MARTIAL LAW. The Department of Tourism assured that martial rule over Maguindanao province will not have an adverse impact on RP tourism. Huh, Maguindanao was a tourist belt area?

“The essence of rebellion is ideological motivation, meaning the advocacy that the existing government should be destroyed, by removing citizen allegiance …where there is no ideological motivation, there is no rebellion.” – Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Maguindanao, like James Dean, is a “Rebel Without a Cause.”

ENVIRONMENT. At the on-going UN Climate Change Summit, delegates were welcomed at Copenhagen airport, city center, and metro stations by Santa Clauses in green expressing hope for CoP15.

To give promise to those who will inherit the future, Danish Lego blocks symbolized the building blocks of a commitment to CoP15 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon described the mercury rising in the Arctic twice faster than elsewhere as “a canary in a coal mine.’’

Yet some see only the cash register. The thaw opens Northwest Passage off Canada and the Northern Sea route off Russia, dramatically shortening sailing between Atlantic-Pacific; Rotterdam to Yokohama will be 40% shorter. Energy groups salivate at oil and gas riches under long inaccessible seabed – to the dismay of environmental activists who fear oil spills in a fragile area.

A race between capital greed and human need.

The Danes and the Norwegians are probably the greatest optimists and best marketers for discovering a pack of ice and naming it Greenland.

Those who augur by the Mayan calendar do not worry about what happens after a geomagnetic reversal, asteroid strike or supernova …or something more intimate, like a flu pandemic, or a nuclear war in 2012.

SOIREE AT 7 SUITES. The late Odette Alcantara won over PGMA to scrap landfill and to support the environmentalists and her Earth Day Network with the argument that “going green” is the deodorant of her administration.

Former Environment Secretary Bibeth Gozun leads the Earth Day Network soiree at Seven Suites, Sumulong Hi-way, Antipolo, at 7 p.m. this Saturday, Dec. 12, to raffle off artworks for Odette Alcantara’s crusade for trees and the greening of RP. Every ticket is a sure winner of work by BenCab, or Ramon Orlina, or Alan Cosio or the Who’s Who and Who’s Up-and-Coming artists.

UNICEF artist Manny Baldemor returned after completing a mosaic at St. Therese’s Cathedral in Liseux… only to discover that the flood had sunk 80% of his collection and memorabilia in his Antipolo studio.. But Phoenix-like, or more like Venus arising from the Sea, he picked up one of his favorites which was “improved upon by Ondoy”… worked on it a little more… and donated it to the Earth Day Network raffle as the first interaction between Baldemor and Ondoy’s wrath.

The piece should go to a serious environmentalist. Avid Baldemor collector NP Presidential candidate Sen. Manny Villar and his VP Luntiang Pilipinas muse Loren Legarda are eyeing the piece.

Odette would love Nature’s Monster contributing a Masterpiece. Feedback: jaz@mb.com.ph