The L.A. Lakers lead the Spurs 3-1 in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals, and looks to put them away Thursday night (Friday morning in Manila) at Staples Center, where they own a 7-0 record in the postseason. DONE.

The Celtics are one win away from the NBA finals, for the first time in more than two decades. Ray Allen scored 29, hitting a long 2-pointer with a minute left after Detroit came within one point, then he and Kevin Garnett each made a pair of free throws down the stretch as the Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons 106-102 in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. Game 6 is on Friday (Saturday morning in Manila) in Detroit, with the Celtics holding a 3-2 series lead. With a victory there or on Sunday back in Boston, the Celtics would advance to the NBA finals for the first time since the legendary Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish took them there in 1987. DONE.

What does this mean ? The revival of a historic rivalry, Lakers vs. Celtics, East vs. West, Bird vs. Magic, which for my generation defined the highest level of competitive basketball ever played on the planet. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight years ago on this day, the 27th of May, my son died. Thus, began for us who loved him, and love him still, a journey of mourning and grief from which I sometimes feel there is no way back. In a sense, this is true. Having walked through the valley of death, by way of lamentations for those we lost, we can never return. At least not as we once were.

For one thing, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis in his classic “A Grief Observed”, some aspects of my fatherhood must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will I have my son on my knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see my grandchild.

Or get a haircut together. And share some burger and fries after. Which we used to do on a regular basis, just the two of us.

Still, I cling to memories and mementos of our time together, specially books, which he loved. It gave me indescribable pleasure to read to him, most often in bed just before sleeping. A particular favorite, “The Sailor Dog”, about a dog that always wanted to go to sea and realizes his dream, has pride of place in my bookshelf. Read the rest of this entry »

I had some reservations about writing on the deaths of ten individuals, murder victims who were killed in a successful robbery of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) branch in Cabuyao, Laguna a week ago. The killings hit close to home and I felt I would not be objective enough to handle the subject.

But having already made a post on it some days ago, and seeing the response of so many readers, I feel compelled to close the loop on my analysis of the tragic incident and its aftermath.

The brutal inhumanity of the killings have been reported extensively in traditional media and the blogsphere , and there’s no need to repeat the details here. However, recent events related to the incident require closer examination.

First, the handling by the police of the investigation. In their usual ham-fisted way, the initial responding team broke into the RCBC Cabuyao, Laguna branch, and started trampling around the scene of the crime. Understandable, as there was the urgency of saving any survivors. But was there a systematic attempt to gather and preserve evidence critical to the investigation ? I don’t know. But it appears, from news reports and pictures of the incident which have been circulating on the internet, that even the police were taken aback by the mayhem and violence of the killings. I hope the Philippine National Police (PNP) Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) people were cool and level-headed enough to have collected, in a scientific and methodical way, all the possible physical evidence which could lead to the killers. There were certainly plenty of pictures taken, some of which found its way online, but more on this later. Read the rest of this entry »

The Inquirer, in its usual alarmist fashion, carried the headline “No Stopping Oil Price Rise”. In its report, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes called on the public Thursday to brace themselves for still higher fuel prices as world oil jumped to record highs above $135 amid fears about tight energy supplies, rising global demand and a dropping dollar.

“This is the reality that we must face and act on,” Reyes said, citing a forecast by investment bank Goldman Sachs that oil prices would average $141 a barrel in the second half of this year and could top $200 a barrel by 2010.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil weighed in with his prediction that, indeed, US$200 crude will be a reality in 2010, if not sooner.

The scrapping of import duties on crude and refined oil products effective June 1 will have minimal impact, a reduction of 35-50 centavos per liter at the pump, and will hardly be felt by consumers. Gasoline and diesel prices are going up by P1.00/liter weekly, with no immediate end in sight.

This is bad news. But there’s worse to come. This could spell the end of the world as we know it, according to certain prophets of doom. The scary thing is, they have both numbers and history on their side. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been called, without exaggeration, as the bloodiest bank robbery in the country’s history. Ten dead, all methodically shot in the head. And the killers literally got away with murder, at least for the time being, and with an estimated P9 million to P12 million in cash. That’s an average of P1 million for every dead body. So successful was the heist that the robbers left behind millions more at the vault and scattered around the bank. Read the rest of this entry »