Makabagong salawikain

~Ang buhay ay parang bato, it's hard.

~Better late than pregnant.

~Behind the clouds are the other clouds.

~It's better to cheat than to repeat!

~Do unto others ... then run!!!

~Kapag puno na ang salop, kumuha na ng ibang salop.

~Magbiro ka na sa lasing, magbiro ka na sa bagong gising, huwag lang sa lasing na bagong gising.

~When all else fails, follow instructions.

~Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika, lumaki
sa ibang bansa.

~To err is human, to errs is humans.

~Ang taong nagigipit ... sa bumbay kumakapit

~Pag may usok ... may nag-iihaw

~Ang taong naglalakad nang matulin ... may utang.

~No guts, no glory... no ID, no entry.

~Birds of the same feather that prays together ... stays together.

~Kapag may sinuksok at walang madukot, may nandukot.

~Walang matigas na tinapay sa gutom na tao.

~Ang taong di marunong lumingon sa kanyang pinanggalingan .... ay may stiff neck.

~Birds of the same feather make a good feather duster.

~Kapag may tiyaga, may nilaga. Kapag may taga, may tahi.

~Huli man daw at magaling, undertime pa rin.

~Ang naglalakad ng matulin, late na sa appointment

~Matalino man ang matsing, matsing pa rin.

~Better late than later.

~Aanhin ang palasyo kung ang nakatira ay kuwago, mabuti pa ang bahay kubo, sa paligid puno ng linga.

~Kapag maikli ang kumot, tumangkad ka na!

~No man is an island because time is gold.

~Hindi lahat ng kumikinang ay ginto ... muta lang yan.

~Kapag ang puno mabunga ... mataba ang lupa!

~When it rains ... it floods.

~Pagkahaba haba man ng prusisyon ... mauubusan din ng kandila.

~Ang buhay ay parang gulong, minsan nasa ibabaw, minsan nasa vulcanizing shop.

~Batu-bato sa langit, ang tamaan ... sapul.

~Try and try until you succeed... or else try another.

~Huwag magbilang ng manok kung alaga mo ay itik.

~Kapag maiksi na ang kumot, bumili ka na ng bago.

~An apple a day is too expensive.

~An apple a day makes seven apples a week. (really expensive)

~Ako ang nagsaing ... iba ang kumain. Diet ako eh.

Latest updates:

Kapag maiksi ang kumot..., sa baby ipagamit.

Papunta ka pa lang..., Sige, ingat!

And taong naglalakad ng mabilis, tumatakas.

Laging nasa huli... ang pinakamatangkad.

Pag may usok..., kawawa ang may hika.

When the cat is away..., sabihin mo lang, wiss, wiss, wiss, para lumapit.

Laughs in translation

English movie titles you DEFINITELY should NOT translate in
Filipino =)

(as plundered from Plaridel Papers; by Rayvi Sunico?)

1. black hawk down - ibong maitim sa ibaba
2. dead man's chest - dodo ng patay
3. i know what you did last summer - uyy... aminin!
4. love, actually - sa totoo lang, pag-ibig
5. million dollar baby - 50 million pisong sanggol (it depends on the
exchange rate of the country)
6. the blair witch project - ang proyekto ng bruhang si blair
7. mary poppins - si mariang may putok
8. snakes on a plane - nag-ahasan sa ere
9. the postman always rings twice - ang kartero kapag dumutdot laging
dalawang beses
10. sum of all fears - takot mo, takot ko, takot nating lahat
11. swordfish - talakitok
12. pretty woman - ganda ng lola mo
13. robin hood, men in tights - si robin hood at ang mga felix bakat
14. 4 weddings & a funeral - kahit 4 na beses ka pang magpakasal,
mamamatay ka rin
15. the good, the bad and the ugly - ako, ikaw, kayong lahat
16. harry potter and the sorcerer's stone - adik si harry, tumira
ng shabu
17. click - isang pindot ka lang
18. brokeback mountain - may nawasak sa likod ng bundok ng tralala
/bumigay sa bundok
19. the day of the death - ayaw tumayo (ng mga patay)
20. waterworld - basang-basa
21. there's something about mary - may kwan sa ano ni maria
22. employee of the month - ang sipsip
23. resident evil - ang biyenan
24. kill bill - kilitiin sa bilbil
25. the grudge - lintik lang ang walang ganti
26. nightmare before christmas - binangungot sa noche buena
27. never been kissed - pangit kasi
28. gone in 60 seconds - 1 round, tulog
29. the fast and the furious - ang bitin, galit
30. too fast, too furious - kapag sobrang bitin, sobrang galit
31. dude, where's my car - dong, anong level ulit tayo nag-park?
32. beauty and the beast - ang asawa ko at ang nanay nya
33. the lord of the rings - ang alahero

Anti-Arroyo TV shows taken off air

Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:04 am (PST)

Anti-Arroyo TV shows taken off air

Two current affairs shows on ABC 5 that were allegedly anti-Arroyo
administration were taken off the air after the television network's
owner was implicated in the attempted coup d'etat last year, TV
Patrol World reported Thursday.

The ABC 5 staff was surprised to learn that network boss
Antonio "Tonyboy" Cojuangco had ordered the cancellation of "Dokyu"
and "Frontlines," programs known for their sometimes hard-hitting
comments against the administration.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, however, denied that the government
influenced Cojuangco's decision.

"Frankly I have not sat in any discussion where this particular
thing has been talked about," Gonzalez said in an interview.

He, however, added: "Mr. Cojuangco is involved in all
destabilization attempts especially in the February 24-25 [coup
attempt], down the line funding and his direct connections with
General [Danilo] Lim... [and] the video on the supposed withdrawal
of support."

Gonzalez was referring to the video where Lim, a former chief of the
Army's elite Scout Rangers, was seen and heard calling on fellow
soldiers to withdraw support for President Arroyo.

Investigators had said that ABC 5 facilities were used in making the
video.

Gonzalez said that if Cojuangco indeed ordered the cancellation of
the shows to lessen friction between him and the Arroyo
administration, then he might succeed.

"The case of the pudding is in the eating. We'll find out," the
justice chief said.

A source, meanwhile, told ABS-CBN that the reason behind the shows'
cancellations is the network's financial losses. The same source
said the network loses about P40 million monthly.

At the same time the two current affairs show were
cancelled, "Newsbreak," an investigative magazine financed by
Cojuangco, was also closed down.

Malacañang had condemned the magazine for its exposés against
alleged government irregularities.

Maritess Vitug, the magazine's editor-in-chief, confirmed in a text
message to ABS-CBN that Cojuangco might have been forced to stop
financing the magazine.

She said that in a way, Cojuangco financed the magazine's operations
by putting in seed money and by placing advertisements.

ABS-CBN tried to get a statement from Cojuangco but the calls were
unanswered. ABC 5 management declined to issue a statement. With a
report from Ricky Carandang

Movies I wish to see this year

“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
“8 1/2″ (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
“Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola
“The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
“Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
“Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
“Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
“Do the Right Thing” (1989) Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
“Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
“GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
“Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
“Mad Max 2″ / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
“Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
“North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
“Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
“Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
“Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
“A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah

Also, I forgot:

“Princess Mononoke” (1997, anime) by Hayao Miyazaki
“Ten” (2002) by Abbas Kiarostami
Krysztof Kieslowski’s "Ten Commandments"/"Dekalog" (1989) (I only saw One, hehe)
Marcel Camus's "Black Orpheus" (1959) ("Orfeu Negra")
Life of Pi
Babette's Feast
Fitzcarraldo
Jesus of Montreal

I also like to catch up on reading the ff. novels (which I’ve been intending to read for the longest time) to see why they are considered “successful” (at least according to the Modern American Library’s “100 best English-language novels published since 1900,” as of 2003, that is):

1984, George Orwell
Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton --> seen its movie version
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren --> seen its movie version
Animal Farm, Georgo Orwell
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22, Joseph Heller --> saw the movie; annoying!
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White --> saw the movie
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Dune, Frank Herbert
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck --> seen its movie version
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams --> seen its movie version too
Howards End, E.M. Forster --> seen its movie version too
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Light in August, William Faulkner
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien --> first part only; seen its movie version too
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett --> saw the movie! enjoyable
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Native Son, Richard Wright
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey --> saw the movie
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Rabbit Run, John Updike
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles --> seen its movie version
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Stand, Stephen King
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe --> have read its summary, which is such a spoiler
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee --> started it, but couldn't finish because of the prose style
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Ulysses, James Joyce
The World According to Garp, John Irving --> seen its movie version too

Crucial test on religious freedom in Lina Joy's case

Crucial test on religious freedom in Lina Joy's case
An AFP report, Jan 12, by Elisia Yeo.

Malaysia's status as a moderate Muslim country is being put to the test in a milestone court decision that may allow Muslims to renounce their faith, a move considered one of Islam's greatest sins.

The nation's highest court is to rule on an appeal by Lina Joy, a convert from Islam to Christianity who for a decade has been locked in a battle with the government to have her decision legally recognised.

The appeal brings to a head passionate arguments about whether Muslims can renounce Islam at will and, ultimately, whether Malaysia is a secular country or is morphing into a conservative Islamic state under religious Sharia law.

"Our country is at a crossroads pending the outcome of this landmark case," Joy's counsel, Benjamin Dawson, told AFP.

"This decision is pivotal to the direction the country will take."

The 42-year-old woman at the centre of the case is a member of Malaysia's majority ethnic Malay community, who make up 60 percent of the population of more than 26 million.

Born a Muslim and called Azlina Jailani, she says her introduction to Christianity in 1990 changed her life for the better.

But it has left her fighting the authorities since 1997, first for her new name to be put on her identity card, then to have her former religion removed.

"Although I have been brought up as a Muslim, I have, from the beginning, not believed in the practices and teachings of Islam," Joy, who rarely speaks to the media, said in a 2000 affidavit to a high court.

"I find more peace in my spirit and soul after having become a Christian.

"As such, I am of the opinion that I would be unfaithful, untrue and unfair to myself and to others should I carry on projecting myself as Muslim."

Resolve a paradox

Her appeal to the federal court centres on whether she must go to a Sharia court to have her renunciation recognised before authorities strike the word "Islam" off her identity card.

The court's ruling is seen as pivotal because it could resolve a paradox in the constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion but defines Malays as Muslims.

Malaysia's civil courts operate parallel to Sharia courts for Muslims in areas of personal law such as divorce, child custody and inheritance.

The question of which takes precedence, however, is increasingly murky in cases that involve both Muslims and non-Muslims, who have little say in Sharia courts.

Lower courts have so far rebuffed Joy's efforts, ruling that only Islamic courts can recognise her conversion.

However, the Islamic courts are loath to approve apostasy - renouncing Islam, which some Muslim scholars say is punishable by death - setting up a Catch-22 situation for would-be converts.

Several high-profile cases have underlined the strain. Last year, an ethnic Indian mountaineering hero was buried as a Muslim despite the protests of his Hindu wife, who insisted he never converted. Creeping 'Islamisation'

The debate has grown increasingly fierce as Malays have become more openly pious, a phenomenon non-Muslim communities see as a worrying "Islamisation" of the country.

Analysts say the resurgence is fueled by a decades-old fight between the ruling United Malays National Organisation party and its Islamic opposition to prove their religious credentials and "out-Islamise" each other.

While rights campaigners argue that Malays have a right to renounce Islam, Muslim groups have denounced Joy's legal challenge as a ploy to undermine the religion's status.

"The process amounts to an attempt to deconstruct, to change radically the position of Islam as it is in the constitutional legal set-up of the country," said Yusri Mohammed, the president of the influential Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia.

"We see this as something which is unacceptable, something which is a threat to the socio-religious harmony of the country."

Harussani Zakaria, the mufti of Perak state, recently cited a report that 100,000 Malays had renounced Islam and more were lining up to do so, although he has not provided details.

While Yusri said any social unrest over the Joy case would be "manageable," emotions are frayed in a country which rarely sees demonstrations or acts of political violence.

Threats against her lawyers have been released on websites and in August, posters were circulated anonymously calling for the death of lawyer and rights activist Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, who has argued in Joy's case.

"It is a symptom of the breakdown of civilised dialogue in this country. It is a sign of the reactionary times ahead," he wrote in a newspaper article on the threats.

Worsening relationship

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who admits race relations have hit a "fragile" point, has described the worsening relationship between the Muslim Malays and the minority ethnic Chinese and Indian communities as a "disease".

A year ago, all 10 non-Muslim cabinet members sent a petition to the prime minister asking him to safeguard the rights of religious minorities, but were reprimanded by Abdullah and forced to retract it.

Meanwhile, Joy's battle continues. She is forced to keep a low profile for fear of retaliation from Muslim groups, and although she is now engaged to a Christian man, she cannot marry him.

Under Malaysian law, non-Muslims must convert to Islam if they want to marry a Muslim.

Ivy Josiah of the Women's Aid Organisation, part of a coalition of groups watching over Joy's case, said it was about a woman's right to live her life freely.

"At a very personal level, here is a woman who's been for the past 16 years saying 'I'm a Christian. I want to get married, I want to have children' and no one is hearing her.

"And the state is saying, 'You are not allowed to do this'," she said.

Dawson, Joy's lawyer, said he expects a decision in the first half of 2007, and lawyers say decisions in similar cases in lower courts are being held over until the federal judges rule on her appeal