philippines 2005 year in review

ok, so i put a new template in (made by lilia ahner; from blogger templates); i was getting tired of the old one.

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so looking back at the year 2005, this has been one of the more interesting non-major election years the philippines has seen.

it was a crazy year politically, as always. this year arguably saw the greatest threat to arroyo's administration yet. the threat started at around june-july (the birth of this blog) with accusations backed by (illegal?) wiretapped conversations that pres. arroyo rigged last year's presidential elections that pitted her against fernando poe jr. (whose 1-year death anniversary just passed a week or two ago). massive rallies were staged, many people within her administration resigned, and numerous impeachment complaints were levied against her; yet somehow, arroyo remains president today.

today the official government website posted a list of arroyo's 2005 accomplishments (you can download the .doc file here). of course, her critics will dismiss most if not all of this.

other notable news events in the year 2005 include the avian flu scare early in the year, the bagong diwa prison uprising in taguig, metro manila in march (which led to the deaths of several top abu sayyaf (terrorist group) leaders), the implementation of the extended value-added tax law, arroyo forming a consultative commission to look into changing the 1987 constitution (charter change), and the straining of philippine-u.s. relations due to rape accusations of a 22-yr. filipina against 6 u.s. servicemen in subic late in the year.

a decent top stories review from the manila standard today can be found here.

in terms of the economy and business, the philippines, like the rest of the world, had to deal with oil prices surging to unprecedented levels this year. once again, the overseas filipino workers save the day for the philippine economy; remittances are now at $8.8 billion, up 27.1% from $6.9 billion in 2004. the philippine peso is now at around 53 to the dollar, a 5.7% gain from the beginning of the year. it wasn't all good though; high inflation and lower than expected farm output and electronic exports temper the good news a bit....

a good rp business year in review can be found here.

in terms of culture and entertainment, philippine arts and entertainment are being directed even more by young people. a good summary of what happened this year can be found here.

interesting fact: in metro manila, the major shopping malls (megamall, robinsons, greenbelt, and the like) report a 12% increase in sales; supposedly, most of the items sold were of better than before.

in the field of sports, filipinos everywhere closely followed the exploits of boxing star manny pacquiao, who has elevated himself to megastar, "national hero" status. although he lost to erik morales earlier this year, he is set to take him on again early 2006. also, the philippines won a staggering amount of gold medals in this year's southeast asian games which they hosted.

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within the filipino-american community, it's hard to get a year in review together from what i can get from the web, but from my own observations here in l.a., it was a good year. even more filipino-oriented establishments are popping up in areas where filipinos are prominent. the philippine television station gma have launched their international station, gma pinoytv, in l.a. this year (as well as san francisco) to go along with what abs-cbn already has here in tfc.
politician ruby de vera finished third place for councilmember of district 14 in los angeles (mayor villaraigosa's old position in the eagle rock/glassell park area). all the fil-am community events i went to this year (consulate family day, fpac, veteran's day parade, and numerous sipa events) went smoothly and have been great successes.

and that's 2005 in a nutshell.

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so thanks to everyone who has read this blog since its inception. since it's the end of the year, if any of you have any suggestions as to how to improve this blog, what i should cover more (or less), etc., please let me know. i haven't received any outside contributions yet to this blog, so if you have something to say, let me know too....

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here's to wishing everyone in troy phi a happy new year.
may 2006 be the greatest year of our lives.

hey look, the president's surfing

ok, i just had to put this up.

photo by vic alhambra of the ap (via manilatimes.com) showing president arroyo surfing in san juan, la union province on her xmas vacation.

i suppose it's a good way to promote tourism in la union....

year in review in a day or two.

wishing everyone a merry christmas

photo by melyn r. acosta.

here's to wishing everyone in troy phi a merry christmas. hope you all have a lot of fun during winter break like the president above in her xmas party with the malacanang press corps.

i'll have a "year in review" of sorts regarding 2005 rp events before the year is done.