Vanishing point

We have reached the “vanishing point”.

Our fuel reserves are fast vanishing. Our gasoline and diesel fuel inventory is vanishing. Our LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) stockpile is vanishing. Our refined and raw sugar are vanishing. Our supply of pork is vanishing. Our bumper crop of rice is vanishing. Our BIR collections are vanishing.

All in all this probably makes the economy look good because we have high consumer demand, we have readily available cash and purchasing power, we just don’t and won’t have anything to spend all our money on!

To put humor into this otherwise dangerous situation, I guess we can all look forward to being one with nature or going back to the “Dark Ages” in every aspect of life.

By tomorrow, I’ll be giving instructions in our farm to build drying sheds for coconut shells, kakawati branches, and every combustible part of the coconut trees. Just to be on the sure side, I might as well learn about bee keeping and honey production, as well as start planting my own little row of sugarcane for personal consumption.

Thanks to Sister Eden of the Sisters of St. Paul, we have learned to enjoy eating mountain rice and if the supply goes low we can always replace rice with sweet corn. If we go back to extended brownouts or blackouts, we can then hold burial ceremonies for our pet Kois, arowanas and exotic aquarium stock and replace them with the tough tilapias which are also very edible. For lights, the good old coconut oil can still be counted upon for cave style oil lamps, cooking oil, and hair toner.

Since your paper shredders won’t run without electricity, you can start cooking over a “confidential paper” fire. I am certainly thankful to God for inspiring me to find and fix classic bicycles, because from the looks of it, this could be the next mode of modern transport in the Philippines.

Since we won’t be eating a lot of rice and pork because Pinoys will be competing with pigs in order to eat corn, we will all be living healthier. Since we will have to do more walking and cycling, we will be healthier. Since we will be consuming less or no sugar at all, we will be healthier. We will go to sleep earlier because we will be living in darkness, we will get up earlier because we slept well or not at all. However, it turns out we will all be lean and mean, and we will certainly be…….Asia’s biggest loser.

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After running businesses to the ground, the government and its lap dogs are now talking about “take overs”. Unlike Ferdinand Marcos who went through the formality of declaring martial law before taking over all the companies of the oligarchs, people connected with the Arroyo administration have made it clear that they will simply declare “MINE!”.

If there is anything I have learned about this entire disaster and impending doom, it is that we are in the mess we are in because we did not stand up and demand that the office of the President should and must appoint qualified professionals to each and every position in government.

Any lawmaker who investigates or ponders upon this “vanishing point” we’re in, should immediately pass a law that makes it mandatory for any appointing power, office or authority to appoint only “qualified professionals” in a particular position or office.

A law that would require any appointee to have “expertise and experience” in a given position or office would quickly insure that we don’t have mere political appointees and cronies running any office in government.

Government is not an employment agency for the unemployable or the incompetent. Let us put an end to the circus of allowing interest groups or vested interest to manipulate government policy via employment or appointment. Let us put a stop to having idiots and airheads in public office and let us preserve and protect the professionalism as well as careers of true government professionals.  

All media practitioners should pressure Congress into setting up a public opinion poll/reaction system about any candidate being appointed into public office. High or low, every rank or position in government must be filled by the qualified and the competent first and foremost. Political appointment or not, all appointees must have the “experience and expertise”.

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We may soon have more ‘islands of graft” than the natural 7,100 we thought we had.

A sure sign of last minute money-making deals are the emerging “Islands of graft” which have started to rise all over Metro Manila in spite of the dreaded climate change. In case you’re clueless, I refer to the various beautification projects that have cropped up particularly the planter boxes or “Islands” in between main roads.

I am told that this beautification projects are just some of the new styles of spending remaining budgets so there are no leftovers to be returned to the national government. In the past every mayor I knew spent and earned money on lamp posts, if they did not pocket any, they certainly got their initials plastered all over their territory.

The next popular mode after the lamp-posts were sidewalks paved with prefab concrete blocks and expensive antique style tiles. Then it was the stylized or “pimped” cop cars and barangay vehicles.

So now we have a modern day interpretation of what the conquistadors once said about the island of thieves: Islas de Ladrones.