MikeLigalig.com

By Rey Anthony Chiu

Negros Oriental police nabbed a Boholano believed to be a ranking Central Visayas leader of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) and his girlfriend as they disembarked from at the port in Sibulan Negros Oriental, Saturday, July 26, reports said. 

Negros Oriental PNP Assistant Provincial Director Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas identified the suspects as Pedro Banga Lumantas, alias Ading / Lukring/ Mumer, 44, of Magsaysay, Sevilla town in Bohol; and Lita Pador Mahilum, alias Joy/Belen, 41, of Labangon, Cebu City.

The arrest was by virtue of a warrant for 4 counts of murder against Lumantas and issued by Judge Sylvia Aguirre-Paderaga of Danao City Regional Trial Court Branch 25.

Subsequent body search of the suspects yielded 2 hand grenades, personal belongings and documents, one of which was a letter to another Boholano red fighter who was asked to lie low due to a kidney problem.   

Military sources bared that Lumantas was identified in a few anti-government sorties in Bohol including the ambushes of army’s 2nd Lt. Socrates Que in March of 2000 in Sagbayan and 1Lt.Ronnie Bungaos in March of 2003.

Insider information from the Negros-based 302nd Brigade also revealed that, Lumantas was a squad leader of an NPA platoon and rose to become a political officer of the Bohol Island Committee of the NPA before they moved their base to Negros where he assumed the Finance, Logistics and Communications Officer of the Komite Rehiyon Sentral Bisayas or KRSB of the CPP-NPA.

Charges have been filed against the two who are now detained at an unspecified location in Negros.

Mahilum meanwhile was allegedly a former NPA member in Cebu who operated in Bohol and later worked as baby-sitter in Cebu.

The military intelligence sources also revealed that she now works as a rebel courier and liaison, handling important documents.

Lumantas and Mahilum both denied the accusations.

On related development, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called a permanent stop to all criminal activities of the Communist rebels if we want to catapult the Philippines to a modernized country by 2020.

“For years,” the President said, “the Communist rebels have been a low-level threat, and it is time for their disruption and violation of human rights to be put to rest so that the nation can move ahead.” 

“But to the rebels who genuinely and sincerely speak peace, we shall respond in kind. The most important part of our counter-strategy is the soft power of economic progress, dialogue and continuing efforts to arrive at mutual understanding,” the President said.

Being loyal to a friend...

We’ve touched on the subjects of social networking addiction (and fatigue) in the past, but a new survey from AOL Mail shows just how hooked Americans are on email. Among the findings are that 59% of us check our email from the bathroom â€" no wonder one of the first questions T-Mobile’s customer service asks when you report a malfunctioning device is whether or not there is water damage!

The study of 4,000 users also showed people checking their email with regularity from the following unusual and perhaps inappropriate locales:

    • In bed in their pajamas: 67%
    • From the bathroom: 59%
    • While driving: 50%
    • In a bar or club: 39%
    • In a business meeting: 38%
    • During happy hour: 34%
    • While on a date: 25%
    • From church: 15% (up from 12% last year)

source: Mashable

That's what friends are for...

1. Type about:config in the address bar and then press Enter.

2. In the filter search bar type network.http.pipelining. Be sure the value field is set true,if not double-click to set true. HTTP is the application-layer protocol that most web pages are transferred with. In HTTP 1.1, multiple requests can be sent before any responses are received. This is known as pipelining. Pipelining reduces page loading times, but not all servers support it.

3. Go back to the filter search bar and type network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. Double-click this option and set its value to 8.

4. In the filter search bar and type network.http.proxy.pipelining. Once opened doubleclick on it and set it to true.

5. In IPv6-capable DNS servers, an IPv4 address may be returned when an IPv6 address is requested. It is possible for Mozilla to recover from this misinformation, but a significant delay is introduced.
Type network.dns.disableIPv6 in the filter search bar and set this option to true by double clicking on it.

6. CONTENT INTERRUPT PARSING
This preference controls if the application will interrupt parsing a page to respond to UI events. It does not exist by default. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Boolean from the pop-up menu. Then:
A. Enter content.interrupt.parsing in the New boolean value pop-up window and click OK
B. When prompted to choose the value for the new boolean, select true and click OK.

7. Rather than wait until a page has completely downloaded to display it to the user, Mozilla applications will regularly render what has been received to that point. This option controls the maximum amount of time the application will be unresponsive while rendering pages. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.
A. Enter content.max.tokenizing.time in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK
B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 2250000 and click OK.

8. CONTENT NOTIFY INTERVAL
This option sets the minimum amount of time to wait between reflows. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.
A. Type content.notify.interval in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.
B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 750000 and click OK.

9. CONTENT NOTIFY ONTIMER
A. This option sets if to reflow pages at an interval any higher than that specified by content.notify.interval. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Boolean from the pop-up menu.
B. Type content.notify.ontimer in the New boolean value pop-up window and click OK.
C. You will be prompted to choose the value for the new boolean. Select true and click OK.

10. Notify Backoffcount
This option controls the maximum number of times the content will do timer-based reflows. After this number has been reached, the page will only reflow once it is finished downloading. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.
A. Enter content.notify.backoffcount in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.
B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 5 and click OK.

11. CONTENT SWITCH THRESHOLD
You can interact with a loading page when content.interrupt.parsing is set to true. When a page is loading, the application has two modes: a high frequency interrupt mode and a low frequency interrupt mode. The first one interrupts the parser more frequently to allow for greater UI responsiveness during page load.
The low frequency interrupt mode interrupts the parser less frequently to allow for quicker page load. The application enters high frequency interrupt mode when you move the mouse or type on the keyboard and switch back to low frequency mode when you had no activity for a certain amount of time. This preference controls that amount of time. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.
A. Enter content.switch.threshold in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.
B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 750000 and click OK.

12. NGLAYOUT INITIALPAINT DELAY
Mozilla applications render web pages incrementally, they display what’s been received
of a page before the entire page has been downloaded. Since the start of a web page
normally doesn’t have much useful information to display, Mozilla applications will wait
a short interval before first rendering a page. This preference controls that interval. Rightclick (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.
A. Enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.
B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 0 and click OK.

source: Tech Guy

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has moved to end a budget crisis by sacking 22,000 state workers and ordering pay cuts for 200,000.

The most populous state in the US faces a budget deficit of more than $15bn (£7.6bn), and legislators are struggling to agree a spending plan.

The cuts, which will save $100m a month, are designed to put pressure on politicians to end the budget crisis.

But a leading official in the state challenged the decision to cut pay.

California has one of the largest economies in the world and it has no way to pay contractors for many of the services it provides.

Some 30 American states face budget deficits caused by rising costs and falling revenues in a slumping economy but California's is by far the largest. - BBC News

JOE FRIESEN
Globe and Mail Update
July 31, 2008 at 1:31 PM EDT

BRANDON, MAN. â€" A young man travelling on a Greyhound bus was stabbed to death and beheaded by a stranger in a horrifying act of apparently random violence.

The incident occurred on a bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg just before 10 p.m. Wednesday.
A man of about 18 who was sleeping with headphones on was suddenly attacked by his seat mate, according to the man who sat directly in front of them.

He was stabbed repeatedly with a large hunting knife, sending blood spraying across the interior of the bus. The driver quickly pulled over and passengers fled out the front door.

The man then sawed off the victim's head and carried it to the front of the bus.
The two did not apparently know one another. The victim boarded the bus in Edmonton, one witness said, and the attacker boarded in Manitoba.

A standoff with police ensued until about 1 a.m. local time. One man was taken into custody. Garnet Caton, 26, was sitting in the seat in front of the attacker.

"I was just reading a book and all of a sudden I heard a guy screaming. I turned around and the guy sitting right beside me was standing up and stabbing another guy with a big Rambo knife," he said.
"Right in the throat. Repeatedly."

The man wielding the knife had a shaved head and was wearing sunglasses, he said.
"He looked totally calm. He didn't say a word I don't think to anybody on the bus ... nothing. Just totally calm."

Mr. Caton said most passengers were sleeping at the time and didn't realize what was happening.

"I screamed 'stop the bus!' ... Everybody got the hell off, and people at the front of the bus didn't really understand what was going on. It almost turned into a trample scene there, everybody trying to get off the bus. But the guy didn't care at all. He wasn't concerned with anybody but the guy he was stabbing.

I hope Leo could further explain this revelation.

Disappointment
Written by Leo Udtohan
source: http://www.bohol.ph/article200.html

Many are disappointed of how our very own Boholano Commissioner Benjie Oliva for the Visayas of the National Youth Commission (NYC) is “behaving” nowadays, perhaps, fitted for Boy Abunda’s show Kontrobersya. 

Last July 11, 2008 while the Central Visayas Regional Development Council (RDC) had a regular meeting (the members adopted a resolution requesting President Gloria Arroyo to make House Bill No. 309, reinstating the mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps in college, a priority bill of her administration. Cebu 1st district Rep. Eduardo Gullas, the main author of the bill, called for the abolition of the National Service Training Program and to restore the ROTC to produce more enlisted officers and resolve the lack of reserve officers in the Armed Forces of the Philippines), Commissioner Oliva made a scene by “grabbing” the microphone and introduced himself as commissioner of the NYC. He “lectured” the council of the NYC’s stand of no to ROTC.

Those were awed of his bravery, and, others simply raised their eyebrows. Others were asking where he came from, but those Boholanos who attended the meeting didn’t “acknowledge” he came from Bohol. 

According to True Very Reliable Source (VRS) who attended the meeting, Oliva was “misbehaving.” He should wait first to be acknowledged by the council. While, Oliva was lecturing, everyone’s ears were bleeding because he speaks that is higher of the officials. After Oliva’s speech, Cong. Pablo Garcia had his stand, but he said, “Who’s this young man who claims himself as commissioner of the National Youth Commission…”

Well, that is not the first time that Oliva is “misbehaving.” This column might explode if True has to write it in details. Before his appointment, he was already in bad light when the Sangguniang Kabataan headed by Frances Bobbith Cajes-Auza at that time and some youth agencies protested his candidacy. Records can be verified at the SK office. Many who have witnessed his “climb every mountain” said that “Oliva was using SK to achieve his dreams.” 

Whether, he will run or not in Catigbian as mayor in 2010, another controversy he has to answer (which is still “hot” in NYC) is the controversial “Most Performing Commissioner” award.  NYC officials said that there was NO Best Performing Commissioner Award, yet, there was a one-page advertisement published in local newspapers on Dec. 23, 2007. The congratulatory ad was from the NYC, parents and people of Catigbian. 

On this, Oliva answered: “The NYC is the sole policy making and coordinating body for youth development in the country (RA 8044). The officials particularly the Commissioners are expected to deliver policy recommendations for youth development, conduct committee hearings and consultations, attend to inter-agency meetings and legislative advocacy on bills relating to youth development. They are also encouraged to attend speaking engagements, Radio/TV Interviews and establish networks and partner institutions, organizations and agencies for youth development and empowerment. Whoever are the NYC officials that you are referring to as your source, did you ever bother to ask them if they were able to formulate at least five (5) policy recommendations on youth in more than two years of service at the NYC; or did you ask them if they were able to convene their assigned committees for public hearing or consultation even once after more than two years of their stint in the Commission? The records of the National Youth Commission will tell you the Best Performing Commissioner.” Does it answer the question?

We’re so thankful to Oliva because there’re many Boholanos who participated in international youth exchange programs. However, Manuel Ferdinand de Erio was so depressed in his article on Feb. 18 2007 “while it is still good that there are Boholano youths who have enjoyed the international youth programs, it is a very sad reality that the SK members, staff and volunteers are denied of the opportunities.” 

Youth leaders questioned Oliva’s choices of sending Boholanos to international youth programs. “Many are not volunteers and others aren’t qualified. So, we understand that Oliva is paying his utang na loob or he wants to appear “powerful” to officials that he can send delegates abroad,” VRS added.

Remember Icarus? Icarus’ father Daedalus used his skills to build wings for himself and Icarus. He used wax and string to fasten feathers to reeds of varying lengths to imitate the curves of birds' wings. When their wings were ready, Daedalus warned Icarus to fly at medium altitude. If he flew too high, the sun could melt the wax of his wings, and the sea could dampen the feathers if he flew too low. Icarus became exhilarated by flight. Ignoring his father's warning, he flew higher and higher. The sun melted the wax holding his wings together, and the boy fell into the water and drowned. Oh, sad, sad…

Why Is The Philippines Poor? 
By A.M.B. Apalisok


Dear Friends,

Here is a good article sent by Dr. Arsenio Martin of Fort Arthur, Texas ..
Enjoy reading.

THE DIFFERENCE

The difference between the poor countries and the rich ones is not the age of the country:

This can be shown by countries like India & Egypt , that are more than 2000 years old, but are poor.

On the other hand, Canada , Australia & New Zealand , that 150 years ago were inexpressive, today are developed countries, and are rich.

The difference between poor & rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources.

Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture & cattle raising, but it is the second world economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products.

Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant co coa but has the best chocolate in the world. In its little territory they raise animals and plant the soil during 4 months per year. Not enough, they produce dairy products of the best quality! It is a small country that transmits an image of security, order & labor, which made it the world's strongest, safest place.

Executives from rich countries who communicate with their counterparts in poor countries show that there is no significant intellectual difference.

Race or skin color are also not important: immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin are the productive power in rich European countries.

What is the difference then? The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education & the culture & flawed tradition.

On analyzing the behavior of the people in rich & developed countries, we find that the great majority follow the following principles in their lives:

1. Ethics, as a basic principle.
2. Integrity.
3. Responsibility.
4. Respect to the laws & rules.
5. Respect to the rights of other citizens.
6. Work loving.
7. Strive for savings & investment.
8. Will of super action.
9. Punctuality.
10. and of course...Discipline

In p oor countries, only a minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.

The Philippines is not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel to us. In fact, we are supposedly rich in natural resources.

We are poor because we lack the correct attitude. We lack the will to comply with and teach these functional principles of rich & developed societies.

If you do not forward this message nothing will happen to you. Your pet will not die, you will not be fired, you will not have bad luck for seven years, and also, you will not get sick or go hungry.

But those may happen because of your lack of discipline & laziness, your love for intrigue and politics, your indifference to saving for the future, your stubborn attitude.

If you love your country, let this message circulate so that many Filipinos could reflect about this, & CHANGE, ACT!

The Case for Our Poverty
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      It took three months before I read an email from a college chum, now a US citizen.  I thought it not urgent for two reasons:  it came from her and the title is Why Is the Philippines Poor?   

      “…Enjoy reading,” begins her forwarded email that turned out to be a chain. The contents are beyond refuting.  They rest on solid grounds of research and common perception.   

      That it came from someone like my friend who had escaped my country’s poverty by becoming a citizen of a rich one is a different matter.  It’s like gazing at one’s own navel and blaming the dirt in its recesses on someone else.   

      But here lies the difference between rich and poor countries, according to the email.  It’s not in age; India and Egypt are more than 2000 years old, but they are poor compared to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that go only as far back as 150 years.   

      Neither is it in available natural resources.  Super manufacturer Japan has a limited, mostly mountainous territory.  So is Switzerland, the world’s safest place with the best chocolates where no cacao grows.   

      Race or skin color is inconsequential.  Immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin, it says, are the productive power in rich European countries.  Executives from rich countries in touch with their counterparts from poor countries claim that there is no significant difference in intellectual prowess.   

      It’s in the “attitude of the people framed by the education, & the culture & flawed tradition.”  Now that’s something.  With due respect to the email’s author, I wonder how any nation’s culture and tradition could be deemed flawed, by what measurement, and for what nobler purpose other than wealth.     

      Another sweeping claim is that majority of the people in rich countries live with some principles compared to only a minority in poor countries.  These are “ethics, integrity, responsibility, respect to the laws & rules, respect to the rights of other citizens, work loving, strive for savings & investment, will of super action, punctuality, and of course… discipline.”  Bravo.  Doubtless, these are principles of worth, though most of these may or may not have any bearing on a country’s wealth.   

      History holds its own truth as well.  Pax Romana in its heyday sacked most of the known world.  Ethical it wasn’t, but it enriched Rome.  Britain at its peak filled its coffers through its dominion over palm and pine, until it brought about the likes of Gandhi from poor India, with his principles.

      Japan attacked its neighbors for its own interests.  And Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are now apologizing for their past maltreatment of Indians and Aborigines, the original landowners wrenched out of their traditional lands.  And whose land was it before there was such a country as the USA?  Those owners were almost exterminated as a nation. Israelis are richer compared to Palestinians.  Guess whose lands were grabbed. 

      So, the US is more interested in the undemocratic Middle East than in the genocide in Darfur.  The latter has no oil.  The former has.  Iraq has.  Last I read, there was a paper readied at the beginning of the Iraq invasion that stipulates that 30 percent of Iraqi oil goes to the US.  Maybe this shows principle No. 8, the “will of super action.”

   Afghanistan has no oil, but it’s bordered by oil-producing former Soviet satellites and oil-producing Russia’s influence in the Middle East has to be kept at bay.  So let’s not talk principles, please, when it comes to wealth of countries.     

      Further, the email claims, “we lack the correct attitude” and “the will to comply with and teach these functional principles of rich and developed societies.”  Try calling lazy a Filipino farmer who tills his land from sunrise to sunset or the stevedore who carries those balikbayan boxes, and industrious those thousands who live on welfare in rich countries.

      Maybe we can add that we are poor because ours is a country that never sought to enrich itself at the expense of other countries.  Which is also to say that being rich is relative. 

      Meanwhile, beyond a country’s material wealth is the gross national happiness (GNH).  We rank 12th out of 50 countries.  The USA follows at rank 13.   Another study pegs us at 17th out of 178 countries.  My friend’s adopted country is 150th.  Now I have her to thank for compelling me to count my blessings more. 

There’s Something About Edgar
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      How people and events are perceived, rightly or wrongly, can spell the difference between a cad and a gentleman or a lady and a virago.   

      In politics, perception is everything.  A politician courts voters and slogs it out on the campaign trail to convince people that he is worth their trust, well aware that he cannot be loved by all.  In simple terms, more than organizational ability and endless patience, a politician works hard to get a job.       

      I never voted for Congressman Edgar Chatto.  Which is to say that not only am I not a registered voter in Bohol, I’m also not one of those who have directly put him in office.  So I regard him not in personal terms but at a distance, as a vaguely familiar Boholano.   

      Edgar and his wife dropped by Dubai on their way to Iran for an official conference.  Coordination of his office with the labor department and its office in Dubai ended with coordination with the consulate and the husband.   

      The request was for a reservation in a hotel that won’t cost more than a certain amount, and a ride from the airport to the hotel.  It wasn’t much of a request.  A closer look though speaks of the man.   

      The grapevine sighs of some government functionaries whose visits to foreign cities entail bookings in hotels with preposterous accommodations, with bills left behind for others to pick up.  Never mind their shopping wives who expect royal treatment.         

      The husband is authorized to go beyond the immigration security gates of the Dubai airport, so it was for him to meet the couple.  Unfortunately, he was to join the diplomatic corps in the invitational iftar, the Ramadan fast-breaking feast, of one of the emirs at a place that was a good distance from Dubai on the night the couple were arriving. 

      He’d play it by instinct because he had seen Edgar only twice, the husband said, though it’s not as if he knows on sight everyone he officially meets.  He added that his schedule was tight but he hoped to make it back in time.  I don’t want you risking a 150kph trip on the highway to make it in time, I said flatly.   

      Arrangements have been made in case I’ll be late, he assured, but they’ll have to wait for the couple outside the terminal.  “Hey,” he added as if I’ve forgotten it, “he’s a government official in our country; he’s our congressman.  He’s your congressman.”       

      He made it, and from his story when he came home at past midnight, Edgar’s apologies were disarming.  He didn’t want to bother anyone but that was his first time in Dubai.  He refused the offer to use the consular car for a look-see of the city, but spent a few hours sightseeing anyway, and paid for a rental car.   

      A breakfast meeting about Filipino workers in Dubai with some labor representatives, at Edgar’s invitation, made the husband conclude that Edgar knows his job; he asked the right questions and took down notes.  He also opted for the hotel car service to the airport the next day.  He’s considerate, was the most that the husband could say.         

      I imagined the apprehension of the couple when there was a security alert on their pre-flight to Iran the next day.  The passengers were asked to deplane and the flight was delayed by four hours.  A call from the overseas labor office here apprised the husband of the situation and how Edgar had been trying to contact him.   

      It must have been the Boholana in me.  In that Friday holiday during Ramadan in an Islamic country where everything seems to stand still, I took to helping the husband dial the couple’s numbers from different mobile phones, to no avail.       

      Are they safe?  I kept asking the husband who really couldn’t answer.  He asked a consulate member to man the communications room and try his best to contact our Iran embassy.  It was the most that could be done for our legislator who didn’t come like a brat demanding to be treated like a messiah.   

      I still couldn’t vote for Edgar.  There’s just this side of him that no press release from his office can reveal.  His voters may as well know.  Bohol is fortunate that Edgar need not be invented.   

Tibbs of the Forty-Five Days
By A.M.B. Apalisok


      There’s nothing outlandish to his nickname that’s spelled with a double ‘b’; that’s just the way it appears on my cell phone.  His given name anyway smacks of the dons of old, the likely fate of sons chosen to become their fathers’ juniors. 

      Tibbs, a.k.a. Bong, is Tiburcio Bullecer, Jr., erstwhile vice-mayor of Loay town and lately the mayoral candidate of a party that didn’t make it.  That is, after slogging it out in the recent 45-day political campaign.  Had Tibbs won, I wouldn’t be writing this.   

      Winning in the political game is a flush of victory followed by planning for one’s term of public office and the allotment of spoils? the return of favors coupled with a raft of favor-seekers.   The former is a hope, the latter a strain.  But politics is a game, and thus is how the game is played.

      Losing is a different world altogether.  It makes one assess the whys and wherefores of how the game was played, reach inward for that hidden reserve strength, and open one’s self to other possibilities.

      I first met Tibbs during our father’s funeral wake.  He offered his condolences and introduced himself, saying that he once took the speech course offered by my kid sister.  I clearly remember that scene because he struck me as a young man comfortable in his own skin, with hair combed neatly like that of a high school seminarian.  Sans the usual politician’s middle pouch (that was then!), he carried himself with just the right social graces.   Years later that young man married our father’s eldest granddaughter, a union that effectively made him my nephew. 

      Now it can be told.  Before that marriage I got to know Tibbs more through my niece who took to calling me in Germany to pour herself out over her confusion about her potential beau, and I listened to her sighs that things would have been simpler had her Papalo (our father) been around.  I, too, missed our father, and I believed every word she said.   

      Tibbs was orphaned early of a father.  His youngest sibling was just a baby then.  He took control of his own life, became a pillar of strength to his widowed mother, and developed himself any way he could, from sending himself to school by working on the side and joining all kinds of contests to gain experience. 

       His life struck me as well-meaning and well-lived.  The bonus was that there was one thing about him that I understood and held kinship with:  he loves animals.  (Come on, if one is kind to animals, even if by a long shot that animal takes on a human form, one can’t be so bad, huh?)

      Tibbs is an engineer by profession and a politician by vocation.  He had served his town as an elected official for over ten years.  In the latest elections, I understand that he was considered for a provincial level candidacy.  He refused as it would mean leaving his local group.  It was a commitment that he nurtured and meant to keep.  I surmise that in the backroom deals of political horse-trading, a leading party didn’t choose him as its mayoral candidate.

      All politics is local, and Tibbs was thus deprived of a strong party’s support and had his war chest diminished.   I appreciate it that help was never asked of us, monetary or otherwise.  We may unite in shared sorrows, but filial independence is strong.  Even if I had something to contribute (which I didn’t have), I’d still favor donating to animal welfare groups, never to any next-of-kin’s political pursuits.  Thus I didn’t know who was running for what until I learned the results.

      That Tibbs is a good loser I have no doubt.  All the world loves a winner; rare is the good loser though who gracefully bows out in strategic defeat.  Sure, there’s no substitute for victory, but in life, as in real battles, putting up a good fight is just as victorious.  The defeated Aeneas in the Trojan War was the nobler hero who later found Rome while Achilles, the vengeful and victorious one, was eventually felled by nothing but an arrow through his heel.     

      Call it by whatever fruit, sour grapes or sweet lemon, losing in the political game is a fascinating salad.  Winning makes one an eagle taking wing.  Losing makes one a phoenix.  One can die and rise from the ashes to fight another day.               

Mental Leaps
By A.M.B. Apalisok

     That HRD guy sometime back was prepped up to the nines.  Bad timing; when I asked if my photo lighting was right for the scene, he answered with a lecture on having an eye for events and relegating them to immortality with pictures.   

      He droned on and seemed not to stop while my schedule was going askew.  Slipping a word amid his rhetoric was impossible without the two of us talking together.  I yawned. 

      Short of calling me uncivilized, he lectured further that I not ask questions next time if I’m not interested in the answer.  It seemed beyond him to know that he didn’t only make a mental leap, he bungee jumped with flair as well.   

      I only needed a yes or a no about photo lighting, and you give me the state of Philippine cinema, I answered.  Too bad we became wary of each other after that.       

      His mental leap was like wanting to know some details of MacArthur’s landing in Leyte, like, say, if Carlos P. Romulo was on his toes as he waded to the beach, and one gets subjected instead to a lecture on the invasion of Normandy.   

      It may be the same World War, but let’s face it, the Pacific theater isn’t the European theater, as simple as the desert fox Gen. Erwin Rommel isn’t the curmudgeon Gen. George Patton.  Or please spare me details of how Lapulapu killed Magellan when I ask about Dagohoy.     

      Mental leaps, and bounds, if you may, are a good weapon to spare oneself a predicament.  When you don’t know a whit about a question and you’re in no mood to say so, twist the question around to give an answer that is within your knowledge, so goes the sage advice.   

      Don’t know why the latest Nobel Peace prizewinner Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh merited the award?  Talk about the pain inflicted by five-six loan sharks.  Not a scuba diver and hadn’t seen a whale eyeball to eyeball?  Talk about why you didn’t win in a drowning contest.     

      For students, mental leaps are useful in essay exams and extemporaneous speech, especially when one has the ability to connect dissimilar facts.  The subject of dots made a champion out of an extemporaneous speaking contestant because he was able to connect dots with planets, and thus the universe.  That galactic mental leap was logical and useful for the occasion.

      But mental leaps can be boring in one-on-one verbal exchanges.  It’s worse if one lectured and didn’t know when to stop, like my friend the HRD guy.  There exists a thin line though between a bore and a wit.

      A 1980s university student in a nearby province became popular for one thing: his delivery of Mi Ultimo Adios.  It was an oral exam and the Spanish teacher required the students to recite by heart Rizal’s Spanish poem.  The guy didn’t get it but stood up to recite anyway.  “Adios patria adorada/ Ikaw [name of teacher] diri lalim ba!” 

      My late eldest brother I believe was the ultimate mental leaper.  I came home from Germany and he greeted me with why Hitler is the son of Rizal, complete with historical dates and their likeness in height and the way they part their hair.  His arsenal of mental leaps was as boundless as our laughter. 

      An Indian writer writes about his classmate who prepared for English essay exams by learning one essay by heart, his masterpiece about a cow.  The exam question was on the Taj Mahal.  “The Taj Mahal is a beautiful building,” the classmate wrote.  “It is surrounded by grass.  Grass is good for cows…” and the mental leap to his prepared cow essay came easy.

      Politicians the world over are just as prepared with answers like his classmate with the cow essay, the Indian writer points out.  Ask them about anything and their favorite answers would be poverty eradication, global warming, and anti-terrorism.  Sounds like home, really, although we have a more colorful rainbow of points from where mental leaps can be made.

   Presidential or parliamentary? Impeach the president, say oppositionists and opponents.  Obviously, like my bout with that HRD guy, not all mental leaps are a laughing matter.         

The Ancient and Repetitive Art of Losing Weight
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      Said to stretch back more than a thousand years, losing weight is a sporadic fad because there were periods when it was hip to be fat.  Paintings by old masters show women veering on the fat by today’s standards.  Doesn’t Mona Lisa look well fed?

      In the 1600s, diets to trim the body saw print.  A Scottish doctor recommended milk.  Two centuries later, the poet Byron poured vinegar on his meals and shed off 64 lbs from his heft. 

      Today the US, home to the most number of obese people on earth, is the latecomer to diet fad advocacy.  It once viewed fat as fashionable symbols of success up to the late 1800s.  The exclusive Connecticut Fat Men’s Club spelled achievement.  Its very name kept out the trim and slim, the failures.

      But standards change.  By the late 19th century, when food became abundant and corsets went out of fashion, dislike for obesity surfaced.  The Fat Men’s Club thinned out and saw its demise.   

      By then, milk diets once prescribed for indigestion and weight gain became standard for weight loss.  More doctors stepped in.  Dr. Sylvester Graham advocated a diet of yeast-free brown bread, vegetables, water, and Graham crackers, which exist until today.  Dr. Harvey Kellogg advocated vegetarianism, slow chewing, calorie counting, and toasted flakes, which also exist until today.

      Throughout the years, various diet plans pop, become fads for a time, until other plans out-fad them.  The low-carbohydrates diet was a fad in London in the 1860s.  It kept resurfacing in the last two centuries with different names.   

      Today it is called the Atkins’ Diet.  First published in 1992, it proved very popular.  Then came the South Beach Diet, a diet plan that straddles the low-carb, high-protein of Atkins and the low-fat, high-carb of nutritionists.

      Do diet plans work?  Experts say the answer lies in the dieters themselves.  Any diet plan works as long as the dieter can stick to it.  Sustaining the weight loss is most important because chances are it’s bound to be regained.  The yo-yo syndrome, it’s called.     

      Any diet that limits calories is apt to reduce a person’s weight.  Another reality is that any diet that limits a person’s choices can make him lose weight because he’s bound to eat less.  (Consider a diet limited to lechon for a month, and you’re bound to eat less.)       

      The low-carb, high-protein diet, like Atkins, works because protein satisfies.  And it’s not true that protein isn’t converted into fat.  Eating much protein leads to water loss, and thus less weight.  Waste from protein digestion is flushed out as urine.     

      Have I tried dieting?  I did.  From the usual 42 kilos I shot up to 48 in a couple of years.  Gone was the husband’s joke on where the food I ate goes.  It finally showed, helped by age and a sedentary lifestyle.   

      More than aesthetics, being lighter means lesser lower back pains for me.  I went Atkins. The caveat was that one gets dizzy in the first few days, until the system gets used to very low carbohydrates.  How true.  I was vertiginous. (Bad for working women; you might fall on the sidewalk.)  I lost a kilo in the first month and lost four more in the succeeding months.

Did I yo-yo?  Certainly.  I missed rice.  Then a doctor here says I’m too underweight, I need 10 more kilos in my frame.  Horrors!  Don’t bone size and cellulites count?  I love food, so I mustn’t have anorexia that strikes young Caucasian women anyway.  Or maybe I needed convincing that the body mass index standard isn’t Western.   

    French women are considered the slimmest in Europe.  They eat more slowly with smaller food portions than Americans, watch TV less, eat 50 percent less after bingeing, and walk more.   

      This here Filipina isn’t much of a TV watcher to begin with.  I’ve decided to eat 20 percent less of my usual intake, favor red unpolished rice, and walk as much as I can.  At the end of the day, it’s genes, lifestyle, and habits that determine one’s heft.  Diet fads are just thatâ€"â€"fads that come and go.   

Sandugo’s Loy is Sinulog’s Loy
By A.M.B. Apalisok

Loy naturally is Tagbilaran’s, nay, Bohol’s,  Loreto Monceda Palapos.  For those who go for some sense of irony, if not a sense of xenophobia, Bohol’s Loy is a product of Cebu City’s Colegio de San Jose-Recoletos (CSJ-R, now the USJ-R) who hails from Dalaguete in southern Cebu.   

      Chances are, well, here I must correct myself posthaste?it’s not by chance that he’s a true-blue Cebuano from a specific area in Cebu where accomplished generations come from.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that the nooks and crannies of other places couldn’t produce their own artists and achievers; it’s just that this particular swath in Cebu gives the impression that it has more of them.  And Loy Palapos comes from this area.     

      Here lies sweet irony.  It comes naturally to Loy to claim that he feels more Boholano than Cebuano.  Being married to a Boholana obviously was the start of his life-long affair with the province.  Thence there was no stopping his total immersion, which means giving his all to the province’s culture, history, and current civic activities, lending gravitas to the province’s social scene.  This Cebuano had thus chosen to conduct his life as a true-blue Boholano, a time-honored case of one’s loss being the other’s gain.  Loy Palapos is Bohol’s gain.   

      If being and feeling Boholano is to bear witness to the city’s and province’s dynamics and development, then Loy is one of the current prima inter pares contributing witnesses.  Among his many honest-to-goodness involvements in various socio-cultural-civic and tri-media activities in the city and province is his serving as chair of the Bohol Sandugo Foundation ,Inc.     

      It’s not for me to give a rundown of his accomplishments and curriculum vitae.  (That’s his area when he writes of other people, in some other part of this paper.)  In fact, he had written much about other people’s accomplishments it makes me wonder if he ever bothered to look at his own numerous ones.     

      Which brings up my insistence, after deductions and reductions, that the invisible, unknown hand behind Cebu’s Sinulog is Loy Palapos.  No one need tell me that, much less Loy Palapos himself.

      There was the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Loy was the assistant regional director.  Those were times when I sporadically met Loy during sportsfests of government agencies.  More often, he served as the emcee at opening ceremonies.  Once, he even saw me from a throng of paraders and mentioned my name on the microphone.       

      From his vantage then, I believe the cultural part of youth development, in this case the historic Sinulog of Cebu, was conceived in its current form.   

      I look back through the decades and get more convinced that the design, from the conception to planning, coordination and implementation, had the imprint of Loy Palapos.  Yet one never heard his name mentioned in the build-up.  Which is just as well.  I always knew him as someone beyond petty acclamations, and was always proven right.     

      It is for educated and well-bred Loy Palapos to know his place in the scheme of the universe and bestow credit to his boss, as was proper.  (It’s not unlike a miraculous economic turnaround of our country at this point in time; it would be to our president’s credit.  The invisibles are the economic planners and enforcers.)  That boss for his part eventually turned the Sinulog over to a government unit that’s in the best position to give it continuity? the local government.  One gentleman deserves another.         

      I have always looked at Loy Palapos as my mentor first and friend foremost.  Thus I address him differently at different times as either Sir or Nong Loy.  The Sir is a vestige of my years at the then Divine Word College when he, still in his twenties then, was teacher, stage play director, and school paper adviser.   

      The Nong Loy was a product of an innocent question I posed long ago, at the Cainggit Beach.  I call your wife Nang Marie, why shouldn’t I call you Nong Loy?  I like the sound of it, he had answered.   

      As his properly placed humility had often shown, from Sinulog to Sandugo, his is a creative mind secure unto itself, the kind that spells immeasurable and meaningful service for his beloved place and time.  Luckily the place is Bohol, the time is now, and the man is Loy Palapos.  Had he not been in its midst, Bohol would have had to invent him.

Decibels Around Us
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      One’s memory of pain is indeed short.  One of my worst experiences of ear-shattering decibels is now funny in hindsight.  It was in a public transport ride from Cebu City to Talisay City where the sound system had twitters and woofers, one had to gasp for air.   

      Cebu City had banned these sounds; Talisay at the time hadn’t.  So jeepney drivers, depending on the direction of the trip, either activated or deactivated their music at the boundary of the two cities.   

      The combination of decibels, heat, and seating discomfort (a 12-seater always seat 14) made me feel faint.  I asked that the volume be lowered.  The shouted answer:  It’s because you’re already old.  That was one time when I wished I had a gun.  And no, it wasn’t because of the driver’s assessment of my age.         

      The measure of sound is in decibels.  The rustling of leaves, calming and pleasant, is between 25 to 30 decibels. Human conversation is between the tolerable 45 decibels to the intolerable 55 decibels.  Silence is pegged at zero to 20 decibels.

      The level of sound in the environment has a direct effect on one’s physical and psychological health, yet the pervasive, intrusive and unwanted sounds of modern living are the most overlooked pollutants on earth.   

      Any sound from the loudest of human conversations at 55 decibels can annoy, disturb sleep, and cause aggressive behavior.  At 65 decibels, the outcome is hypertension.  At 75 decibels, sound can already lead to high stress, increased heart rates, and possible hearing loss.   

      To get an idea of the unhealthy level of 75 decibels, the sound of a roadworthy passenger car is from 60 to 80 decibels.  Disco music is from 85 to 105 decibels while the noisiest of all modern-day symbols, the jet airplane, has a decibel level of 150 to 160.

      It’s the worst and most hateful invention of all, a college chum declared.  Our topic was home videokes that seem to be a must-have of an average household.  Who cares if they sing their hearts out off- key, but do they have to sing at a volume heard throughout the block?  I understood her disgust.  I’ve had near-scrapes because of the noise that people inflict.  In other words, I’ve shown aggressive behavior due to intolerable noise levels.

      I can’t rest in my own home if all I hear throughout the day is your loud singing, I once told a next-door condo neighbor in Manila.  Her incessant singing was paired by the daily verbal barrage of a wife in the unit directly below ours.  I was forced to exercise my right to sanity.   

      The frustrated singer whose ambition was to frustrate her neighbors didn’t even listen to my suggestion that she at least close her windows to muffle the sound of her singing.  But nothing beats a friendly neighbor who went to the condo’s management to file a formal complaint.   

      One day the singer opened her door to two security guards.  There my story ended.  There was, of course, nothing I could do with the lady on the floor below.  But at least her incessant verbal war was at a tolerable decibel.     

      In Cebu City, in this lower middle-class residential enclave a good three kilometers away from the public transport route, home videokes are just as ubiquitous, punctuated by blaring TVs and the honking of private cars and their irritating alarms.  There’s no escaping the din, but at least these are neighbors one can talk with.  And boy, had I talked often.     

      Noisy malls and dining places?  I cope by going to malls only when extremely necessary and avoid the latter outright.   

      Doubtless comparing is unfair, but I feel sentimental when I think about how more pleasant it is to shop in other countries outside of my own.  There one feels some kind of dignified treatment.  And there one isn’t jarred with screaming sound systems nor pestered with unavailable loose change by cashiers.   Can it be true, then, that the more backward a country is, the noisier it is?           

      We may have overlooked noise pollution either because we’ve been blinded by the deafening sounds we make or we’ve become deaf that we can’t see the damage. 

Answering Gardy
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      l miglior fabbro, the better craftsman, hence, the master; this was a tempting title for this piece, thanks to T.S. Eliot’s own dedication to his mentor and editor Ezra Pound.  Which is to say that when it comes to the arts for which I hold a mystifying torch, Gardy is one of my very few idols.

      Gardy of course is Lutgardo Labad.  Make that The Gardy, the only one hereabouts and the only Gardy in the Philippine art scene.  If I got it right, Gardy is one of the so-called Petatsings, that pioneering youth group plucked out from various backgrounds to make whole what is known as the Philippine Educational Theater’s Association or PETA.   

      Aaahh, such stuff that dreams are made of.  And spun, and flung.  I only wish to answer Gardy’s email of some months back.  Lucky me (please, not the noodles) as one of Gardy’s email recipients, I got this email about registering with a group and sharing what books one reads.   

      As I don’t have the inclination for such faceless correspondence with a group, which is short of admitting that low-tech me don’t know how to proceed after reading Gardy’s email (the reason why I never answered invitations from friends to join groups like Friendster or some other techie name), this piece, therefore, is my answer to Gardy.   

      There are two thin pocketbooks that through some mysterious ways I may just get to memorize one day.  I reach for these two whenever I feel low, anywhere.  It is my habit to slip these, together with Time and Newsweek magazines, into the outside pocket of my carry-on bag on long trips.  Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Nobel Laureate Juan Ramon Jimenez’s Platero and I convince me that a bit of heaven can be found in literacy.

      One tackles literature better if one is mindful of history.  Literature without history, and vice versa, is like ice cream without the ice.  Thus my interest in the classics hasn’t waned, from the ancient to the more current ones of which European literature has the most voluminous legacy. 

      There will always be William Shakespeare for me.  It was reading his complete works, yes, complete, that I began to need thick reading glasses.   

      But I’m not too picky in my choices as long as I have the reading leisure, from John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Stephen King, to Amy Tan.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention J.K. Rowling.   

      I’m proud of my complete hardbound Harry Potter books, whose every arrival I’d stake a full meal for the chance to finish reading in one sitting.  Thanks to the husband for six of these books and to my friend Helen Sarigumba Sarayno who years ago brought from the US a requested copy of the fourth book, together with cans of special diet food for our obese cat.  She had me choose only one of either items, but brought both anyway because I didn’t answer.       

      Which reminds me, books about cats, be they pet care advice books, T.S. Eliot’s, or some dude’s How To Kill Your Girlfriend’s Cat, are fun, sentimental, and enlightening.   

      I’m on my third book of Ian McEwan (Saturday, The Innocent), fast becoming one of my current favorites.  The Keira Knightley-starrer Atonement is the movie version of his book.         

      The erudite Umberto Eco also inspires (The Name of the Rose, The Island of the Day Before).   So does Stephen Hawking with A Brief History of Time, though this gave me a racing pulse.   

      Filipino artists are equally good reads.  Gregorio Brillantes makes one yearn for our countryside, Nick Joaquin is all things great and literary, and today’s Dr. Resil Mojares, poet and judge Simeon Dumdum, Jr., and Cesar Aquino with his mellifluous essays are all worth one’s reading while, to name a few.

      Reading poetry heightens reading pleasure.  Mine can be had at home, the husband being a poet whose works I came across long before I saw the man and concluded that he is poetry’s Baryshnikov.  Expectedly, our home has his books.       

      And there’s the book of books worthier of repeated reads.  In its completeness, either from a religious or literary perspective, one can find the meaning of worship, the best and worst of man, history, murder and mayhem, imagery, and different literary genres.  The Psalms of David alone stands out as great poetry.   

      As a literary work, the King James version has the edge.  For better understanding and insight, the Jerusalem Bible is incomparable, and is thus the greatest book of all.     

Signs of the Times
By A.M.B. Apalisok

      It may just be the gathering strength of the peso and not the gathering storm of power and politics.  A strange sign, though, is that the price of goods hasn’t gone down.  Yet when the peso weakens, the rise of the price of goods is easily explained away.   

      We need only look around and be beset by signs or portents.  Fast moving dark clouds may mean a storm about to strike in all its fury.  But why bother with the unstoppable when we can always turn around and look at other signs that are laughable?

      No, I do not mean the strengthening peso that seems to have the same effect of pussyfooting, crawling, quiet rise on the price of goods.   I mean those more blatant commercial signs of services and stores. They who announce their presence announce it in style, regardless of the strength of the peso.

      Consider these creative clones right within our creative country where the US dollar is weakening against the local currency.  These signs show the risk of big store chains to have copycats, of their names at least.  There’s the drugstore Memory Drug, the food bars Macdonuts, Mang Donalds, and Pizza Hot, and the barbershop Scissors Palace.  Take that, Mercury Drug, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Caesar’s Palace.

      One cannot mistake Goldirocks for Goldilocks, naturally.  The former is a gravel and sand business while the latter is a bakery and restaurant chain whose name in turn was taken from the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  And, out of respect, perhaps, for a feline friend, specifically one as popular as Garfield, is a barbershop named Felix the Cut.

      Other names are clones of pop culture titles and personalities.  Petal Attraction is obviously a flower shop while Mane Attraction is a beauty parlor.  Maruya Carey is a potato snack bar, The Way We Wear is a boutique, and Mat and Jeep is a store for jeep accessories, thanks to the likes of singers Mariah Carey and Barbra Streisand and the cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff.

      Will I buy medicine from Farmacia With Love?  Certainly, given the chance.  I hold respect for creativity.  No harm if it has shades of James Bond.  And, take note, Bread Pitt is the name of a bakery.  Cheers, Brangelina!   

      I won’t dare to take dinner though at LBM Restaurant.  I have nothing against initials and the respectable names of people they represent.  It’s just that, well, this one just seems, you know...

But I won’t hesitate to try it out at TapSi TurBi if I could, even if its imagery is that of mayhem.  It is a restaurant that sells tapa, sinangag, turon and bibingka, an all-Filipino fare up to my liking.  Johnny’s, The Fried of Marikina, sells fried chicken in Marikina.  I wouldn’t mind reading a marquee that goes Johnny’s, the Fried of Maribojoc or Johnny’s, the Fried of Marigondon, if it expands and turns into a chain one day.   

      A store that sells second hand watches has the to-the-point name of Second Time Around, and Common Cents Store may not sell common sense, but it surely sounds like having some sense.  Pardon me, but the sign that says Lito, Lapida Maker, is another act all together.

      Cinavon as a name for an existing laundromat reminds me of all things clean and soapy.  Your Best Vet as the name of a veterinary clinic tells me once more that there’s something fun and creative about veterinarians.  Perhaps, I could share with the vet my pains over the cost of cat food.  In times past, when a dollar was worth fifty pesos, a big sack of cat food cost 750 pesos.  Now that it’s 42 pesos to the dollar, the same sack costs almost a thousand pesos!   

      Yet just by judging from how we coin names, there’s no denying that Filipinos are a happy, creative lot.  Even this sign seen outside a construction site, Now showing â€" The Carpenters, shows one-upmanship; that, despite the strengthening peso and its unusual dance partner of rising cost of goods.   

      Who can say if a creative economic bureaucrat could think of changing the name of our currency one day?  Dollsos (for dollars and pesos) sounds contrite and contrived.  It’s other option, pellars, sounds too grave, too near the Pillars of Fire and wholly irreverent to the Scourging at the Pillar.  But what a scourge, indeed, are some signs of the times, like the partnered stronger peso and risen price of goods.       

A Star for Charly
By A.M.B. Apalisok

Charly is Brig. Gen. Carlos Bustrillos Holganza.  In the old days we (Charly himself, Bobbsey a.k.a. Melba Manding Buma-at, and I) called each other “Boss.”  How that mutual sobriquet came to be I can only credit to Bobbsey who’s rather fond of sobriquets.   

Our friendship with Charly began in a stage play of the then Divine Word College.  Like us, he auditioned for a part in the morality play “Everyman,” translated as “Ang Tawo,” with the then 21-year-old Gardy Labad at the helm.   

Charly bagged the role of one of the seven deadly sins, “Greed” (Kahakog.)  So did I also pass as another deadly sin, “Lust” (Uwagan.)  Why it was translated as such instead of Kauwag convinced me, though I couldn’t complain, that the heavens were unkind.  But that’s another story.  Bobbsey and her fine booming voice meanwhile bagged the bigger role of “Wealth” (Bahandi.)

Anyway, as it often happens in rehearsals of stage productions with a massive cast and everybody’s young, the backstage becomes a playground and an arena for socialization.  There the cast and crew who await their turn chatter, play and never stay put, until the director shouts.   

There we saw Charly act like a monkey, to our fascination.  Bobbsey and I asked him to do it again as we followed.  Call it monkey business if you may; it was easy.  Perhaps it’s because we are close cousins of the simians.  Thanks to Charly though, I can still effortlessly do that monkey stance until now.   

The stage play was over and our friendship with Charly stuck.  Funny I never went beyond looking at him as a high school kid.  I once wondered what he was doing at the corridor of the school’s engineering department as I waved at him from the ground.

I no longer remember how it started but we took to going to Charly’s house.  Serve us cooked bananas and ginamos, Bobbsey declared.  (I surmised that Bobbsey was the noisier one who always said what she wanted while I was the more temperamental one who tended to follow what she liked.)   Charly’s smiling parents Paul and Charing served us those bananas and let us be.   

We actually went to Charly’s place for Math tutoring.  Better still, we asked him to do our Math assignments.  But we looked forward more to what we did for hours after five minutes of Math.  Charly knew how to play ‘spirit of the glass’ and his paraphernalia of drinking glass and manila paper were ready.  I still remember his admonitions.  Call Rizal, never Hitler.  Don’t do it in the cemetery or you’ll end up running like we did, he had said.       

My dog is now mature, Charly once said as he picked the ticks and fleas off his dog.  It was one of their many dogs in their place that was an oasis of a farm within the city, punctuated by abundant trees and plants and free-ranging animals.

It was just something in Charly that made Bobbsey and I feel that gender was no issue.  He was a gentleman’s gentleman who couldn’t and wouldn’t think ill of us, two rowdy, immature teenage girls on an awkward social roller-coaster ride.

One day Charly disappeared from the campus.  He was already at the Philippine Military Academy.  I saw him again some years later at the Academy.   His head was shaven long before shaved heads became fashionable.  It was during our Manila reunion later that I learned that he came from field combat as a second lieutenant at that time.   

When we had that brief reunion after thirtysome years, I realized it came naturally to still call each other “Boss.”  I guess humans tend to revert to where they’ve left off, such as in the case of our particular three-cornered friendship.   

Despite his busy schedule, Charly had managed to join us and our husbands at that time.  Updating each other was pleasant enough.  More pleasant was realizing that nothing much has changed about our friendship or our attitudes.  We’re just older.

The years have flown and the boy who taught us Math and ‘spirit of the glass’ and picked ticks and fleas off his dog is now a brigadier.  He has a wife, four children, two dogs, two cats, three brothers, and parents who evidently reared him well.   

“The child is father of the man,” William Wordsworth wrote.  As sure as I’m sitting here, Charly was, and is, first and foremost, the kind who can be expected to choose what decent human beings abide.  I won’t be surprised if he earns additional stars on his military shoulder boards.

The Ears Have It
By A.M.B. Apalisok

The eyes have it, sure, but how can one ignore the ears?  That ears are for hearing, there’s no doubt.  In its strictest sense, what we call as ears are actually the pinnas, or earflaps.  The pinnas are what we see outside the left and right sides of human faces, their lower lobes pierced by jewelry, mostly in females, sometimes in males.   

      Ears are what we don’t see, unless we deliberately poke the inside of the pinna, a performance possible only if it’s somebody else’s pinna.  Which is to say that such explorations are better left to EENT doctors.  In any case, ears are for hearing, without which one is deaf, while the pinnas are the flaps, without which one couldn’t wear earrings. 

      But since we’re used to calling the whole organ of hearing as ears and not by its component parts (eardrum, cochlea, and so on, like calling a human as legs, head, or torso) so ears they are, to do away with parsing.  Come to think of it, who is comfortable with pinnarings instead of earrings, anyway?

      The ear is an unassuming feature often hidden by hair and is thus a “facial outpost”, says writer Daniel McNeill (The Face, 1998).  Try whispering that to a diamond-laden pair of ears, or Britain’s Prince Charles for that matter, if one can get near enough those massive royal ears.   

      And while we’re on the subject of Britain, ever come across its war spurred by ears in its history?  It was Britain’s war with Spain, seven years after a Spanish sailor climbed an English ship and sliced off the ear of Captain Robert Jenkins.  That was in 1731, the War on Jenkins’s Ears.   

      The cutthroat (or cutear?) Spanish sailor meant to defend his country’s trading rights in Cuba.  Why the ear had to be detached from the English captain in that defense defies logic.  But Jenkins’s own logic was to keep the detached ear, pickle it, and rant about nothing else.  When Britain’s relations with Spain grew worse, he displayed the pickled ear to parliament, and the government declared war.

      Britain doesn’t have a monopoly of famous ears.  China had Big-Eared Tu, the king of Shanghai’s drug trade in the 1920s and ‘30s.  He earned the nickname for the attention-getting size of his ears.  He added a feather to his renown by tutoring Chiang Kai-Shek.

      No two ears are alike, unless the two are on the left and right of the same person’s face.  The distinctiveness of each person’s ears obliged investigators to compare the pictures of the ears of Anna Anderson to those of who she claimed to be, Anastasia the youngest daughter of Russia’s Czar Nicholas II.  No verdict was made, but it was concluded later that Anderson was schizophrenic.  Naturally, this had nothing to do with her ears.

      Literature has its own famous ear, courtesy of William Shakespeare.  The ear of Hamlet’s father became the unwilling vessel of the poison that Hamlet’s uncle Claudius poured.

      The Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh though has the most famous ears, according to McNeill.  After a quarrel with French artist Paul Gauguin, van Gogh sliced his own ears off, wrapped them in paper, and gave them to a prostitute.  ‘Here, in remembrance of me,’ were his anecdotal words.

      No such privilege of quotable words issued out of a neighbor’s pig I knew as a child.  That neighbor happens to have an early grader boy whose character already showed surgical abilities that can lead him to greatness either as a surgeon or as a serial killer.  The butcher boy sliced off their live pig’s ears, grilled them on charcoal, and ate them.  It terrified me to tears because I truly, honestly felt that the pig was more of my friend than the boy.       

      Today human ears, Filipino ears to be precise, are bombarded by wails of pigs at dawn before fiestas and videoke singers late into the night.  One seems unable to tell apart these tortured pigs from the torturing singers.  And there are ears that have come next to fingers in importance relative to cell phones. That’s some trajectory, from fingers to ears.

      How decorated ears came about from ancient times until now poses a good subject for anthropologists.   Women love earrings.  So do little girls.  Our tyke had asked me to have her ears pierced.  I thought that would come only when she’s sixteen, as it did to my sisters and me.  An eternity for a five-year-old, it turns out.  And an earful for me. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rsOEOM-wpY

Best In Instrumentation - Bohol Sandugo Celebration: University of Bohol (UB)
This video is courtesy of Nestor Daarol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgnwwais4Ww

Jane Censoria Cajes - SK National President
This video is courtesy of Nestor Daarol of DYTR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsqZ1Y7crHg

Catigbian: awarded Most Creative Contingent
Video is courtesy of Nestor Daarol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsqZ1Y7crHg

DYTR's Nestor Daarol provides this video for Tubag Bohol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ds1QBEl8q0

This video is courtesy of Nestor Daarol of DYTR.

I shut down my laptop and left it at the office. After teaching for 4 hours, nibalik ko sa office ug gi-turn-on ang laptop.

Mokidlap lang ang power button pero walay picture ang monitor. I had to press the button for 10 seconds or more para mapalong ang power. Turn-on na pud, dili gihapon. I repeated the same digital ritual. Wala gihapon.

Akong gi-check ang LCD sa akong laptop, misamot na diay kadako ang liki sa likod. Natipak na pud ang handle nga nagconnect sa main body sa laptop ug LCD. Dako na jud ang tipak. I was thinking "goodbye laptop". I was also thinking basin nag-hard drive failure lang. My laptop is running without battery kay kung taoran ug battery moungot ug dili moandar.

Kadaghan sa akong mga files nga wala pa ma-back-api. Ang mga lessons and exam papers. Ang mga pictures sa EB. Na-erase na raba nako ang memory. Mag-unsa nalang ni. Dili na mamalik ang hitabo. Ang mga ebooks ug software nga giinstall, mag-goodbye na ko ani?

Akong gipatuwad ang laptop ug gilili kung basin naay laing mga liki. Naminaw ko, nag-andar  man ang hard disk gihapon. Pero nganong way picture ug dili mo-start ang Operating System?

Misurrender ko. Wa na koy mahimo. Hurot tanang files kawala. Akong 120GB nga external hard disk puno na ug wa na ko kaback-up sa mga recent files. Kinahanglan pa ko mopalit ug laing 500 GB nga external hard disk o kaha 1TB (terabyte) nga external hard drive.

Mibalik ko sa classroom. Naglingkod. Naghinuktok. Nanghupaw. Naminaw sa kasikas sa akong kasing-kasing. Mga pangutana mipasunding sa akong handurawan: "Karon nga wala nakoy laptop, kinahanglang mangita ko ug paagi nga makapalit ko ug bag-o." "Dili ko kapangapply ug bag-ong trabaho kung walay laptop. Dili ko ka send ug message sa Philippines sa Chikka kung walay laptop. Dili na ko kagamit sa VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone. Dili ko ka atiman sa Tubag Bohol kung walay laptop." "Dili ko ka research sa akong mga leksyon kung walay laptop." Pagkadaghang mga butang nga dili ko mabuhat nga nawad-an ko ug laptop.

Wa pa man mibalik ang mga estudyante, nag-ampo sa ko sa Ginoo. "Ginoo, pasayloa ko sa akong mga sala. Mag-unsa naman ko ani kung wala koy laptop. Dili na jud mo-on ang power, Lord. Wa ko kabalo kung unsay hinungdan."

Paghuman sa klase, samtang minaog ko sa hagdanan, nagkibot-kibot akong ngabil kay nabatasan nako nga molitok ug pag-ampo samtang naglakaw o bisan unsang gibuhat. Mituaw ko: "Ginoo, maayo unta akong laptop inig balik nako sa office karon."

Pag-abot nako sa office, gi-turn-on dayon nako. Mikidlap ang monitor screen. Dihay word miguwa: "Acer".

"Thank you so much, Lord Jesus. Salamat kaayo Lord nga mi-on na ang computer," naglumpayat akong dughan sa kalipay.

Kon ugaling mawala ko ug kalit ug wala nay timik, tingali tiunay nang napid-ok ang kinabuhi sa akong laptop. Pero unta dili pa kini mahitabo. Apan kon ugaling mahitabo man gyud, naa pa may Post Office. Balik na pud ko papilit ug stamp.

P.S. Ako ning gitype ug dali-dali nga diary kay basin inig turn-off na ko sa laptop karon kay mouli na ko sa dorm kay ngitngit na, dili na pud mo-turn-on unja.

So, advance panamilit sa ning ako kung ugaling makabsan na gyud sa kinabuhi ang karaan kong computer.

Ate Annie (Bambi), una sa tanan, salamat sa imong paghubad sa among mga gibati pinaagi ning maong matam-is uyamot nga balak. Ang imong balak naghulagway sa kinaiya natong mga Bol-anon: ang pagkamaabi-abihon ug mahigalaon nga hitupngan apan dili hilabwan.

Ang imong balak, Ate Annie, naghulagway sa subo usahay nga palandongon sa kinabuhi: ang atong pagkatibulaag sa bisan asa nalang suok sa kalibutan.

Bisan pa man sa atong nagkalain-laing nahimutangan, nagkatagbo lang gihapon ang atong mga dalan. Ug ang panaghigalaay sa usag-usa milabong ug milipang pinaagi sa atong mga EB diin ato nakita ug nahikap ang unod ug bukog sa atong mga kahigalaan.

Ang giya nga gihatag sa Ginoo kanako ako lang usab nga gipaambit sa tanan natong mga kaigsuonan sanglit ang kinaadman sa tawo dili man ato kun dili Iya sa Diyos nga maoy nagmugna nato ug tag-iya sa tanang butang ug walay atong ning kalibutana.

Akong balonon hangtud sa kamatayon ang kaaghop sa imong balak. Nga unta kining maong balak mabasa pa sa mga sumusunod nato kung mopanaw na ta sa laing kalibutan.

Nga unta magpabilin tang maghigugmaay ug magtinabangay samtang gisungasong nato kining walog sa pagkinabuhi, samtang adtong giasdang ang nagkadaiyang gumonhap sa kinabuhi sa matag adlaw.

Long Live, Bambi. Ikaw ang Hara sa mga Balak sa Probinsya sa Bohol!

Quote from: Melrose on July 31, 2008, 05:40:52 PM
Nindot kaayo ka mobalak da! 'Di kaha ka myembro sa KaKa? Asus, malingaw gyud unta mi kung kauban ka namo sa "Balut Beer ug Balak!"

Naa pa ba ang Triple B (Balut Beer ug Balak) nga activity sa Tagbilaran, Vidz? The last poetry session we had was in Brewpoint. I was reading a love poem at that time. Paul was reading Sir Butch's enchanting poem.

The quick reply is intended to make a reply without the features of the REPLY. Those who want to use the features associated with REPLY must then just click REPLY.

Best Practices Announcement:

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Each time a page is reloaded, it costs a bandwidth resource.

As Tubag Bohol grows bigger in content and page visitors, we need to manage bandwidth consumption in the best way we can, thus this best practice announcement is being posted. It is like turning off lights when we are not using them to save power and avoid expensive electric bill from BOHECO.

Thank you.

When do you plan to drop by Thailand?

Press Release from Cebu Pacific sent to Tubag Bohol News Center

International routes for only P888 one-way; All-in Domestic fares starting from P699 one-way

Yes, you read it right - Cebu Pacific is moving its entire operation to NAIA Terminal 3 starting August 1, 2008 and we would like to mark this historic event with a systemwide seat sale because we want to give you every reason to fly!

Fly from Manila â€" Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Bangkok, Jakarta, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Macau and Saigon or from Cebu to Hong Kong and Singapore for as low as P888!

Fly Manila to Laoag, Legaspi, Naga, San Jose, Tuguegarao or Cebu to Bacolod, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro and Iloilo for only P699 - ALL IN!

Fly from Manila to Bacolod, Caticlan, Cebu, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Kalibo, Puerto Princesa, Roxas, Tacloban, Tagbilaran or from Cebu to Caticlan, Clark, Davao, General Santos, Puerto Princesa and Zamboanga, or Davao to Iloilo, Zamboanga for as low as P999 - ALL IN!

Travel from Manila to Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato, Davao, Dipolog, General Santos, and Zamboanga for only P1499 - ALL IN!

Seat Sale starts now until 05 August 2008 and is valid for travel beginning 01 September to 17 December 2008! This promo is non-refundable!

Book your flights now through Cebu Pacific Online or call our reservations hotline number (632) 7020888 or (6332) 2308888.

Almost all laptop's hardware components from the same supplier/manufacturer.

Feel free to read this computer tip on how to buy a laptop.

Additional Note:

1. RAM should be at least 2GB.
2. Processor should be Duo Core or Quad Core (latest).
3. Harddisk space: 160 GB perhaps.

Quote from: kiamoy` on July 29, 2008, 11:27:49 PM
Kuya Mike!!! nag upload nakaw sa imo gazillion pics?
wala pano!?!?!

Wait karijot, Bem. Tagaan ti ka ug sample. Check sa All About EB. Topic title: just click this link: Waiting for the Waiter.

Thank you Heidz for posting faces of charming, lovely friends...

To respect the dead, the reason for the posting of this news report, this thread is being closed.

Those who may wish to discuss other issues may start a new thread at "Open Talk", "Open Letters" or "General Discussion" boards.

Thank you.

Hello charming Ivy, welcome to our virtual island. Asa ka sa Bohol?

Ate Lita (Edelweiss), her brother, and her sweet friends from Switzerland and Manila...

Dining at Asianfairy's Villa Tarcela Resort in Valencia, Bohol, Philippines...

To learn more about Villa Tarcela Resort, just follow this link: www.villatarcela.com

Reminder: Discussion on this thread, if possible, should be related to the original topic.

If one would like to talk something else, one is free to start a new thread (topic) in the most appropriate category.

Thank you.

By Ven Arigo
Bohol Chronicle

Exactly 1,505 Boholanos regained clearer vision after undergoing operation during the 2008 Sandugo Surgical-Medical Mission, acclaimed as the second biggest eye operation in the country. The number of patients exceeded the maximum target of 1,000, mostly indigent.

Now reputed as the “Florence Nightingale of Philippine Medical Mission,” Francisca Baluyot thanked volunteers. Basically, she did legwork for the mission.

Baluyot, former Red Cross administrator and presently the president/chief executive officer of the Philippine Gift of Life (PGOL) and provincial government consultant for health and social services, praised the volunteer surgeons and other medical professionals led by Dr. Federico Malubay for the highly successful act of mercy.

If paid, the entire surgical mission could easily value P50 million, a blinding cost for the poor eye patients to pay.

Malubay brought his group of volunteer doctors from the Philippine Academy of Medical Specialists (PAMS).

The humanitarian work was sponsored by the provincial government led by Gov. Erico Aumentado and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office thru its chairman, Sergio Osmeña Valencia, namesake grandson of the late Cebuano Pres. Sergio Osmena, Sr., and PCSO Visayas-Mindanao Area Supervisor William Medici.

The Malacanang-instituted PGMA Outreach Program supported the mission together with the Philippine Jaycee Senate â€" Bohol Chapter led by its president, ex-Gov. Rolando Butalid, and vice president, ex-City Mayor Jose Torralba, Department of Health (DOH) thru Sec. Francisco Doque and Asec. Elmer Punzalan, Reps. Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Adam Relson Jala, Hildegarden ’89 thru president Joseph Alagon, Home Reach Foundation thru chairman Dr. Pepe Recitas, vice chairman Dr. Ramie Cadag and director Richard Uy, and PGOL Board of Directors headed by Fr. Bompat.

The PGMA Outreach Program already initiated or supported many free eye operations in different parts of the country and its three biggest - also the top three Philippine record holders -  coincidentally occurred in Bohol in 2006, 2007 and last  July 17 to 22.

Last year’s surgical mission had benefited 1,663 patients, gained for Bohol a proud entry into the Guinness Book of World Records as site of the world’s biggest free eye operation.
The youngest eye operation recipient in this year’s mission was a nine-year-old girl while the oldest was a man at 91.

Baluyot sent a letter of gratitude to Pres. Arroyo and her husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo for the constant PGMA Outreach Program support.

There were actually 2,902 potential beneficiaries examined but only 1,505 were operated maximizing the period allocated for this year’s Sandugo surgical mission, which coincided with the marking of Bohol’s 154th Foundation Day.

The mission was also supported by the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) â€" Bohol Chapter led by Jagna Mayor Exuperio Lloren, Association of Municipal Health Officers of the Philippines (AMHOP) headed in Bohol by Dr. Arnold Cagulada, Provincial Health Office (PHO) which chief is Dr. Reymoses Cabagnot, Bohol Medical Society (BMS) led by Dr. Ria Maslog, nursing schools of the Holy Name University, University of Bohol and Bohol Institute of Technology, Vice Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera, presiding officer of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, SP health committee chair Board Member Cesar Tomas Lopez and Provincial Administrator Tomas Abapo, Jr.

Baluyot specially thanked Dr. Nenita Po of the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital, site of the surgical-medical mission.

By Kit Bagaipo

Vehicle registration and securing driver’s license at the Tagbilaran Land Transportation Office (LTO) remains a big burden as many still end up with fixers who are operating in collusion with some of the agency’s employees.

The presence of fixers and the tedious time-consuming registration processes that motor vehicle owners have to go through has been the subject of public complaints as the LTO Tagbilaran bids to obtain certification with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

As part of the ISO certification, Joel Maloloy-on, city LTO head came under fire for enforcing a dress code on clients that disallows the wearing of sleeveless shirts and short pants.
According to Maloloy-on, this is in compliance with stringent requirements in order to be ISO certified.

LTO Tagbilaran is the first among LTO field offices that is undergoing reforms for its ISO bid, Maloloy-on said.

Complaints aired over dyRD’s Inyong Alagad hit the registration requirements and the inefficient system adopted at the receiving and releasing windows at the LTO office.

Records of vehicle registrations are being dumped like a pile of garage in one of its unused offices that has also been a subject of complaints as several records have been found missing.
One’s burden does not stop at the receiving and releasing windows but will go on with fixers who are victimizing especially those coming from the towns with the promise that the requested documents will be facilitated and followed up inside the LTO office.

Fixers are charging from P1,000 to P1,500 on new applicants for driver’s license which only costs P310 and P370 for a non-professional and professional license, respectively.
According to reports received by the Chronicle, the fixers even have access to records at the agency’s office to transact for and in behalf of applicants.

Car owners said, upgrading of services should have been given a priority instead of eyeing an ISO certification that is not really a benchmark for the efficient delivery of services.

By Bohol Chronicle

The finest of Central Visayas’ local products are now on showcase at the 2008 Sandugo Regional Product and Raw Material Trade Fair with more than 80 exhibitors at the Island City Mall in Tagbilaran City.
The exhibition features the finest of the region’s One Town, One Product (OTOP) highlighting unique products and services that make use of indigenous raw materials and local ingenuity.

“A quick look at the products being exhibited in the trade fair will reveal the extent to which we have developed our local crafts and ethnic food from practically nothing to that of a thriving export-oriented industry,” said Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) regional director Asteria Caberte during the opening of the showcase yesterday.

This will be the 20th year of  the DTI initiated trade fair, according to Caberte, where the participants are coming from the tourism, food, fashion accessories, crafts, gifts, toys and housewares, and information and communications technology sectors.

Craft producers in Central Visayas are also displaying prototypes of their work with world class quality after a series of trainings and one-on-one consultations with expert designers, Caberte said during a press conference with DTI provincial directors and some mayors from the region.

Caberte said that the fair will also feature a raw materials gallery to afford buyers and product designers with a choice of materials to use that will also be complemented with craft demonstrations for the interested public.

There are also presenters from Mindanao, Eastern Visayas and Southern Luzon.
Jay Yuvallos, president of Philippine Export Companies (Philexport) Cebu, said the product and raw materials fair is not only an opportunity to showcase local products but to develop competitive, viable small-medium enterprises (SMEs) at the same time generating jobs for creative and skilled traditional craftsmen who can come up with world-class products.

A dog has appeared in court in the eastern Indian state of Bihar accused of breaching the peace.

Police demanded severe action against the dog for biting people. Its owner says it has only attacked burglars.

The dog, named Chhotu, has been in trouble with the law before. In 2003, a magistrate sentenced Chhotu to death.

Neighbours complained he had gone mad and bitten several people. But animal rights activists managed to get the decision reversed.

Sole protector

Chhotu made his latest appearance in a crowded court on Thursday in the town of Purnea.

"The court was compelled to issue a summons to the dog since the police found that it was a threat to peace and feared that it might create a law and order problem," district official Rajiv Ranjan said.

In court Chhotu appeared to have been on best behaviour.

source: BBC

Quote from: wowboholphilippines on July 29, 2008, 01:07:33 PM
TBTK attendees who attended it twice were not all that friendly. In fact, the last one, everyone had a fight of whom would be the next president/ Here at TB, you don't elect an official as long as there are volunteers who act as leaders.

Hi WBP, TBTK has lost its direction since its infamous fight/walkout at the MetroCentre Hotel. The election was canceled. I hope TBTK would be revived.

I see a weakness in TBTK gathering. Attendees don't really know each other even online. There was no connection. There was no spark of friendship. It is not that easy to strike a passionate friendship on first meeting.

There was also a big issue in which a TBTK official was brandishing his/her wings of superiority. (Gitawag ni ug "nakatungtong na lagi sa buko-buko sa kabaw, mao garbo na ang nagpasulabi).

A TBTK gathering may not serve its purpose if there is no sweet friendship to cherish and hold on for life.

Thank you so much Alicia for donating a lechon to our platoon of friends.

Thank you Borobotoy and Loloy for compiling and posting all the lovely photographs.

Ate Lita preparing pancit bihon at Gemma's Kitchen

Thank you, Borobotoy, for posting the photographs. More to come?

Ivy, I love history with so much feelings.

GEC, how are you? Long time no see, but now sinaw.

Ben, Paul and Vida have the contact number of Glen Lumantao.

John 4:23-24 (ESV) But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.“

Acts 7:47

47 but it was Solomon who built a house for him. 48. However, the Most High does not live in buildings made by human[ii] hands. As the prophet says,

49      “‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house can you build for me,’ declares the Lord,

“or what place is there in which I can rest?

50      It was my hand that made all these things, wasn't it?'”

"Thou shalt not make any graven image"
By Wayne Blank

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I The Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments" (Exodus 20:4-6 KJV)

The Second Commandment

Violation of the Second Commandment takes two general forms; first, the worship of false gods by means of religious statues or pictures, and second, the worship of the True God by means of religious statues or pictures.

The first form of idolatry is rendered obviously wrong by The First Commandment which makes plain not to worship false gods (see "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me"). The First Commandment covers the false-god aspect of the Second Commandment.

The second form of idolatry should also be seen as obviously wrong to anyone with a Bible, and who reads it, and who reads it with an attitude of truly obeying God, but millions of people who merely claim (to their eventual regret, if they don't repent, see I Did It My Way...) to be good Christians defy God by having religious statues or pictures in their churches or homes. The true God is not a picture, the true God is not a statue, and as the Scriptures plainly state, by God's own Word, the true God is not to be worshiped or prayed to by the use of statues or pictures. It is a blasphemous insult to Almighty God to portray Him in such a lowly and grossly-inaccurate way!

Imagine, if when someone wanted to talk to you, they made themselves a hollow, lifeless plaster doll, that they said represented you, brought it into your presence and instead of talking to you directly, they talked to the lifeless plaster doll, as if it were you, all the while ignoring the real you who was right there with them. Would you think someone who did that was very foolish? Would you be offended by someone who "sees you" as a plaster dummy? And if, after your telling them that you don't like them doing that, and emphatically telling them not to do it, they kept doing it anyway, would you become angry with them? By His own words, it makes God very angry too. You aren't a dummy (unless, after you've read this, you keep any religious statues or images that you happen to have), and God isn't a dummy either. If you have any such religious statues or pictures as your lawful personal possession, destroy them immediately! (do not touch anything that is someone else's property, but show them this study if you can - everyone is responsible for themselves before God after they know the Truth).

The same holds true for using statues or images to worship or pray to the dead saints of the past (just as it's wrong to worship or pray to the living saints of the present - see What Is A Saint?). Only God is to be prayed to or worshiped (see also What Would Mary Really Say About Idolatry?). All of the saints of the past were merely people the same as anyone today, and all of the dead saints of the past cannot hear anything, or do anything, for anyone because they are dead at the moment. Dead does not mean "alive and dead," dead means dead (see What Happens When You Die?). If they were not dead, if the dead were already alive, there would be no need for a future resurrection of the dead (see Resurrections). Again, if you have any such religious statues or pictures as your lawful personal possession, destroy them immediately! (and again, do not touch anything that is someone else's property, but show them this study if you can - everyone is responsible for themselves before God after they know the Truth)

What does the Bible warn about the use of statues and pictures for worship?

God will shame and condemn those who use statues or images for worship:

    "Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? Ye are even My witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any. They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together." (Isaiah 44:8-11 KJV)

God is not made of wood, plastic, or cement - God is not to be represented by wood, plastic, or cement:

    "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world [see When Will You Be Judged?] in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:29-31 KJV)

source: Bible Study

Quote from: Mari on July 28, 2008, 10:32:47 AM
OT: Graz thanks for the book. gitunol ni hazel during the party

Mari, you should read this book. Charles Stanley is one of my favorite authors. He is a heavenly man.

Are you looking for acne solutions that really work? The good news is, whether you're a teenager or an adult suffering from acne, you don't have to live with it. Here you can find 10 super easy and effective ways to get rid of acne.

1. Do not pick, press or rub your pimples. These actions actually increase the sebum production and rupture the membranes below your skin. The infection and sebum will spread underneath your skin and cause more pimples. Also, you risk increasing the chances of leaving scars on your face.

2. Wash your face twice a day using a mild soup. It is even better if you can buy sulfur-based soap especially for acne. If your skin is too oily, use a soap with benzoyl peroxide. Do not use rough sponges, brushes, or anything similar on your face. You shouldn't, however, over-wash your face because it will actually stimulate your sebaceous glands to produce more sebum which will increase your acne.

3. Check if it is because of the food. For many people, food allergy can cause very serious acne condition. You should avoid eating too much oily and spicy food. Recent studies have shown that acne can also be caused by milk which contains hormones as well as seafood with relatively high levels of iodine. If possible, cut down on those foods. Other foods you may consider avoiding are: sugar, dairy products, deep-fried food, meat, nut butters, etc. On the other hand, it is believed that green vegetables, vegetable fuices and foods rich in zinc can help alleviate acne condition.

4. Drink more water every day. "Eight glasses of water a day can keep acne away." says Jennifer Thoden, a respected acne expert. The reason is that water can carry waste material out of our body and it really helps heal and prevent acne flare-ups.

5. Do not wear makeup if possible. Makeup products can clog your pores, cause more blackheads and pimples. If you have to wear makeup, make sure it is water-based. Be sure to clean your makeup brushes regularly and cleanse your skin before you sleep.

6. Do not use oily products. Avoid products such as hair pomades, intense oil-based facial moisturizers, and oily cleansers.

7. Keep your face clean. Do not rest your chin on your hands or constantly touch your face. Regular shampoo your hair and keep it off your face, especially when you sleep.

8. Exercise moderately as it helps in blood circulation and elimination of toxins.

9. Stay stress-free. Studies have shown that stress not only worsens acne flare-up, it also worsens the overall skin condition. Talk to your friends, listen to your favorite music, or take a walk in the park. There are many things you can do to be stree free.

10. Get Sunshine and fresh air. Sunshine stimulates vitamin D in the body, an essential vitamin for healthy skin. Fresh air and sunshine can also reduce stress (tip #9) and increase oxygen to the skin. Don't get burnt in the sun though. Burnt and heavily tanned skin forms a layer on the skin that doesn't exfoliate quickly enough and can lead to blocked pores.

Thank you so much, Mari, for posting the lovely pictures of our sweet friends, and I'm so happy seeing my mother's photograph. I miss her.

Orchids Dear, here are your die-hard fans...

Quote from: nocturn on July 27, 2008, 09:23:31 PM
ur ryt michael... but as wat ive just said.. i just wanna make sure na dili madaot ila ngalan... for God's sake.... maluoy pud unta cya sa ila... anyways.. agree ko ky scott... warn that blogger not to mess up with ths topic again...

else.....  

magpray nalang ta tanan,,,

Personally, I feel uncomfortable on that comment nga "angay patyon." In the first place, it's just a news. We don't have a grasp of the whole story unsa gyud ang nahitabo. We don't personally know both the victims and the suspects. Our reaction should be compassion and love to the chop-chop victims and pity to the criminals for they will be tormented in jail for the rest of their lives.

As the Bible says: "The abundance of the heart speaketh in the mouth." That says it all.

Happy Birthday DonaBelle. God bless you always. Keep shining!

Quote from: raldampong on July 27, 2008, 09:08:12 PM
Believe ko nimo Mike, morag pareha galing mog simbahan si Nong Boy Ampong sa Parole office.

Sakto ka Mike, Life is sacred ug dili kutloon sa sa unsa man ang pmaagi. Kininhinatag sa Ginoo ug ang Ginoo ra usab ang maypagbout mobawi sa kinabuhi sa tawo.

Rald, kauban mi ni Nong Boy Ampong sa Family Christian Fellowship. Amigo kaayo mi. Ig-unsa diay mo ni Nong Boy Ampong?

If anyone feels offended by Musiclover's comment, you may send her your private reaction through PMs.

Let us all remember that your comment belongs to yours alone. It does not represent Tubag Bohol's beliefs.

Let us our freedom of speech responsibly. Freedom of speech must come with ethics and responsibility.

Life is precious in the eyes of God. Only God is the author of life. No matter how big your sin is, you can be redeemed through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Even those who were behind the slaughter of 6 Million Jews can be forgiven in their sins if they surrender their lives to Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness).

Usahay sayon ra kaayo nato mosulti nga patyon ang tawo, pero wa nato huna-hunaa nga dili kita ang tag-iya sa kinabuhi sa tawo.

Ang atong Ginoo sa dihang himalatyon na nga nagbitay sa krus, wa man moingon nga: "Amahan ko, pamatya sila tungod sa ilang pagpaantos nako."

Apan bisan sa dihang nag-agas ang tubig ug dugo gikan sa samad sa bangkaw sa lawas ni Kristo ug samtang hapit na Siya kabugtui sa gininhawa, mituaw ang atong Manluluwas nga nag-ampo: "Amahan Ko, pasayloa sila kay wa sila masayod sa ilang gibuhat."

Ang kinabuhi nga iyang gikutlo, Els, dili ug dili na mabalik. Kinsay makatambal sa samad sa kasing-kasing ug makahupay sa kaguol sa mga ginikanan sa gi-chop-chop?

Importante gyud ning naa tay kasultihan sa atong gibati kay basin naay ikatambag nga maayo atong higala kung naay dautang huna-huna nga mosantop sa pangisip.

The word of God (the Bible) is our light and lamp to our life. Naa man tay mga kapakyasan sa kinabuhi, apan dili pud seguro ing-ani kay brutal ug heinous nga wa pa matagbaw ang suspect sa pag-strangle sa mga babaye, gitadtad pa gyud.

Parehas ni adtong nahitabo sa taga Duero nga accountant sa Osaka Iridology nga gitadtad didto sa apartment sa Baguio City. Ang gatadtad niya iyang ka-live-in partner, matod pa sa news report ni Ven Arigo kaniadto.

An amazing work of art...

Photobucket has a bandwidth limit for all images hosted in this site.

Unless you pay Photobucket to upgrade your account, your Photobucket-hosted photos that are posted in Tubag Bohol or in any other sites may disappear without notice once the bandwidth limit has been reached.

That is why I host (and you should host) all my photos in www.flickr.com. It's free and the bandwidth is UNLIMITED.

What is a bandwidth, by the way?

The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time, expressed in bits per second(bps) or bytes per second. source: cnx.org

Every time a webpage is loaded (say, a Tubag Bohol webpage) a certain amount of bandwidth supplied by the website server is consumed. A busy website eats a lot of bandwidth and it means cost.

Loy, naa bay plano imong employer nga palitan ug lami-lami gamay nga lingkoranan inyong opisina? Mura man ug napuno na sa plaster ang chair. Mahugmak baja ni kadugajan.

Quote from: musiclover0526 on July 27, 2008, 02:50:44 PM
mao na mag sip sip lagi..sige og pahaba,,angay gyud pamatyon ng mga in-ana..gusto solohon ng sustento..dahhh.

The Bible reminds us: He/she who is sinless may cast the first stone...

The suspects will probably spend the rest of their days on earth in jail. Nahasol sa sustento nga na-cut-off pero wala huna-hunaa ang nagpaabot nga kinabuhi sa Muntinlupa.

Pwede ra man unta estoryahon. They should have explained to those in the U.S. nga nagsustento nila nga dili tinuod ang mga huhungihong - kana kung dili sila guilty sa mga pasangil.

Let us all be warned of the malignant consequences of dirty gossip.

By Paul Joseph Vistal
Bohol Chronicle

On the first day of this Sandugo festival month, a new jewel of Bohol's tourism industry will open to the public to offer first-rate resort accommodations and amenities.

A mere forty-minute drive from Tagbilaran City, the Villa Tarcela Resort stands just right of the national highway as you are greeted by the giant arch warmly welcoming you to Valencia. It is undoubtedly a new landmark of the town and a fitting representative of Valencia's best and of Boholano hospitality. Surrounded by the beauty of nature, Villa Tarcela Resort takes you to a place where you can be away from the grit and grind of daily routine.

On your left loom the hills of eastern Bohol and on your right coconut trees line the fine sandy shore of the southern Bohol seacoast. Before you is a beautiful panorama of the Mindanao Sea, the waves rushing to the shore and the balmy ocean breeze brushing against your cheek. On a clear day, you see nothing but the bluest sky, perhaps some wispy clouds, and the aquamarine waters of the sea. And just off-center, the majestic Mt. Hibok-hibok rises from Camiguin Island, reaching for the sky.

In the early morning and late afternoon, at low tide, gleaners comb the shore for seashells, sea cucumbers, and edible seaweed. At night, you witness hundreds of lights flickering in the darkness as local fishermen, with their nets, ply the waters in their bancas.

But the lovely view isn't all there is to Villa Tarcela. With nine spacious guest rooms and its expansive grounds, Villa Tarcela is also ideal for family holidays, weddings and receptions, debuts, reunions, and other special occasions.

Villa Tarcela astounds one with the accommodations and amenities it offers. Each room is air-conditioned and features temperature-controlled hot and cold showers, mini bar, cable TV, and DVD player. It offers laundry services, on-call spa services for foot spa, body massage, pedicure, and manicure that you can request for a private experience in your room. The telephone service entertains requests for front desk assistance, housekeeping needs, and calls for breakfast in bed.

Villa Tarcela also has a swimming pool, a sea-view open bar and restaurant - from which you can have your choice of native or international cuisine, a souvenir shop, internet connection, scuba diving equipment for rent, and boat tours to coral reefs in nearby protected marine sanctuaries. It offers free transport from anywhere in Tagbilaran City to the Resort, tour assistance, and free transport to and from the cool, refreshing waters of Badiang Spring.

At Villa Tarcela, you can also play badminton, chess, or beach volleyball or go trekking or fishing. You may even have time to visit the old stone church of Valencia, which exquisite wooden floor has been hailed by the art historian Regalado Trota Jose in his book Visita Iglesia Bohol as "the best preserved and the most ornate of its kind" in the Philippines.

The story behind Villa Tarcela is one of love. It is one between a mother and her children - a mother named Tarcela Tagaro, whose passionate love for the beauty of Bohol has inspired her children, who may each have gone on to pursue their own careers in other lands but in each of whom still beat the heart of a true Bol-anon. It is also a story of sharing that same unbounded love for Bohol with other people.

Villa Tarcela is fully staffed with tried and tested personnel, some of whom have worked in five-star hotels and restaurants all over the country. With a staff ready to pamper you and under the management of Ms. Resti Tejido, the Villa Tarcela Resort ensures its clients with only the finest service.

Villa Tarcela's room rates for single or double occupancy are: Standard Room: P1,495; Deluxe Room: P1,950; Scandinavian Room: P2,495; Japanese Room: P2,495; Hawaiian Room: P2,495; and British Room: P2,495. Children between 12 and 18 years old are charged P100 without an extra bed and P300 for an extra bed. Adults are charged P500 for an extra bed. Extra persons in a room are limited to one adult or two children below 18 years old.

Villa Tarcela Resort opens to the public on July 1 but reservations are now available. The first 50 bookings will get a 10% discount. Villa Tarcela also offers discounted rates to groups of at least 20 and to members of www.tubagbohol.com.

In the Philippines, Villa Tarcela may be contacted through the following numbers: 0063 (0) 38-532-0182 and 00063 (0) 921-282-4794. In Scandinavia, the numbers are 0046 70 5145 684 and 0047 75 75 7621.

E-mails may be addressed to alicia@itpedagogen.com and villatarcela@yahoo.com. For more info on Villa Tarcela, check out www.villatarcela.com.

Villa Tarcela is also affiliated with Tagaro Travel and Tours, which offers a wide range of package tour programs to suit special interests, whether they are cultural, educational, historical, or nature-oriented. For tour activities in Bohol, you may go to www.tagarotravelntour.com or check http://www.tagarotravelntour.com/f452af35-5750-4fd5-8c4f-c0a6b288d4da-9.html.

A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start.

Keith Walendowski was charged by police in Milwaukee with disorderly conduct and possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

He could face a fine of up to $11,000 and a maximum prison sentence of six-and-a-half years if convicted.

Police officers said Mr Walendowski had told them: "It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want."

Police found the shotgun, a handgun and a stungun, as well as ammunition, when they detained Mr Walendowski in the basement of his house.

Witnesses told police that he appeared to have been drinking.

The lawn mower was found sitting outside Mr Walendowski's house, which he shares with his mother, with the rubbish on Friday.

A local retailer said that Mr Walendowski might now have difficulty getting his lawn mower repaired.

"Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," said Dick Wagner, of Wagner's Garden Mart in Milwaukee. - source: BBC News

How To Cut A Glass Without A Diamond Cutter

Dip a piece of common string in alcohol and squeeze dry, or as dry as it will get without dripping.  This string should then be placed on the already marked glass and tied tight.  Light the string and let it burn off.

Immediately, while the glass is still hot, plunge it into cold water.  Be sure the container of water is large enough to let the glass to completely submerge, as well your arm up to the elbow, so as to deaden the vibration when you strike the glass.

Strike the glass with your other hand above the line using a wooden stick and hitting a sharp stroke.  This quick, sharp stroke will break the glass where it has been weakened by the burning string, as if done by a regular glass cutter. 

This meth§od may be used to cut bottles in any shape, and to make vases.  You can perform many such cuttings on glass.

METHOD 2 - This method rarely fails to break the glass cleanly, in the exact place you want it broken.  First, scratch the glass with the corner of a file or a sharp engraving tool.  Have a piece of wire bent to the desired shape you want to cut the glass.  Heat the wire until it is red hot and lay it upon the scratch.
Immerse the glass in cold water just deep enough to come to a level with the wire, but not quite covering it.  The glass will break cleanly.

HOW TO CUT GLASS WITH SCISSORS:  To do this you must place the glass under water completely, then with a pair of ordinary scissors, proceed to cut the glass as you would paper or cloth.  This method is, or course, not as smooth a job as the methods described above.
The edges will not be as smooth, but for getting a piece of glass down to a size and where the edges are not needed to be smooth, this method is satisfactory.

HOW TO DRILL GLASS:  Get a piece of steel wire and file the wire to the shape of a drill.  The wire-drill must be tempered as follows:  Heat the end of the wire-drill on a flame until it is dull red, then place it in metallic mercury.

The wire-drill, tempered in this manner, will bore through glass as easily as through soft metal.  When drilling in glass, always use oil of turpentine with a little camphor to lubricate the wire-drill.  As you drill, be careful not to drill all the way through from one side, as you will break the glass this way.  Drill part of the way, or almost through, then drill from the opposite side to finish.  Or, if you cannot do this, as when you are drilling bottles, etc., fill these bottles with water or place the glass in water.

CAUTION:  When you make the drill, do not make the cutting edges so sharp or too acute.  The drill will cut slowly, but you will have better holes with less breakage. (free article archive)

Father God, have mercy on us. This is unimaginable, unthinkable, too gruesome to read...

By Kit Bagaipo
The Bohol Chronicle

Two Boholanas were strangled to death before their bodies were chopped up and dumped in different places in Minglanilla and Talisay City, Cebu.

The gruesome murders were discovered yesterday, a day after victims Ma. Mae Peligro, 24, and her cousin Gwendolyn Balasta, 26, both from Poblacion, Pilar town were reported missing and after some of their body parts, packed in at least 13 separate black garbage bags, were found dumped in Minglanilla and Talisay, Cebu.

The suspects were later arrested yesterday at around 1 p.m. by police and identified as Richard Gudelosao, 27; his live-in partner Jean Antonette Medalle, 26, of Maracas, Lahug, Cebu City; and the couple's helper Jojo De Los Reyes, 23, a native of Cogon, Ozamis City.

According to police investigators, Gudelosao, a taxi owner-driver, was fed up by intrigues relayed to his brother and mother who are working abroad and allegedly strangled and chopped up his brother's girlfriend Peligro and the woman's cousin Balasta inside the house they shared in a subdivision in Barangay (village) Maghaway, Talisay City, Cebu on Thursday.

SInsp. Romeo Santander, police chief of Minglanilla, said the victims were living at Azienda Firenze in Maghaway.

Information pieced together by the police showed that Gudelosao separately strangled to death the two women around 3 p.m. Thursday, chopped up their bodies on the night of same day and placed them inside garbage bags, loaded the body parts on his taxi and, together with De Los Reyes, dumped the chopped body parts in ravines and isolated areas in Minglanilla.

Gudelosao had reportedly been at odds with Peligro since the latter started living in the Azienda Firenze house in September last year. Peligro was the fiancée of Gudelosao's younger brother Felix, the owner of the house, who is working in United States. Balasta joined Peligro early this year as the former's personal help.

Gudelosao was reportedly enraged with Peligro because she had been feeding his brother and their US-immigrant mother Adelita with wrong information, including allegations that he was using drugs, and even uploading in the Internet photos of a messy house and of unwashed plates left on the table.

Gudelosao apparently snapped after his mother decided to cut off his allowance last month and after his brother, only last week, ordered him out of the house, Santander said.

Santander said the sister of Peligro, identified as Grace Ybañez, who is married and lives in Cebu City, reported to the police on Friday evening that her sister and Gwendolyn were missing.

After learning from Grace that the missing women were occupying the same house with a man they had been at odds with, policemen went to the Gudelosao house but found that no one was around. The police then asked the subdivision guard to hold Richard or anyone driving his taxicab at the gate until the police arrived, Santander said.

Santander said that when the guard called him shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday about having a couple on board a taxi being held at the gate of the subdivision, he and his men immediately fetched the couple and invited them to the police station.

Santander said they also invited De Los Reyes, who is a friend, neighbor, and helper of Richard.

He said it was De Los Reyes who first confessed his involvement in the crime but insisted he just assisted Richard who, he claimed, was the one who separately strangled the two women to death inside the Gudelosao house at 3 p.m. on Thursday. He also claimed it was Richard who chopped their bodies in the bathroom and this lasted for two hours, Santander said.

Santander said De los Reyes also confessed he helped Gudelosao dispose of the bodies.

Santander said Medalle also later confessed to cleaning up the bathroom where Richard chopped up the bodies but she insisted she only did it because she was scared that Richard would kill her too if she refused.

But Santander said Medalle was also part of the murder as she even sat on the bag containing the knife used in chopping up the two women.

Santander said the three would be charged with double murder tomorrow.

Published by Sunday Post

A principal of the Duero Central Elementary School and 12 teachers were cleared  recently of two counts of child abuse filed by two parents.

Cleared were Lourdes Castillo, the school principal and the 12 teachers identified as Nenita Alupit, Ma. Gina Jano, Antonia Achacoso, Vicente Salazar, Emelia Olano, Melanie Ampo, Dioscora Escobal, Eutropio Escobal, Lilian Cemini, Helen Olano, Pedrita Berandal and Ireneo Bayron, Jr.

Third Asst. Provincial Prosecutor Eric Ucat cleared the 13 respondents  for lack of appreciable evidence to warrant the indictment of respondents in court.

The two counts of child abuse were filed by parents Arcadio Aguiman, Jr. and Jefferson Torralba, all of Duero town.

They were the parents of two minors (name withheld) who are members of the DCES Drum and Bugle Corps.

As members of the drum and bugle corps of the school, their group participated in several competitions.

When the corps won in two competitions-- a cash prize of P51,000 and in another contest P35,000, the school decided to honor the members with a tour.

Unknowingly, the so-called “tour” brought them to the office of the provincial prosecutor with the 13 teachers charged of child abuse.

The legal trouble of the 13 respondents started after the two sons of the complainants went home crying after they were disallowed to join the tour.

When complainant Aguiman confronted respondent Achocoso, the teacher said to him that his son was made to step down the bus that  they boarded for the tour because the child  had just submitted a waiver.

On the part of the other minor, the son of Torralba, the reason why he went home and cried was that their principal (Castillo) did not allow him to join the tour because his waiver was belatedly submitted.

RESPONDENTS’ DEFENSE

Except for respondent Alupit, who contended that there was no deadline for the submission of the Parent’s Consent of those who would join the tour, the rest were in unison in saying that the reason why the two minors were not allowed to join the tour was that the two of them were not able to submit their respective written parental consent before the scheduled deadline.

It was established during the preliminary investigation of the cases that it was only after the deadline of the submission of the written parents’ consent when complainants decided to allow their respective sons to join the tour.

With this situation, Prosecutor Ucat contended that the aggrieved parents should have brought to the attention of the principal and or the parents could have made arrangements with Castillo because she, being the head of the school, was the one who took charge of the activity.

The prosecutor continued: whether complainants would like it or not, the said tour was a school activity only that it was done outside of the school campus thus, it was subject to the pertinent regulation and or policy of the Department of Education.
Ubay mayor, vice split widens

Published by Sunday Post

      ALA Gym’s Alex John “AJ Bazooka” Banal remains just a prospect for the world champion when he failed to survive through the finish in last night’s World Boxing Association super flyweight title bout at the Cebu Coliseum.

      Rafael “El Torito” Concepcion wiped out Banal’s hope at the 10th round by throwing a right that clinched the battle.

      Banal’s lead was misleading as Concepcion humbled him into doing an Erik Morales, “shaking his head while he was counted in his loss to Manny Pacquiao in the third of their epic trilogy was replayed last night”, as SunStar report described it.

      After getting decked at 2:35 in the 10th, Banal, managed to get on his knee at the count of three and while his corner was egging him to get up and beat the count, he shook his head. Twice.

      Philippine Verbek of Belgium had AJ ahead 86-84, Francisco Martinez of New Zealand had AJ up 88-82, while Charlen Prayasab also had the Pinoy up by two, 86-84.

      Banal dropped to 17-1-1 with 14KOs, while Conception improved to 11-2-1 with 7 KOs.

      “Napunga siya,” said ALA gym head trainer Edito Villamor after attending to his ward seconds after the abrupt end and while stunned Cebuano boxing fans slowly trooped away from the venue.

      Concepcion, whose wife just gave birth to a daughter, rolled and jumped with glee as the Pinoy walked to his corner.

      “He did it on heart,” said Concepcion’s manager, Damon de Berry. “We came here to win. When we got here everybody was talking about AJ. We didn’t make a big fuss.”

Sportsmanship

      In a gesture of sportsmanship, de Berry later checked Banal’s condition with promoter Michael Aldeguer of ALA while the boxer was made to don an oxygen mask by Emergency Rescue Unit personnel.

      “He’s (Banal) a great kid,” said De Berry.

      The boxer indeed showed his great skills in the early going of the fights, taking the first two rounds as Concepcion, with his nose bloodied in the first, opted to clinchâ€"at times almost comicallyâ€"when he got tagged.

      However, the visitor lived up to his nickname as he gored his way back, taking Banal’s best shot and giving some.

      Banal inexplicably slowed in the seventh, while Concepcion’s mouthpiece flew in the eighth.

      In the ninth, Banal got two extra breaks after the tape on his gloves got loose twice, and at the end of the round, got deducted a point for hitting after the bell and in the 10th, the tables turned with Banal opting to clinch before getting staggered by Concepcion’s right.

      “In my honest opinion, he was over-trained and he was too excited to become the champion and he was his own worst enemy. I also believe he will recover and become a world champion someday,” said matchmaker Sampson Lewkowicz.

      The event, sanctioned by the WBA president Gilberto Mendoza, is presented by ALA Promotions, ABS-CBN, Golden Boy Promotions and the Cebu City government. (report from SunStar)

[/color]

  Zobel expressed deep appreciation for the award, saying that it has not been difficult to extend help to and spend time with the Boholanos because she has "an ongoing love affair" with Bohol.

  Her main concern was to preserve the pristine state of Bohol's natural wonders and preserve such structures as old stone churches and watchtowers.

  She cautioned the Boholanos to only implement development that is sustainable.

  Cebu Pacific's director for advertising and promotions Charlie Maño accepted the award for Gokongwei. He said their president was honored to be recognized as a partner of Bohol so that Cebu Pacific is now "in a very serious mode" of transferring their operations to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 3.

  As when they first started operations 12 years ago, he said Cebu Pacific's tagline is to deliver a low-fare dream-value airline.

  The shift from second-hand planes to the latest brand new Airbuses is likewise "a serious mode decision" because re-fleeting is not a choice; it is a must.

  For his part, aside from thanking Bohol's leaders, Sevilla thanked President Arroyo also for making him head the PPA that gave him the opportunity to rehabilitate and develop the ports of Ubay, Tagbilaran, Tubigon, Jagna, Getafe, Maribojoc and Tapal, and soon the construction of the international cruise ship port in Catagbacan in Loon town.

  "It is my belief that ports link with trade. Improved ports support the President's mission of seamless connection of the islands in the Philippine archipelago," he said.

  He also cherished the recognition because it holds special meaning. it is appreciation of the successes PPA has attained in responding to the challenges of meeting the needs of the Boholanos, he explained.

  Meanwhile, Assistant Vice President for Cebu and Visayas Operations Barazel Salazar accepted the award for Tan. He said Tan appreciated the honor. He already had the foresight even 60 years ago when PAL started with propeller-powered aircraft until the latest Airbuses with expanded passenger and cargo capacities that not only passengers will be benefited from PAL flights.

  These have trickling down effects on fishermen, farmers, executives, bankers and businessmen, among others, and not just on travelers who merely need to get to one place from another.

  He also assured the Boholano leadership "that PAL stands ready to support you in your endeavors."

By Sunday Post Newspaper

  Bohol is apparently on the right track where facing challenges is concerned.

  Vice President Noli de Castro made this observation during the 154th Bohol Foundation Day celebration. De Castro was the keynote speaker during the program commemorating July 22, 1854 as the day when Bohol, together with Siquijor, became a separate political, military and religious province from Cebu.

  Noting the old churches dotting the province, he said the deep faith of the Boholanos â€" nurtured and passed on to the next generations â€" is needed “especially now in the face of socio-economic challenges the entire world faces today.”

  “This has made the Boholano rise despite the high cost of oil, oil products and rice, and natural and made-made calamities aggravated by the oil and food issues,” he said.

  “The Boholanos have taken the right direction in adopting President Carlos P. Garcia’s ‘Filipino First’ policy in the face of globalization clearly manifested in the creations and handicrafts offered for sale by local entrepreneurs; the conduct of trade fairs focusing on the One Town-One Product (Otop) concept as well as embracing austerity measures like practical living and prioritizing needs,” the Philippines’ housing czar observed.

  President Garcia’s legacies in governance are timeless, he said, at the same time lavishing praise on the current leaders led by Governor-on-leave Erico Aumentado, Acting Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera, Acting Vice Gov. Cesar Tomas Lopez and the three congressmen â€" Reps. Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Adam Relson Jala of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts, respectively.

  Along with President Garcia, these officials, he said, have shown the Boholanos a fine example of local governance leadership, putting Bohol â€" and the Philippines â€" on the map of the world in the same manner that Datu Sikatuna, the Boholano chieftain who entered a blood compact to seal his newly minted friendship then with Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi did on March 16, 1565

  History will tell that the blood compact was the first ever treaty of friendship that the Philippines entered into with a foreign nation.

  The vice president also said the Boholanos are the epitome of the adage “saving for a rainy day.”

  De Castro said he is familiar with this trait â€" and even gave anecdotes to the amusement of the crowd that packed Bohol Cultural Center â€" because "he once shared his life with a Boholana, making his daughter by her half-Boholana, and his grandchildren, ¼ Boholanos.” high cost of oil, oil products and rice, and natural and made-made calamities aggravated by the oil and food issues,” he said.

  “The Boholanos have taken the right direction in adopting President Carlos P. Garcia’s ‘Filipino First’ policy in the face of globalization clearly manifested in the creations and handicrafts offered for sale by local entrepreneurs; the conduct of trade fairs focusing on the One Town-One Product (Otop) concept as well as embracing austerity measures like practical living and prioritizing needs,” the Philippines’ housing czar observed.

  President Garcia’s legacies in governance are timeless, he said, at the same time lavishing praise on the current leaders led by Governor-on-leave Erico Aumentado, Acting Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera, Acting Vice Gov. Cesar Tomas Lopez and the three congressmen â€" Reps. Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Adam Relson Jala of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts, respectively.

  Along with President Garcia, these officials, he said, have shown the Boholanos a fine example of local governance leadership, putting Bohol â€" and the Philippines â€" on the map of the world in the same manner that Datu Sikatuna, the Boholano chieftain who entered a blood compact to seal his newly minted friendship then with Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi did.on March 16, 1565

  History will tell that the blood compact was the first ever treaty of friendship that the Philippines entered into with a foreign nation.

  The vice president also said the Boholanos are the epitome of the adage “saving for a rainy day.”

  De Castro said he is familiar with this trait â€" and even gave anecdotes to the amusement of the crowd that packed the Bohol Cultural Center â€" because

  ”he once shared his life with a Boholana, making his daughter by her half-Boholana, and his grandchildren, ¼ Boholanos.”

  Gov’s message

  For his part, Aumentado said the foundation day is “a time to look back to where we were in order to see the future.”

  “With the help of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Kabayan Noli de Castro, Bohol is on its steady course to progress,” he said.

  And as the province moves forward, the foundation day is also time to honor the distinguished lady and gentlemen who have contributed much for the economic, cultural, heritage and tourism development of Bohol, he added, referring to Beatriz Zobel de Ayala of Ayala Foundation, President and Chief Executive Officer Lance Gokongwei of Cebu Pacific Air, General Manager Oscar Sevilla of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) and Chairman Lucio Tan of the Philippine Airlines (PAL).

  The awardees, he said, are the modern Sikatuna â€" whose friendship and cooperation have brought the province to greater heights.

By Bohol Sunday Post

      The Office of the Regional State Prosecutor in Cebu City dismissed the complaint for grave slander that Deputy Mayor Mariano Uy filed against City Councilor Edgar Lo Kapirig.

      The regional state prosecutor’s opinion reversed the earlier omnibus resolution of the city prosecutor of Tagbilaran, finding probable cause in the grave slander complaint that Uy filed against Kapirig.

      In a four-page resolution dated July 21, 2008, Region 7 State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane explained that Kapirig’s comment against Uy can be considered “related to the discharge of their official functions” and are of “public interest”.

      “A matter of public interest is a common property; hence, anybody may express an opinion” on it, Gubalane stated in the resolution.

      The regional prosecutor tackled the Tagbilaran City prosecutor’s omnibus resolution dated March 19, 2008, finding probable cause in the grave slander complaint against Kapirig and the order dated April 9, 2008, denying his motion for reconsideration.

      Uy’s complaint stemmed from an incident on November 16, last year when Kapirig told Dr. Alodiza Sepe of the Tagbilaran City Health Office and Maria Cecilia Fernan, an employee of the city government that he (Kapirig) believes the deputy mayor got money from the donations for the Botika sa Katawhan, “especially when there were dollar donations”.

      Sepe and Fernan are both detailed at the Botika sa Katawhan under the management of Uy.

      Kapirig was giving the two a ride home that afternoon after work.

      While inside the vehicle Kapirig allegedly asked some questions as to whether an audit has been conducted on Botika sa Katawhan and if the two were aware of the donations. Then Kapirig stated his opinion that he did not believe Uy never got money from it.

      The incident prompted Uy to file complaints on libel and grave slander against Kapirig before the city prosecutor’s office.

      Fernan, who happened to Uy’s niece, submitted an affidavit, containing the details of the incident.

      In defense, Kapirig explained that they were merely conversing in a casual manner.

      Kapirig further explained that his statements were “mere queries on material facts pertaining to the Botika sa Katawhan made in private conversation.”

      Being a city councilor and a taxpayer, he said, “he has the right to know and inquire about the Botika sa Katawhan, especially because it was created through the City Council. (ACLB)

Why sell Balicasag Resort when it is in good hands?
Bohol Sunday Post

The resident manager of Balicasag Dive resort has reacted to the Post story last week that the tourist facility is up for sale.

The Post  carried a news story quoting Tourism Sec. Joseph “Ace” Durano that eight properties operated by the Philippine Tourism Authority are for sale.

The Balicasag resort is one  of the eight PTA-operated properties.

In effect, Resident Manager Ma. Elena Go of Balicasag Dive Resort reacted to the news story that the resort is in good hands and therefore why sell it.

According to Go, she can assure the people of Bohol that Balicasag Island Resort is in good hands. She further said that those who have been to the resort lately can attest to the veracity of her claim.

She further said that with the recent upgrading and development initiated by former PTA manager James Dean Barbers and with the plan of the current PTA General Manager Mark Lapid, the resort management can say that the resort is now ready to compete with  other dive sites in the country.

Commenting on Durano’s pronouncement, the Balicasag resort manager said  while she respected his plan with regards to selling the facility, the sole decision will not come from his end but from the entire PTA board. Durano is a member of the PTA board.

At the same time, the resort official corrected Durano’s views on the capability of resident managers in operating these PTA facilities  saying she was one of those affected by Durano’s remarks on their qualifications.

In closing, the resident manager  was hoping that through her reaction to Durano’s announcement it would correct the negative views attributed to those handling the operations of the PTA-owned tourism properties.

One reason cited by Durano why the properties are put on the auction block was because they were operating at a loss.   

The Controversial Letter of Mike Francis Acebedo Lopez, presidential appointee: Philippines' National Youth Commission (NYC) Is A Big Failure?

I am constrained to report to the Filipino people, particularly to my fellow youth, that the Officials of the National Youth Commission have not served the greater interest of our people, for the following reasons:

1) This is a Youth Commission whose Leadership has cases at the Ombudsman, the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) and the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC), along with a severely damaged reputation, being subject to numerous complaints from various youth circuits and circulating in e-groups across the country and abroad. This Youth Commission has ganged up on me for my opposition, insisting that we are a collegial body and should therefore be united and agree on everything. But I believe in unity in diversity (there is a reason why the NYC was created to have several commissioners) and upholding truth and justice over everything else. They do not understand that I oppose only those decisions that I know will tarnish our individual and collective reputations, ultimately affecting the credibility and integrity of our agency. They do not understand that we each represent the NYC and our government, and our actions can and will affect the credibility and integrity of the Office we represent. At a time when corruption and hopelessness pervade, our credibility, I believe, is the best gift we could give our country and our fellow young Filipinos. 

2) This is the same Youth Commission that has bullied the alumni association of the SSEAYP (Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program), an organization of passionate and dedicated alumni of the Japanese Government's SSEAYP program. (The NYC is mandated by law to implement the SSEAYP in the Philippines). The NYC Leadership supported the creation of a different alumni association to divide the current SSEAYP leadership in the Philippines, apparently to get back at them because the group pressed charges against the Officials of the Commission. These cases filed emanated from the Commission's decision to choose one of its own as National Leader of last year's SSEAYP delegation (the first time its ever happened) to a two-month all-expense paid cultural cruise across Japan and the ASEAN region. Worse, the Commission went through the motions of a search for applicants even if the NYC's Leadership had already promised the position to the interested Commissioner. So what initially was just an issue of delicadeza became an issue of deception, a betrayal of public trust.

Genuine leadership seeks to unite, not divide the efforts and convictions of young people. When it does, it's apparent that it is for no other reason but to perpetuate one's stay in power or to secure an otherwise insecure position in society or government.

3) Many youth leaders across the country perceive NYC as using every crisis in the Arroyo Presidency as yet another opportunity to "kiss ass". This has lead to the moro-moro and incompetent management of our international programs. Slots for foreign trips, scholarships, and exchange programs are given to friends of the officials, with an unwritten, internal arrangement that only those who are pro-administration will be chosen. Take the SSEAYP for instance: its guidelines, which have been in place for several years, were unilaterally changed last year to accommodate an alleged relative of the President. In fairness to the President, I do not think that she is aware of these happenings, nor has she given such order. The irony is that the alleged relative did not apply last year, but the damage has already been done against the integrity of the SSEAYP selection process. And all this after we require applicants of our programs to accomplish so many difficult requirements and submit long essays. These officials have no respect for the efforts of the young people whose interests we all swore to uphold and protect. 

4) We've all heard about issues concerning our national procurement law, discussed in length at the Senate's hearings on the NBN-ZTE issue. Unfortunately, corruption in the bidding process is nothing newâ€"not even to the NYC. In the middle of 2006, during an Executive Session in our Regular Commissioners' Meeting, and in the presence of our previous legal officer, I was so shocked when two of our Commissioners started accusing each other of securing kickbacks from their management of the agency's BAC (Bids and Awards Committee). The NYC Leadership did not even conduct a formal investigation on the matter. 

5) The NYC Leadership ordered for the delivery of computer units despite the advice from our Admin and Finance Division (AFD) that the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) had already denied the release of funds for the project. The project was supposed to be funded by the Presidential Social Fund, but Malacañang denied the release of funds after discovering that there were violations in the bidding process that the NYC leadership approved. For over a year, the supplier of the computer units were not paid and they almost resorted to legal action had it not been for the steps taken by our AFD Division. (I hope the NYC Leadership did not use the computers for an election bid as president of an association of law students, the computers having been distributed to the law school beneficiaries before the association's election. It's too much, really, to sacrifice the agency's reputation for that.)

6) There are fresh reports of a certain Commissioner who allegedly falsified a DILG Memo Circular, forging no less than Secretary Ronaldo Puno's signature to endorse his SK seminar cum business venture. The falsified DILG Memo Circular endorsed this Commissioner's training of SKs, an activity unknown to the NYC and its staff. Maybe he preyed on the SKs knowing that they have the funds to participate in his seminars and falsified/forged the signature of the Cabinet Secretary to make sure that they are obliged to join (according to reports, these cost at least Php 5, 000 per participant; with possibly over a thousand SKs in that province who can participate â€" well, you do the math).

Despite the humiliation and indignity caused by them, many of these Officials still have the nerve to seek reappointment; worse, one is even starting to lobby for the Chairmanship of the NYC. To reappoint or promote anyone from this crop of NYC officials is like sentencing young people in our country to a fate worse than death. 

Look who's talking

There is a long litany of issues (Yes, there are more) that I hope can be resolved in the proper forum. While there is an ongoing debate for the abolition of the Sangguniang Kabataan, what about looking at the activities of the National Youth Commission and the apparent failure of its officials to protect its credibility, having been embroiled in scandal after scandal? How can the SKs look up to the NYC as a guide when the Commission has lost the moral ascendancy to lead them or to even propose reforms in the SK?

To whom much is given, much is also expected. But how can the NYC live up to the high standards young people expect of them when, adding insult to injury, some of its officials have been reported to engage in scandalous sexual and amoral behavior in some of the NYC's official programs? Complaints from some youth volunteers allege that, in a number of instances, a Commissioner asked them to look for prostitutes for him. Our young people are talking about these debauched activities of a highly decadent Youth Commission, an agency that could have been considered the final frontier, the bastion of integrity and righteousness in the government. 

The Officials of the National Youth Commission have failed our country's youth. Even the hardworking staffs of the agency appear to be demoralized. (The agency's staff's turnover rate in the past year is the highest in the NYC's history).

I would rather go down with my integrity intact and my head held up high, than keep up the pretense of integrity where there is none. And I call upon each young Filipino to help me wage this war. Mayday, mayday… I need back up. Let us seize this moment, fight the good fight, and define our generation - and we will soon discover that for our country, and ourselves - the best is yet to come.

copy of this open letter was provided by Leo Udtohan...

People who take blood have been warned not to get the patient to tightly clench their fist during the procedure.

UK researchers who examined 200,000 blood test results found clenching then relaxing the fist could raise potassium levels, potentially confusing results.

Raised potassium levels can indicate kidney or heart problems, the Annals of Clinical Biochemistry study said.

A UK expert said clenching was an outdated practice and staff taking blood should not ask patients to do so.

'Hit or miss'

Vanessa Thurlow, a biochemistry expert and co-author of the report, first noticed a problem when GPs were questioning test results for a small number of patients.

When she retested them, their potassium levels were normal - but they had all started to clench their fists before the test. source: BBC News

Tequila bottle from Ms Da Binsi sent to Gemma's residence during the mini-EB last July 2008.

Footnote to Hazel: dili maghubog-hubog kay naa pay gamahal...

Photographed outside Gemma and Joe's home at Ubujan, Tagbilaran City...

Quote from: Mari on July 26, 2008, 10:16:09 PM
klaro na nga gigutom si Hazel

Giigang lang na si Hazel, Mari. Unsaon nga hinay or gipalong ba to ang aircon sa restaurant.

Thanks sweet Aya...

I wish to thank Gemma and Joe for the accommodation. Mga 4 nights mi sa ila natulog ug nagstay.

Thank you Belle and Melody for the photographs.
Nalipay ko nakakita sa akong Mama...

Ako ug ang akong Mama Bebei...
Pagawas na mi sa balay nila Gemma ani nga picture kay mangadto na sa Anda.
Photographer: Ginger

Ate Lita as Model...



Ginger as Model...



Hazel, take two...



Ate Lita, take two...

Shooting Location: Gemma's and Joe's room at their residence in Tagbilaran City, Bohol

Kini nga box gipadala ni Ate Lita sa balay ni Grace adto pang March 2008.
Unya, gi-open sa balay ni Gemma sa mini-EB on the first week of July.

Sinaw pa ang plato ni Hazel ug Kiamoy. Asa naman to ang waiter nga nadugay man...

Of the 2,000 photographs, mao ni usa sa mga dyutayng pictures nga miapil ko.

From Left to Right: yours truly, Ginger (Hazel), Kiamoy, Maricel (Happy), My mother, and Maricel's mother-in-law

Gem, this photograph is for you. Ang pancit nga giluto sa imong kusina sa Tagbilaran
gibayang na sa lamesa...

Naghuna-huna unsay paliton?


Feel like dancing?


First Mini-EB at SM Cebu.

Naahat ug larga si Hazel from Leyte to Cebu. This was our very first time to meet.

an opening salvo from my camera. hazel alba at SM City Cebu. circa 2008

The two old coins - one each for Hazel and Grace, have been delivered "via-hand-tunol" to Ginger. I guess it is safer to mail something from Norway than from the Philippines.

Lindy's old coin is also with Ginger.

Thank you Balong that you have finally announced the lucky winner of your very own contest, which is a truly Balong Trademark contest.

Praise God all passengers and crews of Qantas Airline are safe. I wonder how the maintenance team had failed to detect a crack or weakness in the airplane's wall prior to take-off.

2004 News Archive - Bohol Chronicle

A day after the interment of NPA spokesman Silvino "Ka Bino" Clamucha, an encounter between government troops and the New People's Army ensued in sitio Anislag, Batuan town past 6 o'clock Sunday morning.

The running gunbattle which lasted for almost two hours killed three rebels and a government trooper. The site of the latest encounter was situated about 10 kilometers from Batuan proper and 50 kilometers from this capital city.

The slain rebels were identified as Ramil Item, of Dagohoy town, while two others were identified only as Ka Roger (formerly Ka Inting) and Ka Alvin, their aliases in the underground movement.

The lone casualty in the government side was identified as Sgt. Menardo Modelo, 43, of Negros.

The latest encounter, which came eight days after the Catigbian encounter, was part of the military's massive manhunt of some 40 armed rebels who were supposed to hold a meeting in a secluded barangay last March 5. NPA spokesman Clamucha was one of the two slain rebels in the Catigbian clash.

"The NPAs are on the run," claims Major Raul Mendez, civil military operations officer of the 302nd Infantry Brigade based in Carmen town. He said that Sunday's encounter was the sixth to have happened in the current quarter of this year.

Mendez said that the armed group belonged to Front 1 of the NPA operating in western and central Bohol.

He admitted that a hot pursuit has continued after the Catigbian encounter. Troopers from the 28th Special Forces Company, under Lt. Ohnny Bayog based in Bilar town, have been conducting the manhunt of the rebels who fled during the March 5 encounter.

Hi Raquel, I admire your passion for farming. Asa ka nga state nag-farming?