Piercing Pens

The House of Representatives, voting 126-11, with no abstention, approved House Bill 3555, the proposed law that seeks to increase value added tax or VAT from 10 percent to 12 percent.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue defines VAT as “a business tax imposed and collected from the seller in the course of trade or business on every sale of properties (real or personal), lease of goods or properties (real or personal) or vendors of services.” According to BIR, it is an indirect tax so ” it can be passed on to the buyer. ”

The Arroyo administration, which is pushing for VAT, keeps on claiming that the proposed increase in the said tax would not affect the ordinary people. On the other hand, the opposition and the activists say otherwise.

I failed to watch yesterday’s episode of Mulawin, but this Mulawin blog reported that Gabriel has transformed into a Ravena and already had his first kill.

The usual complain I heard about the new twist in this “telefantasia” series is that what happened to the character being played by Dennis Trillo is unfair. Imagine living your life peacefully desiring nothing but being with the love of your life and suddenly realizing one day that you’re actually a monster! Ansakit di ba?

I just read that former Vice President Teofisto Guingona is now the country’s ambassador to China.

He’s now with the administration again. It’s weird. He should be in the streets leading the militants and the opposition in protest like what he did during the Estrada regime. There are many issues for him to take up–not just foreign intervention and the surrender of the national patrimony but also the administration’s anti-people policies such as the increased VAT.

According to INQ7, the Social Weather Stations reported a drop in the number of hungry Filipino families–those “families who had nothing to eat at least once in the past three months”–from 15.1 percent in the third quarter of 2004 to 11.5 percent in the last quarter.

The Palace would surely be glad about this piece of news.

Makati Congressman Butz Aquino was recently quoted by INQ7 as saying, “Erap is some kind of a moral or a spiritual leader to us. I just hope that he would succeed in uniting the opposition.”

An ousted President who is being tried in court for corruption charges as a moral / spiritual leader? Nice choice! Hehe.

I’ve been telling my colleagues at the office that we should stop using the phrase “ang mga kapatid nating Muslim” (our Muslim brothers) to refer to the Moros (Filipino Muslims) because this sounds patronizing. It’s like we treat them differently from the Christian majority. The use of “ang mga kapatid nating Muslim” has become an ostentatious cliche. It ironically highlights the wall between Filipino Christians and Moros. When we refer to the Christians–Catholic, Protestants, Born Again–we never say “ang mga kapatid nating Katoliko.”

In this season of assaults against the Moros, below is an unedited letter to the editor–a justified reaction to injustice that the Filipino Muslims are getting these days. It was written and posted by a Friendster friend:

The PDI has gained its credibility for being the most preferred newspaper. Our class in Media Studies conducted a survey inside MSU (just this 2nd semester) and the findings say that 82% of the students prefer PDI. I myself favor the PDI over the other variety of national newspapers.

But today- January 10, I got really offended by a chosen adjective in the headline story written by Tarra Quismundo and Christian Esguerra.

Continue reading “Prejudice Against Muslims”

After FPJ’s death, the opposition is in seach of a leader who could unite its fragmented membership. Susan Roces is reportedly the one being eyed to perform such a mission. Pundits describe Da King’s widow as an honest and elegant lady–but advises her to stay away from politics. Susan herself said she doesn’t want to thread the path that her husband went through. It could be recalled, however, that even FPJ was reluctant to enter politics at first. It remains to be seen if Susan will yield to the request of her husband’s followers.

Meanwhile, Loren Legarda, FPJ’s running mate in last year’s elections, seems interested to take the post should Susan continue to refuse. Like FPJ, Loren also lost but filed an election complaint against Vice President Noli de Castro. Widely perceived as an ambitious woman, Loren was a People Power 2 icon who later became acceptable to the Estrada-FPJ camp. Let’s see if she’ll make it.