Now THIS is a badass

Imagine living through the Spanish Flu, which mostly killed the young, and COVID-19, which has been targeting the old.

Still got nothing on Enrile, though.

101-year-old Italian man, born amid Spanish flu pandemic, survives coronavirus illness, official says
Ryan W. Miller, USA TODAY
Published 1:00 p.m. ET Mar. 27, 2020

A 101-year-old Italian man has reportedly survived his battle with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus spreading around the globe.

An official from the city of Rimini on the northeast coast of Italy says the man, identified publicly as only Mr. P., was released from the hospital earlier this week.

"He made it. Mr. P. made it," said Gloria Lisi, vice mayor of Rimini, according to ANSA, the Italian news agency.

"Even at 101 years, the future is not written," she added, per CNN.

Full story: www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/03/27/italy-101-year-old-born-during-spanish-flu-survives-coronavirus/2926073001/

Why things won’t go back to normal by mid-April

Or, why it’s not convincing Luzon is winning the war against COVID-19 at the moment, and probably won't by the end of the enhanced community quarantine.

1. We haven’t done nearly enough testing to know who among regular and poor Filipinos are actually positive with the virus. (But at least we do know who among our self-proclaimed VIPs are diseased. Not just with COVID-19 but with self-importance.)

2. Major hospitals have maxed out their capacities and we aren’t even through with Week 2 yet.

3. People apparently aren’t taking the lockdown seriously. Watching the news every night, you see visuals of people still milling around on the streets as if no superbug exists these days ready to kill them. Even in our vicinity, you would think it was a regular Saturday morning judging by the number of people out there.

4. Furthermore, you seriously believe POGOs have shut down as well? Our area houses numerous Chinese POGO workers who are transported to their offices by company-provided vans. Before the lockdown, these white vans were visible most of the time ether waiting for passengers or dropping them off. Just yesterday, I saw two vans idling near the entrance of one of our buildings. They were probably being used to bring PPEs, masks, and food to our frontliners, no?

5. Why do we have such a high death rate despite having a low testing rate? As of March 28, the Philippine death rate stands at 6.72% (54 dead out of 803 cases), making us the ninth-highest across all countries with more than 10 cases. Higher than China, where this entire mess began (4.05%). Higher than practically all of Southeast Asia (except Indonesia at 8.32%). Thailand has more cases than us but their number of deaths is 11 times lower. And Vietnam, despite having “just” 163 cases, still has 0 deaths.

6. We’re in the dark as to when the curve is expected to flatten. This isn’t an issue unique to the Philippines, though.

7. Doctors are dying everyday. And they weren’t just general practitioners, too. They were specialists, some of whom had vast experience in their respective fields. Dead doctors are just the ones getting the attention on mass and social media. Who knows how many more nurses, lab technicians, and other medical workers have passed away?

8. The administration is already dismissing talk about extending the community quarantine this early even though cases continue to rise everyday. Logically, you lift the lockdown when cases start to dip significantly. We haven’t even started to see the curve flatten and yet here they are, outright quashing the subject of prolonging the lockdown.

9. Red tape. There has been no shortage of donations of PPEs and N95 masks yet apparently these have been piling up because the DOH has been dragging its feet in giving them to hospitals.

10. Koko Pimentel. No resignation. No censure. No tongue-lashing from his colleagues. No criminal cases filed. No jail time.

I don't feel trusted

Wala akong ginagawang masama
Wala rin akong balak gawing masama
Pero parang kung makatingin ang iba
Ultimo pagkurap ko kaduda-duda

May problema raw sa nakaraan ko
Pero ngayon ba, ganun pa rin ako?
Baka naman pinipilit na lang ang isyu
Carpe diem, motherfuckers!

Just one or the other

JC de los Reyes said, "I am not claiming to be a winner, not at all, but I am not a loser".

It's either you won or you lost, dummy. There's no gray area there. Sure, you have to protect every single vote that went your way. But doing so doesn't make you any less of a loser.

I want to ride my bicycle

Congratulations go out to the various bike groups that have successfully lobbied for folding bikes to be allowed in LRT trains.

Now getting to work or any other place will be quicker without having to deal much with deadly motor vehicle traffic and even deadlier air pollution. Hooray!

Except for one thing: how many will actually benefit from this allotment of "green zones" in LRT trains?

Stand by any busy Metro Manila sidewalk and count how many folding bikes pass by you in a span of one hour. How many do you see? Yup, that's right: close to none!

Having owned bikes since I was 3 and having lived in Metro Manila my whole life, let me say with confidence that most bikes in my beloved metropolis will fall under only one of these types: BMX, mountain bike and road  bike.

Folding bikes aren't just uncommon in these parts, they're a rarity.

If the purpose of letting bikes on trains is to reap all the benefits of a "hybrid lifestyle", then why is the vast majority of bike owners left out in the cold? Do the LRT and the cycling groups expect everyone to shell out thousands of pesos like Pia Cayetano just so we can buy a new folding bike? What about blue-collared workers who rely on their modified BMX's to get to their jobs at factories or construction sites? No hybrid lifestyle for them, too, huh?

While it's not hard to see why folding bikes get preferential treatment, it won't be easy to understand if this is the end-all be-all of things. Here's something to ponder over, LRT -- if foldables can get in for free, how about I pay half my fare for my non-foldable racer?

Greed for aid

Joey Salceda says interesting things sometimes. He had one last night on ANC. He said for every person who dies in a typhoon or any natural calamity, Malacañang and the local government should pool funds and give the family of that person P1 million.

For a Gloria flunky, that suggestion's real sensible.

He could have gone further, though. If a government official is revealed to have splurged the way the awesomely gallant Martin Romualdez did at Le Cirque (yes, even if it was his own[???] money), he will have to shell out double the amount for relief and rehabilitation efforts of calamity-hit areas. And it doesn't matter if that official is not a representative or a resident of the that area -- he still has to provide assistance whether he likes it or not. Also, it will have to be lump sum, not in tranches.

So the next time Romualdez sucks up to Gloria by buying her a $20,000 dinner in New York, he will have to fork over 2 million pesos to the victims of the next Ondoy.

Hey congressman, that's a fair deal. Lamon kayo ulit sa New York, dali!

Anim ba bunganga niya?

Sabagay mukhang kulang nga ang "double" sa "double talk" kung si Gloria ang pag-uusapan. Kaya siguro kelangan niya ng anim na spokespersons.

Sabi ni spokesperson no. 1 Eduardo Ermita, yung dalawang new kids on the block eh magiging "spokespersons on economic matters". Kasi raw baka isipin ng mga tao niloloko lang sila kung ang mga magsasalita tungkol sa economy eh hindi naman galing sa field of economics.

Pero di ba ekonomista si Gloria mismo, and a "pretty good" one at that? So bakit niya kelangan ng hindi isa, kundi dalawang economic spokespersons? Hindi na ba siya magaling na ekonomista? At nababawasan na ba ang galing niya sa panloloko?

Bless you, Homer, Marge and BJ Thomas

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin' seems to fit
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

So I just did me some talkin' to the sun
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done
Sleepin' on the job
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

[trumpet]

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

Outside the rain begins

A drizzle and occasional large drops of rain which fell few and far between -- who would think big of it? Definitely not me. Do I bring out my umbrella? Nah, I thought, as I stepped out of Ministop. Too much effort. So that's how it was until I reached the station.

Down at the platform, the air was thick with something that felt heavy and weird. Weirder still was the fact that I could easily count the people waiting for the familiar rumble of metal against metal. At 6:50 p.m.? Now this was definitely one for the books.

The trip was uneventful. Except for the booming clap of thunder midway through the ride which startled and woke me up from my pseudoslumber. I could imagine the folks around looking at me, some perhaps trying to conceal laughter at the spectacle of someone suddenly and involuntarily throwing his arms sideways out of surprise. To which I responded: Fuck off, douchebags!

Getting off, it was mayhem. Five million Filipinos were waiting past the turnstiles, hoping the downpour would stop soon. Twelve million others were on the stairs trying to get out of that hellhole, patient ones with umbrellas and assholes without. It took a good half-hour to get from the top of the stairs to the foot. And the bedlam didn't end there.

As the rain flooded a good part of the metropolis, one could see fewer and fewer vehicles traversing the road -- including buses. No problem, I'll just wait it out. There's no hurry to get home, and no place to go to either. So wait it out I did, with Ely Buendia in my mind bellowing how he's drinking his beer and watching his tears going southbound.

Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Then thirty. Still waiting there. Holy crap, is it armageddon already? Then I decided to walk away. In the hard, drenching rain. Where to? I don't know, maybe anywhere. So long as I'm doing something, even if my umbrella had a couple of holes on it.

The long, hard trek followed. Commuters thinned out as I went. Ely was still singing, even if I wasn't waiting for a goddamn bus anymore. But who was I to complain? Sure, my shoes and feet got wet. But it felt nice to be walking out in the rain once more.

Puerile underestimated traitor aborigine

Whatever semblance of common sense Oliver Lozano had has been torpedoed down by his utter lack of it. Defending the gimmick of one of his party’s “senatoriables” of using the name Peter despite the very obvious attempt to ride on Alan Peter Cayetano’s popularity, Lozano said:

“Everyone is free to use a name, whether it is Peter or Jojo. You can even use Gestapo.”

Really? That’s great because now, I have the perfect ploy to get filthy rich. I’d go to Recto, buy diplomas and business cards bearing the name Oliver Lozano, and engage in every illegal get-quick-rich scheme there is. And when the cops attempt to haul my wealthy ass to jail, I’ll just say, “Sorry dudes, you got the wrong guy.”

Funny how Lozano himself never had this idea when his beloved strongman was still in power.

***

Everyone’s favorite censor is back. Discontented with just yakking it out with Maggie dela Riva, Tita Manoling Morato is now appealing on everyone not to vote for “immoral” candidates, particularly Loren Legarda, who has two failed marriages.

Now, now Tita, aren’t you a bit too harsh? When you ran for president nine years ago, 19,770 people put their trust in you. This despite the fact that you never married and didn’t follow God’s admonition to “go forth and multiply”, and are gay (a very immoral trait, if you go by the Bible). Besides, you were also chairman of the PCSO, the government’s gambling arm. And gambling is a very, very bad deed, don’t you agree?

I suggest you go easy on this immorality thing. Did it ever occur to you that the reason you never won in any election is because you’re dumbassedly moral?