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The Court of Appeals proved to be a master of diplomacy in its decision on Daniel Smith case. The decision could be the best example of a win-win situation because nobody lost, everybody won. Malacañang won, Nicole won, Smith won, the US government and the US Embassy won, the Philippine government won, Makati Regional Trial Court JudgeBenjamin Pozon won, Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzales won, the lawyers of Nicole and Smith won. Congratulations to everybody.

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I think that Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, AFP public information office chief, was carried away when he said: "On its own, the AFP can stand, it can operate…even without the training assistance of the Americans or other countries." He must have been referring to the ordinary insurgency situation. The AFP will incur heavy losses, if its fight against local and international terrorists, including the Abu Sayyaf and the NPAs is not modernized. The AFP is a very good fighting machine but it needs a lot of modern equipment to turn it into a fierce fighting machine. And this equipment can only come from the USA and other countries which are willing to help us.

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Bacarro said: "Although we recognize the value of the joint exercises for our troops, the Balikatan was never considered in our discussions on how best to implement the provisions of the (Visiting Forces Agreement) on the custody of convicted US servicemen." But this is now all water under the bridge after the Court of Appeals rendered the victorious decision for everybody concerned.

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American soldiers will no longer enjoy their assignments in Philippines once their sex activities or rest and recreation will be curtailed a lot. This is because of the consequences of the Smith rape case. But the US soldiers are known for their persistence.

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The House of Representatives should have conducted more studies before passing the across-the-board P125 minimum wage increase. Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said that the proposed increased approved by the House will be "disastrous for labor and employment." He warned that it could lead to displacement of almost 1.1 million workers in the next three years. He said that the initial P45 across-the-board increase will take a toll on inflation on employment and GDP (growth domestic product), citing a study from the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA).

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The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) is strongly against the P125 increase in the minimum wage and has urged the Senate to junk House Bill No. 345 already approved on 3rd and final reading by the House. What is surprising here is how the bill was able to pass in the House without having been detected by interested parties. Nalusutan ba sila o naisahan sila?

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Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of ECOP, deplored the "prevailing highly populist orientation to continue increasing the benefits of workers in the formal sector in complete disregard of the stark realities of the Philippine labor market characterized by increasing chronic unemployment and underemployment, shrinking formal sector and expanding informal sector." The House seems to be adamant on its position in favor of the P125 bill despite the strong opposition from the business and the management sectors.

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As for Malacañang’s position regarding the P125 across-the-board increase in the minimum wage Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita maintained that the government was "sensitive" to the concerns of businessmen and assured them the government would continue to uphold the policy of wage adjustments being decided by the regional wage boards. This is precisely the bone of contention between Malacañang and Congress and also between Congress and the business sector.

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The key to success and freedom from poverty is education. This was emphasized by Education Secretary Jesli A. Lapus as he enumerated the accomplishments of the DepEd for fiscal year 2006. The first thing that Lapus did was to pinpoint problems of the DepEd and then provided solutions or measures either to improve the problems or eliminate them. "We need to retool all of our education managers so that we can really improve the delivery of education services throughout the country," he said.

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Lapus added: "We can counteract the negative effects of our limited resources by our ability to manage these resources well, and at DepEd, management happens at the department and at each and ever school in the country. We’re serious about reform and with the support we are getting from all education stakeholders, we now see the potential of reform. The momentum is now on our side."

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Lapus enumerated several comprehensive and meaningful reforms implemented in the DepEd during 2006 and which will continue to be implemented in the years to come. They included basic education sector reforms agenda, every child education program, every child a reader program, health and nutrition program, DepEd computerization program, alternative delivery modes and alternative learning system.

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Lapus realized the need to address the issue of relevance of basic education. "That is why I have placed Technical and Vocational Education on top of our agenda. We need to provide our students with the education they can use since this is the best way to make them productive and prosperous in the future. Technical and vocational education provides them the competitive advantage they need to become viable in the cut-throat global marketplace."

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Under Lapus’ leadership, DepEd is now preparing for the implementation of a Tech-Voc package for secondary school students throughout the country. This is in the line with the recommendations forwarded during the National Manpower Summit last March, which pointed to the need for the accelerated implementation of ladderized education and the removal of the bias against blue collar jobs. We want to bring ladderized education all the way down to the secondary level and we need to tell our students and our parents that technical and vocational jobs are just as good as white collar jobs–perhaps even better. Lapus pointed out that DepEd is now preparing several public high schools nationwide for the implementation of various tech-voc programs by the coming school year."