Nothing accomplished for esteros and Pasig River after 1 month – Why am I not surprised?

What is taking these people so long to act on it? I’ve already written something about this supposed joining of forces more than 5 weeks ago, yet they’re still at this almost-begun stage? WTH? Puro drama, ang kupad naman gumalaw! Enough with the building up of anticipation and DO IT!

This was lifted from gmanews.tv:

Metro mayors sign landmark covenant to protect waterways

09/17/2010 | 08:57 AM

To avoid massive flooding similar to the situation when typhoon “Ondoy” (international name: Ketsana) hit the country last year, Metro Manila mayors signed a landmark covenant to protect waterways (esteros).

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the mayors will formally sign the covenant with at a ceremony on Friday, just days before the September 26 anniversary of Ondoy.

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino said the mayors’ “Estero Declaration” is part of the campaign to control environmental pollution and prevent flooding in the metropolis.

Under the “Estero Declaration,” the mayors will implement their respective anti-littering ordinances and clean and dredge the esteros, creeks, and other waterways located within their jurisdiction.

“This is a big event in a way that we have finally gotten the full support of the mayors in coming up with measures to combat floods. Flooding is a very serious problem that should be acted upon by all concerned sectors, not just the MMDA,” Tolentino said on the MMDA website.

The mayors will also support the MMDA’s campaign to dismantle all structures, obstructions, and other encroachments along waterways, as specified in the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992.

The mayors will also help relocate informal settlers, with the help of national government agencies, “in a humane manner cognizant of every person’s right to a decent dwelling place and standard of living.”

MMDA statistics, based on the submitted list by the 17 local government units of Metro Manila, showed that the number of informal settlers in 2009 ballooned to 544,609 families.

The mayors and the MMDA will also implement medium- and long-term plans to mitigate and eradicate the life-threatening effects of environmental degradation.

“We acknowledge our collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental development – at the local and regional levels,” the mayors’ declaration stated. –VVP, GMANews.TV

After more than a month they still haven’t accomplished anything.

Follow through, move faster, and do your job!

Blasted snails.

Another weirdo brand name

All you skin-whitening junkies LISTEN UP! There are 5 skin-whitening products that have been banned by the Food and Drug Administration for having unsafe amounts of mercury, one from Japan, four from Taiwan. You can check the brand names here.

One of those banned products caught my attention:

Beauty Girl Olive and Sheep Essence

I don’t know what this product is made of, really, but the label gives the impression that maybe it’s made of real sheep? Sheep and olives puréed in a blender? People actually put that stuff on their faces?

I guess people will go to great lengths just to become pale, uh I mean, lighter.

Oh, by the way, the simple trick of using Photoshop to lighten a face (like they did on the box label) is a real cheapo technique to show how a product works (?). I made one in less than 60 seconds:

The stupendous creativity of dropping one letter

Pop quiz, hotshot! Somebody actually thought one of these is a legitimate, respectable name. Which one is it?

(a) martinievera

(b) Hearthrob

(c) Partwo

(d) Parthree

(e) Forhimagazine

(f) Biofitea

Clue:

Why did hostage-taking-related comments on Yahoo Fit to Post disappear?

Where did all the older comments go?

There were more than 1,400 comments, including mine, on several Yahoo Philippines Fit to Post blog posts related to the failurefest that is the handling of the August 23 hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand. Now they’re all gone and instead there are these odd (and apparently unrelated) and completely outdated comments on these posts.

This comment is from  Anger and shock in Hong Kong over Manila siege:

This one is from Manila hostage crisis: Responsible or irresponsible media coverage? :

These comments aren’t related to the articles, they’re dated as two years old which is ridiculous, and the hundreds of comments made by so many people on each of these posts when the articles were still “hot” are gone. What the hell is going on???

Are we ready for another Ondoy one year later?

It’s almost a year since we were hit by Ketsana, better known locally as Ondoy.  I remember the quantity of water that rained on us was just ridiculous, and I couldn’t help but wonder at some point why we were getting too much rain while there are parts of the world that are dry as a bone. If life has a sense of humor well this one wasn’t funny at all, and I gotta say, we’re fortunate we made it through that, and many of us got through it with the help of so many volunteers who stepped up at that time of need. They know who they are and they know who among them really took the role of heroes, saving those who couldn’t save themselves.

I made a guest post on Pasig River Avenger, which is aligned with what I started this blog of mine for. I’ve no idea if that post is getting much traffic, but my point was actually simple enough for any reader to get: If we’re going to experience another like Ondoy, let’s not be caught flatfooted again this time around. Various observers, Pinoy or not, are already saying that the world notices us not because we accomplish so much as a people (trust me, we don’t), but because we never seem to learn from the past, from recent or distant  history, even from terrible things that have happened so close to home. I’d hate to think we’re better at making excuses for repeating our mistakes than learning from them, and nobody but us could prove that wrong. So far, we haven’t proven it wrong.

Let’s start with something simple. The ones we called heroes a year ago who undertook rescue and relief efforts put their energy into dealing with the problem at hand. This year I invite everyone to become heroes themselves by contributing to the PREVENTION of the same catastrophe. The government can’t do it all for us; we can expect the government to conduct rescue operations again when needed, but you’re the only one who could decide NOT to litter.

If you’re a Filipino who doesn’t need somebody else cleaning up after you, you’re already ahead of your countrymen who haven’t learned how to keep tidy.

Let’s all dispose of our garbage responsibly. By the time there’s another Ondoy, if enough Pinoys are no longer salaula, then maybe the flooding wouldn’t be so bad.

RESET

To cut the tension we’ve been having these past few days and return to the blood pressure we all had before this week shook us hard, let’s have one post to refresh a little.

Hilarious beer commercials found on the web

Some beer brands don’t take themselves too seriously. I’m glad they don’t.

Enjoy watching these with a brewski!

Carlton Draught

Cheers Beer

Bud Light

Bullet points on the hostage-taking at the Quirino Grandstand (pun not intended)

What a disgrace. This is what we look like to the world – ipinagyayabang sa mundo ang pagiging Pinoy, kahit napakaraming kapalpakan din na nararanasan natin sa araw-araw ay gawa rin ng Pinoy.

Let me just express in bullet points what I think of what happened yesterday when several Hong Kong nationals were killed and wounded in the hostage taking at the Quirino Grandstand. I had expressed many of my thoughts already on Yahoo’s Fit to Post, so I’ll just have a summary here.

• The PNP and SWAT looked terribly unprepared to somehow take Mendoza by surprise, so they really didn’t have much tactical advantage. Snipers couldn’t even get a clear shot of Mendoza until he went to the front of the bus where it was better lit.
• The leadership among the police forces did not even realize the live media coverage was doing two things:

(1) It was showing Mendoza through the TV inside the bus how his brother was forcibly removed and detained after resisting arrest for several minutes, making him angrier;

(2) It was showing Mendoza where the police were trying to sneak up on him, which means if they ever get the bus cracked wide open they’ll easily be sprayed with bullets because he’ll be expecting them.

• The media on the other hand ignored the possibility that Mendoza had access to their live reports. Sure they were just “doing their jobs,” and MINDLESSLY endangering the hostages and the police positioned around the bus in the process. (And tonight’s TV Patrol even went so far as to say they deliberately limited their reportage. Maybe that’s true before the bus driver escaped, but they definitely covered what happened next LIVE, including police and SWAT movement outside.) If Mendoza had a fragmentation grenade or an incendiary grenade and dropped it at the back of the bus

The AIDA model of persuasion for Pasig River crusaders

How we usually get from awareness to action could be simplified as a process of the AIDA model.

A – Attention

I – Interest

D – Desire

A – Action

Something communicated to you has to grab your attention, capture your interest, elevate mere interest to desire, and finally make your desire so strong that you act on it. That’s the goal of persuasion,

Venus Raj makes it to Miss Universe top ten

Best of luck, Miss Raj!

I knew this nice girl would make it.

UPDATE:

Venus won as Miss Universe 4th Runner-up.

Congratulations Miss Venus Raj!

Pepsodent’s new TV commercial needs a squirt of honesty

Which one strengthens your pearly whites - adequate calcium intake from the food you eat (even without calcium in your toothpaste), or calcium from your toothpaste (but with a calcium-deficient diet)?

Pepsodent has a new commercial, and draws the critique of one blog, a critique I happen to agree with. Truth in advertising is always a good thing for consumers.

The critique I speak of can be found by clicking on this link:

http://consumers-who-monitor.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-pepsodent-tv-ad-sneaky-and.html

Consider this an extension of the critique on said blog, okay?

Pepsodent cannot lead consumers to believe