Why hasn't Manapat
been charged?

RICARDO Manapat, the former head of the National Archives, and the man who ordered his staff to fabricate documents showing that presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. was allegedly not really a Filipino citizen but American, must be laughing his head off at managing to escape any criminal charges.

Manapat was of course fired from his position by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but that happened only after several of his staff testified against him at a Senate hearing into his purported evidence. The documents had been submitted by his partner-in-crime lawyer Victorino Fornier, who has been linked to previous shadowy attempts at slandering political opponents of Malacañang.

The Senate committee on electoral reforms and constitutional amendments, investigating this whole mess, had concluded that documents presented by Fornier were fabrications, and had recommended filing charges against Manapat. Why haven't any charges been filed yet? Because administration senators voted to block the resolution, presumably on orders of President Macapagal-Arroyo to protect her minion Manapat. What a travesty of justice!

Now a potential battle looms between the Senate and the Supreme Court, as the court is reviewing Fornier's petition to disqualify Poe. This hasn't stopped the President from slagging off Congress by saying that the Supreme Court was more qualified to look into the allegation than a politically partisan Congress. What nonsense! It is the President herself who has politicized the Supreme Court to an extent never seen before.

It is obvious that Macapagal-Arroyo is terrified of having to face Poe in the election in May. He by far is leading in all opinion polls, and the administration is desperate to get Poe disqualified by any means necessary. Fabricating evidence doesn't seem to be a problem for administration lackeys, just look at the whole Manapat scandal. I just hope to high heavens that Poe isn't disqualified by some politically motivated Supreme Court judgment. If that happens, I think EDSA People Power IV would take place and this time it would be Arroyo who would be overthrown.

Sloping walls, supermarket queues, and ceiling lights

HOME decoration magazines have always fascinated me. I can spend hours looking at pictures of other people's homes, seeing what various moods they have created by just using paint, fabric, furniture and various knickknacks.

For me, buying new curtains, rugs, bookshelves or lights are the easiest ways of quickly changing the look of a room. I have always lived in rented apartments, so taking a paintbrush to the walls has never really appealed to me, though I have thought of how my life would be different if I had walls that weren't the standard off-white color.

It was with such ideas in mind that I recently bought new shelves for both my kitchen and living room. For the kitchen I bought plain pinewood shelves with black metal brackets to attach them to the wall. As in most apartments in Saudi Arabia, when I moved in two-and-a-half years ago there were no cabinets in the kitchen or wardrobes in the bedrooms. I still have no cabinets in the kitchen, but finally decided I needed shelves for storing glasses and bowls. In the living room I installed two "floating shelves" and discovered that my 30-year-old building has extremely sloping walls! Because of that, the shelves are not flush against the wall because of the small gap caused by walls that veer wildly off a straight line.

In between decorating shopping trips, I found to my horror that my local supermarket had become a no-go zone at night. Recently after 10 p.m., after a day in the office, I was stuck in the Express Lane line (10 items or less), cursing my choice of supermarkets, and waiting to pay for the few goods I had clutched in my hands. All the other cashiers were 10-deep with customers, and so was mine.

Suddenly, two abaya-clad young women with a small girl jumped to the head of the line, obviously thinking that their gender made it OK for them to dispense with the usual niceties of having to wait in line just like everyone else. I was so peeved that I tapped the arm of one of the women with the pechay I was holding, telling her she should wait in line just like everyone else. She just looked mock-shocked that I had dared question her dodgy behavior and said, "We have a small girl with us." I said it didn't matter and the Filipino ahead of me let me go first, apparently glad that someone had the guts to stand up for the rights of those who stand in lines.

Fortunately, that small supermarket scrap didn't put me off decorating and off I went again to Ikea to buy ceiling lamps for my entry hall and bedroom. When I moved in, my apartment was an incandescent light-free dwelling, fluorescent tubes being the lighting of choice. It seems that before I moved in a company had rented the flat for their workers, and fluorescent was obviously the way to go to save on electricity bills. I'm slowly moving away from these lighting horrors that make everyone look older and a ghastly shade of gray. Wish me luck!

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at manilamoods@hotmail.com.