Yeah, I know, these issues are stale already, but I have time only now to comment on them:

• A friend from Tacloban sent me a text message one day, asking to check if the news that there was a leak in the Nursing board exams was true. He sounded sad; afterall, he passed the exams, and is in the top twenty.

  A lot of people wanted a lot of different things to happen – invalidate part of or the entire exams, retake, rolling of heads – to the point that the real issue was buried. My personal take on the issue is simple – no retake. Retaking is punishing the innocent, which is unjust. The best course of action is to find out who leaked what to whom, and heads of those found guilty should roll.

  And ironic that a person accused of lying acts on the issue – no retake. No recount, too.

• The House of Reprehensibles – a conglomeration of Gloria Arroyo’s defenders – finally got served by the way the Fortress by the Pasig treats a co-equal branch. Their own investigation was snubbed the Fortress’ own people. Imagine, their benefactor snubbing them! Serves them right!

  The Senate should feel smug and tell those fools at the Bastusang Pambansa: told you so.

• The Legion that is Sigaw ni Gloria at mga Kampon has finally cast the die, filed their container van-full of questionable signatures at the questionable Commission on Selection, er, Elections. The opponents of the stupid Cha-cha called for the junking of the obviously-fake initiative. Comelec is taking its sweet time on the issue.

  Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House recently announced that he was two signatures shy, and based on his view on the matter, Congress will be convened as a Constituent Assembly real soon. Arroyo and her minions are really hell-bent on changing the form of government.

  Some people had already commented on this, and I agree. The game plan, really, is to throw away the 2007 elections. In the ideal world, both houses of Congress will turn opposition, and that will be detrimental to Arroyo’s stay at the Fortress. So to prevent that eventuality, the elections should be scrapped, and the only way to do that is to tinker with the Constitution.

  The scary thought is that what if the moves to alter the Charter fail? The elections will push through, and that will be checkmate. But knowing Arroyo’s ability to foresee everything, I think she will not hesitate to do a Garci, again.

  And the fact that the PNP’s war against jueteng is taking the backseat (as speculated by John Nery, Arroyo is prepared for any eventuality. Even satisfying the jueteng lords is not out of her playbook. She will really do everything to save her stay at the Fortress.

• So, impeachment is dead. While One Voice and other orgs are busy stopping the Chacha Choochoo Train, I hope some groups will stand up and start the grueling campaign to have the people (or their proxy) at my Wall of Shame defeated in next year’s elections. Also, to ensure that the elections is clean. Namfrel, sadly, is in tatters, its reputation damaged (beyond repair, if you ask me, unless it makes amends). Who will guard the elections?
• The Guimaras oil spill only shows how poor we are in the enforcement of laws and safety standards. While there is a law disallowing the use of single-hulled vessels in transporting oil, here we have a single-hulled vessel hired by Petron (ironically, the government has a minority stake in the oil company) to transport oil.

  After the cleanup (which should be jointly funded by the owner of the vessel and Petron), criminal liabilities should be acted upon, those guilty should be punished according to law, and single-hulled oil carriers should be banned forever. But knowing the way law works here (and having a senile and insane Secretary of inJustice), these are just dreams.