blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Senator Antonio Trillanes and his Magdalo group's antics at the Manila Penininsula Hotel deserves condemnation. As does the panicky reaction of the Arroyo government that again reveals its tendency to tryst with fascism. Trillanes and company took over the hotel and had a sit in with a few weapons and demanded the Queen to abdicate from the palace. Of course our Glorious Queen wants to reign till 2010 and she won't do an Estrada and cross the political Styx . Trillanes and company may have been desperate to get their grievances across but to resort to a stunt like this can make one laugh or weep. We laugh because when asked by the media we get vacuous answers. Like General Lim's vacuous "lilitaw and papalit" (the leader will appear) when asked about who will succeed our Queen if she gets dethroned! Where will the vaunted Leader come from? From God in heaven?, Ex Nihilo? Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh must be roiling in laughter in Socialist Revolutionary Heaven! Perh...

For years or decades even wags have made fun of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) acronym. The parodies started really with GMA Channel 7 weatherman Amado Pineda's way of making the forecast in the late 1970s and Amanda Pineda (played by Tessie Tomas) was born in the comedy show Champoy a few years after. Incidentally, Tomas' Amanda Pineda character launched her career into the comedy galaxy. People always have said that PAGASA is really "walang PAGASA" (no hope) since the weather predictions come after the fact. The joke was or is or will be rain is forecast after the rain has fallen. But that was before the age of human induced climate change! But recently PAGASA's predictions have no longer sounded funny. Typhoon Mina (Mitag) was forecast to hit southern Luzon but days earlier international forecasts predicted that the howler will pass over northern Luzon. Apparently the storm did pass over northern Luzo...

Manila, Philippines - Busy areas of the city went underwater because of a steady rain due to a cold front. One of the worst hit are roads leading to the airport. I wonder how people who need to catch a flight managed. In Meteorology 101 we define a cold front as " the transition zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass." Cooler air that wedges below the warm air mass causes that air to rise. This causes precipitation as the front passes. The precipitation is usually not as bad as a monsoon (which is guaranteed to sink Manila) but it seems that even a light steady rain is now able to sink the city under water! This should give our city authorities some pause for thought. In temperate climes the passage of a front is dramatic. The rains come and after a few hours when the front has passed the temperature can drop as much as 10 degrees celsius and bright sunny weather follows. Cold fronts are major rainmakers in these climates. Their effects can be dramatic in...

Fulbright alumni have to be congratulated for hosting the successful "People and the Planet" conference in Washington DC from Nov 1- 4, 2007. The gabfest attracted 300 academics, policymakers and government officials from the sciences, social sciences and to the humanities. All of the participants were Fulbright grantees. Rob Bradley of the World Resources Institute reviewed the science behind climate change science and discussed possible scenarios if mitigation is done or not done. What seems to be clear is that human induced climate change is real. The questions that we have to determine is how severe are the effects and at what time scale this will happen. Answers to such questions are needed for a climate intervention strategy. The USA and China are the number 1 CO2 emitters. Three fourths of all emissions come from industrialized countries with the Philippines now considered as a "moderate emitter".This is some support to Queen Gloriana's assertion that...

The airline magazine is perhaps the sanest thing one can have a hold on in order to endure a 14 hour flight. Inflight movies nowadays are not much better than those on cable TV. And if not for IPods, you will have to endure inflight music selections (you still have to turn the IPod off for takeoffs and landings!). The inflight magazine I read had an interesting article about nostalgia. There was a time in history when people really treated an airplane ride as a social event. And that was as recently as 40 years ago. Perhaps it was a backwash of cruise liner days when taking the slow boat was a social event and one has to be seen. (Those who saw "Titanic" would know what I mean and even when the ship was sinking Mr Guggenheim had to look his best!) People really dressed up for flight. The men were impeccable in their three piece suits and women wore their best jewels and pearls. The whole aircraft cabin was a smoking lounge. The meals were served in china with real silverware!...

Washington DC- I'm in the Imperial Capital for the People and Planet conference. This necessitated a trip through US Customs and Border Protection before one is admitted to the United States. It is understandable that the US would institute increased security measures to counter terrorist threats to its people and government. But it has to do this without scaring away visitors who contribute a huge chunk of tourism revenues. There was a time when Japanese and other tourists from "visa waiver countries" (nations who are economically advanced and allied to the USA) are waved through US immigration without much questions. Now each and every visitor is asked questions. This slows down going through immigration and customs. If the United States were totally freaked out by foreign threats to its security, it could have followed Tokugawa Japan's example and shut off the country from the outside. But that is not possible given the open democratic tradition of the country. Thu...