blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

St Nicholas of Myra (a.k.a. Santa Claus) saves an innocent man from execution On March 30 three Filipinos will be executed in China for drug trafficking offences for which they have been convicted under Chinese law. They were convicted of trafficking more than 50 gms of heroin into China. The Noynoy Aquino government has done the little too late effort of pleading clemency and sent the Vice President Jojo Binay to speak with the Chinese. However he was reminded that under Chinese law, there is no one who can grant executive clemency not even the President of China. The authority to issue death warrants or take them lies only with China's Supreme Court. In most countries, the Head of State has the power to pardon or commute sentences. This power derives from the Divine Right of Kings . While the whole idea of a King being above the law has been largely abandoned, the power to pardon, commute or reprieve penalties is the last remaining vestige of this right in a republic and the P...

I received news of last Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake on Manila Bay since I was supposed to go on a boat and check my research sites. The skipper got a tsunami warning and so the boat ride was cancelled. At the office 30 minutes later, I was able to view in real time the arrival of the first tsunamis. In one video feed, I saw one town completely obliterated by the waves. Then came the videos of the unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster, where the earthquake destroyed the reactors' backup power systems and that exploding nuclear reactor building. The exploding reactor building is now iconic. It permanently nukes the claim that nuclear power is disaster-proof and safe! Japan by destiny gives us reasons to really go No Nukes . The photos of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are iconic and so is the mushroom cloud over Fukushima's nuclear reactor. Japan renounced war and nuclear weapons and perhaps Japan may renounce nuclear energy, the first industria...

Latest to be infected with the Twitter and Facebook vectored democracy "virus" is absolutist Saudi Arabia . This Islamic Kingdom supplies the world with much of the oil, earns over 90% of its revenue from oil sales, and over the years had to "walk the talk" with the USA. Thus the Kingdom had to back the USA in its wars and interventions in the region short of sending the Kingdom's army to these trouble spots. The Kingdom also hosts the largest contingent of Filipino workers who have no rights of permanent residency. The USA hosts the biggest group of overseas Filipinos but many have rights of residency or have been granted American citizenship. The Kingdom's monarchs are also the Guardians of the Islamic Holy Places of Medina and Mecca. The state according to its constitution is governed according to the Quran and Islamic law. It is one of two sovereign states where a religious constitution is absolute, the other one is the Vatican. However like in Christi...

Professor Caesar Saloma, Dean of the College of Science has been very recently selected as chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman campus by the university Board of Regents (BOR). Prof Saloma is credited for seeing the eventual completion of the National Science Complex (NSC). The complex is near completion as the buildings of all the science institutes are in their final stages of construction. This is no mean achievement given the scale of the project and the funding shortfalls of recent years. Professor Saloma was chosen in what is believed to be a close contest between two other chancellor-nominees, all of whom are capable administrators. Prof Saloma is a renowned physicist and is a Galileo Galilei awardee for optics research. A capable administrator who despite years in Diliman, hasn't completely lost his Boholano accent, Saloma will have to deal with issues that have plagued the Diliman academic community for years. These range from staff benefits, faculty...