I FIRST heard that term “Lucky Sperm Club” uttered by First Pacific top executive Manuel V. Pangilinan in the early 1990s in pejorative reference to the Ayalas and other Spanish-descended business tycoons against whom his consortium was bidding for the purchase of what is now the Bonifacio Global City.

The term was popularized by the American billionaire investor Warren Buffett in a self-deprecating way to refer to individuals who like himself inherited wealth, power or social status by virtue of birth rather than their own effort or merit. The phrase is a criticism of inherited privilege, that certain people are born into advantageous situations simply because of their family background.

“I won the lottery the day I was born. I was born into a rich, powerful family and that gave me all sorts of advantages in life. I call it the ‘lucky sperm club,'” Buffet said.

DENIERS of Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has now lasted more than a year, can very easily be debunked by pointing out just one number: 42,000.

That’s the number — an underestimate, in fact — of mostly unarmed Palestinians, about half of whom were women, children and infants killed by the almost daily bombing of the Gaza Strip by US-financed, US-produced warplanes and ordnance. How could these deceivers claim that Israel is merely defending itself when it has massacred such huge numbers of innocent people to avenge the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7?

Just a day after I wrote a piece on that, the Israeli ambassador to the Philippines, Ian Fluss, had the gall to write a column (“Remembering Oct. 7”) in the Philippine Star, which went on exactly the same lying propaganda tack. In his 800-word piece, he mentions “1,200 innocent lives taken by the Hamas, 240 individuals brutally abducted with 101 Israeli hostages still in captivity, 10 women, two toddlers, and at least 40 murdered.”

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should curb his elation over the Social Weather Stations (SWS) report that from June 23 to July 1, his administration had an 11-point increase in its net satisfaction score among Filipinos for one major reason.

What was glossed over in the reports was that the satisfaction score was for the national administration and not for Marcos’ performance as a president, which had a lower increase of 7 points.

While the data for the two reports came from the same poll made from June 23 to July 24, the report with a rosy picture of Marcos’ performance was released September 13, two weeks later than the less-rosy report, released August 1. I find that mysterious.

WHILE the Marcos administration and Congress have been engrossed in pinning down a 38-year-old Chinese Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator, hunting down a religious leader and undertaking operations to demolish the Duterte charisma, the Philippines has become so much of a US puppet that a US mid-range missile system has been installed here, putting the country dangerously in the middle of an arms race in Asia.

I am referring to the US Typhon missile system in place at the aprons of the Laoag International Airport. While the system is designed to launch and target with its state-of-the-art radar equipment the mid-range SM-6 missiles, it can also do so with Tomahawk missiles which have a 1,000 range that could reach China. The missile system was brought into the country by the US military in April purportedly merely as part of combat exercises with our troops and to test if the system could be transported to the country by a US transport plane.

I'VE been convinced so only in the past two weeks with the shocking revelations in social media of two legislators and their inexplicable wealth. Amazingly, they themselves pointed to their…

WHEN Ferdinand E. Marcos imposed martial law on Sept. 22, 1972,* I was an Ateneo college drop-out heading the Manila and Rizal organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines…