The Inquirer headlines Palace paranoia concerning the President’s praetorian guard, while the Palace also says they’re “steadfastly loyal”. The Manila Times perceives it as a symptom of a deeper unease between the President, former President Ramos, and the USA. The Manila Standard-Today has a curious story: Lotto winners kidnap swindler who duped them.

In the punditocracy, my column for today is Remembrance of books past. The Inquirer editorial takes a cue from Edwin Lacierda’s view that the disappearance of a Department of Agriculture undersecretary (accused of funneling fertilizer funds to the President’s campaign) is a black eye for Rotary International: add to this the view of online columnist Billy Esposo, that de la Salle University’s athletics woes represents the perils of a “win at all cost” mentality, and we really do have a crisis in all our institutions, as I pointed out abroad.

Dan Mariano points out the recent conviction of terrorists was done without the benefit of an anti-terror law.

Marichu Villanueva says the Secretary of Finance is having nightmares about the VAT; Fel Maragay wonders if the law can’t be softened a bit.Today, of course, is the last day of life as we know it, or before the implementation of the VAT increases that begins tomorrow. And as for Fidel V. Ramos planning (or having planned) a coup, Patricio Diaz says it’s madness.

In the blogosphere, Newsstand is irked by the President’s not-so-subtle declaration of war on ABS-CBN, using Inquirer columnist Mon Tulfo (in the words of a colleague) as her guided torpedo: Philippine Commentary is a little more skeptical about everyone’s motives (the media included); journalist Ellen Tordesillas has been blogging for some days now (hoorah!); The Unlawyer has returned (and is no longer anonymous); PCIJ delves into the Reform Agenda of the Black & White Movement (full disclosure: I am one of the convenors of B&W); Newsboy complains that the opposition simply isn’t helping (who? what? when? where? why?); Ricky Carandang, after pointing out the problem of the country is that we have a low-trust society, delves into the reasons behind our not having trust: our dependence on servants (to which reader Manuel Buencamino cleverly replies that having servants teaches management skills, and I agree); Leon Kilat reports on an effort by young radicals to set up some Google bombs, by linking the phrase “pekeng pangulo” to the President’s website (see? that was easy). Incidentally, my favorite Communist blogger has penned an eloquent justification of why she’s a Communist