Taxpayers lose P132-M only because of five men

 “If taxpayer money were limitless, we wouldn't need a budget at all.”

—Betsy DeVos

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

ONLY in the Philippines where the people’s money could disappear like popcorns in the movie house, and no one was held accountable among government officials concerned.

If the people’s money is not stolen and wasted in junkets, graft and corruption, rigged biddings, incompetence (like the P1-B Ungka flyover project), unaccounted intelligence funds, bribery, among other acts of dishonesty and rapaciousness committed by rascals in government, it goes down the drain in one fell swoop without any justice.

Over the week, taxpayers lost a whopping P132 million when the Commission on Elections (Comelec) stopped the printing of ballots for the May 12, 2025 elections and discarded the six million ballots it had already printed.

The Comelec’s move was in compliance with the Supreme Court decision to include in the ballot five candidates whom the poll body earlier disqualified.

Just like that. Because of the five “disqualified” candidates the poll body had erroneously classified as “nuisance.” And it was worth P132 million!

 

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If the Supreme Court decision was delayed for another week, the amount of money wasted would have ballooned and probably doubled.

But the law is law. The Supreme Court decision must be upheld whoever gets inconvenienced and bilked—including the taxpayers who are always in the losing end.

To compound the matter, taxpayers money went up in flames only because of five candidates who, with due respect, might not even win.

If no one among the five candidates responsible for all this hullaballoo (they secured a temporary restraining order or TRO from the highest court) will make it, then what’s the logic of throwing away P132 million (at P22 per ballot already printed) in printing costs to begin with?

For sure, nobody from the Comelec had anticipated that a TRO would “sabotage” the printing of the ballots which had to be expedited now that the election is four months away.

Interestingly, some disqualified candidates in past elections were able to secure a TRO from the Supreme Court while the ballots were already being printed, but the poll body did not stop the process and the candidates’ names were still not included, according to Comelec Chair George Garcia.

Indeed, the throwing away of six millions printed ballots for reprinting of the final copies was unprecedented and so costly.

 

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MIDLIFE SUICIDE MORE COMMON. Rates are increasing among men and women ages 40 to 64. The current economic malaise could be a contributing factor. Warning signs: Acting highly pessimistic, hopeless or angry, increasing alcohol or drug use, making impulsive, out-of-character decisions, getting rid of previously prized possessions, talking about wanting to die, withdrawing from friends, family and society, mood changes.

BREAST-FEEDING LOWERS BREAST CANCER RISK before menopause for women with a family history of the disease. The duration of breast-feeding does not seem to matter. The lower risk applies only to breast cancer before menopause and only to women with a first-degree relative with breast cancer, says Dr. Alison M. Stuebe of the University of North Carolina.

MAGIC CHOCOLATE. The same chemical responsible for the ecstatic highs of love and sexual attraction, phenylethylamine, is also found in chocolate.

BURNING. During the Middle Ages, if you were guilty of bestiality, you would be burned at the stake along with the other party to your crime.

LAWS ON SEXUAL BEHAVIOR. The United States has more laws governing sexual behavior than all of the European nations combined. The only legally sanctioned sexual act in the U.S. is private, heterosexual intercourse between married adults.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are involved in Iloilo’s Dinagyang as Catholics

“With my Roman Catholic upbringing, I have a set of principles that serve me well in good times and bad.” 

—Steve Garvey

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

FILIPINO Catholics outside the Philippines are also involved in the celebration of Senor Santo Niño or Holy Child Jesus in the third Sunday of January, in one way or the other.

Raised by a Roman Catholic family in the Philippines, we were also educated in a Roman Catholic institution in Iloilo City. Therefore, we belong.

While Iloilo City’s annual celebration of Holy Child Jesus is synonymous with the Dinagyang Festival, we must not digress from the festivity’s true religious meaning; we must focus on its spiritual impetus and always remember it’s a symbol of the birth of Catholicism in the Philippines more than 500 years ago.

Our devotion to the Santo Niño as Filipinos—wherever we live around the world—is connected to historical accounts which showed that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived on the shores of Cebu on March 16, 1521.

 

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Magellan presented the image (a wooden statue about 12 inches tall that bears a golden crown and imperial regalia) of the Child Jesus to Queen Juana, the wife of Rajah Humabon as a baptismal gift, when she, together with other rulers and natives, converted to the Catholic Faith.

In his “Magellan” song, the late Cebuano comedian and singer Yoyoy Villame belted, “When Magellan landed in Cebu City Rajah Humabon met him, they were very happy. All people were baptized and built the church of Christ. And that's the beginning of our Catholic life.”

Being a Roman Catholic though is not enough. We must know first why we are Roman Catholics and how we became Roman Catholics even before baptism in a Catholic church.

If we don't know how to practice the religion that brings us to the teachings of Jesus Christ, we must at least know its history and where it came from; how it evolved and why it became one of the most dominant religions in the world.

Roman Catholicism is the product of 20 centuries of history.

To understand it, we must try to understand this history.

Not only it is the product of history, but it involves a distinctive attitude toward history.

 

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A Roman Catholic looks upon the history of the church as an organic whole; he is proud "that catholicism cannot be identified simply and wholly with primitive Christianity, nor even with the gospel of Christ, in the same way that the great oak cannot be identified with the tiny acorn."

And yet he must insist that the church is the institution of Christ, that Peter was the first pope, and that the seven sacraments all go back to the Lord himself.

 This attitude toward history makes it essential that we examine the historical evolution of Roman Catholicism.

How did Christianity become Catholic?

How did it happen that from a simple message and unpretentious life of Jesus of Nazareth, as we find this described in the gospels, there came an international organization, fully equipped with priests and bishops and patriarchs, with rites and sacraments and pomp, with the power of discipline for this world and the control over grace for the next?

“Surely the contrast is a striking one, even for a person who believes that it was Jesus’ intention to establish catholic Christianity,” intones the late Jaroslav Pelikan in The Riddle of Roman Catholicism.

Catholic Christianity should mean identity plus universality.

Pelikan explains further: “By ‘identity’ I mean that which distinguishes the church from the world—its message, its uniqueness, its particularity. By ‘universality,’ on the other hand, I mean that which impels the church to embrace nothing less than all mankind in its vision and in its appeal.”

He clarifies that “’identity plus universality’ is not a logical definition, and it is not intended as one.”

 

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“Indeed, catholic Christianity is probably as incapable of logical definition as is the taste of cheddar cheese or the music in the closing scene of Don Giovanni. One famous definition finds the essence of Catholicism in this, ‘that it does not distinguish between the church in the religious sense of the word (the church of Christ) and the church in the legal (or institutional) sense of the word.’”

 Russian theologian, Aleksieri Khomiakov has a better description:

“The church is called one, holy, universal (or catholic), and apostolic because she is one and holy; because she belongs to the whole world, and not to one particular locality; because through her all humanity and all the earth are hallowed, not one particular nation or one particular country; because her being consists in the agreement and unity of spirit and life of all her members on the whole earth, who acknowledge her; because, finally, the whole of her faith, her hope, and her love is contained in the writings and the teachings of the apostles.”

Throughout its life, then, catholic Christianity means identity plus universality.

The combination appears in catholic piety, churchmanship, theology, and liturgy; and the narrative of how the combination came into existence is the history of the rise of the catholic Christianity, according to Pelikan.

In the words of a liberal Protestant historian, “Catholicism is…as old as the Church if we include its rudimentary form; there is hardly a single one of its elements which was not present” in the first century.

Where these elements appear together, be it East or West, there is catholic Christianity, concludes Pelikan.

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

Expunged ‘nuisance’ bets also have rights

“Men should be disqualified for public office. Women should run the planet. They're better than us.”

—Ted Turner

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE ridiculed our own law when we laughed at the list of “nuisance” candidates who filed their certificates of candidacy (COC) last year for the May 12, 2025 Philippine elections (the Commission on Elections recently eliminated them with finality upon submission of the final cut for printing of ballots).

No matter how we treated their COCs with derision, mocked them, and called them names, those “nuisance” candidates, which included a combative senatorial aspirant from Aklan disbarred by the Supreme Court, will continue to persevere knowing fully well that “the law is also on our side.”

They have the right to assert, “Hey, the election process isn’t only limited for the scholarly, the mighty, and the omnipotent. This is for us, too, the undervalued, the spurned, and the tossed aside aspirants for a public office.”

In a democratic country like the Philippines, everyone is free to dream and fail—and even fail after dreaming.

 

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Whether those “nuisance” bets were real-life insane or erudite punks should have been beside the point after the Comelec decided to accept their COCs last year.

In the first place, those “nuisance” candidates had been expunged only from the electoral race during the Comelec deliberation process ostensibly for their inability to mount a serious campaign, or for lack of a registered political party, among other primordial reasons, not because they weren’t qualified to run.

Under the law or An Act Governing the Elections of Local Government Officials, those “nuisance” candidates were very much allowed to run as long as they met the qualifications prescribed by law for public elective positions in the Philippines.

For local positions the qualifications are “mere” the following:

1. Citizen of the Philippines;

2. On the day of election at least 23 years old for Governor, Vice-Governor, member of Sangguniang Panlalawigan, mayor, vice-mayor, Sangguniang Panglungsod in highly urbanized cities; while at least 21 years old for the said officials in component cities and municipalities; at least 18 years old for members of the Sangguniang Panglungsod, Sangguniang Bayan and Sangguniang Barangay and punong barangay; at least 15 years old and not more than 21 years of age for Sangguniang Kabataan;

3. Able to read and write Filipino or any other local language or dialect;

4. Registered voter in the constituency in the locality;

5. Resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election.

 

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DON'T LET OUR DOGS EAT THIS! Grapes and raisins have been shown to cause kidney failure in dogs. The toxic ingredient is unclear, but it is currently being studied in the veterinary community (a fungus is suspected). The number of grapes or raisins that may cause kidney failure is not exactly known, so any amount could potentially be dangerous.

MENINGITIS VACCINE FOR KIDS BENEFITS THE ELDERLY, TOO. Since the meningitis vaccine was introduced in 2000 for children ages two months to two years, not only have meningitis cases declined by 64 percent among children, they also have dropped by 54% among people 65 and older. With fewer children spreading germs, fewer adults are getting the disease.

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

With finality, City Hall wins over signal jamming proposal

“There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users’ rights to free expression and privacy.”

—Rebecca MacKinnon

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IT’S the third time in as many stagings of the Dinagyang Festival that we feel vindicated after Iloilo City Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas nixed the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) proposal for mobile signal jamming in the festival’s final two days in the end of this month.

This time, there was no need for the City Council to pass a resolution approving the suggestion of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) to shut down the telecommunication lines like what the aldermen did five years ago.

During the main highlight of the “reinvigorated” and “repackaged” Dinagyang Festival 2020, the City Council agreed with the ICPO “but only for one day.”

For a while, the decision whether to jam the telecommunication signal in Iloilo City during the festival every year became a major annoyance and distraction among Ilonggos who sneered at the proposal.

 

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In 2023, both Treñas and the City Council also rejected what would have been a repeat of the festival signal disruption, which happened in the last five stagings of the cultural and religious festival “for security purposes.”

It finally put to rest the long-overdue bickering on this frivolous and inconsequential subject matter.

We started to consistently oppose and criticize the mobile signal jamming in 2017 and sustained our stand on the subject matter until City Hall finally dumped the unnecessary move since it would have negative effects on the metropolis’ tourism and business.

We insisted the that although we respect the authorities and their expertise in the handling of our security, we thought it was a veritable copycat of what the PNP did when Pope Francis visited Manila on January 15-19, 2015 and during the Black Nazarene procession.

Thank God it’s over. The issue has been finally laid to rest and the Ilonggo populace can once again celebrate the Dinagyang Festival sans without worrying for a total shutdown of their gadgets.

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RULES OF THE GAME. Each country now has sovereign power rights in and under its own waters and a broad mandate to manage the resources, both living and nonliving, in its exclusive economic zone. When a country extends its defined continental shelf farther from its coast, that assures access to minerals on or beneath the seabed there.

THE SECRET LIVES OF BUS STOPS. The sleek, undulating roofs of San Francisco's recently unveiled prototype bus stops are not just artistic flourishes. These street shelters use rooftop solar panels to power Wi-Fi routers and interactive information panels. Unused energy is pumped into the city's grid. In 2013 the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency had planned to install 360 of the new stops around the city.

BLUEFIN TUNA. WWF says if we take bluefin tuna off the menu now, or it will be off the menu forever. If we care about sustainable seafood, go to panda.org/tuna

SAVING OUR PLANET. Let's push away pest. The smell of camomile deters most small flies. Let's make our own pesticide by infusing camomile flowers in hot water for ten minutes. Spray on plants to prevent pests alighting.

UNDER THE CELEBES SEA. When scientists dispatched a remotely operated vehicle to nose around the depths of the Celebes Sea, one of the world's most biologically diverse zones, they were prepared for surprises. Still, mouths dropped at the sight of the "squidworm", as they dubbed this extraordinary invertebrate.

HORSE SEX. During the 1600's in Massachusetts, a teenage boy was executed for confession to having had sex with two horses, two cows, and four sheep.

WHEN WE ARE HUNGRY. We shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for food when we are hungry regardless of our status in society. Shame is for those who have abundance of food on their tables and continue to load their full stomachs but aren’t willing to share a morsel of bread.

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