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He got bum advice, shoulda got a Heckler & Koch instead.

This morning, I decided to set aside my pseudo-regular blog column, and give way to the persistent pressure from my favorite Mafia character to say his piece about a certain public scandal that happened last Friday involving a fast car, a high-powered gun, and a Palace biggie. (Don’t these three always go together nowadays? LOL.)
AK-47 type II
One of the world's most fearsome assault rifles, the AK-47, comes to mind after a recent public scandal involved such a powerful gun, a fast car, and a Palace biggie. (Don't these three elements always go together nowadays? LOL) Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AK-47_type_II_Part_DM-ST-89-01131.jpg

Bene, Don Llamas. I never thought you were a bad Consigliari. You are part of the Family, don’t you ever forget that. We’ve been through some pretty tight situations in the past, remember? But my friend, let me tell you flat in the face: you got yousself some bum advice, getting an AK for your personal security, and then allowing it to just lie around like that inside your SUV.

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Lessons from the underground press of the martial law era

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

That quote might be a startling, almost cynical take on the meaning of press freedom. But it was a respected American journalist, A.J. Liebling, who coined the now-famous aphorism. The terse statement was supposed to emphasize the harsh realities of capitalist ownership behind the noble expectation that journalists freely exercise their right, nay, fulfill their duty, to always provide the public with honest information and informed opinion.

In any case, little did Filipinos realize just how painfully that saying would apply to them on September 23, 1972. On that fateful Saturday morning, we all woke up to find no newspapers delivered to our doorsteps or sold on the sidewalks. We twiddled our radio sets (in my case, set just right beside my pillow, the better to hear the early morning news), asking with great puzzlement why they only emitted static noise on that morning.

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