This comprehensive article by a crack team of reporters from GMA 7 captures well the people around and behind the rise of Noynoy Aquino to the presidency. And it correctly includes ANG LADLAD Party List as one of the groups that supported Noynoy. Let it be said that in its first political endorsement, ANG LADLAD correctly read the temper of the times, and endorsed Benigno Aquino III for President and Jejomar Binay for Vice-President. Both guys, as we know now, won. Watch us make our moves in the 2013 elections. *** Who's who in Noynoy's rise to the presidency 06/23/2010 | 06:24 PM www.gmanews.tv A ragtag army of volunteers - many veterans from the glorious fights against Marcos, Erap and Arroyo, but perhaps millions more electrified by the emotional days of Cory Aquino's wake and funeral - delivered the presidency to Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III with their tireless campaigning. Now with Noynoy at the cusp of assuming power, the action around the president-elect has...

BY Danton Remoto | Remote Control Posted at 06/25/2010 10:50 PM | Updated as of 06/25/2010 10:50 PM www.abs-cbnnews.com This is the title of Fr. Joseph V. Landy’s small and sensible book for those who want to teach. The Jesuit teacher lives up to the subtitle of this book — The Art of Being Interesting — by giving us a book filled with pearls to be cast in the classroom. The nine chapters are concise and written in a tone almost conversational, as if a wise, old man is giving a pep talk to a young person during College Placement Day. It is also freighted with honesty. “Why teach? Many answers are possible, but one spells death to a career in the classroom. If your overriding motive is money, go elsewhere.” How true, how true. When we hold our college reunions, my college classmates at Ateneo would tell me how youthful I still looked, with a full head of black hair and hardly discernible lines on my face. I would cackle with laughter and tell them that, indeed, God is fair. “I may look ...

BY Danton Remoto | Remote Control Posted at 06/25/2010 10:50 PM | Updated as of 06/25/2010 10:50 PM www.abs-cbnnews.com This is the title of Fr. Joseph V. Landy’s small and sensible book for those who want to teach. The Jesuit teacher lives up to the subtitle of this book — The Art of Being Interesting — by giving us a book filled with pearls to be cast in the classroom. The nine chapters are concise and written in a tone almost conversational, as if a wise, old man is giving a pep talk to a young person during College Placement Day. It is also freighted with honesty. “Why teach? Many answers are possible, but one spells death to a career in the classroom. If your overriding motive is money, go elsewhere.” How true, how true. When we hold our college reunions, my college classmates at Ateneo would tell me how youthful I still looked, with a full head of black hair and hardly discernible lines on my face. I would cackle with laughter and tell them that, indeed, God is fair. “I may look ...

Editorial Malaya June 21, 2010 ‘Our officials should keep their piety private. In exchange, the people would let their hypocrisy pass unnoticed.’ THE Catholic hierarchs earlier said they would not accept the invitation of the education department to review the sex education subjects that will be pilot-tested this year. Now, the word is some representatives of the Church would be meeting with educators after all, but this would only be to reiterate its position that sex education is not the business of the schools and should be left exclusively to parents. If that’s the Church’s stand, the education department might as well declare that its officials are prepared to humor the Church representatives but are determined to implement the order come what may. Gloria Arroyo herself issued the order for education officials to dialog with Church representatives. She is exiting on June 30, to be succeeded by Noynoy Aquino who has a more enlightened appreciation of the need to address reprodu...

BY Danton Remoto Lodestar Art and Culture section The Philippine STAR June 14, 2010 Raymond “Bong” Alikpala seemed like the perfect guy any girl would love to bring home to mother. He is a blue-blooded Atenean from grade school to law school, an honor student and student council leader. He is also a practicing Catholic; cheerful, bright, and personable. But for many years he hid a secret in the innermost chamber of himself — his homosexuality. After almost four decades in the closet, he has finally come out and written what may be a most controversial book, God Loves Bakla: My Life in the Closet. Published by the author himself in Cambodia where he now works as a lawyer, the book’s Philippine edition was launched by Ang Ladlad Party List a fortnight ago. In reportorial mode, Alikpala begins his narrative this way. “I am a gay man, a homosexual. I engage in sexual relations with the same sex. I have paid other men to have sex with me. I have never had sex with a woman. I have a husband....

If you think 2016 is still too far away, then think again. My pink crystal ball sees the following combinations for President and Vice-President in 2016. And I'm telling you these guys are beginning to lay the ground work. As I told the emissary of a presidentiable who talked to me in July 2009 and who invited me to join their senatorial slate, you don't prepare for a presidential election a year before the election. You prepare for it a day AFTER the previous election. Thus, the campaign for the next Presidential and VP elections started on May 11, 2010. Combinations are as follows, in random order: 1. Jinggoy Estrada - Bongbong Marcos (Partido ng Masang Pilipino and Kilusang Bagong Lipunan) Both families have been friends for ages; the alliance is sealed tighter than any glue could seal it. Jinggoy has his father's 20 percent following, and Bongbong has his billions... 2. Mar Roxas II - Kiko Pangilinan (Liberal Party) A decent and charming team, but will the masses -- who...

Mr. Aquino will expand and reform CCT programs The Manila Times Thursday, 10 June 2010 00:00 YESTERDAY’s press conference immediately after the proclamation of President-elect Noynoy Aquino was a demonstration of his mastery of the national condition. All his answers—in perfect English and sometimes Tagalog—were impressively those of a person who knows how our country fares in the key departments of life. One of the questions touched on poverty. Responding, he spoke of the Arroyo administration’s successful CCT (conditional cash transfers) program. Cash is given to the very poor—by the Social Welfare department. But DSWD does not touch the money. Recipients go to the Land Bank. These are dole outs to the “targeted absolutely poor”—families who need cash so they can have food on their table and some of their basic necessities for survival. There are conditions to being included in the program. The family must fulfill the basic duties of going to a health clinic for treatment. Toddlers a...

Tickled pink By Büm D. Tenorio, Jr. (The Philippine Star) Updated June 10, 2010 12:00 AM MANILA, Philippines - They all came garbed in different colors but the mood of the night was definitely pink. After all, for the first time, the US Embassy hosted the Gay Pride Month celebration in Manila to show respect for the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) community in the Philippines and to recognize their contributions to their culture and society. No less than US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. topbilled the celebration. Thomas, who said he was disheartened to hear tales of woe and injustice committed against the LGBT community, was candid and warm as he delivered his speech that momentous night. “Discrimination is a waste of talent,” he told more than a hundred of LGBT members gathered at the cozy Makati residence of Richard Nelson, the counselor for public affairs of the US Embassy. Nelson, who was very comfortable hosting the party, said US President Barack Obama proclaimed ...

Homophobia and the case of Boy Abunda REMOTE CONTROL | DANTON REMOTO Posted at 06/08/2010 12:17 AM | Updated as of 06/08/2010 12:17 AM www.abs-cbnnews.com Ang Ladlad -- the national organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Filipinos -- wants to express its alarm over the quality of the debate and discourse regarding Mr. Boy Abunda and the alleged offer for him to become Secretary of the Department of Tourism. Mr. Abunda -- who is a close friend and ally of the Philippine LGBT movement -- does not deserve the vilification being done to him in print, online and in conversations going on around town. President-apparent Benigno C. Aquino III allegedly wanted Mr. Abunda to be the DOT Secretary to help market the Philippines and its luxuriant tourism potentials to a global audience. Obviously, some people whose eyes are dead-set on the position have begun to orchestrate a vile and malicious campaign against Mr. Abunda. They questioned his academic preparation, his training and ...

Photo by Robert Dilan Mayor Binay makes history: Win or lose, VP race one for the books BY VERA FILES June 7, 2010 Whatever the final outcome of the tightly contested vice presidential race, Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati City has made history by being the first local official to be possibly catapulted to a top national position, just a breath away from the presidency. Unlike another former mayor, Joseph Estrada, Binay bypassed Congress in his quest for a top post. But Binay’s journey from being a far third at the start of the campaign to becoming the frontrunner in the national canvassing does not surprise fellow mayors and other local executives who say that he prepared for it long ago. The Makati mayor made smart use of vast resources and backed these up with an underground operation that included an in-your-face infiltration of a rival political organization. The latest count by the Senate and House of Representatives acting as National Board of Canvassers shows the Liberal Party’s ...

BY JUAN T. GATBONTON EDITORIAL CONSULTANT 6 June 2010 The Manila Times The school crisis is on us once again. Everyone’s agitated about crowded classrooms; the lack of teachers; not enough textbooks. All tough problems, certainly, but not even the key ones. The more intractable problem we don’t talk about: it concerns the children who never even get to school—or who drop out before they’ve received enough formal learning to function in a modern society. Out of every 100 Filipino children of the right age, roughly 10 never enter a classroom at all. And out of every 100 children who do, 14 drop out before they reach Grade 2. (In early 2009 Pulse Asia reported 26 percent of all Filipinos having no formal education or no more than an elementary education.) Almost unavoidably, these children will grow up to join the ranks of our hard-core poor. In 2009-10 the primary-school participation rate was 86.5 percent. For high school, it was 65.8 percent. The Jesuit educator Bienvenido Nebres calls...

At last, Gibo speaks DUCKY PAREDES ‘Even when he was betrayed, he had nothing bad to say about those who betrayed him.’ I HAVE not seen Gilbert Teodoro. Jr. – Gibo – since weeks before the elections but I am glad that he talked to Newsbreak where I got the following quotes. On the reasons for his conceding early, he answered: "Marami, pero natural ’yung betrayal ang pinakamasakit. Pero nangyari ’yan. Ang importante huwag ka magtatanim, you move on. And I am very happy insofar as the results are concerned, Lakas-Kampi-CMD remains, as of this time, the dominant majority party in terms of the number of [local] officials elected, according to the secretary general, Ray Roquero. I am only a member of Lakas-Kampi-CMD. I am a loyal party member. " Did you speak to anyone before conceding?" I spoke to Nikki (Gibo’s wife) about it and, of course, to our party president, Francis Manglapus." How about President Arroyo? "No. I spoke to our party president, Francis Manglap...