The people's initiative vs. the Comelec

 For our special presentation on our Talkshow on Straight from the Sky, we bring you an update on our environmental concerns and give you the real truth about what is happening within the global climate change reports. Firstly, I'd like to emphasize that that United Nations body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly shifted by calling it from Global Warming…into Climate Change. Why was this changed albeit quietly is something that we will be discussing tonight.

To help me in this scientific discussion, we bring you once more our good friend, Cebu's only Planetary Imager Prof. Chris Go, the only Filipino who has access to the famous Hubble Telescope that is orbiting the earth in a geosynchronous orbit because he discovered the Red Spot Jr. on planet Jupiter. Being a practicing scientist, Prof. Chris Go was instrumental in helping me expose the "Hockey Stick" Theory that former US Vice-President Al Gore included in his environmental documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

When Al Gore was in Manila to sell his "Inconvenient Truth" tale, I was the only columnist who questioned him on the "Hockey Stick" theory that he used in his documentary, but we didn't get any answers from him. But after his world tour, his inconvenient truth was all but debunked with new findings that I got from a Prof. Ian Rutherford Plimer, an Australian Professor emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne and a Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide who said, "The planet Earth has cooled by 0.7 degrees and therefore we are not having Global warming."

What was I even found disturbing and we wrote this fact already in this corner is that 14,000 windmills in California and Hawaii have been stopped from operating long even before the US Government shutdown because they're just too expensive to maintain. Yet here in the Philippines, we are totally ignoring these problems and there are even plans to add more windmills in Pagudpud Bay, which is a totally stupid idea. So watch this very interesting show on Climate Change with Prof. Chris Go on SkyCable's channel 61 at 8 p.m. with replays on MyTV's channel 30 at 9 p.m. on M-W-F.

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The Cebu Coalition Against Pork Barrel System has embarked on a "People's Initiative" to propose a new legislative measure to get rid of the Pork Barrel system a.k.a. Priority Development Assistance Fund where our good friend, Msgr. Rommel Kintanar hopes to gather at least a million signatures. I don't want to rain on your parade Mons, but the People's Initiative just won't work, as it is a law that needs an enabling law to implement it. This was tried already in 1996, but it couldn't be implemented.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, I have always maintained that the Commission on Elections is party to the "Electronic Dagdag-Bawas" in the last May 2013 elections, when Ateneo Professor Alex Muga discovered and exposed the 60 percent 30 percent 10 percent formula that gave the Liberal Party its electronic victory. This is something that we've been harping on since the May polls, but please don't take it from me… listen to Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III aunt former Rep. Tingting Cojuangco who insists that the Liberal Party was "electronically voted upon".

In short, my dear Monsignor, if you push for a People's Initiative and get those million signatures, it will be the same Comelec who will officially tabulate these signatures. But since Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes obviously takes orders from Malacañang, it is easy enough for them to scuttle this people's initiative…by giving you the wrong count. If they did this in the last elections…they can do this to you! So my advise to you folks…please don't ever trust the Comelec…you will end up disappointed.

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THE BLACKBOX:

There is no doubt, the year 2013 will emerge as the year that we lost so many of our friends…some through a lingering illness while others just leave us without any warning. That's exactly what happened this week when a close friend of mine, Mr. Ramon "Monching" Medalla, from Houston arrived in Cebu City with some friends (Cebuanos living in Houston) for a golfing holiday.

Monching and his friends do come to Cebu annually and this was just another golfing trip. Hearing that he was here, I invited him to dinner and he chose to have dinner at Luy's Classic Teahouse. We really had fun reminiscing our golfing days in Houston. He also had a class reunion with his Hagibis BS 72 class last Friday evening. But then Saturday morning came and I got a call from Hector Almario that Monching had a cardiac arrest and his brother-in-law Dr. Joey Villarosa was with him in his hotel room. But he expired and is now with the Lord. Condolences to his wife Celia "Bopeep" and his children May we request the pious reader to pray for the repose of his soul.

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