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.

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:

(a) martinievera

(b) Hearthrob

(c) Partwo

(d) Parthree

(e) Forhimagazine

(f) Biofitea

Clue:

Duh.

Just an obvious personal opinion, but there’s no faster way to wreck the credibility of a product than giving it a name that can’t be taken seriously, or not paying attention to ONE LETTER MISSING from the label designer’s artwork. Of course the omission of one letter could have been deliberate, in which case it sounds even funnier.

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???

I’d hate to think Yahoo Philippines is now censoring comments by deleting them in favor of whoever were at the receiving end of the very critical comments, but if they’ve been hacked into they’re being silent about it. What gives?

What’s going on, Yahoo Philippines?

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.

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

Now those are commercials I wouldn’t tune out of.

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 (through bullet holes he could easily make) we would have seen bits and pieces of our policemen splattered on live television. I have no tolerance for media that sits on a high horse but behaves irresponsibly and inconsiderately towards the lives they affect.
• I find it embarrassing that President Aquino behaved like a 9-t0-5 president and made himself unavailable to Donald Tsang’s calls during the hostage crisis, only to send his condolences the day after many hostages have been killed and wounded. Is this how he plans to handle everything he has no experience in – by hiding from everybody until the smoke clears and the only thing left for him to do is send condolences?
• What was the strategy? How did the police plan to prioritize the protection of the hostages from Mendoza’s boiling rage? By slowly moving in? That gave Mendoza more than enough time to shoot his hostages. The police went to the bus not knowing how to quickly get in, and took so much time wondering outside the bus what to do to get in. They should have figured out their options before doing an approach. I really don’t see how their operations prioritized the safety of the hostages.
• The investigation on Mendoza’s case would be reopened anyway, so it would have been much less costly in human lives if the negotiators worked to give in to his immediate demands until he could be lured out and overpowered. Loss of life could have been avoided if the negotiations were handled by more competent, more experienced people. The bloodshed did not have to happen if only the handling of negotiations were treated more delicately and the immediate costs were considered.
• Before we even talk about RETRAINING the PNP, why don’t we get them TRAINED first? The only thing these guys have been guaranteed to learn is growing a beer gut. They can’t even properly tackle and pin down a suspect resisting arrest. What a disgrace.

Feel free to add your own observations. I think you share a lot of mine.

If it were up to me, heads will roll.

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, right?

A disruption in the AIDA process at any part before action means the communication didn’t persuade you enough to move you from knowing to doing. Disruptions cut AIDA short into the following scenarios:

(1) A only: Your attention was grabbed by a movie poster that looks shocking, but doesn’t get you interested in considering watching the horror movie; or

(2) AI only: You found yourself interested in winning the free prize the lady in a suit was offering, but turned it down when she said you must attend a “very short” seminar first; or

(3) AID only: You’ve almost purchased that rare CD you’ve been looking for, but you’ve also discovered the CD is prohibitively expensive at that store – almost twice the price of the same item you didn’t get to buy on eBay, so you decide to look for it online again instead.

Now that you have a rudimentary grasp of the AIDA model or process, as a Pasig River crusader, consider these:

What do you think is missing whenever there’s another fun run for Pasig River year after year that they say generates plenty of awareness?

So many people are already aware of the problems of Pasig River, but why is it still filthy and dead?

What will it take for the present administration to really devote resources and real effort into the rehabilitation of Pasig River? A fun run?

What will it take for the government to really punish civilian and industrial polluters of public spaces, waterways, and Pasig River? A fun run?

What will it take for Pinoys to stop throwing garbage anywhere they please? A fun run?

Just to be clear, a fun run is good for fund raising, and generating awareness. It has its place. But it won’t stop littering or dumping of wastes into bodies of water.

If you really want to save the Pasig River, you need the last A of the AIDA process to be “formulate real solutions that address the problems keeping Pasig River dead and polluted,” not just “join fun run.”

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!

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 its common competitor brands are toothpastes that have no flouride. That’s just not the case.

I wouldn’t mind Pepsodent claiming it’s better than toothpastes without fluoride (1) if they could show real scientific bases for it, and (2) if they don’t advertise in a way that confuses consumers by making it appear that the benefits of the presence of fluoride are indistinguishable from the benefits of the presence of calcium in the toothpaste.

I did some checking and Pepsodent is a brand that claims to have significantly more calcium. To claim it is better than toothpastes that don’t contain as much calcium, they should frame the comparison to include competitors that do have fluoride as well, not just brands that have no fluoride.

Also, there are other issues regarding the claim that more calcium in toothpaste makes it better.

(1) Isn’t it that we strengthen our bones and teeth by ingesting adequate amounts of calcium and phosphorus?

(2) Wouldn’t any benefit from brushing calcium directly onto teeth be far outdone by maintaining this same adequate intake of dietary calcium and phosphorus?

(3) If a person has calcium deficiency, would using calcium-enriched toothpaste like Pepsodent be better for her teeth than taking additional calcium-rich foods to alleviate the deficiency?

(4) If a person isn’t getting enough phosphorus from the food she eats, would the calcium provided by the toothpaste brushed onto the teeth make any difference at all?

Just so we’re clear, Pepsodent isn’t a bad product. They just need to be clear on the advertising so that consumers won’t be left to make their own premature conclusions out of lack of information.

The above are valid questions that any consumer is allowed to think about and do some homework on. It’s only fair that consumers who are better informed make better choices of products they buy.