“The quality of mercy is not strained. It dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.” – Portia, in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

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“No mercy! One month’s downpour in 6 hours.” — Ondoy

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Did Jean Dixon predict Luzon under water?

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Did you know that the bulk of work of Manila Economic and Cultural Office, the Philippine representation in Taiwan, is issuing visas… but MECO is under DTI, not DFA?

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We put ourselves a grave disadvantage when the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Manila is staffed by professional diplomats, and we have none in MECO.

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A task force headed by Fr. Ben Nebres, SJ, Ateneo President, has formulated Philippine Educaion Highway — for continuum from early childhood education to grade school to high school and to technical-vocational school or college — to ensure a good job and future for the Filipino youth.

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Fr. Pierre Tritz, SJ, takes in 97 kindergarten children at ERDA for the price of one. Children without preparatory kindergarten are handicapped in grade school.

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DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus signed with French Ambassador Thierry Borja de Mozota a memorandum of agreement to teach French in selected high schools. French language, an elective in Philippine, Manila, and Makati Science Schools, will now be required in all Philippine science schools and selected secondary institutions.

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Lapus realized the need to parlez-vous after sitting as Philippine representative in the UNESCO Executive Board in Paris.

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FOREIGN NEWS. Bulgaria’s Ambassador to France H.E. Irina Bokova and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO is the next UNESCO Director General. She is the ‘best man for the job’ and takes over from the Japanese Koïchiro Matsuura in October 2009.

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Mary Travers, one-third of the popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, passed away. "Pufft …The Magic Dragon!

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Doctors in University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute reported that Kay Thornton, 60-year-old US grandmother from Mississippi, blind for nearly a decade, recovered her sight after surgeons implanted a tooth in her eye as a base to hold a tiny plastic lens. Eye for a tooth, a tooth for an eye!

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