Who wouldn’t ?

You get to be sexist slob and still have a loving wife to come home to. You have intelligent and loving (sometimes) kids, who never grow old. You have a dog. You’re worthless at work but never get fired. Or if you do get fired, Mr. Burns hires you right back. Your nights are spent at Moe’s Tavern with interesting, loyal, drunken friends. You get to eat a lot. Sweet.

So this weekend I’m going to see the Simpsons Movie with my lovely wife. I’ll bring a hotdog or two, maybe a burger, chips, some soda (sorry, no Duff allowed), laugh and burp a lot.

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Is this what they mean by counter-terrorism ? In a front page story, the Inquirer reports that kidnapped Italian missionary priest Giancarlo Bossi was released by his kidnappers because of a beautifully simple, if illegal, gambit on the part of government security forces. They abducted the family of the kidnap group’s leader , consisting of his wife and three children. Then they negotiated and paid a “board-and-lodging” fee far less than the kidnappers’ initial demand of P50 million. As soon as Fr. Bossi was released, alive and apparently well, the abductees were set free. Of course, the government denies this happened except to say that, in the words of Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”.

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I have a friend, a well-liked fellow practitioner who’s an all-around nice guy. We used to hang out, have a few beers and talk about guy things. He’s a loving husband and a caring father. Lets call him Frank.

Frank also breeds pit bulls. And like any proud pet owner, he brings his dogs to “dog shows”. Only these dog shows are strictly by invitation only. To see one, somebody within a tight circle of sportsmen has to vouch for you. Which is why when Frank invited me to a dog show to be held in cockpit somewhere in San Juan, I politely declined. Frank is among a growing number of dog fighting aficionados in Manila and environs.

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Chief Justice Reynato Puno espouses an activist role for the Philippine Supreme Court and he has the gumption to carry out this policy. The convening of the two-day National Consultative Summit on Extra-Judicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances was the perfect platform for the Court to send out the message that it will not stand idly by while fundamental liberties are threatened.

The multi-sectoral summit was meant to address the tide of extrajudicial killings and was widely applauded by many sectors.

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I want to vent about a theft which happened in Greenbelt about a month or so ago, when my sister lost her purse to thieves in Café Bola. In it were money, credit cards, I.D.s, driver’s licenses (for here and elsewhere) and such other things which women, by some stroke of genius, are able to cram into their bags. Thus, was ruined a long-planned for vacation, as the following weeks were spent going through the usual bureaucratic maze in a frantic bid to replace the lost items.

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