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)

Questions for Jon Favreau, 27

A few questions, Favs, if you don't mind.

1. Why did you not have a more decent picture in Time 100?
2. Who took that unfortunate Facebook photograph of you and a cardboard Hillary Clinton?
3. I guess you will bump into each other very often now in the White House?
4. Are you aware that a lot of people, blind-googling your name, mistake you for the director of Iron Man? :D
5. What's the real score between you and that Ali Campoverdi?

Declaration of bankruptcy

I will be incommunicado thru SMS for the rest of the week. The current financial crisis is global. Please send me messages thru GMail (the one in my blog profile), Yahoomail, or UP Webmail.

Frustrations

1. Bebe and Rustom

Rustom Padilla is not simply dead. He was murdered by the fabulously wicked Bebe Gandanghari. Bebe is a selfish, ungrateful bitch. After coming out of the closet with Rustom’s help, why does she have to kill him?


2. Miriam Santiago

Miriam used to be smart. Her reputation as someone who can dish out tart, witty one-liners, with such admirable flair is eclipsed only by her former reputation as an iron-woman when it comes to battling corruption in the government.

Then she voted against the opening of the second envelope. Then she mentioned her dead son on TV in an election ad. Then she ran under Gloria’s party in the last Senatorial elections. Then she became too fond of making scenes and long speeches.

As Jessica Zafra once bemoaned, what happened to the good old Miriam that we have so adored in the past? We should appeal to the aliens who have abducted her; they must have placed a deranged dummy in her place.

3. Tide and Downey

Why would soap companies be disturbingly partial to politicians as their endorser? When Mar Roxas appeared in apparently Tide's latest commercial, I thought, “Well, everyone is entitled to make their own humiliating mistakes.” But when I recently saw Pia Cayetano on TV, sweeping her hand across an image of a huge overflowing dam, urging everyone to use Downey Isang Banlaw, my brain went short circuit.

4. KC Concepcion

What happens to a kid who’s sent abroad by an over-protective mom? She goes wild, once given the chance. She flirts with a former Hollywood star, does movies with a brother of a fallen beauty queen, and guests at every talk show airing on TV. So much for just shampoo commercials.

5. Ambitious project in progress

I have gone so far into my project that I can no longer go back. I am not sure if I can still pull it off. This is what happens when you’re too much a fan of great surrealist writers; their weird ideas rub off on you, but your talents remain inconsiderable. I guess there’s no option but to plough on with the story, and hope for the best.

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."