Soliloquy

      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 ...

       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....

      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...

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...