You have people in the Philippines right now with this mentality: “I went through two years of hell in ROTC, and it’s just fair that others go through that shit too.”

Frankly, that’s a very Filipino mentality.

It’s like Filipino immigrants in the US or any other developed country who don’t want to see other Filipinos or other minorities get that green card without struggling first. They want to see fellow immigrants suffer first because they suffered too – for them it’s just fair. Guess why they voted for Trump and approved of his anti-immigration policies.

Filipinos can be scumbags like that.

On the Mark: Why It’s Called ‘Soccer’ in the United States
By MARK LORENZANA

(Originally posted on July 25, 2022, in PNM)

There has been a lot of soccer news lately.

Two columns ago, I wrote about a particularly bad stretch for Mexican soccer: how the Mexican Women’s National Soccer Team went winless in the recently concluded CONCACAF W championship despite hosting the tournament here in Mexico, about how Mexico’s U-20 National Men’s Soccer Team suffered a shocking defeat to underdog Guatemala at the quarterfinals of the pre-World Cup tournament in Honduras and how the Mexican Men’s National Soccer Team failed to win a single game against opposing teams that have also qualified for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar in November.

Still in Mexican soccer, French star André-Pierre Gignac, who plays for Tigres UANL of the Liga MX, will miss the “MLS All-Stars vs. Liga MX...

Let’s keep it simple.

I say the most important trait of a public official is that he/she should be content with – and be able to live with – the monthly salary that’s allocated for the position.

Let’s say a city mayor outside Metro Manila earns P128,696 per month. Why can’t someone live on that alone? It’s way more than the take-home pay of millions of Filipinos who are, right now, isang kahig isang tuka.

The problem started when Filipinos collectively decided that it’s perfectly normal for politicians to dip their hands into public funds.

The rest of us private citizens who eke out an honest living make do with what we earn. When we dip our hands into money that doesn’t belong to us, like the company payroll, for example – attention, HR and payroll people! LOL – we get sued and go to jail.

Why can’t public officials who steal money from the nation’s coffers go to jail like...

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
By Mark Lorenzana

(Originally posted on July 22, 2022, in PNM)

The initial request was reasonable enough.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Wednesday, July 20, that her office — the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) — had been requesting the Mexican government to address some concerns about Mexico’s energy policies that have been inconsistent with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Those U.S. concerns in a nutshell: Mexico’s moves to prioritize energy from its state utility over private energy companies, as well as denials and revocations of U.S. firms’ ability to operate in the country’s energy sector.

What did Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) do all this time?

Nothing. He ignored the request.

So now comes the reckoning — another request, but this time something that López Obrador...

On the Mark: LIV Golf Brouhaha Continues
By Mark Lorenzana

(Originally posted on July 18, 2022, in PNM)

On Saturday, July 16, Irish golf superstar Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland — a 24-year-old Norwegian ranked number nine in the world — shared the lead at 16-under par after the third round at the British Open, the oldest and most prestigious golf tournament in the world.

It’s a shame, though, that the British Open — a PGA Tour partner — is still being overshadowed by the ongoing LIV Golf controversy.

Early this month, the U.S. Justice Department officially opened an investigation into the PGA Tour for alleged “anticompetitive behavior” against the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit.

In light of the investigation, the agents of players currently signed with the PGA tour have received inquiries from the U.S. Department of Justice involving both the PGA Tour’s bylaws governing its...

AMLO-Biden Meeting Ends with a Whimper
By Mark Lorenzana

(Originally posted on July 14, 2022, in PNM)

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) loves delivering long-winded speeches. Anyone who has the stamina (and nothing else to do) should tune in sometime to his daily morning press conferences at the Palacio Nacional to experience firsthand how truly agonizing these morning sessions can be — they last for hours.

U.S. President Joe Biden had the misfortune of being at the receiving end of López Obrador’s “speech” on Tuesday, June 12, when the two heads of state met at the Oval Office of the White House. Sure, the AMLO tirade didn’t last for hours — only 30 minutes — but it might have been the longest 30 minutes of Biden’s life.

Biden opened up the meeting with a crisp 10-minute speech, which was then followed by AMLO’s half-hour monologue that was equal parts awkward and...

On the Mark: A Bad Stretch for Mexican Soccer
By Mark Lorenzana

(Originally posted on July 11, 2022, in PNM)

It hasn’t been a good stretch for Mexican soccer lately, and that’s putting it mildly.

On the night of Thursday, July 7, the Mexican national women’s soccer team was dealt a painful loss, 0-3, by regional upstart Haiti in the group stages of the Concacaf W Championship. The crushing blow came several days after losing 0-1 to the Jamaican national women’s team on Monday, July 4.

The two straight losses have put El Tri Femenil, which was initially seen as the prohibitive favorite in the tournament — which, incidentally, is being held in the team’s homecourt of Monterrey, in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León — in a compromising position. The team is now currently at the bottom of Group A, which means that El Tri Femenil is officially out of the running for the knockout...

The FB post where CDN shared this article is overflowing with misinformed – but laughably overconfident, I might add – antivaxxers who, most probably, voted for either Mike Rama or Gwen Garcia as well as BBM and Sara Duterte.

I just can’t help but wonder: when did the collective intelligence of Cebu start to nosedive? Did the dumbing down of Cebuanos just happen overnight, or was it a slow, agonizing, and painful process?

Either way, to see majority of my fellow Cebuanos – whom I’ve always considered as some of the smartest people in the world, not just in the Philippines – readily swallow fake news and disinformation (and then sow disinformation themselves on their own socmed accounts) is just so sad and frustrating.

Naunsa diay ka, Cebu?

It was my mom who instilled in me a love of books and reading in general, and it was my dad who made me a lifelong fan of newspapers – and a lifelong hater of a corrupt and tyrannical government. I consider myself fortunate.

My parents won’t leave me a lot (or anything at all) in the way of material possessions, but they left me with something a lot more important – an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the constant drive to improve my mind (not my financial wealth).

As a son, that’s all I could ask for. My parents both had a good education, and they made sure that my siblings and I all went to college. One sister even finished two undergraduate courses, and another sister and I went on to graduate school.

But most importantly, my mom and dad both talked to us about the horrors of Martial Law under Marcos Sr. They even brought me to one of the Edsa I rallies, and I have a picture...