Owner: (Mis)readings URL:http://karlomongaya.wordpress.com Join Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:48:28 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: a blog featuring counterobservations on events and texts from the vantage point of an eccentric, optically inconvenienced, and culturally dispossessed resident from the Southern Philippines. Site statistics:Click here
Naga: At the Crossroads 2007-07-11 11:37:09
The following the speech delivered by Mayor Valdemar Chiong, the first mayor of the soon to be Naga City, during the inauguration of the country’s first ever SME Industrial Park:
For years, Enan – my brother the late mayor Ferdinand Chiong – and I dreamed of a progressive and sustainable industrial city of Naga.
Maybe Enan thought he would be more effective up there. Everything seems to be falling in place.
Right after my election as mayor – I based the successful campaign on the 15-point strategic platform that Naganhons now refer to as Vision and Leadership 2020 or VAL 2020 – and I immediately proceeded to Manila to push hard for the first priority as mayor-elect: that of making Naga a city.
With the enthusiasm Naganhons expressed in welcoming the “photo-finish” Senate approval, come the plebiscite this August, I am looking forward to a huge turnout and an overwhelming YES.
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Read more:Crossroads
RP’s First SME Industrial Park is in Naga, Cebu 2007-07-11 01:58:17 I was in Cantao-an, Naga this morning as the assistant media coordinator for the successful inauguration of the country’s first ever SME Industrial
Park.
The park’s launching is good news for the country’s small and medium entrerprises (SMEs) who will be locating in the park:
Unlike other industrial parks that only lease the land to locators, the Plantersbank SME Industrial Park offers ownership of industrial lots ranging from 1,000 square meters to 2 hectares, making it easier for SMEs to better plan construction and expansion of their manufacturing plant.
…this project offers incentives to SMEs including exemption on taxes and duties on importation of capital equipment, tax credits for locally sourced capital equipment, exemption on export tax and import fees, a four to eight year holiday on income taxes, and 5% income tax on gross income following the tax holiday.
Eight investors already bought lots in the park even before its official opening today. They an Read more:First
Ceasefire? 2007-07-09 16:55:20 No I’m not talking about the ceasefire declaration required by the Philippine Government for the resumption of the peacetalks with the CPP-NPA-NDF. Yesterday, a brief article came up in Sun.Star Daily Cebu’s Lifestyle Section calling for a ceasefire between Tommy Osmena and Gwen Garcia.
I will not add anything new here. My latest sentiment was encapsulated in an answer to a comment by a certain miss Mary Fernandez in a previous entry in this blog:
I am taking no side in their present conflict as there are a lot of deeper issues, conflicting material interests and other dimensions than what meets the eye.
But a ceasefire? Hell, no. I am now convinced that there is no need for them to make amends. Each arguement they release is a step towards improving the province and the city. [Please refer to “Gwen and Tom’s Business.”]
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More Good News: New 7 Wonders of the World 2007-07-08 16:21:51
“The Great Wall of China was named as one of the new seven wonders of the world on Saturday in the Portugal’s capital of Lisbon, July 7, 2007. Brazil’s Statue of Christ Redeemer, Peru’s Machu Picchu, Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid, Jordan’s Petra, the Colosseum in Rome and India’s Taj Mahal were also chosen as the modern-day seven wonders of the world, according to a global vote by about 100 million Internet and telephone voters around the world.” (Xinhua Photo)
The addition of seven modern-day wonders is not good news for some western cultural and historical purists but it sure is for me. This strengthens my chances of being able to visit one of them some day, since all the other Seven Wonders
of the Ancient World
has been lost to history except for the Pyramid of Giza.
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Naga SME Park Opening Pictures 2007-07-16 02:38:56 I am posting some pictures of last Wednesday’s inauguration of the country’s first SME Industrial Park in Barangay Cantao-an, Naga, Cebu.
Here are links to some online pickups of the inauguration’s print coverage:
Bank launches industrial park for SMEs in Cebu
SME Industrial Park launched in Naga
(Anti)Terror law starts Sunday
Naga to surge ahead
There are a few more columns in the bisaya in Sun.Star Superbalita which I cannot find in their website’s archives. There are also two other news articles in The Freeman which was published on the same day (July 13, 2007) .
I like the two stories written since both reports developed other angles about the SME Park opening. They were headlined RP economy heading to full recovery and Industrial park to boost RP’s micro-enterprises.
Related Entries:
No Elections in Maguindanao
A Blueprint for Cebu’s Emerging Cities
RP’s First SME Industrial Park in Naga, Cebu
Naga: At the Crossroads
Read more:Pictures
Bad Girls Rule 2007-07-15 06:00:43 Taking note of topics that the mainstream media finds as the most important news (What sells the best. Duh, what doesn’t sell is not news at all.) led me to this - the sensational and the scandalous. And what is hotter than showbiz’s bad girls? So here we have them:
First in line is movie beauty Jessica Alba who bravely appealed for more explicit male nudity in print.
The 26-year-old Fantastic Four actress is disgusted by the inequality between gender-targeted publications and is leading a campaign for more explicit nudity for female readers.
She says, “Men’s magazines have nipples, so why don’t women have a magazine where men show their penises?
“If there was a magazine like that I’d buy it. Nudity’s not a big deal to me.”
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Read more:Girls
, Bad Girls
Payback Time 2007-07-14 10:01:12 The frontpage of today’s Inquirer issue reminds me of my short stay in Mindanao with my mother during the early and mid 90s. Along with this huge photo of marines in PT boats is the headline: Payback time: AFP girding for major offensive.
I can’t remember some of my experiences in Mindanao, but events there seems to have struck a familiar chord in me from time to time that it even led me to help initiate a donation drive back in highschool. (Refer to my letter dated May 17, 2000, the first item I reposted for this blog)
Indeed, the raging separatist rebellion in the south has become one of the most enduring political themes in the nation’s consciousness. From its beginnings in the late 60s in what will eventually be termed by succeeding governments as the “Moro Problem,” this has been a source of much anguish, sorrow, difficulties, and at times brutal realities.
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Who’s Responsibility? 2007-07-17 11:01:51
Last month, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita claimed that the principle of command responsibility does not include President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Command responsibility, Ermita said, “only applies to military personnel and does not include the President as commander-in-chief.” According to him, the doctrine only applies to officials two ranks higher than the perpetrator.
Progressive organizations were quick to dismiss Ermita’s statement as ridiculous and incredulous:
“This interpretation is an invention of Ermita and runs contrary to accepted principles of international law wherein even heads of state can be tried for crimes involving human rights abuses.”
Today, the GMA administration seems headed for a major rebuff as legal experts categorically backs up the assertion of the progressives:
“A superior will incur command responsibility if he or she knows or has reason to know that his or her subordinates are about to commit or have committed crime Read more:Responsibility
Avril Stole Girlfriend? 2007-07-16 17:23:49 Canadian pop sensation Avril
Lavigne singer is now being sued by the members of a 70s rockband who assert that one of their tunes were plagiarized by Avril in her hit song Girlfriend
.
Songwriters Tommy Dunbar and James Gangwer alleged in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that Lavigne and her co-writers lifted their 1979 song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, which was originally performed by new wave band The Rubinoos.
Let’s do a trial by publicity. Here are clips of the two songs. You decide:
The Rubinoos - I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
Related Entries:
Stars Draw Flak
PBB Triviality!
Bad Girls Rule
Read more:Stole
Inside the Latest Harry Potter 2007-07-23 06:07:20
Warning: This post contains plot spoilers on the latest HarryPotter
book. Skip reading this post if you have no intention to know the possible contents of the new book. But if you do, please continue.
I always thought of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series as one of the biggest triumphs in the literary world of recent times. It’s not because of the profits raised from the books’ phenomenal sales. More importantly, it inspired non-readers to take interest in books at a time when the only thing people seem to be reading are tabloid headlines, shortened cellphone texts, and friendster message board titles.
The newest addition to the popular series - - should help renew interest in reading books. And this seemed the case Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowsas thousands of Harry Potter fans snapped the first copies of the novel last July 21, 2007.
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First Year Elections in UP Cebu 2007-07-22 07:40:08
The two are Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante’s candidates for tomorow’s first year student council representative elections. (Something to look out for aside from GMA’s State of the Nation address and her rehashed speeches.)
Sheena, who finished secondary education in Mandaue Science Highschool, finished third in last year’s National STEP Parliamentary Procedures Competition. Jan, a Young Minds Academy Scholar, was a delegate to the Pinoy-Dutch Explore 2007 in Netherlands and the Search for Noble Heroes in Vismin Trinennial Exhange Series held in Davao City.
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Read more:First
, Elections
Human Security Act: Worse than 1984 2007-07-21 04:17:57 It’s a week after the first day of implementation of the Human Security Act (HSA), which is more commonly known as the anti-terror law.
An urban poor leader of the partylist Anakpawis was shot dead in Tacloban, Leyte. And today, after more than three months of denying involvement in the abduction of Jonas Burgos, an army chief declares: Jonas is NPA. Incredulous! Even if we accept his statement, his illegal arrest by suspected military men still continues to violate his human rights.
All this further justify concerns about abuses that could arise out of the newly implemented anti-terror law.
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The Evolution of PGMA 2007-07-23 11:59:19 Every third Monday of July is the date of Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). I expected her to rehash hollow words the country’s economic development repeated over and over again since 2001.
Nothing much has changed with Arroyo’s seventh SONA. She spent 56 minutes giving out glowing words to her patrons and enumerating a list of infrastructure projects in what seemed like a very long travelogue around the country. The people remains downtrodden as ever.
So with the same worn-out rhetoric being peddled by the president inside the Batasan I look for something interesting that may, as yet, encapsulate the real state of the nation. I find that in the various images that depict the president - symbols that are far from the public image that she tries so vainly to project.
And these symbols, I believe, have become best expressed in effigies - huge figurine parodies that has come to reflect Arroyo’s evolution as our banana republic’s Read more:Evolution
Where is Jonas? 2007-07-28 09:42:34
Disregarding a Supreme Court Order, the military deliberately failed to present the missing activist Jonas
Burgos at an hearing of the Court of Appeals yesterday. Earlier, officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) announced exactly what they just did:
“We will appear before the court and we will respectfully reiterate our earlier statement that Jonas Burgos is not in our custody and that we are not aware of his whereabouts,” AFP information chief Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro told reporters…”
I think this is completely misleading. Contrary to the AFP information chief’s statements, the military has not been ignorant of Jonas’ whereabouts.
I mean, was it not an AFP general himself who categorically stated that Jonas was a member of the communist-led New People’s Army? The official, Lt. gen. Romeo Tolentino, who spoke like a longtime buddy of Jonas, was even quoted by the Inquirer saying “Kasi parang masalimuot ang buhay niyan
SONA Sideshow 2007-07-26 06:05:08 Before anything else, I am greeting my friend Dada. He is turning twenty today. You can find him at Cogency of Absurdity.
For some time now the State of the Nation Address (SONA) has occupied a prominent place in the attention of the blogosphere netizens. So far, most of the posts I’ve read fall into two categories: either they think the SONA is a farce or it’s lacking in some way or another.
Manuel Quezon III, one of my favorite columnists, cites several of such commentaries in his blog.
Post-SONA hangover 2007 edition shares his insightful take on the recent SONA while the Pork Barrel Republic: SONA coverage provides a witty and off-beat transcript of last Monday’s proceedings inside the Batasan.
His coverage proved very useful as a chronological account of the events in the House. I had very important classes and was thus cut off from monitoring developments the whole day.
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Congratulations to NKE 2007-07-25 00:00:24 Congratulations to the Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante for winning a seat in the recently concluded Student Council First Year Rep. Elections.
Anyway, here’s another thing on the SONA. I’ll get back on this tomorrow but for now: Mong Palatino commented on how the president used numbers to bloat her achievements while deliberately failing to mention the more important numbers.
The following article from the Philippine Collegian presents some of the figures that Arroyo forgot to say in her SONA:
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Read more:Congratulations
On the Same Street: Beryl Gives me a Book 2007-07-30 08:59:20 My girlfriend, Beryl
, gave me a book (among the other things we exchanged today.) It’s Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories. This should be another addition to the books I am still and will be reading.
The last time I read Tolstoy was in highschool when I read two of his short stories included in a collection titled Great Russian Short Stories. I also tried reading his novel War and Peace during my last year in elementary but didn’t finish it. (I haven’t opened it again since then.)
Also for today, my father talked about the lessons he learned from his visit to Manila last week. Manuel Quezon III points out the lack of a common political vocabulary and its effect of fermenting apathy among the country’s younger generations.
And Mong collects tidbits about the Human Security Act from other bloggers in his recent entry for Global Voices Online.
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Read more:Street
The World’s Most Read Blogger 2007-07-29 08:09:41 I found something interesting today: the blog of a chinese actress-turned-director is now the world’s most read blogger. Xu Jinglei’s blog reached within 100 million page views in two years, Beijing News said last week.
And Xu, who has a reputation for a high intellect and integrity, has done it without writing about sex or providing a catalogue of kiss-and-tell stories — but focusing on her work and day-to-day life.
Too bad, her blog is written in chinese. It would have been interesting to what really made all those people really read her blog.
In the opinion pages, Isagani Cruz argues why Gloria’s SONA does not deserve all the buzz it generated over the past week. “That hogwash did not deserve the interest of this humble citizen of our bumbling Republic,” he mentioned in his column.
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Read more:World
, Blogger
What happens after the last Potter book? 2007-08-02 06:27:29 Beryl and I went into a book-buying spree this afternoon. She bought a Toni Morrisson novel and a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol. I acquired something from Maxim Gorky and Alexander Pushkin. The classic books were sold at P30.00 each only!
In the blogosphere, Manila Blog chronicles his experiences in Metro Manila. Hmmm… I remember passing by some of the places chronicled in the blog during the few times I’ve been there. Closer to home, Bong Wenceslao shares old photos of a World War II tunnel found in Banawa, Cebu City. Sadly, this historical site, which used to be a hospital used by the Japanese during the war, is now covered by a high wall.
Also, Atomic Girl remembers Ambo Guran, the spokesperson of the militant League of Filipino Students in Bicol who was shot dead by suspected military agents a day after his 21st birthday.
Now going back to the subject matter of books, here’s something that should interest everyone: what happens to Harry Potter
and
Asean: too much talk? 2007-08-01 09:56:40 Today is the first day of August. At last, it’s raining hard after the successive days of excessive heat in the last month.
Anyway, the Philippine government has signed a bilateral pact with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) last Sunday.
While the press release from the Department of Foreign Affairs talks about bolstering “our region’s collective efforts for greater peace, progress and prosperity” and intensifying “exchanges between our peoples,” I am still mulling over what could be really behind it.
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Error Operator: justifying the war against terror 2007-08-04 04:46:21 Today’s headlines confirms what Manuel Quezon III described yesterday as horrifying.
Yesterday, Yvonne T. Chua and Luz Rimban of the Inquirer reported that a wrong radio frequency was given to the marines fighting in the July 10 ambush in Basilan. This prevented communication between the troops and the helicopter reinforcement, leading to the brutal beheading of 10 soldiers.
Moreover, aside from the well-documented dud mortar ammunitions which didn’t fire during the encounter, it was found out that only six rounds of 105 howitzers were fired during the firefight since, as one of the soldiers told Inquirer, “it was the ceasfire committee who ordered them not to fire because they were engaging friendly forces the MILF).”
Sounds very incredible? Well, the military just admitted this radio error incident in today’s Inquirer front page. Now, is this merely a case of “pure incompentence” as the Inquirer’s source in the Western Mindanao Command Read more:Operator
, against
Tit for tat word war 2007-08-02 19:57:26 The other day, after I went to the office to work, I read a slew of harsh words from a certain Wes Wright published in the Inquirer.
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Nacionalista and Liberal party - comeback kids? 2007-08-06 05:44:36 After spending time outside the country’s political limelight in recent years, the two leading traditional parties of the pre-martial law era may be heading for a big comeback
. It’s “NP vs. LP in 2010,” suggested an article from the Inquirer, as the youthful Senator Manuel Roxas II of the Liberal
Party and the rich Senate President Manny Villar of the Nacionalista Party position themselves for the coming presidential elections.
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Sociopaths want to fulfill our lifestyle needs 2007-08-08 18:52:30 A forum of the Philippine College of Physicians last month claims that politics attracts all sorts of sociopaths. Read the news article here. The following YouTube video from Complex System of Pipes should prove the physician’s claim:
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Read more:lifestyle
Cookout Hang-over: a UP Centennial Special 2007-08-13 07:47:21 This year’s Cookout was the most well attended so far, inspite of the fact that it rained hard twice when the event was about to start and in the middle of the program. The event proved itself as a fitting launch for the UP Centennial
celebration in UP Cebu.
I was present during the event proper and some of the prior preparations as the “alalay” of my girlfriend Beryl who is presently a councilor of the UP Cebu Student Council (SC), the activity’s main presentor.
I have to give the credit to the Cookout production team and over-all event director head Chassy Cortes for the best Cookout program ever. While Monster Radio DJ and former SC chair Paulo Walker played an important part in the successful promotion of the event.
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Read more:Special
More on the LP/NP rivalry 2007-08-12 00:20:05 This is the fifth day without Globelines phone and broadband services in Talisay City, Cebu. I am thus writing this entry from a net cafe.
UP Cebu just had another successful Cookout event last Friday but I will be typing my thoughts on the said event some other time. Instead, I will be looking into a series of interesting comments found in my previous post Nacionalista and Liberal Party - comeback kids?
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Elusive Peace in Mindanao 2007-08-15 00:17:45 Carlos Conde reports last week’s events in “Philippine military rushes troops to battle Islamic militants in the south.” Nine soldiers were killed in encounters last Thursday while 26 were killed last Friday, one of the “biggest casualties in a day,” in a spiral that worries Mon Casiple as an exercise that is “getting out of hand.”
A month after the chilling beheading of 10 marine soldiers by Abu Sayyaf bandits and the horrific situation in the southern Philippines still sees no end in sight. Instead, what we now get mixed signals that mirror the seeming incapacity of the armed forces and its commander-in-chief to get on top of the situation in Muslim Mindanao.
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Read more:Peace
Significance of the Aquino Assassination 2007-08-20 15:21:01 Exactly twenty four years ago, on August 23, 1983, Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated by the henchmen of the Marcos dictatorship.
To commemorate this important historical occasion today, I am posting an article written a year after the murder by Antonio Zumel, who was then one of the editors of the underground paper Ang Bayan. The commentary presents the event and its implications from the point of view of the revolutionary Left, perhaps the only real opposition to the dictatorship with a truly national scope during that time.
And though I’m no longer part of the youth-student component of the legal ND movement, I still find the said article useful for understanding the complexities of the historical period between the assassination of Ninoy Aquino and the fall of Marcos.
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Read more:Significance
, Assassination
Rowling working on a new book 2007-08-20 07:33:44 This one’s for Harry Potter followers. I’m taking a peek into what J.K. Rowling
is up to after the phenomenal Harry Potter series today. According to the WENN world entertainment news, Rowling is already working
on two more books.
With the Deathly Hallows just released in bookshops around the globe, Rowling’s plans were still hazy back then. She merely said, “I’m sort of writing two things at the moment. One is for children and the other is not for children.
Yesterday, however, something more concrete came up:
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