At the End of the Day

IN THE ANCIENT magical arts, alchemy involved the use of myriad substances blended together in order to produce a special potion that witches and wizards use in their tradecraft. It is believed at times that using invisible ingredients can produce something out of nothing. That is, something visible out of things invisible. At least. Today, political journalism in the Philippines has a way of conjuring things from thin air. Sometimes to the shaking heads of readers who felt aghast at such violation of what is rational versus the propagandist slant in newsmaking. When senior Supreme Court associate justices had been bypassed in the appointment of Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno as the new Chief Justice, attendance in the flag-raising ceremony every Monday seems to transform from a mundane routine in the High Court into an exercise "abundant" with political interpretations; a politico-alchemical conjuring, so to say. Should the absence of certain justices ...

I CAN ONLY describe the hilarious development in the appointment hearing of former senator Mar Roxas at the Senate Committee on Appointments as kadramahan sa buhay Senador , so heart-pounding and drama-filled worth the best soap opera in television today.   Early today as she did yesterday when concluded her controversial probe on resigned DILG Undersecretary Rico Puno, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago short of calling all the fires of hell to descend upon Roxas for not attending her Committee's hearing. She considered his absence as a "snob" of her invitation. And today must be her chance to make do her threat of blocking the appointment of Roxas as Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government.   But like an opera written with the versatility of a virtuoso in placing with the viewers emotions, the story shifted from drama, and potentially an action, into a fascinating comedy. Santiago indeed filed her motion to block the Roxas appointment. And ...

IN A DEMOCRACY, the banging of ideas in the hall of learned opinion puts in motion the equality of people among people in contributing for the best of the greatest number. It is therefore immature to condemn the adversary simply because he is winning the argument. If truth has to win the bearers of truth must succeed in arguing for it. A proponent of truth that cannot argue successfully must be the last person to be considered in such a critical occupation. Never was a time in our history as a Christian nation that the life of the unborn hangs in the balance of a word's definition.  The House Representatives is entering the phase of the legislation process where amendments of the very controversial and highly divisive RH Bill can be done by the proponents of the opposing camps. In this stage, a proponent who sleeps in the cause will bring the cause into a tragic end. Instead of staging social unrest, it is now the right time for the Roman Catholic Church and the prop...

I CANNOT IMAGINE how an operative of the Special Counter-Insurgency Operations Unit (SCOU), when caught by insurgents and subjective to the worse torture imaginable, can ever survive with their mental faculties intact. But that's exactly what's going to happen if the recent products of SCOU Training cry foul, or more specifically 'hazing,' when they are subjected to the hard realities of law enforcent that handles counterinsurgency operations. Operatives must be physically hard and mentally sturdy to survive the prospect of getting captured without squelling reserved information to the enemy. I am disappointed to hear that the recent batch of SCOUT trainees considered their physical ordeals during training as 'hazing.' Have they entertained the thought that they were in Camp Ceferino Genovia in Barangay Bahay for an exotic 45-day vacation? If they cannot endure physical pain during training, they must ship out because real life counterinsurgency work ...

SERIOUS SUSPICIONS START to surface lately on the probability of a fix fight in the Pacquiao-Bradley split decision that had the Pambansang Kamao on the losing side. I thought I was the only one on this suspicion; but apparently not. Many are actually asking this difficult question: is Manny Pacquiao involved in the fix? If you still can remember rounds one through five, Manny behaved so much like the Manny we know--strong, fast, both in hands and feet. But when the bell rang to start Round 6, Manny slowed down significantly, perhaps around 70 percent of the Pacquiao we know. Could that slow down be a cue for the "fix" mechanism to proceed? There are many benefits for a setup of such a fix. First, that's supposed to be Manny's last fight before he hands his boxing gloves. Losing a fight that can be convincingly one later on after Manny has tested what Bradley can dish out was no unavoidable loss, but a strategic one. It gives Manny an excuse to figh...

THE THING WITH the latest pull out of the Philippine military vessels from the disputed Panatag Shoal gives me a feeling that we have embarassed ourselves for getting duped into withdrawing from standing put in defending that claim. The current statement from the Chinese foreign ministry seems to say that the Philippines has the only responsibility to keep the tension down in the area; not the overreaching China. Somehow China managed to stand pat on its stubbornness in "defending" what is "hers" from the Philippine claim. If the Philippine politicians fail to get the message, then we as well admit our claim as much weaker (of low resolve) compared to that of China. Imagine leaving the Panatag Shoal on the excuse of protecting the government military vessels from bad weather. That's hollow-sounding to me considering that Chinese policy considers such a move a non-issue on their part. So much for our resolve to claim wha...