I hate Bayani and the MMDA.

Geez, I don't really need to explain, do I?

Choke On It !!!!

You should have already heard about it on the news. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her retinue of reptiles had a $15,000 dinner in New York when she paid a visit to President Barack Obama (notice that I omitted to include Arroyo's title - yes, it is intentional). If you divide that by the 65-member entourage it comes to $230 per person for one freaking meal. That is the most appalling thing I've heard today; even when compared to the rest of the news - the fatal shooting of a pawnshop security guard who was a most devoted husband and father; the newly-unearthed modus operandi of car thieves, policemen and LTO personnel acting in collusion; the early-morning collision on Commonwealth avenue between a truck and a tricycle driven by a drunken idiot; the return of Sandara Park (kidding - she's okay).

Let the palace blather on that somebody else other than the Philippine taxpayer picked up the bill. We know this government well enough to know that they're going to find some way to hide it, if there is evidence that public funds were used. And even if somebody does produce incontrovertible proof that taxpayers' money wasn't used to feed big fat fugly greedy lying grasping Philippine politicians and their hangers-on, what of it? Who paid for the eats really isn't the point. The point is this: while the long-suffering majority of Filipino heads of household have to scrimp and save to provide their families with a dinner made out of the cheapest vegetables and hardly any meat, here are our leaders living it up and each spending, in one sitting, what could have fed a six-person family for a month.

Expect Arroyo and her entourage to shrug and say it's one of the perks of being a member of the government to spend more money than the average citizen. Standard arrogant behavior, really, for a Philippine politician. Makes me ashamed to have to share a nationality with them. Why couldn't the devil come and take them all at the last fiction fiesta of a State of the Nation address?

Yellow Fever

When Cory Aquino took the oath of office as President of the Philippines at Club Filipino, I was a high school freshman left at home alone, sprawled on my mother's bed, listening to the proceedings on radio. I had not been allowed to come with my mother, brother and sister to help man the human barricades on Edsa because they thought I was too young to be involved in a revolution. It must have been the afternoon before the vultures of Malacanang were flown out of the country that I was allowed to sit for half an hour with a phalanx of wet handkerchief-wielding citizens camped somewhere in the Crame area, and then when the news came that we were finally disinfected of the Marcoses, we piled into the car and joined the ecstatic impromptu parade on the city streets.

I could not come in person to pay my respects to the woman who exemplified every quality that has fallen by the wayside in these ambitious, materialistic times - honesty, simplicity, integrity, humility, faith. But I said a prayer and I flew a yellow ribbon from the antenna of my car to mark myself as belonging to her side. I watched on TV as thousands lined up to view her remains, and as they jammed the streets to participate in her funeral. Only presidents who have sincerely served their country get to have a send-off like this. As for the munchkin in the Palace, when it's her turn to kick the bucket, the most she can hope for in the way of a funeral cortege is as many people as are willing to be paid to pretend they're sad to see her go.