Bona fide text
A negative summer
Summer in this country this year is notable in terms of political, economic, social and environmental concerns. It is a combination of surprises, scarcity, and political mockery.
Everybody was in mixed feelings when the "tin canister" scandal surprised the Youtube. The question of ethics and human rights cropped up primarily on how the people responsible for such operation took advantage of taking video clips and even crack jokes out of it. Then I remembered the lines of Teri Hatcher in the Desperate Housewives pertaining to the doctors here in our country. Good thing the PRC and the national government made some moves in both issues. Television showbiz talkshow The Buzz's popular line "certified shocker!" best describes this incident.
While China is busy preparing for the 2008 Olympics, in which Beijing is host, a 7.9 magnitude quake happened last May 13 at Sichuan province with a death toll well above 30,000. On the contrary, the Philippines didn't experience earthquake but summer season is a season of flash floods and typhoons. The wrath of tropical storm "Cosme" left at least 21 people dead and destroyed millions of pesos of livelihood in the northern provinces of the country. Well, rainfall for two successive days last week made Iloilo City in the limelight of news as most of the streets were flooded. The city government should do the necessary repairs on our drainage systems to ease the same problem in the future. What do you think?
The never-ending ZTE NBN broadband deal controversy is still an issue until today. Perhaps the new witness named Alex and the new episode that PGMA was in Shenzhen China in November 2006 for a "social meeting" with ZTE Corp. officials can make some twists and new angle for another controversy again. Not to mention the money used in the Senate hearings amounting to 2 million pesos already.
RCBC bank robbery in Cabuyao, Laguna last Sunday was a serious problem. The lone survivor and the only witness died already making the incident left unsolved. Why such incident needed to happen to call the attention of the commercial banks to implement security clustering system? Why wait? One suggestion which I think could help in implementing security measures on banks is, "No ID, No Entry" policy. Yes, in some banks they require you to write your name in their logbook but it is not a guarantee. They should require ID to support the log in name in the book. I think that would be of great help.
Scarcity of rice is felt even in the rural areas of the country. It even reached P38.00 per kilo or more than that these past few days. Just recently, the government asked for 200,000 metric tons of rice from Japan under a world trade agreement scheme. LTFRB has finally granted a 50-centavo provisional fare hike among PUJs nationwide. LPG reached P645 per 11 kilograms, and as the price of petroleum in the world market increases, LPG's price will somehow increase again. The P20.00 increase in the minimum wage of employees cannot suffice to the increase of the prices of rice, LPG and fares. No wonder Filipinos try their luck to win a million in TV game shows. But some just wasted their penny to vote for their bet in a flop reality show on TV.
Summer in the Philippines is somehow exciting, full of surprises! Some would enjoy going to the beach, some would prefer to travel to unexplored places. But for some, summer is the time to update themselves on what's happening to our country today rather than finding themselves glued on "teleseryes."