You can catch yesterday’s episode of The Explainer over at YouTube. Something went wrong with the equipment so we had to deviate from the usual format. The original script will eventually appear on The Explainer blog. Inquirer.net’s caption for the photo at left: A new witness provides this picture of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her [...]

One rule of thumb I have is never to assume that exposure in one medium will result in exposure in another. What you write in one area may never be read in another, which provides a wonderful (because necessary) justification for repeating yourself. Hence yesterday’s column, which essentially introduced the newspaper audience to something that’s [...]

Conflicting news on rice: DA reports big summer rice harvests: Grain traders, farmers urge gov’t to buy local produce: Summer rice harvest now 5.9-M metric tons on one hand, and Farmers fail to benefit from record rice prices on the other. Meanwhile, overseas, the blog Darwiniana points to Americans being asked to consider the possibility [...]

Pwede Na! The Complete Pinoy Guide to Retirement and Estate Planning , published by Platypus Publishing, is being launched today at 6 pm at Powerbooks, Greenbelt. Do join us.

Apparently today is the anniversary of the Metric System. Scuttlebutt continues to be plentiful concerning the composition of the cabinet and other appointments (see Palace to tap poll lawyer as CHR chief: where does that leave Koko Pimentel’s case, I wonder?). Lito Atienza, who was said to be keen on assuming the Interior and Local [...]

In the news: RP April inflation at 8.3 percent yr/yr; highest since 2005. John Mangun advises, Get out of the PSE now. Leonor Briones says there’s the danger that rice stockpiled in public schools may be devoured by rats before the rice can be given to schoolchildren. Her column reminded me of something I didn’t [...]

Malaysian blogger SlowCatchUpKuan is amused by the wrangling of Malaysian deputies in parliament, at least ever since parliamentary proceedings started being broadcast live; and points out that Badawi’s old mentor and now nemesis, Mahathir, has weighed in by planting his flag in the blogosphere: My Singapore News notes that Mahathir, who used to enjoy the advantages of having an iron grip on Malaysian media, and has established a presence in cyberspace out of necessity. … Searching around the blogosphere, an Intel employee recounts in his LiveJournal blog that the “official” statement for the planned closure is: “[Intel Philippines needs to] find another building so that structural abnormalities in CV1 [Cavite Plant 1] can be remedied else Intel will cease all future Manufacturing operations in the Philippines…” If this is true, and I think it is (Numonyx officially became a company last March 31, 2008 making the timing extremely uncanny), it is a sad day for the Philippines as an investment site.

One of my on-again, off-again projects is The Official Calendar of the Republic, in which I’m trying to gather all the various national, provincial, and municipal holidays, past and present, in one place, along with the statutes that provide(d) for them. I’d appreciate any help from readers. 1. Holidays by legislative fiat, whether national, provincial, [...]

Did you know that May is Anti-Graft and Corruption Awareness Month? Information is a good tool for ferreting out graft and corruption, and a Freedom of Information Act will be a step in the right direction. As Uniffors puts it, with the proposed bill being sponsored on the floor of the House, Cockroaches placed on [...]