Congratulations are in order for Mr. Albert and Marites Dajab on the birth of their first born Anthony Xavier Cortes Dajab at the Cebu Maternity Clinic. Albert is my longtime Producer and Editor of our Talkshow, Straight from the Sky. After many years of marriage, God has blessed their union with a 6.3 lb healthy baby boy. There is nothing like the blessing of a child to make us all realize what God told us in Genesis 2:24 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Congratulations Bert and Marites. We are all happy for you!
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Yesterday the House of Representatives tackled the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill even though Malacañang Palace already set this aside as not a priority bill. This only goes to show that principal proponent Edsel Lagman have taken the attitude of “come hell or high water” this bill will be passed before the 15th Congress adjourns in Congress. To us Pro-Life activists, this is our clarion call to intensify our advocacy in order to stop the evil one from further killing the unborn.
I’ve been in the RH debate for many years now and we’ve already known that the bottom line for Congress is money, money and more money in their coffers. The other bottom line is that the P.Noy government which got the US$450 million millennium goal fund succumbed to the strings attached to that loan for the Philippines to adopt a reduction of our population through a population control program, which is the RH Bill. Hence you can say that RH means the road to Hell because that’s what’s in store for people who kill innocent babies inside the mother’s womb!
Again, this is because of that old stereotype that a country with a huge population would wallow in abject poverty, while countries with fewer people become rich. But that was the norm 20 years ago. How things have changed today, where nations with large populations are the ones having a robust economy, notably China and India.
In fact, buried in the inside pages of The Philippine Star yesterday on page 11, Citigroup Chief Economist Willen Buiter was quoted in an article written by Patrick Allen of CNBC.com for USA Today saying “A runaway population may be a headache, but for Citigroup its part of the global growth generator or 3G index, which can signal huge growth potential for the Philippines and 10 countries. Using that index, the nations to watch over the coming years are, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Philippines.”
Buiter added, “For poor countries with large young populations, growing fast should be easy; open up, create some form of market economy, invest in human and physical capital, don’t be unlucky and don’t blow it. Catch up, and convergence should do the rest. The world is going to become richer and richer as developing economies play catch up over the coming years. Occasionally, there will be growth disasters, driven by poor policy, conflicts or natural disasters. When it comes to that, don’t believe that this time it’s different. There are some easy wins for poor countries with big, young populations.”
As we’ve been saying, this world is changing fast and what’s happening in the Middle East is a world changer. Willen Buiter correctly pointed out that one of the many reasons why the Philippines have remained poor is the so-called growth disasters which are driven by poor policy, conflicts or natural disasters. All these happened to our country, from the Baguio earthquake to Mt. Pinatubo and those man-made disasters that our politicians made, like EDSA 2 that ousted the corrupt Erap presidency.
Clearly, the problem in this country is an imbalance in the distribution of wealth. Education for our people is dismal at best. Our AFP officers are corrupt, including the majority of our politicians, while the people remain poor. While we pioneered a peaceful People’s Power Revolt, it has not resulted in the reforms that would redound to the benefit of our people.
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This just got in: The US Embassy announced that Major League Baseball legend Ken Griffey Jr. will be in the Philippines as Sports Envoy of the US State Department. Joe Logan, a former player with the Montreal Expos organization and coach of the Orlando Reds will be with Griffey to conduct a series of baseball clinics in Manila and Cebu, teaching the basics of teamwork and sportsmanship.
They will be in Cebu on March 3, tomorrow at the Aboitiz Sports Field, Subangdaku, Mandaue City for boys ages 6-9 from 4:00pm to 6:00pm in the afternoon. On March 4, the activity will be for Boys and Girls ages 10-16 from 8:30am to 11:45am. The clinic for men will be from 1:30pm to 5:00pm in the afternoon. Interested parties please contact the US Embassy Public Affairs section at 301-2462 or email them at mnlfooffice@state.gov.