Negative Vibes

Like my previous discovery, I was late in the game for this one. Heard Ali Sotto talk about "If Noah Were Pinoy" in AM radio this morning (yes I proudly am a morning-AM-radio-junkie). The metro news is buzzing with some foreign guy/organization's press release ranking the Philippines' as most corrupted government in Asia and Ali mentioned this as a way of illustrating it. Decided to google it and here's what I saw from Amina Rasul's column in The Manila Times.

I laughed almost unstoppably when I first read it. Upon second reading though, I wasn't smiling anymore. What a sad, sad tale. I really hate negative vibes. But what can I do? It's sad, but true.

If Noah were a Pinoy ordered to build an ark

God told Noah: “After one year, torrential rains will come and flood all the islands of the Philippines. Build an ark and bring on board a pair, male and female, of all animals and God-fearing Filipino husbands and wives from all municipalities, provinces and islands.” God then gave Noah, a middle-class Filipino carpenter, the specs for the ark. Noah accepted the awesome responsibility with firm resolve to save the nation.

One year passed. God appeared to Noah to inspect the ark. There was none. “Where is the ark?” God asked. Noah replied, “Please forgive me, Lord. There have been many, so many problems.” Noah then proceeded to relate the many obstacles he encountered.

He went to city hall for a building permit. The mayor would only give him one if his nephew’s construction firm would get the contract. City hall then cited Noah for using specs, which were not provided by a duly accredited firm.

Noah went to his congressman for help but the congressman’s representative said his boss required a 30-percent commission.

The workers he employed put up a union and went on strike.

Left-leaning organizations learned about the project and rallied against the unjust choice of people who could board the ark (only God-fearing folk).

The gay community joined the rally because of discrimination in the selection process.
Several civil society groups protested against the source of funds for the construction. They had reason to believe that the funds would be coming from jueteng lords. (Funds came from The Lord).

Botanists and farmers wrote strongly worded petitions to stop the construction, protesting the noninclusion of plants.

Because of the uproar, the Senate decided to conduct hearings in aid of legislation. Noah tried to use Executive Order 464 to escape appearing before the Senate. However, he was not an executive official and was therefore forced to testify.

When the senators found out that God ordered Noah to construct the ark, they declared it unconstitutional citing the separation of the Church and State.

The NBI and PNP got into the act, declaring that they had received information that Erap would be using the ark to escape.

Isapf and the DOJ also objected. They had reports that destabilizers within the military and the opposition were planning to use the ark in their coup attempts against GMA.

Further, Isapf and the US intelligence reported that the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah were planning to bomb the ark, once constructed.

DENR demanded that an environmental impact assessment be conducted and the source of the lumber be investigated. An official told Noah all these would go away if the two of them came to an “agreement.”

NEDA issued a statement that Noah’s report of a coming flood was irresponsible, accounting for loss of investor confidence thus explaining the drop of GDP growth rate from 5 percent to 1 percent.

Noah went to Malacañang to get the help of GMA. Malaca­ñang’s response: the ark can be constructed only if the slogan “Towards a Strong Republic” and a huge portrait of GMA would be painted on the ark.

Noah refused. The presidential spokesperson then lambasted Noah for his unpatriotic behavior. Worse, Noah was branded a rumormonger, a destabilizer.

With tears in his eyes, Noah told God, “Lord, I could not agree to their demands so a TRO was issued, preventing me from building the ark. I need to tap The Firm to lift the TRO. Otherwise it will take me 10 years to complete the construction.”

God sadly shook his head and said, “The floods do not have to come. The Filipinos will destroy themselves.”

My New Thing

...is to play Librarian. But not in that way ok.

I've been a book freak all my life. I have a bad habit of buying books even if I don't have time to read them yet. (I say in defense of all the expenses that I'm buying books not just for myself but also for my children. But heck who am I kidding.) So I've accumulated some number of books which I really haven't gotten around to cataloguing. I've been planning to do so for the longest time but for some reason the very act itself of typing book names, authors, categories, etc., in rows and rows of boring MS Excel spreadsheets or MS Access databases does not appeal to me enough for me to allot time to do it.

Which is why I love my the new thing. www.librarything.com. Not only does it do the obvious (which is, er... to catalogue your books), it adds fancy stuff as well, e.g. book covers, tags, recommendations, who else has got the books in your library, provide html code for a blog widget, the output for my library you can see in the sidebar, and as below...





Two ways to view your library: as a list, and as a compilation of covers. The catch is that it's free for only 200 books. Beyond that you have to pay US10 for one year or US25 for a lifetime membership.

I don't think my new thing has the same "newness" for everyone else. Due to my blogging hiatus of the previous year I think I am the last person on blogging earth to have discovered it. Woe to me who discovered this widget later than everyone else... a widget about books at that. Oh the shame! The disgrace! Well, at least I've caught on. Letter bait nun thever (thever?).