What’s Your Middle Name?

This is another tag. If you are not a tag kind of guy or gal, you can stop here and take the nearest detour and click on to the next webpage please. But since tags are surely fun, you’d better stop clicking away and read on.

This one’s from Ipanema just about a couple of days ago. It’s about one’s middle name. Here’s the rule for specific details:

1. State your middle name. If it’s too long or not sounding so good, then think about the name you wish you had as a middle name. And use that, of course.






2. For each letter of the middle name stated in Rule #1, write a specific trait or characteristic of your person and elaborate reasonably.






3. If you had five letters in such name, tag the same number of bloggers. Like if that name has seven letters, then seven other bloggers. If such name has one letter, then tag that one single blogger. Now wait, I don’t think that middle names—-or any name for that matter—-could probably have one single letter on it. But who knows, some names might just be like that, like Mr.X, or Mr.Y. We got a lot of names like that back in my accounting subjects in college, Mr. M owes this much, Mrs. Q earns this much, and so on and so forth.






4. There is no Rule #4 so might as well go on.

In my case, my real middle name is too long for comfort that I would be hard-pressed to ever think of a great number of traits or characteristics so I decide to state and use “UNIH” here as the name of the hour. As you know, Unih is my beloved grandfather’s name and if you ask me what name I thought I would like to have, then “UNIH” must be it.

Now, here’s the main tag:

U-I am understanding. At least I like to think myself that way. And also because I feel and believe that I understand a lot of things.

N-I am nurturing. I am so kindly to my kids that I could say I am a nurturing father.

I-I used to be insomniac about several years ago, when I was still single. I could be awake till the early hours of the morning and amazingly wake up at about 8 or 9 in the morning not feeling groggy at all. But now that family life consumes me all day, I would feel so sleepy right before midnight that as a blogger, I had wished to be insomniac again so that I could focus on the content in my monitor in the silent hours after midnight, but this just wasn’t the case, so I do my blogging on daytime.

H-I am Happy. At least that’s what I want to believe for myself. And also because I can be happy and pleasured with so many simple things that happiness would not be such a problem for me if ever I’d seek it. But of course, I am entwined in the usual difficulties of life, like lack of money, emotional distraction and disturbances, stress and anxieties; but I could be happy just watching a flock of elegant birds passing by, which can occur in the sky above our vicinity once in a while, watering the gardens and watch them bloom in deep green and reds, and oranges, and lavenders, like a fishbowl of colors, especially in the morning, when the sweet early sun rays start to kiss the ground.

There you go.

For this one, I am tagging Intsik, Wil, Singkopipe, Gypsy, and Momoftwo; for no other reason except I have not tagged even once before.

Google's Moon Landing Contest Is On

Just right about the time that I won the grand prize in Jayred’s recently-held blog contest, I have stumbled upon this one-of-a-kind competition while surfing for news, one that’ll boast a 20 Million Dollar top plum and guess what company is behind this thing—-it’s none other than our beloved Google . It happens that Google is now initiating yet another online service that would make available live moon scenarios on the net as well as images of relics of past explorations. The said contest calls for any private group or team to land a rover into the moon and then send live images of the landscapes there towards land-base and that the rover should be able to move and roam within a 5-kilometer radius. The first team to achieve such feat before 2012 would win the huge bonanza and if the rover could find old relics of space equipments from past explorations, like the famed Apollo 11 mission, and catch images of them, then there would be additional 5 million dollar on top of the main prize.

Accordingly, Google is sponsoring this competition not merely to spur its online corporate growth by providing this one-of-a-kind service in the coming years but also to encourage private entities to pursue space experimentation and discovery. As of now, only government-backed agencies undertake such in-depth venture into space, way beyond the orbiting satellites that are often commercial in nature. Today in fact, Japan had just launched its first mission to the moon.

Experts believed that there are about 5 to 6 private entities or group of private entities in the world today that is capable of undertaking such medium-scale exploration into the moon. However 5 or 6 to me is a very minimal number and the competition might merely turn into a race among few selected individuals rather than a wide-open and globally widespread event, as envisioned by its organizers. I do hope that many other private entities or companies from all over the world would find the competition worthwhile enough and join the contest, thus making it a truly historic global occasion.

There is one major difficulty that will be faced by those who would partake in this rover-landing competition and that is economic-wise. My researched had informed me that in most instances, NASA spends just above a billion dollar in order to launch a moon exploration and that’s a whole lot of money—-way, way beyond the financial capacity of any private entity or agency. Except if Bill Gates becomes interested. Yet there aren’t just too many out there with Mr. Gates economic capability.

But fortunately, a California-base company is offering its moon-reaching Falcon Rockets for a sum of 7 Million Dollars each. If the top prize is 20 Million, then the winners would still take home some 13 Million Dollars or so above cost, and that is still pretty huge.

Apparently, the main challenge here lies in the building of the rover, one that would be able to carry high definition cameras towards the moon and utilize them in the most efficient manner while being thousand of miles above ground and then be capable of transmitting images back to Earth. Major advancements in electronics and telephony would for certain make this main endeavor a not-so-difficult task. Let us remember that in the past, a Filipino scientist had been behind the famous Lunar Rover (one with the noticeable umbrella–like instrument attached to it) used by NASA in its early moon explorations in the 70’s. So everything is doable. The only real struggle for each competitor would be where to get the sizable funding needed to launch the rover into space and then land safely on the moon.

Maybe, local scientists can join the fray with the support of some generous private individuals. This would surely propel our nation’s reputation for innovation and ingenuity. Who knows, we might just get lucky. And you know, small miracles do happen.

Iraq War: It's All About Oil, Says US Top Economist

Former United States Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan has his life finally put on paper and he has salient points to affirm there that got the whole world listening, or wanting to listen to. In his newly-released memoir “Age of Turbulence: Adventures In A New World”, Greenspan sharply points out the Bush administrations’ misguided inclination towards overspending and further criticizes the Republicans in Capitol Hill to have had sacrificed principles for pecuniary and political gains and ended up with neither in the end.

When Alan Greenspan speaks, everybody listens. As a federal economists, Greenspan had accumulated enormous reputation for being such a great financial strategists and many sees him as the one single entity that had kept the American economy afloat all those years he was in service, despite the occurrence of major disturbances that had threatened it every now and then, like the Black Monday crash of 1987 and the boom-and-bust onslaught of the so-called dot.com economic expansion.

The most telling of all revelation in this memoir is the pronouncement by the author himself about how the Iraq War was all about or mostly because of oil. And if Alan Greenspan says so, there would always be great probability to it. Except if the economic genius has just gotten too old and weak in the head that now, he is just merely saying nonsense, like most old people do.

If you ask me, I wouldn’t be so surprise if in fact US President Bush’s military venturing into Iraq is mainly caused by the need for oil, or in protection of the oil industry either domestically in the US, or in general, for as a matter of fact, President Bush himself was once top oil executive, just like his father. He may have brought some of his old private agendas into the White House, either willfully or not. That would be not so difficult to fathom.

But what I have got a problem with is how President Bush had been posturing a different agenda all along in risking lives of American soldiers into danger zones and wasting enormous resources, such as the heroic push for democracy in the Middle East or in defense of the Homeland. It would be monumental hypocrisy if in fact Mr. Greenspan was right, and President Bush was just pretending all along to be dutiful in waging a huge and costly war in Iraq. Maybe the heavy military spending in Iraq is one symptom of the alleged inclination of the Republicans to overspend and defy any reasonable economic restraint.

For now, it is just a memoir and we all know that in any biography or autobiography, anyone can just say whatever he or she wants to say. But I am just wary that in this case, the famous person behind the memoir is not just another ageing American actor or actress, or a balding American athlete, but someone who everybody listens to whenever he opens his mouth.

Let us see how President Bush would respond to this latest smoldering issue against him and his military venture into Iraq.

The Iran Situation: When "worst" means "war"...

The sum of all our fears still remains. When North Korea had finally lessened its adamant stand on pursuing its bellicose nuclear program,—-allowing onsite inspection of suspected facilities within its territory—-I have thought then that the world could heave a sigh of relief, even for just a moment. But the nuclear menace whipped back with thunderous noise when French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner issued recently a very strong statement concerning Iran’s hesitation to forego of its nuclear ambition. “We have to prepare for the worst” Kouchner had said and “the worst” means military action against Iran. In fact, this has gotten the Russian Foreign Minister so up on his feet and quickly admonished the idea of war against Iran as very dangerous and risky.

Such “warmonging” statements from the French Foreign Minister; this only means that the EU had not been achieving anything palpable in its intense negotiation and bargaining with Iran. This is so discouraging knowing how EU had been so evidently confident before about the talks, promising that they would result to a most ideal compromise. EU had even been so critical of President Bush for being too fast on his gun when White House had been hinting of airstrikes against suspected nuclear facilities inside Iran since last year. Now, EU seems to have raised up its hands and given up. Cracks in the talks between EU and Iran had finally showed like an ugly head from some infamous box. And it seems to me that the main thrust to stifle Iran’s threat—-as well as that of North Korea’s—-had fizzled out in a jiffy and threatens to blow away so completely.

This Friday in fact, the United Nation Security Council is set to convene in order to size-up possible sanctions against Iran, increasing pressure against it to desist from its ardent uranium enrichment activities. And most of EU seems to conform to the imposition of new and more stringent sanctions although Russia is quick to point out that a military solution would be highly unadvisable anytime soon. The Iran issue is clearly on a tightrope and because of this, the nuclear menace remains alive and kicking. It’s sad. Very, very sad and alarming.

In connection with this, Israeli warplanes had allegedly busted a target in Syria that had appeared so likely to be nuclear-related structures. The U.S. government had in fact been privy of this Israeli information and had taken serious action on it. If the Syria nuclear case proves to be not merely a fabrication, then the present nuclear problem becomes three-fold as U.S. intelligence had confirmed the presence of North Koreans in Damascus even when nuclear connection had been repeatedly denied by both Syria and North Korea.

Iran, North Korea and now Syria—-these three nations becomes focal to the nuclear problem that continues to haunt us. I hope the right steps would be undertaken to control this growing threat to world peace and safety. One or ones that would not have to reach the point of military action or anything near it.

A Series of Oil Price Increasing Events

By this time, my 100 pesos would put lesser amount of gasoline into my fuel tank and of course, I’ll be having lesser mileage because of that as local oil companies have once again increased pump prices yesterday. Probably, this is the immediate result of what had happened about a week ago, when world crude prices obtained an all-time high at 81 dollars to a barrel.

And thus, the law on oil prices remains true. When world oil rates increases, local oil companies are so quick on their guns, increasing local prices as immediately as possible. And when world oil prices decreases—-somehow happening once in a blue moon—-local companies are so slow to react and in readjusting local prices accordingly, posing excuses such as old inventories bought previously at higher prices are still the commodities that they are pumping out of their gasoline stations. It’s worst than Murphy’s Law I tell you.

81 dollars. That’s an all-time high and it’s noteworthy of reiterating while as we speak now, some sectors are even predicting further escalation of world oil prices. The main cause of the recent increases is being blamed at the seemingly lackluster production of OPEC and it seems that the oil-producing countries are not so inclined to increase production as Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah even asked this question, “What if I increase production and nobody buys it?”, referring to the dilemma allegedly faced by OPEC producers nowadays. I wonder if he is ever knowledgeable about a more universal law on supply and demand. If he increases production and not everyone would buy it, at least crude prices would go down globally and this would help the world economy from being hammered by energy deficiency, and thus avoiding widespread economic malaise. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize this. In the event a 100-dollar per barrel becomes imminent or even appertaining, to be sure there’d be a global economic meltdown nobody wants that to happen.

In light of this, I can sense that OPEC is just being reactionary to Asia-Pacific Economic Forum’s recent declaration on emission reduction by as much as 25% by 2030. Despite that the Sydney Declaration is mostly non-binding (not mandatory to signatory nations), it still remains a very strong move towards decrease in carbon-producing activities, or lesser use of fossil fuel as a means of production and transportation. By then, OPEC would foresee lesser selling opportunities as manufacturers would be opting for other sources of energy (what exactly they are we are not still sure at this time) for industrial production and transportation. Maybe, emission reduction would mean more use of bio-fuels and more hybrid cars on the road. OPEC would surely have lesser customers in that situation.

Is the recent increase in world oil prices (reaching a level never-before breached) merely a reaction of OPEC to APEC’s emission reduction move? We are not so sure by now, but the timeliness of recent events makes me think this way.

Myanmar's Quest For Freedom

Something so important is brewing over there in Myanmar right at this very moment, even as we speak. Tens of thousands of people have gathered and joined the monks-led protests against the generals ruling within the SLORC (State Law and Order restoration Council), swooping down through the main avenues and streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The mass action is now entering into it’s fourth day and most recent reports on it have seen the generals finally issuing a grave warning, threatening an intense crackdown against the monks, who are mainly well-revered by the people of Myanmar and had generally been immune from the restrictive hand of the military rule over there.

It is not so clear yet what cause or causes the Buddhists monks have mainly voiced-out in this yet another major protest action (a student-led protest against SLORC had been crushed in 1998) but it is generally seen that the military junta over there had been so fraught with human rights abuses, various brutalities that consists of forced labor and violent repression against ethnic minorities, particularly the Karen group where many of them have retreated towards the borders or had even taken refuge into neighboring countries such as Thailand.

The Myanmar situation had long been an issue in the ASEAN leadership where Myanmar remains the only member-country with a military junta as a form of government and America and Europe had long criticized ASEAN for being too lax on Myanmar, citing it’s far-from-ideal human rights record and repression of democracy. Now, ASEAN is forced to take issue on the brimming scenario over there in Yangon. Would they support the anti-government move? Would it prod the military junta to take strength? Or would ASEAN continue to be silent over the boisterous issue that is Myanmar—-like a whiny child?

At least, US President George Bush has already taken note on what’s happening in Yangon and had today announced more sanctions against the military junta or its members, as well as to their financial supporters, which are mostly coming from China and India, Myanmar’s two closest allies, perhaps showing to us that America is not merely interested in oil-rich regions, but as well as in others.

Whatever becomes of the mass protest in Yangon, I hope nothing extraordinarily violent would inure, despite that in every move against a government, violence (or some form of it) may always exist. I hope the generals would keep their composure and not step back in time and become beastly in engaging the protesters in the streets. We have been placed in the same situation once before—-or twice even—-first in 1986 along EDSA and then in 1991 when former President Joseph Estrada was forced to step down.

I hope so well that something good emanates for Myanmar after this—-like freedom and democracy.

Would The National Broadband Network Possibly Be Beneficial To Us?

It has become such a full-blown issue. The first time I heard about the NBN-ZTE controversy, I felt like it was just merely yet another jar that the administration people had gotten their hands into—-and being caught yet once again. For certain, the ZTE issue becomes now an unfastened Pandora’s box, and everything now is in wide disarray. In fact, this issue finally became the source of an impeachment proceeding to be filed against COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos, just when he is about to retire from public service. Imagine a cyclone approaching land-base and then the destruction it leaves behind when the faintest wind finally stopped.

It is worth noting at this point how the whole shenanigan had started and progressed into the huge mess that it is right now. GMA News offers this very concise timeline of the ZTE deal, from the time it was offered by the government of China towards the time it was brought to the public eye as a full-blown controversy.

Bingskee over there at Warmstone had presented how the deal was so flawed in its conception that it is actually in direct violation of eight important laws, including the BOT Law and the Anti-Graft and Corruption Law. Being such, it is most probably a contract null and void from the beginning.

The main question or questions that the Senate hearings seem to have aimed at is whether or not the contract was in violation of established government policies and laws, especially the procurement guidelines set in such mode of governmental undertaking. Senator Francis Escudero was at his sharpest this afternoon and was in fact so effective in digging up mud, slowly but surely establishing the defects of the whole NBN-ZTE deal, being so haphazard in its preparation and hugely flawed in its execution.

Considering the amount involved (approximately $329.5 Million), the contract signed by DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza with the government of China had not obtained proper documentations such as the DOJ and DBM advises as well as approval from the Government Procurement Policy Board.

Despite that direct contracting is allowed within our governmental system, such is tolerated merely on very special circumstances like the procurement of necessary goods in times of urgency, such rice shortages due to calamities and the like, and only if it is done through a government-to-government agreement, thereby obtaining the character of an executive agreement (mostly undertaken through memorandum of agreements) and bidding and other regular procurement procedures would be set aside and done with in this manner.

Such is the general rule on special procurements done by the government. An example of this circumstance is the implementation of projects by World Bank and the International Bank of Rural Development Bank here in the Philippines, where mostly performance of contracts are done through sub-contracting and where bidding procedures are skipped in order to avoid any delay, selecting merely contractors from an accredited list. Other situations where public bidding is avoided is when the transaction is in consonance with a signed treaty or if the goods are for use by foreign-funded projects.

In the situation at hand, the ZTE contract is for procurement of infrastructure and not of goods as specifically pointed out by Senator Escudero, thereby very far from the safe embrace of executive agreements. It appears now that the contracting parties here have merely circumvented certain restrictions by using the special characteristic of an executive agreement.

Going to other matters, there is one salient issue that the Senate hearings have not so far tackled so thoroughly, or not even a slight indication to it. It should now be a question—-while the ZTE deal is under suspension from Malacañang and TRO’d by the Supreme Court—-of whether or not a National Broadband Network is necessary and very beneficial to the government and to the State as a whole. Former NEDA head Romulo Neri cited it’s very huge rate of return (at 29%) as a very strong motivation to procure it. Aside from that, the DOTC justifies it through a projected 3.6 Billion pesos yearly since the government is presently spending about 4 Billion pesos in telecommunication bills each year. The broadband network would also allow better interconnectivity among various governmental agencies and would allow the smooth and hassle-free implementation of new online services such as those being implemented by GSIS, where loans and other benefits could be obtained by just logging into the Internet and acquiring the proceeds from an ATM-like machine. One aspect of the planned infrastructure that the DOTC is highlighting (in its justification of it) is its VoIP capability that could save the government in long-distance expenses. In fact, it is foreseen that even the lowly barangay level government unit would be able to have access to inter-agency connectivity—-broadband and VoIP at that.

Of course, the private sector would frown on this as it would be losing from the income it usually generates from government activities. But that is beside the point if for example it is primordial for the government to be so effective in its communication and at the same time save on expenses. What would be a major issue by then is if ever the government—-with an infrastructure like the National Broadband Network—-would steal away business from private telecommunication companies, and while the constitution specifically forbid this kind of setup. With the NBN, it is projected that the government could be able to offer very low broadband rates to the public and beat the existing prices currently offered by private companies. Of course, this would particularly be beneficial to the ordinary Internet users, having access to very affordable broadband services. At present, the rates of broadband connection are far from being affordable to the average income earners.

Even Singapore is ambitioning of having a blazing speed Internet broadband network. But over there, the Singaporean government would be tapping the private sector to spearhead the installation of such and would merely be interfering in the initial stages—-unlike the NDN deal, where the government plays an active role in its operation.

The NBN would somehow be very beneficial by making available a much cheaper and faster connection into the Internet by government agencies, and possibly by the public in general.

CHED Chairman Neri was right to suggest that any procurement of such infrastructure in the future (in case the ZTE deal would be scrapped entirely) should be done through proper public bidding, in order that the government may gain mostly from it and not be worried with overpricing and substandard implementation as what is feared with this ZTE deal.

Photo: FreeFoto.com