Lucky Manzano’s Secret
September 29th, 2008 § 3 Comments
Does it really come from a bear? But what if it comes from a Chinese bear? Have you met a bear who’s lactose intolerant? To Vilma Santos, can Bear Brand make me as handsome as Lucky?
Good thing Nestle Philippines has already assured that all materials used for all its’ milk products come from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, or the Americas. Consuming 3-4 glasses of milk a day, I should really be aware whether my milk contains melamine or not.
One member of my family has kept on saying for the past week, “Sira-ulong mga Chinese yan.” She’s not generalizing however she’s truly irritated with whomever thought about making money at the cost of harming and even killing children. The consumers just wanted to make sure their kids get the right nutrition. Milk is a basic source of nutrition you would never imagine being harmful for your kids. This is a crime in multiple proportions! Haha!
I can only see smiling faces from all the lactose intolerants out there.
For our local milk producers be ready for the demand.
I bet juice drinks will surely have a slight increase in their sales…
Pink Panther by Alex Magno
September 23rd, 2008 § 3 Comments
The article is no longer available in philippine star’s site (Editorial Section). I’m just making it available here.
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Pink Panther
FIRST PERSON By Alex Magno
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Fernando is not just speculating on a possible presidential run. He has declared himself the “next” President.
Recognizing the inherent limitations on nationwide name-recall that local government executives have to surmount, he has tried singing his way to recognition. Everywhere, we see photographs of him staring down from lampposts and reminding all that what the country needs now is kaayusan (orderliness).
Recognizing as well that so much political influence has been devolved to the local executives, Fernando has quietly worked the local governments, gathering the support of influential local politicians. Those posters on lampposts from Aparri to Jolo did not just grow there. Local political leaders either helped put them up or, at the very least, tolerated their display.
Fernando is also playing to his party’s strength. Lakas dominates the local governments. The party is branding itself as a coalition of doers, not talkers. Fernando is running on his record of performance as an administrator.
Over dinner a few months ago, discussing the US elections and the out-of-the-box tactics the Obama campaign had used, he asked me a question that was actually a declarative sentence: Why should voters choose a legislator to be president?
The presidency requires proven managerial ability. In his mind, he is the only one in the field with proven managerial competence. He has a whole city to prove that, and now a megalopolis with 12 million people.
Recently, President Gloria Arroyo put Fernando in charge of the development of the 400-hectare National Penitentiary property adjacent to the Ayala Alabang estate. She chose Fernando because he gets things done. That large parcel of land will be the next big thing in property development, the next satellite city to relieve the tightly packed metropolitan area.
This has to be read as a vote of confidence in the man. No one else could get that done, at least not within the short timeline the President always expects.
I traveled to Mindanao over the weekend. I was surprised that people deeply interested in the run of our politics have begun asking about Bayani Fernando.
I suppose the interest in the man who, among those considered presidential material, never delivered a privilege speech. Never ignited a half-baked expose. Never tried to gain media mileage by haranguing public officers who were doing their work.
Over the past few years, Fernando has been busy getting traffic on Edsa moving at a faster pace. He has been busy clearing shanties so that more road space could be opened for public use.
Always, he has been dogged in his determination to get things done. His commonsense solutions — such as the U-turn lanes and the pink pedestrian overpasses to keep people from interfering with traffic flow — provoked indignation at times. But that indignation melted into acceptance when people realized the solutions worked.
I can understand why Ramos might be enthused by a Fernando presidency. Both of them are trained engineers. They look at problems structurally and begin solutions from the bottom up. Only from firm foundations can useful edifices be built.
I can understand, too, why people from as far as Mindanao are asking about this man. There is a sense everywhere that the much-advertised early runners have burned out. Their early campaigns have turned out to be all air and no structure. All speeches and nothing solid in terms of achievement to show.
There is perceptible public exhaustion with the narrow partisan plays that only succeeded in poisoning our politics. There is a quiet but determined rejection of the old crop of politicians who will say anything and pull any ploy to establish name-recall and lure the old crop of electoral financiers who have, in turn, distorted our policy architecture.
How many years has it been that the public’s attention been commandeered by politicians who make wild allegations, hold trials by publicity and end up with nothing resolved? There is now a clear sense the country needs managers, not demagogues. We need people with blueprints, not with half-baked privilege speeches.
That circus at the Senate has brought things to a head.
Instigated by that disorderly tandem of Lacson and Madrigal, the Senate has now resembled a gladiatorial arena where all players will be slain. The noisy circus guarantees that all the self-appointed presidential aspirants from that chamber will end up politically diminished.
None of the ambitious senators will have their statures elevated by cheap charges and confused counter-charges. In an orgy of mudslinging, no one comes out at the end appearing cleaner than when the affair began.
And this is why ordinary voters have begun looking beyond that tainted chamber for possible new leaders to bring the nation forward. This is why there is that perceptible surge in interest in Bayani Fernando.
He is the unintended beneficiary of the strange games senators play — the peaceable manager preoccupied with getting things done.
Reproductive Health Bill
September 21st, 2008 § 77 Comments
After a heartfelt loss against the Blue Eagles and going through the week that broke Wall Street, let’s go back to an issue which Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque urges his colleagues to set aside and then focus on more pressing matters. So this is not a pressing matter? Short term yes, but in the long run, maybe not.
Yes, it is the Reproductive Health Bill. Many Filipinos don’t give a damn regarding the issue mainly because anyone can easily get contraceptives from your nearest 7-11 or Mercury Drug store.
(This is a response to my previous blog entry about the financial crisis in the US which started a thread on contraceptives.)
So why did Edcel Lagman author this bill? He said, mainly “to promote information on and access to both natural and modern family planning methods, which are medically safe and legally permissible. It assures an enabling environment where women and couples have the freedom of informed choice on the mode of family planning they want to adopt based on their needs, personal convictions and religious beliefs.”
Given this, I would like to divide the use of contraceptives into two categories. One used in marriage and the other outside it.
For married couples, the Catholic Church prohibits the use of contraceptives but allows natural family planning. Some people ask, what’s the difference between the two if both ends are not to bear a child? Why not use artificial methods? If they are indeed the same, then I should ask why not use natural family planning if you are saying that it’s the same? Then what have we learned from our ethics class, the ends do not justify the means.
Some people would respond saying that it’s impossible… improbable… unbearable… It’s far easier and more practical to use artificial means. You can get it whenever and wherever you want. But as HUMAN BEINGS who possess something we call self-control, affection and true love towards the other isn’t only limited to sexual activities and can be expressed through innumerable ways. Does it sound better when someone says, he loves me, therefore he can wait instead of hearing someone say, if you really love me, do it for me?
For non-married couples, the act being done outside the marriage covenant is a sin in itself much more if contraceptives are used. Some guy may say, have sex and make a baby? No way man! That’s the point, sex is a beautiful and sacred act created by God for means of giving birth to a child and to bring a wife and a husband closer together and be as one. If the initial goal of the act is not to bear a child only to gain pleasure, then we are contradicting its true purpose and can be considered simply an act of lust.
Now, I want to ask Rep. Janette Garin and all the Filipino mothers, if you had a daughter (I don’t know if she has one), would she allow her daughter to engage in premarital sex? This is a consequence we are assured of if this bill pushes through. Even without a bill regulating the use of contraceptives, we’re going towards a culture of promiscuity, much more if we have something to regulate it.
According to an article in Philippine Star yesterday, UNICEF has a report stating that “99 percent of all maternal deaths are accounted in developing countries with 84 percent concentrated in Sub-Saharan and South Asia.” UNICEF also said that “4500 Filipino women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every year.” If the author is saying that the solution is contraceptives in order to avoid women dying unnecessarily then I would argue that preventing them to have a child through investing in massive amounts of contraceptives is not the answer. Instead developing all the facilities needed to bring forth a child safely for both mother and child should be done.
Population is not the problem of the country; it’s mainly the government’s wrong allocation of resources and the resources you wonder where it mysteriously ends up . If Lagman really wants prosperity, then why not solve the corruption problem in the Philippines, knowing that we are leading this very unpopular competition in the east-asia region? Is it because corruption is deeply ingrained in our veins that it has become a culture, then why are we giving a chance for another culture, the culture of promiscuity and culture of death to engulf our country?
For a comprehensive discussion on contraception, you can read this article entitled Contraception: Why Not?
Red Arrows and Red Blood
September 15th, 2008 § 7 Comments
Manila Science Professional
September 14th, 2008 § 3 Comments
Last Friday afternoon, students from Maynilad Study Center, went to Manila Science High School to conduct the Manila Science Professional. (Click here for more photos)
First things first, Maynilad Study Center is not in anyway related to the water company. Maynilad is a study center which offers holistic personal development for male university students through talks, get-togethers and other academic and cultural activities.
Manila Science Professional on the other hand is a project of Maynilad, a two-day seminar designed to gather selected top 3rd year and 4th year highschool students and provide a career and leadership program designed to help these students decide what course to take in the university and choose which university to go to.
The program was supposed to start at 3:00pm. At 2:45 all the staff, were at panic-mode since there were no highschool students in sight. At 3:00, only 3rd year students were present in the 3rd floor multimedia room of MaSci. We were informed that the 4th year students had to attend another activity before this one but they promised to come immediately right after it. We didn’t have the whole afternoon so we had to start at 3:15. By 3:30 all the expected paticipants were there just in time to listen to the keynote speaker.
The speaker Mr. John Paul Juliano talked about goal setting as an important tool in surviving college life. He’s a graduate of the University of Asia and the Pacific and now working in Fujitsu Philippines. He’s been in the Information Technology industry for almost a decade and is now currently dealing with clients across Asia Pacific and has handled numerous amounts of projects as infrastructure service delivery manager.
The title of his talk was Managing Oneself: Goal Setting for the Real World. The talk was very appropriate for the audience because now they are just highschool students, but within a span of five years or so, they are expected to be in the real world, maybe some will go to the academe, some to research but a large chunk I bet would end up in the corporate world. Having some thoughts shared by a man who has been in the corporate world surely brought forth insights which are very useful.
Mr. Juliano talked about choosing, working and checking your goals. He called a student and asked him what he wanted to be, the student being the shy-type took us a few seconds to get an answer from him but in the end, he said he wanted to be a doctor. So John asked if they had medicine subjects in Manila Science, of course none, but I’m sure they have biology classes. What John wanted to point out is at their stage in life, being high school students; they only have a certain amount of resources where they can use to excel. And in order for them to step into college those resources should be maximized and grades in high school is one of them. Did I hear someone say that grades aren’t everything? True! But let’s face it. You have to have good grades to get into you chosen school and if you want to get to a university with a scholarship, the more you need to perform well and your transcript of records is a very concrete tool you can use to get into that new stage in life.
Being the host of the program, for sure, I also learned a lot from John. One thing which John pointed out is this thing we call attitude. I can’t really describe exactly what attitude is but he is saying attitude should be the foundation. Using attitude in the right way can be very helpful to us specially if while working with goals we assess all the variables of a given problem or situation that’s facing us and judge what counts most such that we can use these to successfully hit the goal.
After the very informative talk given by Mr. Juliano, we moved on to the panel discussion. In this part of the program we invited outstanding students from all the top five universities in Metro Manila to share their experience entering and surviving college. Unfortunately Gino Trinidad from Atone wasn’t unable to come but nevertheless we still had four guys who willingly imparted their experiences in college.
The student guest from DLSU was Amado Miguel De Jesus a 5th year Star Scholar now taking his double degree in BS and MS in Industrial Engineering. From UP Diliman, we had James Gabrillo a fourth year Broadcast Communication student, Magna Cum Laude Standing and is currently writing for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. From the University of Asia and the Pacific we had Dante Estepa Jr. a university scholar taking up Indutrial Economics. In 2007 he was one of the recipients of the University Excellence Award for having the highest grade in his batch. And the student guest from UST was Patrick Averilla, a consistent dean’s lister and currently the treasurer of the School of Accountancy Student Council.
I told the Masci students that of course the guests will tell the audience that their own school is the best but they shouldn’t bother because the best school is really DLSU. (Coming from DLSU, I really had to crack this one, but again I reiterate that this was only a joke. Haha! This program didn’t have any bias with any school. We’re there to truthfully advice the students regarding what course to take and in which university is the best choice for that course.)
Patrick Averilla shared his thoughts in choosing a course. He said that now he is taking BS Accountancy but he is still not sure if it is indeed the course for him. Until now he thinks that he should be in Engineering. It was very honest of him. In fact judging on how he performs in school, I can say that he really is a very good student. Why? Because it’s very hard to accomplish things when you are thinking that you should be doing a totally different thing. Pursuing something which you are not really convinced but still consistently being in the Dean’s list is very uncommon. What we can learn from this is that there will come a time when you have to decide on things which you can’t delay. You have to arrive at a decision after assessing all the variables and make sure that you make the best out of it. It would be great if you land at something you really want but most of the times you don’t that’s why making the best out of what you have right now is an attitude that will surely open up the horizons for you.
Amado De Jesus said that grades aren’t the only thing needed in college. It is expected that students coming from Science High Schools will not have problems academically but it’s not all grades. He told his experience in a certain company where he did his OJT that they seriously look at extra-curricular activities and specially leadership skills as part of their criteria in accepting job applicants. In the real world, it’s a given that you should know how to think, but dealing with people is another thing and your experience in the extra-curricular activities can prove something about it.
Dante Estepa Jr. said that it all started when he wanted to prove that coming from Iloilo National Science High School, he can prove his parents that he can go to Manila and study on his own. With that goal in mind, he was deserving to get a full scholarship from UA&P. Aside from the famous faculty members of the economics department of UA&P, he values the culture in his school which is geared towards the corporate world. Studying in the heart of Ortigas, you can’t really take that away from them. But what he admires UA&P for is their personal mentoring. Banking on the small population of their students, the school makes it a point that everyone will have their personal mentors who guides them in academics and personal development. It’s true that not everything is learned from class and most of the things you may need, you can learn just by chatting with someone better than you. Much more if that someone can guide you as you mature throughout your stay in the university.
And for James, I really have to narrate his funny experience going into college. The day the UPCAT results came out, knowing that his heart will not be able to handle seeing with his own eyes if he got in or not, he asked his friend to inform him if he was accepted. He waited for his friend’s news that morning but he received no means of communication from his friend whatsoever. At noon time he already accepted that UP was not for him. In the afternoon he already went to UA&P to reserve his slot for enrollment. And after getting the receipt from the counter, a text message came in. Guess what?! Yeah. There’s no other way but UP.
One thing, I think is a very good advice for the incoming freshmen that James said was that although extra-curricular activities and organizations may help a lot in getting you a job, you must first assess or feel your performance in your first semester in college. If you feel that you can handle more then go for the extras but if you think acads is enough, then no worries because excelling in class is better as compared to excelling in the extras because the true purpose of school is knowledge which you learn from your classes and the grades you earn from it.
The last part of the program was the coat of arms where the audience was asked using the frame we provided them to draw their goals in life. The whole group was divided into subgroups and were assigned their own facilitators. The facilitators were also university students tasked to guide them in setting their goals. This period was also used for the highschool students to ask their facilitators anything about the university.
Lastly, I want to go back to John when he mentioned that in order to be successful sacrifice would be one of the very big factors. Being successful is something we project in a future scenario which is wanted by everyone. Michelangelo said that “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.” My friend also said that, “If something is easy, then where can we find the virtue there?” These sayings hit the bull’s eye regarding attitude towards work. If you desire perfection and you feel that what you are doing is easy then there must be something wrong with it. If you want to get the highest grade in your class, if you want to top the board exams, if you want to finish the race first then feeling the tiredness and difficulty of work is something you can’t remove. There is no easy way out. You can’t cheat in order to accomplish things. You can’t do things in just one big go. You have to do it step-by-step, one at a time small and steady.
The event was very tiring but very informative and I’m very sure the students benefitted a lot from it. We’ll be back next week for the second day of the program with a new set of speakers so expect me to write something about the event a week from now.
Bayani Fernando
September 10th, 2008 § 12 Comments
This article may seem biased for some. Feel free to comment. I wrote this back in 2005.
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Although the methods of Bayani Fernando in implementing the law
seems to be absurd, it may just be what is needed by the public.
Since the year when Bayani Fernando was appointed chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority, many things have changed and have come up in the streets of Metro Manila which we did not notice in the past MMDA administration if there is really anything to be noticed about. He was all of a sudden the talk of the town because of his odd ways of implementing the law and most importantly his political will and determination in doing his job. He was once even called merciless because of the way he drove of the squatters and the sidewalk vendors. Indeed, there was no other way because these people never listened. They kept their ground so the only way left was to use force against them. BF said that he was just doing his work and that was to implement the law.
Until now he’s still up and running with even more absurd ways of making Metro Manila his own dream city. Some of the methods he is using are just copy from other countries which have worked for them like the U-turn slots and which are very ideal for our traffic problems. For an engineer’s point of view, these U turn slots are effective because it keeps the traffic flow moving. Cars do not have to stop at intersections so it’s more beneficial for people who would go straight. And for those who are making turns, they just have to take u turn slots which are just few meters away. Other people think that it’s just a waste of time making u-turns because they think that these slots are very far from the streets which they should originally be making turns. But consider the time wasted waiting on red lights at intersections compared to the time taken to travel to the nearest slot.
Only in the Philippines have we seen fences preventing pedestrians on crossing busy roads and for vehicles to avoid loading and unloading passengers on prohibited areas which shows clearly how hard-headed Filipinos are. Bayani said, “We had to think of a way to enforce discipline on Filipinos who refuse to follow basic traffic and road rules.” which led to the fences’ installation. The fences as of now can be considered as effective because it kept people from staying on the critical parts of road like the corners especially on intersections and even preventing people from occupying almost half of the width of the road. A good example is what has been done to the Aurora-EDSA intersection in Cubao. All its four corners were planted with pink fences to make people wait for their rides meters away from the intersection, because a clear intersection means a healthy traffic flow. But some Filipinos still do not obey the rules. They still go near fences to wait for their rides. We all know that they are just few but it still irritates my eyes seeing pedestrians beside these fences on the wrong side of it which is the road part which are intended for the use of vehicles. Do they know the meaning of pedestrian sidewalks? Maybe not because they do not know also the meaning of pedestrian crossings thinking that these white parallel stripes on the road are just for design. Are they trying to mock the MMDA officers or they just want to display their amazing stupidity?
Are these type of people just plain stupid or are they just selfish? Not everybody notices it but it is selfishness in a way that keeps our roads from being orderly. If each one of us will only think of our own convenience without thinking of what its effect might be on the society, then absolutely no order will be observed. Selfishness or not, the MMDA would not just stare at these people doing nothing, so they thought of using the very basic way of teaching and warning them. The MMDA installed numerous signs with words of font sizes of about a thousand pixels to make sure that even people with cataract can see it. It even used basic Tagalog words of what they should do and what will happen if they disobey it. “WALANG TAWIRAN NAKAMAMATAY.” So if you are still found just a few meters from these signs, there will surely be no excuse that you did not see it.
We all know that it is normal here in the city to see commuters waiting for rides while occupying almost half the width of the road. Another solution that the MMDA thought of was the wet flag policy that did not prove to be effective because of the lack of vehicles to install the wet flags. It just caused the pedestrians to go back to the middle of the road after the wet flag has already passed by. But this absurd method woke up different local government units and made them react. Some said that it is okay that you can see the agency doing what they can do to instill discipline but a majority said that it was useless, inefficient and the agency just made a laugh out of themselves. They even said that they should think first before implementing something. The MMDA answered back simply saying that at least they are doing something unlike the different LGUs who only know how to criticize what the other agencies are doing. They also said that they have been trying to make arrangements with the city mayors to agree upon what to do regarding this certain problem and no one responded. Now when the project is on the go, everybody just seems to want the media to listen to what they have to say regarding the wet flag policy. Why now when it is already being implemented? Why call it useless when the city mayors themselves are not doing anything? Why now claim that you yourselves, the city mayors, already have the plans for this problem and just not have the time to implement it? Plans are not plans forever. They are supposed to be executed. Probably these city mayors just talk when a hot issue comes, for them to shine in being in favor of the public regarding the policy, a very cheap tactic for a lowly politician. Even if it did not work that effectively, at least it showed the people who among their leaders are doing what they can for progress and who are just making use of their positions for popularity and fortune from corruption.
All of these problems on the road came about because of lack of discipline of pedestrians as well as drivers of vehicles. So if there’s no way to teach them to obey the law, then forcing them to obey it might be the proper solution and its better if it is more unconventional. We should try new ways to make Metro Manila a better place because we are all tired of seeing the same problems of our streets day after day. Change should be done and it should be to develop and improve our standards of living.
If you are talking about improvement, Bayani Fernando is definitely the right man for the job. Everybody can call him merciless but he does not even care as long as he thinks that it is for the progress of the city. In fact he should be considered as one of the most politically-willed non-politician who ever held a position in the government. He is just a servant of the people who does things which he thinks are right. He does not mind if the people who are getting mad at him are also the ones who could get him a higher position in office. He just wants to do his job and make Metro Manila the city that he dreamed of.
KFC Recipe
September 10th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
I know that everyone wants to know the secret recipe of KFC but what I didn’t know was how much security they employ to protect a yellowish peiece of paper. I’m not sure if they are talking about the gravy or the chicken itself and I don’t know if they have gravy in the US. Yahoo News had a story on the transfer of the yellowish paper which contained the secret recipe of KFC. I can’t believe despite all the hi tech equipment nowadays, no one has ever tried to deduce the ingredients of the said recipe. According to AP, ”To reach the cabinet, the keepers of the recipe would first open up a vault and unlock three locks on a door that stood in front of the cabinet”, also, they said only two company executives have access to it. Exagg….
3D Virtual Objects
September 10th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Virtual Object in mid-air! Sci-Fi will soon become a 
reality… and the application… GAMES! nice.
Faceyourmanga is back online!
September 10th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Google Chrome Versus the World
September 10th, 2008 § 2 Comments
