Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’re-fraught heart, and bids it break.
-William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I stumbled across a series of posts in Slate by Meghan O’Rourke, The Long Goodbye, on how she has been coping with the death of her mother. It’s one of the most honest, poignant and evocative pieces I’ve read recently on the grieving process. I think her being a poet gives her prose so much more depth and meaning in dealing with this most difficult of subjects.

I have been feeling raw this past few days and could not put my finger on any single specific reason. O’Rouke gave me some much needed perspective for which I am grateful.

They will if Cezar Mancao II testifies in open court as to the existence of a conspiracy to kill P.R. man Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and that the instigator of such conspiracy was Senator Panfilo Lacson y Morena, alias “Ping“. But there has to be corroborative evidence and/or testimonies from other witnesses.

Eight years after the abduction and gruesome murders of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000, Dacer’s children sought yesterday the indictment of Sen. Lacson for the murders.

In a nine-page affidavit of complaint filed before the Department of Justice, Dacer daughters Carina, Sabina, Emily and Amparo said it was Lacson who “ordered the killing of our father” based on a recent affidavit executed by another principal suspect and alleged co-conspirator, former Police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II, who is expected to be extradited from the United States on March 31. At the time of the killings, Mancao was working under Lacson in the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), a special law enforcement unit then reporting directly to deposed President Joseph “Erap” Estrada. According to Mancao’s testimony given in in Broward County, Florida, where he is detained pending repatriation to the Philippines, he personally heard Lacson order former Police Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino, then operations chief of the PAOCTF, to kill Dacer sometime in October 2000. Aquino fled to the U.S. after things got too hot and is also presently facing extradition charges. Read the rest of this entry »

Not that he even wants to be involved, despite wishful thinking on the part of Malacanang. He was quoted as saying he is “willing to help” but this seems to go only as far as listening politely to a narration of the administration’s missteps in dealing with Islamic secessionist groups. It appears he would rather keep a safe distance from President Arroyo and her corrupt and bumbling coterie of advisers. This is a mess he would be well advised to steer away from. Read the rest of this entry »

In true show-biz style, Dr. Vicky Belo has replaced long-time legal counsel Archie Fortun for a younger, more handsome lawyer, opposition spokesman Adel Tamano. Atty. Tamano is a Harvard alum and president of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. Read the rest of this entry »

Nicole has flown the coop and landed right where she wanted to be all along, it seems: in the heart of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Celebrity rape victim Nicole, the symbol of oppressed and victimized Filipina womanhood, as painted by her handlers, has fired her lawyer and left the country “for good“. And where else would she end up but in the homeland of her rapist, American Marine Daniel Smith. WTF !? Literally.

How’s that for an ironic twist ? She also expressed her desire to have “all other cases arising from or related” to the Subic rape case dropped because “there is no justice in the Philippines“. Huh ? She got a conviction didn’t she ? Smith was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. Read the rest of this entry »