GEOLOGISTS and petroleum engineers around the world have warned about an impending oil global crisis. Asia, like the rest of the world is scouring the globe for alternatives to oil power as prices soar. The continent has come to terms with the certainty of a world beyond oil and alternative sources of energy from bananas to wind farms, alcohol, and the sun have taken on a new urgency.

A MARKET analyst said last week: "Street protests would not bring Arroyo down. It will be the economy."

IT’S amazing how the battle of the crowds began with the taped conversations about the number – a million – of the presidential election count. Last Saturday’s Rizal Park rally for the President was also "numbered" in unsurprisingly different ways.

SOME two years ago, blacks in America organized the "March of Man" to Washington, D.C., claiming that one million marchers took part in that event.

AS a people, we have been suffering a lot for such a long time. We often fall into deep crisis, largely of our own making, or more accurately due to our failing to do the critical things we have to do. Once in crisis, we take our not-so-sweet time, a very long time indeed, to get out of it. And after we manage to finally get out of one hole, we dig and create another one – oftentimes deeper and bigger – to fall into.

GMA will risk impeachment but will not resign.

INDEPENDENT practitioners of advertising and marketing communications oftentimes are branded with unflattering labels — snake oil salesmen, behind-the-scene orchestrators, spin doctors, hidden persuaders.

President Bush has made clear that he intends to nominate a conservative to fill Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s pivotal seat on the Supreme Court. That is hardly a surprise, but the question is what he means by conservative. Some of the president’s supporters on the far right really want him to name a radical ideologue who would work to upend well-established legal doctrines and take away basic rights that Americans have come to cherish. The Senate must work hard to ensure that this does not happen.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s Nelson Mandela turns 87 on Monday, an increasingly fragile icon whose moral message nevertheless grows louder with each passing year.

A "healing process" and "prayer habit" oiling the rule of law and constitutional process will likely save us from national disaster and the present crisis.

SOME of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from You." He said to them in reply, "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here. At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here."

BAGUIO CITY — The visiting Iloilo Warriors led from start to finish to beat the Texas Instruments/Beneco-backed Baguio Lions, 91-86, Saturday in the 2005 Panasonic-NBC national basketball championship at the UB gym here.

THE history of the Republic of the Philippines and that of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) are intertwined. The DFA had its beginnings 107 years ago when President Emilio F. Aguinaldo appointed Apolinario Mabini as the Republic’s first Secretary of Foreign Affairs on June 23, 1898, eleven days after the declaration of Philippine independence at Kawit, Cavite.

THE administration opened a new front in its protracted war for survival. This time, it dared the poll organizations, SWS and Pulse Asia, to conduct their surveys outside Metro Manila, especially in the claimed GMA bailiwicks, such as Negros Oriental and Occidental, Cebu, Davao, and Mindanao, including ARmM, whose officials recently said they would break off from Manila if the President were removed by "unconstitutional" means.

IF the recent street rallies spearheaded separately by supporters of President Gloria and those demanding her resignation were the tally board in a fierce tussle for crowd supremacy, we are likely to conclude that the results will be clear and discernible.

HOW can we have credible elections without first purging the Commission on Elections (Comelec)? On 8 August, elections will be conducted at the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). In 2007, there will be mid-term elections. The core of our democracy is found in the electoral system but, so far, no serious measures have been taken towards cleansing and re-structuring that constitutional body. Feeble voices are heard from civil society, in particular the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), about resuscitating those over-priced but untested counting machines. Strangely enough, despite President G. Arroyo’s anti-corruption campaign, there has been no palpable effort to cleanse Comelec ranks or to get to the bottom of scandalous transactions in the electoral process.

DESPITE the horrendous explosions that rocked the London Underground and demolished a double-deck bus during morning rush hour, on the day the G-8 meeting of the world’s richest nations opened in Scotland. Hosted by Prime Minister Tony Blair, the meeting proceeded. Turning over the chair to his foreign secretary Jack Straw, Blair made a quick trip back to London, then returned to the summit. Pressed for comments on the bombing, he deplored the terrorism but refused to speculate since it was still under investigation, and he insisted on addressing the G-8 agenda.

MY warm greetings to you all and to the general membership of the Philippine accounting profession whose relevance to the nation is underscored by the financial crisis we are going through right now.

THE impeachment against President Arroyo may not prosper without former Comelec commissioner Garcillano personally appearing at the Senate-conducted impeachment hearing, for him to corroborate the complainant’s evidence allegedly supportive of the pertinent Articles of Impeachment, regarding the Gloriagate issue, to justify her ouster. There are reports that Garcillano has flown to Singapore, but there’s no record to show. That may be so, but once the Articles of Impeachment has been officially transmitted to the Senate for start of the proceedings, the complainant and company should begin to prosecute their case with Garcillano’s testimony. If he hasn’t testified on the Gloriagate tapes and discs, to that extent the impeachment should be dismissed.

OUR main task today is how to restore political and economic stability, and unite a badly divided nation.

CERTAIN political quarters in Metro Manila (MM) are disputing the results of various opinion polls on the state of RP’s political and economic health, claiming that survey respondents are restricted to MM residents only.

MAKING a move to reach out to an adversary after contentious animosity may not be the easiest thing to do as it requires extreme caution, otherwise it could make matters worse and create more difficulties.

Matthew 12:46-50