, praised Aquino and the Philippines for reducing corruption, upgrading
infrastructure, opening up aviation to foreign competition and for robust and steady growth despite the world financial crisis. Top marks again for their observation and our performance. It's sad that foreign chambers of commerce in Manila stick their heads in the sand and disregard both.
THE OFFICIAL CHINESE NEWS AGENCY XINHUA
has strengthened my views with its own comments: "The only way the Americans have come up with to improve economic growth has been to take on new loans to repay the old ones. ... To eat May's grain in April, however, will never be a permanent solution to a problem. ... The United States has long been maintaining economic growth and excessive consumption by means of debt financing, hence masses of economic bubbles, which eventually triggered the financial crisis. ... The current bailouts offered by international bodies such as the European Union are in a sense, to 'rob Peter to pay Paul'. ... Only by introducing reform can they save themselves; only with a sound economic structure can they assume responsibility for the world economy." Xinhua has echoed my comments above and it has far greater resources than I have to research and study the domino effects of international economics. In this case the Chinese have got it right that Americans have made a series of world-record almighty cockups, which Europeans seem blindly determined to emulate -- resulting in their pandemic of national bankruptcies.
THE USA HAS LOST ITS AAA CREDIT RATING AFTER BEING DOWNGRADED BY STANDARD AND POORS. The international ratings agency also declared that the USA's economic outlook is negative, due mainly to political deadlock between Democrats and Republicans possibly causing the country to default on its foreign debts.
This says it all, and I sincerely hope the foreign chambers of commerce in Manila take further note and support the great strides that Filipinos are now making to achieve business-and-investment-friendly stability, rule of law, growth, opportunity and prosperity for all in the Philippines.
We need their help -- and they need ours! We at least are taking action to rid our country of corruption that starts at the top with Presidents, because it's so high profile and contagious, and it establishes the model and sets the standards all the way down to the bottom. What are the USA and other Western governments doing to rid their countries of corruption that starts at the top with Presidents and Prime Ministers and Royal Families? Zilch!
CONGRATULATIONS TO PNOY FOR HIS EXEMPLARY DIPLOMACY IN CHINA. In his 5-day visit, not only did he convert previous heated communications over the Spratly Islands to calm discussions under the ASEAN Declaration of Conduct, but also he successfully negotiated bilateral trade and cooperation agreements which resulted in billions of dollars to be invested by China in the Philippines, including implementation of a Philippine-China Year of Friendly Exchanges in 2012-2013 that will greatly boost tourism between the two countries.
Upon his return to the Philippines Saturday night, PNoy repeated how important it is that Filipinos do not allow corruption to sabotage our government's efforts to attract foreign investors. He said: "We must not demonstrate a wang-wang mentality that smacks of corruption. We want them to hear only good news about the Philippines. We are trying to set up a country that's open for business, ready to compete with and help other countries." Western chambers of commerce in Manila, please take note.
FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO THE PHILIPPINES KRISTIE KENNEY MADE A FOOL OF HERSELF IN LEAKED SECRET CABLES. So what? Why is anyone in the least surprised at a time when American public officials from top to bottom levels are at their lowest ever ebb of international credibility? It's nothing more than one more example of how out-of-touch the US government is at every level in the modern world and particularly in Asia.
Kenney described PNoy as "diffident" in the context of an insulting criticism of our President, showing herself to be abysmally unperceptive. The word "diffident" has many variables in meaning that Kenney obviously lacked the subtlety to be aware of. President Aquino's qualities of humility and self restraint are integral parts of the essence of his appeal to the Philippine people.
Kenney was also quoted as making typically bitchy remarks that although the late Cory Aquino is eternally beloved by Filipinos as a Philippine Heroine for uniting our nation under People Power to rid us of the corrupt Dictator Marcos, she had a "weak leadership style." Evidently this arrogant bullshitting American nobody called Kristie Kenney -- pardon my French -- doesn't even know her ass from a hole in the ground.
PNoy's retort, more polite than mine, was that Kenney's assessments were "far from the truth." The USA has since withdrawn Kenney from the Philippines and callously inflicted her incompetence on the good people of Thailand. We have had more than enough loud-mouthed, fraudulent, self-glorifying politicians thank you, Kristie. If that's what you still mistakenly idolize in the USA, you deserve your decline as a world power. Your kind of politicians have turned the American Dream into a nightmare that's driving more and more American citizens out of the USA to seek a better life in other countries, including both the Philippines and Thailand.
A LOT OF AMERICANS ARE SAYING THAT THINGS HAVE GONE TOO FAR IN THE USA, and a book called "Third World America" has become a US bestseller in hardback and pocketbook.
Authored by Arianna Huffington, a self-made multi-millionaire, it finishes on a hopeful positive note but in getting there paints a sad picture of what's now happening to the declining nation the rest of the world (except for Communist countries) looked up to for more than half a century.
If corrective action isn't taken quickly enough, the real threat to America's future is a serious one: that it will become, as the book's title suggests, a Third World country. Is this American decline good for the Philippines? Definitely not. The same lethal drug cocktail -- uncontrolled inhumane eco-destructive greed in big business mixed with the absence of public service or ethics or morals in self-aggrandizing politics -- has been our way of life for several decades taken for granted on a daily basis. Luckily some of our businesses and some of our politicians resisted this drug addiction, and they are our true leaders now.
Exacerbated by corrupt collusion between business and politics over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and America's gift to the world of our current financial crisis, this cocktail of toxic substances has been forced down the throats of US citizens in excess of overdose level and is paralyzing the whole country with shock and horror of epidemic proportions.
But we've at last overcome our own previous paralysis and want to escape from the rut we've been stuck in for so long. It won't help to see our former icon of success collapse and drag Europe down with it into the same rut that we are now just beginning to climb out of. Asia is well on the way to taking over the roles of the USA and Europe, but we need more time. We're not ready yet.
TO SHOW I'M NOT ALONE IN MY VIEWS AND ANYWAY THEY ARE NOT AS EXTREME AS YOU MIGHT THINK, HERE'S A QUOTE FROM ANOTHER WRITER:
"Never let anyone tell you it was the Philippine national character that moulded our country into a stagnant quagmire fit only for breeding Third World criminals and mosquitoes. Our shameful degrading situation was imposed upon us by contagious corrupt regimes like former President Arroyo's administration in Manila, which infected every level of national and local government all the way down to remote provincial Barangay, SK and Purok.
In reality it was the Filipino national mentality that enabled us to rise above it with creativity, humor and a humble willingness to do menial work overseas for the sake of our families back home, while our so-called leaders basked in the hypocritical glories and luxuries of their ill-gotten gains.
Times have changed, and the 21st century is steadily and surely being taken over by People Power. This is not the same as Communism, which collapsed in the USSR and all Eastern Europe and is being transformed by China into a modern mixed economy.
China's current teething troubles may well evolve into an economic model the rest of the world will follow, because the USA's unnecessary financial crisis imposed on us all is clear evidence that American Capitalism has now also failed despite its inane imitation by Eurozone countries. Nevertheless, there are very serious issues of Human Rights that still need to be addressed by China before it can receive approval of the world as its next leader. At the same time, in my view, the West is equally guilty. Does not the West's heavy-handed enforcement of endless escalating taxation combined with corruptly squandering these enforced tax revenues on bailing out unethical greed-obsessed bankers without any public referendum also contravene Human Rights? I sincerely believe it does, and it has wiped out all my previous respect for the USA and the European Union in one stroke. They are trampling on the basic God-given rights of real people in real distress, just as Western history and literature inform us the rich have been doing to the poor for centuries. There are still millions of people living in destitution and poverty in the West that the USA and EU don't want us to know about because instead of helping their existing poor, Western governments are Hell-bent on making their existing middle class also poor in order to further enrich their existing rich.
With access to much more information, mostly on the internet but also from TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, text messages, phone calls and even the snail mail, the Filipino national mentality has matured and is no longer seeking leadership from the USA or Europe or China. Filipinos and Filipinas are now collectively and actively demanding political, economic, educational, social and religious reforms that will eradicate poverty and benefit our country's entire population.
It wiil be a struggle, but we know we are right. We are on the straight path, and we are in it for the long haul. Our time has come. We positively know without even the slightest tiniest doubt that we shall overcome whatever obstacles are placed in our path. GOD is on our side, People Power is here to stay, and no corrupt politician's private army can ever stop the inevitable. As the Scriptures foretell, our dedicated, determined and relentless progress will achieve GOD'S KINGDOM here on Earth, and it won't be in America." - Pacifico Dagsi Balagtas (writing for Filipino Feelgood Factor and reproduced with permission)
SO LET'S TAKE A BREAK FROM PHILIPPINE CORRUPTION AND TAKE A TIMELY CLOSER LOOK AT THE RICHEST AND MOST POWERFUL NATION ON EARTH. It's now 10 years since the tragic event referred to as 9/11 when the two towers of New York's World Trade center were struck by hijacked passenger aircraft and subsequently collapsed. Blaming this as an act of war against the USA by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist movement, it was used by President Bush to justify war on Iraq, in conjunction with claims that Saddam Hussein was both financially backing al Qaeda and developing weapons of mass destruction for further attacks on the USA. No evidence of either Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and Bush escalated his war to invade Afghanistan as another threat to the USA. At over 6200 the number of Americans killed in these two wars is more than double the 2976 Americans killed in 9/11. The total Iraqis and Afghans killed in these two wars amounts to hundreds of thousands.
Whilst our thoughts and condolences on the 10th anniversary were with the families and friends of innocent civilians massacred in 9/11, it must be added that for their families and friends ever to have final closure there are too many official cover-ups, evasions and unanswered questions about it.
After watching videos of the event, expert engineers all over the world stated categorically that from aircraft impact at high level the buildings could not possibly have collapsed into piles of dust and rubble within their own footprint the way they did, implying that explosives must have been planted and triggered at low level.
Reinforcing these suspicions was the fact that a third skyscraper building there also collapsed the same day in the same way and was officially blamed on the heat from a fire inside it causing some office furniture to burn.
Again engineers the world over confirmed this could not possibly cause a modern building to collapse totally and at speed within its own footprint, and that all three buildings must have been subject to planned demolition by explosives calculated to achieve exactly what happened. Evidence was removed and destroyed, witnesses were silenced, a CIA whistle blower was arrested and jailed. For internal and foreign suspicions to be resolved, America and the whole world need to know the actual truth about what happened on that fateful day and why. Just take 15 minutes to watch the YouTube video below, and you'll see exactly what I mean.
ANOTHER BLACK MARK AGAINST THE ARROYOS. It has been confirmed in secret files revealed by WikiLeaks that the Ampatuans had a 2000-strong private army in Cotabato that was better armed and equipped than the military and the police, who were astonished by the size of its arms caches and the power of its weaponry.
The files state that the Ampatuans were allied with President Gloria Arroyo, who turned a blind eye to their private army because it helped her to control Muslim rebels. Even with ill-gotten gains from local corruption, an ordinary Mayor in the poorest region of the Philippines could never have afforded to maintain such a large and well-equipped private army unless the Arroyo administration in Manila was providing him with ample funds to do so -- either directly or indirectly. We can expect a lot more Arroyo secrets to be revealed about this case during the progress of ongoing criminal investigations into Ampatuan activities.
Angry young rioters looting shops in the poorer parts of London are clearly of different races acting together.
THE RECENT LONDON RIOTS caused quite a stir in the West and hardly a ripple in the Third World. Yet photos of the rioting and looting, like the two above, clearly show young people of African and Asian descent actively participating alongside the white Anglo-Europeans that we would expect to see. When all the various races are taking part together, this rules out any possibility of the riots being caused by different races acting against each other. There's something going on here that the Third World, including the Philippines, can learn from. Sifting through the many theories put forward in the West, some deadly serious and some crazy beyond a joke, it seems to me that these young people finally reached the end of their tether and broke out in explosive anger at exactly the same things that we complain about.
Yes, you've guessed it, political corruption at every level of government from national to county (province) and all the way down to city and borough (barangay). The culture is different, the style is different, and the cover-ups are more sophisticated, but political corruption undoubtedly exists just the same.
It would be a big mistake to imagine that rioting could never happen here. It's happening in Libya, Syria, Thailand, parts of India and China, and in other places with totally different cultures and circumstances. What they have in common is grievances causing ordinary people to riot against their governments. Rioting in the East tends to be directly targeted against specific leaders or specific issues. In London it was more like a wildly destructive expression of frustration, helplessness and finally anger at what several decades of different governments have done to the people and society.
Not every grievance that people have is due to corruption; nothing is ever that simple. But the majority of them are. And even normally peaceful, law-abiding, God-fearing Filipinos could reach the end of their tether and break out into explosive rioting if political corruption is allowed to continue destroying our lives, our environment and our nation. Retired Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno coined the term "social volcano" to describe this possibilty, and he founded the Moral Force Movement to help prevent it from ever erupting. They don't have natural volcanoes in England, but with global warming they might in the future. What they do seem to have is a social volcano erupting right now, just as Mr. Puno said might happen here in the future.
Looters left fabric behind for Fashion designers to work on but models felt cold in half the material.
RIOTING LOOTERS FAILED TO STOP THIS MONTH'S LONDON FASHION WEEK. Top fashion designers burst into blossom with inspired ingenuity at times of crisis, and enough material remained after the recent rioting and looting in London for the likes of Bora Aksu, Jena Theo and Emilia Wickstead to create eyecatching visions of confident femininity in time for the catwalk.
But as you can see from the examples above, London's weather as winter approaches is unsuited to such uninhibited creations. What I suggest to these wonderful designers and their elegant models is bring your talents to the Philippines next summer. Whether in a Makati ballroom or on the beach at Boracay, your designs would be a resounding success here because our weather is so perfect for them. There could also be a few other reasons for these designs to be popular in the Philippines. Probably several million appreciative young Filipinos would adore seeing them worn by beautiful young Filipinas -- purely for reasons of haute couture and theoretical aesthetics!
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BE THANKFUL FOR ALL OUR BLESSINGS IN SANTA ROSA, which include having one of the best City Mayors in the country. Critics point out that she's a member of Gloria Arroyo's political party Lakas Kampi CMD, but everyone knows that what matters most in Philippine politics is the individual not the party.
Arlene B. Arcillas is not tainted with the brush of Gloria Arroyo, whose former presidency is now under such intense public scrutiny. Reinforcing this statement is the irrefutable fact that Mayor Arlene was recently a semi finalist in the Civil Service Commission search for the Outstanding Public Official or Employee to receive the Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award that's conferred for exceptional contributions resulting from an idea or performance with nationwide impact on public interest.
As you can see from the photo below, only 3 City Mayors made it through to the semi-finals, making Arlene one of the top 3 in the entire nation. We know that she really cares about the people of Sta. Rosa and she is incredibly hard working on our behalf. It would be a mistake to imagine she was in any way similar to former President Arroyo, who evidently worked on nobody's behalf but her own. Political parties in the Philippines are meaningless, as demonstrated by the way politicians keep switching from one to another. My respect for our City Mayor Arlene B. Arcillas is as an individual, regardless of whatever party she's a member of either now or in the future.
Santa Rosa City Mayor Arlene B. Arcillas was one of only 3 mayors in the whole nation to reach the Semi Finals!
FOLLOWING NEWS THAT HP (Hewlett Packard) is for strategic reasons to consider discontinuing manufacture of computers, pundits are now declaring the PC era finally over after 66 years.
66 years? That's right. The first commercially produced PC, called GENIAC (Genius Almost-Automatic Computer) was introduced in the USA by Edmund C. Berkeley in 1955, after inventing it in 1949 and publishing DIY plans in 1950 and 1951 for enthusiasts to build their own.
Believe it or not, the term "personal computer" was first used to describe a desktop machine introduced in 1968 by none other than Hewlett Packard itself, who went on to produce the first ever desktop computer complete with display and keyboard, the HP 9830, in 1972.
Then Apple brought out the first user-friendly PC with simple interactive graphics in 1977, followed by IBM's DOS computer in 1981 which set the industry standard.
But it was the business acumen of Bill Gates and his company Microsoft who later generated the PC's worldwide popularity and immense commercial success, with a supply of skillfully marketed and rapidly developing mass-produced operating systems and other bundled end-user software to unlimited manufacturers of much cheaper "IBM-clone" machines. Has it all now come to an end? No, it hasn't. What's happening now is organic evolution. The old-fashioned desktop PC is being absorbed and transformed into a multitude of different products -- laptops, netbooks, cellphones and televisions among them -- that can do everything the desktop computer could, plus a great deal more. For innovation, elegant design, ease of use, and sheer desirability, Apple is leading the mobile industry with its brilliant range of MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad.
THE 32 MAIN EUROZONE BANKS WERE REPORTED TO HAVE NOSE-DIVED 33% TO A TOTAL VALUE OF US$340 BILLION. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
What it means is that the current market capitalization of Apple Inc. alone is equal to all the euro banks combined. And also most of the other global high-tech corporations like Google and Microsoft have continued to grow and prosper, based on innovation and providing customers with what they need and want, not to mention global giants in energy and commodities that are reaping record profits.
All this is despite creation by American banking and financial sectors of the ongoing economic crisis which gobbled up the USA, then sucked in Europe, and is now seeking other parts of the world to swallow - including much of Asia.
What does this tell us about Western commercial banks? And what does it tell us about the Western governments who failed to regulate them in the first place, and then bailed them out when they screwed up?
Only a century or so ago Western governments would execute an uneducated jobless poor man for stealing a piece of bread to feed his starving kids. These banks have stolen billions from the tax paying public, and their governments have responded by giving them more taxpayers' money to squander! Every Chief Executive, every Board of Directors and every Senior Manager of every one of the banking and financial services corporations responsible for creating this crisis should have been convicted and jailed. Furthermore every government that bailed them out should now be convicted and jailed en masse. Don't these countries have constitutions, or are all their lawyers and judges on permanent vacation?
SHARP
SHOOTING, FIERCE DEFENDING, AND
TACTICAL BRILLIANCE took our football
players through for the first time in
Philippine history to the second
qualifying round of the next World Cup
when the Philippine Askals scattered the
Sri Lankan team to the four winds with a
4-0 thrashing.
Subsequently losing to Kuwait, who now go through to the third round, was a disappointment
but they played well and were defeated
by a more experienced team. The Askals'
German coach wisely reminded us that we
are at a very early stage of soccer
development in this country and can
hardly expect our national squad to
regularly beat the best of Asia yet, not
to mention the best of Europe and South
America.
What
we can expect is steady strong
improvement with full government
support. For much too long the
development of soccer in the Philippines
has lacked sufficient government
funding. Hopefully the popularity and
success of the Askals will prompt
President NoyNoy to do a lot more than
deliver speeches drawn up in advance by
government speechwriters that fail to
convey real interest in the sport, only
in how the government might jump on its
bandwagon as it continues to gain
popularity.
On
hearing the President's SONA
speech earlier this year, I would say he doesn't need to
jump on any bandwagons. I think the
reverse will happen - he
will gain popularity for his
political performance and an avalanche
of people will join his
bandwagon, which can only be good for
the country. At last we can see the bright and
inspiring light at the end of the long
and dark destructive tunnel of past
corruption. What PNoy has already achieved in just
one year borders on the miraculous,
and wiping out corruption will lead
to a wonderful new era for the
Philippines.
THE ASIAN
DEVELOPMENT BANK declared that Philippine business
is still badly handicapped by
bureaucratic red tape and unreliable
rule of law. This is true, we do need
more action to cut out red tape and
enforce the rule of law. Every Filipino
knows it, because we all suffer
abominably from these perennial failings
in our society. High marks again
for their observation, but it's low
marks for our lack of performance on
these two specific issues.
A RECENT SURVEY INDICATES THAT MANY PEOPLE STILL THINK PHILIPPINE CORRUPTION CAN NEVER BE ELIMINATED BECAUSE ALREADY IT'S TOO ENTRENCHED IN OUR CULTURE.
These doubts are understandable, because it's true that corruption is entrenched, but what we all need to realize is that ordinary people like us can change this situation ourselves if we really want to.
Most of us have lived at least part of our lives in a kind of apathy and lethargy in the face of all the endless corruptions from public officials. In the past we've all felt powerless to do anything about it and have just accepted that it's unchangeably "the Philippine way".
But isn't it time we questioned and updated our negative national mindset? Isn't this mindset itself a big part of the corruption problem? It's what keeps corruption going. Why not start by simply telling ourselves that corruption can be eliminated and at last we now have the opportunity to see it through?
Nothing is impossible. Especially in the Philippines. Look at all the extraordinary successes that individual Filipinos have achieved both here and in the wider world against odds that most people thought were impossible. There are so many for us to be inspired by and positive about. Let's change ourselves first by giving ourselves a fresh new mindset. Why should we allow past corruption to control our minds and brainwash us? Wiping the slate clean is not impossible. Each of us has the ability to create a fresh new mindset, and together we have the ability to create a fresh new society in a fresh new culture. All it takes is to start with one simple thought: "nothing is impossible". Empowered by government-declared all-out war against corruption, elimination will succeed.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO RECOVER PUBLIC FUNDS STOLEN IN PAST CORRUPTIONS AND IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO PUNISH CORRUPT DIPLOMATS, POLITICIANS OR OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE THEY WERE THERE TO REPRESENT.
To be more specific, former Ambassador Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, younger brother of former First Lady and current Ilocos Norte Representative Imelda Romualdez-Marcos, and his wife face a case before the Sandiganbayan over their Swiss bank deposits of US$5.19 million at a time when his required statement of assets and liabilities claimed they had a total net worth of PHP2,348,495.22.
Their deposits at UBS-Geneva account no. CO-920.310.0 and Invested Trust account No. CO-920.310.1 originated from Standard Chartered Bank-Zurich account no. 7676, which was opened with an initial deposit of US$2 million transferred from the Philippine branch of Standard Chartered.
The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) states that comparison of Benjamin Romualdez' reported net worth with his initial Swiss bank deposit shows a huge disparity between his lawful income and the secret Swiss bank accounts which he opened during his incumbency. President Aquino has vowed to defend the Philippine Spratly Islands if any attempt to seize them is made by China, the world's biggest nation. As if this wasn't enough, we have Filipinos in our own country who seize our national assets by corruption. PNoy has vowed to defend us against them too, and we can help him and each other by resisting every corruption, by voting out every corrupt politician, and by reporting every corrupt public official.
Burning his photo, taking the solid gold gun that he'd used for many murders, and beating him with his own boots (the worst
possible insult in Libyan culture), the Libyan people finally celelebrate Gadhafi's death after 42 years of ruthless dictatorship.
THE MARCOS FAMILY IS STILL WHINING THAT THE EVIL PHILIPPINE DICTATOR FERDINAND MARCOS, WHOSE MURDEROUS DISREGARD OF HUMAN RIGHTS WAS RENOWNED THE WORLD OVER AND WHO TOOK CORRUPTION TO UNPRECEDENTED DEPTHS BY DIVERTING BILLIONS OF PESOS FROM OUR PUBLIC COFFERS INTO HIS PERSONAL SECRET SWISS BANK ACCOUNTS, SHOULD BE GIVEN AN OFFICIAL STATE FUNERAL WITH FULL HONORS AT THE TAXPAYERS' EXPENSE.
Take a long hard look at the above pictures of what the people of other countries do to dictators like Marcos. His wife and family should be expressing gratitude to the Philippine people for their restraint and mercy, instead of continuing to lie about him and making fanatical demands on the Philippine people who were and still are his victims.
The legacy of Ferdinand Marcos is not only our failure to recover the billions that he stole from us. It's also the millions of Philippine lives destroyed by his ruthless cruelty. It's also the many millions of Philippine lives ravaged by poverty because his corruption spread downwards like a disease from Malacanang to the lowest levels of officialdom, preventing reduction of poverty and increasing the numbers of poor people in the country. It's also his methodical destruction for profit of our environment and ecology that will take us decades to recover from and restore.
What is their bullshit about the country being united in wanting Marcos to have a state funeral? In fact it's the opposite. The country is united in supporting P-Noy's controlled politeness in deciding to decline the Marcos family's ridiculous demands. The longer the Marcos play acting goes on, the more the Philippine people will wish they had treated him in the same way the Libyans treated Gadhafi - forcing him to hide in a rat and trash infested drainage pipe, dragging him out, taking videos of his cowardly pleas on the back of a pickup truck, beating him with his own boots and his own favorite handgun, then executing him like an animal in a slaughterhouse. Already there are campaigns to apply the death penalty to corrupt Philippine politicians because they cause so much suffering and so many premature deaths. It could easily be argued that Gadhafi's treatment is how every evil murderous corrupt dictator like Marcos should be treated. He got off very lightly, and his family should be thankful. After all, they're still wallowing in his ill-gotten gains.
WHY IS MIKE ARROYO SHOOTING HIMSELF IN THE FOOT?
Hurling abusives at President Aquino is no way for a Former First Gentleman to behave in public, and describing the President as dictatorial was ridiculous. PNoy won by a landslide and he is supported by the vast majority of the Filipino people as the standard bearer of People Power.
In reality it is Philippine Law that's dictatorial, because that tells us what's right and what's wrong, and the husband of a Former President is not exempted from its stipulations.
If previous ownership of 10 year old helicopters purchased at brand new prices by the Arroyo administration is now in dispute, this in itself proves that the Arroyo administration did not practice transparent governance. It proves that accurate accounting records were not made available on computer or paper for independent audit and public examination.
If proper detailed itemized transparent accounting procedures had been followed in the first place, disputes like this would never arise. The answer to every question would be there for any inspection openly on public record for public scrutiny.
Suing the helicopters' sales broker for perjury is tantamount to public admission by Mike Arroyo that the previous administration failed to record some of this contract's most essential details, which inevitably raises further questions of why its accounting records were so selective, and of how many other government contracts were made by the Arroyo administration with similar selective omissions? Whatever the result of the perjury case, Mike Arroyo's action in itself discredits the administration of Former President Gloria Arroyo. Transparent and thorough investigations are required to answer these questions and satisfy the Filipino people that if politicians elected to serve them at any level prove to be corrupt in public office, then those politicians will be brought to justice without immunity or leniency.
ARROYO HELICOPTER SCANDAL - WHAT AN UNGODLY SHAMBLES!
The latest allegation in the ongoing Arroyo helicopter scandal is that Iggy Arroyo has been busy falsifying documents to rescue his brother Mike. And not for the first time, because he stands accused of doing the same thing with the infamous Pidal accounts and California properties. What an unholy, underhand, undisciplined, unprincipled bunch of arrogant, pretentious, shambolic, talentless, disreputable so-called public representatives the whole Arroyo clan appears to be. The sooner that PNoy takes action against them, the better it will be for all honest Filipinos everywhere. He needs to be strong and make an example of them as a demonstration to all believers in People Power that such blatant political corruption will never be tolerated in future.
ON THE RUN
OR GONE TO GROUND local falsifiers
of previous elections, including
notorious Santa Rosa City gangster and
fraudster Manuel Manoy Alipon, whose
unfaithful and disloyal betrayal of wife
and supporters led to his expulsion from
the office of vice mayor when
voter-power backlash strongly booted him
out, are reported to be regrouping and
attempting to rip off other financial
backers for the next election by further
falsifications.
An enormous well-prepared, and ever-increasing
number of honest, honorable, powerful, energetic and more than mega-financed opponents are ready, willing, able and eager to beat the pants off them.
With
the 21st century now already into its
second decade, a new wave of young,
qualified, able, competent, professional
politicians all around the Philippines
has begun the process of cleaning up the
ungodly mess that far too many years of CORRUPT TRADITIONAL SELF-AGGRANDIZING AND SELF-ENRICHING POLITICIANS like Manuel Manoy Alipon collectively made of our previously clean and pleasant communities and our previously beautiful and great country. After trashing all corrupt trapos, our new wave of patriotic, confident,
talented, determined and energetic
Filipinos will rebuild our nation to
future greatness - surpassing anything
in its history.
THREE YEARS
AFTER THE US-INDUCED GLOBAL FINANCIAL
CRISIS, China and India
continue their unstoppable progress, and
other Southeast Asian economies have
remained intact, vibrant and resilient.
Since the election of Benigno Aquino as
President, the Philippines has achieved
economic improvement and growth that are
the envy of the world.
The
USA and Europe have not yet recovered
from the World Financial Crisis. Greece,
Spain and Italy are almost bankrupt, and
others like France and Germany are also
near to breaking point. Thanks mainly to our OFW heroes,
the Philippines are economically
stable and strong. To my mind the only
publicly demonstrated real appreciation of
OFWs is from Henry Sy with special centers for them at his SM
supermalls and from the great value OFW promo offers at Enchanted Kingdom.
A BUDGET OF
3 MILLION PESOS has been allocated
by the Department of Education
specifically for Filipino Muslims, which
is to be followed with an Arabic
Language and Islamic Values Education
curriculum in Mindanao.
I
fully support the government's policies
on this and similar projects which
reinforce the principle that all
Filipinos are equal, regardless of age,
gender, race, family name, skin color,
ethnic culture, economic status,
religious belief or political
persuasion. BUT OUT OF THE DEPED'S MULTI-BILLION
PESO BUDGET, WHAT A PATHETIC PALTRY
SUM TO ALLOCATE FOR SOMETHING SO
VERY VERY IMPORTANT!
However much we abhor the kidnappings, murders,
bombings and other acts of terrorism
carried out in the name of Islam,
non-Muslims who know the Muslims in
their communities also know that they
also abhor terrorism. It's often Muslims
who are killed by these criminal acts.
The key word here is not terrorist but
criminal. Gangs who call themselves
Muslim activists are mostly plain
criminals acting in their own interests. In fact they're absolutely identical to
the unlawful private armies of
non-Muslim corrupt politicians who
conduct their own acts of terrorism
and only too often get away with it.
So why do we automatically condemn all
the ordinary Muslim citizens, however
innocent, and automatically whitewash
all the non-Muslim politicians,
however guilty?
Everyone knows that Mindanao contains some of the
poorest regions of the Philippines,
where Muslims and non-Muslims alike have
long been alienated, abused and ripped
off by a succession of corrupt
politicians who have never been brought
to justice or made to pay for their
crimes. Yet when an honest politician in Davao
angrily protects the poor, what
happens? Immediately she is jumped
upon by our unjust legal system and
prosecuted! Do the poor ever get any
justice? Ha ha ha! Are you kidding?
Our legal system has nothing to do
with justice. It's there to protect
the rich, because it's the rich who
created it, and riddled it with
corruption to benefit themselves! But
the times they are a-changing, and the fat
cats are getting worried. As they
should.
Back
to the paltry sum of 3 million pesos
allocated by DepEd to make Muslims feel
they are not neglected. How far will
this go to help people who have
inadequate housing, inadequate
nutrition, no money to buy uniforms or
books or project materials for their
kids? What planet is DepEd living on? I
support a true democratic
meritocracy in which all Filipinos
have equal opportunity to achieve
their life ambitions without harm to
anyone else. To achieve this we must
do much more to help the Filipinos
who are in most need, not the rich
who need nothing more. Our system
has robbed the poor to make them
poorer, and given to the rich to
make them richer, but now at last we
have a President determined to
change it. DepEd doesn't yet seem to
have got the full message and
regrettably fails to achieve the
pass mark in this exam.
HARRY
POTTER'S ECCENTRIC ENGLISH WIZARDRY has broken all box
office records in the USA despite the
fact that its creator J.K. Rowling
turned down offers from the
mega-successful Hollywood
producer/director Steven Spielberg to
Americanize her stories with US settings
and characters, and despite the fact
that Spielberg had already been awarded
an extremely rare honorary knighthood by
the Queen of England for his own
brilliant achievements.
Rowling's integrity to herself and her stories
paid off when her novels were translated
into movies that multiplied her reading
fans many times over, as moviegoers
around the world became addicted to the
eccentric Englishness of her Harry
Potter films.
A
lesson we can all learn from this is
that no matter where we were born or are
now located, if we create a good story
and characters which appeal to people in
other countries as well as our own, then
national boundaries become meaningless.
The possibilities have been proved
beyond any doubt by J.K. Rowling and
Harry Potter. So let's encourage and give more
support to Filipino writers...
***
***
THIS IS A
FANTASTIC TIME TO BE FILIPINO. Our new
modern heroes will be people's heroes,
not military or political leaders like
those who freed us from Spanish,
American and Japanese occupation in the
past. They will be a brand new breed of
Filipino hero and heroine: recognized
and acclaimed for their various good
works individually, locally, nationally
and internationally. They will come from
every province, from every cultural
background, and they will include every
kind of work and skill.
There will be no limit to individual
achievements and no limit to personal
success - be it in sports, business,
entertainment, medicine, environmental
improvement, teaching, science,
advertising, public relations, design,
computing, poverty prevention, emergency
services, art, cookery, law, philosophy,
farming, fishing, meteorology,
handicrafts, construction, social work,
childcare, crimefighting, media, or any
other chosen vocation, including but not
exclusive to politics and armed forces. Could you be a future national hero? YES! In a truly democratic meritocracy EVERYONE will get equal opportunity on a level
playing field, freed from all corrupt
manipulations.
PROOF ALREADY EXISTS THAT FILIPINOS CAN AND DO BEAT THE BEST IN THE WORLD. If this statement immediately makes you think of Manny Pacquiao and Charice Pempengco or others whose sporting or singing performances have brought them championship wins or platinum records, of course you're right. But I was thinking in terms of creativity -- writing, composing, film-making and the like. Browsing the web to search for examples, I was astonished to find so many Filipino successes that I wasn't aware of before -- not only in creative arts but in every field of human endeavor.
Stories were scattered around everywhere, and all my searches were hard work until I discovered one particular website, which was easily the best source for Filipino success stories and is now one of my Top Five all-time favorite websites because visiting it always makes me happy for the future of our nation when I see the unbounded variety of world class achievements by gifted and persevering Filipinos all around the globe.
It's Good News Pilipinas. Among the many examples of creativity I found at GNP were two highly acclaimed Filipina novelists, a whole bunch of International Festival wins by talented young Filipino film-makers, and special awards to both ABS-CBN and GMA for their excellent TV productions. Take a look at GNP yourselves, and I guarantee you'll feel proud to be Filipino.
-
Angel "I don't care what Mama don't
allow" Tugado
***
***
Email our publisher for a free copy of our e-book "The Filipino Feelgood Factor", which is a short original book plus (in the same digital edition) a compilation from some of the original books that inspired The Secret movie. It will be emailed directly to you as a PDF attachment. You'll need a free Adobe Reader on your computer (click on above logo if you don't have it).
This e-book won't cost you a single centavo, because our book is free anyway and all the original books on which The Secret was based are out-of-copyright, so there are no royalty fees to pay on them. The English language of around a century ago may seem a tad old-fashioned to us today, but the selections are easy to read and will tell you everything you want to know. FREE is a pretty good deal compared with paying a mentor/coach to tell you the same thing, or buying expensive new books on the subject by authors who merely rehash out-of-copyright books into modern English as if the content was theirs.
