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MANILA: This is not what you think it is. February 1986. Some 14 years after the declaration of Martial Law by President Ferdinand Marcos. There is going to be a coup against Marcos led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt Col Gringo Honasan, but that fails when some people reveal to Marcos the plot. So now, Enrile, Honasan & Company are the targets of capture or assassination. Instead of surrendering meekly, they decide to fight to the last.  Obtaining the support of Constabulary Chief Fidel Ramos, they move to Camp Crame and plot their next moves. Ramos says, I remember hearing, "What we need now is people power." He calls someone to call Cardinal Sin to call the people to come out and show support for the rebels with a count of warm bodies. I also remember Butz Aquino was soon calling upon his group, the August Twenty One Movement, or Atom, to meet at the Isetann Dept Store in Cubao, Quezon City, to help populate Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue, or

MANILA: Does President Rodrigo Duterte’s new creation, the Department of Information Communications & Technology, or DiCT, have the power to harvest the wealth of the digital universe for the Filipino people? And does Mr Duterte’s appointed Secretary of Information Rodolfo Salalima have the manager’s mind to run the DiCT in the information superhighway? Let me Google that and we will see. But how fast? Or rather, Mr Salalima has failed himself already as Information Secretary. Last year yet, on Monday, 07 November 2016, he told ANN, “Next year will be the start of us making the Internet faster” (author not named, CNN Philippines , cnnphilippines.com ). He said the DiCT was going to spearhead a Telco Summit in January 2017 “to discuss how to improve Internet speed and connectivity in the Philippines, considered to be one of the slowest in Asia.” No, Mr Salalima. The Internet in the Philippines is not one of the slowest; the situation is worse than that – The Philippines

Dear Mr President: My best wishes to you now that you are sitting as the new head of UP. I hope you are a change for the better. Change is coming? Change is becoming. Right off I say, the UP Oblation needs to be changed – it has been irrelevant for far too long! This is an alumnus speaking, UP '65. (Image of Oblation at UP Los Baños, taken by me 20 July 2016, painterized) So, what public good has UP done lately? None that I know of. Not surprisingly. Academic freedom has nothing to offer, neither a shirt to cover somebody else's back nor shorts to cover somebody else's genitals. This is all because the University of the Philippines System, or UP, lacks a Vision. And no, Sir, Mr UP President Danilo Concepcion, I did not find any declaration of Vision in your Vision Statement titled "The Search For The Next President Of The University Of The Philippines – Vision Statement" (which I downloaded in pdf from osu.up.edu.ph ). You're not alone.

MANILA: up.edu.ph : The "University of the Philippines is among the world's Top 400" universities, the UP website is proud to say. I say, UP is proud, period. It has reasons to be. But when it comes to knowledge, UP should be ashamed of itself! That's my alma mater, and I'm ashamed of it. Look at the image above; that's my screen capture today, 10 February 2017 at 0407 hours, with up.edu.ph still reporting that Alfredo E Pascual is UP President. As I revised this, I checked at 1217 hours, and Pascual is still UP President. With the information superhighway allowing the speed of light, UP is super late by 19 hours? Unforgivable! UP officials don't care about the news, even those that concern them. It must be that UP does not care about updating public knowledge. The latest news about the latest UP President is really the latest, more than 2 months old. On 15 November 2016, Rappler , Inquirer.net . PhilStar.com, ABS-CBN.com , and InterAksyon repo

MANILA: This is all about greening India, greening the Philippines, greening the world. They did. The Indians broke the Guinness World Record in number of trees (seedlings) planted within 24 hours in one day, not 24 hours distributed over several days. Early morning Sunday, New Year's Day 2017, I saw the EcoWatch post on Facebook with Katie Pohlman reporting on 800,000 Indians attempting to plant 50,000,000 trees to break the Guinness record of 847,275 trees set by Pakistanis in 2013 (12 July 2016, EcoWatch, ecowatch.com ). Samantha Cole of Popular Science reported the exact numbers: more than 800,000 students, government officials and volunteers gathered in India's populous State of Uttar Pradesh and planted 49.3 million trees in 24 hours (14 July 2016, Popular Science, popsci.com ). Actually, breaking the Guinness was only part of the plan. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told the people, "The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce car

MANILA: I just realized that you , not me, did not learn the biggest lesson in the year that was 2016. And I as a Civil Service-certified teacher will teach you now! I'm assuming you are teachable. No, it's not Martial Law, whether it's the past or the present (threat). I have just come to that conclusion mid-day today, New Year's Day 2017. What triggered this essay just now is the Facebook post that linked to the commentary by Mart del Rosario, whom I do not know, and who according to Inquirer.net is a retired advertising-PR consultant ("What's the big deal with martial law?" 01 January 2017, opinion.inquirer.net ). I would put that title like this, "What's the big deal about Martial Law?" but it's no big deal, if you know what I mean. Mart is saying: These days you hear more and more about interesting times ahead. PRody is just about ready to declare martial law, according to his chief legal counsel, who as usual is