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…But this time, there was no protest. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos trooped to the streets yesterday despite the heavy rain and sudden changes of weather conditions to pay their last respects for the late former President Corazon Aquino. People from all walks of life chanted her name, flashed the L (laban) sign, wore yellow, and threw yellow confetti and flowers as Cory’s funeral convoy passed by from the Manila Cathedral to the Manila Memorial Park.

No further words are needed to describe the strong emotions that moved the throngs of people during the funeral procession.

These pictures that I got from GMA TV’s live stream could tell how much the Filipinos love the late President Cory, our national icon and mother of democracy.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The Philippines is on a 10-day mourning period.  Our well-loved former President Corazon Aquino (otherwise known as Cory or Tita Cory) peacefully passed away yesterday after more than a year of battling colon cancer.  She succumbed to cardio-respiratory arrest at 3:18 am. She was 76.

Yes, we just lost a national icon of democracy, a true leader instead of a politician, a woman of unquestionable character.  Not only did she help lead the country topple the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 but she also restored and upheld this country’s democracy despite the seven coup attempts that battled her administration.   Even after her term, she continued to serve the country as an ordinary citizen by actively participating in non-governmental organizations and rallying against unjust government practices.

She retained her popularity with us Filipinos until her final days.  She had once united us to fight the shackles of Martial Law and even in her last days, she united the nation once again.  People of different religions, ages, professions, social classes, political views and affiliations from all over the archipelago tied yellow ribbons wherever visible as a show of their support and love for Mrs. Aquino.  Even the Marcoses, whose family she ousted from Malacanang, prayed for her.

Tita Cory may have passed away but her legacy will be remembered forever.

(Note: This is a duplicate post of my original article at Femme.News.Views.)

I was one of the millions of Filipinos glued to their seats to watch President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo deliver her 9th and last SONA or State of the Nation Address over a local TV network. It was full of statistics to quantify the present administration’s achievements under Pres. Arroyo’s leadership. Figures that made me sigh in relief and silently applaud…for a while.

“The state of our nation is a good economy,” the President said. “Good news for our people, bad news for our critics,” she added. GMA took pride in enumerating her administration’s economic reforms, infrastructures, public service law, and many others.

Here are few of the highlights mentioned by the President:

“Good economy”

• $6B revenues and 600,000 jobs created by the BPO industry
• Tourism almost doubled to a $5B industry
• $165B-Micro Finance Loans helped 7M entrepreneurs
• Banking system improved
• Foreign reserves have grown by $3B.
• GDP growth highest in 43 years
• Poverty reduced by almost half
• 1M jobs generated every year
• Economy posted uninterrupted growth for 33 quarters since 2001
• Our average inflation is lowest since 1966.

Infrastructures

• The government’s housing programs benefited 1M families.
• 16 kms. of farm-to-market roads
• Construction of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway
• Built seaports and the RORO system
• Constructed international airports and upgraded domestic airports
• Automated elections (digital infrastructure)

Education and Health Care

• Recommends radical reforms in the country’s education system
• Will allot P1.5B budget for teacher training
• Built 95,000 rooms
• Hired 60,000 teachers
• Approval of the Cheaper Medicines Law
• Improving health care in the country that covers 86% of the population

GMA further stressed that foreign debts were tremendously slashed and debts of government corporations were reduced by almost half. She cited that the government will further improve collection on sin taxes. Also mentioned were the P1B budget for modern fish farming that benefits the indigenous people; the current ceasefire in war-torn areas in Mindanao, and Epira, the government’s answer to lower power rates.

Apart from her administration’s accomplishments, The President also chided her critics saying she did not become President to be popular. “Those who live in glass houses should not cast stones,those who should be in jail should not threaten it, especially if they have been there.” she retorted.

Honestly, I was rather impressed with the President’s SONA…because I was made to believe that the data given were all factual. A few hours later, news reports and editorials came out refuting The President’s “facts and figures.” Economists, people from the academe and the business sector were quick to challenge the veracity of the President’s statistics. They cited the country’s slow foreign trade, the low 0.4 growth of gross domestic product, among others.

One of those I watched on TV was Mareng Winnie Monsod, another woman I look up to for being so brainy, vocal, reputable, and vigilant. Monsod, a UP professor, is one of the country’s respectable and credible economists.

Monsod argued that basing on actual figures from the National Statistics Office, only 2.8 M jobs were created from 2004-2008, a far cry from the promised 1M jobs per year. She added that poverty rose by almost 50%.

Monsod further enumerated the following that remains unanswered:

1. The increase in corruption
2. The increase in human rights violations
3. The increase in bureaucracy and overall demoralization of the civil service

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, meanwhile, said in an article published on Business Mirror that “government statistics show that the number of poor Filipinos now total 27.6 million, or an increase of 2.7 million between 2000 and 2006. The number of poor families rose by 530,642 also during the same period, bringing the total to 4.7 million.”

Is the economy really doing good as the President confidently stressed? Or is the country’s economy just lucky to be sustained and fuelled by the OFW’s billion dollar remittances? Who among them are giving the real statistics and the real state of the nation? Are the figures reported by the President factual or are they, like what her critics say, merely works of fiction?

I live in one of the cleanest cities in the Philippines, Marikina City.   Not only that the local government is strict in implementing proper garbage segregation and disposable but it also works hand-in-hand with the local public schools in its Eco-Savers Program.   This program empowers thousands of families, including the schoolchildren, in the city to convert their trash into grocery items or school supplies just by turning over their recyclables to the government.

Ready for sorting by the Sorting Hat before heading off to the campus.

In my daughter’s school, recyclables are collected at the school campus every Wednesday.   Each student is given an Eco-Savers passbook where their trash “deposits” are recorded.   Paper, tin, plastics, glass, and alloy are some of the scraps accepted in the program.   Instead of throwing them away, families sort them properly and submit them for the Eco-Savers program.  The scraps are weighed and their calculated monetary values are recorded in the passbook. At the end of the school year, participants of the program get to exchange their accumulated deposits with either grocery items or school supplies of their own choices.  They get to “shop” at the Eco-Savers Mobile Store using their trash credits.

This program started in 2004 by Marikina’s Waste Management Office, in coordination with the Department of Education.

The last time, I came home with a bag of canned goods and a few notebooks out of my trash deposits.  I can’t wait to participate again starting next month.  This not only lessens our household expenses but it also teaches families, including our young ones, to segregate trash properly and be conscious of the environment.

Dr. Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili in a billboard photo for Belo Medical Clinic

(Note: I originally posted this on my other blog, Femme.News.Views, and I couldn’t help but reblog it here to reach more readers.)

It’s all over the internet, it’s even being sold in Quiapo. Clearly, the much-publicized and talked-about Dr. Hayden Kho’s sex video with sexy actress Katrina Halili has spread like wildfire. People who can’t control their curiosity are taking the effort to search for the video online, or pass it around from cellphone to cellphone, or even buy DVD copies of which in Quiapo and lately in Cebu City.

Everything has totally gone out of hand.

What is Voyeurism?

Wikipedia defines voyeurism as “the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature.”

Are laws already in place against cyber voyeurism here in the Philippines? The lawmakers say not yet but other laws on violence against women can be used in the meantime to combat these cyber exploits. According to Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, Obscene Exhibition and Grave Scandal may be used to prosecute Kho in this case but added that these are not specific on cyber crimes.

In a TV interview over GMA 7, Senator Santiago said she has passed a Bill on Cybernet Peeking but is yet to go on a third reading. If passed into law, it would punish violators from one to five years of imprisonment and P10,000-P50,000 fine. Santiago’s 2-page Bill on Cybernet Peeking specifies two crimes: 1) capturing on photos and/or videos the sexual act without the partner’s consent and 2) broadcasting these publicly without the consent of the aggrieved party (even if he/she consented to record the act for private viewing).

The lower house of Congress has a counterpart Bill called Anti-Video Voyeurism Act authored by Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella.

Erik Chua: The man who uploaded the videos?

Dr. hayden Kho and Erik Chua (inset)

Yesterday, Erik Johnson Chua, the primary suspect in uploading the compilation of videos on the internet, denied the allegations hurled against him. He claimed no participation in the proliferation of the said videos. Chua, a businessman, is believed to be one of the four persons who knew about the videos. The other two who were privy to the videos are famous cosmetics surgeon Dr. Vicky Belo (Kho’s former girlfriend) and another common friend known only as Bistek Rosario. Chua was a close friend of Kho but the two had a falling out for reasons that Kho allegedly triggered. There are said to be about 40 different sex videos of Kho with various unwitting women but Halili’s is the most controversial (Halili being a famous actress and twice voted by FHM as the Pihilippines’ sexiest woman in 2006 and 2007).

Squid tactics and alibis

In a desperate move to justify Kho’s actions, Kho’s camp issued a statement that the videos were taken when the doctor was in drugs, a few months before he took treatments (So, they’re blaming drugs now). Yesterday, Kho’s mother alleged that it was Katrina Halili who introduced and supplied (prohibited) drugs to her son (Ooh, so now they’re blaming the victim). Remind me again, Hayden Kho is a professional doctor, right? Would you believe a doctor would be dissuaded by a 23-year old woman to ruin his health AND life by taking drugs? I wouldn’t.  But okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. He may have been gullible enough to be prodded to use drugs. But is it not that he should take full responsibility for his actions?

So, okay, Kho’s camp is implying that the doctor was not in his proper state of mind when these recordings happened. Will this declaration justify his actions? No. Sen. Miriam Santiago laughed and said it will be an aggravating circumstance to Hayden’s case. Wrong move!

Senate Probe

The Senate is scheduled to conduct its investigation on the matter this Thursday, May 28. The
Senate inquiry was fueled by Sen. Bong Revilla’s privilege speech “A Doctor’s Perversity” in which he lambasted Kho for videotaping his sexual encounters with various women, including Katrina Halili, without their knowledge and consent. Katrina earlier sought the help of Sen. Revilla shortly after the videos were made public.

The spreading of the video on the internet has prompted the Senate to look into the country’s lack of cyber laws. Women’s rights activists have rallied behind Halili and condemn cyber exploitation of women.

This latest surge of cyber voyeurism is not the first in the Philippines. A lot of nameless women have fallen victims to this kind of exploitation in the past but sadly, our lawmakers just sat on it for years. Some victims were forced to migrate out of the country, some almost took their own lives, many of them were ruined and separated from their families. All of them scarred forever.

What’s keeping these products-of-sick-minds going is, admit it or not, the Filipinos’ curiosity over sex scandals. DVD pirates won’t keep on selling these scandal videos if there are no demands. How many of your friends have seen a sex scandal in the past, if not this one involving Katrina and Hayden? How many people you know have asked about Katrina’s video, searched it on the net and viewed it? How many are still curious to watch it?

Watching the video and sharing it with others only add up to the victims’ anxiety and anguish. It won’t do anything to close the case under the rule of law unless you’re part of the prosecution, the defense, or if you’re the judge handling the case. It will only quench one’s curiosity. But then what?  Isn’t it that we’re actually patronizing these sick videos by watching and spreading them?  We’re feasting on the victims’ disgrace.

If the victim happened to be our sister or a close friend or relative, how would we feel seeing the video being circulated and viewed by other people over and over?  All I’m saying is that our curiosity is the one fuelling the spread of this video and all the other video scandals released in pirated DVD’s and the internet.

We now have established the presence of this video between Katrina and Hayden.  What good will it do now to watch it and more so, spread it?  Why not leave the case to the courts and to our lawmakers to finally pass a solid law against cyber crimes and bring justice where justice is due?

If there’s a demand, there will be supply.

DVD copies have reportedly reached Cebu Cityand are being sold by video pirates discreetly for fear of police crackdown. Same thing is happening in Quiapo after police raided DVD stalls last week. The discs, which were sold at P60 each in Quiapo, has increased to P150-200 per copy after the raid.

If there’s any good thing that this Hayden-Katrina video scandal is doing, it is that our lawmakers have been ignited to act on our cyber law (or the lack of it). This will hopefully eradicate cyber voyeurism and protect our women from falling prey to these crimes again. Enough is enough.

Hey, this is a perfect opportunity for our politicians who want to score some ”pogi” points for the 2010 elections. But that’s another story.

Drug abuse has ruined millions of lives over the years anywhere in the world.  Famous celebrities like Andy Gibb, Jimi Hendrix and River Phoenix were known to have died from drug abuse complications. Hollywood stars Marilyn Monroe, Ana Nicole Smith and Heath Ledger were reported to have succumbed to overdose of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Ordinary people of all ages, even school kids, have either ended or risked their own (and other people’s) lives due to substance abuse. 

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug addiction is a “brain disease that can be treated.” Being a brain disease, it naturally affects the patient’s brain activity and behavior.  Abusers of illegal drugs eventually lose control of themselves, making them a threat to the community. 

If you feel that someone you know might be addicted to drugs whether illegal, prescription or OTC, it’s high time that they get a Drug Treatment before they do themselves more harm.  Prolonged use of excessive or illegal drugs is known to damage one’s mental health primarily, leading to unpredictable and often destructive behavior.       

But they’re certainly not doomed. I myself have witnessed my uncle’s long-term battle with his drug addiction.  He underwent a Drug Detox to rid himself of the toxins that have built up from his years of substance abuse. To help him further recover, my late grandparents sent him to one of the best Drug Treatment Centers that offer therapeutic approaches.  Now, he’s totally kicked drugs out of his life.

Statistics from a yearly national survey show that one out of seven 10th graders use marijuana.  Don’t let it happen to your own kids.  

Don’t hesitate to seek professional help.  Call The Canyon Renowned Rehabilitation and Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center at 1-877-714-1319.   The road to recovery is just around the corner.

Today, the whole Christian world celebrates Easter Sunday.   A celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection.   Amid the joy of the season, the Easter Egg Hunts, the family gatherings and whatever we plan to do today, may we not forget the real essence of the Holy Week that passed.   May the sacrifices of Jesus leave us valuable lessons to guide us through this feeble life.

Happy Easter!  Have you prayed today?