President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who partied with Prospero Pichay on Wednesday night amid devastation caused by typhoon Ondoy, proudly spoke about disaster preparedness in her last state of the nation address:
International authorities have taken notice that we are safer from environmental degradation and man-made disasters.
As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be prepared
A low-profile Member of Congress broke his silence last week and launched a stinging tirade and expose against controversial former general-turned-Bantay Rep. Jovito Palparan.
Palparan is widely known as “the butcher” for “inspiring” the extrajudicial murder of activists when he was still an officer of the Philippine Army. If you remember, despite this bloody human rights record, President Arroyo singled out Palparan in one of her SONA speeches.
In his speech last Sept. 14, Rep. Reynaldo Uy of Western Samar did not mince words. It was at times shocking, at other times humorous, but the speech highlighted once more how Palparan demeaned the Philippine Army before and further besmirches Congress at present:
Besieged by internal problems and its principal hated by the public, the ruling Lakas-Kampi party has chosen Gilbert Teodoro, President Arroyo’s defense secretary, to be its standard-bearer in the 2010 elections.
In today’s vote, 45 Lakas-Kampi officials flushed Bayani Fernando’s presidential ambitions down the nearest pink urinal. The MMDA chair — infamously known for his pink urinals and pink walk bridges and for throwing gasoline at street vendors’ wares — got only five votes. Fernando has said he will bolt out of the ruling party if he were not chosen.
President Arroyo’s defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro is on a largely quiet mission in the United States, with the 2010 presidential contender scheduled to speak on “the US-Philippine alliance” in a forum organized by conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation.
The Philippine embassy has given clues on what he seeks to accomplish while in the US:
Flanked by members of his family, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III this morning declared his intention to run for president, seeking to capitalize on the memory of his prominent parents and to “continue” their fight.
Who are your personal heroes?
This September, I will be writing about three of my heroes in World-Makers.com, a website dedicated to a good cause
The Manila Science High School Faculty and Employees Club has come out with a letter to Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim expressing strong opposition to plans to rename the country’s pilot science high school, even as they request that he verify and clarify the said plan.
“It has come to our knowledge that plans are underway to rename Manila Science High School to President Corazon C. Aquino Science High School as per news article written by Pat C. Santos in The Daily Tribune dated August 11, 2009. The alleged plan was practically validated, to the surprise and dismay of the entire Manila Science High School community, when two DepEd-Manila officials, Asst. Superintendent Mauro de Gulan and retired Asst. Superintendent Isabelita Santos, met with Mrs. Flora A. Valdez, our school head, on August 19 to discuss the matter,” said the group.
The deadline for new voter registration is fast approaching. But many have yet to get listed to ensure that they can vote in next year’s elections.
Enter Kabataan Partylist and the National Union of Students of the Philippines with their “Isang milyong kabataan, isang milyong panata” new voter registration drive to be launched on August 20. The target is obvious: 1 million new registered voters, mostly young people, on top of the measly 800,000 or so that have listed themselves up so far.
The National Geographic Channel held a special screening for media (including bloggers) of “Asia’s Titanic”, the first Filipino-made NatGeo-produced documentary, which tackled the infamous MV Dona Paz tragedy of 1987 — the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
There is no Leonardo di Caprio or Kate Winslet to give star power to “Asia’s Titanic”. But the scarred faces, voices and tears of the survivors who the team of Laranas managed to interview and the simple reenactments are enough to give face to the periodic victims of such preventable tragedies. They are our poorest countrymen and women who travel the country from less prosperous provinces to the cities and vice versa especially during holidays when filial piety demands that they reunited with kith and kin they have left in search for jobs in the cities.
[LOL UPDATE, Aug. 18: HP called me up at home with this message — The notebook’s LCD has been replaced and the notebook is ready for pickup. But I already got it yesterday, right? LOL]
After a long 27-day wait, the HP Service Center in Makati City called me up this afternoon with good news I have long waited to hear: My notebook is ready for delivery and its busted LCD screen replaced. I told HP to ditch the delivery because I will instead pick it up this same afternoon, which I did and which made typing this post possible.
[UPDATE AS OF AUG. 27, 2009: THERE IS INDEED A PLAN! Click here to get more information.]
My former classmates and schoolmates and other alumni are shocked by a Daily Tribune news report that Mayor Alfredo Lim is allegedly taking steps to rename the historic and pioneering Manila Science High School, or MaSci, to President Cory Aquino High School as tribute to the former president.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is relentless in bringing shame to the country. Of late, many were shocked by US media reports that she and her party had at least two lavish dinners worth more than two million pesos while they were in New York and Washington DC. Malacanang has given the lamest and most insulting possible excuses and has even gone to the extent of hypocritically forming an anti-hunger task force amid the continuing outcry.
Filipino bloggers quickly took on the task of honoring former President Corazon Aquino, the country’s first female leader, who died today from cardiorespiratory arrest. She was 76.
Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who became President of the Philippines after the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, died at 3:18 am today (Aug. 1) at a Makati City hospital. She was 76.
Artists and writers are revolted by President Arroyo’s proclamation of seven new national artists for this year.
The Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) did not mince words and blamed Arroyo’s “moribund, decadent politics” for spoiling the National Artist selection this year. The group singled out Cecile Guidote Alvarez who is presidential adviser for culture and chair of one of the agencies involved in the selection for now having delicadeza.
Bloggers read other blogs to be updated and just like ordinary blog readers, also to engage in discussions and to be entertained or enlightened.
We have grown to love some of the new blogs and I really wish they are recognized. Good thing we have the writing project Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2009 which makes giving credit to these noteworthy blogs a community effort.
Here are my top 10 picks for 2009:
As Gloria Macapagal Arroyo approaches Washington DC for a meeting with Barack Obama, we Filipinos should remind the US president of the words he spoke on his inaugural last January 20: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.”
That was it, Mrs. Arroyo’s last state of the nation address. Except perhaps for the brainless hordes who clapped for her no less than 126 times even for the oddest moments and whenever she looked begging for it, most of us were unimpressed by the speech.
It was incoherent and lacked focus. If it was coherent in anything, it was in giving the public an incoherent response to demands that she declare before Congress and the nation that she will leave the presidency at noon time of June 30, 2010 and thereafter retire from politics. She was obviously disinterested in taking the high road of stateswomanship and went after leaders of the opposition as if the SONA was a speech on the campaign trail.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is said to be preparing to use her state of the nation address tomorrow to raise anew the call for charter change.
It is thus a good thing that bloggers and Facebook users took on this issue with Cyberprotests and a Blog Action Day.
If Arroyo would indeed announce a renewed effort to ram down our throats this idea of a Constituent Assembly (ConAss) to keep her illegal hold on the presidency and to enshrine the failed policies of neoliberal globalization in the charter, then we have a great battle ahead of us and let’s not surrender an inch of our places in cyberspace to the regime’s lies.
On July 26, the eve of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s state of the nation address, bloggers and members of Facebook group Pilipinas Kontra Con-Ass will stage a Cyberprotest and Blog Action Day.
Through various means, we wish to say a principled and committed NO to all the naked attempts to deceive the people about the alleged need to change the Constitution. But whatever they say and however they lie, it is clear to most bloggers and netizens that the evil regime led by Mrs. Arroyo herself are scared of leaving office. They are scared to death that come June 30, 2010, when her questionable term of office supposedly ends, she will face a whole slew of cases to make her liable for all her criminal liabilities against the nation.
This is long overdue.
Journalists and other members of the media who cover the elections, especially Election Day, should be able to vote through absentee voting.
Normally, reporters start their work on the eve of the elections and have no time to join their families in going to their polling precinct to cast votes. The irony is that they report about the elections where they have no direct participation as voters. Perhaps the only time they can vote is when they actually run for office because by then they have time to do so. But working journalists don’t have such opportunity.
As the nation prepares for what ought to be Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s last and final State of the Nation Address, the new group Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change invites everyone to “SONA ng Katotohanan: A Public Forum” on July 24, 2009, 2:00-5:00 pm at the BSLR-East, UP Manila College of Medicine, Pedro Gil, Manila.