Is There No One Else?

Facebook friends of mine who are disappointed over the current crop of presumed presidential candidates keep asking, "Are these people the only choices we have?"

Most of the times, I don't even bother to answer and when I do, I end up trying to prove that it is essentially our failure as citizens to actually produce a better choice.

And asking, "Is there no one else?" just a year before the 2016 National and Local Elections is pathetic and futile.

Even if we were somehow able to come up with a name, devise a platform, scare up some money for a national electoral campaign, and put up an organization that can undertake a national political campaign, there wouldn't be enough time to mount a successful one.

The way things are in Philippine politics, it actually takes YEARS to even get a candidate in a position that would make him or her just seem to be a viable Presidential candidate. 

Will Grace Poe Be Our Next President?

Forget brinksmanship and pussyfooting or bleating protestations of innocence or tough guy talk against crime and corruption, I think 2016 will be won by the candidate who possesses brute, raw power over the emotions of the masses.

I am not a fan of Senator Grace Poe nor am I endorsing her candidacy.  In fact, in previous posts on Facebook, I've already said that if the election came to a choice between Mar Roxas and Jojo Binay, I would have topic the former. Except for his temper, I think Mar is a pretty decent guy and some of the solutions to national problems when he was Trade Secretary were really clever.

I am not sure if it is the right way to say this, but instead of calling for a subsidy to bring down the price of medicines, Mar sought to use the parallel importation scheme to bring in cheaper branded medicines from India and elsewhere to compete with the same branded medicines being sold here at a higher price. That sort of impressed me a lot, back then. 

Apart from this, there was the PCPS or Personal Computers for Public Schools as well as the Pisong Pandesal, the big rah-rah-rah for Small and Medium Enterprises and of course, call centers.

In 2004, Mar won with the highest number of votes for senator and I guess it was largely because of the "Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!" Mister Suave campaign.

These days, however, we're seeing a different Mar from the one I saw years and years ago. And his presumed bid for the Presidency in 2016 isn't at all the same as his 2004 bid for a seat in the senate.

During my long walks around my low income neighborhood in Sampaloc and my chismisan sessions with people about the upcoming elections, they mention lots of names except Mar's.

When I mention Binay, most of the people I talked with nodded and said they'd vote for him because they wanted to have something similar to what Makati residents got in terms of "benefits". 

However, when I mention Grace Poe, almost all of the people I talked with were more emphatic in saying that they'd vote for her. When asked why, they'd say in different ways that, well, they just liked her and would vote for her for no reason at all other than she's the daughter of FPJ.

Never mind that she may have problems with her citizenship or the rumored half sister of Bongbong Marcos. Never mind that she has relatively little experience in actually holding the reins of an executive office. Never mind that she hasn't talked about platforms or programs...

Call it stupid, dumb, and idiotic... I would agree with you.

But that's what we are facing in the 2016 elections, a large voting public who will vote for Grace Poe for little or no reason at all.

And it doesn't help that one camp is bickering over control over an incipient presidential campaign while the other camp is busy fighting one fire after the other and doing everything but focus on their presidential campaign. Let's not even mention that another camp, though smaller and less glossy than the two others, is winning a steady following and eating away at whatever support the first two camps have established.

Too Little, Too Late For Social Media Do Gooders

I posted a short reaction on my Facebook page to an article by Elizabeth Angsioco in The Standard where it seems she described everyone using social media as irresponsible and callous in the successive teen scandals involving two adolescent celebrities -- Julia Buencamino and Andrea Brillantes.

The reality is, you can't stop people from talking about something once something is made public -- really, it's like stuffing worms back in a can once it has been opened. You can try and there are ways to do this effectively, if you have enough money and can mobilize a lot of people -- law enforcers, techies, and publicists. 

I really wish we all could be decent and considerate people, but you see, social media has become the online...
Posted by Paul Farol on Sunday, July 12, 2015

Sticking to BMR Beats Stupid Fad Diets

Okay, what kind of diet is it this time, eh?

GM, South Beach, Paleo, or whatever... If you can't stick to it for life, I assure you that the weight you lose from going on any of these diets will eventually come back and then some.

How do I know? I've tried all of them and they all worked until I returned to my usual diet.

Let's get real, people. I don't think anyone on earth can eat the same things for a long period of time or can bear the tedium of counting calories or the patience to plan out their meals for an entire week.

The no BS way to go about weight-loss and keeping the weight off, really, is to know how much food you should consume everyday to reach or maintain your ideal weight. 

That is what is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) -- which, takes into account not just how much calories you need at rest but also how much calories you need when you take on more than the usual amount of physical activity. 

One's BMR isn't a static number, it can go up or down depending on the amount of physical activity you do. So, if you start doing a lot of exercise or physical work, your BMR will go up. If you slack off or just lie around the whole day, your BMR will go down.

To lose weight, you simply have to take in less calories than your BMR requires or increase your BMR by taking on more physical activities.

Here is a link to a good BMR calculator.

And nope, don't expect results within a week or two. Give yourself at least three months or twelve weeks to see any substantial results. (It took me 13 weeks to shed about 45 pounds.)

There are lots of apps out there that can calculate your BMR as well as help you keep track of your food intake as well as record the amount of calories you burn when you take on any physical activity -- the most usual being walking.

One app I have and use everyday is called Noom Weightloss.

It just makes it easy to keep track of everything... from logging my food intake to tracking of the number of steps I take in a day and how many calories I burned during any kind of exercise. It also tracks your weight loss progress and even projects how many pounds or kilos you will lose give the current trajectory of your weight loss progress.

So, try it out and if you don't like it, there are other weight loss apps that take out a lot of the tedious stuff.

One Reason Why Being Single Is Great!

Posted by RadioNOW 100.9 on Saturday, July 11, 2015