PGMA and SONA

Last Monday, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her State of the Nation Address (SONA).  It's now Thursday and I still haven't decided what the speech was all about.

On the one hand, I felt it was another pre-emptive strike to keep her in power.  By saying that she is pushing for a constitutional change, she is asking congress to debate on how it is to be done, then have congress cease function and to act as the constituent assembly, and then after the constitutional change, a referendum to accept the changes.  That already takes more than a year, all in all.  A year where she would still be in power.  If Congress decides to push through with her impeachment, then she can also have her people hammer the opposition and stop it altogether.  She is trying to get all the support she can get including a multi-awarded TV and movie director to direct her public appearances, and a political analyst from the academe who wrote portions of her SONA.

She's really working hard at keeping her Presidency.

And the speech itself.  A whole lot of nothing.  No real report on progress and economy.  And no assault on the opposition.  Just a promise for change and the same Ten-point Agenda she had last year.

--andoy
28 July 2005

Lola Trining

My grandmother died last Friday, July 22, at 2:00pm at Bolinao, Pangasinan.  Tatay was there and had been there for the past few weeks.  Mama went there also, to visit, came back to Manila, and then went back to Bolinao last Sunday.  Among us siblings, Raul, Irene and Dong went to Bolinao with Mama for the wake.

She's a small woman.  Always had been, I would imagine.  I was small when I was a kid, but she didn't look any taller even then.  She walked to church every day, went to the market afterwards and walked back home to cook lunch, that's about a kilometer each way, the market being just beside the church.  Up to a few years ago, if there was any community prayer in the barrio, she led the rosary.

Lola was born and grew up in San Fernando, La Union, where she met Lolo Santiago.  After World War II, they lived in Bolinao, Lolo's hometown, where they raised their brood of ten children.  With Tiong Emong, Auntie Ely, and Auntie Rose in Bolinao and Auntie Mila in La Union, all the rest are in Manila.

Lola was laid to rest yesterday, Wednesday July 27.

I was saddened by the news and I wanted to cry.  I felt like crying, but the tears were dry.  There was an emptiness.  I couldn't scream.  I couldn't get angry.  I just felt hollow and empty.

I was on an emotional roller-coaster this past weekend.

--andoy
28 July 2005

another long day

This is another of those nights when I work late waiting for some development while the server is being setup. We are uploading the program to the server and some little things give these big problems. The images don't load, the location is not found, the files are there but not being accessed, the generated text has the wrong address, etc. Small things which makes the program look like a race car with the turbocharger installed backwards. It has all the functionanlities, but these are not showing (i.e. not functional). The old argument goes like this: "it's working on the local machine, and on the local server, and we only need to fix something on the production server. Though we have no idea what that might be."

It's a long process. And to think that I was looking forward to coffee and a relaxing chat before I go home. No go.

Well, that's life.

--andoy
19 July 2005

Politics

There is a political storm brewing and I don't think anyone is thinking properly about how it will affect the country within the next five years or ten years or fifty years.

The long and short of it is that Pres. Arroyo was haunted by intrigues since her run for Senator.  This, however, is not a rant about the past ten years or so.  This is about the past few weeks, so limiting ourselves to the events at hand, she is now reaping the fruits of the intrigues.  She took the offensive by pre-emotive strikes at her opponents and opposition.  She wanted to out-balance whatever plans other people had.  I think that these pre-emptive strikes backfired.  The wire-tapping issue would not have been general knowledge if Malacanang had not divulged to the public that the tapes existed and would be used against the current administration.  This now led ultimately to a muddling of the issues.

Her second pre-emptive strike was when she dissolved the cabinet to make way for reshuffling the bureaucracy.  This backfired because it was widely known that the economic team was resigning, and these cabinet members said so in a press conference after the cabinet secretaries handed their resignation.

Even before, there was already a negative perception about her.  Even if the economy was doing relatively okay, she was perceived to be not doing her job well.  Now with all these things her administration started (to prevent further problems, which created bigger problems) the perception or image has gone further negative.

I want to see this "crisis" end in a constitutional manner.  Because this will be a precedent for future event resolution.  The old models are passe, people power is not a viable alternative any longer because the people are tired, and there is no power anyway.  People Power has become a value meal joke.  You get two jokes for the price of one.

This will be fun.  The old chinese curse comes to mind:  "may you live in interesting times."  It's been too damn interesting for as long as I can remember!  Since before 1972, in fact.

--andoy
15 July 2005

a terminal trick

Forwarded message:

i hope this isnt too far off topic for this group but i thought i
should share this

goto the terminal with an internet connection and type

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

then watch star wars episode 4 (the original) in ascii text ;)
have fun
`km

Yuk, what kind of dumb menu system is that? Oh, so that is Windows!

-=0=-

I picked this up on the MacOSX Yahoo groups courtesy of Kris Murray.  Enjoy.

--andoy
15 July 2005

UK TV Licensing

I sent a message to Mark, the host/producer of tartanpodcast (of which I wrote about in an earlier blog). I had a listen to the tartanpodcast #10 and he was ranting about TV licensing.  Me not having gone out of Philippine borders, I told him that I think that TV licensing, as he explained it, was crazy.  And he sent me a link to the UK TV Licensing bureau which explains why in the UK every TV set which receives broadcast has to pay a license fee.

Maybe I'm really from a Third World country, or maybe I just like commercials more than some TV shows, but all along I had this concept that TV viewing was free.  I guess in some countries it does not appear so.  And looking at the PDF document from the TV Licensing bureau, it seems to me that the whole thing was borne out of an outdated concept, whose spirit was lost when it was revised and updated in the 1990's.

Imagine, I buy a car and I need to have it licensed.  That I understand.  I would be using the vehicle on roads made by the government.  I might injure someone and the government has to know who owns the vehicle.  But if I buy a TV, I don't need to pay the government for the use of the ether through which radio signals are being transmitted.  Makes as much sense as licensing windmills for the use of the wind.

--andoy
15 July 2005

Bad Luck!

This is just to ask a stupid question:  may balat ba sa puwet si "Brenda"?

This is not a frivolous question because she is now supporting President Arroyo.  And historically, everytime she supports anyone for President, the guy loses (of course, that includes Her Brain-damagedness.)  She supported President Estrada, and the only truth which came out of her was the famous line:  "I lied."  How many times has she tried to run for President?  I lost count, but I do know how many times she won:  ZERO.  Now she's a stalwart on defense for Pres. Arroyo.  Another thought comes to mind:  With friends like her, who needs enemies?

--andoy
13 July 2005

French Podcasts

I'm downloading episodes of a french podcast, I'm not sure if I can understand any of this but I'll try to have a blast.

--andoy
12 July 2005

The Morning Commute

This morning's commute was kinda weird. The van I was riding sounded different. A different noise is heard from the floor of the van sounding mechanical and appears after the van has revved up a bit, about 5 to 10 KPH. The driver inspected the bottom of the vehicle several times but couldn't see anything outwardly wrong with the vehicle. At some point when the van was running relatively fast, around 40 KPH, the engine's torque would translate to a wiggling of the van's body. We reached Makati safely enough, without any mechanical breakdowns. And once on Paseo de Roxas, the sound totally disappeared.

Personally, I think it may have been the parking brake (hand brake). It may have been disengaged, but still connected in some way.

Nice start to a week.

--andoy
11 July 2005

Lola Trining

Tatay went to Bolinao last Friday. My grandmother, Lola Trining, had asked for her children as she is now very weak. The consensus is that she's on her deathbed and would want to see her family before she leaves. There was some good news when Tatay arrived. Lola was feeling better and showing some strength. By Friday evening, Tatay sent word to Mama that Lola might not make it over the weekend. Mama left for Bolinao last Saturday.

Lola's health has not been good for the past year. A strong and wiry woman, she goes to church and to market every day walking the odd kilometer to the Town Plaza back and forth. And, I guess, if you've been doing that everyday since before World War II, then a slow down is something else altogether.

I've been praying for her.

--andoy
11 July 2005

tartanpodcast

I just started listening to podcasts and one of the first channels I listened to is tartanpodcast which is a podcast from Glasgow, Scotland. I've always enjoyed listening to Scot brogue accents.

I once had a chat with a scot -- at a wake, for crying out loud -- and he did mention that there are differences in accents and that this is so pronounced that it is possible to situate where you are from the accent. It does change from town to town. And is so different sometime that it is possible to live in one town and almost not understand people living in the next town. Imagine this in a country of 5 million people. Contrast this with the Philippines with 83 million, 8 million of which live in Metro Manila.

The podcast I listened to was #15. It included "Twisted Melons" and some other bands. But really, the main reason I wanted to check this out is the accent. Great accent! Here in the Philippines, there is a current impetus to use "American English" and the DJ's brogue is totally different. I worked on a call center before and every so often we had callers from Scotland, and some callers do have very thick accents. I've been entranced with the scottish brogue since I first noticed the difference between American and British accents. And whenever we see a movie with scottish characters, it's fun to emulate them. Well as best I can, along with my son and daughter. I once read some chapters of "Harry Potter" to them in as best an imitation that I can. We were particularly enamored with the Hagrid-type accent. And it would be fair to note that in the movies, the Weasley family talk in different accents. The only accents which are alike are the twins (logically so I would think.)

Even before podcasting, I've been trying to get an internet radio broadcast from Scotland, with no success. The closest I can get are the gaellic mp3's from Ireland. hahaha

Maybe if I can have my own website, I'd try podcasting myself. I would think that I can do this around one hour a day, max. Plus processing and uploading, this could easily translate to about four hours of work. Anyway, that would be something to look forward to, more as an activity for me and the kids.

--andoy
8 July 2005

Old Body

Since we moved to the new apartment, I've been playing basketball with Kenneth on an almost regular basis.  We wake up, or rather my wife wakes us up, at 5:00am, dress up, go across the street to the (covered) basketball court.  We do some stretching.  I sometimes jog around the court to warm up, and we shoot some hoops.  And we go back home by 6:00am.  Normally, we're the only ones using the court at that time.  We played one-on-one the first time we played on the court.  I was in no shape to speak of, whatsoever.  Got myself panting and gasping for air.  I guess I'm in better shape now after almost two months.  But I need to be playing him one-on-one again soon, because if I defer it, he'd be taller than me without anyone noticing.

Played Saturday morning and then again Sunday morning.  Saturday morning, I over extended myself and was several heartbeats away from collapsing.  We had no water bottles with us, so we had to go back home.  Anyway, it was already 6:00am, so it was just in time.

Not being much of a basketball player (I can't even do a decent layup) I give Kenneth drills instead:  "give and go", "pick and roll", shooting drills (free throws, three-pointers, side of the key, quarter-court), kick-out and screens.  Nothing special, just drills he wouldn't be doing if he were just playing three-on-three half-court pickup games.

And now, it's a Monday, and my body hurts.

--andoy
4 July 2005