Extend, Extend

The barangay and sangguniang kabataan elections slated on October 2010 should be postponed and Sections 1 and 2 of RA No. 9340 otherwise known as “An Act Amending Republic Act No. 9164, Resetting the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections, and for other purposes” should be so amended.

As scheduled, the next barangay and sangguniang kabataan elections shall be held five months after the 2010 national and local elections. This is a disaster waiting to happen. It cannot be denied that national and local elections foster animosity, enmity and endless bickering between the candidates and their followers. Often, elections in many towns and provinces become violent, bloody and chaotic. The nation cannot afford that it will again descend into turmoil and heated political contest barely five months after it is so submerged to one. Indubitably, the nation needs more than five months to lick its wounds.

Five months after the 2010 elections, the newly convened Congress will still be defining its legislative agenda while the executive will still be filling in the seats of governance. Another election a few months after will again distract the government from its development undertakings and poverty alleviation efforts. This is utterly counter-productive as it will hurl the nation back to mudslinging, political bickering and violent confrontations at a time when it is in the process already of regrouping and mending the damage wrought upon by a divisive political exercise.

Just as significant, the barangay election will entail a sizable amount of expenditure on the part of the government and will likely hog a large chunk of the new government’s budget for development and poverty alleviation.

While we concede that politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently; we do so for the very same reason.Changing them much later will not spell a difference, right, Noynoy Abunda?

3rd District, Surigao del Norte

Surigao del Norte is composed of two Congressional Districts. The 1st District is the cluster of islands comprising Siargao and Bucas Grande islands in the Philippine Sea. The 2nd District is the verdant area nestling at the northernmost tip of Mindanao comprising the City of Surigao and its mosaic of islands, and the mainland stretching to the boundaries it shares with Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Sur.

The First Congressional District is composed of the Municipalities of Burgos, Dapa, Del Carmen, General Luna, Pilar, San Benito, San Isidro, Santa Monica and Socorro.

The Second Congressional District apart from Surigao City is composed of the Municipalities of Alegria, Bacuag, Claver, Gigaquit, Mainit, Malimono, San Francisco, Placer, Sison, Tagana-an and Tubod.


Based on the 2007 population census of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the total population of the Province of Surigao del Norte is distributed in the two Congressional Districts, as follows:

First District Pop. Second District Pop.


TOTAL 100,588 TOTAL 308,880


The entire Second Congressional District covers an aggregate area of 144,853 hectares or roughly 70% of the total land area of Surigao del Norte of 207,430 hectares. The 2nd district’s total population of 308,880 accounts for 75% of the total population of the province. The provincial capital Surigao City, a bustling 2nd class city, has a total population of 132,151, or a third of the 2nd district’s population and even more than the total population of the 1st District. Surigao City has a total land area of 24,534 hectares or almost a tenth of the total land area of the whole province of Surigao del Norte.

Considering that Surigao City—the political capital and the locus of socio-economic activities in the province—is in the northernmost tip of the mainland, the delivery of basic social services to the other municipalities is hampered by how far these are from the provincial capital. The municipalities near the Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Sur boundaries, have also to contend in vain with Surigao City and its neighboring municipalities for vital government resources which almost always end up with the more populated and more economically robust city.

As have been observed, this iniquitous situation resulted in the under-representation in the legislature of at least a majority of the municipalities in the Second District of Surigao del Norte. This is not sanctioned in our system of representative democracy and must be rectified. The right of the people to be heard and to participate in government affairs must be zealously protected. The representatives of a province to the Halls of Congress can only be more effective if the number of legislative districts in a province is proportional to its population.

The 1987 Constitution mandates the same and must be effected, thus:

Article VI, Section 5.
(1) The House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than two hundred and fifty members, unless otherwise fixed by law, who shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned among the provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the number of their respective inhabitants, and on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio, and those who, as provided by law, shall be elected through a party-list system of registered national, regional, and sectoral parties or organizations.
X X X
(3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact, and adjacent territory. Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.
(4) Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment of legislative districts based on the standards provided in this section.

This bill seeks to create a new district, called the Third Congressional District of the Province of Surigao del Norte, out of what forms the Second Congressional District today. The First Congressional District of Surigao del Norte will not be affected.

The proposed congressional district will be composed of Surigao City and the Municipalities of Malimono and San Francisco. Meanwhile, the Municipalities of Sison, Tagana-an, Placer, Tubod, Bacuag, Gigaquit, Claver, Mainit and Alegria will remain with the Second Congressional District. As proposed the municipalities and the population of the province will be so distributed as follows:


1ST District Pop. 2nd District Pop. 3rd District Pop.

TOTAL 100,588 TOTAL 147,397 TOTAL 161,483


Reapportioning the Province of Surigao del Norte from its present two Congressional Districts into three districts will rectify an iniquitous distribution of opportunities and will greatly benefit the Surigaonons whose needs are ever-increasing in these challenging times.

Audiosyncratic: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Greatest Song

The Flaming Lips sees things as they really are. They see clouds as illusory projectiles and visual imprints from a universe that does not exist. They are so cool. They can rework Ba-ba-black-sheep into an opus that Sebastian Bach and April Boys can only wet-dream about. They are so cool. They can see past the veneer of an illusory world of mice and men; the real world is that populated by pink robots and Japanese rioting with radioactive appendages. They are so cool. What follows is the Flaming Lips' Sonata variations Op. 132 in F Minor, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the greatest song in history, ever, thus:

"Her name is Yoshimi
she's a black belt in karate
working for the city
she has to discipline her body

'Cause she knows that
it's demanding
to defeat those evil machines
I know she can beat them

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots eat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots defeat me

Those evil-natured robots
they're programmed to destroy us
she's gotta be strong to fight them
so she's taking lots of vitamins

'Cause she knows that
it'd be tragic
if those evil robots win
I know she can beat them

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots defeat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots eat me

Yoshimi

'Cause she knows that
it'd be tragic
if those evil robots win
I know she can beat them

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots defeat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots defeat me

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots eat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots eat me

Yoshimi"

Simple melody. Hauntingly infectious buttbeats. Demonic synth burbles. Chaotic instrumental breakdowns. The greatest.

Enough said.

Dethroned, Stoned and Married to the Bone

What the F is love anyway, I quipped clutching my belongings in disarray--all of what is left of them. That was before the Biblical flood, when God brandished the whip and said: all of you are equally situated, well at least before the rich and those in the middle ransacked the groceries for their own selfish considerations. There is indeed no Section 1, Article III in the Bible. I was stripped and reduced to bare skeletons. Love does that for you, or at least all of one’s pretensions of love do that for you with the consistency of acid and the euphony of curses and invocations of ill-will. Another claims me for good and for the rest of my depleted humanity. I was reeling romantic anew and in good measure. What the F is love anyway; nobody can tell you so. I can. Knock at my door. I’ll throw you a stare and point to the moon burning in soft glow and a heightened sense of fidelity and endless reverence. I did.

Waved Goodbye

It was a curious transition. An hour before, the big screen in the only resto-bar nearby beamed the mammoth crowd morphing into a sea of yellow and the ubiquitous fingers in L. The Funeral. The big day out, amplified to hysterical heights. The crowds came; some in all sincerity and the others out of sheer curiosity. The media networks characteristically cashed in. We talked of everything except the one unfolding in the big screen, brandy shot after another.

Jumpcut to one hour after. We had settled ourselves with no concealed deadly weapons and sharp objects, the guards in the gates had been unrelenting. The spread was a sea of bobbing heads; the fingers were not in L but in the devil’s horn. We were not in The Funeral. Nine Inch Nails straight from London was about to kick-off the Asian leg of its Wave Goodbye tour. We were a few meters away from the stage. At 45 past 7, the entrance was made sans drama and flair. Trent Reznor stood in the shadows unassuming and catatonic. No obligatory Mabuhay Manila Kumusta Kayo spiel. The silence was soon broken, brutally.

Somewhat Damaged opened the whole set, the way it rocket-launched Nine Inch Nails’ hauntingly brilliant left and right album The Fragile in 1999. The hundred or so backdropping spotlights spewed blinding neon as the song lurched in Armageddon drums and explosive off-timed buzz-saw rhythms. All hell had broken loose. Right off the bat—seconds after the show had commenced—Fink smashed a guitar and tumbled a monstrous speaker against another boulder of a contraption. The bobbing heads started to push, shove and hit each other. It was time to break things into pieces. I started throwing things to my seatmates. If only Mar Roxas can sing with Trent Reznor along these lines: “made the choice to go away/Drink the fountain of decay/Tear a hole exquisite red/Fuck the rest and stab it dead”.. that Roxas guy will be my prez.

With just a hurried thank you as interval, the lights went berserk again and the familiar lines of Terrible Lie filled the cavernous Araneta Coliseum. The song must have been included in the controversial NIN songs allegedly used by the military to torture inmates of Guantanamo, a ruckus which made Trent so angry NIN came out with With Teeth album in 2005. This is a political rally-worthy song. If only the street troubadours in Mendiola and Edsa can scream primeval and bellow to the end “terrible lie/terrible lie/terrible lie/terrible lie/i really don't know what you mean./seems like salvation comes only in our dreams.” The smoke and phosphorescence started to levitate and enveloped the rafters. We were awash with dead stars emission which traveled from 15 years past.

The next pit stop was a barrage, a scattershot retrospective from The Downward Spiral: Heresy, March of the Pigs, Piggy, Closer, Reptile and finally The Becoming. Trent in a recent interview hinted on this excursion: “It is also exciting for us to play songs we haven’t played from a long time and not to play some expected hits that we were sick of playing. So we dug into that particularly dark era of Downward Spiral quite heavily.” Except for the first song in the stretch when NIN was a screaming Nietszche, it was a sing along moment while drenched with lights from the multiverse of a stage. Curses and cusses aside, the members displayed their dexterity with their art as they shuttled from instrument to another, from a song to the next. Curses, cusses and so many wrecked guitars aside, Piggy highlighted the set, or rather put the show to its creepiest; the slow, creeping sound of wayward piano lines engorged by feedbacks, eerie beats and hollow intonations of being “black and blue with broken bones.” The horror movie we dare not to see had just been made aural.

The stage lifted its shroud on the dying beats of The Becoming when Trent gasped “goddamn this noise inside my head.” NIN shifted gears and went to post 911 US of A and there thrashed and hollered about the America that they don’t want to be in. The brilliant lights soon were sucked by dead air and a somber spotlight flickered in the balance. Waves in blue fluttering in midair ushered the familiar piano strains of one of NIN’s most brilliant pieces, La Mer. The drums followed suit and then in one organic assault, layered and distorted melodies joined the fray in one strange translation of the language of the sea. Seconds after the closing strains, the breaking glass kicks of the drums towed Fragile and two other songs separated by terse thank yous. We had by then lost our voices already and had been seeing searing images from the interplay of lights pulsated by the stage in perpetual cosmic chaos.

Just Like You Imagined was next unleashed so like the phalanx of Spartans swooping the narrow ends of Thermopylae. The song is not just a 300 movie moment; it was and still is the most complex song NIN has ever composed. It was layered beyond comparison. Disturbing effects and classical piano kicked the song to a roll. Then the drums thundered, and then the guitars screeched like cars crashing to the sides. The song built itself to a cathedral cadence, and then the synths and the beats recoiled to start again. NIN solemnly articulated the Spartans’ kill-and-maim chants. We raised our hands in surrender. We could already stop and call it history right there.

But NIN, not being a metered parrot boombox as all pop acts are, accelerated to Echoplex, The Day The World Went Away (Terminator Salvation mix), Ghostrider (The Crow in a rare flashback), Hand That Feeds and to the boisterous Head Like A Hole. The lights went out. The somber and brooding spotlight remained and lighted the piano. We knew that was coming. With the guitar quietly leading the charge, Trent Reznor sang hauntingly. In lieu of candles, lighters, phones and gadgets were lighted and raised until the song crashed with feedbacks as its conclusion. Trent spoke: “Finally, we’ve done it in Manila!” or words to that effect. The lights went out and the stage quiet. We went quiet as well and then milled to the exit with the ghost faces in NIN’s The Slip album.

The funeral was still the lone scoop in the daily news. The big screen though appeared blurred. Either we’d burned our eyes already or the brandy’s making tricks. The waitress signalled for our last order. One last shot. Had Trent cared for our heroes, he should have included I’m Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally from The Fragile. But that would be utterly disrespectful. It was a long procession. At 20 past 11 and with the rains at bay, we called it a day.

I Am Not Cerge Remonde But I May Just As Well Sound One

The last SONA of the President was a more fair and objective assessment of the true state of the nation than the ever cynical version of the self-styled political opposition. As all SONA should go, that much has to be said if only to emphasize in real terms the solid economic gains of the past years and to chart what needs to be done and how. It should sound boastful-- perchance to those who ponder the state of the state from the comfort of cafes and hotel lobbies and who really have to heckle and to criticize eternally just to become relevant.

Contrary to the insinuations of the political opposition who are all now in campaign mood, the facts and figures outlined by the President were not just plucked from thin air; they are all hard statistics as reported by local and international observers. The recent upgrade of our country’s credit rating by Moody’s was not a fiction; it was even reported outside our shores. There could not be more fiction than the heir of an empire fitting himself in a padyak and finding comfort with the dirt poor—damn Wharton, damn Wall Street, damn media primadonna wife-to-be. Suddenly, soaked by habagat, he’s more bayan muna than the Saturs and Risas in the street. Fiction. Fiction.

As the national leader, the President has the duty to report our still healthy economy: the balance of payment surplus, the lower public debt to GDP ratio, the historical-high dollar reserves, the million a year additional jobs, the record-high GNP per capita among other positive variables. The figures explain why we stood high among the Asia-Pacific countries amidst the global financial crisis. The figures give us context what we did right and what we should do more to make our robust economy trickle down to the poor, the marginalized and those in the far-flung areas.

The President has also made clear and categorical that her term ends next year. There could not be more direct than that and the political opposition has no right to choose the words that they want it spelled. Until then, there is much to do and the President forged anew her commitment to work even further. As indeed, while the political opposition is already moist-eyed on the 2010 elections and is now busying itself to nitpick and smear the economic gains, the President will be working for nation-building, 24/7 as she always do. If you think I am making a joke here, think again, I am not. If you think I am deluded, well, not as much as those who believe that the presidentiables are whiff of fresh air. You hope, you die.

Basketbrawl Diaries, Torn Page No. 1

We were up, 26-24, up to 30, 1-2 scoring rule. I've got a swelling pain already in my elbow, a discoloration marked the spot, toxic blood pushing the fresh flow back. A 1.5 litre of coke was on the line, it was throw an elbow or be crushed in the gutter. The slit-eyed drove to my right, the ball tightly clasped over his left hand. The right elbow was cocked like a spear. I met the challenge: I sprung like a wayward rocket. I knew I blocked the shot--the ball was thrown aback--but the elbow impaled me directly to my ribs. The pain was so disconcerting, I felt my ribs cracking and my heart pumping acid. I had no time to compose myself; everything went berserk. The slit-eyed felt he was bullied so he wanted to throw a pakyaw hook to me but my teammates were quick to the draw, at least two of them had already ganged up on the slit-eyed even before he can launch his punch. I was woozy and was holding the arm of papawis, slit-eyed's point guard, who was desperately trying to escape after hitting one of my teammate with a stick. They all scampered; thinking perhaps that we had something to maim and scorch them. I was holding still on my burning ribs. Three days after, the pain still felt like a sword forever stuck into my heart. I counted at least five bruise spots all over my body. Heal now bastards, I've got to play again and fight for that 1.5 litre of coke as if it is the last in this land of pandemics and manual elections.

Scrap Metal Apocalypse

If Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is to be laid to rest in an ornate tomb, its epitaph should read as this: corporate greed and heightened asininity killed the robots. I knew it from the time I was eyeing suspiciously the spaced-out facial expressions of guys in loosened ties and black pants drenched in urine, and the rapturous glee of toddlers who were punching the air as they were ushered out of the cinema.

The guard and the usher roused me in my abject stupor. Sir, you have to leave your brain here. Whaaaat? Sir, please, if you will not leave your brain, we will escort you away from here. Whaaat the F, I have a ticket, see! Sir, if you will not leave your brain here, you will not only be able to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in THX, we will also shoot you!!! You will horribly die sir like Optimus Prime and the All Spark Cube is not here so you will not be resurrected!!!

Two wasted hours and thirty flushed to the toilet minutes later, I was burrowing my head to the poster outside of the cinema. This cannot be: Fallen is the name of the geezer robot worshipped by Megatron so this should be Revenge of Fallen and not THE Fallen.

Bay and Spielberg made mincemeat of the robots of two decades past. They pushed the Autobots and the Decepticons aside and in the end let them engage in a pillow fight. The world of clichés got the better deal than the supposedly rampaging warrior-robots. You have a lead who beats Wolverine in recuperative powers, a love interest in poor man’s Angelina Jolie who does nothing but run and distract the rest, a sidekick who is whiny, clueless and dumb, a man-who-knows who is a weirdo, a soundtrack with Green Day on it, a loan from Terminator, a loan from The Da Vinci Code, a loan from Hannah Montana and a loan from all gay films in existence. All the way to the cash register. Get lost Dark Knight, we have a new numero uno in tills supremacy. Shame on you all! Where are the rampaging and blood-thirsty robots? Where is kick-ass?

As I was choking in my own vomit, I watched Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror in DVD hours after Transformers sent me to vomit-land. The heroine is Marilyn Manson’s ex so she is hot but in this, she is one-legged, the other leg is gone and in place is a grenade launcher. She shoots the zombie in smithereens with that M203-foot and even explodes the ground with it so she can be propelled to the air before unleashing a deadly Matrix-y pirouette of raining bullets and ass-kicks. Rodriguez and Tarantino explode everything to ridiculous heights with limbs and guzzling blood to boot, and as always, we laugh and laugh some more.

In Planet Terror, the gross factor of every scene makes us laugh and feel good about ourselves. In Revenge of the Fallen, the sheen and gloss of the robotic carapace, the mighty display of modern arsenal and the invincibility of Sam (he was thrown by the Decepticons so many times and from all conceivable lengths so he must be Jesus) make us sick and want us to strangle ourselves for wasting 2 and 30 digesting an asinine script and a world of ludicrous possibilites.

Give me back my robots, Bay and Spielberg, and my brain, too. Now.

Robinson Helicopter v. Dana Corporation, A Dissent

DISSENTING OPINION BY QUINONEZ, J.


The economic loss rule is a double-edged sword; a sharpened blade which cuts both ways. It could just as well be referred to as the wall that segregates contract law from that of torts. From where it cuts deeply, the wall should be so impregnable. The history of this postulate traces back to the times when commerce trashed and turned for greater autonomy and the increasing complexity of commercial transactions put premium on privity and appreciable risk allocation platform.

The majority did not waver and proceeded to ignore the rule of separation. It went back to station zero and picked up the doctrine of bad faith denial of breach of contract when the same has already been consigned to the dustbin of two centuries past.

The majority should have deftly put the boundaries in place and should have gone back to the nuances of punitive and contract damages. Trade and commerce have become so complex and so complete in themselves that the law on strict liability can no longer be interfaced with. The tact of the majority in forcing the finding of punitive damages after contract damages have been awarded to the plaintiff-respondent, Robinson Helicopter, grossly disregards the modern inclination to insulate commercial parties from the chilling effect of tort exposure. The trend is not without reasonable and fair anchorage as it in fact recognizes the autonomy of the parties-in-negotiation and the value appended to predictable potential costs and risk assessment mechanisms in contract formation.

The motive of the defendant when the breach the contract has been put to the fore and it should have offered the majority a clear and eagle-eye view on how to properly treat the matter at hand. It may well be to restate that courts no longer look at coloring breaches favorably. The definitive ruling in many leading cases enunciates that there should be no scrutiny as to the breaching party’s motives and that a party that breaches a commercial contract must pay always and only contract damages. This has been the traditional approach and it has been the prevalent and persisting case law. Dana Corporation is liable for the breach, for delivering substandard products, but the breach may never be a bad faith breach as would subject the corporation for tort liability.

The economic loss rule is predicated on the space between contract and tort theories in a commercial context and the well-defined roles that they play—contract law enforced expectancy interests created by agreement between the parties in privity; tort law compensated people for physical harm to ones person or property caused by tortuous conduct, without regard to contract.

By negotiating contract terms, commercial parties could predictably allocate risk and limit potential liability to an agreed amount. Contract law limited recovery to expectation damages, which the parties reasonably expected to flow from the breach. On the other hand, tort law allowed all damages proximately resulting from tortious conduct, without any privity requirement or other limitations imposed under contract theory.

The economic loss rule developed in the products liability context. In Seely v. White Motor Co., the California Supreme Court held that the rule barred an action against a truck manufacturer. A brake failure damaged the plaintiffs truck, and the plaintiff sued the manufacturer to recover the purchase price and lost profits. The court rejected the plaintiffs strict liability claim, holding that the law of sales -- the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) -- governed economic relationships among suppliers and consumers and that the law of strict liability was not meant to undermine the UCCs warranty provisions.

In another seminal case, East River Steamship Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., the issue was whether the buyer of a ship could recover on both contract and tort claims against the seller when turbines on the ship malfunctioned, damaging the turbines. The U.S. Supreme Court held that no products claim lies in admiralty when the only injury is economic loss.

The Court reasoned that the distinction between tort and contract principles must be maintained, for when a product injures only itself the reasons for imposing a tort duty are weak and those for leaving the party to its contractual remedies are strong. Using an apt metaphor, the Court stated its concern that if products liability claims were viable in such cases, contract law would drown in a sea of tort.

The underlying purpose of the economic loss rule is to preserve the distinction between contract and tort theories in circumstances where both theories could apply. Tort law should not be expanded to undermine basic contract principles. Contract law protects parties in the enforcement of their bargained-for promises, and it awards damages based on the loss of expectation. Tort law protects interests independent of any bargained-for agreement.

In Daanen & Janssen, Inc. v. Cedarapids, Inc., the Wisconsin Supreme Court articulated three policy considerations for the economic loss rule:
• maintain the distinct functions of tort and contract law
• protect commercial parties freedom to contract
• encourage the party who best understands the risk of economic loss the commercial purchaser to assume, allocate, or insure against the risk of loss caused by a defective product.

Such policy considerations and updated trends operate against the ruling of the majority. The breach is on the Dana’s failure to deliver clutches of warranted quality. The plaintiff-respondent’s damages consisted exclusively of the costs associated with identifying and replacing the defective products—all subsumed under the concept of economic loss. Indubitably, Dana should only be held liable for breach of contract and breach of warranty claims. By excluding tort recovery, the majority should have preserved the valuable distinction between tort and contract remedies and foreclose a situation where every routine breach will be taken as both a tort and contract claim.

The majority missed the note when it pursued the tact that Dana’s misrepresentation is an exception to the economic loss rule. The record shows that Dana’s misrepresentation involved matters for which risks and responsibilities were interwoven into the contract. Defendant’s misrepresentations concerned matters related to the performance of the contract and were not extraneous to the contractual dispute. Quite certainly, plaintiff in the case a quo can only recover for contract and not for tort damages.

Slamdunk Beggar

"You are correct, my friend, Butch Francisco is not not-gay!"

One should watch Slumdog Millionaire if only for the child-actors and actresses who were plucked from abject poverty to play vital paying parts in the movie. However, one should not watch Slumdog Millionaire for the apparent reason that these child actors and actresses have gotten raw deals and have meekly returned to abject poverty as soon as the klieg-lights in the 2009 Oscars have been put off. One should not watch this, too, for its bad acting, bad reels, bad cinematography and bad Bollywood dance number. This is the first Best Picture which solely relied on smart editing and smarter state of suspended disbelief. All the rest are prototypical Danny Boyle: the template is to shock the viewers and rattle their nerves. Trainspotting did it gloriously well. Slumdog did it by slapping the viewer at the end to emphasize the point that the movie was indeed over-hyped.

More vomit-inducing events were triggered by its Philippine showing foremost of which is the writing of a critique cum I-love-Richard-Gutierrez perorations of uber closet queen Butch Francisco. He forwarded the thesis that the Filipino directors could have done the film better. Wrong answer, Mr. Closet Queen. If you have your way, the material will be handled by the Reyeses and the Lamangans because you do not like the abrasive Lav Diaz and the indie directors are not masters of the melodramatic. Your vision, Mr/Ms Francisco will be a Slumdog with your GMA male-crushes on it answering stupid questions as “Do you like Butch Francisco’s biceps?” and “Will you marry Butch in London?” then segue-ing into a song and dance number every two minutes. Your Slumdog will be as vomit-inducing as your gossip reportages. Do not ever pose the question again why Jamal in Slumdog did not file an administrative case against the police who tortured him because the proposition is plain stupid and you’re disgracing your gay community by this chain of closet queen logic.

My point is: Slumdog is a gem by its premise and by its smart editing. The tension, the build-up, the staccato flashbacks, the thematic approach and the poverty frames are the Oscar-worthy elements of this opus. It is really the feel-good movie to go to, well, up until when the last question was finally answered. As I’ve intimated, the train station reunion and the song-and-dance number are forced and served no purpose. Jamal just won 10 Million rupees in national TV and he sat there in a dark corner of a train station seedier than the crannies of Quiapo, at midnight. Well, he did it for love. Right. I guess I’ll throw up. Embrace your love, Jamal, then launch in a sing and dance number in all Bollywood glory. Please let me go, I’ll vomit again.

The premise—actually a take from a novel—is a magnificent fantasy staple which anybody can relate to. I found it specially so and more when I each answered the quiz questions in my head and got 3 correct ones. The moral of the story is that in quiz bees and similar competitions you answer the questions banking on your stock knowledge—from those you learned in school and more importantly so from the rough edges of real life. In one’s so called life, the knowledge formed from engagements and encounters in the opposite spectra of human experience (the glorious and the traumatic) sticks encyclopedic in one’s mental backburner. Slumdog, if one can read between the lines, tells us that it is not Magic-Realism at work; trivia and random questions are answered by one’s earnest recollection and re-association of these hit and miss information with one’s life encounters.

If I was the one glued in that seat—before that menacing and heckler host—I would still have nailed realistically all the nine questions as anybody in us could. Some of those questions are localized (that on showbiz, religion and literature) which many of us, including and specially Butch the gossip-monger, could have a chance to hurdle. I answered Benjamin Franklin correctly because in my whole life, a US dollar note in my pocket is always a $100 note. I answered Samuel Colt correctly because it is the most suggestive of a revolver in the choices given. I answered Jack Hobbs rightly using my elementary bluffing sense nurtured by occasional poker games (two choices and the other was suggested in the most dubious manner, which would you settle in?). The 10 Million rupees question was spot on—to my liking, to my taste, to my prejudices.

For ten million rupees, the question is:

In Alexander Dumas' book "The Three Musketeers", two of the musketeers are called Athos and Porthos. What is the name of the third Musketeer?

A.Cardinal Richelieu
B. Planchet
C. D'Artagnan
D. Aramis

Without blinking my eyes: D. ARAMIS! Give me the 10 Million rupees, please. I answered that correctly not because I was a quiz bee champion in high school. Nor would it be due to a voracious appetite for the Classics. The Classics to me being limited to a narrow band of orgasmic literary treats: Dostoyevsky, Kafka, the books on war and violence in the Holy Bible and the Beats. Nor would it be credited to the movie-version which I purposedly did not waste my time on, until now that I’m older. Slumdog sums it for us, man: it is written. Life encounters give it to you, no less, no more.

In 1999, I was in First Year Law and it was customary that a law student should repair his weary shoulders (the heavyweight law books taking their toll) and his worn-out butt (for sitting so long trembling in fear of the daily recitations) in a sauna bath. The repair shop of my study group of four DOMs with teenager hormones was in Antipolo, a smoking windowless block conspicuously named Aramis. While browsing numbers and comparing two-pieced visions of the tender and the unholy (damn Budweiser, damn Red Horse), I blurted to the mommy-san: WTF is Aramis, anyway? Mommy-san, schooled in the ways of the drunk and the horny, softly whispered to my ears: Hijo, he is one of the three musketeers. I have never forgotten that piece of information ever since. Credit it to the Zen-demeanor of Mommy-san, credit it to dear No. 17 for whom I have made Aramis my Saturday pilgrimage in the gasping months of the last millennium.

See, it is written. Now, give me my 10 million rupees, you thrash-talking host, before I stick burning pokers into your eyes!

Ninja

Nine Inch Nails. Jane’s Addiction. We’re In This Together Now. And All That Could Have Been. I have no money, of course, to fly to North America to watch them perform. If I have, damn the pandemic, I’ll go there even on short notice and before the drum loops in Somewhat Damaged tiptoe in disarray, or before the whispered novena in Three Days descend like metallic rain. I will not utter the F-word again.

Nine Inch Nails. Minus Jane’s Addiction. In Asian cities. Sounds a great deal. The horned icons from the barbecue pits have been accommodating of late. Happiness In Slavery. The Perfect Drug. The Day The World Went Away. Closer. A closed deal, sweet. I will not utter the F-word again.

8-12-09: NIN will be in Taipei.

8-12-07: I small-talked with Quentin Tarantino in a coffee shop in Gateway, hours before the maiden Philippine showing of Reservoir Dogs. He sat with me over coffee because all the kibitzers who approached him were either after his autograph or his awkward smile in some pa-picture poses. I happened to be at his side and I blurted: People, watch his movies, that’s the point. He patted me and addressed the milling gawkers: Oh, right, hey, how about if instead of autographs I’ll just shake your hands! People started to go away and some commented: Ang suplado pala, Kill Bill lang naman ang hit, akala mo mga Stallone nagawa niya, hmmpt. We proceeded to exchange notes for about 5 minutes, over bland coffee. That was two years ago. On my 3O plus birthday, I’ll spend all I’ve got; I’ll heed to Taipei and watch NIN. La Mer. Pilgrimage. I’m Looking Forward To See You Finally. I will not utter the F-word again.

I browsed the website to purchase my ticket. I saw it—the thing—staring back at me like Placido Domingo on acid:

08.05.09 manila, philippines araneta coliseum

Nuff said, no words can visualize, not even suggest, the string instruments in World War III and orchestral notes plastered a la Pollock welling from the great below. Araneta Coliseum, 30 fucking minutes from my shack! Mar-Korina, gamitan-wedding, who gives a rat's face. Seven days before my birthday, I’ll be in the stage-side, NIN will be my Pavarotti while Araneta Coliseum savors the sublime death rattle before the dome will be reduced to a linear note in a marriage in aid of election. Fucking awesome!

Echols v. Pelullo, A Dissent

377 F.3d 272
Antwun ECHOLS, an individual
v.
Arthur PELULLO, an individual;
Banner Promotions, Inc., a
Delaware Corporation, Appellants
No. 03-2740.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Argued February 24, 2004.
Filed: July 30, 2004.

QUINONEZ, dissenting.

The majority in painstakingly overreaching to find a living contract when there is none has delivered a knockout to a boxer already sprawled in the canvas, battered and bruised. In insisting validity out of a non-contract, it dealt a killer blow to the cautionary tales conjured in Don King Prods., Inc. v. Douglas, 742 F.Supp. 741 (S.D.N.Y.1990) and perpetrated the ghastly spectacle of boxing promoters preying upon hungry struggling pugilists. Along with the critical blow, the majority made adverse back-pedalling in the progress made by jurisprudence in the realms of contract formation, contract interpretation and remedies for contractual breaches. The majority presided on a no-contest, forced the exchange of blows and roped the emaciated combatant for being, well, gaunt and helpless.

The majority should have taken note with much thought that the pseudo-contract of exclusive promotional agreement between Antwun Echols and Banner Promotions, Inc. is open ended and crucial provisions thereof require further negotiations. In large measure, the relationship between the boxer and the promoter in this respect was at most a preliminary commitment which needs formalization and finalization should the condition annexed arise. Critical terms of the agreement—the minimum price structure after a loss at the core—are left to future negotiations. This alone prevents the actualization of the contract; abates its becoming into a final, formal and completed agreement.

Quite certainly, the agreement by its uncertainty as to price structure fails to pass muster the restrictive requirement in the formation of contracts that consideration is elemental and constitutive of the pact. Further, the agreement is unenforceable because it sought to negotiate future agreements without even specifying its material and essential price terms. The District Court insisted on this finding and this should be sustained. On the other hand and more tellingly, the majority fumbled on its stilted enunciation that price is not an essential element in this regard. Boxing is not a jab at vanity nor could it ever be; it is a bloody sport and its participants enter the ring not so much for vainglory as it is for money. No self-respecting pugilist would shatter the jaw of his counterpart just for the blood splattered in the canvas. It is an income raiser and those who climb the ring are in it for the money. No exclusive promotion agreement can ever be forged without the promise and the prospect of a payoff to the boxer. A boxer would not enter into such a pact if he is not entitled to a sum nor would he continue trading fists without the prospect of a take-home pay.

The majority should also take to heart that a typical exclusive promotional agreement is a contract of adhesion. It is a contract that does not allow for negotiation as the adhering party is left to take or leave the concord completely. There exists a prior supposition that the parties negotiated the terms in unequal grounds and the one who adheres is all the time left to pick up the crumbs. In the extant relationship, the boxer is in no position to negotiate the standard terms of the contracts; the promoter laid down the scrawny buffet table for him to partake of or to get hungrier. Courts of law should enforce standard form contracts. On one hand, they undeniably fulfill an important efficiency role in society. Standard form contracting reduces transaction costs substantially by precluding the need by the parties to negotiate the many details of contract each time a service is bartered. On the other hand, there is the potential for inefficient, and even unjust, terms to be accepted by those signing these contracts. Such terms might be seen as unjust if they allow the seller to avoid all liability or unilaterally modify terms or terminate the contract.

The judicial weighing scale should be tilted in favor of the adhering party for the following reasons:

Lengthy boilerplate terms are often in small print and written in complicated legal language which often seems irrelevant. The prospect of a buyer finding any useful information from reading such terms is correspondingly low. Even if such information is discovered, the consumer is in no position to bargain as the contract is presented on a “take it or leave it” basis. Coupled with the often large amount of time needed to read the terms, the expected payoff from reading the contract is low and few people would be expected to read it.

Often the document being signed is not the full contract; the purchaser is told that the rest of the terms are in another location. This reduces the likelihood of the terms being read and in some situations, such as software end user license agreements, can only be read after they have been notionally accepted by purchasing the good.

The most important terms to purchasers of a good are generally the price and the quality, which are generally understood before the contract of adhesion is signed. Terms relating to events which have very small probabilities of occurring or which refer to particular statutes or legal rules do not seem important to the purchaser. This further lowers the chance of such terms being read and also means they are likely to be ignored even if they are read.

Standard form contracts are signed at a point when the main details of the transaction have either been negotiated or explained. Social pressure to conclude the bargain at that point may come from a number of sources. The salesperson may imply that the purchaser is being unreasonable if they read or question the terms, saying that they are "just something the lawyers want us to do" or that they are wasting their time reading them. If the purchaser is at the front of a queue (for example at an airport car rental desk) there is additional pressure to sign quickly. Finally, if there has been negotiation over price or particular details, then concessions given by the salesperson may be seen as a gift which socially obliges the purchaser to respond by being co-operative and concluding the transaction.

If the good which is being sold using a contract of adhesion is one which is essential or very important for the purchaser to buy (such as a rental property or a needed medical item) then the purchaser might feel they have no choice but to accept the terms. This problem may be mitigated if there are many suppliers of the good who can potentially offer different terms.”


The promotional contract in dispute should be read in such a way that it gives necessary concession to the adhering party. To read it otherwise as what the majority did in favor of the promoter is to give away all things deemed unjust and unfair. It should not clearly be the case for Antwun Echols.

I Am Morris Arka-tsi

Taong 2050. Boy Abunda is on his nth year as President of the Republic. He/She is already an It, having been dead for so many years past. The Boy Abunda in the Palace is a trans-gender robotic construct as metallic and cold as Kris Aquino Version XXX to the X power which still hogs the headlines as the screaming machinated configuration of all things kitsch and over-acting. The robotic Boy Abunda possesses some of the characteristics of its human past foremost of which is its thirst for intrigues and some liquid bodily materials. It is, however, well-known for its humanistic regard for all robots with soft spots at the carburetors and those with rainbow auras when submerged to highly-toxic acids. It is this affinity with the erstwhile gay population which catapulted Boy to the Presidency. Not that robots are gay but robots are bad, so bad that a gay robot is deemed a whiff of sulfuric air in a world suffused with carbon monoxide and mercuric refuse. Boy’s election to the highest post in the Republic immediately brought promising results: all the Uncle Boys in every family were exterminated (there could only be one Boy) and society page correspondent Morris Arka-tsi Version 969 was appointed Spokesman for the Robotic 100 Years Hence, the highest possible position a society parties habitué could ever aspire for.

Taong 2010. I caught a robotic rat in the dingy alley in Tinio Street (Kanto in Filipino, go figure). To my surprise and without speaking a la Mickey Mouse (it communicated completely by tele-kinetic projection, whatever that means), it explained to me in all great details what 40 years after will look like. That after Terminator-Salvation II (the sequel to 2009 Terminator-Salvation supposedly the last installment of the Terminator series until blockoffice had spoken that the series is better without Governor drawl in it) was shown, the robots of the future became angry that Arnold was again excluded. That five years after, zombies over-populated the Earth (religions banned family control in zombie communities) and then the robots came to wipe out the zombies and the humans inside their festering entrails. That the robots in keeping Earth alive assumed the identities of popular humans to put a semblance of normalcy and to keep the Martians from suspecting that the robots are now Earth’s inhabitants. That Robot Priest Panlilio became the Republic’s President, then, Robot Comedian-Philantropist and Dracula of the Poor Willie Revilla, then, Robot Lesbian Aiza Guerra, and, then, finally and for the last, Robot Boy Abunda ascended to the throne. That the bad robots and the Uncle Boys were recast into pornographic characters in junk steel. That Morris Arka-tsi Version 969 won the Robotic Nobel Prize for Literature of 2055 for his compilation of society page dispatches entitled “Transmissions From Society In A-Major.” I was scandalized by Roborat’s implausible narrations, well, that is, only on the Morris Arka-tsi Version 969 side-story(the rest of the stories are very much believable, right?). So Roborat brandished a page ripped directly from the award-winning compilation. My jaw dropped to my feet. It is so f*(=#@*n true! And I said ucki! :

VOL. 535 TRANSMISSIONS FROM SOCIETY IN A-MAJOR PAGE
90,312:

Power Lunches Galore! Moi was the Panauhing Pandangal,
meaning the most fab and the most glam, in the ribbon-cutting gala affair of the
super-fab Bhong-Bhong Kambingan in tres chic IBP Road Payatas Junction. Got the
faaab time in my life as I got to rub elbows times two with the illustrious
Bhong-Bhong Raval who himself invited moi to the splendid bash. It was “how are
you doing” times two with Bhong-Bhong’s lovely and stylish wife Bheng-Bheng who
was sooo fab and glam in her Famela Clothes Ukay Ukay duster ensemble.

Ohhh, la dolce vita, hijos y hijas! The papaitan kambing and
kilawing aso were perfect to our chi-chi palate. Yummy and sophisticated! The
pickled liver and pancreas of Whitey and Meee-meee were sooo divine as per the
fashionista-hija Nheneng, A-1 stylist of Beb’s Sar-Sari Store and Beauty Parlor.
The main course of isaw-baboy and barbecued double-dead pork were perfect,
really perfect to the bahaw, NFA rice and spaghetti with sugar. Lholong Taga,
now chief chef of Jhudy Ann Eatery and Ihaw-Ihaw, can only sigh in
approval.

Mi amiga, dahling Bheng-Bheng, knows how to really throw
a party for the stylish and the mobile. The Magic Sing was already in full blast
when my padyak came. The pedicabs and the padyak driver-entrepreneurs were
already belting classics, from Journey to Bon Jovi to Air Supply over gin-bulag
and emperador con tubig cocktails. To luxe it all, Moi had a grand time with
Jhomar and Jhun-Jhun, CEOs of J&J Funeral Parlor W/ Pasa-Load, whom I
rubbed elbows in the fresh and green restrooms at the back of Bhong-Bhong
Kambingan—the oooh so nature talahiban and compost pit. We chatted tooo looong
and we talked on annnyyything fab and glam. We closed and consummated a deal
right at the back of the sagingan, P100 each for a full-blown
job!

Power Lunch it was. Gracias, Bhong-Bhong Kambingan!

The future is as ghastly as we conjured it to be.

A Crash Course On Corporate Governance

Greetings, my imaginary students! Be still, shut up and freeze to boredom! I'm going to teach you today some stone-cut imperatives on effective corporate governance. I did not just pluck these laws from the space between my ears (zero-gravity); these have been distilled through time and through the teachings of Li Po, Sakuraba (do not mistake him for an immortal Samurai, he is the MMA fighter who defeated Royce Gracie), the Pope Alexander and Jar Jar Binks, the most annoying, hence, unforgettable Star Wars character. If you are already listening intently, please allow me to pull the rug away from your feet anew! I am not only kidding, I'm making fun already of your naivete. These intellectual imperatives have been imparted to yours truly by the miracle of...wait, not by inter-generational tele-kinetic transmission, gullible fool! I got this from yahoomail, forwarded by...I no longer remember. Making use of my creativity and to up the ante on plagiarism, I borrowed another concept from 48 Laws of Power (the book that everybody claims to be his bedside reading to show that he is a predator in controlling other people when the claim only shows that he is, in fact, controlled by his pretensions), thus:

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE LAW 1

Transgression of the Law:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour. Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.' After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?' 'It was Bob the next door neighbour,' she replies. 'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'

The Law:

If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE LAW 2

Transgression of the Law:

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

The Law:

(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.

(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

I'm getting bored now, class dismissed!

Planespotting

On May 24, 2007, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced in full glory a $2 billion settlement to end an almost six-year dispute over the value of the insurance policies covering the now gone World Trade Center. The good governor had all the reasons to be euphoric not because he was not yet caught teleconferencing with $1,000 per-hour-prostitutes but because a rather tumultuous and ugly side-story in the post 911 New York was effectively consigned to its conclusion. The agreement brought to about $4.55 billion the total insurance proceeds developer and 99-year lease-holder Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will receive. The good governor in all his pre-Kristen-for-$4,000 magnificence even compared the insurance standoff to a Stanley Cup playoff hockey series in which the two sides play a ``very hard match'' and ``at the end of the series they always shake hands and move on.'' Or, did they?

To most, this simply means that the actual construction of the Freedom Tower in Ground Zero will now be finally commenced. To the real stakeholders, however, this untangled a Gordian knot which baffled so many from the very start. After almost seven years, those not privy to the mess are still repulsed by the fact that the stakeholders have the temerity to ask difficult questions and demand awkward if not revolting answers over the powdered remains of those who perished in the terrorist attacks. Everybody thought, at first, that the proposition is uncomplicated. Timing, as it had been later impressed, complicated it to a notch. Developer Larry Silverstein prevailed over the biggies as the 99-year lease-holder of the Twin Towers only in July 2001. Thus, the respective liabilities of each in a pool of 24 insurance companies tapped by the developer will have to be reckoned from binding preliminary commitments and not yet from formal and final insurance policies.

As it turned out, the extremely odd set of tragic circumstances compounded the problem even worse. The 16-minute interval between the impacts of the two hijacked jetliners could well mean that there are two separate insured occurrences that took place. To the insurance companies in the developer’s pool, this is 911 all over again. The 16-minute interval is, in fact, a $7 billion question—the additional amount of insurance proceeds the developer is entitled to receive under the two-occurrence standpoint. The standoff spawned a chain of events that saw the stakeholders battled—for some, in infamy—for all the loose billions at stake. Multitudes of cases have been filed in the District Court of the Southern District of New York, and later appeals crisscrossed in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2004, the federal juries ruled that Silverstein is entitled to a maximum of $4.68 billion. With the latest settlement, the insurers have already obligated themselves to pay the developer 97.2% of the aforesaid maximum amount.

The developer and the insurers seem content. But, as most would insist, the chapter grossly disrespected the dead of Ground Zero. To others, it exposed as feeble critical common law principles on contract formation as they apply to insurance contracts.

The Day Satori Came Like Jesus Christ

The pavement walked upon was banal
just the same: begrimed by staid rain,
snubbed by words scurrying past.

The lights peeking in isosceles
out of high-rises and occasional
all-steel, all-glass and refracted

carrara

silhouetted flowers and soaked
rocks in moss
and leafy

foliage.

The morning loosened
and was left

behind.

Knowingly Yours

"Dad, the pale aliens-gay monsters-gaunt angels are here!"

The best moment in Nic Cage’s latest opus, Knowing, is in the last two minutes of the film, before the credits rattle the end of the line. Previous to that, he is trying to be the best father of a smart boy (it seems), he awkwardly points his finger, first to his gregarious son then to his heart, bingo—he is not just a good father, he is a cool dad, too.

I rose from my lazy boy and stabbed my seatmate for crying copiously. Then, as I sulked back, the cute boy is hauled by pale-vampiric-humans-who-could-be-angels-aliens-gay monsters-or-drs.manhattan-without-the-penis into a low-batting spaceship resembling stalacs in Planet Krypton. They cry once more and Nic Cage assuages his son: We will always be together, forever. I vomited anew. I closed my eyes, I should suffer no more. Then…it becomes interesting--Nic Cage is driving in slow mo in a panicking and rioting Manhattan, people attacking people, people looting everyone, people embracing each other and crying in fear. The only moving machine in that sea of mad people is Nic’s huge guzzler and no one seems to mind to ride with him or shoot him so they can have it and ride away from the city. We know the answer: he is Nic Cage, for Christ’s sake. Then he meets his in-laws to say sorry and embrace them so tightly. Come on, bring annihilation already! If today is the end of the world, with whom will you be? My in-laws of course! You are smart, my man.

The solar flares arrive and New York explodes in exquisite spasms. And Nic Cage is gone—his brooding, almost-crying look, his bad maudlin lines and all his trying to be a single dad with a brain being a professor in astrophysics in MIT. Don’t get me wrong, I dig Nic a lot, man. Waking Up The Dead anyone. Leaving Las Vegas anyone. And yes, when he was that biker guy who mutates into a riding skeleton man with burning skull. I totally dig him there but only when his head is already a raging carapace.