The eight commandment does not mean anything to a Pinoy public servant. More often, it is just a reminder by the jolly pastor. Public funds have no ownership. Government position is one big picnic. One hears that a government salary is an anchor against the time’s uncertainties. Going private means one has reached a dead...
Delay becomes our culture. Time, we have plenty of it. Our perception of time is a concept, not an exact measurement of an otherwise ephemeral given. Time for us is, right, ephemeral: something ghostlike, passing, and ethereal. We fix our mornings from sunrise to noon; and the afternoon from noon to sundown. A stick of...
It was a quite day in the office. With only his secretary pounding on her keyboard when the landline rang. He thought it was one of those clients penny-pinching on his e-load.The guy on the other line was a former undersecretary of a government agency and having got wind of his application in the Judicial...
In a matter of 14 months, the next elections loom large. For the first time in our provincial political history, a father and son put their political fate on the chopping block. They are now testing their theory that at last the people of Quezon are not a thinking lot. The days of dynasties have...
SUPREME COURT MANILA EIGHTH DIVISION PHILIPPINE RURAL RECONSTRUCTION MOVEMENT (PRRM), Petitioner, - versus – SC-G.R. SP NO.: 169227 (CA-GR. CV-No. 62036) VIRGILIO E. PULGAR, Respondent. x————————————–x COMMENTS RESPONDENT, by counsel, most respectfully submits this Comments to the petition and opposes the same on the following overriding grounds : A. Petitioner raises new defense/matters worse, questions...
My mother always thought that I’d grow up as a big time gambling lord. I went home late evenings with bulging pockets full of tansans, teks, kaha ng yosi, and rubber bands. At the age of eight she caught me tossing bingkong coins under the house of her favorite neighbor, Aling Maring. I got the...
This country could no longer afford a stranded economy. Five more years or we crumble from the sheer weight of poverty or we implode from the misdirected infightings of the subsidized institutions. The various power centres are simply running amuck. Listening from Nene Pimentel’s acid rants one could hear the self righteousness of thousand others...
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? Charles De Gaulle, in “Les Mots du General”, 1962 French general & politician (1890 – 1970) Whether we like it or not, FVR is a tempting alternative. The Cory years, 1986-1992, gave us a glimpse of the sterner stuff of Ramos. Of course...
(Here’s another unedited letter from a friend from across the globe who longed to return to his hometown, Calauag, Quezon) Hi Sonny, Salamat sa mga kuwento mo. Na refresh ang mga memories ko sa Manila. Arturito is my older brother and my middle name is de la Costa. Palagay ko ka batch nga kita at...
What the opposition and the administration are doing right now is nothing but plain gang war. In this type of conflict, there are no ground rules. The row is no-holds-barred and the protagonists are locked in mortal combat. First, there were those bogus cards that circulated prior to Christmas in 2001 with a cryptic message....
Literally translated in English it means “sourness retained” or “sour still”. The language switch however does not do justice to its real meaning. Sourness is synonymous with dourness. It conjures up an idea of acidity and therefore repulsive. Its free translation should be “sweetness retained” or “sweet still” and captures its sense in greater part....
The island of Alabat has three towns, two are on the opposite ends and the third is in the middle. The elongated island is about 33 kms. long and 5 kms. wide. Its nearest point to the mainland is the poblacion of Quezon, which is about 700 meters off Roma Point, part of Guitis, Quezon....
