Quick Lines

A news report in the Manila Standard Today on 28 January 2011 goes: "Despite Wild, Wild West image, tourism up 17%." The Koreans topped the list, followed by the Americans, then the Japanese and fourthly China. The doomsayers in tourism simply forget that the Koreans and the Americans alone love Clint Eastwood movies.

Supporting the opposition that wood processors and foresters made against moves in Malacañang and the Senate to impose total log ban in the Philippines, former president of the Society of Filipino Foresters Inc., Ricardo Umali issued a statement that "a total logging ban will not necessarily stop nor even minimize flooding, mud flows and landslides altogether." Is he saying that more logging will?

Allies of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in particular Albay representative Edcel Lagman and Zambales congresswoman Mitos Magsaysay, raised a hell of noise after an improvised bomb left inside a bus exploded in Makati and killed 5 people and hurt 13. Should they have shouted much louder when criminality ran amock with 502,665 in 2009 under the Arroyo administration (in 2010 it dropped to 296,059 cases)? Hell of a noise! Or is simply, it is noisy in Hell.

Former COA Chairman Guillermo Carague denied having known former COA auditor Heide Mendoza who assisted in the Ombudsman probe against former AFP comptroller Carlos Garcia. He said he simply sent people when then Ombudsman Chief Marcelo called him to send people to help in the investigation. He even sent Garcia lawyer a letter stating he did not permit Mendoza to conduct an investigation. "I don't even know that happened," he said in an ABS-CBN News report . Of all he forgot, Carague could have said: "COA Chief? Who? Me?" 

Kabataan Party-list representative Raymond Palatino complained that PNoy was being insensitive for selling his old car and buy a Porsche 911 Turbo sports car at a discounted price, even while using his own money and not the people's. Is Palatino saying that PNoy be sensitive to the Congressman's need too? Sana paki-share naman.