You’d think that living under a brutal dictatorship would be bad enough and that God would cut you some slack in other areas. No such luck. The universe doesn’t operate that way, as Myanmar found out nearly a week ago when Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma (the country’s name before the ruling military junta changed it).

The cyclone ripped across Burma’s agricultural heartland with violent winds that reached speeds of 193km/h, destroying buildings and fields, toppling trees and washing away roads in the vital rice-growing area of the Irrawaddy delta. Entire villages were swept away. Whole families have been wiped out.

Foreign aid agencies have reported scenes of devastation, with corpses still littering the rice fields and desperate survivors without food or clean drinking water. They are either without shelter or crammed into whatever structures remain standing.

Anders Ladekarl, head of the Danish Red Cross, said of the dead:

Many are not buried and lie in the water. They have started rotting and the stench is beyond words.

Early reports from aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people died in Saturday’s cyclone, although the actual death toll could eventually exceed 100,000, and two to three million are homeless.

The official death count stood at just under half that two days ago, at around 22,500 people dead (and counting). Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama has congratulated Hillary Clinton on “what appears to be her victory” in a close primary in Indiana. However, Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina. These are the last two big-delegate states left in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

This keeps the Hillary campaign alive, but just barely. Her failure to make a strong showing in Indiana, despite her win, and her overwhelming defeat in North Carolina makes it doubtful whether she can overhaul Barack’s commanding lead in committed delegates. But Clinton vowed to keep on campaigning and the slugfest goes on. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you see that coming ? I didn’t, although now it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Just when everyone thought GMA was keeping her head low ducking the rice and oil crises and the corruption charges against her graft-ridden administration, she takes a shot at the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the Philippine’s largest power distributor, and rattles a lot of people’s cages.

To be sure, Meralco is big, unpopular and an easy target, having increased power charges yet again, making our power rates the highest in Asia per capita, running close to Japan. Meralco is perceived, not without cause, as greedy and insensitive to the people’s needs in these difficult times. It reported a 23 percent increase in quarterly earnings for 2008 as energy sales grew . It posted a net profit of P655 million ($15.4 million) for the first quarter, compared to P532 million in the same period last year. This even as most Filipinos, specially in Metro Manila which relies entirely on Meralco for its power needs, are struggling just to survive. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Monday, April 28, 2008 the Hooters chain opened its first Philippine outlet at the Mall of Asia (MOA ) at the edge of Manila Bay. It would be interesting to see how the purveyor of a peculiarly American concept of commercial sexuality, combining the wholesome winsomeness of the girl-next-door with the blatant sexual commercialism of an admitted fantasy flesh market, would do in a conservative Catholic country like the Philippines.

Are the girls pretty, or would it be worth going out of your way, and driving all the way to MOA, for the “Hooters experience” ? The honest answer: No. Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Alan Cayetano said that the Senate investigation into the highly anomalous us$329 million national broadband network yielded evidence “leading up to the Office of the President” but no direct testimony linking President Gloria Arroyo to the corrupt deal.

This is lawyer-speak for the fact that, although she may well be guilty, the evidence gathered against GMA won’t stand up in court nor, for that matter, in the Senate investigation or impeachment proceedings. True, a lot of the president’s men were directly implicated, notably Benjamin Abalos, Romulo Neri, Lito Atienza and a host of lesser functionaries, but there was no “smoking gun” to incriminate Arroyo. She’s one lucky bitch indeed, in the words of Gov. Salceda, and cunning too. Her people took the heat and she brazened it out, until the Supreme Court decision upholding Neri’s claim of executive privilege gave her some relief. Read the rest of this entry »