Political Squabble Takes a Back Seat

By Alex P. Vidal 

“Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.” —Winston Churchill

WE are glad no earthshaking political wrangling in the city and province of Iloilo took place these past months and weeks; and it appears year 2024 will bid farewell in a peaceful atmosphere for local politics.

With barely five months before the May 12, 2025 Philippine general election, the political heat is expected to heighten when the Yuletide season is gone.

Ilonggos may expect to hear some ear-piercing political fireworks when the biggest cultural and religious event, the 2025 Dinagyang Festival, will conclude in the fourth week of January.

Politicians angling for different local and national positions may be preserving their energy for the biggest dog fight to come beginning in the first quarter of 2025.

The “bombing-spree” among archrivals in the local positions is expected to blast off in the social and mainstream media, especially when the microphones of “blocktimers” (paid radio political programs) will start to go full throttle in the airwaves.

In politics, “there will always be storm after the calmness.”

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We have misgivings in the ongoing tumult whipped up by the proponents of “signature campaign” for the absolute clemency of Mary Jane Veloso launched in Baclaran, Paranaque on Dec. 23, 2024, or days after she arrived from Indonesia where she was meted the death penalty for drug trafficking in 2015.

Proponents of the signature campaign should have waited for the right time and refrain from putting pressure on Malacanang since most Filipinos believe President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will eventually grant the absolute clemency.

No need to rush. No need to pressure the government actually.

They should be glad that Veloso is already in the Philippines and safe from the firing squad in Indonesia.

Veloso had been sent home by the Indonesian government which granted a Philippine petition to allow Veloso to come home on the condition that she would serve a life sentence after years of negotiations.

Life sentence is the maximum penalty under the Philippine judicial system, because capital punishment has been abolished. The signatures will be sent directly to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. even as Veloso’s lawyers are pursuing a case against her recruiters for human trafficking

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SAINTHOOD. Nobody opposed the fast-tracking of Pope John Paul II’s sainthood in 2009. But the proposed fast-tracking of Pope Pius XII’s sainthood was met with criticism. Critics said Pope Pius XII “did nothing” when Hitler slaughtered six million Jews from 1939 to 1944.

NEW HPV THREAT. Human papillomavirus, or HPV, has long been linked to cervical cancer in women. New research in the journal Head & Neck reveals that in the United States, HPV may also be the most common cause of cancer of the tonsil and base of the tongue. The cancer is starting to appear more in younger men and in nonsmokers; the shift may be associated with high-risk behaviors.

TWILIGHT INSIGHT AND OUR YOUNGSTERS. Why are teens fascinated by these fanged creatures? “Vampires are alluring. They’re neither completely human nor dead; they don’t belong in either world. Teenagers identify with them because they often feel like outsiders, too, as they transition from childhood into adulthood,” says Dr. Kathy Ramsland, author of The Science of Vampires.

EASY ORGASM. Consider aiming compliment below the belt. Women who have a positive attitude about their genitals reach orgasm more easily during oral sex than women who don’t feel so hot about them, says a new study in the International Journal of Sexual Health.

A FAN WITH NO BLADES? It does away with spinning spokes. The machine sucks air into its base before forcing it up around the hoop and through narrow slits. To beef up the breeze, it sucks in extra air from the back, side and front of the fan. The advantage: even airflow, no blades to clean and an unlimited number of speed settings (most fans have only two or three modes).

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)