Amid the feeling of
desperation of the populace over recent political developments, devastating
typhoons, traffic, the airport scams, etc., a most welcome and
much-needed glimmer of cheer appears in the horizon---just in time for a merry
Christmas celebration.
Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach,
daughter of a Filipina mother and a German father (she was born in Stuttgart in western Germany and is also a former movie actress who answered to the name of Pia Romero), bags the Miss Universe title
in the recent pageant in Las Vegas---42 years after Margie Moran won it. But to make Pia’s victory more
exciting---very Filipino in plot and style, in fact, full of last-minute
mix-up, suspense and confusion---pageant emcee Steve Harvey of "Family Feud" fame, erroneously announced that Miss Colombia, the first runner-up, had won the title (which
would have made Colombia the consecutive two-year winner). Within minutes, however, Harvey realized his mistake and called out an astounded Pia Wurtzbach---a stunning standout in an electric blue gown by Albert Andrada---as the real
winner.
The cameras fully capture
the swirling emotions of the cast involved, most especially our Miss
Philippines who at first didn’t quite know how to handle the erstwhile winner
from Latin America who had to be uncrowned right there. As Harvey
acknowledged his embarrassing mistake and apologized profusely, real winner Pia went up to the runner-up to perhaps console her, but the latter turned away, perhaps too emotionally distraught (can anyone blame her?). The
cavernous hall, full of flag-waving Pinoys, burst into thunderous
applause for Pia.
XXX
Those who know Pia Wurtzbach
stress that her key advocacy is to promote HIV awareness, which is wonderful,
for statistics bear out that this world-wide scourge is now prevalent even in our
own country. Also, it’s good to know that Pia’s beauty is all hers---a genuine
gift of Mother Nature. As someone who knows her says, she has done nothing by
way of a repair job, though she had to lose some 25 lbs. for the
competition.
This Filipino-German beauty
indeed represents the best of our multi-racial strains over the centuries that
have made the Filipina by now legendary for her beauty. At Last Vegas today Pia added terrific grace,
poise and composure to the battery of winning Filipina attributes---despite the hostilities she experienced from sympathizers of the dethroned Colombian girl. Pia looked every inch a queen as she never lost her dignity.
XXX
As I listened to the news
and thrilled to the rectification by the harassed emcee of his mistake, the
thought suddenly came to my mind: at least Harvey made a manful, honest
confession of it. I couldn’t help but think of Smartmatic, the provider of
election machines for our past two elections and already contracted for the 2016 elections, and how it has failed to
rectify the grave injustice to the Filipino people of stealing their votes---or
at the very least, refusing to acknowledge its grievous sin of failing to give
us clean, honest and credible elections.
At this point, the Filipino
IT practitioners are again unanimous in denouncing the on-going review of the
source code for those machines, as required by RA 9369, the Automated Election
System (AES) Law. Our IT experts have
devoted enormous time, resources and energy to detailing the hideous aspects
of the AES and the company repeatedly contracted to provide the machines for
it. Smartmatic, however, has been so influential with the powers that be that
the IT experts’ opinions---as well as efforts of former Biliran Rep. Glenn
Chong who, after being cheated in the elections of 2010 in his province, has
made it his life advocacy to document and spread the gospel of cheating through the Smartmatic machines---have fallen on deaf ears all
this time.
XXX
Here’s just a sample of the
opinion shared by our IT experts, from Professor Toti Casino of Asia-Pacific
College: “The on-going source code review is some kind of evidence being
concocted by the Commission (on Elections) to be used for their claim of being
compliant with the law, though it’s hardly attended by any more notable and
qualified reviewers EXCEPT AMATEURS WHO HAVE NO EXPERIENCE IN NATIONWIDE-SCALE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AES. Even Smartmatic with its discovered failures in 2010 and 2013 tries to make it look as seamless as an ATM installed nationwide;
but it’s rather A GRAND SCHEME OF THIEVERY in the AES. Justifying the
fraud-ridden 2016 PCOS-AES elections as truthful would depend on who can put up
the ante among these operators” (emphasis BOC’s).
Mabuti pa talaga si Steve
Harvey, unaamin sa pagkakamali niya. Ang
Smartmatic, kahit kalian hindi aamin, sa tulong ng sindikato sa loob ng
Comelec.
XXX
If we Filipinos have been
riled up over the “Laglag Bala” scams in our country’s premier international
airport, it seems that hindi tayo nag-iisa. A newspaper in India reported
about another scam that appears to be plaguing the international airport in
Bangkok which could be even worse than our native-spawned scam that has made
NAIA notorious around the world. This
story was also reported by the BBC.
The report said that an
Indian national was detained in the Thai capital for stealing a box of cigarettes in a
duty-free shop in Bangkok International Airport. He had paid for chocolates and
a carton of cigarettes, but it seems that the cashier put an additional packet
of cigarettes extra into his bag and he thought it was free. The passenger was arrested for shop-lifting and report alleged that Thai police had asked for 30,000 baht for his release.
The report also alleged that the Indian national spent
two nights in jail and paid 500 baht for an air-conditioned cell, 200-300 baht
for each visitor and 11,000 baht for his final release. The report alleged that the police shared the money in front of the victim. Moreover, he was charged
in court and fined 2,000 baht by the magistrate, handcuffed and escorted to his
plane. But what made it even more
terrible was that his passport was stamped "Thief".
His relatives
requested help from the Indian Embassy and were told that it's helpless, as
many Asians are victimized similarly daily and letters and phone-calls to Thai authorities are ignored.
The report alleged that the passenger shared a cell
with a Singaporean the first night who paid 60,000 baht for his release. The
second night it was a Malaysian national who paid 70,000 baht.
XXX
The media advisory stressed that
the episode had happened not in a shanty shop in downtown Bangkok but in a duty
free shop at the Bangkok Int'l Airport and there were corroborating testimonies
from various victims. But apparently the
scam is not limited to that airport, as someone else went through the same
ordeal in Dubai. A Duty Free attendant
put a bottle of cologne in his shopping bag (he did not even see it
happen) and he was arrested for stealing,
before he even picked up his luggage.
The report said this
passenger sat at the airport jail the whole day---NO FOOD, NO WATER for one day
and only after he paid a fine (bribe?) of US$500, all he had in his pocket at the time, was he let
go.
The report emphasized that
all of these episodes appear pre-planned--- some
duty free employees intentionally put extra items to victimize passengers---and they know whom to
target. The advice is: ALWAYS GET A
RECEIPT FOR ANY FREE GIFT THAT THE DUTY FREE SHOP GIVES. One should also be
WATCHFUL WHEN YOU ARE BEING BILLED AND ITEMS PACKED IN INTERNATIONAL AIR PORTS
(DUTY FREE SHOPS).
My own comment: a dilemma
like the above that seems to be happening in various airports could really be
scary for any traveler, especially if he or she is down to his last few bucks
while in some transit airport, and the scammers won’t take anything but cash,
so that a credit card would be useless. Of course, there's the ATM, but not all passengers have that access.