Japanese anime

How do you think the Japanese will react if they ordered a serving of sushi and we grilled it right in front of them? They’ll probably go kamikaze on us! That’s the reason why Japanese ambassador Kujiro Takano made his all-too-infamous remark that he was having insomnia ever since he landed on the Philippines: our government, it seems, is not doing everything to make the Japanese feel welcome. A copy of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry letter to GMA signed by Ryukichi Kawaguchi listed five issues the Japanese government wants GMA to address: infrastructure, labor (for industrial peace), peace and order, environment and VAT refund. Other issues that need to be tackled are: the use of foreign currency in the financial statements, and taxation on remittances under the RP-Japan Tax Treaty. The most pressing issue is the waste management problem the Philippines is suffering from right now. It seems there is no place in the country to get rid of the hazardous wastes being produced by some Japanese firms operating here. After saying what Takano said, we may have wanted to throw him in a trash bin, but their concern was and still is serious. Let’s not wait before Voltes V comes in to negotiate before we decide to volt in with the Japanese.

More zest

SMC president and COO Ramon Ang’s zest for Zesto has finally fizzled out. Owners of Zesto just gave Ang a not-for-sale price, making the deal not as juicy as when it was first broached. Drawing the last straw, SMB has plans of coming up with beverages that have more zest than this one.

Tycoon Signal No. 1

While the rest of the rich and famous are selling their yachts to even out the financial landscape or trim down their expenses, multi-billionaire Jose "Joey" Concepcion III is selling his newly-acquired 120-foot yacht to purchase an even bigger one. Some people are just born lucky.

Hey, big spender

Big-spender presidential adviser and his gofer-cum-camel-driver have already spent close to P10 million from the government’s cash coffer in first-class airline tickets and accommodations for himself with the promise of bringing home the bacon for OFWs in the reconstruction deal for Iraq. So, where is it? Iraq it seems is being rebuilt faster than we could say "Saddam is dead!" and Filipinos are being left out of the picture mainly because the presidential adviser spends more money on frills rather than on closing the deal for the overseas workers. This big spender’s habits have not changed since his days as chair of the local telecoms giant – as the auditors found out. Truth to tell, a big Filipino contractor has already bagged a few contracts directly from the Americans in Iraq, and this is totally without the help of the presidential adviser. Fact of the matter is, the contractor does not want the presidential adviser and the Philippine government to even go anywhere near this deal.

How much is that faggy in the window

Of AC-DC journalists we already know about, but less familiar to us are the ways and means by which this particular journo-turned-Jukebox Queen a.k.a. "Victoria’s Secret" scrapes the moneybags of his victims. Poor Victoria. After being exposed as a jukebox queen and a closet queen, he has been lashing out in all directions. Bad grammar mars his column every time he writes. But during those times when the grammar is fairly good, the word is, he just publishes — verbatim — what is fed to him by whoever pays for his services. His columns are a dead giveaway. After a week or so, a regular pattern emerges of personalities and companies he writes about — positively or negatively. Items that are rambling and grammatically challenged almost certainly came from his poisonous pen. Soon, we will discover from our eye-spy informants who his regular clients are and how much they are paying him. For as long as he keeps telling lies about others, we’ll keep telling the truth about him.

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