benign0's blog

What's up with all the warnings being issued by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to the government in relation to Malacanang's pro family planning stance. These men in robes are even threatening to "excommunicate" President Nonoy Aquino if he does not reconsider his being open to liberal options that could make information, services, and products available to Filipinos who wish to apply greater control over their reproductive health and the sizes of their families. Control over both, suffice to say, most certainly also affords them control over their futures and accountability for their fortunes.

The venerable owner of AntiPinoy.com , BongV made this status update on Facebook just a few minutes ago... o yung mga noypi na nasa merka - kung proud na proud kayo sa pinas - umuwi kayo sa pinas at doon kayo manirahan - tingnatin hanggang saan aabot yang pride nyo Roughly translated it goes something like this...

Pictures speak louder than words. That rings true particularly in an industry that profited immensely from this truism. So perhaps this picture provides of overdue karmic dividends to those who have for so long called out the decades-long dumbing down of the Filipino by their own Media.

According to Inquirer.net columnist Conrado de Quiros it is Filipino first, world second ; referring to his disagreement with President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's decision to provide the IIRC report on the Mendoza hostage tragedy to the Chinese government before it is released to Filipinos.

Not surprisingly, Malacanang's plan to submit the report on the August 23 Mendoza hostage incident to the Chinese government before it is released to the Filipino public, drew a lot of flak . The 83-page report of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) chaired by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima which detailed findings on the circumstances surrounding the hostage drama that resulted in the deaths of eight foreign tourists looks like it was "made for China when it should be made primarily for Filipinos" gripes Senator Joker Arroyo. To highlight the point further, Senator Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan chimes in, "We have to avoid perception that we are catering to the dictates or pressure from a foreign country. Common objective is transparency, whatever the sequence of disclosure".

If we are to believe an "in-depth" "insight" report issued by ABS-CBN News , Filipinos are apparently keen to "push unity" as a "theme" for the visit of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III . Whatever that theme means exactly , I am still not quite sure -- even after having skimmed through as much of the content in the website WeAreOneFilipino.com being promoted in that report. One section of that site issued the dare Proud to be Filipino? Prove it. I'm like: who are these people who presume to challenge people to "prove" they are "proud" to be "Filipino"?

The crystalline clarity that is emerging from the fog of primitivist thinking nowadays is how the Philippine Media has for the last couple of decades fixated itself on highlighting the eee -vils of despotism, tyranny, absolute power and all that emo fodder. Yet the fact that is coming to light now is that they themselves hold, monopilise, and wield so much absolute power themselves. Time to dismantle that tyranny and put the Philippine Media in their proper place!

Another case of uncoordinated miscommunication -- miscommunication na nga , uncoordinated pa ! Department of Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico E. Puno admitted he got offers to be on the take from the lucrative jueteng (numbers game) business from relatives and friends ("conduits", he calls them, that the actual operators used to extend the offer to him). He said he "turned them down". Some questions come to mind...

In his latest piece, the Inquirer.net Editor has gone back to picking up where the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III left off -- blaming the previous administration . Indeed, the first 90 percent of today's Inquirer.net editorial is nothing more than a litany of gripes that itemises former President Gloria Arroyo's overspending -- a big drumroll, suffice to say, that ends with this crash of the cymbals at the very end of Mr Editor's quaint treatise of forced outrage...

What was Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III thinking when he tried to pitch across as a blind item an August 26 letter he found "insulting" supposedly addressed to him by Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang. In his statement to the Media, Noynoy referred to this letter as one coming from "a Hong Kong official" that he chose to "ignore", perhaps deferring to some perverse way he interprets the Philippines' adherence to the One China Policy.

There is good debt and there is bad debt. Like, say, a loan taken out to buy property or start a business, good debt is used to fund appreciating assets. The cost of the borrowed funds (the interest the borrower pays on the principal disbursed to him) is offset by the returns that are yielded by the asset purchased using said borrowed funds. Those yields could come in the form of (1) income generated by the assets -- such as rent or earnings from the funded property or business, and (2) capital gain -- such as when you sell the property or business for more than its value at the time it was acquired -- also taking into account the cost of funding (interest expenses) and cost of ownership.

An end in itself . This is how Radio Mindanao Network anchor Jake Maderazo described the reporter's "job" of, well, "reporting". Apparently this "job" comes first in any situation, even situations that endanger human lives. Pressed by Filipino-Chinese community representative Teresita Ang-See with the rhetorical statement "No profession should ever be more important than (saving) human lives and more important than showing what was happening inside (the bus)" to highlight the fatal role the Media played in the botched handling of the Mendoza hostage crisis, Maderazo only had this to say...

President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III (a.k.a. "P-Noy") apparently was not lacking in in-house expertise. He just happened to be too much of a numbskull to be a bit bigger than his adolescent beholdenness to Kabarkada Inc and his infantile imprisonment by Kamaganak Inc to separate the men from the little boys in his Cabinet. In a brilliant expose on the monumental tragedy of unprecedented presidential tunnel-vision, journalist Boo Chanco reports another heart-renting case of fatal missed opportunity on the part of Noynoy's government that could have prevented the deaths of eight foreign tourists. Apparently, Alberto G Romulo who was Executive Secretary of then President Gloria Arroyo was the chief architect of a kick-ass Crisis Committee that came into effect under Executive Order No. 121 in June of 2001...

According to Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, the problems the country faces in the aftermath of the Aug. 23 bloodbath that killed eight Hong Kong tourists are things that we can simply laugh about in two to three years time. Furthermore, he added that we will be able to recall by then that these were "not that grave". All this in an Inquirer.net report ...

Columnist Amando Doronila asks the hard question in his recent piece in the Inquirer.net , " If [Interior Undersecretary Rico E. Puno] had no experience and training on hostage situations, what was the basis of the President’s decision to designate [him] as [Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)] undersecretary? " This is in light of Puno's admission that he, as it turns out, was "not capable of handling hostage situations" despite being delegated the task of "supervising the police" by his boss, DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo. This "raised eyebrows" as the spectre of cronyism was summoned up by Puno's admission. Doronila explains...

Not surprisingly, the well-funded PR machinery of Kamaganak Inc (the branch of the Philippine oligarchy that is in bed with the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan) has succeeded in relegating the Mendoza hostage crisis (that resulted in the deaths of eight foreign tourists) to a mere marking of the end of the "honeymoon" period of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III 's government. Bad for Noynoy but still a demotion of what is really a significant turning point -- perhaps a tipping point -- that could be regarded as a rare opportunity for profound change in our society -- if we manage to keep its salient aspects from being swept under the rug .

Great expectations indeed. You can almost hear the big sigh as the Inquirer.net editor wrote the title of his latest piece . With the sort of perspective we enjoy (or, more appropriately, suffer from) today as a result of the bungled hostage crisis that resulted in the deaths of eight foreign tourists last week, it becomes clearer now in retrospect how Filipinos became the victims of the clever sales pitches and sloganeering in the campaign of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III in this year's presidential election. So evident now are the false expectations this moronic campaign created that even the Inquirer.net Editor himself cited them...