Soliloquy

Finally, as anticipated, the noises of righteous indignation coming from assorted personalities posing as moral guardians of the country has driven U.S. Ambassador Thomas to offer an apology of sorts for a statement he made sometime recently that 40% of male tourists coming to the Philippines do so for sex.  He admitted, as also expected, that he did not have the concrete data to support his assertion. It is not clear whether this lack of concrete data refers to the fact that many male visitors include sex in their tour, or only to the percentage of those who do, but we will not read any naughtiness in the Ambassador's apology by pursuing this point.   Anyway, the apology appears satisfactory to our moral guardians who seem to have now calmed down and may not pursue anymore their threat to have Ambassador Thomas declared persona non grata. Hopefully, the whole incident is now over with a lesson left for Ambassador Thomas to be not so reckless in what he says in the future abo

      I was taken aback by the righteous reactions by some lawmakers and "moral crusaders" to a recent statement of the U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas to the effect that 40% of male tourists (Americans included, obviously) come to the country for sex. Apart from the consideration that it was, perhaps, diplomatically or politically incorrect for Amb. Thomas to have to say such a thing, I think the outcry over it was unnecessary and should have been better ignored. But the fact that it seems to have become a national concern with no less than some lawmakers mixing in only suggests to me that this again is some manifestation of a national moral hypocrisy, this time to deny that sex can be commercialized wholesale here in this Christian and catholic country and we have to be on guard and extra sensitive against claims to the contrary. (I am told  none of the male protestors ever had any experience in professional sex , if you can believe that!)       There are also demands for

       It is one of those weekend days when you wake up to a gray morning light.  A little later when I stepped out to the lanai, I confirmed a sky overcast all over in gray save for occasional cottony patches where sunlight was trying to break through.  It does not look that it will rain but it is going to be a dreary day that will not at all encourage any activities for retired folks like me.  On the contrary, it is the kind of a day that engenders some of the aches and pains of ageing and concerns that these aches and pains are already pangs of mortality.  I dislike dreary days except when they are my golfing days because then I usually succeed in ignoring them.          I see golf balls still scattered all over the backyard lawn.  I did not collect them around the coconut tree after I did some pitching practice yesterday.  I am hoping that my two post-prep grandsons will be brought over for awhile today and collecting those balls is something they also like to do.  I like watc

      As far back as I can remember, the Philippines , through succession of governments, has been exerting efforts to invite and attract foreign investments to come to the country and help develop our economy.  But  up to now we have not been successful in attracting any significant share in foreign investments to push appreciable progress in our economic growth.  What we have been getting are superficial and minimal investments in service and product imports, processing and business process outsourcing that do not really go to the core of real economic development as would industrialization and other capital and income intensive ventures do.      There are the obvious reasons that inhibit if not prevent foreign investors from coming here such as: the constitutional limitation on foreign ownership and exploitation of identified industries, laws reserving certain commercial enterprises to Filipinos only and the unpredictable changes in government policies and regulations on foreign 

Shortly, President Aquino will return from his state visit to China. We do not have to wait for that to concede the success of this visit in that it was a timely gesture of friendship and goodwill towards the government and people of China, coming at a time when things tend to heat up between the two countries in view of resurfaced irritants in their relations. The reception and diplomatic "accommodations" extended to our President indicate that the gesture earned a reciprocal measure of goodwill and friendship from the Chinese as well and we should let things go at that. That is the total success package of the PNoy visit for now. If any change for the better in the relations of the two countries will result from this visit, that cannot be seen yet, not for a long time. In the meantime, it may be advised, unsolicited of course, that Malacanang, especially the spinners there, to refrain from trumpeting speculative successes of the China visit just to grab some "pogi&quo

Finally I've been induced to try this new way of socializing, principally because my son volunteered to go through the complications (as far as I am concerned) of creating my Blog. I do think a lot about many things and this might be one way of sharing some of those thoughts. They may not really matter much but if some of them can provoke others to come up with bigger and more profound thoughts, the purpose might have already been served. Hope this will be a beginning, auspicious enough.