At the End of the Day

THE RECENT CONTROVERSY involving Willie Revillame brought to surface how sick this man is. And he should be banned completely from the entertainment industry in order to effectively avoid his sick mind from getting into homes through the tube. No amount of  apology can restore the damage he continues to cause through his TV programs. It is not the first time. And it will not be the last even with all his apologies. On its 12 March 2011 episode of TV5's "Willing Willie," Revillame abused a child on air without even realizing what he was doing. The early evening program allowed a six-year-old boy named Jan-Jan Estrada to perform dance moves like a male erotic dancer, and endure public redicule and banter from the audience. The boy already cried in embarrassment, and Revillame did not even have a clue on how much suffering the boy endured on the stage in the name of "his" brand of entertainment. Worse, he had the show's spinner repeat the song five more times

IT MIGHT APPEAR DECISIVE to disapprove plastic use in retail stores. It might even look consistent with the call to protect the environment, especially the waterways, from the litters of plastic. But passing a local law to outlaw plastic betrays the impulsiveness of local legislators in making such an important ordinance without giving enough time to pinpoint the real and underlying problem of current waste management and flooding problems, and to look for well-informed alternatives that both can meet the peoples' need for cheap bags while avoiding litters in the environment. And apparently business establishments are ignoring these local legislation for business reasons. Green bags and paper bags can be costly to produce, therefore for consumers to buy, and forcing customers to give up the use the cheaper plastic can prove an error that may cut down a big chunk of their foot traffic. So, what really is the problem here? No matter how you think of it, the underlying problem is

THERE IS SO MUCH to thank for in a second chance. But certain decisions and actions in life carry with it certain finality that once made a seal of fate closes other avenues but the one before the person. And he who learned from the evils of his past will be ready to face what might meet him in that road. At the time when Ramon Credo, Sally Villanueva and Elizabeth Batain decided to carry with them illegal drugs, and knowingly so as news reports indicated, they have made a decision, and followed it up with actions, that sealed their return path behind. Whatever circumstances that forced them to do it, they have made a decision to participate indirectly in the distribution of drugs that have killed so many futures, destroyed so many families, and took so many children away from the loving embrace of their homes. Without dipping their fingers into bloody wounds, they still have blood in their hands for the fee of thousands of dollars. It is like doing a Judas with a bag of silver coins

BEFORE THE ENORMOUS might of nature, mankind and its achievements are mere playthings, fully subject to its whims. This fact comes home to me while watching a photo of a ferry hanging on top of a two-storey building in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, and a train dismembered like trampled centipede among the debris that the recent tsunami in Japan left behind on its wake. It silenced the bloody disturbances in the Middle East, at least as far as local media coverage is concerned. It awakens the eyes of the world on how the technology that man created can turn against him with a simple nod from nature. Useful as they seem in powering up homes and industries, the destructive display of the forces of earth and water strikes home the fact that even Japan cannot master a human technology gone wrong. That will serve as a lesson that must be thought hard and long before our own Bataan Nuclear Plant be allowed to have its switch flipped on. Will the Philippines do better? Do we have the capability

THE THINGS THAT Ombudsman Chief Merceditas Gutierrez may have or have not done are finally catching up on her. Fact-finding hearings in Congress simply unearthed strong bases to believe that she may have betrayed the trust of the Filipino people. On 8 March 2011, the Committee on Justice at the House of Representatives overwhelmingly found probable cause to impeach Gutierrez. About the same time the committee had its voting, the Supreme Court issued its ruling refusing to grant her Petition for Reconsideration. And two days later, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee concluded its report on the Garcia Deal, and recommended that she "be held accountable for non-feasance." It is rare for a person guilty of a crime to admit so. So if Gutierrez betrayed the trust of the people, she can be expected not to admit so. That's obvious. But the outcome of the independent hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and the House Committee on Justice, tackling different issues, that

THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT to misinform the Filipinos, coming from the Supreme Court lately through its spokesperson Atty. Midas Marquez, its Acting Chief of the Public Information Office. Midas claimed that he had an affidavit signed ( reportedly under pressure ) from the person involved in the distribution of official case documents of Ombudsman Chief Merceditas Gutierrez in her petition to have the High Court stop the impeachment hearing against her at the House of Representatives by the Committee on Justice, docketed as G. R. No. 193450. One claim said that copies of the 65-page petition (248 pages, including the annexes) were distributed and placed on the conference table of teh en banc session conference room on 14 September 2010. In a press statement issued dated 9 March 2011, Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno put the facts clearly and unequivocally: "My office received the Petition on September 14, 2010, at 2:15 p.m. No other copy was received by me or by my staff either

I BELIEVE IT IS high time that the Constitution-granted balance of power between the branches of government--executive, legislative and judiciary--be made to work as it was meant to be, and let the concerned justices in the present Supreme Court be made to answer for their sins, for their arrogance in the exercise of judicial power. Even the conscientious justices themselves voiced out against the arrogance of the majority ruling the Supreme Court these days. And maybe for the first time in its history, the Supreme Court has abrogated unto itself power that does not belong to it, and in the process interfering with the lawful rights of the legislative and executive branches in exercising their Constitutionally mandated jobs. And these sins of the Supreme Court must be stopped now otherwise the country will end up having a power-hungry High Court that cannot be checked by its co-equal branches in government; a High Court that lords over the executive and the legislative branches as it