What if Martial Law Did Not Take Place?

Just thinking of events (positive ones at least) that could have happened to our country had Marcos not declared Martial Law on September 21, 1972 (the actual date was September 23 but since the Great Apo was superstitious and thought that the number 7 and multiples thereof brought him luck, he decided to ante-date the declaration by a couple of days) and had he stepped down as President upon the completion of his second term in January 1973:

1. Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. (Liberal Party) would have assumed office as the 7th President of the Philippine Republic in January 1973.
2. The two-party system would probably still be in place today and both the Nationalista and Liberal Parties would probably still be around as the dominant political parties.
3. The 1935 Constitution, along with its imperfections, would still be in place.
4. As a result of #4, the number of justices in the Philippine Supreme Court would have remained at 9 instead of the current 15.
5. The country would have incurred a lot less foreign debt and thus, a bigger portion of the government's budget would have been available for projects that would have benefited the people.
6. Metro Manila, as a political entity, would not exist. Thus, we would not have an MMDA and would have no need for a Bayani Fernando to lord it over Metro Manila.
7. The country would have been a lot more progressive because private industry would have grown without a lot of intervention from the government.
8. The Philippine Military would have remained as the professional and well-trained force that it was. It would have probably remained better armed too.
9. The Muslim and NPA rebellions would not have grown to become the huge problems they became under Marcos. A democratic and pluralistic society would have kept a lot of those guys legally engaged in the political arena.
10. The Philippine National Police in its current form would not exist. Police control would still have remained under the city and town mayors. The Philippine Constabulary would have remained in existence as well.
11. Cory Aquino would not have become President.
12. Juan Ponce Enrile would not have become a Senator and would not have been in a position to encourage military adventurism among misguided elements in the Philippine military. His long stint as Secretary of Defense under the Marcos Dictatorship enabled him to establish his own band of loyal followers within the military.
13. The Department of Tourism would not exist as a cabinet-level department.
14. The country would have been a lot wealthier than it is now and probably a lot more peaceful.
15. The Catholic Church would not have become as powerful and influential a player in politics as it is today. The two-party system would have prevented such rise to power.
16. A lot less Filipinos would have seen the need to leave their families to work overseas for the economy would have been more vibrant and market-oriented.
17. The likes of Edgar Jopson, Evelio Javier, and thousands of other Martial Law victims would still be around today.

Those are just some of my thoughts. What are yours?

Unintended Consequences

I went to Costco early yesterday to do some food shopping. I was out of eggs, milk, and rice and my supply was a bit low on a few other food items. Thus, I had to make quick trip to this store, of which I am a member, so I can replenish my dwindling supply.

Since rice was high on my list of items, I immediately went to the aisle where they usually have it and the following picture shows the stock they had available on display:


I normally buy only one sack of rice at a time. However, I was a bit saddened, although not surprised, to see the following notice posted above the sacks of rice.

The rice and grain shortage that is being felt in parts of Asia and Africa has finally hit the United States too. Although news reports here are assuring the American public that no shortage currently exists within the United States, the government and the private sector have begun to take steps to manage the current rice and grain supply to prevent hoarding, undue price increases, and artificial shortages from occurring.

The above picture shows the brand and type of rice I buy from that store. The brand is called "Super Lucky Elephant" and Jasmine is the rice variety. The rice was imported from Thailand and comes in sacks that have a net weight of 25 pounds or 11.34 kilograms. For the longest time, this particular sack of rice sold for a little less than $9.00 at this store. However, the last year or so saw its price increase gradually. Yesterday, I bought it at $12.69, a 41% increase from what it was just a couple of years ago.

In and of itself, the increase may not be that much. However, once one adds up all the price increases in other food products such as eggs, milk, meats, fruits, vegetables, and other food items, the cumulative impact on one's food budget can be quite significant.

It would be easy and simplistic to lay all the blame on our oil-producing friends at OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) for indeed, the price of oil has skyrocketed throughout the first decade of this new century. From around $25 a barrel in 1999, Oil is now hovering at $119 per barrel, a staggering 376% increase. (Sources: WTRG Economics and Bloomberg.com) The soaring price of oil has indeed contributed significantly to the jump in food prices worldwide.

However, unbeknownst to many, there is also another culprit that is contributing to the increase in food prices. This culprit threatens to make global warming a lot worse and a lot more disastrous for all of us. And it's called Biofuels.

When the US Congress passed legislation to increase the use of biofuels, the intention was to lower the country's dependence on oil imports and to protect the environment. Ethyl alcohol, or Ethanol, a fuel distilled from plant matter was considered to be the answer to the world's uncontrollable thirst for crude oil.

However, the unintended consequences of such legislation are that it is now driving up food prices, it is actually making the global warming problem worse and it is inadvertently aiding the destruction of huge swaths of forests worldwide.

It was not only the US Congress who passed such legislation that mandated the use of biofuels. The same type of legislation was also passed all across Europe. It's created a ripple effect. As a result of such legislated mandates, global demand for ethanol experienced a huge spike which in turn has made the prices of grain and corn shoot up in the world market. In the US alone, it is estimated that biofuel production will increase from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 to 36 billion gallons in 2022.

Due to such very favorable market conditions, a lot of grain and corn farmers worldwide have reallocated part of their grain and corn harvest to the production of fuel rather than just food. In short, a lot of hungry people the world over are now competing against cars for a very limited corn and grain supply. Instead of fueling us, a large part of such harvests are now being used to fuel our cars.

What is a big eye opener according to a recent Time magazine article("The Clean Energy Myth") is that the amount of grain needed to fill an SUV's gas tank with ethanol was enough to feed a person for an entire year.

Since corn and grain farming have now become highly attractive economically, a number of governments and businesses around the world have resorted to converting huge areas of farmland and forests to the planting of such crops. This is getting to be a problem in Brazil where huge areas of the Amazon forest are now being cut down to make way for farms devoted to address the high demand for ethanol. The same is true in both Indonesia and Malaysia where rain forests are being depleted at a rapid rate. If such activities continue, then the amount of greenhouse gases will continue to rise at an even faster rate.

There are other worries too. If more and more of the world's farmers shift their farming to corn and grain, such move would have the effect of reducing the supply of other agricultural products and thus driving their prices up too. In addition, dedicating large amounts of land to fuel production would certainly rob the world of one of its most important sources of food.

With everything that's happening in the world today, it is clear that this whole push for ethanol should be reevaluated and, if necessary, pushed back or stopped. Time is of the essence here. At this point, we've already heard of food riots in certain parts of Africa and that high food prices have fomented instability in other poor countries.

Some experts have said that what we're experiencing is just the beginning, that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. But at this point and as a first step towards reversing this growing global problem, we all need to accept the cold hard fact that biofuels aren't really the answer to our global warming problems. They're simply making it worse.

Not Good Enough (Yet) for TV

I drove home Friday from Maryland upon the conclusion of a two-week assignment there. Since our company's office in Maryland was about 190 miles (approximately 300 kilometers) from my place, which was between three to four hours' driving distance, I decided to just drive down instead of fly.

I had rented a car instead of bringing my own. And part of the rental agreement I had with the car rental company was that I was supposed to return the car with a full tank of gas. Failure to do so would surely invite additional charges to an already sizeable rental bill. After making some mental calculations based on my trip route, I noted that there was a rest area that was about 10 minutes away from the car rental facility. I could certainly stop by the rest area, have the car filled up, and drop the car off at the car rental facility without worrying about any additional charges

So that's what I did. I stopped by a gas station in one of those rest areas along the New Jersey Turnpike. The gas station had four fueling bays (or "islands" as we call them in the Philippines) with two fueling pumps each. I noticed that lines of cars, four cars deep on the average, were lined up on each bay. I picked a particular bay and promptly fell in line to wait for my turn.

After a few minutes, I had noticed that the lines on the other bays seemed to be moving a bit faster than the line I was on. At first, I couldn't figure out why that was so when most of the cars in line ahead of me were either compacts or medium-sized cars. So I rolled down my windows and popped my head out of the car just to get an idea of what was going on.

Well, what I saw was a lady with a microphone interviewing the driver of the car that was about two cars ahead of me. Right next to her stood a TV cameraman who had one of those rather long and heavy tv cameras on his shoulder and was busy filming the entire interview. My initial reaction was "Oh man, not now." I was tired and in a rush to get home for I had been on the road for more than three hours at that point. I quickly checked my rearview mirror to see if I could still back my car out to get to the other bays. Too late. There were already at least two cars behind me. Thus, I had no choice but to stay put and keep waiting.

The "interview" and refueling eventually ended after what seemed like an eternity. The car in front of me then pulled up to the first available pump while I pulled up to the second one. But then, guess what? As soon as I asked the gasoline attendant to fill up the car, I saw the lady reporter and the TV cameraman quickly come up towards me.

The lady reporter quickly introduced herself and said that she was a reporter for CBS News. She said that they were doing a piece on the rising gas prices in the country for broadcast that evening. She asked me if I would mind if she ask a few questions about the state of the country's fuel situation. Since she was nice enough, I agreed to be interviewed. However, in a flash, some thoughts quickly zipped through my mind. "Are we already on the air?" "How do I look? Do I look good for the tv camera with my sunglasses on or off? Where's my comb, damn it?!?!" "Will they broadcast this piece in the Philippines?" "Would they let me say hi to my folks and friends back home?" "Could there be any Hollywood agents out there watching who may be looking for some fresh-faced Asian talents?" Ahh.. I guess you can scratch that last thought.

Anyway, once I agreed to be interviewed, the TV cameraman quickly trained his camera on me. The reporter asked me for my full name and thanks to my father's excellent choice of a first name, she asked me to spell my name out for her. Then came the questions.

CBS Reporter: Do you have any travel plans this summer?
Panaderos: Yes, I do.

CBS Reporter: Do you plan to drive or fly?
Panaderos: Fly.

CBS Reporter: Will the continued rise in gas prices affect your travel plans?
Panaderos: It will certainly affect some of my travel plans, but not all. I might have to cut back or cancel some trips.

CBS Reporter: Will you think that many other Americans will also cut back on their travel plans and why?
Panaderos: (Trying to appear scholarly.) I believe so. A lot of families are running on a tight budget these days with both the rising cost of fuel and food. Quite a number of people lost their jobs too as a result of the subprime mess. Those factors all add up.

With that, both the lady reporter and the cameraman thanked me. I paid the gas attendant and drove off to the car rental facility to drop the car off. I then quickly called my SO with the news (no pun intended) that I was interviewed by CBS News. I told her that it was for a piece that they were scheduled to broadcast later that evening.

I rushed home, turned the tv on and tuned it to CBS while I unpacked my stuff. After an hour, the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric came on and sure enough, the news on the rising gas prices was front and center. In a moment that would have made Ayn Rand quite proud of me, I eagerly awaited for my face to be shown on tv, to heck with the gas prices!

But then, by the title of this post, you surely must know by now what happened. Sadly, my face didn't end up on the news report. They ended up picking some lady whose face I did not see while I was lined up at that same gas station. I guess in the interest of time, they had to pick one out of the several that they had interviewed that afternoon. Oh well, that's life.

Better luck next time. :) Later, Hollywood. (Naks!)

A Blog's Little Milestone

I interrupt this blog's regular programming with the following announcement.

This post marks a milestone in this blog's young life for it happens to be this blog's 100th entry. :-D

To that announcement some of you might react by asking "Eh ano ngayon?" or "So what?"

To that, my humble response would be, "So totoo lang, wala. Gusto ko lang i-celebrate. Bakit?!?! May angal kayo?!?!" or translated in English, "Nothing really. I just wanted to mark the event. Why?!?! You guys have a problem with that?!?!" :)

But seriously....

This blog first saw the light of day in January of this year, when the winter season was at its coldest. The nights were long, the trees were without their leaves and hardly a pretty bird could be seen in the sky. I took my first tentative steps then to find an outlet to express my views on life and things, share whatever knowledge I had to whoever was interested out there, and to basically practice my writing.



It's been close to four full months since that very first post. Winter's over and Spring is in full swing. The various trees have their leaves growing back in different shapes and colors. The days are longer and the birds are back singing in the trees.

In the weeks and months since that very first day, I've gained quite a number of friends online and regular visitors to the site. I've also gained a number of regular readers, some who choose to remain silent. But regardless of whether you post a comment or not, your visits mean a lot to me. To each person I've linked my blog to, I just want to say "Thank you." Thanks for welcoming me to your online "home" and for sharing your talents, knowledge, experiences, and life lessons.

To those who choose to read my blog in silence, I hope you find my posts sensible, if not all, then I hope at least a majority of them. If you think the writing's turned awful, please feel free to break your silence and post a scathing criticism or remark. Although you might hurt my feelings in the process, I promise that I will refrain from asking for your home address, computer i.p. address, and/or phone number (whether landline or cell) just for the sole purpose of inflicting a counterresponse, measured or otherwise. Hehe

But seriously (again), I am truly grateful to all of you who stop by to read and visit. Your reads, visits, and comments are all truly appreciated. Thanks.

Now back to this blog's regularly scheduled programming.

Friendship Tag

I've been tagged by very dear friend Mari to spread this friendship badge:



As such, I included her name on this post. And although the rules of this tag require that I pick four or five of my own featured friends, I am not tagging anyone this time.

Should you decide to do this tag, you have to inform ALL your chosen friends' featured friends to keep the ball rolling.

Note: If you use Blogger, you can add your featured friends using the new page element ‘Link List’. You may read everything about how this Featured Friend started by reading here and here.