To the undecided
By Isolde Amante

I ENVY your position, for at least two reasons.

First, because you can make your decisions in relative peace and quiet, free from the inanities and filth that passed for political advertising in these last three months.

Second, because you represent a formidable bloc, some 12 percent of the total number of registered voters, going by the Social Weather Station’s (SWS) latest survey from May 1 to 4. That’s 5.1 million votes you can deliver, if all of you vote—almost the same number of ballots that made Fidel Ramos president in 1992.

We who have already decided whom to support for the presidency can now only hope for the best and be vigilant in the days ahead. We have made our vows. The word “vote” stems from the Latin “votum” (meaning, a vow or a wish) and “vovere” (to vow).

You, on the other hand, just might get to decide the country’s fortunes in the next six years. You’ll probably think this exaggerated, but it isn’t. Your ranks have more than doubled since the year began: the SWS reports that from 5.4 percent in mid-January, you now account for 12 percent.

No wonder so much has gone into scaring you into voting for continuity, for example, when one would be better off voting for change. Considering how much is riding on your vote today, one would think it had more than fear to stand on.

If you do decide to vote this day, and I certainly hope you do, let me share this “thinking tool for voters” published yesterday by the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP)—not to be confused with the People’s Movement Against Poverty that helped plunge us into the disaster also known as the Estrada administration.

PMAP’s scorecard lists five roles the president of the republic needs to play:

Navigator-strategist: The president must demonstrate that he or she can strategically solve problems and make the most of opportunities. The candidate should have offered a clear, detailed plan to tackle our major problems, among them the budget deficit, a severe infrastructure gap, an impending power shortage.

Mobilizer: The candidate must have succeeded in the past in managing a complex organization.

Servant-leader: The man or woman who seeks to be president must be a good example, display humility and, as naïve as this may sound, have good work and study habits.

Captivator: The candidate must inspire optimism in the future and trust in the government. He or she must move the people away from cynicism, which people often (and disastrously) confuse with skepticism.

Guardian of national wealth and the rule of law: Your choice for the next president should demonstrate success in fighting corruption, take a clear stand on controversial issues like population management and display transparency and integrity in their public and private lives.

That said, I should admit that on both occasions I voted for a president, my candidates lost. Miserably too, trailing the eventual winners by some three million votes in 1992 and over seven million votes in 1998.

Yet because those votes stemmed from what I believed—not from what I feared or out of a cynical bid to cast my lot with whoever was sure of winning—those were votes I did not regret making. I do not regret them still.

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Roco's medical bulletin
By Dr. Aguido Magdadaro

THE medical bulletin of Sen. Raul Roco, as explained by his propagandists, is too simplistic. Lorna Kapunan, a lawyer, was quoted as saying, "unlike layman's interpretation, cancer is not a bad word. Cancer is just descriptive of an illness, so not necessarily serious." She went on: "In the case of Senator Roco, that cancer was found, as the report shows, to be benign, and has been cured by the treatment that he was getting." A kettle found white? Dr. Jaime Galvez-Tan, a doctor, said, "It was determined to be benign and unlikely to recur again." The word cancer means malignant tumor. Cancer is a malignancy -- a killer disease, always a bad word, contrary to lawyer Kapunan's statement. Medical experts do not call cancer a benign disease.

Prostate cancer targets the bones, the brain, the lungs, the liver and other organs in a process called metastasis.

Bone involvement accompanied by pain is not a simple complication of metastatic cancer. It is an advanced complication. It means osteolytic lesion or some degree of bone destruction has already developed.

It can be without pain, but the presence of pain indicates serious affliction of nerve receptors on the surface of the bone, or the nerve itself, which is not a good sign.

An ordinary bone fracture requires between two months (for a child) to six months (for adults) to heal. Osteolytic lesions caused by metastatic cancer takes longer time to heal, or rarely heals at all.

Prostate cancer is curable if the disease is confined within the capsules of the gland. Once it spreads and invades other tissues outside the capsule, it assumes a different story.

Roco's doctors say that his metastatic bone lesion has healed with the use of "intelligent medicine" in a matter of two weeks of treatment in the United States.

To my medical mind, this is too good to be true, but I would like to hear more about this "magic" medicine, perhaps it will help heal ordinary bone fractures that require months to heal.

Roco's spokespersons are vague, defensive and opening more questions than giving intelligent answers with their press statements about his "benign cancer" which healed in two weeks.

Does the discerning public not deserve a better and more honest explanation?

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Farrell" <firstsgtmike@hotmail.com>
Subject: P20, P10 notes

THERE is only one Filipino joke, the rest of the stories are all true. "BSP Currency Operations Unit manager 1 Remedios L. Lozano was asked to comment on reports that several politicians are allegedly withdrawing millions of pesos in P20 and P10 notes from different commercial banks." Did anyone ask why a million pesos in P10 and P20 denominations were needed, and where they were going?

Do you think it might have any relationship to charges of vote buying?

Why is it that certain politicians only pay their debts with P10 and P20 notes during election (vote-buying) time, and during the rest of the months use P1000, and P500 and checks to pay their debts? Duh?

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