not the banana
Thursday, March 30th, 2006I had a good laugh when someone from the papers by the name of Mr. Antonio C. Abaya wish to rename my beloved Philippine Islands as the FUBAR Republic (FUBAR - f***ked up beyond all recognition).
Archive for March, 2006
12 things
Thursday, March 30th, 2006I seem to be in the habit of plagiarizing other people’s work these days. But what the heck. There was this entry from bong austero’s blog about a lecture made by a certain Atty. Alexander Lacson. It was about the 12 lil things we can do to help..
1. Follow traffic rules, follow the law.
2. Whenever you buy or pay for anything, ask for an official receipt.
3. Don’t buy smuggled goods. Buy local. Buy Filipino.
4. When you talk to others, especially foreigners, speak positively about us and our country.
5. Respect your traffic officer, policeman and soldier.
6. Do not litter. Dispose your garbage properly. Segregate. Recycle. Conserve.
7. Support your church.
8. During elections, do your solemn duty.
9. Pay your employees well.
10. Pay your taxes.
11. Adopt a scholar or a poor child.
12. Be a good parent. Teach your kids to follow the law and love our country.
This was included in his book with - surprise! - the same title… i haven’t got a copy but i guess it would be worth a reading.
update
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006oh well. today is a silent day.
nothing to whine and brag about.
i feel happy that’s all
Saturday, March 4th, 2006
this was an open letter I found in a forum. Actually it was written I think just last week but it had spread like wildfire, forwarded, emailed, posted, published and even sent offshore… it was even the subject of a debate in ANC. Here goes:
Open Letter To Our Leaders
Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media people, Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There:
I
am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier than
I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick and
tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I
feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my
freedom and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about
yours. You tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every
citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own
informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect my silence and
the choices I and many others have made. In other words, your concept
of democracy is limited to having your rights and your freedoms
respected, at the expense of ours.
I am utterly flabbergasted
that you still do not get it: we already responded to your calls, and
our response has been very clear - we chose not to heed your calls to
go to EDSA or to Fort Bonifacio not because we do not love our country
or our freedoms or our rights, but precisely because we love our
country even more. Because quite frankly, we are prepared to lose our
freedoms and our rights just to move this country forward. You may
think that is not correct, you can tell me all the dire warnings about
the evils of authoritarian rule, but quite frankly all we see is your
pathetic efforts to prop up your cause. You tell me that you are simply
protecting my freedoms and my rights, but who told you to do that? I
assure you that when I feel that my rights and my freedoms are at a
peril, I will stand up and fight for them myself.
You tell us
that GMA is not the right person to lead this country because she has
done immoral acts. As someone who sees immorality being committed
wantonly in many ways every day and by everyone (yes, including the
ones you do), I may have become jaded. But you have not been able to
offer me any viable alternative, while GMA has bent over backwards many
times to accommodate you while continuing to work hard despite all the
obstacles and the brickbats you have thrown her way. From where I sit,
she is the one who has been working really hard to move this country
forward while all of you have been so busy with one and only one thing:
to make sure she does not succeed. So forgive me if I do not want to
join you in your moral pissing contest. Forgive me if I have chosen to
see things from another perspective. You say she is the problem. I say,
we are the problem, more to the point, I think you are a bigger problem
than she is. Taking her out may solve part of the problem, but that
leaves us with a bigger problem: you. That is right, YOU!
While
I felt outraged that she called a Comelec official during the elections
and that she may have rigged the elections, I have since then taken the
higher moral ground and forgiven her. Yes my dear bishops, I have done
what you have told me to do since I was a child, which you say is the
Christian and moral thing to do: forgive. Especially since she has
asked for forgiveness and has tried to make amends for it. Erap
certainly has not apologized and continues to be defiant, continuing to
insult us everyday with his protestations. Cory has not apologized for
her incompetence but we have forgiven her just the same because like
GMA, she has worked hard after all.
I know you do not think that
GMA’s apology was not enough, or that she was insincere, or that that
apology should not be the end of it, but please spare me the hypocrisy
of telling me that you do so for the sake of protecting the moral fibre
of society. The real reason is because you smell blood and wants to go
for the kill.
Well, I have news for you. I do not like her too. I did not even vote for her. I voted for Raul Roco. But as much as I do not like her, I do not like you even more. I may not trust her, but guess what, I do not trust you even more.
You
know why? Because all you do is whine and sabotage this country. You
belittle every little progress we make, conveniently forgetting that it
is not just GMA who has been working so hard to achieve them. Every
single day, we keep the faith burning in our hearts that this country
will finally pull itself out of the mess and we work so hard to do
that. Every little progress is the result of our collective effort, we
who toil hard everyday in our jobs. Yet, you persist in one and only
thing: making GMA look bad in the eyes of the world and making sure
that this country continues to suffer to prove your sorry point. In the
process, you continue to destroy what we painstakinly try to built. So
please do not be surprised that I do not share your cause. Do not be
surprised that we have become contemptuous of your antics. You have
moved heaven and earth to destroy her credibility, you have convened
all kinds of fora and hearings and all you have done is test our
patience to the core. For all your effort, you have only succeeded in
dragging us further down. I say enough.
Don’t get me wrong. I am
not asking that we take immorality lying down, or that we let the
President get away with anything illegal. But you have tried to prove
your accusations all these time and you have not succeeded, so it is
time to let things be. Besides, you are doing something immoral as well
if not utterly unforgivable. The Magdalo soldiers are consorting with
the communists - the same people who have been trying to kill democracy
for years. Cory has been consorting with Erap and the Marcoses.
So
please wake up and take a reality check. In the absence of true and
genuine moral leadership, many of us have decided to cast our lot with
the President, even if we do not like her. A flawed leader is better
than scheming power hungry fools who can not even stand up for their
convictions in the face of an impending arrest.
Your coup
attempts and the denials that you have consequently made only
underscore what we think is true: you are spineless and unreliable
people whose only defense is to cry suppression when your ruse do not
work. You are like bullies who taunt and provoke, but cry oppression
when taken to task for your cruelty.
I would have respected you
if you took the consequences of your actions like real heroes: calmly
and responsibly instead of kicking and screaming and making lame
excuses. You say you are willing to die for us, that you do all these
things for the country and the Filipino, but you are not even willing
to go to jail for us.
Come on, you really think we believe that
you did not want to bring down the government when that is the one and
only thing you have been trying to do in the last many months?
We
love this country and we want peace and progress. Many among us do not
give a f*&k who sits at Malacanang because we will work hard and do
our share to make things work. If you only do your jobs, the ones that
we elected you to do, things would be a lot simpler and easier for
every one.
The events during the weekend only proved one thing.
You are more dangerous and a serious threat to this country than GMA
is. We have seen what you are capable of doing - you are ready to burn
this country and reduce everything to ashes just to prove your point. If there is something that we need protection from, it is protection from you.
The author is Schubert Caesar Austero. Apparently this was posted in his blog which you will find here.
1017 et al
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006I find it comforting that not a few people agree with me when i say this emergency thingy was somehow a blessing and not a bane like what the some are painting it to be.
i was browsing the talking points section of Inq7.net and learned interesting sentiments that are often marginalized by the sensationalist media.
Here’s one:
2006-02-28, 13:07:00,
Talking Points — The "Gloriagate" Crisis
The coup plotters AS WELL AS the opposition leaders who continue to
mess up the country and the economy should be given a lesson. Arroyo
may be overreacting, but that is debatable. What is not debatable is
how the country continues to suffer in the hands of traitors in
government and the military. This coup and people power culture is
really the same old story over and over. People are tired of this! Cory
Aquino is crazy, she has fantasies of being a savior. She’s jealous
because a female president is actually doing something and actually
understands the economy, unlike her whose tricks are tired.
Harry Gorospe -harrywooshann@yahoo.com
and on the lighter side of it all..
Shame
FIRST PERSON By Alex Magno
The Philippine Star 02/28/2006
They were like flies buzzing around excrement or vultures hovering around a carcass.
I refer to the likes of Cory Aquino, Ping Lacson, Teofisto
Guingona, Imee Marcos, that irredeemably angry head of the La Salle
brothers, that group of resigned Cabinet officials that has become so
nondescript they continue to be named after a hotel and the
limelight-hungry lawyers from a minuscule leftist faction. Obsessed
with re-creating the 1986 Edsa Uprising, they convinced themselves that
a minor spat at the Philippine Marines was the beginning of yet another
pointless upheaval.
When the Marines sorted out the misunderstanding late Sunday
night, the washed-out political personalities who gathered at Fort
Bonifacio – always within tight camera range – quietly slithered into
the darkness, hoping the public would soon forget the great farce that
just happened.
They had, plainly and simply, made complete fools of themselves in their gallant effort to make fools of us all.
Sunday’s drama was a useless expenditure of time, energy and passion.
From what could be gathered as of this writing, the tiring
drama last Sunday began when the Navy Flag Officer in Command relieved
the Marine Commandant, Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda. That was, from the
looks of it, a prudent move. The information gathered about the quashed
coup attempt, it appears that a group of soldiers were supposed to have
made an appearance before the gathered horde at Edsa. Their withdrawal
of support from government was supposed to be announced by a Marine
general.
The relief would have been a routine administrative act.
Miranda’s deputy, Brig. Gen. Nelson Allaga, was initially issued orders
to assume the post of commandant in an acting capacity – probably an
indication that Miranda could be returned to his post after he was
cleared of the derogatory information against him.
The trouble began when a bad-tempered and severely voluble
Marine colonel, Ariel Querubin, began publicly denouncing the
replacement of his commandant. That attracted media attention – as well
as the flies who began hovering around Marine headquarters.
Out of nowhere, Sanlakas lawyers Argee Guevarra and JV
Bautista emerged, announcing themselves "volunteer lawyers" for the
hopping mad colonel. The two leftists then began trailing Querubin
around the camp, forming a funny human chain around him, sticking their
faces into camera range to make sure history will record their heroism,
and probably convincing the colonel, during a moment of temporary
insanity, that he was more important than he actually was.
Soon enough, the angry colonel piped down. His ruffled wife
later admitted they did not know the two leftist lawyers, Guevarra and
Bautista.
While he was hopping mad, encircled by the Sanlakas lawyers,
Querubin (who had a rebellious history as co-founder of the Young
officers Union) admitted to being part of the plan for soldiers to make
an appearance before the mammoth anti-government rally planned for last
Friday (and dispersed by the timely proclamation of a state of
emergency). That seems to be a career-ending admission.
It was an admission that raises so many questions.
Why was Cory Aquino aligned with the very same officers who
mounted bloody coup attempts against her presidency – coup attempts
that led her down the same path of proclaiming a state of emergency?
Why was her son, Noynoy, who was nearly killed during the
1989 coup attempt, now supporting the exact same sort of military
adventurism?
Why was Imee Marcos now allied with the same forces that overthrew her late father and terminated a hated dictatorship?
Why were the leftist groups, in effect, supporting the
projected establishment of a military junta that would, in all
possibility, shoot them down more readily than the democratically
accountable government we now have in place?
Why are the members of the so-called Hyatt 10, instigators of
what is so ingloriously called Edsa Dos, now aligned with the generally
rented pro-Estrada mob?
I have difficulty answering all such queries posed by foreign observers. My standard reply consists of only two words: despair and opportunism.
Sunday’s farce unraveled as soon as it began – but not
evidently enough for the worn-out political personages gathered at Fort
Bonifacio to avert making fools of themselves.
In the end, the only question left badgering the public mind was: What was that all about?
I have a flood of e-mails from friends abroad who are
reacting to the unavoidably over-dramatized television footages from
Manila. They, by and large, pose that same question in a more painful
way: As the world rushes aid to the victims of the Leyte landslide,
why are the political players of Manila more engrossed with power
grabs?
For years, foreigners have suspected Filipinos of being
congenitally doomed to shoot ourselves on the foot at the first sign of
impending success over adversity.
Since the start of the year, the peso has strengthened
dramatically. The economy is beginning to roar. Large-scale investments
are being negotiated.
Our prospects appear too bright for the forces of despair to
handle. They must plot coups and invite the proclamation of a state of
emergency. They must raise a ruckus in the streets to scare away
tourism and investments.
By making fools of themselves, obsessed with their own
inexplicable hatred for a sitting president, they succeed only in
making all of us look like a nation of fools. They succeed only in
diminishing the possibility that misery could be reduced and prosperity
guaranteed within the foreseeable future.
To this steady stream of disturbing questions posed by the
flood of e-mails I get, I can only answer with one word emphatically
repeated thrice: Shame, shame, shame!
pardon me mr. magno, sir, for reproducing your article here without any permission but I couldn’t agree with you more and, yes, I couldn’t have put it better…
