Jogging and American Idol

Late afternoon yesterday, I donned my running gear, left the house for my mid-week jog in Marikina only to turn back halfway. Dark clouds in the sky formed and it seemed like the heavens were about to pour out a torrent. It felt like a lull before a storm.

You know what, it didn't rain at all and the skies cleared as well. By that time, I was already lying on my sofa half-naked. Bummer. It's the same feeling I get every time I bring an umbrella with me and it doesn't rain.

So I spent the night instead watching the American Idol finals on TV between the two Davids. I never liked Cook, never liked his voice, but his performance in the finals was more edgy, had more personality and fire than the smooth-voiced Archuleta who predictably specialized in ballads, almost Barry Manilow-like.

At one point, Archuleta was speechless and close to breaking into tears. A note to contestants: don't do that. Unless your viewers are entirely gay or cotton candy teens, people hate cheesy, touchy-feely, you-are-my-sunshine moments on stage.

The judges, Cowell particularly, liked Archuleta better. But what do you know, the viewers disagreed and Cook won the competition.

Presidentiables

This early, you can already spot the "Presidential" hopefuls in the 2010 elections. Manny Villar, Loren Legarda, Noli de Castro, Mar Roxas and--God forbid! Erap again.

Villar and de Castro are both playing the OFW card. Mar Roxas is suddenly making populist statements about scrapping the EVAT for petroleum products. Legarda has her TV ads conveying feel-good platitudes.

I think subsequent surveys will support my pedestrian observation.

Who's most likely to make it? Too early to say, but I believe the odds are against Legarda. This time, mass voters may feel they have had enough of a woman President. The current one, Gloria is highly unpopular due to massive corruption allegations and is widely perceived to have cheated during the last elections. Gloria seems to have set a bad precedent.

de Castro loves to play it "safe" when confronted with issues, and his statements do not really have much substance.

Roxas is highly articulate and knowledgeable, but he can turn out to be another Gloria: he may succumb to dirty politics while hiding under the veneer of "economic growth" rhetoric.

Villar is like Angara: he knows his way around the back-stabbing world of politics and knows when and how to use the media for his advantage. I like his decisiveness and his views are clear and direct to the point.

I don't think that Erap will run again, however. He seems tired of politics. I don't think he is keen on a political revenge.

But then again, everything could change in a snap. Philippine politics can be unpredictable.

Killjoy Runner

There was another running event this morning at the Fort, the Pringles 5k run. Runners were supposed to be munching on Pringles while finishing the course, much like the Donut fun run in the States. I refuse to support running events that are pointless and worse, corny. Duh.

Tocar y Luchar

I spent the whole night watching this amazing eight-part documentary To Play and To Fight about the Orquesta Juvenil Simon Bolivar de Venezuela (the current Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela). It is in Spanish, but I understood enough. Also the images spoke for themselves. Nobody knew what was happening in Venezuela, until this youth orchestra stepped on the world stage and blew everyone away. They take on the most demanding scores in the repertory: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Shostakovich. My jaw literally dropped when I heard them play a personal favourite-- Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony and a complicated one, the Shostakovich 10th. And what a performance it was.

The music they create sounds different even when compared to the best professional orchestras in the world, i.e. Berlin and Vienna. Maybe because these kids, many of whom come from "depressed" areas, have nothing but their music to hold on to. They mean every note they play, not just somersault over it. And it is to their credit they sound better than more professional orchestras who mechanically go through the musical scores. The sincerity comes through the listeners quite clearly.

Abaddo, Rattle, and the late Sinopoli-- first rate conductors who all held the baton of Berlin and Vienna, along with Placido Domingo, all flew in to Caracas to see and experience for themselves this amazing phenomenon.

The unforgettable images are indelibly inked in my mind: the blind kid who plays the trumpet; a young girl practicing Bach near the rooftops of a slum area; a young boy playing cello under a tree; a young trumpeter blowing his instrument in a parked "banca" along the seashore; and a concert in a small but packed chapel in what appears like a small, sleepy town.

Jose Antonio Abreu founded and pioneered the musical teaching system in Venezuela known as "El Sistema", which offers free music lessons and instruments to poor children. The scheme began in 1975, with the belief that music could act as a force for social cohesion in a country with such a wide gap between rich and poor.

The rest of the world can only marvel at the program's success. It has opened countless doors to under-privileged young people and gave them good chances at a better life.

As Berlin Philharmonic's Simon Rattle aptly puts it, "music not only enriches, but also saves lives."

Reaching Out

A good friend is being subjected to a shame campaign a la Brian Gorrell. The offensive blog gets nastier each time. I don't really know if I want to intervene, I hardly know the other party. My concern is that the situation could get out of control.

But I know that some well-meaning effort is being made to reach out, hopefully to put a stop to the on-line mayhem.

Once, another friend asked me to "mediate" between two warring people when their relationship broke down. I have no intention of meddling with other people's lives, but as a favor, I acquiesced. I invoked Kahlil Gibran and Oprah and started putting some sense into the blackmailer's head. The threats ceased after a while.

Monopolistic Behaviour

In the Senate hearing yesterday, MERALCO representatives admitted that system losses due to pilferage as well as the company's own electric consumption are being passed on to consumers, on top of the debt it owes NAPOCOR for failing to honor its purchase contracts.

The onerous cross-ownership provision allowed in the EPIRA-- allowing for a distribution company to partly-own a generation company, or IPPs-- defeats the purpose of introducing competition into the industry.

In full-page ads, obviously MERALCO wants to put the entire blame on NAPOCOR for the series of price hikes in electricity. But clearly, questionable pass-on charges imposed by MERALCO to its costumers due to system losses and debt owed to NAPOCOR, as well as purchasing power from MERALCO's sister companies at higher rates are part of the problem.

The government is splitting NAPOCOR and engaging in privatization activities to make the generation sector competitive and efficient. The same should be true for the distribution sector. It's about time the government do something about the abusive behavior of this distribution utility.

Oscar Moment

I'm supposed to be happy today, my phones kept ringing all day, text messages poured in from family and friends, from near and far. It's a confirmation that I have many friends (what a pathetic statement). As Sally Field said in her Oscar speech, "You like me, you really, really like me."

Muchas gracias a todos!