In 1986, The Philippine EDSA Revolution had achieved its most immediate aims with only one casualty involved and was called bloodless that way. It was referred to by many as a modern-day miracle because of such circumstance. But in Myanmar, 9 people have already been killed by strafing soldiers, including a 50 year old Japanese reporter that took a bullet in the chest, and was caught by a panning camera lying on the grown, his face towards the sky, and probably seeing how death could become in order that others may be free.

Bloody and ruthless. That’s how this purge by the military in Myanmar should be described in the most apt manner. And I felt that it was also so cowardly where the insecurity of the military regime there had become finally patent that it had resorted to such form of beastly conduct. It is becoming more and more clear now how the military junta there is merely a semblance of a legitimate government, a pretender for authority, for it doesn’t even have a code of conduct in resolving this kind of urgency, resorting immediately to ultimate violence (shooting into the crowd indiscriminately), not exerting best effort to moderate the situation by utilizing less deadlier means, like the use of water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

It was nowhere shown that the shooting of protesters by soldiers stationed to guard premises there had resulted from heat of the moment situation, erupting untowardly, like when the situation had reached a certain level of raucousness that force had to be used. The soldiers just shot at the protesting crowd, without any immediate harm to be thwarted. It should have been primordial that before violence would be exerted by the authorities, it should have been determined to be ultimately necessary, in the presence of clear and imminent danger and with the purpose of thwarting of a harm imagined to be greater than the violence exerted. This crudeness in the use of force merely offers evidence that in Myanmar, the rule of law is not such a very clear idea. And this must be why the Jakarta Post had termed the purge there as “Murder In Myanmar”.

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It has become such a full-blown issue. The first time I heard about the NBN-ZTE controversy, I felt like it was just merely yet another jar that the administration people had gotten their hands into—and being caught yet once again. For certain, the ZTE issue becomes now an unfastened Pandora’s box, and everything now is in wide disarray. In fact, this issue finally became the source of an impeachment proceeding to be filed against COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos, just when he is about to retire from public service. Imagine a cyclone approaching land-base and then the destruction it leaves behind when the faintest wind finally stopped.

It is worth noting at this point how the whole shenanigan had started and progressed into the huge mess that it is right now. GMA News offers this very concise timeline of the ZTE deal, from the time it was offered by the government of China towards the time it was brought to the public eye as a full-blown controversy.

Bingskee over there at Warmstone had presented how the deal was so flawed in its conception that it is actually in direct violation of eight important laws, including the BOT Law and the Anti-Graft and Corruption Law. Being such, it is most probably a contract null and void from the beginning.

The main question or questions that the Senate hearings seem to have aimed at is whether or not the contract was in violation of established government policies and laws, especially the procurement guidelines set in such mode of governmental undertaking. Senator Francis Escudero was at his sharpest this afternoon and was in fact so effective in digging up mud, slowly but surely establishing the defects of the whole NBN-ZTE deal, being so haphazard in its preparation and hugely flawed in its execution.

Considering the amount involved (approximately $329.5 Million), the contract signed by DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza with the government of China had not obtained proper documentations such as the DOJ and DBM advises as well as approval from the Government Procurement Policy Board.

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Something so important is brewing over there in Myanmar right at this very moment, even as we speak. Tens of thousands of people have gathered and joined the monks-led protests against the generals ruling within the SLORC (State Law and Order restoration Council), swooping down through the main avenues and streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The mass action is now entering into it’s fourth day and most recent reports on it have seen the generals finally issuing a grave warning, threatening an intense crackdown against the monks, who are mainly well-revered by the people of Myanmar and had generally been immune from the restrictive hand of the military rule over there.

It is not so clear yet what cause or causes the Buddhists monks have mainly voiced-out in this yet another major protest action (a student-led protest against SLORC had been crushed in 1998) but it is generally seen that the military junta over there had been so fraught with human rights abuses, various brutalities that consists of forced labor and violent repression against ethnic minorities, particularly the Karen group where many of them have retreated towards the borders or had even taken refuge into neighboring countries such as Thailand.

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By this time, my 100 pesos would put lesser amount of gasoline into my fuel tank and of course, I’ll be having lesser mileage because of that as local oil companies have once again increased pump prices yesterday. Probably, this is the immediate result of what had happened about a week ago, when world crude prices obtained an all-time high at 81 dollars to a barrel.

And thus, the law on oil prices remains true. When world oil rates increases, local oil companies are so quick on their guns, increasing local prices as immediately as possible. And when world oil prices decreases—somehow happening once in a blue moon—local companies are so slow to react and in readjusting local prices accordingly, posing excuses such as old inventories bought previously at higher prices are still the commodities that they are pumping out of their gasoline stations. It’s worst than Murphy’s Law I tell you.

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The sum of all our fears still remains. When North Korea had finally lessened its adamant stand on pursuing its bellicose nuclear program,—allowing onsite inspection of suspected facilities within its territory—I have thought then that the world could heave a sigh of relief, even for just a moment. But the nuclear menace whipped back with thunderous noise when French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner issued recently a very strong statement concerning Iran’s hesitation to forego of its nuclear ambition. “We have to prepare for the worst” Kouchner had said and “the worst” means military action against Iran. In fact, this has gotten the Russian Foreign Minister so up on his feet and quickly admonished the idea of war against Iran as very dangerous and risky.

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Former United States Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan has his life finally put on paper and he has salient points to affirm there that got the whole world listening, or wanting to listen to. In his newly-released memoir “Age of Turbulence: Adventures In A New World”, Greenspan sharply points out the Bush administrations’ misguided inclination towards overspending and further criticizes the Republicans in Capitol Hill to have had sacrificed principles for pecuniary and political gains and ended up with neither in the end.

When Alan Greenspan speaks, everybody listens. As a federal economists, Greenspan had accumulated enormous reputation for being such a great financial strategists and many sees him as the one single entity that had kept the American economy afloat all those years he was in service, despite the occurrence of major disturbances that had threatened it every now and then, like the Black Monday crash of 1987 and the boom-and-bust onslaught of the so-called dot.com economic expansion.

The most telling of all revelation in this memoir is the pronouncement by the author himself about how the Iraq War was all about or mostly because of oil. And if Alan Greenspan says so, there would always be great probability to it. Except if the economic genius has just gotten too old and weak in the head that now, he is just merely saying nonsense, like most old people do.

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