With the K to 12 Enhanced Basic Education Act now a law, it’s time to focus on action. No more excuses. As the so-called centerpiece of President Aquino’s administration, K to 12 must now live up to its promise of reforming basic education from the ground up.
With due respect to the Commission on Elections, I find no legal and factual basis for the proclamation in installment of six senatorial candidates (Grace Poe, Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Nancy Binay and Sonny Angara) on May 16, and another three (Bam Aquino, Koko Pimentel and Sonny Trillanes) on the next day, May 17.
In an ideal world, how would the recent shooting by the Philippine Coast Guard of a Taiwanese fishing boat, which resulted in the killing of one of the fishermen, have been handled? I think that both Filipino and Taiwanese authorities might have immediately sought one another to express grave concern over the incident, and to offer cooperation to ascertain the facts. Both would have drawn assurance from the fact that, despite national differences, a legal order was in place and could be trusted to work.
The story is told of a boy who was admiring a very expensive car. “It is a gift from my brother,” the owner of the car said. “Don’t you wish you had an expensive car like this?” The boy answered: “I wish I had a brother like yours.”
The correct phrase is “bite the bullet.” But perhaps to underline her point that rampant vote-buying during Philippine elections is a direct result of the poverty afflicting the populace, especially in the countryside, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting chair Henrietta de Villa employed a novel turn of phrase to describe the phenomenon: “Because of poverty, they are forced to buy the bullet.”
The catholic bishops of Bacolod and Lipa were shell-shocked by the election results. Earlier, they listed the candidates who supported the reproductive health bill under “Team Patay.” Through ads and sample ballots, they urged repudiation.
In SWS’ view, its survey work has, again, handily passed its self-imposed periodic test of accurately anticipating election results. Our report, “SWS/BW final preelection survey of May 2-3, 2013: 9 Team PNoy, 3 UNA in top 12; 7 Team PNoy, 2 UNA safe,” announced on May 8 (www.sws.org.ph), proved entirely correct, compared to the latest actual results, official or unofficial. It correctly preidentified all winners and losers.
An ego as big as all outdoors. And an unfamiliarity with the parameters of accuracy. Those are two reasons one can think of that would explain Commission on Elections Chair Sixto Brillantes’ pronouncements.
After a blazing start on Monday night, the unofficial count managed by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting has slowed to a crawl. The official tally maintained by the Commission on Elections itself, which began the day after the elections, has been even slower. After the excitement over the speed by which election results were being reported right on Monday night, we are back on much more familiar territory: the slow count, vulnerable to manipulation and fraud.
The happiest news after the elections so far: The Jalosjos clan was thrashed by the voters in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Of the 14 clan members fielded, only one made it: Councilor Rosalina Jalosjos, who was elected mayor of Dapitan City, the bailiwick of the clan. Earlier, the candidacies of patriarch Romeo Jalosjos and his brother Dominador Jr. were voided by the Commission on Elections because of their criminal convictions, Romeo for child rape and Dominador for robbery.
Last May 4, the Economist, a conservative weekly magazine in London, commented on the “Chinese dream” as articulated by China’s new president, Xi Jinping, and related it to the “American dream.”
The imperious President Charles de Gaulle of France is reported to have said, “How can anyone govern a nation that has 46 different kinds of cheeses?” Of the result of Monday’s senatorial elections, it may appropriately be asked, “How can anyone rule a nation that has a Senate composed of members of 24 different parties?”
