Joc Time!!!!!

Jocjoc Bolante is Back
Former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante is back in the country. Upon his arrival, the very prompt eight-member team from the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms read the Upper Chamber’s order for his arrest. The first line of the arrest order reads, “We, the Senators of the Republic of the Philippines, fooled by Eliseo De La Paz last week, vow not to be fooled for the second consecutive week.”

Former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante arrived Tuesday night. In his arrival statement, Jocjoc said, “Now that I am back, I assure you that I will answer any and all accusations at the proper forum. I am ready to face the issues and all the malicious accusations against me.” He then denied rumors that ex-PNP comptroller Eliseo De La Paz wrote that statement for him.

When he is discharged from the hospital, Jocjoc Bolante will be detained at the Senate. A Philippine Star report says the detention room has air-conditioning unit, a bed, cable TV, electric fan, conference table, book shelf, white board, single bed, and two sofas. Nope, we’re not describing Claudio Teehankee Jr’s cell at the New Bilibid Prisons. The Quezon City Police District has deployed its personnel to provide round-the-clock security for former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante. The Senate has also sent eight men to protect him. Can anyone please check if there’s any security guy left for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon?

An Inquirer report says former agriculture undersecretary Jocjoc Bolante’s house in the posh Ayala Alabang village showed no sign that his homecoming would be festive. The uninhabited 80 million peso-mansion of the alleged architect of the “fertilizer fund scam” is adorned by ornamental plants, palm trees… and a couple of scarecrows.

Unconfirmed reports say the St. Luke’s Medical Center has released its latest medical bulletin on the health condition of former agriculture undersecretary Jocjoc Bolante. His blood test showed unusual quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N-P-K).

Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada and his nun friends from La Salle wanted to visit Jocjoc Bolante at St. Luke’s Medical Center but the security was really tight. So tight that it’s reportedly even tighter than Lozada’s nun friends.

Like Hollywood’s notorious paparazzi, dozens of media men and women swooped in on former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante when he arrived at the NAIA last night. Next to Chris Tiu, Bolante is perhaps the most talked-about Atenean at this moment.

Finally
Jocjoc Bolante has finally been returned. We have waited so long for this event to happen. To give you an idea how long we have waited, when Bolante fled the country, he looked like First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. When he arrived, he looked more like Joker Arroyo.

Jocjoc Bolante is finally back. We have waited so long for this event to happen. To give you an idea how long it was, lawyer Harry Roque’s waist line was still 27 when it all started.

Jocjoc Bolante is back guys. Finally, he’s back. We have waited so long for this event to happen. To give you an idea how long it has been, the price of gasoline was at 35 pesos per liter level when he left.

Jocjoc Bolante is finally back. We have waited so long for this moment to happen. To give you an idea how long it has been: when Jocjoc Bolante left the country, Jose De Venecia was still GMA’s caddie when she played golf in China.

Jocjoc Bolante is finally back. We have waited so long for this moment to arrive. To give you an idea how long it has been: when Jocjoc Bolante left the country, Rustom Padilla was still straight.

Top 20 Movie Casting Choices That Were Meant to Be 2

20: ex-Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr.: Staying Alive

19: Vicki Belo & Ellen Lising: House of Wax

18: DOJ Sec. Raul Gonzales: The Jerk

17: Sen. Antonio Trillanes: Chasing Liberty

16: Tim Yap/DJ Montano: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

15: Mrs. Rose Flaminiano: Super Size Me

14: The Gucci Gang with the special participation of Ms. Nora Aunor: Romancing the Stone

13: Shell, Petron, and Caltex: Liar Liar

12: ABS-CBN News’ Maria Ressa: The Punisher

11: Nadia Montenegro: Grease

10: Doña Mary Ejercito: 10,000 BC

9: Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada: The Man Who Knew Too Much

8: Sen. Lito Lapid: Artificial Intelligence

7: ex-Sen. John Osmeña: Girl, Interrupted

6: (tie) MILF’s Kumander Bravo and Umbra Kato: Psycho and Jose “Joey” De Venecia III: V for Vendetta

5: Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal: Sister Act

4: Sen. Manuel Villar: Two for the Road

3: Sens. Loren Legarda & Edgardo Angara: An Inconvenient Truth

2: Claudio Teehankee Jr.: While You Were Sleeping

And the No. 1 movie casting choice that was meant to be…

1: Sen. Francis Pangilinan: Unfaithful

The Google Conspiracy Theory

The Master Plan [2007]


What do you think?

MEGA Di-nial [8-mcdo]

Impeachment and GMA
Losing National Broadband Network contract bidder Jose “Joey” De Venecia III said he would lead the filing of an impeachment complaint against President Arroyo. Personally though, I can think of a hundred and one reasons why this particular complaint would fail… and Joey De Venecia is all of them.

Impeachment and GMA II
Three-term congressman and now a Bise-Gobernador ng Iloilo strong message to the president that one cannot steal and get away with it.” If that’s true, then why is he still at large?

Noli for Presy?
Asked about his plans for 2010, vice president Noli De Castro said, “I don’t know.” And then added, “Ako, ‘di naman ako nangarap maging senador pero naging senador ako. ‘Di naman ako nangarap maging vice president, pero naging vice president ako. ‘Yong destiny na ang masusunod.” Apparently, De Castro and the Filipino people have similar fates: Ang mga Pilipino, hindi siya pinangarap maging senador, pero naging senador siya. Hindi siya pinangarap maging vice president, pero naging vice president siya. Kasalanan ng destiny ‘yan eh!

Not True!
Sen. Francis Pangilinan and megastar Sharon Cuneta have both denied reports their marriage is over. Ironically though, they issued the denial… separately.

Top 5 Signs Sen. Francis Pangilinan and Sharon Cuneta Have Separated

5: Angeli Pangilinan stops sending daily Biblical text quotes to sister-in-law Sharon Cuneta.

4: Senator Pangilinan starts going out with the very single… Mommy Elaine! (’Sing laki, pero ‘di ’sing mahal)

3: A special episode of the talk show “Sharon” talks about the secrets of being hot and handsome and will feature as guests Robin Padilla, Gabby Concepcion, and Richard Gomez.

2: When news of the separation reached the Senate, members of Senator Pangilinan’s staff as well as the Senate press corps all shouted, “Burger! Burger! Burger!”

And the No. 1 sign Sen. Francis Pangilinan and Sharon have separated…

1: Sharon changes her Myspace status from “Married” to “It’s complicated” while Senator Kiko Pangilinan modifies his Friendster status from “Married” to “Just Looking Around.”

The TAGALOG Facts

The TAGALOG is the official language of the Filipinos. Pero, naitanong niyo na ba sa inyo mga sarili kung saan at paano nabuo ang TAGALOG? Tuklasan!

In the case of the Philippines, colonialism added another dimension to language, the dominant cultures bringing in or even imposing new words.

Let your imagination run wild now. Think how 16th century Tagalogs would have expressed their sorrow over a shattered relationship.

A commoner would have sighed, "Kay lungkot!"--lungkot being a hoi-polloi Kapampangan-Tagalog word. A datu’s daughter would have etched out a poem on bamboo, expressing her sorrow in Malay-tinged Tagalog: "O dusa! O dukha! O dalita! O dalamhati!"--all four words derived from Malay.

A datu’s daughter could have visited Brunei, with which Manila’s aristocracy had close ties, and picked up words from Malay, considered a high-status language at that time. "Dalamhati" was only one example, the intensity of sadness expressed by two Malay words: dalam (inside) and hati (heart, although it can also mean liver).

Note that luwalhati, a feeling of euphoria, is generated from the Malay luwar (outside) and again, hati.

Words have a life of their own, sometimes changing meanings as they move from one culture to another.

"Dalita" was originally derived from the Sanskrit dhrta (borne), becoming the Malay derita (to endure) and dalita in Tagalog, where it means great suffering.

The association with suffering produced extended meanings in Tagalog: dalita and dukha, both Malay-Sanskrit words for suffering, are also used to refer to poverty and the poor.

The Malay and Sanskrit words that entered Tagalog related to philosophy and religion. They were also languages of learning, as we see in the borrowing of the numerical terms I mentioned earlier.

Terms like lacsa and yota suggest that we conducted a lot of trading with our neighbors in what are today Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

Later, Arabic traders entered the region, bringing in not just material goods but also Islam, and new words. To give just one example, aqala, Arabic for intelligence, was transformed in Tagalog into "a concept, a notion, a hunch."

Curiously, some Arabic words may have come to us from the Spaniards, who themselves were once colonized by the Arabs.
Thus, the Arabic kafir, for an unbeliever, became the Spanish cafre for a savage and eventually became kapre, a mythical giant.

The Hokkien Chinese, who didn’t just come in as itinerant traders but often stayed on, introduced hundreds of other terms into Tagalog covering more mundane items and activities from food (siopao, tokwa, petsay) to household products (bakya, siyansi) to gambling (huweteng) and trading (suki, pakyaw).

Under colonial rule of the Spaniards and the Americans, Tagalog went through even more modifications. Hundreds of Spanish words entered Tagalog, their system of counting (uno, dos, tres, as revived recently by singer Ricky Martin) often displacing the earlier Tagalog system.

Some Spanish words we adapted as is but many others mutated, both in form and in meaning. Como esta became kumusta; hacer caso (de), to pay attention to, became asikaso.

We borrowed the Spanish pobre, meaning poor, but spinned off another word, pulubi, to mean a beggar, to whom we give alms or limos, originally alimos in Spanish.

Then there’s English, which we’ve been using in the last 100 years because of the American colonial period and, today, because it is a new global prestige language.

Listen to people speaking Tagalog in the streets and you’ll hear many English connectors--"so," "but" "and then"--as well as the occasional "shit" (or "syet") when discussing our senators’ latest "gimik."

People sometimes complain that we are captives of a colonial mentality, relying too much on English. But another perspective, often expressed with alarm by Americans and English, is that we’re colonizing the Queen’s English, gobbling up words and regurgitating them in new forms.

Just look at how English nouns have been transformed into Tagalog verbs, complete with conjugation (nag-text, mag-che-chess, makikipag-Internet).

Languages evolve because of cultural contacts, people meeting as tourists, traders, teachers, whatever. It’s not just a matter of the Tagalog language borrowing words from the world. You just wait and see.

Courtesy of the many Filipina yayas caring for the children of the world, someday we just might hear a British prime minister ordering Parliament to come to "votation"--but only after very properly offering a 10-minute break for people to go to the ‘‘See Ah.’’

2009 Badyet

SOURCE: Da BigBlog

2009 BUDGET
Pinabulaanan ni Speaker Prospero Nograles nitong Sabado ang mga hinala na may plano ang liderato ng Kamara de Representantes na madiskaril ang paghahain ng impeachment laban kay Pangulong Gloria Macapagal Arroyo dahil umano sa pagsusulong nito ng kontrobersyal na 2009 budget na pinuyat and mga secretariat officials dahil sa budget deliberation. “I do suppose it's always a game of numbers (impeachment complaint). But when the House gets back to work by November 10, by the time, but I hope not, we would start feeling the effects of the financial crisis," ayon kay Gonzales. In which Gloria said, "Feeling mo lang yun, ikaw kasi eh may pa impeach-impeach ka pa nalalaman."

LACSON
Itinanggi Sen. Panfilo Lacson nitong Sabado na bumoto siya pabor sa pagpasa ng Japan Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa) kapalit ng pag-imbestiga kay Senate President Manny Villar sa Senate ethics committee. "Napaka-petty na issue para ma-constitute ang ethics committee para diyan," pahayag ng senador sa panayam ng dwIZ radio. Sinabi ni Lacson na pinaboran niya ang kontrobersyal na kasunduan ng Pilipinas at Japan dahil naipangako n’ya kay Philippine Ambassador to Japan Domingo Siazon Jr na susuportahan ito. Sabi pa ni Lacson, "Na-address naman so sunod ko salita ko. Sabi ko my word is my bond, with a bond of cash" aniya.

TAGALOG QUEST
LAST Thursday, we began a tour of Tagalog through the centuries, tracing its origins and evolution. Toward the end of the article I asked readers to guess how a 17th century Tagalog would say "722 million dollars"--the amount allegedly salted away in overseas bank accounts by Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Estrada. While several readers wrote in asking for more specific information about Tagalog’s evolution, no one attempted to answer the 722-million-dollar question.

Song Tao FareWELL
Habang mainit pa ang usapin tungkol sa kontaminadong gatas mula sa China, nagpaalam na sa Malacanang ang embahador ng China na si Song Tao sa patatapos ng kanyang tour of duty sa Pilipinas nitong Biyernes. "China is very important to us in terms of diplomatic, socio-economic as well as political relations," pahayag ni Gng Arroyo kay Song. "So sorry to see you go. This is a very sad day for all of us. I hope you enjoyed your stay here," pahayag ng Pangulo kay Song sa kanilang pag-uusap sa Music Room ng Palasyo na tumagal ng 15-minuto para sa tinatawag na "farewell" call. Pag-labas ni Song sa Malacanang ito ay sumigaw ng "Wahoo! at last, maka-alis na nga dito!"

Sana na Kornihan kayo. Leave a comment na lang :D