The Fourth Perspective

Not because I lost my sight I will not see; Not because I cannot hear I will not understand; Not because I lost my teeth I will not smile; Not because I lost my hair I lost my will; Not because my body is frail I lost my strength; Not because my limbs are numb I cannot sense; Not because I can no longer walk I will not reach; Not because I have lost this mind I have lost a spirit; Not because I have lost this body I have lost a soul; Not because I am no longer around I want be near; All because I will live in you and you in me;  because you will see beyond you and these letters, because you will peek at the three sides of the coin;  because your thoughts will be beyond physics; because your mind will venture the sub conscious;  because you will draw vigor from heaven and earth;  because you will extend your arms for truth,  and   because you will live by and die with it. Never fear … I will be near…..

How many times have we heard of phrases like sorry I can’t make it, my car broke down; the plane crashed because of engine trouble; I wasn’t able to call because I have no more credits; the fatal accident happened due to brake failure…..and so on…. The human instinct of self preservation always comes into play amid tragedies and misgivings. It is a means of escape. In the absence of other animate, the tendency to proclaim inanimate to be the cause, as if it has a mind of its own would not be an exception. The aim is to convince himself and others that if ever and when there is a human factor in a tragedy, it is of lesser… much lesser degree. This human attitude is a natural manifestation of bloated ego and fear of punishment. It is docile to benign, as it is instinct driven. It is not premise on motive or pre-determined result. If ever it, the recent event in the US was a terrible tragedy and no amount of words can described the feelings of the families of the victims, all

Presidential Decrees has the force of law, unless otherwise repealed and that includes Presidential Decree (PD) no.1081 that placed the entire Philippines under Martial Law on September 23, 1972 . Though formally lifted there may still be, technically and as a matter of law (“de jure”), a  Martial Law. The subsequent Presidents after Mr. Marcos may  issue directives and decrees (now termed as Executive Orders or EO’s)  on the basis of PD 1081  with the force similar to  those that was proposed, deliberated and passed by the both houses of congress and the senate. In effect, the Philippines may actually have two lawmaking bodies, the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch. A situation that this venue and anyone may find inconsistent with the spirit of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, specifically on matters like check and balance. Although not all executive orders issued by Presidents subsequent to Mr. Marcos pertains to creation of new laws or amendments thereto, the window f

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted- Albert Einstein”. The post fight interview of Manny Pacquiao right on top of the ring just after he got sober from a knockout punch showed an inconvenient reality. Right after the few questions and responses the interview ended and Manny Pacquiao turned around and saw that no one were near him or were even around. He was looking for a supporter and maybe some of his friends. He had glanced to the both side of the ring but not a soul can be seen. Gone are the back patting friends, the people that steals the moment of Manny’s fame by inserting their faces in front of camera lenses. Gone are the people that squeezed themselves to be identified in those glorious moments of the past. Not a soul, not even one had waited for him till after the interview. I saw the look on Manny’s face, the feeling of abandonment. To me it was a pathetic sight, not because of the knock-out, but because of the q

It’s a line from an old BEEGEES hit song that poses a very relevant question. Can a wounded heart be mended? While watching the recent Pacquiao-Marquez fight on live TV, my daughter can’t seemed to find the right place to sit and watch from… for her at that moment it seems that every chairs and floors on the house were littered with cayenne chili pepper. Finally, when that moment came that Pacquiao kissed the canvass, she had bitten the pillow she was holding and sank her face unto it, with exasperation and weariness she declared that her heart was in pain. She was and probably is still broken-hearted. Like most Filipinos and foreigners who witnessed the fall of an idol, it was indeed a shattering feeling expressed in various ways. All of us somewhere in our lifetime will or had experienced a similar pain. The pain of a wounded heart.  A wounded heart is devastating to some and a learning experience for others. It is a given from the start, pain will and is a part of every hu

A lmost everyone was petrified upon seeing Manny Pacquiao hit the canvas face down. Manny’s arms were limp before that fall, indicating that he had a total lost of consciousness even before he keeled over. Everybody was asking in muted fashion, “what happened?” Well, I believe that the same people that wondered what happen did actually saw it coming. It is just difficult for them to face with candor the end of the path Manny Pacquiao has been taking. Manny Pacquiao had multi-tasked. He took roads heading towards directions that do not intersect. Roads that are distant from each other, unrelated destinations…at most perhaps in some ways, and even more were opposite from each other. He even tried to do it within the same time frame, and along the way it drained him. It consumed and confused him. He had lost his priority. He faltered and it diminished the consistency of his grip. He  lost focus…like a light that loses heat when dispersed. It was and it is a gospel truth, no one

The Minutemen has its origin from the American Revolution. They were militias who fought in defense of their localities. Consisted mostly of able bodied men from 16 to 30 years of age, they were highly mobile and can be deployed in a minute’s notice, hence the term “Minutemen”. In the event of national emergency, the standing members of Philippine Armed Forces that now numbers to about 120,000 will just be but a welcoming contingent to any invading force. That is why Republic Act (RA) 7077 also known as the “Reservist Act” was enacted in 1990.  It aims to ensure that there is a ready force to augment the regular force to meet any contingencies, be it wartime or peacetime. It was fathered by the constitutional mandate through the National Defense Act of 1935. One of its silent provision is;  ARTICLE VI MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT Section 14.  Compulsory Military Registration and Training .   – All male citizens between the ages of eighteen (18) and twenty-five (25) years wh

Have you ever wonder why things have not changed though you have elected different people for the same position over your lifetime? Are you not surprise that you saw same people on the senate and congress podium not only in your primetime but also in the primetime of your children? Does it make you dizzy to learn that people who disappeared in senate or congress hall are now seating as mayors or governors? Have you surrendered to the idea that the wife, sons and daughters of the traditional politicians are the anointed one's? Enigmatic or plain systemic? Most candidates for the national electoral position in the Philippines not surprisingly were almost always rich. They are owners of vast lands and haciendas; they were construction kingpins and industrialist. Some were not as rich, but they belonged to the bloodline of traditional power which they carried in their name, as such, they were cuddled in the stable of the elite. These few people comprise and domin

The Philippines is a consumer and service based economy. Meaning the economy is driven by consumer spending, while consumer’s purchasing power emanates from domestic and foreign services. The latter constitutes the bulk of the country’s economic stimulus substantially sustained by the middle sector acting as the significant consumer base. Think of a pyramid where there is an apex represented by the oligarch constituting the minute portion of the population that owns and controls the big industry. Next is the upper middle section of the pyramid that has the capacity to generate income to sustain consumption of needs as well as wants. Owners of medium and small scale enterprises,  professionals, overseas contract workers, technology experts, corporate employees in the pay of large companies and intrapreneur,  belongs to this group. At the lower middle section are the contractual laborers, other corporate employees, transport drivers, market vendors, tailors, barbers and the like.

Nature’s Law is like merchandise, you break it... you pay for it. The best things in life are free, so they say; the truth is …it is true. Nature is abound with everything to satiate man’s basic needs. Early man gathered food by foraging, fishing and hunting in the most primitive and conservative way. Taking just enough from nature and leaving the rest to multiply and rejuvenate. Amazingly, primitive as they were, they understood the process and the law that governs the natural order of things. Today, man hardly gather in the traditional and primitive sense, rather he plowed, planted and harvested without rest and he whipped with sophistication, believing that the soil will cough more than it can. He took more than he needed to support his wants. The ground is rooted even before it replenished. It gave out more of what it has, faster than it can accumulate.  Slowly but steadily it is losing strength; its nutrient nearly depleted. Synthetics piles up beneath on the very faces

Boxing is an art of combat motivated by reward and  governed by rules  of  the  game. Head batting and hitting below the belt are considered dirty fighting that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It defies convention, decency and morals and are prohibited, sanctioned and penalized. But war is different all through out and the analogy lies on conventions or the manner by which each should be fought. Boxing and war have conventions but only the former is self-limiting in as far as damage is concerned. In the latter though conventions are in place, there is neither a referee to stop the erring contender or a crowd to boo the villainous act. There is no moral... no decency, on the contrary all the means were employed to bring about the greatest damage and destruction to the enemy, including the use of dreaded weaponry. The motivation is to end in victory, quickly! Conventions becomes guidelines reserved only for the vanguished. In war, acts were inhuman to savage. It deprived men of reaso

The Jeepney is old and flabby; it farts too loud, too much; with bulges and curves in places but the right ones; it became meaner and larger, even slower than ever; to all direction it moves in a crisscrossed fashion, aiming to isolate its breed; but when on a halt, it is almost in hibernation, as if in the wait for the onset of the next season. The foregoing analogy is an attempt to personify, not vilify the Jeepney’s current state in relation to its rational 67 years ago. It had survived the post war era, the baby boomer years, the rock and roll hype, a decade and half of martial rule, plus three more decades up… unto this very day, and towards to probably more. The jeepney has been a part of Filipino lives and it occupies a niche in the Philippine culture. It came about after the war, amid the scarcity to serve the need for a rugged means of transportation. Since then, from dawn till next, it had  responded to that need. It had traversed roads where there was none, and had c

For decades the Philippine armed forces is at war within. Insurgency has been around since the end of World War ll. Secessionist and separatist groups had divided, multiplied and changed names since the 70’s. Banditry took the limelight in the recent past with kidnapping and killing of other nationals in the southern Philippines . The older armed forces had fought in Korea and Vietnam , and the current ones had a contingent in some of the most troubled spot in the world under the auspices of the United Nations. Indeed, prolonged and protracted fighting, amid the scarcity, is something that the Philippine armed forces had learned to live by and die with. Needless to state, fighting is not much of strange word or activity for the Philippine military. Its long exposure to low-intensity conflict had honed its spirit and skills and relative to its assigned mission, may be considered as one of the best in the world. But then, being infantry based, whose experiences rotates around non-

While being introduced to legislative floor, proposed law may either be as ridiculous as the Anti-Planking Bill or it can be as sublime and controversial as the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill, among many others, but in its final form, the Philippine Constitution and all the enabling law for that matter may humbly be described as one of the most comprehensive and substantive in the world. It practically covers every circumstances, acts, omissions and even far more remote situations and conditions that one could possibly imagine. Its roots was seeded on Hispanic and American Jurisprudence, both recognized then to be repositories of  the combined and aggregate experiences of the institutions under the civilize west. It was imbued with the same lofty ideals as that of the American Constitution promulgated after the independence of colonial America . In it dwells the same democratic premise and concept championed by the forerunners of the American Revolution. Truly the Philippine Laws is o

“Diplomacy works only if you are carrying a big stick or you have with you lots of friends, all of them carrying a big stick. - Unknown” “Political power grows from the barrel of the gun. - Mao   Tse Tung" “Don’t forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings. - Frederick the Great.” “ Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us   fat. - Herman Goering” The bureaucracy and the elect have come to the realization ( at least they pretend to have ) that there is some truth in the foregoing words uttered by some great and some infamous  men in the old arena of geopolitics. In fact, lots of truth as history and the Philippine’s on-going effort to rearm, would attest. The firm realization comes after knocking at doors of UNCLOS, ASEAN, the US of A and the world. The revelation is disheartening , that geopolitics is not only about goodwill, but also more about thinking like Mao and Frederick and Herman. The world

Article l paragraph l of the United Nations Charter states and I quote " To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;...( Bold letters are mine ). How would this number one provision of the UN charter be applied in the situation that besieged countries such as the Philippines, China and Vietnam, among others, with respect to the territorial claims in the sea west of the Philippines and south of China? Decades had passed, and the persistence of this issue is slowly accelerating beyond diplomatic tolerance of the countries involved.

Someone told me that wall eyed is ron-pari in Japanese. One eye is looking at Rondon and the other at Paris . As the crisis drags on and vicious military spending gradually and steadily magnifies across the waters west of the Philippines , there is but a surface knowledge on the part of the Philippine populace on what is going on and why it is so. The prevailing attitude may be characterized as uncaring, disinterested, uninvolved, and lukewarm- in a day …to sadly.. forever cold. Are these attitude demonstrative of a vacuum in patriotism over the hearts of this nation, or is it something else? Curiosity brought me to the phrase “ Scientia Potentia Est ( Knowledge is Power)”. Could it be that the culprit is sheer ignorance? Ignorance brought about by a disconnection between media and the majority of the populace at the lower half of the social echelon, on matters that does not directly affect their livelihood and daily existence, such as issues on national and economic se