My column for today is Infant nation.I hope to return to daily blogging this week.

The Arab News has reports from the field: 200 More Filipino Workers in Saudi Arabia Get Royal Pardon and ‘Aramco a Dependable Partner’.A complicated story: Sylvia Mayuga delved into the proposed construction of housing at the La Mesa Dam area; a Manila Times story today says DENR disowns La Mesa: Says watershed not protected area; Marines guard MWSS housing enclave.Also, Defying odds, exports grow 25.8% although John Mangun asks, Philippine outsourcing in trouble?  Anyway, Govt puts up more retail stores for the poor.Stupidest official opinion of the week: the Executive Secretary’s support for efforts to ban yet another film, as if the failed efforts to ban “Schindler’s List” and “Belle Epoque” shouldn’t have taught censors their lessons.My column for today is A unicameralist on bicameralism.In his column today, Tony Abaya’s views struck a familiar chord, because his views in a sense, echo mine and reflect debates I often have with people.  Simply put, Abaya believes the Middle Class remains unengaged, because of three factors, all having to do with the current opposition to the President: it’s composed of traditional politicians, it’s too obviously eager to flirt with the idea of coups, and it’s too accommodating and cozy of the Communists (or National Democrats).

No electricity in Cebu City, all of Panay, and part of Leyte (according to a colleague) due to earthquake.  Reporters are still scrambling for details.My column last Monday was ‘Calabasa’ gets a call.My Arab News column for this week is Explaining How the Philippine State Came to Be.

If the “Mendiola Massacre” cost Cory Aquino the Nobel Peace Prize, the exemption of Hacienda Luisita from land reform has become a historical albatross around Aquino’s post-presidential neck, and reproach on her administration, representing the lost opportunities of that era….  Should it?I’d go further and suggest that a much more aggressive attitude toward smaller landholdings carefully built-up by the old middle class, mainly doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals, whose lands were placed under land reform in the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, resulted in a blow to middle-class prestige and pride that hastened the extinction of the old middle class and the flight of its remnants abroad….  But as for the old middle class, the lesson of Edsa was: the guy in the middle loses to the masses and the political class (urban equivalents complain to this day of the Lina Law, which they say privileges squatters).Philippine Commentary praises the prose of the Justices of the Supreme Court.Blurry Brain thinks the country’s missed the bus because of short-sighted attitudes towards free trade.The public thing thinks that the rise in kidnappings means preparations for elections are underway.

Pick your headline: Shades of Marcos, SC says of Arroyo’s 1017: Dispersal of rallies, arrests, raid illegal (Inquirer); ‘EO 1017 constitutional’ (Manila Standard-Today); 1017 gets Court’s nod: But rules certain provisions illegal (Manila Times); ‘1017’ constitutional but actions illegal: Tribunal slams arrests, ban on protests (Malaya).Also, the PCIJ blog report on the decision, with this quote from the Chief Justice’s concurring opinion:Some of those who drafted PP 1017 may be testing the outer limits of presidential prerogatives and the perseverance of this Court in safeguarding the people’s constitutionally enshrined liberty….  The column has one typo which changes the entire sense of the piece:These questions are tempting to address, but they depend on one given which doesn’t exist at this point in time — an executive branch of government poised to perpetuate itself in power at all costs, even at the cost of democracy and the constitution.Should, instead, read,These questions are tempting to address, but they depend on one given which does exist at this point in time — an executive branch of government poised to perpetuate itself in power at all costs, even at the cost of democracy and the constitution.My column for today is What’s in it for you, which is based on a recent blog entry, but has this addition:After all, the only assurance you have is not on paper or in the system….  To surrender that power to one individual or group is madness and reflects a lunatic attitude toward governance.Would you hand anyone, in the administration or the opposition, today’s leaders and, perhaps, tomorrow’s leaders, too, a blank check?Manuel Buencamino examines claims that the parliamentary system as practiced by neighboring countries (specifically Malaysia, which is viewed, despite having a population 1/4 the size of our own, as a model to emulate) will lead to continuity in policies.

  Filipinos Don’t Like Arroyo, but Don’t Back a Coup Manuel L. Quezon III   A president who achieved victory seemingly at too great a price; scandal upon scandal; a military aggressively building up; Congress in disrepute, and young Filipinos increasingly susceptible to the allure of radicals who are media-savvy. A growing sense of despondence [...]

Tell me how it will increase my salary, lower my taxes, decrease the price of gas and groceries, stop inflation, ensure fewer potholes on the roads, cheaper and more efficient telecoms, improved health care, a more dynamic and responsive bureaucracy, better and more affordable education, improved sanitation, genuine peace and order?Tell me, with the same crew already at the helm for five years, with OFW’s only having begun to express themselves at the ballot box and soon enough, under a purely local system, to be deprived of that hard-won and only partial (at present) right, with a system being pushed forward that would (assuming you are anti-Estrada) turn the country into an iron-clad system for perpetuating a nation composed of San Juan-style bailiwicks, how Charter Change would improve anything politically?I don’t see how….  When the Senate, about a decade ago, was poised to pass an anti-dynasty bill (its provisions being: a congressman or mayor or governor can’t be replaced by a wife, however defined, or a child, however defined; a president cannot have any relative within the fourth degree of consaguinity in political office for the duration of their term; and the only offices in which people from the same family can compete for the same position are the Senate, which is national and thus, relatively immune to the lock dynasties have on local politics, and councilors, who are so plentiful it’s also difficult to view them as dynastic preserves), the House advised the Senate to forget it because it would never, ever, even be calendared for deliberation in the House.  And add, further, that proposals from the Senate to legislate that 60% of local income from taxes remain in local government instead of being sent to the national, the House again objected because it would decimate the influence congressmen have over their rivals, the mayors: which would have been as meaningful a step towards freeing the provinces from national control.

It’s like “History Repeating” (Propellerheads).  My column for today is Why revolts fail.

Why revolts fail First posted 01:12:58 (Mla time) May 01, 2006 Manuel L. Quezon III Inquirer JOSE RIZAL, IN HIS ESSAY, “THE PHILIPPINES A Century Hence,” observed that, “All the petty insurrections that have occurred in the Philippines were the work of a few fanatics or discontented soldiers, who had to deceive and humbug the [...]