The Privileged.

In the world of the penal institution, people who enter the institution are placed in this structure for various reasons relating to committing crimes or any form of wrongdoing they have done against the society. They are placed there as a means of punishment, as a means of reform, so that once they leave the prison, they come out as reformed persons, ready to serve the public for the good, and not for the burden of society. These institutions are there to create a sense of threat and punishment to the offender, through their confinement within the four walls of the prison, devoid of any luxury such ad television, radio, and the likes. Prisoners follow a strict timetable inside the penal institution to show them that they cannot be the one who is in favor all of the time, that they become enlightened once again that there are laws, rules, and regulations existing for the betterment of society, and by defying them, society is placed in danger.

And this are the many significances of the penal institution. They are existing to make the defiant step down and be humbled upon. They exist to correct the mistakes of these offenders. Yet, in the cases of Jason Ivler, the Ampatuans, and recently, Antonio Leviste, the significance of the penal institution has lost its true purpose, as VIP and special treatments do exist within these institutions, signifying biases occurring starting from the institution alone, and goes all the way on how the injustice in our system still prevails.

From Ivler's party life in the jail with the girls, booze, and friends, to the special treatment the Ampatuans receive, complete with luxuries inside their prison cells to boot, to the special treatment given to Leviste, especially when it comes to his dental issues, having preference over his own personal dentist outside of prison rather than the dentist within the prison.

I do believe that the world is an unfair place to begin with, but seeing this form of injustice is just way too much. I do really hope this gets addressed.

Ready to start.

By now, I would probably have 11 more days to cherish being a bum. The long wait (and agony) of searching for a suitable job has come to a conclusion, as I have finally found something to make me less bored (and for me to at least earn some money too). Yes, I got myself not one, but two jobs. One is a full-time job, the other a part-time job.

My full-time job would involve dealing with raw video footages at ABS-CBN, classifying and labeling them accordingly (or that's how the recruitment people described it to me). Despite the not-so-impressive salary, I decided to take the job for a variety of reasons: one is because I really need to start somewhere if I want to develop a career as a writer-cum-aspiring-journalist, even if the job is not that high-paying (as you would compare for, let's say, working in a BPO or IT industry). Second, since I've interned in ABS-CBN before, I have thought that maybe this is a good opportunity to start off my working life, since I sort of know how is it to be working in that company (and yes, that includes the occasional stressful situations, crazy people inside, and freezing cold office, among one of many), I guessed that the people there will treat me right (even if I'm working for the Technical Operations Division, and not within the News Room as what I originally wanted) and that labor issues would not be that of a problem (despite of my awareness that ABS-CBN is facing a lot of labor issues). Third, is that at least by the fact that I have a job, my parents would lessen their nagging on me on "doing nothing" (like what some of my friends are, sad to say).

And since this full-time job is not exactly high-paying (and that it is a contractual one, being 4 years or so, as what the recruitment people told me), and being the unusually crazy person I can possibly be, I decided to get myself a part-time job, which basically involves doing journalism-related stuff by doing lots of research and essentially being on the hunt for news stories, and probably writing about them, and later on delivering the story to the public. My part-time job is something I like to do, especially if I'm not doing anything else. But how about my supposed freelancing as a photographer? I really don't know; I don't see my future in doing photography for the meantime, that's why for now I'm gearing up for writing and pure, unadulterated, and responsible journalism.

So far, I'm done with all the needed pre-employment papers, and I'll relish the remaining few days that I have as an unemployed bum waiting to start work.

Are we safe?

On May 02, 2011, the world was cheering in victory as Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, holy warrior, mastermind of the 9/11 bombing, and ultimate hater of the United States, succumbs to a lethal defeat as the US Army invades the fortified Pakistan compound, the very place where Bin Laden resided for 5 years. They say that they had to raid the compound in order to kill him. Others say that he was killed unarmed.

The United States insisted that they threw his body into the sea. Photographic evidences of his death are not revealed to the public, insisting that the whole operation is confidential and is of danger if released in public. With this, the public is in doubt about the authenticity of Bin Laden's death, despite the massive media coverage of his death.

Prior to this event, Sony had a massive plague hitting the users of its Playstation Network with multiple hacking and security breaches, affecting millions of users and placing thousands of credit card accounts at risk. Sony presently has made multiple efforts to please its customers, even to the extent of giving free games to affected customers, yet these customers are not pleased at how a security breach occurred not once, but twice.

Both of these events may have a varying level of significance, but they have something in common: the fact that the world is never in a state of peace and stability. That there is always uncertainty in the things that we do. That there will, and will be always, a loophole that will never be solved. No matter how hard we try to make the world safe, there are these glitches that can potentially mess things up. Even the most sophisticated technology can fail us eventually.

Sometimes, all of these precautionary measures and sophisticated technologies towards protecting ourselves are not enough. We may run all the time but we can never hide. Might as well be cautious of our decisions, after all.

An (almost) clean escape.

Practically everyone in the Philippines has developed this form of hatred towards Merceditas Gutierrez for failing to fulfill her duties as Ombudsman during the Arroyo regime, where many cases remained to be unsolved until now. It has come to a point where the hatred has become enormous, that a impeachment trial was made in efforts of bringing her down. Despite all of these accusations she is facing, she insists that she is not guilty of the accusations being made to her. She is an iron lady, refusing to go down, despite all the hurls against her, despite on being tagged as an "Arroyo ally", being the principal cause of how Arroyo managed to escape all the corruption accusations made to her during her regime.

Yet, with all the odds against her, she made an unexpected move through making a firm decision of resigning as Ombudsman for the sake of the nation, and also for the protection of her family. It was a decision that surprised everyone, considering her iron lady status of refusing to step down. Despite her strong beliefs of being not guilty, she did the unexpected.

Because of such a move Gutierrez has made, my hatred for her has lessened a bit for one sole reason: the fact that her conscience has worked in the process of making this difficult decision of stepping down, 10 days before the start of her impeachment trial at the senate. For that brief moment, I have viewed her as someone that you can respect, unlike the likes of the Ligots, or worse, the Arroyos, in which, even with all the odds against them, still continually deny the accusations made through them, and that further investigation incriminates them to their right to privacy.

Such a move represents that after all, Gutierrez went in for a more dignified exit rather than facing the humiliation of an impeachment, the very same fate that former President Joseph Estrada faced, in the light of People Power 2. After all, she did showed a little bit of care for the Nation. She is not entirely bad or evil, after all. She may be the cause of the widespread corruption that occurred during the Arroyo regime, she may be the one "protecting" these corrupt acts, but still, she makes a preemptive move by resigning days before she faces the pressure in the senate, responding to the various questions that will be hurled at her.

But that does not mean she can still escape clean. Her move just lessens the pressure of it all.

Beating the heat with issues at hand.

In spite of the scorching heat here in the Metro (highest temperature recorded so far is around the 37 degree Celsius range, so imagine the heat alone), current issues, from both the local and foreign scene, remain to be as hot as the current temperatures along the Metro.

We have the everlasting RH bill debates (with 1) Iglesia Ni Cristo showing their support for the RH Bill, and 2) The basing once again of the CBCP, citing those supporting for the RH Bill being "terrorists" as the bill allegedly kills the unborn, which is not even what the RH Bill is all about), then new developments on then-President-now-Congresswoman GMA (with the most recent one involving her misuse of the OWWA funds, wherein she used them for the 2004 elections, making the plunder accusation against her to seem more plausible). Also, new issues regarding rising fuel prices also make it to the news (with numerous price hikes, rollbacks, press conferences, and investigations on certain oil companies).

As you see, the Philippines these days has become an interesting point-of-focus for current events, and to a certain extent, I kind of like the fact that there's actually progress happening within the country.

And it does not stop there. Follow-up news like Merci's resignation as Ombudsman made it into the news, causing the senate to not go on with the impeachment trial and instead go on further with the investigation of corruption during GMA's reign.

International issues are also of big topics, with the Royal Wedding of Prince William and (now) Princess Catherine, giving new light to the British Royal Family, and the Beatification of Pope John Paul II, also noted to be the fastest in history (Pope John Paul II was beatified six years after his death in 2005).

For the meantime, I couldn't get myself to be coherent enough on making this week's blog entry. Maybe for the next one I can come up with a more relevant one.