Japan is crucial and hedging while ASEAN is recalibrating due to the integration of the member-states to be known as the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by December 2020.

IT’S one week before June and four months to October, unless COMELEC decides to move the filing of the Certificate of Candidacy to December 2015. No Calendar of Activities has been released by COMELEC and truly that is bothersome. That is one red flag that needs immediate and careful attention.

FAIRNESS has never been a virtue in the political arena. You need always to be ahead of one’s opponent. The ability to throw mud is measured on the ability to win the perception war. Often, politics has been viewed as a bloody sport. Till one is hit badly and blood colors the canvass, it is alright to hit more. And this script is nothing new to us Filipinos. Remember Daang Hari in relation to then Senate President Manny Villar and the magical term, Villaroyo, concocted by the same dirty minds of today? The old script is being played again.

SUNDAY was not a good day for Filipinos worldwide with the unanimous decision rendered by the judges to a fight dubbed as the “Fight of the Century” that went the distance. The Mayweather-Pacman fight was expensive, the hype was too much and the fight was not.

WE had rains yesterday in some parts of the metropolis and finally it seems the land was able to breath from the scorching heat. Alas, it was like all the steam came out from the fissures of Metro Manila. Power is a big issue during summer when more Filipinos are using it twice or thrice the capacity due to mercury rising. And as we try to cool ourselves, stable supply and pricing become daily discussion topics in Filipino households.

INDEED 2016 is fast approaching and October is five months away before aspirants file their certificates of candidacy. By June, we would have a clearer environment on who are running for the presidency. Would a late September filing be in the making? We hope this does not happen since it would be to the interest of the voters to get to know the candidates more and be able to scrutinize the candidates well but not in a manner of demolishing each other just to prove to all one is clean. There’s got to be a better way to screen out candidates. Absent any primaries and run offs, we need to devise a mechanism whereby we are able to select well given the options.

THE idiomatic expression “taking the bull by the horns” means to grasp the problem head-on and struggle through it. “To confront your problem instead of avoiding them.” The saying stems from the practice of bull-leaping that was practiced on the isle of Crete. It means to take control of the situation.

A WEEK ago, the Joint Foreign Chambers and Philippine business organizations met to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Arangkada. Unfortunately, BSA3 was a no show at this high roller event. Worst, his speech was read, without much passion and nary an eye contact with the audience, by the literal cabinet secretary, Rene Almendras.

2016 is 16 months away and some businesses are doing daily countdowns setting aside any expansion plans while members of the diplomatic community are said to be having jitters due to prospects for 2016.

THE undated resignation letter of Purisima was a resignation from the position of Chief Philippine National Police (CPNP) and not a resignation from the service.

THE second national address of BSA3 was essentially done to accept publicly, the resignation of suspended Chief PNP Alan Purisima. A sacrificial lamb to an arena shouting kill. It would have been more than just that had Purisima and his PR handlers given BSA3 his time under the klieg lights until the next news cycle. But alas, none of that. In the vernacular, “nagsaluhan” publicly.

ON 4 December 2015, the Ombudsman issued a preventive suspension to CPNP Alan Purisima for six months.  Per news accounts dated 13 December 2014, Purisima complied with the order of the Ombudsman “after President Benigno Aquino III asked him to do so.”