Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, paragon of probity, has put the confirmation of another Commission on Elections commissioner on hold for “conflict of interest.”
At the Commission on Appointments hearing earlier this week, Cayetano blocked the confirmation of Comelec commissioner Christian Lim because he “has many more questions.”
Chief among those questions, apparently:
During the day’s hearing, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano asked Lim on the status of the Comelec’s investigation into alleged poll fraud during the 2010 elections.
Which, is a good thing to ask since he was allegedly a victim of election fraud in 2007. Â Not a good thing to ask when your wife, who won by a lead of less than 2,500 is the subject of an election protest.
There is no doubt that budget flag carrier Cebu Pacific has changed Philippine commercial aviation with its seat sales and dancing flight attendants. As is true in everything from rap to capitalism, sometimes you change the game, and sometimes the game changes you.
Indolent reader XM says getting seats on a Cebu Pacific flight, never a fun thing to do because heavy demand sometimes causes the servers to crash, has become even less fun.
XM says CebuPac now charges extra for baggage. By baggage, they mean anything you have to check in. So, basically, you only get to bring along one bag. If you want to bring more baggage, you will have to pay P350 to P1,000 more. Which, if you think about it, is a small price to pay. It’s a hidden charge, though, and can foul up a backpacker’s carefully balanced budget. And knowing how much Filipinos love to shop, chances are you will have to fork out extra on the flight back.
Now, jetsetters and businesspeople will probably think nothing of tacking on a P1,000 to an incredibly low-priced plane ticket, but those people aren’t the type of flyers who made CebuPac what it is today. Those people, in fact, probably don’t even fly CebuPac. Those that do are students and regular employees to whom P1,000 could spell the difference between a nice vacation and living on leftovers from the hotel buffet breakfast and stealing biscuits and coffee from the lounge.
Getting a seat has also gotten trickier, XM says. You need to pay P100 to P200 if you don’t want to  sit where the CebuPac compute says you should. And you have to be careful about that too. XM says you need to deselect the seat assigned to you before changing seats or you might pay for both seats. Presumably, one seat is for you, and the other is for your ghost friend who roams the Earth looking for the man who killed him. What? Sometimes ghosts take vacations too.
A friend at the airline says commuters shouldn’t really expect superb service unless they fly with a “legacy” airline like Philippine Airlines. Service, after all, is something you pay for. Still, an airline that earned P6.9 billion in 2010, should be able to afford to let passengers bring more than one backpack, right?
Mr. Quatermaine (I assume) was here for something or other at the Asian Development Bank, which has its headquarters in this city. That, he says, is ironic since the Philippines has “the WORST development history of any of the ASEAN countries.”
“Manila, where the intelligentsia sneer at their Asian brothers and sisters for their lack of English, is beaten hands down even by little Phnom Penh and left standing by every other mega-city in the region,” he says.
But–you might say–surely our institutional shortcomings are more than compensated for by our warm and welcoming people?
That is so, Mr. Quatermaine says, at least it is true among those Filipinos still stuck here:
Look: people will say the Filipino people are nice, and indeed they are polite – we Brits might say “smarmy†– obsequious or ingratiating are maybe less pleasant words. But they do try. That does take the edge off the sheer misery of a crumbling, filthy, depressing city and an economy that exists only on the remittances of the smart ones who have left.
But, but, surely…there are nice things about the Philippines? And there are, in fact, everything “Not Manila” about the Philippines is great, he says.
“My suggestion if you want to see the Philippines: get through Manila as quickly as you can, it has nothing to recommend it. Go out to the islands, Cebu, Mindanao, up to the cool of Bagio and see the people in the countryside and some of the spectacular scenery. That’s probably worth the trip. Otherwise pick almost anywhere else in Asia and you’ll get a better deal,” he says.
And all this is true. We have said pretty much the same thing among friends and family, but we might as well hunker down, get out our umbrellas and raincoats. Now that a foreigner has said it, in their typical imperialistic, racist, Anglo-centric manner, can a shitstorm be far behind?
Oh, and as a final kick at the hornet’s nest: “P.S. No pictures because there’s nothing worth photographing in Manila, it’s drab and dirty.”
Lolong was in the running to get into the Guinness World Book of Records for a while, and from wildlife officers for a lot longer. He was even given a theme song for some reason: Inner Circle’s “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”. Presumably, it will serve as a musical cue to let the audience know he is coming, like the ticking clock in that crocodile in Peter Pan. Or, as an amusing soundtrack in case he goes on a rampage at the wildlife park where he is being kept.
Jokes about Lolong and his distant genetic cousins in government made the rounds of social networking sites and on SMS for a while, too.
But sometimes, and by that we mean almost always, we tend to overdo things just a smidge.
Consider the crocodile lechon:
I mean, come on, guys... (Bboi Ngojo/Manila Bulletin)
According to a blurb on the Manila Bulletin website (whose pictures only come in two sizes: thumbnail and thumbnail), crocodile lechon is an attraction/viand at the Crocodile Park in Davao. Â “Filipino gourmets say more spices are used to make the exotic food, which is said to have less calories and is, more tender and tastier,” it said.
There are times when you just have to pause and consider how brutal mankind has been to nature. This crocodile, basically unevolved since prehistoric times, was captured and kept as some sort of freak show attraction until he died (or was killed). Instead of letting nature take its course by letting his brother crocodiles eat him as prescribed in the Crocodile Book of the Dead, he is spitted, roasted and served to evolved monkey humans who do not really want to eat it. And, they put a watermelon in his mouth to mock the fact that he will never hunt for meat again. Fuck you, crocodile!
Crocodiles are not without their defenders, though. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals want Lolong and his kind let loose into the rivers and tributaries of Mindanao, their natural habitat. Incidentally, those rivers are found in Mindanao, the natural habitat of Mindanaoans. Lolong was himself captured after a fisherman was attacked by a giant crocodile.
And, also…
The commenter was, of course, referring to Section nothing Act nothing of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.  Serves you right for not sending representatives to the Constitutional Convention, crocodiles! And maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to abstain from voting on the plebiscite after all.
As predicted, though, Filipinos took an Internet meme, hyped it up, then beat that dead horse until it could not possibly get any more dead without turning into a zombie metaphorical horse that is then shot in the head.
Sometimes, as with this group of fisher folk protesting the creation of the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone (APECO), Filipinos tend to take things overboard.
Did you see what we did there? Overboard? Eh? Eh? (bulatlat.com)
I hate to be a spoilsport, two dudes in the water, but planking in the sea is called floating. Possibly, snorkeling. That doesn’t even follow the concept of the meme, strictly speaking. Â Planking is supposed to be done in places where people are not likely to be lying face down and stiff as a board. What those guys are doing is called sunbathing in most places.
Not to belittle the gripes of Aurora residents against APECO or anything. Those guys have legitimate complaints. They say construction of APECO has destroyed mangroves where the fish they catch live, and has caused flooding in the area. Using a tired old Internet meme to get those issues across trivializes the whole thing, though.
Although not quite as rich, it seems employees of this US-based banking firm have learned to party like bankers from the 1980s.
According to our sources, these hotshot bankers held one of their “team-building” activities at a hotel in Manila and left the place in shambles. Not content with smoking on a non-smoking floor, they also peed all over the rented function room and covered the floor in multi-colored vomit.
It is not known if they also did coke lines on the backs of Pasay City prostitutes but once you cross the line and pee in the same room that you are having drinks in, all bets are off. To be fair, some of them did try to make it to the toilets. They just forgot to hold their pee until they got there.
Hang on, those guys aren't bankers!
No, the dudes in that picture are not bankers. And neither were the employees of that multi-national banking corporation, strictly speaking. Answering phones and doing back-end technical support for the banking industry does not make you a banker. It only makes you cheap labor. Acting otherwise and giving service staff a hard time makes you even cheaper.
We cannot blame them, however. These are modern times, and sometimes pictures need to be touched up a little. The photo was, after all, supposed to show DPWH officials at work. One of them apparently did not get the memo and let his girlfriend tag along for a romantic date along Manila Bay.
Clearly, there was a breach of protocol
The DPWH was quick to pull down the picture once the public got wind of the attempt to cover up the affair, however, and the DPWH official has since broken things off with his girlfriend. The decision came after an emergency meeting at a DPWH secret base built during Martial Law, when then President Ferdinand Marcos feared a Chinese Communist takeover of the Philippines.
The DPWH base, since removed from all maps, was meant as a remote nerve center for the government should Malacanang ever fall. A source at the DPWH sent us this leaked photo of the meeting:
Also in picture: Ferdinand Marcos Clone 7562-A5
Indolent reader Abner sends us this dispatch from the frontlines:
War...War never changes...
Felicity Merriman gives our Public Works officials an unintentionally creepy vibe
Stranger danger!
[UPDATE: My God. I wish I could photoshop myself back in time. We saw the pic and had a photoshopped image ready a day before that other dude blogged about it. Ah, well. Nothing ventured, nothing at all. ]
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Also, a fun exploitable photo for Indolent readers!
Come on! Vamanos, everybody! Let's go
Where will our Public Works officials turn up next? Send us your shopped pics at indolentry at indolentindio dot com or onetamad at indolentindio dot com!
Actually, @N___________, Republic Act 9500 or the University of the Philippines Charter of 2008 says passing the UPCAT does mean UP students can use your taxes. So does Republic Act 10147 and probably every General Appropriations Act passed since UP became a state school. Shit, government subsidy to UP even predates the Republic probably. More than enough time for you to understand that state schools are paid for, in part, by taxes.
Unfortunately, for you, @N___________, “just because” people pass the UP Law Aptitude Exam or get into the UP College of Medicine will also mean they get to use your taxes.
She hates UP and runs over homosexuals. What a classy kid.
 Well, at least there’s that. Try not to drive through floods while doing that, though. You’re obviously even less informed than that other guy. And at least he got into UP.
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Thx for the tip, Indolent friend Mrs. Dennis, Ang Taong Lobo!
This is why we can’t have nice things like a law authorizing the government to talk to women about contraception and reproductive rights.
Says Kabataan Rep. Mong Palatino: "It's an empty house, and it's only 6pm"
No wonder reporters on the House beat have resorted to intrigues and infighting. This place is so dead two hours after the session is supposed to start, they cannot be blamed for looking for more interesting things to think about, like what that guy meant when he posted that thing on Facebook, or how many congressmen to offer PR services to while still serving as a reporter on a daily broadsheet. I mean, it’s not like there’s much else to do.
Most days, congressmen just come in for the roll call (if they bother to come at all) and then retire to the House lounge to gather their strength after the extreme effort of appearing at the House. Those that stay behind listen to debates, chatter among themselves, or play Angry Birds.
“Finally, I can drive down Epifanio Delos Santos Ave. without seeing a giant cock covered in frosting,” Vincent Bartolome, a totally fictitious bus driver, wrote Indolent Indio. Without huge images of cream-filled tube steaks to distract him, Bartolome says he can focus on driving safely, not overloading his bus, and giving passengers the courtesy they deserve.
John Rawlins, a black soldier in the movie Glory (1989), was overjoyed. “That’s right, Hines. Ain’t no dream. Â Go tell your folks how kingdom come in the year of jubilee! ,” he said in that scene where they marched through a town and there were no cocks nor cakes in sight.
