At last, we have a new Supreme Court Chief Justice: Ma. Lourdes P.A. Sereno

President Ninoy Aquino, in spite of his critics disdain has appointed Ma.Lourdes Punzalan Aranal-Sereno as the next Chief Justice to replace the previous Chief Justice Corona who has the dubious honor of being the first one to be impeached for false declaration in his SALN! We will be watching if Sereno will be a rubber stamp of the president or be an upright independent , moral and ethical chief justice. Congratulations are in order to both Sereno and the president on this hopeful development.!

We welcome CJ Sereno and give her a one week grace period of one week, seven days starting tomorrow, with absolutely NO negative comments in our blog. So help us. August 24.

Here is her info at a glance obtained from the supreme court writeup on her. We would like to fill in the dates for veracity of her record, but we cannot find other sources aside from our references!

• Date of Birth - July 2, 1960
  
• earned a BS Economics degree at the Ateneo de Manila University
  
• 1984: BAchelor of Laws (now called a JD, juris doctor), graduating with valecdictorian honors.
  
• Master of Laws, Michigan Law School.
  
• legal counselor of the WTO Appellate Body Secretariat in Geneva.
  
• chosen as chair of the steering committee of the Preparatory Commission on the Constitutional Reform.
  
• taught at UP College of Las for 19 years.
  
• August 2010, appointed to the Court as associate justice by Pres. Aquino
  
• August 24, 2012: Appointed as the as the 24th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.", replacing then acting chief justice Antonio Carpio.
  

References:

1. http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jsereno.php
   
2. Wikipedia
   

Diplomacy is what Iran needs to continue developing their nuclear capability

we are alarmed by Iran's continuing nuclear development program. The latest (unconfirmed) news is that it has deployed more than a hundred centrifuges to purify uranium to 20%, deeply in a covered Fordow mountain. The output purity is dangerously close for creating atomic nuclear weapons.

The myopic view of Obama and his defense, intelligence advisers, not to confront Iran directly, will redound to the USA with serious consequencies. Iran thrives on sowing false hopes and discord between the Jewish state and its backer nation of the USA.
The window of opportunity to strike fear into the heart of intrasigent non-Arab Iran, an avosed anti-Semitic state may have been closed, and may call for disparate measures from the small state of Israel.

Expect worse developments in the muddled Middle East, where the state of Israel may have to commit to a most dangerous action to preserve itself. Iran may have to be nuclear bombed to bring senses to its leaderss who may or may not be survivors of a holocauset caused by its stupidity.

It is unbelievable that Pres. Obama of the US is playing deaf and dumb on the so called "Peaceful" nuclear program of Iran. Perhaps a Sum of All Fears situation may not be even enough to jolt the USA to action, it has already whittled away any surprise on retaliatory measures against Iran.

We dont believe Iran needs a nuclear program, it is awash in oil. But let it continue its ways and suffer the consequencies too. This call for continued diplomacy will only strengthen Iran's hand and provides a false cover of peaceful piety.


Further reading:

Jerusalem Post: Sources- Iran expands nuclear capacity underground

The country may have lost a good man from government service.

I do not know personally the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jess Robredo but I was shocked at the news yesterday Saturday that his plane he was riding to Naga City from Cebu City crashed in the water just short of the airport of Masbate. He was supposed to take a commercial flight to Manila and make a connecting flight to Naga. The impact of the water landing threw out his aide who survived with a broken arm. Two pilots and Sec. Robredo were reportedly strapped to the doomed plane.

Sec. Robredo epitomizes a breed of young politicians who are really dedicated to serve their constituency. He has served six mayoral terms in Naga City, his first was when he was only 29 years old!

I believe no one can survive a chilly more than 24 hours exposure to water without air, but we still hope that he has survived somehow like the miraculous escape of his aide. Already parts of the Piper Seneca turboprop plane were retrieved (a part of the right wing).

The latest update is that surface search will continue while diving and aerial rescue operations will be resumed on Monday [See the reference below]. Dead or alive, we want his body found and bring finality to this horrible incident on a Saturday afternoon.

Further reading:

• Inquirer.net
  

Senator Sotto is a god who is not subject to copyright laws and is always free to plagiarize!

Sotto immune from plagiarism raps, top aide says!

What kind of leaders run the Philippines? Well senators are above copyright laws, says an aide to Senator Sotto who was caught plagiarizing parts of a blog article.

It is not a crime to plagiarize portions from a blog article in crafting Senator Sotto's Anti reproductive-health bill speech in the Senate, asserts Atty. Hector Villacorta. The aide also feels that Senator Sotto does not have to apologize to blogger Sarah Pope of thehealthyeconomist.com, the author of the article from which Sotto copied portions, for offending the blogger's sensibilities.


Villacorta, in proclaiming his genius about copyrights, claimed that the (Internet) WWW is public domain, and that governments are exempted form copyright rules, while Sotto himself enjoys parliamentary immunity as a legislator.

Villacorta again is showing his extreme genius, about Copyrights and Public Domain:
We quote here from the

http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2011/09/15/copyright-and-public-domain/

reference:

Copyrightable works include but are not limited to literary works such as articles, blog posts, stories, journals, or computer programs, pictures and graphics, as well as audio and video recordings. Copyrights do not need not be applied for as they are vested in the creators of intellectual property. When we create something — we own the copyright, which is our exclusive right as the creator to control who else can use our work and in what manner.

Villacorta claims the blogsite [theehealthyhomeeconomist] is public domain and Senator Sotto is free to plagiarize said portions of the article. Since Sotto is a member of government, it is not a crime for him to palagiarize! Understand??

Was the blogger commercially injured? She was not! No law was violate since there is no crime!

Government and Senator Sotto in particular is exempted from the copyright rule.
Bloggers, beware what you put out on the web. You should not cry if used by the web," the genius Atty. Villacorta claimed.


We are agrieved that we have genius lawyers like Atty. Villacorta. For one, works in the public domain are those for which copyright has expired! From what I read, blog contents are copyrightable, and the copyright extends while the author is alive and 70 years after his/her death! More, the Berne copyright convention says that as a blog article is automatically copyrighted as soon as an author publishes in the web, with the copyright owned or held by the blog author.


Atty. Villacorta should be debarred if he continues to show his genius to the World!
This only shows that our Senators are generally unethical creatures.

We expect the good Senator Sotto to publicly apologize not only to the blogger(s), but also to the Filipino nation for his stupid transgression, and if he is man enough, to think about leaving or resigning his office.

As for Atty. Villacorta, he should know that the Philippine is a signee of the Berne copyright convention, on August 1, 1951!

Filipinos deserve leaders who they voted for, and senators deserve aides who they employ. Straighten up people! Apologize! Is that too little to ask of you?



References

• ABS-CBN NEWS, by RG Cruz, posted at 08/17/2012 5:44 PM | Updated as of 08/17/2012 6:45 PM : Sotto is immune to plagiarism raps, top aide says!
• coolsitebloggingtips.com
  
  
• problogger.net:copyright, blogging, and content theft.
  
  
• List of parties to international copyright agreements
  
  

What the healthyhomeeconomist blogger say about Sen. Sotto copying parts of her article without attribution.

She was not pleased about Senator Sotto lifting part of her article about how the pill can harm you future child's health.

She said, and I quote liberally due to its public importance in the Philippines:

Nice try, Senator. You had me almost convinced you were a nice guy with the tears and all.Many of your citizenry have emailed me assuring me that was a put on, and I am starting to think that they are right.

A thief is a thief, Mr. Senator.Denying it does not get you off the hook,it just makes you a lying thief.

Further reading:

• HealthyHOmeEconomist: On Plagiarism, the Pill and presumptuousness
  
  
• HealthyHomeEconomist: How the pill can harm your future child's health
  

No respect for law enforcers? MMDA enforcer life is no fun.

I need the full story before I make a commentary on the following attack on an MMDA(Metro Manila Development Authority) traffic enforcer.



More info on the guy attacking the enforcer Caviteno Filipino blog



The enforcer name is in the comments section of the youtube blog.

Assaulting an officer may be a major offense in the USA. We can see that the enforcer did NOT carry a gun in the embedded video.

Remarks: I was shocked when the original blogger link led to an insecure site, now corrected. This is just a reminder that current events are mined for commercial and attack purposes.

The Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) speaks out on the RH Bill.

The Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, a network of more than 30,000 evangelical congregations in the Philippines, reiterates its call for the immediate consolidation and passing of the House Bill 4244, more commonly known as the Reproductive Health Bill. We call on our legislators to end the debates and to vote for its approval. We wholeheartedly support Pres. Aquino’s statement that “Perhaps the debates should end and Congress can decide, once and for all, on the responsible parenthood bill,”

We believe that the RH Bill is pro-life. Life begins at fertilization, and the promotion of the use of artificial forms of contraception does not take away life, for life begins at the union of the sperm and the egg cells.

We believe the RH Bill promotes a responsible lifestyle. As we have stated in our previous statements, God had created man in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27). When He commanded Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,” He gave it to a world population of two. Now that the world population has escalated to seven billion, all the more, we are to fulfill the second part of the mandate, which is to subdue the earth. Responsible parenthood should be one of our responses to this call, and this would entail determining the number of children that we would raise in decent standards.

We believe that the purpose of marriage is not procreation alone, but also to enjoy the divinely instituted intimacy between husband and wife.

We believe abortion is a sin and should not in any way be tolerated. We support the RH Bill because it recognizes such reality, and does not promote nor legalize abortion.

We believe that the RH Bill fulfils the responsibilities of the Government in its duties to promote good and restrain evil. The Bill is one of the ways in which the government aids in the development of our countrymen by helping them actualize their duties in the family. People have the right to be educated and it is unconscionable to keep the people in ignorance.

We restate: the RH Bill is pro-life, pro-development and pro-poor.

For the Board of Directors:
Bishop Efraim Tendero,
National Director
Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches

August 5, 2012

The Pope has SPOKEN: Using condoms can be morally justified!

We hope that the legislative houses of Congress and Senate gather together now and vote for the passage, of the Reproductive Health Bill or RH Bill.

We are happy that Father Niebres has spoken his stand on RH bill, and now no less than the Pope has now spoken: Using condoms can be morally justified!.

For more information, pleas visit Telegraph.com: Pope drops Catholic ban on condoms.


This hopefully will help in the slowdown and even stoppage of the spread of AIDS, a curse going through AFRICA, and will help mothers and fathers in the practice of responsible parenthood, by giving each child the best environment and support to grow!


Photo courtesy of The Telegraph.com, published under Fair Use.

Will replace the above image with free version very soon!

This photo is in wikicommons.

RH Bill: A canard exposed : Contraception is Corruption!

Come now Bishop Villegas who said the Contraception is Corruption. Nothing is further than the truth!

Here is a graph from Oscar Picazo, published in his Facebook wall:

The graph shows the contraceptive prevalence rate and corruption perception.
I tend to agree with the interpretation of the graph, although how the acceptance or availability of inexpensive (or even free) contraceptives can lead to less corruption is still a mystery. Perhaps other factors come into play.

The very fact that the Philippines already has a low corruption perception is in itself interesting. It shows the perversion of Catholic upbringing or tradition!

Incredible that the Roman Catholic Church is raising its voice of opposition to the RH Bill, which does not ocndone abortion at all. I mean were they that vociferous in Italy, France and Ireland? These foreign perdominantly Catholic countries even have divorce laws!

One thing we can be alarmed over the opposition of the church to the RH Bill, Their stand can lead to unnecessary polarization and divisions. As the constitution respects the separation of Church and state, the Catholic church may soon find itself the focus of criticisms. For instance, the Church accepted money from the Philippine Charity Sweeptakes to buy SUVs for their superiors.

Graphic published with permission from the copyright ownder Oscar Picazo.

World, Syria: Does Assad understand history?

The spanish philosopher George Santayana once said : Those who refuse to learn history are doomed to repeat it!

Has Syria’s Bashar Al Assad forgotten what happened to Muammar Khadaffy of Libya last October 20, 2011 ? How the Libyan leader was surrounded by his enemies, shot at and his body paraded for all to see? How his body was stored in a freezer for some days (Muslims bury their dead in 24 hours) in some abandoned food store?

Assad, with the backing of Russia and China, two nations which humstrung the United Nations actions and plans to end the violence in Syria, continues to give pain, sorrow and death to his own countrymen! His generals and ambassadors are desserting him and his regime. Even Kofi Amman has given up on diplomacy to end the bloodletting.

But read the news on Aleppo, Hama and Damascus. Assad;s formidable armed forces are using tanks, planes, and mortars on the rebels, whose ranks continue to swell as the days and months wore on. We give Assad, despite his training as a doctor of medicine, high marks for bloodthirsty and heavy handed responses in the cities of Aleppo and in Damascus, where executions are done almost every day!

yrian leader Assad's planes pound vital prize of Aleppo

Dozens reported killed in Damascus as Syria rebels try to halt advance on Aleppo

Assad has closed the door to a decent exit in Syrian history. Instead, if the rebels ever capture Damascus, we are sure to witness again the lessons of history on tyrants and dictators, with Assad, his family, and his tribe, possbily experiencing a gruesome retaliation.

Assad should go now! to the safety of his benefactors and supporters, to Russia or China. and let Syria rebuild without him. Thats is what wrong with dictators. They have a warped sense of their importance in thier country’s history.

We hope this will be over by October, the month when Khdaffy of Libya died, resisting the roaring call for change.


Further reading:

• New York Times background on Syria unrest
  
• Wikipedia Syrian Arab Republic
  
• Wikipedia Bashar Al Assad
  
• 1982 Hama Massacre
  
• Siege of Homs, still ongoing!
  

Chick-fil-A, when sounding out your Christian principles labels you an IMMORAL.

The news are full of criticisms of the president of Chick-fil-A , Dan Cathy, who stated that his company believes in the biblical definition of the family unit. Basically, Mr. Dan Cathy believes that traditional marriage is between a man and a woman, not between a man and man or between a woman and a woman. Yet, the media grabbed another "event" considered news worthy, any "anti-gay" movement should be suppressed. Even the mayor of Boston chimed in that his city will not allow a branch of chick-fil-A to be set up in that location.

What does the Lord say about homosexuality?

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (NIV).

Consider the next verse:

1 Corinthians 6:11 - "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (NIV)

Again, if homosexuality is a sin, it behooves upon those who believed in the Christ as their savior to STOP SINNING. Just a mere profession that they accepted Christ as savior will not do! They should change their behavior.


And let us not forget the passages focusing on Sodm and Gommorah!Cities which were destroyed due to their transgressions!

Unfortunate that the great country of USA is now sliding towards blind immorality, blind in the sense, that they still consider themselves MORAL.

It is now fantastic that we may live to see the day when nations consider good as evil and evil as good. The world is upside down!


References:

chicago leaders roasts Rham Emmanuel over Chick-a-fil stance

to understand better why Chick-fil-A supports Christian values,
click on Wikipedia .