Mike Enriquez: Take This!

I have had enough. I can't help it that my mother listens to Mike Enriquez over DZBB for her early morning news on the radio.

And I can't help getting disgusted over Mr. Enriquez's shameless peddling of Chief Justice Corona and Congressman Gloria Arroyo's defense.

This morning, Enriquez once again, as he always does, tells people how kawawa CJ Corona is for having been the sole target of Malacanang's vengeful schemes. This time through Bangko Sentral's auditing team.

Once again, Enriquez tells his listeners: "If Bangko Sentral can do this to a Chief Justice, it sure can do the same to an ordinary Filipino." This is the argument Enriquez uses every time Corona is caught in a corner for a damning issue. Enriquez has also done the same in defense of Congressman Arroyo. This is sick. How can GMA 7 allow this? And they say what? "Walang kinikilingan. Walang pinoprotektahan. Serbisyong totoo lamang?" You should be ashamed of yourselves!

First and foremost, you don't compare the ordinary Filipino with Chief Justice Corona. For an ordinary Filipino will not be touched by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for audit. BSP will not have any reason to do so, for an ordinary Filipino will not amass wealth like CJ Corona over a very short period of time. An ordinary Filipino does not earn P60,000 a month and buy condos in posh districts. An ordinary Filipino is not given airline platinum privileges. An ordinary Filipino does not have the likes of former Supreme Court Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas defending him in court pro bono publico.

So stop the sickening comparison, quit your news anchor job, and get that PR job Chief Justice Corona so badly needs. That is, if you haven't got the job yet. Well, then quit moonlighting, and get off our eardrums!

By the way, you cannot even pronounce "Tucson" correctly. You're from what school again?

NOTE: A day after I posted this blog, Mike Enriquez interviewed Chief Justice Corona exclusively over his morning radio program over DZBB. Seriously.

Heejun, Don't Make It Bad

I'm switching my fan mode back on.

I was coasting through TV channels a few days ago when I stumbled on Fox. So, it is that time of the season again.

And I saw this Korean guy - I don't know. I just know when an East Asian is Korean even before they open their mouth - facing the formidable trio of Steven Tyler, Randy Jackson, and Jennifer Lopez. Then he started singing Michael Bolton's "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You," the song that used to be a sound track of my early twenty's broken heart. That stopped me on my tracks, and channel-flipping spree. No, not the song, but the voice of that Korean guy! My God! Where did that voice come from? You look at this guy and you'd say, "Oh, he kinda look like that Baker King dude from that Korean soap." But not as a singer...until he opens his mouth to sing.

And I forgot all about him with all the lazy things I had to do.

This weekend, he came back for the top 24 and sang "Angels," not exactly spectacularly, but there's something about him that makes me love him. Yeah, that's the word.

Fess up time. Heejun, that's his name, looks and sounds like my boy Seok Hyun, one of the two best male people I've met in my life. (I could have just said "men." What's my problem here?) He's got Seok Hyun's nuances. The way Heejun intersperses American English and Korean dictions is just too painfully familiar. His verbal and facial expressions pull some strings out of my memory bank. Getting corny. Getting there. Nearer. Nearer. STOP!

I couldn't help it. But God bless Youtube! I watched all his previous AI videos and I was just blown away. By his charm, his story, his wit, his honesty, his humor. He is just adorable in a kind of easy, laid back way. The way he bends and bows to the judges and the audience speaks more than cultural behavior. There's the classic sincerity of gratitude, that ennobling feeling of unworthiness. You just want to hug him and have him as your best friend.





Another reason Beatles is timeless and universal. They have predicted the coming of Heejun Han.

Hey Jude

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better.

Hey Jude, don't be afraid.
You were made to go out and get her.
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better.

And any time you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder.

Hey Jude, don't let me down.
You have found her now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.

So let it out and let it in,
Hey Jude, begin.
You're waiting for someone to perform with,
And don't you know that it's just you.
Hey Jude, you'll do;
The movement you need is on your shoulder.

Puppy Love For Reading

I remember I was four years old when our neighbor launched a general house cleaning, and disposed a sack-ful of hardbound books. I was outside playing when they asked me to call my mother. The elderly neighbor said we could have all the books if my mother would have a place for them at home. My mother said we might not have enough place for all of them, but offered to look into the pile and chose some. The neighbor agreed. As a result, I got my first hardbound children's books with drawings of white kids playing, praying, and studying.

At four, I still couldn't read, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the books which smelled just heavenly. I remember "reading" to myself made-up stories behind the drawings. I was already a storyteller even before I could read!

Thinking of that, I decided to read to my two nephews as early as when they were two and four, respectively. (They are now three and five. ) Since I couldn't read to them Moliere (Heck, I couldn't read Moliere even to myself!), I chose the book beside it: The Bible. How they loved the Story of Creation, and the Story of the First Christmas! They loved them so much we must have read them repeatedly for a month. Of course, I had to translate them to Filipino first. We have decided early that the children's first language would be Filipino. Therefore, no teaching of English unless they ask for some translation of the cartoons they watch on TV.

Today, we have quite a list of books and stories we've read together. Those in English, I still translate to Filipino. Here's my nephews' reading list:

1. Ang Paglalakbay ni Butirik, ang Dyip na Masungit (a 1993 Palanca Awardee for Short Story for Children)
2. Alamat ng Butanding
3. Putot
4. Ang Alamat ng Ibong Adarna
5. Jesus, the Healer
6. The Ugly Duckling
7. Rumpelstiltskin
8. The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
9. Pinocchio (Because of Pinoccio, my 3-year-old nephew now calls banana que "Pinocchio," bananas on a long stick)

Of the stories we've read, it is Butirik that we keep on going back to. They have come to know the story page by page, picture after picture. You cannot fool the kids. They know when you try to skip pages to quickly finish reading it. Even I can tell the story with my eyes closed, flipping the right pages where the scenes go.

Reading Jesus the Healer, they now know what a "synagogue" is, or why a "ketongin" is an outcast in society, and that Jesus has turned evil spirits into pigs.

Oh, how they hated Scrooge and the Christmas ghosts! But sincerely felt sorry for Tiny Tim.

When the right time comes, we shall have a ceremonial handing of the key to the Harry Potter collection. Can't wait.

Domestic Pride

Weekends are by no means rest-ends for me. Weekends are days of the week that allow me to be human in the tradition of land before time. The time when people were left using devices of nature, doing the most humane of human activities. Well, close.

Sunday mornings I do the laundry from six to nine. I love real sunlight to dry my clothes. Doing the laundry for three hours is better than 3 hours in the gym, and a week of brisk walking. This I think.

I cook our meals on weekends, using ingredients we raise in our backyards and those of our neighbors'. Yesterday, I asked my brother to pick malunggay from our neighbor's tree, and pulled some stalks of lemongrass that my father has successfully grown by the road side, our side. For months he tried to raise it by the jack fruit tree by the creek, but failed. Now, we know lemongrass loves road dust for food. Since we live in a barrio, neighbors share what little they have. You live in a city condo, and you only share the elevators with them.

Also on weekends, I am the in-house nanny of my two nehphews (3 years and 5). I am the resident MTRCB Chief for their benefit. Disney Channel, Cartoon Networks and TV5 are their favorites. TV5? Yeah, TV5. I don't know why. (They call it TV5, not Channel 5.)

The 3-year-old nephew and I were watching Ben10: Destroy All Aliens when a scene came showing this character throwing a bottle into the sea. My nephew, in his 3-year-old high-pitched voice, squeeked: "Tita, nagtapon siya ng bote! Bawal 'yun di ba kase babaha." I rejoined: "Tama. Dapat nagtatapon lang ng basura sa basurahan."

Once, we took the jeepney when suddenly it rained hard. Midway, there was a huge flood with trash of all shapes, colors and sizes floating. My nephew then asked: "Tita, bakit may swimming pool sa daan?" Me: " Kase maraming nagtatapon ng basura na bumabara sa kanal kaya nagbabaha." That followed a kilometric series of "Bakit?" from a kid whose sponge of a mind wants more data than any supercomputer can hold.

Adults, specially the working class, should not "vege" the weekend away. It is during this time, the seventh day, the rest day when God asks us to worship Him. By worship, He meant do something for and with his creation.


Above: The kid named "Bakit?"


The nephew and the Tita horsing around. The kid clicking away his own pictures using my iPad.

Laws Pull This Country Down

In today's news, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has sued officials of Madrigal firm whose property in Ayala Alabang Village was turned into a shabu laboratory by some Chinese nationals who by the way were caught and hopefully not just to be deported back to China when convicted. Remember the Filipino drug mules who died in Chinese death rows. However, now this one sucks, Philippine Immigration Law on Deportation of Aliens Section 37.a.1 lists "Any alien who is convicted and sentenced for a violation of the law governing prohibited drugs" will be arrested and deported. Just deported. Now, we know why we are the haven of international drug syndicates.

The Senate and the Defense team of Chief Justice Corona have been constipating about technicalities of the law. The law states this. The law states that. The law says it cannot be done. The law says it is illegal. The law says it is not right. The law. The law. The law. Like we have the best ones in the world.

I've just realized that the Immigration Law sucks as much as the bank secrecy law and the rules of procedure on impeachment trials stink.

Juan Ponce Enrile rejected a prosecution witness yesterday because his testimony would be useless because the testimony would not support any of those allegations stated in the prosecution's articles of impeachment, thus wasting everyone's time. Enrile would not hear the testimony to be given by the Vice President for Sales of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) on the "platinum" perks and privileges given by PAL to Corona and his wife at the time when the Supreme Court was hearing a case filed against PAL. That would have been bribery as Enrile put it. But bribery is not part of the articles of impeachment so let's throw away that testimony to the bin and send that Veep home.

Not to mention last week's Supreme Court temporary restraining order (TRO) for the presentation of Philippine Savings Bank of CJ Corona's dollar accounts which the Senate Impeachment Court upheld. Talk about check and balance. (Insert sarcasm here.)

Now going back to the case filed by PDEA against the owner of the property used for the drug lab, why didn't they file a case against the management of Ayala Alabang Village? Their security personnel allowed the suspects to transport drugs and other related paraphernalia to and from the vicinity. Ayala Alabang is not like Pasig or Tondo that you cannot sue the mayors for having the labs in their turf. Ayala Alabang is a closed, walled, heavily guarded little city which allows entry to their landowners and tenants with a complete snappy salute sans a peek to their compartments or the company they keep, but would give all sorts of SOP bullshit to mere mortals when they try to enter this kingdom. Using for visitors only lane, the one near the guard post, the visitor will be asked to surrender his or her driver's license, give the complete name and phone number of the homeowner to be visited whom they would call for confirmation. If you have an emergency of titanic proportion, but you don't have the right answers to the guard, good luck with that.

Tough and strict and classy, but in their midst were big time drug laboratories. This little kingdom is snuggly protected by the anti-trespassing law.

A lot of our laws are pillows for the wicked and a yoke for the upright.

Laws are not like literature of Shakespearean magnitude which is both timeless and universal. Laws of man aren't like the laws of God - Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal - which are absolute. Laws of man ought to be changed and expanded through time and circumstance.

Otherwise, let's flush all our legislators down the toilet.