Click here to listen to “I’m Amazed” (plays in a new window).

As the year draws to a close a few hours from now, allow me to reflect on the things that happened in the year that we will leave behind. Never has there been a time more challenging than these times. Never have we been faced by such pressing issues such as war, global warming, oil supply problems, social and political turmoil, incurable diseases, technology dilemmas and moral degradation — all at the same time. Continue Reading

Photo by Le Montage
Drum roll, please…

SWS 3rd Quarter Survey Results:

De Castro – 29%

Villar – 28%

Legarda – 26%

Malacanang, as early as now, eyes several other people as successors to PGMA — Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Senator Richard Gordon, Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte. These people are being considered aside from VP Noli de Castro who has been enjoying wide popularity in recent SWS surveys.

And, as early as now, I think it doesn’t take a genius to see that their additional choices don’t have a slight chance in hell at winning the presidency even with Malacanang’s so-called “political machinery”. In a country as disillusioned as ours, popularity is still a major factor for winning. And while popularity isn’t everything (as proven by the many “celebrities” who lost in their quest for electoral positions in the previous elections), it is still undeniably a major consideration or shall I say, a significant determinant of a candidate’s winnability. Continue Reading

It was a long wait. Was it two years? And now Joc-Joc Bolante, the alleged “mastermind” of that “fertilizer scam” issue is finally here. And just like our “very optimistic” expectation before that Romulo Neri will spill the beans on the NBN-ZTE broadband scandal, I must say that we are none the wiser to assume that we can ever get something out of Joc-Joc’s mouth or head. If it took him two years to evade questioning, what guarantee do we have that the man came back here after much “reflection” of the grave offense he has done to this country and its people? So the guy did not tell the truth, what were you expecting, really?

Personally, I think we simply gave the man a chance to fabricate and weave a “good” story that would be fool-proof or looking at it from a different angle, we may have just given the guy a chance to “toughen” himself up and train himself to lie straight-faced. Two years is a long time, and mind you, for some people, guilt feelings wear-off over time. And for all we know, that is exactly what happened to Joc-Joc. We should have been more vigilant, more persistent and more “concerned” to not have let two years pass us by without grilling the guy while the guilt feelings might still be there and where “Freudian slips” may have given us the truth we’ve always wanted to know. There’s an adage appropriate for that — ah, yes. “Strike while the iron is hot.” So now, however you strike the guy, there’s no way you can mold him to what you want because he’s now “too tough” for any possible “strike”. Our senators can grill him all they want, stress him out, scrape-off his ulcers, turn him backwards and inside out and hang him by a pole for all he cares, but the guy — to my mind — will never “talk” or “sing” for that matter. Continue Reading