smells like martial law

president gloria is starting to really creep me out. first she had the policy of "calibrated preemptive response" against rallyists, which had the militants and leftists declaring it as a violation of human rights. then the plan to take over vital industries had businessmen running scared. now she has executive order no. 464, which is basically a challenge against congress, or the senate in particular, which is currently investigating the controversies involving malacanang like the wiretapping scandal, the venable deal, and northrail project. she may not call it martial law, but it sure smells like martial law to me.

ode to bobot candy

bobot, oh bobot
where art thou?
thy sugary sweetness
thy peanuty goodness
three pieces of heaven
wrapped in plastic
thou has sweetened
countless childhood days

manny pacquiao kicks ass!!!

paquiao wins! wooohooo!!! not just that, the 2 other pinoys in the bout also won! at last, some good news after months of getting nothing but crap from political scandals.

the day i heard about the fight, i had a bad feeling deep in my gut that he'd lose this one. a lot of people were saying that this fight would be an easy one for him. but guess what, people were saying the same thing about the pacquiao vs. morales bout, see how it ended.

good thing the bout didn't last long. i don't think pacquiao has a particularly stellar record with bouts that go the distance, considering his loss to morales and his draw against marquez.

unfortunately though, for pacquiao, morales lost to zahir raheem. that would make his coming rematch against morales sort of pointless. who would want to beat a loser? wait, if eric morales is a loser, and pacquiao lost to morales, then what does that make pacquiao? hehehe just joking...

on a sidenote, what on earth is manny doing starring in his own movie (co-starring the bold stars aubrey miles and juliana palermo and the very jurrasic looking eddie garcia)? does that mean that even a world famous boxer like him also has aspirations of becoming an artista? or is this just a sideline for him, some sort of plan b, in case something happens to his boxing career? everybody just wants to be a star, i guess. this reminds me of onyok velasco. remember him? whatever happened to onyok velasco anyway?

PowerPoint is Evil!!! and Other Matters

PowerPoint: Killer App?

Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.

They have a point... and to think that we used that a lot in college...

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New entries in my photoblog!

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Meanwhile, an interesting piece of Filipino history from Ambeth Ocampo's column today on how the separation of church and state came about in the Malolos Congress:

“Antonio Luna also became a member of Congress. There he affiliated himself with the faction that we can call Radical. This faction was formed almost spontaneously when the celebrated debates started in Congress over the separation of Church and State, the expulsion of the friars and other religious congregations from the Philippines, and the prohibition by the Constitution of the formation of new religious orders.

“The debates showed signs of dragging on forever because, although it appears strange considering the motives which started the Revolution, one-half of the members of the Congress were adherents of the friars. Eloquent speeches from each group were pronounced, but there never was a voting because both groups were afraid of the result of the balloting. Luna broke the situation with one of those tricks peculiar to his character and which made him famous later.

“He assembled all those delegates of the Radical faction who had confidence in him, advising them to keep away from the sessions of the Congress but requesting them to remain within call at a moment’s notice. With the Radicals absent, the Conservatives constituted a majority during the sessions. Having made a careful count and thinking themselves sure of victory, the Conservatives asked for a vote while the few Radicals present registered a token opposition. The motion to call a vote was carried. Then, at the precise moment of balloting, Luna immediately called all his adherents to enter the session hall en masse, to the surprise of the confident Conservatives. The voting was taken and we won, if I remember right, by one or two votes. In this manner, a provision in our Constitution for the separation of Church and State was secured."