The United Nations yesterday affirmed another national embarrassment under President Arroyo after it released yesterday an updated report stating that the Armed Forces of the Philippines has been executing leftist activists in recent years.

Philip Alston, special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the UN, lamented in the report that not a single soldier has been convicted for extra-judicial killings.

The new report released at the UN on Monday (Tuesday in Manila), said leftist militants have been the targets of operations of the military.

THE House minority bloc called on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos to resign, saying it is his best option in the face of an imminent impeachment complaint against him.

"If he has any sense of decency left, he should resign now. The earlier he faces trial for committing bribery, the better for the entire nation," said Akbayan party list Rep. Risa Hontiveros.

Hontiveros said the confirmation of Higher Education chair Romulo Neri yesterday at the Senate hearing on the broadband deal that Abalos tried to bribe him is enough to pin down the Comelec chairman for brokering the deal.

"We hope he already prepared his resignation letter. He doesn’t deserve to stay in public office, not even a minute longer," said Hontiveros.

You can keep your sordid stories of an inebriated Gretchen Baretto canoodling with John Estrada, or Ogie Alcasid making whoopee with Regine Velasquez, or Ruffa Gutierrez getting zapped with a million volts in a bathtub (and living to tell the tale -- talk about a Turkish bath!).

For band geeks like us, the real story of any consequence is the tale of how Rico Blanco walked away last May without leave or warning from a successful career as chief songwriter and frontman for the 14-year old band Rivermaya. Band manager Lizza Nakpil dropped us an e-mail with the band's official statement - and it's not quite what we expected.

But first the back story, presented here for the uninitiated. On May 4, SMS messages were rumbling fast and furious through the telco networks that Rivermaya - the self-titled "Banda ng Bayan" has played its last gig, a triple bill with Sandwich and Pupil at Metro Bar in Quezon City.

Fresh from her successful In Motion concert at the Araneta Coliseum a few weeks ago, Sarah Geronimo continues to make big waves in the entertainment industry with the release of her new album. Titled Sarah Geronimo, Taking Flight, it showcases the works of some of today’s most important Filipino composers.

Sarah feels very privileged about having the opportunity to record these very special songs. “Natutuwa po ako,” she says.

It is regrettable but also a fact that there will come times in our lives wherein some words of wisdom from a song in the musical Chess will be proven true. “Nothing is so good it lasts eternally/perfect situations must go wrong.” I do not know if the situation was perfect among the members of Orange & Lemons but the band certainly had it good for quite a while. Then recently, the Orange and the Lemons all went sour.

The group is composed or maybe I should say, was once made up of Clem Castro on electric guitar and vocals, McCoy Fundales on acoustic guitar and vocals, JM del Mundo on bass guitar and Ace del Mundo on drums. Clem and McCoy are the main songwriters.