TO PREVENT MASSIVE CHEATING, VOTERS SHOULD DECLARE THEIR CHOICES.
by Napanice (no login)
For all these years, cheating politicians have taken advantage of the secrecy provisions of the Election Law to ensure they can manipulate the results of the polls. Since the people's choices are done in secrecy, only the poll officials have the authority to tally, summarize, authenticate and declare the winners of the election.
But that is where the problems lies because corrupted election officials and even the military have participated in the altering and tampering of election documents. That has got to change if we want to have a credible election.
By openly declaring the candidates that we are voting for, there can be no doubt as to the outcome of an election. We the people must make every attempt to exercise our People Power over those who want the government only for themselves.
Nap
Posted on Apr 16, 2007, 7:01 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
MASSIVE CHEATING IN 2004 ELECTION CAUSE OF OVERSEAS VOTER DISTRUST ON COMELEC
by Napanice (no login)
Whatever explanation Comelec offers to cover up the low turnout of overseas voters all over the world, the fact still remains as to the real cause. Why waste the time and money just to register and vote for your chosen candidate when Comelec officials like Garcillano can successfully make massive cheating possible?
The Garci tapes are clear evidence of fraud committed by Gloria Macapagal to win the presidency despite the people's support for FPJ and yet both Congress and the Supreme Court have chose to accept the results.
Filipinos are tired of being cheated by corrupt officials, unless things change for the better the Philippine elections will be considered another tool to thwart the people's will and they will no longer participate in it.
Nap
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 11:49 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
ARE YOU BETTER NOW OR WORSE AFTER GLORIA BECAME PRESIDENT?
by Napanice (no login)
MALAYA
MAJORITY SAYS DEFINITELY WORSE!
54% in survey say they’re worse off than in 2004
DESPITE the Arroyo adminis-tration’s claims of an economic takeoff, the April 3-5 survey of Pulse Asia showed that 54 percent of Filipinos believe that their quality of life is worse off now than in 2004.
The figure is higher than the 49 percent in January 2007. Only 11 percent said their quality of life is better now while 35 percent said it stayed the same.
Most of those who said they are worse off now than three years ago came from Class E (62 percent) and Mindanao (60 percent), followed by those from Metro Manila and the Visayas (55 percent), Class D (52 percent), Luzon (49 percent), and Class ABC (42 percent).
About two in three or 65 percent believe that their countrymen are also worse off compared to the past three years. Last January, the figure was at 63 percent.
Most of those who shared this view came from Mindanao (76 percent), and among the socioeconomic classes, Class E (69 percent). The others are: Metro Manila (67 percent), Class D (65 percent), Visayas (64 percent), Class ABC (61 percent), and Luzon (60 percent).
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye had expressed confidence that the economy will determine the results of the forthcoming elections because of the "tide of optimism and hope for the future" that is building up among the people.
"The economy is the overriding substantive element in this campaign not the hype, the negatives or the noise. We are confident that on this basis, combined with the wellspring of support from the local leaders and benefited communities, the people will vote for unity, more investments and jobs and the continuity of social payback and reforms," he said. – Regina Bengco
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 8:57 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
There is a need for you to be rational about this. We are better under Gloria's presidency. Your opinion or mine? My basis is strong economic indicators.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 6:32 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Income Gap Widens: RP’s Wealthiest Grew Richer Under Arroyo Term
by Diwata Lingsak (no login)
Income Gap Widens: RP’s Wealthiest Grew Richer Under Arroyo Term
Written by IBON Media
Thursday, 12 April 2007
The gap between the unimaginable wealth of the country’s richest families and the poorest households highlights the yawning income inequalities that further widened under the Arroyo administration, according to independent think-tank IBON Foundation.
The richest 20% of the population account for 53% of the income pie while the bottom 20% get only 4.63.
The poorest 30% of the country’s families, some 4.9 million, had a combined income of P177 billion, according to the 2003 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). This was half of the total net worth of the Philippines’ richest: Jaime Zobel and his family, Lucio Tan and Henry Sy. According to Forbes magazine, as of Feb. 2007 the three had a total net worth of $7.5 billion or P360 billion (at P48:$1).
From 1985, the share of the poorest 60% of the population fell by 1.8 percentage points while the richest 20% were able to increase their share by another 1.2 percentage points.
“This is a vivid example of the skewed income distribution prevailing in the country, which has worsened since 1985,” said IBON executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman. She added that the income of the richest 10% of the country’s households is 21 times that of the poorest 10 percent.
Guzman said the reason for such inequality was the not the failure of so-called economic growth to ‘trickle down’ to the poor, but the monopoly of ownership of the country’s productive assets, such as land and capital, in the hands of a relative few families. This denies the poor the ability to improve their lot even as the rich continue to get richer.
This is illustrated by looking at the country’s poorest sectors– marginal peasants, small fisherfolk, the urban poor– who all suffer from extreme marginalization and exclusion from economic resources and the common goods.
Unless there is more equitable access to economic assets, the poverty situation in the country will not improve, and indeed, can only get worse, Guzman said.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 11:30 PM from IP address 149.9.0.56
It's the economy stupid! Asian Development Bank suggested that massive industrialization to sustain growing workforce and unemployment. Philippines became seller of finished products from China, India, Japan, Korea and other Asian nations. Gloria Arroyo and Fidel Ramos are supporters of free trade.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 7:45 PM from IP address 208.66.69.251
China unilaterally decided to go the way of the West. There is not a piece of evidence to suggest that it was ADB's idea.
In any case, any institution proposing for massive industrialization (you call it massive, granted) cannot be questioned for ill intention or manipulation. That is somewhat a malicious premise. That Western countries that went the way of industrialization cause unemployment is a wrong observation.
The virtues of industrialization is inherent in industrialization itself. It is a necessity as a result of hard work and manual drudgery and low productivity. We cannor put a disadvantage or diminished value in terms of even a materialistic dialectic on industrialization or any economic system for that matter. Both capitalist and communist countries have industrialized. It is the vanguard of their progress and the only reason for their ideology to fluorish and survive. Indeed, it is the REASON FOR BOTH.
For any to support free trade does not equate free trade to personality and party politics. Free trade is free trade. Better study the ONTA of the idea. Its a priori consequence from an a posteriori premise could be ascertained as positive in any philosophic system. Experience in any ideology attest that the system works.
Unemployment is an economic definition. Are you looking for a job? Then you cannot really be considered as unemployed. Do you employ yourself? Then you are not unemployed. The idea of unemployment is colored by notions of politicking and ideology and on that ground, people maintained their position that nothing is going on. Nihilism has lazy thinkers for their fans.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 11:18 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
What Industrialization In the Philippines? No Way Amigo!
by Gabrielle Monte (no login)
The United States thru the World Bank and IMF dictates industrialization policy in the Philippines. Neocolonial state status is embeded in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The provision literally prohibits an industrialization strategy based on the heavy industries, like steel, chemicals, machine tools and machine production.
The Roots of Crisis: A Neo-Colonial State*
The sovereign nationhood was pure fiction because the colonial power which supposedly returned to us the independence which it had wrested from Bonifacio's revolution never really left and never really allowed us to exist and act as a free and sovereign people.
BY ALEJANDRO LICHAUCO
Posted by Bulatlat
Any attempt to understand the essence and roots of the nation's crisis must begin with recognition of the nature of the Philippine state. The Philippines isn't - and one must stress that - a sovereign, independent state that it is assumed to be and which its constitution claims it is.
A neocolonial state
The Philippines is a neocolonial state - which, by definition, means a state that is sovereign and independent in theory but which in fact is the colony of another, or of others. As a people, we are the classic victim of what Webster's New World Dictionary calls neocolonialism and which it defines as "the exploitation of a supposedly independent nation as by imposing a puppet government."
This has been so from the day and moment that we assumed the status of sovereign nationhood in 1946. That sovereign nationhood was pure fiction. It was pure fiction because the colonial power which supposedly returned to us the independence which it had wrested from Bonifacio's revolution never really left and never really allowed us to exist and act as a free and sovereign people.
The process by which we have been preserved as a neocolony is a story of its own, and neither time nor space allows that I deal with it in detail. It should suffice to focus on the essentials of that process. We have been preserved as a neocolonial state through the flagrant and systematic intervention of the U.S. government in our political process and in the creation of a collaborator class.
Neocolonialist intervention, of course, hasn't been confined to the political process. You see and feel the hand of that intervention in just about every aspect of Philippine society and the political economy. You see and feel it not only in government and politics but in the business community, in our schools, civil society, media and even the churches.
But the intervention has been most crucial and fatal at the level of our presidential politics. As the late and former President Diosdado Macapagal admitted in an article he wrote for the Bulletin a few years before he passed away, the U.S. government has been a decisive factor in every presidential election since 1935, and no presidential aspirant objectionable to Washington has ever been elected president. By the same token, any sitting president who manages to displease Washington invariably winds up unseated by Washington. That has been generally the fate of all incumbent presidents. They were mounted to office by Washington and eventually unseated by Washington.
That's how puppet governments are mounted and that's essentially how we have been preserved as a neocolonial state.
But that's for another paper. At the moment we are focused on the economic crisis.
The fiscal crisis: a diversionary issue
The fiscal crisis, which you invited me to discuss, is in truth only one of the many facets of the economic crisis that grips the nation. There is the crisis of the peso, the crisis of unemployment and inflation; there is the crisis of the industrial and agricultural sectors, and there is the overall crisis of underdevelopment and poverty.
There is the crisis of the very economic system by which we have lived all these years.
To be lured into a discussion of the fiscal crisis therefore is to be lured away from a discussion of the totality of the crisis and the nature as well as the root of that crisis. And that I suggest to you is exactly what the enemies of the state intend. They intend to lure us away from an examination of the total crisis and to trivialize that crisis by luring us into a discussion of what they call the "fiscal-debt crisis."
But it is the essence and root of the total economic crisis that we should focus on.
The economic crisis of a neocolonial state
If we have a total economic crisis in our hands - a crisis whose most visible and terrifying manifestation is the mass hunger, and not only the mass poverty, that now grips the land and which government itself has acknowledged - it is because in this post-industrial age, we remain a nation of 80 million mired in the pre-industrial stage of history.
The question is: Why have we remained stuck in the pre-industrial age of history when neighbors once more impoverished and backward than we are have either graduated, or are dramatically in the process of graduating, into the age of science and industry?
And the answer is that it has been planned that way. From the beginning, it was planned in Washington that the Philippines shall remain essentially a raw material economy in order to service the raw material requirements of an industrial Japan.
The Dodds Report
In 1946, the Truman administration adopted the recommendation of the report which proposed that Japan be developed as the primary, if not sole, industrial powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific region and that countries like the Philippines should be preserved as raw material economies, obviously to service the requirements of Japan's factories.
As the Asia-Pacific war came to a close, the U.S. obviously made a fateful decision to utilize Japan as the base from which to project U.S. military power, and that required the development of Japan as an industrial powerhouse. But since Japan is a nation bereft of natural resource, the plan obviously required that countries like the Philippines be preserved as raw material economics to ensure Japan with a continuing and permanent source of raw material.
We owe our knowledge of the Dodds Report to the late Salvador Araneta who, during his self-exile in Canada during the martial law years, uncovered the existence of the document and denounced it in his book America's Double-Cross of the Philippines.
These were Araneta's denunciatory words, as he explained the failure of the nation to industrialize: "The indifferent economic development of the country ... was due to America's policy toward Japan and the Philippines. This policy was the result of the Dodds Report which Truman accepted and which had as its objective to make Japan the industrial workshop of Asia and the Philippines a mere supplier of raw materials."
As Araneta bitterly continued: "We do not argue against the wisdom of providing Japan with the means to rehabilitate herself and allowed to become an industrial country once again, although this was contrary to the prior recommendation of a post-war planning committee headed by Secretary Morgenthau, a recommendation which was in line with the prevailing sentiment at the end of the war. But certainly we can argue against a policy that would make Japan the exclusive industrialized country in the Far East, for such a policy was most detrimental to the Philippines. Indeed, the United States could not justify a policy that provided all kinds of stumbling blocks, to the industrialization of her ally (Philippines) in the war against Japan. As a result of this policy, industrialization in the Philippines suffered severe setbacks…”
It was a division of labor, or of functions, which the Dodds, Report crafted for America's allies in the Far East.
The Dodds Report explains the continuing obsession to this day of U.S. foreign policy to keep the Philippines a free and open market for imports because a liberal import policy - another name for free trade - ensures that this country will never be able to industrialize and take the same protectionist, nationalistic developmental strategy that enabled once poorer neighbors like Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, to transform into the newly
industrialized countries that they are today.
The geopolitical plan embodied in the Dodds Report explains what the late Claro M. Recto described as "America's anti?industrialization policy for the Philippines."
Although Recto had no knowledge of the existence of the Dodds Report at the time - its existence would surface only in the 1970s after Araneta exposed it - his enormous analytical power enabled him to deduce from policy statements of U.S. officials that behind U.S. policy in this country was a malevolent design to see to it that we never industrialize.
Conclusive proof of what Recto described as America's "anti-industrialization policy for the Philippines" came when Marcos formally launched an industrialization program in the late ‘70s based on 11 heavy industries led by the steel, petrochemical and engineering industries.
The announcement of that plan was swiftly followed by protest from the IMF and the World Bank and the pro-American technocrats in the Marcos cabinet led by no less than his then Prime Minister.
In the end, after four years of struggle with the IMF, the World Bank and his own technocrats over his industrialization plan, Marcos gave up the plan but not until after he had expressly denounced a conspiracy between his own technocrats and the IMF-WB to keep the Philippines under the heels of the industrial powers.
Soon after his election to the presidency, Joseph Estrada in an interview with Asiaweek confirmed that the U.S. has indeed sabotaged the industrialization plan of Marcos.
The U.S. anti-industrialization policy for the Philippines is what those IMF conditionalities are really about. The anti-industrialization policy has been implemented all these years through the IMF conditionalities and it isn't any coincidence that for the last forty years this country has been under the continuous economic supervision of the IMF. There is no country in the world that can claim to be under the supervision of the IMF for even a fraction of that time.
And it isn't coincidence either that this country, which has been under the continuous supervision of the IMF for 40 years, is the only country in the region that isn't making any headway toward industrialization.
When the Asean was founded in the early 160s by the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, not a single one of them was an NIC.
Today, only the Philippines remains outside the magic circle of NICs. The four other co-founders of the Asean are now acknowledged NICs.
That should explain why the Philippines has the longest and oldest communist
insurgency in the region.
A nation of 80 million without even the capability to produce a decent hammer or a decent toy gun can't possibly have any future except hunger.
We are today a hungry people in a land so fertile that one can drop a seed anywhere and see it sprout into something he can eat. And we are hungry because we are a nation frozen by design in the pre-industrial age, preserved as a raw material economy.
The essence and root of our crisis, to stress, are to be found in the nature of the Philippines as a neocolonial state preserved by U.S. post-war imperialism as a raw material economy to service the raw material requirements of an industrial Japan.
The treason of the Edsa Constitution
The ultimate tragedy of a neocolonial state is that even its own Constitution becomes an instrument of its own and perpetual enslavement.
And the Philippine case is a classic illustration.
I invite your attention to Art. XII, Sec. 1, par. 2 of the Constitution which reads as follows: "The State shall promote industrialization and full employment based on sound agricultural development and agrarian reform through industries that make full and efficient use of human and natural resources, and which are competitive in both domestic and foreign markets. However, the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign competition and trade practices.”
That provision you will note automatically prohibits an industrial policy based on the heavy industries and the application of protectionist measures against foreign competition, whether fair or unfair.
While the provision stipulates that the "State shall promote industrialization" it simultaneously qualifies that constitutional directive with an entire complex of conditions and limiting reservations which makes it impossible for the State to adopt any industrialization strategy other than one that is specifically and exclusively based on "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform" whatever that means.
For example, the provision literally prohibits an industrialization strategy based on the heavy industries, like steel, chemicals, machine tools and machine production. But that's precisely the kind of strategy that made NICS of our neighbors.
Our neighbors - particularly South Korea and Taiwan - didn't transform into newly- industrialized countries through the industrialization strategy explicitly mandated by the above-cited provision of our Constitution. Those countries, imitating Japan, pursued an industrialization strategy anchored on the development of industries based on and moved by machine power rather than on "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform."
A real industrialization program is one that is based on what is known as the capital goods industry - industries based on machine power and the production of what is known as the means of production.
Any other industrialization program can only be a program based on light consumer industries that are totally dependent on industrial raw material and industrial machines produced by the industrialized countries.
You will further note that the constitutional provision insists that industries should be competitive in both the domestic and foreign markets. With that provision, there is hardly any industry that can qualify for government support and protection, and that is precisely what the provision intends. That provision serves as justification for our reckless entry into GATT and the equally reckless accelerated tariff reduction program of the
government - programs which have contributed heavily to the bankruptcy of National Steel Corporation, the closure of Caltex refinery and the financial problems of an enterprise like Hacienda Luisita, all of whom have attributed their crisis to the flood of imports unleashed by the government's commitments to the WTO.
No country rose from rags to riches through industrialization by exposing its industries to foreign competition the way we have done. Examine the industrial policies of the Asian NICs and you will see how protective those policies are of their basic industries, even if these are not competitive in the foreign markets.
While the constitutional provision does provide that the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign competition, it doesn't define what unfair foreign competition means. For example, we have exposed our agricultural sector to competition from subsidized agricultural imports, but the authorities don't consider that a contravention of the Constitution. The result is that even the agricultural sector has been marginalized. Apparently, the authorities see nothing wrong with pitting our farmers, most of whom hardly made it to sixth grade, with the corporate farmers of the industrial countries, who do their farming with the aid of satellites.
The authorities must be reminded that any underdeveloped economy struggling to industrialize would have to protect its basic industries from foreign competition, whether fair or unfair. To insist that even infant industries should be competitive in the foreign markets would be tantamount to killing these infant industries from the start.
The question is: Why did the authors of the present Constitution feel it necessary to qualify the industrialization mandate with the kind of restrictions they placed on it?
And the answer is that the authors of the cited provision were the very elements who had opposed the heavy industrialization program launched by Ferdinand Marcos in 1979. The Marcos industrial program was based the establishment of industries driven by machine power and not - repeat, not - by "sound agricultural development and agrarian reform" as stipulated by the present Constitution.
In brief, no less than the Constitution has become the barrier to the real industrialization of our economy. Under the "industrialization" provision of the Charter there isn't any way that this country can transform into a newly industrialized country or NIC. Which means that there isn't any way we can get out of the poverty trap which has now mutated into a hunger crisis.
Article XII, Sec. 1 Par. 2 of the Constitution is the best evidence of our status as neocolonial state. It is also the ultimate weapon which ensures that the anti-industrialization agenda of the Dodds Report will remain unchallenged by any government elected under the present charter.
If by some miracle we should have a government tomorrow bent on industrializing the economy by adopting the same industrial policies that have made industrialized countries of our neighbors, such a government would run afoul of the Constitution.
What then is to be done?
Complete the unfinished nationalist revolution of Bonifacio.
What needs to be done is clearly to forge a national coalition of forces committed to recovering the sovereignty which American imperialism wrested from Bonifacio's revolution and to transform the Philippines from the neocolonial state that it is to the truly sovereign and independent state that it claims to be and should be.
Only when the Philippines becomes a truly sovereign and independent state can it then proceed to pursue the kind of developmental policies necessary to lift the economy out of the pre-industrial age of history and to catapult it to the ranks of newly industrialized countries.
Three processes that should be unleashed if social peace is to be achieved.
Such a coalition could be forged on the basis of a program that would unleash three vital processes, namely: The process of decolonization, the process of industrialization and the process of economic democratization.
Only when these three processes are unleashed simultaneously, through a program of government crafted specifically for that purpose, can the nation begin the journey towards social peace. The reason is that social peace can only come with social justice and economic democracy. But social justice and economic democracy can come about only if there is economic development, and economic development can come about only with an industrial revolution which in turn can come about only with national independence.
I propose accordingly that no time be lost organizing a national coalition based on a program that would unleash the three processes of de-colonization, industrialization and economic democratization.
In 1986, I proposed such a program to the then ongoing Constitutional Commission - which that body completely ignored. I now propose that that program be adopted as a working basis of dialogue among all elements in Philippine society determined to transform the Philippines into a truly sovereign and independent state so that it may proceed with the war on mass poverty and thereby pave the way for the much longed social peace which has long eluded us.
That program is embodied in a slim volume I authored titled Towards a New
Economic Order and the Conquest of Mass Poverty, and which I incorporate by reference in this paper. That program, incidentally, is a synthesis of the basic principles found in the program of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism and the Vatican encyclicals which condemn laissez-faire capitalism and justify on moral grounds the principle of state activism in the economy.
Along with the program outlined in Towards a New Economic Order and the Conquest of Mass Poverty, I recommend the adoption, as a working basis of dialogue, an emergency program of government proposed by the Citizens Committee on the National Crisis last January, which I also incorporate by way of reference.
We must complete Bonifacio's unfinished revolution if we are to face up to the crisis that has made this only Christian nation in Asia a humanitarian disaster, where 80 percent of Filipino households live under hunger conditions. The imperatives of national survival and the revolution against hunger which has now overtaken us call for nothing less than the revolutionary nationalism which forged Filipinos into one nation.
Only when the country commits itself to a program of government that would unleash the three processes of de-colonization, industrialization and economic democratization can it begin the march toward social peace because only a government committed to the unleashing of those three processes would have the credibility to deal with the insurgents and the secessionists.
That is one way of saying that the road to social peace begins with the struggle to regain the sovereignty and independence which U.S. imperialism stole from Bonifacio's revolution.
That sovereignty and independence should be recovered at all cost if we are to survive as a viable society.
One final and concluding note.
Debt repudiation
There isn't any way we can proceed to retrieve our sovereignty and independence unless we first repudiate the foreign debt. The repudiation of that debt should be the starting point of any genuine effort at national independence and sovereignty.
I have written the Senate a letter-memorandum outlining the case for unconditional debt repudiation and I incorporate that letter-memorandum to this paper by way of reference.
I suggest that the Pilgrims for Peace initiate a signature campaign urging the Senate to adopt the letter-memorandum for debt repudiation. Such a campaign could well serve as the catalyst for a nationwide coalition that would complete the unfinished revolution.
The principal contradiction
The contradiction between colonialism and nationalism remains the principal contradiction of Philippine society. To the resolution of that contradiction all other contradictions should be subordinated.
The road to peace starts with that. It starts with the drive to eliminate colonialism in all its forms and from whatever source.
Recto, the consummate Filipino nationalist and Mao, the consummate Chinese Communist, will shake hands on that. Posted by Bulatlat
* Paper for the Pilgrims for Peace Forum
Quezon City
Oct. 27, 2004
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:09 PM from IP address 66.254.102.58
Nice long post, you are off the mark but it is not relevant
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
Your response is out of context.
However, your current discussion is old. It is not relevant today. In view of the presentation regarding the choices of leaders, one fact you did not consider. We have always cheated on the ballot and therefore we always overruled any principled assertion by the Americans, if I were to presume that the Americans really wanted it that way. But look, nationalism that you are talking about is somewhat non-existent, so I could say that you are merely arguing a priori, from your thesis and you assume that your thesis is it in the first place. You do need to prove however that such a relational dialectic between colonialism and nationalism could be argued from your issues presented. You are building a straw man and you attacked your own issue without relevance to what I was trying to say.
This is the problem I have with every propaganda in the Philippines. There are straw men presented, an allusion to an allegory of good and evil, communism vs. capitalism, labor vs. management, etc. Those scenarios were made and created before the dialectic struggle were imposed on the grassroots. We have to be made political structures of the West before we are torn down. This is superficial ideologue and class struggle because propagandists need to build before they destroy them.
I need something more relevant to Filipinos from your statements or any presentation. Any ideologue that is not reflective of our people's aspirations and aberrations is bound to fail.
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 6:12 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Abarte does not understand "sustain growing workforce and unemployment"
by Napanice (no login)
See, he mentions China's programs but not the Philippine programs to develop its industrial base. Clearly he does not understand the need for industrialization when there are jobs for Filipinos waiting overseas.
Nap
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 8:32 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
What the heck industrialization you are talking about when Arroyo government is the largest rice importer in Asia? The Philippines cannot feed its population due to non-productive agriculture sector. Self-reliance in food production is the key element to industrialization. Hungry workers are inefficient as matter of fact.
The Philippines is now Asia's largest rice importer as a result of agricultural trade liberalization coupled with state neglect, and this threatens the country's food security and sufficiency.
Data from the National Food Authority showed that from 1984 to 1994, the country imported an annual average of 151,588 metric tons (MT) of rice. But from 1995,when the Philippines became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to 2006, rice importation shot up to an annual average of over 1 million MT, a 587% increase.
Trade liberalization has also worsened the problem of small-scale palay farmers in the country, which government has failed to address. Rice farmers continue to be saddled with problems such as high production costs, low palay prices, inadequate irrigation and other facilities, and inaccessible credit. It is thus not surprising that rice production has not increased significantly over the past decade.
The urgency of the problem requires collective action on the part of rice farmers and other concerned sectors in order to preserve Asian farmers' traditional rice culture. Farmers' groups recently concluded the Week of Rice Action campaign, which brought together farmers, local communities and other concerned groups to discuss and highlight the value of rice culture and ecological agriculture, as well as threats of landlessness and genetically modified rice.
Rice is a staple food of Filipinos and the country should have the self-reliance to produce it. Instead of reactive and short-term feeding programs, the government should address the problems of farmers and other food producers in order to increase productivity and ensure the country's food security. IBON
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:34 PM from IP address 75.18.224.230
CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS 700 MILLION SQUARE METERS OF RP LAND
MANILA, APRIL 4, 2007 (STAR) By Katherine Adraneda - Some 700 million square meters of land in the Philippines may be submerged gradually as the global average temperature rises and causes sea levels to rise, a study by an international environment group revealed yesterday.
In a press conference, Greenpeace released the briefing paper entitled "The Philippines: A Climate Hotspot," which presents an overview of how extreme weather conditions threaten people, the economy, the different species and ecosystems.
The Greenpeace study discloses "never-before seen maps" that illustrate the extent of the impact of climate change in the Philippines.
"As experts predict climate change impacts to worsen in the coming decades, the question is how much will the country be affected? Unfortunately, what we have discovered is that the stakes are much higher than what we have originally imagined," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia climate and energy campaigner Abigail Jabines.
Jabines said their study revealed that "the entire Philippines is a climate hotspot" and the country is "vulnerable to the worst manifestations of climate change."
"And unless this disaster is averted, the costs in human lives and economic losses will continue to rise to catastrophic proportions," she added.
Based on the maps shown, climate change can "irrevocably alter" the country’s coastline.
Conservative estimates from Greenpeace predict that a one-meter rise in sea level may affect 64 of the country’s 81 provinces, which cover at least 703 of the 1,610 municipalities, and submerge almost 700 million square meters of land, including islets, across the country.
The one-meter rise in sea level, which Greenpeace attributed to thermal expansion, sets aside the melting of ice sheets of the Greenland and West Antarctica, which would pose an additional two- to four-meter increase in sea level.
Greenpeace said that certain portions of the land in the 703 municipalities may be submerged in water by 2095 to 2100.
"A one-meter rise in global sea level can occur sooner with the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets if global carbon dioxide emissions are not immediately curbed," Jabines said.
"In a worst case scenario of complete melting of the ice sheets, global sea level is projected to rise between seven to 12 meters," she added.
The Greenpeace study also identified the top 20 provinces in the country, which are vulnerable to a one-meter rise in sea level. These are Sulu, Palawan, Zamboanga del Sur, Northern Samar, Zamboanga Sibugay, Basilan, Cebu, Davao del Norte, Bohol, Camarines Sur, Quezon, Tawi-Tawi, Masbate, Negros Occidental, Camarines Norte, Capiz, Catanduanes, Samar, Zamboanga del Norte, and Maguindanao.
Greenpeace said that Sulu has the highest land area that is vulnerable to a one-meter eustatic rise in sea level at 79.7 million square meters.
The group predicted that 90 percent of the land area of the municipality of Pata in the province, and 34 percent of the land area of the municipality of Marunggas are vulnerable to a one-meter rise in sea level. In Palawan, Greenpeace said that 64.2 million square meters of land are vulnerable.
Greenpeace pointed out the threats posed by the eustatic rise in ocean level to human settlements, tourist hubs, and vital ecosystems such as estuaries, mangroves, and coral reefs.
World Heritage sites in the Philippines such as the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park and Tubbataha Reefs Marine Park are susceptible to inundation and storm surges.
The group likewise noted that sea level rise also provides a higher base for storm surges due to typhoons, which increases the destructiveness of floods and storms to coastal settlements and infrastructure such as piers and ports.
"As a developing country with very little access to vital resources, the Philippines has a low ability to adapt and a lower ability to cope with disasters brought about by climate change impacts," Jabines said.
Another grim reality
Climate change not only exacerbates the country’s socio-economic and environment problems, it also threatens the country’s rich cultural heritage, as well as some of the rarest and most diverse fragile ecosystems in the world.
"And grimmer still is the fact that climate change will amplify the socio-diverse burdens already shouldered by Filipino families, such as hunger and water scarcity," Jabines added.
Because of these, Greenpeace urged the government "to take greater leaps toward lasting solution," and to anticipate and face the worst impacts of climate change.
Greenpeace said the government should immediately implement measures that would take into account how local governments can prepare through effective coping strategies and disaster preparedness.
They said that the Philippines must also embrace renewable energy and promote energy efficiency to cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2050.
Greenpeace pressed the government to implement policy mechanisms like Renewable Energy Bill to initiate the change.
"The government must start reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for its energy source. The government must choose an energy development path built on clean and renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency to pave the way for a truly secure and sustainable future," Jabines said.
The Greenpeace paper was released ahead of the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Brussels this Friday, which updates its assessment of the global impacts of climate change.
Last February, the IPCC concluded that the occurrence of global warming was due to human activities.
The United Nations report also said that more drought, heat waves, floods and stronger hurricane, rapid melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels could be expected in the coming years if the temperature continues to go up.
The IPCC predicted the global average of surface temperature to rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Centigrade by 2100.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 1:07 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
"Last February, the IPCC concluded that the occurrence of global warming was due to human activities."
Is that it? What are these "human activities" and how come these scientists are not reporting about stopping them to stop the doomsday scenario? This is nothing but a scam to get more funding for their research.
Nap
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 9:27 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Napanice, you saw the pictures of the Arctic ice. Any person with common sense and level understanding has seen the Arctic Ice gone. The Antartic is melting away and geologists are predicting that the continent will break up. Don't dismiss the issue as it is a matter of life and death.
Do you think I receive funding for telling you this? What a stupid irresponsible reply you have.
Forget your politics and care for every Filipino who will be displaced in the next 20 years, including your children, if you have one. Or, are you an old spinster?
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 6:02 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Stupid you say? If you really care you would seek out these "human activities" responsible for global warming and start posting them here so something can be done to stop it. Obviously you have no idea what that article is talking about so you just keep referring to it blindly.
You're the stupid one for trying to start a panic situation without even trying to provide a solution to the problem. Not only stupid, irresponsible too.
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 8:20 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Global warming started in 19th century where industrial revolution took place.
Fossil fuels, methane and other gases produces carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by factories, transportations and others. Presence of dusts also increases.
The mechanism of our atmosphere is that gases like CO2 and methane trap some of the sun's radiation and hold it in the lower atmosphere (which is the earth where we live) and thus, increases the temperature in the lower atmosphere.
The recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is 200 times as great as any previous change seen. The current level is 380 parts per million, the highest in more than 650,000 years.
The danger of global warming is greater than the danger of terrorism.
How do we fight global warming? Take a bath 2 times a day.huh!
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 9:37 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
There's no such thing as certainty in the science of buoyancy. You either prove your doomsday prediction using scientific evidence and methods or you will be branded a rumormonger.
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 8:48 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
The only way to save yourself and your families : Reside or build your house above sea level to make sure your safety. At least 50 feet or highest above sea level in my opinion. The Question : Can you convince effectively other people to do the same what you are doing??? You know how stubborn, stupid and lack of reasoning people are....population willl laugh at you and don't believe you at all? What can you say?
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 2:05 PM from IP address 69.106.49.247
Ginawa ko ang sulat na ito para sa kabatiran ng lahat, para mabigyan na rin ng hustistya ang marami nating kasamahan sa kalsada. Ang mga kaawaawa nating traffic enforcer, alam nyo ba na halos karamihan sa mga taong ito ay sumusweldo lamang ng higit sa P150 hanggang P250 isang araw, sila yung mga contractual employee na tinatawag, ngunit mas bilad sa arawan at hirap sa trabaho.... Yung mga tinatawag nilang BOSS eh, yun ang may mataas na sweldo at nasa loob lang ng de aircon na kwarto.... Sila na tunay na katulong natin sa kalsada ngunit mukhang hindi napapansin ng Gobyerno natin, at miski tayo na nakapaligid sa kanila at kanilang pinagsisilbihan ang tingin lang natin sa kanila ay mga buwaya ng lansangan. Minsan naisip ko kung may magandang sweldo kaya ang mga taong ito, marami pa rin kaya ang mga buwayang nakapaligid sa atin. Bakit hindi magawan ng solusyon ng Gobyerno ang problemang ito, nakikita kaya nila ang hirap sa mukha ng mga taong ito. Kailan ba napapansin ng Gobyerno ang mga taong ito? tuwing mamemedia sila na nangongotong sa kalsada, tuwing mairereport na nanghihingi ng lagay sa mga pasaway na driver, sa mga makukulit na pedestrian na ayaw sumunod sa batas at dinadaan na lang sa pag-aalok ng lagay sa mga traffic enforcer natin. Alam nyo ba na may tinatawag silang kota tuwing makakahuli sila ng mga pasaway, pag dumaan sa legal ang panghuhuli sa inyo at kayo'y natikitan nila papasok sa opisina nila ang inyong multa, at ang masaklap yung mga nasa loob na ng opisina ang maghahatian ng inyong multa. (Take note: may napupunta naman daw sa kaban ng ating bayan) sila na sumunod sa patakaran, wala kahit pang kape man lang, kaya tuloy imbes na idiretso sa opisina inaayos na sa kalye, at pagminalas malas kaibigan ni hepe ang pasaway yari na. wala kang pagpipilian dalhin mo man ng opisina o kahit hindi mo hulihin patay ka pa rin kay hepe. Kaya dito sa Pinas pag may nahuli kang pasaway, ang unang tanong ng enforcer, taga saan ka? mahirap na baka bestfriend ni Hepe. Pero siyempre hindi naman lahat ay ganon may nagtitis kahit paano, sila yung mga wala ng sinusweldo pagdating ng akinse, kasi naibenta na,( hanep talaga sa Pinas, pati yung konting sweldo ng mga kawawang ito pinagnenegosyuhan, pag P2000 ang swelduhin nila P1800 na lang ibibigay sau ng mga predator na nagpapautang na ito, Syempre malinaw na tubo agad iyon at ang masklap nito kulong na sila sa sitwasyon na iyon hanggat may prinsipyo sya ). Kailan kaya mapapansin ng Gobyerno natin ang kalagayan nila, pag nahubaran na sila ng prinsipyo at dignidad... Pag nagwala na sa gutom ang mga kaawa awa nilang pamilya. O pag puti ng uwak? Mukhang mas posible pang pumuti ang uwak kaysa mapansin sila...... Sana kaibigan sino ka man tulungan mo akong sumigaw para sa kanila, ng mabigyan na ng hustisya ang kalagayan nila at ng mawala na ang buwaya ng ating kalsada.... Salamat sa inyo na nagbigay ng pansin na basahin ang liham na ito.....
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:55 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
Ang kahirapan ay hindi dahilan para gumawa ng masama at lalong hindi dapat na isisi sa iba o sa gobyerno.
Maraming pilipino ang umahon sa kahirapan ng dahil sa pagsisikap, andyan si Villar, Pacquiao, Efren, Davide At marami pang iba. Merun akong kakilalang pulis na dahil sa pagsisikap ay napatapos ang 3 anak sa kolehiyo at ngayun ay nasa negosyo.
Ang kahirapan ay dapat tratuhin na isang sakit na dapat ay masugpo ng mismong may sakit. Kung ikaw ay pinanganak sa isang magulang na mahirap ay dapat mung ihinto ang kahirapan sa henerasyon mo o kung hindi man ay sa henerasyon ng magiging anak mo.Sikaping makatapos ka ng pagaaral o ang anak mo. Ang gobyerno ay nagbibigay ng libreng pagaaral hangang high school at ang gobyerno ay may limitasyon sa pagtulong sa bawat kanyang mamamayan.
Sana ay tapusin na ng maraming pilipino ang pagpapantasya na ang kahirapan ay hindi sa kanila galing. Ihinto na nila ang paggawa ng bata na ang isipan ay isa dito sa madami kong anak ay yayaman.
Tigilan na natin ang pagtingin sa sarili natin na tayo ay api, magsikap na makatapos ng pagaaral dahil yun lang ang siguradong paraan para makahulagpos sa sakit na kahirapan.
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 4:07 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Tama ka sa mga sinabi mo, ngunit paanonaman ang mga kababayan nating napagkakaitan ng pag-asa at katarungan, tulad na lang halimbawa ng mga govt employee natin na talaga namang masisipag at masikap sa kanilang mga trabaho ngunit hindi napapansin ng mga nakakataas sa kanila bagkus ang mga napopromote pa eh, yung mga kamag anak nilang mga pasaway, alam mo ba na totoo ang mga ghost employee sa gobyerno, kadalasan pa nga sila ang may magandang posisyon dito. Ngunit hindi naman nagbibigay ng tunay na serbisyo publiko, ang sabi ko nga sa kaibigan ko sa munisipyo, umalis na sya doon at wala namang mangyayari sa kanya, kahit anong gawin nya, hindi niya maaalis ang katotohanan na wala syang pader na masasandalan doon. Ilang taon na syang nagtatrabaho dito ngunit ni hindi man lang tumataas ang kanyang posisyon. Alam mo kung ano ang sinagot nya sa akin, Sino pa raw ang magsisilbi ng tapat sa mga kababayan natin kung aalis sya, konti na nga lang naman silang matino mawawalan pa ng isa... SA palagay mo san pupulutin ang kaibigang kong ito.. ( Take note: pare matalino naman sya at kung gugugstuhin nyang yumaman ay napakadali, lalo na sa departamentong pinapasukan nya ). Hindi kaya Prinsipyo na at Dignidad ang sagabal para yumaman.... kailangan na kaya natin itong tanggalin?....
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:03 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
Totoo lahat yan, ghost employees, corrupt officials, palakasan system. Hindi lang ang kaibigan mo ang may ganyang hinaing, madami na nasa gobyerno na matitino ang may ganyang problema, kaya paano susugpuin yan? Dapat may epektibong solusyon, hindi ba? Yung epektibo, hindi lang sigaw ng sigaw.
Para sa akin mali ang sistema na ang pagsigaw ay laging nakatuon sa ating presidente, alis dyan! corrupt ka! ibagsak! pandak! palayain si satur! Ano ang resultang makukuha dyan? wala kung hindi kaguluhan lang.
Para sa akin, mas magkakaroon ng magandang bunga kung may stratehiya na epektibo at hindi masyadung makakadulot ng perwisyo sa iba pa nating mamamayan na tahimik.
Katulong ang kaibigan mo at iba pang matitino sa pamahalaan na ipinpoint ang mga tiwaling namumuno sa kanilang opisina at kumuha ng mga ebidensya, ebidensiya na nasa papel at talagang may pinanghahawakan, laban sa mga suwapang at ang ebidensya na yan ang iharap sa pangulo, at habang nasa kamay ng pangulo ay magsagawa ng pagsigaw sa mismong tanggapan ng suwapang para mapahiya.
Huwag titigil hangat merung suwapang na buwata na nakaupo, huwag matakot sapagkat kung merun tayong matibay na ebidensya, yung suwapang na buwaya ang dapat matakot.
Sa palagay ko yang stratehiya na yan ang mas epektibong paraan, kaisa ako sa paniniwala na: Habang may tiwali ay huwag manahimik, pero sa tamang paraan lang para ang ultimong resulta ay makamtan
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 3:58 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Protecting Gloria means protecting corruption and injustice.
by Napanice (no login)
Your failure to appreciate the power of the executive and her immunity from legal prosecution is probably the one reason why you keep saying she should not be blamed for all the ills in her government. But then again when something positive shows up in the news, like a stronger peso, you're quick to pin the credit to her excellency's performance.
Yeah right!
Nap
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 7:11 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Corruption is your battlecry, who is in jail for plunder? Your leader, erap. Look at the mirror and you will see the image who is corrupt.
For the first time, the government is serious in the lifestyle check, there are some pending cases in court and properties were already confiscated or sequestered.
Your group must stop feeding lies to people, you already done a lot of damage to our country and you still want to do more.
If I am superman, I will get you one by one and throw you all to outer space. The problem is, I'm not.
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 8:22 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
NOw I see, that's the reason why you will support the TU candidates because you don't think anyone of them is corrupt. What about the GO people, are they corrupt like you allegation says?
Nap
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 8:39 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
honestly, saying wala akong napala. Yah, gov't employee din ako.. ilang beses ng nakipagla ban para sa katarungan. Ginawa ko ang stratehiyang sinasabi mo pero san ako pinulot? Sa kangkungan..... buti na lang at may mga kaibigan akong naniniwala sa mga pinaglalaban ko.. kung hindi matagal na kammng namatay sa gutom ng pamilya ko... Nakakasuka ang corruption na nakikita ko.. kaya ng hindi na ako makatiis nag salita na ako, dinaan sa tama na alam ko.. pero mali pala. ilan pa kaya na katulad ko ang sasapitin ang mga ganoong pangyayari.. Buti na lang at ginawa ako ng Diyos na isang matatatag na tao.. at pinilit ko pa ring tumayo sa kabila ng lahat... Ngayon sabihin mo sa akin paano pa kami lalaban? Si Nap na sinasabi mo na laging kontra pelo sa gobyerno.... Pasalamat pa rin tau at may mga taong katulad nya na matiyaga sa mga ganitong pakikibaka, maaaring may mga pananaw sya na hindi natin maintindihan.. katulad mo at katulad ko. Pero sana tama ka magkaroon na ng isang magandang sratehiya at tamang solusyon sa lahat ng problemang ito.. dahil pagod na rin kaming sumigaw at lumaban... SALAMAT......
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 10:58 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
honestly, saying wala akong napala. Yah, gov't employee din ako.. ilang beses ng nakipagla ban para sa katarungan. Ginawa ko ang stratehiyang sinasabi mo pero san ako pinulot? Sa kangkungan..... buti na lang at may mga kaibigan akong naniniwala sa mga pinaglalaban ko.. kung hindi matagal na kammng namatay sa gutom ng pamilya ko... Nakakasuka ang corruption na nakikita ko.. kaya ng hindi na ako makatiis nag salita na ako, dinaan sa tama na alam ko.. pero mali pala. ilan pa kaya na katulad ko ang sasapitin ang mga ganoong pangyayari.. Buti na lang at ginawa ako ng Diyos na isang matatatag na tao.. at pinilit ko pa ring tumayo sa kabila ng lahat... Ngayon sabihin mo sa akin paano pa kami lalaban? Si Nap na sinasabi mo na laging kontra pelo sa gobyerno.... Pasalamat pa rin tau at may mga taong katulad nya na matiyaga sa mga ganitong pakikibaka, maaaring may mga pananaw sya na hindi natin maintindihan.. katulad mo at katulad ko. Pero sana tama ka magkaroon na ng isang magandang sratehiya at tamang solusyon sa lahat ng problemang ito.. dahil pagod na rin kaming sumigaw at lumaban... SALAMAT......
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 10:59 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
The current government is not about public service.
by Napanice (no login)
For the people, by the people and of the people may have been the theme of democracy given to us by the Americans when they granted our independence but as soon as the Filipinos took over, everything changed.
The Philippines was a prosperous country with a peso to dollar exchange rate of 2 to 1 at one time. In Asia, the Philippines was second only to Japan in economic progress and you didn't hear Filipinos talk about leaving the country to find jobs abroad. This was true up until the time of Ferdinand Marcos.
When martial law was declared, that's when the Philippine economy started to go down the drain. Because of corruption and the massive drain of money from the Central Bank the peso lost its buying power and the exchange rate started to go up. With economic chaos at the doorstep, Marcos and his Labor Secretary Blas Ople came up with an idea. There is no need to stimulate the local economy when there are plenty of professionals and skilled workers that can be exported instead of manufactured goods.
Thus by making the Filipinos a commodity like cars and electronics, the Philippines is now recognized as the inventor of the ofw. And since the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos, the subsequent administrations relied heavily on the deployment of humans to support its local economy.
But while overseas workers are earning a living, those left in the Philippines are definitely suffering from lack of governance and incompetent leadership. The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast, thanks to the remittance from abroad which only helps the businessmen but does not eliminate the worsening condition of unemployment and low wages of the average worker.
The Macapagal government has time and again turned down every attempt to raise the minimum wage because the local businesses that rely upon the peso just cannot survive from the costs of energy, rent and wages. Therefore, anyone working in the Philippines right now is faced with problems that is the result of poor governance, corruption, and incompetent leadership in their government.
Unless a new kind of leadership and better government is found, this situation will not change. In fact, it will only get worse as population increase, energy cost rise and natural resources dwindle.
Nap
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 8:09 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Paredes a breed apart from Trapos in the ’07 Election
by Pedestrian Observer (no login)
Check out the latest entry On Zosimo Paredes of Ang Kapatiran at Pedestrian Observer.
BARE THE LIST - SUBMISSION SITE FOR BOGUS PARTY LIST NOMINEES (lets do our part be vigilant and if you know any of those bogus nominee candidates submit their names at Akbayan's site)
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 3:57 PM from IP address 72.134.106.50
MOSCOW (AFP) - Riot police clubbed and detained protestors in Saint Petersburg as they left a peaceful demonstration against President Vladimir Putin, the day after mass arrests at a march in Moscow.
Up to 2,000 demonstrators from the anti-Kremlin coalition The Other Russia braved a huge police presence in the centre of Russia's second city to call for free presidential elections when Putin steps down next year.
"Revolution!" and "freedom!" they chanted.
At least 1,500 members of the security forces, including hundreds of black-helmeted OMON paramilitary police, deployed to prevent protestors from carrying out their promise to march on the mayor's office.
As the rally dispersed, police beat and detained anyone attempting to escape the security cordon.
A policeman at the scene told AFP that several dozen people had been detained.
Among them was Eduard Limonov, one of the leaders of the Russian opposition coalition The Other Russia, his spokesman told AFP.
The clashes followed a violent crackdown on a similar rally by The Other Russia in Moscow on Saturday. At least 200 people were arrested there, including opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.
Posted on Apr 15, 2007, 9:05 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
KAWAWA NAMAN ANG MGA BOTANTENG PINOY PAGKATAPOS NG ELECTION GUTOM PARIN KAYO MGA KAPATID KO DYAN SA PINAS MALUNGKOT MANG ISIPIN ANG TUNAY NA UGAT NG KAHIRAPAN AT KAGUTOMAN AY ANG MGA POLITIKO DAHIL PURO PROMISE LANG ANG MGA SALITA NILA WALA SA GAWA
KAWAWA NAMAN KAYO DYAN MGA KAPATID KO SA PINAS PAG KATAPOS NG ELECTION GUTOM PARIN SAAN BA ANG TUNAY NA AGENDA NG GOBYERNO NG PINAS SAAN BA, MAY PROGRAMA BA KAYO PARA SA MGA NAGHIHIRAP O PANG SARILI NYO LANG ANG GINAGAWA NYO MGA POLITIKO SAAN BA ANG SOURCES NYO PARA MAPA-UNLAD NYO ANG ECONOMIC SYSTEM NG PINAS SAAN BA.
KAWAWA NAMAN KAYO MGA BOTANTENG PINOY SA KAUNTING BARYA PALIT BOTO NA PAMPALIPAS GUTOM GANYAN BA KABABAW ANG PAGKATAO NG BOTANTENG PINOY PLEASE MAG-ISIP NAMAN KAYO MGA KAPATID KO SA PINAS HOY GISING NA KAYO.
MAY KARAPATAN AT LAKAS KAYONG MGA BOTATENG PINOY SA DARATING NA ELECTION PILIIN NYO ANG KABATAAN NA SENADOR WAG NYO NANG IBOTO ANG MGA MATATANDA LALO NA YANG JOKER POKER AROYO TUMANDA NA YAN SA POLITIKA WALA NAMAN NAGAWA YAN EH PLEASE LANG PO PARA SA MGA NEW GENERATION NA ITO.
INAY KO PO MAAWA NAMAN KAYO SA MGA BOTO NYO PLEASE LANG WAG NYO NANG IBOTO LAHAT NG MATATANDANG TRAPO OKEY PLEASE NAKIKIUSAP AKO SA INYOMG LAHAT NA BOTANTENG PINOY.
SALAMAT PO
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:57 PM from IP address 85.117.40.117
SORRY PO HINDI AKO BOTANTE EH BASED AKO SA GERMANY AS COMPUTER ENGINEER BUT IM REAL PINOY AND I LOVE MY COUNTRY PINAS DONT WORRY I PRAY FOR ALL THE BOTANTENG PINOY
SAYANG HINDI AKO NAKA PAG REGISTER SA OVERSEAS ABSENTEE VOTING BUSY KASI AKO SA WORK KO WALANG TIME SORRY PO ULIT HA DONT WORRY MAY MGA KAMAG-ANAK AKO SA PINAS ADVICE KO SILA OKEY
BUT CONCERN AKO SA MGA BOTANTENG PINOY HOW THEY CHOICE THERE LEADERS AND HOW THEY VOTE FOR THERE OWN
I OBSERVE THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN OUR COUNTRY EVERYDAY MALUNGKOT MAN ISIPIN WALANG PAGBABAGO SA MGA POLITIKO PURO SALITA PARIN AT PROMISE LANG
PASANSYA NA PO HA
MAG ADVICE NALANG AKO SA INYO OKEY
MABUHAY ANG BOTANTENG PINOY
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 2:06 PM from IP address 85.117.40.117
DO NOT VOTE : ANGARA-PAL
JOKER POKER ARROYO
SABIT SINGSON KAPAL MOKS
TESSIE AQUINO KUNO WAG NA UY
TITO SOTTO KAPAL MO STONG
AT LAHAT NG TUTA NI GMA ESPECIALLY YUNG MGA ASO OKEY
______________________________________________________________
VOTE FOR: 1, LEGARDA, Loren B.
2, LACSON, Panfilo M.
3, HONASAN, Gregorio B.
4, ESCUDERO, Francis Joseph G.
5, ZUBIRI, Juan Miguel F.
6, TRILLANES, Antonio IV F.
7, CAYETANO, Alan Peter S
8, AQUINO, Benigno Simeon III C
9, RECTO, Ralph G.
10, PANGILINAN, Francis N.
11, VILLAR, Manuel Jr., B.
12, PIMENTEL, Aquilino L.
THIS IS THE NEW BREED OF LAW MAKERS IN PHILIPPINE SENATE
VOTE FOR THIS LINE-UP FOR THE NEW LEADERSHIP OKEY BA YAN SA INYO MAKE YOUR CHOICE THINK ABOUT THAT
MABUHAY ANG BOTANTENG PINOY
SALAMAT PO
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 1:51 PM from IP address 85.117.40.117
PILIIN NYO NA ANG TAMANG LEADER PARA SA BAYAN NATIN
IBOTO NYO AY MGA KABATAAN PARA SA 12 SEAT IN SENATOR PLEASE LANG PO KABATAAN OKEY
DAHIL NASUBUKAN NA NATIN ANG MGA MATATANDA MAY NAGAWA BA SILA SA PAG-UNLAD NG BANSANG PINAS WALA PURO LANG SALITA KAYA NGAYON ANG PANAHON PARA MAGBAGO TAYO NG LEADER OKEY PLEASE LANG PO KABATAAN ANG IBOTO NYO SA SENADO PLEASE LANG PO
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 1:08 PM from IP address 85.117.40.117
PALACE CITES STRONG PESO, FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS (FDIs)
MANILA, APRIL 12, 2007 (STAR) By Marvin Sy - Malacañang welcomed yesterday the continued strength of the peso and the increase in foreign direct investments (FDIs) as two positive indicators showing the strength of the economy.
The peso broke into the 47-to-$1 territory for the first time in six years last Tuesday, closing at P47.95.
Net FDI, on the other hand, went up to $357 million in January this year from P237 million the previous year.
"Among many other factors, FDIs and the strong peso are boosting us," Bunye said.
Malacañang said that the strength of the peso was due to strong overseas Filipino workers’ remittances which have consistently kept the currency up in spite of various external shocks.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) also attributed the strength of the peso to heavy foreign investments in the Philippine bond and stock markets or what is more commonly known as portfolio investments or "hot money."
Unlike FDIs, portfolio investments tend to be more volatile and could be taken out of the country at the first sign of trouble.
"FDIs are markers of global confidence while the strong peso is the handiwork of Filipino excellence and patriotism exemplified by our OFWs," Bunye said.
Bunye said the government is committed to keep up the safeguards that are already in place to protect the country’s exporters from the effects of a strong peso and to drive up the tempo of domestic investments.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 1:02 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
"strong peso is the handiwork of Filipino excellence and patriotism exemplified by OFWs"
by Napanice (no login)
Bunye said it loud and clear so don't try to fool everyone by claiming it's an improvement in the economy or investment because those are mere political propagandas for the Team Unity candidates.
Nap
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 9:35 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
alam mo pare, si FG Arroyo nasa ospital, kaya malamang mas kailangan ka non ngayon doon kesa nagbababad ka dito.... Ang mga investor na sinasabi mo na dahilan ng Strong Peso eh, dahil pa rin sa mga ofw, na naghihintay ng Visa, bakit??? hindi bat laganap ngayon ang mga call center company, na nagsusulputan d2 na parang kabute.. alam mo bang kailan lang nagkayayaan kami ng mga kabarkada ko na mag applay dyan sa may ortigas, at awa ng Diyos yung kaibigan ko na galing ng japan ang nakuha kasi magaling siyang magnihonggo samantalang yung kaibigan ko na bagong graduate, tatawagan na lang daw, andami naming kasbay doon may propesor pa nga eh, putsa isipin mo yon si prof. iniwan ang mga estudyante para lang magsilbi sa mga dayuhang costumer na bebentahan mo ng kung ano-anong anik via phone patch. Lecheng buhay yan... at e2 pa yung kaibigan ko na natanggap eh, highschool graduate lang.. at hindi na rin sya bumalik doon kasi paalis na rin sya ngayon, papauntang japan, dahil di hamak na mas malaki ang sahod doon kesa d2.... at ang isa naming kawawang kaibigan kailangan pa 2loy magtraining para magkaroon daw ng accent ang language nya... kaya nga sabi ko sa kanya mag applay na lang syang Crew sa mga fastfood chain... baka ikaw may maibibigay ka sa kanyang Trabaho, i- hire mo na... Pero wag na rin, baka maging katulad mo pang, tuta ni GLORIA!!!
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 11:15 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
HA!HA!HA!HA!HA! mas masarap pa ring tumawa kaysa kumahol at malagyan ng kolar sa leeg...... pero, di bale pare tiyak masarap naman yang kinakain mong DOGFOOD.... Mayaman diba si MADAM???? ow, regards nga pala kay SIR.... Paki sabi nabili ko na sya ng MASS CARD, paki post na lang dito kung saan at kailan ko ipapadala.
Posted on Apr 14, 2007, 12:21 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
OUT OF 10 MILLION OFWS, ONLY HALF A MILLION ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE.
by Napanice (no login)
HOW CAN ANYONE CALL THE PHILIPPINES A DEMOCRACY WHEN THE MAJORITY OF THE CITIZENS OVERSEAS ARE NOT PARTICIPATING IN THE ELECTION OF THEIR LEADERS?
ABS-CBN
Overseas absentee voting to start
More than half a million overseas Filipinos will start casting their ballots Saturday with the start of the overseas absentee voting period for the Philippine senatorial and party-list elections at 88 foreign posts. The period lasts for 30 days until the close of polls in Manila on May 14.
Florentino Tuason Jr., commissioner in-charge of overseas absentee voting of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), said total worldwide registration has reached 504,122 including 18,404 seamen. Tuason said the figure includes 361,457 who registered for Philippine elections in 2003 and 142,665 new registrants.
A combination of postal and personal voting will be used for these elections.
Tuason said 34.2% of the registrants will be voting via postal mail while 65.8% will still have to go to the Philippine embassies or consulates with jurisdiction over their places of work.
Because of the distance of some overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the posts abroad, the COMELEC is open to instituting field voting centers with prior arrangements since they will have to secure the permission of the host country for this.
The poll body executive said this was the reason he will continue to push for internet voting, but for the moment the COMELEC will do with postal voting for which they signed a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine Postal Corporation (Philpost) for the handling of all outgoing and incoming ballots for overseas absentee voters in the May midterm polls.
"Voting by mail would not have been possible without the assistance of Philpost personnel and infrastructure," Tuason said.
The deal includes a special complex to service postal voting at the annex building of Philpost's main office in Manila. This includes a sorting area similar to a hospital nursery with its own "watchers' booth" separated by a glass window from the actual sorters.
Tuason said voting will be continuous, even during weekends and holidays, and will end at 3 p.m. Philippine time on May 14.
He said postal voting will be implemented in 54 overseas posts. These are: Abuja, Agana, Ankara, Baghdad, Bangkok, Berlin, Berne, Bonn, Brasilia, Brunei, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Canberra, Caracas, Chicago, Dhaka, Dili, Hamburg, Havana, Honolulu, Islamabad, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manado, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Mexico, Moscow, New York, Osaka, Ottawa, Paris, Prague, Pretoria, San Francisco, Santiago, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tel Aviv, The Hague, Tokyo, Toronto, Vancouver, Vienna, Washington, and Wellington.
The 27 posts where voters will have to personally appear to cast their ballots are: Abu Dhabi, Amman, Athens, Beijing, Beirut, Doha, Dubai, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Koror, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Nairobi, New Delhi, Al-Khobar, Macau, Port Moresby, Riyadh, Saipan, Shanghai, Tripoli, Vientiane, Xiamen, and Yangon.
There are also seven posts where modified voting by mail will be done: Geneva, Holy See, Milan, Phnom Penh, Rome, Seoul, and Tehran.
In voting by mail, ballots are mailed from the Commission on Elections to the voters' addresses. In modified voting by mail, the ballots are mailed from the embassy, consulate, labor office or economic office to the voters. In both cases, the voters mail their accomplished ballots to the Philippine posts, where these will be counted and canvassed.
wait for me tomorrow, i will revealead some news why so many traffic enforcer are being called buwaya!! ill tell all of you why they are doing that **** things. Bye for now.... sleep muna ko!!!
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 11:34 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
Iraq will be reduced in power after the US and her allies are finished with her, then Iran will pick up the pieces and gobble up Iraq, and possibly Syria, and control the majority flow of oil from middle east.
Iran will be the dominant power in the area, with the USA and Israel giving in to their demands. Russia will rise in great power again and lead the march against Israel.
The prophet Ezekiel predicted that Iran, known as Persia, together with Ethiopia, Libya and Turkey will march against Israel in the great battle of "Gog and Magog"
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 8:13 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Iraq will rise up as in the days of King Nebuchadnezar. Iraq
will be a power in the future. Iran and Russia or China needs
Iraq to cross Euphrates river and valley to invade Israel.
Right now bible scholars are not sure if its Russia or China
but for sure it will be a country with white bears from the North.
Study the Book of Daniel and the Revealation.
All of these are not simply "predictions". They
are prophecies that WILL COME TO PAST.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 10:44 AM from IP address 71.227.129.93
What's with Israel, how come even China is now pointing its guns at this state populated by the chosen people? It just makes no sense since most Chinese were Buddhists to start with.
Nap
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 1:36 PM from IP address 69.3.234.187
I said Iran will lead the invasion of Israel, yes you could be right that it needs Iraq but its land not leadership. Yes I predicted according to prophesy of the prophets, but I am no prophet.
The Koran and Islam literature defines Gog and Magog as a person or persons who will come from the eastern part, there was a valley between two (2) mountains where Gog and Magog came through. Therefore, it is or are persons.
Revelation tells of the end of the world when Gog and Magog are let loose. St. Augustine describe it in his book (City of GOD) as; "And when the thousand years are finished, satan will be loosed from his prison and shall go out to seduced the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as many as the sand in the sea. Therefore, Gog and Magog are nations of the earth.
Ezekiel 38 v's 1-2-3-4.; The word of the Lord came to me "son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; prophesy against him and says; This is what the Sovereign Lord says, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Masheck and tubal, I will turn you around, put huks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army. Therefore Gog is a person (perhaps the beast 666) and Magog a place.
What I believe is that the battle in Israel will ignite the World War III, not necessarily The Great Battle that will wipe out the 3 quarters of the earth's population. This is necessary to attain peace, although I'm not for war, and this is going to be the last battle before the 1000 years of peace.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 8:44 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Iran the old Persia will play a role and so with Iraq but
it will play a greater role than Persia. The prohecy deals
more with Iraq rather than Iran. They will be led by a nation
where white bears abounds.
Dont you ever claim you are "predicting. Such future happening
is a devine prophecy. God does not predict like humans. He prophesy
the events that will come to pass in the future. All His prophecies
are being fulfilled....the formation of the state of Israel...is one.
The rise of Iraq....will come.
The book of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revealation needs to be studied very well
before mouthing something to what they meant. Even bible scholars are
careful in trying to interpret it less some may be misled.
I have studied the Bible for many years and am an ardent student of the
Middle East. The Bible interprets itself. You have read it very well and
understand and seek answers within its fold.
Read more....get a concordance....good luck!
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 10:26 PM from IP address 71.227.129.93
What about the dragon in the revelation and Daniels, the statue, the head of the statue, the foot, the angels, Gog and Magog, the fire in the dragon's mouth? Is your interpretation of all these symbolic things will mean a real dragon?
Jesus uses parables in his teachings, the prodigal son, plants in the sand, the temple that will be destroyed and will rebuilt again in three (3) days. Are these direct interpretation of what Jesus said?
You said you are an ardent student of the middle east. Can you give me an answer to two simple questions which is bothering me?
1) Why are the Jews, until now, can not accept Jesus as their messiah?
2)What are two factions that claims leadership of the religion Islam after The Prophet Mohammad dies? and why?
There are so many things that are in my mind that I can not get an answer until now, so, please help me.
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 6:37 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Sorry for not responding at once...am caught up with a lot of things here.
The 2nd chapter of Daniel will tell you the following:
Babylon: head of gold - winged lion
Medo-Persia: Chest and arms of silver - loopsided Bear
Greece: Belly and tighs of bronze - 4 headed Leopard
Rome: Legs of Iron & feet of iron and clay - terrifying and frigtening beast.
The Jews did not accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah because they were expecting Him
as a King....not born in a manger with swadling clothes. This is fully explained in the Bible.
The reference to Russia is found in Ezekiel 38:2.....Rosh. Bible scholars believed it is Russia.
In Daniel Chapter 2 & 7: The Bible previews the course of world history from the period of King Nebuchadnezzar to the second coming of Jesus Christ. These passages revealed 4 great gentile empires that would rule in succession until the second coming. Rome, the 4th kingdom will be powerful near the end time. Why? Daniel 7:23-28 explains it: The rivival of the old Roman Empire.
As you may know now....the European (Union) Common Market comprises the old Roman Empire.
Read in sequence: Dan 7:8, 23-25 and Rev. 13:1-2; 17:12-14.This will give you a picture
up to the Tribulation. Read Ezek 38-39.
The above will give you a picture of God's prophecies for the future.
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 11:56 AM from IP address 71.227.129.93
Are we still talking on Iraq will regain power to lead the war against Israel?
In the book Daniel 2:37; Daniel interpreted the dreams to King Nebudchadnezzar:
Your O king are the king of kings, to you the god of heaven has given the dominion and strength, power and glory, men, wild beast and birds of the air, wherever they may dwell, he has handed over to you, making you ruler over them all, you are the head of gold, ANOTHER KINGDOM SHALL TAKE YOUR PLACE INFERIOR TO YOURS (median or silver or probably U.S.?), then a third kingdom of bronze (Persia or Iran) which shall rule over the whole earth (as I have said in my last writing), There shall be a 4th kingdom, strong as iron (Russia?).
In that events, from gold (Babylon), Silver (U.S.?), bronze (Persia or Iran) and iron (Russia?), never it was mentioned by Daniel that babylon will recover and in fact said, Another Kingdom Shall Take Your Place.
In the new testament, the word babylon is an interpretation to Rome because the people spreading christianity, that includes some of the apostles, are afraid of Rome. I assume you know this.
The reason why the Jews can not accept Jesus as their messiah is not quite to what you said, because for them the messiah would be a political leader and not divine (not exactly a king), that the messiah would bring peace to the world (that after Jesus, there is still no peace), that the messiah would rebuild the great temple and reunite the Jews.
These did not happened according to them.
The sequels in King Nebudchadnezzar dreams that was interpreted by Daniel seem to coincide with our time, the reason why I assume silver as U.S. and iron as Russia.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 3:08 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Revealation 17-18 descrobes a great city in the end times called
Babylon and will be destroyed at the end of the Tribulation and
never to rise up again. Iran, which could be a part of Medo-Persia
will play a role but not as important as Babylon.
With the exception of Jerusalem no other city is mentioned more
than Babylon. Why?
a) Babylon is the city where man first worship himself (Gen.11:1-9)
b) Babylon was the first city with a world ruler, Nimrod. (Gen.10:8-10)
c) Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple
in 586 BC.
d) Babylon was the first capital city of the first four Gentile world
empires to rule over Jerusalem.
Why all these things: Bible scholars believe that Satan will make Babylon
as his capital city. This is the reason why in Rev. 18:8-10,21-24, Babylon
will be destroyed at the end of the Tribulation. So, dont forget, Iraq
will still rise up from where she is now.
The United States has no role in God's prophecy with respect to His
second coming. (However, in our present day circumstances...God said
that whoever will help the Jews will be blest. The only country in
the world that have help the Jews is the U. S. This may not continue
forever.) Bible scholars believed that since most people in the U. S.
are christians, they will be ruptured before the Tribulation. Since few
people are left, the United SDtaes will be weak to play any role during
the end times.
There are no signs yet as who will lead. However, Russia will become
a great power by that time....China? We will see.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 8:19 AM from IP address 71.227.129.93
I'm sorry sir but the Babylon referred to revelation 17-18 is the Babylon, symbolic name of Rome, is graphically described as the great harlot. Please see The Whore of Babylon.
I have warned you already that Babylon in the new testament is the symbolic name for Rome. The reason for which is that the people spreading the words of Jesus, including the apostles, are afraid of the Roman Empire. Babylon or Rome is ruthless and pagan country at that time.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:41 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
There are Egyptian gods, Greek gods, Roman gods, Mayan gods, Muslim gods, Hindu gods, Buddhist gods, and last but not least - your Christian gods which are the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost not counting the Virgin Mary, the Saints and the infallible Pope.
See, Christian is pagan too!
Nap
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 7:24 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Nap, Christians are not pagan because pagan does not have god.
Christians have one God, the Holy Trinity. Mama Mary, the saints and the pope are not gods.
Just food for thoughts nap:
Genesis 6 v's 1-4; When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the SONS OF HEAVEN saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said; "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise 120 years.
At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the SONS OF HEAVEN HAD INTERCOURSE with the daughters of man, who bore them sons.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 8:13 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
You're back in the red, pagans have gods. In fact they're called pagans because they believe in many gods. Now what do you call those who have no gods?
Nap
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 10:27 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Are you saying the gods of the other religion are not real? What makes yours so special specially when the majority of the people on earth are not Christian?
Nap
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 10:06 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
The not real gods I'm talking are the myth gods. Myth defined as a narrative, that through many retellings has become an accepted tradition.
Myth gods or the olympians are; Zeus, the supreme god of the olympians, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility, Apollo, the god of prophesy, music and healing, Ares, the god of war, Artemis, the goddess of hunt and woman in childbirth, Athena, Demeter, Hephaetus, Deonesus, Hera, Hermes and Poseidon. They are not true gods.
There are three great religion that acknowledge the words in the Old Testament and they are, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In the old testament there is only one Great God, and therefore the God of Judaism, Islam and Christianity is only one, but with different names. Hindi ko nga alam kung bakit nagaaway itong tatlo na ito eh.
As for the other religions outside of the 3 mentioned above, bahala sila sa buhay nila, Basta ako, sa Holy Trinity pa din ako.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 8:04 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I'm sorry sir, but I think you just have to prove that the rev:17-18 is Iraq and not Rome, if my mind is distorted about this thing, please help me. No need to insult me.
Have you read The Whore of Babylon? if not, I advise you to read it first
And as for the Jews, read Why Jews Rejects Jesus as Their Messiah until Today.
Again, thank you sir, I like it because you made me read more.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:25 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Babylon in the Book of Revelation is the Babylon in Iraq. Unless there is a clear declaration in the Bible that Rome is Babylon, there is no reason to assume or presume that the Babylon in the Book of Revelation is Rome. The Apostle John does not think of any other when you examine the context and meaning of what he was trying to tell us.
Here is another consideration: BABYLON THE GREAT IS FALLEN. Notice that this is never used for Rome at anytime. The Bible never regarded Rome as great. Notice that the description of Babylon the Great does not in anyway compare with Rome even in history. The question is: will Rome match the description stated by John? I really doubt that the Babylon of John is your Rome.
Here is another for you to consider: Babylon in the Bible has always referred to the city of Babylon founded in Biblical times and to no other city.
Here is another for you to consider: Where do you draw the line between symbolism and literalism? You have to consider symbolism when the Bible says so most of the time. But most of the time, when the Bible does not state that the meaning is symbolical, you cannot assume the Bible to refer to something otherwise. You should always take the meaning as literal. Consider the parables of Jesus. He made express statements that "to them He spoke in parables."
Here is another for you to consider: The visions of John are literal. He makes express declarations in his vision field. He does not in anyway reinterpret what he saw, rather, he wrote what he saw. WE make symbolism because of a simple reason, we cannot understand what he saw, therefore we reinterpret what he saw. BUT THIS IS US AND NOT GOD. There should be no reason for us to think that God is trying to confuse us or that we should understand within the limited level of our understanding what God is telling us. Indeed God is telling us something beyond that level and the fact that we may not believe the literal meaning and proceed to symbolism is unbelief in our part. This is the problem of understanding the Book of Revelation. But remember, the Book of Revelation is APOKALUPSIS which means unveiling, disclosure, revelation. What this Book tells us is beyond our level of understanding. We tend to put this Book in the level of our limited understanding. But this is REVELATION and this is beyond our level of vision and THIS IS NEW.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 6:19 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Iraq does not fit in the character of Babylon nor Rome of Italy mentioned in Rev 17-18.
The symbolic Rome is a country which is the Key Commercial Nation of wealth for the world economy in which if destroyed the economy of other nations will be badly affected.
The Symbolic Rome provides gold, silver, copper, grains and livestock to the world.
The Symbolic Rome is the leading center of imports and consumption and a manufacturing nation, mega merchant, with the highest living standard and sumptuous lifestyle, wasteful, extravagant with massive population.
Who is the Symbolic Rome? Any nation that will fit to the character that was mentioned above.
They say, that the U.S.A. perfectly fit to be the Symbolic Babylon because it is the center of the world trade (New York Stock Market) and if destroyed will paralyzed many nations. The highest trading of gold, silver, copper are done in New York. U.S. is the leading import and consumption, a mega merchant. And, the Statue of Liberty, they say, is a pagan idol of Ishtar, the woman described in Rev 17, the goddess of prostitution.
Remember, USA is considered as Christian country, the birth of Christianity came in Rome.
Could USA be The Whore of Babylon? Your guess and mine is as good as the others.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 11:27 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Yes, when we talk about Babylon in regard to the Old Testament, you and I are one, it is correct, but for the new testament, it's another story.
The apostles and Jesus followers are afraid or even if not afraid of Rome, they wanted to continue what Jesus wanted them to do. Rome during those time is as US in our time. Powerful but cruel.
Even our own people who are not afraid to die uses aliases; Rizal, ninoy, joma, etc. maybe they just want to continue their work which they believe is noble.
Jesus uses parables in His teachings so that anybody who could hear it will have its own meaning to their life. The plants in the sand could be knowledge, wealth or character, and so as the Mustard seed or the Lamp.
The Jews themselves can not decide and still reject Jesus as their messiah, because the old scripture has different meaning for them. They have different interpretation.
Is the vision of John can be interpreted by John himself? As you said, John wrote his vision as what God tells him, therefore, the vision comes from God.
The message in Revelation can not be answered by man, we can only discuss or argue to what is its real meaning, just like what He said, not your time but my time.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 12:53 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Iran the old Persia will play a role and so with Iraq but
it will play a greater role than Persia. The prohecy deals
more with Iraq rather than Iran. They will be led by a nation
where white bears abounds.
Dont you ever claim you are "predicting. Such future happening
is a devine prophecy. God does not predict like humans. He prophesy
the events that will come to pass in the future. All His prophecies
are being fulfilled....the formation of the state of Israel...is one.
The rise of Iraq....will come.
The book of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revealation needs to be studied very well
before mouthing something to what they meant. Even bible scholars are
careful in trying to interpret it less some may be misled.
I have studied the Bible for many years and am an ardent student of the
Middle East. The Bible interprets itself. You have to read it very well and
understand and seek answers within its fold.
Read more....get a concordance....good luck!
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 10:28 PM from IP address 71.227.129.93
I am not a bible scholar but I read the bible too, maybe not as many years as you did or doing.
But I have a question to you regarding Daniel at the time of King Nebudchadnezar. Where did you find the name of Iraq or Mesopotamia became a great power again and will play a greater role than Iran or Persia? and, where in the revelation you will find the same, as you claim? You must know something that I don't know so please enlighten me.
Ezekiel is more defined in naming countries that will rise against Israel. Please read Ezekiel 38. The name Persia, Cus, Put and gomer were there and was interpreted by scholars (not me) as Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, and Turkey. And another one as Beth-togarmah from the recesses of the north which is believe to be Russia.
I'm still predicting (but not prophesying as I am not a prophet) it will happen based on what I read from the prophets and scholars.
Good luck to you too and may one of us be enlightened with this exchange.
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 10:31 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Of course I know a lot more than you do on issues such as this.
Reading the Bible is not enough....you have study it deligently.
At your stage you should study more than "predict" because you
are liable to misled those do not know the scriptures.
Your not knowing why the Jews rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah
tells me something.....I suggest you study more. World events, more acute,
after the formation of the State of Israel, are mostly tied down to God's
prophecy. I indicated some to you in my previous post.
The hardest part of the Bible is the subject of prophecy because all
supporting verses are scattered in the Old and New Testanment from Genesis
to the Revealations.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 9:36 PM from IP address 71.227.129.93
Can you please tell me where in my writings that I prophesy?
I predict yes, and prediction can be wrong, prophesy as you said can never be wrong.
And yes, you could be an ardent student of the bible and middle east countries, with only one mistake, you have identified Babylon in new testament as Iraq and not Rome which makes your writings all wrong.
I think you should be the one to study more why the Jews rejected Jesus until now, ask a Jew themselves, do not confine yourself to Jews of the old. I know they expect a king, but it was during my high school days.
And for your additional knowledge about the Jews of today, many of them already believe that Jesus is the messiah.
And please do not put words in my mouth, I never prophesied in my writings.
Thank you sir.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 7:45 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I do admire your expertise in religion but Christianity is actually a minority belief when you account for the other major religions in the world. In fact the Philippines is the only Christian country in the whole of Asia.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:34 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Wow, first time I saw you said good thing about me, are you nap?
Well Christianity is not a major religion if you compare to the combined number of other religion and sectors. But we are many. All religion that believe Jesus is God are called Christians, I can not say that to INK because they believe Jesus is 100% man.
As for Philippines as the only Christian country, I have posted the reason why in my previous. According to some studies, Islam came in the region first, particularly asean countries except in the Philippines where christianity came first. Chinese and Indians came first but for trade not for religion.
The only good thing Spanish gave to us is catholism because Christianity teaches peace just like Jesus, and for me, that is the fundamental of everything, PEACE.
Again, thank you nap.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 12:30 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
You said: "And yes, you could be an ardent student of the bible and middle east countries, with only one mistake, you have identified Babylon in new testament as Iraq and not Rome which makes your writings all wrong."
Reply: Quote me from my post what you are claiming!
You said: "I think you should be the one to study more why the Jews rejected Jesus until now, ask a Jew themselves, do not confine yourself to Jews of the old. I know they expect a king, but it was during my high school days."
Reply: The ultimate rejection of Christ was His crucifixion. The Sandhedrins, Pharisees
and the Seducees with their followers rejected Him. This group were the elitist of their time and just like in Manila the elitist can sway the government, people and mold public opinion. There were christians at that time...his desciples and their followers. Now, if you only know something
about this issue during your high school days....then dont talk to me! As I said, you have to learn more before you can argue with me on biblical issues!
You said: "And for your additional knowledge about the Jews of today, many of them already believe that Jesus is the messiah."
Reply: If there were christians during the time of Jesus Christ....why not today? Did I say there are no Jewish who did not beleive Jesus Christ as their Messiah?
You said: "And please do not put words in my mouth, I never prophesied in my writings."
Reply: Have ever check what prediction and prophecying means?
You said: "Thank you sir."
Reply: You can be well assured that I dont take this things to heart.
We are in a forum and faceless as we are it is always good to be polite
and not be angry when we do not agree on some issues. I may conclude that
your biblical knowledge falls short of my expectation simply because you
have lot to learn but I do respect whow you carry yourself.
Carry on! CoeL
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 12:09 PM from IP address 71.227.129.93
Thank you for your comment "I do respect how you carry yourself"
In my posting "bold prediction" I said "Iraq will be reduced in power.." and you said, wrong: Iraq will rise up as in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar, and you referred me to, The Book of Daniels and Revelations. So you have been referring to Iraq as the Babylon even in the New Testament. I said, that it is not correct because Babylon in Revelation is the code name for Rome, for a reason that the followers of Jesus and the apostles who are spreading Christianity at that time were afraid of Rome who are cruel and pagan country. So our topic is Iraq as Babylon.
No sir, there were no christians at the time of Jesus Christ, Christianity were spread by the apostles and followers of Christ after His death.
As to prediction and prophecy, Prediction is a forecast, like forecast in horse racing, some win and some loose, meaning it could be wrong. Prophecy sir is always correct, just like what you said.
As for Babylon in new testament, it's up to you if you will insist that it is Iraq. I referred you To The Whore of Babylon. And they say that the Whore of Babylon which is Rome is actually The Roman Catholic Church.
Let this room be an expression of ones mind, correct if someone is wrong and prove why you are right, but not to boast that you are better than the other person.
When you put yourself on the tip of the highest mountain, there will be no place to go up and will no longer learn, it is always better to be in a hill where going up is always possible.
Anyway, most of the time, the student comes out as better person than the teacher. Good luck to you too.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 11:53 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Gog is a prince of Meschech and Tubal, or the head of the Russian Federation. You have left out the fact that the invasion of Israel will be with the use of horses. There will be 3 other kings involved in this: the Kings of the East, South and West. But note that this will not happen until Israel is at peace and there will be no more walls surrounding the cities. Note that it will be a time when Israel is settled as a nation with full status as observing the laws of God according to the Mosaic Law. Thus, there is a Temple at that time. Then the invasion comes.
Augustine's account is after the Millenial Reign of Christ. He could not have really made that treatise better than the ones we have on prophecy today. He spent his time wining, dining and womanizing and therefore we do not expect that much from him for all his assertions. For all we know, unless his mother prayed for him, he would be in hell today. Thank God for praying mothers.
The city of Babylon will be in full bloom at that time with all the world going to Babylon. At that time, Babylon is an international city with full and free trade when the invasion occurs. You should note that this is not the case today unless what will come about is the removal of a restrictive religion. Therefore, whatever policy is in the Middle East for the destruction of Israel will be eliminated as a threat before the city flourishes and restrictions removed. This will only come about when the states hostile to Israel are destroyed.
This is in keeping with God's promise throughout history that He will destroy Israel's enemies. Therefore, we can only conclude that Iran and Iraq will be destroyed as nations with international intervention in the Middle East in the offing and the only right policy for the Middle East. This interpretation is the only one that could be valid for the Middle East considering that all prophecy converges to that one showdown: Israel will be settled in the land because of a peace treaty with the Antichrist, there is no threat, the world is prosperous and Babylon becomes a commercial city of dazzling fanfare and glory.
You might need to understand that prophecy and understanding of world events is under the custody of the Jewish people throughout history. But you need also to understand that in the end times, "the very elect will [even] be deceived."
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 11:55 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Yes, Gog is a person in fact he was described as the person with a mark 666, the beast, some are saying he is satan. but he will come as a person.
The battle in Israel if ever it will happen not necessarily meant it is The Great Battle of Gog and Magog, but it could ignite the world war lll as predicted by some. And I also believe that after the world war iii, the start of the 1000 years of peace. Please see the last paragraph of my last posting.
After 1000 years of peace, satan will be release to seduce the earth, prelude to the end of time.
Although some are saying that the time of the beast is now, I think they are making a mistake, or maybe I was making a mistake.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 4:07 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
You are free to express what is in your mind, or what you want to be, whether an aethist or a super natural believer such as religion, as they put it. You are free.
And may I correct you please, I said "it could" it's no prophesy. Please don't put words to others mouth just to prove others wrong. And stay cool, this forum is for people who want to express what is in their mind, unless of course you are Bill Gates.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:01 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Let this room be an expression of ones mind, correct if someone is wrong and prove why you are right. But to accused someone in deluding people with preconceived notions of grandeur at sabihing baka sira ulo ka, is a phrase coming from an angry person that as if I have done a mortal sin.
You, coel, nap and myself posted a lot of things in this room but no one can claim that all we said are correct. Don't take this room as if we are in the court room where the loosers will go to jail.
I learned a lot of things from you, nap, coel and other posters, let it stay that way and let this room be a library of knowledge or even laughter.
Good luck to you.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 1:04 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Isn't there any prediction that the Philippines would ever gain respectable stature of power in the future? Kawawa naman tayo kung palging dito na laang sa ibaba.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 7:10 PM from IP address 12.72.58.185
Israel, the chosen people of God, suffers from the time they broke the covenant with God at the time of Moses and from their rejection of the messiah in the person of Jesus Christ.
They suffer not as a person but a nation, many Jews are living in prosperity, in fact, according to some writings, Hitler prosecuted the Jews, not because of religion, but because they are starting to control the economy of Germany.
Pilipinos a chosen people? I really don't know, but why is it that the Philippines is the only country in Asia that was reached by christianity or catholism? Why is it that islam gets in the region first before christianity. Many historians are saying that if catholism reaches this region before islam, this region will be a catholic region.
We are suffering from the time spaniards reaches our land to americans and japanese, and now to our own people who have their own selfish interest, how many years we have been suffering, 500 years or even more. was there any time that peace is with us? maybe, but not permanent.
Now, Isn't it true that we are reaching even in Africa and all parts of this world, thru our OFW, maybe to spread christianity, the work that the Lord is giving us.
God has promise Israel, that they will have their own land, what is in store for us? nobody knows but God, but one thing for sure, it is going to be beautiful.
Kawawa nga tayo, pero kamukha ng napapanuod natin sa sine, ang bida binubugbog muna sa umpisa, pero sa huli, bida ang nakatayo at tumba ang kontrabida.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 10:26 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
When the Messiah comes, He will gather all the elect from all over the world. There is already a move to place a barcode on everyone's forehead and you might as well understand that with advances in genetic engineering, the Jewish marker in the genes could be determined. This will give headway to the Antichrist to mark the Jewish people for a worldwide holocaust.
How is one's genealogy known? I refer you to DNA testing websites where one could know one's line for the Cohen marker, a sign that you belong to the tribe of Levi. Once these tests are refined, it will be easy for the Antichrist to find out who possesses the Jewish genes.
Watch out, if you have Jewish blood, you will be targeted for annihilation.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 12:04 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Former presidential bet Eddie Gil warns vs. a repeat of COMELEC ' 04 anomaly
by
(no login)
News Release
By: Val Trinidad
International Correspondent
News Today
April 11, 2007
Former presidential bet Eddie Gil warns
vs. a repeat of Comelec ’04 anomaly
HONG KONG CHINA-- Former presidential candidate Eddie Gil today said that the forthcoming May 14, 2007 mid-term elections could again turn out to be another mockery of Philippine election laws as he urged more vigilance on the part of honest Filipino electorate and other cause-oriented groups.
Gil, an aspirant for the presidency in the May 11, 2004 synchronized polls who later turned into a popular show business personality, said that the majority of the incumbent officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) may “again rig the conduct and results of the elections in favor of the highest bidders.”
He recalled that in the 2004 elections, after a thorough screening, the Comelec initially chose him as one of the six major presidential bets allowed to run by the poll body. It approved his certificate of candidacy.
Unfortunately, he said, during the middle part of the campaign period, the Comelec gave weight to a motion for disqualification filed against him by a rival candidate who claimed that he had the same given name as he
The Comelec ignored Gil’s motion for reconsideration, prompting Gil to elevate the matter to the Supreme Court.
“And while the case was still pending with the High Tribunal, the Comelec pre-empted the Supreme Court by issuing announcements and directives to all its regional, provincial, city and municipal offices that I was no longer a candidate for the highest position in the land,” the singer-actor deplored.
The Comelec’s move, Gil said, confused millions of voters who were solidly behind him, and aside from the abstention of numerous pro-Gil electors, the poll body also did not even bother to record the actual number of votes he obtained.
“That is why those top people and commissioners of the Comelec must really be the first ones to be impeached,” said Gil.
Gil also lamented the “Hello Garci” scandal, which almost led to the impeachment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
He said it was not only improper and unethical for an incumbent President who was also a candidate to talk to a high-ranking Comelec official during the canvassing of the votes.
“It was also highly anomalous and illegal,” Gil added.
Gil is currently on a business tour of Asia Pacific and other western countries where he is conducting a series of meetings with foreign investor-friends he describes as “high rollers.”
Gil was best known as the only presidential candidate who offered and expressed his willingness and readiness to pay the Philippine national debt that ran to trillions of pesos at that time.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 2:13 PM from IP address 85.117.40.117
IN A DEMOCRACY, THE PEOPLE HAS THE RESPONSIBILITY AND THE POWER.
by Napanice (no login)
It will be a shame, given what we all know now, if Eddie Gil's prediction comes true. It will validate the lack of willpower by the citizens to correct the fraudulent system that has been perpetrated by the previous government.
If corruption and incompetence continues beyond every election, there's only the electorate and no one else to blame. We must support all civic actions by activists and militants alike to ensure that the election authorities do their job right and perform actions like patrolling and guarding each and every precinct in the country that will process the ballot boxes and count the votes.
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 3:32 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
False: the people are unknowing and they are served on belief
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
It is all a belief system that people are pushed upon candidates forced down their throats. Democracy is like a candy bar, sweet on the outside and poison on the inside. You are served delectable dishes but no more, then you starve until the next meal.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:24 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
I am sure you are. The people don't have a choice of their own, they choose those who are offered to them. In effect, they are being pimped by the system and the system is the pimp.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:44 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
You do not know the background on these men, you are doing injury to this forum for showing your list. They are based on the premise of your innocence.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:51 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
You can never prove that I know nothing about them, that's a fact. I posted my list for everyone to see including you. And so far you have not said a word about anyone of those candidates, so do you know them?
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 7:09 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
1. Loren Legarda
2. Panfilo Lacson
3. Alan Peter Cayetano
4. Francis Escudero
5. Manuel Villar Jr.
6. Benigno Aquino III
7. Francis Pangilinan
8. Aquilino Pimentel III
9. Antonio Trillanes IV
10. John Henry Osmeña
11. Gregorio Honasan
12. Ralph Recto
PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR THE FOLLOWING CORRUPT CANDIDATES. THEY CAN ONLY DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY:
1. Luis Chavit Singson
2. Michael T. Defensor
3. Prospero A. Pichay Jr.
4. Edgardo J. Angara
5. Joker P. Arroyo
6. Vicente C. Sotto III
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 7:30 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Ever since you joined this forum you've done nothing but pontificate about the virtues of your corrupt master. But of course, that's your right and maybe for a very good reason.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:33 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Not correct nap, I am siding for people who wants to build our country, it just happened that gloria is doing the right things.
I never voted for gloria ever since as senator or vice president or even in the last election, in fact, I voted for lacson because that time I thought we should have a strong president and gloria, for me, is a weak president. But everything has changed because of her performance in the past 3 years. Lacson? a very big disappointment for me.
People, just like me, are tired of all these things, we want to have peace and progress. Again, I am no gloria fan, but just lacson, she proves me wrong.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 7:01 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I'm sure you would call massive cheating, record debts, human rights violations, record overseas deployments and record holidays the hallmarks of Gloria's achievements.
I don't know what happened to your vote for Lacson, all that matters now is that Gloria won despite her lie about not running for election. Quite an accomplishment alright but Filipinos are hungrier than ever.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:21 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Massive cheating, an accusation. My best friend is from cebu and during the campaign for the last presidential election the group of Sotto entered a hotel and was booed by the people inside. The intelligent people of cebu makes the difference.
Record debt. Sorry but for the first time in so many years, this year we were able to pay for the principal of our debt.
Human rights violation. Again an accusation that was not proven whether the left or the government is the one violating the human rights.
OFW's, again?. The family of OFW's and OFW's themselves want it, the government wants it, and the people wants it. I think you are the only one who doesn't like it.
Record holidays. Well I like it
Gloria says she won't run. well whether it was true or strategy, she won, and it works.
Pilipinos hungrier than ever. Hunger can be eliminated or reduce significantly by increasing the per capita income of pilipinos. We need investors to come in for more jobs development, but just what I posted, how can our government attract new investment if the left, right and middle forces are busy doing their bad things.
A little girl said to Captain Hook, "you are bad and you need a mother very badly" maybe the oppositions need a mother, what do you think nap?
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:10 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
HOY!!! ALAM MO BA NA SI PING LACSON AY HINDI TUMATANGGAP NG TINATAWAG NYONG PORK BARREL!!!! PERO HINDI NA HALOS NALALAMAN MG MADLA, DAHIL TINUTURING NA KALABAN NG ADMINISTRASYON.. YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF HIM!!!
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:29 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
All men and women are sinners. Don't tell me they shelled out money for free. Where did they get there campaign funds? Too naive and idealistic you are when it comes to politicians.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:19 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
The election laws do not require an explanation when you vote for the candidates or your choice, so why are you asking for one? Such stupid questions are only asked by the unknowing and ignorant that's for sure!
Nap
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 9:48 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
THOSE WHO VOTE THEIR CONSCIENCE DO IT OUT OF IGNORANCE.
by Napanice (no login)
It's nice to say one has a conscience that dictates who he/she will vote for but does that actually educate someone in the real issues and the facts behind a candidate? The world is getting smaller everyday and truckloads of news and information are available through the papers, radio, television, internet and even cellphones.
So when someone tells you he/she is voting his/her conscience, that means ignorance has once again prevailed in the selection of leaders.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 12:03 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
You have to understand that your assessment is not everyone's cup of tea. Why parade your candidates and for what? You are aspiring for your own utopia through your ballot.
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 12:43 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Still a mile wide off course, those are my choices and if you don't like it then make up your own. Maybe you're too dependent on someone's thinking to make your decisions but that's not my problem.
Nap
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 9:44 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
The combined income of 4.9 million poor Filipino families is equivalent to only half of the total net worth of Philippine's three richest people, think-tank IBON Foundation said Thursday.
IBON said the "unimaginable wealth of the country's richest families and the poorest households' decreasing economic status" is evidence that poor people get poorer and rich people get richer under the term of President Arroyo.
The foundation said that according to the 2003 Family Income and Expenditure Survey of the National Statistics Office, the combined income of 4.9 million poor Filipinos is P177 billion. The amount is equivalent to only half of the total net worth of three of Philippines' richest, Jaime Zobel and his family, Lucio Tan and Henry Sy.
Using Forbes magazine's data, the three businessmen have a total net worth of $7.5 billion or P360 billion (at P48:$).
The foundation added that the richest 20 percent of the population account for 53 percent of the Philippine’s total family income pie in the 2003 survey while the bottom 20 percent get only 4.63 percent.
It said that from 1985, the share of the poorest 60 percent of the population fell by 1.8 percentage points while the richest 20 percent were able to increase their share by another 1.2 percentage points.
"This is a vivid example of the skewed income distribution prevailing in the country, which has worsened since 1985," said IBON executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman.
She added that the income of the richest 10 percent of the country’s households is 21 times that of the poorest 10 percent.
Guzman said the unequal distribution is evidence that the economic growth frequently boasted by Malacañang doesn't reach the poor and that rich people have the monopoly of the country's productive assets.
"This denies the poor the ability to improve their lot even as the rich continue to get richer," she said.
Guzman said poor people will remain poor until the government finds a way to leak the so-called economic growth of the country to them.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 5:52 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Without the poor, who would be rich? Please avoid mistaking pursuit of wealth for politics. Know where your head is, don't shove it up your ass.
The comparison sucks. Will you compare now Bill Gates to lack of computers in the Third World? Remember, in THE REAL SENSE, no one is rich. You only carry your soul when you die. What is in your mind is true wealth.
In any case, LISTEN TO THIS, TRUE WEALTH IS THE WEALTH YOU CAN CARRY.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 6:25 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Daily Tribune
Five anti-Gloria senators/bets obtain highest trust ratings
GMA, FVR, Esperon distrusted by Pinoys
04/12/2007
More bad news for President Arroyo and her allies, among whom are former President Fidel V. Ramos and her military chief, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr.
Pulse Asia’s recently released survey on trust and distrust ratings revealed that a big plurality of 41 percent of Filipinos, all of voting age, saying they distrust Mrs. Arroyo. Her trust rating percentage was measured at a mere 23 percent.
Also distrusted by a big plurality is Ramos, chairman emeritus of Lakas-CMD, a major party of the administration coalition and an identified ally of Mrs. Arroyo. He obtained the same percentage (41 percent distrust) as the President and earned only 25 percent of the respondents who said they trust him.
Detained President Joseph Estrada’s trust rating was much higher than Mrs. Arroyo and Ramos, settling at a big plurality of 38 percent.
Estrada’s trust ratings have remained fairly consistent, swinging from 25 percent to 40 percent despite his having been charged with plunder by the Arroyo government and detained for over six years.
Esperon, who is seen as a close military ally of Mrs. Arroyo, fared badly in his trust ratings, with the plurality of respondents showing their distrust of him, earning the same percentage measure as that of his Commander-in-Chief, at 41 percent distrust rating, but with an even lower trust rating, with only 16 percent saying they trust him.
Only five public figures obtained majority trust ratings, and all five are identified as Genuine Opposition
senatorial bets, or anti-Arroyo senators.
Topping the list was former Sen. Loren Legarda, who has also been topping the senatorial surveys, with a 63 percent trust rating, Senate President Manuel Villar, with a 55 percent trust rating; Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan at 54 percent, Sen. Manuel Roxas II, at 52 percent and House Minority Leader Francis Escudero at 53 percent.
All these personalities—save for Roxas—are running for senator as opposition candidates in the May 2007 elections,” the Pulse Asia media release said.
While some Team Unity senatorial candidates also obtained pluralities in trust ratings, it was also noted that their distrust ratings have increased since last month’s Pulse Asia survey.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman, Benjamin Abalos, Sr., was also among those who are distrusted by a big plurality of Filipinos, with him obtaining high distrust rating of 40 percent, and only 20 percent of the Filipinos having expressed trust in him.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s showing was also poor, as it had him earning the trust of only 19 percent of the respondents, with a measure of 36 percent of Filipinos distrusting him.
Fairly big pluralities of Filipinos also said they trusted former Sen. Gregorio Honasan (38 percent), former President Corazon Aquino (41 percent), Vice-President Manuel “Noli” de Castro Jr. (44 percent), Senators Joker Arroyo (44 percent), Panfilo Lacson (45 percent), Edgardo Angara (45 percent), Ralph Recto (45 percent), and Pateros-Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (47 percent).
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 7:40 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Ngayong araw ay ginugunita natin ang Araw ng Kagitingan,, maraming mga PIlipino ang nagbuwis ng buhay sa tinatawag nating DEATH MARCH sana ngayon mapagnilaynilayan natin na ang kalayaang tinatamasa ng ating bayan ay pinagbuwisan ng buhay ng marami nating kababayan. Muli isang pagpupugay sa mga bayani ng ating bayan!!!
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 10:55 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
Dapat din nating parangalan ang mga makabagong bayani sa katauhan ng pilipinong manggagawa sa ibayong karagatan dahil kung hindi sa kanila ay nakalugmok tayo ngayon sa dalamhati ng kadukhaan.
Inaasahan na sa katapusan ng taong ito ay makakaambag sila ng 15 bilyong dolyar sa lukbutan ng ating pananalapi, nuong nakaraang taon ay nakapagtala sila ng pagaambag na mahigit sa 12.5 bilyong dolyar, isang malaking kadahilanan kung bakit ang ating pamahalaan ay patuloy na nakakapagdulot ng pangunahing pangangailangan ng sambayanan.
Mabuhay ang mga pilipino! Mabuhay ang mga manggagawa!
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 5:34 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
We should also add the leaders like the president, the lawmakers and the judges.
by Napanice (no login)
Well, only those that have done something productive and are not corrupt. Needless to say candidates like Chavit Singson, a confessed criminal, cannot be added to the modern heroes list.
Unless of course one is an admirer of Chavit and a supporter of EDSA 2.
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 9:46 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
They are the ones responsible for the millions of ofws that you call the modern heroes, starting with then labor secretary Blas Ople under Ferdinand Marcos. Don't you even feel the least bit of gratitude for what they've done?
It was under Marcos that the idea of deploying the Filipinos for jobs overseas got started, don't you remember?
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 8:02 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
Where do you want them to go nap, stay here and join you in this forum in lambasting the government?
These people are better to be out there working for their families and government than some people who are here and contributing nothing but miseries for our country, Ooops, no harm intended.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:15 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
You are definitely one of those who will rather become a dependent on someone's economy. I did not contribute to the corruption and incompetence in this current government but you never seem to deny that it's the current situation in the country.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:37 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Who is not dependent on other countries? Even the US, uk, japan, korea, in fact all other economic powers are dependent of other countries.
U.S. export their technology, swiss their watches, new zealand their milk and cheese, japan and india their electronics.
What do you want nap? produced our products and sell it locally? Get our materials locally? We have a good product which is people, any reason why we should not export it like what others are doing on their products?
You have been posting your disenchantment on OFW's but you have not given any valid reason why until now, it's your chance nap, depend yourself like I am depending gloria.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 7:18 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Why invest in the Philippines when all the quality workers are found out of the country? Why are people getting hungrier despite the billions of remittance coming from ofws? Exactly where are these remittance dollars going, can you answer that question?
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:28 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Why invest in the Philippines? please read my answer regarding the left, the right and the middle.
Why hunger persist? I have answered that already either. the economic agenda of the government can not fully take its course, still because of the left, right and middle. We need to increase the per capita income of pilinos to solve hunger problem. We can not solve hunger by giving fish to individual but we should teach them how to fish.
Where are remittances of OFW's go? I have posted also that the government have paid a good sum to lessen the principal of our debt. I have also posted that the national budget was frozen by the opposition particularly the senate that makes the government not able to implement its program properly.
I have answered all those questions of yours but you repeatedly continue asking it again and again, please answer my question which you have not been able to answer since before holy week. Why are you against the deployment of OFW's?
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 9:04 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I keep asking you the same questions because you keep giving me the wrong answers. So until we get the right answers your question will remain unanswered.
Remember, for every question there are two kinds of answers. It's either right or wrong and so far you haven't got anything right yet.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:01 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Walang makabagong bayani, lahat sila ay naiwan ng kabihasnan
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
Tingnan mo yung monumento nila, inaamag, at saka wala naman tayong pinakinggan sa mga tinuro nila sa atin. Ngayon ano ang paksa mong gustong talakayin? Na tayo ay nabubuhay ng marangya dahil sa kanila? Sa totoo lang, kung walang OFWs mas lalong matiwasay ang pamumuhay natin ngayon dahil nagrebolusyon na at ang lahat ng sakit sa ating lipunan ay naalis na.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:30 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Abarte makes another claim that he can never prove.
by Napanice (no login)
It's so easy for you to say that a revolution will result in something positive, what happened after the Philippine revolution against Spain and against the United States?
Like I said, your fantasies are not only ridiculous, they are extremely boring!!
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 7:24 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
so anong gusto mong palabasin? walang silbi ang mga kababayan nating OFW? bakit naranasan mo na bang magsakripisyo at malayo sa mga mahal mo sa buhay. Para lang magkaroon ng magandang kinbukasan pagdating ng panahon!! Kaya mo bang magbigay ng maayos na trabaho sa mga bagong graduate nating estudyante.... sana sa susunod bago ka magpost ng mensahe dito, pag isipan mo muna, hindi yung para may maikuwento ka lang o masabi~!!!
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:13 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
It' better to be an innocent, than to be an idiot like you!! sorry pero ikaw yata ang inosente, ano naman ang mapapala natin kung magkaroon man ng rebolusyon ulit sa atin, magiging mayaman din ba tau tulad ng mga nakapaligid kay madam Gloria? ikaw kapatid ano na ba ang naitulong sayo ng pinagmamalaki mong EDSA Revolution?? ang EDSA 1, binigyan nyo ba ng tunay na buhay, o ginamit lang upang makawala sa kamay na bakal?? kung tinotoo ninyo sana ang tunay na hangarin na binabanggit nyo noon, ganto kaya tau ngayon??? ang EDSA 2, na pinagmamalaki mo hindi ba kayong mga elitista lang naman ang tunay na naghari doon, wala namang nagbago sa ekonomiya, asan ang strong economy na sinasabi nyo, mababa ang palitan ng dolyar ngunit mahal pa rin ang bilihin, mataas ang presyo ng lahat mula sa pandesal hanggang sa instant noodle na pagkain ng masa. Ni hindi rin tumataas ang sahod ng mga manggagawa. Kaya kaming mga anak ng ofw tuluyan ng naiwanan ng aming mahal na ina at ama!!!!
Posted on Apr 13, 2007, 10:43 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
Today and every year, I'm remembering my father and my uncle (My father's brother).
these two are my true heroes, our famly heroes as long as we are living. They sacrificed their lives for OUR FREEDOMS that we are enjoying....."MABUHAY ANG FILIPINOS AND GOD BLESS US ALL!!!
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 4:06 PM from IP address 69.106.38.254
In the news on t. v. channel 2, Bandila, The Death March in Bataan, people want to change or changed already to Life March in Bataan.
To changed the history of Death March in Bataan to Life March, you altering the actual events that was happened. Whatever good reasons you have, you can't change what happened. My opinion: Leave as it is and don't alter the events that was happened. You want to change the Holocaust that happened in Germany too? NOT FAIR!!!
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 8:16 AM from IP address 69.105.39.67
The country's international reserve (GIR) is expected to hit a record high of $24.5B this year due to strong inflows from foreign investments, government borrowing, export earnings, and remittances from OFW's.
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 6:46 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Sounds like a prelude to the same old political game during election season. After election everything would go back to reality to see the real situation and those same media publications would once again sing different tunes.
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 7:09 PM from IP address 12.72.71.99
Since two years ago, 2005, dollar reserve is already at $16.5B, that was far beyond election time, 2006 at $22.5B and now $25.5B, I don't see any politics on this. It is just stating the fact.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:55 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
The rise in dollar reserves is not the result of an economic miracle because jobs and hunger are even more pronounced since Gloria took over. One million ofws were deployed in 2006 alone and that is the result of foreign economies demanding more cheap laborers from the Philippines.
Quoting figures alone without stating its source is nothing but political propaganda.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:41 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
by Vanessa,Bicol University T.C BioIII student (no login)
Why are the candidates for the upcoming election in the Philippnes are mostly movie stars or artists? Do they really know about politics? Can they help? Or they're doing this for mere popularity?
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 12:16 AM from IP address 121.97.220.89
The reason why they are in the movie industry is both for popularity and money, at least most of them. Since they are already popular and has money, they want power which they don't have. I have money and I am popular, but hey! I'm not yet complete, I must have power! This is a natural behavior of man, they want everything if given a chance.
Do they really know about politics? Some yes, some no, but most of them enter politics because in their mind they already have the edge over the others, popularity and money. The edge of having money and being popular is a big margin to win an election in their mind. Not to all at least but to some.
Can they help? Yes they can, because if they are already have that power, they have to hold on to that power and the best way is to keep people think that they deserve that power. But hey, if they have P100M in the treasury, they will spend probably P20M for the people and pocket the rest. Not all but some.
Are they doing this for mere popularity? They are doing this for money, popularity and power.
Ang pag asa ng bayan ay nasa kabataan, this is true. In your generation you will have a chance to change that are bad, do everything you can to make things different in your time, the generations of your father and your grandfathers and your great grandfathers are finished but you can always start and make bad things good in your time.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 2:32 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
What ARE your power? MONEY AND PUPULARITY ? These are not mean you can help your country? How are you going to help? Join the politics? You want to be corrupt? Go ahead be may guess....
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 3:56 AM from IP address 68.125.49.50
A better question to ask is how come there is a lack of interest among the professionals like doctors, engineers and businessmen to run for public office? Is it because unlike movie stars and artists they are incapable of doing the job of leading the country?
Maybe that's one reason why the Philippines is still the sick man of Asia, no interest in public service among the educated and professionals. If they will not run for office, then who will?
Nap
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 7:48 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
AS A FILIPINO CITIZEN, I AM VOTING FOR THE FOLLOWING SENATORIAL CANDIDATES. HOW ABOUT YOU?
by Napanice (no login)
1. Loren Legarda
2. Panfilo Lacson
3. Alan Peter Cayetano
4. Francis Escudero
5. Manuel Villar Jr.
6. Benigno Aquino III
7. Francis Pangilinan
8. Aquilino Pimentel III
9. Antonio Trillanes IV
10. John Henry Osmeña
11. Gregorio Honasan
12. Francis N. Pangilinan
PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR THE FOLLOWING CORRUPT CANDIDATES. THEY CAN ONLY DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY:
1. Luis Chavit Singson
2. Michael T. Defensor
3. Prospero A. Pichay Jr.
4. Edgardo J. Angara
5. Joker P. Arroyo
6. Vicente C. Sotto III
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 5:52 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
I listed Frank Pangilinan twice and forgot to add Ralph Recto. The corrected list is:
1. Loren Legarda
2. Panfilo Lacson
3. Alan Peter Cayetano
4. Francis Escudero
5. Manuel Villar Jr.
6. Benigno Aquino III
7. Francis Pangilinan
8. Aquilino Pimentel III
9. Antonio Trillanes IV
10. John Henry Osmeña
11. Gregorio Honasan
12. Ralph Recto
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 5:56 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
The only thing that matters is the matter of life And death. There is no politician in the afterlife.
DO WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY AND CARRY WHAT YOU CAN CARRY FOR THE AFTERLIFE. YOU CANNOT CARRY YOUR POLITICAL PROWESS IN ETERNITY BECAUSE THERE ARE NO POLITICS IN ETERNITY. THIS IS THE ONLY PROFESSION, OTHER THAN PROSTITUTION, THAT WILL NOT BE NEEDED IN THE ETERNAL STATE.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:47 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
I will never take you seriously. For one, don't be serious about the Philippines since life is all fun and games. Do not prove a point that is for everyone, only for yourself.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:53 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Now you have an inescapable dilemma: will you leave one line blank?
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
Or, do you need to make a full list? Or, vote for only the BEST of the BUNCH? Ha ha ha! You are mind rolled, Napanice, by the political system. To vote means you are a slave set-up to promote not a democracy but a party system. Nevertheless, you remain the servant to this theatrics, a comedy and satire of errors.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 6:36 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Since these four candidates are corrupt to my opinion, I'll replace Kiko and Ralp with TEssie and Sotto. Tessie indicated she's sorry what she done wrong before and Sotto although he's corrupt too, I think Kiko and Ralp are more worse......
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 9:26 PM from IP address 69.105.232.231
Rather than vote for any of these four, pick those who have not been corrupted yet. There are newcomers in the senatorial race that should be given a chance to prove their worth.
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 10:04 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
I understand Montano has been breaking Comelec Laws since he filed his COC but he has not been punished being a Team Unity candidate. Did you hear about that?
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 4:26 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Great, now in Inquirer breaking news screams this headline "Fixers sell party-list seats for P7M, says group" and of all people they were peddling the scam to the group of Ameurfino Cinco chair of the Bantay Republic Act 7941. How stupid can they get on the other hand I am glad they are that dumb or we would not have known what is going on there.
BAUTISTA, Legarda, Pichay on ANC & Martin bautista PBS Documentary Now Showing at Pedestrian Observer and Cyber Istambayan Blogs added feature Ang Kapatiran: Birth of a Political Party and APL's rendition of Asin Song. Extra Bonus 4 Video (audio only, animated & images) of the much hated (not awaited) HELLO GARCI, enjoy the show. Please pass it on to your network of friends and family.
Now Showing at Pedestrian Observer and Cyber Istambayan Blogs added feature Ang Kapatiran: Birth of a Political Party and APL's rendition of Asin Song. Extra Bonus 4 Video (audio only, animated & images) of the much hated (not awaited) HELLO GARCI, enjoy the show. Please pass it on to your network of friends and family.
Cyber Istambay
A Jaywalking Cyber Pedestrian Observer
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 10:35 AM from IP address 72.134.106.50
PROSPERO PICHAY, A SPONSOR OF POLITICAL MANIPULATION AND WASTEFUL SPENDING.
by Napanice (no login)
Redistricting costs government millions
By Maricel V.Cruz, Reporter
The origin of Political Manipulation or Gerrymandering.
IN 1812 the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, created a district for political purposes that looked like a salamander.
Gerry had wanted to rearrange the boundaries of congressional districts so he could influence the outcome of elections.
The practice has come to be known as “gerrymandering.” Though not entirely illegal, it is nevertheless a devious way for a politician with dreams of entrenching himself in power.
Governor Gerry, however, seems to have inspired not a few Filipino congressmen. There are proposals filed in the House Committee on Good Government for creating new congressional districts.
Here comes Prospero Pichay, political manipulator
A redistricting bill sponsored by Prospero Pichay
• HB 01744, creating a Third District in Surigao del Sur (filed by Rep. Prospero Pichay of Surigao del Sur)
A veteran House member said dividing districts or creating new ones would mean increased corruption, more kickbacks, more perks.
“More districts could mean more allocations, additional pork, more positions and greater influence,” the lawmaker told The Manila Times. In the long run, it could lead to more corruption, he added.
How Pichay's bill wastes the taxpayer's money for his own political agenda.
Dividing districts cost millions
Proadministration Rep. Douglas Cagas of Davao del Sur, vice-chairman of the House Committee on Good Government, has other concerns. He said dividing districts will cost the government millions. The expenses included funds for a plebiscite to be called to get consensus people if they are amenable to such a proposal.
“At the maximum,” Cagas told The Times, the Commission on Elections will spend P50 million for redistricting.
“The cost is necessary, especially for the hiring of teachers and other personnel that will help facilitate the plebiscite,” he said.
Pichay's political adventurism starts with another district.
It means an additional P60 million in pork barrel and the creation of posts for political dynasties.
Cagas acknowledged that the expansion of districts could greatly enhance the influence of a politician.
“That is very possible that politicians will want to expand their districts [to embed their families and relatives in power].”
A new district entails a new set of local leaders, or a new congressman who will automatically get his share of the pork barrel. “That means more money for the district,” Cagas said.
House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles of Davao City said every new district is automatically allocated P60 million.
“When you divide into two, the same place gets P120 million a year,” he said. Redistricting means more projects for the constituents, he added.
Nograles said the P60-million worth of projects is provided in every congressman’s priority development assistance fund. Mayors and barangay captains request the projects. “We just identify [the projects] and the DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways] implements them,” he said.
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 11:51 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
"Tuta" and "Sipsip" characterize Senatorial candidate Prospero Pichay
The word "tuta" (lapdog) sparked a heated exchange between Surigao del Sur Representative Prospero Pichay, a Senate bet of the administration’s Team Unity, and Adel Tamano, spokesman of the Genuine Opposition, at a forum in San Juan.
Senatorial candidate Prospero Pichay cried foul over when GO spokesman Adel Tamano used the word "tuta" during the weekly forum at Ciudad Fernandina in Greenhills, San Juan.
"Tuta" is a colloquial term used to refer to a person who follows whatever his leader tells him to do.
Maybe the reason is because Pichay bristled when Tamano referred to the controversial “Hello, Garci" wiretapped conversations of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo talking with a poll official, that the Chief Executive’s critics say was former Commission on Elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
Pichay is well known among political circles as the diehard Gloria defender that some of his friends even call him a brown noser or "Sipsip". For example, he attempts to divert attention from Gloria's corrupt government by pointing the finger at her predecessor.
He has ardently defended the Chief Executive against international business communities’ “most corrupt” tag on the Philippines, saying Mrs. Arroyo should instead be commended for the tough decisions she had made and for leading in persecuting individuals in government suspected of involvement in graft and corruption, which include deposed leader Joseph Estrada.
In a chance interview during a provincial sortie in Ilocos, TU senatorial bet Rep. Prospero Pichay said since Mrs. Arroyo assumed the presidency after Estrada’s ouster in January 2001, she has been addressing corruption issues in the government.
“If she’s not serious in ridding the country of graft and corruption why did she file a plunder case against (deposed) President Joseph Estrada? It was President Arroyo who led the filing of the graft and corruption case against Erap (Estrada’s nickname). The man who brought the corruption scandal all the way to Malacañang is Estrada, the first time in the Philippines’ history,” he said.
Pichay added the people should not criticize Mrs. Arroyo but should instead praise her for having created the Presidential Anti Graft Commission (PAGC), right after she came to power.
Pichay stressed if not for Estrada, who has been in detention for six years now on plunder charges, the Philippines would not have become the “most corrupt country” in Asia.
“It was Erap who brought graft and corruption to the highest level in the government which is the presidency. He was impeached because of graft and corruption, but now under President Arroyo his trial is being held fair and square, he is awaiting conviction by the Sandiganbayan,” he said.
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 12:25 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
I removed the video for it's low quality that is slowing the blog besides Pichay is not one we really want to watch. Oh, thank you for the article on Pichay at least we get to know what kind of politician we are dealing with in this election.
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 12:58 PM from IP address 72.134.106.50
Black and white propagandas abound during election season and it is very confusing for those who are not aware of the real characters behind the names. Pichay, Nograles and De Venecia are just some of the traditional politicians that we should vote out of office or else nothing good will come out of this election.
Nap
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 1:33 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Why are the candidates for the upcoming election in the Philippnes are mostly movie stars or artists? Do they really know about politics? Can they help? Or they're doing this for mere popularity?
Posted on Apr 12, 2007, 12:11 AM from IP address 121.97.220.89
1.1 million illegal voters in 2004 presidential election.
by Napanice (no login)
1.1 M illegal voters weeded out of COMELEC list
By MARVIN SY
The Philippine Star
The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has weeded out more than 1.1 million persons from the certified voters list (CVL) for the coming May 14 elections, a first ever cleansing process undertaken in the history of the poll body.
Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said this means that the CVL has been 100 percent cleansed of illegal registrants and flying voters that could taint the credibility of the upcoming midterm polls.
He said that this figure is for both the local and absentee voters’ lists, with a total number of 45,545,902 voters remaining.
The poll official explained that those who were stricken out of the CVL are double registrants, those who have died, rendered insane or incompetent, convicted by courts, transferred to other cities, lost their Filipino citizenship, under-aged and those whose applications have incomplete data.
"Because of this, we are assured of clean and credible elections. There would be no flying voters," he said, adding that the measure was considered baby steps in the poll body’s objective of clearing the air of doubt that the COMELEC is involved in cheating during elections.
Sarmiento said that the so-called cleansing process of the CVL required the evaluation of their files to determine who should be removed from the list.
He said that a report from the COMELEC’s election and barangays affairs department noted that in the National Capital Region, there were 73,430 that were removed from the CVL.
Sarmiento said that if the CVL was not cleansed, the registered voters for this elections would reach more than 46 million.
The COMELEC said earlier that the CVL would also be contained in tamper-proof compact discs, which would easily be accessed by the public.
COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos also said in recent interviews that they have been working with mobile network providers for access to the voters’ list via short messaging system or SMS, which is being commonly used in the country. With James Mananghaya
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 4:46 PM from IP address 67.101.45.144
Pedro a devoted catholic lost his way in the forest, suddenly a huge and hungry bear appear in front of him, not knowing what to do to save his life, Pedro knelt and prayed "O Lord please make this huge and hungry bear a catholic", after he said that a loud thunder and lightning surrounds the place and the huge and hungry bear knelt and said "Bless me o lord and this thy gift which I am about to receive.....
Posted on Apr 2, 2007, 10:34 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Religion has no ethics and ethical principles related to a moral norm are seldom observed. Religion is a hollow way of life. It has no substance. Pure and simple, to celebrate an afterlife, you need to borrow and steal to finance your soul's salvation.
Philosophy is so much better. Philosophers talk about ethics at least and they are in a search for ethical principles that work.
I take philosophy everytime. It works and it practices ethical principles.
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 12:48 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Ethics come from religion, tell me any ethical principles that did not come from the teaching of god.
Even the constitution derives from the teaching of god, do not kill, steel, commit adultery, harm people, judgment, love your neighbor, etc. all comes from the teaching of god.
Ethics is only a branch of religion, faith is another one.
If you take good philosophy anytime, you are embracing religion without knowing it.
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 3:52 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I don't think that there is any ethics in religion, it is rather a failure
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
Go to any country that it religious, you will be stricken with a bolo or knife. The medieval ages were the times of the Crusades and many died for religious reasons.
I would consider that ethics could come from religion but ethics on that basis is a failure.
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 9:24 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
I can go to U.S. and not be afraid to be stricken with knife or bolo, even their green buck says In God We Trust, England is the other one, and so as Japan, Saudi Arabia or Brunei, even in India or China.
Now it's your turn, mention any country that don't believe in god and living in peace?
Religion in the medieval ages happened during the crusaders is young and still maturing, just like fruit it is sour but when it matured it become sweet. People in young ages are carefree and immature but we always give them time.
Imagine a country without god, imagine if all the people will consider the bible as another ordinary book, imagine a country without spiritual leader, imagine if all the people will believe there is no heaven and hell. Just imagine.
No, religion can never fail, it is the people who don't follow the ethics of religion that fails.
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 5:47 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Has science done more even without its ethical principles? Or, does religion have one? Your argument is lame, very lame. Religion has not translated into real life, do you agree?
Rather, religion has spawned terrorism, murder and genocide. Check your defense.
I would rather say that when I face religious people, I should be on the lookout with a sword and shield, to defend myself.
Examine the facts, within the walls of religious hierarchy are made the edicts, papal bulls, pronouncements and other hype to maim, kill, eliminate and to promote cities of God which are not cities of God, BTW, but systems of abuse and promotion of ways of life to slave the mind and not only the body.
Fear not those who can destroy the body but fear those who could cast the body and soul to Hell.
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 6:55 PM from IP address 203.131.139.86
Are you defending atheism or are you an atheist, because if you are not, there is no point to continue discussing this matter, but if you are, I'm willing to continue the discussion.
If you are, please make a topic about atheism and we will discuss it further. We are below the room already.
My answer is yes, religion done far more better that science.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 4:39 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
Since when? Don't turn yourself into another Abarte who spreads rumors and falsehoods around here.
Answer this question. If you're familiar with the Periodic Table of Elements like Hydrogen and Oxygen, how many of those are mentioned in the Bible or which of those were discovered by religious researchers?
Nap
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 8:47 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
I can go to U.S. and not be afraid to be stricken with knife or bolo, even their green buck says In God We Trust, England is the other one, and so as Japan, Saudi Arabia or Brunei, even in India or China.
Now it's your turn, mention any country that don't believe in god and living in peace?
Religion in the medieval ages happened during the crusaders is young and still maturing, just like fruit it is sour but when it matured it become sweet. People in young ages are carefree and immature but we always give them time.
Imagine a country without god, imagine if all the people will consider the bible as another ordinary book, imagine a country without spiritual leader, imagine if all the people will believe there is no heaven and hell. Just imagine.
No, religion can never fail, it is the people who don't follow the ethics of religion that fails.
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 5:49 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I believed there is a creator and that are so much to thankful for all the things that I have for now, I believ on him. Look around you. It's so beautiful. Think who can make all these : The people, animals, plants that provide lots of food, water to drink, river, seas, skys, mountains, rock and so on. I pray in my heart to : Forgive all my sins, for all my love ones who are still here and to those who are not here anymore and peace on earth for all nations, believed on him and I love him. What do you believe in your heart???
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 1:05 PM from IP address 69.106.48.50
I believe the same thing as you do, let me share something that comes in my heart.
I woke up one beautiful morning and greeted by the morning sun, as I walk down the street I saw my friends and neighbors passing by saying hi and hello, I also saw baby smiling while in the care of her mother, I saw gardens in the neighborhood with different flowers in different colors, I look up, the skies are mint blue and birds are flying, as I went back home I saw my wife and kids waiting for me, then a gentle breeze touches my face and I said to myself, what a wonderful world.
I guess, we should look at the world more on its beautiful things than the ugly ones, anyway, it is the men that makes it ugly not god.
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 7:48 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I will leaved that to people who can understand better, the study of the general nature of morales and of the specific morales choice to be made by a person...
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 11:34 PM from IP address 69.105.176.171
A lack of knowledge of sin could cause one to commit that sin, albeit unknown.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Has a spiritual leader ever told you what sins there are that one may commit but always leaves those that you need to confess?
Your approach will leave a trail of injury, then you and the one who was injured will have to settle it with your priest or minister or the judge. Quite a inave plan for business and cultural development for the Philippines.
No wonder, this leave-it-to-the-judge-when-found-out is the reason why we do not progress.
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 1:20 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
You tell me, looks like you are knowlegeable on everything.
I can categories sins to what I know:
Small : Like liar or lying
Big : Like criminal or killing somebody
Confess your sins to priest if you like, you are the only one know what you done wrong.
I know one thing. One particular reason why Philippines progress was so slow. : Filipinos are smart and intelligent, but they are not using it property and they have the tendency to become LAZY untill they forgot everything in a short time.
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 2:10 PM from IP address 68.126.149.92
Former senator Loren Legarda and two other Genuine Opposition candidates are the most trustworthy public figures for Filipinos, results of the latest Pulse Asia survey revealed Wednesday.
GO's Francis "Chiz" Escudero, Manuel Villar and Loren Legarda scored majority trust ratings in the latest Pulse Asia survey conducted April 3 to 5 with 1,800 respondents.
Of the three candidates, Legarda received the highest trust rating with 63 percent. Escudero and Villar had 53 percent and 55 percent, respectively.
Joining the three GO candidates are independent senatorial candidate Francis Pangilinan with 54 percent and 2004 senatorial poll topnotcher Sen. Manuel Roxas II with 52 percent.
Pulse Asia said the five personalities topped the 26 public figures included in the survey.
The survey added that "fairly big pluralities of Filipino" trust former president Joseph Estrada. Estrada, who is jailed on plunder charges, got 38 percent trust rating.
Other senatorial candidates with high trust ratings are detained Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan (38 percent), Joker Arroyo (44%), Panfilo Lacson (45%), Edgardo Angara (45%), Ralph Recto (45%) and Alan Peter Cayetano (47%). Arroyo, Angara and Recto are Team Unity (TU) candidates while Lacson and Cayetano are with GO. Honasan is running as an independent.
Other personalities are former president Corazon Aquino (41%) and Vice-President Noli de Castro (44%).
Meanwhile, President Arroyo and former president Fidel Ramos have public distrust ratings of 41 and 43 percent respectively. Joining the two is former senator Teresa Aquino-Oreta, a senatorial candidate under the administration-backed Team Unity ticket.
Almost half of the respondents or 39 percent to 42 percent were undecided if they trust or distrust Chief Justice Reynato Puno, TU's Juan Miguel Zubiri, Prospero Pichay, Michael Defensor, GO's Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay.
The survey also showed that Filipinos either trust (37 percent) or distrust (35 percent) TU's Vicente "Tito" Sotto III while Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections was given almost the same indecision and distrust ratings of 39 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon also received a high distrust rating of 41 percent.
Reactions, reactions
With regard to talk that she released a television advertisement apologizing for her "dancing queen" act, Oreta said she did not come up with the TV ad to get positive reviews.
"That apology was not done for any survey or ratings, it was done because something was bothering me and I had to get a load off my chest."
Oreta's tag was coined following the aborted impeachment trial of former president Joseph Estrada.
COMELEC Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, meanwhile, downplayed the commission's low trust rating. "I'm not surprised. This is the burden of the COMELC."
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 6:42 AM from IP address 67.101.45.144
last month me nakipagdeal sakin sa business sabi nya malaking pera daw madami cyang pinaktang documents nagpapatunay na legal ung business. dodoble daw ang pera pag nainvest sa knya. After ko binigay yung napagkasundoang pera di na xa nagpakita. me nakapagsabing me ronillo pulmano daw di2 pero di ako sigurado kung isang tao lang yung nakausap ko at yung ronillo d2. sana lang isuli yung pera kasi pinaghirapan ko yun sa abroad.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 5:24 AM from IP address 203.84.174.138
This name was familiar to me. He use to post messages here and in one or two accasions I responded on his messages. I did't know that he's a suspect of doing illegal activities. Hope authorities will catch up on him so you can get your money back. I doubt if he is still have your money. You know, a crook is always a crook no matter what...
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 6:37 PM from IP address 69.111.53.249
A gullible person like you is one side of the problem.
by Anonymous (no login)
If I, somebody you don't know, accuse someone you don't know that he is a crook, would that make my statement credible and true? I can say you are a crook but is that real evidence that you are really a crook?
Ang kagaya mong tao ang sumisira sa mundo dahil naniniwala ka kaagad sa kahit ano na walang katibayan. You should be smarter than that, dude!
Posted on Apr 11, 2007, 3:11 AM from IP address 12.72.68.36
This is not the place if you really have a valid complaint. Go to the police.
by Anonymous (no login)
Pulmano is in Saudi Arabia and you are in the Philippines. Umuwi ba si Ronillo Pulmano dyan sa inyo? Baka naman isa ka lang sa kagalit nya sa internet at gumagawa ka lang ng intriga. Lumang pinoy style na yan, hindi mo ba alam?
Pumumta ka sa police at doon ka magreklamo kung totoo ang sinasabi mo. Walang makatutulong sa iyo dito sa forum.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 7:59 PM from IP address 12.72.58.185
it's a net business familiar with ebay? ey im not sure kung yung pulmano d2 or yung pulmano na sinabi mo is iisa ok? ive no idea kung san cya na met ko lang cya sa ebay
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 8:33 PM from IP address 203.84.174.138
Ang sabi nya sa Pakistan cya nagtratrabaho at me mga businesses cya sa Pinas. Me nakapagsabi lng sakin na me pulmano d2 im not jst kung cya ba pero kung hindi di hindi pero kung cya man yun sana ibalik nya yung pera. thanks
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 8:37 PM from IP address 203.84.174.138
Sa Ebay kamo? At nagpakita sa iyo ng documents? Medyo lumalabo yata ang kwento mo. Sino ba namang bobo ang nakikipagdeal sa ebay na may documents pa na ipinakita at naniwala ka kaagad na totoong business na nga yon? Wow, tsong! Kailan ka ba ipinanganak at sa kumbento ka ba lumaki? Magkano naman ang nawala sa iyo? LIbo? Milliones? Kung meron mang katiting na katutohanan ang kwento mo dapat ka talagang maloko dahil katangahan ang ginagawa mo. I-submit mo nga sa www.Darwinawards.com ang kwento mo at baka manalo ka pa!
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 8:18 AM from IP address 12.72.56.227
The mailman knocked at the door yesterday and had me sign for a registered mail envelope from the Philippines. The stamp says it was sent on 01 April 2007 and it cost the government PHP111.00. The envelope bore the following markings:
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS
The Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting
7th Floor, Palacio del Gobernador Bldg.,
Intramuros, Manila, Philippines 1002
On each side of the sender address were two seals:
Commission on Elections, Republic of the Philippines
Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting, Comission on Elections, 2003
Additional markings: ELECTORAL MAILS, VIA AIRMAIL
The envelope is white and made of heavy stock, it was postmarked 08 April 2007 which means it took at least a week to deliver it to my address.
THE ENVELOPE CONTAINED SEVEN ITEMS AND THESE ARE:
1. VOTING BY MAIL - INSTRUCTIONS TO VOTERS (1 SHEET)
2. CERTIFIED LIST OF CANDIDATES FOR SENATORS (1 SHEET)
3. CERTIFIED LIST OF SECTORAL PARTIES/ORGANIZATIONS/POLITICAL PARTIES/COALITIONS PARTICIPATING IN THE PARTY-LIST SYSTEM FOR THE MAY 14, 2007 ELECTIONS (1 SHEET)
4. INNER ENVELOPE MARKED IN RED WITH A SEAL AND "SENATORIAL AND PARTY-LIST ELECTIONS MAY 14, 2007 OVERSEAS ABSENTEE VOTING" (1 HEAVY STOCK ENVELOPE)
5. OUTER ENVELOPE MARKED AS FOLLOWS (1 HEAVY STOCK ENVELOPE):
(OAVF No. 45-Outer Envelope)
----------------------------
Signature Above Printed Name
SPECIAL BALLOT RECEPTION AND CUSTODY GROUP
PHILIPPINE CONSULATE GENERAL
MAILING ADDRESS
6. PAPER SEAL MARKED AS FOLLOWS (1 11.5 CM X 4 CM GUMMED PAPER):
OAVF No. 12 No. SERIALIZED NUMBER
Republic of the Philippines
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS
SENATORIAL AND PARTY-LIST ELECTIONS
MAY 14, 2007
PAPER SEAL FOR:
(1) ELECTION RETURNS AND CERTIFICATE OF CANVAS.
(2) ENVELOPES FOR OAV FORM Nos. 16, 18, 18-A, 18-B, 17, 17-A to 17-F, 21, 21-A to 21-F.
(3) Outer Envelope (Voting by Mail)
7. OFFICIAL BALLOT MARKED AS FOLLOWS (1 25 CM X 11.5 CM WATERMARKED PAPER)
SEAL "REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES"
OFFICIAL BALLOT
MAY 14, 2007
OVERSEAS ABSENTEE VOTING
YOUR COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE
YOUR PHILIPPINE CONSULATE GENERAL'S CITY
SERIALIZED NUMBER
===========================================================
Fill out the ballot secretly using a ballot secrecy folder.
Do not put any distinctive mark on any part of the ballot.
Place your accomplished ballot inside the envelope provided
for the purpose.
===========================================================
Choose one from among the parties or organizations or
coalitions enumerated in the certified list posted in the
ballot secrecy folder.
SERIALIZED NUMBER VOTER'S THUMBMARK {BOX)
Comment: Obviously there are enough serialized numbers in this package to account for all the ballots cast by absentee voters. The official ballot
has at least two serialized numbers that can be computerized for the
purpose of accountability. However, none of the serialized numbers are
encoded or barcoded for reading by an electronic scanner.
It is a sad irony that the Philippines is heavily engaged in gambling and
lottery through the extensive use of high tech computerized equipment and
betting materials specially the PAGCOR which collects hundreds of millions
from the public everyday. And yet the government has never made it a top
priority to mandate and fund the nationwide computerization of the election
process.
For a very good reason; it will be very difficult for corrupt politicians to thwart the people's will when the latest technology is employed to count their votes.
Nap
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 7:59 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
COMELEC FIRE WAS NOT CAUSED BY ELECTRICAL IGNITION,.
by Napanice (no login)
Abalos: Electrical overload did not ignite Comelec fire
By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
CHAIRMAN Benjamin Abalos Sr. of the Commission on Elections on Wednesday dismissed initial investigation results that the fire that destroyed the Comelec headquarters in Manila was caused by an electrical overload.
Abalos said he was more inclined to believe a cigarette butt accidentally thrown into a pile of old papers at the building’s ground floor started the fire.
“I don’t believe it was caused by an overloading of wires because almost all the lights and the air-conditioning units were turned off during that time. How could it overload?” Abalos said.
He said Executive Director Pio Joson, who was on his second-floor office when the fire broke out, had seen smoke coming from the ground floor.
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 9:39 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
Anybody can say where the fire started. Even the Comelec officials can say where the fire started. Someone wants to destroy documents that are vital to their own interested these coming election(May 2007)
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 8:36 PM from IP address 69.106.43.239
You could never prove foul play because you are not a scientist
by Lemuel G. Abarte (no login)
This is the main issue regarding occurrences in the Philippines where we base our accusations on hakahaka and whatever. We should have more scientists in our midst to remove doubts.
No wonder, we do not progress politically because we are poor at pyroscience.
Posted on Apr 10, 2007, 12:08 AM from IP address 203.131.139.86
IS IT JUST COMELEC'S WILD IMAGINATION OR AN INTENT TO DEFRAUD?
by Napanice (no login)
1 M extra ballots to be printed
By JAMES MANANGHAYA
The Philippine Star 04/05/2007
The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) announced Wednesday it would print one million spare ballots as a contingency measure during the May 14 elections.
COMELEC Commissioner Resurreccion Borra explained that the one million ballots are needed to guarantee against spoilage and replace those that might be damaged in transit.
Borra said the printing of extra election documents is among several contingency measures to ensure smooth operations during the elections.
"But supposing (a) calamity (may occur and) it will take a long period of time to print so you would need a little allowance, this is not done exactly one (ballot) is to one (voter)," Borra said.
He said the COMELEC en banc has authorized the printing of one million copies of spare ballots.
Borra stressed the need to print extra copies to anticipate spoilage of ballots and avert a possible declaration of failure of elections in areas in case the ballots were not delivered on time.
"It would take a while to produce ballots if it would be damaged during shipping, so we need to anticipate that. What if, for example, a pump boat carrying ballots capsizes?" Borra pointed out.
He said the printing of spare ballots has its practical purposes, which is not illegal under the law.
The printing of extra ballots contravened the earlier assurances made by COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos of one ballot per voter.
The latest update from COMELEC indicated a total 45,545,902 ballots have been printed for both local and overseas absentee voting.
Abalos said COMELEC is about to complete the final list of registered voters, which is already more than 99 percent "cleansed" of double and multiple registrants, as well as flying voters..
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 6:16 PM from IP address 69.3.234.187
May KATO-IRAN yata si Borra para mag-print ng 1 M ballots. Pero, I don't trust this guy parang hindi gagawa ng matino sa mukha pa lang. Si commissioner e TOTA ni midget Gloria ito? Delikado ang lagay ng mga oppositions. BAKA MADAYA ULIT SIYA!!!
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 8:32 PM from IP address 69.110.230.113
The Comelec is the cheating arm of Malacanang Palace to ensure Gloria Arroyo's candidates victory thru massive electoral fraud. Abalos and Borra are the last election officials to be trusted.
Gov’t Taps Printer of Fake Election Returns
By Aries Rufo
Thursday, 29 March 2007
The printing firm that the government has tapped to print all the election returns (ERs) for this year’s elections is the same company believed to have fabricated election forms for the alleged cheating in the 2004 president elections.
It is also the same company that printed campaign paraphernalia for President Arroyo in the 2004 presidential race—all paid for by the Philippine Games and Amusement Corp. (Pagcor).
Grand C Graphics, a Caloocan-based printing firm, bagged the contract without public bidding, sources at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) told NEWSBREAK. It started printing the ERs for the May 14 polls last Tuesday.
According to the contract it signed with the government-run National Printing Office (NPO), Grand C Graphics would lease its printing equipment and lend the services of its 55 employees to the NPO. The equipment has been brought to the NPO premises, as stipulated in the contract.
Some senior officials of the Comelec are concerned that giving Grand C Graphics the job of printing the ERs could expose the accountable documents to security risks. It does not help assuage fears of cheating in the coming polls, they said.
Grand C Graphics is a favored printer of Efraim Genuino, chair of Pagcor and a close associate of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, as well as other Arroyo allies.
In the administrative case filed by the President Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) against Technical Education Skills Development Authority director general Augusto Syjuco, Grand C Graphics was identified as the printer that was awarded a P9.2-million contract of a book authored by Syjuco. The PAGC has found irregularities in the project, among which was the bidding process.
NEWSBREAK sought to interview Nelson Ching, Grand C Graphics proprietor, but his office said he was always out of the office. His office has not responded to our requests for a return call.
BREAKING RULES?
There are indications that the NPO is diverting from established rules or traditions to accommodate Grand C Graphics.
According to the senior Comelec officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, this was the first time in post-Marcos electoral history that the NPO took full charge of the printing of all election documents—from the ballots to the ERs to the statements of votes (SOVs) and certificates of canvass (COCs).
The law tasks the NPO to take charge of the printing of official ballots and other accountable forms of national, provincial, and municipal governments. However, the agency has always waived the printing ERs, SOVs, and COCs for lack of time.
For the 2007 elections, however, the NPO informed the Comelec early on that it could handle the printing of all these accountable election forms. This was formalized in a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed between Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos and then NPO director Philip Evardone.
Evardone recently figured in a controversy over allegations, which he denied, that he allowed the use of state facilities to print primers in support of the government’s bid to revise the 1987 Constitution. He is the elder brother of Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone, then a spokesman for the charter-change initiative and now the assistant campaign manager of the administration’s Team Unity senatorial slate.
In all previous elections, when Comelec took charge of the printing of ERs, SOVs, and COCs, it conducted bidding for the projects. Now that NPO is in charge, the contract was awarded to Grand C Graphics without bidding, according to Comelec sources. The printing of all election forms for the 2007 polls has a budget of P198 million.
Three sources in the printing industry were not surprised that Grand C Graphics got a sweetheart deal from the NPO. They noted that as early as last year, Evardone began disqualifying other printers from getting in NPO printing jobs. Even Comelec-accredited printers which have a track record were disqualified by Evardone, other Comelec sources said.
The sources from the printing industry told NEWSBREAK that Grand C was one of the private printers suspected to be behind the production of fake ERs that were used in the cheating in 2004 presidential polls.
SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS
Informed about the feedback from the printing industry and NEWSBREAK’s information, Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra said that under the poll body’s MOA with NPO, the latter can lease printing machines from private printers provided that the printing be done inside the NPO compound.
He said this is the first time that the Comelec and the NPO entered into a MOA “to define responsibilities and accountabilities so that if there is a breach, NPO can be held liable for damages.”
Borra sought to downplay a potential security risk in the ballots and ERs saying that 15 surveillance cameras had been were installed in the printing area. Aside from ERs, Grand C Graphics would also be printing SOVs and COCs.
He said that representatives from Comelec and the political parties are present round-the- clock to monitor the printing.
Next to the ballots, ERs are the most basic election document. These are accountable poll documents produced at the precinct level.
An ER contains tally marks representing the number votes received by a candidate, with the entry of votes in words and in figures. It indicates the polling place, the barangay, municipality, or the city where the voting was held, and the total number of valid, excess, and spoiled ballots.
MANUFACTURED ERs
In its series of reports on election cheating, NEWSBREAK, citing insiders, uncovered two ways that manufactured ERs were used to rig the votes in favor of President Arroyo.
Before the elections, pre-accomplished ERs and COCs were made by election operators to replace the original ones in Cebu, Iloilo, Bohol, and Pampanga. These were President Arroyo’s bailiwicks where, they believed, an unusually high margin of votes favoring her would not be doubted by observers. The ERs and COCs used in this operation were reportedly printed on extra sheets of security papers taken from the Comelec.
Months after President Arroyo was proclaimed, the operators reportedly conducted another cheating activity using ERs.
Because Ms. Arroyo’s wide margins in the Visayas and Pampanga areas were wiped out by her rival’s votes from other regions, the now infamous former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano’s group allegedly tampered with the COCs in Muslim Mindanao provinces but left alone the figures in the ERs.
When Fernando Poe Jr. filed a protest against President Arroyo, the latter’s operators replaced the original ERs in the ballot boxes being kept at the Batasan Building in Quezon City, according to insiders. The purpose was for the figures in the ERs to match those in the COCs.
The new ERs contained tally marks and figures that would now match the figures in the COCs. The ERs for this post-proclamation operation were reportedly printed by Rounce Printing using the numbering machine borrowed from Ernest Printing, the Comelec’s accredited printer of ERs in 2004.
The printing industry sources were not sure which of these batches of ERs were printed by Grand C Graphics. They could not tell either if the papers used by Grand C Graphics in printing the ERs were from Comelec.
SECURITY FEATURES
If indeed Grand C Graphics printed ERs used for the 2004 fraud, election operators are careful about branding them as “fake.” They explained to NEWSBREAK that fake election documents means that paper used and the elements printed on the paper are not from the Comelec, and the security features from the Comelec are absent.
However, they said, if the security paper of the COCs came from the Comelec and—whether authorized by any Comelec official or stolen from the poll body—the forms printed are only called “unofficial” or “fabricated” but real.
As for the ERs, printing sources say the paper used for these can be acquired anywhere, unlike the security paper specially ordered for the COCs.
However, official Comelec ERs have security markings not visible to the naked eye. In the 2004 elections, for example, each of the six sheets in a set of ERs was color-coded. They had hidden borders that reflected the signature of Comelec chair Abalos. The type of the number was also unique to the numbering machine used for that particular job order.
Sources say Grand C Graphics is also widely believed in the industry as the source of fake ballots and ERs that surface whenever election protests are filed in the national and local level. Election protests involve the re-examination of ballots and ERs to determine who really won. Many election operators contact printing companies to print blank ballots and ERs that they could fill up for their clients and switch with the original ones in the ballot boxes.
In the review of ERs in the election protest filed by vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda, for instance, ERs that don’t match the copies of the Comelec and Namfrel have been found in the ballot boxes in Batasan, where the canvassing of votes for the president and vice president was held.
A Comelec official also has testified in a local election contest on fake ballots found in official ballot boxes.
FAVORED PRINTER
Recent reports show that Grand C Graphics is a favored printing press of some government agencies and personalities.
In NEWSBREAK’s March 15, 2004 issue, we identified Grand C Graphics as having been commissioned by Pagcor to print campaign materials for President Arroyo, her running mate Vice President Noli de Castro, and the administration’s K-4 senatorial candidates. Payments for the printing jobs were sourced from the Pagcor’s intelligence and discretionary funds.
Leftover campaign materials by the K-4 slate can still be seen inside the Grand C Graphics compound when we paid a visit early this week.
Campaign materials of reelectionist Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr, Team Unity candidate Cesar Montano, reelectionist Caloocan Mayor Recom Echiverri, and the party-list group Smile were also seen inside the compound. Echiverri is an administration ally while Smile is suspected as administration party-list front.—with reports from Lou Janssen Dangzalan
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 9:46 PM from IP address 85.214.71.55
GENUINE Opposition spokesman Adel Tamano yesterday reiterated the party’s call for the public to be vigilant against poll fraud in the coming elections.
“The administration is working from a tired script they used three years ago when despite consistent survey results showing unwavering public support for Fernando Poe Jr., Malacanang used all the machinery and resources at its disposal to defeat the electorate’s choice.
“The signs of yet another plan to cheat are all there, Gloria’s public remarks of an ‘at all costs’ administration victory echo exact words she said in 2004. How can anyone except a cheater assure the delivery of seven million votes reflecting the choices of seven million individuals? At best it sounds like command voting—an idea that is the complete opposite of democratic and responsible voting.”
“Where will the seven million votes come from? There are only 18,000 elective posts, so that even if every elected official voted for Team – GMA, then that would be less than 1% of the 12,000,000 votes needed to win a Senate seat. It really sounds like cheating.”
”Team – GMA candidates’ dependence on the administration’s machinery betray a lack confidence that the Filipino people will not support them if they are seen in their individual merits.”
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 9:57 PM from IP address 81.169.185.225
Bloated 45 Million Voters' List: AN INTENT TO DEFRAUD
by Artemio De La Cruz (no login)
Turtles in Turtles Island are registered voters. Autonomous Region of Moslem Mindanao and Cebu Province have questionable high a percentage growth in voting population. Voters’ list had gone to smoke in the recent fire that razed Comelec HQ in Intramuros, Manila. BTW, Comelec Chairman Abalos has new manufacured voters' list.
GO demands baring of 45-M voters’ list
Daily Tribune 04/04/2007
Genuine Opposition (GO) senatorial bets yesterday called for the baring by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of the over 45 million strong voters’ list, representing some 53 percent of the country’s total population, saying not just the number of voters should be announced, but more important, the names of the more than 45 million registered voters for the mid-term elections should be identified and made public, to ensure transparency and clean elections.
The baring of the names of the voters in the Comelec list can then be verified and scrutinized by the public, which will then also provide the electorate the opportunity to check whether the individuals listed in the roster are correctly drawn, exist, are dead, or are ghost voters.
Senatorial aspirant Francis “Chiz” Escudero led the GO pack as he stated that the poll body should reveal the actual names of the voters that were registered in its official list.
He said merely stating there are more than 45 million registered voters is not enough.
“We want to know who and where are these voters and how many in a
precinct. That is the only way to check early those (voters) who would be contested,” Escudero told reporters at a briefing at the GO Headquarters in Makati City.
Escudero pointed out that the Comelec must avoid releasing the list just a week before the polls.
“We in the opposition demand from the Comelec to release to the public the voters’ list for dissemination to the localities and precincts,” he said, adding that the electorate should be aware of the list to safeguard their votes.
In 2004, by keeping the voters’ list secret and releasing this only a few days before the elections, over two million voters, by conservative estimates, were disenfranchised.
Moreover, it was also discovered that the voters’ listing was deliberately jumbled up by still unidentified Comelec officials, so much so that the voters from the opposition’s bailiwicks were denied their right to vote, as their precints did match their names and addresses.
It was, however, a different story in the bailiwicks of the administration. Not only was the voters’ list padded, but there also were double entries for the same precincts in the same area.
In 2004, the opposition called the attention of the Comelec officials to the fact that Cebu had too high a percentage growth in voting population. But Comelec did nothing to correct this blatant rise in voters’ population.
Escudero’s call was echoed by his party mates Loren Legarda and Panfilo Lacson, saying this would be a start to ensure clean elections in May.
For his part, GO spokesman Adel Tamano said the poll body should, apart from making the voters’ list public early enough, also issue the names of the party-list nominees as these are matters of public concern.
“There is no legal basis whatsoever for the Comelec not to release this information,” Tamano said.
He said it would be difficult to police and guard from flying voters and fake voters and padded voters’ lists if such information would be withheld from the public.
But even as the clamor grows for the release of the names of the nominees of the party list groups, the Comelec insisted that it is not the nominees but the party list groups that should be identified, not their repre-sentatives.
“What the public should know is what sectors are running, not the nominees,” Commissioner
Resurreccion Borra told reporters yesterday.
Borra explained that the poll body’s continued refusal to release the names of the nominees of the accredited 91 party list groups is that the agency wants to spare the public from being confused on who to vote for in the coming May 14elections.
“It should not get mixed up and confuse voters. The nominees should not be an influencing factor,” Borra explained, adding that a nominee for a party-list group should truly belong to the marginalized sector which he represents.
Suspicion is high that the Comelec officials, who are perceived to be allies of President Arroyo, and biased in favor of the President’s bets, refuse to make public the identities of the party list nominees due to the fact that many of the approved party list groups are either with the Arroyo government or serve as fronts of Malacañang allies.
Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer quickly said that the case of Dr. Arsenio Abalos, brother of poll Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., who is a nominee of Biyaheng Pinoy, a party-list organization composed of tricycle drivers, could not be considered an issue at this time saying, “For all you know, Arsenio Abalos is not a nominee.”
Borra said the “right time” to complain and seek the disqualification of party-list nominees is when they get elected.
GO’s Tamano also questioned the nine million votes that the Team Unity bets claimed would be delivered by Lakas.
“It is Lent so that may explain why these statements from Team GMA seem fishy, where will the nine million votes come from?” he said.
Earlier, opposition lawyer Sixto Brillantes Jr. appealed to the Comelec to reveal the security features and secret markings on ballots and election returns to ensure the holding of clean, honest and orderly elections.
“Such lack of knowledge if repeated this coming May 2007, may entail some dire consequences on the credibility of the electoral processes, particularly in the counting and canvassing,” Brillantes said in a letter to Commissioner Borra.
Brillantes said he informally discussed the matter of the so-called secret markings put on election documents to attest to their authenticity and prevent these from being tampered and substituted for fake ballots and election returns.
Meanwhile, the Comelec yesterday confirmed that it has authorized the National Printing Office (NPO) to lease machines and equipment for the printing of election returns (ER).
Borra however, explained that in allowing the NPO to lease the machines, Comelec is not privy to the arrangement of the lease agreement.
“Comelec has not authorized NPO to sub-contract (the printing of the ERs) but it was authorized to lease the machines,” Borra told reporters in an impromptu press briefing.
Opposition lead counsel Brillantes pointed out that the Comelec erred when it allowed the NPO to lease the machines without the proper bidding procedures, stressing, in a letter to Borra, who is in charge of the printing committee, that necessary rules and procedures of the bidding must be observed since the rented printing machines are owned by a private entity.
But Brillantes said when they visited the NPO last March 22, they discovered that the NPO leased the equipment and printing machines of a certain Mr. Nelson Ching of GC Graphics for the printing of ERs.
“There is no reported bidding conducted by NPO regarding the private contracting for the lease of ER printing machines and equipment. How the private group of Mr. Ching was able to enter the scene with regard to the printing of a most sensitive election document, is most vague and unclear,” Brillantes in his four-page letter said.
What is even more disturbing, Brillantes said, is the fact that the NPO which was tasked to print the Comelec’s accountable forms “appears to own not a single printing” press.
However, Borra argued that the Commission has no control on whether the NPO would lease the machines since “its their privilege”.
Comparing the case when the NPO sub-contracted to Ernest printing the production of ERs and other Comelec accountable forms during the last May 2004 polls, Brillantes said the case of GC Graphics gives them “apprehension that further printing mistakes and errors may surface”.
Brillantes also scored the NPO for engaging the services of an inexperienced ER printing manager saying these may lead to another mistakes since the NPO already erred in printing the local ER where the second copy was tagged as Comelec copy and the seventh copy as the copy to be posted.
In a related development, Mrs. Arroyo, despite an existing ban on hiring and firing employees during the campaign season, yesterday replaced on-leave NPO Director Felipe Evardone who was recommended suspended by the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) because of alleged violations on the anti-graft and procurement policies of the government.
Named acting NPO director is Enrique Agana, currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Asian Pacific Advisors and a Philippine Amusement and Games Corp. (Pagcor) agent.
Agana is an investment advisor, a certified fraud examiner (CFE) and has been often tapped by Mrs. Arroyo as representative of the country’s private sector in various business conferences abroad.
The appointment was released yesterday afternoon by the Office of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
At the height of the Evardone case, which was for a long time not acted upon by Malacanañg and still not acted upon, the Palace denied that failure to replace him could be part of an alleged scheme to rig the May elections in favor of administration candidates.
Apart from the recommendation of the PAGC against Evardone, the Office of the Presidential Legal Affairs issued a similar recommendation dated Feb. 15 but the Office of the President did not act on it. Jojo Arazas, Marie A. Surbano and Sherwin C. Olaes
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 10:33 PM from IP address 204.13.236.244
The massive fraud that took place in 2004 can be appreciated if Comelec is tasked to justify the printing of extra ballots. It can be shown that in the 2004 presidential election, less than 50 percent of registered voters cast their ballots. Thus if Comelec printed ballots that equals the numbers of registered voters, then that means there were at least 10 million unused ballots in that election.
Based on the past history of election therefore, Comelec does not need to print any extra ballots unless they intend to use it for fraudulent means.
Nap
Posted on Apr 5, 2007, 7:16 AM from IP address 69.3.234.187
What I want to know is if there are any mechanisms in place to ensure accountability at all level of the elction system. It is ok to have extra ballots for the reasons stated but how are we going to ensure that all ballots are accounted for after the election? Are the ones going to be used verified to reflect the actual usage on the number of voters registered? Are the spoiled ones and the good ones going to be counted and ensured to match with the records of legally printed ballots? We are concentrating on the wrong aspect of election. We have to perfect accountability of the players and their accounting system.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 7:32 PM from IP address 12.72.58.185
After the election all Comelec does is declare the winners and provide the Board of Canvassers with the Election Returns. Not once during the history of the Philippines did the authorities provide a complete accounting of the ballots printed, the ballots used, the ballots not used and the ballots destroyed.
Don't expect any change or improvement because that is too honest.
Nap
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 7:20 PM from IP address 67.101.46.115
BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,
THE COLONIZED FILIPINOS HAVE OUTDONE
THEIR SPANISH COLONISTS
All across Spain, penitents have become an unusual sight
in the past few days as they continue a Holy Week procession
without any tourist attracting fanfare.
The route to the cross is re-enacted in grossly bloody
detail in the Philippines, beginning with a devotee playing
a Roman soldier spitting on a penitent.
As bloody as the cruel bullfights of their Spanish colonists,
Filipinos even flagellate themselves "to atone for sins and
bring blessings to their family".
The church may frown upon the idea of nailing penitents
to the cross but because of their unique attraction to
the tourists, not even the government prohibit the unhealthy
practice which the younger generation even copy.
With a curious tourist providing an audience for the
show, Ruben Enaje, 46, was carried on the cross after
being crucified for the 21st time.
The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines has never
objected to this fanatical show of faith and priests even
stage seven last words shows inside the churches complete
with animated Jesus on the cross and cinematic thunder and
lighting.
Mankind must really be in need of salvation.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 4:21 PM from IP address 69.3.234.187
I blame the Spanish colonizer who brought to the Philippies the religious spirit and the much influence to the population. Now, Filipinos are over doing it as if it' all the ultimate hope for success of life and dreams in the future. It's not bad to dream a better life with a help from above, but, please success in life can be obtain by helping yourself by doing it in reality. God can only give you guidane to achieve.....
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 3:47 PM from IP address 69.106.50.104
DID MIKE ARROYO GIVE PERMISSION TO BROADCAST HIS PRIVATE ANEURISYM SURGERY?
by Napanice (no login)
FG, private citizen?
EDITORIAL
In all his libel suits against critical journalists, with close to 50 libel suits, First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo has claimed to be a private citizen, not a public figure, and thus is not fair game to the media.
Nobody buys that claim, but the state prosecutors, who elevate his libel complaints to the courts, and the judges handling such complaints from the presidential spouse with deference and kid gloves, to the point at times of being highly partisan in their rulings, all prove that he can’t possibly belong to the category of a private citizen.
This was again proved two days ago, during the hearing of a libel suit lodged by the First Gentleman against the Malaya publisher and his Business editor at a Manila court, as he was being cross-examined by the defense lawyer.
For one, there were at least 100 guards for him, as his security detail, and worse, it was his security detail, not the judge in court, who had the say on who could enter the courtroom, and who would be barred from the courtroom.
There is no such private citizen who could have that kind of government security detail, nor, for that matter, get his guards to determine who should be barred from the courtroom, thus, usurping the function of the hearing judge.
More to the point, whenever the presidential spouse rejects the questions for him to answer, under cross-examination, fielded by the defense counsel, with the lawyer telling Mike Arroyo not to raise his voice at him, the presidential spouse ups and berates the lawyer, saying, in a loud voice: “You can’t do this to me” then rolls up his sleeves, challenging the defense counsel to a fistfight outside the courtroom. And the hearing judge does not even hold Arroyo in contempt of court for his uncouth behavior and clear disrespect for the court.
True, he cooled down shortly and apologized to the judge, but he was not reprimanded by the judge as he was displaying his arrogance and disrespect to the court.
There is absolutely no one ordinary private citizen who can behave this way in a courtroom and get away with it. But Mike Arroyo, who claims to be a private citizen, always gets away with it, whether in the courtrooms or the House of Representatives.
In that particular Malaya libel suit hearing, Arroyo’s chief of staff Juris Soliman, who has no legal personality in this case, even had the temerity to intrefere in the case and dress down the defense counsel. Thankfully, the judge, upon the call of the defense counsel to have Soliman thrown out of court, reportedly ordered Mike Arroyo’s chief of staff out of the courtroom.
Again, the judge shouldn’t have waited for the defense counsel to complain. A judge would have that person thrown out.
But if he were a private citizen, would a chief of staff of an ordinary citizen have the gall to interrupt the proceedings? Would a private complainant have the clout to do as he pleases in a courtroom, and get away with it?
There was a time when Mike Arroyo, in another libel suit he lodged, reportedly refused to be cross-examined by the defense lawyer, saying he had no time for this, and the judge, so the reports went, allowed him to do so, since he was a “busy man,” denying the defense counsel the right to cross-examine the complainant-witness.
What chance does a journalist have in court, or even at the first stages of the libel complaint, through the fiscals, against a powerful presidential spouse who claims to be a private citizen, but whom the fiscals and even the judges treat with deference? He can’t even be castigated for his uncouth behavior by the judge, and he who claims to be a private citizen, even tells off the defense lawyer that he can’t ask such questions of him.
Not even the established doctrine of the Supreme Court on the matter of public officials and public figures being fair game to the media is being applied by these fiscals and judges, because if they did, the cases lodged by Mike Arroyo, would promptly be dismissed, as there is clearly no probable cause.
Still, as long as the courts allow the presidential spouse to get away with it, even when clearly, his libel suits against journalists that he files are blatant forms of harassment and intimidation and all done to silence the journalists, nothing much can be expected by way of independence in the judiciary arena.
Everyone knows that Mike Arroyo is no private citizen. And if he claims he is not a public official, even as he has an office as First Gentleman and a staff paid for by the people, he is definitely a public figure who uses all power and influence of government against the journalists. No wonder he has been called the enemy of the press by international press watchdogs.
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 10:23 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
MONEY MAKING DEALS OF UK HOSTAGES DONE IN BAD TASTE
by Napanice (no login)
The decision by the British navy to allow the former Iran detainees to get paid for public appearances, book deals or news interviews has raised criticism that they are getting special treatment.
"It does compare very badly with the six soldiers who were killed in Iraq this week, against the Royal Marines who are fighting a serious battle in Helmand province in Afghanistan," said retired army Col. Bob Stewart.
"And quite frankly, a vast part of the British armed forces think it's not fair," the former commander of British peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina said.
The British navy defended its decision, saying that permission was granted to make sure the service "had sight of what they were going to say," it said. (Full story)
"Quite aside from the 'human interest story' surrounding these individuals, there are also sensitive strategic issues in play," the Defense Ministry said in a written statement. "It was clear that the stories they had to tell were likely to have emerged via family and friends regardless of any decision the Navy took."
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 10:10 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
kamusta po ulit!!! E2 na naman ako nagsusumamo sa mga kababayan ko sa Malabon at Navotas na suportahan at tangkilikin ang sariling atin!! pls. Vote 4 MARITONI FRANCISCO 4 Congresswoman of our District.... MARAMING SALAMAT PO!!
Posted on Apr 8, 2007, 11:03 PM from IP address 122.2.60.86
At least tell us something about your candidate specially her political philosophy and her plans for the future if she wins. You cannot expect the readers here to just blindly vote for someone they don't even know.
Please do your part, can you do that?
Nap
Posted on Apr 9, 2007, 9:42 AM from IP address 67.101.46.115
Tony Blair did not do anything except talk and talk like an old lady. He should have bomb Iran immediately after taking the hostages. My opinion : Tony Blair was a big coward leader of England. He is a CHICKEN ****! compared to their previous leadership. British's going down to the drain......
Posted on Mar 30, 2007, 6:11 PM from IP address 68.127.27.64
Somebody out there knows how to RAISE THE PRICE OF OIL.
by Napanice (no login)
Notice how Blair is not in a hurry to invade Iran? Because the longer it takes to recover those hostages, the higher the price of oil will get and that's another windfall profit for the oil companies like Exxon which supported George Bush's political campaign.
Notice also that at one time Iraq was a major exporter of oil and when Bush declared his war the price of oil went up like a rocket. All these means it that war is good for big business.
Nap
Posted on Mar 31, 2007, 9:49 AM from IP address 67.101.46.6
When a country becomes socialistic iot will stagnate and
eventually becomes weak. The U. S. is just a few years behind.
Should we have a left leaning president in ther future, I'll assure you
that in a shorter span we will sink faster down the gutter.
Posted on Mar 31, 2007, 11:20 PM from IP address 71.227.129.93
Pedestrian Observer
The Urban Poor for Legal Reforms (UP-LR) and Bantay R.A. 7941 (the law that created the party-list system) have sought the disqualification of 41 sectoral nominees led by Biyaheng Pinoy bets lawyer Jesus Cruz and Dr. Arsenio Abalos.
The 41 party list groups whose nominees are being asked to be disqualified are:
1-United Transport Koalisyon
Aangat Tayo
Abante Ilonggo
Abay-Parak.
Abgbiag Timpuyog Ilocano Inc.
Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines Inc.
Ahon Pinoy
Akbay Pinoy OFW-National Inc.
Aksyon Sambayanan
Alagad
Alay sa Bayan ng Malayang Propesyonal and Repormang Kalakal
Alliance for Barangay Concerns
Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy
Alliance of Neo-Conservatives
Alliance of People's Organizations
Alliance of Volunteer Educators, The True Marcos Loyalist Inc.
Alyansa ng mga Grupong Haligi ng Agham at Teknolohiya Para sa Mamamayan Inc.
Ang Galing Pinoy
Ang Laban ng Indihinong Filipino
Angat Antas Kabuhayan Pilipino Movement
Angat Ating Kabuhayan
Arts Business and Science Professional
Asosasyon ng Maliliit na Negosyanteng Gumaganap Inc.
Association of Administrators, Professionals and Seniors
Babae Para sa Kaunlaran
Bago National Cultural Society of the Philippines
Bagong Alyansang Tagapagtaguyod ng Adhikaing Sambayanan
Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency
Bigkis Pinoy Movement
Biyaheng Pinoy
Biyayang Bukid
Filipinos for Peace, Justice and Progress Movement
Hanay ng Aping Pinoy
Kapatiran ng mga Nakakulong na Walang Sala
Kasangga sa Kaunlaran Inc.
Kasosyo Producer-Consumer Exchange
Parents Enabling Parents
Pwersa ng Bayaning Atleta
Sulong Barangay Movement
The True Marcos Loyalist Inc.
United Movement Against Drugs
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 7:53 PM from IP address 72.134.106.50
Please check out Martin Bautista candidate for senator under Ang Kapatiran at Pedestrian Observer Blog. There is also a PBS Documentary video on Martin Bautista, Ang Kapatiran & Apple's rendition of Asin on the right hand side of the blog, thank you.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 6:37 PM from IP address 72.134.106.50
In their desperation to leave the country for greener pastures, prospective overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) triggered a stampede Monday morning at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in a mad scramble to register for jobs in South Korea.
"There was a commotion because some of the applicants tried to break the long line of job applicants, fortunately no one was injured in the incident," POEA chief Rosalinda Baldoz said.
Baldoz said she is wondering why some of the applicants wanted to break the line, since the POEA will still entertain applicants until Wednesday and from April 10 to 20.
This was not the first time that a commotion was reported among throngs of applicants for deployment to South Korea, Baldoz added: "The registration is on first come first serve basis and we have a minimum of 500 to as much as job applicants a day."
Baldoz has assured that the POEA has sufficient personnel to attend to the job applicants, who tend to shove each other aside to jump ahead in the line.
To be included in the roster of jobseekers for South Korea, an applicant is required to register with the POEA and pass the Korean Language Test (KLT), as well as meet all the medical requirements for deployment.
Many job seekers are hoping to work in South Korea because the requirements can be complied with easily and the hiring companies offer higher salaries than firms based in other countries, a POEA employee said.
The government of South Korea earlier allocated 10,000 job openings for Filipino workers over the next three years. Mayen Jaymalin
Posted on Apr 3, 2007, 9:13 PM from IP address 69.3.234.187
In addition to these, in a few years Korean people will learn to eat adobo, bogoong, tuyo, penoy, balot and more. Maybe they know these foods already and Korean are enjoying these foods as part of their daily diet.....
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 6:33 PM from IP address 69.110.151.171
Vote MARITONI FRANCISCO for Congresswoman of Malabon & Navotas!!
by MALABON at NAVOTAS (no login)
Pls. vote for " MARITONI FRANCISCO " for CONGRESSWOMAN of MALABON and NAVOTAS!!!! Ikinakampanya ko sya kasi naniniwala ako sa mga adhikain na ipinaglalaban nya. Una na dito ay labanan ang political dynasty na umiiral ngayon dito sa aming distrito at ang sugpuin ang malawakang vote buying na nangyayari dito sa aming distrito na siyang pinaiiral ng kanyang dalawang kalaban. kahit ganito ang ginagawa ng dalawang ito alam ko marami pa rin kami na naniniwala sa salitang pgbabago,, MARAMING SALAMAT PO!!
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 6:51 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
GUD PM PO SA INYONG LAHAT ... AKOY ISANG SIMPLENG TAONG NAGHAHANGAD NG PAGBABAGO SA AMING DISTRITO NG MALABON AT NAVOTAS. NAIS KO LANG IPAHAYAG ANG AKING PAGSUPORTA SA ISANG KANDIDATO DITO SA AMING LUGAR KAY.......... MARITONI FRANCISCO..... SIYA KASI ANG URI NG KANDIDATO NA HAHANGAAN MO DAHIL SA MAGAGANDA NYANG KATANGIAN. MATAGAL KO NA SYANG NAKIKITA, TUMUTULONG SYA SA MGA TAO KAHIT NOON PA... MINSAN SA ISANG FORUM DITO SA AMIN. AKIN SYANG TINANONG KUNG BAKIT PA NIYA NINAIS NA TUMAKBO BILANG CONGRESSWOMAN NG AMNG LUGAR, GAYONG NAKAKATULONG NAMAN SYA SA MGA KADISTRITO NYA KAHIT HINDI SYA NAKAPWESTO... ISA LANG ANG KANYANG SINAGOT NAIS NYANG TULUNGAN ANG AMING MGA KABABAYAN NA MAIBALIK ANG DIGNIDAD AT PRINSIPYO SA BUHAY.. NA MATAGAL NG NINAKAW NG BUWAYA NA NAKAUPO NGAYON DITO AT TILA NGA NAMAN NA MAY KAPAL PA NG MUKHA NA PINATAKBO PA NITO ANG KANYANG KAPATID NA ALAM NAMAN NAMING HINDI TAAL NA TAGA RITO SA AMING DISTRITO. AT ANG KONGRESSMAN NAMAN NA ITO AY TATAKBONG MAYOR NG ISA NAMING DISTRITO. NAKAKAAWANG ISIPIN NA ANG AMING LUGAR AY MAY MGA BAYARANG BOTANTE.... SUMABAY PA ANG ISANG ASAWA NA NG KONGRESSMAN NA TUMATAKBO DIN SA PAGKAKONGGRESISTA NG AMING LUGAR.. NAIS KONG TANUNGIN ANG BABAENG ITO KUNG BAKIT ANG LAKAS NG LOOB NYA NA TUMAKBO GAYONG KONGRESSMAN NA ANG KANYANG ASAWA.. NGUNIT TULAD NG KAPATID NI KONGRESSMAN... PINAIIRAL LANG ANG KAPAL NG MUKHA... SANA NGAYONG ELEKSYON MAKAPAGISIP ISIP NA TAYO, MGA TUNAY NA ANAK NG MALABON AT NAVOTAS ILAGAY NATIN SA BALOTA YUNG TYAK NATING MAPAGKAKATIWALAAN... YUNG TUNAY NA TAGA SA ATIN AT WAG NA TAYONG MAGPADALA SA KINANG NG SALAPI NA INILALAHAD NILA. DUN TAYO SA NAGLALAHAD NG TUNAY NA PLATAPORMA.... HINDI SA NAMIMILI NG ATING BALOTA.... MARAMI PONG SALAMAT AT NAWAY PATNUBAYAN TAYO NG POONG MAYKAPAL....
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 8:53 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
If you cannot find a good job, run for public office.
by Napanice (no login)
Political dynasties are very popular in the Philippines because the winners in the elections are rewarded by the president's pork barrel. We all know how Filipinos bring the entire family to a fiesta or a birthday party to take advantage of a free lunch.
It's the same way in politics, after the husband wins the election it is his wife's turn then the brothers and sisters then their children and so on and so forth. While a Chinese family might own a business like Shoe Mart or Robinson, a Filipino family makes busines out of Mayors, Governors, Congressmen and even Presidents.
So we might say that the Republic of the Philippines is a business run by political dynasties.
Nap
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 11:37 AM from IP address 69.3.234.187
isang magandang araw ulit sa inyong lahat.... nais ko lang magpasalamat sa mga taong nakakaunawa sa aking mga saloobin sa, inyong lahat na katulad ko ay may prinsipyo at dignidad din na ipinaglalaban. Naway tulungan nyo ako sa krusada sa pagsugpo ng political dynasty dito sa aming distrito (at sa buong Pilipinas na rin). Taga ibang lugar kaman kaya natin to!!!! Muli salamat KAIBIGAN!!
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 6:39 AM from IP address 122.2.60.86
FILIPINO JUDGE SAYS LOW SALARIES MEAN LOW QUALITY JUSTICE
by Napanice (no login)
RP has 'crippled judiciary,' says SC justice
By Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 07:05am (Mla time) 04/07/2007
MANILA, Philippines -- An associate justice of the Supreme Court admitted the delivery of justice in the country has been crippled by the fiscal inadequacy, which has led some judges to succumb to bribery.
"An environment whereby a proposition that [a bribe guarantees a favorable disposition in the courts] is taken as folk wisdom is not an ideal climate for national development," Associate Justice Dante Tinga said in a speech at the induction of the Romblon Law Association at the Celebrity Sports Plaza this week.
He noted the irony that some investors take more comfort in this kind of environment than in knowing that safeguards are being taken against needless litigation.
Tinga pointed out that, notwithstanding seemingly hefty salary increases, the value of a judge’s wage is actually much lower than it was in 1957 and up to hundreds of times below that of private law practitioners.
Using the pay of regional trial court (RTC) judges as a benchmark, Tinga said their 1957 annual salary of P10,000 is equivalent to P766,000 today. In 1987, their pay was hiked to P12,000, equivalent to P634,000 today but nevertheless an 18 percent decrease from 1957 values.
The passage of the Salary Standardization Law and, before this, Republic Act (RA) 9227, again led to an increase in compensation but not in real value, which Tinga said has kept on decreasing. In 2003, the value of the pay decreased 42 percent from just 16 years earlier and 52 percent from 1957 rates.
And while RA 9227 jacked up judges’ salaries by 100 percent in 2003, the value of the pay decreased by 21 percent compared to 1957 levels and 5 percent from 1987.
Tinga also cited a study by University of the Philippines Law Centers Institute of Judicial Administration, which showed the disparity in income between Municipal Trial Court judges and their functional equivalents in the private sector at 176 percent.
It was much worse with RTC judges, who suffered an income disparity of at least 634 percent as compared to their private sector equivalents.
This same disparity also hounds justices of the Court of Tax Appeals, the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court, Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.
He said the Supreme Court’s budget office had long been proposing that its budget be pegged at two percent of the national budget. Over the last decade, the judiciary’s share of the budget has never exceeded 1.26 percent.
In fact, he said, the judiciary’s P9.3-billion share of the current P1 trillion budget is less than one percent. This is in contrast to its co-equal branch, the executive, which will be getting more than P570 billion.
The judiciary employs at least 32,000 workers.
Tinga lamented why the executive and legislative branches have never made the judiciary’s budget a priority, pointing out that this fiscal deficiency is why most competent lawyers shy away from becoming judges.
"That [this is so] may be the result of the perception that there is no need for the government to augment the Judiciary's budget because it can collect income from legal fees,” he said.
But, he added, “the judiciary is a coequal branch of government that is entitled to the full share in the national budget necessary to effectively perform its functions."
Tinga also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary and explained that this independence can only be actualized by "judges who proceed with all confidence that all that influences their performance of their duties of the oath of office are their own mind and personal labor."
With a limited budget, this becomes impossible because "a judiciary that has to be concerned [over] how to earn its own income for its very subsistence is not fully independent as it is not free from fear or free from want."
Copyright 2007 INQUIRER.net. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted on Apr 7, 2007, 5:44 AM from IP address 69.3.234.187
Zecharia and Malachi are the last two prophets in the old testament, 520-440 years Before Christ.
"I will return to Zion, and I will dwell within Jerusalem", Zechariah Chapter 8 v 3.
Rejoice heartily, o daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!, See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass on a colt, the foal of an ass, Zechariah chapter 9 v 9.
They shall drink blood like wine, till they are filled with it like libation bowls, like the corners of the altar, and the Lord their God, shall save them on that day, his people, like a flock. Zechariah 9 v 15.
And if anyone will ask him, what are these wounds on your chest? He shall answer "With these I was wounded in the house of my dear ones" Zechariah chapter 13 v 6.
I said to them, if it seems good to you, give me my wages, but if not let it go, and they counted out my wages, thirty (30) pieces of silver, but the Lord said to me, "Throw it in the treasury, the handsome price of which they valued me". Zechariah chapter 10 v 12
"Not by an army, nor by might, but my spirit" says the Lord of hosts, Zechariah chapter 4 v 6.
"My covenant with him was with life and peace, the doctrine was in his mouth and no dishonesty was found upon his lips and turned many away from evil" Malachi chapter 2 v's 5-6.
"Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; and suddenly they will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire, yes, He is coming" says the Lord of the hosts. Malachi chapter 3 v 1.
Are these writings of the last two prophets of the old testament a pure fortune telling? Why are all these happened in the life of Jesus?
And Malachi writes chapter 3 v 16 . Then they who fear the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord listened attentively; And a record book was written before Him of those who fear the Lord and trust in his name. And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my own special possession, on the day I take action, and I will have compassion on them, as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
Posted on Apr 5, 2007, 11:58 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
The main purpose for colonizing the Philippines was not to christianize it but to claim the islands in order to exploit its natural resources and wealth. Religion was introduced in order to bend the will of the people because by forcing them to believe in the god of the colonists, they essentially submitted themselves to the will of their new masters.
It's just too bad that religion did not bring economic prosperity and education for the Filipinos otherwise the Philippines would be one of the richest nations in Asia today.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 11:25 AM from IP address 69.3.234.187
You are correct, but do not fault the message because of the action of the messenger, look at the message on itself and you will see that it is beautiful, inspiring, and for love of mankind.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 9:21 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
During holy week we visit seven churches which stood for 7 sacraments; baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, orders, matrimony and anointing of the sick. It also represent 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit; wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
The washing of the feet by Jesus on his 12 apostles signifies humility as he said "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example, for you should do as I have done to you.
Posted on Apr 4, 2007, 7:58 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
When the Spaniards claimed the Philippines as its property, they introduced religion but not education to the Filipinos. As a result the whole country has more churches than schools that's why the people are so poor because of lack of education.
Maybe washing your food is a better idea although washing of the feet should be practiced every day and not just during Holy Week.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 11:19 AM from IP address 69.3.234.187
Yes that is correct, but do not fault the message because of the action of the messenger. Look at the message in itself, they are beautiful, honest and love of mankind.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 7:02 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
These are satan's 3 knock-out-punches which he uses to tempt the children of men, namely; 1) The lust of the eyes, 2) The lust of the flesh, 3) The pride of life.
Satan used these 3 temptation with great success "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), and that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes) and the tree to be desired to make one wise (the pride of life), she took the fruit and eat and gave also to her husband and he did eat.
King David fell under these temptation also; He saw a beautiful woman taking a bath in the privacy of her garden (the lust of the eyes), he desire her and commit adultery (the lust of flesh), HE FELL AFTER ONLY TWO STRIKES.
Satan uses these 3 knock-out-punches to Jesus in Mt. Olives but did not succeed.
Hitler? Marcos? and yes our own politicians, who are being knock out one by one with these three knock-out-punches of satan.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 10:33 AM from IP address 125.60.243.14
I don't think so, satan is an angel who thinks he is as powerful as god and revolted against god, he is most likely in the form of spirit who influence mankind in making decisions.
God can easily defeat satan, but do you know what god says, mankind were given the chance to choose for himself (free will) and that's the purpose of satan, to test mankind. So watch out.
After the Jews (the chosen people) accepted Jesus as their messiah (because until now they don't believe that Jesus is the messiah) and goes back to Israel (the land of promise), God will chain satan for 1000 years, and for 1000 years earth will have peace.
He was god's servant, but he elected to be on his own when he revolted. See The Story of Heaven.
Jews plays a major role in mankind history. From the time they broke their covenant with Moses to the rejection of Jesus as their messiah. It was written.
Posted on Apr 6, 2007, 6:53 PM from IP address 125.60.243.14
