War with water hyacinths

President Abnoy should have declared war with the water hyacinths clogging the Cotabato River not with the City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr. People in that area need immediate help not political speeches, photo ops and short term solutions like giving away goods. What disappointed the people is when President Abnoy said that he’s still thinking of ways to solve the problem and that people should not really expect anything because his administration is barely one year old.

When President Abnoy’s entourage left, Mayor Guiani confirmed that they never received any assistance from Malacañang. That includes the 7 million worth of relief goods stated by the corrupt head Dinky Soliman. In the end, the corrupt Dinky Soliman admitted giving the assistance to the politicians closer to them, the Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema and Congresswoman Sandra Sema and only gave 2,000 bags to Mayor Guiani.

President Abnoy and his mouthpieces slammed mayor and even went out of their way to call him a liar. The President in fact did not bring with him additional aid and did not even offer solutions to the problem. The problem with people in Malacañang is, the more they protect their boss, the more they became vulnerable.

Over 40,000 people are said to be displaced from their homes because of the flooding. In fact, the 7 million budget given by the DSWD is not enough. Malacañang should be less confrontational when accused by the local leaders in Cotabato. They should know that the mayor is in the frontline and the firing line. People expect him to deliver and he can’t do that by himself. He can only do so much and he doesn’t need President Abnoy there if he can’t do anything to help the people in distress. Calling the good mayor a liar was way below the belt.

Philippine alliance with untrustworthy United States

War with China should not be an option. We can’t win and that’s reality. Reality sucks and reality bites. We can’t even patrol our shores because we lack resources. We are nothing compared to China in terms of military might. We’re poor, they’re rich and there’s nothing we can do about it. Some analyst says that we have the US mutual defense treaty on our side. I think that involving the United States in our mess would only create another chaos. The United States will not do favors for free. We’ve been unfairly treated by the United States since time immemorial.

Just so you can remember, the United States snatched our independence from Spain and even killed more than a million Filipinos. They’re also the reason why Manila was 80% destroyed during the World War 2. They’ve treated us unfairly in several times and occasions. We kicked them out of our backyard before and now, we’re singing a different tune? To be an independent nation we have to do away with the United States.
Hillary Clinton and the US Department of State may sing a different song but I don’t really buy it. China is the US biggest creditor and business partner. They’re also involved in several Wars around the world. I don’t think that they’ll engage another war with China. If there’s one good thing this tension will bring, that is, another opportunity for the US to strengthen its presence in the South China Sea. They can even build a new base in our country considering how our politicians considering the idea nowadays.
For this mutual defense treaty to work, the United States should learn to respect us. They should afford us with the respect they gave to the Koreans, Japanese and Germans where they have an alliance and bases. They treat us as insignificant because we allow them to.

The best solution in resolving this issue with China is through a diplomatic means. Diplomacy will not cost lives because we can avoid going to wars. We should fight for our claims to the United Nations. That’s the best option because we’re helpless in terms of military might. We can never win a war against China and that’s a fact.

Aquino’s first year in office, what went wrong?

When President Abnoy was installed in Office last year, jubilant Yellow Zombies celebrated as if there’s no tomorrow. One year on, and, I guess they’re still in the dreamland. Majority of Filipinos have already woken up from their nightmare, electing the wrong man to the presidency. They are now realizing how pathetic they are for voting the Abnoy in the 2010 elections.


President Abnoy’s government that started in euphoria is now facing a problem not unique to presidents of the Philippines, decline in ratings. President Abnoy is the only person to blame in the decline of his ratings. He talks about accountability, transparency but in the end, he’ll go out of his way to cover, protect and even absolve his KKK (Kabarilan, Kaibigan at Kakampi). The three headed hydra, presidential mouthpieces are of no help either.

The Rizal Park hostage crisis will forever hunt President Abnoy’s presidency. It just showed how unorganized and leaderless we are as a nation. His indecisiveness during the crisis caused the loss of several lives. He even has the nerve to smile in front of the cameras which, by the way, is the biggest insult you could ever haul to the grieving families of the victims.

President Abnoy says that he doesn’t micro manage. That’s his style of leadership but you can’t just implement a management style without changing the culture. That’s why we have change management even in the companies. As a leader you may delegate the authority but regardless of what your management style is, the Filipinos still believes that authority still resides in Malacañang. A leader has to do what it gotta do. President GMA did that in her 9 years in power.

No doubt, the hostage crisis is also a big embarrassment to us as a nation. It’s because the crisis, is the microcosm, a mirror of our broken nation, leaderless, helpless law enforcers, and mindless local politicians.

Last week, PGMA accused Malacañang of “nobody home” presidency and failure to build on the economic gains of her 10 years in office. Instead of addressing the issue, the Presidential mouthpieces throw accusations on the former leader. They resorted to name calling because they themselves knew that they could not answer PGMA. This is the kind of leadership Aquino is giving the Filipino people. By voting him into the office, I guess, we all deserve it.

Ipagbunyi ang lahing kayumangi! Maligayang Kasarinlan mga Kabayan

I was supposed to compose this entry on the 12th of June but haven’t had the time to do it. Nevertheless, it’s better late than never. It’s been 113 years since the Philippines declared its independence in Kawit, Cavite. As Filipinos, we should commemorate the day and be proud of being children of an independent nation.

China’s intrusion to our national territory is a threat to our sovereignty as a nation. The West Philippine Sea conflict will test our resolve as a nation. Are we going to allow the Chinese to mock us in our own territory? Our heroes fought for our country in the battle against Spain, the United States and Japan. I think we need modern day heroes to defend our country against China.

However, we don’t only need soldiers who are willing to die for our motherland. We need weapons, sophisticated weapons for us to engage in a battle with the intruders. Our Armed Forces admitted that they don’t have the capacity to fight with China. United States, our so called ally stated that they will not intervene. We ended up filing a diplomatic protest since our very own President Abnoy is scared of the Chinese. If we’re going to be like this, China will just build more structures around the contested West Philippine Sea. We will end up crying one day losing our islands to the Chinese.

A senior Senator said that the only way that the Philippines can strengthen itself is to have economic power. That’s a disturbing reality. We will not be able to achieve economic powers because our current constitution has several anti investors’ provisions. Our political situation is not also friendly to the investors. We are also a country that does not honor our contracts with the international investors. If we are realistic and if we’re serious enough to chance our current system, it will take us 5 decades to achieve economic empowerment. By that time, China would have built communities and cities in all the Spratly Islands.

I think we’re doomed and just like in the case of Sabah, I think we’re going to lose the Spratly group of islands as well.

Let us congratulate ourselves and commemorate our independence. Ipagbunyi ang lahing kayumangi! Maligayang Kasarinlan mga Kabayan.

Carbon Footprints

Yesterday, swarm of emails on the recent winners of Miss Earth Philippines pageant flooded my inbox. I wasn’t at all too happy to receive them since I’ve already read the news the moment I logged on to my PC. I was never a fan of Miss Earth Philippines since it started. It’s because of its very hypocritical advocacy. Don’t get me wrong. I support clean and renewable energy and anything green. What I don’t like is when a profit focused organization claims to be green for the sake of making money.

I haven’t watched the broadcast of the pageant but it was criticized by people who watched it. Just like the recently concluded Bb. Pilipinas 2011 Pageant, the organizers focused too much on the Q&A. May I remind the organizers that MEP is not a quiz bee? It’s still and forever will be a beauty pageant. The most beautiful woman should win regardless.

As for the organizers advocacy on nature, I don’t buy it. I haven’t seen anything worth mentioning in the reigns of their former queens. Even the winners of the ME doesn’t do much either. In the end, it would still boil down to money (sponsorship fee, etc.). If they're serious, can they please tell us the carbon footprints for staging the event?