Lost in political celebrity

I first heard Jun Lozada’s name in a news report placed somewhere in the end of an edition of TV Patrol World. I first knew him as the president of a government-owned corporation – it’s exact name slips me, but what first struck me was his apparent connection to the deal. His last work was in connection with the country’s forests. So what has he got to do with a plan to bring broadband Internet access to the country?

At that point, most thought the ZTE scandal was dead. Joey de Venecia had implicated Mike Arroyo of asking him to abandon his company’s bid for the project, with his ringtone-able “back off!” line. Romulo Neri had implicated Benjamin Abalos of bribing him P200 million. Abalos, quite ceremoniously, announced his resignation from the COMELEC, and filed a libel case against his opponents, but after that, not much has been heard of him.

In fact, nothing has been heard from the issue since Neri invoked executive privilege when asked about the apparent connection between Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the flawed deal. Not until Lozada surfaced on that news report – the next day, senators were saying he could be that missing link. The next thing we know, he disappeared to Hong Kong.

Back in the playing field

Here we go again with the General Elections. It’s my last as a DLSU student, since if everything goes well, I’m graduating in June. Yet I feel very compelled to continue with the coverage despite the pretty obvious fact that my vote will basically not have an impact on me.

This campaign, however, starts with a pretty interesting predecent. If you see it as a battle between Tapat and Santugon, then the yellows have yet another battle to face. Last year they managed to win one position in the executive board – Stacy Carbonel being operations vice president – and the CBE assembly seat, taken by Aimee Chua. Most would probably think that they’d want a bigger slice of the pie this time.

For that, they’re fielding an all-female line-up. At the risk of sounding sexist, I was surprised when I first heard that Santugon is fielding a female executive board, led by Agnes de Castro – who lost last year’s activities vice president race to Jecah Ginete.

The future of school publications?

The Lasallian has recently rolled out what probably is their most radical experiment ever: publishing an issue in the magazine format.

Some might have noticed the short blurb in the opinion section on the 17 January issue of the student publication. Their prioritization of appeal over relevance led them to be, according to the publication, “too preoccupied to mind LSDC Street’s competition abroad, or too serious to care about Animoism’s latest collection. But after giving these things much thought, we came to the conclusion that perhaps we didn’t even give appeal its proper place in the newspaper.”

The blurb would eventually go talk about its shift towards features in its University section, on issues such as tuition fee increases. They have also frequently published “national situationers”, essays on national issues that are partly editorialized but, thankfully, manage to leave space for readers to think. Nevertheless, people might not find time to read it – some would’ve seen it as too daunting for a newspaper, much more a school publication.