Former Armed Forces Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense General Angelo Reyes shot himself in the chest earlier today.
Some have hailed his suicide at the grave of his mother as an act of honor, reminiscent of a samurai choosing ritual suicide over a life of shame and ignominy. More recently, it has been the preferred exit strategy of choice for Asian government officials hounded by allegations of corruption, such as former Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, who plunged to his death by jumping off a cliff near his home in 2009.
The year was shaping up to be a good one for the Philippines. A new president was at the helm, perceived to be honest, after the nine-year calamity that was Gloria Arroyo. Manny Pacquiao, the world boxing champion in practically all the weight divisions, was considered, "pound-for-pound" the greatest boxer ever. Teen singing sensation Charice landed a role in the US TV hit series Glee and promptly Botox-ed her face in preparation for her star turn. Native son Miguel Syjuco's literary tour-de-force Ilustrado, winner of the Man Asian Prize, hit bookstores worldwide and garnered much-deserved citical acclaim. Designer Rajo Laurel's intricate cobweb dress made the cover of WWD. Boracay's beautiful albeit no-longer-as-pristine shores were belatedly discovered by the likes of the New York Times and heralded as the next Phuket.
It’s been almost three weeks since the World Cup started, and I cannot believe how riveted I am by this tournament.My daughters and I went to the opening at Soccer City, cheered ourselves hoarse for Mexico and cursed every single vuvuzela-blowing moron.
Last Friday we were at Loftus Stadium in Pretoria to watch our team, Spain, trounce the Chileans.In between those two matches, I was in Europe, marooned indoors, thanks to the rainy midsummer weather, all the more conducive to watching the World Cup on TV.In Italian at that, which made football much sexier – calcio d’angulo, for instance, sounds infinitely more alluring than the mundane “corner kick”.
Cape Town, I like to think, is a country on its own, and among my favorite writing assignments are those that involve me going to Cape Town, or, at the very least, writing about it.
With barely five days to go before the elections, I remain
undecided.The problem is,
everybody wants to rule the world, but frankly, most of them should be running
for pale shelter.
Yes, it’s a mad world, especially during election
season.Welcome to the
Philippines, the love child of Borat and Kafka, where midgets reign and dicks
join in the parade, where pint-sized warlords with gold rings on their pudgy
fingers keep tigers as pets or gun down political rivals like Rambo on crystal
meth, and the clergy stick their noses into their flock’s reproductive
activities as they stick their fingers into government coffers by way of
indiscreetly dispensed funds from presidential lackeys, then claim moral
superiority.
Bribery in all its forms - petty, blatant, subtle, systematic or institutionalized - is pretty much a way of life in South Africa. Of course you get the whites who say it's an African thing, but in reality, is a human thing, borne out of economic desperation, bureaucratic frustration and maybe even civic creativity.
But knowing all of the above still didn't inoculate me from the stupefaction of being hit for a bribe by the immigration supervisor on duty at the airport when I left for Manila during the Christmas holidays.
With election fever raging in America, The Huffington Post has become my bookmarked blog for all things election-related.
It's easy to affect bored indifference at the nonstop election coverage in the media, but the fact remains that this is a particularly crucial contest, and whoever emerges victorious as the next President of the United States is going to have a profound impact on our world order. Is it going to be the hot-headed, traumatized prisoner-of-war held hostage by the rabid right wing and his suddenly expensively coiffed and dressed pseudo-Hockey Mom of a Vice President? Or will it be the man of admittedly little experience yet deep intelligence and measured calm along with his extremely capable and seasoned running mate?
If I were back home right now, I KNOW I would have been at the interfaith rally yesterday along Ayala Avenue in Makati, calling for the resignation of the Midget. Even if I was raised in a household where we ate politics for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I grew up largely apolitical. I simply didn't care. Men like Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini, Manuel Quezon, Ninoy Aquino and Pepe Diokno... to me they seemed to be freaks of genetics that our national DNA managed to produce every few generations through some fluke of history and chromosomes.
Extermination seems to me a sound solution. Henceforth all members of GMA's cabinet, all her hangers-on, all her sycophants, and all relatives to the third degree should be sterilized to prevent further propagation of the species Ethnicanus rapax as well as the species Pseudo-Caucasanus arrogans.
Neri, the wimp, should just be castrated. Malacanang already has him by the balls, so he should just offer his shrivelled cojones to them on a silver platter. However, they may just find their way into the pride of Wack-Wack's kitchens, Abalos' "borjers".
Please, would you really buy a hamburger from that man?
