The war begins and so does the blogging challenge

As the Pangandamans and the Dela Paz’s trade suit, Hamas and Israel trade rockets with increasing number of civilian casualties. This is the analogy that first came to my mind after being a part of Philippine blogging history. It is an off-tangent analogy but I was wondering what’s next after blogging passionately and in support of a fellow blogger? There are bigger issues in society such as the Gaza conflict, the financial crisis, corruption and the Philippine Cha-Cha.

This is not a post that concedes that the blogging exercise in support of the Dela Paz’s was futile–we rattled Malacañan and highlighted the power of blogging. I am proud to be part of the bloggers that rallied behind victims of injustice. The Golfgate event of Antipolo showed the unique society that the blogosphere has created wherein there is hardly a delineation between the coño and the masa.

When a member of the blogosphere receives injustice, there is no distinction on his/her social status, his/her background and sometimes some of us are guilty of jumping into the issue without looking at the other side of the story. We’ve read about how to blog responsibly and I believe most of us did blogged responsibly in this case and we were vindicated as evidence surfaced of what really happened that fateful day (but of course, I’m not pre-empting the courts but in the public eye, it was inevitable for the Pangandaman to look like a red-faced liar).

As I was writing this post, I read Carlos Conde’s take on the event. He was spot on in highlighting the power of blogging. As he wrote as follows:

Today, blogging, apart from being both a narcissistic and cathartic exercise of self-expression among millions, is a potent information tool. News organizations use it to complement their journalism (take note: complement, not supplant). Activists use it to promote their cause. Victims use it to right a wrong.

We were able to highlight an injustice in this case, however, blogger and journalist Carlos expounded and challenged not only blogger Bambee but all Pinoy bloggers that there are other issues that warrant the same outrage that was exhibited. As he explained:

I have not seen the same level of outrage in the blogosphere over the disappearance of Jonas Burgos, of Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, of the atrocity done to Remegio Saladero Jr. and the hundreds of human-rights victims in the Philippines as we have witnessed in the Pangandaman incident.

While others might be fed-up with the issue and with due respect to the Dela Paz’s (OK and the Pangandamans), this is a lesson learned for bloggers that with the acknowledged power of this medium we are responsible to direct it to drum-up interest to other social issues such as the killing of children in Gaza, the continued greed at Wall Street, the blind eye of the presidency (it’s up to you to choose whose president I’m referring to) on corruption among other things.

As a comic cliche goes… with great power comes great responsibility. So, use it wisely.

A year Down Under and away from the Pearl of the East

A full year Down Under and two years away from my native soil. I do miss the Philippines and this blog helped me connect with anything that’s from the Philippines and thereby relieve homesickness (I do have my family here but you miss some things that is uniquely Philippines!–balot, kwek-kwek, mami, lomi, Jollibee, atbp.).

After 200 posts, 570 approved comments, 43 categories and 387 tags, 2008 has been a wonderful year for me as a blogger. I’m ambivalent whenever I write about issues. Here in Australia a great actor, Heath Ledger, died early last year and later last year a budding Filipino actor died in his sleep (reminds you of Rico Yan). Early in 2008, Australian politics was rocked by what the media branded as “Iguanagate” and just last month before the year ended, in the Philippines, “Golfgate” or Golf’s Black Friday took place highlighting the very bad side of politics (aside from what we already know).

Australia experienced a spate of ATM firebomb attacks while bank robberies in the Philippines became more frequent and bolder as the Philippine economy grew only in paper with the effect not readily felt at the grassroots. Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered most of his election promises within his 100 days in office while it’s been more than hundreds of days since Gloria said that she’ll step down (and there are fresh moves to, apparently, extend her stay in office).

The biggest news last year probably is the global credit crisis. It saw the mighty dollar fall and institutional banks crumble. The CEOs of Wall Street has given a new meaning in begging, i.e., by coming to the US House of Representative in Jets, they later tried to change their tactics and came by hybrid cars but some of them still made a mistake by driving a hybrid car that was meant to be phased out.

Australia is looking forward to a better year in the year of the ox while the Philippines is claiming that this will be their year.

I said I was ambivalent because I was passionate to write about things that I stumble online or hear from my social network (online or in person) but sometimes it has been a burden to write about some things that you hate hearing like the case of the Golf course beatings in the Philippines. Despite these, blogging will still be a therapy and “practice” for me. It has been a great medium that united Filipinos worldwide and even connected people of different ideologies.

As everybody hope for the best for the new year, I also pray that my regular readers and “transit” readers have a better 2009 regardless where we are and whatever our status in society.

God bless us all!

Politicians, kings of the world???

Early this year, Australian politics was rocked by an incident caused by one of the administration’s backbencher politicians. The media branded the incident as Iguanagate (referring to the Watergate scandal that forced then US President Richard Nixon to resign). As President Nixon’s action was “swift” (well, he was cornered then and avoided an inevitable impeachment), so did Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who quickly rebuked one of his backbenchers and ordered that she undergo anger management classes.

In the Philippines, seldom will you hear the President, at least, reprimanding anybody for any wrongdoing, or am I just remiss that the President is indeed very caring that she will disregard political connection and uphold moral and ethical standards? Well, recently one of her men was involved in a scandal. It was criminal in nature.

It is not the usual your usual corruption to the nth degree but an “ordinary” mauling incident that started from a minor spat on the golf course. Blogger Bambi Dela Paz blogged how her father and brother were mauled by a cabinet member’s son and his bodyguards. Bambi wrote as follows:

At around 1:30 PM today, at Valley Golf and Country Club, Antipolo City, Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr., Mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur, his father, Secretary Nasser Pangandaman of the Department of Agrarian Reform, and company, beat my defenseless 56-year-old dad and my 14-year-old brother to a pulp because of some stupid misunderstanding on the golf course.

This is a golf course. I have been a golfer all my life, and I have never seen anything like this. NOTHING. This is hard to comprehend. And it happened to my own father and my own brother too. Right in front of my eyes.

The blogosphere picked-up the news and so did the media.The Dela Paz’s filed a lawsuit against Pagnandaman, Jr and his bodyguards and the latter filed a counter lawsuit. A GMANews.TV report quoted Bombo Radyo as reporting as follows:

Bombo Radyo reported that Pangandaman Jr filed physical injuries and grave threats against De la Paz. The DAR chief’s son claimed he was hit with an umbrella by De la Paz during a commotion.

Is it possible that the commotion that they are referring to here is the time they are beating the Dela Paz’s???

Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman Sr. (Source: USM)

Journalists and bloggers Tonyo Cruz and Carlos Conde expressed disgust at the incident and has called on the cabinet secretary to apologize or better yet resign. Tonyo pointed out that:

If he does not resign, well, it is up to President Arroyo what to do with Pangandaman. She chose him to be her alter-ego as DAR secretary and she could get rid of him. If she let’s him stay in office, what kind of signal does this new incident tell about the company the President keeps? She’s friends with fraudsters (Garci) and killers (Palparan) — she will also be known as a protector of thugs who go by the name of Pangandaman.

Carlos Conde, on the other hand, explained that a resignation is inevitable given the critical roles that the elder Pangandaman holds. As Carlos explained:

If the charges are true (the dela Pazes have complained to the police) and that indeed the elder Pangandaman just watched while his son displayed how arrogant and power-drunk he was (he allegedly told the elder dela Paz, “Don’t you know who I am?”), he should resign not just from the Department of Agrarian Reform but most especially from the government peace panel that is negotiating with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. There’s just no way he can function properly in that role, considering what we know now.

The indignations over the incident on the blogosphere is so immense that if Pangandamans cared to surf the Internet (if they know how to use one), they are looking at a Tsunami of expressions of disgust and calls for both of them to resign. Now, I hope that it will be enough for Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to impose some punishment to the father and son bullies or will it be a case of mother bully protecting her minions? Pessimist as I might be, I’m certain that this will just pass as a minor incident not worthy of the President’s attention, she has her own troubles to fend off anyway.

God have mercy on the Philippines.

UPDATE: The Elder Pangandaman apologized for the golf brawl incident, however, he maintained that it was the Dela Paz’s that started the trouble (regardless Sir, is it justified to terrorize teenagers?). Malacañan has ordered the DOJ to investigate the incident. The Dela Paz’s acknowledged all the support that poured for their family especially from bloggers. They have corrected the charge sheet and four people will face legal action for physical injuries and child abuse. One of the accused claimed the Dela Paz’s “called his family, including “the oldest son [who was] carrying a baseball bat [and] the wife in a duster with a bladed weapon in hand.”

UPDATE2: Fellow Blogger Chuckie Dreyfus informed us that he sent a message to Philippine Sen. Francisco Pangilinan about the incident and Chuckie sent us a snippet of the Senator’s reply as follows:

“I will see what I can do to help. For starters we will be issuing a statement on the matter, calling on a no nonsense investigation and for the guilty to be punished regardless.

Thank you for your message. It takes more people like you making a stand and calling for action that will in the end help shape our nation.

When the people in their vast numbers stand up and say enough thats when genuine change happens.”

Sen. Pangilinan later issued a press statement condemning the incident and calling on Sec. Pangandaman to stop defending his son.

Shark attack in WA

WA rescuers are searching for a man reportedly attacked by a shark.

A media report claimed that a man was swimming at Port Kennedy dog beach with his son when the former went missing and believed to have been attacked by a shark. Another media report said that witnesses claimed to have seen a violent activity in the sea and reported seeing ‘blood in the water.’ Police are still searching for any signs of the shark or remains of the man.

There have been 91 reported shark attacks in Western Australia, 14 of which were fatal. The last fatal attack in WA was reported on 2005 in Houtman Abrolhos Island. Australia is famous for its vast coastline that you can find any beach for any purposes, be it surfing, snorkeling or just plain swimming. However, it earned a bad reputation for threat of shark attacks for beach goers.

However, the Australian Shark Attack File argued that “the statistics do not support these contentions.” It explained that the cases of attacks are small compared to the number of tourists annually visiting Australia’s beaches. It claimed that “there have been only 60 human fatalities (1.2 per year) in Australian waters from shark attack.”

In the Philippines, there have been four shark attacks reported last month, one of which was fatal.

Maligayang Pasko

I hope we all celebrate this season for the right reason, i.e., the birth of Jesus Christ. For Filipinos, preparations and celebrations starts as soon as the months start to end with ‘ber.’ I believe the best place to celebrate Christmas is in the Philippines, where it is primarily CHRISTmas and not ‘X-mas’ sale! For most Australians, it is the best time for shopping when prices drop to more than 50% of the marked price! 🙂 And, yes Santa is cool even when Christmas in Australia’s hot.

However you celebrate Christmas or this season, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and thank you for your continued interest in Blogbastic!

Ebola outbreak in RP Hogs

Now it can be blogged about.

A few months back as I was doing my fieldwork in Bangkok, Thailand, colleagues relayed to me a news about an animal disease outbreak in the Philippines. As much as I’m used to hearing zoonotic diseases, this one made me to worry a bit for my relatives back home as it involved the dreaded ebola virus, which causes the deadly ebola haemmorhagic fever.

‘Fortunately,’ the ebola outbreak among hogs in the Philippines was caused by the low pathogenic ebola reston strain, which does not affect humans. When it was first detected in the US in 1989, it fatally affected monkeys. The suspected monkeys that introduced the virus came from the Philippines. The ebola reston outbreaks were reported in the Philippines between 1989 and 1990.

A subsequent outbreak in 1996 was again traced to monkeys imported from the Philippines. These outbreaks prompted studies as to the zoonotic nature of the strain, which was later disproved.

In the current outbreak, details are sketchy but the possible scenario is this: Philippine laboratories detected the strain in pigs and submitted it to a US laboratory for confirmation.

It took a while for Philippine animal health authorities to release the news although it is certain that investigations were continuing after the outbreak was confirmed and strict biosecurity measures in the farms and province reportedly affected were properly imposed.

The Philippine government recently confirmed the ebola outbreak among hogs almost a little more than a month after it was detected. It immediately stopped pig meat exports “as a precautionary measure.” Philippine authorities assured the public that the ebola virus in pigs was not fatal to humans. The Philippine animal and public health authorities again urged the public to buy only government certified meat. Further tests in other farms showed negative results confirming that the ebola outbreak among hogs was an isolated incident.

Philippine Agriculture officials assured affected farmers of aid and claimed that it will seek international assistance to finally investigate the reservoir of the virus in the country. It has invited international animal health experts and veterinarians to investigate. A Bloomberg report said that international health experts are positive about the recent hog ebola outbreaks will finally lead scientists “to ‘elusive reservoir’ of virus.”

Disclaimer: Jim used to work for the Philippine Bureau of Animal Industry and the Food and Agriculture Organization (Philippines and Bangkok)

WordPress without Automattic

Worpress bloggers are very blessed indeed.

For those who has been with WordPress for a long time, you might never realise how lucky you are. Some of you might overlook the wonders of Automattic but you’ll know how it feels when you blog without it. Recently, I was excited when Friendster introduced Friendster Blog 2.0 and yes the platform is in WordPress! Blogging at Friendster has never been the same again after this, or so I thought.

I was almost regularly blogging when I an incremental increase in spam comments. To worsen the situation, I had to manually delete spam comments. It seems that Friendster has only downloaded WordPress but it lacked one or two plug-ins including the ever important spam filter-automattic or akismet.

So, I guess I might have to wait and see the further improvement of Friendster’s services. It is a free service, but ei, wordpress blogging is free and we get great ‘pay forward’ services! (and its stakeholders reap the results in return).

RP Police claims that suspects went berserk

The Philippine National Police is in hot water after a ‘dramatic’ shootout, as an MSNBC report described it, with robbery suspects in Manila. The news about the shootout was also picked up by CNN and Al-Jazeera. Media reports said that the PNP Chief has apologized for the civilian deaths and blamed the robbers for the ‘collateral damage.’ The Police, however, is also insisting that they made no mistake in killing one of the alleged suspects, a certain Ronaldo Eusebio, despite proof that he is a legitimate employee of a toll company and testimony from the “suspect’s” wife.

Pinoys in Oz Can Renew Passport by Post

Filipinos in Australia can now apply for renewal of their passports by post. The move came after a number of complaints from Filipinos outside the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) who were required to apply in person to renew their passports. The Embassy required personal appearance for every passport renewal applicant because of “the need to incorporate biometrics in the passport and due to the highly technical specifications” of the new machine readable Philippine passports. Filipinos who wanted to renew their passports spend between Aus$200 and Aus$1,200 to travel to Canberra because of this initial guideline from the Philippine Embassy in Canberra.

The Philippine Embassy in Canberra claimed in its website that “soon became obvious that the requirement for personal appearance when filing applications can be an expensive and time-consuming process for our kababayans.” It announced that it ‘sought’ the approval of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila to “allow for personal appearance at Philippine Honorary Consulates/Consulates General in state capitals.” 

Filipinos meaning to renew their passports will now have to spend between Aus$95 and Aus$200.

Given these facts, one will wonder whatever happened to the need to incorporate biometrics in the passport and due to the highly technical specifications. If they can authorize the personal application at the state capital’s Philippine Honrary Consulates/Consulate Generals, why not authorize the whole process of applying for passport renewal in the Philippine Honorary Consulates/Consulates General?

I’m also wondering how the pricing of services differs from one Philippine Embassy to another. If you renew your passport in Thailand, you would have to pay between THB2,250 (PhP3,063.52) and THB2,700 (PhP3,676.10). Here in Australia you are poised to pay between Aus$65 (PhP2,065.76) and Aus$78 (PhP2,479.02). If you renew your passport in the Philippines, you will have to pay between PhP 500 and PhP 700. Mailing the application back to Manila is not that expensive but I guess with the quality of postal staff we have back home, paying extra is inevitable.

WA Police Needs Security?

After two firebomb attacks in two separate police stations, State Police authorities are considering placing security guards in police stations here in Western Australia. The first firebomb attack made at the Joondalup Police Station and the most recent one was at the Warwick Police Station. Police are still investigating whether the two attacks are related and have yet to identify a suspect.

I guess using security guards, when you have the money, is logical. It also saves the effort of police to think about other things than crime fighting (and busting drunk drivers). In the Philippines, such scenario is far flung. Police in the Philippines also double as security guards for the station (and for some politicians, too!).