These enormous loans were meant to finance some 71 Official Development Assistance or ODA infrastructure projects of the Arroyo administration, according to a report of The Financial Times of London.

The $329 million national broadband network project with China may have been scrapped, the report noted, but it has caused frenzy among executive and legislative officials, and sparked official attempts to cover up the corruption that marred the project.

"The core issue is the sharp surge in ODA in recent years that has sparked scandals and allegations of corruption, and threatened to drag Filipino taxpayers deeper into debt.," the report said.

Briefly, it noted that the Philippines has received ODA loans which have soared to billions, mostly from Japan and China, And this has prompted financial experts to warn that given the unbridled corruption and what has been called "dysfunctional procurement system" the foreign-funded projects may sink the country in a debt crisis similar to that of the 1980s.

Among the concerned financial experts are former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo, former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, and Felipe Miranda, former dean of the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines.

To date, it is said, the total outstanding ODA loans of the Philippines amount to $9.5 billion. Most of projects, as financed by China, have been tainted by allegations of corruption ranging from kickbacks received by government officials and overpricing by Chinese contractors. One such project was the scuttled $329 million NBN deal that involved high-profile figures, including Gloria Arroyo's First Spouse.

And it is the same ZTE contract, now under investigation by the Senate's Blue Ribbon Committee, that has prompted legislators to re-visit those other projects financed by the Export-Import Bank of China.

Tita King's new opus. "Why Flowers Bloom in May," a fantasy, is Tita King's opus that was premiered last weekend at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. She is, as we all know, Lucrecia R. Kasilag, National Artist for Music.

Her operatic work, perhaps her last, is so brilliant, so lavish, and so sublime a confection of music, dancing, acting and narration that I could not come up with the better adjectives to best describe her remarkable fantasy opera.

She has created an hour-long opera of such singularity that it prompts comparisons to traditional theater and classical opera. It is neither one nor the other. It's a welcome relief from some of the synthetic creations that I have seen on Broadway and even at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

The 93-year-old Tita King composed the fantasy opera in collaboration with operatic diva Fides Santos Cuyugan-Asensio, who wrote the libretto and lyrics, concert, pianist Zenas Reyes Lozada, and Dean Harold Galang of the College of Music of Philippine Women's University.

Though totally blind, partially deaf, with impaired speech, and wheelchair-bound, Tita King succeeded in conveying to Fides, Zenas, assisted by Ms. Kasilag's retainers Juliet and Mariette, the remarkable sounds of music in her mentally active mind. She did 10 new songs and incorporated some old works in the operatic work. Indeed, it was not only a labor of love for music, but a tribute to Tita King's indomitable, yes, incomparable spirit!

She was in the audience that evening of the world premiere of her remarkable opus. I'm sure she must have heard and saw in her mind's eye the performance, including the bizarre ballet sequences that almost distracted the attention of the audience from Tita King's opera.

Oh, I must say that the really most riveting performance was that of the "Basura Czar" portrayed by baritone Marvin Gayramon in the fantasy opera that focused on the environmental problems now facing this country and the rest of the world.