I woke up Wednesday morning (around 3AM) when my electric fan stopped running (yeah, brown out!) and with the loud whirling sound. That ended my good night sleep.

By 5AM, my cellphone alerted me, it’s time to prepare for another day in school, with no electricity and low water pressure in the faucet, I took bath got ready. The weather was not pleasant, although the wind had mellowed but I can still feel it hitting me hard, as I walked towards the public transport terminal, this scene welcomed me.

I counted at least 10 Acacia trees lying on the ground, even the playground was not spared by the wrath of Basyang.

When I reached the terminal, the shuttle service was suspended and no tricycle was on sight, so there’s no other logical thing to do but to return home. Upon reaching home, I saw my sister’s car backing out of the garage, she needs to report to work early to check the damage caused by the typhoon in their warehouse, so I hitched.

It’s another jeepney ride before I reach the school, on the way, I saw some areas have been flooded, thanks but no thanks to the newly constructed drainage (what a waste of public money!).

While on the jeep, I see people wet and waiting for their ride, it was then that I received a text message from the school admin that, yeah you guess it right, class is suspended! Sucks hard! I’m almost there buddy!

What else can I do but to hit home, but that was easier said than done, buses and jeepneys were full and I’m soaking wet, at least my shoes. It took me another hour to finally get a ride home.

The electricity and water in our subdivision were back Thursday afternoon, I missed my Thursday class since no water available for bathing. The phone (and internet) service came back just before dinner time today, that’s after almost 24 hours of me calling the PLDT customer support.

According the the news report, at least 38 persons died and more than 80 others are missing. The typhoon also caused two oil spills, Petron’s submarine pipeline in Rosario, Cavite was damaged by the oil tanker’s anchor, the oil spill was estimated to have reached at least 1 kilometer of coastline. The second oil spill happened in Bataan, an oil barge submerge causing the spill, several other barges hit the breakwater damaging it and several fishing boats.

I haven’t heard of the estimated damage caused by this recent typhoon, looking at the reports, it looks like that the remaining 600 million (out of 2 billion) pesos calamity fund for this year would not be sufficient. I wonder where the Arroyo government spent the 1.4 billion calamity fund when Basyang was the first typhoon that caused a great amount of devastation this year.

Outside, I can see people walking (and cursing), I wasn’t ready to jump off the jeep and walk, not with the burning morning heat. Another 15 minutes have passed and I had enough, I started walking the 3 kilometer (walking) journey towards the school, on the way, I saw that the traffic was not moving. Was it because of an accident or was it due to the ingenious idea of the CTMO (Cavite Traffic Management Office) of again implementing the counterflow traffic? What ever it was, it’s p*ssing me big time!

I reached the school drain with no water left on my system.

Good thing it didn’t affect my interest of doing the task of the day, we did some Italian cuisine, Pan-seared Fish Fillet with Citrus Sauce, Pasta Carbonara (including the preparation of the home-made pasta) and Grilled Stuffed Mussels.

Chef Eva commended our mussels to be the best (among other 4 groups), it was easy for us to prepare the mussels, it was almost the same prep as the previous mussels except for the Parma Ham and instead of baking, today’s mussels were grilled.

I asked my classmate who lived in Parañaque the reason of the traffic and it was confirmed, CTMO stopped all northbound vehicles to give way to the southbound motorists! Thank you CTMO for ruining my day!

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!

Yes you heard it right, by virtue of Proclamation No. 1946 read this morning by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, the president is placing the province of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Cotobato City except for the identified areas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The reason mentioned for the action was for the purpose of preventing and suppressing lawless violence in the aforesaid areas.

As expected, this action earned negative and positive reactions, critics of the current administration cried foul on the president’s action while those loyal to the president praised the what they called as “decisive” action.

Although the constitution provides that the congress (voting as one body) may revoke via majority vote the president’s declaration of martial law, I know for sure that they will vote otherwise. With 23 Senators and 269 Representatives, where majority of the house belongs to the administration party, no doubt that the vote will go the president’s way.

If you will ask me, I see no reason why the president has to declare martial law in Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Cotobato City. If they really want to prevent ‘lawless violence’ in the area, the could have done that years ago. If only they have the political will to dismantle the private armies of the war lords in the area, this violence could have been prevented.

What the government is doing now is ‘flexing’ it’s muscle to show to the international community that they are doing something. But let us not forget the real issue here, it’s the killing of innocent people and the continuance of the political violence.

Judging from what the military had ceased so far, it seems that they’ve supplied the Ampatuans with arms, who’s gonna be held liable for that? Does this justify what the Magdalo group claimed when they took over Oakwood Hotel in 2003?

So I checked which of these equipment is busted, I prepared so well for this shoot and I don’t want to mess up. I finally gave up, I slept without finding what’s wrong. What I did was to just use 1 battery even with the MB-D80 attached to the camera, I was able to survive the assignment even being short-handed.

The same thing happened when I shoot a wedding at Imus Cathedral last Saturday, although I was quite confident since I carry 2 cameras (a Nikon D80 and a Nikon D70) whenever I shoot.

Puzzled, I tried to search for a solution to the problem that I am facing, I went back to the photography forum that taught me a lot of things, there I found out about the Dead Battery syndrome (DBS). Apparently, Nikon D80 and D200 users have been hounded by this problem since last year and Nikon has released an upgrade for both cameras firmware (v1.11 for Nikon D80 and v2.01 for Nikon D200). I checked the link to the site where I can download the firmware upgrade and upgraded my cameras firmware.

It solved the problem but also confirmed that one of my batteries finally died.

For Nikon D80 and D200 users, check out the firmware upgrade to avoid the experience that I went through.

I was watching the early evening news today when I saw a news item that made me scratched my head. Apparently, a group of residents from the second district of Pampanga staged a lightning rally in Malacañan, they braved the 3 security details and was able to elude the soldiers guarding the palace perimeter. They ended up staging a rally in front of Malacañan gate.

On a ‘normal’ day, not even pedestrians were allowed easy access to the palace, even worst, any group of people marching will be barred from passing the Mendiola Bridge (now Don Chino Roces Bridge), any ‘abnormal’ movement of people will bring the soldiers up on their feet to be on close watch and if necessary drive them out. But today wasn’t a ‘normal’ day.

These people were urging the president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to run as representative of the second district of Pampanga, her home town. According to a Jun Panganiban (I believe he is the spokesperson of the group) “hindi po ito [this is not] scripted, this is an spontaneous and united action of people, of concerned people who wants change.” A what? [check this video from gmanews.tv to validate]

What change was he talking about? The last time I checked, the current representative of the the second district of Pampanga is named Mikey Macapagal-Arroyo, does this mean Congressman Mickey was dysfunctional? Is that the reason why these people were asking GMA to run? Or just to ‘change’ the first name of their representative?

This made me think, we speak of words that we don’t really understand, we talked but we don’t really know what we are talking. Not just because US President Barack Obama shouted ‘Change we can believe in.” during his campaign, these politicians can also use the word.

But what really is change? In my lifetime (which is nearing 40 years by the way), I’ve seen several leadership changes, from people toppling the dictator Marcos and seated the late President Cory Aquino to the ’smooth’ electoral transition of power to Fidel V. Ramos, the majority win by Joseph Estrada to his deposing in 2001, which gave way to GMA’s presidency.

But have we seen significant changes in the life of the Filipino people? I mean progressively.

If we want genuine change, we should look back and check the mistakes that we’ve committed, check back and remember the names that we’ve written on the ballots. Are we responsible for this mess that we are currently experiencing? Are we wise enough to vote for the right people? Is there any hope?

Not all politicians are rotten, I’ve seen sincere people who offered their service to the land but failed. I’ve heard comments like ‘OK sana si xxxxxxxx, pero di naman siya mananalo kaya si xxxxxxxx na lang ang iboboto ko.

Change will not come in silver platter, we have to fight for it, we need to stand up and be responsible enough to pick for the leaders (if there is) that is sincere enough to make our nation better.

Yet while the country was jubilant for these honors, a sad historic moment unfolds in Maguindanao, about 50 people including (an estimated) 12 journalist were held captive, killed & was buried in a grave at the Town of Ampatuan in the province of Maguindanao.

The wife of Buluan Vice Mayor Ismael “Toto” Mangudadatu, Genalyn together with her entourage of lawyers, press people & supporters were on the way to the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak to file the certificate of candidacy of Vice Mayor Toto Mangundadatu for the position of Maguindanao Governor when armed men blocked their way and proceeded with their inhuman act.

The Mangundadatu’s pointed their fingers to the Ampatuan particularly to Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan, Jr., brother of ARMM Governor Zaldy Ampatuan and son of former Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr. Mayor Andal Ampatuan, Jr. is reportedly the administration’s bet for the Gubernatorial seat of Maguindanao.

I don’t know about the degree of guilt that the Ampatuan’s have on this incident, but a lot of questions are pondering in my mind.

1. Were the journalists intentionally invited to join the convoy to act as human shields? In a TV interview, Vice Mayor Toto admintted that they were forced to postpone the filing of the COC due to reports that (allegedly) there were threats from the Ampatuans to stop them from filing the Certificate of Candidacy at all costs.
2. Who authorized the use of the backhoe to dig the grave of the victims? The body markings on the backhoe clearly indicates that it belongs to the provincial government of Maguindanao (where Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan is the incumbent governor) and was purchased during the term of former Governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr.
3. Who are these people and who ordered them to do this heinous act? Allegations of these people being the ‘private army’ of the Ampatuans floated on the news, apparently, these are the CVO’s (Civilian Volunteer Organizations) of CAFGU’s armed to help the government forces against terrorism. But some political analysts claims to be converted into the private armies of several politicians.

Last Monday will be remembered as the worst day in journalism history, never in the recent history that we see journalists being killed in such inhuman way, not even during the dark days of the Martial Law.

Unless the government act decisively on this matter, never that we will see peace in our elections. The government must show these rotten politicians that they are serious enough to dismantle the private armies. The state must see to it that justice is served, the whole world is watching over this.

Personally, I offer my prayers to the families who lost their love ones, may they find peace in the midst of this tragedy, may the good Lord give justice for this inhuman act.

For those who doesn’t know yet, Senator Legarda will be the running mate of presidential hopeful Senator Manny Villar, this momentous event happened yesterday at the Nacionalista Party headquarter (formerly known as the Laurel House) in Mandaluyong City.

The event transpired a year after the resolution to investigate the double insertion on the budget for the C5 extension project was filed in the Senate, and yes, the distinguished lady Senator were on of the signatories of the resolution, and yes again, her would be running mate the Senator from Las Piñas was to be investigated on the controversy.

Second coincidence was when twelve stupid Senators filed Senate Resolution 1472 to junk the C5 Road extension project investigation by the Senate Committee of the whole. Those who signed the resolution were Senate Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr, Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Pilar Juliana Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Gregorio Honasan II, Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Ramon Revilla Jr., Francis Pangilinan, Villar and his reported running mate, Loren Legarda.

Now back to the radio program, Raffy Tulfo was asking his co-host (Niña Taduran), “sa tingin mo partner, magkano kaya yung isang pirma?” The next question was “magkano kaya ang nakuha ni Loren para sumama kay Villar?”

I was surprised when the driver commented “kayang-kaya silang bilhin ni Villar.”

He’s probably right? What else can make a a person change his/her mind so quickly but money, these people (not only Legarda but includes those 12 Senators) are prostituting our political system. Shame on you!

King Solomon had a better proverb to define these people As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. Proverbs 26:11.

Nowadays, Facebook has been the in thing. From what I heard, Facebook has reached (more or less) 300 users worldwide. Users had turned gaga over the features that this social networking site is offering. It’s usability and applications had lured internet users to abandon Friendster and pour in all their internet usage time to Facebook.

I’m a self-confessed Facebook addict, I own several accounts on Facebook. I got my first invitation last year, I accepted the invitation and abandoned it. Then another invitation (to another e-mail address) early this year and since then I got hooked. I started from playing online poker, tending my farm, played God Father and the addiction grew further.

Honestly, I feel that sometimes Facebook is stealing some precious time from what I’m doing. It’s so addicting that sometimes I would delay lunch so that my crops won’t go wasted.

I think I’m infected with this thing called Facebook Addiction Disorder, I just hope that I can still be rehabilitated. How about you? Are you addicted to Facebook?