Arroyo admits she has breast implants

SEE THOSE BOOBIES? GLORIOUS.

***photo credits: Associated Press
***post title linked to reference article

Remembering Karen and Sherlyn

I logged in to Facebook earlier and was reminded through Prof. Judy Taguiwalo’s status post that today marks the third year since the forced disappearance of UP student-activists Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

Karen and Sherlyn are active members of the militant groups League of Filipino Students and Anakbayan. They were doing research for their theses when they were abducted by military men on June 26, 2006 in Hagonoy, Bulacan.

A local farmer, Manuel Merino, who was also abducted with Karen and Sherlyn, eventually managed to escape after months of captivity. His testimony in court has confirmed that the AFP is behind the abduction.

I remember being horrified while I first read the blotter reports and eyewitness testimonies, while I interviewed Karen and Sherlyn's families for a news article for the Collegian, while I read Manuel Merino's tales of torture. My horror was rivaled only by my new-found disgust and anger at what the government can do to "neutralise" anyone at the slightest suspicion of being an "insurgent."

I remember being enraged by Jovito Palparan's nonchalant denials of his involvement, because he projects the easy demeanor of someone who is above the law, who can get away with whatever he does.

What has happened since the two disappeared? Writs from the courts have been issued and the high tribunal has ruled that the military is behind the abductions. A UN rapporteur has declared that the government is responsible for orchestrating extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. Human rights groups and other progressive organizations have tirelessly fought in court and in the streets. But like in many other cases of missing, jailed, or murdered activists, it seems as if these otherwise valiant efforts have yet to yield results.

Three years is a long time for waiting. To me, it seemed as if it happened just yesterday, but to the closest friends and family of Karen and Sherlyn, three years must have felt like an eternity. To the mothers of Karen and Sherlyn who have fought relentlessly, who have attended numerous court hearings and protest rallies in the hopes of being reunited with their daughters, it must have been a long, lonely, and painful process.

Three years is a long time. What to do? I guess we don't just wait for justice to be served. We fight for it. Personally, I don't know everything that I could do to help and I suspect I alone could not do much. I could start, though, by saying I have not forgotten. I remember.


(Artwork by Jether Amar)

Domesticities

1. Yesterday, I cooked chicken soup enough to feed a small orphanage. I handed over a big bowl to the next door neghbor, but I was still left with a vast amount of the soup that made me think about Africa.

I had to end up forcing everything down my throat, images of scrawny Somalian kids in my head, like a UN PowerPoint presentation. I felt less guilt, though, because I didn't let the food spoil.

I need, no, I wish I can afford my own refrigerator.

2. When I first saw my new apartment, I would hardly call it love at first sight. The walls are dark pink (though the landlady insisted they are lavender), the toilet lacks a flush, and the apartment is a little too conveniently located--aside from a church, a self-help laundry shop, pharmacy, bakery, and water-refilling station a few steps away from my door, there is also a mortuary very, very nearby. Some afternoons, I'll wake up suddenly because a there's a funeral procession, and Hindi kita Malilimutan (I will Never Forget You) is on. It never fails to cheer the spirit.

In the end, I took the apartment because of the cheap rent, the tiled floor, the window looking out into the street, and the double-lock doors. I'll be moving out soon, but in the meantime, I will have to bear with the afternoon dirges.

3. Leon is dying. My plant was doing fine, and then after his fifth flower wilted, he entered a depression phase that rivaled mine. His leaves yellowed and then browned, and he seemed to made up his mind not to bloom again. I thought he was going back in the closet.

Curiously enough, he got over his emotional phase, almost at the same time I got over mine. I asked Leon what made him unhappy, but he wouldn't tell me. Like me, my plant likes to keep things to himself once he's already okay.

Plea for help: My copy of The Hobbit is gone. Gone! I was dusting my books yesterday, and I found out it's gone because I want all my Tolkien books to be arranged beside each other in the shelf. As usual, I might have lent it to someone but I could not remember who. If you're the one who borrowed the book from me, please let me know as soon as possible. A prize awaits you if you text me within the next 24 hours.

As usual, something fishy

Numbers can be intimidating, and hence, impressive when used to argue a point. Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto knows this and when he said the government plans to boost the slowing economy thru a P300 billion resiliency fund, he expects us to say wow.


If Vilma's husband is correct, the P300 billion fund that government shall spend for infrastructure and other social services will pump up government expenditure and will increase income in the private sector. The private sector's bigger income will in turn translate into increased private spending.

This is of course founded on the Keynesian idea that money spent by the government will be money earned by the private sector, and that increased government spending will jumpstart a series of increased private spending. Think The Core and how Hilary Swank and company fired nuclear missiles into the earth's liquid iron core, one at a time, to create ripples that will merge on each other and create bigger ripples.

This is supposedly a good thing, since developing countries, like the Philippines, depend heavily on consumption to drive its economy. It does make sense, but I have a problem with this. If the ultimate goal is increased public expenditure, is the P300 billion fund the only way to achieve this end?

How about raising the minimum wage levels to increase public income? How about funneling the P300 billion fund straight into the national budget? This year's national budget of P1.4 trillion is only about 13 percent more than last year's P1.236 trillion. This 13 percent increase is even diluted by an inflation rate of about 9 percent.

Also, the details of where the resiliency fund will come from and how exactly it will be spent remain a hazy sketch. Are they deliberately separating 300 billion from the national budget to avoid transparency and accountability?

Recto's report is impressive, but it isn't "wow." It's "whoa."

Wowowee and the Lovapalooza Stampede

I know why it sometimes feels good to have an occasional dose of Willie Revillame's infamous noontime show. It's watching those contestants embarrass themselves (and their kin) in national television. I laugh at them and admire them at the same time. Such courage to tell stories about personal drama are strange to me.

That is, until fairly recently, when I digressed from this blog's supposed cultural affectations and decided to write about myself again. Sef-cannibalism, in other words, as Jessica Zafra once said in her better days.

Now pass the salt, please?

1. Derriere-licking. Not only did I get away with it again by writing a long exquisite letter explaining my recent slew of absences and tardiness, a little bird told me I might even get a pay raise this May when my score card gets evaluated. The stars are kind, the stars are kind.

2. Ned. I have not received a text message from him until now. Nor have I atempted to initiate anything that would resemble an attempt at conversation. He looks cute in his new primary DL photo.

3. Joey. Well. Joey. Where should I even start? It was inevitable that this will happen. You know that last U-turn in the road when you're driving? Well, I went past that point. I was actually driving too fast, stepping on the gas pedal too hard, that I had to be pulled over by the MMDA.

4. Moving to Cubao. As our company will be moving to its new building (yes, that one) come end of next month, I am now looking for a new place to rent. Two of my officemates have expressed interest in sharing a house with me, but I honestly think I should get my own studio-type flat. Not that I don't get along well with people; it's just that my household maintenance habits dramatically fluctuate: anything between downright lazy to obsessive-compulsive.

5. Backlog of pre-planned special-feature posts. My neurons had been too preoccupied lately about my own insipid affairs that they have neglected more interesting topics.

There's that special post I planned about Natalie Portman flicks. Since I miss my Collegian days, I also thought about doing a small investigative on the "UP-Ayala Cyberpark." The list of ambitious projects goes on. Collezione and its Pinoy pride prints. The proposal to scrap the Student Regent position in UP's Board of Regents. Obama's anti-Iraq War stance and Gloria's possible retraction from her original support for Dubya's War against Terror. The Matrix trilogy and its signature bullet-speed camera shot.

Self-cannibalism is so cathartic, I can hardly stop. But like the few remaining pleasures left in this world, I guess all of them end too soon. I have released too many calls already. Must get back to work. Thraldom beckons.