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MANILA - "The palest ink is better than the best memory," the Chinese say. September 22 marked the 35th anniversary of martial law. Do people of truncated memories recall that skid into dictatorship? More important, do we care?

“You’d have to be over 40 years old. to remember a time when Ferdinand Marcos wasn’t the president yet,”, says Columnist Manolo Quezon III. My daughter Malou is over 40. A lawyer and martial law exile, she settled in California, with her physician-husband and two kids. What does she recall?

MANILA - It is sometimes necessary to kill the chicken to scare the monkey". That's how Mao Zedong fobbed off his murder of party leaders who bucked his paranoid rule. This grisly proverb resonates in the Netherlands where police arrested, for murder, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder : Jose Ma. Sison From Utrecht, the 68-year old Sison “gave orders to Murder his former political associates in the Philippines, Romulo Kintanar, in 2003 and Arturo Tabara in 2004," the Dutch national prosecutor’s Office said. Courts in the Hague will now determine whether Sison can be detained further until trial begins. Kintanar and Tabara, who led a faction that broke away from the Sison’s group in the early 1990s, never got a trial. They were rubbed out by the New People’s Army assassins. Thus, the US and European Union list CPP and NDF as terrorist organizations.

Our paths crossed, for the last time, at San Francisco’s International Airport. The family and I were heading for our Bangkok flight gate. We bumped into former Senator Benigno Aquino, striding toward his Boston plane.

The years blur most of our chat that day. We laughed recalling my securing a “carrier pigeon’ — a sympathetic Air India manager — to sneak his article, smuggled from a Fort Bonifacio prison cell, under martial law censor noses, to Bangkok Post editor Theh Chongkadikhij.

A physician Daytona sent this upper-popper titled: “The Psychiatrist and the Proctologist". Share this, he said. And even readers who have their “M.As” ( married already ), may find the item “Marriage Can Be Fun ( Huh?)” worth perusing. To make your Sunday complete, take the four question “Test for Professionhals below. Enjoy,” “ Tour of Verbiage”— Two doctors opened an office in a small town and put up a sign reading: “Dr. Rama and Dr. Montemayor : Psychiatry and Proctology."

The town council was not happy with the sign, so the doctors changed it to: “Hysterias and Posteriors”This was not acceptable either. So in an effort to satisfy the council, they changed the sign to : “Schizoids and Hemorrhoids." No go. Next, they tried: “atatonics and High Colonics.” Thumbs down again. Then came : “anic Depressives and Anal Retentives.”

"The 21st century will be the century of cities," says the 2007 Worldwatch Institute study: 'Our Urban Future." Decisive battles for humane lives will be fought in city alleys or crammed slums in a struggle "we are poorly equipped for."

That includes the Philippines . At last count, we had 123 cities, up from only 60 in 1990. City shingles were posted, this month, by Bogo in Cebu, San Juan in Metro Manila, Baybay in Leyte, Catbalogan in Samar and Lamitan in Basilan. Six are still in the queue, including Bayugan in Agusan del Sur.

"The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation?s experience and his own vision," the young professor explained, in English laced with a faint German accent. “Leaders are responsible, not for running public opinion polls, but for consequences of their actions"

That was 45 years ago. Since then, our hair has turned grey and knees arthritic. And that obscure lecturer we know as US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. His tenure saw world the Vietnam War end and Beijing and Washington establish diplomatic ties. “There can’t be another crisis," he’d joke. “My calendar until Thursday is already full."

MANILA-Is ‘the genie out of that cursed bottle?’, asked the Inquirer’s May 6 editorial on summary killings and abductions, as in the Jonas Burgos case. “The President gives an order and nothing happens. Or rather, the same thing happens again and again". Shouldn’t the question be rephrased? Who threw away the cork?

The President keeps the genie bottled, protests Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. “Biased,” he said of Arcbhishop Oscar Cruz’s comment: Despite the President’s “ceremonial investigations," mayhem continues. ‘The Commander in Chief is no longer in command." She simply accepts what the military does.

MANILA-On the morning after the May 14 elections, what will we hear?
"We wuz cheated!", trashed candidates will yelp..In this country, everyone wins elections. But some "winners" will insist they were gypped. Eddie Villanueva of Jesus Is Lord movement, for example, never learned this lesson.

Ignore today's Mexico. In Japan, Canada or EU countries Like Britain, losers concede, usually within 24 hours after voting ends. On the basis of exit polls, Jimmy Carter threw in the towel, from the White House on the East Coast, even before West Coast booths closed.