Features

Something new happened in the Philippines' election system last May and this was the use of automation for the first time to generate quick election results. Despite the new technology, however, the elections hardly changed the country's political configuration. Political dynasties remain in power and not a few people's hopes of promoting reform politics were dashed with the defeat of reform-minded officials particularly in Pampanga and Isabela.

MANILA - Johnny, not his real name, has been working as a cameraman for ABS-CBN's current affairs program for 22 years. On June 18, he was told by security guards that he is among those who have been banned from entering the company premises.

I nearly ran over Gloria Diaz many years ago when I was learning to drive. If it had not been for my driving instructor's nervous bark, I could have run over the former Miss U and I could have died! You see, Gloria Diaz was an icon of my childhood, a figure that dominated the many awakenings of my teenage years. I could not, in fact, recall a time when I did not know who she is, or, for that matter, who Margarita Moran is.

Time and again, even beyond the Spanish era, one intermittently sees the importance of a correct family name.  Tsinoy families, despite their economic gains, dealt with the derisive Intsik tag once and for all by filipinizing their family names or by appropriating Filipino last names, rechristening with the illustrious last name of the ninong sa bunyag or padrino sa kasal, the baptismal godfather or wedding sponsor. Limaco, a landed gentry of Biñan, Laguna, is the filipinized version of Lim Aco.

What were the Spanish thinking? What mindset was in play in the 1849 Claveria List of Surnames, a listing from which a male indio head of the family supposedly chose a Spanish last name for himself and his kin?

On April 27, 1977, urban poor leader Trinidad Herrera-Ripuno was arrested in Katipunan, Quezon City by virtue of an arrest and search and seizure order (ASSO) of then President Ferdinand Marcos. She was made to suffer brutal torture, which was meant to break her determination and spirit.

Mabigat ang atas kay Noynoy bilang presidente. Ipinakete kasi nito ang sarili bilang messiah, at kung gayon, ang bigat ng kanyang pinapasan sa susunod na anim na taon.

siN0H AnG iBoBo2 U~ sa ELeKxoN, N0H? c~ N0N0y~ ba Na~ wLAng TRack~ rEc0RD~ AT~ SOC-deM,~ c~ VILLar~ bA nA SndAmKMk Ang kSO ng qRapx0N, o~ C ErAp~ Na PiNTAwd nA KRiMInl, N0h?

In his twenties, Ronilo, who requested that his name be withheld for fear of reprisal, is one of the approximately 17,600 long-time contractual employees of Dole Philippines in Cotabato, southern Philippines. Dolefil is a subsidiary of the profitable global giant Dole Food company, but Ronilo only gets the minimum wage amounting to P245 ($5.526 at the current exchange rate of $1=P44.33) a day if he makes the company quota.

He should be able to plant more than 33,200 pineapples per working day. He gets lower than the minimum wage if he failed to meet his quota. To meet it, Ronilo and others like him had to work for more than eight hours a day without overtime pay. At the Dolefil's integrated cannery and packaging plant in Polomolok, Cotabato, other long-time contractual employees like Ronilo work to cut, clean and package so much fresh fruits during their eight-hour working day, for the same minimum wage.

In December 2005, British newspaper The Guardian ran an article on Mabey & Johnson Ltd., a British firm "accused of making excessive profits in an aid project, by building what their critics call bridges to nowhere". The Guardian cited Haresco, of the President's Bridges Program, as the Philippine contact of the British firm.