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For many decades, vast tracts of forest lands are damaged across the Philippines. These are either the handiwork of nature like soil erosions, landslides, tremors or they're simply man-made due to humans' greed for immediate cash if only to survive. By all means, those who are within the proximity of the forests are free to do whatever they thought was best for them to survive or earn fast cash.  Notably, the most common practice that upland dwellers do is the cutting of firewood, slash-and-burn farming to plant crops even if these activities run counter to established forestry regulations that forbid them from doing these activities without permission from the authorities. Without a land of their own, they have to do it anyway. While some armed groups would simply engage themselves in illegal logging activities for profits. Forestry reports said that they even encroach on other's logging concessions to cut trees for sale to interested buyers. When I was working with the Mi...

Had the Chinese government taken the initiative or done enough to immediately contain the novel Coronavirus from spreading waywardly into other areas, this pandemic wouldn't have gone too far to pester other countries like Italy, the United States and the Philippines whose governments had declared a lockdowns thus causing extreme fears among the people, not to mention the derailments of some economies worldwide. But the provincial government, where Wuhan is an integral part of, acted too late to lockdown the place. The local government in Wuhan should have prevented residents from getting out, especially those who were infected by the virus. Sorry to say this, but the Wuhan government officials were lackadaisical in their approach to the health dilemma, thinking that the problem was just an ordinary matter which didn't require much attention. Until the problem got worse resulting to some deaths in the area had they known of Covid-19's serious impacts on the health of innoce...

Are you desperate to have the Covid vaccination? For several days now, I've been trying my best to get an appointment with CVS and even visited www.myturn.ca.gov as advised by a pharmacist at Savon Pharmacy. But my efforts went in vain. I was able to get access to these websites but the problem was that as if the websites were down. I couldn't get through for reasons unknown to me.  But when I did, the CVS.com showed that most of its outlets were fully booked. Desperate to have the Covid-19 vaccination, I decided to visit the Torrance-based Dept. of Public Health, thinking that it's administering Covid vaccination but I was wrong. I sneaked out just to go there yet I was told by two female workers, probably nurses, that they don't administer such vaccination there. I thought about going to the Harbor UCLA Medical Center but placards posted outside showed the hospital only does Covid testing and flu shots, aside from emergency admission of patients. Worse was that I coul...

                                                                                                         Different physical features, level of intelligence, social behavior, desires, tantrums and so forth and so on. These are among the traits that some humans possess today. But judging from the idiosyncrasies of humans, there are indications that some of us may have been "princely offsprings" of the ancient aliens from Planet Nibiru who came down to earth and settled in a place called Mesopotamia (now Iraq) more than 5,000 years ago. According to an ancient Sumerian myth, Planet Nibiru is the home to a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the annunaki, who stood about eight feet tall in height;...

Where can we see a country that continues to ignore the immediate resolution to the widespread effects of the Covid-19 against health of humans? Yet, the Dept. of Health (DoH) in the Philippines has yet to decide as to whether or not it would allow people to buy drugs now available at Mercury? After all, it could only do so much to contain its rapid spread. What's so disgusting is the way health officials control the distribution of drugs that could possibly cure the infections among people. Until now, they keep on holding the immediate use of hydroxycholoquine drugs, used as an anti-malaria drug,  by those who were infected by the virus. Why? Health officials must have forgotten that the spread is now overcrowding hospitals within Metro Manila. Why wait until a new drug could be invented, knowing that many were already dying and dead from this novel virus? Are they playing politics or waiting for huge profits? People are out of jobs and idle. They don't have money to defra...

Exotic Chinese food (Credit: Flickr) Had the Chinese government taken the initiative or done enough to immediately contain the novel Coronavirus from spreading waywardly into other areas, this pandemic wouldn't have gone too far to pester other countries like Italy and the Philippines whose governments had declared a lockdowns thus causing extreme fears among the people, not to mention the derailments of some economies worldwide. But the provincial government, where Wuhan is an integral part of, acted too late to lockdown the place. The local government in Wuhan should have prevented residents from getting out, especially those who were infected by the virus. Sorry to say this, but the Wuhan government officials were lackadaisical in their approach to the health dilemma, thinking that the problem was just an ordinary matter which didn't require much attention. Until the problem got worse resulting to some deaths in the area. I was wondering if they had underestimate...

The Manila lockdown shouldn't only concern about the activities of the Filipinos, especially those working both in government and the private sector. The presence of the thousands of Chinese workers must also be checked. They shouldn't be allowed to roam around Metro Manila and other areas. Perhaps, they should not be allowed to travel in and out of the country for now. Lockdown is lockdown. Boarding houses and buildings where these Chinese workers stay or work must be thoroughly checked as to whether they maintain hygiene and cleanliness. After all, Covid-19 originated from China before it spread across the globe. Even President Trump today declared the state of emergency in the U.S. As a result, panic-buying has caused chaos in many supermarkets now. There is danger that manufacturers may be affected due to lack of raw materials for production so that delivery of primary goods may be hampered. Among the items that are in great demands were alcohol, hand sanitizers, fa...

Online gaming The latest apprehensions made by Philippine immigration agents on at least 277 illegal Chinese nationals working at an online gaming company in the Ortigas, Pasig City was a pr oof that Chinese tourists are taking advantage of President Duterte's soft diplomacy with Beijing. And, regardless on whether the Philippines generated an estimated $200 million in revenues from online gaming, it is not a sure guarantee that the windfall will continue unabated by ignoring established immigration laws in the country. The arrest came after the Chinese Embassy in Makati City tipped the BID about the presence of Chinese  individuals who were wanted by the Chinese police, a newspaper report said. Since it is illegal in China to operate online gaming activities, some Chinese entrepreneurs have made it their bread and butter to dupe young and tech-savvy Chinese citizens to come to Manila in droves on the promise that they could work even without proper work permits. It...

A duck egg's embryo called "balut" MANILA -- As dusk sets in, a limping woman would carefully load up a basket full of egg embryos called “balut” in Tagalog, along with her small stool, on a small wooden cart and slowly descend to the street corner about 200 meters away from where she lived. Wearing her usual black sweater and a bull cap, Aling Inday, a native of Leyte province, would slowly position her cart on the sidewalk, close to the terminal of tricycles and jeepneys, where hungry drivers would usually buy “balut” to energize themselves from a hard day’s drudgery. Not far from her favorite spot is the police substation, where she could always run to file a complaint if anybody bothers her. She eases herself down on a stool to wait for customers; lights her small kerosene lamp to provide a little illumination enough to distinguish the money that changed hands between her and the customers. This activity goes all the way until the egg contents of the baske...

Angel "Bulaw" Gutierrez resting in bed at home. After parking my pen for a while,  the urge to get back to what I was doing since my semi-retirement in 2004 has again rekindled within me upon learning that a close relative is suffering from a serious ailment. I thought that the fire that's burning inside me has been extinguished completely. Admittedly, I was wrong. In fact, I forgot about it already until I got a message from a first cousin whose husband is currently stationed in Shanghai. Amie broke to me the sad news that his father needed a bypass surgery. Doctors at the Philippine Heart Center first diagnosed his father's ailment to be needing an angioplast surgery. However, further examinations revealed that something more complicated needed to be done. According to Amie,  she thought that it was okay to proceed with the heart operation. But the doctor who examined him said that it's no longer possible to push through with the impending surgery beca...

Feisty Philippine President Rody "Digong" Duterte just kept mum Former DDS hitman Edgar Matobato answers questions at the Senate public hearing. on the allegations of a former member of the Davao Death Squad  (DDS) that he ordered the killing of at least 1000 victims while Duterte served as mayor of Davao City. His silence on the accusations of a certain Edgar Matobato, a former DDS hitman who got his wages as part of the ghost employees of the Davao City hall,  can be misconstrued as a kind of recollection if he indeed was involved in such killings?  Unlike in the previous occasions, President Duterte has a habit of cursing and mouthing bad words when confronted in public, a trademark which no longer surprise a lot of his supporters and cabinet officials. "That's his character," one of the cabinet officials said. Or it could be that President Duterte is thinking something else? With Koko Pimentel's denial of providing protective c...

 LOS ANGELES-- On any given Sunday morning, a bunch of people congregate at the copious parking lot of a big retail store chain at the corner of Main and Carson Streets in the city of Carson. But don’t mistake them for early morning shoppers . Instead, they’re a blend of ordinary workers and pensioners, who simply couldn’t think of anything else to do to battle it out with boredom. On such a given day, they made it a habit to wait for a private bus that will take them to casinos in Las Vegas Strip, Pala and Pechanga--two border casino resorts in California, to try their luck on gaming. This is the usual scene here each Sunday morning. While the rest of the flock attend a mass at a nearby Catholic Church to atone for their sins on such a special day, they’re enjoying the luxury of exchanging pleasantries and whatever jokes they could afford to belt out in their own native languages—Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and, of course, English. From a distant, I could...

At least, 12 million of them are scattered across America. And they’re branded as “economic refugees.” Farm workers in California. Photo: npr.org Without proper immigration papers with them, they’re at the mercy of being deported should they commit traffic violations at any point in time. It's either they have crossed the border illegally through the help of human smugglers called "Coyotes", or they simply landed at the ports as tourists with proper documents  stamped by immigration authorities but overstayed their visas, and went underground without any trace at all. Depending on circumstances, most of those border-crossers from South America are reportedly victims of violence in their home countries who are left without any other option at all than to escape. Oblivious of the risks along the way, these people have properly blended themselves with other people. But finding no other recourse to  survive in a foreign shore, they were put in an uncanny ...

China's President Xi Jinping's recent scheduled visit to the United States on Sept. 22-24 last year U.S. President Obama and President Xi. Photo: USChinaStrong.org was  a matter of diplomatic mission, perhaps, to further strengthen the ties that bind between the two countries. But to other political experts, Xi's  visit to the White House was properly choreographed to let the world know that China is a friendly nation that is always ready to shake hands with other leaders even in the midst of a controversy that involves national security. As reported by Bloomberg Businessweek (Sept. 21-27 issue), the Chinese leader's visit had two goals: "to reassure executives that China is still a good place to do business, and to secure for China the respect due a state of equal in stature to the United States." Maybe true, maybe not. That is probably what other pundits are talking about, knowing how China's aggressive stance on the issue of human ri...