Broken Arrow

ABS-CBN has reported that the PEP Test Review Center has threatened to bolt the UAAP.

The De La Salle University (DLSU) administration on Thursday threatened to break away from the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) following the one-year suspension imposed on the school for fielding two ineligible basketball players, DZMM reported.

And I thought it would only be for one season. No more lining up for tickets, forever!

Incidentally, a regular poster on various internet fora, managed to dig up a CHED Memorandum Order from 2003 regarding "Precautionary Measures In Accepting/Enrolling Students with PEPT Documents." It was issued "in consonance with the advisory from the [DepEd], that a number of unscrupulous individuals were found submitting falsified documents to gain admission in college."

The signatory? A certain Rolando Ramos Dizon.

Hope Springs Eternal

When it rains, it pours. PDI has reported that the Supreme Court has declared Gloria's Calibrated Preemptive Response unconstitutional.

THE SUPREME Court has declared as unconstitutional the Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR) policy of the government but said that Batas Pambansa 88 or the Public Assembly Act was legal.

Voting 13-0, the high court ordered the Department of Interior and Local Government to strictly implement Section 15 of BP880.

The CPR bans street rallies without permits and gives the government the authority to deal with protesters accordingly.

Section 15 provides that: “Every city and municipality in the country shall within six months after the effectivity of this Act establish or designate at least one suitable ‘freedom park’ or mall in their respective jurisdictions which, as far as practicable, shall be centrally located within the poblacion where demonstrations and meetings may be held at any time without the need of any prior permit.”

The SC voted 13-0, barely a week after they voted 14-0 against EO 464. Wow. Basted na naman. At the rate Gloria is going, she is going to set a record of sorts for most number of manifestly unconstitutional orders and/or policies struck down unanimously by the Supreme Court.

I am sure that inspite of the unanimous vote, some moron from Malacañang is going to say that they are going to ask the high court to reconsider. Well, good luck to you.

Letters

What follows is a letter sent by a certain Dennis L. Reyes from Torrance, CA to the PDI. It is, by far, the best letter to the editor that I have ever read. I am publishing it here in toto.

I DON’T understand why people are afraid of Charter change. It offers the best opportunity for us to install the best and the brightest Filipino as our eternal leader.

In fact, instead of shifting to a parliamentary form of government, why don’t we just become a monarchy, with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the queen -- or the empress, if you will. This will fulfill the dreams of Apo Marcos about a Philippine Maharlika. This will also bring us back to the glorious years of kings and queens, of France’s Marie Antoniette, of Russia’s czars and czarinas during the Romanov dynasty.

Then we can grant the poor royal titles so that their lives will be uplifted. We can call them knights or dukes or duchesses and their shanties will be referred to as castles or manors. This way Charter change can solve the poverty of our people.

Another reason for us to support Charter change is that it has the support of Ms Arroyo, who talks to the “Lord” as she talked to Pope John Paul before he died. Ms Arroyo is the Philippines’ Joan of Arc. By giving us Ms Arroyo and her knights of traditional politicians, the Lord shows that he loves Filipinos. Ms Arroyo is the will of the Lord. Nobody should contest the will of the Lord.

So everyone should support Charter change. It’s our only salvation from all our problems. It’s the bullet that a man with brain cancer needs in his head.

Ms Arroyo said so. Has she lied to us before?

There's Always Next Year

By now, everybody should have already heard that those cheaters from the PEP Test Review Center along Taft have been suspended from participation in all events in the UAAP. From UBelt.com:

The University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) has suspended De La Salle University for one year—in Season 69—for negligence as regards the spurious academic documents of two members of its men’s varsity basketball team.

“After due deliberation and in the interest of the league, the board with all the members present and in accordance with its rules and regulation[s] by a unanimous vote decided to suspend [the] De La Salle University,” the UAAP board ruled.

Furthermore: “By three fourths vote of its members qualified to vote in accordance with its rules[,] the board decided that [the] De La Salle University shall be suspended for a period of one year effective UAAP Season 69 and shall cover all sports events.”

This means that we all have to wait for one more season before we can unfurl any banner or poster, making any reference whatsoever to the government-administered PEP Test. Admittedly, there wouldn't be as much fun without those idiots, but at least, we can now be sure that we don't have to line up for hours for tickets next season.

Thank You. Try Again.

I am interrupting regular programming to happily announce to the world that Executive Order 464 has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

You might remember that Gloria issued EO 464 to bar officials from the executive, military, and police from appearing in legislative inquiries without her consent. While she has softened on her position and allowed officials to appear before confirmation hearings and those related to the passage of the 2006 budget bill, she has stubbornly withheld her consent in all inquiries on various illegal and criminal activities which tend to establish her complicity therein (see wiretapping scandal and the fertilizer fund scam).

Now that it has been declared unconstitutional, I can't wait to see the face of the first lucky bastard who gets invited to Congress for a little chit-chat.

Of Mice and Men

Change of plans. The Harry Roque Funfest did not push through last Saturday. Everybody was there waiting to undergo their final rites, only to be disappointed, because no proctor - and no exam - arrived. In local parlance, in-indian kami.

As always, when shit hits the fan, you blame the PC. Harry has apparently already sent the questions via email to his staff, who for one reason or another, was not able to receive it (fortuitous event perhaps?). That sound that you hear is the sound of all those years of believing that email is infinitely more dependable than the Philpost going down the drain. Of course, I am being sarcastic.

In other news, I have finally given in. I have resisted it for as long as I possibly could, but alas, I am but human. I now have a Friendster account.

Big Time

Gloria has finally made it.

No, she has not yet successfully proclaimed herself dictator-for-life. She has also not yet managed to tinker with the Constitution to make it suit her needs. Nor has she been able to finally stifle all forms of dissent, muzzle the press, or cow the opposition to submission.

She was, however, the subject of the New York Times' editorial yesterday entitled "Dark Days for Philippine Democracy." The New York Times.

Mrs. Arroyo is no Ferdinand Marcos, at least not yet. But this onetime reformer is reviving bad memories of crony corruption, presidential vote-rigging and intimidation of critical journalists. Unless the Philippine Congress and courts find ways to rein in her increasingly authoritarian tendencies, democracy itself may be in danger.

Yeah, baby!

I'm still waiting for Raul Gonzales to make some wiseass remark about the Times. I also can't wait to finally hear Gloria sing:

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today...

One L

This Saturday at 5PM, I would be saying goodbye to good ol' Malcolm Hall.

Hopefully, only for two months.

There will be one last mental torture session before we officially call it a semester - and a year. It's really hard to concentrate on what needs to be done at this point, when you are practically counting the days and hours down, before you finally find yourself mercifully emancipated, albeit temporarily, from all the horror and drudgery incident to this unique form of self-imposed struggle and hard labor.

I was, suprisingly, still able to find (though barely) the impetus to prepare for the upcoming weekend, in spite of the wretched Crim 2 finals that we all had to suffer last Saturday. For this weekend, I decided to just reread Jurado's reviewer, and let the chips fall where they may. It wouldn't be as comprehensive as rereading Tolentino, but fuck it, I am not going to read IV Tolentino again. I am also almost sure that it's a lot better than not reviewing at all.

So, on Saturday at 5PM, I will use everything in my power to find a way to celebrate this "momentous occasion." There's not really much to it when you look at the big picture, but when you survived the last year the way I did, by surviving it one recit, one case, one day at a time, every single day is a milestone. So, I will eat. I will drink. And I sure as hell will be merry.

Eloquence

If I Only Had a Brain

Quinito Henson, a Lasallite through and through, averred in his column yesterday that "Arana has accumulated 24 units of failures and is not academically qualified to reenroll at La Salle."

Well, there goes all those AHEAD tutorial billboards. Evidently, Arana needed tutorial services. Badly. But, come on, they might as well have asked the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz to endorse their services. It's just like asking Bembol Roco to endorse a brand of shampoo.

It is assumed, nevertheless, that Arana passed all his dancing courses at DLRT with flying colors.

Felonies for Dummies

Who would have thought that it was possible to learn Criminal Law in three weeks? Yep, we basically breezed through crimes against persons, personal liberty and security, property, chastity, and honor, and criminal negligence all within the last three weeks of the semester. We actually learned theft all the way down to criminal negligence in one meeting.

After a week of trying, I was finally able to finish reading Reyes' commentary on the RPC last Sunday morning (about 1:30 AM). Whether I actually learned anything from it is yet to be seen. My pace was hardly inspiring. On Monday night, I was able to read from robbery to brigandage; then on Tuesday, theft to fraudulent insolvency; on Wednesday, i was able to start on estafa and finished estafa through abuse of confidence; on Thursday, estafa through deceit to other deceits. I called in sick last Friday and just rolled - chattel mortgage all the way to white slave trade. Then, on Friday night, I finished abduction and all the provisions under Title XII, and on Saturday all the way to Sunday morning, finished the rest of the oh-so-lovely commentary on punishable acts and omissions under this jurisdiction.

So, if ever I pass the exam on Saturday, which by the way would constitute 60% of my final grade, I can probably muster enough mojo to pass myself off as an authority on crime and punishment, and assert my knowledge of specific felonies, such as say, illegal use of uniforms or insignia.

Blogging Barbie

All Work and No Play is Bad

It has just been reported that the Sony PlayStation 3 will not be released until November.

TOKYO--(UPDATE) Sony will put off the release of its much awaited PlayStation 3 machine until November from its planned spring debut because of delays in finalizing its next-generation disk technology, the company said Wednesday.

Now, that would have been sad, if I was liquid enough to buy a console on its original release date. As it turns out, I may just have enough moolah by November to get me one in time for Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

Muchas Grasas

I don't know about you, but I think the society pages are a load of crap.

I say it's useless. Granted that the top 5% richest families in the country read this section before they do Pugad Baboy, just imagine how many trees PDI and the other papers can save by not printing this section altogether. You see, the rich folks - or as Maurice Arcache puts it, "all the beautiful people" - can spew out hot air among each other, without involving us innocent civilians, since they all live within three blocks of each other anyway.

Que horror, palanggas! Unfortunately, this will not alleviate the pain and suffering of society writers, which may be caused by restraining their propensity to list the names of these uber-rich people and their current paramours. Surely, not only Class A folks deserve to know who, for instance, the "civic-minded hotshot personalities from the business, arts and culture sectors" are, while using adjectives such as "adorable," "world traveler and renowned," "popular couple," and one of my favorites, "ultra glam" in the process. All in one sentence.

If these pages have a redeeming value, it's this: these pages can explain why the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, better than any investigative journalist's work can. You see, you and I have about the same chances as a snowball's in hell, in having a "seven-course degustation dinner at The Tivoli" with one of these "gorgeous" and "stylish" society folks. You can imagine your chances in dating, much less marrying one of them.

So you see, palanggas, the "chi-chi pack" keep the wealth amongst themselves. It doesn't go out of the family.

P.S. Seriously though, during these times, when people line up for days for a chance to win prizes from television shows and escape poverty in the process, showing off what rich people do with their spare time is just plain tasteless.

Where's the Babble?

Tonight, at 7:35 PM, Red Bull Barako will play its first game in the PBA Philippine Cup vs. perennial favorite San Miguel Beer. For some people, myself included, the game itself will be somewhat overshadowed by Rich Alvarez' reunion with Enrico Villanueva, Larry Fonacier and Paolo Bugia, who for the first time since 2002, will be donning the same jerseys. Just in case you just crawled out from under a rock, these players (except Bugia, who was injured that year), together with Wesley Gonzales and LA Tenorio, formed the core of the 2002 UAAP champions Ateneo Blue Eagles.

Gonzales, incidentally, will be playing for the other side tonight, after a mid-season trade with Airhead21 which brought him to SMB, where he joins fellow Atenean Olsen Racela. Tonight's game will thus feature all six active Blue Eagles in the PBA.

Which begs the question: what the hell was BJ Manalo smoking when he said

My dream, even as a kid, was to play professional basketball. In my mind, Ateneo is the school to go if you dream to become successful in the corporate world, but not to achieve in pro basketball.

Wow, mali.

Ignorance is Strength

If you have read George Orwell's 1984, I am sure that (1) unlike 99% of the viewing public, you know why the show is called Pinoy Big Brother, and (2) Supreme Editor-in-Chief Lomibao's antics are starting to sound like Orwell's Minitrue to you.

Minitrue, or the Ministry of Truth, is one of Oceania's four ministries. It is:

The propaganda arm of Oceania's regime. Minitrue controls political literature, the Party organization, and the telescreens. Winston Smith works for Minitrue, "rectifying" historical records and newspaper articles to make them conform to IngSoc's most recent pronouncements, thus making everything that the Party says true.

If we are indeed living in Orwell's 1984, Minitrue would be headed by, naturally, Toting "Fake CD" Bunye. Supreme Editor-in-Chief Lomibao, on the other hand, would probably be one of its most trusted agents.

Joke Time

As if we need more proof to show that Gloria is truly out of touch with the harsh realities of life for the majority of the Filipinos, she just decided to explain why brain drain is a good thing.

WHILE most observers agree that Filipinos are leaving the country in droves for lack of job opportunities here, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that the worker exodus was propelled by strong overseas demand for their talents and not by desperate conditions at home.

Maybe she's right. Maybe Filipino doctors are not really desperate. Maybe there is just a very strong demand for Filipino nurses abroad.

If nothing else, what she said just shows you that there is not a single OFW in the Macapagal-Arroyo clan.

What's in a name?

It's now in the hands of the Supreme Court. Let us all pray that they would have the balls to decide the case on the merits, rather than dismiss it outright on ground of mootness (which is precisely why Gloria lifted it in the first place, dummy). Otherwise, as Drilon noted, "the media and freedom of the press may become academic."

While the President has the power to impose martial law or suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, Gloria has not resorted to either, because they are subject to the review of Congress and/or the Supreme Court. This is one of the many safeguards enshrined in the 1987 Constitution after the nation's collective experience with Martial Law. Gloria, on two previous occasions, resorted to the third commander-in-chief power which says "when it becomes necessary, she may call on the Armed Forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence or rebellion." This power has no "expiry date", and is generally beyond the power of review by the Supreme Court.

Just to refresh our memories, here are the two previous instances when Gloria called on the AFP:

In a May 2001 case involving an attempt by supporters of ousted President Joseph Estrada to march on Malacañang, the court held that the issue had become academic after Ms Arroyo rescinded her declaration of a state of rebellion.

However, Bernas recalled that the court dealt Ms Arroyo a setback in the Oakwood mutiny case in 2003 when it ruled even after the President had lifted a similar proclamation that a state of rebellion “cannot diminish or violate constitutionally protected rights.”

As Bernas noted yesterday

These two decisions clarify the meaning and the legal consequences of a declaration of a "state of rebellion." Such declaration adds no new powers. Our President, zealous guardian that she is of the "rule of law," accepts that clarification. But, desiring to assume powers which a declaration of a state of rebellion does not give, she avoided declaring a "state of rebellion." Instead, she proclaimed "a state of national emergency" to let her minions go their merry way. Beautiful!

There are innumerable words in the English dictionary. Merriam-Webster Online lists five synonyms for the word rebellion alone, i.e. revolution, uprising, revolt, insurrection and mutiny, which Gloria has not yet used as a euphemism for her own personal state of paranoia and panic. Now, unless the SC decides this controversy with finality, we may yet see this country under all different kinds of states, with nothing but Gloria's imagination to limit the possibilities.

That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.

2nd Generation

This is definitely one of the better Jordan commercials that I have seen. Not bad for a guy who has not been playing competitive ball since 2003.

Brokeback Mountain, Again