Lessons SAF could learn from the U.S Navy SEAL

 By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The Mamasapano, Maguindano operation by the Special Action Force (SAF) was an almost botched raid. Its saving grace, thanks to the U.S Global Positioning Satellite (GPS), CIA's mole in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, drone, and night vision goggles, was the finding, killing, and photo taking of Malaysian bomb maker, Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan, and cutting off one of his right fingers for DNA processing by the Americans. 

United States' Elite Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) 
Photo Credit: www. earthlyissues.com

Marwan, considered as consummate master bomber, has a $5 million (P235 million) bounty from the U.S State Department.

Likewise, the strategy employed in the Mamasapano (geez, I used to jog in the 1980s at the nearby Awang, Dinaig Airport with my military father) slaughters of the 44 British Army SAS (Special Air Service) inspired Filipinos elite SAF members could not be likened to the SEAL’s feat in Abbottabad, Pakistan where No. 1 Islamist terrorist Osama Bin Ladin perished in the double tapped bullets of the SEAL’s Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifle.

The U.S commando there were borne by two stealth UH-60 Black Hawks and two CH-47 Chinooks from  Jalalabad, Afghanistan to Pakistan while the 300 SAF traveled surreptitiously by foot through their sturdy boots to the target area.

The only stealth operation in the Philippines that until now remains unexposed was when the 1996 multi-billion pesos funds for the  AFP Modernization Act under Republic Act 7898  were pocketed by government officials during that time.

The monies used to purchase a squadron of F-16 Falcon's multi-role fighter jets, modern helicopters probably like the non-stealth UH-60 Black Hawks, frigates, tanks, others were lost after a huge chunk of the lands in Fort Bonifacio was sold by the government to the present owners of the burgeoning and bustling Global City in Taguig City. If you disagree what those scoundrels on the Bonifacio’s deal had done was stealth, then we can settle that it was a “steal” , son of a gun, in chutzpah.

Blame the Catholic Church too for our Poverty

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

During the visit of Pope Francis at the Quirino Grandstand, a child and a beggar Glyzelle Palomar posed a dramatic query to the Pope for the whole nation to hear: “Many children get involved in drugs and prostitution. Why does God allows these things to happen to us? The children are not guilty of anything.”

Pope Francis embraces girl after she asks: 'Why does God allow children to become prostitutes?'

She sobbed, cried, and then embraced the Pope.

Filipinos, who loved to watch soap operas on TV shed tears!

Francis, who was treated like God by the overwhelmed Filipinos, could not answer the question that was probably coach to the child by the Filipino priests who spice the “stunt” with posterity and dramas.

My answer to the posed of Palomar: “Because the narrow minded Catholic Church's high priests hinder any government programs on birth control thus the runaway rabbit liked population explosion that breeds more social problems like poverty, drugs, and prostitution!"

Pope Francis and the ignorant priests who are partly to blame in our penury should have seen this one. We have the same population with contraceptives conscious Thailand in the 1970s, now progressive Thailand got more than 67 million people; we got more than a hundred million starving Filipinos where many are willing to sell their bodies to the moneyed just to meet both ends.

To further appreciate how a smaller populated country enjoys the economic spoils we can compare how Thailand and the Philippines fare in year 2013 on their Per Capita Income (PCI) /Gross Domestic of Product (GDP/PCI). To the jeepney drivers and carpenters who now read this article, GDP/PCI means total income of a country divided by its present population. 

According to the World Bank's data,Thailand’s GDP/PCI was U.S $5,779 or its Philippine peso equivalent of P260, 055 a year while the Philippines’ GDP/PCI was U.S $2,765 or Philippine peso equivalent of P124,425 a year.

Oh, I just learned that GDP if implemented in the Pope crazy Philippines is no  longer called Gross Domestic Product, economists dubbed it Gutom  Diyan ang Pilipino (GDP)  te-heh my broadside on the Catholic Church’s policy on birth control.

The Catholic fanatics and faithful in the Philippines are also to be blamed in our hardship. Many of them unabashedly and ignorantly swallowed hook, line and sinker the sermons, threats, and bogeyman of the Catholic’s "Ayatollahs" that using contraceptives doom them in judgment day with a huge stone strapped on their body as they fall tailspin in the boiling acid of fire of hell. The clerics do not know that we are living already in hell, just like what child Palomar experienced, because of their out- of- reality teachings on how to control birth.

***

 I was browsing the other day the book “Take it Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future” authored by James Carville and Paul Begala two marquee political strategists of the Democrat Party in the United States.  The authors distinguished two kinds of exploiting the strengths and weaknesses of their PR clients and their clients' opponents.

Carville, who has managed more political campaigns than anyone in history , and  Begala, who was chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign which carried 33 States and made Bill Clinton the first Democrat to win the White House in 16 years, said that candidates should know how to  attack.

They said that advisers of presidential candidate George H.W Bush personally hit the opponent while operators of presidential candidate Bill Clinton and John Kerry debate on issues and avoid personal attacks.

Here’s Carville and Begala on the Republicans or the GOP (Grand Old Party): “Some of the attacks were about small things, meant to paint Kerry as an out-of-touch elitist. The Bush campaign or its allies attacked Kerry’s suits, his homes, and his wealth – all intended to make Kerry look effete and elite, which is to say, both weak and weird. Never mind the facts that Bush himself wears exclusive and expensive Oxford suits (which can run up $14,000 apiece), that he owns fifteen-hundred-acre, multi-million-dollar ranch, complete with a private lake stocked with his own private bass; or that he is filthy rich. Kerry was attacked for windsurfing even though a windsurfing board was a hell of a lot less expensive than the $250,000 cigarette boat (which one critic called “a penis extender”) that Bush liked to zoom around in”.

According to the book by May 2004 – months before Kerry had even his party’s nomination – the Bush –Dick Cheney campaign had aired an astonishing 49,050 negative ads (a part of the provision of the Omnibus Election Code that I was espousing since time immemorial in this column that Philippines politicians should emulate – MCO) in the top hundred media markets. The incumbent’s campaign was devoting 75 percent of its advertising budget for slamming Kerry.

I Pushed Airplane When the Pope's Arrive

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

During the late Pope John Paul II's 1995 second visits in the Philippines I was preparing to leave my home town Mlang in Cotabato Province. Inside the Weena Bus bound for Cotabato City I saw the late Bernie Tayong, a policeman assigned in Pangasinan, and my two high school batch mates at Notre Dame of M’lang Anna Donie Mendaros and Lourdes Andres.

POPE FRANCIS: Totoo ba iyang tall tale mo!

“So you’re bound to Manila, why not join me for a free C-130 (military cargo plane) ride. I’m with my father (retired Air Force man) papasakayin niya kayo ng libre,” I boasted in a typical Ilonggo manner.
Bernie, whom in college had a common interest with me reading the Book Section Edition of the Reader’s Digest, said he got already a ticket with Philippine Airline (the only airline during that time).
“I’m in a hurry I have a medicine to deliver,” he begged.
The two beautiful lasses told me they too secure already a seat at PAL as they are bound abroad (either in the U.S or Great Britain, my memory escaped me already) to work as nurses there.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: Totoo iyan, nagtulak sila, nakita ko !

When the U.S Lockheed made camouflage turboprop transport aircraft C-130 landed the military dispatcher told my father that I could not be included in the manifest list as soldiers and their families have been standing, shoving and jostling already inside.
“Loaded na po, the itinerary of that plane is Zamboanga, Cotabato City, and Mactan, Cebu and then Villamor (Pasay City)”.
Upon hearing that I could not avail the cargo plane, that sometimes carry caskets and a tank, I frantically jumped and ran to PAL’s ticketing office to buy one for myself so I could be at home in Dagupan City to see, smooch, and play with my second baby the months old Niko (he is 19 years now, how times fly) but was told that the plane was already booked already because of the Pope’s visit.

I was thankful however as I watched the two jet engines PAL’s Boeing 737 preparing to usher inside its door the passengers including my three town mates.
“Mabuti na lang hindi ko niyaya na mag C-130 iyong tatlo, nakakahiya,” I told my father who was anxious how he could get rid of me ( He and my mom had been pissed off every time I had my vacation in our rustic town because they were roused from sleep in the wee hours almost every night every time I  knocked at the door drunk from swigging liquor with my gangs).
“Saan papunta iyang Nomad (a fatigue painted air force’s  Australian made twin-engine turboprop, short take off and landing  aircraftt parked near the PAL’s jet),” my father barked at an M-16 wielding sergeant, a Muslim rebel returnee, who was guarding the perimeter fence of Awang Airport.
He was told in Cagayan de Oro.

Drug Pushers Cowered Away as COP Kills

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I’ll not be surprised if a son of a prominent family in a city would be found dead with a bullet hole on his head or stabbed wounds from a knife in different parts of his body.The Chief of Police (COP) of one of the cities in my province, my source told me, is after the scalp of this big time illegal drug pusher whose illegal trade extended to the neighbouring town.
“Tina timingan lang namin. Wala pang pagkakata-on para maitumba namin siya”.
In my socialization with several police brass who resort to extra judicial killings ("salvage" in the vernacular) of habitual delinquents, if possible they avoid gunning down the victim, they told me. Instead they want the malefactor stab so the killing would not be part of the number of victims slain in a shooting incident. Shooting has a discriminatory effect to a COP’s tour of duty.

Kim Henares for Vice President in 2016?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

CALASIAO – She is probably the best commissioner the watchers of Bureau of Internal Revenue have ever seen – what with the series of reforms she initiated and the collection target she surpassed on a year-on-year basis after she took the tax agency’s helm in 2010.

Commissioner Kim Henares (4th from left) of the Bureau of Internal Revenue poses with
the tax agency's regional director lawyer Arnel Guballa (5th from left) and his top honchos
during the visit of Henares to inaugurate the new swanky Revenue District Office-4 in
Calasiao, Pangasinan.

Would Commissioner Kimi Henares runs for the vice presidency or the senatorial seat if a political party enlists her in the 2016 polls?
An ambivalent Henares said she is not a political person.
“I’m not a political person so I don’t think, di ba? I’m just concentrating on doing my job as best as I can,” she said chuckling.
She explained she wants to look back and tell people on their face that she tries her best to give the country the chance to become develop.
“That’s the most important thing for me, not the political office,” she said laughing.

Move-Out Jueteng, Meridian, PCSO’s Peryahan Coming!

Add caption

 Ronald (not his real name) decried the series of raid and arrest done by law enforcers against the uniformed and mobile collectors of Peryahan Games (Peryahan or Games for brevity) in Laoac – a 4th class town in the 48 cities and towns province Pangasinan.

“Noong December 23 at January 12 nandito ang mga taga NBI (National Bureau of Investigation). Bakit nila hina-harass ang mga taga Peryahan e legal na palaro ito dahil pag-aari ito ng PCSO (Philippine Charity Sweepstake Office?”.

His town just became a host last December 20 of the Games’ franchisee Global Tech Mobile Online.

The self-styled political kibitzer suspected that the raids against the collectors of the Peryahan the NBI alleged to front for jueteng were under the behest of big time gambling boss Atong Ang - whose multi-million pesos a day bet churning Meridian Jai Alai - is threatened by the Games’ 1-to-38 numbered Hulog Holen, a game of chance played like the illegal number game jueteng and Meridian’s Jai-Alai .

Palaro’s Many Games are Copy of Jueteng, Drop Ball, Etc.

Meridian and jueteng are played similarly like Holen but with only 1-to 37 combination as option combination to bettors.

Although there is almost no more jueteng played in the 2.8 populated province, the P10 million a day bets’ Meridian Jai-Alai has been given a semblance of legality after some of its smart-aleck lawyers filled an injunction case at the Court of Appeals that until now - for two years - the appellate court has yet to resolve whether it is legal or illegal. Anyare Court of Appeals?

Many of the games of Palaro are copy cats of jueteng, drop ball, video karera, and others.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join’ ‘em?

 Probably the imitation was a government strategy how to beat the decades old number games at the same time snare the funds they generate for the government coffer. Based on the Implementation Rules and Regulation (IRR)  of the Peryahan these games are copyrighted and registered with intellectual property rights of the Philippines.They are Hulog Holen, Throw Coins, Gulong ng Swertres, Dart Baloon with Numbers, Rolets, Shooting Ring, Sa Pula, Sa Puti, Color Games, Drop Ball, Beto Beto, Karera, Bingo Dart, Sungka, Trumpo, and Pitik Bulag.

The difference between Peryahan Games and the P9 billion a year Jueteng racket in the country’s 12 provinces, the former remits 2% of the 30% Charity Fund based on the gross sales and receipts of the Games within the province, and 5% of the 30% Charity Fund based on the gross sales and receipts of the Games within the city or municipality while the latter are just, well, scandalous racket where monies go to the pockets of Gambling Lords, governors, congressmen, mayors and law enforcers while the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s personnel hold the empty proverbial bag like a fool.

Meridian’s seemingly spurious character is not spared with suspicion by people in the province. For instance several media men in Pangasinan have been asking why until now it has no office in any of the four cities and 44 towns of the province.

Photo Credit:PhilStar

Peryahan Games Need Not Secure Barangay, Mayor’s Permits

Stop Patronizing Cebu(lok) Pacific?

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The first time I heard about the notoriety of Cebu Pacific (CP) for being late was in May 2012 when actress Claudine Barretto unleashed a tantrum at the two lady workers of CP at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport-3 after the plane arrived there late and found out that two of her baggage have been left in Kalibo, Aklan. Her tantrum caught the empathy of Philippine Daily Inquirer’s columnist Ramon Tulfo who took photos of her as his future news against CP but instead of being lauded by Barretto’s then husband Raymart Santiago and a male friend they instead mauled Tulfo. The second time I heard about the airline’s tardiness was in June 2013 when I was in the middle of an animated conversation in a dinner tendered to me by then Region 11 Regional Manager John Celeste of the National Irrigation Administration at his huge staff house in Davao City.

“Pinsan (my mother is a Celeste), alis na ako. 7:30 Pm na, 9:55 Pm ang flight ko to Manila,” I told him.

 “Ano ang eroplano mo,? He posed” “Cebu Pacific,” I told him.

                           Cebu Pacific's Airbus 320 overshoots the runway in Davao City.

“Wala iyan, kuwentuhan pa tayo. Laging late ng two hours iyang eroplano. Kain ka lang diyan ng isdang Davao na pinaluto ko sa cook ko para sa iyo,” he told me by pointing to me my favorite “kinilaw na tuna” with lots of slices of cucumber, a big roasted lapu-lapu, maya-maya, matambaka,  and Whatchamacallit viands of a king already in Luzon for me to indulge.

But I had a “trauma” already being left twice by the plane, first when, five years ago, I was bound from Manila to Davao City, and the second one, two years ago, when I was destined from Davao City to Manila.

Susmariosep, I could not forget those additional prohibitive prices of rebooking my old tickets.  I have to shell out a huge amount just to avail the next flight going out from where I was located.

When the NIA Regional Manager allowed me to leave an hour before my 9:55 Pm flight by calling his driver to whisk me to the airport, I, up close and personal, learned the notoriety of the plane not arriving on what the contracted time it says on the ticket

But I did not give a fuss about it probably because my bread basket was still elated by the gastronomic seafood delights complement by Celeste.

Cebu Pacific’s December 2014 Nightmare

But Cebu Pacific gave me a comeuppance when I booked a round trip tickets last November for my December 23 and 26 departures from Manila to Davao and vice versa.

I and my son Nico should be availing the December 23’s Philippine Airlines flight but its first trip was 8 Am while Cebu Pacific would be departing at 3:45 Am. PAL fares difference then was only P500 higher than my Cebu’s P9000 round trip ticket.

“I’ll get Cebu Pacific’s 3:45 Am flight since I want to meet my brother for breakfast at the (Marco Polo) Hotel and be home in (the province of) Cotabato earlier since it’s a three hours drive from Davao City,” I told the personnel of the ticketing office in Dagupan City. 

At 1:30 Am of December 23 I saw already the brewing chaos at Cebu’s NAIA’s Terminal -3 where there was a massive influx of passengers. Some of them were berating the guards at the main door because of the lack of baggage carts.

“Inu-unang binibigyan iyong mga passengers sa international flights, kasi nag kaka tip sila!,” an irate female passenger smarted.

Near the counters there was mammoth number of passengers shoving and jostling each other to reach several queues to submit their baggage to be weighted and hauled by the personnel at the plane’s belly.

I was nonchalant since I have still more hours left for my 3:45 Am flight.

Iba iyong may trauma na ng naiwanan ng eroplano, I left Dagupan City by land at 7:30 for my five hours aircon bus trip to Manila.

Davao City’s Departure

But my Calvary started when I entered the departure lounge in Davao City last December 26 for my 5:45 Pm flight to Manila.

 I was told that my flight would be arriving at 10:45 Pm since the sky in Manila were congested because of the inbound and outbound planes aggravated by the lone runway of the worst international airport in the world.

“Why 10:45 Pm, was that how congested the skies of Metro Manila that it took several hours for a returning plane to return in Davao to ferry us?,’” I posed to myself again.

Other passengers whose flights from Davao City to Manila that were scheduled at 6:45 Pm, 7:45 Pm, and 8:45 Pm have been berating the pitiful personnel of Cebu Pacific that man the counters of the gates.

At 8:30 Pm, we were fed by the airline with a piece of Jollibee’s Chicken Joy, rice, and mineral water.

“Kahit may Chicken Joy pa dito hinding hindi na ako sasakay sa Cebulok Pacific, la-os!” I jested with my quite amused fellow passengers who started to gorge their food to satiate their hunger as a result of waiting in eternity.

When the Airbus 320 arrived at 10;45 Pm we were asked , almost 200 passengers, to transfer at the PAL’s lounge. But hell broke loose there as some passengers were chiding the same sorry CP’s personnel why it took an hour for the jet to be refueled by a tanker full of high octane gas.

“Akala ko state –of-the art na itong Airbus niyo, bakit antagal naman mahigit isang oras na. Baka mi diperensiya ang eroplano na iyan!”.

When I heard diperensiya  or defect cold chills ran on my back. “Ok lang na ipatulak ang lintik na eroplano para mag-start dahil sira ang karburador, wag naman yong may defect. Marami pa akong gagawin sa buhay,” I whispered to a fellow passenger who became apprehensive, too!

To make the long story short since my allocation in this column is 1000 words only; we departed at 11:45 Pm, yes Virginia another one hour late or a total of SIX HOURS behind the contracted schedule, and arrived in Manila at 1:30 Am the following day.

I just learned on the morning TV news that December 26 was the “Day of Infamy” created by the incompetent and negligent management of Cebu Pacific where, according to complaints and critics, it overbooked its passengers despite its limited commercial jets that resulted to the stranded mayhem at NAIA-3.

Another accusation, the news said, was the series of cancellation of the airline’s flights that made Terminal -3 a hell-hole last December 26 and 27 and limited counters of Cebu Pacific to accommodate the swelling number of passengers as a result when management allowed many of their staff to have their vacation.

Allowing them to have vacation in the middle of a peak season? My foot!

 “They knew that some of their flights have been cancelled, some are delayed and all their flights are fully booked. They should put extra staff to handle the influx of passengers. Kesyo holidays they are allowing their staff to go on leave. Only in Cebu Pacific I heard this kind of alibi. I am working in a big airline in the Middle East during peak seasons, they are not allowing staff a day off,“ a reader of Philippine Daily Inquirer’s rues.

If PAL and Air Asia Zest have no stranded of passenger on December 26 and 27, would the Civil Aeronautics Bureau fine, penalize, or revoke the franchise of Cebu Pacific because of this incompetence and inefficiency?

Or would the CAB’s “apparatchiks cowered after the Gokongweis (owner of CP) talk to them in private?

***

Many political observers and pundits look at the 2016 grand battle royal’s gubernatorial election between former Congressman Mark Cojuangco (5th District, Pangasinan) and Provincial Liga ng Barangay President and Board Member Amado Espino III as the most expensive electoral contest the 2.8 million populated gargantuan province of Pangasinan could witness.

Although consigned in the local level, this contest will be likened to the hype generated by the forthcoming marquee tussle between Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather .

The Cojuangco-Espino tiff generates so much furor because of the wherewithal both camps possess.

Cojuangco’s supporters reasoned out that the deep financial campaign chest of his father business mogul Danding Cojuangco would be his edge to catapult the younger Cojuangco to the top post of the capitol in Lingayen.

A mayor cited an example of the tremendous wealth of the Cojuangcos: The numbers of their Lear jets!

“Isang Lear jet lang costs U.S $18 million (P8 billion), e kung ibenta nila iyong isa, ilang bilyon ang halaga niyan sa peso?” he posed.

Mark Cojuangco rides too on a political juggernaut Nationalist People’s Coalition - founded by his father in 1992 when he ran for the presidency. It had on its behest 41 Pangasinan mayors out of the 47 city and town mayors that exclude the component city of Dagupan City.

NPC could show boat to the Espino’s camp the five congressmen out of the six solons of the mammoth province that had pledged their support to Cojuangco’s bid

This not to mention Abono Party-List Representative Conrad Estrella who, together with the province’s King Maker and Abono Party chairman Rosendo So have their hands full with Mark in barnstorming the urban and rural areas of Pangasinan  two years before the May 2016 polls.

This seldom happen in the political history of Pangasinan where the incumbent governor saw himself with a dearth of mayors on his side.

Espino’s Side

“Tangapin niyo lang ang perang ibinibigay sa inyo," Governor Espino was heard by media man (on- leave already for ten years, teh-heh!) Harold Barcelona exhorted the village chiefs on the Christmas Party he and his namesake board member son tendered last December 20 at the Narciso Ramos Gymnasium. A day before that shindig almost all 33 village chiefs of Binmaley town (the biggest in terms of voters in the 2nd Congressional District) led by its mayor Sam Rosario pledged their support to Cojuangco and Calasiao Mayor Mark Roy Macanlalay’s gubernatorial and vice gubernatorial aspiration at the residential compound of Macanlalay in the bustling Calasiao town.

Espino supporters would argue with a Cojuangco’s supporter that the governor, a last term top honcho of the province, is astute in a power play like the gubernatorial race.

“He did not want to see his son caught with his pants down rammed by Cojuangco financially awash behemoth train. That’s why the governor and almost all of his allies in the provincial board borrowed for the province one billion pesos at the Land Bank of the Philippines for project streaks all over Pangasinan to make his legacy looks good”.

The amount, the supporter argued, rides on the crest of Espino’s national and regional awards.

Not to be content with the one billion pesos loan approved by LBP-Lingayen last August 2014, Espino sharpens again his political sword by requesting with the cooperative members of the provincial board, another round of undetermined loans, that I surmised would run for tens if not hundreds of millions of pesos.
"We are not yet talking about the personal monies the Espinos have at their disposal," a supporter quipped.

Although these huge amount borrowed would be shouldered by the Pangasinenses through amortization, it could not be denied that these could buttress the armor of his son against an impending war with Cojuangco who have been on expensive TV commercial streaks to shore up his name recall among the voters.

The provincial government has a P2.77 billion approved budget for 2015 where almost P1 billion of it is allocated for the health sector to ensure the continuation of the modernization of all the province’s hospitals.

The last time Pangasinenses saw monies ‘flood” a congressional district was in the 2007 election where former 4th District Congressman and Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin S. Lim, a mall czar, wanted to spurn the chance of his pet-peeve come backing former House Speaker Jose de Venecia who wanted to reclaim his old seat at the 4th Congressional District.
"I was running scared," de Venecia, my favorite source of international politics, told me about his clash with Benjie.

In that election monies allegedly from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Chinese government help the hundreds of millions of pesos both camps used to buy votes, according to my source.

(CIA and the Chinese government and investors? Son of a gun, nagulat kayo ha! You asked media men Harold Barcelona, Ronel de Vera who are the local moles of the CIA and the Chinese in Pangasinan ha ha ha,, and former Mayor Lim).

If monies during the Lim versus de Venecia’s congressional contest flood the highways, the boondocks, the prairie, the fishermen on their boats in Pantal River, and the mountains of San Fabian town thru vans hired by the duo and each household in Dagupan City became recipient of a staggering P5000 thrown to them like heap, would the Cojuangco versus Espino drown Pangasinanenses with monies through Elf trucks if not dump trucks?

 He he he please forgive my malikot (naughty) thinking, probably it was the result of a wayward defective baby rocket exploding some inches above my head last New Year’s revelry. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).