so long, gloria?

maybe it’s just talk, so take this with a grain of salt (and pepper, why not), but it’s the juiciest tsismis yet from the coffeeshop circuit.  to wit, that the americans intend to foil erap’s dream of capturing the presidency, take two.  how?  by supporting  vice president noli de castro all the way, which is to say, not just in the campaign for 2010 but much earlier on, by forcing gma to resign — it is said that the americans have the goods on her — which means noli ascends to power and will be impossible to beat as the incumbent in 2010.

what if gloria refuses to step down?  then i suppose the americans would release the incriminating information to media and watch gleefully as people power strikes again, oh wow!

neat plot, ‘no?  totoo kaya?  yes, they can?  or is it just wishful thinking on the part of the anti-erap opposition?  we’ll know soon enough.  abangan…

economic experts urge: fix rate @ 55php to 1$

now that we know for sure, thanks to the world bank and senator miriam defensor santiago, that corruption is alive and doing very well under gloria macapagal arroyo, lalong nakakatakot at nakakailang all the talk about stimulus funds, a whopping php330 billion, to be spent on infrastructure in aid of generating jobs, raising consumption, and weathering the global recession.  u.p. economics professor, once budget secretary, benjamin diokno is right:

“Big projects take time to implement and a big chunk of the funds are usually lost to corruption,” he told reporters at the sidelines of the Export Development Council forum on Thursday at the Hotel Sofitel.

What the country needs during these difficult times, he said, are easily implementable and quickly felt initiatives.

more than ever, professor diokno’s recommendation that the exchange rate be fixed at 55php to 1$ seems infinitely more sound, if the idea is truly to pump-prime the economy before things get worse.  writes filomeno s. sta. ana of action for economic reforms:

Benjamin Diokno’s proposal to peg the exchange rate at PhP 55 to a US dollar is gaining a broader constituency.The exchange-rate debate is no longer an esoteric one, confined to finance executives, exporters, and academic economists.

Those engaged in the manufacture of import substitutes now recognize that a competitive exchange rate can be a better alternative to tariffs to protect domestic industry and jobs. The tourism industry also sees the importance of the exchange rate, aside from its freedom-to-fly advocacy, for the country to draw in bigger numbers of inbound tourists.The BPO (business processing and outsourcing) industry has seen how a rapidly appreciating peso (in 2007) can sharply cut profit margins. Note that some of the Philippine corporate giants—the Henry Sy family and the Ayalas, for example—have stakes in the tourism or BPO industry.


The largest constituency that has added its voice for a competitive exchange rate is made up of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).They are highly organized and politically articulate.… Specifically, undervaluing the peso by fixing the exchange rate at PhP 55.00 to US$ 1.00 from the current PhP 47.00 to US$ 1.00 is a pump-priming tool to boost consumption.Thus, for every US dollar that an overseas Pinoy sends home to her family, the latter obtains an additional PhP8.00.In a manner, that’s a windfall gain of 17 percent based on the present exchange rate.In the aggregate, assuming that the US$15 billion in OFW remittances in 2008 will hold, we can expect an additional PhP 120 billion in the pockets of OFW families in 2009.

meanwhile, instead of spending the 330 billion bucks on the usual infrastructure projects in urban areas most of that stimulus fund could be spent on farm-to-market roads and irrigation systems that would pump-prime the agricultural sector so we can produce our own rice, among other crops, instead of relying on imports.

but of course we’re going to hear objections from the globalists, not least of them the gma camp.  says men sta. ana:

A criticism that the Diokno proposal cannot evade is that a currency undervaluation is improper at a time of a global economic crisis.The deep recession that has hit the advanced economies requires global collective action.Beggar-thy-neighbor practices such as devaluing the currency will undermine the recovery of hard-hit countries that suffer from current account deficits and overvalued currencies.

but really it’s about time we started thinking of ourselves first, what’s best for us, which is what other nations are doing, worrying about themselves first.  sabi nga ni senador manny villar:

“We have to think on our own and come out with an economic model that is suited to the Philippines,” he said.

“It is no longer automatic that what is good for others is good for us. We have the intellectual capacity to decide on the model that we should follow and not depend on other countries,” Villar said.

He said the country has a large pool of economists, both in the government and the private sector, who could be tapped to formulate an economic model for the Philippines.

Villar explained the economic models used by western governments and international organizations have turned out to be ineffective in preventing the housing credit problem in the United States from developing into a global crisis.

“The global financial crisis has crunched or destroyed some conventional economic thinking, particularly the Washington consensus. When we finally get out of this crisis we will find that things will never be the same again,” the senator said.

“First, we have been led to believe that big is good, so we encourage consolidations, mergers, combinations, like in the banking system,” he said. “However, the collapse or near-collapse of the world’s biggest banks – UBS, Citigroup, Bank of America and, of course, Lehman – has shattered this once-held gospel truth,” he pointed out. “Big is not necessarily good because being too big also means being unwieldy,” Villar added.

He also said the crisis has shattered belief that less government intervention is better.

“In reality, we know now that the damage wrought on the global economy would have been far greater if governments did not intervene,” he noted.

a new economic model, one appropriate to our strengths and cognizant of our weaknesses, is exactly what we need to turn things around, and not a copy-cat model based on whatever obama manages to work out with europe, russia, and china.

finally, wise words from a presidentiable.  of course he has yet to comment on diokno’s proposal of a 55-to-1 exchange rate.  if he says yes, he  just might get my vote.

showbiz sheet

habang mabaliw-baliw ang amerika (at ang mundo na rin) sa inauguration ni obama that’s turning out to be the greatest show on earth — mairaos sana nang maluwalhati — ang dami ring nangyayari sa local showbizscene na puwedeng patulan either dahil nakakainis o nakakapagpaisip o nakakamangha.

nakakainis: all the praise and adulation for charice whats-her-name, that small girl with the big voice who sang god bless america, susmaryosep, at some pre-inaugural show.  read wrong on so many levels, my thoughts exactly.  but i don’t blame young charice, who may indeed be wanting a green card, so this was a great career move.  i blame the americans who asked her to sing a songthat should have been sung by an american.  why not an american nga ba?  to make a political statement?  see how this asian loves us?  see how we love this asian?  well they can have her.  i think she’s raw and overrated.  hindi nga siya mananalo ng singing contest dito sa atin.  but these americans, they’re too kind, too nice, to her.  i sense a touch of condescension.  kakainis.

nakakapagpaisip:  vicki belo‘s broken heart.  on the one hand, what did she expect, really.  bakit naman niya inasahan, bakit siya nag-ilusyon, na magiging tapat sa kanya si hayden kho, a horny hunk almost half her age.  painfulas it is, conventional wisdom is right, she should find someone closer to her own age who’s more likely to be faithful or at least, to be discreet.  on the other hand, i can imagine how in love she still is and her head says no, don’t take him back, but her heart says yes yes yes, give him another chance.  how hard.  it doesn’t help that her ex resorts to dramatics like that suicide attempt kuno.  men can be so mean.

nakakamangha:  bebe gandanghari.  i saw her on the buzz and, oh my, kinilabutan ako sa transformation, ang ganda niya, babaeng-babae,pinong-pino, talbog si ruffa at si kris!  kung hindi ko alam na siya yung guwapong rustom na kapatid ni robin at ka-live-in ni carmina until finally nagpakasal sila, it would take me a while to wonder who she reminds me of.  nakakabilib.  it would have been an easier life if s/he had stayed a gay rustom na nagmu-mujer lang when the urge hits or the talent fee is good.  going all the way, calling attention to her new self, career move or not, is very brave of her.  good luck, bebe!  so long, rustom.

and speaking of transformation, it was a blast waking up one morning to find my blog transformed, thanks to my techie son joel na pinagbigyan lang ako with that parchment paper effect but who was working pala on a new theme and upgrade, and i love love love it — it’s so me ;))

kudos to carlos conde

for one who seemed to be too smart to get caught in the golf war, dean jorge bocobo seems too kind naman now to the mom blogger who has a problem with credibility, as she herself admitted on anc’s media in focus.

She really scored a bullseye for the Bloggers and outshined veteran journalists Carlos Conde (International Herald Tribune) and Danilo Arao (Bulatlat) when she pointed out that it is the very active comment threads that come with real blogs, as well as the commentaries of other bloggers, that provide check and balance on what bloggers report or opine. Indeed, as a blogger myself, I am grateful when my Comment Thread participants point out blatant errors in my posts. I gladly acknowledge them.

and what’s this about “very active comment threads that come with real blogs”?   so blogs that don’t have very active comment threads are not “real” blogs?   so this, mine, is not a “real” blog?   oh pleasssse!   comments are only that, comments.   as long as there is no erratum or formal acknowledgement of error by the blogger, where is the check and balance?    where is the check and balance when a blogger feels free to blog one thing now and the complete opposite tomorrow without a by-your-leave, or so it is alleged.

to his credit, carlos conde is the only blogger i’ve read who had the grace to follow up his anti-pangandaman post with serious self-examination and a rueful apology for allowing himself to be swept up by bambee’s blog.

As a journalist, I should have known better.

In itself, the brawl at the Valley Golf was a fascinating story, with an even fascinating backstory from each side: a family of powerful politicians from a region known for their goons and guns versus a family of golfers trying to make it big in golf.

I felt strongly about what had happened (at least according to Bambee) but instead of investigating the incident and get to the truth of it, as any journalist ought to do and as I have done in other stories in the past, I put on my other hat and merely blogged about it.

Did I attempt to get the side of the Pangandamans? I did not. Did I investigate whether what Bambee dela Paz wrote was accurate or truthful? I did not. My outrage had been vented, so why bother? It was so goddamn easy.

however i disagree that it was a mistake to blog about it just because all the facts were not in.   one could have blogged about it without taking bambee’s side right off.   one could have first wondered aloud about the truth of the story, the possibility of bias, and even given the pangandamans the benefit of the doubt, why not.

as for all the blogging going on these days about blogging and why we blog, ang masasabi ko lang ay:  i love blogging because it’s a liberating kind of writing. i’d been blogging barely a month back in 2007 when i wrote this:

i’ve written for all kinds of media – print, television, stage, [docu] film – and i find that the happiest kind of writing, i mean, the kind of writing i like best is this, writing for cyberspace, to be read by many or just family and friends, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that i’m free to say anything about anything, and it’s posted out there for cybereternity, what a great way of passing on mind stuff to my kids, and i can write it in any style and length i please, puwedeng no caps, use the same word twice, thrice in the same sentence, the same paragraph, and take as long as i like before bothering with a period, even smile or frown, scream or swear, in english or tagalog, taglish or gayspeak, and no censor, editor, director or producer to mess it up.   sarap!