IS it true that Vice President Noli de Castro has accepted an offer he can?t refuse?as vice presidential candidate of former Senate President Manny Villar under the banner of the Nacionalista Party?

Note that Article VII, Section 4 (par. 2) of the Constitution states that ?no Vice President shall serve for more than two successive terms,? which simply means that Noli can run for reelection. Considering that Noli is a consistent no. 1 as a presidential aspirant, a Manny Villar-Noli de Castro team-up appears formidable.

Is it also true that within a month or so, Senator Mar Roxas will launch a massive propaganda campaign for his presidential candidacy to boost his failing ratings per surveys of Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia? Does this mean the Araneta billions will soon be felt nationwide?

And is it also true that Mar?s fellow Liberal Party Senator Kiko Pangilinan will be his vice presidential candidate, which means that the popular megastar Sharon Cuneta and her daughter KC Concepcion will campaign for a Mar-Kiko team? Considering that Mar?s base are the Ilonggos and the Cebuanos, and that Kiko is from Luzon, and with Sharon and KC campaigning for them, a Mar-Kiko combination also appears formidable.

If there?s anything the country can hope for with the 2010 campaign reaching fever-pitch by April or May, one year before the 2010 polls, it?s the fact that the country will be awash with campaign money from all sectors. Which means more consumer spending?a big boost as an economic stimulus. Santa Banana, we need that this year as a shot in the arm!

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Anti-life advocates and lobbyists of Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman?s contraception bill, euphemistically called the Reproductive Health and Population Management Act of 2008 (an oxymoron and a proposed law which makes the state intrude into your bedroom and tells you what to do in your exercise of marital love, and makes a ?national policy? in the name of family planning and responsible parenthood contraception), are making a big thing of the Pulse Asia survey that says six out of 10 Filipinos favor the passage of the Lagman bill in the name of free choice.

The survey, however, did not say how many Catholics favored the bill or not.

Santa Banana, when did surveys decide what?s right or what?s wrong? Yes, I agree as the Lagman bill says that people should be given the choice on family planning. After all, God gave us free will for us to decide on what?s right and wrong.

But to make the bill, which espouses contraception as a national policy makes the state the determining factor on what?s right or wrong.

This, to me, is what?s objectionable about the Lagman bill. It seems to assume that we are now a centrally planned economy or a totalitarian state. In other words, the Lagman bill, which ironically enough, is supported by many in Congress and, as surveys show, by six out of 10 Filipinos, leads us to socialism where the state is supreme over individual rights and freedom.

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Should the state control our private lives?

My gulay, I?ll never allow the state to tell me what to write or how to express my opinion in the exercise of press freedom, just as the state can?t tell a politician what to say, think or do in the exercise of free speech and expression.

My gulay, as a Catholic taxpayer, I will not go for a program which makes me fund a proposed law against my faith.

Would Lagman and his cohorts dare do the same thing for followers of Islam, the Protestants and Eddie Villanueva?s Jesus Is Lord Movement?

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The reliance of Lagman and his ilk on surveys to push a law that runs counter to what I believe in as a Catholic is, to me, a desperate attempt to show that right or wrong can now be reduced to what one likes or dislikes.

The truth and my exercise of free will to decide on what?s right or wrong based on my faith as a Catholic is never the results of poll surveys.

There are many provisions of the Lagman bill which violate my freedom of free choice and held sacrosant in the Constitution, like calling contraceptive as ?essential medicines,? ?mandatory age-appropriate reproductive health education? curriculum for public and private schools, and a mandate for all national and local government hospitals to provide services for tubal ligation, vasectomy, intra-uterine device insertion and the like. My gulay, why should I ask a Catholic taxpayer contribute to something against my will and faith?

It?s unconscionable for the state using taxpayers? money to provide artificial contraceptive methods that violate the religious belief of the majority of its citizens.

There?s also this provision classifying as ?prohibitive acts? the refusal of any health-care provider to perform voluntary ligation and vasectomy and other reproductive health care services, and also providing in all collective bargaining agreement free delivery by the employer of reproductive health services. This mocks the constitutional doctrine on religious freedom.

Santa Banana, the provision penalizing what it calls ?malicious disinformation? takes the cake on the infringement of freedom or speech or expression. My gulay, under the Lagman bill I can go to jail just opposing the proposed law!

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To all intents and purposes, Charter change via the Constituent Assembly mode is dead in the water. Time has run out for the consa lobbyists in Congress. And those who see ghosts and bogeymen of term extension of the President should now rest easy. Unless they still see in their own minds and figments of their imagination those ghosts and bogeymen haunting them.

Does this mean that Charter change is also dead? I don?t think so since cha-cha via a Constitutional Convention is still possible wherein delegates can be voted on together with candidates for the 2010 polls over a year from now. Voting concon delegates simultaneously with 2010 candidates makes sense not only to save money, but to make people realize the need for Charter change and to have the people decide on the issue.

What then is possible this year? I believe the proposal of Speaker Prospero Nograles to amend the Constitution?s economic provisions, treating it like an ordinary legislation, is not only feasible but practical. The majority of the Senate also believes that this mode is feasible since it would also close the door on other amendments that go out of bounds.

After all, such amendments still need ratification by the people in a plebiscite. That?s still the voice of the people!