Nobody ever told me that being a mother or just having a child was this beautiful. In fact, society said it’s extremely difficult and should be avoided until one is well prepared for it. Sometimes on TV or in the movies, I see characters who are scared of the responsibility of having a kid. I hear stories about fathers running away from their babies. Society seems to dislike the idea of parenthood to the point of referring to unplanned conception as an “accident.” I find it mean for people to consider someone so beautiful as an “unwanted person.” It is as if having a baby is a great misfortune that people should avoid.

This is the trouble with the Reproductive Health Bill. Much as I try to understand, I am concerned over how the bill considers conception as a whole. I have read it for my school report and it disturbs me to think that society would be so reluctant to welcome a human being who is about to be born. The drive to promote “informed choice,” proper birth spacing, etc. in order to avoid unplanned parenthood seems to make having a baby something scary.

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I feel offended. As someone who loves her, I feel hurt for my niece. She is what they consider an “unplanned one.” The people promoting the bill look at my niece or all those born or about to be born like her as a burden to the country and a liability. They say we need this bill because it prevents people like her from being born.

Why would anybody prevent anyone as beautiful as a child to come into this world? Regardless of who the parents are or how the conception happened, a child is separate from the parents. Every child is beautiful.

The bill also wants to promote sex education to teach adolescents, mothers, fathers about “safe sex.” Safe from what? From conceiving a child? Why? But why give more importance to the pleasure of sex than the pleasure of becoming a parent? We are becoming more like the Westerners. We have forgotten that to Filipinos, a big family is a better family.

Anyone older than 20 is not going to tune into pro wrestling unless they've been a fan of it for awhile. I know most of my friends have stopped watching, simply because they feel pro wrestling is just garbage and makes no sense. Which is why WWE are playing it smart, by appealing to a younger audience, and getting them hooked.

South Africans received a horrifying measure of just how bad their country's rape crisis is with the release this week of a study in which more than a quarter of men admitted to having raped, and 46% of those said that they had raped more than once.

The study, conducted by South Africa's Medical Research Council, reveals a deeply rooted culture of violence against women, in which men rape in order to feel powerful, and do so with impunity, believing that their superiority entitles them to vent their frustrations on women and children. The men most likely to rape, the researchers found, were not the poorest, but those who had attained some level of education and income.

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Gender advocates say that the 2006 rape trial of prominent politician Jacob Zuma was incredibly damaging to their cause. Zuma, who was elected President this year, was tried and acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend. He told the court that the woman had dressed provocatively, in a traditional wrap-around kanga, and that it was against Zulu culture for a man to leave a sexually aroused woman unsatisfied.

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"What we have are the wounds of men creating wounds in women, creating wounds in children," says Zevenbergen. "Who is going to stop the vicious circle?"

HONG KONG (AFP) – Hong Kong officials have found traces of cocaine in cans of Red Bull, a few days after Taiwanese authorities confiscated close to 18,000 cases of the popular energy drink.

Officials at the Centre for Food Safety said a laboratory analysis found tiny amounts of the illegal drug in samples of "Red Bull Cola", "Red Bull Sugar-free" and "Red Bull Energy Drink", a spokesman said.

The drink has now been taken off the shelves of major supermarkets, the spokesman said in a statement issued late Monday. He added the amount of cocaine found in the drinks posed little health danger.

We’re wont to believe that nothing will happen.

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What mattered was that a victim of rape, a rape survivor, a Filipina, a woman who was gang-raped at the back of a van, had the backbone to stand up to the justice system and say, and be proven right in saying:

“I was raped. Rape is wrong. I demand justice.”

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Rape is a crime so base, so banal, so low, so more human-than-human, that people make all sorts of judgment calls. “Did you enjoy it?” “How was it?” “How could you not have expected it if you were wearing that miniskirt and tube top?” “How could you not have resisted?” Bollocks? Of course it is.

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Rape is a metaphor: raped by thoughts, raped by conscience, raped by media, raped by public opinion. Rape is everywhere, in the metaphorical sense; it is when rape is translated into the forcible entry of the penis into the vagina that things become clearer, more vivid, more lucid. The crime is as human as it is animalistic.

I’m talking about those sexy billboards along EDSA.

Personally, I’m old enough to accept that EDSA right now is a smorgasboard of cheap thrills rivalling that peddled by Playboy, Maxim and FHM, all combined.  You don’t need to buy a copy of those magazines. You just simply traverse this long avenue and you’ll satiate your animal desires for RR Enriquez, Anne Curtis, Angel Locsin and even Thai model Paula Taylor.

Look—these outdoor advertisers have turned the entire avenue into a sleazy parade of scanty clad women and teenagers, all vying for the title of the boldest star of EDSA.

What happened to that bill filed by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago against sexy billboards? What had happened to the investigation initiated by Cong. Edcel Lagman on the regulation of these billboards?

• Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
• Remember to fill your senses with something uplifting: Music you love, a gorgeous sunset, a really great meal, passionate kisses, a heart to heart conversation with someone you care about.
• Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
• If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
• If you lend someone anything and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
• It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others.
• Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
• It's the second mouse that gets the cheese.
• When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
• Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
• Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
• We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty, and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
• A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Give priority to “resolution of sexual abuse cases to ensure swift decision,” they asked government. School curricula ought to incorporate a “human sexuality education centered on responsibility and equal rights. We must see in our sexually violated sisters the face of God."

Former congressman Romeo Jalosjos is the classic example. Furious citizens fought long before Jalosjos could be docked for raping an 11-year-old girl. He got two life sentences. In April 2007, this expelled lawmaker from Zamboanga del Norte province finally coughed up P800,000 in court-ordered damages. By then, the victim was almost 20.

Despite protests, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo commuted the still influential Jalosjos’ double life sentence. In 2012, he may qualify for pardon. That’s when he turns 70.
This shoots political crap with pardon powers. We saw that too in the pardon of former President Joseph Estrada who had been convicted for plunder. Do these cynical power plays entrench further “a culture of abuse”?

Should you follow orders from you self or the other self?

The premise behind the film "Valkyrie" was the triumph of conscience as a personal choice over authority from the man considered by the world as the most ruthless man on Earth, Adolf Hitler. The film documented one of 15, and unfortunately the last, attempt to assassinate the man and take over the government of Germany and save it from annihilation by the incoming Allied Forces, who are also attempting to save the world by removing Hitler by military force from power.

In Colonel Staffenberg's position, it was a choice of protecting the honor of your family, or being remembered in history as allied with Hitler the evil leader of one of the Axis Powers. He had to something but in his standing, what could he?

And so, he, along with his allies in the military and political fields, staged a pseudo-coup. It was such because the other parties would be tagged as conspirators in an attempt to assassinate their own leader and Commander-in-Chief. All without their knowledge, and with the politico-military allies privy with respect to the details.

As the quote went, "Military operations never go as planned,"

Apparently not all of Hitler's secret infantry, dubbed Valkyrie, were mere pawns in his board. A few elité members were able to, in one way or another, see through the holes in the so-called "coup". From there, they knew who were the true Enemies of the State, and summarily executed them.

Unfortunately, the members -- and allies -- of Staffenberg's group went down in history books as the true Heroes of the State, so to speak, and their memories went into the making of this film.

It goes to show that heroism is not always bred in the battlefield. It is within our ranks that we can perceive them as such - heroes.

While filming some scenes for Marino near a temple last week in Bangkok, Krista Ranillo was surprised when a cop nearly arrested her. It turned out that Krista was in a sexy dress and it was not allowed in that area. The cop didn’t know that a shooting was in progress because the camera was hardly visible.
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“There was a rally against the new Prime Minister when we were in Bangkok,” narrated Jojo. “The cops didn’t know that we were shooting a movie, so they didn’t mind us. They must have thought we were a TV news crew.”
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