Crazy world of black propaganda

“The feat of surviving is directly related to the capacity of the survivor."

—Claire Cameron

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE remember during the 1986 presidential snap elections in the Philippines, then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) ran a blitzkrieg in the mass media that the Filipinos would end up as the next "boat people" of Asia if the communists were allowed to win.

Marcos' propaganda machine wanted to paint rival presidential candidate Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's UNIDO opposition party as left-leaning or "communist."

Many voters, out of ignorance and fear combined, swallowed the smear campaign hook, line and sinker.

The scuttlebutt was that Tita Cory and her vice presidential candidate Doy Laurel were backed by the communists that threatened to take over the reigns of the government if the pair defeat the tandem of reelectionist Marcos and vice presidential candidate Arturo Tolentino. 

 

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Footages of "boat people" and other macabre violence that allegedly took place when the communists overran Vietnam in the 1970s were played up repeatedly on national TV.

Marcos and Tolentino "won" but were toppled by the People Power in the EDSA Revolution months later.

The pre-election paranoia proved to be a hoax.

Filipinos did not become "boat people" when Tita Cory and Vice President Laurel ascended into power in a revolutionary government.

The rest is history.

We have experienced so many catastrophes in the past, political, economic, etcetera, but we never left the Philippines on board dilapidated boats to seek refuge in other neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

In every crisis, Filipinos became stronger and united. They always survived.

We recalled the "boat people" episode when hundreds of immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar landed in Indonesia and the Philippines after floating for months on overcrowded boats years before Marcos’ son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Jr. became president.

Many of them were suffering from dehydration and were weak and starving, it was reported.

 

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It was believed that as many as 8,000 migrants may have been adrift in the Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca, living in conditions so squalid that the United Nations had warned of an epidemic of “floating coffins.”

Some governments in the region had reportedly turned away migrants.

The Los Angeles Times had reported that "many of the migrants are fleeing desperate poverty in Bangladesh, while others are ethnic Rohingyas, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state who have been violently attacked, denied citizenship and confined to squalid ghettos at home."

It was in the 1970s and 1980s when the immigration of thousands of people from Southeast Asia impacted American-Vietnamese relations and gave rise to new communities of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong Americans in the United States.

"Known as boat people for escaping Southeast Asia by sea, the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians (predominantly Vietnamese) generated a political and humanitarian firestorm for the international community, the United States, and Vietnam," reported the New American Nation.

 

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It added that the first wave in 1975 included 140,000 South Vietnamese, mostly political leaders, army officers, and skilled professionals escaping the communist takeover.

"Fewer than a thousand Vietnamese successfully fled the nation. Those who managed to escape pirates, typhoons, and starvation sought safety and a new life in refugee camps in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong," added the New American Nation.

For many, these countries became permanent homes, while for others they were only way stations to acquiring political asylum in other nations, including the United States.

 

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After reading some of my articles about the 2025 French Open and the recently concluded 2025 Wimbledon Open, many of our readers and friends told us they loved tennis, but they could not understand how it was scored.

In order to fully appreciate the sport that has produced Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King, we must be able to understand how it is scored.

In tennis, a player wins a game by winning four points, with specific point names: 15, 30, 40, and game.

If both players reach 40, it's called deuce, and a player needs to win two consecutive points to win the game after deuce. A set is won by the first player to win six games, with a two-game margin (e.g., 6-4 or 7-5). If the score reaches 6-6, a tiebreak is played to determine the set winner. A match is typically won by the first player to win two out of three sets, or three out of five sets in some matches

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

The ‘sinner’ who avoids his ‘sin’

“Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost.”

—Martina Navratilova

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

UNLIKE in the 2025 French Open last month when the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner lasted five hours and 29 minutes, making it the longest final in French Open history, Sunday’s 2025 Wimbledon gentlemen’s final lasted “only” three hours and four minutes.

This time, world no. 1 Sinner, 23, didn’t commit the same “sin” when he lost to word no. 2 Alcaraz in a heartbreaking five-set marathon (4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6) in the French Open or Roland Garros final match that surpassed the 1982 final between Mats Wilander and Guillermo Vilas by 47 minutes.

His “sin” in the French Open included allowing Alcaraz to rally after a commanding lead in the second the third sets and thus broke the hearts of his fans all over the world for “letting” slip away the coveted French Open title.

At the Wimbledon, Sinner roared to a commanding lead after three sets to secure his first Wimbledon title with a phenomenal performance, toppling Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 6-4.

It was a sweet revenge.

 

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We rooted for the Italian world number one player in the Wimbledon final because of empathy.

We thought it was about time he avenged the brutal defeat to the Spanish superstar in the French Open where he became so emotional for losing a “winning” match.

The 2025 Wimbledon final was spectacular in many aspects as Sinner became the first Italian player to win a Wimbledon singles title and now stands as a four-time grand slam champion.

The lanky Italian broke his overall tie with an assortment of famous names, including the legendary Arthur Ashe, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka.

Perhaps most important, Sinner ended his great rival’s run of five consecutive wins against him, adding a new dimension to a rivalry that seems set to decide the majority of major tournaments in the near future.

In their own personal grand slam race, which still feels like it has only just started, Sinner’s win ensured that Alcaraz, who owns five major titles, remained within touching distance.

It was also Sinner’s first slam title away from hard courts, after two victories at the Australian Open and last year’s US Open title.

Also, it was Sinner’s first grand slam victory and overall title since his three-month doping ban between February and May last year when he was tested positive for the banned substance clostebol.

He was able to successfully argue during his initial tribunal in August that the positive test had been a result of contamination, receiving no suspension. After the World Anti-Doping Agency chose to appeal the case, Sinner’s team and Wada eventually entered a case resolution ­agreement, essentially a ­settlement, agreeing on the three-month suspension.

 

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There was this astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did.

Atlas Shrugged is a massive paean to capitalism and depicts a world where corporate CEOs and one-percenters are the selfless heroes upon which our society depends, and basically everyone else -- journalists, legislators, government employees, the poor -- are the villains trying to drag the rich down out of spite, when we should be kissing their rings in gratitude that they allow us to exist.

Rand’s protagonists are Dagny Taggart, heir to a transcontinental railroad empire, and Hank Rearden, the head of a steel company who’s invented a revolutionary new alloy which he’s modestly named Rearden Metal.

Together, they battle against evil government bureaucrats and parasitic socialists to hold civilization together, while all the while powerful industrialists are mysteriously disappearing, leaving behind only the cryptic phrase “Who is John Galt?”

 

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Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, but as far as many prominent conservatives are concerned, it’s sacred scripture.

Alan Greenspan was a member of Rand’s inner circle, and opposed regulation of financial markets because he believed her dictum that the greed of businessmen was always the public’s best protection.

Some politicians have required their staffers to read the book, while others have announced grandiose plans to build their own real-life “Galt’s Gulch,” the hidden refuge where the book’s capitalist heroes go to watch civilization collapse without them.

Reading Atlas Shrugged is like entering into a strange mirror universe where everything we thought we knew about economics and morality is turned upside down.

We’ve already learned some valuable lessons from it.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

 

No comparison between Iloilo’s Defensor and Zubiri

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE can’t compare Iloilo third district Rep. Lorenz Defensor with Senator Miguel Zubiri when it comes to substance and credibility.

Defensor, a lawyer and member of the prosecution panel in the forthcoming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, so far, has no derogatory record as a public official.

Zubiri, a senator-judge in the same impeachment trial, has been known to be a public official with questionable integrity and loyalty.

When he was a struggling representative of Bukidnon early in his humdrum political career, Zubiri was member of the so-called “Spice Boys” together with the most unpopular senate president in history Francis Escudero, who was also a mediocre solon from Sorsogon.

We don’t need to elaborate the Spice Boys’ notoriety and how did they almost become a shame and scandal not only to their constituents, but also to their families.

 

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Defensor, by the way, is one of Iloilo’s rising political stars and he is being penciled by the pundits and veteran political patriarchs and matriarchs in the Philippines to be the next Demosthenes, an Athenian statesman recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great.

When the son of former Iloilo assemblyman and governor Arthur “Art” Defensor Sr. blasted Zubiri for saying that the vice president’s impeachment trial is a “witch hunt”, most of the Filipinos agreed with him.

Defensor said, “It’s very unbecoming of a senator-judge in an impeachment trial to say that the impeachment complaint and the trial is a witch hunt.”

He added: “These statements should not come from senator-judges who are expected to receive the evidence with impartiality and to treat the impeachment as a constitutional process.”

It is an act not only by the members of Congress but representatives of Filipinos who were delegated by the people to initiate impeachment proceedings,” Defensor said.

The prosecutor advised Zubiri to ”limit what (he says) to the public especially how we pre-judge the impeachment as well as the coming evidence during the trial.”

“Let’s listen to the evidence first before talking, even as a prosecutor, I did not prejudge a conviction or an acquittal. All we’re saying is that there is evidence here,” Defensor said.

 

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HOTTEST U.S. STATES. History’s Dave Roos Death reported that Death Valley, California, is the hottest place on the planet and still holds the record for the highest temperature ever recorded—a scorching 134° Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913. But in ranking the hottest states in America, California doesn’t even make the top 10.

The three hottest U.S. states by average annual temperature are Florida (72.9°F), Louisiana (69.3°F) and Texas (68.6°F), according to 2024 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

“Thanks to a combination of heat and humidity, those same three sweltering Southern states have topped the list since 1895, the first year the U.S. government started tracking temperature data,” wrote Roos.

Here are more hot facts about the five hottest U.S. states: 

1.     Florida (72.9°F), which became a state in 1845, has always held the number one spot as the hottest state in the United States, with an average annual temperature of 72.9°F in 2024. Unlike Arizona and New Mexico, where cool nighttime temperatures bring down the average, Florida stays relatively hot and muggy 24 hours a day. 

Not only is Florida the hottest state, but it’s also home to the second- and third-hottest cities after Death Valley: Key West (79.8°F) and Miami (79.1°F). Summer is particularly brutal in Florida. In 2024, the beachside city of Fort Lauderdale recorded its hottest summer on record with an average temperature of 84.6°F from June to August.

Like the rest of the United States (and the planet), Florida’s average annual temperature has risen considerably over the past 130 years. In 1895, the average temperature in Florida was 68.7°F, more than 4 degrees cooler than 2024. 

2.     Louisiana (69.3°F). The Deep South is unquestionably the hottest region of the United States, with seven states ranking among the top 10 hottest in the country. Louisiana is the second-hottest state with an average annual temperature of 69.3°F in 2024. New Orleans is the hottest individual city in the Bayou State with an average temperature of 72.7°F in 2024. Summertime in New Orleans was never exactly “breezy,” but the average summer temperatures in 2024 were 4 degrees hotter than in 1970.

3.     Texas (68.6°F). The year 2024 was the hottest on record for the Lone Star State, nearly 4 degrees hotter than the mean temperature of Texas over the entire 20th century. The border city of Brownsville was the hottest city in Texas with an average annual temperature of 78.4°F in 2024, but six Texas cities claimed spots among the top 20 hottest cities in 2024. Florida also had six cities in the top 20.

4.     Hawaii (66.7°F) (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) became a state in 1959, but NOAA has only been tracking temperature data there since 1991. A tropical paradise, it’s not surprising that the islands maintain a pleasantly warm temperature year-round. In 2024, Hawaii’s average annual temperature was 66.7°F, which made it the 12th-warmest year on record for the Aloha State.

5.     Mississippi (66.4°F). Like its Gulf Coast neighbors, Louisiana and Alabama, Mississippi has always been near the top of the list for the hottest states in the United States. The year 2024 was the second hottest on record for the Magnolia State with an average annual temperature of 66.4°F. Only 2023 was hotter at 66.7°F. The hottest city in Mississippi in 2024 was Jackson, which brought up the state average with an annual temperature of 68.3°F. Back in 1964, Jackson was more than 3 degrees cooler on average than 2024.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

Who was Iloilo’s Atong Ang?

“The cock does not just crow! It crows for a reason. Do not just concentrate on the cock crowing and mind the reason why it crows”

—Author Unknown

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

SOMETIME in February 1991, two cockfight enthusiasts (sabungeros in Tagalog or manog bulang in Hiligaynon) were murdered at past 8 o’clock in the evening near the popular chicken house in Fort San Pedro, Iloilo City in the Philippines.

Ricardo and Jonathan (not their real names) were drinking beer in one table when a lone gunman approached and peppered them with bullets. They died on the spot from fatal gunshot wounds, according to police reports.

After receiving tips from witnesses, then Iloilo Police Metro District Command (Metrodiscom) chief, the late former city councilor, Colonel Achilles Plagata, and his men immediately proceeded to Iloilo St. Paul Hospital to arrest the suspect, Enrique (not his real name), who was “confined.”

But Enrique’s older brother, Pacquito (not his real name), a lawyer, prevented Plagata and his men from entering the “patient’s” room.

I was with Pacquito, who asked me hours earlier to accompany him to that hospital “to visit my sick brother.”

 

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Suspicious, Enrique initially did not want me to enter his room, but Pacquito assured him I was not a hostile guest and let me in.

Pacquito said his brother Enrique was rushed to that hospital the same evening because of hyperthermia, which can manifest as heat exhaustion or, in its most severe form, heat stroke. Hyperthermia is characterized by a core body temperature above the normal range, often above 104°F (40°C), and can be caused by exposure to high heat or strenuous physical activity.

While we were inside, the policemen led by Plagata arrived and threatened to barge in forcefully if Pacquito and Enrique wouldn’t open the door.

The cops said they were there to implement a “hot pursuit operation” against a suspected killer, they referred to as Enrique.

“Yuta nio eh ako pa kuwaan nio ulo. Naano ina sia? Init lawas ya? Naton gin daskan nio lang sibuyas buli ya para mag init lawas ya.” (SOB, stop fooling me. His whole body is only heating up because you inserted onions inside his anus),” barked Plagata, who insisted to arrest Enrique.

Pacquito, invoking Enrique’s “basic” rights, tried to stop Plagata and his cops from arresting Enrique to no avail.

To make the long story short, police were able to successfully remove Enrique from his hospital bed and brought him to the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO).

 

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Police theorized Enrique went to the hospital several hours after allegedly killing Ricardo and Jonathan “pretending” he was ill. How he was able to immediately secure a private room boggled Plagata’s mind.

If he was the one who pulled the trigger in the crime scene that occurred some four kilometers away (estimated distance between Fort San Pedro and the hospital on Gen. Luna St., City Proper), why did Enrique allegedly shoot and kill Ricardo and Jonathan?

Investigations that followed said the victims, who weren’t originally from Iloilo City, had been accused of cheating or game-fixing in a derby in a Jaro cockpit days earlier.

Enrique was allegedly “tasked” to follow and give them a “disciplinary action” until he was able to find the “perfect” opportunity to mow them down.

Other versions claimed Enrique and the two victims only accidentally met in the crime scene for the first time and the suspect, a known trigger-happy maniac in his neighborhood, shot them after they gave him a dagger look, a version Plagata and his investigators had shunned.

 

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The families of Ricardo and Jonathan failed to get justice for the slain sabungeros or manog bulang after Enrique was killed in a shootout with relatives after corrupt jail guards allowed him to attend a family party during a holiday.

We remember the case of Ricardo and Jonathan now that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is investigating the case of the 34 sabungeros in Metro Manila kidnapped, killed, and “most likely” dumped in Taal Lake, Batangas.

Witness Julie ”Totoy” Patidongan, claimed that businessman Charlie “Atong” Ang is the mastermind behind the disappearances, while former actress and Ang’s investor Gretchen Barretto allegedly voted on the kidnappings.

If Enrique was Iloilo’s Patidongan, who was Iloilo’s Atong Ang?

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)