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AWOL

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(photo source: http://girleavesdropper.wordpress.com/)
(photo source: http://girleavesdropper.wordpress.com/)

By Miguel Raymundo

PRESIDENT Aquino’s choice to stay in the Zamboanga war zone and away from Malacañang is taking a toll on his Presidency.

With much of Zamboanga’s commercial and business facilities shut down because of continued fighting between government forces and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels, the President is unable to attend to other issues of import that require his immediate attention.

Away from the public eye since Sept. 14 when he left the Palace for Zamboanga City, many are wondering what the President is doing there and who’s running the government’s affairs while he is away.

Is the President still in control? Has he gone AWOL to escape public censure over the P10-billion pork barrel scandal? Is he just sitting around playing his video games—content to sit in the sidelines while the lives and livelihood of the people of Zamboanga lie in the balance?

And where on earth is PNoy exactly? #OpinYon#CoverStory #Pnoy #AWOL

read cont | http://bit.ly/15srVOR

Root Canal is Not Painful

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by: Dr. Joseph D. Lim

(Photo source: http://www.dentalfearcentral.org/faq/root-canal/)

WHAT most Americans fear, more than paying taxes and speaking in public, is getting a root canal treatment.

Two of three Americans surveyed by the American Association of Endodontists (AAE) also ranked root canals as the dental procedure they most fear, more than having a tooth pulled or a cavity filled.

The survey reveals that seven out of 10 (70 percent) Americans fear losing a natural tooth. Ironically, the same number also fear root canal treatment, a dental procedure that can save their teeth.

From March 27 to April 2, the AAE is holding its fifth annual Root Canal Awareness Week to dispel long-standing myths about root canal treatment and increase understanding of the procedure as one that is virtually painless. #OpinYon #LifeStyle

read cont | http://bit.ly/16ke5ch

No to Pork! Yes to Hainanese Chicken!

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by: Ramon M. Borromeo

MY wife and I received a last minute invitation from our dining partners to join them at what is practically a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Happi Hen on Aguirre Avenue in BF Homes Paranaque. I forget the corner street it is on but it is right beside Panaderia Pantoja.

When we got there rather late, thanks to traffic, our hosts and their granddaughter had already ordered ahead. Since we tend to eat a lot more collectively, my wife and I ordered an additional order each of what was already on hand.

On hand was the house specialty, Hainanese Chicken (a whole quarter for P130.00), which is a complete meal in itself. Hainanese Chicken is simply simmered in initially boiling water with salt and ginger for a little less than 30 minutes. Thereafter the chicken is removed and plunged in ice water until it is no longer hot. Around 12 to 15 minutes should be adequate time. The chicken is then removed and hung to drip dry. Later on, the chicken is to be served at room temperature with hot flavoured rice and soup. #OpinYon #Living #food

read cont | http://bit.ly/19CJHuB

Mother Figures: Filipino matriarchs in new local films

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by: Boy Villasanta

IN the recently concluded maiden edition of the Film Development Council of the Philippines’ Sineng Pambansa National Film Festival, alternately dubbed as All Masters Film Festival, participated in by the country’s veteran directors, Filipino matriarchs were once again painted and presented in multi-colored and multi-dimensional types.

These were, more or less, underscored in the three (out of nine official entries) films we’ve watched.

In Gil M. Portes’ “Ang Tag-Araw ni Twinkle,” there were at least two mothers, one, Twinkle’s (Ellen Adarna) biological mom, a New People’s Army amazon who was shot dead by a junior military official during an encounter in the boondocks her baby wrapped in cloth around her chest during the fatal shootout, the other, the adoptive ma (Rina Reyes), the wife of senior officer General Payawal (Cris Villanueva).

In Jose Javier Reyes’ “Anong Kulay ang mga Nakalimutang Pangarap?,” there was one matriarch (each generation played intermittently by Madeleine Nicolas and Kimberly Diaz) and a surrogate one, the nanny Teresa (Rustica Carpio). #OpinYon #ePlus #entertainment

read cont | http://bit.ly/19xY9Fm

Swiss Ambassador to the Philippines Ivo Sieber: IN LOVE WITH THE PHILIPPINES

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ABOUT 10,530 kilometers of land and ocean separate the Philippines from Switzerland. But in an instant, Filipinos can easily answer what comes to mind when they hear “Swiss”—the Swiss knife, chocolate, cheese, watch, and the Swiss Alps.
Many generations of Pinoys have been raised on products made by the Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle and treated for various ailments using Swiss-manufactured medicines.
Fact is, Switzerland has had official relations with the Philippines since 1862, when the Philippines was still a Spanish colony and most of our revolutionary heroes were still toddlers. The Swiss Consulate in the Philippines was the very first consulate in Asia and have maintained consular offices here until today.
Their man in Manila today is Ambassador Ivo Sieber. And, the Philippines is close to Sieber’s heart because he has been married for some 20 years now to Gracita—a beautiful Filipina with whom he has two teenaged girls. #OpinYon #Foreign #Swiss

read cont | http://bit.ly/14F88t2

Mindanao Conflagration

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By Herman Tiu-Laurel

IN AUGUST of 2012 at the height of peace talks between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), the two negotiating parties belittled the possibility that the forces of Nur Misuari and the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) and Amerail Umbra Kato’s BIFF (Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters) could derail the talks.

The convulsions the past week in Mindanao shows the folly of the government and MILF’s presumptuous disregard for the other stakeholders in Mindanao’s future. Then chief GRP negotiator and now Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen said, “As far as Nur forces, it is nothing we are too bothered about.”

On August 12, 2013 MNLF founding Chairman Nur Misuari declared the establishment of the United Federated States of Bangsamoro Republik in in his Sulu stronghold, envisioning a territory consisting of Mindanao, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Palawan, and Sabah. This declaration came amidst the final stages of peace negotiations between the GRP and MILF to set up the Bangsamoro Political Entity that will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that became part of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and created by law through Republic Act No. 6734 known as the ARMM Organic Act.

continuation | http://bit.ly/1a2XwES

People Win vs. Corporatist Greed

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by: Mentong Laurel 

ON September 15, 2013 newspapers front-paged the MWSS (Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System) order for water concessionaires In Metro-Manila to cut their water rates for the next five years. Manila Water for the east zone is to reduce its rate by P 7.24/cubic meter and Maynilad Water in the west zone by P 1.46/cubic meter. The two privatized and corporatized water service utilities said they will dispute the MWSS order and submit it to arbitration proceedings. Manila Water claimed the tariff reduction would compromise its ability to serve its customers fully while Maynilad said it was “unjustified”.

(photo credit: http://waterforthepeople.wordpress.com)
(photo credit: http://waterforthepeople.wordpress.com)

The two water companies applied for rate hikes. But various consumer activist groups, individual and media advocates questioned the propriety of the companies passing off its income taxes to consumers. The debate raged since June with the public weighing heavily against the water companies and its apologists on the fairness and legality of passing off income taxes to consumers. The MWSS and the advocates stood strongly on the ground provided by the Puno Supreme Court in a 2003 decision, supported by COA (Commission on Audit) findings that disallowed Meralco’s passing on income tax to consumers and granting a P 30-B refund to its five million customers. #OpinYon #opinion

read cont | http://bit.ly/1fa7vMn

SINS OF CORY

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BY MIGUEL RAYMUNDO

PRESIDENT Benigno S. Aquino III is surely feeling the heat with some of the country’s top technocrats forming an alliance to make him answerable for the billions of pesos in government funds under his control.

Former national treasurer Leonor Briones says the legislators’ pork barrel is just a “coin purse” while Malacañang, that is PNoy, holds the” power of the purse”.

According to the group of Briones, the President has control of over PhP1 trillion in government funds. The national wrath over the lost PhP10 billion in pork is a small percentage to what Malacañang could be liable of with those trillions.

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The question is can we trust PNoy to use that money for the good of the country?

Many think PNoy cannot be trusted.  Everyday more Filipinos are added to those who do not think PNoy can be trusted in his office. And there is a reason for the growing distrust.

Blasted in Social Media

In the social media, blogs and posts denounce PNoy’s inappropriate interest in protecting the country’s most hated “queen of the pork barrel” Janet Lim-Napoles.

His apparent coddling of Napoles sent signals to the public that something was cooking. This sparked suspicions that PNoy was “too frightened” of Napoles. This also generated some angry questions that got even angrier answers.

And the anger against the un-presidential caring of and protection given to Napoles, “queen” of ten-billion robbery of the countryside development funds entrusted to legislators and bureaucrats, grew louder as stories of the past are brought back to life.

The people are reminded of the sins of the mother of PNoy, the former President Cory Aquino, who has been sold to the Filipino people as saint and martyr.

OpinYon finds it fit to run some of these reminders to the Filipino people. In this issue we pick from the controversialfiles.net.

Scandals of the Cory Era

One of the biggest urban legends of recent times in the Philippines, is the story that the Cory Administration was supposedly the “cleanest” among the Administrations in the last three decades.

Thanks to Nostalgia, and the fact that her Administration was at the dawn of the internet age, much of the negativities of that Administration has been largely forgotten, and people tend to remember only the “good” things about that Administration.

Well, thanks to Noynoy Aquino’s “holier-than-thou” campaign strategy, much of the “unpleasantries” during Cory’s time are being brought back to the surface slowly, but surely. Here are some that we have managed to dig out:

Continue: http://bit.ly/18xAFUA