Advertising is the main way that Nestle and other corporations convince mothers who can breast feed that the bottle is best. It became so effective that breast-feeding dropped and mortality rates for children one to two years old vastly increased. In response the World Health Organization brought out a code of advertising conduct many years ago for these corporations to follow.

Congress remains the stronghold of traditional politics, now shored up by the increasing presence of certain elitist party-list groups. This is a long way off the charter-based principle of guaranteeing the marginal sectors’ representation in the lawmaking body.

Bitter, indeed, was this recent trip to the homeland; shocking, indeed, to find it still in the grip of such poverty that tyranny had become a necessary component of the social order. A slow balkanization of the archipelago is underway, as more and more Filipinos leave for work overseas and more and more “foreigners” enter: a hundred thousand Koreans are in the school system; thousands more of Taiwanese; Mindanao has become the land of banana plantations edging out poor communities; educational tourism, medical tourism, sex tourism, military tourism (which is what the Balikatan exercises are), tourism everywhere…

At the end of the open forum, somebody in the audience suggested a game. The audience will give Ninotchka Rosca a word or phrase and then she should say the first word that comes to mind. Vagina. “Beautiful.” GMA. “Boring.”

Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s net satisfaction rating has dropped from its previous negative 46.7 percent in January, says Ibon databank; it is now negative 62 percent. A July Ibon survey showed that only 10 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with Mrs. Arroyo’s performance, while a huge 72 percent were not.

Not only do we have to change this cruel unjust and dehumanizing system that sets out to punish kids for mistakes they learn daily from corrupt adults. We have to replace it with a humane and healing process that gives them a second chance, a new start. They need something they never had – dignity, education and affirmation that say they are good and have rights like everybody else.

Mrs. Arroyo didn’t exactly lie when she talked about the economic surge, but she did try to avoid the truth by failing to mention that whatever economic progress has been achieved has not reached the legions of this country’s poor. In one scary instance — when she declared that she would step down, but mentioned no year, and in the same breath warned that not only was she a strong president, she was no lame duck either — Mrs. came so much closer to telling us poor folk what to expect in the next three years and beyond, and that’s more of the same.

There has been progress in saving and releasing hundreds of small children and youth from the stench-filled cells across the Philippines. President Macapagal-Arroyo ordered last July 16 that all children be released from the prisons, police jails and so-called reception centers, a euphemism for child prisons.

A human rights summit takes the first agonizing step toward finding solutions to the epidemic of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances. The solutions proposed will pit judicial activists against the forces of resistance in the executive branch and Congress.

Only in areas of conflict and failing states are journalists killed on the same scale as in the country whose press was once referred to as “the freest in Asia”. The killings are outstanding enough to put the country in the map as, at one point, “the most murderous place in the world for journalists” (Committee to Protect Journalists), and in another, as “the second most dangerous place in the world for journalists next to Iraq” (Reporters Sans Frontieres).

Trafficking is the modern form of slavery. The victims lose all control over their lives, they are not free to leave, they are coerced into working and many times they are beaten if they refuse.

Ignoring criticism is the luxury of authoritarian regimes and their agencies, even as “doing their job” in the present context can mean, among others, the military’s continuing on its present path of labeling as “enemies of the state” anyone and any group that disagrees with or is critical of the regime, and at least legitimizing their elimination.

For the longest time, I thought the comedian Jimmy Santos, famous for his carabao English (”I love you three times a day!”), was just being funny. Then Antonio Calipjo Go, academic supervisor of the Marian School in Quezon City, sent PinoyPress a copy of his ad that appeared yesterday in the Inquirer. In it, he listed dozens of errors in several books being used in public schools in the Philippines. Here are some of them. I laughed out loud while reading this crap but it’s no laughing matter, of course. Still, enjoy — and weep.

There is some degree of discrimination here against those who hail from Manila, which is most probably something Cebuanos and other Bisaya feel (and even fear) when they get to the capital. On several occasions, I found myself defending my lineage, pointing out that though I was born in Manila (in Mandaluyong City, specifically), my parents both come from Iloilo, and in our household, Kiniray-a is the tongue of choice.

Friedbeef’s Tech has listed several ways — 15, in fact — to extend the battery life of your laptop. One of the tips: Exercise the battery. “Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharging is only for older batteries with memory effects.)”