For Noynoy and suspected Malacanang cohorts of Janet Napoles:
"As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, 'This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate, understand,' then you can go beyond."--Krisnamurti
"Did he not know, did not the cabal that fed him with parables of lies hear the funeral songs of gentle souls?"--A line from the blogger's prize- winning poem
Years ago, former Senator Panfilo Lacson warned his colleagues in the Upper Chamber that the pork barrel allocations for them must be stopped. The blogger said then: It was wrong, it was open to abuse, it gave the lawmakers undue advantage.
And the Filipino people did not know about this kind of money that they pay as taxes. Hard-earned money that has been lining the pockets of these thieves for a long time.
Whatever his faults were, Lacson of the infamous Baleleng massacre should be commended for his exposure. He was accused of masterminding the summary execution of these bank robbers. And now these legal robber barons.
It was fortuitous then something happened that blew the lid off this perfidy. Ten years later. Maybe it was God's will that the truth must be exposed in all its ugliness. Lawmakers and their cohorts stealing from the people through Janet Napoles, the mother of all Philippine scams.
Los ladrones (are they as bad as the most maligned Filipino Ferdinand Marcos or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?) that have made the Filipinos slaves in their own country. No historical antecedent, this betrayal of the public trust.
Rejection, derision, poverty, failure, the constant struggle against one's own limitations-- these are the chief events in the lives of great artists, and if you aspire to share their fate you should fortify yourself by learning about them.--Balzac in "Lost Illusion."
Re Malacanang image- maker denying a journalist claim that he was involved in Napoles' special treatment when the fugitive who masterminded the P10-billion pork barrel scandal surrendered to President Benigno Aquino III:
The blogger believes that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.
"To confront a person with their own shadow is to show them their own light."--Carl Jung
At that time, the two of them were supposed to answer my emails regarding the behavior of two members of the writers' organization, who have maligned the blogger and called him names. These people never answered the emails. Instead, they exchanged emails among themselves, copies of which the blogger obtained from a La Union source. "Them" included SVP and MM and a young man, who is new in the organization, has nothing to show as a writer, but appeared to have gained the confidence of these people.
For Your Eyes Only, 3, casts a shadow on the honesty and integrity of the leaders who now run the organization after expelling Errol L. Abrew, their most prolific writer. If they expelled me, it was preposterous because three weeks before their meeting, I told Mar Llarenas I was walking away from the organization because it has become a snakepit.
Will For Your Eyes Only, 3, make any difference if I publish it?
The August 26 One Million Protest March against the P10-Billion scam could have achieved its purpose with the number of citizens swarming all over Luneta, where the national hero Jose Rizal was executed by the ruling Spaniards at the turn of the century.
An aerial photograph made by a drone with 12-megapixel camera launched by urban planner and architect Paul Alcarazen showed the crowd occupying almost the entire area.
The scam was masterminded by businesswoman Janet Napoles with the collusion of Philippine mayors, congressman and senators.
A week or so ago, Archbishop Cardinal Chito Tagle expressed his reaction ("horror and sorrow," according to a newspaper columnist) on the anomaly that has shocked the nation, and continue to be shocked as more details of the money scandals are unearthed one after the other.
Here's the lamentation of the good archbishop, expressed at a press conference at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila:
"Who would not be shocked about it? You can see the magnitude of the money involved. Your heart would be crushed. How can someone do this to his fellow man?
"Whoever is involved there, I appeal to you, visit a community of informal settlers... walk there at night and you will see on the sidewalk the families who open these cartons on which they would sleep. Maybe if you could hold their hands, your hearts will be touched. Sometimes I think those who did this were able to do so because the poor are absent in their lives. Maybe they don't see them or refuse to see them."
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When Filipinos voted him into office, they thought their lives would change for the better. They removed the woman whose government was described as the most corrupt in the country's history. What a letdown!
If the Commission on Audit reports are correct, then President Benigno Aquino lll is as rapacious if not more rapacious than former President Gloria M. Arroyo who is now a Congressional representative of her home province of Pampanga. The not-so- lamented Ferdinand Marcos who ruled the country for more than 20 years pales in comparison to Aquino and Arroyo.
The misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund speaks volumes of the moral-intellectual orientation of the country's lawmakers and the top two highest officials of the land.
A poet writes always of his personal life, in his finest work out of tragedy, whatever it be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness.
William Butler Yeats
I was early in life sick to my very pit with orders that cuts off the crab's feelers to make it fit into the box.
William Carlos Williams
I have never been to write by rule, even by my own rules.
T. S. Eliot
Shallow minds will never admit they are wrong, will never see their perfidy, their immorality. They stab your back, and say," God is with us."
I never said you have bad English. Notes in Editing was circulated as guide to the magazine's writers and editors. Most of the Notes were based on what- would- have- been- heavily- edited feature articles published in the magazine. No manuscript is sacred--it had to be edited to meet the standards of the magazine. Remember, we were billing the magazine as the best Ilokano-English magazine in the Philippines. But the leader undoubtedly did not see this goal. As long as the magazine came off the press, never mind, the grammatical boners and errors. Our critics saw the errors and took to task the editors--they do not know how to edit, they said in their website. Hence, the blogger came out with the Notes.
It was preposterous to remove me, as you did, from the organization. I was going out, anyway, because the group has become a snake pit.
