The Tri-Sexuality WordPress theme by Scott Jarkoff, co-founder of deviantArt, has to be the best three-column wordpress theme out there. When I spotted it, Jarkoff was still packaging a release and I had to check his site daily until the theme was offered for download.
I’m still customizing the theme and transferring elements from the previous themes I’ve used.
Press Freedom Week is finally over. I missed a lot of activities during the celebration because of my work schedule – I work from 5:00 in the afternoon until the pages are put to bed. I wasn’t able to attend any of the seminars or conferences for editors and reporters.
Last Friday afternoon, Marlen and I attended a forum in UP discussing ways out of the current political crisis in the Philippines. Blogger and pundit Manuel L. Quezon III was among the speakers. Manolo’s speech was good as expected and was well-received by the students who attended the gathering.
His sharing of the few Cebuano words he knows of and how he got to know of these had everyone laughing. He said he has this friend with whom he sometimes watches TV with and whenever Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is in the news, his friend would say “Yawa” and when Rep. Imee Marcos is talking on TV, his friend would say “Pesteng Yawa.”
Yawa is literally “The Devil” and the word is a common cuss word of angry Cebuanos.
In his speech during the forum, Manolo pointed out the class bias that he said has been keeping President Arroyo in office. He asked students why it was so easy to push for President Estrada’s resignation when evidence of alleged corruption started coming out against him. Quezon asked the students to ask their parents or people they know “are they not moving because the President is too much like themselves?”
Manolo then recounted how Cebu had been a bulwark of opposition since the American times, the Japanese times and even during Martial Law. When we talked after his speech (I met him outside while he was smoking and talking to one student), Manolo asked me whether Cebu is indeed GMA country. I said I’m not so sure. I said it might just be perception owing to the fact that those talking in media are public officials and most Cebu officials support the president.
Manolo agreed that there is no doubt GMA won in Cebu. The question is whether her margin of victory was padded to make up for poor showing elsewhere in the country. I told him that most local candidates supported Arroyo in the last elections and that all three candidates for governor carried her as standard bearer.
We talked for a while but Marlen and I had to leave early for work.
Max is a journalist and blogger based in Cebu. He has written and edited for such publications as The Freeman, The Independent Post, Today, Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, Philstar Life, and Rappler.
He is also a mobile app and web developer and co-founded InnoPub Media with his wife Marlen.
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