Allow me to indulge in some self-promotion, ego massage, and to a certain extent, ass-kissing.

Last night, with an invitation from Mr. Carlo Ople, a few bloggers (myself included) had a casual dinner meeting with Senator Mar Roxas, more commonly known as “Mister Palengke.”  Now before you start to accuse me (again) of being a “sellout,” this is not an endorsement for Mar Roxas in 2010.  After all, I just may be crazy enough to run for the Presidency myself.  By then, I’ll be 25 and people will take me seriously.

The shindig was held at Annabel’s Tomas Morato where, over french fries, crackers, and a fantabulous dinner (for free… and hey, it was Annabel’s), the following bloggers and myself met with Sen. Roxas:

• Toots Ople
• Noemi Dado
• Lester Cavestany
• The Jester-in-Exile
• Arbet Bernardo
• Juned Sonido
• Sonnie Santos
• Abe Olandres
• Paolo Florenda
• Ding Gagelonia
• Gail Villanueva
• Marc Villanueva
• Ellen Tordesillas
• Manolo Quezon
• Ricky Carandang

Mr. Gagelonia writes a cool summary of the meeting at his entry at Filipino Voices, so please do check it out there.  It was also the launch of VirtualRally.net, which is a virtual form of EDSA where you can speak your mind about issues like VAT.

I’m not a very political blogger (and if that was a lie, let lightning strike me), and I sort of got confused with all that had to do with my question about E-VAT.  My theory is that a lot of politicians can answer a VAT question unfazed.  So I decided to ask the Senator a “cute” question (as Ma’am Noemi puts it)…

Sir, you watched The Dark Knight, right?  Who would you want to have dinner with: Joker, Two-Face, or Batman?

Now let me just say that this is not a profound philosophical question, I just wanted to know his answer…

I’d really like to talk to Two-Face and ask… “What happened to you?”

I leave you to make up your minds about it.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me and the Senator… I told you this was a shameless post!

Again, I’m not photogenic.  My camera phone sucks.  I had a fever.  I was chewing on gum.  And I don’t use glutathione.

I must say that I’m very impressed with the Senator’s geniality and attention to detail, although I was waiting for that one phrase when we discussed VAT: “taxation without representation.”  Didn’t happen, but oh well.  Another impression was that he was very articulate, and had a keen attention to detail (the guy takes down notes).

Is Mar Roxas Presidential timber?  Let’s wait and see.  How about Marocharim?  He’s dictator material.  Do you actually want to see my face in posters at EDSA?

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Side notes: I am suffering from flu.  Note to self: no more tequila shots on fever.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 4:55 pm and is filed under blogging, philippines, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.