Piercing Pens

Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casino voted “no” on House Bill 3174 which seeks to increase the excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco products. He claims to proposed law is “not serious” in its aim to increase tax revenues and prevent tobacco and alcohol use. He suspects his colleagues were pressured by the big players in the tobacco and alcohol industries intro railroading a kinder version of the proposed law. Because of this he was also unable to introduce an amendment that would seek to earmark for health and social services proceeds from the tax measure.

Here is his explanation: (more…)

Journalist death toll reaches eight in the Philippines

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the global organisation representing over 500,000 journalists worldwide, has today called for the Philippines Government to investigate the murder of journalist Eldy Gabinales and to halt the growing journalist death toll.

According to information provided by the IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP), radio commentator Eldy Gabinales, also known as Eldy Sablas, was killed today, 19 October 2004 in Tandag, Surigao del Sur. (more…)

After a long, strenuous week, I find myself looking forward to this weekend ahead of me. I have just gone through an ineptly talented artist some claim to be Filipino, corrupt generals, a number of dead fetuses and a handful of captured birds. I want so much to treat myself to a simple vacation, perhaps a long overdue trip to Baguio but my finances won’t allow me to do that now, not after paying all those bills, whew!

Which somehow gets me thinking, why is it that to become rich (as in overflowing with money) in this country, you only either have to be a corrupt official or become a famous artista sans talent or in Jasmine Trias’ case, she only had to be American. (more…)

I just joined SpreadFirefox.com, a community for Netizens who help spread the news about Mozilla Firefox, the browser that you can trust.

Here are Firefox’s features that would hopefully convice you to switch: (more…)

Here is the CNN report on the passing away of Christopher Reeves:

(Image from http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/images/superman/i-stndback.jpg)

American Idol finalist Jasmine Trias is in Manila and the local media cannot get enough of her as big businesses like McDonald’s and Smart are earning big bucks as they further fan a “Jasmin mania” phenomenon (The telecom company even had its name mentioned in the captions Trias’ front-page photos on the newspapers).

Because she’s a Filipino-American, Jasmine became an instant hit in the Philippines. That the local media cannot get enough of her is a clear manifestation of our fixation with Fil-foreigners. (more…)

This week has been so excruciating for us here at the newsroom. Thanks to ‘Fil-Am idol’ Jasmine Trias who arrived in Manila just a few days ago. A week before that, the bosses were pestering me on how we could get Jasmine for an exclusive sit-down interview. I could not fathom how we had to go through all these brouhaha for a singer we call our own yet aspired to be the American Idol . The day after Jasmine arrived, headlines bannered “Jasmine Trias comes ‘home,’” “Homecoming for American Idol finalist.” This is after Jasmine herself said when asked if she was willing to stay in her supposed ‘home’: “I don’t think it’s possible at the moment. Besides, Hawaii is home for me.”

A month ago, during the Athens Olympics, all eyes were on Natalie Coughlin, the gold medalist swimmer whose grandmother, apparently, was a Filipina. Talks of getting her to play for the Philippines in the 2006 Asian games came about. An officemate agreed with me on how stupid the idea was. Being Filipino seems to have less and less meaning these days. (more…)