You know something is wrong with your country when the case of suspected cop-killers in New York gets an immediate response from the Foreign Affairs office yet jailed Filipinos in the Middle East get hardly a mention in the press.

You know something is wrong with your country when accused plunderers get more attention and concern from the government than poorer Filipinos dying of hunger.

You know something is wrong with your country when government promises to "boost tax collection" while ignoring a crony with a 26 Billion tax case.

You know something is wrong with your country when photos of government officials look more like a police lineup.

You know something is wrong with your country when heart attacks and cancer are leading causes of death and the highest official in the land inaugurates a cigarette manufacturing plant.

You know something is wrong with your country when you live in the Philippines, yet almost everything is owned by cronies of Indonesian dictators.

You know something is wrong with your country when despite its citizens having an average height of 5"6, basketball remains the national sport.

You know something is wrong with your country when despite the fall of communism worldwide, it is growing in your own backyard.

You know something is wrong with your country when a company sells your country's international ISO reference (PH) as PHone, not just Philippines, and the government agency responsible for watching over such matters gets advise from the lawyer-brother of the company owner.

Our fearless prediction: ERAP is free as a bird in six months to one year. At the most, Serapio will probably take the fall. Why? No one seems to care anymore. Life is too hard, we are too busy. What we can't realize is that the Fat Man, one cause of our having to take in more jobs to make ends meet, is lounging around his suite biding his time, and very possibly "scattering the manure". One must remember that all the political and brain power of the Marcos era, as well as some well-placed but possible approachable personalities in the present regime will in time fall into place when he harvests.
What makes Erap any different from the Marcoses? He is even more generous with the doleouts. The effects of this? A stronger Communist party, a narco-economy that has started to go "legal", and a life like hell for those who are merely trying to make a decent living from dawn to dusk.
As this is a satire site, we must now say that the biggest joke is the Filipino attitude to leave it to someone else to do the cleaning up. What we need is an industrial strength vacuum cleaner.

New Erap counsel says a mouthful- Cuevas pointed out that Erap asked him to lay off Lucio Tan, who has back taxes worth 26Billion pesos (then, don't know what it is now), an amount that would help the economy and build a lot of houses for the poor . BUT (and we don't mean Jennifer Lopez' but(t)) did anyone else notice that since GMA took her place as president, ain't nobody even mentioning dear old Lucio? Because he be the Holy Man of Philippine politics, that's for sure. More untouchable than ERAP. Not even the media mentions his name without quaking in their boots. He could be what PLDT's main man wishes to emulate, power-wise. A few selfish men running a third world country to the ground. They can't take it with them, that's for sure. They just think they can.
Gee whiz, did they even charge Dichaves, who was recently elected as some sports commission capo? Nah, if you believe them, the looting of the country's economy was done by only one or two men. Right off the bat let me tell you, the actor ain't got the brain power to do it. Not even if you threw in his 'Mensa' kids. Apparently, all the cronies that were identified just months ago signed some document to aver that they were "just kidding". So forget the 75 Million other Filipinos, as long as a crony bankrolls your political party for 2004, that's fine. Question is, what if we don't make it to 2004 because of all your deal-making and messing around? Who do you think the mobs will look for then? Babalu? Can you blame the soldiers out in the field foraging for food in the jungle for feeling a bit neglected when the government allows a man on trial a cozy hospital suite and lets him drive to court in a vehicle valued at around Php4-5 Million pesos? Let's not push our luck. We are running out of it really fast, yet think nothing of correcting the most basic of errors and giving the people a smattering of hope.

Excuse me, Judge, pero mukhang bawal yata ang "bail-bail" sa extradition. Except for the only man in the country who can get off by paying "bail money" in an extradition case. Kaya galit na ang ibang bansa sa atin. How can we expect them to help us get the other ERAP cronies back here when we are not helping them at all? BOMALABS ninyo. Historical in the sense that this is probably the only time in Philippine history that a judge let a known fugitive off on bail, violating all the agreements we have made with other countries regarding extradition. Kaya nga banana republic ang tawag sa atin. Toss some people a few million bananas, and get whatever the heck you want.

BIR falls short on collections. Why not tax cigarettes and alcohol? These sin taxes can help but the sinners are so powerful that even the government installed by the people in EDSA Dos in an attempt to better the rotten system still cannot touch them. WHY? Shall we "count" the reasons? Then again, some of them are now of the mind that it was GOD himself who put them in power. And along with this logic comes the reasoning that they are now responsible only to God alone, a line mouthed by the likes of Erap, Marcos, Hitler, and other people who can't face reality or like to play games with their consciences.

Remember folks, when you deal with PLDT, love of country is not an issue. Their "country" is actually not the Philippines per se. It is to the south. Close to Mindanao. A country called Indonesia is what their masters raped and pillaged. So puhleeeze, do not expect sympathy or love of country from these guys. They supported ERAP when he was king. When things went bad for Erap, Mr. Chairman left him in a huff, though Mr. Chairman is named as having given a multi-million bribe to the deposed corrupt Fat Man. When the tide turned against ERAP, so did PLDT. pangilinan, if reports are true, even received an award for being a pillar of EDSA Dos. So hindi lang yan typical Pinoy na walang paki. Pinoy yan na ang sahod ay galing sa Grupo Suharto. Diyos ko Day!!!!! Ano ba iyan?? Ngayon, kadikit pa ng ng mga "in power" ngayon. Wala na talagang pag-asa itong bayan na ito. So his involvement in bribing a president has practically disappeared.

"Happy Independence Day! Now come back here and clean up your mess, Yanqui!!"-ed. Leftover bombs, chemicals wreak havoc at former U.S. bases in Philippines by Ben Pimentel, SF Chronicle

Move over, Disini, you aren't quite as important as... the Mehan Garden Petition. Get it here!! Down with overly "business-minded" despotic little tyrant urban dictators!! Jeojo, sabi ni To-lits hindi raw ikaw lang ang nang-iisa!!

"Here, where laws are applied fairly universally, or at least where Filipinos are in no position to be the exception, Filipinos get to show exemplary behavior and as a result get on very well in life." Conrado

Is the PHilippines getting renamed? If one man and his cronies at ITECC had their way.... a few wise words

Speaking of which, this outfit will give you the domain name of your choice in exchange for a donation to a charitable institution. pldt.com recommends you run, not walk to Free Domains.

Don't tread on me? Who are you? Do you own a nuclear plant? Familiar lines. Yes, mix money with power and pretty soon arrogance swaggers by. Upon seeing the cartoon flag on official company stationery, a retired General turned Cabinet Secretary reportedly requested Joel Disini's staff to kindly accord proper respect to the flag. That was weeks ago. But hey, like we said earlier, Who are you? Do you own a nuclear plant? Two days ago, Disini's company stationery continued to carry the same old cartoon flag. Many Filipino soldiers have died, and will continue to die fighting for the flag, not for this cartoon. Filipinos continue to feel a certain sense of patriotism when it comes to seeing her flutter in the wind. Now this? Tsk,tsk, there ought to be a law. Oh, wait!! There is a law on how the Philippine flag is to be treated. Even by the rich and powerful. Lessons in FLAGellation

Section 50 of RA 8491 reads: "Any person or juridical entity which violates any of the provisions of this Act shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than Five Thousand Pesos (P5,000) nor more than Twenty Thousand Pesos (P20,000), or by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court..."

The Philippines: How we supposedly rank in Asia and globally.
Cost of medicines Rank # 1 (Makes us wonder if the Dept. of Health has figures on the number of Filipinos who die because they cannot afford to purchase medicines that will heal them.)
Cost of Electricity Rank # Top Three (Just wait until the Power Bill law kicks in)
Cost of Telephones- We were # 2 (At least Manny Pangilinan did his best to keep us at No. 2)
Number of text messages sent through cell phones # 1 (None of this for business, though, just destabilization, if we understood Cabinet Secretary J. Lina correctly. Does anybody?)
Prisoner with most number of Security Guards (Estrada) 5,000 Police (your tax money at work)
World's largest Theft of National Treasury Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Marcos (Guinness Book)
Corruption level Worldwide # 65 (and sinking fast)

Justices vote against televising the Estrada trial. Yep, it's that old sinking feeling again. One could tell by the way Jinggoy and Erap's attitude towards denial of their request to attend an inaugural party. One gets a sneaky feeling we are just on recess, that Erap is merely biding his time until his money or his guns get something done. Of course, a lack of transparency on the supposed good guys side is screaming for attention. Of course, we don't really care, cause we need the pain. After all, there is nothing like the sight of a fat man in a new 4WD Lexus sneering while guarded by five thousand policemen and soldiers.

How does one tell when there are new bananas running the republic? The trapos (traditional politicians) yap about monkeying around with the constitution again. This while the people watch their failure to implement laws already in place. Like the anti-dummy law. Or the law against foreign ownership of utilities. Or even blatant crimes against the people like rebellion. All of which are decided for NOT by the people, NOR for the people, much less OF the people.

National Statistics Office announces manufacturing up 12% in April, the highest this year. The announcement was made in conjunction with an analysis of all the creative output generated by the "New Reality Publicity, Semi-Legal Services and Voice Lessons" office of Saguisag, Narvasa, Fortun and Desierto. An older partner, a certain Flaminiano, was not included as of press time because a check to see if he still had a pulse was still ongoing. "New Reality" is also considering registering the brand name "onli in the pilipins" as their official slogan. However, there may be a dispute over this as another company, a telephone monopoly, had earlier laid claim to the same slogan to highlight their own incredible and fantastic service pronouncements.

(UPDATE : SHE GOT IT, OF COURSE. DUH.) Imelda Marcos seeks 45 day permit to travel to address head problems. She may have bumped her head when she slipped in the bathroom, but her headache is nothing compared to the ones still being suffered by millions of Filipinos the Marcos family has left destitute and poor in the Philippines. Morally as well as financially bankrupt due to a legacy of unabated graft and corruption over 20 years of virtual dictatorial rule. Not to be left behind, Marcos friend, ally and installed mayor of the San Juan municipality for the duration of their reign assumed their policy of government through plunder, using many of the same military "musclemen" to enforce their will upon hapless and gunless citizens. The moral of the story? It isn't that hard to recognize who the bad guys in the country are. As a former kidnap victim once said when he saw his kidnapper typing out his complaint in Camp Crame a few years ago, "sem-sem". (Translation for foreigners: Same same. Translation for current WA-balls government: Shame- shame)

You gotta be kidding, right? The Basilan people need arms, so they get vintage WWII Garands. Instead of fighting the bandits, they will open a museum. Kidding aside, that is a handsome weapon--if you are in a bunker holding a flintlock...

DTI-ITECC head totally ignores appeal, slams door on Kaimo, the overweight, tired, and aging webmaster. Continuation

'The Renegade' speaks on .ph domain fracas
STAUNCH consumer rights advocate Gerry Kaimo is not one to shut his big mouth. Manila Bulletin Story 4.22.01