June 26, 2008 should be marked as a historic date for world peace and North Korea’s move to destroy the cooling tower of it’s main nuclear reactor in Yongbon should be truly momentous and eventful and the world should have a good cause for celebration, a very good one in fact.

It should be remembered that just about a couple of years ago, North Korea had exhibited enormous malice by testing a massive underground nuclear explosion, parading to the world how capable it is in igniting widespread nuclear strike. North Korea’s penchant to sow fear among it’s nearest neighbor was so rampant and notorious in the past years, its act of rocketing devious Tae Po Dong intercontinental missiles over Japan and towards the Pacific every now and then was simply atrocious and malevolent.

But now, North Korea has suddenly made a 360 degree turnaround by declaring so patently its intention to absolutely abandon it’s nuclear ambition on Thursday. Immediately after that, U.S. President George W. Bush had ordered the taking out of North Korea from the list of “rogue” states and allowed the instantaneous withdrawal of economic and trade sanctions against it. All’s well that ends well. And it sounds so much like a good fairytale ending — and I don’t mind this at all. Every development in favor of world peace and against nuclear proliferation is most welcome of all.

I’ve been too busy these days with classes opening very soon now and I’ve been serving our college in the enrolment processing.

But I was always deep into the news most of the time and wasn’t one to miss one eventful episode in American history and world history for that matter. Senator Barack Obama has finally garnered official nomination of the Democratic Party, after a very tedious and drawn-out race against early front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton.

It’s the closest primary race in decades and I have a feeling that it could be more memorable than the succeeding 2008 U.S. Presidential race that has just got started, whether or not Sen. Obama would win it against handsdown Republican candidate Senator John McCain.

The issue that is pressing now is whether Sen. Clinton would agree to become Sen. Obama’s running mate specially that the members of teh Democratic Party in America had become so divided that if the animosity amongst them would remain as heightened as it is right now, then their party should just forget about the White House come November.

By the way, there’s this Senator Obama picture that I had downloaded some months ago and had wanted to use it in one of my earlier postings but hadn’t been able for some reason. But now I am reminded about it and would definitely use it now. This picture shows Senator Obama and his wife, along with their daughter, standing before a crowd, waving and smiling so widely. I just thought then how perfect the picture could be if Sen. Obama would be the one to win the democratic primary as the joyous aura in that picture evokes great feeling of celebration and gloriousness, like it’s one moment in American history that should be captured and be told and retold for years and decades to come, like the hill scene in Iwojima or the Philadelphia declaration of independence.

That joyous moment could now be more glorious as Senator Barck Obama becomes the first African-American to become a presidential nominee, just about fifty years after the African-Americans have gained and were allowed civil rights in America. Truly historic and glorious.

It’s really the saddest sight on television every time the rescue operation in Sichuan, China is being shown on cable news. I would often turn my stare away from the scenes on the screen as children were being pulled from under the rubles that had resulted from the massive quake that had befallen the area a number of days ago.

It’s the most lamentable of all — I thought the news shouldn’t be as visual as that, that there should be a limit somehow, for the senses could only witness a reasonable amount of grief.

After the tragedy in Myanmar, the earthquake in Sichuan Province is yet another enormous misfortune for Asia, as people in this region barely struggle past neverending food crisis and rising fuel prices. I just wished that we should have had done away with these recent catastrophes. But nature has it’s own willings that are beyond our grasps.

And I hope to the fullest that more and more survivors would be rescued from the rubles three days after, despite that as of now, the death toll is feared to have reach 50,000 — such unspeakable tragedy really.

Just months after being perturbed by widespread conflict, where hundreds of monks took to the streets in protests of the military junta there, where some have been fatally shot at, Myanmar is once again thrown into a crisis, this time all the more grave and lamentable.

Cyclone Nargis lashed at the southwestern region of Myanmar, along the famed Irriwaddy delta, and left more than 22,000 people killed. At that rate, this tragedy has become of massive proportion as the number of deaths is expected to rise steadily where 40,000 others remain missing and unaccounted for.

The first time I heard about the cyclone hitting Myanmar, I was not as perturbed at that point considering that in this part of the world, harsh weather conditions mostly come and go throughout the year, especially such as in the Philippine situation. But hours after I heard the initial reports from CNN, I began to hear the word “cyclone” and that got me a little bit more disturbed. I never thought a cyclone exist or could possibly happen in this part of the world, for I’ve never heard windstorms passing through the Asian region called that way. Tropical cyclones are often termed as typhoons around here.

But Nargis was called a cyclone even from the beginning, bringing such havoc.

It is but sad for our neighbor Myanmar. I have been in full disagreement to the military rule there, especially with Nobel laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi still being persecuted there under a prolonged house arrest but the Myanmar people surely doesn’t need to be disturb by yet another ugly situation. It’s just a bad thing for them.

I hope the aids and assistance from the international community would continue to pour in and not be delayed any second more. A minute delay might mean lives being saved or lost. Electricity is all cut-down. Water is not to be found. Shelter is ever more needed. It’s time that the military junta there set aside their all-too-ardent politics and allow every possible assistance to come in.

Earlier, an American response team were disallowed entry into the affected area as the military government continues to be adamant against the U.S. government and wouldn’t allow any possibility of an American military presence there, even for just a small length of time, despite the urgent necessity for assistance.

EU had pledged about 3 Million dollars and that would be just be about sufficient for the immediate concerns. But U.S. personnel are more experienced and far more capable to respond to this kind of situation that their presence is of extreme necessity there. I hope politics should take a backseat for now. Lives of thousands in the Irriwaddy delta are at stake here and that should be the main focus now.

And I hope members of ASEAN, like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand should extend the most help possible, and it is time to apply and put into action the ASEAN spirit of neighborliness and cooperation and help Myanmar get out of this very distressing situation.

As I was reading the news today, I was full of bewilderment at the latest incident in Texas where 400 young girls were freed yesterday by police authorities out of a polygamists compound being operated by a religious sect known as the Fundamental Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Allegedly, the young girls were paired with old men in polygamous union, often by force and coercion or moral coercion, in accordance with the sect’s religious belief and practice.

It is of note that the above-mentioned sect is a breakaway cluster from the main Mormon religion formally known as the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, which had long ago negated on the practice of multiple marriages as a religious practice, where the U.S. Supreme Court had time and again decided against the practice of polygamy in America.

A landmark case on polygamy, one that is still being referred today as a leading case, is the 1879 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitled Reynolds v. United States where it was cited prominently how polygamy was (is) an “odious” conduct and ultimately contrary to “historic American values and culture”, even “from the beginning of time”, declaring farther how “marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law”

Yet, it is still an open secret in America, especially in locations within Utah and Arizona states, that polygamy have and are still being practiced and once in a while, such societal American phenomenon comes out in the open, like the Waco Incident of 1993 and now with this very recent detection of a polygamists compound in San Angelo, Texas.

Of immense interest now is the legal concept of freedom of religion, as to whether or not one’s belief and conviction allows one to practice his or her religion unabated and unhindered by any governmental restriction, as a matter of constitutional right?

Our constitution guarantees freedom of religion where the Bill of Rights, under Article III, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, states that:

“No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exervise and enjoyment of religious profession and whoship, without discrimniation or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be requires for the exercise of civil or political rights.”

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In the end, “freedom of religion” in our territory and in America, where our jurisdiction had mostly structured the form and content of our laws, as well as government system from, remains one constitutional right that is held with enormous weight and sanctity, just like “freedom of expression” that the law and the judiciary often bestows attention to it, resolving questions involving such question of religion and practice in the most prolific manner and in often public spectacle, for the community to relish and appreciate. (Read this very interesting case on marriage and religion - Estrada vs. Escritor.)

Yet, the point of final determination as to the question of ‘freedom of religion’ remains in the one singular rule that proclaims unambiguously how the right to belief is not tantamount to the right to practice, where in the 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case Cantwell v. Connecticut (310 U.S. 296), applying the Belief-Conduct Distinction, it was deemed that:

“The Free Exercise Clause ‘’embraces two concepts– freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.'’ “

Similarly in our local jurisdiction, it is dogmatic that an individual has absolute freedom to believe in any form of religious belief, ‘he may even believe in the devil and worship Satan’, but once he or she puts this believe into action or outward conduct, then the State begins to interfere in the form of regulation and prohibition where in the present issue, as to whether or not freedom of religion allows one to establish highly anomalous and very scandalous polygamy compound such as the one in San Angelo, Texas where girls as young as 12 years old are compelled to enter marriages with much older men, and where there are persistent rumors of rape and physical harm.

Of course, American laws squirm at and reject polygamous union that despite that the leaders and members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe in such, the law does not allow them and they have in fact violated pertinent laws, criminal laws for that matter, and their ‘freedom of religion’ would in no way come in towards their protection or the justification of their conduct.

The rice shortage that the country is experiencing at present makes us the world’s largest importer of rice — at over 2 million metric tons each year. Now at least, we can say that we are keenest in the world at certain something aside from being the most corrupt.

After signing a deal with Vietnam, the government is still negotiating with Thailand for an additional horde in the coming days, proving altogether that indeed, the rice shortage we have right now is too real for comfort.

According to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, the present rice supply that the government has, through the National Food Authority, would last 57 days. I don’t know if that figure is healthy or not, 57 days is just days, what if in the 58th day there’d be no rice, then that’ll mean mayhem and turbulence in our streets of the meanest kind, much worse than in Indonesia or in Egypt where the military there had to stop militarizing and make bread just to put up with low bread supply and high bread demand among the Egyptians.

If on the 58th day, there’d be no enough rice within our reach, then I think the rice shortage would be far more malevolent cause for pulling down the government than the ZTE Controversy and Hello Garci hullabaloo combined, as people would surely packed the streets and demand an ouster, heads would roll for certain.

The government should do something drastically. I couldn’t believe that someone who look so smart or speak so eloquently such as Mr. Arthur Yap heads our Agriculture Department and yet the present rice shortage becomes like a menace that just came out of nowhere, like a miracle, or a flash of lightning and Mr. Yap says, “What was that?” He couldn’t be that naïve I am pretty sure.

Aside from all the patent reasons, like palay lands being converted to malls in tens or hundreds of hectares each year, the youth in the rural areas becoming nurses or call center agents rather than being rice farmers, low selling prices for the rice farmers, even the ever increasing scarcity of rainfall (due to climate change)—the government should look inwardly towards its own turf. The National Food Authority should reinvigorate itself and clean up some of its mess and help straighten out the kinks in the rice supply chain, to not allow cheap smuggled rice to flood the market, or otherwise local rice traders would have less notion to put up stores for the golden grains and close shop instead. And of course, hoarding among our suppliers is a perennial problem.

And perhaps, Mr. Yap should seek some sort of regulations or legislation curtailing or minimizing the conversion of huge palay lands into malls or factories. In other countries, they prohibit excessive construction of golf locations as it consumes water in a very gargantuan manner, harming the environment in the process. I am sure we could do that here concerning our rice farms becoming malls.