Month: November 2006

My friend Tita Valderama, congressional reporter of the Times Journal, was seated behind Mike Arroyo, Mikey Arroyo and their lawyer, Jesus Santos during yesterday’s hearing of the Ethics Committee on the motion by Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano to dismiss the expulsion case filed against him by Mike Arroyo in connection with an alleged account in a German bank.

Tita said Cayetano asked for ten days to explain to his constituents how his fighting the First Family has resulted in the withholding of funds for his projects.

This was what Tita witnessed:

Irked, Mike Arroyo muttered, “Putang …(Bitch)”. He immediately stopped himself and signaled to Mikey to say something.

The closer the time of reckoning (May 2007 elections), the more desperate Gloria Arroyo and her minions become.

Rejected twice by the Supreme Court for their fake People’s Initiative and unable to get majority of the senators to agree to a Constitutional Assembly to change the Constitution, Arroyo now wants to just change the Constitution through “congressional action”. What animal is that “congressional action” is, only Arroyo knows.

Here Malaya’s report:

BY REGINA BENGCO

A CAUCUS in Malacañang chaired by President Arroyo the other night agreed to scrap the May 11 elections and hold instead elections for parliament in November under the proposed shift to the parliamentary system.

Continue readingGloria’s “final push”:scrap May elections, Nov polls for parliament

(The first time I saw the Black Eyed Peas singing “Bebot” on MTV, I asked my nephew if it was a special Manila performance and he said it’s part of the BEP’s album. I must say it’s a fun song. Here’s an article in the Los Angeles Times on “Bebot” describing it as a “surprise phenomenon”.)

Filipinos’ hip-hop anthem
By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
November 22, 2006

Hey, man, all of you listen

to me

Here comes the real Filipino

Came from the barrio – Sapang Bato

Went to L.A. and labored

In order to help my mother

Because life is so hard

But the disposition’s still bright.

—

SO begins the story of Allan Pineda, a member of the hip-hop band the Black Eyed Peas, who two years ago wrote a song about his journey from a poverty-stricken district in the Philippines to Los Angeles’ Atwater Village.

(Following is an article by Pablo Tariman on soprano Camille Lopez Molina who will be performing with tenor Otoniel Gonzaga and Dulce on Dec. 9 at the Philamlife Theatre, 8 p.m.

(For tickets: P3,000 for orchestra seats and P2,000 for loge please call 900-70-23 or 0906-5104-270.)

A couple of weeks from now, soprano Camille Lopez Molina will be Mother Abbess in the Sound of Music mounted by Repertory Philippines and a week later, she will be singing an Andrea Chenier duet with tenor Otoniel Gonzaga at the Philamlife Theater with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra Orchestra under the baton of Rodel Colmenar.

Although Camille is a mother of two (Beatriz Milagros, 2 and Sofia Isabel, 10 months), she just finds it tough sinking through the part of Mother Abbess in the musical. “She is a lot older, wiser, more spiritual and she is the big boss of the convent,” she says. “I’m certainly not young anymore but I’m very far from being wise and spiritual and not fit to be an administrator. Acting is being so I find it really hard to act wise when I feel such an idiot inside sometimes. I’m glad I’m finally finding my way around the role but it’s still a big, big effort.

Lawyer Harry Roque said they have received reliable information that former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante has made arrangements to go to Jakarta, Indonesia next month to meet a Pakistani Rotarian/businessman.

Bolante was the treasurer of Rotary International. He was arrested last July 7 at the Los Angeles airport for attempting to the enter the United States on an expired visa.

“This means, he will go on self-deportation this December,” Roque said.

(The following article is from www.gmanews.tv)

For the third time this year, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was brought to a Quezon City hospital on Saturday where will stay until Sunday for what Malacañang officials and her attending physician called a long-overdue “routine” checkup.

“There is nothing to worry about,” said Dr Julieta Cervantes, Mrs Arroyo’s attending physician at St. Luke’s Medical Center, during a press briefing in the hospital at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday.