winks and blinks

Announcement

2010-04-24T09:50:00.002+08:00

This is Grace, the daughter of neo.nate. My family and I regret to inform you that my father passed away on April 19, 2010. Thank you for taking an interest in his blog and his writings - it was one of the things that kept him going during his retirement. We miss him very much. RIP Dad.

In Seventh Heaven

2009-08-01T09:09:00.000+08:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. The image, taken July 30, 2009, shows POTUS (like GOD, is always capitalized) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo upon the summons of Obama. Impishly, Barack chose to pose beneath the portrait of George Washington, famous for his inability to lie.

Porcine flu A_H1N1

2009-06-18T07:13:00.005+08:00

By the ides of June 2009, the swine flu AH1N1 affliction is declared a full blown pandemic spreading globally without a severity scale, the Philippines is a frontrunner in incidence. When it comes to infectious disease, preparedness is good, but ill-informed preparedness is a waste of time and resources, and there's a lot of ill-informed preparedness going on right now with the swine flu. The Department of Health is bustling to stay on top of its developments, if not its curtailment, prompting some critics to bewail the feeble proactive efforts of the DOH honcho. I am inclined to agree.

Some pertinent but vital questions have not been addressed. The emphasis in hampering the spread of the disease is hand washing in running water, but was silent on rinsing with stagnant water in a basin, the tendency in remote areas where water is scarce and must be arduously fetched. Another is the matter of social distancing mantra -- the church frowns on holding hands at mass, DOH advises to keep 3 feet away from each other -- not so practical with passengers rubbing elbows in jeepney rides, when paying fare or when accepting the wafer at communion.

But there are practical ways to contain the disease that the DOH can disseminate to the public, beyond the admonition not to panic

Doorknobs and push buttons, convenient devices in everyday life, are also convenient means for the virus to seek more victims, and these invisible buggers are not choosy. Gender, age, rich, poor, any human will do. So to frustrate and infuriate the invisible enemy, disinfect their bridges to the hands --- the doorknobs, pushbuttons and many other items touched routinely by many people (ATMs, computers, coins). Alcohol, if one can afford it, is a favorite and convenient disinfectant. In a bind, even the 80-proof intoxicants will do as substitute for rubbing alcohol.

Outsmarting the Flu Virus with Chlorine Bleach

Although viruses require live host cells to multiply and spread, they can live on inanimate surfaces for up to two hours or more, giving them a convenient window of opportunity to be picked up by unsuspecting organisms, namely, us. Likely points of infection are commonly touched surfaces: doorknobs, desks, counters, dials and handles. Managing the viral populations on these surfaces is an effective way to cut down on the spread of flu. Chlorine bleach is a logical germ-busting, readily available product to turn to for this task. It works by penetrating the protective shells of viruses.

A dilute solution of regular laundry bleach (1/4 cup of bleach in a gallon of cool water) is an effective and inexpensive all-purpose disinfectant, used commonly in homes and healthcare facilities. Some keep spray bottles of chlorine bleach solution on hand for use to disinfect exercise equipment. The active ingredient in chlorine bleach, sodium hypochlorite, is one of the chlorine disinfectants routinely added to municipal drinking water to control waterborne disease.

A study by the National Institute of Nursing Research showed that hot water and bleach are more effective in reducing viral infections than antibacterial products. This is because antibacterial products work only on bacteria, whereas bleach destroys both viruses and bacteria.

Masks Are Useless at Protecting Wearers from Swine Flu

Many air travelers have been seen wearing mouth and nose protection of one type or another in recent days. Most were wearing face masks, which are loose-fitting and designed largely to help stop droplets from spreading from the person wearing the mask. They also protect the wearer's mouth and nose from cough and sneeze aerosols. They are not created to protect the wearer from breathing in very small particles.

Case in point: All those people buying surgical masks. They think wearing a mask protects them from swine flu. The mainstream media perpetuates the myth, broadcasting images of people wearing the masks, all while talking about people "protecting themselves" from swine flu. If it wasn't a potentially life-and-death situation, it would be amusing.

Did you ever notice that the surgeons and medical staff in a surgery room are all wearing surgical masks that are very similar to the face masks being used by people afraid of swine flu? Did you ever wonder WHY they are wearing those masks? Are they wearing those masks to protect themselves from the patient's germs? Not so. They're wearing those masks to prevent their own germs from infecting the patient!

Respirators, on the other hand, are made for just that. They are similar in appearance to the relatively inexpensive face masks but are designed specifically to protect the wearer from breathing in such particles. These masks, known as N95 for its filtering ability, fit more snugly on the face than face masks so that most air is breathed through the filter material. They work best if they are fitted specifically to the person wearing the mask.

A respirator that fits snugly on the face can filter out small particles that can be inhaled around the edges of a face mask. But it's easier to breathe through a face mask than a respirator over a long period of time, said experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Are there treatments?

As of now, the new virus is killed by two antiviral medicines—oseltamivir and zanamivir. Based on experience with other flu viruses, treatment would be most effective if given within 2 days of the onset of symptoms. As long as this current swine flu virus is infecting people, it is likely that health authorities will recommend that people with more severe illness take these medicines.

On the other hand, there is no proven benefit from using the medicines before symptoms develop, and there is proven harm: unnecessary widespread use of these drugs could produce drug-resistant viruses.

There is no vaccine yet for the new virus, (Drug firm Novartis claims a new vaccine available for distribution by November) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expressed doubt that this year’s regular flu vaccine will offer protection.

Vast Majority Won’t Have Access To Antivirals In Pandemic, But Generic Drugs Could Help Prevent Deaths

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — Almost 90 per cent of the world’s population will not have timely access to affordable supplies of vaccines and antiviral agents in the current influenza pandemic, but it is possible that inexpensive generic drugs that are readily available, even in developing countries, could save millions of lives.

That’s the conclusion reached by an extensive review and analysis by immunization expert Dr David Fedson, published online by Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses within hours of the World Health Organization declaring a pandemic.

Dr Fedson points out that seasonal flu resistance to antiviral drugs like Tamiflu may make them ineffective in the pandemic and maintains that without effective drugs some countries will have to rely on 19th century public health measures to see them through the outbreak.

He is calling for urgent and sharply focused research to determine whether drugs that reduce inflammation or modify the host response - the way that the body responds to infection or injury - could be used to manage the pandemic. And he believes that a lot could be learnt from the work done on these commonly available generic drugs - which include drugs to lower cholesterol and treat diabetes - by scientists not involved in influenza research.

“Despite the best efforts of influenza scientists, pharmaceutical companies and health officials, the stark reality is that although studies of the molecular characteristics of influenza viruses have been enormously informative, they have failed to explain the system-wide effects that flu has on people who contract it.

“For example we still don’t understand why so many young adults died in the 1918 pandemic, while the death rate for children was much lower. I believe this is because researchers have focused on studying the actual virus rather than how these particular hosts – the children and young people – responded to the virus.

“Most of the world’s population lack realistic alternatives for confronting the next pandemic and urgent research is vital. Otherwise people everywhere might be faced with an unprecedented public health crisis.”

Dr Fedson maintains that experiments by non-influenza scientists have defined common cell signalling pathways for acute lung injury caused by different agents, including the inactivated H5N1 influenza virus (bird flu).

“Research suggests that giving patients anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents such as statins, fibrates and glitazones could help to regulate the cell signalling pathways in patients who have suffered acute lung injury, a common problem with influenza” he says. “They can also help to reverse the cellular dysfunction and cell damage that accompanies multi-organ failure.

“Cell signalling pathways play essential roles in the ability of cells to perceive and correctly respond to their microenvironment. They form the basis of development, tissue repair, immunity and normal tissue function.

“Statins are commonly used to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease - but have also been shown to be effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths from pneumonia. Fibrates modify fatty acid metabolism and glitazones reduce blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes. All of these drugs modify the cell signaling pathways involved in acute lung injury and multi-organ failure. Moreover, they are affordable generic drugs that are widely available even in developing countries.”

Dr Fedson points out that there is currently no logistical plan to distribute supplies of pandemic vaccines to the non-vaccine producing countries that contain 88 per cent of the world’s population. “In all likelihood, people in these countries won’t be able to obtain supplies of pandemic vaccines or they will get them too late” he says.

“Many health officials have placed their hopes on stockpiles of antiviral agents, but resistance to the most widely stockpiled agent, Tamiflu, in seasonal flu outbreaks, has prompted concerns that similar resistance could develop in any pandemic virus.

“It’s estimated that countries that do not produce influenza vaccines will only have enough antivirals to treat one per cent of their combined populations.

Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses is the first journal to specialise exclusively on influenza and other respiratory viruses. It is the official journal of the International Society for Influenza and Other Respiratory Virus Diseases (http://www.isirv.org), an independent scientific professional society promoting the prevention, detection, treatment, and control of influenza and other respiratory virus diseases.

The journal is providing all of its content free online at http://www.influenzajournal.com and fast-tracking the publication of articles to help clinicians stay up-to-date with the latest research and expert commentary.

Where can more information be obtained?

For updated information from the CDC, go to: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu or visit Harvard Health Publications’ Flu Resource Center.

Cleanliness Habit

Primary schoolers prior to WW2 were taught a ditty: I have two hands, the left and the right; hold them up high, so clean and bright … DepEd should inculcate the value of clean hands. The advent of the swine flu pandemic is scary, but could bring about a benefit: the awareness that hygiene and sanitation are vital to staying healthy, and could persist as a habit.

Sanitizing Bays

2008-12-20T08:59:00.006+08:00

In essence, the PhilStar editorial- Cleaning up the bay December 20, 2008 says:

“The other day the Supreme Court added its voice to the environmental cause in a landmark ruling that ordered several executive agencies to clean up Manila Bay and restore its pristine waters, and to submit periodic reports on the progress of the program.

The court upheld an order issued on Sept. 13, 2002 by the Regional Trial Court in Imus, Cavite, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, ordering several government agencies to restore Manila Bay’s water quality within six months. The ruling supported the petition filed by the Concerned Residents of Manila Bay in January 1999. The group argued that the deterioration in the quality of the bay waters violated minimum standards set under the Philippine Environment Code and Presidential Decree 1152. The high tribunal also cited provisions of the Clean Water Act of 2004 that have not been enforced.

Unlike other voices in the advocacy for a clean environment, the high tribunal’s ruling becomes part of jurisprudence. But the order may raise questions on whether the court has overreached its authority by ordering executive departments to do their job in compliance with its order.

The question is raised because of the complexity of cleaning up a bay whose waters are shared by tourist resorts, fishing communities, slum areas without sewerage systems, the port of the city of Manila and the country’s main international container port. The bay is also where solid waste and industrial effluvia from the Pasig River end up.

To improve the water quality in Manila Bay, all these factors that cause pollution must be addressed. Can the country afford to drive away the ships that use Manila’s port or shut down polluting industrial facilities along the Pasig?... “

The editorial understates the scope of the problem --- there are also five contiguous provinces with polluted rivers, and by inference their population, dumping into the Bay: Bataan, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite and even Laguna from its not-so-pristine Laguna Lake surrounded by industrial polluters. To view the full panorama of the picture and its ramifications, is to see the pollution as an ugly consequence of corruption. The unregulated pollution is abetted by official neglect. But the ugliest of all from my viewpoint is the reflection of a culture that accepts shady behavior as conventional, the norm and mores of Filipino culture.

The Pacific Ocean according to a yacht race skipper is no longer pristine. “I often struggle to find words that will communicate the vastness of the Pacific Ocean to people who have never been to sea. Day after day, my yacht Alguita was the only vehicle on a highway without landmarks, stretching from horizon to horizon. Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic.”

And in space, orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by man that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust and slag from solid rocket motors, coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites, and other small particles

U.S. scientists are looking for a way to clear the clutter in space, which some say is becoming troublesome on the heavenly highways. The space junk problem is increasing, in part because of collisions between materials in space, rocket stage failures and activities such as anti-satellite testing, the online publication reported. If space-faring nations continue to ignore this growing space access challenge, we will reach a gridlock situation in which launching satellites is too risky. Thus, a space cleanup is inevitable.

Notwithstanding the reality of global littering behavior, I still believe it is not proper to spit on the floor of one’s house.

Of pollards and espaliers

2008-12-15T08:21:00.000+08:00

Of late, our legislators were engrossed in analyzing the Bolante funding technique of agriculture, an endeavor that fizzled out. Their search for agricultural innovation and ultimately food security would have produced more fruit if instead they studied two words in the dictionary: pollard which can restrain deforestation and produce alternative fuel, and espalier which can create fruit trees that serve as decorative boundary markers and landscaping.

Pollard definition: 1. A tree cut back to the trunk; 2. An animal that has its horns removed. Pollard is not merely cutting off the top of a tree which is technically just called topping -- a very harmful practice for trees. Pollarding is a pruning technique whereby the small branches are cut back to about the same place annually, creating knobby "fists" on the branches from which the new shoots grow. One explanation for the origin of the practice is that in medieval times the landowners and kings would prohibit the cutting of large trees by peasants, in order to protect their forests. The peasants still needed fuel wood, so they were allowed to only take stuff that was smaller than a certain size. By cutting the branches at the same point every year, they avoided the size issue, got the wood they needed, and still kept their heads. The practice has since become a formal pruning technique.

In the wild, trees manage well enough, so why do we prune them? The first reason is simple: safety. Trees are big and when pieces fall off, they can do considerable damage. Another reason, particularly for fruit trees, is to stimulate flowering and fruit production. Occasionally, pruning may be needed to remove disease or malformed branch work. Rarer still, pruning is sometimes needed for timber production, such as veneer wood. But, the most common reason of all is to control the growth and appearance of the tree for aesthetic reasons (particularly in cultivated varieties) or to control a perceived nuisance.

Mini-forests preserved in the center of megacities such as New York Central Park and London Ashmore Common are attended with care and management. Veteran trees are designated as such due to their great age, size or condition, and are of exceptional value culturally, in the landscape, or for wildlife. The pollarded oaks on Ashtead Common are true veterans, their trunks broad in girth and crowned with majestic boughs. A legacy from a time when the landscape was more open, they formed part of a habitat known as wood pasture. Veteran trees often provide a range of rich, but scarce, habitats supporting many rare and endangered deadwood species, as well as other invertebrates, fungi, bats, small mammals and birds. They are an integral part of England’s cultural and biological heritage, and so receive special attention in the management of the Common. Metro Manila has no such distinction, uprooting trees without compunction when traffic congestion demands it.

In the U.S. willows pollarded since the 1800s provide wood for charcoal, a major component of gunpowder. If, instead of cutting the top of a tree, the trunk was cut at about ground level, it was a "coppice" and would produce shoots that were also used for charcoal. Some Pinoy farmers who practice this method for their firewood needs are not bothered by erratic fuel and LPG prices. Using this technique, our generals could obviate begging Congress for supplemental budgets to buy gunpowder for shelling the MILF rogues – and it would create some savings for funding the travels of their peripatetic Commander-in-Chief.

Espalier, a trellis or lattice used in horticulture for training (contorting) a tree or vine flat against a wall, either for ornament or to fit it into a small space, allowing it to get a maximum of air and sun and bringing the fruit within easy reach for gathering. The plant may be trained into various shapes, such as a fan or a fork. The term is more commonly used for the tree or vine so trained.

An old horticulture practice of controlling plant growth in a flat plane against a solid surface is called the art of "espalier." Espalier originated with the Romans and the technique was refined through the years by the Europeans.

Garden designers and enthusiasts are rediscovering the ancient practice of shaping tree branches into classic, stylized forms. Today, many top garden designers and landscape architects are taking a second look at this haute form of horticulture. Espalier has a time-honored place in the history of gardening. Egyptian tomb paintings circa 1400 B.C. reflect images of espaliered fig trees growing in the Pharaoh's garden. In medieval times, European monks carefully trained fruit and nut trees to grow flat against the walls of great monastic gardens. During the 17th century in England and especially in France, espalier gained widespread popularity, appearing on humble village walls, as well as in elaborate configurations in the Versailles kitchen garden of Louis XIV. (The term espalier is derived from the French word for shoulder, épaule.)

Espaliered plants are prized for their symmetry and versatility and for their ability to add ornamental beauty to both compact and sweeping spaces. They can be used either as privacy screens, to adorn bare walls, to define walkways and driveways, or to create the living architecture of an arbor. As an added benefit, espaliered plants produce more abundant fruits and flowers because the roots of the clipped plants have less area to nourish.

Depending on the desired size and shape, a tree or series of trees takes approximately four to five years to hand-sculpt into centuries-old classic European forms, such as the horizontal cordon, fan, Belgian fence, or candelabra. These forms can be precise and geometric or slightly looser and more romantic.

Knowing where to prune, where to influence, and how far to bend without breaking a stem are the keys to espalier success. While books instruct novice gardeners in espalier techniques, it is best to leave this delicate and time-consuming process to the experts -- especially for complicated and multiple plant arrangements.

Espalier fruit tree at Standen, West Sussex, England May 2006

This file has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, Graham Bould. This applies worldwide.

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Soap and Water

2008-10-15T08:56:00.000+08:00

A minister was asked to dinner by one of his church members. He knew she was a bad housekeeper but agreed. When he sat down at the table, he noticed that the dishes were the dirtiest that he had ever seen in his life. "Were these dishes ever washed?" he asked his hostess, running his fingers over the grit and grime.

She replied, "They're as clean as soap and water could get them". He felt a bit uncomfortable, but blessed the food anyway and started eating. It was really delicious and he said so, despite the dirty dishes. When dinner was over, the hostess took the dishes outside and yelled, "Here Soap! Here Water!"

The joke is as corny as succotash, but it may draw attention to Global Handwashing Day celebrated this year on 15 October that will provide an opportunity to motivate and mobilize millions around the world to wash their hands with soap. Global Handwashing Day is an initiative of the Public Private Partnership for Handwashing (PPPHW). More information about the Day can be found on their website at http://www.globalhandwashing.org/.

“Handwashing with soap may be an old idea, but it is far from universally practiced. Combining the expertise and resources of the soap industry with the facilities and resources of governments to promote handwashing with soap is one obvious solution. Whilst governments and development agencies want to combat disease and poverty, industry is interested in expanding its market.

Handwashing plays an important part in the efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals related both to: (1) health improvements, and (2) access and effective use of water supply and sanitation services, two of the five major goals agreed to by UN member countries at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002.”

The idea is to get private industry and the public sector to work together with other partners to develop programs to promote handwashing. The non-branded programs are open to all interested parties, both public and private, targeting those most at risk (mothers, children, the poor) across the whole population. Based on detailed consumer studies, these programs reach out to target audiences through mass media, direct consumer contact and government channels of communication.

In addition to the health costs, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities in schools also has an impact on access to education, with girl’s school attendance often falling off when they reach puberty where school sanitation facilities are inadequate.

Access to clean water and sanitation are fundamental to every aspect of children’s lives– including their health, their survival and their dignity – and providing all children with clean drinking water and improved sanitation and hygiene in schools would make an important contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The announcement of Global Handwashing Day was made at the annual World Water Week 2008, which was held in Stockholm from August 17 to 23.

This year’s theme; Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World included a special focus on sanitation and hygiene. 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation (IYS).

• UNICEF and partners announce Global Handwashing Day 2008

Over 170 collaborating organizations met to discuss issues around water and its impact on health, the environment, and poverty alleviation, at the annual World Water Week held in Stockholm last August

This year's theme; Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World includes a special focus on sanitation and hygiene. 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation (IYS).

UNICEF convened two seminars during the World Water Week, (i) The impact of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions on children, and (ii) The importance of water, sanitation and hygiene in schools.

Children are among the most vulnerable to the consequences of the lack of access to clean water improved sanitation and hygiene. More than 5,000 children under five die every day as a result of diarrheal diseases, caused in part by unsafe water, lack of access to basic sanitation facilities and improved hygiene. Simple behavioral changes, such as hand washing with soap, can help reduce mortality rates related to diarrheal diseases by almost 50 per cent.

Is this relevant to Pinoyland? You bet! An article in a leading daily reports: RP second largest contributor to diarrhea-related deaths

“The Philippines is second to

China

as the biggest contributor to the number of diarrhea-related deaths in the world… The Philippine figure is almost double that of other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Laos and Korea.

The Unicef embarked yesterday on a worldwide campaign to promote the “life-saving habit” of handwashing with soap to prevent illnesses like diarrhea, considered the second leading killer of children below five years old.

Unicef country representative Vanessa Tobin said while people wash their hands with water, “far fewer wash their hands with soap at critical moments – for example, after using the toilet, after cleaning a child and before handling food.”

“They don’t realize that hand-washing is actually a life-saving habit that can prevent the deaths of millions of children,” Tobin said during the launch of the 1st Global Handwashing Day at the Museo Pambata in Manila.” Read more ...

Twenty countries worldwide, including the Philippines, will go on an all-day hand washing event on October 15 to teach the public, especially children, the importance of regularly cleaning hands. The project will be launched following studies that non-washing of hands leads to several fatal diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia, among others. World Health Organization statistics show that every year, diarrhea kills some two million children worldwide while in the Philippines alone, there are 1.5 million diarrhea cases leading to the deaths of at least 10,000 children.

Aside from this, about 10 percent of children below five years old carry symptoms of acute respiratory infections while 70 percent of pre-schoolers are host to at least a type of intestinal worm. However, officials said the number could be easily lowered if only children would be able to do the easy hygiene habit.

“Proper handwashing should be started at home. We must educate our children even at their young age the importance of handwashing,” said Dr. Yolanda Oliveros, Department of Health spokesman. But Oliveros acknowledged that many children were not able to wash their hands regularly due to lack of access to basic sanitation, with statistics pegged at almost 60 percent of observed handwashing respondents not being able to wash hands during the critical moments.

In public schools, our problem is lack of funds to build classrooms, and when they are funded no toilet facilities are included. Even when provided with toilets, running water is not available at times. But running water often floods urban areas, mercifully causing cancellation of classes

Big Pharma Drive

2008-09-22T12:54:00.000+08:00

Unintended consequences brought about by a surge of legislation: The Cheaper Medicines Act that demeans the Generics Law, The Reproductive Health Bill under intense debate in plenary and heavy lobbying by the Church, and the prospective Senate Bill 2012, authored by Sen. Pia Cayetano, which seeks the mandatory vaccination of all infants after birth. This makes Big Pharma lick its chops and anticipate the events with great pleasure. Big Pharma sees a huge opportunity for disease mongering and for marketing the drugs in their inventory, marshalling their prime sales force, compliant doctors who expect the usual rewards. The invasion did not take long in coming.

The first wave was led by a cancer expert declaring that infants need to get anti-hepa B vaccination in a trite 3-step modus sting: scare with dread disease, seek medical help, treat with medication. According to a top honcho of the Philippine Cancer Society (PCS), there is a need to submit infants to anti-hepatitis B vaccination to minimize liver cancer, one of the three preventable types of cancer, that vaccinating infants is better than curing cancer because it is cheaper and it would assuage the burden on the family, and clinching his logic that there is an existing law requiring the vaccination of children but it has not been fully implemented. (Under Republic Act 7846 or the Hepatitis B Immunization Act, it is required for infants and children below eight years old to be vaccinated against the disease.)

The come on, “In government hospitals, it’s free.” Well, not really, since it’s paid for by taxpayer money. But Big Pharma is not squeamish about who pays as long as they get paid. The lament (perhaps because the rewards are puny) the first vaccination would go to waste if a child is not given two booster shots.

But even if the follow-up vaccinations can be acquired for free, PCS learned that many children are not brought back to hospital because of “lack of money for transportation fares.”

He maintained that the government can conduct immunization at the barangay level to reach more children.

Next, Tour of Hope: Biking enthusiasts will go on a tour for a cause from Vigan to Subic from Sept. 13 to Sept. 17 to raise awareness and funds for the prevention and control of cervical cancer in the

Philippines

. At the launching of “Tour of Hope”, the head of the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute gave an overview (read promo) of the cervical cancer situation in the

Philippines

. The Tour of Hope is co-sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline

Philippines

The hype follows a familiar pattern. First the scare of dire disease, then the plug for treatment (or else) and lastly the drug for cure.

…“every eight minutes a Filipina dies of cancer. When a woman dies of cancer, you not only lose a mother, a wife, a sister, but one who may even be a breadwinner of the family. Although detectable through pap smear, the incidence and mortality rate of cervical cancer has remained unchanged for the past 30 years The reason for this, is two-thirds of the time, the woman is diagnosed very late when nothing can be done anymore.“

Finally, the plug for the healing drug (for prevention). Chronic exposure to the HPV leads to the development of cervical cancer. A vaginal examination and Pap Smear every 3 years by an OB-Gyn specialist may detect early stage of the cancer, which makes it curable. Late stages of the disease preclude total cure. A vaccine is now available, especially for children, both girls and boys, to prevent HPV infection and its transmission and spread when they become sexually active.

The Gardasil HPV Vaccine: Not the Shot in the Arm Merck Hoped for
by Judith Siers-Poisson

With the start of the school year, debate has heated up again about Gardasil, Merck's vaccine against human papillomavirus. Since writing my series of four articles on The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer last year, I have continued to track the developments and have noticed some interesting trends. While Gardasil has not been the financial jackpot that Merck was hoping it would be, there is still a steady push for vaccination and even still for mandates. Even though it has not played out as positively as Merck planned, it is too early to turn our attention away from their efforts to sell their so-called "vaccine against cancer." Merck's obvious corporate steamrolling has generated a public backlash and has also faced general concerns about possible health risks from vaccinations, along with conservative opposition to the idea of government health mandates. These reactions slowed the company's money train but didn't bring it to a full stop.

The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer: Resources

The Articles

Setting the Stage
Research, Develop, and Sell, Sell, Sell
Women in Government, Merck's Trojan Horse
Profit Knows No Borders, Selling Gardasil to the Rest of the World

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Debating Gardasil in Canada

Government Mandates HPV Vaccine For New US Residents
Despite growing reports of serious and even fatal reactions to the human papillomavirus ( HPV) vaccine, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that people from other countries who want to become legal permanent...

Gardasil Jab Linked to Pancreatitis - Australian Doctors Demand a Review
Australian doctors are demanding a review of the controversial Gardasil vaccine after three girls developed pancreatitis shortly after being given the HPV jab, according to an ...

http://tinyurl.com/4xdaac

Recently, Safety in surgery drive kicks off http://tinyurl.com/5gxdm9

http://www.philstar.com/index.php?Headlines&p=49&type=2&sec=24&aid=20080913148

The Philippine College of Surgeons (PCS) convened the Philippine Alliance on Patient Safety in Surgery, to instill the culture of safe surgery in all Philippine hospitals, in tune with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “World Alliance for Patient Safety” which is intended to minimize deaths and complications resulting from operations, to “save lives through safe surgery.” The project begins with the distribution of a one-page checklist to all hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities across the country reminding them of what to check before, during and after surgery. The PCS-DOH agreement requires medical facilities to display the checklist in their operating rooms.

Worldwide, it is estimated that of the 230 million major surgeries performed annually, most of them are related to OB-gynecology cases. That’s a lot of babies entering this harsh world by caesarian section. So what is Big Pharma peddling in surgical procedures? Anesthesia? Painkillers? Anti-inflammatory drugs? Anti-histamines and –allergenics? Disinfectants for post-castration of randy clerics?

Palliative Sop

2008-09-03T20:38:00.000+08:00

After months of Congressional bickering (a feeble word inadequate to describe the process), the Cheaper Medicines bill was signed into law by the President in a ceremony attended by the solon authors and movers. To call it watered down would be a gross understatement.

"As to diseases, make a habit of two things— to help, or at least do no harm."

--- Hippocrates, The Epidemics ---

Time to grieve, not celebrate. An economic policy of price control, a main feature of the Act, has unforeseen consequences that we may regret. I see this law as a palliative enfeebling the Generics law which truly gives cheaper choices for the really sick. A caring government could have taken the first steps to adopt a fundamental public health policy of Preventive Medicine, starting with food security, or an innovation such as converting those unproductive parking lots of malls into vegetable farms, the produce delivered to customers.

Let us briefly pamper the hypochondriacs. Here are some interesting health articles culled from the Web.

8 Drugs Doctors Would Never Take (If they won't use these medications, why should you?)

With 3,480 pages of fine print, the Physicians' Desk Reference (a.k.a. PDR) is not a quick read. That's because it contains every iota of information on more than 4,000 prescription medications. Heck, the PDR is medication -- a humongous sleeping pill.

This unusual article states the names of medicines that doctors wouldn’t take.. For the hows and whys, read the entire article. Here’s a quick look.

1. Advair (for asthma)

2. Avandia (for diabetes)

3. Celebrex (for arthritis / pain relief)

4. Ketek (antibiotic)

5. Prilosec (for heartburn)

6. Nexium (for heartburn)

7. Visine original (for eyes)

8. Pseudoephedrine (decongestant)

Perhaps there’s something to be said for natural health now.
Ten drugs to avoid whenever possible
It just keeps getting better and better for Big Pharma, continue pumping us with more toxins and just deal with symptoms, thus creating a whole horde of future customers (patients).
posted by Chris Gupta on July 27 2003 updated September 24 2005
1. Prozac.
This wonder drug whose side effects are now being uncovered. Aside from all the known side effects, including insomnia, anxiety, anorexia and weight loss, Prozac has been known to affect nearly every system of the body. Most recently, it’s been linked with sexual dysfunction and also long-term dependence.
2. Piroxicam (Feldene).
Numerous deaths have been linked to this nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, which causes some 110 known side effects, including stomach and intestinal bleeding or perforation, depression and hair loss.
3. Predisolone
or routine use of steroids for anything other than the short term for life-threatening conditions. Even inhaled or rub-on steroids cause the side effects associated with their oral cousins: thin skinning, growth retardation or osteoporosis, buffalo hump and dementia.
4. Dex fenfluramine.
This dieting magic bullet makes you nine times more likely to develop pulmonary hypertension, and also causes depression, insomnia and nervousness. In lab tests it caused brain damage.
5. Nifedipine
and other calcium-channel blockers. New revelations about this class of drug show they increase the risk of cancer, heart attacks(CARDIAC ARREST), stomach bleeding ( OR INTESTINAL BLEEDING) and suicide. Dangerous for diabetics.
6. Larium.
At least 300 Britons are claiming severe, long-term effects from this supposed malaria preventative, including hallucinations, anxiety attacks, seizures and severe mood swings.
7. Septrin.
This hybrid antibacterial drug, used to treat everything from traveller’s diarrhea to HIV infection, even in children, is extremely toxic. American regulatory agencies warn the drug can cause the potentially fatal skin disease Steven-Johnson syndrome, which also causes death of liver tissue (HEPATOTOXIC DRUG) and lowering of blood cell count. The drug, given for HIVpositive AIDS patients, causes symptoms uncannily like those supposedly associated with advanced AIDS.
8. Sodium valproate.
Also known as valproic acid, this anti-epilepsy drug has a host of side effects, including the capacity to cause potentially fatal liver failure in some patients.
9. Ritalin.
This drug of choice for children diagnosed with Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the latest name for the hyperactive child, can cause seizures in susceptible children, suppress height and weight, cause nervousness and insomnia, anorexia, nausea, heart palpitations and, involuntary movements. It also can lead to dependence.
10. Minocycline.
This first-line treatment for severe acne has been linked with serious adverse reactions, including liver failure, tooth discolouration, autoimmune hepatitis and lupus (SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS).
See also: Bad News About Statin Drugs
By Maryann Napoli (June 2003)

Vytorin cholesterol lowering drug as it is linked to cancer. Read more

FDA posts list of drugs with potential safety issues

For a drug to appear on this report, an FDA reviewer will have determined there is a reason to examine a drug more closely based on either the seriousness or number of AERS reports associated with the drug. The drugs for which issues have been identified are under evaluation for the listed potential risk.

8 Medical Terms Your Doctor Uses to Insult You
By Elizabeth Benefiel

Who do you think are the most cynical people in the world? Cops? Executioners? Or maybe prostitutes? Clowns?
We're thinking it's doctors. If you want proof, check out some of the horrifying-yet-hilarious slang they use around the office. Yes, these are real.
#8.
PRATFO
What It Means: Patient Reassured And Told to Fuck Off.
When It's Used:
When a patient comes into the ER more hysterical than ill, the doctor reassures the patient and asks them to leave. However, this acronym has gotten at least one doctor into trouble when he scribbled it in a patient's chart and then later was asked to explain it in court.
We're not saying you should ever lie in court, but in that situation you should at least consider it.
#7.
AMYOYO Syndrome
What It Means: Alright, Motherfucker, You're On Your Own.
When It's Used:
If television is to be believed, any condition, no matter how egregious or how slim the chances of survival, can be surmounted with the intervention of a charismatic, slightly eccentric doctor or the introduction of a particularly salient plot point.
Well, television is not to be believed. If a patient split from crotch to neck, sustained a shotgun wound to the chest, or fell twenty stories onto the pavement, then a great deal's up to a God. Assuming he exists, or cares. Thus we get the AMYOYO Syndrome diagnosis, with the variations SOLOMFYOYO (So long, Motherfucker, You're On Your Own) and GPO (Good for Parts Only).
#6.
Faecal Encephalopathy
What It Means: Shit-for-Brains.
When It's Used:
If you wind up in the emergency room because, say, you were trying to launch bottle rockets out of your anus, you can expect to hear this term thrown around. Latin, or pseudo-latin, is often used to convey unflattering terms and make it sound grandiloquent to the uninformed (or faecal-encephalopathic) ear.
Variations include Cranio-Rectal Syndrome and Cranial Rectosis, presumably for when the patient doesn't have shit for brains but merely has his head up his ass.
#5.
Cut and Paste
What It Means:
Also called an "Open and Close" or a "Peek and Shriek," this is when a surgeon opens up a patient for surgery, discovers nothing can be done to avert the inevitable, and sews them back up immediately. Or, if they feel like it, practice surgical technique for a while.
When It's Used:
Generally, this is encoded as "C&P," "CNP" or something similar, so that the head of the department knows what happened but the to-be-aggrieved family doesn't. Typically this happens with very old people, those with suddenly aggravated chronic health problems, or people with inoperable cancer, soon resulting in a "healthy tumor" (a dead patient).
#4.
SBI
What It Means: Something Bad Inside.
When It's Used:
When the medical staff encounters a strange complaint that doesn't meet any known diagnostic criteria. As much as you don't want to hear SBI as your diagnosis, it's still better than the alternate SVBI (Something Very Bad Inside) which means whatever it is appears to be killing you.
Either may be followed up with a "SWAG" (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).
#3.
CTF
What It Means:
Cletus the Fetus. Used to describe infants born at 23 weeks or earlier, where their survival rate is less than 1%. There are no confirmed cases of babies surviving at 22 weeks or earlier, which means that children born then are less likely to live than someone who just jumped off the Empire State Building.
When It's Used:
New parents have a tendency to not hear anything that doesn't fit the "Our child will survive because he is special, we are special, and we love him" paradigm. No. Little Cletus will make it no matter what those mean old overpaid white coats tell Mommy and Daddy. Because life works like Lifetime home movies.

It's at this point you should realize that when you're surrounded by the sick and dying every day, no subject is too dark for comedy.
#2.
Slow Code to China
What It Means:
Hospitals use a series of emergency codes (Code Blue, for instance, means the patient is dying and needs immediate resuscitation). Not listed among the official codes is the Slow Code, meaning the patient is dying, and not to worry too much about it.
When It's Used:
Sometimes, a very ill, very elderly, or very hopeless patient wants the doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive. And sometimes, doctors don't want to do that: it's too much work, the patient will die anyway, or the person just isn't worth preserving.
#1.
CBT
What It Means: Chronic Biscuit Toxicity. Patient is really fat.
When It's Used:
Doctors seem to be inventing more and more of these unflattering terms as obesity becomes more chronic in the western world. You may also hear Polydipose Dysfunction, BW (beached whale) and others, all of which are sure to see plenty of usage until some enlightened future when a doctor can just say the phrase "lard ass" to a patient's face.
Here are some other, rather self-explanatory terms you probably don't want to hear in the halls outside your hospital room:
Cunts and Runts - The gynecology/obstetrics department.
BFH - Big Fucking Head. As in, the patient has one.
Brothel Sprouts - Genital warts.
COPS - Chronic Old Person's Disease.
Donorcycle - Motorcycle. As in, a frequent source of organ donors.
CTD - Circling The Drain. Just picture the world of the living as a bath tub.
If you enjoy thinking your doctors are horrible people, this site has an enormous list of these terms that pretty much redefine cynicism.

DOCTORS' SLANG, MEDICAL SLANG AND MEDICAL ACRONYMS (a selection)
These have been mostly collected from the UK and USA. Some acronyms have differing meanings in US and UK. The slang/acronyms are directed variously at patients, other medical staff or mystifying medical conditions.
3H enema - Enema that is "high, hot, and a hell of a lot." Reputedly given to patients who give staff a hard time.
3P’s - Pill, Permissiveness and Promiscuity (relates to female patients with sexually transmitted disease)
4F - Fair, fat, female and forty OR fat, forty-ish, flatulent female (both mean abdominal pain patient who is candidate for gall bladder disease)
Acades vulgaris - medical students.
Acute Lead Poisoning - Gunshot wound
Acute Hyponicotaemia - desperate for nicotine fix (cigarette)
Acute Pneumoencephalopathy - airhead
Adminisphere - where hospital managers work, reckoned to be "another planet"
Administrivia - pointless emails and notices that clog up real medical work
Aggressive Euthanasia - A procedure that obnoxious patients would benefit from.
AGMI - Ain't Gonna Make It (won't survive)
Agnostication - Substitute for prognostication; describes the usually vain attempt to answer the question: "How long have I got, doctor?”
Albatross - chronically ill patient who will remain with a doctor until one or other of them expire
ALS - Absolute Loss of Sanity (nutcase)
Amyoyo syndrome - Alright motherf*****, you're on your own (seen in head injury patients in Intensive Care)
Angel lust - a male corpse with an erection (not uncommon). Is also sometimes used to mean death that occurred during intercourse.
APD - Acute Prozac Deficiency (depression)
Appy - person with suspected appendicitis
APTFRAN - Apply Pillow To Face, Repeat As Necessary (for annoying patient)
ART - Assuming Room Temperature (dead)
Ash Cash - money for signing a cremation form
Ass Grapes - badly thrombosed or strangulated hemorrhoids
Assmosis - promotion by "kissing ass"
ATD - (US) Acute Tylenol Deficiency (simple fever or head cold)
ATFO - Asked To F*** Off
ATS - Acute Thespian Syndrome: faking illness; known in US as MGM syndrome
Aunt Minnie Lesion - once seen, never forgotten, much like certain aunts at the family wedding
Ax(e) - surgeon
Baby catcher - obstetrician
Banana - patient with jaundice
Bash Cash: the money paid for completing accident (insurance) claim forms in A&E
BBCS - Bumps, Bruises, Cuts and Scrapes (i.e. no serious injuries)
Beached whale - obese patient unable to do much for him/herself except lie there with flailing arms and legs
Benny - patient on benefit (welfare payments)
Betty - a patient with diabetes
BFH - Brat From Hell (usually accompanied by PFH - Parent(s) from Hell)
Blade - Surgeon: dashing, bold, arrogant and often wrong, but never in doubt
Blamestorming - apportioning of blame for mistakes, usually to any locum or lowliest medic in sight
Blood Suckers - those who take blood samples, e.g. lab techs
BMT - Bowel-Movement Taco (fecal matter trapped in female genitalia)
Bobbing for apples - unblocking a badly constipated patient with one's finger
Bone Break Need Fix - derogatory term for Orthopedics
Boneheads - orthopedics
Bones and Groans - non-specialist general hospital
BoneHo - an off-service resident working in Orthopedics
Boogie or Goober - tumor. A Roasted Goober is a tumor after intensive cobalt treatment; a Healthy Goober is a dead tumor patient.
Bordeaux - bloodstained urine
Bottle return - removing a bottle lodged in the anal canal
Brothel Sprouts - Genital warts
Brown trout - a stool that won't float (as opposed to an air biscuit, which does)
BTSOOM - Beats The Sh*t Out Of Me
Buff - re-hash the patient's story to make it sound more appropriate for the patient to be referred to another dept (see also turfing and bouncing)
Buff Up - to ready a patient for release
Bug Juice - antibiotics
Bugs in the rug - pubic lice
Bull in the ring - blockage in the large intestine
Bumps and Lumps - junior doctor (intern) cases
BUNDY - But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet
Bunnies - Sanitary Towels (sanitary napkins)
Burger - sunburned patient with ruptured blisters
Bury the Hatchet - accidently leave a surgical instrument inside a patient.
Butchers - Obstetrics & Gynecology (also general derogatory term for surgeons)
BWCO - Baby Won't Come Out (needs Caesarian)
C/C- "Cancel Christmas" (dead)
Cabbage - heart bypass i.e. CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft)
Cabbage and tomato ward - Ward for comatose patients
Calcified Penisitis Morbidium - male patient whose ailment is due to excessive or unprotected sex
Callbellectomy - minor operation, sadly not permitted, to remove over-used call bell from patient's hand/reach!
Call Button Jockey/Buzzer Junkie - patient that uses call button all night long for no good reason.
Caveman - Derogatory term for Orthopedic surgeons “so easy a caveman could do it”.
cc - Complaint Corner, a patient that complains about everything; BCC is one that behaves nicely to medical staff and complains behind their backs (from business acronyms for carbon copy and blind carbon copy)
CCFCCP - Coo-coo for Co-Co Puffs (dementia or similar)
Celestial discharge - died
CFT - Chronic Food Toxicity i.e. obesity
CFU - Complete(ly) F*ck(ed) Up
CHAOS - Chronic Hurts All Over Syndrome (PTSD/Fibromyalgia, etc.)
Chocolate Hostage - constipated
Cock Doc- urologist
Cockroach Factor - a patient's ability to survive trauma or serious treatment is inversely proportional to his contribution to society (see TTI).
Code Azure - message to other medics to do nothing extraordinary to save a very ill patient who will die shortly no matter what is done
Code Brown - fecal incontinence emergency (e.g. of bedlinen)
Code Pink (Triangle) - a likely homosexual (used back when HIV/Aids tests took a while to come back)
Code Yellow - urinary incontinence emergency
Coffee and a Newspaper - Patient is Constipated (i.e. long time sitting on toilet with drink and reading matter)
Coffin Dodger - survived against expectations, or a very old person
COPD - Chronic Old Persons Disease (unwell, no specific cause)
CRAFT - Can’t Remember A F*cking Thing
Cranial rectosis - US: butthead (US term for idiot); UK: head-up-ass (arrogant/arrogant fool)
Cranio-faecal Syndrome - s**thead or s**t for brains
Creepers - geriatrics using walkers and wheelchairs
CRI - Cranial-Rectal Insertion or Cranial-Rectal Inversion (head-up-ass syndrome)
Crinkly - geriatric
Crispy critter - severe burns case
CROACC - Cannot Rule Out Anything, Correlate Clinically
Crock - Hypochondriac.
CRS - Can’t Remember Sh*t
CRT - Can't Really Treat
Crumble (crumbly) - elderly patient
Crump - (UK) RTA [Road Traffic Accident], (US) crash; trying to die
Crump, Gork or Vedgy - Intensive care patient incapable of movement and apparently unaware of his surroundings.
CTD - Circling the Drain (Close To Death)
CTF - Cletus the Fetus (US). A 23 week, or earlier, births that parents expect to survive against all odds
Cuckoo - alternative term for CCU
C*nts and Runts - Maternity and Pediatrics
Cut and Paste - To open a patient, discover that there is no hope, and immediately sew him up (or almost immediately - sometimes young surgeons practice surgical techniques for a while).
CYA - Cover Your Ass; unnecessary procedure/prescription done to avoid being sued
Death Camp - terminal nursing home
Death Star - that ward in every hospital where patients go to die
De-coke and Re-bore - Dilatation and curettage (gyne) op
Deep fry - cobalt therapy (radiation therapy)
Dement - Alzheimer patient
DENTIST - Doesn't Even Need Treatment - It's Sorted, Truly
Departure lounge - geriatric ward
Dermaholiday - nickname for dermatology dept used by staff in busier depts
Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery
DIIK - Darned if I know
DILF - Doctor I'd Like to F*** (Fornicate with): Nursing slang for good-looking doctor
Discharged downstairs - transferred to the morgue
Dishwasher - sterilization machine
DMFNFL - Dumb mother f*cker, not fit to live
Donorcycle - motorbike: the biggest cause of donated organs!
Donut of Death - CT scanner
DOTS- dead on the spot (of an accident), also FDOTS (F*cking Dead On The Spot)
Double Whopper with Cheese - Obese female with genital thrush
DPS - (General Practice) Droopy Penis Syndrome: a patient wanting Viagra prescription
DPS - (Hospital) Disappearing Penis Syndrome: the usual reaction of the male organ in response to insertion of catheter or endoscope
Dr Feelgood - a doctor who is indiscriminate about prescribing drugs
DUB - Damn Ugly Baby
Duck - portable urinal for bedridden male hospital patients
Dump - patient that nobody seems to want (or to transfer a patient to another hospital); also a verb - arranging for patient to be off-loaded elsewhere
Dys-Synaptogenic - stupid
Eiffel Syndrome - (From I-fell on it) patient with a foreign object in the rectum
ELFs - Evil Little F*ckers (irritating children)
Ego Boost Units - med students/junior doctors that follow a doctor
EMS - Earn Money Sleeping (joke at expense of Emergency Medical Service)
Expensive care - intensive care
Expensive Scare - intensive care
FAC - F*cking Awkward Client
Fecal Encephalopathy - Sh*t for brains who gets first authorship when the case is written up
FFF - see 4F (Fat, Fair, Female, Forty = gall bladder disease)
Fighting Darwin - patients refusing essential treatment through stubborness or stupidity
File 13 - The Trashcan
FINE - F*cked up , insecure, neurotic & emotional
Finger Wave - rectal exam
Flea - (US) internists, (UK) ethnic nurses (used in 1970s during an influx of imported healthcare staff) i.e. "they get everywhere"
FMPS - Fluff My Pillow Syndrome (attention/sympathy seeker), like Call Button Jockey
FODE - Falling On Deaf Ears
FOL, GOL, FOS - Fat Old Lady, Gone off Legs, Full Of S**t. Confused elderly female, unable to exercise at home, now unable to move unaided and badly constipated as a result (see also Toxic Confusional State).
Foreverectomy - A surgical procedure that lasts a very long time
FOS - Full Of Sh*t (either severely constipated or metaphorically)
Freud Squad - psychiatrists
Friday construction - Anatomical equivalent of the cars made on Fridays, when the workers mind was more on the weekend than the job in hand
Fruit Salad - group of stroke patients, all unable to take care of themselves
FTF - Failed to Fly (botched suicide)
FUBIL - F**k You Buddy, I'm Leaving. The act of a doctor at a small hospital dumping a critically ill patient on larger hospital on Friday afternoon before he leaves for the weekend
Full Moon - full or overcrowded waiting room/A&E/ER
FUPA - Fat Upper Pussy Area
FURB - Funny, Unusual, Rectal Blockage (people who use inappropriate objects as butt-plugs)
Garden - neurosurgical intensive care ward, so called because of the "vegetables" found there.
Gardening - attending to patients in neurological intensive care.
Gassers OR Gas Passers - anaesthetists
Gatekeeper - General practice doctor whose role is to keep costs low by only allowing a certain number of patients to go to specialists
GDA - Gonna die anyway
Genital hurties - genital herpes
Ghost - Derogatory term for med students; they are largely invisible, are absent during difficult situations, silent when asked for volunteers and stealthily evade hard work
GOA - Gone On Arrival (police turn up, ambulance turns up, fire brigade turns up, patient doesn't)
Goat Rodeo/Goat Rope - Emergency scene which goes badly (resembles a bunch of people riding or wrestling goats)
God's Waiting Room - intensive care unit and/or geriatric unit
GOK - God Only Knows
Goldbrick - patient who demands more attention than their (minor) condition warrants.
Golden ass - affluent mother who treats the obstetrics nurses like servants
Gomergram - Ordering all available tests because the person is unable to explain what is wrong with them
Gorillacillin - very powerful antibiotic
GORK - God Only Really Knows
Gork - comatose or brain dead
Gorked - unresponsive and nonverbal, either due to sedation or medical condition
Gorked Out - mental impairment through disease or substance abuse
Go to Meet Joe Black/Consult Joe Black - die
GPH - Goddamns Per Hour
GPO - Good for Parts Only (won't survive)
GRAFOB - Grim Reaper At Foot Of Bed
GRAHOB - Grim Reaper At Head Of Bed
Granny Dumping - dumping elderly relative in A&E; often happens just before Christmas or family holiday aka the hospital granny-sitting service
Grapes - hemorrhoids
Gravity Assisted Concrete Poisoning - jumped/fell from height
Gridiron Belly - scarred from multiple ops
GUCCI - Genito-Urinary Clinic, Chlamydial Infection (posh female with sexually transmitted chlamydial infection)
Guessing tubes - stethoscope
Gun and Rifle Club - Trauma ward full of gunshot and stabbing victims
Gutectomy - major gastro-intestinal surgery; also abdominal fat removal (such as liposuction)
Guts and Butts - general surgery
Hallucinoma - a mass seen on a scan or x-ray that wasn't really there
Happy feet - (US) patient having a grand mal epileptic seizure (in UK, Happy feet means smelly feet (feet which "hum" [stink])
Hasselhoff – emergency patient with bizarre explanation for their injury (David Hasselhoff's had a bizarre shaving accident in which he hit his head on a chandelier; the broken glass severed 4 tendons and an artery in his right arm)
Hearts and Farts - unit specialising in geriatrics and cardiology
Heel Elevation Ataxia - a woman who appears staggering drunk, but is sober (or slightly tipsy) and can't walk on seriously high stiletto heels
Hepatology Conference - doctors meeting at a pub or bar (no late appointments, I'm going to a hepatology conference)
Hi 5 - HIV positive ("V" being Roman for 5)
HIBGIA - Had it before, got it again
High Serum Porcelain Level - Patient is a crock of sh*t
High Slug Titre - lazy patient (slug) that won't get out of bed
Hippo - Hypochondriac or depressive
Hit and Run - the act of operating quickly so as not to be late for another engagement (often a non-medical appointment).
HIVI - Husband Is Village Idiot
HOPEFUL - Hard-up Old Person Expecting Full Useful Life (i.e. OAPs are not priority for most hospitals)
Hole-in-One - A gunshot wound through the mouth or rectum.
HOP - house of pain (nursing home)
Hope'n'Scope - exploratory laparoscopy where you hope to find no disease (unless you're the student, in which case you hope to see something interesting)
Horrendoectomy - a long and painful procedures
I fell on it - (also Eiffel Syndrome) universal explanation given by a patient with a foreign object in the rectum
Incarcaphobia - patient is hypochondriac prisoner who prefers hospital to jail cell
Incarceritis - becoming dubiously ill when arrested or in court
Incidentaloma - a usually benign mass (needing removal) found on a scan while looking for something else entirely
Infernal Medicine - Internal Medicine department
Insurance Pain - Neck pain secondary to a minor car bump
Insurance Whiplash - Neck pain secondary to a minor car bump
Intubate Junior/Intubate Willy - catheterise a man (often results in DPS - Disappearing Penis Syndrome)
Jack Bauer - a doctor still up and working after 24 hours (after character in "24")
Jailitis - becoming dubiously ill while in custody or in a jail cell
Journal of Anecdotal Medicine - favourite, but unwritten, source of medical wisdom
J P FROG - Just Plain F***ing Ran Out Of Gas (old age etc)
JPS - Just Plain Stupid (self induced injury involving lack of common sense)
Knife-happy - an overly enthusiastic surgeon
Lancelot - a medic who drains abscesses (called Pokemon in the USA)

Lantern Test - shine a torch in the subject's mouth and the eyes light up (no brain)
Last Flea To Jump Off A Dead Dog - Oncologists (sometimes other disciplines) who seem unable to let people die with dignity
Laying Crepe - dismal prognosis (i.e. prepare the coffin)
Leeches - those who take blood samples, e.g. lab techs
LMC - Low marble count (low IQ)
Load the Boat - call in senior medical staff as ass-covering exercise
Lobster - sunburned patient
LRO - Luck Ran Out (cheated death before, but not this time)
LWS - (US) Low Wallet Syndrome (No medical insurance or money)
M & Ms - mortality and morbidity conferences where medics discuss epidemics, mistakes and patient deaths
MARPs - Mind Altering Recreational Pharmaceuticals
MGM syndrome - Faker putting on a real good show
Michelin's Disease/Disorder - multiple spare tires (obese)
MIDI - myocardial infarction during intercourse (heart attack during sex)
MILF - Mother I'd Like to F**k. US version of GoodLookingMother who is also PHAT
Mini me - Trainee or medical student who copies their senior colleague too much but doesn’t say a lot (from Austin Powers films)
MTF - Metabolize to Freedom (i.e., let the person sober up, and then they can leave)
MUH - Messed up heart
MU Pain - Made Up pain (especially for sick notes and insurance claims)
Mushroom syndrome - suffered by lowly medics who are kept in the dark and have crap piled on them
NAD - Not actually done
NARS - Not a rocket scientist (low IQ)
Nebulopathy- strange clinical signs with no "normal" disease apparent
Necrophiles - derogatory term for Pathologists (they love the dead)
Nectar of the Gods - coffee; without which many hospital services would shut down
Negative Wallet Biopsy - (US) patient transferred to cheaper hospital because s/he has no insurance/funds
Neuro-faecal Syndrome - s**t for brains
NFR - Not For Resuscitation; used on elderly patients’ charts where the DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) instruction is without the knowledge of the patient themselves or their family
NGMI - Not Going to Make It
NKDA - Not known, didn’t ask
NLPR - No longer playing records (dying)
NOCTOR- Nurse that has done a 6 week training course and acts like s/he's a Doctor
No Hopeamine - Dopamine
OB/GYN - actually means Obstetric/Gynecology, rumored to mean "Oh Boy-Got You Naked"
OBE - Open Both Ends (known in UK as DNV - Diarrhea and Vomiting)
OBECALP - placebo (the rationale being that patients don't realize it's "placebo" in reverse)
OBS - Obvious bullsh*t
Obs and gobs - obstetrics and gynaecology
OFIG - One Foot In the Grave
OFIGATOOS - One Foot In the Grave And The Other One Slipping
Old Man's Friend - (US) pneumonia, an illness which often carried off the elderly
Oligoneuronal - "few brain cells" i.e. thick (not very bright) (Note: In the UK, "dumb" means "mute")
OPD - Obnoxious Personality Disorder
Optorectomy- operation to disconnect the eyeball from the anus, due to such a sh*tty outlook on life
Organ recital - a hypochondriac’s medical history
Osteocephaly - boneheaded
Ostrich Treatment - pretend it's not there and hope it goes away
Overpriced Carpenter - orthopedic doctor
Paint - Betadine (medication)
Paninvestigram - order all the tests; for when you haven't got a clue what's going on
Paperweight - (NZ) very small patient with severe congenital mental retardation
Papoterapia - (Brazil) to give the patient a pep talk, chitchat therapy ("papo" = chitchat).
Parentectomy - removing parents as an effective cure for a child's problems
PBTB - "pine box to bedside"; indicates an imminent demise
PBS - Pretty bad shape
PBOO - Pine Box On Order
PD - Pencil D**k. General US insult. It gets applied to lazy doctors who pass work on to their peers and should not be confused for that other PD, Program Director (US terminology)
Pecker Checker - either a urologist or a sexual diseases doctor (also the ship's doctor in Naval slang)
Peek and Shriek - open a patient surgically, discover an incurable condition, and close the incision immediately
Pee Pee Docs - urology
Penal Colony - renal ward/dept, especially when a superbug is on the loose
Percussive maintenance - the sharp tap/bang which cures faulty equipment
Pest control - term applied to psychiatrists by casualty officers
Pharmaceutically Enhanced Personality - stoned or medicated
PHAT - Pretty Hot and Tempting (warning to others)
PHD = Pakistani Healing Dance (a useless procedure performed for benefit of patient and family)
PIA - Pain in the ass
PIAF - PIssed as a fart (also PAAF -Pissed As A Fart)
PITA - Pain in the ass
Plank Positive - stupid, as in "thick as 2 short planks"
Porcelain Level - fictitious blood test ordered to communicate to colleague that the patient is malingering (crock of sh*t)
PORG - Person Of Restricted/Retarded Growth (dwarf/midget)
Pox Docs - clap clinic (sexually transmitted disease clinic) doctors
Quackpractor - chiropractor
Qwertyitis - what a doctor suffers from when he spends more time on a computer than with actual patients
Rear Admiral - proctologist
Red dot - physicians from India, relates to red dot on their forehead
Retrospectoscope - instrument of hindsight
Ringo – (after Beatles drummer Ringo Starr) an expendable team member
Rocket Room - a ward/unit where there are many deaths (many transfers to heaven)
Rocking horse stool - even rarer than hen's teeth
Rule of Five - if more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance
Saddles - Maternity sanitary towels (napkins), so called for their size and the bow-legged effect of wearing them
Scratch and sniff - gynecological examination
Sellout - Derogatory term for plastic surgeon in private practice
SEP - Somebody else's problem (not to be confused with sepsis)
SFS - Stinky Foot Syndrome (often related to homeless)
Shotgunning - Ordering of a vast array of tests in the hopes that one or other of them will give an idea of what is wrong with a patient
Sieve - a doctor who admits almost every patient he sees
Slashers - general surgeons
Slow Code (to China) - elderly very ill patient who wants everything done so they will not die. Everyone on the medical team disagrees
Smellybridge - area between the anus and the back of the scrotum (perineum)
Speed bumps - hemorrhoids
TEETH - Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
TMI - Three Meaningless Initials (e.g. John Smith, TMI - applied to medics with qualifications rather than ability)
Trigger Happy - a medic that gives a shot [injection] for everything or patient that used call button excessively.
TRO - Time ran out
TWA - third world assassins. Slang for the allegedly poor medical care delivered by physicians who went to medical school in foreign countries
Twitch - hypochondriac
VAC - Vultures are Circling (dying)
Vegetable garden - Coma ward
Velcro - Family or friends accompanying patient everywhere
Weed Puller - Obstetrician
White Mice - tampons
Wig picker - therapist or psychologist
Witch doctor - specialist in internal medicine
WNL - Will Not Listen; patient won't take medical advice
WoGS - Wrath of God Syndrome (visited upon junior medics by more senior staff)
WOMBAT - Waste Of Money, Brains And Time

WHY SLANG?
In hospitals, morbid humor, irreverence and euphemism is a way of coping with daily exposure to injury, disease and death. As euphemisms go, "Eternal Care Unit" (died) is little different from the myriad other euphemism for death. Nowadays, such slang is considered unethical and its use is decreasing in hospitals and surgeries because of the dangers of being sued by patients. However it is being preserved in the medical labs and staff tea rooms where patients do not go!

Consumers Act

2008-07-28T19:11:00.000+08:00

Consumerism (Hark, Madame President)

Parents helping their children with homework undergo a second learning process when they realize that the subjects they learned in school have changed due to technological advances and scientific discoveries. One of the subjects that adults have difficulty in making kids comprehend is economics. The problem lies in the emphasis of textbooks and tutors on the bundle of terms that often are not related to the real world.

It is not uncommon for people to interpret the “law of supply and demand” as some regulation the city council passed in one of their productive moments. Many adults consider economics confusingly complex and are repelled by all the economic jargon and statistics. As a result, mistaken notions are developed about how our society works. And these notions are sometimes harmful to their pocketbooks.

In our free-market economy, the consumer is one of its major movers. Businesses depend on the consumer to sustain their life. Consumer purchases amount to almost two thirds of all the money spent yearly, while government and business spend the other third. The problem is the consumers needs are almost endless but their incomes are not. So, most people choose their purchases to fit their income.

The Mammoth Consumer

We have about 65 million consumers ─ the country’s entire population, Even the breast-feeding newborn is an indirect consumer as it partakes of the nutrients bought and ingested by its mother. With such awesome numbers you would think that consumers would be such an intimidating influence in controlling the prices of the goods they buy. We all know differently.

Filipino consumers have a quality of remarkable docility and meekness. They are slow to anger not because of an abundance of patience, but because of timidity. This enormous segment of our society is impotent for lack of unity. Only a very few have banded into pitifully frail organizations.

Yet, Filipinos have a penchant for organization. Politicians have a governors league, vice-governors league; bureaucrats bunched into associations of directors, of auditors, of judges, and there are countless clubs in the private sector: community social groups, industry and trade cartels, the imports such as Rotary and Lions, the professionals (doctors, dentists, CPAs, engineers,) elite golf clubs and numerous labor unions. With such bent, it might not be surprising to find a hairstylist union and gay club.

Unlike the assertive labor unions, consumer blocs are mere fellowship clubs, rarely heard. When they do break silence it is usually a whimper or a whine about soaring prices, and a hope for government or divine intervention. Hope! the last recourse of the desperate; the last curse left in mythical Pandora’s box afflicting only humans. For hope is a disease that thrives in the indolent like our own fabled Juan Tamad lazing under a fruit tree with mouth open, hoping for a fruit to drop in. (Hopefully is now a trite word in “Filipino”) An unbelievably huge number of our population believe in the supernatural philosophy of pray and hope or leave things to the Almighty.

Exaggeration? Read on.

A few years back, housewives in a nationwide survey were asked what they thought were the best ways to improve the country’s pressing problems of unemployment, high cost of living and graft and corruption. Topping the list in their response was prayer, garnishing 81%. Asked further what method they will actively support, 90% of respondents selected prayer!

Yes, consumers did wail to high heavens then. They still do and are still unaware that this defeatist attitude is unhealthy to their purse and well-being. As was learned the hard way in industrialized Europe and America, consumers must fight for their rights. The first step is to unite and band into purposeful and dynamic organization. Such a giant can shoulder our creeping economy into movement using a potent force: purse power, with consumerism as its main component.

The Masterly Consumer

Consumerism is a protest against abuses in the market system and a demand that marketers give greater attention to consumer wants and desires in making their decisions. Some businesses view consumerism as posing more harm than good to society. But consumerism and the market system need not be adversarial. Undeniably, consumerism will require changes in some aspects of business life, forcing some businesses to be more responsible to their consumers. However, the more responsive view consumerism as an opportunity rather than a threat and are prepared to accept the challenge of consumer contentions, such as:
            æ Marketing system is inefficient and the cost high
            æ Marketers practice collusion and price fixing

            æ Marketing system produces hazards to health and safety
            æ Product quality and service are poor
            æ Consumers do not get information

Government has a long history of giving protection to businesses in the form of tariffs and quantitative restrictions on imports to protect infant industries, price supports to farm produce, and indirect subsidies such as tax exemptions. Almost all of these protectionist actswere at the expense of consumers who had to pay higher prices for the protected products. Only in the recent past has the consumer been recognized as an important cog in our economic machinery, with the passage of two Congressional Acts: the Price Act of 1992 and the Consumers Act of 1992 (Republic Act No. 7394).

The Price Law provided for price controls but was limited to times of emergency. The Consumer Act gave consumers wider recognition by acknowledging eight Consumer Rights:
            Right to Basic Goods, Services, and Fair Prices
            Right of Choice
            Right to Consumer Education
            Right to Redress
            Right to Representation
            Right to Safety

Right to Information
Right to a Healthy Environment

Even with this legislated armory, the consumer should keep in mind the admonition: They have rights who dare defend them! You can bet that these rights will be tested by some cunning merchants. Consumers who fail the tests pay the price. Literally.

Cagayan de Oro has high hopes (this word again) of attaining megacity status, a goal boosted by Pres. Ramos’ endorsement of the Cagayan-Iligan Industrial Corridor. The local economy will certainly be stimulated by the industrialization process, but will also dig pitfalls for the unwary consumer. When money, technocrats and entrepreneurs start flowing in, the market system will be put under severe stress with the inflation specter hovering nearby.

Agony before Ecstasy

Before tackling the problems in a booming CIC, Cagayan de Oro consumers must first face the current obstacles. Foremost is the value added tax (VAT). With the Supreme court ruling that the VAT law is valid, consumers are again faced with the possibility of galloping prices. Although the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture warned traders against unlawful price hikes, past experience tells us that the bureaucrats have been outwitted by avaricious merchants. The only effective force to protect the consumers is concerted action by consumers!

Consumer composure will be shaken next by two events: the ratification by the Senate of the General Agreement of Tariff and Trade (GATT) and the certainty of a fuel hike. Membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be the result of the ratification of GATT by the Senate. GATT requires member nations to open their markets and remove trade barriers. Government says ratification is imperative for the nation’s survival in the global trade competition. Economists agree and warn of doomsday for our economy if the Senate fails to ratify GATT. However, the protected industries oppose it, waving the flag of patriotism and predicting massive loss of jobs from industries killed by foreign competition.

Where does this leave the consumer in the controversy? Exposed again to the mercy of opportunists taking advantage of the situation by creating artificial shortages to induce prices to rise.

The other instrument that will punch a hole in consumer pockets is the likelihood of a fuel price increase. The Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) will be exhausted in 5-8 months depending on crude prices and the foreign exchange rate of the peso. If crude prices are steady at $17 per barrel and the peso-dollar exchange holds at 26:$1 then the OPSF will last until March 1995. If crude prices rise to $18 per barrel and the peso weakens to 27 per dollar, then the OPSF will be depleted by January 1995. Upon OPSF depletion in early 1995 the Energy Regulatory Board will have to order the increase in petroleum product prices to avoid a fuel shortage crisis. And soon thereafter, commodity prices start soaring.

End of bad news for consumers? Maybe not, if exporters succeed in strong arming the monetary authorities to devalue the peso to their demand of 32 per dollar. And the agony of consumers is just starting! The May 1995 elections will release a flood of money from political spigots, and rising prices will agitate organized labor to demand, and probably get, a legislated wage increase. The money deluge will trigger inflation, so the price spiral rages on.

And all this while VAT is lurking, ready to pounce and complete the dismay of the consumer.

People dislike hearing bad tidings and Cassandra prophesies, consumers included. But they can benefit from a management forecasting technique. The “what if” concept makes plans and lists actions for contingencies.

The Consummate Consumer

Advertising is a powerful marketing tool for luring consumers to buy a product or service. Consumers love the flattery, widening of choices, and slashed prices in sales promotions. The most effective advertising media are newspapers, radio and television, the links between sellers and buyers. But the flow is one way only ─ from seller to buyer. Lately, innovative broadcast media initiated a method of interactive dialogue to obtain audience response.Marketers know that larger audience response means greater customer interest and consequently intensify media advertising, so all players benefit.

Consumers can adopt this business tool as a means of expressing to the market their wants and desires. Listed below are messages which can be expanded by contributing members of a consumer group:

* Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) ─ advisory to members about abuses in the marketplace to include shops with illegal “no exchange/no return” policy, cheater shops, defective products, hazards to health and safety, missing price tags, mislabeling, short-changing or rude sales clerks, under weighing scales, deceptive ads.

* Best-Buy advisory ─ bargain sales, promo sales, unit pricing

* Product Fair ─ urging producers to conduct product demos at retail level

* Commodity Prices advisory at Wet Markets

* Joint Consumer-Govt. Price Watch

* Media Support ─ Consumer affairs program expands audience base for participating media to entice ads

* Corruption Watch ─ Bribes and tong paid by traders to corrupt officials adds to the cost of doing business and raises the selling price of goods

The big question is: Can Kagayanons rise to the occasion or just remain timorous???

Consumerism ─ It’s Not Just a Fad

Max A. Denney, Industrial Banker

As President Nixon said to Congress last December, “Consumerism is here to stay.” A.W. Clausen, vice chairman of the Bank of America, recently proposed a four-point program which we would all do well to heed:

!) Businessmen must listen attentively to what the consumer is saying;

2) We must seek solutions to consumer unrest before government restrictions are imposed;

3) We must deal with these consumer problems head on;

4) We must make sure that Congress and consumer spokesmen are aware that business is truly concerned and is to improve its relationship with the consumer.

Mr. Clausen suggests that for too long businesses have buried their heads in the sand, condoning the misdeeds of a few, and, as a result, have made all business vulnerable to the onslaught of anti-business sentiment.

æ æ æ æ æ æ

A successful business investment consultant, wise in the behavior of markets advised his clients: Stop buying products that more and more people are buying. The excessive demand will drive the price up.

Losses of franchised utilities such as water and electricity

A Customer Speaks

By O. Delmendo Garcia

Caveat venditor ─ Let the seller beware

The customer is always right. The key word is always, unfailing, everytime. Often or usually is not good enough. This surely is a heavy imposition on the salesperson who is as sentient a being as the customer.

But the store manager believes in the adage like an Eleventh Commandment, and woe to the employee that breaks the dictum. It worked for years, so this imperious decree has persisted to this era of democratic freedoms.

Most retail outlets get trained or instructed to keep their composure even when provoked, taunted, or placed in an unpleasant situation. Yet, occasionally, latent bad breeding triumphs over training, and insolence manages to slip out. This spells trouble all around, mostly for the seller.

The policy of pampering customers stems from the marketing concept of repeat business. The goodwill nurtured by the store is a magnet that persuades the customer to return, sometimes with friends.

Surveys indicate that 96 percent of dissatisfied customers never complain about discourteous service, but 9 out of 10 of these customers never buy again from the company that offended them. Moreover, most dissatisfied customers will relate their experience to several other people.

Published Mindanao Post 14 Sep 1994

Laugh Your Way to Health

2008-06-22T17:31:00.000+08:00

Laughing at One’s Self

In the INTRO posting to this blog I mentioned some ways to stave off memory loss in an aging brain, mainly mental gymnastics and mind bogglers. A specific remedy is banishing stress by means of humor, the essence of “Laughter is the best medicine.” This piece follows this vein, using humorous quotes and jokes.

Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it. - Cullen Hightower

Numerous studies have validated the medical benefits of laughing. On the other hand, someone who has had the misfortune of not having personally experienced or witnessed the rude behavior of laughing at another person would not know the potential harm and consequences of the act. One can lose a friend this way, or one’s life with a stranger.

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. - Thomas Szasz

Overheard at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: “If laughter is the best medicine, shouldn’t we be regulating it?” Our Pinoy BFAD admitted they don’t have sufficient manpower to enforce regulations, so Pinoys are still free to laugh.

A. A. A. D. D. (Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder).

This is how it manifests: (Forwarded by email)

I decide to water my lawn.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye - they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote.

Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the living room where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

the lawn isn't watered,

the car isn't washed,

the bills aren't paid,

there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys, and my neighbor called to tell me he turned off the hose that was flooding the driveway.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to someone you know, because I may not remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY.

GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.

LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC!

Hard of hearing

Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were taking a walk one fine March day.

One remarked to the other, "Windy, ain't it?"

"No," the second man replied, "It's Thursday."

And the third man chimed in, "So am I. Let's have a coke."

Automotive horror

As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on Highway 280. Please be careful!"

"Heck," said Herman, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"

Campaign speech A man making a campaign speech said, “My candidate is as honest a man as money can buy.” The sudden laughter made him realize his slip so in an attempt to recover he said, “I mean he never stole a centavo in his life ─ and all he asks is a chance.”

Insult The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can’t ignore it, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh at it; if you can’t laugh at it, it’s probably deserved. — Russell Lynes

In my sentences I go where no man has gone before...I am a boon to the English language.

-- George W. Bush

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me. -- Emo Philips

In this country steeped in a culture of prayer, its bureaucracy works in this exact manner. God helps those who help themselves.

Doing nothing is very hard to do...you never know when you're finished. -- Leslie Nielsen

I believe we should all pay our tax bill with a smile. I tried — but they wanted cash.

-- Anonymous

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

-- Groucho Marx

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

What luck for the rulers that men do not think. -- Adolf Hitler

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. -- Texas Guinan

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity. -- Konrad Adenauer

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order. -- Brian Pickrell

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

-- Frank Zappa

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits -- Albert Einstein

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. -- Wendell Johnson

In a contest, The Washington Post asked readers to dream

up new elements for the Periodic Table. Among the best of the batch:

Billclintium Bc

With a slick appearance and slimy texture, this element

undergoes a series of interesting changes when in hot water.

Budweisium Ps

Has no taste or smell; is often indistinguishable from water.

Cabmium Cb

Found in abundance, except when needed. Exists in two states,

in motion and at rest. When in motion, it cannot be stopped, no

matter what you do. Cabmium has a charge associated with it.

The charge is variable, and scientists have not determined the

formula for calculating it.

Canadium Eh

Similar to Americium, but a little denser. Much more rigid.

Often called Boron.

Innofensium Pc

Precisely equal numbers of electrons, protons, neutrons,

leptons, quarks. Completely inert, utterly useless, but smells

like a rose.

Limbaughium Lb

The heaviest known element. It possesses an ever-expanding

mass. Very white. Acidic. Emits heat but no light. Instantly

polarizes all elements that come in contact with it. Repels

protons and electrons; attracts only morons.

Newtium

Extreme irritant. Carries a strong negative charge. Does not

possess magnetic properties. Can be purchased cheaply.

Quaylium Vp

Einsteinium it ain't.

Politicium Po

Contains a great deal of brass. Similar to radon in that it can

reach lethal concentrations in the House.

Congress Cg

Atomic number 525. Can never be found in a solution.

Snot Sn

Bonds forever with corduroy.

Kryptonite S

Kills Superman. That's it. That's all it does.

Annual Neologism Contest

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners:

1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.) impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n.) a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Political brains

Our brain is made up of two parts, the left and the right part. With our politicians, the problem is that: The LEFT has nothing RIGHT in it, and The RIGHT has nothing LEFT in it!

Sign Language:

Be Very Careful with the Sign of the V

If you make a V with your middle and index fingers, in most parts of the world people understand the fact that you're making a peace or victory sign. But you have to be careful which way your palm faces when you're in England and Australia. There, if you make a V and face the back of your hand outward, it's shorthand for "up yours."

Thumbs up

In the United States, it can mean "everything is all right," or, "I need a ride."

But this meaning is by no means universal.

In Nigeria, tourists have been beaten up for trying to hitchhike with the aid of their thumbs. In Australia, it once again means "up yours," something that makes one wonder if the Australians have as many ways of saying "up yours" as Native Alaskans do for snow.

Laughter Provides Many Health Benefits

Do you know that laughing increases circulation and improves the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to body tissue, that humor lowers blood pressure and aids the immune system in doing its job and also wards off respiratory problems? Think of it as an aerobic workout for your lungs. Laughter reduces stress hormones, helps control pain by increasing endorphines and by allowing a person to set aside aches and pains, allowing the body to relax.

Following is a summary of how humor contributes to maintaining good health.

Reduction of Stress Hormones - Laughing is a powerful tool that can lower stress and dissolve anger. Mood is elevated by striving to find humor in difficult and frustrating situations. Humor is not so much about a funny joke, but about how we view the world. Laughing at ourselves and the situation helps reveal that small things are not the earth-shaking events they sometimes seem to be. Looking at a problem from a different perspective can make it seem less formidable and provide opportunities for greater objectivity and insight. Plus, the good feeling that we get when we laugh can remain with us as an internal experience even after the laughter subsides. Laughter reduces at least four of neuroendocrine hormones associated with stress response. These are epinephrine, cortisol, dopac, and growth hormone.

Wards off Depression - Research shows that people suffering from depression are more prone to many illnesses like high blood pressure, heart attacks and cancer. Depression also affects the immune system adversely.

Respiration - Laughter empties your lungs of more air than it takes in resulting in a cleansing effect - similar to deep breathing. This is especially helpful for peope who are suffering from respiratory ailments.

Muscle Relaxation - Laughing results in muscle relaxation. While you laugh, the muscles that do not participate in the belly laugh, relaxes. After you finish laughing those muscles involved in the laughter start to relax. So, the action takes place in two stages.

Immune System Enhancement - Studies have shown that humor strengthens the immune system.

Pain Reduction - Humor allows a person to "forget" about pains such as aches and arthritis.

Cardiac Protection - Laughter protects the heart. Laughter, along with an active sense of humor, may help protect you against a heart attack. A belly laugh is equivalent to "an internal jogging." Laughter can provide good cardiac conditioning especially for those who are unable to perform physical exercises.

Blood Pressure - Laughter lowers blood pressure. People who often laugh heartily have lower blood pressure than the average person. When people have a good laugh, initially the blood pressure increases, then decreases to levels below normal. Breathing then becomes deeper which sends oxygen-enriched blood and nutrients throughout the body.

Humor therapy or therapeutic humor uses the power of smiles and laughter to aid healing by helping to find ways to make yourself or others smile and laugh more.

Scientists have been researching (a field called psychoneuroimmunology) the relation between the mind and the body, especially in connection with the body's ability to heal. Laughter appears to change brain chemistry and may boost the immune system. Humor may allow a person to feel in control of a situation and make it seem more manageable. It allows people to release fears, anger, and stress, all of which can harm the body over time. Humor improves the quality of life.

Humor therapy, can be used to prevent or treat disease, particularly in long-term (chronic) diseases, especially those that are made worse by stress (such as heart disease and asthma). Chronic diseases have a negative effect on mood and attitude, which can make the disease worse. Humor therapy helps reduce the negative effects of feeling unhealthy, out of control, afraid, or helpless, which are common problems for those with cancer or chronic diseases.

Humor therapy is also valuable as a preventive measure for the caregivers of people with chronic diseases. Caregivers are at high risk of becoming sick themselves, and humor therapy can help release the stress that comes with being a caregiver. Caregivers and those they care for can practice humor therapy together, and they both are likely to have better health as a result.

Rice is life

2008-05-12T09:21:00.000+08:00

Rice is life

The UN-backed Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the International Year of Rice in 2004 to address a major global problem: Increased, sustainable rice production as key to global food security. Rice is the world's most popular food, a symbol of cultural identity and global unity. It shapes religious observances, festivals, customs, cuisine and celebrations. Yet all is not well in the world of rice. Growth in rice yields is slowing, and is already falling behind population growth. Most rice farmers are poor, but national policies often favor the consumer and export market.

The year's theme -- "Rice is life" -- reflects the importance of rice as a primary food source, and is drawn from an understanding that rice-based systems are essential for food security, poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods.

Rice is the staple food for over half of the world's population and FAO projections show that by 2030, total demand for rice will be 38 per cent higher than the annual amounts produced between 1997 and 1999. In order to meet future demand, new methodologies and production technologies are necessary because land and water resources are under threat.

Because rice does not contain all the elements necessary for a balanced diet, a key aspect of the International Year of the Rice is to encourage rice producers to intensify the rice production system and fully exploit their capacity to raise fish and livestock.

Rice in numbers

Rice is cultivated in 113 countries -- the staple food for over half the world's population.

Rice provides 27 percent of dietary energy supply and 20 percent of dietary protein intake in the developing world. Rice cultivation is the principal activity and source of income for about 100 million households in Asia and Africa.

Of the 840 million people suffering from chronic hunger, over 50 percent live in areas dependent on rice production for food, income and employment. About four-fifths of the world's rice is produced by small-scale farmers and is consumed locally.

Rice: The issues

To meet the food needs of the world's rapidly expanding population, rice-producing countries, most especially the

Philippines

who have attained the dubious distinction of the top rice importer, must address a range of issues.

Production

Since the 1970s, demand for rice has been met due to high-yielding varieties and improved production methods. Irrigation was key -- during the green revolution irrigated area grew by 4 to 5 million hectares per year. Today, as populations grow, land and water resources for rice production are diminishing.

Environment

Excessive use of pesticides in rice farming pollutes water and creates health hazards. Intensive irrigation can cause salinization and water logging. Flooded rice is a major source of methane emission while the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers produces nitrous oxide -- both are greenhouse gases linked to global warming. One solution is integrated pest and crop management, which teaches farmers to monitor the pests in their fields and adopt practices that reduce the need for pesticides.

Poverty

Small-scale rice farmers may never be rich, but they too can benefit from improved technologies and methods, if the improvements are designed with small-scale needs in mind. Double-cropping with tomatoes or cabbage, for example, can increase income. Farmers have less access to credit, farm inputs, marketing facilities and extension services - a missed opportunity to boost production and reduce poverty. National policies often favor the consumer instead of being pro-poor. Increased rice production also means more jobs in support sectors such as milling, marketing and trading.

Nutrition

In addition to being a source of energy, rice provides thiamine, riboflavin and niacin and can be improved by using traditional selective plant breeding and by simply omitting the polishing process that removes the bran (brown rice.).

Biotechnology

Biotechnology (genetic engineering) can help increase yields and reduce the need for inputs. But there are human and environmental safety concerns, and benefits should flow not only to multinational companies but also to farmers.

Although the use of new, high-yielding varieties instead of traditional rice varieties brought huge gains in yield, the planting of a single variety over large areas year after year may compromise genetic resistance to pests. Research needs to be supported to continue the search for new, more pest-resistant varieties. The rice genome was recently mapped fully and more effective breeding is expected.

Hybrid technology

High-yielding rice varieties arguably take credit for much of the remarkable gain in rice production over the past 35 years. Yet since 1966, yields have been stagnant. Unfortunately, the cost of hybrid seed production is four to five times higher than normal seeds - out of reach for most poor farmers. The local experience of hybrids did not encourage widespread use.

After the harvest

A significant portion is lost after harvesting by hand harvesting and threshing, which are still common, rudimentary grain drying prevails and rice is poorly stored. Often 10 to 37 percent of the harvest is lost, especially in the rainy season. Improved silos, and new varieties more tolerant to delayed harvesting would help.

UN’s warning

In early 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned in a March 12 article in the Washington Post that the world was “facing a perfect storm of new challenges.”

He pointed to the prices of wheat, corn and rice soaring to historic highs of up to 50 percent or more in the past six months and cereal stocks dropping to record lows. Food riots had erupted from West Africa to South Asia.

“In the here and now, we must help the hungry hit by rising food prices. That means, for starters, recognizing the urgency of the crisis—and acting,” said Ban.

Governments of several food-growing countries, worried about domestic shortages, have imposed export curbs, spooking markets at a time when world inventories are down sharply.

The Lancet echo

The era of cheap food is over. In the past year, the cost of wheat has risen by 130%, rice by 120%, with corn and soya not far behind. As a result, millions of people are starving and at least 100 million more people will be pushed further into poverty. Food, the fundamental determinant of health, is unaffordable to an increasing proportion of the world's population. As usual, the poorest are affected the most, with those living in absolute poverty—less than US$1 a day—surviving on just one meal a day if they are lucky. And since the International Fund for Agricultural Development has estimated that the number of food-insecure people in the world will rise by 16 million for every percentage increase in the prices of staple foods, this situation is likely to get worse. The target of MDG 1—to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger—is in reverse.

There are many contributing factors to the current crisis. The world will have 3 billion more mouths to feed by 2050. Emerging economies are not only eating more, but eating more meat. (It can take up to 9 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of meat.) Crop yields in developing countries have fallen dramatically with diminishing returns for at least a decade. Climate change has disrupted crop growth and water distribution. After the collapse of the US housing market, investors are ploughing trillions of dollars into commodities, such as food and raw materials, resulting in a “commodities super-cycle” where commodity price inflation feeds on itself leading to hugely inflated prices. Global trade distortions, where subsidized produce from rich countries is dumped on the markets of poorer ones, have wrecked the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and decreased local food production. But one of the largest contributors to the crisis is the rise of biofuels—in which potential food crops are burned as fuel in car engines—a situation that the UN Special Rapporteur for the right to food, Jean Ziegler, has called “a crime against humanity”.

Biofuels once perceived as the green alternative to fuel have recently been discredited. After the agricultural displacement effects of these fuels are taken into account, emissions from biofuels are many times worse than those from fossil fuels. Yet in the drive to make the USA self-sustaining for fuel production, massive ethanol subsidies and millions of acres of American corn have led to a boom in biofuels. American cars now burn enough corn to cover the import needs of 82 food-deficit countries. But thanks to a backlash against biofuels in Europe, the European Union, once committed to a 10% biofuel target by 2020, is now sensibly rethinking its position.

Drop export restrictions

The surfeit of worrisome news induced some worry wrinkles on Pinoy officialdom. The Philippines is now the world’s top importer of rice.

NFA Administrator Jessup Navarro, in a briefing he gave to a House panel on the country’s rice situation, said that the NFA had only been able to buy 1 percent of the local market production, but there was neither a sense of urgency evident in the presentation nor did it ring alarm bells, says Rep. Carlos Padilla of Nueva Vizcaya. The NFA was making the usual justification for its prolonged existence, Padilla says.

Traders were puzzled and obviously unaware of a food problem of global proportions.

For the Filipino rice traders, it was business as usual, dismissing threats of shortfalls.

They say that unscrupulous elements in the state-owned NFA were obviously out to make money by faking a rice shortage, thereby jacking up the price of the commodity.

There are also a number of ways to make money out of the situation, mainly hoarding rice bought from the NFA at subsidized rate to be sold when the prices soar.

If you have the right connections, it is easy says a trader. Interviews with traders conducted by one paper said they could obtain a cavan (40 kilos) of rice from the NFA at P862, pay P100 to the NFA connection, for a total acquisition price of P962. The rice is then put on a grader to segregate the broken rice, then rebagged and sold at double the acquisition price.

Citing a study of the Department of Finance last year, Angara says the NFA has accumulated P111 billion in debts and this is likely to balloon unless the country is able to address a looming rice shortage. "If we let go of the NFA and give it full rein subsidizing and importing rice, then we will have a bottomless pit that will consume so much of our taxpayers' money," Angara says.

The NFA was originally called the National Grains Authority formed under one of the first decrees issued by President Ferdinand Marcos shortly after he declared martial law in September 1972. NFA was tasked to ensure the growth of the grains industry – rice, corn, feed grains. Control of rice and other grains was deregulated subsequently and NFA concentrated solely in ensuring an adequate supply of rice at affordable prices.

ADB wants NFA phased out

"The targeted safety net programs will ensure that the remaining subsidized rice programs are reserved for the poor, without depressing farmgate prices," the ADB report said. "The government will retain the regulatory function of maintaining a maximum 30-day buffer stock (on 1 July of each year) to supplement the stocks of paddy farmers and private traders during the traditional lean season and guard against price volatility due to natural calamities. Agricultural scientists who did the study say that even in that basic role, the NFA had failed.

Blueprint for food security

REPUBLIC Act 8435, otherwise known as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), aims to strengthen the agriculture and fishery sectors through modernization, greater participation of small-holders (or small stakeholders), food security and food self-sufficiency, private sector participation and people empowerment.

The program envisions a modernized and productive agriculture and fishery sector, being able to provide food at prices affordable to all, especially the marginalized sectors, which will eventually be empowered as the benefit from responsive support services provided them.

The immediate concern is to stimulate direct investments in support of the following: protection and development of watersheds; proper management of agricultural land and water resources; establishments and rehabilitation of irrigation systems; providing marginalized sectors preferential access to productive assets; and providing other essential measures and support services. Providing affordable, available, adequate and accessible food supplies at all times is paramount.

People empowerment will strengthen the partnership of the agriculture department with local institutions, particularly LGUs and non-government organizations and people's organizations (NGOs and POs) and the private sector, a strategic move in improving the country's agricultural productivity and food security.

Meanwhile the National Foods Authority (NFA), by April 2008, is releasing 33,100 metric tons of subsidized rice for daily consumption, but the queues get longer and more jittery as import sources dry up.

Agriculture Undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel Paras, for his part, cited several causes of unabated price increases of rice, one of which was the increasing price in the world market. He disclosed that in 2006 the price of rice was $240 per ton but has tripled by the first quarter of 2008 to $885 per ton. He also blamed the non-release of the budget for Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) intended to fund the irrigation system in the country.

According to Paras, under the AFMA, a P6 billion budget every year was allocated for irrigation however, he said not a single centavo was released, which explains why irrigation remains a problem.

Sen. Pia Cayetano joined the clamor in the Senate for a probe on the rice crisis, saying over the Lenten break she reviewed the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act which included policies to modernize, to shift from basic to technologically based farming, to be self-sufficient. What happened to that, she asked rhetorically. We passed this law 10 years ago, and I would like the resolution to include our oversight function to look into what happened to the implementation of this law. In fact it’s also tied into my committee on environment because this law also states that watershed should be preserved as long as DENR and the Department of Agriculture declare that it is needed for irrigation purposes, she said. (More on water here and here.)

The Philippines’ massive purchases of rice at sharply increased prices from its neighbors are creating a fast-buck opportunity for traders in Indonesia, where prices are controlled, to smuggle the commodity out through Singapore for eventual sale in the

Philippines

Rice in government-controlled storage in Indonesia sells for US$436.80 per ton at a time when the Philippine government and rice traders are offering up to US$1,000 per ton in Vietnam and Thailand. The skyrocketing rice price and the attendant smuggling opportunities are generating political concerns in both countries, with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordering government officials to prevent rice smuggling to other countries.

A top political source in Jakarta last week said the government is increasingly worried that rising rice prices and potential shortages could cause political unrest. “This is rice, and that means trouble if it goes wrong,” said the source. Yudhoyono has also sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to take measures to ease speculation in commodity markets.

The strategy and the threats to self sufficiency

PGMA has given a new name to the AFMA law, or so it seems. The presidential program called FIELDS face questions coming from concerned groups, Centro Saka among them, alarmed over the aggressive promotion of hybrid rice. Centro Saka is a policy research and advocacy non-government organization, the secretariat to the National Rice Farmers Council, a loose coalition of small farmers nationwide organization formed in 2003.

FIELDS stands for Fertilizers, Irrigation and other infrastructure, Extension and education, Loans, dryers and post-harvest facilities and Seeds. But questions regarding the soundness of some of these solutions have to be raised.

Increasing irrigated hectares requires more sources of impounded water to offset the demand of population center needs. Untrammeled population fertility will intensify the competition for water. Innovative concepts, radical if you will, must be applied to address funding and other obstacles: construct mini-dams to impound water for multi-purpose use – sanitation, irrigation, power generation with mini-generators. The concept averts problems of big dams (rights of way, power transmission losses, more)

No to FIELDS of hybrid seeds

While the multi-billion additional funding for rice and several other crops is a welcome development, Centro Saka disagrees with how the government plans to spend it. The FIELDS package shows that the government intends to increase the hectarage devoted to hybrid rice production, with an allocation of P2.7 billion until 2010.

“We find this difficult to understand given the poor performance of the hybrid rice program and the many issues that have been raised against it over the years,” said Centro Saka executive director Omi Royandoyan and National Rice Farmers Council president Jimmy Tadeo.

Centro Saka says that as it is currently designed, the P43.7-billion package of intervention measures will merely perpetuate the misguided strategies that have turned the Philippines into the world’s biggest rice importer. In subsidizing hybrid rice, the Philippines would be subsidizing big seed companies like SL-Agrictech, including multinationals like Bayer and Monsanto, when the money could be used to support our own rice farmers. The design of the FIELDS interventions will actually make the rice program dependent on private companies with no accountability to the public.

Centro Saka says it straight: “Equally disturbing is hybrid rice’s heavy reliance on chemical-based inputs to reach optimum yields. With the skyrocketing prices of inorganic fertilizers which now stand at P1,700, hybrid rice production will only force rice farmers deeper into indebtedness, even as the big fertilizer companies reap windfalls of profit. All of this, plus the damage to the environment that chemical-based farming, as shown in numerous studies, will certainly cause.”

When will we ever learn? Centro Saka asks. The present crisis is clear evidence that the old strategy of putting all eggs in one basket, i.e., dumping the lion’s share of resources into the expensive and flawed hybrid rice program was a huge mistake. In fact, Centro Saka adds, the contribution of the hybrid rice, which has received billions of pesos in government support, pales in comparison with the over 50 percent contribution of good seeds which have been receiving practically no support from government. And yet there is all this talk of increasing funding for rice hybridization.

The government’s only rationale for insisting on hybrid rice is the supposed higher yield advantage when compared with traditional and other inbred varieties. But this is not really the case. In the field, farmer-selected and bred seeds have been shown to be comparative even superior to hybrid rice which has an average yield of less than 7 metric tons per hectare.

Read this: “According to some studies, yields from good seeds and certified seeds can reach a maximum of 9 metric tons per hectare and 10 metric tons per hectare, respectively. Using the latest rice hectarage of 4,272,000 hectares, we can assume that the country can produce as much as 38,448,000 million metric tons of ‘palay’ [rice before milling], or 29,904,000 metric tons of milled rice using only good seeds. This is even assuming a low milling recovery of only 60 percent.”

Here’s more: “Actual field experience with farmer developed varieties also show that yields of up to 7 metric tons per hectare are achievable using organic farming practices. This compares favorably to the less than 6 metric tons per hectare average yield for hybrid rice. Rice farmers who employed the system of rice intensification managed to produce yields reaching as high as 9 metric tons per hectare. Moreover, the small rice farmers have been reporting milling recovery rates of 70 percent which is much higher than that registered by hybrid rice. What is even more notable is that the small rice farmers were able to achieve this level of production without government support. Strangely, government has not tapped the expertise of these organic rice farmers.”

So Centro Saka argues that by simply providing farmers with good quality seeds, specifically the traditional and farmer-developed varieties, promoting organic rice farming and constructing additional irrigation facilities, government could set the country on the road to self-sufficiency in food production. So it is best for government to abandon its current policy of relying on hybrid rice and importing rice as solutions to the food crisis. Instead, government should pursue the implementation of the Rice Master Plan that the small rice farmers have long been advocating.

That’s more than just food for thought.

HHybrid rice blog

Philippines

: Who's really benefiting from hybrid rice subsidies?

Subsidies have always been the lifeblood of the hybrid rice industry. It's the one constant within the otherwise varied experiences of countries that have adopted hybrid rice. The PR machine might help boost sales of seeds and chemical inputs but its the subsidies that are really needed to get farmers planting hybrid rice in their fields. Take away these subsidies and the hectarage soon starts shrinking, be that in China where it's largely grown, India where its struggling to make headway, or

Indonesia

where the government is pursuing an ambitious revival. Governments come up with all sorts of subsidy schemes, many of them quite creative, in order to develop, commercialize and promote the use of rice hybrids. The Philippines is no exception.

Back in 2001, under the government's Hybrid Rice Commercialization Program (HRCP) - then attached to the Office of the President but later passed on to the Philippine Rice Institute (Philrice) of the Department of Agriculture – participating farmers received subsidized seeds and fertilizers at discounted rates. They also benefited from guaranteed crop insurance and enhanced production loans. It was a neat package that naturally attracted many capital-poor farmers.

For some of these farmers, the rice hybrids did increase yields, but for many, the crop failed. Reports flooded in of standing crops not forming any grain and increased incidences of destructive pests. It was a disaster that the government refused to neither acknowledge nor address. Instead it beefed up its hybrid rice promotion strategy in the media (tapping groups like the Philippine Science Journalists Association) and directed its PR department to focus on a few, often exaggerated, 'success stories'. New ways to extend its subsidies were devised (e.g. the National Food Authority putting priority on buying hybrid rice instead of inbred or traditional varieties) to keep hybrid rice production from sinking. Few farmers ended up profiting from this largess; rather the money flowed into the pockets of the rural banks and private loan institutions, the suppliers of machineries, the contractors of post-harvest facilities, and most importantly, the agro-chemical and seeds companies.

Private seed companies are the big beneficiaries of the hybrid rice program. Because of the subsidies, they get a market that they'd otherwise never have. Under the Philippines program farmers only pay half the price of the seeds and the government covers the rest, while the companies receive their money in full. Moreover, while in the beginning there was some 'healthy' competition among up to seven seed companies, including Pioneer, Bayer, some local companies, farmers cooperatives, and the government's own rice institute, soon most of the subsidies on seeds were channeled to just one company - SL Agritech.

SL Agritech, a somewhat mysterious private tie-up between Filipino, Chinese and Singapore investors, offered a much below-market price for its seeds combined with a big PR campaign. By 2006, 65% of hybrid rice seeds were produced by SL Agritech, 25% by the government and 10% by other companies (Bayer, etc). But more than market forces were at work here. The owner-chairman-CEO of SL Agritech, local billionaire Henry Lim Bon Liong, is closely connected to key government officials, such as former Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr, and was involved in crafting the hybrid rice programme. Lorenzo publicly considers him to be instrumental in acquiring the technical know-how (of hybrid rice) from China and applying it in the Philippine setting. Obviously Lorenzo's pronouncement was made to rally the support of the Filipino-Chinese community (particularly the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce that Henry Lim was then director of) around his agricultural modernization programme, and his hybrid rice efforts. For a time, Henry Lim reportedly worked as a consultant of the hybrid rice programme under Lorenzo, and then later moved on to become a member of the General Council of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD). At the moment SL Agritech is reportedly the sole authorized supplier ('preferred partner') of the hybrid rice variety accepted by Department of Agriculture officials. Going by the estimates of some farmers' organizations, SL Agritech may have already pocketed some P208 million (US$ 4.3 million) from the subsidy scheme.

Despite the subsidy, however, hybrid rice struggles to take root in the Philippines. In fact, the Department of Agriculture acknowledged in early 2006 that there was a 50-60 percent drop-out rate among farmers who adopted hybrid rice. This was based on a mid-term assessment conducted by Philrice and STRIVE Foundation. The reasons were: the hybrid rice technology is 'quite new' to farmers and 'difficult' to follow and the rice is susceptible to pests and diseases, has high cost of production and is prone to seasonal variations in yield. It was the same case two years earlier. In a 2004 study of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), a government research institute, the drop-out rate among hybrid rice adopters was found to be particularly high despite the subsidies extended by the government. The study acknowledged that the direct subsidy on seeds and fertilisers was unsustainable and recommended using other ways to support farmers. The Department of Agriculture seemed to take the recommendations to heart and began a phase-out of its subsidy that year, aiming to fully cut support in 2007. Officials at the Department of Agriculture and Philrice apparently believed that farmers successful with hybrid rice would be able to afford the seeds without subsidies.

But the policy change didn't last long. It now appears that the government is just reorganizing the subsidy scheme again. Under the guise of meeting millennium goal targets, the Department of Agriculture reconstituted its subsidy scheme by forming 'rice clusters' seemingly to have more control of hybrid rice growing in the country. Farmers will be organized 'geographically' based on a set of contiguous rice areas of about 100 hectares within one-kilometer radius in a municipality. Farmers belonging to cluster areas will be assured of technical support, and will be given greater access to credit, high quality seeds, farm machinery and fertilizer discounts. They will also be assured of water supply and access to post-harvest facilities. This approach supposedly makes the GMA rice program easier to implement, monitor and document, as it organizes individual farmers into a manageable entity (a cluster) and links them to bigger communities.

(Note: in some areas up north farmers have been told they will not get irrigation water unless they use hybrid rice.)

The GMA rice program that dispenses this subsidy envisions “a sustainable self-sufficient rice economy” – projecting a total of 16.67 million tons of total paddy production - this year (2007). But some farmers' groups are not convinced about the subsidy scheme nor about the target production for hybrid rice. Sentro Saka, a national network of farmers organizations, claims that there have been no significant reductions on the country's rice imports since the hybrid rice program was launched six years ago. In fact, for the most part, rice imports have consistently increased, this year being the highest so far, projected to be about 1.7 million metric tons. The group also claims that although the Department of Agriculture previously boasted about the GMA rice program being the answer to rice production shortages, the Department's own data shows that hybrid rice barely contributed to the overall production.

SL Agritech Corp wants subsidies until half of rice farmers in Philippines growing hybrids

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200501060707. ...

Disadvantages

Seed cost was almost 2.5 times more for hybrids than for conventional high yielding varieties.

The expected output price was lower for hybrid rice grain than actual price for conventional high yielding varieties.

The hybrid rice seed production usually requires more labor specially to accomplish certain critical farm operations like row planting, supplementary pollination, leaf clipping, gap filling, rouging and GA₃ application etc. Hence the cost incurred on seed production was found to be high.

Hybrids require more doses of fertilizers.

Hybrid seed is not suitable for second crop.

DA responds to organic clamor

Unexpectedly in May 2008 the DA responded to the clamor of organic farmer groups, announcing the use of organic fertilizers to raise farm yields and reduce production costs.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, says the DA’s “Organikong Pagsasaka” program, with an allocation of P500 million this year, forms part of the P43.7-billion FIELDS initiative to guarantee food security. Yap admits that the use of organic fertilizers and non-chemical dependent technologies has led to better crop quality and higher yields.

Yap adds that weaning farmers away from the use of chemical inputs would lower farm production costs amid soaring prices of petroleum-based fertilizers which have increased by about 300 percent over the last five years. A bag of chemical fertilizer now costs as much as P1,900. Palay farmers usually use up to 20 bags of chemical fertilizers per cropping.

Under “Organikong Pagsasaka,” the DA introduced the Modified Rapid Composting (MRC) technology in 16 regions, according to Director Silvino Tejada of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM). Harvest festivals in MRC techno-demo farms have already been held in Negros Occidental, Maguindanao, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Bukidnon, Eastern Samar and Iloilo, Tejada said.

Farmers that participated reported an increase of 20 percent in yields, 30-40 percent in profits, and a 30-50 percent reduction in input expenses. They also reported improvements in soil quality, and better water retention of the land which has reduced the frequency of irrigation by as much as 50 percent.

The Organikong Pagsasaka program uses locally developed organic farming techniques and farmers produce their own high-grade biofertilizers from farm wastes which they use, selling the excess.

The program, which implements Executive Order 481 titled “Promotion and Development of Organic Agriculture in the Philippines,” will first target rice, corn and vegetable farms nationwide, Tejada said.

5 nations led by Thailand agree to fix prices banners Philippine Daily Inquirer, 05/01/2008. “The countries of Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have agreed in principle to form a rice price-fixing cartel similar to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as costs of the staple grain rocket, Thailand’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Thailand’s Premier Samak Sundaravej said the grouping of Mekong nations would be called the Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (OREC). “I have talked with Burma and invited them to join the rice exporting countries cartel, which will include Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, to fix the price,” Samak told reporters.”

Stunning news that posed some questions about the viability of this seminal OREC. While OPEC deals with a non-renewable product, OREC’s product, rice, is renewable and anyone can produce it if profitable.

Be that as it may, the lament that the Thais owe their rice growing skills from U.P. Los Baños is an embarrassing misconception. The truth about the abundance of Thai and Vietnamese rice harvests is due to the benevolence of the awesome Mekong River. The Mekong is one of the world’s major rivers, the 12th-longest river in the world. Its estimated length of 4,350 km (2,703 mi), runs from the Tibetan Plateau through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The annual flooding of the river acts like a giant irrigation system that deposits silt on the flooded ricelands and replenishes nutrients. Contrast this natural event with man-made irrigation that supplies water devoid of nourishing silt. Imagine the Banaue rice terraces dependent only on rain water growing rice for thousands of years and the constant depletion of nutrients which now requires supplementary synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, input costs that eats profits and ensures poverty.

An IRRI economist expressing it in plain language a decade earlier said that maybe self-sufficiency requires more investment than it is worth. "Despite playing a key role in Asia’s Green Revolution," David Dawe said, "the Philippines may never attain rice sufficiency and could be better off importing cereals." He added, “self sufficiency has a cost if you want to do it and that cost is borne by the poor. Dawe said arable land is in short supply in the Philippines where only 30 percent is planted to rice. The soil itself is "more suited to growing coconuts and maize" and lacking the major river systems and rainfall patterns available for the heavily water-dependent crop in such areas as Bangladesh, Thailand and Vietnam. "God made that land for growing rice," Dawe said.

Manila scraps rice purchases

DA officially declared Monday's eagerly-awaited tender a failure after Vietnam's state-owned Vinafood II, the sole participant, failed to supply a bank guarantee. After consistently failing to secure the asked-for volume in recent tenders with private dealers, the government will deal exclusively with state firms and traders with government guarantees.

THE National Food Authority yesterday said government needs to buy 500,000 to 700,000.metric tons of rice (on top of already bought 1.7 million metric tons) to augment the country’s buffer stocks for the typhoon season

NFA says the country has a 64-day stock, both government and household, the government stock of 770,000 tons is good for 23 days and 1.7 million metric tons have been contracted from imports, enough for the lean months of July to September.

Corporate farming

She said corporations without landholdings but which decide to engage in rice production may lease public agricultural lands. Those intending to import rice for their employees tell the NFA to be eligible for "fiscal privileges."

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez, head of the CBCP’s public affairs committee, said he was not discounting the possibility of "irregularities" in Arroyo’s decision to scrap public bidding procedures in favor of government-to-government negotiations in rice importation.

Bureau of Agricultural Statistics 2007 data for a crude roadmap to rice self-sufficiency: “Palay” (unhusked rice) production was 16,240,000 metric tons. At a milling rate of 65 percent, rice produced was 10,556,000 metric tons. Out of this, 2.0 percent was used as seeds and 10.5 percent was lost in processing. As a result, only 9,237,000 metric tons reached the dinner table.

Rice consumption per capita was about 120 kilograms. At a population of 87 million, the total consumption was 10,440,000 metric tons. The shortfall of over 1,200,000 metric tons was covered by importation. A beginning inventory of 2,000,000 metric tons served as buffer stock.

Hectares planted to rice totaled 4,277,889 (2,917,012 irrigated, 1,356,877 rain-fed). Palay production was about 3.8 metric tons per hectare nationwide.

In the global context, food is a complex political issue and quick fixes are not enough. Without a long-term plan that takes a bold stand against the trade distortions that have contributed to the crisis, any action will just be placebo pill. Continuous food crises will be the new global norm unless the international community works together to find fair and sustainable solutions to tackle the root causes of global food insecurity.

As for Filipinos, accept the fact that our agriculture cannot produce enough rice to feed our population , and that U.P.Los Baños is no Ceres. Unless we intend to use starvation as the primary policy to control population growth, Filipinos must act aggressively to reform agriculture, starting modestly with AFMA. Food, the fundamental determinant of health, IS life.

Rice Queues to test Pinoy discipline

2008-04-12T16:37:00.000+08:00

Rice Queues to test Pinoy discipline

The healthy Filipino queuer in NFA rice queues can breathe a deep sigh of relief for such not so small blessings, namely the mulled increase (reckless ploy) of NFA subsidized price will not push through, and the sleazy NFA existence will be prolonged. Nevertheless, as one paper editorial wails, ‘Their suspicion is Gloria is fanning fears of a crisis so people could be distracted from corruption scandals hounding her administration.’ Hardly anyone can deny that this administration is hopping from crisis to crisis -- election scam, fertilizer scam, Broadband scam, soaring fuel prices, skyhigh medicine costs, pervasive corruption in the bureaucracy and military, foreign encroachment on our presumptive territorial claims under UNCLOS. The hardcore Palace propaganda battalion is so close to being overwhelmed we may soon find they too are tired of recycling their tired trite tripe. Cleanup of the airwaves would help mitigate air pollution.

For how long can the government keep the price of rice at its present level? The NFA buys unmilled rice at P17 a kilogram that translates to a selling price of P34 a kilo after milling, meaning that the NFA loses P15.75 for every kilo it sells at P18.25. The subsidy of imported rice is about P10 per kilo based on a purchase price of $700 per ton. Under its current level of buying and selling, it is estimated that the NFA would lose close to P50 billion a year. Where will PGMA get that kind of money without sacrificing her infrastructure construction program and her goal of balancing the budget in 2010?

The public fear of a rice shortage is forcing officialdom’s frenzied moves of damage control to calm public anxiety. The hasty knee-jerk attempts are sometimes silly, an example being the patronizing proposal of PGMA to craft a Consumers Rights Bill which would make redundant the existing Consumers Act of 1992 (Republic Act No. 7394).

NBI chief Mantaring, tasked by PGMA and DOJ to investigate instances of rice hoarding and price gouging, exceeded his mandate by including smuggling in his probe. For his exuberance, he was taken to task by the President for straying into smuggler-sniffing. The scolding raises suspicions of a cover up about an exhumation of the Jose Pidal – smuggler link exposé of Senator Lacson.

The NFA was intended to help moderate prices and provide support to farmers by guaranteeing a good price for their produce. It has not succeeded in doing either of these things. And now when world food prices, including that of rice, are shooting up and reaching record highs, the NFA has maintained its selling price at P18.25 a kilo. This has not held back traders from pricing commercial rice at more than P30 a kilo, with some fancy varieties going for as much as P60. Neither is it going to be of much help in encouraging farmers to plant more by making them earn more since traders are the ones who are making a killing in the tight supply situation that we have now.

The NFA is a small player in the rice and corn business, and will remain so unless the government infuses it with enormous sums of money that will allow it to control the market, amounts the government cannot afford. The NFA will have to be made history, and its demise labeled with an epitaph: an admonition that boondoggles are bad for public health. The government must also move quickly to achieve rice self-sufficiency.

The growing queues of the urban poor seeking their daily ration of rice, if not a crisis situation now might soon be if it spins out of control, becomes a rice crisis which turns into a full blown food emergency triggered by panic buying. Those with little or no money, a third of the population, will convert the panic into food riots and chaos will reign. Propaganda will be worse than useless, as this item is not just tasteless but cruel under such circumstances.

Mischief, part3

2008-03-29T08:12:00.000+08:00

Mischief part3

The regional squabble over the Spratlys does not go unnoticed by the remaining world superpower, the US. It is in her security interest to maintain equilibrium in the balance of power and discourage hegemony in East Asia.

The East Asian quadrilateral -- the US, China, Japan and Russia that first surfaced in 1905 geopolitics has resurfaced after the Cold War tensions of Europe eased. Western Pacific rim tensions are developing into potential conflicts not just between China and the US but also between Japan and China, the two powers in East Asia, fuelled by the red-hot economic growth of China. The assembly of ASEAN countries further complicates the equilibrium.

Regional tensions focus on the Taiwan Strait, Korean peninsula and the South China Sea affecting the maritime dimensions of the regions security. Currently, the US-Japan security treaty provides security for Japan that does not disturb its neighbors. With the prospect of Chinese hegemony, Japan will likely resist and raise regional tensions. Thus, the US strategy would be to assist a rising China to integrate peacefully into the regional and global order. This includes the regional spat in the Spratleys and Paracels.

Widely acknowledged by scholars and policymakers alike is that economic growth lies at the center of China's national policy agenda. Chinese industrial and technology planning shifted away from the weapons-focused goals of the 1950s-70s toward a much more comprehensive effort, including demilitarization and an investment shift from heavy to light and high-tech industry. Some policy analysts predict that the debate about China’s defense policy increasingly centers on two themes: (1) long-range balance of power considerations in the Asian-Pacific region, especially the likely future role of the United States; and (2) the possibility that China might deploy its military forces to secure resources required for long-range economic growth.

To become both self-sufficient in energy and a dominant force in the region's macroeconomy, China must be able to guarantee sea borne access to resource supply and routes of trade. Naval modernization, in particular, has therefore taken on special resonance because of China's growing demand for energy. Debate about precisely how resource and territorial claims overlap has been particularly pronounced, for example, in discussion of China's goals in the South China Sea, where balance of power considerations clearly matter a great deal but where China's "step-by-step" advance to the Spratly Islands also raises questions about how a hedge against resource dependence may fit into Chinese strategic calculations. Most major sea-lanes of communication for East Asian energy shipments lie in these waters. As U.S. naval dominance is likely to remain unchallenged for decades to come, many of China's goals in the region can probably be met simply by "free-riding" off the U.S.-dominated status quo.

As the political scientist Robert Ross noted, U.S. strategy in Asia since the end of the Vietnam conflict in 1975, has involved de facto maritime balancing against both Chinese and Soviet continental power. "From Japan in Northeast Asia to Malaysia in Southeast Asia, the East Asian mainland is rimmed with a continuous chain of island countries that possess strategic location and naval facilities,” he observed . Access to these countries enables a maritime power to carry out effective naval operations along the perimeter of a mainland power. It also prevents continental powers that have maritime aspirations, such as contemporary China, from developing unimpeded access to the blue water ocean.

In effect, the requirements of such a strategy grant the U.S. navy the ability to secure access for the U.S. and its allies to strategic resources, including oil. This also gives the U.S. a special role as the systemic guarantor of secure shipping lanes. Thus, "even should China develop naval capabilities in its coastal waters, U.S. and allied commercial and military fleets could use secure shipping lanes that are far from mainland aircraft and are dominated by U.S. air and naval forces based in maritime nations."

Even if China wishes to enforce its claims in the South China Sea for reasons of sovereignty, the region provides few jumping off points from which China would be in a position to build strategic power projection capabilities that might challenge the U.S.-dominated maritime system. The Spratly Islands are simply too small to serve as a stepping stone to further power projection. This reduces their strategic value for anything more than an assertion of localized claims. Does it truly threaten the underpinnings of the regional strategic balance if China were to occupy the Spratlys? In light of how little a claim such as Mischief Reef would likely contribute to a Chinese challenge to American maritime balancing, the answer is probably: very little indeed.

In effect, de jure recognition of Chinese sovereignty over the area could actually be stabilizing over the long term. It would at once defang rabid Chinese nationalist sentiment by satisfying a Chinese sovereignty claim, while at the same time, in practice, giving China very little of substance with which to challenge the security of Asia's sea lanes.

HB 3216

The House of Representatives passed HB 3216 which includes both Scarborough and Kalayaan Islands within the baseline. Malacañang warned that if passed into a law that version would create problems because if we use that to measure our claim for extended continental shelf, the deadline at the UN being on May 13, 2009, it would be rejected for not being UNCLOS-compliant. If rejected, that means the international community would also not recognize our jurisdiction over those maritime areas. (Note: there is no deadline for the filing of a country’s archipelagic baseline; we can deposit it anytime with the office of the UN secretary-general and at the UN International Maritime Organization in London. The deadline that we are trying to meet is the filing of our claim for extended continental shelf which is on May 13, 2009. However, to determine our Extended Continental Shelf from 200 to 350 nautical miles sub-ocean extension of land, we need an official baseline.)

As Henry Bensurto, of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs said, “There would be a lot of foreign ships in those areas. At which point is our Navy going to sink those foreign ships if you don’t have a clear line?” Review the Doctrine of innocent passage, Mr Bensurto.

Meanwhile on March 28 Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. lifted the intact House Bill 3218 to speed up its passage in time for the May 2009 deadline. However, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee, objected to the bill as this would declare the Philippines as an archipelagic state, which would reduce rather than extend the country’s territory. Santiago, warned that the Constitution had already defined the national territory and any attempt to declare the Philippines as an archipelagic state under the UNCLOS would require Charter change, “because it would reduce the national territory. The Constitution states that the national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, and all other territories over which the

Philippines

has sovereignty or jurisdiction. The Constitution does not describe the Philippines as an archipelagic state, which is a term of art used by the UN Convention.”

The senator said that if the

Philippines

declares itself an archipelagic state, it would contradict the Treaty of Paris that set out the boundaries of the country’s national territory, “which are wider than those allowed by the UNCLOS.”

In conclusion, the Spratlys storm in a teacup and its effect on our territorial claims under UNCLOS is securely tied to the hegemony of the US in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

Since U.S. naval dominance of Asia’s sea-lanes is likely to remain unchallenged in terms of capabilities-- by a continental power such as China--for several decades, we must act accordingly. For a weak nation like the Philippines which is decades short of first world status even by an Arroyo dream, this situation demands fawning and groveling to the prospective US Presidential candidate of 2008, a Republican right wing conservative, and hope he wins. Even better, activate kamaganak influence in the US elections for Fil-Ams to vote Republican. A Democrat President will be bad news for the Kalayaan Islands that may go the way of the Sabah claim.

Disputes About Corals: Mischief Reef part2

2008-03-22T09:10:00.000+08:00

Disputes About Corals: Mischief Reef part2

In a previous article, Mischief on Mischief Reef, one of the ongoing projects became a done deal allegedly with a string attached – a joint Phil-Sino oil exploration ( called the Joint Marine Survey Undertaking or JMSU in short) in the Spratlys Islands, which is now eyed as the next Senate probe. A flashback to the Mischief Reef episode:

Click map to enlarge

A Shopping List

As the belligerent rhetoric escalates (Armis bella non venenis geri – War is waged with weapons, not with poison.), Paranaque Representative Roilo Golez, former PN officer, urged government to acquire a squadron of fighter planes to back up its claim on the Kalayaan Islands. Golez proposed the acquisition of 18 multirole fighters like the Israeli KFIR jets costing $7 million each equipped with the latest weapons such as missiles capable of 20 miles range and smart bombs.

The proposal may have had an eye on the AFP modernization plan, but dismissed as mere bravado. The AFP modernization, however, was a live project, 15-year program of the administration that surveyed prices of military hardware (March 1999):

Aegis type destroyer – $1 billion; armament: Tomahawk cruise missile, Harpoon ship-to-ship missile, phase array radar.

F15, F16, F/A18 jet fighter = $100 million

B2 - $2.1 billion

B52 bomber plus support tankers & craft - $7.5 billion

Aircraft Carrier, complete, aircraft not included - $20 billion

Apache helicopter - ??

Patrol boat - $3 million (2^nd hand)

Frigate - ??

Submarine, mini, (ala Israeli Dolphin class) modified capable of carrying cruise missiles with nuclear warheads (weapons not included) - ??

The stuff is what chief-of-staffs dream of, and that’s exactly its ending --- a dream.

The de facto Chinese occupation and construction on the Mischief Island establishes a strong claim that simultaneously weakens Philippine rights. It is generally held that a legal element of sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. ("No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty.") In other words, neither claiming nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign (by possession) is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements. Even in International law, the rule that possession is nine-tenths of the law is recognized.

House Bill No. 3216 which seeks to amend Republic Acts 3046 and 5446, the laws defining the Philippines’ maritime borders, has been approved on second reading on mid-March 2008, and was up for approval on third and final reading. When Rep. Antonio Cuenco announced that the House of Representatives abruptly halted deliberations on House Bill 3216, a measure that delineates Philippine territory in the South China Sea extending to the Kalayaan Islands Group and Scarborough Shoal, he justified the move on the grounds he’d been informed by the Chinese embassy of their objections.

House bill 3216 redefining the country's archipelagic baselines won't be acceptable under international law because the new baselines would encompass islands not actually possessed by the country and outside of the archipelago, said Henry Bensurto, secretary general of the Commission on Maritime and Oceanic Affairs Secretariat, of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In particular, the measure identified at least six base points (structures built on isles to mark a state's claim) that the country did not actually possess, It's a baseline that will have difficulty being recognized under international law, Bensurto said.

Under UNCLOS, an archipelago is allowed to draw straight archipelagic baselines that should not include islands outside of the archipelago. Islands outside of the archipelago, such as the Kalayaan Group of Islands and the Scarborough Shoal, should be delineated through the method of normal baseline under the principle of the "regime of islands,'' Bensurto said.

By excluding these islands from the baseline, the Philippines isn't dropping its claims over them since the basis for these claims, Presidential Decree 1896, would remain in effect even if a new baseline law is passed. The baseline would be the “reckoning point'' for the delineation of the extended continental shelf (ECS), the seabed beyond the 200-nautical mile continental shelf Bensuerto said.

Beijing has expressed displeasure over the passage of the measure, specifically the provisions including the Kalayaan Group of Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and the waters off Zambales within the Philippine baseline.

UNCLOS

The acronym UNCLOS stands for United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It has something to do with our territorial sovereignty. During the era of sailing ships, a nation’s sovereignty extended up to three miles from the shoreline – the range of cannons at the time. When modern battle ships of World War I mounted cannons capable of hurling shells 12 miles, the territorial sovereignty was extended to 12 miles. However, our Constitution defined our territory to conform to the Treaty of Paris concluded with the Spanish-American War of 1898. The boundaries will be modified by UNCLOS.

The International Hydrographic Bureau defines the South China Sea as the body of water stretching in a Southwest to Northeast direction, whose southern border is South Sumatra and Kalimantan and whose northern border is the Strait of Taiwan from the northern tip of Taiwan to the Fukien coast of China. In the center of this sea are the Paracels and the Spratly islands.

The Spratly islands are coral, low and small, about 5 to 6 meters above water, spread over 160,000 to 180,000 square kilometers of sea zone with a total land area of 10 square kilometers only. Many of these islands are partially submerged islets, rocks, and reefs that are little more than shipping hazards not suitable for habitation. The islands are important, however, for strategic and political reasons, because ownership claims to them are used to bolster claims to the surrounding sea and its resources. The area is rich in natural resources such as oil and natural gas.

Several countries have claims in the area. These claims are based upon internationally accepted principles extending territorial claims offshore onto a country's continental shelf, as well as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The 1982 convention created a number of guidelines concerning the status of islands, the continental shelf, enclosed seas, and territorial limits, the most relevant to the disputed Spratlys:

Article 3, which establishes that "every state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles";

Articles 55 - 75 define the concept of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is an area up to 200 nautical miles beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea. The EEZ gives coastal states "sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil..."

Article 121, which states that rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

The establishment of the EEZ created the potential for overlapping claims in semi-enclosed seas such as the South China Sea. These claims could be extended by any nation which could establish a settlement on the islands in the region. South China Sea claimants have clashed as they tried to establish outposts on the islands (mostly military) in order to be in conformity with Article 121 in pressing their claims.

In late 1998 the presidents of China and the Philippines agreed to form a committee of experts to advise on confidence-building measures.

In late November 1999 officials of ASEAN agreed to draft a regional code of conduct to prevent conflicts over the Spratly Islands in advance of the ASEAN summit in Manila. The Philippines, which drafted much of the proposed code, sought to align ASEAN's members in a common stance against what it saw as Chinese expansionism in the Spratlys. China agreed to hold talks with ASEAN member nations on the newly formulated draft code of conduct. But China, which claims the entire South China Sea, signaled it was not ready to agree to the ASEAN draft. Vietnam wanted the code to cover the Paracels while Malaysia did not want the code to refer to all of the South China Sea. China, which is not an ASEAN member and claims all of the islands, opposed inclusion of the Paracels in the code..

In January 2000 photographs of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands were shown to the foreign ministers of the other eight ASEAN countries by Philippine foreign minister, Domingo Siazon. The photographic evidence showed that China had expanded installations on the reef since 1995, when it first started building what it said were shelters for fishermen. There are four sites on the reef with installations that could be connected to form a fortress, or a five-star hotel for fishermen.

On 4 November 2002 the Governments of the Member States of ASEAN and the Government of the People's Republic of China signed the "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea." The Parties undertook to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.

China and the Philippines have discussed possible joint exploration for petroleum in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Jose de Venecia, said the chairman of China's parliament, Wu Bannguo, made the proposal 31 August 2003 during talks in Manila. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing vowed to increase investments in the Philippines to match the growing Philippine investment in China. The two ministers also discussed the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

In September 2003 representatives of the Philippines, China and other claimant countries of the Spratly Islands signed a declaration of peace to promote the development of the resources in the disputed islands. The declaration was signed at the Asian Association of Parliaments for Peace (AAPP) conference in the Philippines.

In March 2005, the national oil companies of China, the Philippines, and Vietnam signed a joint accord to conduct marine seismic experiments in the Spratly Islands for economic purposes.

Suggested confidence-building measures among claimant countries include joint research and development in the Spratlys. Among the suggestions to enhance the development of the Spratly Islands include the creation of a marine park; establishment of a South China Sea Institute for Marine Resources Management, conducting a joint survey and assessment of the mineral and hydrocarbon potential and implementation of maritime safety and surveillance measures.

Mischief Reef is part of the Spratly Islands. Mischief Reef was discovered by Henry Spratly in 1791 and named by the German Sailor Heribert Mischief, one of his crew. China has sent naval vessels into the area and constructed crude buildings on some of the islands. Beijing maintains that the shacks are there solely to serve Chinese fishing boats. Manila describes the buildings as "military-type" structures. According to reconnaissance photos by the Philippine Air Force, these structures do not look like fishermen's sanctuaries. They seem to have radar systems which are not normally associated with the protection of fishermen.

The Kalayaan Islands, as Filipinos call some of the Spratlys, lie in a shallow section of the South China Sea west of the Philippine archipelago. Kalayaan is a rich fishing area that had been identified as a potential source of petroleum deposits. Tomas Cloma, owner of a maritime training school, visited the islands in 1956, claimed them for himself, named them Kalayaan (Freedomland), and then asked the Philippine government to make them a protectorate.

Vietnam brands as erroneous the Philippine theory that the Spratly Islands were "res nullius" when Tomas Cloma "pretended to 'discover' the Vietnamese Truong Sa islands in 1956". Manila regularly tried to extract from the United States a declaration that it would defend the Philippines' claim to the Kalayaans as part of the Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America, but the United States just as regularly refused so to interpret that treaty.

The Philippine government first put forth informal claims to Kalayaan in the mid-1950s. Philippine troops were sent to three of the islands in the Kalayaans in 1968, taking advantage of the war situation in the Republic of Vietnam. In 1974, the Philippine government declared that it had garrisoned five of the islands. In 1978 Marcos made formal claims by declaring that fifty-seven of the islands were part of Palawan Province by virtue of their presence on the continental margin of the archipelago. The Philippine military continued to garrison marines on several islands.

The Spratly Islands dispute eased since the 1990s. This was due, in part, to China's rising economic stature (its GDP averaging over 9% annually) and the interdependency it, in turn, fostered amongst Asian nations. China knows that any crisis in the South China Sea could severely restrict the commercial shipping traffic that is vital to their continued prosperity. Another contributor to the relative calm is fact that proven oil reserves in the area are disappointingly low so far.

Philippine claims on the Spratly Islands

While the Philippine claim to the Spratly Islands was first expressed in the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, Philippine involvement in the Spratlys did not begin in earnest until 1956, when on 15 May Filipino citizen Tomas Cloma proclaimed the founding of a new state, Kalayaan (Freedom Land). Cloma’s Kalayaan encompassed fifty three features spread throughout the eastern South China Sea, including Spratly Island proper, Itu Aba, Pag-asa and Nam Yit Islands, as well as West York Island, North Danger Reef, Mariveles Reef and Investigator Shoal. Cloma then established a protectorate in July 1956 with Pag-asa as its capital and Cloma as “Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Kalayaan State”. This action, although not officially endorsed by the Philippine government, was considered by other claimant nations as an act of aggression by the Philippines and international reaction was swift. Taiwan, the PRC, South Vietnam, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands lodged official protests (the Netherlands on the premise that it considered the Spratly Islands part of Dutch New Guinea) and Taiwan sent a naval task force to occupy the islands and establish a base on Itu Aba.

Tomas Cloma and the Philippines continued to state their claims over the islands In October 1956 Cloma traveled to New York to plead his case before the United Nations and the Philippines posted troops on three islands by 1968 on the premise of protecting Kalayaan citizens. In early 1971 the Philippines sent a diplomatic note on behalf of Cloma to Taipei demanding the ROC’s withdrawal from Itu Aba and on 10 July in the same year Ferdinand Marcos announced the annexation of the 53 island group known as Kalayaan, although since neither Cloma or Marcos specified which fifty three features constituted Kalayaan, the Philippines began to claim as many features as possible. In April of 1972 Kalayaan was officially incorporated into Palawan province and was administered as a single “poblacion” (township), with Tomas Cloma as the town council Chairman and by 1992, there were twelve registered voters on Kalayaan. The Philippines also reportedly attempted to land troops on Itu Aba in 1977 to occupy the island but were repelled by ROC troops stationed on the island. There were no reports of casualties from the conflict. In 2005, a cellular phone base station was erected by the Philippines’ Smart Communications on Pag-asa Island.

The Philippines base its claims of sovereignty over the Spratlys on the issues of res nullius and geography. The Philippines contend Kalayaan was res nullius as there was no effective sovereignty over the islands until the 1930s when France and then Japan acquired the islands. When Japan renounced their sovereignty over the islands in the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, there was a relinquishment of the right to the islands without any special beneficiary. Therefore, argue the Philippines, the islands became res nullius and available for annexation. Philippine businessman Tomas Cloma did exactly that in 1956 and while the Philippines never officially supported Cloma’s claim, upon transference of the islands’ sovereignty from Cloma to the Philippines, the Philippines used the same sovereignty argument as Cloma did. The Philippine claim to Kalayaan on geographical bases can be summarized using the assertion that Kalayaan is distinct from other island groups in the South China Sea because:

It is a generally accepted practice in oceanography to refer to a chain of islands through the name of the biggest island in the group or through the use of a collective name. Note that Spratly (island) has an area of only 13 hectares compared to the 22 hectare area of the Pag-asa Island. Distance-wise, Spratly Island is some 210nm off Pag-asa Islands. This further stresses the argument that they are not part of the same island chain. The Paracels being much further (34.5nm northwest of Pag-asa Island) is definitely a different group of islands

A second argument used by the Philippines regarding its geographical claim over the Spratlys is that all the islands claimed lie within its archipelagic baselines, the only claimant who can make such a statement. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stated that a coastal state could claim two hundred nautical miles of jurisdiction beyond its land boundaries. It is perhaps telling that while the Philippines is a signatory to UNCLOS, the PRC and Vietnam are not. The Philippines also argue, under Law of the Sea provisions, that the PRC can not extend its baseline claims to the Spratlys because the PRC is not an archipelagic state. Whether this argument (or any other used by the Philippines) would hold up in court is debatable but possibly moot, as the PRC and Vietnam seem unwilling to legally substantiate their claims and have rejected Philippine challenges to take the dispute to the World Maritime Tribunal in Hamburg.

In the mid-1970s, the Philippines pursued its own detente with China, giving priority to economic considerations. The two sides agree to settle their bilateral disputes in accordance with the recognized principles of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Mischief Reef incident of 1995 was the first time for China to engage in military confrontation with an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member other than Vietnam. The incident set off a chain reaction among Southeast Asian countries, individually, and collectively as the ASEAN. The United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and even the European Union also expressed concern. Later in the year China pledged to use international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as basis for negotiating South China Sea issues and signed a "code of conduct" with the Philippines formalizing its rejection of force to resolve the dispute.

The two sides agree to promote cooperation in fields such as protection of the marine environment, safety of navigation, prevention of piracy, marine scientific research, disaster mitigation and control, search and rescue operations, meteorology, and maritime pollution control. They also agree that on some of the above-mentioned issues, multilateral cooperation could eventually be conducted.

The dispute erupted anew in late October 1998 (see Winks_Blinks blog, Mischief on Mischief Reef) when the Philippines discovered that China was expanding the structures on Mischief Reef, using armed military supply ships.

The two sides did meet in March 1999 in Manila to discuss the issue. China rejected the Philippine demand that it dismantle the Structures. China also denied that it had ever offered joint use of the structures to the Philippines. And it demanded that Manila cease all reconnaissance flights over the disputed feature. The talks nearly collapsed when China refused to put in writing a verbal commitment not to build any new structures on any Philippine-claimed features and only reluctantly agreed to state that the Mischief Reef structures would be used only by civilians. On 30 March, Manila suggested that the two sides use the machinery established by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea -- the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea -- to determine the rightful owner of Mischief Reef. Although China has ratified the Convention and stated several times that it would use the Convention to resolve the South China Sea disputes, it rejected the Philippine suggestion.

The Philippines publicly urged ASEAN to issue a statement at its Hanoi summit (December 1998) to call on China to respect international laws and co-operate to foster regional peace and stability.(31) ASEAN avoided dealing with the China-Philippine dispute in public, but an internal ASEAN report criticized China for actions not compatible with the UNCLOS and the China-Philippines code of conduct. This criticism was validated by China's rejection of the Philippine suggestion that the Mischief Reef dispute be resolved by the Law of the Sea Tribunal established under the auspices of the UNCLOS.

The most significant gain the Philippines seems to have made in attempting to internationalize the issue is a seeming change of position in the Mischief/South China Sea dispute on the part of the United States. The Philippines began by inviting a senior member of the United States House Committee on International Relations, Dana Rohrbacher, on a flight over Mischief Reef organized by the Philippines Air Force in early December 1998. Rohrbacher said he saw three Chinese warships near the Reef and he accused China of "aggression" and the Clinton Administration of downplaying the incident. He went on to pledge that the U.S. government would help the Philippines in its dispute with China. Of course China said that Rohrbacher was "meddling" in a bilateral dispute and pointed out that the China-Philippines code of conduct called for settling disputes bilaterally.

In the year 2000, Scarborough Shoal became another point of tension in the territorial disputes between the Philippines and China. In January, a Philippine navy patrol vessel fired three warning shots near two Chinese fishing boats off Scarborough Shoal. China then accused the Philippine navy of firing at, harassing, and forcibly boarding its fishing boats, and even robbing its fishers in the waters near the feature. The Philippines denied these accusations and in turn accused the Chinese fishers of harvesting endangered coral and illegal dynamite fishing. When China warned the Philippines against further provocative acts, the Philippines Senator Blas Ople alluded to the US/Philippines 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and declared that the United States would back it in the event of war with China. Then in May, one Chinese fisherman was shot dead by the Philippine marine patrol forces in the disputed Scarborough area.

Scarborough Shoal or what China calls Huangyan Island consists of a barely submerged reef enclosing a lagoon. The feature is located about 600 nm east of China's Hainan Island, and about 1,000 nm from China's mainland. It is about 128 nm west of Luzon. The Shoal is surmounted by scattered rocks and the ruins of an iron tower. The Philippines claims the feature because it lies within its 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone. But China claims that it has had sovereignty over the feature since "time immemorial."

The Geopolitical Context of the Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal Disputes

In order to understand the apparent lack of regional and international support for the Philippine position in its dispute with China, it is instructive to put the dispute in the geopolitical context of the disputes.
China/United States: At the strategic level, post-Cold War U.S. policy toward Asia in general and China in particular has been in disarray, choices ranging from "engagement" to "containment," but the United States had difficulty choosing and maintaining a particular policy, in terms of both its bilateral relations with China and the role it wants China to have in the East and Southeast Asian regions. China, on the other hand, tends to fear the worst -- that U.S. political and military policy towards Asia is designed to contain China -- in intent if not in practice.
Putting pressure on the US to intervene, is its defense guarantees and treaties with a number of the claimants, but reluctant to do so. In 1995 the US naval war college ran a series of computer war games simulating a conflict with China over the South China Sea. In every case Chinese forces won the day.

The Chinese vision of a post-Cold War order for Asia translates into nationalist behaviors. It has hardened its position over the political future of Taiwan and not relented in its pursuit of maritime territorial claims, to the dismay of Southeast Asian nations. In this context, China's 1995 move on to Mischief Reef was not a surprise but a rationally calculated move by Beijing, indeed a manifestation of China's growing nationalism, economic power, and confidence.

China/Philippines/United States: After China and the Philippines established diplomatic relations in 1975, the major problem was the uneven implementation of Manila's "one China" policy. Beijing was strongly opposed to diplomatic contacts between Manila and Taipei. But the territorial dispute between China and the Philippines is clearly separate from the Taiwan issue. Indeed, given the fact that both China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the Spratly islands and are not challenging each other's claims, the Philippines also has a territorial dispute with Taiwan, although Taiwan in recent years has not taken military action to solidify its claims.

Both the Philippines and China have tried to treat the issue as separate from their bilateral relations. But the dispute had some impact on Philippine politics and its relations with China. Although few believe that China intends to invade the Philippines, the Mischief Reef dispute has been identified by the Philippines National Security Council as one of the two "most urgent" security problems facing the Philippines agreed the battle with China should continue to be fought on two diplomatic fronts - through dialogue with China and with international help. Modernization of the Philippines Armed Forces is again on the agenda. To demonstrate its displeasure with China, the Philippines postponed a planned visit by President Estrada to Beijing in April 1999 while keeping in place his visits to Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. President Estrada did make the trip to Beijing, in May 2000, but the two governments were able to agree on little more than a pledge to resolve the Mischief and Scarborough disputes peacefully.

Because the Philippines does not have the resources to modernize its air and naval forces to a level that they can credibly match a future Chinese show of force, it has pressed for third party arbitration, including mediation by the United States. Indeed, much to China's dismay, the Philippines argues that a U.S. presence in the region would serve as a deterrent to China. The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) signed between the Philippines and the United States could serve that purpose. Among other things, the VFA allows the militaries of the two countries to resume major military exercises, combined training, and ship visits. The impasse Manila ran into with Beijing in resolving the territorial dispute, including clashes between Philippine maritime patrol forces and Chinese fishermen operating in the disputed waters, contributed to the passage of the VFA in the Philippine Senate in May 1999. In January 2000, the United States and the Philippines did launch a joint military exercise in waters close to the disputed Spratly islands. Some in the Philippine media interpreted the exercise as a revelation of U.S. commitment to Philippine security. But the weakness of the Philippine armed forces is only part of the explanation for the lack of a more forceful response from the Philippines vis-a-vis China. The Philippines also suffers from a lack of coherent leadership in its China policymaking.

Sellout
The Manila headlines about yet unverified reports of alleged “sellout” by the Philippines to China of our country’s territorial claim over the disputed Spratlys islands unsettled some think-tank groups in the United States. The influential US-ASEAN Business Council raised this issue with Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap while he was in Washington DC along with Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes as official representatives of the Philippines to the 3rd Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC). Such concern was expressed in very clear terms by US-ASEAN Business Council president Matthew Daley who was formerly the deputy assistant secretary for East-Asia Affairs of the US State Department.

“There’s concern on external issue about Philippines and China’s attitude regarding maritime boundary as it impacts on oil exploration. It affects Vietnam more directly but also affects the rest of the countries in this region,” Daley pointed out. The US-ASEAN Business Council president noted that “Chinese talks with major oil companies discourage them from exploring natural resources in the area because other governments feel that exploiting resources should also include them.” Aside from Vietnam, Daley added, this issue is also “to affect Indonesia beyond Spratlys.”

Daley informed Yap that the reported joint exploration and development of resources in South China Sea between the Philippines and China raised concerns from other claimants like Vietnam which were not made part of this undertaking, to look at it with suspicions. Obviously trying to couch his words with diplomatese, Daley echoed this concern as “directly affecting Vietnam” where most US-ASEAN Business Council members, composed of the biggest and largest American multinational companies operating in the region, are shifting or have already shifted to this country several decades after the US-Vietnam war in the 1960s.

Detained military rebel leader-turned opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV succeeded to a certain degree to draw the US into the NBN-ZTE brouhaha by bringing out the bogey of Spratlys, playing the China card to the Americans. The neophyte opposition Senator filed a resolution based on unnamed sources that raised allegations in media about the Spratlys “sellout” by President Arroyo in her approval of bilateral agreement with China involving as much as $1.3 billion worth of official development assistance (ODA) package that included the NBN-ZTE contract.

Based on media reports, Trillanes asked his colleagues in the Senate to look into the allegations where the Philippine government supposedly agreed to this loan package offered by China in exchange for our country’s giving up territorial claims over the Spratlys. This agreement, the anti-Arroyo Senator charged, is already being implemented in the guise of a joint seismic development agreement between the Philippines and China in the exploration for oil and natural gas deposits around the Spratlys.

Opposition Rep. Roilo Golez earlier called attention to an article in the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review criticizing the agreement as a “sell-out” on the part of the Philippines. The article was written by Barry Wain, a researcher in the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Wain claimed that the agreement gave legitimacy to China’s claim to most of the South China Sea. He said the Philippines, being “militarily weak and lagging economically, has opted for Chinese favors at the expense of ASEAN political solidarity.”

He said the agreement violated the spirit of the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of the Conduct of Parties as it was concluded without consultation with other countries claiming the Spratlys. He noted that Vietnam initially objected to the agreement, forcing the Philippines and China to include it in the joint exploration project in 2005.

According to Golez, oil exploration companies have estimated that the Spratlys hold about 200 billion barrels of oil worth $20 trillion at present prices.

Meanwhile, the bill defining our territory to comply with UNCLOS deadline in May 2009 is hanging in limbo, paralyzed by an unsigned Chinese note received by the Philippine Embassy in Beijing.

UNCLOS contains mechanisms to aid in the settlement of the Spratlys conflicting claims.

Articles74 and 83 says that when there is disagreement concerning the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone (art74) or continental shelf (art83) the states must try to reach an agreement under art 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Parties to the Law of the Sea are obligated to accept arbitration of their maritime disputes under Part XV of the Convention.

Another non-violent method recently tried successfully is joint development, as the precedent set by Thailand and Malaysia for the joint development of natural resources in areas where their territorial waters overlap. Other approaches are the agreement between Germany and the Netherlands in the Ems-Dollart Treaty of 1960 for joint development of gas and oil reserves in the estuary of the Ems River, and the agreement between Japan and South Korea to jointly develop the continental shelf between the two countries.

If an amicable solution to the conflicting Spratlys and Paracels claims are not done, the Thucidides solution will result – the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

Mischief on Mischief Reef, Part 1

2008-03-09T14:48:00.000+08:00

Mischief on Mischief Reef, Part 1

The relentless persistence of the Senate hearings to uncover massive corruption bared by the National Broadband Network is now on the trail of the Chinese offer of liberal loans as bait for ambitious administration projects. Being bruited is an amount of $8 Billion, large enough to strike deep suspicion among political outsiders. One of the ongoing projects became a done deal allegedly with a string attached – a joint Phi-Sino oil exploration in the Spratlys Islands, which is now the focus of the next Senate probe.
Flashback to 1998 when I wrote an article titled Mischief on Mischief Reef excerpted below.
Mischief on Mischief Reef I
In early November of centennial year 1998, national newspapers bannered head- lines about another Sino invasion -- not the steady stream thru airports -- but by sea. According to the media, the Chinese are again causing mischief in their lake called the South China Sea on an atoll named Mischief Reef where tie Sinos have expanded their fisherman's barracks. The reef is part of the Spratly Island group (the Chinese call it Nansha) and one of the several claimed by the Philippines.
The hoopla stems from President Estrada's response to the intrusion, blurting out that he ordered a blockade which would block the entry and exit of the interlopers. As expected, the Foreign Affairs Secretary and the presidential spokesman quietly stepped forward to explain the meaning of the order as merely “intensified surveillance and monitoring” and that the international law doctrine of innocent passage will be respected. The officials went on to declare that there was no intent to assume a posture of confrontation and that we will conform to a policy of diplomacy to address the issue.
This sane course of action is certainly reassuring given the well known disparity of military strengths between ours and China.
Should we expect some support from ASEAN? Not with Malaysia's Mahatir peeved with Erap on the Anwar issue and the move to revive the Sabah claim. Not with Vietnam still licking the wounds inflicted by China when their Navies clashed over the disputed islands in 1998. And the other ASEAN states are engrossed in their own security problems.
How about good old U.S.A.? Not when this superpower is courting the vote of China, a fellow permanent member of the UN Security Council, on two hot raging issues --- the latest Iraqi defiance and the Serbia-NATO standoff. And our lukewarm handling of the VFA would certainly not invite support. In the eyes of America, the Mischief Reef matter would be scoffed at as just a storm in a teacup.

So it boils down to a one on one affair in the event of a confrontation. It is now apparent that our government has presumed the fisherman’s shelterto be of military nature, not the innocent structures the Chinese want us to believe. And this raises the chances of dangerous confrontation, as it could easily turn into a skirmish and exchange of gunfire by just one hothead with a nervous trigger finger on either side. Setting strict rules of engagement such as keeping approach limits by patrols, or of no-provocation orders would not ensure that unwanted incidents won’t occur.
During one of the TV newscasts of ABS-CBN on the Spratlys I was astonished to spot what looked like a familiar navy vessel, a minesweeper that was among the several patrol craft I commanded as a young naval officer. The venerable vessel was vintage World War II, a second-hand gift from the U.S. Navy to its poor protégé the Philippine Navy (PN). If this is one of the 13 patrol craft listed by ABS-CBN as part of the PN fleet, I can understand the dire need for modernization.
Next, I looked up the numbers on the opposing sides. These were the odds, circa 1995 (based on the book “The Military Balance1994-1995, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London*):
* CHINA
Total Armed Forces (PLA) --- 2,930,000 active
1,200,000 reserve
Navy: 260,000 men with 18 destroyers, 37 frigates, 370 patrol craft, 217 missile craft, 160 torpedo boats, 121 minesweepers/layers51 amphibious craft, 164 support craft, 25 bombers, 130 torpedo bombers, 600 fighter planes, 68 helicopters, 50 submarines, and scores of missiles and rockets including modified Exocet missiles (the weapon an Argentine plane used in the Falkland War to sink a British Destroyer), plus outposts in the Paracels and Spratlys.
Airforce: 470,000 men, 120 medium bombers (some nuclear capable), 350 light bombers, 500 FGAs, 4,000 fighter jets, 600 transport aircraft, 400 helicopters.
Strategic Missile Forces: 90,000 Strategic Rocket units, 14 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, 60 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (nuclear capability assumed).
The 1992 military budget of China was officially $6.8 Billion but that figure vastly understates real military spending because it does not include capital expenditures, research and development, and procurement of weapons. The budget is increased about 14% each year, supported by a phenomenal economic growth rate of 10% over the last decade or so. The economic boom and a $13 Billion annual trade surplus bolstered military shopping missions to places like former enemy Russia for tanks, ships, weapons and an aircraft carrier from Ukraine.

PHILIPPINES
Total Armed Forces --- 106,000 active
131,000 reserves
Navy: 23,000 men(including 8,500 Marines), one frigate (ex USS Cannon), 58 patrol craft, 11 support craft, 35 inshore craft, one Islander and 8 Defender aircraft. (Note: These figures are now split between the Navy and Coast Guard after the latter was demilitarized and transferred to the Department of Transportation and Communications. Three used patrol boats were bought in 1997 from Hong Kong at a cost of $12.3 million – ODG)
Airforce: 15,500 men, a squadron of 7F-5s, four squadrons COIN aircraft, three helicopter squadrons of Bell and Hueys (C-130s not listed)

Obviously, the disparity in forces does not encourage saber-rattling on our part and prudence urges a tactical advance to the rear.
Lately, Foreign Affairs Secretary Siason made public his assessment that China has a grand design to dominate the Pacific (reminiscent of Japan’s East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of World War II), although he did not give specifics and the basis for such a conclusion. Now comes a Congressman, a former Navy Captain and US Naval Academy graduate, claiming he has knowledge of a study published in a British Royal Navy paper that supports the view that the structures are the initial steps to a military take-over and de facto jurisdiction of the Spratlys.
The solon’s information, if true, lends credence to the grand design theory and coincides with the assessment in early 1990’s of Asia-watchers who studied the geopolitics of the region and finding China’s expansionary moves do show a pattern for a grand design. Tibet, HongKong, Paracels, all gobbled in the Dragon’s maw, and very soon, Macau. Maybe even Spratlys and Taiwan.
A Chinese law passed in February 25, 1992 spells out the Chinese concept of extended sovereignity, reasserting claims in the South China Sea. The Law described its “territorial sea and contiguous zones” claimed the Spratlys (Nansha), the Paracels (Xisha)the Pescadores (Penghu)which lies between China and Taiwan, Pratas bank (Zungsha), and surrounding waters and airspace, and stipulates that China reserves the right to use force to defend the areas. This clearly challenges UNCLOS which China has not ratified by August 1995.
In 1974 a Chinese naval force ejected a South Vietnamese garrison from the Paracel Islands some 400 km. south of the island province of Hainan, the southernmost point of China proper. Expanding further south, China then sunk 3 Vietnamese boats, killed 72 Vietnamese and took 6 islands in March 1988 in the Spratlys, about 400 km. south of the Paracels.
The Spratlys, a mix of islets, atolls and shoals, begin 402 km. off Southern Vietnam and end 169 km. north of Borneo. The area is believed to hold huge reserves of gas and oil, a factor in the territorial claims of the 6 remaining nations, (China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines) France, Britain and Japan having dropped their claims long ago. China and Vietnam are presently drilling for gas and oil, and the Philippines is about to drill for gas. All claimants except Brunei maintain garrisons: Vietnam 20 islands, Philippines 8, Malaysia 3, Taiwan 1, China 6 plus.
Just how firm is our claim to justify the flexing of muscles (or rattling our balisongs, if you will) over territory that is almost constantly under water and in which only corals grow?
Note the carefully couched statements of Foreign Affairs Secretary Siason referring to the area as “within the exclusive economic zone” of the Philippines as defined by UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). But there seems to be a complication --- it appears we have yet to set our baselines.
In August 1996 an Australian professor and maritime expert broached the call for setting baselines. “The baselines will not determine or resolve any territorial disputes. So the Philippines can unilaterally declare the baselines because it is its right as it also claims Kalayaan Islands. I do think it is important if you finalize your baselines. As much as it is easier to criticize the Chinese over their drawn baselines in the Paracels, I urge you to make your archipelagic baselines within the rules.” He further stated the baselines can be drawn and not immediately including Sabah without prejudicing its claim on the territory.
But in February 1997, Secretary Siason warned that revising the country’s baselines to include the Spratly Islands would be a “dangerous move”, adding “unnecessary headaches would be created.” The warning was a riposte to the calls for baseline revision. To clinch his point, “you can … it is possible kung kaya mo. You can always draw the line, but do you have the resources to protect it?”
Still later, former Comelec Commissioner Haydee Yorac in her 1998 senatorial bid vowed to institute reforms in protecting the maritime interests of the country, explaining that the Philippines, an archipelagic state, “ has no clear policy about this. What is more alarming is the fact that we have not even established base points and base lines. So our maritime zones are open to challenges from neighboring countries, as in the case of the claims of other countries on the disputed Spratly Islands.”
And note what legal giant and Constitution expert J.C. Bernas says on national territory: … “In fact, you don’t establish jurisdiction over a piece of territory by claiming it in a solemnly enacted statute or even in the Constitution. Recognition of territorial rights is a matter of international law. Our Constitution and our statutes are municipal laws that bind only ourselves. Even a clear and unequivocal claim made in the Constitution or in statutes does not establish a rightthat other countries recognize. And a claim not universally recognized will always be precarious.”
Included in the opinion is an allusion to the metes and bounds of our territory defined by the 1898 Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-American war, in indirect reply to the grumbling over the loss of 230,000 square miles of “Treaty” territorial sea when we ratified UNCLOS and embraced the exclusive economic zone concept.
Asked to explain the activities at the structures, the Chinese ambassador said, “These are purely fishermen’s shelters undergoing repairs and rehabilitation.” Left unsaid was the dictum that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that the shelters will be permanent (in their possession), even if we are naïve enough to accept the “share and develop” offer, making us tenants in a place we claim to be ours.
So, the frenzy in top level officialdom has not abated, stirred somewhat by a few sectors of media which use unfortunate language such as “the nation being on a war footing.”
The whole episode poses grim and pernicious ramifications. If it ever develops into a shooting, high intensity conflict, we could face the terrible aspect of seeing the cream of our youth, the ROTC, sent into battle ---as cannon fodder, an utterly unacceptable culmination of the mischief on Mischief Reef.

Smoking doesn't make you happy.

2008-03-09T07:02:00.000+08:00

Smoking doesn't make you happy.

Smokers who claim that smoking is one of the few pleasures left to them should think again. Extensive research carried out by Dr Iain Lang at the Peninsula Medical School in

England

looked at the relationship between smoking and psychological wellbeing.

Said Dr. Lang: "We found no evidence to support the claim that smoking is associated with pleasure, either in people from lower socio-economic groups or in the general population." In short -- smoking doesn't make you happy.

Some countries set No Smoking Day on 12th March hoping to persuade smokers to quit as a patriotic gesture and sacrifice (by stopping production of harmful second-hand smoke). Here are some of the tips.

A Quit Smoking Diet?

Can what you eat help you give up smoking?

Yes, according to Duke University psychologist F. Joseph McClernon. Based at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Research, McClernon “… kept hearing smokers say that certain foods and beverages made their cigarettes taste much better.” He began to wonder exactly which foods these were — and whether any foods made smoking a worse experience.”

Which, of course, got him thinking about the connection between foods and smoking. He enlisted 209 long term smokers (who smoked at least a pack a day for at least 21 years) and had them list the foods that seemed to enhance the smoking experience and the foods that seemed to worsened the smoking experience.

The results…

70% of the participants found that meat, alcohol, and caffeinated beverages appeared to make cigarettes taste better.

But for 45% of the participants, foods such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and beverages such as water, juice, and non caffeinated drinks appeared to make their cigarettes taste worse.

What this means…

So what do the smokers out there think?

Have you tried diet modification in your quit smoking campaign ?

Overlooked Reasons to Quit Smoking

If you need more incentive to quit smoking, here are some reasons that you may not know about.

You know smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease, but you're still lighting up. To help you get on the wagon, following is a compiled list of little known ways your life can go up in smoke if you don't kick the habit.

From an increased risk of blindness to a faster decline in mental function, here are 10 compelling -- and often surprising -- reasons to stick to your commitment.

Alzheimer's Disease: Smoking Speeds Up Mental Decline

SIDS: Maternal Smoking Doubles Risk

Colic: Smoking Makes Babies Irritable, Too

An Increased Risk of Impotence

Blindness: Smoking Raises Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Genetically Vulnerable Smokers Increase Their Risk Even More

Snoring: Even Living With a Smoker Raises Risk

Acid Reflux: Heavy Smoking Linked to Heartburn

Breast Cancer: Active Smoking Plays Bigger Role Than Thought

If those top 10 reasons weren't enough to motivate you to quit smoking, keep this in mind:

Smoking is linked to certain colon cancers.

Smoking may increase the risk of depression in young people,

Some studies have linked smoking to thyroid disease.

How Cigarette Smoke Causes Cancer: Study Points To New Treatments, Safer Tobacco (adopted fromScienceDaily (Mar. 2008) —

Everyone has known for decades that that smoking can kill, but until now no one really understood how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, show that hydrogen peroxide (or similar oxidants) in cigarette smoke is the culprit. This finding may help the tobacco industry develop "safer" cigarettes by eliminating such substances in the smoke, while giving medical researchers a new avenue to developing lung cancer treatments.

With the five-year survival rate for people with lung cancer at a dismally low 15.5 percent, the study will provide better insight into the identification of new therapeutic targets.

In the research study, researchers describe how they exposed different sets of human lung airway cells (in the laboratory) to cigarette smoke and hydrogen peroxide. After exposure, these cells were then incubated for one to two days. Then they, along with unexposed airway cells, were assessed for signs of cancer development. The cells exposed to cigarettes smoke and the cells exposed to hydrogen peroxide showed the same molecular signatures of cancer development, while the unexposed cells did not.

"Guns kill, bombs kill and cigarettes kill," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "While biologists can't do much about the first two, studies like this will help in the fight against tobacco-related death and disease. These experiments not only pin-point new molecular targets for cancer treatment, but also identify culprits in cigarette smoke that eventually will do the smoker in."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States, resulting in more than 400,000 deaths per year or about 1 in 5 U.S. deaths overall. Smoking accounts for the vast majority of lung cancer deaths, causing 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in men and about 80 percent in women. In 2000, a Surgeon General report revealed that tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, with 43 being known carcinogens. Some of the 4,000 compounds result from chemicals added in processing to improve taste, increase burning times, and prolong shelf life.

This research is published in the March 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal.

Certain Vitamin Supplements May Increase Lung Cancer Risk, Especially In Smokers

Vitamin supplements do not protect against lung cancer, according to a study of more than 77,000 vitamin users. In fact, some supplements may even increase the risk of developing it. A study of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate did not show any evidence for a decreased risk of lung cancer, wrote the study's author "Indeed, increasing intake of supplemental vitamin E was associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer." he said.

Researchers selected a prospective cohort of 77,126 men and women between 50 and 76 years of age in the VITAL (VITamins And Lifestyle) study, and determined their rate of developing lung cancer over four years with respect to their current and past vitamin usage, smoking, and other demographic and medical characteristics.

Of the original cohort, 521 developed lung cancer, the expected rate for a low-risk cohort such as VITAL. But among those who developed lung cancer, in addition to the unsurprising associations with smoking history, family history, and age, there was a slight but significant association between use of supplemental vitamin E and lung cancer.

In contrast to the often assumed benefits or at least lack of harm, supplemental vitamin E was associated with a small increased risk of lung cancer. The increased risk was most prominent in current smokers.

The idea that vitamin supplements are healthy, or at the very least, do no harm, comes from the desire of many people to mimic the benefits of a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables with a convenient pill. However, fruits contain not only vitamins but also many hundreds of other phytochemical compounds whose functions are not well understood.

The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Cancer Society recommend two servings of fruit each day, based on a study that previously found a 20 percent increase in cancer risk among people who ate the least amount of fruit. This recommendation would likely lead to a reduced risk for lung cancer, as well as reduced risk of several other cancers and cardiovascular disease However, any benefit to the population of smokers from increasing fruit intake to reduce cancer risk by 20 percent would be more than offset if even a small proportion of smokers decided to continue tobacco use in favor of such a diet change.

These findings have broad public health implications, given the large population of current and former smokers and the widespread use of vitamin supplements. Future studies may focus on other components of fruits and vegetables that may explain the decreased risk [of cancer] that has been associated with fruits and vegetables.

Big brains payrolled by Big Tobacco

16 February 2008

Jim Giles writing in Magazine issue 2643:

IT IS well known that when the dangers of smoking became increasingly obvious in the 1950s, tobacco companies funded scientific research aimed at downplaying the risks. Now, a little-known strand of that campaign, aimed at giving an intellectual gloss to pro-smoking arguments, has been detailed for the first time.

In an attempt to win hearts and minds, the tobacco companies bankrolled a network of economists, philosophers and sociologists. Documents newly scrutinized by academics reveal that members of the network generated extensive media coverage and numerous academic articles - with almost no mention that the work had been paid for by cigarette manufacturers.

The perverse prosperity of the tobacco industry

Incredibly, the financial health of tobacco companies continues to improve as the physical health of its customers continues to decline. Last week, analysts at the bank, J P Morgan, reported that tobacco had consistently outperformed the

and European market since 1973 and that they saw no reason for this trend to change. And this despite all the assaults against the tobacco industry over the past few decades: first, lawsuits and then the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), WHO's first treaty, which was adopted in 2005 and has been signed by 168 countries to date.

Such attacks on the industry continue thick and fast. In Florida, US tobacco companies were deluged with thousands of new lawsuits before the deadline imposed by the Florida Supreme Court for filing individual claims after last year's decision to overturn a US$145 billion class action punitive award. And the Nigerian Government is currently suing three tobacco companies—British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, and International Tobacco—for $44 billion after accusing them of deliberately promoting smoking to young Nigerians.

The Lancet Chronic Diseases Series showed that 5·5 million deaths could be avoided in 23 countries if the four elements of the FCTC—increased taxes on tobacco products; enforcement of smoke-free work places; packaging, labels, and public awareness campaigns about the health risks of smoking; and a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising—were implemented.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken a stand against investing in tobacco companies, describing such enterprises as “egregious”. Other investors should follow their example. And WHO should make better use of the most effective weapon it has against the tobacco industry—the FCTC. Countries that have not signed and ratified the FCTC, such as America and Italy, should do so and all member states should make the implementation of the four key elements of the FCTC an urgent priority. Tobacco companies must not be allowed to continue to profit from the massive amount of mortality, morbidity, and misery they cause. We look forward to the time when J P Morgan advises investors to “sell, sell, sell” The Lancet 26 January 2008

Teaming up for tobacco control

Last week, two billionaires—Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg—announced their latest plan for spending some of their vast fortunes. The pair, through their respective charitable organisations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, will contribute a combined total of US$500 million to global tobacco-control programmes.

This is not the first time that Bloomberg, who led New York City's successful anti-smoking legislation in 2002, has contributed his own money to anti-tobacco efforts. In 2005, he set up Bloomberg's Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use with $125 million, and his foundation helped fund WHO's Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008. That report culminated in the MPOWER package, a group of evidence-based strategies for tobacco control. (The acronym stands for: Monitor tobacco use and policies; Protect people from second-hand smoke; Offer help to quit; Warn about the dangers of tobacco; Enforce bans on advertising, promotion, and tobacco company sponsorship; and Raise taxes on tobacco products.) Bloomberg will now make a further donation of $250 million, to be used over 4 years. The Gates' contribution is $125 million over 5 years, of which $24 million is designated as a grant to the Bloomberg Initiative. These investments are modest when set against the net worth of the two funders, but the amount vastly exceeds what is now being spent on tobacco control in low-income and middle-income countries. According to the 2008 WHO report, such spending comes to less than half a penny per person per year—against tobacco tax revenues of nearly $66 million. Read more ...

THE NOSE KNOWS

2008-03-07T19:52:00.000+08:00

THE NOSE KNOWS

The stinking fuss about stench in two city barangays (formerly barrio, in Spanish) reminds me of an anecdotal court case whose outcome swung on the testimony of an expert witness. The prosecution witness had a reputed ability to distinguish odors of a wide range of chemicals and substances. He was to identify and pinpoint the source of the foul and obnoxious odors permeating a certain locality.

The wily defense team neutralized the expert’s testimony with simple cunning. Asked to identify two common liquids contained in separate receptacles, the expert sniffed the first substance proffered and promptly identified it as gasoline, but thereafter failed to identify the second. The defense had deadened his sense of smell with the first whiff. Chicanery may win court cases, but firms polluting the air with repulsive vapors emanating from putrid wastes and effluents to save costs cannot mask or neutralize the wafting stink.

Household deodorants being marketed do not really remove odors as ads imply, but merely mask the unwanted odor with a stronger aroma. There are three basic ways to get rid of undesirable odors: masking them with stronger scents, such as the ubiquitous lemon and pine fragrances; chemically dissolving or absorbing them with activated charcoal, baking soda or silica gel; and numbing out the nose. In the past, air-freshener products in the last category used formaldehyde or its solid version, paraformaldehyde, which is known as both poisonous and carcinogenic. The Monsanto company later developed a somewhat less lethal nasal anesthetic (the precise formulation is secret), which has since been incorporated into some air-fresheners along with the usual masking fragrances.

Some firms deny making use of a nasal anesthetic, saying that their products employ a combination of masking fragrances and odor counteractants which is curiously, the similar-sounding term malodor counteractant used in scientific journals, a code word for nasal anesthetic.

SENSE OF SMELL

The sense of smell is a potent means of animal communication. Many animal species emit smell signals called pheromones for luring mates, marking territory, deceiving enemies, or detecting prey and predators.

Compared to animals, humans are poor sniffers. The rabbit has 100 million cells in its nose used for smelling, and German shepherd dogs have 200 million, 44 times the number that humans possess. The intense sniffing ability of dogs (canines or its militarized homophone K-9) is employed by police to sniff and detect contraband drugs and explosives or track fugitives or lost children. A late news item carried the story of Scooby, an ace sniffer dog about to retire. The 7-year-old Labrador was so successful that drug dealers took out a contract on his life and that of his owner.

Late news (March 2008): Wine Taster's Nose Insured for Millions. His schnoz is not to be sniffed at. The nose of leading European winemaker and taster Ilja Gort has been insured for euro5 million ($8 million), Lloyd's of London said. Gort, 47, said his nose is essential for him to produce top quality wines at his Chateau de la Garde vineyard in the famous Bordeaux region of France, so he got it insured. The custom-made policy covers Gort for the loss of either his nose or his sense of smell and has some unusual conditions.

The insurance contract includes a list of what Gort considers "old-fashioned rules" to protect his nose. The Dutchman is not allowed to ride a motorcycle or be a boxer, knife thrower's assistant or a fire-breather. "I may not fight against Mike Tyson," Gort said.

To humans, a chemical compound to possess an odor must pass into the nasal cavity, directly above which are olfactory bulbs with projecting hair (tiny nerve fibers) that receive smell impulses and relay them to the brain. The exact mechanism is not known. One theory is that the aromatic molecules dissolve in the fluid of the cavity lining and bathe the sensory cells. Another is that gas comes into direct contact with the sub-microscopic cell hairs that penetrate the mucous layer.

The ability to smell a particular substance depends on the concentration of its presence in the air. Higher temperatures and moisture intensifies the smell. Thresholds of detection for different substances vary. For example, expressed in milligrams per thousand cubic meters, for a large room of 35,000 cubic feet in volume are:

feces (skatole) is 0.0004,

rotten cabbage (mercaptan) is 0.04,

rancid butter (butyric acid) is 1.0.

Malodorous mercaptan, considered the worst odor ever compounded, was at one time added to cooking gas to give warning of dangerous leaks. This practice was discontinued when odorous liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in cylinders was marketed.

The paucity of odor words in the vocabulary of most languages is obvious when attempting to describe a scent. A redolent thing assumes the bouquet of a flower or fruit, such as jasmine, rose, orange, lemon, apple, vanilla, and vulgar terms for substances reeking obnoxious odors: rotten egg, fishy, flatus.

Though many aromas are described in terms of fruit scent, there is one fruit that defies description with widely divergent and passionate views expressed, ranging from highly appreciative to deep disgust. The durian fruit that grows in Southeast Asia’s equatorial belt, (the Sulu archipelago in the Philippines) has a flavor and aroma that elicits the full spectrum of odor: cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, pig-shit, turpentine and onions garnished with a gym sock, French custard passed through a sewer. These are the kind words. The aroma of the fruit is so powerful it is forbidden in tourist areas and in public transport of many countries.

Odors often attain meanings that noses cannot sense. Fishy means an article or action that is questionable or suspicious. Stink is a public outcry over something offensive. And if something “stinks to high heavens”, the scope of suspicion becomes enormous, blatant, and flagrant.

CHEMISTRY MAGIC

Modern chemistry has made great strides in two fields affecting human lives: in food flavors and in perfumes and aromatics. Analysis of chemical components of the aromatics in foods and botanical fragrances enabled chemists to synthesize chemicals mimicking the scent of practically all flavors and fragrances.

In food labs, essential oils of various foods can be duplicated – alcohols (menthol), aldehydes (cinnamon), esters (lavender), ethers (aniseed), ketones (dill), phenols (cloves). These synthetics are now routinely added to natural products as blend or augmentation, and even to replace entirely as imitation.

The other field of fragrance magic is in perfumes, a word derived from Latin per fumus (through smoke). If wild animals have their pheromones, sophisticated man, or more aptly, alluring woman, has perfume as lure.

The art of perfumery is traced as far back as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Its history mentions the scents of Cleopatra, the frankincense and myrrh of the three Magi bringing gifts to the babe in Bethlehem, and both Napoleon and Josephine are known fanciers.

The perfume business has spread to practically all countries as ingredient suppliers or as users of colognes and eau de toilette. A good perfume is said to have 10 to 50 ingredients blended from natural oils, synthetics (aromatic chemicals), and fixatives to bind the mixture. Animal fixatives, whose purpose is to slow down the evaporation of the more volatile oils, includes ambergris from whales, musk from musk deer and civet from wildcats. The fragrance of ylang-ylang is the Philippine contribution, said to be an ingredient of renowned perfumes made by Yves St. Laurent.

There are five standard methods of capturing essences from nature: distillation, expression, maceration, enfleurage, and volatile solvents process. But there are fragrances such as the lily and lilac that cannot successfully be made to yield their natural oils. Modern chemistry intervened, first probing the composition of natural fragrances and eventually compounding substances resembling those of nature. One such chemical was used in a popular brand: Chanel no. 5.

The creation of a good perfume is finally the result of the artistry of a master perfumer blending by trial and error for as long as a year, and adding such ethereal qualities as appeal, taste, originality, and theme.

An amusing story was in the news recently. A cheap imitation fragrance named Viagra, a concoction of ingredients that even its owner does not know, has been sued by the makers of the popular drug with that patented name. Some people just do not accept the saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Despite the huge market of fragrances in the food and perfume fields, they share a miniscule one-fifth of total manufacture. Most are used to scent consumer goods such as medicinal ointments and unguents, detergents, and even cars to provide the illusion of freshness.

AROMATHERAPY

Aromatherapy is the practice of using volatile plant oils, including essential oils, for psychological and physical well-being. Perfume oils are not the same as essential oils. Perfume oils and fragrances contain chemicals that do not provide the claimed therapeutic benefits of essential oils.

The modes of application of aromatherapy, predominantly topical applications for general massage, baths, compresses, therapeutic skin care, but also include aerial diffusion for environmental or aerial disinfection, direct inhalation for respiratory disinfection, decongestion, expectoration as well as psychological effects, and

oral, rectal, vaginal interfaces for infection, congestion, parasites, perfumery for body fragrancing, anointments

In the English-speaking world, practitioners tend to emphasize the use of oils in massage, and aromatherapy tends to be regarded as a complementary modality at best and a pseudoscientific fraud at worst.

One of the most comprehensive investigations done to date on aromatherapy failed to show any improvement in either immune status, wound healing or pain control among people exposed to two often-touted scents. While one of two popular aromas touted by alternative medicine practitioners – lemon – (also the favored scent for dishwashing liquid soap and deodorants) did appear to enhance moods positively among study subjects, the other – lavender – had no effect on reported mood, based on three psychological tests.

Neither lemon nor lavender showed any enhancement of the subjects’ immune status, nor did the compounds mitigate either pain or stress, based on a host of biochemical markers.

DOWNWIND OF SKATOLE

A favorite expletive of General “Bull” Schwarkoff (B.S.) of desert Storm fame was “bovine scatology”, abbreviated B.S. (commonly known as bullshit). His use of the term was military parlance, not in reference to odors. But whosoever gets downwind of skatole will surely get the urge to use an equally expressive civilian expression.

I once had a lively discussion with an agent of a food company who was trying to persuade our neighborhood to allow his company to set up shop nearby, on a lot that encroached into an area declared as a residential zone. His plea was based on the non-pollutive quality of the product (a food item) and the unobtrusive nature of the processing (repackaging).

The attempt to dialog was in itself extraordinary, in contrast to the habitual arrogance of firms contemptuous of community sensitivities. After his spiel, I asked a pointed question: if the product is organic and will therefore spoil, and spillage is unavoidable, what assurance can the company give that the sanitation and cleanup procedures will prevent putrification, considering the lack of a nearby public sewer for dumping their waste water? He has not returned with an answer.

The dialog may have averted a potential incompatibility conflict and discord similar to the furor caused in Barangays Gusa and Tablon. It was also a sign that public displeasure over effluvia has made business firms aware that they can no longer thumb their noses at public feelings. For whenever there is aroma waft in the air, be it from dung or lady fair, the nose knows.

WATER, fluid more precious than oil

2008-03-03T20:00:00.000+08:00

WATER, fluid more precious than oil

Chemically, water is a nearly universal solvent. Biologically, it is the dominant constituent of living matter. Physically, it is virtually the only common substance that occurs on our planet as gas, liquid and solid and so defines many of the characteristics of our world. A view of Earth’s surface from outer space is not earthen at all but watery.

Yet finding enough water is a difficult and divisive problem for our society. Most of us take water for granted until nature reminds us otherwise. The latest reminder was the delayed onset of the rains in mid-2007 in the northern Philippines that created such anxiety and panic that officials scrambled some planes skyward to cloud-seed salt. It abated the fears but produced little moisture. Nature, in this instance in the form of the seasonal Southwest Monsoon withheld the rain bearing clouds.

A water shortage is a frustrating problem. Decades of cloud-seeding studies in dry locations around the globe have only confirmed that there is very little meteorologists can do when nature stubbornly withholds rain. Those Air Force planes scattering dry ice or silver iodide calms public anxiety but little moisture to wet the earth. Engineers build dams to collect water or levees to contain overflowing river banks but can’t make one drop of water grow into two.

Water sustains life, not only to the human species but also other organisms that cause illness to humans. Water borne diseases, most commonly diarrhea and typhoid, are caused by water contaminated accidentally or by carelessness. Circulating in nature’s hydrologic cycle (cloud-rain-surface or ground water) the fluid is abiotic but is compromised by man-made devices or pollution.

Clean water plays another role in human health: hygiene.

Q & A:Men are supposed to wash their hands after urination?

A Harvard man and a Yale man are at the urinal. They finish, zip up, then the Harvard man proceeds to the sink to wash his hands, while the Yale man immediately makes for the exit. The Harvard man says, "At Hah-vahd they teach us to wash our hands after we urinate."

The Yale man replies, "At Yale they teach us not to piss on our hands."

Question: why is it customary for males to wash their hands after urination? I bathe daily and wear fresh underpants, so how does my penis get dirty? It's not like I dig a ditch with it. However, my hands might get dirty from daily activities. Is it not more sensible then to wash my hands before touching my clean penis? Is post urination hand washing a throwback to the bad old days, when sex was "dirty" and so, by extension, were sex organs?

Answer: Good joke; common (but stupid) attitude; rank (but important) topic. Some facts:

The purpose of washing is not to get pee off your hands.

No amount of washing will make you clean.

Your boxer-shorts region--from belly button to mid-thigh--is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria. These bacteria originated in your intestine, and some of them are deadly. Recall the punji stakes, sharpened sticks that the Vietcong concealed point up along trails and daubed with excrement. Stepping on one, you had a good chance of contracting a fatal infection. Similarly, an otherwise not-so-serious gunshot or knife injury could kill you if it perforated the intestine and allowed coliform bacteria to spread around your abdomen.

What you may not know is that washing will not make the coliform bacteria go away. They're holed up in the pores of your skin and nothing short of sandblasting--certainly not your morning shower--is going to get them out. Showering merely gets rid of the ones that have strayed onto the surface. The bacteria won't do much harm if they stay put, but when you urinate your fingers come in contact with Mister P. long enough for the coliform bacteria in your pores to hop aboard. Your fingers subsequently touch lots of other infectible items. If you don't wash your hands with soap and water (soap gets rid of the skin oil that the bacteria stick to). . .

It now dawns on you: jeez, if merely touching my privates is enough to transmit bacteria, it doesn't matter if I pee or not! Urine is actually fairly sterile. There are reports of it being used during wartime in poor countries as a sort of battlefield disinfectant. The lesson to draw from this, however, is not that you can go forth dripping, but rather that just because you didn't pee on your fingers doesn't mean you can skip washing up.

Washing Hands Best

The largest, most comprehensive study ever done comparing the effectiveness of hand hygiene products shows that nothing works better in getting rid of disease-causing viruses than simply washing one’s hands with good old-fashioned soap and water.

Among the viruses soapy hand washing flushes down the drain is the one that causes the common cold. Other removable viruses cause hepatitis A, acute gastroenteritis and a host of other illnesses. A separate key finding was that waterless handwipes only removed roughly 50 percent of bacteria from volunteer subjects’ hands.

"We studied the efficacy of 14 different hand hygiene agents in reducing bacteria and viruses from the hands. No other studies have measured the effectiveness in removing both bacteria and viruses at the same time." said a public health epidemiologist with the University of North Carolina Health Care System and the UNC School of Public Health.

For the first time, too, the UNC researchers tested what happened when people cleaned their hands for only 10 seconds. That represented the average length of time researchers observed busy health-care personnel washing or otherwise disinfecting their hands at work. Previous studies have had people clean their hands for 30 seconds or so, but that’s not what health-care workers usually do in practice, and the study wanted to test the products under realistic conditions.

Anti-microbial agents were best at reducing bacteria on hands, but waterless, alcohol-based agents had variable and sometimes poor effects, becoming less effective after multiple washes. For removing viruses from the hands, physical removal with soap and water was most effective since some viruses are hardy and relatively resistant to disinfection.

A report on the findings appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Infection Control. Authors are professors of medicine and epidemiology at the UNC schools of medicine and public health; a professor of environmental sciences and engineering in public health; and medical technologist. A Duke University biostatistician, helped analyze the data.

"These findings are important because health-care associated infections rank in the top five causes of death, with an estimated 90,000 deaths each year in the United States," the author said. "Hand hygiene agents have been shown to reduce the incidence of health-care associated infections, and a variety of hand hygiene agents are now available with different active ingredients and application methods.

"Our study showed that the anti-microbial hand washing agents were significantly more effective in reducing bacteria than the alcohol-based handrubs and waterless handwipes," he said. "Our study also showed that, at a short exposure time of 10 seconds, all agents with the exception of handwipes demonstrated a 90 percent reduction of bacteria on the hands."

Alcohol-based handrubs were generally ineffective in demonstrating a significant reduction of a relatively resistant virus. While the use of alcohol-based handrubs will continue to be an important infection control measure, it is important to recommend or require traditional hand washing with soap and water throughout each day.

Researchers first had volunteers clean their hands and then contaminated their hands with Serratia marcescens, a harmless bacterium, and MS2 bacteriophage, a virus comparable to, and substituted for, disease-causing organisms. After that, scientists had the subjects clean their hands with various agents and measured how much of the bacteria and virus remained afterwards.

Adapted from materials from University Of North Carolina School Of Medicine.

winks and blinks

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