GOTCHA, Published in The Philippine Star, Monday, January 7, 2008
“People who seek to divide the country, to destabilize the nation, are not sleeping,” Interior Sec. Ronaldo Puno culls from intelligence files. “They are meeting, they are planning a new year full of fireworks.”
Puno does not identify who “they” are. But based on recent events, he can only be referring to Magdalo mutineers at Oakwood Hotel in July 2003 and Peninsula Hotel in November 2007. Ten military officers who eluded arrest for The Pen siege could be plotting to strike anew. At the very least they are soliciting aid of cash or kind from comrades in uniform. Led by Marine Capt. Nick Faeldon, they are on the police most-wanted list, but can’t be found because of obvious hiding skill and inside help. They have learned well from the plotters of the ’80s how to make fools of their hunters.
Plotting coups requires funding, so they must be receiving some cash from Puno’s usual suspects. These are tycoons or politicos who can never be friends with the Arroyo administration. Puno’s spies are watching them for sure.
Plotting most of all needs good causes. And there are plenty, given the government’s tattered moral fabric. Detailing corruption is the easiest way to agitate soldiers to risk life and career in a coup. The admin has not been helpful dispelling mutinous thoughts from the minds of soldiers, what with its series of scams from the airport terminal to ZTE.
Though busy battling the communist and separatist fronts, officers keep abreast of events in the land for which they’re dying. They read of plunder and begin to have second thoughts about defending the admin. Then they hear first-hand accounts from kith and kin about a Cabinet man who demands P2 million per signature of approval, of another who has just bought himself a new yacht, or of a police general who has stolen so much he can give his college kids P2,000 a day allowance. They see that nothing is done about it, as Malacañang pretends to purity while buying the loyalty of legislators and local execs. Then their idealist minds drift on to reforming the system by themselves, though by the foul means of military rule.
Corruption is vile, and so is the toppling of the government by force. Both sides only hope they will prevail in order to write history.
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Three more reactions to my piece on government neglect of inventors need ventilating:
From Joel Villaseñor, PhD, research associate as MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research: “As a Fil-Am scientist I would be very proud to see other Filipino engineers and inventors make an international impression. It also dismays me to see Filipinos gain dubious distinction for crackpot ideas. Unfortunately Daniel Dingle (who claims to make cars run on water) appears to be in the latter category.
“A water-fuelled car has ramifications running farther than the auto industry. You can power cars; therefore you can run generators to make electricity without creating greenhouse gases. Nuclear fusion gave us this promise 50 years ago (extracting hydrogen isotopes tritium or deuterium from ocean floors); we’re probably still 50 years from seeing commercial fusion reactions going on line. You can save the earth from global warming, so imagine the worldwide clamor for the water-fuelled car, if it were true.
“There is no scientific basis for water as a chemical fuel, however. Water can be thought of as the combustion product of hydrogen and oxygen, which releases energy in the reaction. Dingle claims he has found a method of creating fuel (breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen), and then combining these again to run the engine. Think of running an engine on ash; both cases should elicit the same kind of incredulity. It’s another example of perpetual motion machine, in direct violation of the second law of thermodynamics. I suspect there is another internal source of energy in his car, some other fuel that is consumed along with the water (a battery, some additive, or metal reacting with water to release hydrogen?). If it runs with gasoline in an energy efficient configuration, Dingle may have a patent there, but only if he provides sufficient verifiable data in controlled test conditions. He doesn’t have to reveal his patent, if that’s his worry, but that hasn’t been forthcoming in the decades since he made his claim.”
From Andy Bartolome, retired engineer: “Surfing the Net, I stumbled upon a website on free energy. An article on cars running on water caught my eye. Clicking on the site refers you to a YouTube video of a man whose invention enables him to drive coast-to-coast in
From Isidro Umali Ursua: “I am one of the inventors you and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel mentioned (energy from waves). Thanks for exposing the cause of our government’s failure to promote inventions. You are right in saying there’s no kickback in science, that’s why. The other cause is misunderstanding of the role of technology to develop a nation. The US and
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