Pinoys fat and thin

A report yesterday said that there are now 16 million Filipinos who are malnourished. It did not say, however, how many millions of our people are obese.

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So who cares how American candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the challenger, comport themselves in their debates? The exchange is only for public display, as most Americans – at least most of those I have met – are quite set on their choices long before election comes along. And they do not seem to care much who the candidates are, but what party they belong to. It is really more fun in the Philippines when it comes to elections. Where in the world can you see so many political parties, with some of them mixing it up when voting time comes near?

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And we do not also know of other countries, the United States included, where several members of one family are all running for public office, some of them handing down their seats, as if they were royalty? Or where sons and fathers, brothers and brothers or sisters, and cousins, fight each other over a political position? Or convicts and ex-convicts, jailed for heinous crimes, still dare to seek public office? Onli in da Pilipins, as wags would say it.

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Is Joma Sison losing his touch, or has he mellowed under the comfortable life in the Netherlands? I saw snatches of his interview with a Pinay host yesterday and it seems to me Joma is not as sharp as he used to be. Did I imagine it, or was he stuttering at some point, while answering questions posed to him? But perhaps it was because the one interviewing him was not that adept in eliciting good replies. Sayang. Maybe Joma has actually toned down already, he must be in his sixties now, isn’t he?

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I don’t know if the interviewer had asked him about the behavior of Nur Misuari, though, since I did not finish the interview and switched to another channel. But, really, Misuari should stop behaving like a spoiled brat, nobody is inclined to spoil him now. Imagine, when he claimed that 17,000 MILF members had defected to his camp, someone from MILF clarified that they did not have that many members in all. Wrong statistics? Maybe he thought nobody keeps track?

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Commission on Election chairman Sixto Brillantes should be congratulated and supported for his determination to cleanse the roster of so-called party-list groups. If one had any doubts about the questionable qualifications of some of them to become members of Congress, one should only take note of the actuations of one such group recently, as starkly shown on national television. When one party list group was holding a press conference, members of another burst into the venue and disturbed the proceedings, flaunting placards against the other, and creating a melee. Are those the people we want to see in Congress?

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So, go ahead and do your job, Chairman Brillantes. Separate the chaff from the grain, as it were. At the moment there seems to be more chaff than grain, so please do not be disheartened even if they call you names. More people applaud you and your present commission members. In the first place, let us think of the millions in pork barrel that undeserving congress members will demand and misuse. For that reason alone, we need to prune that list.

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The Sandiganbayan has allowed the former president to remain under hospital arrest. So former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo can continue to stay at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, even if doctors have said that her condition is now stable. However, the Court has imposed strict rules for the privilege of staying out of jail: no internet access, no interviews, no cellphones, screening of visitors, and worst, she now has to pay for her stay in the hospital! I recall that, during her first detention, the government was shouldering her expenses. Having to pay now is like another penalty isn’t it?*

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