The we prepared 2 sauces, Béchamel and Hollandaise, two sauces that demands continuous whisking, Béchamel being a roux base sauce with milk needs to constant whisking to prevent the milk from curdling and Hollandaise is made of egg and butter mixture must be whisked briskly for the mixture to emulsify.

The session ended around 12NN which gives me enough time to travel and catch up with today’s biggest event in Philippine Politics, the first SoNA of President Noynoy Aquino. A few days ago, the palace hinted that the President’s SoNa will be a bomb that will shock the whole nation. I believe that this has tickled the curiosity of the citizenry and awaited for whatever bomb the president is about to explode.

So I watched the president’s State of the Nation Address speech, which was delivered in Filipino, he started by telling the people on how the previous almost emptied the budget for the fiscal year 2010 and how the calamity fund (for 2010) was diverted to benefit former President (and now Pampanga 2nd District Congresswoman) Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo constituents in Pampanga.

These among other findings of anomalous transactions dominated the first half of the president’s speech, nothing was shocking at least for me, these have been told before, even during GMA’s reign in power. But I would admit that it was a good prelude to what the president wants his speech to be remembered. He’s not like GMA.

In his plans of action, he certified several legislative agenda, (1) the Fiscal Prosperity Bill, (2) the passing of National Land Use Bill, (3) [amending] National Defense Act, (4) enacting the Whistleblower’s Bill, (5) strengthening the Witness Protection Program, and (5) re-codification of the laws to ensure that no law is contradicting with another.

In his speech, the president mentioned about the constructing an expressway from Manila that would pass the provinces of Bulacan, Neva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan Valley, the pushing through with the rehabilitation of the railway system and the building of grain terminals, refrigeration facilities, road networks and post-harvest facilities, all would be under private – public partnership.

The private – public partnership looks vague to me, how is it differs to the BOT (Build Operate and Transfer) scheme that past administrations entered into that made more harm than help, take for example the north and south Luzon toll ways that increased it’s toll fees by more than 300% after being taken over by a private firm.

I’m looking for a concrete plans of action, not the additional 2 years of basic education but making sure that our public school would be a conducive place for our children to learn more even only having 10 years of basic education. That jobs will be created (and not just recycled) in this country to cater our graduates and assure them of their security of tenure. That Filipinos would take overseas job as their last resort and not because it’s the only way for them to support the needs of his/her family.

We don’t only need post-harvest support but more so, the government needs to assure that the land that these farmers are tending to will be their own.

And if the president is serious about his election slogan “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” he could have certified the Freedom of Information Bill as a part of the priority legislation.

It’s quite disappointing, or maybe I was expecting this administration to fulfill the promises that they made during the election.

I watched the inaugural from the moment the President Noy left his residence at Times Street in Quezon City up to the last minute of the coverage. I was impressed on how orderly the ceremony was planned and executed, President Noy was punctual, he came about 15 minutes earlier than the planned arrival at the Malacañan Palace despite stopping on all the stop lights.

I listened carefully to President Noy’s inaugural speech as I munch on my lunch, honestly the Wang-wang (siren) part caught my attention, how many times I’ve been pissed by these arrogant drivers sounding their sirens to escape the perils of being caught in heavy traffic. I can’t count how may times I’m tempted to throw stones on those politicians with enormous number of back-up vehicles squeeze their way out of heavy traffic using the power of the blinkers and police sirens.

For me, that was the highlight of President Aquino’s inaugural speech, his disgust not just of the siren but the arrogance behind the act of using it. But I was expecting more than that, for me these wang-wangs are not just an instrument of arrogance but more so, the best way for these arrogant people to flex their muscles.

By sounding the sirens and flashing their blinkers, these people are in a way telling everybody else that they are important and therefore others must give way. The best way to show how powerful they can be.

I was waiting for the new president to show that he’s not favoring these powerful people, not just the wang-wang users but the people who holds the power and the people by controlling the capital. I can’t help but recall one of his campaign TV ad, “kailangan pang mag-college para lang mag-contractual.” I was waiting for Noynoy to tell the people what his concrete program to eliminate the rampant contractualization of labor brought about by DOLE’s issuance of Department Order No. 18-02, I just thought it was part of his political agenda.

Here’s how I see things, if the current administration is serious of leveling the playing fields, he must not just focus in leveling the playing fields for the investor, he must also consider the plight of the million workers. The current minimum wage of PhP404 (for National Capital Region) is the sixth lowest in the whole world, it is also far lower than the family living wage of PhP917 (as forecast by the National Wage and Productivity Commission in 2008).

I believe that a strong and healthy local economy starts with the capacity of the local people to purchase their basic necessities and not for local and foreign investors spending their money outside the country.

With the current set-up, Filipinos reaching the age of 24 will be unemployed, after years of being passed from one contractor to another, they will reach the age of 24, the age limit for “new” employees. What would be their future? Who are there to protect their rights?

Putting a stop to the unauthorized use of sirens and blinker is a welcome move but ending the abuse to the Filipino workers needs to be taken seriously.

I was angered while watching the drama unfolds in the lower chamber, as if taking a queue from somebody, Camiguin Representative Pedro Romualdo immediated objected to the ratification of the Freedom of Information Bill (House Bill 3732) citing lack of quorum. The Speaker then ordered the House Secretary General to check the attendance and there were only 128 congressmen present, 7 lawmaker short of the quorum of 135.

Amazingly, before opening of the session, there were enough lawmaker present to pass the bill. The house speaker was “forced” to adjourn the session due to lack of quorum and that signaled the death of the Freedom of Information bill in the lower house. The law that will give the citizens of this great nation free access to matters of public concern, such as official records and to documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, decisions, as well as government research data used as basis for policy development.

The Senate’s version (Senate Bill 3308) of the proposed law was passed almost 6 months ago in December 14, 2009.

It’s not long ago when then NEDA Director General Romulo Neri refused to disclose the details of his conversation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the matters of the ZTE-NBN controversy invoking “executive privilege.” Evidently, this government don’t want the public to see the skeletons in their closet.

This could have been a landmark legislation, a legislation that the people has been clamoring for fourteen years, a law that would show the sincerity of this government of their transparency.

I hope that president-apparent Noynoy Aquino will certify this bill as priority legislation given that he supported the passing of the law when he was still a Senator.

My skepticism was based on my personal observation on the past elections, as they say ’sa Pilipinas, walang kandidatong natatalo, nadadaya lang’ [in the Philippines, there's no losing candidate, just cheated]. After every elections, the next process for the losing candidates is either file the election protests or call for a press conference to rant about the massive election fraud.

I can’t blame them, they didn’t spend millions of pesos just to be called as losers.

The recently concluded automated national election was not an exemptions, numerous claims of election fraud surfaced a few days after the election. Non winning candidates made public their claims of massive election cheating, from vote-buying to pre-programmed CF (compact flash) cards.

Former president (and presidential aspirant) Joseph Estrada claimed being offered of buying pre-programmed CF cards [click here to read the article] for a hefty amount of 30 to 50 million pesos. Apparently, the offer came a few days before the election, the same claim was voiced out by the triumvirate of 3 losing presidential bets (Jamby Madrigal, JC Delos Reyes and Nicanor Perlas) claiming that they got fewer votes because of the pre-programmed CF cards.

I don’t say that the claim is not possible, what I question is the timing of the exposè, Mr. Estrada is trailing behind the leading presidential candidate Senator Noynoy Aquino by more or less 5 million votes. If former president Erap has prior knowledge of a possible fraud, why didn’t he call the attention of the poll body? Why go public about the allegations after suffering a major blow in the canvassing of votes? Is concealing these supposed “evidence” of fraud part of his election battle plan?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these irregularities never existed, there’s a great possibility that election fraud existed. In my voting precinct alone, I witnessed several questionable circumstances. There was no UV (ultra-violet) lamp to check the validity of the ballot, a BEI (Board of Election Inspector) wearing an ID for a certain political party and what strikes me the most, almost every person voting was wearing an ID (with volunteer election worker written on it) from a congressional candidate. After voting, I asked a friend who was serving as a poll watcher for the said candidate about the purpose of the ID.

He was a bit hesitant of answering my question, he knew that I’m not supporting his candidate, but after a few more minutes of talking, he fell into my convincing power. Apparently, the ID will serve as a proof that the person has done voting and therefore he/she can claim the 500 pesos (payment) from the Barangay Chairman. It made me understand why 2 women was so disappointed when they did not get the ID.

The congressional candidate won the election via significant margin, and due to enjoy the perks of being a district representative.

Election manipulation can be prevented, these are handy work of just few people who opted to make the election their bread and butter. If only COMELEC acts on this, this could be stopped, the ghost of Virgilio Garcillano and his cohort Lintang Bedol still hounds us. These people remains free and I don’t see they be hitting the jail soon.

What bothers me the most is the fact that a voter is forced to sell his/her votes for a measly amount of money (100-500 pesos). Honestly, I’m p*ssed of this truth, I’m angered by the rotten politicians orchestrating this kind of acts!

As for me & my sister, we have to wait for our turn, COMELEC built some waiting tent for those who opted to wait for their turn but that was not enough for the long lines.

Finally after almost 3 hours of waiting, I was able to vote, it took me just 5 minutes to vote. As always, I voted only those people whom I feel will be helpful to the country. I went around the school to check the status of other voting precinct, I realized that I was far luckier than the others, in the other precinct, an average of 100 voters have completed the process of voting as compared to ours which was 267 (that was after I voted), kudos to the BEI’s in our precinct.

Despite some technical and procedural glitches, I could say that this kind of voting is better that voting and counting manual. Now that we have voted, we must now assure that these people will do what they have promised during the campaign.

The COMELEC dismissed the idea saying that the process would be tedious for the Board of Election Inspectors assigned on election day.

Suspicions of the massive failure of the first automated election in the Philippines grew when the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) failed to read correctly the votes for the local candidates when it was tested on Monday (May 3rd), a week before the scheduled election. Proponents of the parallel manual count renewed their call for a parallel manual count, it also prompted other candidates to ask the COMELEC to postpone the election for 15 days.

I share the sentiments of this people, but I don’t believe that doing a parallel manual count is feasible.

1. Firstly, let us remember that since it’s an automated election, precinct numbers were cut down, instead of the usual 100 (on the average) registered voters per precinct, a clustered precinct will have 500-600 registered voters. In 1992, I volunteered (yes, no pay) as a watcher for Liberal Party presidential bet Jovito Salonga. It took us 3 hours to complete the counting of almost a hundred ballots, just imagine having to read 500 ballots and please do the math.
2. My second concern is the ballots, unlike the ballots for the manual election where the voters writes the name of their desired candidates, the ballots for this election will be shaded. In my humble opinion, for the purpose of manual counting, it is easier to read the old ballot design. Also, since the new ballot has all the names of the candidates on it and will be shaded, over-voting will likely to occur. Take for example in the senatorial slate where the voter is only allowed to vote for 12 candidates, an over-eager voter might vote for 13 or more, the PCOS machine is program to disregard all of the votes for the position while an tired and overworked (and also underpaid) teacher acting as BEI might not notice the discrepancy.

To allay fears, COMELEC assures the public that defective CF (compact flash) cards that caused the failure will be retrieved and replaced by newly configured CF cards. It will also be tested and sealed before the commencement of the voting, a total of 72,000 CF cards are now being configured and being delivered.

On Monday, the country will embark into a new journey, not only that we will be voting for the person who will lead the country for the next 6 year, but also we will be tapping the help of technology in doing it. It’s a leap of faith, I just hope and pray that technology will not fail us.

Dalawampu’t Apat na taon na ang nakaraan nang maganap ang EDSA Revolution, araw ng pagdiriwang, araw ng paglaya ng sambayanang Filipino sa tanikala ng diktadurya. Panahon na naging proud tayo bilang Filipino, panahon na tiningala tayo ng buong mundo.

Subalit saan ba tayo dinala ng EDSA?

Buwan ng pebrero
Buwan ng pagbabago
Anong klaseng pagbabago
Ano sa palagay mo

Bumaha ng pangako
Lason ay isinubo
Tuloy sa pagkakapako
May utang pati apo

Dalawampu’t Apat na taon ang nakalipas, haharap na muli ang bansa sa panibagong eleksyon, sa eleksyong ito, ang anak ng pangulong iniupo ng sambayanan ay nagnanais na maging pangulo. Ang anak ng dating ‘diktador’ ay naghahangad na sumunod sa hakbang ng ama at ibig maging Senador at ang nakagugulat dito ay ang isa sa maraming naging biktima ng kanyang ama ay kasama n’ya sa tiket.

Dalawampu’t Apat na taon na ang lumipas subalit hinihintay pa rin ng sambayanan ang katuparan ng pangako ng EDSA, bahay, kasiguruhan hanap-buhay, lupa sa magsasaka at katarungang panlipunan.

Tuloy ang ligaya
Sa ibat ibang hacienda
Manggagawat magsasaka
Kumakalam ang sikmura

Sari-saring kaguluhan
Nakawan karahasan
Kalian nyo titigilan
Ang mga mamamayan

Naka-ilang EDSA na ba tayo? Sa bawat pagkakataon, taong bayan ang nagmartsa sa kalye at pulitiko ang nakinabang, kelan tayo makalalaya sa ganitong sirkulo ng buhay?

Panahon na naman ng eleksyon, ano nga bang inaasahan ko? Sa totoo lang wala, kailangan ko pa bang sabihin kung bakit? Siguro naman alam n’yo na rin ang sagot.

————————–
Sayaw sa Bubog © The Jerks

In December 8, 2009, the COMELEC Second Division ruled in favor of the election protest filed by Benjamin Dy against the seating Isabela Governor Grace Padaca. A week before unseating Gov. Padaca, the poll body also ruled to unseat Bulacan Governor Joselito “Jon-jon” Mendoza by favoring the election protest filed by former Governor Obet Pagdanganan.

A few months before these rulings, Gov. Padaca and Pampanga Governor Among Ed Panlilio expressed their support to the presidential bid of Noynoy Aquino. The 2 governors also joined the Liberal party. Gov. Mendoza on the other hand turn coated from being a member of the administration party KAMPI and joined Liberal Party, thus throwing his support to Noynoy.

Yesterday, the same COMELEC division ruled that former Board Member Lilia “Baby” Pineda was the winner of the Pampanga gubernatorial race and not Among Ed Panlilio.

There’s seems to be a pattern on how the COMELEC rules on these electoral protests, most decisions comes a few months before the next election and most of the time, it favors the bet of who’s party is seating. I hope I am wrong, but I still hope that the poll body acted independently on these cases, otherwise, all I can pray for is May God bless our country.

What pisses me more is those people claiming to be mahirap when in fact they can spend millions of pesos in their ads alone. Sucks bigtime!

Gone are the days of talking about their accomplishments & political platforms, now is the time of luring voters.

Can’t blame these think-tanks who formulated these ads, 12 years ago, former president Erap was successful in using his slogan ‘Erap para sa Mahirap’ when he ran for president in 1998. Erap’s political highlighted the pro-masa appeal of the former president to lure the voters to rally behind him. Now, it’s the richest senator turn to use the bait hoping he’ll be as successful as Erap.

Please… Give us something worth listening…. Please stop using the poor to pursue your political ambitions. Please…

I was particularly surprised by the 2 keywords (one actually is a key phrase), kahirapan and karapatang pantao. The keyphrase “Karapatang pantao” topped the organic search engine traffic of this blog followed by the keyword “kahirapan” I checked those pages and searched Google (both .com and .com.ph) to see how it ranked.

On Google.com, the keyphrase “Karapatang Pantao” yielded 140,000 results and my entry ranked second overall, while “Kahirapan” has 557,000 results also my blog entry came in number 2 on the ranking. Meanwhile on Google.com.ph, “karapatang pantao” has the same results volume but my blog entry was fourth on the ranking, while “kahirapan” has 550,000 results and my entry was third overall.

I posted the entry “Karapatang Pantao” December 10,2007 to commemorate the International Human Rights Day and the blogpost entitled “Kahirapan” when I heard the news about Marianette Amper, an 11 year old kid who committed suicide due to poverty, both entries were written in Filipino and I could proudly say that these entries were from the heart.

I’m doing this entry not to brag on my rankings, with 140,000 and 557,000 search result, this is nothing, what I mean is that less people are talking about this topic on the web. But the people who searched and landed on my site has something else in their mind, you wouldn’t just type a phrase or a word in Google’s search box for nothing.

Those who searched maybe looking for answers, and judging from their comments, they want something to be done.

As we all aware of, this year is an election year, for the nth time, politicians were using the word “mahirap” (poor) and “kahirapan” (poverty) as part of their political slogan, one political TV ad that really made me scratch my head was of Senator Manny Villar, at the end of the song, children were singing (in unison) “si Manny Villar ang magtatapos sa ating kahirapan.” It made me ask myself, is he really serious about that? How can he end the poverty in the Philippines? What would be his formula in doing so?

I’m tired of listening to this political ad, don’t get me wrong, I’m not singling out the distinguished senator for Las Piñas, but pardon me by saying that they (the politicians) only recognized or remember the poor during election time. I remember GMA’s campaign slogan when she ran for president, “Pagkain sa bawat mesa” where’s the food that she promised? I didn’t reached the tables of the people who really needed it.

I don’t think it’s fair for these power hungry politicians to use the poor or use the term poverty to pursue their dream of being the most powerful person in the land. What we ought to see is putting their word in practice, the masses (the poor) deserves to be served upon.