Out of my mind

As I write, I am watching The Bottomline with Boy Abunda. He has Marlene Aguilar as guest. I am totally blown away - thrown off the wall - by the sheer lunacy of it all. The experience of watching Marlene Aguilar regurgitate what she thinks is wisdom and brilliance is akin to watching a circus freak show. It's riveting but it is also surreal. It's just so totally unreal. What amazes me is that there are actually people who can't see through her; people who still cling to the notion that she is doing all of these things out of maternal love. She is doing it for herself. She is doing it because she cannot help herself. She is sticking to this fantastic yarn about how America is behind her son's supposed persecution. She insists that all of these things - even the Maguindanao massacre, believe it or not - happened because of the supposed subversive content of her book. I've read parts of her books (they can be downloaded from the net) and believe me, the woma...

This is my column today at the op-ed section of the Manila Standard Today . Today is the deadline for the filing of candidacies for senators. The guessing game and the attendant speculations as to who will jump fences, stick to principles, or do a Judas Escariot and sell his or her soul to the highest bidder will finally be over. Frankly, it’s a wonder why we even bother with the whole rigodon when we know that it’s a farce. We all know that any alignment or realignment that is going to happen will be purely for convenience purposes and not grounded on principles or ideologies. What makes the whole thing confounding is the fact that both the administration and the opposition are led by individuals with tarnished reputations. So in the end, it’s a choice between two evils. It is really sad that our choices have boiled down to a question of who is the lesser evil. I know that choosing between two evils is the supreme test of democracy, but surely we deserve better. Nevertheless, the que...