Predictions for 2008

Predictions for 2008

(Babble On column for the Sunstar Davao, Friday Dec. 28, 2007)

It’s the end of the year and it’s time for writers and columnists to write about what they think will happen next year in 2008. Here are my bold predictions:

1.) More Political Storms Will Rock the Philippines – Every year there is always some big political event which rocks the nation’s stability. This year it was the Trillanes takeover of the Peninsula, the ZTE brouhaha and accusations of electoral fraud during the elections, among others. In the previous years we had wire-tapping scandals, grave charges of corruption and a lot more. I don’t believe the next year will be any exception. Heck we’ve gotten so used to political scandals in our country, it already feels like a normal event. Which is sort of sad, actually. But that’s Philippine politics for you.

2.) The Philippine Stock Market Will Go Up. – After a very turbulent year for the market, I believe that next year, it will shoot up. I know the market remains volatile and I may sound too optimistic, but stock brokers seem to agree with my upbeat prediction.

Analysts from the Abacus Securities Corporation believe that the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index will rise to 5,000 by the second half of 2008, if not sooner (as of this writing, the index is hovering around the 3,500-3,600 mark).

Stockbrokers aren’t the only ones upbeat about the market. Big time companies Cebu Pacific and Pepsi-Cola Philippines plan to list in the market come 2008. The message is clear: it’s time to invest in the stock market. We just have to be careful about it, of course.

My Impromptu Stress-Free Vacation From the Internet

My Impromptu Stress- Free Vacation from the Internet

I live a stressful life. Between writing a newspaper column which tend to incite anger and controversy, studying in law school and working on extra-curricular activities, stress is always present.

Usually, the only way to get all my stressful responsibilities done is through the internet. Itis an important tool for nearly any student and writer. I am no exception.

Unfortunately, due to the rather unique nature of my life, I have started to equate the internet with stress. Getting online will let me get things done, but I get stressed out in the process. Yes the internet is efficient. Yes it is undoubtedly useful. But it can breed stress.

And I’ve gotten to that point that stress has become part of my being, without my meaning to.

It’s funny then that since I got back home to Davao City for the holidays, I suddenly got cut off from internet access (I had to find a coffee shop with wi-fi to write this).

It was unsettling in the beginning, as I thought of all the responsibilities I had to deal with, all the email I had to check and all the deadlines I had to meet. It was as if the world was going to crash down on me if I didn’t get online.

But as time passed and nothing catastrophic happened despite my being cut-off from the net, I realized that sometimes, it is good to de-stress and decompress — to get away from your responsibilities for a while.

You see, a lot of my responsibilities could only be met through the internet, such as the filing of columns and the submission of write-ups for the Law School yearbook. Since I had no internet for a few days (specifically Dec. 23, 24 and 25), I found that I was initially panicky over that fact.

Soon however, I realized that it didn’t matter so much. Or at the very least, those responsibilities could wait.

So my work waited.

Career vs Love: Which Would You Pick?

While browsing through Penelope Trunk’s blog, I came across this interesting post on how crazy her life became when she started writing 2 columns, a blog and started publicity for her book.

And boy, could I relate. At the height of my law school “career,” I was a debater with the St. Thomas More Debate Society, a rising editor of the Ateneo Law Journal, a columnist for the Sunstar Davao, and had a then new and budding relationship with the girl of my dreams. This was on top of the already heavy load of being a law student. I had a “career” and the love of my life, all at one time.

Yeah I went a little crazy around then. I started sleeping less, never even bothered to communicate with my family anymore (who all started wondering where I was always disappearing to), always studied at the last minute, ate tons of fast food (because well… they were fast to get and eat. Thank you Jollibee.) and was irritable everyday.

The quality of everything I was doing suffered. Lousy arguments when debating, stupid editing mistakes were made, haphazard studying, missed dates with my dreamgirl, the works.

The worst was when I had to stay overnight in school to do the finishing touches on an issue of the Law Journal. It was Valentine’s Day. I postponed our special date to the next night, only to realize that I had completely forgotten to get her a gift.

Her tears at dinner made me feel guilty for a long long time.

A Guess At What Some Prominent Filipinos Want for Christmas

A Guess at What Some Prominent Filipinos Want for Christmas

(Babble On, for the Sunstar Davao, Friday Dec. 21, 2007)

It’s that time of the year when people are accustomed to getting Christmas presents from their loved ones.

The thing is though, we always think of what we want for Christmas, or perhaps what our family and close friends want to get on Christmas day. Yet we seem to forget about what politicians and prominent Filipinos could possibly want as Christmas presents. It probably never even enters our minds.

But it’s something to ponder. What do you think personalities like Trillanes, Pres. Arroyo, Erap Estrada, Jose de Venecia and others want as gifts, all wrapped up and ready for them under the Christmas tree?

Here are a couple of wild guesses.

Senator Trillanes – this one’s easy to figure out. He’ll want a pardon for Christmas. Or at the very least, a get out of jail free card. Anything, so he can finally fulfill his mandate as Senator. Unfortunately, since the Senator has been somewhat naughty this year (remember the Peninsula?) it’s unlikely Santa Claus will give him that pardon.

My Favorite Books for 2007

Trllanes Says Sorry

Trillanes Says Sorry

(Babble On for the Sunstar Davao, Dec. 14, 2007)

Like every other Filipino out there, I’m fairly forgiving.

In fact, Filipinos have seemingly developed a reputation for forgiveness. How else can we explain the pardon for former President Erap Estrada and the return to political and social prominence of the Marcos clan?

But even I would draw the line at Senator Trillanes’ apology in the court room of Judge Oscar Pimentel last Tuesday.

According to the Philippine Star, Trillanes and his companions, in a letter to Pimentel, said that: “It was never the intention of (the) accused to cause a commotion, much less a walkout,” and that they “meant no disrespect for the court.”

No disrespect? They walk out of the courtroom in what was clearly a pre-planned event, took over a hotel and called for the people to rise against the government, and they’re saying they “meant no disrespect” and didn’t mean to “cause a commotion?”

A lot of people would disagree, especially the Peninsula hotel’s staff and personnel.

Lunch With A Valedictorian

She smiles at me as I slide into the seat in front of her. She shifts in her seat, adjusts the table and prepares to dig into the rice and beef stew from the cafeteria.

Though she’s dressed in a power suit, one wouldn’t think she was a valedictorian. One wouldn’t have thought there was anything extraordinary about her, except perhaps for that pretty and very friendly smile on her face.

Her name is Patricia Ngo Chua. People call her Tracy. And she is the Class Valedictorian for the Ateneo School of Law, Batch 2007.

Nothing special? Please.

Not only was she class valedictorian, but she also got best thesis, was a member of the Ateneo Law Journal and part of the Jessup Team representing the Philippines in 2005. She also received the St. Thomas More award, which is the highest award given to an Ateneo Law graduate. I’d say she was something special, yes sir.

I ask her about all her achievements, and she shrugs, as if to say it wasn’t much. She seems a bit shy to answer questions about all her accomplishments in law school. She takes another bite of her food, as though trying to change the topic.

Negotiation Lessons

I just had my first  Negotiation Seminar class tonight under Atty. Aguinaldo, and it was an amazing learning experience.

We went through an exercise where classmembers were paired off boy and girl, and then each play-acted a specific role. I had the role of an erring but prominent politician about to run for the Senate. This politician had an affair and gave his wife a venereal disease.

He was now trying to negotiate a quiet settlement with his understandably angry wife who wanted an annulment of their marriage. One goal was to ensure that news of the affair, disease, and annulment wouldn’t leak out. So the politician would be negotiating from a position of great weakness.

Although only a simple initial exercise, today’s negotiation allowed me to realize a few basic points about negotiating in general:

1.) Be polite and use nice words – always be polite. Especially when negotiating from a position of weakness. Because of the words I used (conciliatory but firm, polite but clear on what I could and could not give) I was able to somehow convince my “wife” to reconcile. It’s amazing how far being nice and polite can get you. Unfortunately, since reconciliation wasn’t the point of the exercise, we still had to forge a settlement agreement. But the spirit of reconcilitation was in the air, and it definitely helped smooth the rest of the negotiations.

2.) Get into the other person’s head: Understand their point of view – the parameters of the exercise said that the politician had somehow given the wife a venereal disease from his affair. With that in mind, I tried to empathize with my “wife,” and saw that she wouldn’t be happy with some of the settlement offers I made. I understood that, because in a sense, the annulment was the fault of the politician I was playing. So I had to improve the settlement offers.

I Was Wrong: How Trillanes DIDN’T Affect The Economy

Hmm….

I was pleasantly surprised today. In a post written shortly after the Makati Standoff, I predicted that Trillanes would make our upswinging economy go down, and make our stock market and peso fall. Turns out I was wrong.

Though Trillanes did affect the international perspective of our country, it didn’t slow our economy down. Thank goodness for that. Based on Monday’s stock market performance, everything seemed to be going up up up. Investors are upbeat, and the peso strong. Even the Peninsula is upbeat after last week’s Makati standoff. We’re back, they announced today as that grand hotel reopened.

Perhaps people were impressed at how quickly the government handled the crisis, with no fatalities and little to no extra damage, save for a damaged hotel and a controversial incident where a number of journalists were hauled off to a faraway camp.

But even with those as negatives, government is already making amends to the Press, with no less than the President telling government units not to rile the media. In fact, that controversy with the Media may have a positive effect as well, because now government and the Media are meeting to discuss “rules of engagement” in order to avoid a repeat of that incident.

For the first time in what seems like a long time, things seem to be looking up for the Philippines. Despite everything, we remain strong and hopeful and bullish on the future.

I have never been so glad to be as wrong as I am now.

We still have to make sure to keep Trillanes and company away from five-star hotels though.

An Angry Media: The Arrest of the Peninsula Journalists

An Angry Media: The Arrest of the Peninsula Journalists

A Quick Word on the Arrest of the Makati Standoff Journalists.

If there’s one thing the government may soon be sorry about, it is this: the arrest of the journalists who were in the Peninsula during the Makati Standoff.

That arrest twisted what was an otherwise triumphant moment for the administration into another foolish defeat. The story of the day was no longer just Senator Trillanes’ takeover and subsequent surrender at the Peninsula hotel. It soon focused on the “abuse” of the government and its supposed attack on the freedom of the press.

According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Maria Ressa, the head of the network’s Current Affairs department, said in an official statement that, “We in ABS-CBN News strongly condemn the illegal arrests of our reporters and our colleagues in the media and decry the atrocious treatment [they were] subjected to in the hands of the police.”

Looks like the victory party for the administration is short-lived. The government may now have to contend with an increasingly hostile and pissed-off press.

ABS-CBN is even mulling the filing of charges against the PNP for their treatment of their journalists.

According to a report, the National Press Club also condemned the PNP’s actions. “The police simply went overboard. There was no reason for the arrests to begin with. And there was absolutely no reason to handcuff or tie the hands of journalists with plastic. They were treated like they themselves were suspects in a crime,” the NPC said in a report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The story is now shifting and changing. It has twisted into something the government didn’t want and didn’t need, and most of all, the government could have avoided, if they had simply acted with a little more discretion. Instead they went overboard. They may soon reap what they have sown at the Peninsula.

The Media is mad. And it looks like they aren’t going to take this sitting down.