Pet Melliza

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER The United States preaches the “free trade” dogma but remains its chief violator by blocking the Philippines’ bid for rice self-sufficiency. Given the output Filipino farmers have the past two years, the Department of Agriculture (DA) in 2011 foresees the country attaining self-sufficiency and stopping rice imports during the watch of  President Noynoy Aquino by 2013 at the earliest or 2015. In Western Visayas (WV), DA regional director Larry Nacionales echoes that enthusiasm. WV, comprising Capiz, Iloilo, Aklan, Antique, Negros Occidental and Guimaras provinces, has been shipping rice to other regions. However, the Philippines must climb uphill to attain that goal because something more sinister and arrogant than god almighty blocks the way – the US. That did not come from me but the DA grumbling that its “doable” goal is being reduced to a nightmare. The Philippines applied for “quantitative restrictions” on rice imports with the World Tr...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Life, as existentialist thinker Jean Paul Sartre points out, is absurd. We are what we are not and we are not what we are. That’s no play of words. If you’re 20 years old today, your are not actually 20 years old as finitude closes in on you every second, and even before you could finish reading this sentence you get older by a few minutes and your life and age continues to advance. You will be more than what your are today (or less) until the final chapter of your life ends. You’re a “Dasein” or being “thrown-into-the-world” without your consent, and at the same time, a “being-unto-death,” as another existentialist, Heidegger, puts it. What you are today is not you tomorrow. Child today, adult tomorrow. There is no still, motionless moment in our existence as we continue to change to become what we not now. Dogmas cannot even withstand the absurdity of being questioned. This may sound an absurd meandering but can’t help but think that way as a strang...

12 March 2012. The pics below were taken in Igbaras, Iloilo yesterday (11 Mar 2012) at the two cock farms of Jun Evidente. We swung to the cockpit in Guimbal, Iloilo, an unexpected turn after our hosts -- Jun, wife Carol and son Alexis -- informed us that they had two entries in the one-cock derby. Both entries won though they did not qualify for the "fastest kill." We placed our bets and won. The amount of our winning is a secret though. As we toured the cock farms, one lesson popped into my head: cockfighting may constitute cruelty to animals which is already banned in several countries. But cockfarms are among the earth friendliest farming systems in the world. A farmer, like Jun Evidente, retired engineer at Boeing, has to avoid pesticides so to protect the chickens. Further, as done in other cockfarms, the land becomes green with vegetation notably fruit trees. A farmer has to preserve grasses because these are eaten by the birds. In the case of June Evidente...