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MANILA - When I read a chilling book “The Terror Presidency” about U.S. President George W. Bush’s incautious assertions of extraordinary constitutional powers, I was really startled. It quickly reminded me of Gloria Arroyo’s own unconstitutional actions in the last six years of her purloined presidency.

The portrait of Bush’s administration was drawn by Jack Goldsmith, a legal scholar who was hired to head the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, but quit after only nine months in office. It is a devastating portrait.

MANILA - Politics, as the word is commonly understood, is nothing but corruption.

This has been proven beyond cavil about Gloria Arroyo, who has used every dirty trick in the book of politics and corrupt practices to satisfy her intense desire for power and pelf. She has built structures of deceit and corruption ever since she usurped the presidency from Joseph “Erap” Estrada in 2001, and, once again, when she cheated Fernando Poe Jr. on her way to six more years in Malacanang in 2004.

Indeed, in the last six years of her purloined presidency, she has raised corruption to a new level of magnitude unmatched by past administrations. And this dismaying fact has not escaped the attention of Filipinos in all levels of society.

MANILA - The dominance of English as an international language is growing, says Stephen Krashen, a second language expert at the University of Southern California. And James Oladejo, an expert in language acquisition at Taiwan’s National Kaoshiung National University, warns that “any nation that ignores English learning does so at its peril!"

The latest poll shows that 63 percent think she’ll be the first woman US president.

Who is the real Hillary Rodham Clinton? This is a question that has vexed political observers and analysts, biographers and journalists, critics and detractors alike ever since she announced that she was running for president in 2008. Even friends who have known her for decades say that understanding her is a challenge. And she herself has said, “I’m probably the most famous person you don’t really know.”

MANILA - Once upon a time, to be exact seventy- three years ago, that tantalizing question was posed to then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt during her weekly radio program broadcast from Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City. Women ?s rights activists asked her: "Mrs. Roosevelt, when will a woman become president of the United States of America?"

MANILA - Some future historian, I suppose, will survey this tumultuous time of ours with the ironic detachment of a Gibbon. And he would surely find a rich harvest about Gloria Arroyo and her tainted regime. Everything would be true, except the facts. A good deal of the grisly material glorifying her virtues and achievements were recited by the sycophants and flatterers around her. Never had so many “facts” been accumulated, never had such ingenious and efficacious means been devised, but only to weave a great web of deception.

He would also find out the painful truth about Gloria Arroyo’s illegitimate presidency ever since she sneaked into the Palace by the Pasig in 2001 by foul means, about how she cheated in the 2004 presidential elections, which were replicated during the mid-term elections of 2007, about how she violated the Constitution she had sworn to defend and protect.

MANILA - Te debacle dealt by the Filipino people on Gloria Arroyo’s senatorial bets must have stunned the sycophants, the servile flatterers inside Malacanang. They have been stammering witlessly, committing dumb mistakes in their public statements. First, the “Little President” no, no, no, not Gloria Arroyo, announced soon after the 2007 elections that there would be a complete overhaul of the Cabinet. He, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, also known by that silly nomenclature, added that all heads of government-owned and controlled corporations and financial agencies were told to submit their resignations, too, like the members of her Official Family. And not mere “courtesy resignations,” he stressed.

MANILA-When President Arroyo boasted before Japanese officials in Tokyo recently that we Filipinos live in “a lively democracy,” I almost burst out laughing. How ludicrous! She was the one who trampled on our democratic principles and institutions. She was lying, again!

Just as laughable was the remark of a visiting American diplomat of the US State Department about the just concluded mid-term elections. “I know there has been some violence," he blurted out. “But I would say overall the elections have been very successful. The Philippines has a very well-developed democracy."

Why is it that every move or remark by Gloria Arroyo and her political and military minions is usually met with constant questioning of their motives, a kind of automatic disbelief that they are really doing something to make things better for the country?

This question has surfaced once again in the wake of post-Election 2007’s dismaying developments, such as massive cheating, stealing of votes, snatching of ballot boxes, faking of election returns, killings, and other dirty political tricks. And also Gloria Arroyo’s call, even before the polling precincts were closed, “to move on.” And this was followed by her claim, echoed by Comelec, political and military minions , that the just concluded election was “generally peaceful.”

The latest Social Weather Stations’ public opinion survey showed that the great majority of the Filipino people believe that Gloria Arroyo and her political cohorts will cheat in the coming May 14 elections. They do not trust her. And they are absolutely discontented with her governance in the last six years.

These are very clear signs that the people will not vote for Gloria’s candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives and local public offices. And this is why they fear that Gloria, with her powers and government resources, according to the survey, “will cheat for her candidates to win.”

Asian Pacific Americans, including Filipino-Americans, are alarmed by White House plans to eliminate family-based preferences in its immigration reform proposal.

They were reacting, according to my source in Washington D.C., to reports that the Bush administration would deny immigrants, who had legalized their status in the United States, the right to sponsor their relatives to join them there.

"We are alarmed by this proposal," said Alma Kern, chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA). She was joined by Gloria T. Caoile, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Alliance (APALA) and director for external affairs of NaFFAA.

MANILA - A woman's brain structure explains a good deal of her behavior, including a penchant for gossiping. This startling revelation is contained in "The Female Brain," a book by Dr. Lomann Brizenline, a professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of California. It must be the first time a woman herself has delved into the reasons why women's brains are wired for gossip, and why men are not as verbal.

It reminded me of Jullie Yap Daza's "Etiquette for Mistresses" about mistresses and their married secret lovers. My colleague in columny is an "echotier," as the French call those who report about gossips, but cleverly hide their identities..

MANILA- Exactly 50 years ago today I woke up on a lonely mountainside, and I did not realize until a little time later that I was surrounded by death. To one side I saw the wreckage of "Mount Pinatubo," the presidential plane, and all around me were the bodies of my friends, charred beyond recognition, all 26 of them, the victims of a plane crash that was heard around the world, a crash that brought to an abrupt end the unparalleled career of that man of all seasons and for all times - the incomparable Ramon Magsaysay.

MANILA. - When I read the title of her magazine col-umn "Words, words, words," I thought for a moment that my dear friend Jullie Yap Daza was repeating the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet. That is, when that tragic figure, with his sighing dismissal of "words, words, words," gave the word "words" a cast of inaction, if not meaninglessness.

Actually, Jullie, a rare belesprit in our columnizing tribe, was writing about new or coined words in American English as well as Philippine style English. And this quickly reminded me of a book titled "The New Englishes." It is about the spread of English to so many parts of the world and the increase in the number of those learning and using it, a striking example of language expansion in all recorded history.

MANILA - Sen. Hillary Clinton could become the next and first woman president of the United States of America in 2008. And this could very well indeed become a reality when and if she wins the nomination of the Democratic Party, and, subsequently, the race to the Oval Office in the White House, seat of the most powerful nation in the world today.

Hillary, a two-term senator of New York, took the first step toward a White House bid last weekend when she announced, "I'm in...and I'm in to win!"
She finally did it after months of anxious waiting by her advisers and supporters, especially the women and the young voters of America, and speculations by political analysts and commentators.