Halika 3.0

Spanish parliament passes gay marriage bill

Days after Canada’s parliament passed same-sex marriage legislation, Spanish lawmakers have voted to allow gays and lesbians to legally marry. [source]

It seems this is the only chess move Gloria knows. Read her sacrifice. Remember however, that her first gambit was no different from Miriam’s I lied, ha ha ha ha!

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Any damage-control would by now be worth multimillion dollars
Lapse in judgment

LET’S GET to know seven more new filmmakers who are screening their first full-length narrative movies at the Cinemalaya indie film fest starting July 12:

Michiko Yamamoto, a graduate of the Film Development Foundation’s Screenwriting Workshop, is best known as the writer of the much-awarded film, “Magnifico.” The inspiring drama’s screenplay won first prize in the 2001 FDFPI scriptwriting contest. She was then tapped to work for Viva and Star Cinema, as well as on some telenovelas, including the current hit, “Mga Anghel na Walang Langit.”

In her Cinemalaya film, “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros,” the purity of first love is pitted against the squalor and corruption of the big city.

Maxi, an adolescent gay, is slavishly devoted to his family of small-time criminals. He does all of the household chores, and also covers up for them so they won’t get caught.

His world revolves around them-until he meets Victor, a principled cop. Victor a better life. In the process, however, he earns the ire of Maxi’s family.

Emmanuel dela Cruz has won screenwriting and short film awards, and has worked on a number of TV shows. His film, “Sarong Banggi,” opens with a barkada of teenage boys in search of carnal pleasure.

One of them strikes up a conversation with an older woman. As the night grows deeper, so does their relationship. In the end, the teenager loses his virginity, and the mature woman rediscovers her vulnerability.

Michael Angelo P. Dagnalan has written scripts for television and directed a digital short feature. His film, “Isnats,” is about the effects of technology on Filipinos. A principal character is a snatcher and small-time pickpocket who meddles in drug-related activity, and finds himself way over his head.

Byron Bryant has worked in film and on TV. His film, “Baryoke,” shows how a sleepy village is turned upside-down by a videoke machine, which revives some women’s self-worth and enables them to overcome their repression.

Sigfried Barros-Sanchez has done extensive work in TV and film. He makes good use of this experience in his film, “Lasponggols,” which is about two lowly movie workers who trick the residents of a small town to bankroll the “big” film that they’re shooting.

Mario Cornejo and Coreen Jimenez’s film, “Big Time,” follows the misadventures of two small-time criminals who stage a simple kidnapping that escalates into three days of fun, games and death.

Support these new feature filmmakers’ first full-length films by watching them during the Cinemalaya indie film fest’s run at the CCP from July 12 to 17. Talent needs to be showcased and boosted in order to come into its own, and this is where we must all come in. [source]

THE DEVELOPMENT Bank of the Philippines-Data Center Inc. (DBM-DCI) recently launched a computer deployment project for Filipinos in the grassroots.

“Kompyuter sa Bawat Pilipino Movement” (KPM) aims to provide Filipinos from various economic sectors an opportunity to own a computer and use them to provide basic e-services.

The project is targeted at housewives, out-of-school youth, returning overseas workers, and other home-based Filipinos.

DCI Chief Operating Officer Andrew Martino Guitarte said the project aggregates several other government and private sector IT initiatives, one of them the People’s PC program maintained by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and Intel Philippines.

Guitarte said they have also partnered with a telecommunication carrier to provide the broadband connection, and another private firm that provides computer skills training, and would announce other partners soon.

Under the KPM project, Filipinos in target provinces can acquire a People’s PC unit with either a Wifi or WiMax connection as well as basic desktop functions. [source]

The National Computer Center (NCC) is about to begin developing a 60 million-peso online payment portal for government-related services.

The NCC has partnered with the Development Bank of the Philippines Data Center Inc. (DCI) as the financial institution for the e-Gov Payment Portal.

Recently, the DCI awarded Fujitsu Philippines the bid to develop the core payment system.

This payment gateway is expected to be available by February next year. It will be integrated with the Gov.ph portal where all government agencies are connected. [source]

If you are concerned with the use of non-sexist language, this is one way of looking at it:

Some careful writers use they when the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun (such as anyone) to avoid making a sexist assumption; however, many other people think this disagreement in number is an error. Rewrite to avoid it whenever possible.

Sexist:        If anyone was on top of things, he would know that.
Disagreement:  If anyone was on top of things, they would know that.
Rewritten: Anyone who was on top of things would know that.

[source]

Resty O. of ExpectoRANTS asked this question: Is the pronoun-antecedent agreement rule still valid?

I am asking the question because famous writers and literati I admire and respect are suddenly using sentence constructions that blatantly violate the rule.

An antecedent is, of course, the word that a pronoun refers to in a given sentence.

In the ff. sentence, “Everybody” is the antecedent being referred to by the pronoun “their.”

Everybody is having their own version of fun.

I’ve always thought this construction to be wrong, but, for some reason, it is becoming accepted because respected writers are writing this way.

Teachers of English grammar are engaged in a prescriptivist enterprise. However, Yates and Kenkel believe it is not difficult to demonstrate the irrationality of the justifications of prescriptive rules, and, by extension, the apparent irrationality of those who adhere to them.

Linguistic tolerance: all varieties of English have equal value and merit respect and appreciation of their special beauty and expressiveness.

The goal of teachers of English grammar should be that all students consciously know the most important principles of Standard English (which, of course, need to be identified) so that they can have the needed linguistic security to decide for themselves when their language use generally, and their writing particularly, should conform to the norms of Standard English, when the norms have no relevance, and when they can consciously decide to violate them. [source]

More grammar notes here.

Feisty Rosanna Roces raises the white flag
By ANTONETTE R. VALDEZ

After a much-publicized word war with Dr. Vicki Belo that led to the courts last year, actress Rosanna Roces has aired her desire to patch things up with her former friend and business partner on ABS-CBN’s “The Buzz” last Sunday.

In an interview with Manila Bulletin last Monday, Osang said,”libel is a very long and painful process at naaabala yung time ko sa apo ko kasi tuwing may hearing aalis ako ng bahay. Actually, sa mga hearing wala naman nangyayaring irapan sa amin ni Vicki. Kung wala nga lang press dun, baka matagal na kaming bati. Yung abogado nga niya kabiruan ko na.”

Rosanna added that there were many instances when she planned on dropping by Vicki’s clinic just to give her a surprise visit but unfortunately, she has not mustered the courage to do it yet.

“S’yempre normal lang yung feeling na maiilang ka pa ng konti pero gusto ko na talaga siya makausap at maayos na ang gulo na ito.”

Although this humble move from Rosanna is praised by some people, others look at it as her way of saving herself from falling into the pit because reports have it that she’s losing the case and running out of money to fund her lawyer whom she pays on an hourly basis.

“Paano nila masasabi na natatalo ako? Kung sa pera lang kaya ko lumaban ng sabayan. Maaaring hindi na ako artista ngayon pero may farm ako at may negosyo ako kaya hindi problema sa akin ang pera. Nagpapasalamat lang talaga ako sa apo ko kasi nang dahil sa kanya gumanda ang buhay ko. Nawala ang galit ko sa lahat. Pati nga kay Tito (Molina, her ex-husband) nawala na ang galit ko,” she stressed.

Rosanna candidly said that it took six months after her separation with her husband Tito to realize that her bed was too big for her but there was not a day after the separation that she missed him or the idea of marriage.

“I’m happier now than before dahil kay Budoy (this is how she fondly calls her five-month-old grandson Jose Gabriel). Lahat ng oras ko nasa kanya lang. Kumbaga sa school, back subject ko ang apo ko kasi hindi ko na-witness ang lahat ng ‘first’ ng mga anak ko gaya ng first na pagdapa nila, first step, first word nila. Kay Gab, hands-on talaga ako. Si Grace, nilalaro niya ang anak niya pero sa akin natutulog ‘yan at sabay kami maligo niyan,” admitted Rosanna.

Since this conversation touched on her daughter Grace, Rosanna volunteered that her teenage daughter plans to go back to her studies but not in a regular school. “Gusto niya homestudy lang kasi nahihiya daw siya pumasok sa school at sa sasabihin daw ng mga tao. Sinabihan ko nga siya na hindi lang siya ang nasa ganitong situation pero ayaw niya talaga. Ok na din sa akin yun kasi ayoko naman malayo sa akin mga anak ko, ngayon ko lang sila nakakasama ng ganito eh. Ito talaga ang hinahanap kong buhay kahit noon pa,” she ended. [source]

Doctors should accept people wanting fertility treatment will travel abroad to get it, experts have been told.

Many people travel for treatment which is either expensive or banned at home, Professor Guido Pennings of the University of Ghent said.

Rather than preventing the practice it should be viewed as a “safety value” helping avoid moral conflict, he said. [source]

Men are overtaking women as the root of infertility in relationships, according to a recent study which shows that, for the first time, male causes are more common than female causes in diagnoses of fertility problems.

Factors such as declining sperm counts, obesity and smoking were largely to blame for the rise, which saw male causes creep from 50 to 51 per cent.

[article by Maxine Frith]
Men overtake women as cause of infertility