Friday, April 28, 2006

Subic case: four US Marines charged with rape

Four U.S. Marines refused to answer rape charges against them Friday in the Philippines, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea for them

It seems the Judge for the case threw out the motion of the DOJ for the 3 (Silkwood, Carpentier and Duplantis) to be just an accessory to the crime and (Smith) be the only one charged.

Pozon said he could not allow a downgrade of charges against the three "on the basis of the evidence not yet presented."

Lance Cpl Daniel Smith was actually the supposed date of the rape victim then others joined the two of them in the disco then subsequently inside the van were the alleged rape took place.

The defendants belong to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. They had finished counterterrorism maneuvers with Filipino troops when the alleged rape occurred in a van at the former U.S. Subic Bay naval base near Olongapo city, west of Manila. U.S. officials have refused to disclose their hometowns.

Well, under the Visiting Forces Agreement, US authorities don't have to turn over the American servicemen facing criminal charges. And that's why there's been lots of protest here for the scraping of the VFA.

The court hearing was the first public appearance by Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, Lance Cpl. Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sgt. Chad Carpentier since the alleged Nov. 1 rape of a 22-year-old Philippine woman.

(By the way, the second and the third one looks cute.. hehehe. Yay).

Anyhow, there were actually six that was initially charged (Albert Lara and another one which I forgot the name). But due to lack of evidence, the prosecution dropped the charges against the two servicemen. I think they went back to Okinawa.

Rape is serious and if these men were guilty, they should be meted proper punishement but if they're not...let them go. They were here for some military exercise and then had some relaxation I guess. They probably shouldn't have gone out of the USS(whatever cos I dunno the name) or their quarters.

Many servicemen go to [war]torn places and they've had enough to deal with as it is. Not that I'm defending them over my own race but like I said if they're guilty punish them if not.. set them free (hehe, it's not like they're inside a jail though, but they've been inside the Embassy for the several months now I think).

The thing I don't get it is that, if you're a girl and then knowing that a lot of servicemen go to that bar you're going to wouldn't it be obvious that there's gonna be bad connotation about you(ie: bar girl), then you'd have avoided it. Not that I'm saying the girl is such..but of course even if..it's still not an excuse to commit rape.

Punish the guilty. If not..set free.

Okay enough, I know nobody reads my blogs thats why I bravely share my thoughts and opinions and I keep blabbing. Hehe.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

How blogging is perceive in the Philippines

Blogging in RP still seen as an 'elitist' activity--blogger

BLOGGING is currently perceived as an “elitist” activity limited to people who are educated, have access to technology, and earn higher incomes, said Dr. Ronald Meinardus, blogger and resident representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

“In most countries, blogging is an activity done by higher-income and educated people,”

“In the Philippines, most political bloggers are from the opposition and are critical of the current administration. In short, political blogs in this country are mostly anti-Arroyo,” he added.

I do agree with that. Mostly the blogs (this one included) I read are the ones that has a lot to say about the Arroyo administration. But as far as blogging being an "elitist" activity..maybe somewhat it is. I mean to be able to blog you need a computer and majority of Filipinos doesn't have one and those who has access to a computer and do blog doesn't really blog about political scene or current events. They would rather spend their time playing pc games or going to sites like My Space or Friendster or surf porn. Yay. Things I don't really do online.

So am I an elitist? Hardly!

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Happy Easter

Rejoice for Christ has risen.

Whats with eggs and bunnies during easter? I don't like bunnies. We had one several years ago but after a few days, he died. The poor thing was left inside a cage in the garden in a pouring rain. Somebody forgot to bring it inside the house. Aww.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

How do I love thee (cellphone) let me count the hits!

This Washington Post article cracks me up! Hahahaa.

To paraphrase the Marine Corps Rifleman's creed:

This is my cellphone. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My cellphone is my best friend. It is my life. My cellphone and myself know that what counts is not the calls we make or the cuteness of our ring tone. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit.

Some people are so damn attached to their cellphone even making it their weapon of mass/ self destruction!

Hit: Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) is accused of "stabbing" or "jabbing" a Capitol Hill policeman with her cellphone.

Hit: Supermodel Naomi Campbell allegedly smashed Housekepeer with her cellphone

Hit: Actor Crowe, you recall, was arrested last June for assaulting a New York hotel staffer with a telephone.

Meanwhile, the "cellphone bandit," Candice Martinez, stuck up four Virginia banks last year while talking on a cellphone...

Read whole article :)

Oh boy, am I glad I have a very ancient cellphone that only thing I can do with it is to call and text. Hahaha. Ooop, actually I can freaking hit somebody as well.It's biggie! Yay!

Friday, March 24, 2006

To speak or no to speak...English

When Erap testified at his plunder case yesterday, he wanted the proceedings in tagalog but the laywers argued that it's going to be hard for them and the stenographer as well. They wanted to use the English language (easier for them to do their job). Both parties made a compromise. The lawyers will ask questions in English and Estrada will answer back in Tagalog.

And so the interchange was done in Taglish.. Yikes!

It's funny to think about how we are all Filipinos here and yet the court has to have an interpreter just so it can translate Estrada's answers into English. How silly. Hehehe.

Hell, what happens if you're defending somebody poor who can't even understand the English language? Lawyers will just continue their gibberish slangs and and lexicon blabs without them knowing and understanding what the fuck is going on! Just look what happened during Ultra stampede hearings. The victims (mostly poor ones) were so clueless as to whats going on cos prosecutors and and everybody else was talking in english!

The PC [political correctness] movement exists not in order to improve the well-being of those whose oppression it purports to combat. Rather, its purpose is to wrap its proponents in a kind of verbal comfort-blanket. Beneath its complacent cosiness and nauseating sanctimony, the intrepid shock-troops of 'populist authoritarianism' pretend that suppressing the language of prejudice is the same as eliminating prejudice itself. Smug and self-satisfied, having assuaged whatever guilt they may have felt through their attacks on the 'non-PC', they ignore the real inequalities, ignominies and powerlessness of those whom they pretend to champion. They are instead complacently content at their 'victory' in contorting the language of 'acceptable' discourse in the classroom, in the textbook and in the mass media. ~Erik Kowal, as posted on The Wordwizard Portal

Uhm

Maybe Lawyers should realize that if their clients cannot speak much less understand English, they ought to go down to their level of understanding and talk to them and explain things to them in Tagalog. If you're a Filipino though you should be able to speak and talk argue and defend in your mother tongue and rephrase words in the most effective way.

On the other hand.....

Many agree that when it comes to court cases and hearings, English language is best used for arguments and questions and everything else. They said that terminology and articulation is but hard and will be difficult for them to translate into Tagalog words. Okay maybe they are right about that. Also if you want to be successful in the corporate world and be a professional (Doctors, Lawyers...etc) and travel abroad of course you need to speak good English-correct grammar and the right pronounciation and enunciation. One doesn't need to be so fluent (although it helps a lot).

Communicating effectively is a must. Whether it's in your native tongue or different language.

And just so you know, I speak fluent Tagalog.

Anyhow...

If you can speak three languages you're trilingual. If you can speak two languages you're bilingual. If you can speak only one language you're an American.

Hmm. I have nothing more to say.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Why Cory doesn't like Gloria

I think I know why.. it's probably not a secret but here's my theory, it's because PGMA and Mrs. Marcos are talking. Meaning to say, that Mrs. Marcos thinks that with this present government of Arroyo she can get a deal to bury her late husband, and then at the same time, the government was willing to enter into an out-of-court settlement with Marcos over her tiaras, bracelets and necklaces in an attempt to speed up recovery of the assets.

As you know, if was the Marcoses who jailed Ninoy Aquino (Cory's husband) and thought to be the one who killed him which in turn sparked EDSA revolution.

And now, the government is entering a deal with Imelda Marcos ( about the ill gotten wealth cos PCCG said it has been so long.. already and nothing happening..to that effect) .

You get what I mean? Oh well, I know majority of Filipinos doesn't like PGMA. Heh!

The (Subic rape)case may not be a case after all

Accordng to this Reuters report: Manila may drop rape charges against US marine

Last year, Philippine prosecutors charged the four with raping a 22-year-old Filipino woman in early November but, following an appeal by defense lawyers, the government is reviewing the charges before the marines are formally arraigned.

"What I'm studying now is whether the culpability of all these people is the same," Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez told Reuters.

When asked about media reports that the Philippines will drop all charges against three of the four U.S servicemen, Gonzalez said "I do not think so."

The case is weak I think.

The girl who granted news interview (shown on t.v) several weeks ago said she's educated, she's college graduate( Ateneo de Davao.. If I'm not mistaken) and that she was only in Subic vacationing. But why go to a club frequented by marines? Hoes go there! Where there are U.S servicemen, naturally hoes would be there as well.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Gory Hostel Movie

Hot hot heat. Holy crap! It's practically summer already. Just couple of weeks more and it will be official. I wanna write something long and crappy and something quixotically boring about my life but my diary site is gone which is bummer cos that's where I blab about me, myself and my aesthetic crap. My journal of thoughts. My day by day existence(sp?). I hope they fix that site AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Saw the movie Hostel and that was so fucking gory! Blood gory body parts spilling all over-eye gouching arm breaking knee bending heel cracking finger cutting goriness! I sat throughout the duration of the movie covering my face not because it was scary but because of the blood and yucky cutting body parts thing. Eww.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Bush hit by cricket pitch ball.Yeeeouch!

Uh oh. Something for the late night talk shows monalogues. View photo slide here or watch the video from you tube. You know how they like to make fun one of the President Bush or anybody for that matter. I guess he should stick to baseball. Hehe.

Btw, was gonna post the embed vid but covered a bit of my sidebar.

Friday, March 03, 2006

End Presidential Proclamation 1017!

"I am tired of chasing the bully" she once said. But... isn't it the bully who chases the wimps?!

Enough warrantless arrest! Enough crackdown on media! Enough curtailing freedom of speech and the right to free assembly! Enough being stupidness and hungering for more presidential powers. Enough sucking up to her! End greed! End the so called Martial law like PP1017!

She's been the President since EDSA 2 and will continue to be that way untill 2011! Man, that's like almost 10 years of GMA. It's sickening already. Enough!

Edit* President Arroyo lifted state of national emergency the following day. As far as I'm concerned,....she should lift herself out the Malacanang palace throne!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Saving what I can, missing routinary d-x updates

Yippee. I finally was able to salvage several yearly archives(different months and all that) of my D-x journals through yahoo cache and internet archives. It's not everything but at least I got to save hundred or so from the combined 5 years of journal entries I had with Diary-x. I thought I wouldn't be able to retrieve my life online but..thank goodness for caches. I placed all archives saved in geocities accoount I have since forever.. but I gotta to fix them to make it fucken gruven archive site with custom layout and what not. :)

I'm waiting for d-x to resurrect from it's tomb, In the meantime, I will blahg a bit of my so called life here..until of call the new d-x is ready with it's spanking new life! Okay enough this!

Monday, February 27, 2006

Death of Diary-x: Requiem for my online journal

It;s just a journal.. a an online site to rant about life to and update angst and to mull over things mundane as they can be. But.. with so many words and thoughts gone.. it's kinda hard not to feel something. I use d-x to further improve my writing skills and share my thoughts.

Grieving for the loss of my journal. Five years of my online journal gone. Five years of my life gone. I spent five years sharing my depeest innermost thoughts and secrets to my online journal(especially about the death of my mom) and now I learned that it's dead! the site will be close due to unrecoverable drive failure.

Five years of thoughts and words and memories saved.... and it's all gone. I am sad. I invested my brains and writing skills, my emotional outburst, my happy thoughts, sad painful sorrows of life. Me, myself and I..my life basically since 2002 I shared everything in there. my wit and whining, candor and crappy thoughs about my everyday life. My crushes, my friends, stories of love and hate and melancholy musings. Everything's empty now. I'm gonna miss the long hours of confiding to my journal and updating it everyday. I feel bad that all the hours I spent laboring infront of the pc making layouts are gone (I have 14 layouts there). But mostly I just feel sad that five years of life love and tears and angst that was entrusted to my online journa gone down. All gone.

I'm not mad at Stephen but knwing that it's an online jounrnal, all measures should have been taken care off because hundreds of people uses his site to publish journals. It's easy, it's simple to use (just like blogger) and have good reviews that's why I picked it host my life online so.. why did it came to this? I should've back up my files before but..I didn't.. next time I'll know better.

Bye diary-x. It's not gonna be thesame. I have to start anew. Just glad I have this blog same time I started my online journal.

Crisis gone pffttt!

Argh. Standoff inside Fort Bonifacio left me hanging. I thought there would batallion of marines and throngs of people making a solid stance against government. I was looking for more action. More of the drama. I'm no war freak and I'm very peaceful loving individual. I wanted something significant to happen but in the end went pfffft. Shit! Bitin!

Btw, crisis was solve just before midnight. It was internal problem within the Marines. Military! Tsk tsk! :)

Saturday, February 25, 2006

It is exactly like Martial Law!

I'm pissed! disturb actually. The turn of events here and the proclamation of national state of emergency is putting paranoia in my head.

CIDG raided offices of Daily Tribune! Arrested opposition personalities! It is like a pre martial law. And it's happening again. When she declared national state of emergency, she is trying so hard to hold on to her power and will do anything not to be overthrown via military coup or another people power (which nearly happened during the so called EDSA 3). Arroyo is so scared that she's doing these things and actually is the one inciting fear and causing alarm to every Filipino.

If events like what happened this morning continues-arresting people and rading a newspaper company, warning the reporters and journalist they will be next, scaring different media outlets, then martial law is slowly happening. The ghost of martial law is happening again. This time, people will not tolerate it. The first time it happened ithe Marcos era, everybody was helpless against the dictator. Not this time!

I'm putting my own two cents worth of blogging opinions here. I sometimes fear that I better be careful of what I blog and what I say regarding her. But this is the venue for me to rant about what I think of her and the political situation of our country. Freedom of speech, the right to speak should never be stopped. I know hardly anybody reads these blogs but still with what's happening now gotta be aware of what I input here. I remember looking at my tracker and seeing an IP add coming from office of the president Yay! That was surprising. Oh well, maybe somebody browsing there.

Smack Down!

Curtailing freedom of speech and even thinking of shutting down media outlets is damn fucking outrageous! Arroyo declared state of national emergency and with that comes powers that could put people in jail. The news media, television stations and other entities were warned by NTC(telecommunications body here).

National Telecommunications Commissioner Ronald Solis also warned media Friday not to broadcast calls for the forceful removal of Arroyo, urging television and radio networks to "cooperate" with the government for the duration of the state of national emergency. Solis asked for "balanced reporting" from broadcasters when covering events surrounding the alleged coup attempt foiled by the government on Friday morning.

Fuck. If you shut down media outlets..you are creating an even more fear and panic! People Power is being commemorated by thousands of Filipinos today and it's one of the reason why we have democracy right now!

Freedom to speak out and be heard should never ever be prevented! Does she even understand the word democracy and what it means! Goodness! Let the people know what the fuck is really going on! That there is (was) a revolt against her but it sorta of fizzled out cos some of the men in unform became wimps..I guess). It's gonna be her downfall if she shuts down media!

President Arroyo was lucky today for the coup and the revolt didn'tmaterialize. Pres. Arroyo is hanging by thread..again. Up to when can she hold on to the ropes of power? Only the "plotters" know.

--
Since I wasn't able to blog yesterday and dx still dead site...

Friday morning. Had breakfast outside then went to the booktsore and came back here. Watched most of whats going on via the telly. I kinda grew tired of it. So while people were out marching/protesting/rallying/ commemorating people power anniversary, I went Cubao. No I did not watch WWE silly gross action slam bang. Went to Gateway instead and watched Final Destination at the Cineplex. The movie was entertaningly suspensefully funny( shrugs.. most people inside the theater were laughing...er, "gaysters."). Wanna see it again. Hehe.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

So where were you when it happened?

People Power in EDSA. Do people still care about that historic moment? I hope they do. After reading and seeing(news and documentaries) what it was like during the Martial Law years and the sufferings of people back then-those who were fighting for freedom of everything!, I think taking out the tyrannical ruler through that historical event, should always be remembered. The world was looking in awe as we deposed and and took out Ferdinand Marcos from his high pedestal throne from Malacanang Palace.

Tomorrow will be the 20th year anniversary of the revolution. Do people still care about it. I dunno. I'm blogging about it just because...it's an event. A moment in our nation's history to be proud of and feel good.

The time is ripe for a new People Power revolt but I think most are tired of it. Then again....if it's a way to change and have a better government..why not. Make sure it's bloodless!

Ahh, the Jetson life once more


In the future....

Trash cans will be Touchless!

When you move something about 6 inches from the lid, a magical AI Smart Chip II opens the lid and closes thanks to patented SilenX silent lid closing thing.

Uh huh. Comes in handy for carrying tons of crap. Order it here if you like.





We can now test water right in the comfort of our own hands! Ugh. Am I drinking shitty water full of bacteria? Lemme get my Water Qaulity Tester. Place a single drop of water from any source onto the device then it will display either a happy face or a sad face depending on the quality of water.

Oooh Happy face.. it's safe to drink! *Chug chug*.. Ahhh.



Being lazy or just cost cutting ? Bye bye fastfood crew hello Touch Screen Ordering. This is just a large touch screen where all of the ordering and paying happens. Yeah but what if the customer is blind!? Hello? Anybody here?!

No more work for people who can't find work! Awww!

Links via Gizmodo

Friday, February 17, 2006

Buried in landslide

A village in southern part of Leyte is now buried in mudslides 1,500 feared hurt or dead

I was watching the news earlier and and saw people covered in mud and others digging through and trying to find the missing. Couple of days back floodings in Leyte in was reported in the news even though there weren't any rainstorm and now this tragedy. It's horrible.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Music to my ears

Yey. John Legend won at the grammys for Best Male R and B performance and Best New Artist. I really like his song Ordinary People.

We're just ordinary people
We don't know which way to go
Cuz we're ordinary people
Maybe we should take it slow (Take it slow oh oh ohh)
This time we'll take it slow (Take it slow oh oh ohh)
This time we'll take it slow

Take it slow
Maybe we'll live and learn
Maybe we'll crash and burn
Maybe you'll stay, maybe you'll leave,
maybe you'll return
Maybe you'll never find
Maybe we won't survive
But maybe we'll grow
You never know baby youuuu and I
Oh yeah I'm singing it now!