it’s obscene that the arroyo government is gleefully rolling in cash when everyone else is not, lalo na’t the source of all that cash is the onerous VAT that we the people are paying in addition to the spiralling death-defying prices of basic necessities. no wonder sadsad ang approval rating niya sa latest sws survey.

For the first time, gross dissatisfaction is at majority levels in all study areas: 63% in Metro Manila, 60% in the Balance of Luzon, 56% in the Visayas, and 62% in Mindanao,” it said.

ang reaction ng palasyo, okay lang because she is doing what’s right, never mind what’s popular, which is a lot of crap.

what exactly is she doing right ba? is it right not to scrap VAT on fuel and electricity because in her estimation it would benefit only the rich who consume the most fuel and electricity? i say it’s wrong and it’s heartless. the rich make up only 10 percent at most of the consuming population, and they have surplus money (kaya sila tinawag na rich), so paying VAT doesn’t hurt them as much as it hurts the 90 percent, the masses of poor and middle-class who could barely make ends meet before the surge in oil prices and who are now growing more anxious and agitated and angry by the day.

if gma were truly smart, and brave, and she wants her ratings to rise, what she should do is get really progressive and find another way of taxing only the rich.

as for the excuse that without the VAT collections gma would not have funds for social services and development projects, ang masasabi ko lang ay: what social services? what development projects? kung meron man, mangilan-ngilan, purely for show. i actually stopped believing that the arroyo government has any sense of public service since learning that most public schools in metro manila have no toilets and running water for our teachers and our children, susmaryosep, how terrible and despicable, how mean and barbaric a state of affairs!

i don’t care either if scrapping VAT means kukulangin si gma ng pambayad sa ating mga utang. kulang kung kulang. better yet, moratorium muna, until better times, as marck ronald rimorin suggests sa filipino voices given the global financial, food, and energy crisis.

Arbet Bernardo of AWBHoldings.com asks…, “Should we do an Argentina?” I would rather see things in terms of context. While it would be a great – no, terrific – idea if we give global financial lending institutions the middle finger and say we’re not paying for debts we never benefited from as a nation, there is still prudence in honoring our debts, just not now when we cannot afford to do so. The premise is rather simple: if you can’t afford to pay an outstanding debt, you should only pay it when you are financially capable of doing so. We can’t undo that crucial financial mistake made by former President Cory Aquino, but what we can do is to respectfully renege on the promise of “honor all debts” until such time that we can pay debt without feeling anything drastic or dramatic…..

My…recommendation would be to reallocate our financial resources, not pay debt for now, and redirect debt servicing to subsidize the people’s cost of living. From there, we could think of other solutions that go beyond Presidential recommendations for a family to eat camote and have a viand of munggo at dilis while everyone asks what’s really up with ‘borjer’ served somewhere in Greenhills.”

out of the mouth of babes. sounds good to me.

the downside, of course, is, if we scrap VAT and stop paying debts for now, wala rin daw magpapautang sa atin for now. but maybe that’s not such a bad thing – maybe then we’ll learn to live within our means for a change. maybe then we’ll be forced to buckle down, start looking out for each other, and get our act together as a truly independent and sovereign nation.

habang di ako maka-decide kung alin ang uunahin kong alipustahin - gma’s damnable refusal to scrap VAT or the bishops’ criminal campaign to stop the reproductive health and population bills in congress - heto muna ang isang komentaryong lumabas today sa inquirer na, tiyak, hindi na lang babasahin ng mga obispo.

THE MISSING VOICES OF POOR WOMEN
By Mary Racelis

In the increasingly shrill debate over reproductive health, the voices of poor Filipino women, those most affected by the problem, remain eerily missing. Why this silence?

A study done in 2000 by a Filipino and international research team found that thousands of Filipino women are in effect “practicing family planning” through induced abortion. Shrouded in secrecy, it is their method of preventing the birth of another child.

NGO community organizers report that women friends in Metro Manila’s informal settlements have related intensely disturbing accounts of abortion as the poor woman’s answer to population control. Barely able to feed, clothe and educate four or five young children, and worried about the older ones already living on the streets, a woman who learns that she is pregnant with her fourth or fifth child is likely to abort it. Effective family planning solutions not having been available to her, she sees no other solution.

Urban poor women reported graphically in 2003 that if they had P1,000, they could seek out an abortionist in Pasay City, who might have a minimally sanitary clinic and some kind of medical training. If a woman had only P500, she could go to a “hilot” [native healer-midwife], who would give her a herbal drink “to regulate her menstruation” and massage her abdomen until blood (and the fetus) is expelled. A woman who had no money might jump off a high wall or run up several flights of stairs. Failing that, she might insert a hanger or barbecue stick into her birth canal. (more…)

redux adj. brought back; returned. resurgent. used postpositively.

that’s what anc’s “kidnap” docu was all about, a make-over of ces drilon, the brat correspondent who got herself and her team kidnapped by terrorists just because egotism, conceit, self-importance got the better of her.

reminds me of cnn’s richard quest who was caught with dope in new york - i’m not sure if it was coke, crack, or ice - and who simply disappeared from the public eye. the way cnn handled it, it was like he had never existed, never mind that he had quite a following with the business class.

okay, so ces drilon was just high on ego, but the consequences were so much more horrible and widespread, she certainly didn’t deserve that tribute.