Uniffors- Life in Gloria’s Enchanted Kingdom

Is Port Irene the new smuggling center?

Enrile’s son-in-law operates the yard. and muckraker Mon Tulfo wrote that Enrile’s son, Jack, told him “Mon, I don’t want to meddle in things that are not mine, so please write about what’s happening at Port Irene so my father will know.”

So, in the spirit of fair play, let’s allow Enrile to air his side:

From The Jed Report

Keith Olbermann led his broadcast tonight with Spencer Ackerman’s report on John McCain’s most recent gaffe: in an interview with Katie Couric, McCain claimed “the surge” was responsible for the “Anbar Awakening” — which actually began in September, 2006, months before the surge was even announced.

The strange thing, as Keith notes, is that CBS edited the gaffe out of its broadcast. Fortunately, they posted a transcript — and video — online. Here are the key parts of Keith O.’s report, plus a side-by-side video of what CBS actually broadcast, and what they cut out.

Here’s some more details on why McCain is wrong:
*Bush formally announced the surge on January 10, 2007.

*According to Colonel Sean MacFarland (the same Colonel referenced by McCain in his interview), the ‘Anbar Awakening’ “began in September 2006.”

*In the Weekly Standard’s IRAQ REPORT, Kimberly Kagan wrote “The number of troops in Anbar province rose even before “the surge” began.”

None of this is a criticism of U.S. forces — they played an important role in Anbar. However, the surge did not cause the awakening, and McCain’s false claim that it did is just the latest example that he is in way over his head. He’s not intellectually qualified to be president.

GMA news reports that Malacanan ordered the PASG to look into allegations of smuggling in Port Irene, Cagaayan.

Palace to PASG: Go after Port Irene smugglers
07/23/2008 | 10:03 PM

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang has ordered the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Task Force to investigate the reports of rampant smuggling of luxury cars in Port Irene in Cagayan Valley.

The directive was issued after the American Chamber of Commerce or (Amcham) came out in public saying that Port Irene has replaced the Subic Free port as the spot where luxury vehicles are illegally imported.



Asked to comment, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that the Palace is taking the smuggling concerns seriously.

“We have directed (PASG chief Antonio) Villar to take a look at it immediately. It’s very serious since Amcham brought it to us and submitted a report on it,”Ermita said.

Amcham, in its report, said that numerous luxury cars were being smuggled through Port Irene.

Also in the news

Ralph Recto has been appointed NEDA chief. He is the third loser after Vicente Sotto and Mike Defensor to get a Malacanan job.

Rumors have it that Tessie Oreta will get the Education portfolio while Prospero Pichay will get OWWA.

I can’t wait to see what Cesar Montano, Chavit Singson, and Jamalul Kiram III are going to get.

Below is my Business Mirror column for Wednesday, 23 July 2008. It’s on the family planning bill controversy.

Misinformation and acrimonious confrontation
BY MANUEL BUENCAMINO

Sensing that the debate on the reproductive health bill was taking a turn for the worse, Speaker Prospero Nograles announced the formation of a panel of Representatives to dialogue with the bishops “to obviate misinformation and acrimonious confrontation on the pending consolidated bill on family planning.”

I share the Speaker’s concern about misinformation so I will shoot down a comment made by a pro- contraceptives Protestant bishop—married, with children and a great grandchild—who insinuated that he was a better authority on the subject of reproduction than Catholic bishops who have taken a vow of celibacy.

The “lack of experience” argument can be exposed as specious with a simple question:

Are you not aware that Pope Benedict has been going around the world apologizing for the less-than-celibate behavior of many of his priests and bishops?

Of course most of what Pope Benedict apologized for involved acts that would not add a single baby to the world’s population. However, there are enough illegitimate children on this planet who can say they are “of the Church” to prove that many of the priests and bishops opposed to the family planning bill are authorities on reproduction.



The controversy over family planning is not only about addressing poverty and hunger through population control. It is, more important, also about recognizing every woman’s right over her own body and every couples’ right to decide when and how many children they want to raise.

The Catholic Church has always denied women and couples the right to self-determination in matters that are “sinfully delightful”, to use Gov. Joey Salceda’s zinger du jour.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2370) teaches, “[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.”

It adds (CCC 2399), “Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means . . . for example, direct sterilization or contraception.”

The Church also refuses to see the connection between overpopulation and poverty. It maintains that greed and corruption are the root causes of poverty.

But even if it were to accept the link, the Church is still incorrigibly opposed to the idea of contraception.

“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life” (Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, February 12, 1997).

You can go as far back as AD 307 to Lactantius, an early Christian theologian, who wrote, “[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife (Divine Institutes 6:20).”

Inasmuch as I would like to see it happen, I doubt if Speaker Nograles’ diplomatic offensive would be able to tone down the “acrimonious confrontation” between realists and doctrinaires. A soft approach will not work. A hard line is better.

Nograles should warn the bishops: “If you don’t drop your opposition to this family planning bill, Congress will be forced to consider alternate legislation to address the population problem. We will legalize same-sex marriage and include masturbation education in school curricula starting from the third grade.”

Buencamino is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms (www.aer.ph).

It was only after I submitted the article for publication that the following questions came to mind:

1. Does not so called natural methods contradict CCC 2370 and the Vadecum quoted above?

2. Why does the Church, teaching that sex is only for procreation, allow infertile women to marry and have sex? Why are married couples way past child bearing age allowed sex? Why can menopausal women marry and have sex?

3. Will the Church encourage the use of Viagra so that impotent husbands can procreate?

This report from Counterpunch will astound you.

A Secret Oil Gusher Inside Citigroup
By PAM MARTENS

If you want to flush out market manipulation, don’t turn to the sleuths in Congress.

They’ve been probing trading of the oil markets for two years and completely missed a company at the center of the action.

During that period, a barrel of crude oil has risen from $50 to $140, leaving a wide swatch of Americans facing a choice this coming winter of buying food or paying their heating bill.

The company that Congress overlooked should have been an easy suspect. It launched the oil trading career of the infamous fugitive, Marc Rich, pardoned by President Clinton in the final hours of his presidency.

It was at one time the largest oil and metals trader in the world. In the late 90s it bought up 129 million ounces of silver for legendary investor Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, in London’s unregulated over-the-counter market.

In 1990, it was one of the first entrants into an ill-fated Russian oil venture called White Nights.

In 2005, while part of Citigroup, the largest U.S. banking conglomerate perpetually scolded for obscene executive pay, it handed its chief and top oil trader, Andrew J. Hall, $125 Million for one year’s work.

According to the Wall Street Journal, that was five times the pay package for Chuck Prince, CEO of the entire Citigroup conglomerate that year and $55 Million more than the CEO of Exxon-Mobil.

Given this storied history and two years of congressional testimony on oil trading skullduggery, one would expect to find volumes of current information available about this oil trading juggernaut.

Instead, this company’s activities are so secret that its web site is a one page affair and lists only the addresses, phone and fax numbers of its offices in the U.S., London, Geneva, and Singapore.

No officers’ names, no bios, no history, no press releases. And while the Wall Street firms of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been fingered by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich) for gaming the system, Phibro has completely escaped scrutiny during a seven year period when crude oil has risen an astonishing 697%.

Phibro is the old Philipp Brothers trading firm that has resided secretly and quietly on Nyala Farms Road in Westport, Connecticut as a subsidiary of the banking/brokerage behemoth, Citigroup, since the merger of Traveler’s Group and Citicorp (parent of Citibank) in 1998. Traveler’s Group owned Phibro at the time of the merger.

Despite the fact that Phibro has provided Citigroup with $2 billion in revenue over the past three years, the 205-page annual report for Citigroup in 2007 carries only the following one-sentence footnote on commodity income that acknowledges the existence of this company. “Primarily includes the results of Phibro Inc., which trades crude oil, refined oil products, natural gas, and other commodities.”

Combing through government archives, the first noteworthy appearance of Phibro occurs on April 6, 2001, when the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Federal regulator of oil and other commodity trading, acknowledging that it was representing “the Energy Group.”

The letter was noteworthy because it delineated just who had teamed up to grease the oil rigging in Washington: namely, two investment banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley); a house of cards that would later collapse (Enron); a proprietary trading firm inside a Frankenbank (Phibro inside Citigroup); and two real energy firms (BP Amoco and Koch Industries).

What the Energy Group had long lobbied for and finally received from its Federal regulator was the breathtaking ability to trade oil contracts and oil derivatives secretly in the over- the-counter (OTC) market, thus avoiding the scrutiny of regulated commodity exchanges, their CFTC regulator, and Congress. The April 6, 2001 letter was essentially to say thanks and interpret the new rules as favorably as possible for the Energy Group.

The change in the law occurred via the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) and is called the Enron Loophole. (Since Enron’s trading room went belly up along with the company, and Phibro is still trading oil secretly all over the world, it should perhaps now be called the Phibro Loophole.)

What the CFTC also granted the big Wall Street trading firms was a license to sneak under the radar by using computer terminals located in the U.S. while trading oil on foreign exchanges like the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) located in London but owned by an Atlanta, Georgia outfit that was funded and launched by Wall Street firms and big oil.

On June 3 of this year, Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research for the Consumer Federation of America, correctly outlined the problem to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation:

“The speculative bubble in petroleum markets has cost the economy well over half a trillion dollars in the two years since the Senate [hearings] first called attention to this problem…Public policies have made these markets the playgrounds of the idle rich, while consumers suffer the burden of rising prices for the necessities of daily life. We have made it so easy to play in the financial markets that investment in productive long term assets are unattractive…The most blatant mistake occurred when Congress allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to forego regulation of over the counter trading in energy futures…Because there is no regulation of this huge swatch of activity, regulators have little insight into what is going on in energy commodity markets…Large traders who trade in commodities in the U.S. ought to be required to register and report their entire positions in those commodities here in the U.S. and abroad…If traders are unwilling to report all their positions, they should not be allowed to trade in U.S. markets. If they violate this provision, they should go to jail. Fines are not enough to dissuade abuse in these commodity markets because there is just too much money to be made.”

The only correction I would make to the otherwise flawless argument above is that Wall Street is far from the playground of the “idle” rich. Wall Street executives spend every waking minute (and I’ve heard even dream about) how they can separate us from our money, our homes and a voice in Washington. How appropriate that Citigroup’s slogan is “the Citi never sleeps.”



Let’s say the CFTC was not a compromised regulator, was not an audition stage and revolving door for million dollar jobs in the industry it regulates. Let’s say it genuinely wanted to report back to Congress on just how big a player Citigroup is in the oil markets. According to a February 22, 2008 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Citigroup has over 2,000 principal subsidiaries (meaning it really has more but it’s not naming them). Of these, a significant number are secret offshore entities where records are unavailable to regulators. (For a mind boggling look at this sprawling octopus click here)

So the CFTC can’t get its hands on all records and even in jurisdictions where it can, it first has to know under what names, out of a possible 2,000, Citigroup is trading oil and then aggregate the positions.

On May 6 of this year, Tyson Slocum, Director of the Energy Program at the nonprofit watchdog, Public Citizen, testified before Congress on yet another roadblock preventing a meaningful investigation of oil price manipulation:

“Thanks to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, participants in these newly-deregulated energy trading markets are not required to file so-called Large Trader Reports…These Large Trader Reports, together with the price and volume data, are the primary tools of the CFTC’s regulatory regime…So the deregulation of OTC markets, by allowing traders to escape such basic information reporting, leave federal regulators with no tools to routinely determine whether market manipulation is occurring in energy trading markets…The ability of federal regulators to investigate market manipulation allegations even on the lightly-regulated exchanges like NYMEX [New York Mercantile Exchange] is difficult, let alone the unregulated OTC market.”

Next comes what can only be described as an act of insanity on the part of the Federal Reserve. After allowing for the repeal in 1999 of the depression era investor protection legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Act in order to let Citigroup house retail bank deposits, investment banking, insurance, stock brokerage and speculative proprietary trading under one roof (the perfect storm that intensified the Great Depression) the Federal Reserve decided on October 2, 2003 that Citi wasn’t scary enough.

It needed to allow this company that had already been named in hundreds of lawsuits for securities frauds and manipulations and could not remotely manage itself as a financial firm to ramp up its oil trading business by allowing it to take possession of crude oil on tankers because it would “reasonably be expected to produce benefits to the public.”

Here are excerpts from the Fed’s release suggesting the expansive plans Citi had in the oil storage and transport business:

“…Citigroup has indicated that it will adopt additional standards for Commodity Trading Activities that involve environmentally sensitive products, such as oil or natural gas. For example, Citigroup will require that the owner of every vessel that carries oil on behalf of Citigroup be a member of a protection and indemnity club and carry the maximum insurance for oil pollution available from the club. Citigroup also will require every such vessel to carry substantial amounts of additional oil pollution insurance from creditworthy insurance companies. Furthermore, Citigroup will place age limitations on vessels and will require vessels to be approved by a major international oil company and have appropriate oil spill response plans and equipment. Moreover, Citigroup will have a comprehensive backup plan in the event any vessel owner fails to respond adequately to an oil spill and will hire inspectors to monitor the loading and discharging of vessels. Citigroup also has represented that it will have in place specific policies and procedures for the storage of oil… The Board believes that Citigroup has the managerial expertise and internal control framework to manage the risks of taking and making delivery of physical commodities… For these reasons, and based on Citigroup’s policies and procedures for monitoring and controlling the risks of Commodity Trading Activities, the Board concludes that consummation of the proposal does not pose a substantial risk to the safety and soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally and can reasonably be expected to produce benefits to the public that outweigh any potential adverse effects.”

Voting in favor of this unprecedented action was then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as well as current Chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Could the Fed have been more wrong about Citigroup having “the expertise and internal controls to integrate effectively the risk management…?” Two years later, in March 2005, the bipolar Fed had this to say about Citigroup: “Given the size, scope and complexity of Citigroup’s global operations, successfully addressing the deficiencies in compliance risk management that have given rise to a series of adverse compliance events in recent years will require significant attention….”

Today, the situation is as follows: Citigroup has taken $42 billion in credit losses and writedowns in the past year, just announced that more writedowns are coming, and the Fed has an intravenous money feeding tube hooked up between its vault and this banking/brokerage/subprime mortgage lending/oil trading mad scientist experiment.

In addition to the secretive Phibro oil trading unit, Citi has formed Citigroup Energy and moved it to Houston. In a help wanted ad placed in Canada it described itself as follows: “Citigroup Energy is a global energy trading, marketing and risk management company based in Houston with offices in Calgary, New York, London, and Singapore. Our goal is to become the premier global energy commodities marketing and trading organization. Currently our capabilities include trading and marketing derivatives/structured products in power, natural gas, crude and crude products.”

Enron also called itself the “premier” energy trading organization. Apparently impressed with that model, Citigroup Energy has hired a significant number of former Enron traders.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She has no securities position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com

The New York Times politics blog reports on a panel duscussion at Netroots Nation.

July 18, 2008, 7:37 pm
Easing Off Online Obscenities
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

AUSTIN — Has anyone noticed a decline in the use of obscenities in the blogosphere lately (well, at least when various public figures aren’t being quoted)?

Some prominent bloggers on a panel here at Netroots Nation said today that for a variety of reasons, they have scaled back their use of profanity. Others said they were swearing as much as they ever had.

Digby Parton, who writes on Hullabaloo.com, said she initially thought of her blog as an ephemeral form of conversation among friends and used vulgarities freely. But now she is read by a substantially wider circle and has cleaned up her language.

“I don’t use the same amount of profanity,” she said. “We’re taken much more seriously as a political force,” and she has a stronger sense that her words are “out there for posterity.”

Still, she said, she does not want to take a restrictive view toward language and doesn’t always hold back.

Next on the panel was Lee Papa, a theater professor at the College of Staten Island (part of the CUNY system) who writes the Rude Pundit, which gives you an idea of where he’s coming from.

He said he started his blog during the buildup to the war in Iraq, when, he said, disagreement with the idea of going to war was suppressed. One example: Shortly before the Iraqi invasion, in 2003, Phil Donahue’s talk show, which was often anti-war, was cancelled by MSNBC, even though it was the highest rated of the network’s such shows; an internal memo later revealed that executives thought Mr. Donahue’s would be “a difficult face for NBC in a time of war.”

Mr. Papa said his impulse toward vulgarity, including references to rape, was a reaction to that climate of suppression. Besides, he said, “I curse a lot in my daily life.”

But now, he said, he curses a lot less, almost as if he has developed an internal quota system that lets him get it out of the way each morning.
Kevin Drum, who writes the more proper Political Animal blog for the Washington Monthly, said he tones it down “because my mother reads my blog.”

“I used to swear a lot,” he said. “I like swearing, and I love reading people who do it well.” But he said he discovered that “a lot of people really don’t like it and I shut it down,” both in his personal life and his writing life.

Next on the panel was Duncan Black, aka Atrios of the blog Eschaton and a fellow at Media Matters, who questioned why certain words were perceived as bad when they were describing policies that were truly horrific.

“I’ve toned it down a little bit over the years,” he said, but he added that if he wants to use a certain word, he does.

Amanda Marcotte, who writes on pandagon.net and had been the blogmaster for John Edwards’s presidential campaign until some of her outside writings were deemed anti-Catholic, described her stance on the matter this way: “I curse and I’m vulgar and I make really, really dirty jokes.”

She said she uses obscenities to entertain people and “to show hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of society.”

Jesse Taylor, who founded pandagon in 2002 and was the online communications director for Gov. Ted Strickland, Democrat of Ohio, until earlier this year, moderated the panel. He said he found that he had been using obscenities so frequently that he simply tired of it (and was also constrained by outside writing that did not allow it).

Now, he said, “My use of profanity is much more targeted.” He still sometimes uses vulgarities as shorthand, he said, but he has found that using them less often gives them more power.

The panelists said there were various things they tried to avoid. Mr. Papa said he tried not to write about killing, especially in connection with mentions of the president. Digby said she was not comfortable criticizing people about their appearance. Ms. Marcotte said she tried to see how vulgar she could be “without crossing the line into being sexist.” She added: “My vulgarity stands out because people can’t believe a young woman is saying these things.”

In the end, no one seemed too concerned about the use of obscenities in the blogosphere or whether it undermined their arguments. They more or less shrugged over the recent off-color language used by Jesse Jackson about Senator Barack Obama, language that some mainstream media repeated and others did not.

Mr. Black said the mainstream media sometimes wanted to “let their hair down” and resented those in the blogosphere because they could.

Mr. Papa said that the left is often criticized as humorless but now, “we are using snark, sarcasm and profanity and extreme humor as a way of saying, ‘Yes, there are serious concerns but we also know we need to laugh’.”

Using obscenities acts like a relief valve, he said, and “that’s the kind of thing that keeps a movement together.”

In Business World’s Yellow Pad column, Slvia Estrada Claudio takes a swipe at the bishops’ stand on the reproductive health bill.

No Wafers for Lawmakers?
Sylvia Estrada-Claudio



The headline in a newspaper last week read, “anti-life pols must be refused communion.”



I was excited, at first. I thought, the Catholic Church would refuse communion to: 



1) Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for her bad economic policies that have caused joblessness, malnutrition and hunger. They also might refuse to give her communion for her erosion of the people’s trust in our social institutions and our democratic processes. It does not take a high IQ to know that because of her actions, we are indeed on the road to disharmony, contention, chaos, disease and death.



2) Refuse communion to the NBN-ZTE, Northrail scalawags and other corrupt officials. As a doctor and as an academic, I have interacted through the years with the personnel of the Departments of Health and Education. These are huge government bureaucracies with civil servants on the frontline. Through the years the main problem remains the same: the health and education budgets are meager. The budgets are so small compared to the needs of our people that to describe the amounts as “anti-life” would be no exaggeration. Gloria’s economic professors will tell her that the real road to “asensong mararamdaman” (progress you can feel) is to invest in social services including women’s reproductive health.



3) Refuse communion to politicians who participate in 1) and 2).

But no, I misunderstood. It turns out that it is the legislators sponsoring reproductive health bills that are being threatened.

The newspaper article continues: “Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus Dosado has issued a pastoral letter saying that politicians who consistently campaign for and endorse permissive abortion should be taught about the Church position.”
I must say that I respect the right of the Catholic Church (or any religion) to decide about matters of faith. I really have no comment to make about that debate regarding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. 



But should they tell me to stop buying pins because angels dance on pinheads; should they refuse to give wafers to pin manufacturers; should they refuse communion to lawmakers attempting to put standards on pin manufacture- –well excuse me, Archbishops. Now you enter into secular space and I am allowed to ask you less respectful questions like—are you daft?



Here, in secular space, my good Archbishops, you deserve no more and no less than the rest of us. You deserve to be confronted with scientific fact and evidence and called to account when you misrepresent and mislead.



And so, to a bit of science: the mainstream scientific community, exemplified by the World Health Organization and the International Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, does not consider modern contraceptives abortifacient. Only the Catholic Church and its fringe scientists think so. This is why they bring up the abortion bogey every time legislation for reproductive health services is proposed. The current bills do not legalize abortion, no matter what the Church claims.



The scientific literature on women’s health is also unequivocal. Give people access to contraceptives and you reduce maternal mortality and disability, reproductive tract infections including HIV-AIDS (and here to be precise I am referring to condom use) and improve neonatal survival. Reducing those three problems leads to a host of other benefits for individuals, families, communities, and nation.



So tell me Archbishop Dosado, who told you that giving women full reproductive health services is anti-life? Do you know how many women’s lives are lost because they are denied these services? Do you not read the literature? What right have you to attempt to dictate social policy on the basis of such ignorance?



Here from secular space, I can remind you that to intimidate representatives of the people from doing their duty (the right of couples to determine the number of their children is in our constitution) is probably a criminal undertaking. By the way, the word intimidate is not an exaggeration here. Whether it is lawmakers at the local level such as Councilor Joseph Juico of Quezon City, medical personnel, or members of Congress, the Church intimidates. Tactics like talking to family members, text messages to cellular phones, bad propaganda especially during elections, are common experiences.



Here from secular space, I may also ask for a bit of consistency. I understand that these ravings of the Bishops find their basis in the papal encyclical letter entitled, Humanae Vitae. But if this is so I suggest you further deny communion to: 


1) Catholic priests who:



a) Have had sexual liaisons with adults. 



b) Are pedophiles.



c) Are sexual harassers, rapists, abusive.


d) Suddenly remember their vow of celibacy when they decide to abandon their pregnant lovers.



e) Take their girlfriends for an abortion. (Trust me on this. The medical community knows. Our vow of confidentiality keeps us from telling.)



2) Anyone using a modern contraceptive.



3) Anyone who is divorced.



I argue that all of these suggestions are consistent with Humanae Vitae and its views on the sacredness of life. 



And finally, dear Bishops, a few more words of advice. Perhaps you should ask yourselves whether democracy is still important to Catholicism, since a majority of Catholics in the Philippines and in the world are for modern contraceptives. Perhaps you should also behave with more humility considering many Filipinos (including lawmakers) aren’t even Catholic and have no idea what the fuss is about. Perhaps you should be more reality-based considering many people think they are reading Noli me Tangere when they hear you, and they are proud to have overthrown that kind of Catholicism.



Perhaps, dear Bishops, you should leave the few lawmakers who still have my respect, alone.

Sylvia Estrada Claudio is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms. A doctor of medicine and a PhD in Psychology, she is an Associate Professor of Women and Development Studie and the Director of the Center for Women’s Studies at the University of the Philippines. She chairs the Board of Directors of Likhaan, which advocates sexual and reproductive health and rights.

This is what Arroyo’s drumbeaters have to say:

Press Secretary Dureza:

The President will continue to undertake even unpopular, but necessary measures for the nation.

Here’s what Dureza’s sidekick, Lorelei Fajardo, had to add:

It’s lonely at the top…where else shall the people look for relief but from the President and government. The dissatisfaction does not come as a surprise. As a country we are all suffering from the world economic downturn, factors beyond our control have seriously assaulted our economy and our way of life….

Popularity is not what is important at this time, much as it is desired it is not what this administration is after. The President and her economic team would rather buckle down to the nitty-gritty of seeking ways to help cushion the effect of the world economic situation and just see to the immediate and effective implementation of programs to benefit our people…it maybe lonely at the top…but the President is committed to see us thru challenges.

Those reactions would explain the further rise in the dissatisfaction ratings of Gloria Arroyo. But they don’t explain why she has had consistent negative ratings for years. What accounts for her consistent unpopularity? That’s the unanswered question.

Furthermore, the line about unpopularity - “Leadership is not about popularity”- as elucidated by Carmen Pedrosa of the “deception” and “gigantic fraud” Cha-cha initiative, is false because leadership in a system based on popular elections rests on popularity and nothing else.

In our system, a leader has to sell himself and his platform. Saying “you can hate me all you want but I’m doing this for your own good” just doesn’t wash.

There is an old saying in diplomatic circles that goes, “a good diplomat can tell you to go to hell and you will still thank him for it.” That skill is a basic requirement for national leaders in our type of system.

Without it one has no chance winning without cheating. And a cheater will not stay long in office without using all the resources of his office to frustrate the popular will.

Those who cannot sell themselves have no business being politicians in our system. They are fit only for undemocratic systems. That’s why Gloria has taken to corrupting and emasculating all forms of checks and balances on her unpopular policies and personality. She has killed the popular will while maintaining the facade of a free and open society.

Even if Gloria were to turn the country into an enchanted kingdom overnight. the people still won’t like her. The woman is simply unlikable.That’s something she has to learn to accept.

The less contact she has with the people, the better it is for her ratings. Instead of going around the country “nagbibisibusyhan,” as Manolo Quezon puts it, she should just let her “accomplishments”, if any, do the talking.

In other words, “ramdam na ramdam ang ginhawa” if indeed true would go farther without her presence. Palace image makers have to learn one thing: a make-over, no matter how many, won’t do anything for Gloria. So it’s better to keep her low profile. Just like what they did with Fat Mike. Pictures of Gloria meeting with her cabinet and at work at her desk will work better. To use Aristophanes’ denigrating description of a popular politician, she has “a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.”

In our system, popularity is the only thing. Don’t let anybody fool you into thinking otherwise.

Today’s Business Mirror headline read BSP hikes rates by 50 basis pts.

The rate hike is supposed to temper inflation kasi, as my economist friend explains, higher interest rates mop up liquidity in the system by encouraging savings and discouraging loans.

So my question is this, “Are prices up because the Filipino is awash with cash?”

Of course the answer to that is, “ni wala ngang pambili ng pagkain!”

“So why raise interest rates to temper inflation that does not come from too much liquidity?”

My economist friend said, “Eh yan ang tinuro sa kanila sa school. Kala nila inflation pare-pareho lahat so iisa lang solution. Fact is every inflation is different because the causes are different. This inflation is caused by oil and food prices. There’s nothing we can do about the global price of oil. We could have done something about food prices but our great leader was so busy investing in her survival and her pocketbook she didn’t have any time or money left for food production.”

“So what can we do now?”

“I don’t know. Use a condom, I guess.”

“”Eh pano yun Katas ng Vat?”

“Anong katas, yun nga ang condom!”

Just saw The Dark Knight. It’s long.

The new Batman is like the new James Bond. His character has evolved and that makes him more interesting than the old campy TV super-hero and the early Batman. Although the campy Batman was a lot of fun too. Just like the old Bond.

I know it’s not proper to say anything negative about the dead Heath Ledger but I kept seeing a lot of Depp and more than a hint of Nicholson in his Joker.

The girlfriend’s fiery exit had to happen. She was perfect for Batman but a bit too homey for the Dark Knight.

Anyway, now that Batman has made the leap from super-hero to vigilante when is he finally going to kill somebody?

Hopefully, Hollywood will finally break away from its creepy preachiness. Those skin crawl breaks in the middle of violence and mayhem are getting too tedious and old.