Mar Roxas II – part of MRT3 anomalies!

Mar Roxas II, who will run for presidency for Liberal party is part of the MRT3 anomalies, per Vitangcol statement on his affidavit submitted last February 18 in the Supreme Court.

“I am the only DOTC official charged by the Ombudsman despite the unmistakable knowledge, involvement, participation and instruction of my superiors in the DOTC headed by former Sec. Manuel ‘Mar’ A. Roxas II, current Secretary Joseph Emilio ‘Jun’ A. Abaya, Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Atty. Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla and Undersecretary Rene K. Limcaoco, who should have been the ones brought to justice for gross and inexcusable inaction if not willful and deliberate manipulation of the events and processes related to the maintenance of MRT-3,” Vitangcol stated in his affidavit.

MRT3

Well, reading on Vitangcol’s statement, the former general manager of MRT3, it really seems that something is going on with our due process in terms of fairness and equality. Is this what freedom brought to those who have position in the country and power? It just show how injustice and threatening our country to live by especially to those who are weak, who are subject for bullying. MRT3 has never-ending issues and it appears that the big money involved here is what transpired the issue and at the same time, having the national election comes May. Hoping that Mar Roxas will first clear his name on this issue before running for the highest position in the country, president! Unluckily though, if Mar wins then I’m hoping that our government especially the Supreme Court will do what’s abide the law and do necessary action to settle this anomalies. Filipinos have had enough problems that’s why each and everyone is looking for justice and solution that will deals with the majority not just for the comfort and expense of those who are in the position.

Meanwhile, as a commuter, MRT3 has great advantages to us. It is fast and cheaper alternative of transportation. So, please Mr. Roxas and Mr. Abaya, are you man enough to show us what you’ve got? Show humility to those people who are working hard and pay taxes so you could have money on your “pocket” on which should be the bread and butter on their tables for their family. Show us that you have the guts to be the people that we can entrust with our future. This is not about your position but rather your dignity.

More so, more new MRT3 couches, please? I am sure; it’s one way to get the sympathy you’re looking for. 

Welcome MRT Bidders!

Welcome MRT Bidders! But apparently no bidders showed up for the bidding of the maintenance contract of the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT3) which is amounting to P2.2 billion. So, what had happened to this supposedly multi-billion bidding event?

“We moved the deadline in our desire for bidders to submit. But unfortunately, they did not. We will have to republish by December,” Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla told reporters at the sidelines of a hearing at the House of Representatives.

The DoTC originally scheduled Oct. 17 for the submission and opening of bids for the MRT-3 maintenance contract, yet decided to reschedule the deadline on Tuesday, Oct. 28. However, no one from the five companies that bought bid documents filed their bids.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri J. Colmenares said a reason could be that the contract price was not competitive for the bidders, and asked the DoTC of their plans to address the “urgent” problem. 

Responding to a suggestion to hike the contract price, Mr. Lotilla said: “That is a possibility. Maybe the approved budget for the contract might have to be increased, or we might have to reconfigure the risk profile to make it more attractive to bidders.”

With that case the contract of Autre Potre Technique Global Inc. (APT), which is MRT’s current maintenance provider, will be more likely extended until a new maintenance contract is awarded and having the current issues MRT3 had these past few weeks in terms of non-working couches and those instances that connotes commuter’s safety, I don’t think this work around will not be a good resolution.

Meanwhile, DOTC under Mar Roxas and then Jun Abaya were keeping excuses to get hold of the bidding way back 2012. And now, since there’s no bidders showed up, APT Global will be extending its contract. Is this a tactics of getting ahold of MRT 3? Due to delaying techniques of Jun Abaya he appointed PH Trans and APT Global as maintenance providers because of “lack of time” that’s why imposed their emergency power. So, Instead of this early aggressively promoting the presidential bid of Roxas, Secretary Abaya should focus more on addressing the problems besetting the MRT-LRT, such as the endless lines, computer glitches, non-working elevators and escalators, sardine-like coaches, accidents and many more.

Grrrr… I am a taxpayer and commuter and having a convenient MRT3 ride is what I only ask for the government. Besides, taxpayers and commuters are the one who really suffers and yet they don’t know where they hard-earned money go.

Taylor Swift vs. Spotify

If you like Taylor Swift and art of listening again and again their songs on Spotify, I have bad news for you: the singer has now withdrawn his entire discography of this popular streaming platform. If you search for his name, you will get zero results. And if you had your music in a playlist, it will be gone suddenly.

While Swift has not yet ruled on the matter (neither has his record) from the official Spotify blog heaped original including a nifty bounce playlist and a plea to return. Not for less: say more than 16 million users have played their songs in the last month. But leaving numbers and jokes aside, Spotify are certainly very concerned. Or should be. The reasons for the withdrawal of Taylor Swift can be many.

Some say it has to do with the fact that his new album, 1989, was released just a few days ago (not on Spotify, eye) and wants to seize on to sell more records or that people resort to other platforms streaming. Interestingly, and in time, his discography is still online on Rdio. From Billboard point to another possible reason: selling the record in which is Swift, though other artists of the same are still available in the popular platform. However, there may be another reason that adds to all these: Taylor Swift has always been critical to these platforms.

That was made clear in an article published in the Wall Street Journal last summer. It claimed that due to piracy and streaming, fewer records sold. So Swift did not publish their new albums on Spotify until well after a while.

Amazon's New Prime Photo

The leading on-line retailer in America, Amazon.com has released a new benefit, Prime Photo, for Amazon Prime members. For a $99.00 annual fee, members not only get free 2 day shipping, access to thousands of free movies and television shows, and music, as well a huge lending library, but now Amazon's cloud drive offers secure online unlimited photo storage, automatic photo backup, and lets you access your photos anywhere: on your phone, computer, tablet, or any Fire device.

Those photos can then be viewed on those devices, as well as, on the big screen via Amazon Fire TV, the new Fire TV Stick, game consoles like the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and some models of LG and Samsung smart TVs. Luckily, I have a Samsumg Smart TV, so I am in the process of downloading all the digital copies I had downloaded from discs and stored in window media. This will allow me to finally be able to watch them on the big screen.

Granted the downloading process is painfully slow, but it will be worth it once I get the movies all downloaded. At one point in time, I considered discontinuing my Amazon Prime membership after the announced was made that the subscription price was going up from $79.00 to $99.00 in 2015. With all of these great new benefits, I have changed my mind. In my opinion the $99.00 subscription is reasonable, considering the multitude of benefits Amazon is now offering, and I believe this is really just the tip of iceberg, with all of capabilities available thorough the Amazon cloud drive.

Toshiba announces 5TB HDDs

Currently, companies like Hitachi, Seagate and Toshiba, have hard drives with storage capacities greater than 4 terabytes "TB" (up to 6TB), which are only available to the business segments and servers. Toshiba plans to change the situation described above, announcing new hard drives with storage capacities of 5 and 4 terabytes, targeted consumer segment.

The model and exact specifications of both units are still unknown, but we can assume that will be available in the standard form factor of 3.5 ", will have a rotation speed of 7200 revolutions per minute and will be based on the technology of recording perpendicular data .

Both units will have a warranty period of 3 years and is estimated to have prices between USD $ 299.99 and USD $ 399.99.