Excellent Topics

Google Seeks Users to Test Chrome Netbook

2010-12-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

By John P. Mello Jr., PCWorld

Do you want to test drive a Chrome netbook for free? Google is looking for you. It launched a pilot program Tuesday to gather feedback about its new netbook platform and is accepting applications for it until Dec. 21 from anyone who is at least 18 years old and lives in the United States.

Judging from the application for the pilot program, Google's looking for testers from several areas--business, education, non-profits, developers and individuals.

According to the company, the best candidates for the program are people who "live on the Web" and are not faint of heart. "Things might not always work just right," it cautions.

Each participant in the pilot will receive a black Cr-48 Chrome Notebook. The unit boots up in about 10 seconds and recovers from sleep mode instantly, according to Google. It has Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity from Verizon, as well as a Webcam for video chat.

Other features of the 3.8-pound unit include a 12-inch display, full-size keyboard, eight hours of active battery life, and a week of standby time.

What has been left out of the netbook may be as important as what Google put into it. It doesn't have a hard disk or caps-lock or function keys, and you can work with it on your lap for extended periods of time without burning your thighs.

While the pilot is open to a variety of users, Google is particularly targeting business users with the platform. The devices are secure, easy to administer, have a low cost of ownership, and integrate with Google Apps, which is used by many businesses.

Ready for prime time Chrome netbooks made by Acer and Samsung should be available in the first half of 2011, according to Google.

The company also noted that the Chrome OS is designed to work across a wide range of screen sizes and form factors, so it will be easy to extend the OS beyond netbooks.

When Google announced the Chrome OS a year ago, it bragged that it would have netbooks based in the software available for the 2010 holidays. It may not have met that deadline, but at least the test program removes the vaporware stigma from the platform.
. . . . . .

Pacquiao-Margarito: What We Can Learn From The Humility, Empathy, and Grace of Manny Pacquiao

2010-11-16T12:34:00.000-08:00

Another Pacquiao fight — another drubbing of a much larger opponent, and Pacquaio’s legend as a boxer grows. But the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito produced not just a memorable pay-per-view experience worth every penny of the $64.95 it cost — it produced, for this observer at least, some moments of clarity that helped me better understand what makes the Filipino “National Fist” so much more than just a great athlete.

The True Tale of How the Fight Unfolded, and How Pacquaio Had to Fight Through Early Adversity to Gain Control

First, if you didn’t see the fight but have read about it, you probably have read that Pacquiao dominated; that he won every round or almost every round; that he cut Margarito to shreds so much so that everyone, including Pacquaio, had legitimate concerns about Margarito’s health and whether the fight should continuing the later rounds. That rendition of the fight is accurate up to a point — but it fails to capture the genuine peril that Pacquaio faced in the early rounds, the genuine threat that Margarito represented, and thus the challenge that Pacquiao overcame to prevail against Margarito–a fighter who was in the best shape of his life and weighed 165 to Pacquiao’s 148 on fight night–an advantage of not just 17 lbs but 12% of of body weight–a Goliath to Pacquiao’s David and a disgraced Mexican warrior on an epic quest for redemption Could Margarito have been more prepared or more motivated? I don’t see how. That’s what Pacquiao was up against.

Think it was easy for Pacquiao? Think again. As the fight began, Emmanuel Steward, hall of fame trainer and normally shrewd commentator for HBO said: “I see the size difference — it’s a big factor right now. I see he’s not used to punching at a man as big as this one who seems to be absorbing his blows pretty easily.” Then there was Margarito’s jab — a new weapon — that was touching Pacquiao up in the first round. Steward: “What I’m surprised about is Margarito’s jab, which is a very good move, and that seems at this stage to be the most dominant punch in the fight.” A few moments later, with a minute to go in the first round, Steward said of Pacquaio: “He may have a problem tonight — the physical size seems to be a big factor.” By the time the first round ended Pacquiao had thrown enough punches to win the round — but just barely, and the sense was that he could be in trouble, that he finally might have bitten off more than he could chew. The jab was a problem, the size difference was a problem, and Margarito–a notoriously slow starter–might get stronger as the fight wore on.

In the early part of the second round Max Kellerman — another normally astute boxing analyst and commentator, had this to say: “Margarito has landed not only some shots but a head butt followed by a right hand — these are hard shots from a big man.” This prompted Steward to repeat: “The size is being a big factor as I see it right here.” Then, after Pacquiao mounted a flurry that didn’t seem to hurt Margarito, Jim Lampley said: “The loss of power from punching up could be a factor in the fight” – meaning that Margarito’s height advantage was causing Pacquiao to punch skyward and this was taking power out of the punches. Then with 10 seconds to go in round 2, Steward said: “Looking at the eyes, Pacquiao is much more uncomfortable than Margarito is at this stage even though he may be winning the fight.” Lampley: “Brand new experience for Pacquiao.”

Easy fight?

And that was how it felt after the first two rounds. But as he has so often in the past, Pacquiao — guided by the man he calls his “master” Freddie Roach — gradually began to solve the Margarito puzzle and find ways to use his astonishing hand speed, footwork, head movement, and ring savvy to start slicing his opponent, most notably opening a cut under Margarito’s right eye that almost immediately began to swell, causing the eye to almost close. [[Comment: Margarito went straight to the hospital after the fight and it was determined is orbital bone was broken.]] From there Manny gained the upper hand but even after the cut had begun a problem, there were some nerve wracking moments, notably in the 6th round when Margarito got Pacquaio against the ropes and hit him with a huge left to the liver that buckled Pacquiao’s knees. Later, and more than once, he rocked Manny with uppercuts, most notably one in the 8th round that clearly hurt.

Yet in spite of being hurt more than once, Pacquaio dominated; he repeatedly landed power punches that soon had Margarto’s entire face swollen and bleeding and yet Margarito — to his credit as a warrior if not a sensible human — refused to go down and refused to stop.

By the 10th round there was ample reason to stop the fight–and Pacquaio glanced at the referee more than once as if to ask, “Shouldn’t you end this?”, and his look was one of concern, not bravado and dismissiveness. Steward at that point commented that while the referee had every reason to stop the fight–he wouldn’t because Margarito was still demonstrating his grit by throwing punches even though he could hardly see and his punches no longer had snap or power to them. To which Kellerman said, rightly: “It’s not about his eyes, it’s about his brain — how many power punches flush to the head can a man take?”   And indeed, by the end, the compu-box figures that Pacquaio had landed a disturbing 401 power punches to Margarito’s head — and who knows when the damage from that kind of beating will present itself.

Margarito on his stool between the 11th and 12th rounds looked more like Rocky Balboa in the original “Rocky” than any real fight most of us have ever seen — both eyes almost swollen shut, punch drunk, but demanding that he be allowed to continue, to finish it. All that was missing was Margarito yelling “cut me” to make it a complete reprise of Hollywood’s epic and amped up vision of the outclassed warrior willing to risk everything to go the distance.   There he was, insisting through his mangled features that he wanted to fight one more round, to make it to the end, and his corner let him do it–a decision that honored Margarito’s epic courage but placed him in epic danger.

And then it was the 12th round, with Margarito out on his feet and all but defenseless, game but beaten.   There was every reason to believe that Pacquaio, hungry for the KO that would put the exclamation point on his performance, would swarm Margarito and either drop him at last, or mount a swarming, blistering final assault that would leave the referee with no choice but to stop it.

But that didn’t happen.

Grace in the 12th Round

The first sign that something special was about to happen came during the traditional touching of gloves before the last round. Pacquiao touched them up, but went a step further — giving a deep nod to Margarito – a salute — and then, as if to make sure the salute was understood, he touched his right glove one more time to Margarito’s — stepped back, crossed himself, and began to “fight” — but not quite. For the first 30 seconds of the round Pacquiao, who had been throwing power punches at a rate of one every five seconds of the entire fight, threw only two tentative punches that wouldn’t have hurt a fly, circling Margarito instead of engaging with him. Pacquiao threw his third punch – an inconsequential jab, 40 seconds into the round –thus three inconsequential punches 1/4 of the way through the final round, when by simple “average” punch count Pacquaio would by then have normally thrown at least 25 punches.

Something was up. At 45 seconds into the round, Lampley was the first commentator to realize what was happening and comment on it: “Max, I honestly wonder whether Pacquiao has no more stomach for the punishment. He doesn’t seem eager to hit Margarito any more.” Kellerman: “It looks like he’s carrying Margarito right now.” Steward: “It’s much like Joe Calzaghe did…” Lampley: “Some of the greatest fighters in history have done this. There is no question Pacquiao is pulling his punches now. He is not following through and committing the way he does……it’s a nod to Margarito’s guts and courage…and Pacquaio is going to let him finish the fight.” And then Lampley capped it off — no doubt with some hyperbole — but then Pacquiao invites, and deserves, hyperbole: “This is not Manny Pacquaio the fighter, this is Manny Pacquiao the Congressman, Manny Pacquiao the cultural icon, Manny Pacquiao the citizen of the world. That’s the man who’s letting Margarito finish.”

Humility, Empathy, and Candor in the Post Fight Interviews

As the fight ended Pacquaio knelt in his corner in prayer as is his custom. I’ve watched Pacquiao do this and each time I’m struck by his body language as he prays – the intensity with which he clutches his gloves to his head, blocking out the crowd, the arena, the chaos around him creating what clearly must be a profound moment of heartfelt religious communion. And then, moments later as the championship belt was draped over his shoulders, a smiling Pacquiao immediately looked around for his crucifix – found it dangling from the hand of a handler, then immediately leaned forward, head bowed, placing it around his neck.

And then a gracious and amazingly (yet typically) humble post fight interview with Max Kellerman who started by saying: “Manny, that was a pretty big guy you just beat up – what was that like?” Pacquiao: “It’s hard, I really …I mean ….I did my best to win the fight….he’s strong….a very tough fighter. And I can’t believe it.” Kellerman: “What can’t you believe?” Pacquiao: “I mean, he’s very tough and strong and I never expect that.” Who ever heard a boxer be so candid and so humble after such a victory? What other boxer’s ego would allow such statements?

Then Kellerman drilled down a bit, noting that Pacquiao had gotten his back to the ropes and had a few tough moments in the fight, ending it with “Why was your back on the ropes.” Pacquiao: “Well, I’m trying to psyche him that I’m not hurt, but the truth is — he’s really strong and I got hurt.” Full stop — again, when did a winning boxer ever admit so openly to getting hurt? Kellerman: “When did you get hurt?” Pacquiao: “When I stayed on the rope.” Kellerman: “Where did you get hurt?” Pacquiao: “In the body and in the face. He got me in the uppercut, so … I am so lucky tonight.” And later, in his second interview: “I tell you the truth. I got hurt in the body shot, I tell you, I got ..I felt so weak in that round because I got really hurt in my stomach.” [[Comment: Two days later, on Monday, there were media reports that Pacquiao had canceled a TMZ appearance due to rib and torso pain--and watching the replay of the shot in question, it was apparent that the blow almost dropped Pacquiao to the canvas, and that he struggled mightily to regain weather the storm it caused.]]

Kellerman then asked — what were you asking the referee to do when you looked toward him in the 11th round (presumably imploring him to stop the fight). Pacquiao: “You know, I feel….pity to my opponent…his eyes, his bloody face, you know — take a look for that.” Later, in another interview, Pacquiao was more direct: ”Boxing is not about killing each other. It’s about entertainment.”

Kellerman: “In the 12th round it looked like maybe you were backing off, maybe not to hurt him”: “I’m not looking for a knockout. I want to finish the round. My trainer said take it easy, win the round, just be careful.” Now this is interesting because on the surface it sounds like Manny was just following Roach’s instructions–and indeed I have no doubt that Roach gave the instructions Manny describes. But I think there is something else going on here — he didn’t want to “dis” his opponent by saying that he intentionally let up. Instead, he just left it that his corner told him to win the round and be careful. But everything from the salute to Margarito at the beginning to Manny’s demeanor throughout the round confirms that he was, indeed, “carrying” Margarito to the finish line, giving the warrior his due in the process.

The interview finished with Pacquiao saying: “That’s all I can give. I’m trying to make people happy.” For a boxer to say “I want to make people happy” seems overly simplistic on one level — but when you think of where Pacquiao comes from — not just the Philippines, but the mean streets of the Philippines, a place of grinding poverty where there is no escape and where hope is often all but extinguished — the power to “make people happy” is a power that means more than producing a transitory moment of enjoyment. It’s an ability to fundamentally alter that state of mind and heart for people – to lift them up and make them feel that there’s hope, and good things are possible in a tough unfriendly world. For Manny Pacquiao, to “make people happy” is something far more profound and meaningful than it would be if the same statement were coming from an American boxer.

Asked about his next moves, Pacquaio replied: “That’s why …. I have another job after this, I’m going back to the Philippines and do my job as a public servant — and I want to help people.” Honestly — much of the time when Pacquiao speaks English you have the feeling that he’s groping for words, that he could be much more articulate in Tagalog — and yet there is a simple clarity to his choice of words — ‘do my job as a public servant’ and ‘I want to help people’. How can you not believe he is sincere — and humble. He’s not just a “public servant” – he’s a congressman, and rightly proud of that. But he always chooses to refer to himself by the term “public servant”, not “Congressman”. There’ is genuine humility–and perhaps a touch of political genius– in that.

The Last Word

Those of us who are connected to the Philippines have followed Manny Pacquiao for many years and we’ve heard him say things like this, and act in this humble, gentle manner — so this in itself is not news for us. But as his fame grows and the rest of the world gradually wakes up and takes notice of Pacquaio as a sporstman who transcends national boundaries and the niche of boxing, hearing him speak this way reminds us that while on the one hand what we see in Manny is unique, in another way it is not, because what is on display when Pacquiao speaks is essential Filipino values that typify the elusive best of a country whose people’s humble and gentle virtues are not particularly well understood abroad. This is, after all, a world where, for example, some cultures have adopted the term “filipina” to be slang for “housekeeper”.

The truth is, it’s easy for ignorant westerners to underestimate and misinterpret the gentle, gracious nature of the Filipino character — yet somehow Manny Pacquaio is singlehandedly changing that, teaching the world and reminding the Philippine universe that humility, grace, compassion, and empathy can coexist with the heart of a warrior.

Yet even if Filipinos instinctively understand the meaning of Manny Pacquiao better than we foreigners — they have been traveling on a learning curve with Pacquaio as well. Remember that Pacquaio’s popularity in the Philippines, great as it is, did not automatically win him a berth in Congress. He ran previously, two years ago and lost badly. Some said the loss reflected what was in essence a cynical “no” vote from an electorate who wanted him to keep fighting; others inerpreted the “no” as a desire keep Pacquiao from becoming tarnished by the dirty nature of Philippine politics. Pacquao lost, and it wasn’t a split decision — it was much closer to a political knockout. But he didn’t give up, he showed patience and sincerity and above all perserverence, and throughout it all he continued to talk compellingly about his real reasons for doing it — and along the way many of the skeptics who saw in his first run for Congress a questionable act of celebrity ego began to gradually come to understand that it was another impulse, the impulse toward genuine and sincere public service, that was driving Pacquiao. And so now he has the position he sought — the position of “public servant”, and he has stated that his goal is to become a “champion of public service” as his life transitions toward a new phase. Boxing has been his vehicle to “make people happy” in one profound, “let me lift you up” way that Filipinos perhaps understand better than the rest of us. That phase will end.

But now, today, he is an elected Congressman who through both his boxing and public service has truly has made millions of people happy in that transcendant way he seeks–so truly and so beautifully that the skinny kid who grew up on the streets may well someday have the opportunity to lead not just an impoverished Sarangani province, but an entire resurgent nation that with Pacquaio as example-maker-in-chief–a long-suffering and self doubting country that under his inspired leadership may lift itself up as a country in ways that would be just as surprising, yet just as inevitable, as Pacquaio’s rise to the top in boxing.

I for one believe in Manny Pacquiao–his heart, his sincerity, the sheer power of his will, and the true Filipino essence of his character. He makes me feel hope for the future of the Philippines, and proud to be part of a Fil-Am household that has plenty of Filipino blood flowing through our family’s veins.

Source: http://michaeldsellers.weearth.com/2010/11/14/pacquiao-margarito-what-we-can-learn-from-the-humility-empathy-and-grace-of-manny-pacquiao/

. . . . .

"How to give yourself cancer in five easy steps"

2010-11-07T04:09:00.000-08:00

Following with our ever-popular series on "How to Get Disease," this article discusses how to give yourself a raging case of cancer. It could be breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer or even something like leukemia. By following the instructions in this article, you can give yourself almost any form of cancer desirable and if you pursue these strategies to their fullest potential, you could end up with several different forms of cancer all at once. So, let's get started and learn how to give yourself cancer.

If you're aiming for a raging case of cancer, the first thing you've got to do is start consuming food ingredients that actually promote cancer. One of the most powerful cancer-promoting food ingredients of all is called sodium nitrate. This is an ingredient that is added to virtually all packaged meat products including hot dogs, pepperoni, ham, lunchmeat and other similar products. You'll also find it in bacon, sausages and most breakfast meats. It's listed right on the ingredients labels of all of these foods. In order to find sodium nitrate, all you have to do is walk around the grocery store, read the ingredients labels of various packaged meat products and purchase those products that contain it. Then, consume them on a frequent basis and before long, you will greatly increase your odds of being diagnosed with cancer.

There are other ingredients that are suspected of causing cancer. These include hydrogenated oils, aspartame, saccharin and artificial colors, to name a few. A diet that is very high in refined carbohydrates has also been clinically shown to increase your odds of being diagnosed with cancer, so be sure to get plenty of these foods in your pro-cancer diet. That means chowing down on white bread, sweetened breakfast cereals, white fluffy pancakes, candy bars, granola bars, cookies, crackers and sweets of all kinds.

The next thing you can do to give yourself cancer is one of the more obvious things: take up a smoking habit. The more you smoke, the more likely you are to get cancer, especially if you're eating cancer-causing foods and ingredients as discussed above. By smoking, you will multiply the carcinogenic effect of everything else in your life. Before long, you will succeed in your goal at being diagnosed with cancer.

If you'd like to move things along a little more quickly, you can also stay out of all sunlight and use plenty of sun block and sunscreen any time you go outside. This will prevent natural sunlight from touching your skin. Now, how will this give you cancer? It turns out that natural sunlight is powerful prevention for cancer. People who get plenty of natural sunlight have a greatly reduced risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer, breast cancer and many other disorders that aren't cancer-related such as osteoporosis and mental depression. By staying out of the sun or using sun block and sunscreen every time you're under the sun, you can prevent your body from preventing cancer, thereby giving yourself a much greater risk for cancer with each passing day. If you find it difficult to avoid the sun, just get a night shift job where you work all night and sleep all day. That's a hugely successful pro-cancer strategy.

Another thing you can do is avoid all physical exercise. It turns out that moving your body helps you prevent cancer. Part of the reason is that body movement moves lymph fluid around, and this is an important function of your immune system that fights cancerous cells. If you refrain from all body movement, you will hamper your body's ability to fight off cancer, thereby further increasing your odds of being diagnosed with this chronic disease.

One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that everybody has cancer right now. In other words, there are cancerous cells in the human body of every person who is living and breathing right now, at this very moment. All you have to do to get diagnosed with cancer is make sure your immune system is sufficiently suppressed so that your body can't take care of the cancerous cells on a regular basis. In other words, if you destroy your immune system function through poor nutrition, nutrient depletion, smoking, lack of sunlight and lack of physical exercise, then it won't be able to do its job of cleaning up cancerous cells around the body and as a result, cancer will become a full-blown disease in no time.

In fact, all of these strategies for giving yourself cancer have one thing in common: the suppression of your natural immune system. Now, if you've been following along and you don't have cancer yet from doing everything mentioned here, and you want to increase your odds even further, the very best thing you can do is actually get chemotherapy or radiation therapy. All you have to do is go to an oncologist and tell them that you think you have cancer, and they may find some reason to put you on chemotherapy or radiation therapy. These therapies do such an outstanding job of destroying the human immune system that you might find yourself experiencing multiple cases of cancer at various sites throughout your body in the subsequent months and years. Chemotherapy is perhaps the most effective method known to modern science for destroying the human immune system other than working at Chernobyl during a nuclear accident. So, if you’re looking to contract cancer as quickly as possible, make sure that you get chemotherapy into your life as early as you can.

By combining all of these strategies, you should be able to give yourself cancer without much effort on your part and without having to wait too long. After all, it would be a shame to die from natural causes and not have the opportunity to "invest" in the R&D efforts of pharmaceutical companies who peddle anti-cancer drugs.

Are you crazy?
You might be asking me, "Why on earth am I writing an article that tells people how to give themselves cancer?" The answer is because virtually all Americans are following this plan right now, today. They are giving themselves cancer step by step by using precisely the detailed plan that I have outlined here. And when they are suddenly diagnosed with cancer, they have a puzzled look on their faces and ask, "Gee, why do I have cancer?" The answer is because they've been following the cancer plan as outlined in this article -- all the foods they've eaten, their lifestyle choices, lack of exercise, lack of sunlight, smoking habits and reliance on chemotherapy and other radical western medical procedures has, in fact, accelerated their cancer and put them in the position they're in today.

All I've really done here in this article is described the plan most Americans are already following. This is the pro-cancer plan that's actually promoted by brand-name food manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and most of conventional medicine. For example, how many doctors are still screaming for people to avoid sunlight like it was the plague? Practically all of them, last time I checked. It's almost as if the entire medical community actually wanted the population to get cancer. Sadly, the entire anti-cancer campaign of conventional medicine seems to be limited to three words: "Don't smoke tobacco."

Of course, most individuals aren't really interested in contracting cancer. They'd rather prevent cancer or even reverse cancer, and now after learning how to give yourself cancer, the process for avoiding that is fairly straightforward: don't do any of the things that have been mentioned in this article. That is, avoid smoking; get plenty of sunlight; get outstanding nutrition and avoid all food ingredients that are known to promote cancer such as sodium nitrite, hydrogenated oils, refined carbohydrates and chemical additives. Also avoid chemotherapy since it is the most powerful way we know of to destroy the human immune system, thereby leaving you more vulnerable to cancer.

I present this information as a unique way to get the point across to people that if they don't want to have cancer in their lifetimes, they need to get off the cancer plan and get on to a plan that actually prevents this terrible disease.

Source: http://bit.ly/bfx2YD
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Why Firing Clients is Sometimes a Good Idea"

2010-10-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

Imagine a world where all of your clients value what you do. A world where every client you have doesn’t try to lowball you and negotiate your rates down, and a world where these clients pay you on time, refer you to their friends, and keep coming back for more business.

Now wake up. You’re in the real world. Sure, you hopefully have some really great clients, but there’s a good chance you have a few who are less than ideal. It’s inevitable. We’ve all dealt with bad clients, but most of us just force a smile and put up with it. The bad client makes every interaction you have with them totally miserable, but you just don’t have the courage to cut ties with them and send them packing.

That’s because we’ve been taught that the customer is always right. We’ve been led to believe that we have to bow down to the customer and do whatever he says, but that’s just not true.

The truth is firing bad clients is almost always a good idea. Sure, it might temporarily cost you, but by focusing your business on attracting ideal clients, you’ll weed out the bad ones and eventually build up a strong base of profitable clients who are a pleasure to deal with. And guess what? Good clients tend to refer other good clients.

So, just what makes a bad client? You know the signs. They’re usually:

* Cheap and pushing you to lower your prices

* Slow to pay

* Complaining about your work and demand constant attention and coddling

* Threatening to take their business elsewhere

* Asking you to do more work than what you agreed to

* Difficult to get in contact with, but expect you to be available at their beck and call

I don’t know about you, but I started my own business to get away from overly demanding, abusive “bosses”. Now, I’m in a position where I can choose who I do and don’t work with, and I take full advantage of that fact.

You should do. You’ll be happier, and your business will be more profitable as you won’t spend all of your time managing terrible clients.

How to Fire Bad Clients

Hopefully, you agree that firing bad clients is a good idea, but just how do you go about it? While you might really want to drop a “F*** you” bomb on them, that’s probably not the best idea for your business’ image.

Here are some more appropriate ways to fire bad clients.

* Make sure you’ve fulfilled your contractual obligations—Before you can fire the client, you need to make sure you’re in a good legal position to do so. If you’ve delivered everything you’ve agreed upon, feel free to move forward.

* Explain that the relationship isn’t best for both parties—Without getting nasty or blaming the client, simply explain that you feel the client would be better served taking their business elsewhere. You can even refer them to other companies if you want.

* No means no—As a freelancer, I’ve fired my fair share of clients, and I’ve had many try to win me back by offering to increase my rates or just be a better client. A few times, I’ve bitten and taken the client back, but every time, the same issues popped back up. Trust me when I say this—A bad client will always be a bad client, no matter how much they’re paying you. Stick to your guns and end the relationship.

Have you ever fired a client? Do you think it was a good decision?

Source: http://bit.ly/b24TAi

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pointers: How to weather typhoons

2010-10-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

BEFORE THE STORM:

• Keep note of emergency hotlines in your area. Hotline numbers are: 734-2118, 734-2120, 911-5061, 912-5668 (National Disaster Coordinating Council); 527-6136 (Coast Guard); 16220 (Manila Electric Co.); 136 (Metro Manila Development Authority); 143, 527-0000 (Philippine National Red Cross); 931-8101 (Department of Social Welfare and Development); 117 (Philippine National Police); 1626 (Maynilad).

• Store an adequate supply of food and clean water. Prepare food that need not be cooked.

• Keep flashlights, candles and battery-powered radios within easy reach. Should you need to evacuate, bring clothes, first-aid kit, candles/flashlight, battery-powered radio, food, etc.

• Examine your house and repair its unstable parts.

• Harvest crops that can be yielded already.

• Secure domesticated animals in a safe place.

• For fisher folk, place boats in a safe area.

• Monitor the news or your local weather station for updates on the storm situation, when it will hit and how strong it will be.

• If floods or landslides had previously occurred in your area, secure your appliances and other belongings and head to evacuation centers. Also, consider if you are on or near heavily saturated ground, which is very susceptible to mudflows and debris.

• If you think your area is relatively safe, locate the main power switch of your house and be ready to shut off electricity in case of flood.

• Move to higher ground. Move away from creeks, streams, rivers and storm drains to avoid possible flash floods and landslides. Flash floods can sweep over an area without warning, and you may only have minutes to get to safety. Note that flash floods can occur up to 12 hours after heavy rains.

• Check your gutters to make sure they are clear of leaves and debris. You can opt to leave some possessions with someone who is not in a flood-prone area.

• Move vehicles to higher ground. Make sure these have enough fuel and will start quickly in case of emergency evacuation.

• Make sure there are no items outside your house that can be thrown by strong winds and hurt or kill. Board up or cover windows. Secure trees close to your home with ropes so they don’t fall and crush your roof. Trim branches that may snap off and injure others.

• Immediately charge all essential electronics like cellular phones, which you will have to use in case of emergencies.

• You should have a 72-hour survival kit stocked with essential supplies, including flashlights, battery-operated radio, weather radio, spare batteries, at least three gallons of water per person, ready-to-eat food, canned goods, can opener, first-aid supplies and medicines. Also stock up on clothes, including raincoats and rubber boots.

• Prepare special items for infants, elderly or disabled family members and your pets as well.

• If applicable, keep copies of your home or insurance papers inside sealed plastic bags.

• Prepare your escape routes. Practice what you will do in case of floods, flash floods or landslides. Map out safe routes where you can get from your office to your home. Coordinate with your neighbors.

• Decide on a meeting place away from your home where you and your family will gather if you need to leave your home and family members become separated. Prepare escape gear like floating devices, snorkels, swimming gear or inflatable rafts for worst flooding scenarios.

DURING THE STORM:

• Stay alert and awake. Many deaths, particularly from landslides, occur while people are sleeping.

• Keep your radios tuned to a local radio station and follow all instructions. If you are told to evacuate, move out of the house or building to safe, high ground.

• Turn off all electricity using your breaker box (main power switch) and turn off the main gas valve. Disconnect any equipment that uses water (like washing machines and dishwashers). Never leave fires unattended.

• Never walk or swim through swiftly moving water. Avoid flooded areas. Floodwaters that are above your knees are dangerous. Turn around and go back to higher ground.

• Never try to cross floodwaters standing or in a vehicle. Water that is 2 feet deep can carry away most cars, including Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs). If you find floodwaters on the road, turn around and find an alternate route. Abandon your vehicle immediately if it becomes surrounded with water or the engine stalls. Seek higher ground immediately.

• Try to stop water from entering your home by putting plugs in sinks and baths and weigh them down with a sandbag, pillowcase or a plastic bag filled with garden soil or a heavy object. Plug water inlet pipes with towels or cloth.

• Attempt to keep contact with your neighbors to make sure everyone is safe and so that you can pool (and later ration) supplies when the situation calls for it.

• Be especially alert when driving. If your car is swept into the water and submerged, do not panic. Stay calm, hold your breath, force your way outside, and swim to the surface.

• If you are swept into fast-moving floodwaters outside of your car, point your feet downstream. Always go over obstacles, never try to go under. Do not enter floodwaters.

• Watch out for collapsed pavement, mud, fallen rocks and other indications of possible debris flow.

• If you are stranded on something above floodwaters, such as a tree or building, stay put and wait for rescue. Call for help if you are in danger.

AFTER THE STORM:

• Even if the storm is clear, keep listening to weather reports and only return to evacuated buildings if you are told it is safe to do so. Beware of sharp objects and pollution in flood water.

• If your house was damaged, make sure it is already safe and stable before you enter.

• Beware of dangerous animals, such as snakes, that may have entered your house.

• Watch out for live wires or outlet immersed in water.

• Report damaged electrical cables and fallen electric posts to the authorities. Report power meters that have been submerged in floodwaters to Meralco.

• Do not turn on the main power switch or attempt to use electrical appliances that have been wet, because there are hazards of electric shock and fire. Allow several days for extension cords, connectors and other wiring devices to dry completely. Use rubber gloves and wear rubber sole shoes when removing mud and dirt from the main circuit breaker or fuse.

• Avoid water-borne diseases. Assume that any water in flooded or surrounding areas is not safe unless local authorities expressly declared it to be so. If there is no safe water supply for washing, use bottled water or disinfected water (by adding five drops of liquid household bleach and let sit for 30 minutes).

• Before entering an area that has been flooded, put on protective clothing to avoid contact with floodwaters. Decrease the risk of mosquito or other insect bites by using repellants. Throw away all food (even canned ones) that had come in contact with floodwaters.

• Stay away from landslide areas until local officials say it is safe to enter. Watch for flooding, which sometimes follow landslides and debris flows.

• Once permitted to enter landslide areas, check your house’s foundation and surrounding land for damage. Replant damaged ground as soon as possible because erosion can further lead to flash flooding.

• Do not let water accumulate in tires, cans or pots to avoid creating a favorable condition for mosquito breeding.—Compiled by Almi Ilagan, Inquirer Research

Sources: Pagasa, ABS-CBN News, American Red Cross, DZMM, Philippine Red Cross

Coconut Oil and Alzheimer’s Disease

2010-10-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

How worried should drug companies be about supplements eating into their monopoly profits? A lot—as this story will show. Please share it with anyone you know who is suffering from Alzheimer’s or is worried about it.

Of course, just about everyone worries about Alzheimer’s. It currently afflicts 5.2 million people in the US and is the seventh leading cause of death. The cost of treating it is estimated at $148 billion.

Mary Newport, MD, has been medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at Spring Hill Regional Hospital in Florida since it opened in 2003. About the same time the unit opened, her husband Steve, then 53, began showing signs of progressive dementia, later diagnosed as Alzheimer’s Disease. “Many days, often for several days in a row, he was in a fog; couldn’t find a spoon or remember how to get water out of the refrigerator,” she said.

They started him on Alzheimer’s drugs—Aricept, Namenda, Exelon—but his disease worsened steadily. (It should be noted that the latest research shows that the various Alzheimer’s drugs, like Aricept, have proven disappointing, with little real benefit and often distressing side effects.) When Dr. Newport couldn’t get her husband into a drug trial for a new Alzheimer’s medication, she started researching the mechanism behind Alzheimer’s.

She discovered that with Alzheimer’s disease, certain brain cells may have difficulty utilizing glucose (made from the carbohydrates we eat), the brain’s principal source of energy. Without fuel, these precious neurons may begin to die. There is an alternative energy source for brain cells—fats known as ketones. If deprived of carbohydrates, the body produces ketones naturally.

But this is the hard way to do it—who wants to cut carbohydrates out of the diet completely? Another way to produce ketones is by consuming oils that have medium-chain triglycerides. When MCT oil is digested, the liver converts it into ketones. In the first few weeks of life, ketones provide about 25 percent of the energy newborn babies need to survive.

Dr. Newport learned that the ingredient in the drug trial which was showing so much promise was simply MCT oil derived from coconut oil or palm kernel oil, and that a dose of 20 grams (about 20 ml or 4 teaspoons) was used to produce these results. When MCT oil is metabolized, the ketones which the body creates may, according to the latest research, not only protect against the incidence of Alzheimer’s, but may actually reverse it. Moreover, this is also a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), drug-resistant epilepsy, brittle type I diabetes, and type II (insulin-resistant) diabetes.

So Mr. Newport, not being able to get into the drug trial, started taking the coconut oil twice a day. At this point, he could barely remember how to draw a clock. Two weeks after adding coconut oil to his diet, his drawing improved. After 37 days, Steve’s drawing gained even more clarity. The oil seemed to “lift the fog,” and in the first sixty days, Dr. Newport saw remarkable changes in him: every morning he was alert and happy, talkative, making jokes. His gait was “still a little weird,” but his tremor was no longer very noticeable. He was able to concentrate on things that he wanted to do around the house and in the yard and stay on task, whereas before coconut oil he was easily distractible and rarely accomplished anything unless he was directly supervised.

Over the next year, the dementia continued to reverse itself: he is able to run again, his reading comprehension has improved dramatically, and his short-term memory is improving—he often brings up events that happened days to weeks earlier and relays telephone conversations with accurate detail. A recent MRI shows that the brain atrophy has been completely halted.

Let’s take a moment to consider what actually happened here. Synthetic (patentable) Alzheimer’s drugs have failed. A drug company reluctantly decides to put a non-patentable natural substance (medium-chain triglycerides derived from coconut or palm) through an FDA trial. It works. But, darn it, a smart doctor figures out that a natural food can be substituted for the super-expensive drug. Not only that, the ketones from natural coconut oil last in the body longer than the drug version—eight hours instead of three hours. This is enough to make a drug company start worrying about its future. What if this natural health idea really catches on? Goodbye to monopoly profits!

Coconut oil can be found in many health food stores and even some grocery stores. One large chain sells a non-hydrogenated (no trans-fat) brand of coconut oil in a one-liter size (nearly 32 ounces) for about $7. It can be purchased in quantities as small as a pint and up to five gallons online. It is important to use coconut oil that is non-hydrogenated and contains no trans-fat. We would also strongly encourage the use of virgin oil (chemicals used to extract non-virgin oil are potentially dangerous, and better still, virgin organic, still quite reasonably priced.)

For more information, see Dr. Newport’s website. Sadly, you will not find any information on ketones, or the use of coconut oil or MCT oil, on the Alzheimer’s Association website.

Coconut oil is not the only natural product that has the potential to turn Alzheimer’s around. We will cover some other ones, and drug industry efforts to steal some of them, in a future issue.

Source: http://www.anh-usa.org/coconut-oil-and-alzheimer%E2%80%99s-disease/

"The Dawn of a New Age"

2010-09-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

by John Mangun / Outside the Box

Three events occurred in the last two weeks that will have profound and lasting impact on the world and the Philippines. And it is unlikely you are aware of any of them.

It would be unkind to say that much of the local media live in a fantasy world of issues like “global people power” and a belief that the United States is still the Philippines’ “Uncle Sam.” It would be unkind but it is probably true.

China and Japan went to war two weeks ago. Japan lost. A Chinese fishing trawler was impounded by the Japanese Coast Guard for fishing in the disputed island area in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Okinawa—known as the Diaoyu by China and in Japanese as the Senkakuo. China demanded the ship be released. Japan refused. China stopped its exports of strategic metals (China now produces approximately 97 percent of the world’s rare-earth oxides) that Japan must have for its industry. The next day Japan released the Chinese fishing vessel.

China has made clear that the resources of the ocean area extending through the South China Sea are hers and any country may dispute this fact at its own peril. The “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” concept created by Japan in the 1930s has ended. China now owns Asia, including resources in the Spratly Islands.

The US and Israel went to war against Iran in June. Iran lost. The most sophisticated computer virus ever created, called Stuxnet, was unleashed on Iran, crippling its nuclear plants and processing facilities. Stuxnet has the ability to take over the industrial control system of a power plant, factory, or any other facility using a widely used, standard Siemens computer control system. Stuxnet can then open and close valves, over-ride and shut down critical safety systems, and make any vital control system do what it wants. Iran has publicly admitted that over 30,000 of its industrial computers are infected. Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant was scheduled to go online in August but was delayed “due to hot weather.”

Some interesting speculation about Stuxnet includes this: Was China involved in Stuxnet development or is China the next potential target?

The third event ushers in a new age for the financial world. A little background first.

There are two major schools of thought about the results of the failed $2-trillion stimulus and $15-trillion debt policy of the US government. One is that this will lead to a period of deflation and economic stagnation similar to what Japan has experienced in the last two decades.

By definition, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services because credit availability and the money supply are dramatically reduced. It amounts to an increase in the real value of money, allowing one to buy more goods with the same amount of money. The value of paper currency increases in purchasing power, but economic activity is stagnant. In light of the huge budget deficit and government debt, increased-value paper money would go to pay debt. Economic activity would resume when that debt is paid down.

The second alternative is a period of potentially hyper-inflation where the money supply is wildly increased to pay off debt, the currency is greatly devalued, and debt is paid back with near-worthless currency (in terms of purchasing power).

The US Federal Reserve through its policymaking Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) last week confirmed the second option as stated policy.

From Larry Kudlow at CNBC: “Fed head Ben Bernanke and the FOMC dropped a new policy bomb at their meeting this week. Now they say inflation is too low. That’s the real problem. And the solution? Punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar.”

From another commentator at jsmineset.com: “If the Fed wanted to give the dollar the kiss of death with yesterday’s FOMC release, they certainly managed to accomplish their task. As it has done so, it has resulted in once again another huge inflow of funny money into the commodity sector in an exact replay of what was occurring in early 2008.”

The effects of the Fed deciding to inflate the money supply are predictable. The “funny money” will flow into hard assets: global stock markets, commodities, and currencies other than the US dollar. We saw the start last week with the dollar dropping against virtually all currencies, another explosion on the Philippines stock market with issues like PNB up 30 percent, and commodities including oil, silver and gold moving one way, up.

The Federal Reserve will now even more actively fund US government borrowing by buying US debt, which other countries and institutions are avoiding. Proof? Foreign central banks have been net sellers of US government debt in the last two weeks in the amount of $50 billion. The Fed will buy this debt with newly printed currency because that is what the Fed does, print and control the amount of money in circulation.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is already looking at controlling capital inflow to keep the peso from appreciating too fast. But we will see an appreciating peso. We must see the peso appreciate as the dollar falls or imported goods such as oil will skyrocket.

This is the scenario that has been on the books for a year, since the failed stimulus produced very little US economic activity. This Fed-induced inflation will play out as surely as dawn follows darkness over the next nine to 12 months.

Gold will reach $1,600 per ounce. The Philippine stock market will not trade on corporate fundamentals as much as one of many shelters from dollar devaluation. All commodity prices will rise creating even more attractiveness to the Philippine mining sector. The peso will breach the 40 level in spite of BSP intervention.

If President Aquino’s recent trip to the United States is any indication, the government is dangerously behind the curve of adjusting to world events. No longer can the Philippines display a Third World, near-beggar mentality. This is a time to seize opportunities with a forceful economic policy that emphasizes natural resources, delinking from the US dollar and economy, and developing a clearly stated and very aggressive policy to create the Philippines as a profitable financial and investment destination.

It is the dawn of a new age and yesterday’s ideas and policies will create failure.

Source: http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/opinion/1794-the-dawn-of-a-new-age
. . . . .

2010-07-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

How to catch a suspect using Facebook:

Facebook helps Philippine cops nab murder suspect

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer

(07-27) 08:45 PDT MANILA, Philippines (AP) --

Philippine police tracked down a suspect in a series of grisly robberies and killings with the help of his Facebook account, officials said Tuesday.

Mark Dizon, a 28-year-old computer technician, did not resist when arrested Tuesday while talking with his father in a public square in northern San Fernando city, police Senior Superintendent Danilo Bautista said.

He is accused of killing nine people — six Filipinos, an American, a Canadian and a Briton — in three different robberies at hotels and homes this month in Angeles city. The area, near the former U.S.-run Clark Air Force Base some 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Manila, is home to many retired expatriates.

Dizon, who is from a well-off family and according to police had a fascination with guns, was Facebook friends with the daughter of one of the victims. A friend of her family showed his photo on the popular social networking site to witnesses to help identify him, police said.

"He was fond of computers and this gave him away," Bautista told The Associated Press.

Murder charges will soon be filed against Dizon, who denied involvement in the killings, Bautista said.

The string of deadly robberies started July 12, when Canadian Geoffrey Alan Bennun, 60, and his Filipino girlfriend were shot to death after a robber broke into their hotel room.

Four days later, Briton James Bolton Porter, 51, and his girlfriend were killed by a gunman in their house in Angeles' Malabanas village, police said.

Dizon allegedly later pawned some of the possessions taken from Bennun, including a laptop and a cell phone, Bautista said, adding investigators have secured pawnshop records and close-circuit television camera footage showing him with the stolen objects in the shop.

Last week, a gunman killed American Albert Mitchell, a 70-year-old veteran of the U.S. Air Force, along with his Filipino wife, Janet, 53, and three Filipino staff inside their Angeles home, Bautista said.

In the last killing, the fleeing gunman was seen by a village guard and a motorcycle taxi driver, who later described him to investigators, according to police.

After hearing descriptions of the suspect, a family friend of the Mitchells looked up Dizon's Facebook page — the Mitchells' daughter was one of his friends on the site. He showed the Facebook profile photo to the witnesses, who identified him as the man fleeing they saw, Bautista said.

He added that the same pistol was used in all the killings, linking Dizon to the other two crimes.
. . . . .

State of the Nation Backgrounder

2010-07-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

From the Official Gazette of the Philippine Government:

State of the Nation Backgrounder
The delivery by the President of the Philippines of the State of the Nation Address (abbreviated as SONA) is a yearly tradition wherein the President reports on the status of the nation. In it, he may also propose to Congress, before which the address is delivered, certain proposals for legislation that he believes is necessary. Article VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution mandates that “[t]he President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session.”

The SONA as an annual practice began during the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The 1935 Constitution, as amended, states in Article VII, Section 5 that “[t]he President shall from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the Nation, and recommend to its consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” [Read more]

. . . . . .

Nuffnang and HEAVEN Ice Cream invite you to a special screening of ‘SALT’

2010-07-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

Divine ice cream pleasure is HEAVEN Ice Cream.

Give in to the richest, smoothest, and creamiest by NESTLÉ Ice Cream. Revel in the exquisite goodness of its four sophisticated flavors—Belgian Chocolate Bliss, Strawberry Dream, Vanilla Almond Secret and Butter Pecan Obsession. HEAVEN Ice Cream is made with only the finest ingredients and contains no artificial food colors. Available in 800mL(Php 175) & 450mL(Php 115) tubs across supermarkets, groceries, and convenience stores nationwide.
. . . . .

Crown of Thorns

2010-05-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

Corona of Thorns

I find today's editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer cogent and incisive:

LET US BE CLEAR: IF THERE IS A POLITICAL storm gathering over the designation of Renato Corona as the new chief justice, it is not the fault, or even the doing, of presumptive president-elect Benigno Aquino III. If you slap a man in the face, he might strike back or turn the other cheek, but in either case, he is merely reacting to the provocation.

Now that President Macapagal-Arroyo has provoked the crisis-in-the-making, what should Aquino do?
He should follow the law. He should be careful not to fall into the many legal traps laid cunningly by the departing administration. He should be bold, but if faced with a choice err on the side of circumspection.
But none of this means he cannot show his displeasure, or the public’s, at the Arroyo administration’s brazen manipulation of the levers of power, at the way the choice of new chief justice has been rammed down the people’s throat.
Thus, Aquino may want to make good on his promise, and take his oath of office before the captain of his barangay in Tarlac. The latest victims of President Arroyo’s alternative Midas touch—everyone she appoints as spokesman eventually shrinks before our eyes, his or her reputation greatly diminished—cannot be listened to when they suddenly preach about republican courtesies. The Arroyo administration, especially in its last five years in power, ran roughshod over these very niceties, such as due deference between co-equal branches of government. (Where was the administration Charito Planas now tries to defend when the Senate fought for the right to limit the scope of executive privilege?)
While it is true that tradition dictates the presence and the participation of the chief justice at a new president’s oath-taking, this tradition is not a matter of law; a new president is not legally bound to take his or her oath before the head of the judiciary. And there is a glorious precedent: Aquino’s own mother took her oath of office in 1986 before a person other than the chief justice at the time. Cory Aquino’s choice of Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee was deliberate; it reflected public disappointment over a Supreme Court co-opted by the Marcos regime, and recognized the courage of Teehankee’s often solitary dissents.
We do not suggest that Senator Aquino choose an associate justice to administer his oath; that would further politicize an already politicized Court. But he should choose someone other than Corona, to express his conviction, a conviction we share, that while the appointment of the new chief justice can be argued as legal, it is deeply unethical, and serves only President Arroyo’s narrow self-interest.
There are other ways to express this conviction: Aquino can refrain from acknowledging Corona during his first State of the Nation Address, on July 26. Of course, the defenders of the Arroyo administration will immediately jump on this as a petty act—when in fact it is the Arroyo administration which has shown the most breathtaking pettiness. No, a deliberate snub during the Sona, like the choice of a barangay captain to administer the presidential oath, is a principled political statement.

Planas’ vapid advice about statesmanship and standing “10 feet taller,” on the other hand, is an example of a political statement without principle. It grates not only because it uses an argument the Arroyo administration was quite happy to ignore at the peak of its power—who needs statesmanship when you can rely on the so-called presumption of regularity?—but also because it is simply ignorant. A lawyer herself, Planas should have known from the American jurisprudence that shapes Philippine law practice that outright hostility had sometimes marked the relationship between president and chief justice—and yet democracy’s purposes continued to be served.
We suspect Planas and others like her know that there is, in fact, a Philippine difference, and it lies in the weakness of our political institutions. Unfortunately for them, they cannot say, at least not out loud, what greatly weakened those same institutions in the last decade. But we can: It was an administration which, among other failures, made unjustifiable or unethical appointments, and coerced or coaxed the appointees into accepting them.

"Judicial quarantine"

2010-05-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

I could not have said it better:

Judicial quarantine

WHILE IT WILL REQUIRE A CONGRESSIONAL resolution for the country to start referring to Sen. Benigno Aquino III as the president-elect, the country as a whole has accepted that he has been conferred the most remarkable mandate since the present Constitution’s ratification in 1987. The conferment of this mandate was such a long-anticipated event that when it became clear the people had spoken, it sparked an epidemic of statesmanship among many (though not all) of Aquino’s major opponents in the presidential race.
Instead of allowing the country to savor the end of the long crisis of legitimacy that began—and deepened— from 2001-2005, the present administration chose to pursue its strategy of manufacturing crises so as to maximize its opportunities for aggrandizing power. The latest manifestation of this pathological approach to political power is President Macapagal-Arroyo’s maneuvering to appoint the next chief justice.
We should never forget that “disempowering” the president from making appointments on the eve of elections, and from election day until he or she turns over the reins of government to a duly-elected successor, is a sensible democratic principle. We should never forget that it is a principle that has been supported for close to two generations—both by jurisprudence and by the intent of the framers of the present Constitution. It is a principle of democratic self-control and executive responsibility—a legacy of the President’s own father, and respected on the whole by every successor of Diosdado Macapagal until his own daughter reached the terminal stage of her own presidency. And we should never forget that the only reason this wholesome and responsible principle has been abandoned is that President Arroyo had wanted it changed and found obliging accomplices.
Thus, during the campaign, when Senator Aquino drew a line in the sand, saying he would not recognize any chief justice appointed by Ms Arroyo, the Palace seized on it to accuse him of recklessness and contempt for the law. A smokescreen to disguise its own relentless assault on well-established ethical and legal principles. In a similar vein, media and the political class knew the administration was viewing the anticipated results of the 2010 elections with dread. Informed circles weren’t surprised when it made a last-minute gambit to postpone the elections; and in the context of this scheme of the administration, Aquino’s warning that the public wouldn’t tolerate postponing the elections was both timely and necessary. As Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, initially (and naively) critical of the warning, belatedly realized.
Recklessness and irresponsibility, therefore, are characteristics of the administration and its Constitution-related experiments. Aquino has properly refused to concede logic or legitimacy to the administration’s efforts. He has properly called attention to the reality that the President’s experimentation would have failed if she hadn’t found willing accomplices, including Associate Justice Renato Corona who shows every sign of being eager to grab the poisoned chalice of a controversial chief magistracy offered by the President.
It is a chalice a former chief justice, Manuel Moran, viewed as simply unethical to accept as far back as 1953. It is a cup that—Corona must be made to recognize—will contain, if not legal, then certainly, ethical hemlock as far as his standing before the next president and the country is concerned. When Aquino said he would prefer to take his oath of office before a humble barangay official, he was anticipating the contents of the oath to be administered on June 30: to uphold both the spirit and letter of the Constitution and to do justice to every man.
Corona must be quarantined until our institutions resolve his legitimacy. What Ms Arroyo and Justice Corona are expecting the country to do is to surrender to tradition when it is tradition—and the law—that they have both flouted. Aquino need not dignify this travesty by extending any kind of official courtesy.

(Phil. Daily Inquirer Editorial, May 15, 2010)

. . . . .

The Presidentiables, ‘Puso sa Puso’

2010-05-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

Note: Puso sa Puso was an evangelical night of prayer with presidential "forum" where the presidentiables were interviewed heart-to-heart one after another last April 26, 2010 at the Big Dome in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines. VOTENET, a network of various Christian non-partisan organizations involved in voter's education (which included ISACC, Christ's Commission Fellowship and One Vote Movement, among many others) served as the secretariat of the event.

One Vote, which asked for Volunteer Poll Watchers among the Christians who attended, was eventually accredited by the Comelec as a citizen's arm (similar to PPCRV) on April 27, 2010.

The Presidentiables, ‘Puso sa Puso’

By Melba Padilla Maggay, Ph.D.
Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture ( ISACC )

It was a unique Presidential Forum, that evening on Monday at the Araneta Coliseum: the emphasis was ‘up close and personal,’ none of the tired issues and abstract talk of platform, but simply glimpses of the presidential candidates as people.

Billed as ‘Puso sa Puso,’ the event was mounted by a large coalition of churches and faith-based organizations identifying themselves as ‘evangelical.’ The strictures from the organizers were generally obeyed: no banners, no wearing of candidates’ colors, no hakot crowd. The 16,000 people who thronged the rafters of the Coliseum, the biggest crowd ever in this campaign season, paid to get there to take a close look at the candidates and pray together for the future of the nation.

The candidates were given 20 minutes each to answer questions that on the surface seemed merely personal but proved to be revealing, — like what were their most formative influences, their most painful, trying or perplexing times, their sources of guidance when faced with uncertainty, what they consider to be the country’s most important problems that need solving and what they propose to do about them, and what they wish to be remembered for at the end of their days. The questions were disarmingly innocuous, and the answers were, on the whole, refreshingly unscripted, though some echo themes that keep getting reprised.

Seven out of the nine presidentiables showed up – the two major contenders, Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino and Manuel ‘Manny’ Villar, as well as the five at the tail end of the polls – Richard ‘Dick’ Gordon, Eddie Villanueva, Ma. Ana Consuelo ‘Jamby’ Madrigal, Nicanor Jesus ‘Nicky’ Perlas, and John Carlos ‘JC’ de los Reyes. The other two candidates, Gilberto ‘Gibo’ Teodoro Jr. and Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada, were on out-of-town sorties.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the latter five had more texture, richer shadings in their self-portraits, while the two leading ones stuck to the themes that have defined their candidacy.

Dick Gordon was unusually subdued and reflective; he seems to have grown from the man known to have a ‘motor mouth’ to a much quieter man who has learned much from 25 years of executive experience. The audience seems to have recognized this and gave him the evening’s warmest applause. Jamby, in contrast to the impression that she is, at bottom, only a loose cannon with the patina of old wealth, was at her gender’s best: transparently forthright and emotionally powerful. Nicky Perlas, for once, seems able to warmly connect to an earthbound audience, and not to a free-floating global community high up in a stratosphere of climatic and ethereal concerns. JC was unaccountably appealing, an authentic ingenue whose missionary zeal was heartwarming. Brother Eddie was a little less preachy, his scripted lines less dreary, although still weighted with the ideological furniture of his activist days.

The two leading contenders registered some changes in their public persona, but pretty much remained within their campaign spiels. Noynoy looked unusually dapper in a black suit with a yellow tie, Manny was casually cool in a white shirt, both in keeping with the prescribed colors for the event. One was dressing up, looking more presidential, the other was dressing down, perhaps to better identify with the people he has sought to represent. Noynoy now seems to be less wooden, emerging from the crucible of the campaign with a bit more self-assurance, but still talked too fast and at times stumbled on his words. Manny displayed glimpses of the old likable fellow that he was, but his remarks were laced at times with an irascible tone of bitterness, and there seemed a certain disconnect, a kind of dissociation between the outer and inner man that made him look opaque.

Both men’s personal narratives they subsumed within the larger myth-making of their campaigns. Noynoy sourced his most formative influences round the experience of martial law: as a boy of 12 he witnessed the incarceration and eventual assassination of his father, the turbulence that led to the fall of the Marcos regime, his mother’s rise to the presidency and the upheavals that ensued. Manny was early formed, he said, by the world of the palengke, and later by his student days at UP. Beyond this, there was not much that was previously unknown in these men’s stories.

Likewise, both men reprised their usual campaign themes. How to solve corruption occupied much of Noynoy’s question time. Echoing Roosevelt, he promised to wield a stick against grafters and a carrot for those who truly serve in government. In his allotted time, Manny reiterated that putting an end to the complex forces of poverty is possible. “Naawa ako sa ating bayan. Hanggang ngayon nag-uusap pa tayo kung kayang tapusin ang kahirapan. On the contrary sabi ko. Tayo na lang ang naiiwan sa Asia. Ang Japan, China, Korea, lahat halos either tapos na or matatapos na or malayo na ang marating. malapit ng matapos. Pero tayo nagtatalo pa kung kaya bang tapusin ang kahirapan. Hindi pwede na tayo na lang ang naiiwan.”

Defining his issues, he took digs at his opponent: ‘May nagawa ka na ba?’ ought to be asked, he said. It is not enough to be clean in oneself, “dapat kaya rin kontrolin ang nakapaligid sa kanya.” We need a leader, he said, with the ability to make things grow, “yung nakapag-ahon sa kahirapan.” From day one, he said, we need someone who hits the ground running; the problems of the country are such that “we can not afford a probationary period.”

It is interesting, however, that it was not Villar who was voted upon as the one who has the most ‘kakayahang mamuno.’ An electronic response system was set up among a random sampling of the audience. The 300 selected were asked, after each interview with a presidentiable, which from a list of traits were most characteristic of the candidate. It was Gordon who was singled out by the overwhelming majority as the one fittest to lead (82%). Strangely enough, majority of the participants (51%) relegated Villar to the category of ‘iba pa,’ which means people had ideas about him that were other than those listed, like ‘tapat, may integridad,’ or ‘may paninindigan’ . Noynoy predictably registered as ‘may integridad’ (45%).

The candidates’ responses to their most formative influences centered round the kind of socialization they got from their parents. Nicky’s parents taught him integrity, he said. JC learned fatherhood. Jamby tells the story of how she was taken to task by her father in refusing to eat an uncooked egg which ruffled the feelings of the waiter who served it. This taught her to be considerate, a rare trait among the vastly careless upper classes to which she belongs.

In at least four candidates, the shaping forces in their lives were conflated with their most painful experiences. This was true with Noynoy, with Nicky whose father served the government faithfully for 40 years and yet was charged with corruption, with Brother Eddie who remembers his family being turned out of their home by usurers and a land-grabbing syndicate, and Dick who left his job at Procter and Gamble and went to law school when his father was assassinated. The sense of continuing a ‘legacy’ was a strong motivational force among the candidates. Jamby, for instance, accounted her refusal to compromise to the memory of her grandfather, Jose Abad Santos.

Quite expectedly, all the candidates wore their religion in their sleeves, conscious perhaps that this is one event where it is acceptable, even de riguer, to do so. All pray, and at least three account their running to ‘guidance from the Lord.’ Nicky, for instance, was particularly put out by the ‘Garci tapes’ scandal and prayed for clarity as to whether he should run and challenge the present political system. “I don’t know how I got here,” JC said, with some perplexity.

It seems that “it is the Lord egging me.” His campaign has meant the sacrifice of his business and precious time away from his family. Brother Eddie felt compelled by a call to political life, even if he already had influence as a church leader: “There in my home in Bulacan, officials already come to me. Why fight the Goliaths of this nation?”

JC described his running for president as a kind of ‘cross.’ He spoke of his candidacy as a ‘mission,’ an obedience to the need to introduce ‘prophetic politics.’ With great feeling, he spoke at length of Kapatiran’s advocacy against political dynasties that have privatized local governance, the patronage system that feeds on pork barrel funds, and the lawlessness that thrives on guns and moral decline. He envisions a politics where parties are disciplined by principles and the society behaves by “the standards set by the Lord.”

Similarly spiritual reasons undergird Nicky’s passion to change the system. He found particularly painful the abuses of martial law, and like many of his generation, he had to run for his life and for a while starved in the US as an emigre. These experiences formed in him a ‘spiritual core,’ he said. Alone of all the candidates, he decried the decline of Filipino spirituality, which used to rank high in surveys of world values, and named the increasing materialism and ‘decadence of Filipino culture’ as one of the top three problems, along with poverty and the environment.

Running as a sub-text to the proceedings was the theme of corruption and disgust with the present government, which surfaced now and then in the crowd’s reaction to remarks made on this by the candidates. Jamby found her six years in the Senate to be most trying, seeing how bills that were anti-poor got passed and billions of pesos put in the wrong hands. “Very painful for me was to vote for a 6 million relief package for Ondoy when I know that it will not got to the victims. But I said better to vote for it to see maybe a percentage go to the victims. I went all over the country and unfortunately the 6 billion that was voted by Congress didn’t reach the people.” Asked what she will do about corruption, she replied with her usual forthright audacity: “Let’s put the big fish in jail.” The crowd roared. “And the big fish na pinakawalan lang, put him back in jail.” Another round of applause.

A similarly enthusiastic outburst greeted Dick’s remark that “I will not pardon anybody.” Likewise, Nicky said, “The President has power to appoint 10,000 people;” he proposes to replace all the appointees of the Arroyo government within his first 100 days in office. Again, the audience erupted into a burst of gleeful applause.

In sum, two things struck me about this quasi-political, quasi-religious event:

One, we are witnessing once again the historic fusion of the religious and the political in our responses to the crisis of our time. As with Hermano Pule and the religious communities centered round Mount Banahaw, or as with our People Power revolution which was similarly suffused by the icons of our faith, our people, — both leader and led — derive their inspiration and source of resistance, not primarily from borrowed ideologies, but from a transcendent spiritual center inside them.

In a context where our institutions have been increasingly eroded and defrauded of integrity, it is perhaps the churches, those quiescent communities that are normally despised or relegated to the margins, that have the kind of grassroots constituencies that could stand up to abuses of power when sufficiently roused;

Two, it is a great encouragement that the personal narratives of the major players in this election share the sufferings of our recent history. This ‘fellowship of suffering’ makes for solidarity, an element that has always been lacking in most of our elite, the absence of which has barred us from becoming a genuinely national community. While some of these candidates may be said to be continuous with a long line of political and economic dynasties, the experience of victimization is a break from that tradition, and may lead to real sympathy for the plight of people.

Three, it is evident that among these candidates are some who, in another context and another time, may have been the right people to lead this country. But this election has been defined by two issues that dominate our current social landscape: corruption in our governance and massive poverty. It is an index of the depth of our people’s feeling for these issues that the two leading candidates are defined by their promise to provide a strong solution to these problems.

. . . . .

Bible Verse for 2010 May 05

2010-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. - Proverbs 2:1-5 - NIV

. . . . .

One Vote Movement Granted Accreditation

2010-04-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

April 28, 2010

Comelec Accredits One Vote Movement as Citizen's Arm for May 10, 2010 Elections

In an en banc resolution No. SPP 10-009 dated April 27, 2010, the Commission on Elections granted the petition for accreditation of One Vote Movement, to wit:

"One Vote Movement has sufficiently established that it has complied with the stringent requirements for accrediation as prescribed under Rule 33 of the Comelec Rules of Procedure. Hence, the Commission resolves to accredit One Vote Movement as citizen's arm of the Commission for the May 10, 2010 Automated National and Local Elections pursuant to Section 2 (5) of Article IX (C) of the 1987 Constitution and Section 52 (k) of the Omnibus Election Code, as amended, and other election laws."

Below is the photographic copy of the signature page of SPP 10-009:

. . . .

Quezon City Officials July 01, 2004 - present

2010-04-15T02:53:00.000-07:00

FELICIANO “SONNY” BELMONTE JR. City Mayor

HERBERT M. BAUTISTA Vice Mayor

Representatives

     Vincent “Bingbong” P. Crisologo – First District
     Annie Rosa L. Susano – Second District
     Matias V. Defensor – Third District
     Nanette Castelo Daza – Fourth District

16TH QUEZON CITY COUNCIL Councilors

First District

     Bernadette Herrera – Dy
     Elizabeth Delarmente
     Rommel Abesamis
     Francisco Calalay Jr.
     Victor R. Ferrer Jr.
     Joseph Jueco

Second District

     Winnie Castelo
     Aiko Melendez
     Allan Butch R. Francisco
     Godofredo Liban
     Ramon P. Medalla
     Erick Medina

Third District

     Jorge L. Banal Jr.
     Franz Pumaren
     Diorella Sotto
     Dante M. De Guzman
     Benedict Lagumbay
     Julian M. Coseteng

Fourth District

    Edcel Lagman
     Ariel Inton Jr.
     Bayani M. Hipol
     Restituto Malañgen
     Janet Malaya
     Alma F. Montilla

Sectoral Representatives

Xyrus Lanot ABS President (Liga ng mga Barangay)
Junie Marie Castelo SK Federation Chairwoman

THE CITY ADMINISTRATORS

     Paquito N. Ochoa City Administrator
     Pacifico Maghacot Jr. Asst. City Administrator Head, BPLO
     Neil Lina Asst. City Administrator OIC, MDAD
     Manuel Sabalza sst. City Administrator Head, DPOS

Department / Office Heads

     City Accountant : Editha Alzona
     Cit Assessor : Teofista LL. Fajara (Ret.) Jose Castro (OIC)
     City Budget : Bella L. Fernandez
     Civil Registrar : Atty. Ramon Matabang
     CGSO : Rolando Montiel
     City Legal : Atty. Christian Valencia
     City Personnel Office : Marlene Aguilar
     City Planning : Arch. Gerardo Magat
     City Treasurer : Dr. Victor Endriga
     OIC, CRO : Atty. Victor Rodriguez
     CTAO : Eden Villanueva
     OIC, City Engineering : Engr. Joselito Cabungcal
     EPWMD : Frederika Rentoy
     IRO : Ignacio Santos Diaz, Jr.
     Chairman LLRB : Albert Galarpe
     PDAD : Engr. Zaldy Dela Rosa
     Chief, PAISO : Gregorio Banacia
     OIC, PALAO : Atty. Antonio Rosales
     City Health : Dra. Maria Paz Ugalde
     City Library : Emelita L. Villanueva
     QCPO : Albert Abueva
     Chief, Registry of Deeds : Atty. Elbart Quilala
     SSDD : Ma. Teresa Mariano
     Chief, TRU : Margarita Toledo
     UPAO : Ramon T. Asper

Task Forces, Projects, & Other Units

     Chief, COPRISS : Marlowe Jacutin
     GDRCO : Neri Ruby Palma
     QC Anti-drug Abuse Coun. : Wenceslao Cortez
     Officer, QCBACO : Nina Ordoñez
     Exec. Dir. QCPU : Dr. Jose Vergara, Ed. D.
     OIC, OSCA : Conrado Buenaventura
     QC Sagip Buhay : Flordeliza Agdigos
     SYDP : Rogelio Reyes
     TFAT : Atty. Voltaire Enriquez
     Chief, SAO : Arch. Pedro Rodriguez
     POG Col. : Jameel Jaymalin
     Chief, AMO : Edwin Tating
     Comm. Service Officer : Carlos Verzonilla
     OIC, LTPU : Elias Jesus Santos

     Other Offices

     District Director, CPDC : Gen. Nicascio J. Radovan Jr.
     Chief, City Hall Detach. : P/Supt. Elmo San Diego
     QC Jail Warden, BJMP : Col. James Labordo
     Fire Marshall, QC Fire Dept. Maj. Oscar V. Villegas
     OIC, Amoranto Sports Com Andy Apostol
     Resident Auditor, COA : Crisanto S. Gabriel
     Sec. to the Vice Mayor : Dean Raymundo A. Briones
     Sec. to the Sanggunian : Atty. Eugenio V. Jurilla

   Source: Quezonian Newsletter, Special Issue

"Buy Me a Good Senator" Movement Launched

2010-03-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

"T-Bills" to Fund Election Campaign

"Buy Me a Good Senator" movement was launched by a group of ordinary citizens at the Sulo Hotel just this morning. The goal is to fund the election campaign of "honest, competent and sincere people" by buying "T"-Bills for them. According to the group headed by Gerry Gamez the "T" stands for "Trust." He described these as "documents which bind the candidate to us, the electorate, for the whole period of their term, so they will faithfully serve us, instead of the people serving them."

The group initially picked Atty. Alex “Pinoy” Lacson, author of the 12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do To Help Our Country, and who agreed to the concept of T-Bills in the political arena, as the first candidate to be supported. The Lacson T-bills can be bought for P300, P500, or P1,000. Each buyer/contributor will be given a certificate. In addition, those who paid for P500 will be given the 12 Little Things book; for P1,000, the book and a Thank God I’m a Filipino T-shirt. Globe celfone users can buy the Lacson T-Bill by simply texting: ALEX 300/500/1000. Then send to 2899.

An appreciative Atty. Lacson declared: “In this day and age where the norm is vote-buying, here we see Gamez and his group with what little they have for their prefered candidate. This shows that people are willing to invest in good governance. They are willing to act.”

. . . . .

Power Crisis Presscon - March 22, 2010

2010-03-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

Atty. Alex Lacson: Gov't Negligence = Power Crisis

Last Monday (March 22), I attended Atty. Alex "Pinoy" Lacson's presscon at the LP Senatorial HQ at the Manila Bank Bldg. along Ayala Ave., Makati City.

Atty. Lacson narrated that during his visit to Kidapawan City (capital of North Cotabato) last week, there was no electricity during his meeting with local officials. It was still brownout when the meeting concluded. Local executives confirmed they are experiencing six to ten hours brownouts. Lamenting the lack of central planning to address the energy crisis, he declared:

"Mindanao is growing both economically and socially, The Arroyo administration should have anticipated that its energy requirements would actually increase. Evidently, there was no planning."

"Pinoy" Lacson agreed with Mindanao-based executives that short-term solutions are needed such as buying power barges. In addition, long-term solutions should be explored, including tapping wind energy, building additional geothermal plants and rehabilitating existing power plants.

Questionable Use of 10 Billion Calamity Fund

Confounding the Mindanao power in crisis is the questionable use of the 10 billion calamity meant to address the worsening blackouts. Out of the this fund, each affected province was allotted close to 1 billion pesos to buy or lease generator sets.

However, reports have reached Lacson that administration-backed local candidates are using the calamity fund to instead buy rice, food stuff and even appliances to entice their constituents to vote for them in the coming May 10 elections. This prompted Lacson to tell Mindanaoans:

"Kailangang tutukan ito ng ating may opisyales at bantayan ng taong bayan para hindi na naman manakaw ang pondong kinakailangan ng Mindanao. Let's literally and figuratively shine a light on this issue."

. . . . .

One Vote Movement Pursues COMELEC Accreditation

2010-03-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

The One Vote Movement (a mass-based contituency composed of various national organizations such as the Lighthouse Bible Baptist Church headed by Bsp. Reuben Abante, Balikatan People's Alliance headed by its National Chairman Louie Baylosis-Balibago with 64 organizations under it and a total of around 600,000 members nationwide, Alliance of Christian Development Agencies (ACDA), Ating Siyasatin, Ihalal Natin (ASIN), Christian Convergence for Good Government (CCGG), Community of Independent Churches in the Philippines (CICP), Far Eastern Broadcasting Company (FEBC), Heal Our Land Movement, Institute for Studies in Asian Churches and Culture (ISACC), Master Lighthouse Foundation, National Movement for Righteousness and Transformation (N-MRT), Philippine Bible Society, Philippine Campus Crusade for Christ (PCCC), Philippine Council for Evangelical Churches (PCEC), Philippine Ministerial Fellowship Network (PhilMiFen), Vote Right as well as individuals of voting age and registered voters in various congregations throughout the nation) is actively pursuing its accreditation by the COMELEC as its citizen's arm for the national and local elections set on May 10, 2010 pursuant to Article 9(c) of the 1987 Constitution which provides:

"Register, after sufficient publication, political parties, organization, or coalitions, which, in addition to other requirements, must present their platform or program of government, and accredit citizen's arms of the Commission on Elections." (emphasis added).

Accordingly, One Vote Movement represented by its president, Ptr. Jose Gonzales, through counsel, Atty. Eduardo Bringas. has caused the publication of its Petition for Accreditation in the Manila Bulletin today, March 22, 2010, prior to the hearing by the COMELEC en banc tomorrow, March 23.

Click the above image to enlarge.

Note: One Vote Movement was subsequently accredited. http://excellenttopics.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

. . . . .

Pres. Arroyo can appoint next Chief Justice - Supreme Court

2010-03-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

I've just learned through the internet that the Philippine Supreme Court decided that Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo can appoint the next Chief Justice. Of the members of the highest tribunal, 9 voted "yes," 1 voted against and 3 abstained. Two other justices voted that all petitions for or against be dismissed for being premature.

With due respect to the members of the bench, as a citizen of this country I am concerned over the Supreme Court's decision to recognize Pres. Arroyo’s appointive power over the next Chief Justice despite the ban on "midnight" appointments enshrined in our Constitution, thus:

Article VII. Section 15. Two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.

My only consolation is that at least one lady Associate Justice by the name of Conchita Carpio-Morales "had the balls," so to speak, to stand by the explicit provision of the highest law of the land.

Hopefully, the lady in the palace will not be tempted to use the Supreme Court's decision as an alibi.

. . . . .

Landas ng Pagbabago (Path to Change)

2010-03-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's presscon by the Liberal Party at their new campaign HQ at the 3rd Floor of the Manila Bank Building, Ayala Avenue, the most "quotable quote" came from Sen. Kiko Pangalinan, the Campaign Manager of LP's Senate Slate.

Sen. Pangilinan emphatically said that voters can choose from two paths: landas ng pagbabago o landas ng C-5. Rough translation to English: "path to change or path to the C-5" (a controversial road project that has been the subject of a Senate ethics investigation of one of their members).

Ms. Risa Hontiveros and Atty. Alex Lacson, both LP

Senatorial Candidates, flank Sen. Kiko Pangilinan.

(A print coverage of the event will be published in the next issue of Touchlife Express Balita.)

. . . . .

Pacquiao-Clottey - A Sports Analysis

2010-03-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

I'm not a boxing fan (protagonists intend to physically hurt each other to win) but the news and analyses about the result of Pacquiao's win over Clottey are all over the internet. Here's one interesting piece by a contributor to the RazRez website:

Pacquiao Clottey Let Down
Sunday 14th March 2010
by RazRez Contributor

In what was billed as The Fight that would test Manny Pacquiao, Ghana born boxer Joshua Clottey did anything but. For twelve full rounds, the bigger Clottey kept his guard up, giving Pacquiao nothing to hit, but at the same time, depriving himself of a chance at a real fight.

So, while Manny peppered away at Clottey, throwing at times over a hundred punches per round (Manny ended up averaging a little over a hundred punches thrown per round, which is unheard of in the welterweight division), Clottey steadfastly maintained his defensive posture, breaking it only from time to time to throw a little bit here and there. The world hasn’t seen such deliberate inaction since a washed up Ali fought a prime Larry Holmes.

At some point past the midway of the fight, a seemingly bored Jim Lampley tried to inject some excitement into the broadcast by yelling “bang, bang, bang” every time Pacquiao threw a punch. It didn’t matter that the punches were blocked; evidently, Lampley was trying anything to stir up excitement.

Emmanuel Stewart thought Pacquiao fought a good fight in that he did what he had to do to win the fight against a fighter determined to cover up for the entire twelve rounds. In the end, though Manny won all twelve rounds (how two judges gave Clottey one round each is beyond me), many felt that the fight was a massive let down, given Pacquiao’s prolific knock out performances leading to this fight. And perhaps that was on Clottey’s mind throughout the fight. Perhaps he didn’t want to take a premature nap, courtesy of a Pacquiao left. Or right.

When asked of his tactics, Clottey responded to Kellerman that he thought Manny was too fast, so he didn’t want to risk anything. Perhaps Clottey trainer DeJesus put it best when he said that he believes his fighter felt Pacquiao’s punching power and was determined not to end up crashing on the canvas as did Pacquiao’s previous opponents.

Unfortunately for fight fans, Clottey’s concern over Pacquiao’s speed and power resulted in a fight that in Clottey’s own words, was “the only fight he lost,” alluding to the fact that he still feels that his three losses on record are questionable. Well, when you lose all twelve rounds, what else can you say?

Well folks, for those clamoring for a Pacquiao Mayweather showdown, as evidenced by the roaring crowd when Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach called out Floyd, you might want to think about that again. Floyd may not cover up in Frankenstein fashion as Clottey did, but Floyd will run. And run, and run and run. It will end up just like this fight. A boring twelve rounds of one guy trying to fight another. And that other guy has nothing but self preservation in their mind. Bottom line: Mayweather is just like Clottey except he has faster feet. And unlike Clottey who moved forward from time to time, Mayweather will always move backward. Is that really a fight anyone wants to see?

Source: http://razrez.com/sports/pacquiao-clottey-let-down/

. . . . .

Election-Related Violence in Abra

2010-03-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday morning (March 3, 2010), I went to Nostalg 2 & 3, Oakwood Premier Joy~Nostalg Center Manila, 17 ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center.

The event? I got invited by the Political Democracy & Reform (PODER) team of the Ateneo School of Government to the public presentation of the results of their study on election-related violence (ERV) in Abra, Philippines entitled "A Vicious Cycle of Violence, Disempowerment and Abuse of Authority."

Click here to view
Album on ERV in Abra - PODER study public presentation

With 30 politicians killed during the last eight years, the election-related violence in the province of Abra is indeed alarming, perhaps eliciting an outrage second only to the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.

The study was conducted from June 2009 to January 2010. Foremost among its findings is that "government institutions are not able to prevent violence" as they faced "constraints in resources and support that affected their capability organizationally." Political dynasties (Villamors, Paredeses, Valeras, Barberos, Bersamins, Bernoses and Seareses) and cultural factors further exacerbated the election-related violence. Mainly due to lack of witnesses, even the Judiciary has a "dismal record in resolving ERV cases."

The study recommends the following:

- institutional development involving the key agencies responsible for ERV prevention is critical.

- gradual to total disarmament paralleled with advocacy promoting gun-less Abra.

- network of champions at the national level to prevent any form of padrino system.

- filling up the gaps in accountability to ensure government funds are spent for public good not private gain.

- civic and values education to mobilize public support for ERV prevention.

- address underdevelopment of Abra (the 9th poorest province) by prioritizing job creation to make the poor less vulnerable to becoming an instrument of violence.

(A print coverage of the event will be published in the next issue of Touchlife Express Balita.)

. . . . .

Aftermath of 8.8 Earthquake in Chile

2010-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

As of last count, the Chilean government headed by President Michelle Bachelet reported over 700 people perished as a result of the mammoth 8.8-magnitude earthquake that shuddered across a huge swath of central Chile at 3:34 a.m.

One of the hardest hit urban centers is the city of Talca which is just 105 kilometers from the epicenter in the Pacific Ocean. The tremor tore apart houses and buildings (2nd photo), bridges and highways and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world (last photo).

Winston Maxino adjudged Happiest Pinoy

2010-02-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

Despite suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis (a degenerative bone condition that requires the patient to take daily pain reliever) and having a daughter with Down Syndrome, Winston A. Maxino was chosen the "Happiest Pinoy" out of the seven finalists at the Intercontinental Hotel, Makati City on the night of February 17, 2010.

Touchlife Express Balita - Happiest Pinoy

Ambassador Philippe J Lhuillier and Mr. Jean Henri D. Lhuillier, President & CEO of PJ Lhuiller Group of Companies presented the Happiest Pinoy Citation and the replica of the P200,000 prize to Mr. Maxino.

In his acceptance message, Mr. Maxino quoted St. Augustine who wrote that happiness is "rejoicing in the truth.” Then, he added: “Buddha taught that life is suffering. If we combine the two ideas, happiness is rejoicing even if the reality of our lives is that we are suffering.”

Cebuana Lhuiller Insurance Solutions (CLIS) first embarked on a search for the Happiest Pinoy on May 5, 2009 to recognize and celebrate the Filipino’s optimism, resilience and hope, even in the midst of all uncertainties and difficult circumstances. After sifting through 218 nominations from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, seven finalists were short listed by the panel of judges composed of Dr. Emerlinda Roman (U.P. President), Dean Victoria Lucuanan (Asian Institute of Management), Antonio Meloto (Chairman, Gawad Kalinga), Gov. Grace Padaca (Isabela), Rebecca Ortega (Chairperson, Brahma Kumaris), Timmy Cruz (Environmental Heroism Awardee), Marixi R. Prieto (Chairperson, Philippine Daily Inquirer) and Jose Miguel Jimenez (Chief Adm. Officer, PJ Lhuillier Group of Companies).

Mr. Efren Peñaflorida, Jr., 2009 CNN Hero of the Year, fittingly gave an upbeat keynote address that was well-applauded in the standing-room only Grand Ballroom of Intercontinental Hotel.

Mr. Larry Hinares, a great writer and columnist whom I admire, graced the occasion. He commented that any of other 6 finalists could just as well be the happiest Pinoy. It was really that difficult to select the “best from the very best.” Each of the six other finalists — Rex Bernardo, Nona David-Castillo, Celestino Habito, Gerardo Gamez, Carolina Reyes and Maria Kathrina Yarza—received P25,000 and a plaque of recognition.

The masters of ceromonies, Mr. Jonathan Batangan, General Manager of CLIS and Ms. Donita Rose, orchestrated the flow of the awards night smoothly, interspersed with their good sense of humor.

(A print coverage of the event will be published in the Touchlife Express Balita February 19-25, 2010 issue.)

. . . . .

Reactions on COMELEC's adverse decision on Gov. Panlilio

2010-02-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

At Facebook, Political Jaywalker asked the question: Where is the outrage on Gov. Among Ed Panlilio's ouster by the Comelec? Why are the politicians not scandalized at the ridiculous ruling that a priest is now considered a cheat, of all people the people that has the means and capability to do so? Is it because they have their own skeletons in their closet not wanting to rock the boat at the Comocollect?

Two responses:

Manny Sd Lopez: The people of Pampanga seem resigned to the prospect of basing a political jaggernaut in the person of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in their province. The old Kapangpangan saying "Ke leon o tigre ali kami tatakot keng dwende pa" is now forgotten and delegated to the dust bin of political indifference ! The acts of impunity undertaken by the Comelec and the Supreme Court apparently upon orders of Malacanang is a clear and present danger to our democracy and the country's prospect for change. Such indications should compel the opposition to close ranks and prepare for an inevitable post-election crisis struggle. The Arroyo administration seem intent on engaging in political machinations and electoral fraud, for the purposes of asserting its continuity in power.

Gabby Gabaya: f x x x comelec.

===

Elpidio Que posed a similar question: What can you say about Comelec's belated decision to unseat Among Ed Panlilio as Pampanga governor?

To which, he made the initial comments:
I believe this question was my catch-up suggestion last night. Well, my opinion is simple. As suspected by many people, among the top bankrollers of Gloria Arroyo’s candidacy in last presidential elections were not only the suspected yellow emperors of smuggling and tax evasion but also suspected jueteng overlord Bong, the husband of Lilia Pineda who was proclaimed by the Comelec of this said to be garcified administration for a little over two thousand votes. This proves, based on these suspicions, that Gloria knows how to pay debt of gratitude. May election is just around the corner. So, with the alleged enormous jueteng millions doled by Lilia and Bong for her continued presidential ambition, out should be Among Ed Panlilio for Lilia to experience sitting on the Pampanga throne even if only for a few months long. It is said that the Pineda couple are her most valued cabalens. They are untouchable like the said yellow emperors of smuggling and tax evasion. She and Nanay Lilia were even “flashbacked” in a broadsheet deeply praying side by side in a church apparently to show the people that they are afraid of for-bad-people thunderbolts in the arsenal of the Lord.

Responses:

Maryanne Dinah Campos Versario: it's a decision that stands......among many other decisions... done with due process...

Elpidio Que: You may be right, Maryanne. But there are some election protests filed against sitting local powers who are allies of this administration which are so visible that they are not up there if not through cheatings in last elections.It is even hush-hushed by reliable sources that some of thes some had won in the recount a few years ago but the Comelec is not as assuidious in them as in the case of Father Panlilio.

Marlene Howe: With all the talk about jueteng being illegal I just can't understand why the government can't stop its operations for good. Are the jueteng lords smarter than the whole government? Or is it lke I have suspected that all the officials involved in stopping its illegal operation are in the pocket of these said lords. They thrive in this business because the protection is from the top. As far as Comelec is concerned this is a joke! They started waving their swords and intimidate the good people trying to do good. This part of the government is useless and should be abolished.

Victoria Cordero Rudio: I always am doubtful of people who try to seem saintly by doing the catholic rites...sorry but it's just plain hypocrisy. everyone knows that jueteng is one of the biggest money makers in the phils 2nd to drugs. lets hope that the new 'anointed one' (president) doesn't have a jueteng or warlord padrino.

Victoria Cordero Rudio: as for the belated unseating...pahabol! and naghahabol pa. garapalan na!

Elpidio Que Marlene, these jueteng lords and overlord have super-over lord, so they say. Jueteng-gate turned to naught, dba? In any locality where you can see jueteng lording over for even the blind to see, the officials therein are shared with eggs of jueteng-goosse that lay many golden eggs. Evat's Recto's campaign ad, that Pandesal ad, with Vilma and their kids, are saying "Kung walang korap, walang mahirap." Jueteng rampages in Lipa City and Batangas. Like her "Run after tax evaders, smugglerss and grafters" yell, the Great pretender's yell of "Run after jueteng lords" is the same. It's also hot air.

Political Jaywalker @Maryanne, Due process? I beg to disagree, for one the decision was 11,000 pages... think of a 22 volume encyclopedia for the lawyers of Among Ed to read line by line and Ferrer says they will not give them extension to review to file their motion for reconsideration. Now we all know the decision the trio did on Governor Grace Padaca (I am not sure if it exceeds Among Ed's but it is also thousands of pages) where volunteers were needed to review the decision and they found errors, inconsistencies, pages duplicated and worse it was apparently the briefs of the lawyers for Dy. Now is that what we call due process or fraudulent process showing incompetence and fraud.... I say the time has come to demand the impeachment of the 3 stooges'.......

Aldo Manalo: not surprised...well read the writings on the wall for gov. panlilio as soon as gov. padaca's decision was made the past year.

Jose Rizal M. Reyes: COMELEC, our electoral system and the entire society should be reformed and transformed. it's demeaning to belong to a pipsqueak and corrupt country.
. . . . .

Tribute to Kemberly Jul Luna

2010-01-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

In the front page article titled "Brainy beauty joins NPA, dies in Bukidnon" of yesterday's issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, I learned of the tragic death of Kemberly Jul Luna (inset).

A google search brought me to the facebook page of the League of Filipino Students where I found this fitting tribute to Kemberly:

IN MEMORY OF KEMBERLY JUL LUNA: ISKOLAR NG BAYAN, FREEDOM FIGHTER

January 4, 2010

“Umaalis ang mga anak upang habulin ang kanilang mga pangarap, at malao’t madali, maraming magulang ang tumutunton sa duguang bakas ng kanilang mga anak…upang sunduin ang kanilang bangkay at iuwi ang pinakadakilang katibayan ng kanilang pagkatao.” – Lualhati Bautista

We, from the League of Filipino Students (LFS) and the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights (STAND) in MSU-IIT, express our utmost grief and sorrow over the death of our beloved comrade Kemberly Jul Luna.

Kemberly, or “Kimay,” as she was known to her friends and comrades, was an AB English student in MSU-IIT. Known for her beauty and intellect, Kimay gained a lot of friends inside the school and out and has shown a lot of talent. She was a high school valedictorian and has participated in a lot of academic and cultural events. She was, for a time, a member of MSU-IIT’s Kalimulan, a cultural dance group.

She was also an active member of the Catholic Center Campus Ministry, where she became a leader of the Educational Committee. There, amidst the daily masses, boarding house meetings and other activities, she concluded that faith without action is dead. She always sought for ways to show that her Christian faith will not be confined to empty words and prayers, but will be brought out to the real world and be coupled by relevant action based on concrete conditions. She believed that faith should not be a lifeless dogma. She believed that just like Jesus, one must bring faith to serving the people— without thought of oneself. And just like Jesus, to die in service of the poor and oppressed.

She joined LFS early in 2008 and had been an active participant in the League’s many activities, including the National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission (NIHM) of October 2008 in the face of humanitarian crises plaguing the war-stricken Moroland. She was part of the local secretariat and headed the area preparation committee in Poona Piagapo, one of the target municipalities for the Mission. Daring as always, Kimay did not hesitate entering the war-torn village of Tagoranao to uncover the effects of indiscriminate aerial bombing and militarization in the area. She also convinced one of the victims to make a testimony openly on the events in the affected areas in Lanao.

She actively joined the “No to All-Out War” campaign and various other campaigns, including the campaign against US intervention in the country and militarization of peasant and Moro communities.

At the opening of the first semester, she was chosen as the ad hoc chairperson of STAND-IIT. From then on she brought the cry of the youth and student sector in classroom and group discussions and out to the streets in rallies where she acted as STAND-IIT’s official spokesperson.

Kemberly was a very good example to her comrades and to the people around her. She showed youthful fervor and gave her heart to everything she did inside the organization. She was once a quite heavy drinker and a late riser as an ordinary student, but when she joined the League, she showed exemplary effort to remould and do away with her old habits. She shelled herself off of all the petty-bourgeois individualism.

At the opening of the second semester, we found out that she did not enroll. Later, she asked for her resignation as STAND-IIT chairperson, saying that she would stop school and do full-time peasant organizing work with KASAMA-Bukidnon, a province-wide peasant organization. She stood firm with her decision, saying she would like to do more in service of the poor, and that she could only do that in the countryside, where the majority of the poorest people live. On January 2009, after a short Christmas visit to her family in Surigao, Kemberly went off to Bukidnon to start her community work. She promised however that she would maintain correspondence with us.

On August 2009, we received a letter from her saying that she left KASAMA-Bukidnon but did not say where she went to and that she is happy where she was at that time, and that she has learned to love the peasant masses more with each day she lives with them. Kimay also happily shared to us her experiences in the peasant communities, from helping the peasants harvest corn to teaching them to read and write and do a little arithmetic, since literacy in the area is extremely low. She was also known to the people in the community as a health worker, often called as “Ma’am Nurse.”

Kimay is a true “iskolar ng bayan,” who did not waste the people’s tax money spent for her education only for personal ambitions, but used her time, talent and intellect in service of the of the people. She traded her comfortable life of night parties and hangovers for the cold, harsh and mosquito-ridden mountains of Bukidnon because she knew that she is in the right path.

At mid-December last year, we learned that Kemberly was missing through a report from Karapatan-Bukidnon Chapter, a human rights organization. A number of LFS and STAND-IIT members went to Bukidnon to join the search. We searched for her in the camp of the 403rd Inf Bde, 4th ID, PA but the officials of the brigade prevented us from entering the camp and denied that Kemberly is in their hands. During the middle of the search however, we learned that Kemberly died in an encounter with elements of the Philippine Army in Sitio Bulacao, Brgy. Concepcion, Valencia City. She was a member of the New People’s Army (NPA).

We found Kimay’s corpse lying with a few others in the middle of the forest of Bulacao, unattended by the state forces who were bound by agreement to respect the casualties of war, combatant or not.

But Kimay died an honorable death. She died because she fought for what she believes in until the very last minute of her life. She chose the path of armed struggle, firmly believing that there is no greater form of struggle to advance the interests of the toiling masses.

She broke the stereotype that the New People’s Army is a pack of delinquents— of tramps who lack a better future.

We salute Kimay for her determination. She was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice— all for the interest of the people without thinking of herself. She has proven that this rotten social system breeds unrest and many of the younger generation long for a better society that is based on social justice. This system pushes many of our youth to take up arms to achieve the national democratic goal. We believe that her death poses a challenge to all of us— that unless we make steps to address the root problems of our society, more and more young people will follow Kemberly’s footsteps in the days to come.

We also salute her parents, who were in deep pain, but calmly accepted her fate. They respected her decision to choose the path less traveled.

The League of Filipino Students and STAND-IIT vow to pursue the national democratic struggle, not just because this is precious to Kemberly, but because we believe in its relevance in answering today’s basic social problems. We stand firm, as Kimay did, that a true people’s scholar should not confine himself/herself inside the four walls of the classroom and study empty theories on the chalkboard. A true scholar uses his/her talents and intellect to serve the studentry, as well as the broad masses of the people. She never let her schooling interfere with her education.

Long live the memory of Kemberly Jul Luna! Long live the national democratic struggle!

As stated by the League of Filipino Students, "unless we make steps to address the root problems of our society, more and more young people will follow Kemberly’s footsteps in the days to come."

. . . .

Good Governance

2009-10-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

The column today (Oct. 14, 2009) of Conrado de Quiroz in the Philippine Daily Inquirer can be summed up:

"We ourselves are the only ones who can guarantee good governance."

His entire column is worth reading:

The one thing I keep being asked in forums is: How can you assure a Noynoy presidency will not go the route of the others?

The one answer I keep giving when asked that question is: Who am I to assure anything? But two things, I say by way of caveat, give me reason to hope.

The first is that even before Noynoy announced his decision to run, he shot up past the others. Completely spontaneously, completely effortlessly. Which astounded even me (I thought he’d do it, but more gradually). Clearly, the storyline of “the coming of the opposite of GMA” had been building in people’s minds for a long time.

The good news there for us, quite apart from the Noynoy camp, is this: Noynoy avoids, or escapes, the fundamental bane of elections, which is spending a staggering fortune to get elected. Either candidates use their own money, if they are staggeringly rich, or they depend on the oligarchs for staggering donations to their campaign. Either way it cannot augur well for the fate of the national treasury that the person who becomes president does so by pawning the family jewels and/or depending on the kindness of strangers. History—especially Philippine history—has yet to record a candidate who divested himself and his friends, or cronies, of wealth for the staggering pleasure of serving the people.

If Noynoy’s numbers hold—and I don’t see why not, this is an Edsa masquerading as an election—he will become president without being beholden to the usual suspects. That frees him to formulate policies that can be good for the country and not for the contributors. He will be beholden only to the people, not to those who oppress them.

That is of course no guarantee he will do right by the people. History, especially Philippine history, is full of leaders who were beholden to the people and reciprocated only by screwing the people. We do not have to look far, we’ve had one for the last nine years. This was a person who rode on the back of People Power but dedicated herself afterward only to spiting the very thing she owed. Substitute “ungrateful” for “lucky” and Joey Salceda’s description of her becomes more ferociously accurate.

What’s to guarantee Noynoy won’t do otherwise? Well, there’s Noynoy himself. He is not the “opposite of GMA” for nothing. The opposite of being an ungrateful SOB is being a grateful SOC (son of a Cory).

Far more importantly, there’s us, the people.

Nothing else can guarantee it. We are not active in our governance, we will never have the leader we deserve. Or we will have exactly the one we do. A people who do not particularly care if they are screwed will always have leaders who will screw them. Either by the leader’s natural inclination or the led’s own ardent invitation.

The political culture of this country sucks. It is a culture that naturally promotes corruption and trapo shenanigans. It is a vortex that swallows the best of women and men, as forums always point out. How to prevent it? By bestirring ourselves to prevent it.

It’s not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. Nowhere is that truer than in our political life.

Take the case of corruption. Doubtless there are many reasons for it, not least of them psychological, or pathological. Some people are just bottomless pits of greed, and some are more bottomless than others. But you look at it a little more closely and you realize that the most fundamental reason for corruption is that we tolerate it.

This has been my favorite argument for years. Clearly, we do feel revulsion for people who steal, as seen by the way we corner pickpockets, handbag slashers, and other petty thieves in sidewalks and beat them black and blue. Why don’t we do the same thing to crooks in government? The only explanation I can think of is that we don’t see what they do as stealing.

Either the sums they pilfer are too huge for us to grasp, the act taking on an air of abstraction quite unlike the quite graphic grabbing of a boy’s schoolbag, or those sums are things we attribute to them anyway. Both are true, the latter especially. We really have no concept of “taxpayers’ money.” We think of the taxes we pay—and all of us do pay it, epically, if indirectly, through VAT—not as our money but as their money. It is tribute we give to our liege. If the taxes come back to us in the form of a road or bridge, we are happy. If they do not, we say, what else is new?

That is why corruption flourishes here like floods, and that is why it does not in Europe and the US. We do not see taxes as our money, they do. We do not see the hijacking of taxpayers’ money as stealing, they do.

The burden of change does not just lie in our officials, it lies in us. And the beginning of change is recognition, the driving force of change is discovery. We start realizing taxes are our money, and our officials start thinking twice about stealing them.

We ourselves are the only ones who can guarantee good governance. The prospects are not entirely daunting. We do have a capacity to act. We do have a capacity to put our fate in our hands. Look how we respond to disasters, completely instinctively galvanizing into action to reach out to the victims. Look how we respond to earthquakes and famine, digging the earth furiously and penetrating places God forgot to rescue the trapped and hungry. Look at the way we respond to floods and mudslides, braving the wilds to bring relief goods to the ravaged and help them build again. This is People Power at its best. This is People Power in everyday life.

It’s just a matter of realizing we’ve been the victims all this time. It’s just a matter of realizing we’re the ones who most need relief.

It’s just a matter of realizing we’re the only ones who can give ourselves relief.

Ref.: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091014-229930/Assurances
. . . . .

Encrypted. . . Decrypted.

2009-10-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Encrypted message from my friend Johnny:

Try your best to read the above and time yourself. Gave up? Scroll down for the decrypted version.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I did have a hard time reading the above. It's good my daughter's computer knows how to decrypt:

. . . . .

Change the Culture of Greed

2009-09-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

Very well-done social commentary through music video.

. . . . .

Canossa Dancers at Intercontinental Hotel

2009-09-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

I had the rare privilege of watching the very good performance of the Canossa Cultural Dancers last Saturday (Sept. 19) at the Intercontinental Hotel, Makati City during the pre-launch of the Stem Enhance product.

Please click on the thumbnail or caption below to view the entire album.

Canossa Dancers 2009.09.19 Intercontinental Hotel, Philippines

. . . . .

One Web Day - SM Mall of Asia

2009-09-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

The Philippine Internet Users Society (PIUS) is spearheading the One Web Day celebration for the first time in the Philippines:

Join the first ever OneWebDay celebration in the Philippines on September 22, 2009 at the Music Hall of, SM Mall of Asia from 10:00AM to 9:00PM. REGSITRATION IS FREE!

So what's in store on September 22?

Watch and learn "Internet History" an audio visual presentation.
Mingle with your co-Internet users',
Free PC or laptop repair,
Surf the net! Free wi-fi zone,
Learn the pressing issues confronting the Internet,
Get online business ideas,
Join a buzz group
Tips on Internet Marketing
Be entertained! great music, cultural & modern dances and more,
Watch Southborder, Version 4.0 and other bands perform in support of OneWebDay
Be part of Internet history in the Philippines-sign your name on the "OneWebday Wall"
Drop your "wish note" in the "OneWebDay" time capsule
and Why not do your EB on OneWebday in MoA?

See Floor Plan and Setup Below...

MUSIC HALL DAY SETUP (9:00am to 5:00pm)

MUSIC HALL CONCERT SETUP (5:00pm to 9:30pm)

Source: http://tiny.cc/OneWebDay

. . . . .

Ramon Magsaysay Awardees for 2009

2009-08-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Be inspired by meeting the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay awardees:

Krisana Kraisintu (Thailand) for "placing pharmaceutical rigor at the service of patients, through her untiring and fearless dedication to producing much-needed generic drugs in Thailand and elsewhere in the developing world."
Deep Joshi (India) for "his vision and leadership in bringing professionalism to the NGO movement in India, by effectively combining 'head' and 'heart' in the transformative development of rural communities."
Yu Xiaogang (China) for "his fusing the knowledge and tools of social science with a deep sense of social justice, in assisting dam-affected communities in China to shape the development projects that impact their natural environment and their lives."
Antonio Oposa, Jr. (Philippines) for "his pathbreaking and passionate crusade to engage Filipinos in acts of enlightened citizenship that maximize the power of law to protect and nurture the environment for themselves, their children, and generations still to come."
Ma Jun (China) for "his harnessing the technology and power of information to address China's water crisis, and mobilizing pragmatic, multi-sectoral, and collaborative efforts to ensure sustainable benefits for China's environment and society."
Ka Hsaw Wa (Burma) for "his dauntlessly pursuing non violent yet effective channels of redress, exposure, and education for the defense of human rights, the environment, and democracy in Burma."

The awarding ceremonies will be held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on Monday August 31 (a holiday). The public is invited. Free entrance.

. . . . .

Chinese New Year Proposed As National Holiday

2009-08-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have just learned from the online version of China View that our congressmen "are deliberating on a bill to declare Chinese lunar new year a regular national holiday." The entire article is reproduced below verbatim for the reader's quick reference:

Chinese lunar new year might become national holiday in Philippines too

MANILA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Philippine lawmakers are deliberating a bill to declare Chinese lunar new year a regular national holiday, along side with New Year's Day, Christmas, Independence Day and 16 others.

The House of Representatives reported over the weekend that the bill, which would strengthen the relationship between Filipinos and Chinese/Chinese-Filipinos, has passed a Committee reading and it is on its way to the plenary deliberation.

Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said the bill was drafted to recognize the contributions of Chinese-Filipinos and of their rich cultural traditions. "Considering our long relations with the Chinese, many of whom have adopted the Philippines as their home, it is but just to help preserve some of their valued traditions," he said.

Chinese immigrants sailed to the Philippine archipelago long before the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan and the Spanish colonists in 16 century. From northern Luzon to southern Sulu, barter trade flourished. Chinese brought silk, porcelain, ornaments to exchange for tortoise shells, swallow nests and mother of pearl from the native.

Today, about 2 million Chinese immigrants settle down in the Philippines but cultural scholars said Filipinos who have Chinese ancestry could number 18 million, or 20 percent of the Philippine population. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, former president Corazon Aquino and a number of the countries' wealthiest businessmen all known to have Chinese blood.

Lunar new year is the most widely celebrated holiday among Chinese communities around the world. The start of a year in the lunar calendar does not have a fixed date but usually falls in January or February. It is also the most important holiday for Chinese because it is one of the few moments that an extended family gathers.

But legalizing the lunar new year also faces hurdles as some congressmen say there are already too many holidays in the Philippines and might hurt the business productivity.

The World News, the most widely circulated Chinese-language newspaper in town, urged Chinese communities to mobilize all resources in pushing the legislation.

"As Filipino-Chinese, we aspire to have our ethnic holiday legalized as a regular one. It's important to us and now we have a chance," it said in Sunday's editorial.

Ref.: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/23/content_11930729.htm

What do you think of the proposed legislation for another regular holiday as detailed above? Is this a commendable move of Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and other like-minded congressmen?

. . . . .

The Last Journey of Ninoy Aquino

2009-08-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

Don't fail to watch this Sunday (August 23, 2009) at 10:30 p.m. over ABS-CBN and ANC the true-to-life film aptly title, The Last Journey of Ninoy: As Told Through the Last Interview of Cory.

The official trailer:

The write-up from the PCIJ Online:

IT TOOK Jun Reyes three years to do put together a 52-minute documentary on the last 10 days in the life of martyred opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. from the time he left his family in Boston until he was felled by assassin’s bullets 26 years ago.

And it may well be the best way of retelling The Last Journey of Ninoy: As Told Through the Last Interview of Cory. What will now be known as the valedictory interview with Cory Aquino was captured on camera just a little over four months before her own death last August 1.

The digital docu-drama was born out of director Reyes’s desire to make a “timeless film” about Ninoy. He wanted “a film that will make him real to audiences who have never witnessed him alive nor remember him for what he has done—hoping to inspire future generations, to spread Ninoy’s ideals and to make him known as more than just the face on our 500-peso bill.”

“The film (is) told from two voices and points of view only: Ninoy’s and Cory’s. The stories of these two unique individuals—their struggles & victories, the transformation of Ninoy from a man-of-the-world to a spiritual man, and Cory as a loving witness to all these, (is) heard and seen throughout the film,” said Reyes, great grandson of the late Severino Reyes of the Lola Basyang fame.

The documentary became a fitting tribute to Ninoy and had its public screening at the Rockwell cinema in commemorating the 26^th year of Ninoy Aquino’s death.

According to Rapa Lopa, project director of the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation, Inc., the film will be taken to the different colleges and universities across the country for viewing. This would be part of the campaign to create wider awareness on the sacrifices of Ninoy for democracy and freedom in the country.

“The past 25 years since Ninoy Aquino’s death have witnessed a creeping amnesia in the national psyche,” notes Lopa.

“Ninoy’s legacy of spiritual transformation, heroism and commitment to democracy has slowly been dissipated by the gradual erosion of our democratic institutions and the weakening of our collective initiative for change. The nation is experiencing the fading of memories of the historic struggles that led to the Filipino’s glorious shining moment.”

The Last Journey of Ninoy: As Told Through the Last Interview of Cory takes an intimate look at the man — his strengths and weaknesses, his triumphs and failures, his dreams and fears, as well as his simple joys as a husband and family man. It presents a tapestry of insights on the man and the martyr in particular, and about the Filipino people in general.

Bam Aquino, who was picked to portray Ninoy in the re-enactment of some scenes in the film, observes that Ninoy and Cory looked like they were finishing each other’s sentences in the way the events were presented using video clips of speeches of Ninoy and the interview of Cory done in March.

Bam’s father, Paul Aquino - younger brother of Ninoy - did the thought voice of Ninoy in the film. Both Bam and Paul were reluctant to do their respective parts, but were later persuaded upon learning that most of the people behind the project were doing it for free or for minimal fees.

Why did it take three years to make this film?

“Getting the funding was a challenge. Scripting and research took time also since it was a new format for us. Casting was likewise a challenge,” says Reyes.

The film has been rated General Patronage by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. It will be shown over ABS-CBN and ANC on Sunday, 10:30 p.m. as a tribute to both Ninoy and Cory.

Ref.: http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=4185
. . . . .

Pres. Arroyo's $20,000 dinner tab

2009-08-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

From the New York Post, self-explanatory:

August 7, 2009 --
THE economic downturn hasn't persuaded everyone to pinch pennies. Philippines President Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was at Le Cirque the other night with a large entourage enjoying the good life, even though the former comptroller of her country's armed services, Carlos Garcia, was found guilty earlier this year of perjury and two of his sons were arrested in the US on bulk cash-smuggling charges. Macapagal-Arroyo ordered several bottles of very expensive wine, pushing the dinner tab up to $20,000.

Ref.:http://tiny.cc/eat_and_drink_183333
. . . . .

Remembering Cory Aquino (1933-2009)

2009-08-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Like many Filipinos, I haven't had the opportunity to personally meet Pres. Cory Aquino but I do cherish her memory. The following article was published by Time magazine on Jan. 5, 1987:

Woman of the Year: Cory Aquino, A Christmas Conversation
Throughout Malacanang Palace there was a festive air. In the hall below the President's office, a large Christmas tree stood festooned with white ribbons and ornaments. The weeks of coup rumors were over now, and the presidential staff was visibly relaxed. The 60-day cease-fire with the Communist insurgents was under way, despite some violations, bringing the promise of the first peaceful Christmas in the Philippines in 17 years. Dressed in a navy blue dress with red piping, President Aquino was in a holiday mood as she greeted Hong Kong Bureau Chief William Stewart and Manila Reporter Nelly Sindayen. At the end of the hour-long conversation, however, there was a moment of great poignancy. As she spoke about her memories of her husband and her obligations to her country, the President's eyes filled with tears. It was, by all accounts, the first time she has cried in public since becoming Chief Executive.

Excerpts from the talk:

Q. How do you feel after ten months as President?

A. Well, much better, of course. Ten months of experience is definitely very helpful. It's helped my self-confidence. It's still not an enjoyable task. I don't think it ever will be, but certainly it is most fulfilling. I think that's the rewarding aspect of the job.

Q. Why do you think that you have become such a worldwide phenomenon?

A. Well, both my parents influenced me a lot. While it is true we were very comfortable, we never had too much. My mother saw to it that we would appreciate everything that we had. As she put it, it was not good to have anything in excess. It was also impressed upon us that we should respect our elders. I remember when I was little, they said I asked a lot of questions. It wasn't the thing to do at the time. But it was a very happy childhood. Because we had such a close-knit family, I was determined that I should also be very attentive to my children.

Q. People often comment on your remarkable composure. Does some of this come from your family?

A. I think from my father. He was very calm. I don't remember him getting angry very often. In fact, in my whole childhood, he scolded me only once. He was so quick to forgive that it was difficult to understand. My mother was not so forgiving. She was more the fighter. This is where I must get it from. Normally I'm a peaceful person, but if I am threatened, I fight back. I'm not about to take everything that comes to me.

Q. Did your husband have great influence on you?

A. From the beginning. There were many things I didn't have to do when I was single that I had to do once I was married. During his campaign for mayor of Concepcion, I was very shy. When I felt that people were looking at me, I just wanted to hide. So my husband really forced me to come out in public. I would have done anything but that. I had to ride in a carabao ((water buffalo)) cart so that people could say, "Look, Ninoy's wife may have studied in New York and she may come from a wealthy family, but she can ride in a carabao cart." This was not my idea. We walked in the rice fields, and once we had to cross a stream. It was thigh deep. I looked at that water and thought, Am I supposed to wade in there? So I called to Ninoy, and I was expecting him to help since we had been married only a year. But he called to one of his security men and said, "Carry her." (groaning and laughing) I would have gladly waded in, but here I was in the arms of one of his security men. I was so angry and thought, Gosh, the least he could have done was carry me. We slept that night in one of the barrio homes that didn't have a bathroom, and I said, "Ninoy, you know I really have to go to the bathroom." And he said, "There's a pineapple can." (great laughter) I said, "Oh, no! There's nothing else in the house?" And he said, "No." Later, he said it was my baptism by fire. And I thought to myself, What did I do to marry somebody like this?

Q. Did things change after your husband was elected mayor?

A. No. We lived for two years in the little town of Concepcion, where we had electricity only from 6 in the evening to 6 in the morning. I would think to myself, This is getting to be too much. Then I got to be a soap-opera addict. It was the only thing to keep me company, so I'd listen to the radio. Thank God for transistor radios! I also learned how to knit, things I wasn't particularly attracted to before. Suddenly I became such a homebody, knitting while listening to soap operas. Then trying to cook. It was really a very boring existence. If I hadn't had my religion and made my vows to stick with this man for better or worse, maybe I would have had second thoughts.

Manila was only 2 1/2 hours away, and I used any excuse I could think of to get to Manila. First I decided I was not going to get a pediatrician from the provinces. I told Ninoy, "Look, this is our first child, and let's have the best pediatrician for her." So, naturally, once a month, I had to bring her to the doctor in Manila.

Sometimes I used to think, What's happening to me? For a time I thought I couldn't speak English anymore because I had nobody to talk to. I really deteriorated. Nobody wore shoes there because it was so dusty. We wore "step- ins." We went to the local movie, but there were fleas and bedbugs galore, so we'd have to bring our raincoats to put on the chairs. (more laughter) I guess I must really have been in love with my husband to have put up with all of this. He used to tease me later that those were the happiest years of my life, and I would say, "Oh, definitely not!" Then it occurred to me that maybe he had thought all this out so that I would be prepared for everything else.

Q. Were you interested in politics?

A. Oh, yes. It was just that . . . well, I marveled at my mother-in-law ((Dona Aurora Aquino)) and how she could campaign. She was perfect at it; she could give speeches. And I thought, Thank God she can do this for me! She was the type who could kiss babies. As the wife of the mayor in Concepcion, I was expected to go to every wake. Initially, the corpses would be in a bed with just a sheet or curtain over them. My mother-in-law could handle all this, but it was all I could do to look at them. Many nights I could not sleep. And sometimes Ninoy promised the widow that we would look after the children. And I would say, "Oh, Ninoy, did you really say that? We already have a child." Talk of culture shock! After spending seven years of my life in New York, to come to this small town where everybody wanted to know how we lived, what we ate! As I said, it must have been because I loved my husband so much.

Q. Was your husband religious then?

A. That came with jail. His incarceration certainly improved him. And improved me. And also our children. In the past, I had figured that so long as I didn't do any mean things, I'd be O.K. In other words, it was a negative thing rather than something positive. But once he was in prison, it brought out a whole new ( set of values for both of us. In the past, he had concentrated on how to get to the presidency, and everything was just concentrated on that goal. For my part, I had followed the path of least resistance: O.K., if I have to show myself, I'll do it. But I didn't go beyond that. I didn't go beyond people I knew. I just didn't reach out. Then, all of a sudden, with my husband in prison, he was suffering, I was suffering. Yet we knew that others were worse off. We didn't have to worry about where our next meal was coming from or whether our children could go to school. So then, I guess, I started to worry about other people. I guess I identified myself with the victims of Marcos' injustice.

Q. Do you believe God has a plan for you?

A. God has a plan for all of us, and it is for each of us to find out what that plan is. I can tell you that I never thought the plan was for me to be President. But it seems it is. During these past ten months, I really believe it has been necessary to have a woman in this position. Women are less liable to resort to violence than men, and at this time in my country's history, what is really needed is a man or woman of peace.

Q. Do you think the cease-fire with the Communists will work?

A. I always believe in trying.

Q. Have you had special troubles because you are a woman?

A. At one point last year, when my opposition colleagues told me not to go to the UNIDO convention, I made it clear to them, "Look, you people are probably all smarter than I am. You may even be right 95% of the time. But I think that maybe 5% of the time I may have some of the right answers. And I am not going to allow myself to be coerced into not doing something I believe I should do. You always say I am very important to you. If I'm so important, why can't I do what I want to do?" So I made it very clear to them that either I do what I believe I should do, or else let's call it quits. That was a turning point for me.

Q. What do you hope for most for the Philippines, and what do you think, realistically, is possible?

A. What I hope for most, what I believe people really want, is a chance to live in peace and the opportunity for a decent life. I always say that my first priority is to generate enough jobs for the unemployed. If I can just come closer to that goal, I think maybe I will have done my job. People really ask for so little. During the floods and typhoons, when I go out and deliver ; relief goods, there is so much appreciation and gratitude in their faces that I think to myself, Gosh, what are we really doing? It's only a little rice, a little food. Yet they are so appreciative. They're not asking me for big things, so if I can just give them the basics . . . They're not even asking for homes. All they're asking for is a job.
. . . . .

Your choice: Easy to do or Easy Not to do

2009-07-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

Do you want to achieve your most important goals? In my opinion it gets down to two simple words, "easy" and "neglect".

People often ask me how I became successful at the early age of 31, while many of the people I knew did not. The answer is simple: During that 6-year period of time (age 25 to 31), the things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and my ideas. They found that easy not to. I found it easy to attend the classes and the seminars, and to get around other successful people. They said it probably really wouldn't matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do.

Six years later, I'm a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government, and company policies, yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.

In fact, the primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.

It is not the lack of money - banks are full of money. It is not the lack of opportunity - America, and much of the free World, continues to offer the most unprecedented and abundant opportunities in the last six thousand years of recorded history. It is not the lack of books -- libraries are full of books -- and they are free! It is not the schools -- the classrooms are full of good teachers. We have plenty of ministers, leaders, counselors and advisors.

Everything we would ever need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply neglect.

Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.

Not doing the things we know we should do causes us to feel guilty and guilt leads to an erosion of self-confidence. As our self-confidence diminishes, so does the level of our activity. And as our activity diminishes, our results inevitably decline. And as our results suffer, our attitude begins to weaken. And as our attitude begins the slow shift from positive to negative, our self-confidence diminishes even more... and on and on it goes.

So my suggestion is that when giving the choice of "easy to" and "easy not to" that you do not neglect to do the simple, basic, "easy" but potentially life-changing activities and disciplines.

(The Secret of Success by Jim Rohn)

Human Beings not Human Doings

2009-07-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do. That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings."
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD
- Rick Warren
. . . . .

Feeling Overwhelmed?

2009-06-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

When I feel overwhelmed or frustrated, I refer to the "YOU SAY, GOD SAYS BIBLE VERSES" poster:

You say: "It's impossible"
God says: All things are possible
(Luke 18:27)

You say: "I'm too tired"
God says: I will give you rest
(Mat.11:28-30)

You say: "Nobody really loves me"
God says: I love you
(John 3:16 & John 3:34)

You say: "I can't go on"
God says: My grace is sufficient
(II Corinthians 12:9 & Psalm 91:15)

You say: "I can't figure things out"
God says: I will direct your steps
(Proverbs 3:5-6)

You say: "I can't do it"
God says: You can do all things
(Philippians 4:13)

You say: "I'm not able"
God says: I am able
(II Corinthians 9:8)

You say: "It's not worth it"
God says: It will be worth it
(Roman 8:2)

You say: "I can't forgive myself"
God says: I Forgive you
(I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1)

You say: "I can't manage"
God says: I will supply all your needs
(Philippians 4:19)

You say: "I'm afraid"
God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear
(II Timothy 1:7)

You say: "I'm always worried and frustrated"
God says: Cast all your cares on ME
(I Peter 5:7)

You say: "I don't have enough faith"
God says: I've given everyone a measure of faith
(Romans 12:3)

You say: "I'm not smart enough"
God says: I give you wisdom
(I Corinthians 1:30)

You say: "I feel all alone"
God says: I will never leave you or forsake you
(Hebrews 13:5)

Believe God is there just for you...

To download, right-click the link below and choose the "Save" command:

http://AppliedComputerEdge.com/images/YouSayGodSays.jpg

. . . . .

Wisdom from Miss America

2009-06-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

In the light of the recent demise of Michael Jackson, I am reminded of what Tara Dawn Christensen, Miss America 1997, wrote sometime ago:

"Let me save you some time -- you can't have assurance in the world; you can't find it in riches or success; it's not found in an address like Hollywood, Broadway, Wall Street, or Washington DC. The road to success and personal happiness is littered with those who have tried that route and failed. Just examine the lives of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, or Nirvana's lead singer, Curt Cobain. Personal happiness is attainable only when you turn your life over to the One who loves you the most -- Jesus Christ." [Emphasis added.]

. . . . .

Loving Your Enemy

2009-06-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, Ramon Tulfo tackles graft and corruption. In the Philippine Daily Inquirer today, he devoted a big chunk of his column to loving your enemy. Very good stuff: biblical and practical.

On forgiving your enemies
By Ramon Tulfo

06/23/2009

THE front page article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday about the pain and anguish of a father, Jose Fernando Alcantara, over the death of his son was very moving.

As a father myself, I understand how Alcantara feels about losing his son, Amiel, in an accident on the Ateneo de Manila campus.

I fully understand his pain, his anguish even a year after the accident.

Losing a loved one suddenly and unexpectedly is painful beyond words. No emotion matches it.

It’s also understandable that he would want to exact revenge on Ma. Theresa Torres for his son’s death by sending her to jail.

Torres drove the van that ran over Amiel.

A single mother, Torres drove a school van to augment her income as an artist.

Nothing Alcantara can do, including seeing a single mother in jail, can ever bring back Amiel.

Sending Torres to jail and depriving her child of a mother is unchristian.

For an ex-seminarian, Alcantara is acting like an atheist, a person who is Godless.

Alcantara’s thought of revenge on Torres would have been understandable had she deliberately killed Amiel.

I would probably have had a hard time myself deciding not to take revenge if I lost a loved one to a murderer since I distrust our judicial system.

But the poor woman, whom I don’t know from Eve, never wanted to take Amiel’s life.

In fact, from the news accounts about her, she’s suffering the pain of unintentionally killing a boy who could have been her son.

If Alcantara would just pause and ponder for a moment why his son died, he would conclude that it was Amiel’s time to go back to where we all came from, the bosom of The Source.

It just so happened Torres became the vehicle for Amiel to go to the Other Side.

* * *

Alcantara should learn to forgive the woman who killed his son unintentionally.

I know it’s hard for one to forgive people who have done him harm.

I used to be a person who always thought of getting back at people who wronged me. But that was then.

Since I changed my attitude from holding a grudge to forgiving my enemies, I have noticed little things about me.

I now sleep soundly, my blood pressure has dropped, I don’t easily catch a cold, my peptic ulcer is gone, I now drink moderately, and I’ve lost weight from eating moderately.

In short, I’ve become healthier now than I was when I held a grudge against my enemies.

As self-improvement guru George Sison said of a sickness: “The question is not what ails you, but who ails you.”

When you forgive your enemy, you’re not doing him a favor, but yourself.
. . . . .

Who is Really Pro-Poor?

2009-06-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Politicians can easily alleviate poverty if they so desire. How? For example, Sen. Manny Villar and Sen. Mar Roxas who both spent a whopping P578.1 million in political ads could have invested the money instead in real anti-poverty projects.

"Monitoring done by a media research company since October last year showed Sen. Manuel Villar to be the biggest spender of them all.

"Villar has spent P321.4 million on TV ads, followed by Senate colleague Mar Roxas, who has used up P256.7 million."

References: "Villar is top ad spender" (Philippine Star, June 10, 2009); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Philippines

. . . . .

Philippine Airlines Promo: Way to Go

2009-05-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

Are you planning to travel abroad between July 1 to Dec. 25, 2009? If so, why not take advantage of Philippine Airlines' "Way to Go" promo to avail of discounted airfares. But hurry, you have to buy your tickets from June 1 - 5, 2009. The destinations and reduced fares are as follows:

Prices listed above are inclusive of surcharges and exclusive of government taxes and other fees that are to be collected at the airport.
APPLICATION:
* Valid for round trip travel on economy class.
TRAVEL VALIDITY:
TRANSPACIFIC
* Valid for outbound travel from 01SEP09 through 25DEC09

REGIONALS
* Valid for outbound travel from 01JUL09 through 30NOV09.
MINIMUM/MAXIMUM STAY:
TRANSPACIFIC
* Minimum 3 days and maximum 21 days stay

AUSTRALIA
* Minimum 2 days and maximum 21 days stay

REGIONALS
* Minimum 2 days and maximum 8 days stay

SALES RESTRICTIONS:
* Tickets must be issued on or before 05 June 2009.
RESERVATIONS, PAYMENT AND TICKETING:
* Tickets must be issued 24 hours after confirmed reservations.
For reservations made and confirmed on 05 June 2009,
tickets must be issued within the same day.
* Changes are not permitted
- rebooking/rerouting/reissuance/upgrading/endorsement/combination
are not permitted
* No extension of validity
* Non refundable. Surcharges attached to this fare are likewise non-refundable
Government taxes are refundable subject to USD 25 Refund Service Fee
* No child/infant discount

Reference: http://www.philippineairlines.com/fares_and_promos/special_promos/other_promos/way_to_go_promo_fares/way_to_go_promo_fares.jsp
. . .

God finds an Atheist

2009-05-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here's an authentic story:

John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith. That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders.

It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.

I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange ... very strange. Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I’ll ever find God?"

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically.

"Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out: "Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!" He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: "He will find you!" At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful.

Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. "Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!" I blurted out.

"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks."

"Can you talk about it, Tom?"

"Sure, what would you like to know?"

"What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying?"

"Well, it could be worse."

"Like what?"

"Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life."

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me.)

But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, " is something you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But he will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about that a lot!) But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven.

But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.

Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn’t really care ... about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that. "I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’ "So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him."

"Dad". . .

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk."

"I mean. .. It’s really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me.

And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. "It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through.’ ‘C’mon, I’ll give you three days .. .three weeks.’ Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. "But the important thing is that he was there. He found me.

You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him."

"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him.’ Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell them."

"Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class."

"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call." In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it.

He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.

He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time. "I’m not going to make it to your class," he said.

"I know, Tom."

"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?"

"I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best."

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple statement about love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven: "I told them, Tommy . ... ...as best I could."

References:

http://www.faithalivebooks.com/profiles/profiles_powell.html; http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/j/johnpowell.htm

. . . . .

5th Philippine Blogging Summit

2009-05-10T05:43:00.001-07:00

I attended the whole-day 5th Blogging Summit at the auditorium of the U.P. Law Center last Friday, May 9, 2009.

I would say that the various speakers knew very well their respective topics:

Morning Session

Blogging 101
Photo Blogging
Video Blogging
Mobile Blogging 101
Do's and Don'ts of Blogging

Afternoon Session

Legal Issues in Blogging
Preparing Bloggers for 2010 Elections
Citizen Journalism for the 2010 Elections
The Bloggers Election Handbook Project
Blog Marketing and Advertising Experiences in the Philippines
Blogging to the Next Level

At the end of the summit, the organizers raffled off T-shirts with the iBlog 5 Graphics.

There was a celebration party afterwards at the Katips along Katipunan Ave. but I did not join anymore.

I will post some photos I took of the speakers when I had time to download and select the best shots from my Canon Powershot SD300 compact camera.

. . .

Two Pains

2009-04-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. ~ Jim Rohn

. . . . .

"He is Risen!"

2009-04-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

Luke 24:34 (New International Version)

It is true! The Lord has risen. . .

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

. . . .

Thought for the Holy Week

2009-04-05T04:44:00.000-07:00

You may think that you're worthless because of things you've done wrong. But Jesus says, "No. You're priceless. And I'm willing to give My life in order to pay for your sins."

"Through the blood of His Son, we are set free from our sins. God forgives our failures because of His overflowing kindness" (Ephesians 1:7 God's Word Translation).

.....

Gov. Ed Panlilio Answers Three Key Questions

2009-03-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

I was able to attend the dialogue with Gov. Ed Panlilio at held at Patrick Pantaleon's residence in South Forbes where he was asked for his stand on declaring Marcos a hero, Reproductive Health bill, and whether he would prosecute Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

To all three questions, he gave clear and, especially on the last one, "definite" answers. Direct from the "horse's mouth:"

http://1-vote.org/downloads/Marcos-RH-Arroyo.mp3
.

By Accident or On-Purpose?

2009-03-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

Seneca wrote that:

If a man [or woman] knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

Indeed that's how a lot of people chart their lives. John Maxwell, the respected leadership guru, drives home the point with this picturesque description:

Not knowing what long-term direction they are heading for, they bounce around like a ball in a pinball machines. They live reactive lives based on what happens to them , rather than proactive lives based on what values are in them. They live their life "by accident" rather than "on-purpose."

The challenge then is for us to be "live wires" rather than mindless pinballs.

...

Real Leaders and Powerpoint

2009-03-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

I would like to share with you a thought-provoking book review I just read:

The book title says it all: "Real Leaders Don't Do Powerpoint."Published just this month, the new book will quickly makes its mark among the best leadership communication books. But don't let the title fool you: this is more than a book about PowerPoint. By author and speech coach Chris Witt, it's a total book about what leaders need to do to sell themselves and their ideas.

First, though, about PowerPoint and why Chris Witt rightly doesn't trust it to do the job for real leaders. "In the first place," he writes, "it is best suited for presenting information, not influencing or inspiring an audience." And there in a nutshell is the entire argument.

Real leaders, Witt says, should only give three speeches:
To identify - tell audiences who they are or who they can become
To influence - shape the way audiences think and feel
To inspire - make audiences want to act

Unfortunately, PowerPoint is only good for one thing: presenting information. He's right. Anyone in the organization can present information. It's the most basic type of speech. Yes, sometimes leaders do have to do these. In front of special audiences like financial analysts who thrive on detailed slides of graphs and charts.

But that part of a leader's job is limited. They should aspire to more, an argument Witt makes convincingly for both the leader and leader-to-be.

"Remember," Witt writes, "audiences don't want leaders to speak like everyone else. They hold leaders to a higher standard, demanding more of them."

But as I said, that's a small part of the book. Don't think this is a 200 treatise against PowerPoint. It's also a primer on how to construct and deliver a speech.

Witt covers everything from audience analysis to the importance of storytelling and from why structure is critical to how to handle the inevitable question and answer period.

Consider it a good addition to your bookshelf.

Source: http://thespeechwriter.typepad.com/onspeechwriting/2009/02/real-leaders-is-the-real-deal-for-leaders.html

Meeting with Amb. Amable R. Aguiluz V

2009-03-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

March 11, 2009.

Together with Ptr. Romy Salcedo, Dr. John Ayudtud and Ptr. Jojo Gonzales, I was privileged to have met Ambassador Amable R. Aguiluz V, at his office at Suite 3501 of the Raffles Corporate Center in Ortigas, Pasig City.

Meeting with Amb. Amable R. Aguiluz V at Raffles Bldg., Ortigas Center

An amiable gentleman, Amb. Aguiluz is the Special Envoy of the President of the Philippines to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states (Kingdom of Bahrain, State of Kuwait, Sultanate of Oman, State of Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates).

"The Reason for Being" Seminar at the P.U.P.

2009-03-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday, March 3, Dr. John Ayudtud conducted "The Reason for Being" seminar for graduating students at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. (You can click on the photo or caption below to view the entire web album.)

Reason for Being Seminar at P.U.P. 2009.03.03

You can visit The Reason for Being website here.

Topmost Secret to a Making a Marriage Work

2009-02-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

The secrets to making a marriage work are not a monopoly of psychologists and marriage counselors as this article shows:

Claudine to Judai: Marry him how

MANILA, Philippines—Claudine Barretto gives fellow ABS-CBN star Judy Ann Santos advice about the latter’s forthcoming wedding.

In this exclusive interview held at the launch of Claudine’s latest product endorsement (Knorr Real Sarap), she urged Judai to tie the knot with fiancé Ryan Agoncillo, pronto. “What are you waiting for? A lot of people are excited, I’m one of them,” Claudine said.

Did she think Judai was ready? “They’ve been planning their wedding for a long time,” Claudine noted. “She’ll know what to do on the day. She should savor everything—the excitement, even the tension. She’ll go through different emotions, for sure.”

That, Claudine said, was precisely her experience when she wed Raymart Santiago almost three years ago. “Most of all,” she added, “it’s important to feel the presence of God, because that’s what’s going to bind you forever.”

She heeds this guideline to this day. “Raymart and I are partners,” said Claudine. “Married life takes a lot of patience and teamwork. After giving birth to Santino, I had problems adjusting. Raymart slowed down [in his career] to spend more time with us.” The trick is time management, she said. “We can both work during the week, but weekends are for the family.”

Claudine is working on a movie next month and a new TV series in July. Star Cinema is considering several scripts—including one that will reunite her with Aga Muhlach.

“I was channel surfing recently and caught my old films ‘Got 2 Believe’ and ‘Milan.’ That was when I realized how much I missed the big screen,” Claudine said.

Film with ‘rival’

There is also talk of a film with her screen “rival” Judai. “They’ve been planning that since our ‘Mula sa Puso’ and ‘Esperanza’ days, when we were teenagers,” said Claudine. “One day that will push through, I just know it.”

A movie with Raymart is also in the offing. “Star Cinema has been courting him for a long time na,” she revealed.

In the meantime, Claudine is busy with her pet advocacies: the Eye Bank Foundation of the Philippines and orphaned and abandoned children. She is also training as a foster parent under Directors Alice Bonoan and Thelsa Biolena of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“Social workers inspire me,” said Claudine. “They are real-life heroes.”

Source: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20090226-191243/Claudine-to-Judai-Marry-him-now

2009-02-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

People Power Anniversary: Tree Planting at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani

What better way to commemorate EDSA I, otherwise known as the bloodless People Power Revolution, than to plant trees in honor of the martyrs and heroes who made possible the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986.

Please click on the photo or the caption to view the entire web album.

People Power Anniversary: Tree Planting at Bantayog
ng mga Bayani (2009.02.24)

Pres. Barack Obama speaks at National Prayer Breakfast 2009

2009-02-06T16:59:00.000-08:00

The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The event has taken place since 1953 and every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in the breakfast.

Below is Pres. Barack Obama's speech:

National Prayer Breakfast
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
Washington, DC

Good morning.

I want to thank the Co-Chairs of this breakfast, Representatives Heath Shuler and Vernon Ehlers. I’d also like to thank Tony Blair for coming today, as well as our Vice President, Joe Biden, members of my Cabinet, members of Congress, clergy, friends, and dignitaries from across the world.

Michelle and I are honored to join you in prayer this morning. I know this breakfast has a long history in Washington, and faith has always been a guiding force in our family’s life, so we feel very much at home and look forward to keeping this tradition alive during our time here.

It’s a tradition that I’m told actually began many years ago in the city of Seattle. It was the height of the Great Depression, and most people found themselves out of work. Many fell into poverty. Some lost everything.

The leaders of the community did all that they could for those who were suffering in their midst. And then they decided to do something more: they prayed. It didn’t matter what party or religious affiliation to which they belonged. They simply gathered one morning as brothers and sisters to share a meal and talk with God.

These breakfasts soon sprouted up throughout Seattle, and quickly spread to cities and towns across America, eventually making their way to Washington. A short time after President Eisenhower asked a group of Senators if he could join their prayer breakfast, it became a national event. And today, as I see presidents and dignitaries here from every corner of the globe, it strikes me that this is one of the rare occasions that still brings much of the world together in a moment of peace and goodwill.

I raise this history because far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another – as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.

There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we’re going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all.

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do – to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I’m announcing later today.

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it’s a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don’t expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.

This is my hope. This is my prayer.

I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have lived.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I’ve ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose.

In different ways and different forms, it is that spirit and sense of purpose that drew friends and neighbors to that first prayer breakfast in Seattle all those years ago, during another trying time for our nation. It is what led friends and neighbors from so many faiths and nations here today. We come to break bread and give thanks and seek guidance, but also to rededicate ourselves to the mission of love and service that lies at the heart of all humanity. As St. Augustine once said, "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."

So let us pray together on this February morning, but let us also work together in all the days and months ahead. For it is only through common struggle and common effort, as brothers and sisters, that we fulfill our highest purpose as beloved children of God. I ask you to join me in that effort, and I also ask that you pray for me, for my family, and for the continued perfection of our union.

Thank you.

"Follow the LEED"

2009-01-21T06:28:00.000-08:00

Arch. Lira Luis, the first Filipino protege of Frank Lloyd Wright since 1932, is currently in Manila. Today, I had the privilege of meeting her at the seminar titled "Follow the LEED" held at the UST Student Center where she was the guest speaker. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.)

Using a compelling powerpoint presentation, Arch. Luis enthusiastically shared with her SRO audience her views on promoting design and construction practices that increase profitability while reducing the negative environmental impacts of buildings and improving occupant health and well-being.

"Believe It or Not?"

2009-01-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

I came across this piece written by Stacey S. Padrick today and felt the desire to share it with my blog readers:

Believe It Or Not?

Stacey S. Padrick

If you had asked me a few years ago what I believed about God, I would have responded, "I believe God is fully in control. I believe He cares about me and holds my future in His hands." Yet after being diagnosed with a life-changing illness, I struggled to believe the truths I once had so easily proclaimed. Tempted to question God's sovereignty, tempted to assume that His control waned as my crises mounted, I clung shakily to scriptural truths—truths directly challenged by apparent reality.

What are some of our foundational beliefs as Christians? Salvation through faith? The sovereignty of God? The authority of Scripture? We rightly emphasize in the church, "Know what you believe." Yet while seeking to grow in spiritual knowledge, we must just as diligently believe what we already know—believe, in the deepest places of our hearts, the truths foundational to our faith.

During crises in my life—an incurable illness, a broken relationship, a lost job—or even in less shattering but more typical daily trials—a strained budget or a deadline at work—the Holy Spirit has revealed to me the incongruity between my professed biblical beliefs and the beliefs that govern my heart. In the midst of rushing streams of thought, the Spirit prompts me to stop and ask myself, "Stacey, what are you believing right this moment? To what are you listening? What is true?" As I repeat the scriptural truths I know, the subtle lies upon which I was feeding turn bitter in my mouth. Graciously, the Spirit convicts me that my thoughts, which I had excused as "sensible," are in fact sin—the sin of unbelief.

Then and Now

Ever since the Garden of Eden, unbelief has blinded and defeated God's people. Satan's ploy for Eve to eat the apple was based upon the temptation to disbelieve God's character and question His commands. During the exodus, the faithless Israelites compelled God to cry out, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?" (Num. 14:11).

In the New Testament, Jesus reprimanded His disciples, whose unbelief hindered them from casting an evil spirit from a boy: "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Mk. 9:19, NASB).

Today, Satan is as relentless as in the days of Genesis in deceiving us to doubt what we know to be true—particularly about the character of God and who we are in Christ.

God's Unimpeachable Character

Caricatures of God abound in the secular world, which misrepresents Him as anything from an oppressive tyrant to an absentminded Santa Claus. But Satan's distortions don't stop out side the church doors. Subtly, he riddles our foundation of faith with tiny holes of unbelief that us, like Eve, to question God's commands.

During trials, I have caught myself reasoning: You know, God has got a lot going on down here, and it is only understandable that now and then He overlooks some things. I can't really expect Him to attend to all the details in my life, now can I? That is the lie. The truth is that my God calls every star by name (Is. 40:26). He does not lose track of details! "His understanding no one can fathom" (v. 28).

I often must ask myself, Do I wholeheartedly believe that God is sovereign—even at this moment, when life feels out of control? When my doctor diagnosed my systemic lupus, my mind reeled. What will this mean for my future? My work? My ministry? The dreams I thought God gave me?Certainly, this disease slipped by Him somehow. Yet, through Scripture and His still, small voice, He reminded me that He had complete knowledge and control of my body and my future. My diagnosis in no way affected His will and plans for me.

Unless I firmly believe God's love for me is unchanging, and that His ways are good and righteous, I cannot wholly trust Him with my decisions—or my life. The degree to which I know and believe in God's character is the degree to which I can and will trust Him . . . and consequently obey Him.

Our Position in Christ

Because many of us only halfheartedly believe who the Bible says we are in Christ, we live half-effective lives, defeated more often than victorious over sin and the challenges before us. For years, I unintentionally discounted what Scripture says about me as a new creature in Christ: that I am the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21); that I'm free from condemnation (Ro. 8:1); that I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14); that God is for me (Ro. 8:31). Yet, what I believe about myself influences my attitude and actions.

Until we believe and claim that we have been given authority over sin and the enemy, we will not have the power to live as Christ has called us to live. Until we believe that God loves us unconditionally, we will not be able to surrender our lives and dreams to Him with full abandon. When we continue to believe what the world or the accuser (Rev. 12:10) tells us about ourselves, rather than what God tells us, we are quenching the Spirit of Truth and allowing lies to choke the good fruit that God wants to bear in our lives.

As I struggled for years with a particular sin in my life, I believed that I was powerless to change. My pleas to God to change me only left me frustrated. Then a mentor and a Bible study showed me that by the blood of the cross, sin had lost its hold over me, and by the Holy Spirit I do have power to change. When I began praying from the position of a redeemed child of God with authority over sin, rather than as defenseless prey before a roaring lion, I experienced release.

How to Uproot Unbelief

Unbelief is subtle, but it is not invincible. I have learned through practicing the following steps that it even the frailest of us can move decisively from unbelief to belief.

1. Confess and repent of unbelief. Disbelief often leads to disobedience. Therefore, when I confess sin in my life, I take time to examine the thought processes that preceded my disobedience. I ask Christ to shine His light upon my thoughts and help me discern the lies I've been believing. As the Spirit reveals my inaccurate images about God's character and about myself as His child, I must renounce my resistance to scriptural truth. By His grace and with only a mustard seed of faith, I can begin believing the truth He shows me. Like the father of the demon-possessed son, I can be honest with God and say, "I do believe; help my unbelief" (Mk. 9:24, NASB).

2. Claim the truth—morning, noon, and night. Paul told Timothy, "Watch your life and doctrine closely" (1 Tim. 4:16).

As a defense against the subtle lies of Satan, I have drafted a statement of faith listing foundational truths that are "unnatural" for me to believe. Taken from Scripture and written in the first person, this doctrinal affirmation helps me know and believe the truth about God's character and my position as His child. Portions of that statement can be found in the sidebar.

Try writing your own statement of beliefs highlighting verses that address truths you struggle to believe or that confront lies you've accepted about God or yourself.

3. Believe it! I review and repeat verses in my doctrinal affirmation until I firmly believe them. Sometimes I choose one verse and meditate upon it for many mornings, training my thinking to align more closely with Scripture. Then as I am confronted with lies or distortions, I am better able to resist by claiming what is true. For example, lately I have meditated upon the truth that I am complete in Christ (see Col. 2:10, NASB). As my day accelerates and I rush to finish all I planned to accomplish, I remind myself that I need not "perform" in order to be acceptable before Him. I am already complete. Similarly, if I begin to struggle with my singleness, I remind myself that I am already complete in Christ and need not wait for a spouse to feel whole.

4. Practice it. Ask yourself throughout the day, "What do my actions and attitudes indicate that I believe?" For instance, do I believe that God can help me through this challenging project at work . . . or that it's all up to me? Do I think that my car breakdown was a surprise to Him . . . or do I believe that He both knows and will provide for my needs? Am I anxious about this project . . . or trusting that He will equip me? Am I complaining about a disappointment . . . or thanking God for what He will do through this apparent defeat?

Then, act as if what God's Word says is true—regardless of your feelings. For instance, even when a long-awaited opportunity is lost, act as if God has a future and a hope planned for you (Jer. 29:11, Prov. 23:18). Even when you feel powerless to change, act as if you are a new creature in Christ, and sin has no mastery over you (2 Cor. 5:17, Ro. 6:14). Even when you feel guilty, act as if there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Ro. 8:1).

When asked to speak in front of a group, I'm tempted to let fear rule me. To combat that temptation, I personalize Scripture: "God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power" (see 2 Tim. 1:7), and "I do not fear, for God is with me. He is holding me by my right hand" (see Is. 41:10). I can then walk to the podium acting as if I am completely unafraid.

"But that seems like pretense!" you may argue. Perhaps. Yet, as C. S. Lewis discusses in Mere Christianity, we must often pretend something is true even when it doesn't feel true. When I act as if I love my neighbor (treating her kindly, praying for her welfare) rather than waiting until I feel love toward her, I am living what should be characteristic of my experience as a believer. Lewis writes, "Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you already had it." For we who are in Christ, the truth—such as that we are beloved of God—is reality; we need only start living it. When I act as if what Scripture says about God and myself is indeed true, I am living more in reality than when I act upon my feelings.

Habitual Trust

When Christ called people to believe in Him (Jn. 3:1516, Jn. 5:24, Jn. 6:40), the words to believe referred to a continuing act—a daily conscious practice. Similarly, Paul exhorted the Corinthian believers, "Now brothers and sisters, I want you to remember the Good News I brought to you.... You are being saved by it if you continue believing what I told you. If you do not, then you believed for nothing" (1 Cor. 15:1–2, New Century Version, emphasis mine).

Let us remind ourselves regularly and encourage one another daily to continue to believe in our hearts and minds the foundational truths we profess.

"Now may the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing"

(Ro. 15:13, NASB).

A Drug Deadlier than Ecstacy, Shabu, or Heroin

2009-01-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

Regarding the current controversial aborted DOJ release order of the Alabang Boys, Conrado de Quiroz emphatically asserts in his PDI column dated Jan. 12, 2009 that there's a drug much deadlier than ecstacy, shabu or heroin. Excerpt follows:

"I myself have a couple of recommendations.

"One is to appoint Marcelino posthaste as Ombudsman. And have him investigate Merceditas Gutierrez for all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. It’s the only way that office will ever get to do the job it is meant to do, Marcelino having shown he is one of the few public officials who can do the job they are meant to do.

"The second, completely seriously, is to put the Office of the Ombudsman under the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. The reason for this is simple. There is a drug that addles the brain more thoroughly than Ecstasy, Ecstasy only giving its user to feel the pangs of love or lust. There is a drug that sends people on longer and farther power trips than shabu, shabu only lasting a few days and rendering their users impotent afterward. There is a drug that is far more addictive than heroin, no amount of rehabilitation being able to cure it.

"That drug is corruption.

"Corruption is the most dangerous drug of all in this country. It gives the user to feel not only the pangs of lust or love of money; it sends the user to longer and farther power trips, making them feel like they deserve to rule forever; it is the most addictive drug of all, and one, quite unfortunately, that does not kill the user, only everyone around him, or her.

"It is no small irony—indeed it is a sublimely poetic one—that Marcelino set out to take on drug pushers and users and ended up taking on the justice department. They are one and the same. The justice department is the biggest pusher of the most dangerous drug in this country, or the biggest supplier of it to its biggest user in the country, to be found in the Palace by the Pasig. At the very least, you can’t have a brain more addled by drugs—in more ways than one—than Gonzalez’s. And you can’t have veins more addicted to constant injections of power than those of his boss."

PNB-Allied Bank merger by mid-2009

2008-12-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

As of December 27, 2008, here's the latest news for those who bank with PNB and Allied Bank:

The merger between Philippine National Bank (PNB) and Allied Banking Corp., originally targeted for end-2008, is now expected to be completed by middle of 2009, PNB said in a statement.

PNB said there was a need to comply with US banking regulations requiring Allied Bank to divest its 28-percent equity share in California-based Oceanic Bank prior to the merger.

It said that even with this development, preparations of both banks for the merger were in full swing and on track.

“Significant progress has been made on the following: identification and synchronization of IT systems; alignment of products, policies and procedures; branch rationalization; and review for consolidation of required regulatory documentation,” the statement said.

The ATM systems of PNB and Allied Bank have been integrated to allow each bank’s clients to use either bank’s machines free of charge despite the fact that the two banks are on separate ATM networks.

The bank said that in support of the merger, organizational changes in the board and management of Allied Bank and PNB will be implemented beginning Jan. 1: Domingo T. Chua has resigned as director of PNB and has been elected as chairman of Allied Bank; Estelito P. Mendoza has been elected as director of PNB, filling the vacancy left by Chua; Gloria Tan-Climaco has been elected director of PNB, taking the place of Macario U. Te, who will retire effective Dec. 31; and PNB executive vice president for global operations Anthony Q. Chua will be seconded to Allied Bank as chief operations officer.

Post-merger PNB will become the fourth-biggest domestic bank in terms of total assets and branch network, with the most extensive international footprint among local banks.

Source: http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view/20081227-180164/PNB-Allied-Bank-merger-by-mid-2009

EDSA 2: A Mistake -- Cory Aquino

2008-12-23T03:03:00.000-08:00

As a member of the editorial board of Touchlife Express Balita (a weekly Christian newspaper in Manila), I was privileged to get invited to the launching of the erstwhile Speaker Jose de Venecia's book entitled Global Filipino. Actually, the complete title is unusually long: "Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia Jr., the Visionary Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines."

The book launching was held at The Atrium of the Podium Bldg. in posh Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City, yesterday afternoon (Dec. 22). After introducing his book, former Speaker de Venecia gave the floor to an enthusiastic ex-President Joseph "Erap" Estrada who gave a much-applauded speech which lasted over 15 minutes.

At one point, Mr. Estrada said that he had read the book from cover to cover but because it was thick (hard cover of over 250 pages, ), it gave him a headache. Then he quipped that those in the Malacañang Palace would have a greater headache when they read the contents of the book (which is highly critical of the Arroyo administration.)

After Estrada, it was "People Power" Pres. Corazon "Cory" Aquino's turn to speak. Her speech was very brief, less than 3 minutes, but also applauded by the audience at several points. By now, both pro- and anti-administration groups must be busy dissecting the impact of her apology to Estrada. Her exact words as recorded in my PDA:

"I am one of those who pleads guilty for the 2o01 uprising. Lahat naman tayo nagkakamali. Patawarin mo na lang ako."

[English translation of the italicized words: "After all, we all make mistakes. Just forgive me."]

While Cory was smiling when she articulated the above mea culpa, as a direct eyewitness of the event, I reckon that she spoke with sincerity.

"Could Anything Be More Absurd?"

2008-11-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

"Could anything be more absurd than a coup plotter, like Enrile, being sworn into the No. 3 office in the land, by a man who failed in every coup he staged: Gringo Honasan?" - - Juan Mercado, "Prayer without Heart," Philippine Daily Inquirer, 11/20/2008

Three Pivotal Questions

2008-04-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

By Benito P. Yadao Jr.

Man has made it to the moon and then safely landed back on his home planet. It was hailed as a milestone accomplishment in space exploration. What made it possible? The invention of the electronic computer!

The computers on board the spacecraft and those at NASA control center made the mathematical calculations that ensured that the precise path was taken. The required speedy navigational computations were simply beyond the capability of even the best team of expert mathematicians: it would have taken years to make the calculations needed to make minute-by-minute course corrections.

In a sense, we could say that the success of that lunar space mission as well as the survival of the astronauts themselves depended upon the computers.

Today, even in the world of business and industry, success and survival are become more and more dependent on the effective application of computer technology. This is very obvious in the fields of banking, air travel, manufacturing, and news networks, just to mention a few. In fact, every enterprise or profession that needs to maintain sizeable, reliable, and easily retrievable information (for example, about customers, receivables, and/or inventory) will invariably profit from the use of computers.

Thanks to a combination of technical innovations and mass production, a computer can now be bought at an affordable price. Indeed, the real question today is whether you can afford not to computerize!

On the other hand, we are also aware of those who already use computers in their businesses or professions but only to a marginal extent. Except perhaps for promoting secretarial productivity through word processing, they haven't experienced the managerial benefits in terms of lower overhead cost, greater financial control, better decision-making support, and increased time and energy for creative action.

How do you know whether it's time to computerize or there is much to be desired from your existing computerized system(s)? Start with these three basic questions:

1. Is your record/information keeping taking the fun out of managing your business or profession?
2. Are needed financial forecasts and reports inaccurate and/or delayed?
3. Do you feel you are not in total control?

If you answered with a categorical "NO" to all of the above, congratulations! Be sure, though, to review your answers at least every three months.

Quote of the Day

2008-01-14T18:23:00.001-08:00

Health - Alcohol Debate (Part II)

2006-10-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

What Type, How Much, and When?

According to the experts, it doesn't make too much difference whether you
prefer wine, beer, or spirits.

"The research evidence points to ethanol -- or the alcohol component -- of
beer, wine, or spirits as the substance that can help lower cholesterol levels, increase HDL (good cholesterol), and improve insulin sensitivity in overweight individuals," Rimm says.

It's how much you drink that really matters. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines and the American Heart Association define moderate drinking as onedrink for women and two for men per day -- not averaged over the week. (One drink is defined as 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits such as vodka.)

When you drink is also important, says Alice Lichtenstein, DrS, a professor at Tufts University. If you do consume alcohol, it's best to have it with meals, she says.

Some studies have suggested that drinking alcohol without eating raises the chance of developing high blood pressure.

Also, "alcohol can stimulate the appetite, so it is better to drink it with food," says Arthur Agatston, MD, a cardiologist and author of the popular book The South Beach Diet. "When alcohol is mixed with food, it can slow the stomach emptying time and potentially decrease the amount of food consumed at the meal."

And what about people who don't drink at all? The experts agree that, though alcohol has some health benefits, it's not a good idea to start drinking if you don't already.

The new U.S. dietary guidelines point out that there are many ways to reduce the risk of chronic diseases besides moderate drinking, including:

Eating a healthy diet
Exercising
Quitting smoking
Maintaining a healthy weight

Those Extra Calories

Alcohol is fairly high in calories, but provides few essential nutrients.

The benefits of moderate drinking do not outweigh the risks of being overweight, says Theresa Nicklas, DrPh, a member of the dietary guidelines advisory committee. So if you have a drink, you should budget it into what the U.S. dietary guidelines call your "discretionary calories" -- the ones you have left over after you eat all the nutritious foods you need.

The problem, says Nicklas, is that most Americans are sedentary, so their calorie needs are relatively low. For example, someone on an 1,800-calorie eating plan only has 195 discretionary calories per day -- the equivalent of one 9-ounce glass of wine (and that leaves no room for sweets or other treats).

And, of course, when you drink too much alcohol, it's hard to get all the nutrients you need without taking in too many calories. Heavy drinkers who substitute alcohol calories for nutritious foods run the risk of malnutrition.

Another problem, according to National Institutes of Health researcher Rosalind Breslow, PhD, is that "liquid calories from alcohol do not satisfy hunger." She notes that drinks made with high-calorie mixers, like pina coladas and white Russians, can have as many as 400 calories apiece.

The best bet for people who want to enjoy a drink most days is to get more physical activity, Nicklas says. She points out that the benefits of regular physical activity are much greater than those of moderate drinking, and she advises everyone to strive for at least 30 minutes daily.

The Bottom Line

More research remains to be done on the relative risks and benefits of drinking alcohol.

But the bottom line is that to get any health benefits from alcohol, we must drink responsibly. That means having no more than 1-2 drinks per day, having them at mealtime and as part of an overall healthy diet, and making sure you aren't exceeding your calorie needs.

Medically updated July 31, 2006

SOURCES: The New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 20,
2005. Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary
Guidelines for Americans, 2005. American Heart Association Science
Advisory: Wine and Your Heart, 2001. Archives of Internal Medicine,
2003; 263. Theresa Nicklas, DrPh, professor of pediatrics, Baylor College of
Medicine; member, dietary guidelines advisory committee; Alice Lichtenstein,
DSc, Gershoff Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts
University. Eric Rimm, DrS, professor of epidemiology and nutrition, Harvard
School of Public Health; Arthur Agatston, MD, FACC, associate professor of
medicine, University of Miami School of Medicine; author, The South Beach
Diet. Rosalind Breslow, PhD, researcher, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse
and Alcoholism. Monica Gourovitch, PhD, senior vice president for scientific
affairs, Distilled Spirits Council. WebMD Feature: Beer, Wine Liquor - The
New Health Drinks?, by Jennifer Warner, published June 14, 2002. WebMD
Medical News: Drinking Too Much Claims 75,000 Lives a Year, by Jennifer
Warner, published Sept. 23, 2004. WebMD Medical News: Moderate Alcohol May
Improve Diabetes, by Salynn Boyles, published June 1, 2004. WebMD Medical
News: Alcohol Without Food Boosts Blood Pressure, by Miranda Hitti,
published Dec. 21, 2004.

Health - Alcohol Debate

2006-09-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to alcohol, does the good outweigh the bad?

The Alcohol Debate: Should You or Shouldn't You?

By Kathleen Zelman

Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD

Has a daily drink replaced the apple a day as a way to keep
the doctor away?

Scientists have long touted the heart
benefits of drinking small amounts of alcohol. Newer studies have
credited moderate drinking with everything from helping to keep our
minds sharp as we age to lowering our risk of developing diabetes.

In fact, the new U.S. dietary guidelines give many of us
official permission to enjoy one to two drinks daily.

This is great news for folks who follow the French lifestyle
of sipping a glass of wine with dinner, or who enjoy an evening
cocktail. But what about teetotalers -- should they start drinking? Are
there some people who shouldn't drink, under any circumstances? And how
do you balance the health effects of alcohol with its high calorie
count?

Since some 55% of U.S. adults drink alcohol according to the
CDC, it's important to understand how it affects our health. To get
some answers, WebMD talked to experts about alcohol's risks and
benefits and its place in a healthy diet.

Does It Help or Hurt?

Drinking alcohol can be good for your health, but it can also
be harmful. It all depends on how much you drink, your age, and other
factors.

There's no denying that too much alcohol can lead to serious
problems. Excess alcohol can increase your risk of:

Liver disease

High blood pressure

High blood fats (triglycerides)

Heart failure

Stroke

Fetal alcohol syndrome (if you're pregnant)

Certain cancers

Injury, violence, and death

And, of course, drinking too much alcohol piles on the
calories, which can lead to obesity and a higher risk for diabetes.

For some segments of the population, alcohol can lead to many
health problems. Those who should not drink include:

Pregnant and breastfeeding women

People at risk for certain cancers

People with family histories of alcohol abuse

Children and adolescents

People taking medications that can interact with alcohol

Those with health conditions such as liver problems or
ulcers

Anyone requiring skill or coordination to perform a task

People who have a history of pancreatitis (inflammation of
the pancreas)

According to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, in middle-aged and
older adults, moderate consumption is associated with the lowest
all-cause mortality (that is, the rate of death from all causes). But
in younger adults, alcohol consumption provides little, if any, health
benefits, according to the guidelines. Instead, it's associated with a
higher risk of serious injury or death.

The CDC has reported that excessive drinking causes more than
75,000 deaths from various causes in the U.S. each year. And what
exactly is "excessive"? For men, it's an average of more than two
drinks daily, or more than four drinks at one time, according to the
CDC. For women, it's an average of more than one drink per day or more
than three drinks at one time.

Alcohol's Advantages

Alcohol's effects on the heart -- for both men and women --
are well documented. Studies have shown that moderate drinking can
raise levels of "good cholesterol," which helps prevent harmful blood
clots and helps keep blood flowing smoothly through our bodies,
reducing risks of heart attack and stroke.

In fact, moderate drinking can increase "good cholesterol"
levels by as much as 20%, if it's accompanied by a healthy diet and
regular physical activity, says Harvard researcher Eric Rimm, DrS.

That's similar to the improvement you might see by taking
cholesterol medication or running a half-marathon, Rimm says. (He's
quick to point out that exercise has many other health benefits and
that alcohol should never replace exercise.)

Research has also suggested that moderate drinking can
increase insulin sensitivity, which can reduce the risk of diabetes,
among other things. But the empty calories in alcohol can be a problem,
as there is a link between type 2 diabetes and excess weight.

Rimm, who has reviewed several large studies, has found a
delicate balance between the risks and benefits of alcohol and its
impact on diabetes. However, he says, "there appears to be a reduction
in risk of type 2 diabetes in adults who consume moderate amounts of
alcohol."

Recent research also suggests that women who enjoy a little
alcohol may be more likely to keep their minds sharp as they age.

A study published in The New England Journal of
Medicine in 2005 evaluated the mental abilities of 12,480
women aged 70-81. The researchers found that moderate drinkers had a
23% reduced risk of mental decline compared with nondrinkers.

(Continued in Part II)

Security

2006-09-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

The Advantages of Outdoor Security Cameras
By Morgan Hamilton

Do you want to have to constantly keep an eye on your loved ones? Of course not. You would like to enjoy life. I understand your feelings and the truth is that the times we live in are crazy, dangerous and unpredictable. You cannot imagine what I saw on the news few days ago. There was a man who had been hiding under a woman's bed for two days so that he could stalk her. I don't see what else should be said about the matter. I can only add that it is always good and it pays off to be aware of what is going on around you. Sometimes this is related to installing few alarms or spending some money on outdoor security cameras. This is an effective way to know what is going outside and inside your own home. Would you not like to be informed if there was someone lurking around your house?

I have a thing about outdoor security cameras. I cannot help but really loving them. It is true, believe me. I got hooked up a while ago and my brother is to take the blame. He is ex-Special Forces and he is constantly buying all the new security measures available on the market. Of course, I do understand him. After all, he has a wife and three children and he wants to make sure they are safe. Last summer I visited my brother and saw his outdoor security cameras. I simply went nuts over them. They are really fantastic and they are the most advance level of technology. They are turned on all the time and they do a pretty good job observing every angle of his home’s exterior. This is especially useful when you have your kids playing around the house all the time.

Unfortunately, in this weird world you have to watch out that some weirdo would not kidnap or hurt your children while they are playing in your yard. And don't start with the usual lines such as "my neighbourhood is safe" or "this cannot happen to me" as the truth is that it can happen to anyone as no one is safe. Even though I am only 30 years old I had this happen to me twice. You wouldn't suppose but criminals like safe neighbourhoods because no one expects them there. Have you changed your mind about setting up a few outdoor cameras now? Just hop online and check the prices, you will see that you can get few outdoor security cameras for a reasonable price. They also have one great feature which is infrared option.

Furthermore, it takes only a few minutes to install cameras. Do you want to see what the darkness hides? Buying today's advanced outdoor security cameras will give you the answer. With them not only will you keep an eye on your loved ones during the day, but even when the sun has dropped you will be able to watch out any outdoor activity.

Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning property. Learn more at Outdoor Security Cameras

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Morgan_Hamilton

Health

2006-09-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Food for a Healthy Immune System and for Overall Good Health
By Patsy Hamilton

Focusing on food for a healthy immune system can increase overall good health and nutrition. Foods that build your immune system are rich in vitamins, minerals, trace elements and omega-3 fatty acids. Including these foods in your weekly diet can improve your energy levels and decrease the number of colds and other bugs that you get every year.

Some people rely on daily multi-vitamins and dietary supplements, instead of food for a healthy immune system and good supplements are always a good idea. It is not always possible to eat the right foods in the right combination every day. For instance, you may think of oranges or orange juice when you think of foods that build your immune system, but oranges are not the only foods that contain Vitamin C. And if you don’t have enough calcium and magnesium in your diet, then your cells cannot efficiently absorb Vitamin C. Complicating things further, if you drink a glass of orange juice and a glass of milk, then the acidic content of the juice can sour the milk, leading to stomach upset.

People who have frequent heartburn or are lactose intolerant may not be able to include either orange juice or milk in their diets. Citrus fruits are highly acidic and trigger heartburn in many people. Regular milk causes bloating, pain, gas and diarrhea in people who are lactose intolerant. So, what is a person to do?

Crabmeat, lobster and oysters are all rich in calcium, magnesium and vitamin C. Salmon is an important food for a healthy immune system and is often referred to as a “super food” by dieticians and nutritionists, because it contains numerous vitamins and minerals, plus a healthy amount of omega-3 fatty acids, believed to be beneficial in preventing heart disease, cancer and arthritis. Broccoli, tomatoes, peaches and apples are good sources of Vitamin C and are all foods that build your immune system. Broccoli is another food that contains numerous vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and selenium. Not familiar with selenium?

Selenium is an essential trace mineral that may not be included in your daily multi-vitamin, but very important to human health. It is essential to proper immune system function, as well as numerous metabolic pathways. Remember chicken soup? Chicken is another good source of selenium and is one of the foods that build your immune system strength.

Like mushrooms? Researchers studying foods that build immune system strength by increasing white blood cell counts learned that shitake mushrooms worked. The study concluded that beta glucans found in edible mushrooms increased white blood cell counts. White blood cells are primary infection fighters. Don’t like mushrooms? Beta glucans are biologically active compounds found in numerous plant foods and some immune system dietary supplements.

So, in order to include some of the best foods that build your immune system in your weekly diet, eat salmon, tuna and/or seafood three or four times a week, chicken three or four times a week, a variety of fruits and vegetables including broccoli and mushrooms, whenever possible. Relying on food for a healthy immune system may not be enough, depending on where you live or work. A daily multi-vitamin can help and there are immune system supplements that contain beta glucans, herbs and other ingredients that can also help, particularly during cold and flu season. To learn more about food for a healthy immune system and supplements that can boost your immune system, visit www.immune-system-booster-guide.com.

Patsy Hamilton has been a healthcare professional for more than twenty years and currently writes informational articles for the Immune System Booster Guide. Read more at http://www.immune-system-booster-guide.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patsy_Hamilton