.:PWN3D!:.

I got struck by a sudden pang of depression...

While it's true that I have very few people to contend with in the literary category of the Dean's Awards, guess who one of those few other contenders happens to be...

*gasp* Bobby Benedicto.

Hades, that about screws over any chance I might have of getting the Dean's Award... looks like I have to go back to my original method of bleeding for my Cum Laude... I went up against a lisping juggernaut, especially since the person is far more qualified on so many levels than I am, and probably archives all his works from first year to fourth year, which I wasn't able to do. Ah, well, it's time for me to take the walk of shame back to the drawing board, but I guess it can't be helped, now, can it?

I submitted seven rather competent, and I'd daresay, rather remarkable essays for my portfolio. Unfortunately for me, the man submitted more likely than not, three to five times as many as I did for his, which essentially means more and more room for him to get the win. While it may seem I still stand a chance because there sometimes are multiple winners in one category, I am led to believe that my work, when contrasted to Bobby's will severely hamper any hopes I could pin on that possibility. How utterly wasteful, then... ah, well.

.:Furthermore:.

I'm sure everyone and his mother now knows that Fernando Poe Jr. is running for president. Whoop-de-freaking-doo. We are going to have quite a spectacle of an electoral date this approaching new year, with arguably the worst set of candidates to walk this side of God's green Earth...

1. We have the aforementioned FPJ, an actor with no political experience whatsoever, who intends to rely on others to carry him through his term, and is heavily pinned as the ousted president Estrada's very close friend. I find something severly wrong in that setup. If he's going to rely on others, anyway, what the Hades is he doing in power? Doesn't that make him little more than a figurehead?

2. We have Senator Panfilo Lacson, an Erap crony, suspected of being the mastermind behind the Kuratong Baleleng rubout/shootout incident, as well as kidnapping groups. He is also flagrantly attempting to destabilize the government by hurling baseless accusations against Mike Arroyo, who I believe is not stupid enough to use Erap's exact M.O. to rip this country off, when there are no doubt subtler means at his disposal.

3. We have incumbent president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose reputation for being a fence-sitter and opportunist is highly illustrated by her political actions throughout her tenure. Her husband is more likely than not robbing this country through some means other than what Lacson has been pinning on him, and her son is annoying as Hades and should be shot before he can shoot another movie to torment us with. Not that I watch his films, but his bloody trailers are enough to ruin my day.

4. We have the epitome of Iwas Pusoy in Raul Roco, who completely disappeared from the limelight for about a year before announcing his candidacy. In that span of one year, nobody knew what he felt about key issues in the country, such as the Jose Pidal case, and the reopening of the Kuratong Baleleng investigations. Moreover, he has a wife with shades of Imelda Marcos written all over her, and he has an allegation about his tenure as DECS Secretary which was never even addressed.

If these four candidates do not alarm you at all, then you are missing something very important about the whole political setup we just locked ourselves in. No longer are we looking for the best candidate to lead our country. Now, we are looking for the one who will screw us all the least. Makes you no longer wonder why my mom wants me to be a working student abroad as soon as I graduate. We are faced with four candidates who have more dirt on their names than Payatas and Smokey Mountain combined. I sincerely doubt that this elections will yield a promising future for us, because it hardly matters who's there: we will still be screwed in varying degrees, regardless.

So what's next for us, with this kind of a setup? I sincerely wish I could bank on the people to choose the right candidate (If such that choice exists, given the four.), but we know that's not going to happen. With that in mind, we can always go to EDSA and further cheapen the legacy of the first one. I guess most people feel that EDSA IV is going to be such a milestone, and some would even ignore the existence of EDSA III and term the one to conceivably oust FPJ as the fourth, but come on, that's just scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's like how many ideas we see being recycled in the WWE nowadays: they won't work, nor will they really offer anything for this country to improve with. This is especially considering some Vice-President names hovering around, such as Noli De Castro, who will more likely than not defeat Franklin Drilon. With these things in mind, one is left to reconsider if democracy is even what the Philippines should be working with...

And who else do we want to run? Hilario Davide? Granted that he didn't do anything wrong, not everyone agrees, and that number who does not agree will still vote for FPJ, anyway. So what's the difference?

Ah, well. That's the kind of things we get on a daily basis in this ruddy country...