Big hero

Offenders, more so the petty ones, are often heard defending themselves from the crime they committed by citing poverty as the main factor that pushed them to err.

And so when a poor 11-year old boy hands over to the authorities a bag containing P18,000 in cold cash - a loot that he found among trash while picking up discarded plastic bottles to make a few pesos for his family - our faith and hope in our society, at the basic goodness of humanity as a whole, is renewed.

The boy, Gicoven Abarquez, did not even realize he was doing something short of heroic. He said he was simply following a basic virtue that his parents taught him: Don’t take what is not yours.

That strikes at the very core of graft and corruption that is so prevalent in our government: so many people taking what is not theirs.

Another lesson we learn from Gicoven’s heroism is how important the influence is of significant adults to young, innocent minds.
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Dagupan POSO’ Erfe-Mejia must account

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

Finally, the truth about the mysterious towing contract that no one claims to have seen is slowly being ferreted out. It is now established that there was no contract and surprise of all surprises, there was one office that knew about it for a long time but said nothing as the city council then scampered, looking for it in every nook and cranny of the city hall.

Dagupan City’s chief of the Public Order and Safety Office, Robert Erfe-Mejia, evidently knew a lot more than what he professed to know earlier about the “missing contract”. Thanks to the tenacity and the bulldog in City Legal Officer George Mejia, Mr. Erfe-Mejia can no longer feign ignorance.
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Asian Journal, widest circulated Fil-Am paper

By Gerry Garcia

HERE’S ANOTHER reassuring account about a Filipino doctor in America who did remarkably well to become the first military woman in US history to be appointed as White House physician, then to become a personal physician of President Bill Clinton, that ought to do a lot to downplay one of the Desperate Housewives’ insolent reference to Pinoy doctors getting their diplomas from a med school in the Philippines as inferior.

This exemplary Pinoy doctor we’re referring to is Dr. Connie Mariano, one of the outstanding Filipinos duly recognized in June 3 at the South San Francisco Convention Center by the 10th Filipinas Magazine Achievement Awards. The Fil Mag is the only nationally circulated Fil-Am magazine in the US.

Mariano said the award was an honor, not just for herself but also for her parents, a former US Navy seal and a   dentist originally from the Philippines.
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Uneasy chairs

By Jun Velasco

THE seats of power in our troubled country are shaking due to the shameful issues of corruption and greed.

How our unlucky citizens would wiggle out of this corrupt stranglehold is anybody’s guess.  Pray that reason and good governance would soon reign for the sake of the innocent who all the while couldn’t understand the whys and wherefores of life in the islands.

For risking his life and the position of his father, youthful businessman Joey de Venecia III finds himself in a political quagmire he hardly knows anything about.

 Let’s hope Speaker Joe de Venecia, who is now the target of vicious propaganda and left-handed power play, will survive the massive attack on his person. But if we were him, it would be a rare honor to be toppled by evil manipulation, for he would fall in the arms of admiring citizens. 

Hope and pray for the best.
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Next US president is a woman?

By Gonzalo Duque

SAN FRANCISCO, California - A joke  going the rounds of Filipino Americans here is that the Philippines has beaten the US to the draw  for being the first to elect a woman to the presidency.

Kung sabagay, sa totoo lang kayang kaya  natin ang  kano sa maraming bagay lalo na sa larangan ng pulitika, lalo na sa  eleksyon. Kaya, minabuti nila na wala na sa power si Marcos baka maisipan pang lumaban ng presidente sa Amerika e.

This development was noted with reports that Senator Hilary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, is leading in the presidential surveys across the US. She is edging out former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama - all in the Democratic Party.
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Pacquiao faced one ready to lose

By Al S. Mendoza

I SAID HERE the last time that Manny Pacquiao will decide who will win in his fight with Marco Antonio Barrera.

He did decide to win and would proceed to score a unanimous decision victory.

With the win, Pacquiao proved he is not greedy, that money isn’t everything in this world.

Had he decided to lose, nobody would have noticed.  Boxing has always been the perfect bait to catch suckers.

A Pacquiao defeat would have avenged Barrera’s 11th-round KO loss to Pacquiao in 2003, and would have immediately called for a Pacquiao-Barrera Trilogy - ensuring a blockbuster at the tills in the mold of the Pacquiao-Morales III in November 2006.
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Buying. Bought. Bribed

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

There are some questions that can be legitimately asked about the more recent events in the country that are begging for credible answers—if such were still possible. How gross can a national government become when it buys the loyalty and support of certain regional and local public officials? How corrupt and corrupting can an administration display itself by freely and liberally distributing millions of pesos to many of its minions as if it owned all the money in the country? How callous can an incumbent national leader be by paying for its greed for power, by assuring its tenure of might influence?

The way someone thinks and acts, it appears that there is no more distinction between right and wrong, no more difference between virtue and vice. It looks like some individuals are considered as having affordable price tags. There appears to be a calculated and deliberate scheme to bribe certain persons in order to prop up a miserable credibility and lost respectability. Anything at any cost for whatever amount—all these are considered fair and square on proviso only that egoistic interests could be duly promoted, and selfish motives accordingly safeguarded.
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Successful farming after 19 years as OFW

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

After 19 years of working as an electronics communication expert in some foreign lands, Roberto Serrano, 53, finally decided to call it quits and started farming in Rizal, Nueva Ecija.  Barely eight years have passed and he is now recognized by his fellow farmers as a top performing farmer.

The initial 4 ha [hectares] of rice land that he started to cultivate have expanded to 12 ha. , and his yields have been increasing through the years.  With hybrid rice in the dry season, his yield has tremendously increased to 8.8 tons a hectare (t/ha).

“I was getting some income right from the start and so I invested further,” he said. 

Roberto recalls that since he did not have much experience in farming, he relied heavily on what the seasoned farmers told him at the start.  “I was just following what they told me, but after sometime I noticed that their practices are very traditional,” he said.
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Largest and nicest game

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

LAST Sunday and Monday, three sports championships were held for us.

One in international boxing and one each for national and provincial basketball competitions.

In the international sphere, Filipino boxing icon Manny Paquiao retained his WBC (World Boxing Council) super featherweight international crown through a unanimous decision victory over arch-enemy Chicano Marco Antonio Barrera last Sunday.

In the national scene, the La Salle Green Archers scored a humiliating and stunning upset by sweeping the best-of three championship series over previously unbeaten University of the East Warriors to capture the coveted  UAAP crown this year, also last  Sunday.
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Manners make the man!

Or the woman? (Part 2)

By Emmanuelle

Old boys’ clubs way back around the middle ages had their rules of etiquette printed in guild statutes for the guidance of the members: Good manners maketh a man / Look that thine hands is clean / and that thy knife be sharp and keen. / If thou sit by a worthier man / Thou thyself art one.

The same as saying birds of the same feathers flock together. Except that birds fly and men sit. And to be as worthy, one must do one’s sitting with the worthier men. There are no worthier birds than the ones alive and flying. 

So, if one flies with the birds, one is a very gay bird. And  if one sits with the mayor, one is as good as the mayor. Or being the  mayor. Or a congressman, if the congressman happened to dine on the same table as the mayor. Now, children, why does Joe sit with the President?
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