(Acting) Justice Secretary says it’s lawyer Harry Roque’s fault that Suwaib Upham, said to be a key witness for the prosecution in the Maguindanao Massacre, was left unprotected.
RP No.51 on Failed States Index
From Foreign Policy
A dubious world record: the Philippines is 51st on Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index, slightly better off than Bolivia and the West Bank (sort of not a state, I guess).
51. PHILIPPINES
Score: 87.1Democratic elections will see power transfer from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to her successor, Benigno S. Aquino III, at the end of June. Despite booming foreign investment, poverty is the dominant reality for the country’s population. Here, a child walks between shantytown blocks built on tombs.
As deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar says, it’s the numbers that count.
Man in Manila stabbed over “Nobody”
A man was killed in Manila this week for butchering “Nobody,” the Korean pop song that also served as Caloocan mayor Recom Echiverri’s election platform.
Just minutes before he was stabbed, Viray and his friends were drinking at the bar when they decided to sing the Wonder Girls’ hit song.
Their rendition, however, irked another group of drinkers at a nearby table who made their displeasure known by shouting them down.
Shouting soon turned to stabbing, as usually happens, and Viray ended up stabbed in the face and neck.
Tragic as that is, it also invites the question: why do grown-ass men in their cups always think it a good idea to sing like girls?
Slain journalist not actually a journalist
Relax, Reporters Without Borders! Nestor Bedolido, the journalist shot six times in Davao Sur was just a regular guy according to the local police chief.
“He is not a practicing journalist, but is a propagandist. He is working for some political personalities in the province”
That somehow makes his death less tragic, I guess. The guy was practically asking for it, not being a practicing journalist. You know who else was a propagandist? Dr. Jose Rizal. Things didn’t end well for him either.
Not only that, Bedolido, and the other ‘practicing’ journalists in this country are just victims of both a brutal culture and bad luck, says deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar.
So shut up about chilling effects and cultures of impunity already.
Metro News: Gay alerts people to freak accident
Well, all right. The actual headline on ABS-CBN news was “Army sergeant dies in freak accident in Taguig,” but there was nothing really freaky about what happened.
A guy has an argument with his wife, walks out, and is run over by a black van. It was surprising, but not freaky by any standard. If the guy had been run over by a Jaguar…driving a Tamaraw FX, then that would have been freaky.
In fact, what’s most striking about the story is this statement from Staff Sgt. Ronnie Natividad, the victim’s buddy and fellow soldier:
Nasa loob kami tapos may narining kaming lumagabog. Sumisigaw iyong bakla, sabi niya may nasagasaan daw. Paglabas namin nakabulagta na siya dyan. (We were inside when we heard a thud. The gay man was screaming that someone had been run over. When we went outside, he was already sprawled there.)
Who was this ‘bakla’ and how does he figure in the story? Why did S/Sgt Natividad have to specify that the witness was gay? Was the witness the one they found sprawled on the ground? Was it the victim?
UP community ‘apologizes’ for paint bombing Regent
In this week of student protests, University of the Philippines (not to be confused with the Polytechnic University of the Philippines) threw paint bombs at a member of the university’s Board of Regents.
From gmanews.tv
While some sectors may call the protest action ‘awesome shit,’ there may have been less ecstatic reactions from some of UP’s more moderate students.
And so, we have this ‘apology’ being passed around on facebook:
Given people’s propensity to not read to the very end of things, facebook users (and you) probably stopped reading at “Contrary to what the whole nation witnessed on March 24, 2010, not all members of the University are rude, uncouth and disrespectful.” And, really, that’s one facebook statement I’d append my signature to without hesitation. I mean, the people have to know that we don’t all throw paint bombs at officials, right? I mean, a lot of us just get high and/or drunk at the Sunken Garden not bothering anyone. Right?
Except when you read it till the end and you realize that this isn’t an apology at all. The ‘community’ “will not apologize, however, for our militant actions (like throwing paint bombs)” because, as they say, the UP administration left them with no choice but to disrespect a university official with some sort of doctorate or whatever. The statement circulating on facebook is an apology, that’s true enough. But it’s an apology on behalf of the UP administration for forcing students to throw paint at them.
I wonder whether the more than 100 people who appended their signatures to the apology know that they were endorsing the incident that they may have been trying to distance themselves from.
On the other hand, this is a brilliant piece of work. I almost signed it myself.
How to protest tuition fee hike: destroy school property, justify increase
Raise high the red banner of militancy at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines! Onward the proletariat! Or whatever.
Christ Jesus, PUP student leaders, doesn’t wrecking school equipment sort of, I don’t know, suddenly justify the tuition fee increase you guys are protesting?
Sort of like shooting yourself in the foot there, guys.
And then, of course, next year, there’ll be protests against the lack of desks and chairs because of the state’s abandonment of its responsibility to provide quality education. Which is probably true, but you won’t have chairs chiefly because you guys broke them. The 1,700-percent tuition fee increase from 12 pesos per unit to 200 pesos per unit won’t even buy one desk, I’m thinking. So, onward, onward. I guess.
To rebel is justified...somehow
One student leader, to show his solidarity with the students, has this to say:
“Actually, I have final exams today. But I was thinking, ‘what if next year I can’t take finals anymore because the tuition fee is so high?’ So we decided to protest instead.”
News flash for you, scholar: if, for some reason, you aren’t able to take your exams next year, that could be because you failed your finals this year by, I don’t know, not taking them. Â A-plus.
(Thanks, mouse)
No Parking, No LTO Registration
Here’s a novel way to solve Manila’s parking problem (somehow): don’t let people without parking spaces at home buy cars.
Alliance for Rural Concerns Rep. Narciso Santiago III wants the Land Transportation Office to refuse to register cars whose owners do not have “a proof of permanent parking space for his automobile.”
“People should be disciplined enough to be able to furnish their vehicles with the appropriate parking space inside their own lots,” Santiago says.
I,uh…
Gramps Keeps it Gangsta
Remember that grade school retort “wala yan sa lolo ko? (roughly: my grandfather is even more badass than that)” that nobody ever really used except ironically?
GMANews.TV Doesn’t Know Cocks
We generally prefer GMANews.tv to Inquirer.net because there are fewer typographical and grammar errors (and ads.) Sometimes, though, they put up articles that leave us scratching our heads.
Consider this gem, for example:
Now, we get that saying that a member of the cabinet sucks cocks is probably libelous. The paragraph asks more questions than it answers, though. Most nagging of which are: What was he blowing on? Were they penises? Or just things that looked like penises? Were they hotdogs? I mean, that’s a pretty easy call to make, GMANews.tv.
You don't need to be a doctor to know your penises...
(Thx, Gibo Teodoro!)