Before I start ranting I will state that I am not registered to vote (because of circumstances that I shall explain). My dad constantly told us that the village clubhouse will be having voters registration for new voters. Everytime I asked if we should register already on a particular day (since they needed to register as well as their still registered as voters in Caloocan), he would keep saying “magkakaroon naman sa village ng regstration (they’re going to have registration at the clubhouse anyways) and he kept saying the same thing until it was the final weekend for registration and there just wasn’t enough time for us to register. I also don’t have a driver’s license (which means I also lack a valid ID with an address for registration) and don’t know how to drive or commute myself to the city hall (who wasn’t making registration any easier by rejecting downloaded forms). If you ask why I can’t drive yet, that’s another long story.

And so, I am not voting this Monday but I do still have an opinion about candidates, issues and elections.

Lets start with PARTY-LISTS.

First of all, I think we really need to overhaul this system in the government. People are just making unions over unions over unions, its redundant.

I would probably vote for ang Ladlad because I do value equality for all and I do realize that our government is becoming too tied down to the Philippine Catholic Church.  Though I do still identify myself as a Catholic Christian, there really are some issues (like the RH bill) where I wanna shout STFU.

Next going on a general look lets look at issues. Be forewarned that these are personal opinions which I am entitled to, I will accept any comments regarding them so long as they are ABOUT THE ISSUE and are not disrespectful in anyway.

Land reform

Big issue, and probably where I’ll get criticism. I am actually against land reform as it is currently implemented by the government. My family owns sugar plantations in Negros and I see the negative that it can do to an economy and industry. First of all I should explain that majority (including my family’s hacienda) of Haciendas in Negros use hired labour not tenant farmers and that is a huge differentiating factor from land reform that happens in Central Luzon.

In Bacolod, a lot of land was already given away to the workers but the question is what happens after the land was given. Bacolod being known for sugar products produces less sugar now than it used to and a large part of this is because the lands that we’re given to land reform were eventually sold to real estate, not agricultural use.

RH Bill

I am for the RH Bill, I am for sex education in public schools and I am pro-contraception. I do not understand that in a world filled with sexual predators and constant carnal temptation we refuse to arm ourselves, our children and our families with the information that could save their lives (in all possible ways).

An idiotic mayor once said on radio that “sex education will just make our youth more curious and more deviant with sex”. I’m sorry I come from a Jesuit upbringing and this is BULLSHIT. Even in gradeschool we we’re taught to “respect our sex organs” (I remember this in guidance classes in grade 1 and 2) and sexuality. I remember being taught about referring to it properly (“penis” instead of “hotdog” ). We had talks on it throughout middle school. Though our form of sex education was most often mixed with catholic morals (because it was and still is a catholic school), I think this can still transmit to public schools without the addition of morals based on religion.

Cha cha, con-ass and all that jazz.

I made my feelings clear on this last year actually in a facebook status statement (and Im glad it was well received).

I am pro cha cha, whether by con-ass or con-con its progress. If you don’t agree with the proposed new charter then simply vote “No” on the plebiscite. According to the current constitution (which processes must be followed for the constitution to be changed), you can’t change the constitution without a plebiscite. If No wins then No.

For the fun part, the senators

I am not and I don’t think people should vote for Bong Revilla. A man who uses a slut actress’ idiocy to bring his name popular in the “political” (if you can even call it political) arena and by doing so halts legislation (and in a sense his job as a lawmaker) is power hungry man who craves attention which he wasn’t getting anymore because of his blockbuster blunders in Philippine Cinema.

I’d vote for Defensor Santiago because she certainly has the best track record when it comes legislation. I’ve always been a strong supporter of Mirriam (even though I find her campaign portraits extremely funny sometimes), the woman is a la Mirriam wyer who knows the law, knows her job as a writer of the law and is not afraid to speak out against the circus that the 14th senate sometimes becomes. I do know of her past questionable acts (such as voting not to open the second envelope during ERAP’s impeachment trial) but then again I find that a senator’s job is primarily to create laws.

Right now these are my only opinions on senatorial candidates so I’m gonna do more reading. Since this post is getting long as well, Im going to hook you into visiting my blog again to see who WOULD I have voted for president and vice-president.

I’ve gone through Netscape Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird (my favorite PC mail client so far) and now I use Mail (the pre-installed mail application in mac os x). One thing I can conclude so far is that I cannot live without an email client application.

Though the trend in technology is switching to doing everything on the web (including email accessed from browsers we know as webmail ex. Gmail). I still find the usefulness of email clients to be undeniable specially when you live in the Philippines where wifi access isn’t always possible. This is even more useful if your in school doing a lot of org work/ group work or you work in a field that needs fast information decimation.

For those of you who have ignored email clients for the longest time. Email clients such as Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird and Mail use either a POP or IMAP protocol to get and copy email from your email accounts to your local hard drive. In the old days of the internet this was the only way to check email but now we have email client’s biggest competitor webmail which allows us to access our inboxes from any computer with just the use of a browser.

Most people would think, why should I use an email client when it would use local space on my hard drive not to mention I’d need a whole other application just to check mail as compared to using webmail which is readily accessible through browsers that are pre-installed in our operating systems?

Though this is a huge drawback to using an email client it still doesn’t lessen the utility value of having a local copy of your email. This is specifically even more highlighted when you are an extremely mobile person and may sometimes find yourself without internet access.

Here are a couple of my experiences that can show the notable use of my email client

1. During an EBAM (Editorial Board Aspirants Meeting) the executive aspirants we’re trying to take note of the suggestions of some of the absent aspirants that we’re sent via mail the night before. Most people with a laptop would go to their browsers and log on to gmail to access the previous nights set of emails but the problem was the campus network group was having trouble with the WiFi in our building at the time. Luckily I use Apple Mail and had a copy of their mail already downloaded.
2. Normally checking mail would be a chore that you had to go through periodically (students normally doing it in the evening) opening a separate tab and then logging on to their email accounts. During the different hellweeks in my semesters specially during Marketing and Leadership and Strategy class, I found it really easy as I received and downloaded attachments with probably only a 1-second delay to the time the person sent it. I got updates as they we’re updated and news as it was being written. Did I mention it doesn’t feel like a chore? Thats because I can leave Mail running constantly (with it checking for new mail every 5-10 minutes) while I just browse along facebook or finish my design comissions, I don’t have to open a new tab just for email.

Case number 2 is specifically important to me as a student and as a member of the school newspaper where the rule is to ALWAYS ALWAYS reply ASAP to every email and text message.

But with those big reasons alone why aren’t most students making full use (specially as macs are becoming more and more popular in school and macs have pre-installed email clients) of their laptops and using email clients?

Well one big hurdle so far (within the ateneo) is that the our incampus Wireless Internet security prevents downloading email to clients. This however does not hinder reason 1 as there are multiple wireless hotspots in Katipunan that allow POP and IMAP access.

People usually think of it as hard simply because they have to actually do something before recieving email. For many of you who think this is the case (specially you mac users who never get to use your mail application) below is an image at how idiotically simple for the internet generation it is to set up their Mail applications (the process is actually quite similar in other email clients)

Most email providers with pop or IMAP access will have more detailed instructions. A good email provider that does this that I know about is gMail so check out their website for more info.

If your asking what email clients you should use? For PC users, I highly recommend Thunderbird over Outlook but either is still quite good. For Macs, the preinstalled Mail client is already there so why not use it?

This has got to be the worst schedule of finals I ever had, I had my accounting final longtest monday evening and then economics final exam the next day! How are you supposed to study for something as heavy as economics when you’re going to come home from an exam that ends at 9pm! I don’t even want to think about what happened to those exams anymore they we’re disastrous! I wasn’t even able to solve one cash flow problem and I was guessing a lot of my answers in the multiple choice part!

I would have blogged about this sooner but I was just extremely busy with all my projects due last week. I did have one final exam that I really enjoyed and that was my latin-ballroom dancesport finals held at Savannah Moon in Libis, Quezon City. Imagine a final exam that takes place in a bar/ dance club where alcohol is allowed (though it cost Php 160 per bottle). It was really fun, I don’t think any of us cared anymore that it was an actual competition we just danced our hips off! Cindy and I made it to the Samba quarterfinals while Eya and I made it to the Rumba and Cha cha cha quarterfinals. It was really fun even though we had to wake up and get to school at 7:00 am the next day to practice and perform during the PE culminating events. I’m actually starting to like dancesport a lot too bad we didn’t learn all the latin dances, we missed out on one and it’s the most well latin out of all of them, the Paso Doble.

I got to get back to memorizing a few more words before I go for my Sociology Exam