They probably didn't do their homework when they were in school

I’ll remember 2011 as the year of great highs and lows for me. The lows were really low: I almost died, I was  a little down for quite a time, I became an enemy of a government agency, I got spied on, got frustrated because my age seemed always inappropriate (I’m either too young or too old), and one day – forever just ended for me.

But there were also a lot of high points. I had a pay raise, I went on an unforgettable adventure – climbed a mountain, rappelled, and jumped through waterfalls in Moalboal, ate a lot of CNT lechon (hehe), was promoted, successfully completed one of the most difficult projects ever designed by our group, due to my utter disgust for government stupidity – I was able to expose a questionable practice by a government agency,  I got quoted and my blog was featured in the Washington Post, ABS-CBN, Tunay Na Lalake (TNL), Spot, the Inquirer (among others), appeared on cable TV via ANC (where I was shaking from nervousness all throughout the interview), was able to travel around the country more, my blog reached 150k hits (but still without me taking any profit from this), was given a very challenging job, hired a few people with great potential, and I was able to assemble my new team that I know I can depend on.

And now that 2011 is coming to a close, I look back, remember, and try to learn from all of them.

Here’s to 2012, to life, to love, to laughter and dreams. May the highs be higher and may the lows be shallow and few Ü Happy New Year everyone!!!

Proposed BATANGAS sign on Taal
(image from inquirer.net)

You can check out the details of Ate Vi’s plan here:  http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/79089/hooray-for-hollywood-on-taal-volcano-island

Ate Vi, Mark Leviste, and the rest of the Batangas provincial government just put TANGA in BATANGAS. 

Why they’d want to ruin the perfectly picturesque view of Taal by copying Hollywood is a puzzle to me. Are they turning their council meetings into pot sessions? If I was on weed, then perhaps I’d be delighted by the idea of putting the Batangas sign on Taal Volcano just to troll all the Cavitenos. But I’m not on weed so I’m less than entertained. In fact I’m dumbfounded and shocked that such a lame-ass idea could get approval from the provincial government of Batangas. Iba na talaga ang star power ni Ate Vi.

Personally, I hate what they want to do. They’re reasoning that since Taal is actually part of Batangas, putting a ginormous sign is just the Batangas government’s way of making it known that Taal is theirs. Don’t they know how to read maps??? Can’t they just edit the wikipedia entry on Taal volcano? Why’d you put such an ugly sign on such a beautiful view?

The Hollywood sign became famous because it is in this very famous place called Hollywood. And seriously, without the HOLLYWOOD sign on that mountain, the mountain wouldn’t be as iconic. In Taal, this wouldn’t be the case as Taal has always been iconic with its lake withing a crater within a lake within a crater uniqueness. Everyone will just see that we’re just second rate trying hard copycats (enter Cherrie Gil shoving water up Ate Vi’s face).

I can just imagine landscape photographers raging right now.

Irritated netizens have now started a new meme, photoshopping signs ala “HOLLYWOOD” on local places like Payatas, smokey mountain,  the Hundred Islands, the Spratly’s islands, even the DPWH guys have been photoshopped to Taal. ;p Go to the hollywood pilipinas page on FB: https://www.facebook.com/hollywoodpilipinas.

p.s. I mean no offense to the good people of Batangas, so pardon the title. To those that might be offended, I apologize. I just think that the plan is stupid. Please elect better government officials next time =)

Join the community at:

 http://www.facebook.com/mgautakwangwang

Netizens are encouraged to post reactions, photos, and videos of government officials and the utak wangwang things that they do… even if it’s as simple as putting their names and ugly faces on posters of government projects and programs (illegal by law), to corrupt practices, to bonehead policies and execution. From the page:

Layunin ng page na ito ang kulektahin ang mga pang-aabuso at kawalang-isip ng mga opisyal sa gobyerno.

Nais nitong ipakita na kahit na anong press release pa ang sabihin ng Malacanang na sila’y kontra abuso at kurapsyon, ang tunay na siste ng gobyerno at ng mga opisyal nito ay di pa rin nababago. Baluktot pa din ang pamamalakad at naghahari-harian pa din at walang pananagutan ang mga opisyal ng gobyerno.

The page is inspired by the DPWHERE movement wherein netizens gamely photoshopped 3 DPWH officials onto various places as a means to make fun of and shame the DPWH after the recent DPWH photoshop scandal that broke out from this blog. The admin hopes that if people can edit pictures as a sign of protest, it would be much more easier to share links, take photos and videos of the lapses and failure of our government officials.

Let’s collectively use the power of shame, because in our government’s case, simple constructive criticism just won’t do.

Well, the youtube video’s title gives a better description:

(Note: not for people who easily get grossed out)

I believe the standard procedure for this type of incident is to secure the area first, and when there are no imminent threats, proceed to help the injured, regardless if the injured is a victim or the shooter.

As you can see from the video, there are no more imminent threats in the area as the shooter is lying down on the ground. Inexplicably, police and security personnel have been roaming around the area while there was no one giving first aid to the fallen guy lying on the left.  The guy was twitching and rolling around in agony and no one was giving him any attention – what the hell?!!

Instead of just walking around like lazy mindless idiots that don’t give a f*ck,  they should’ve been helping that guy that was still struggling!!! Why is it that no one even went near them???

DON’T THE POLICE AND SECURITY PERSONNEL UNDERGO FIRST AID TRAINING??? 

Prompt action could have prevented loss of blood, infection, and failure of internal organs. That guy’s life could still be saved if there was any urgency in their actions. But there’s none for the most part of the video. The police and security were just looking around like it was just a movie set. ANO YAN SHOOTING NG PELIKULA NI BINOE??? One of the most frustrating parts of this video is at 1:02 when it was shown that one of the security guards even had a first aid kit on his belt, and he didn’t do anything!

It took 2 minutes since the start of the video until someone arrived to check on the guy with the white and blue shirt. The one that went to help doesn’t even look like a public official or one of the mall’s employees.

F*CK!

Puro na lang kabobohan ang nangyayari sa atin recently… nakakalungkot.

They should fire everyone in this video for their lack of humanity.

Update:  Follow-up coverage by ABS-CBN just makes the incident even worse. According to their reports, the guy that was still struggling was the 16 yr old victim. The 13 yr old shooter is the one that wasn’t moving and seemed dead. So… if the victim still had signs of life, why the hell didn’t anyone try to help him???

Also, from this video: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/regions/10/13/11/teens-sm-shooting-could-have-been-saved-says-expert it’s clear that the victim had a chance of surviving if anyone gave him first aid. It was stupid of the PNP to reason out that they were waiting for medical personnel. Just putting pressure on the bullet wound would’ve helped slow down the bleeding.

Just earlier, this new pic has taken the meme into a whole new level. I present to you… the DPWH CAKE!

DPWH Cake - Perfect for project acceptance celebrations!

Picture re-posted w/ permission from Nothing but C

The DPWH  meme cake is the perfect gift to cap a successful government funded project. It symbolizes the valiant efforts of the DPWH personnel in ensuring that the projects are completed on time, at cost, and with good quality – just like the remarkable job they did with the Buendia flyover.

The cake is not a photoshop fabrication, it’s a real edible cake made by Nowhere but C. You can check out their fb page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nothing-but-C/189002471115181 to view their other funny creations and their details. You could also reach them by email thru ms_yet@yahoo.com.

I don’t have any occasion to celebrate right now but I’d love to order one of these and just bite the heads off of each guy and then repost the carnage here. >=P

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Nothing but C, but the pic and their details are posted with permission from their facebook page admin.

Here’s a game that I and my friends and org-mates have been addicted to since last month. Game of Nerds is a quiz game for the geeks and the tech savvy (usually the  geeks are the tech savvy).  It features questions about the internet, computer games, software, hardware and the latest tech, sci-fi, action, and fantasy movies and tv series, sci-fi and fantasy literature, chemistry, biology, physics, math, and even board games and RPG. Yep, stuff that don’t usually get asked on Game KNB or Who Wants to be A Millionaire.

Check out the game here: www.gameofnerds.com

Why is it fun and addicting? Even I can’t really explained it. Aside from the game having nice sounds that get make you feel like you’re in Jeopardy, the game is pretty hard even if you have some casual knowledge of the topics. I myself thought I had plenty of knowledge about computer games but then  of all the categories this is one of my weakest. Some questions are very hard, you’d have to dig-in to your college and high school memories just to answer it. So why would you want to try it? Because…

Game of Nerds is a celebration of geekdom. If you consider yourself a geek, if someone called you a geek, or if you like geek culture, this game is for you. The questions might be hard, but they validate you. And you also get to learn more geeky stuff and perhaps you can pick up a new interest there from all the weird questions.

So if you know what’s the main difference between an Intel 386 and 386sx chip, or if you know the meaning of SMTP, ARP, and what socket the Intel Core2 DUo plugs into, this game’s for you. (and even if you don’t there are a lot of categories to choose from).

You can add me there if you need a teammate, my username is pierresd.

Disclaimer:  besides playing and sending a few questions, I’m not involved in any way with Game of Nerds, it’s just such a fun game worth blogging about.

screen shot from my Samsung Galaxy S2

I was still slightly sleepy and so I was dazed when I read it. I was really shocked upon seeing the tweet, I mean, WTF??? Is Nora Aunor in the hospital after being held-up, raped, and killed???

Fortunately the tweet was just missing a period sign. The Inquirer should be a lot more careful. These types of tweets can hurt someone, I mean, what if a solid Noranian who had heart disease read that? She might’ve had a heart attack, collapsed, and then rushed to the hospital like their idol.

I tweeted inquirerdotnet and dziq990 about it and they said “thanks for the feedback.” The moral of the story: The 140 character limit set by twitter isn’t an excuse for anyone to delete important punctuation marks.

p.s. Please Noranians don’t go on bashing The Philippine Inquirer for this. I believe it was an honest mistake.

p.p.s. A little more than an hour after that and I was shocked with another news, Steve Jobs: Requiescat in pace

After office hours, while reading  new posts linking to my blog, I read the Associated Post’s syndicated news write-up on the DPWH scandal and Ricky Carandang’s press release.

At the back of my head, I was still thinking of Sec. Rogelio Sison’s statement that it was a DPWH photographer who was at fault. Repeat: Photographer was at fault.

In my previous blog, I was reasoning out that it should not be the photographer’s fault because it wasn’t a photographer’s job to post pics on their web page. Also, Singson’s statement was a little bit not aligned with Beth Pilorin’s initial statement apologizing for posting photos that have not yet been cleared. I also remembered Andro Santiago’s statement in the Inquirer that there was a mix-up of photos that lead to the erroneous posting, he said that:

 the photo had been posted by mistake as they were also preparing the layout for a magazine they circulated in the DPWH.

… the images of Momo, Tagudando and Macud had been cropped from a photo and laid on top of another photo to form the image which sparked criticism online. “It was a cropped photo (of the officials) showing them in another angle.

So I was a little puzzled because there are three officials saying three different stories. They could all be telling the truth, but the story would go something like this:

1. Photographer takes photo of the 3 in Baywalk
2. Photographer goes back to the office, downloads his photos on his PC for possible retouching
3. Photographer does not like his angles / photo compositions
4. PID Boss then tells photographer to ready pictures for an internal DPWH magazine, from my interpretation, it was ok to photoshop  then because this was an internal publication (as per Andro Santiago)
5. Photographer then goes on FB, gains admin access to the DPWH Central account, and then posts the edited photo mistakenly (as per Singson) and without approval from anyone. (as per Beth Pilorin) But he did have the time to add all that information as to who the three are and what they were doing in the photo.

Talk about multi-tasking! From that seemingly tall tale, it seems that the guy multitasks as photographer, graphics editor, web admin, and PR man (from the brief write-up that was posted with the pic). How much does the DPWH pay him? He seems like a one man PR army.

I myself was not convinced of this and I can’t think of any other way the three statements could be all real. So… I did a little research and bam! I saw this post in yahoo regarding the reasons given by the Chinese government on the China photoshop scandal.

From http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/fake-photo-fallout-chinese-officials-embrace-social-media-171223649.html

 Huili county officials were quick to blame the mix-up on journalists–or in this case, a photographer. ”The explanation was almost as curious as the picture itself: as other photos showed, the three men did visit the road in question, but an unnamed photographer decided his original pictures were not suitably impressive and decided to stitch two together,”

WHAT THE EFF?!!! Did Singson just copy his excuse from China??? The Chinese and Philippine incidents are just waaaaay too similar that it’s becoming creepy. Even the Chinese officials’ excuse has now been the Philippine officials’ excuse. Even to the unnamed photographer part!

It’s funny but when Rogelio Singson said that he didn’t remember the photographer’s name, he might not have remembered it because the photographer’s name was CHINESE.

AMPF! Nangopya na nga lang tayo ng iskandalo, pati ba naman palusot, mangongopya din tayo???

Note: had to change the title a little bit

Singson said:

“it’s very embarrassing to the DPWH. We’re all trying to imbue honesty and integrity and here comes a fake picture.”

Ayos na sana, but then he also said these:

Singson said it is the fault of the photographer, who will be sanctioned for “high dishonesty.” He did not name the photographer, saying only, “I don’t even want to remember.”

Singson said an investigation is not needed anymore.

“The guy, the photographer himself, came to me and said the three had nothing to with it. An investigation is not needed anymore,” he said.

IMHO, this is yet another utak wangwang move. Since Singson perceived that the netizens want blood, he’s probably gonna make a sacrificial lamb out of that photographer. Poor guy. Isn’t it that the job of photographers is primarily to take pictures, publicists / PR people are the ones that choose and posts pictures on the web. So why does the axe fall on him? Or, why only him?

Tsaka kailangan pa talaga nilang MAG-HIRE NG PHOTOGRAPHER??? Ikaw na ang DPWH!!! Kaya pala ang taas ng tax ko… =(

By pointing all the blame on the photographer, they are trying to end the issue without really resolving the root cause. And the root cause is that DPWH’s personnel think too lowly of the public that they think they can easily pass off fabricated photos as real ones. This mentality is also what makes corruption rampant in the DPWH.

Also, who might this photographer be? For all we know, this might be a ghost employee. So wala din talagang mapaparusahan at naisahan na naman tayo ng DPWH.

Beth Pilorin, DPWH-PID head, in her apology  stated that “the pic was not cleared yet  before the staff posted it” so I think this issue is more of a procedural error than an isolated dishonest move by one of their photographers to appease the bosses. Now, if it indeed is a procedural error, there’s a breakdown in management.

If there’s a breakdown in management… you should cull it at the management level. What do you guys think?

Update: that photographer excuse that Sec. Singson gave? It might have been made in china: http://quiapo.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/does-singson-dpwh-have-no-originality-pointing-the-blame-on-the-photographer-is-first-made-in-china/