Senate apes House, clears bid colluders

The immoderately greedy admin has had it with journalist Ramon Tulfo. It can no longer stand his thrice-weekly exposés of sleaze in highest places. He knows too much, having been chummy once upon a time with the First Couple. So it wants him silenced once and for all — the criminal way.

A compadre of Mon’s with connections to the top warned him about the issuance of a death warrant. Mon in turn has told relatives and friends whom to blame in case anything happens to him. Let it be put on record: it would be best for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to secure Mon.

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The farce is on, admin critic Leah Navarro said about yesterday’s Senate hearing on bid rigging in a World Bank roadwork. Like the earlier coverup at the House of Reps, senators cleared the contractors whom the WB has banned from future biddings. Admin and opposition members chorused in blaming instead the WB for not releasing its report to them. Also virtually absolved was First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, who snubbed a Senate summons although named in excerpts leaked to the press. Inquiry head Miriam Santiago, whose husband is an admin appointee, was very nice to Sec. Gary Teves and Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Only last week during the first hearing, she was demanding their sacking, along with Sec. Hermogenes Ebdane.

All this, despite Gutierrez’s admission towards hearing’s end that she received a stack of papers from the WB only two days ago. She has yet to study the documents, she said. The senators appeared uninterested and quickly adjourned. Filipinos lost the chance to know about the WB bidding mess.

Let’s pray that the senators, if truly transparent, next disclose recent and forthcoming Malacañang releases of pork barrels.

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Fisheries chief Malcolm Sarmiento theorized that seaquakes, among others, caused the beaching of 300 dolphins at Bataan. STAR reader David Williams, a retired American ship captain, extensively has researched the effects of undersea tremors on marine mammals. A whale conservationist since age 15, he published in the ’80s a 106-page report entitled “Auditory Trauma as the Major Factor in Whales and Dolphin Stranding.” He writes:

“The dolphins traveled with the flow of Manila Bay surface currents, influenced by tidal flow and wind speed and direction. If the current carries them out to sea on a falling tide, they may return on the next rise. If winds remain steady, the pod will slowly leave the coast and head out to sea towards China and the Gulf of Tonkin. If they survive for another week, they will strand somewhere near the Chinese island of Hainan.

“The US government was not ready in the ’80s to talk about deaf dolphins and whales. Most scientists back then could not comprehend the intensity of pressure changes in the water above the epicenter of a potent seaquake. The climate has changed over the years. Still the US Navy and most governments don’t want to talk about baro-trauma and auditory injury in whales and dolphins caused by sonar and oil industry air cannons. Air guns blasting away on the surface produce identical pressure disturbance as undersea quakes. Blasts used to explore for oil are nothing more than manmade earthquakes.

“Having polished my seaquake theory, I can predict with earthquake data whale stranding 30 days hence within 300 km of the beach. I could have easily predicted that dolphins would show up somewhere in the Philippines due to a massive quake near the equator. But I had no way to know there would be 300 animals or that they would head to Manila Bay. The problem with predicting in Asia is that there are so many islands and sandbars that can entrap an injured pod.

“The 300 dolphins were injured by a rather nasty group of over 120 seaquakes. The swarm started with a small tremor on Dec. 21, 2008. Things got hot Jan. 3 when a magnitude 7.6 temblor ripped loose near the water’s edge on Indonesia’s Papua Island, 700 miles southeast of Davao. That quake hit at noon and was followed by over 120 aftershocks, each one capable of injuring dolphins. Check out http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=36507.

“It’s like Navy Seals being exposed to rapid pressure change if depth charges are set off nearby. Feeding dolphins can be caught off-guard by sudden huge changes in the surrounding water pressure during a series of thrusting seaquakes. A dolphin suffers baro-traumatic injury in the head and middle ear sinuses if the rapid pressure change exceeds its ability to adjust.

“The volume of air in each sinus cavity is in direct proportion to the surrounding water pressure. As pressure increases, volume decreases; as pressure decreases, volume increases. Dolphins can normally deal with pressure change. But sometimes a major disturbance in the seafloor sends waves of changing pressures over the mass of an entire pod of dolphins. The pressure changes are too fast and excessive, causing the sinuses to expand and contract to the point of injury, disabling the entire pod at the same time.

“Often it is not only one seaquake that causes the stranding. Of thousands of beaching incidents we have studied, more than 80 percent were caused by swarms of ten or more tremors.”

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