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Showing posts from February, 2017

People Power: How We Will Again Inspire The World

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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

Why Can't I Have An Ultra-Fast Internet!?

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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

An Open Letter To The New UP President

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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.

What UP Lacks In Knowledge It Doesn't Know!

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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