Most grandparents long for better relationships with their apos and vice versa.  But in this fast-paced world where everything happens so fast and tasks have to be juggled simultaneously, the weekend lunches with lolos and lolas seem to be happening fewer and far-between, and even the occasional phone call gets buried under a barrage of to-dos.

An informal poll, conducted by Bayan Telecommunications (Bayan) with via Plurk and Facebook social networking sites, revealed that given the chance, 87 percent of young people would want to continue communicating with their grandparents.  The same informal poll revealed that 81 percent of Filipinos are still close to their grandparents, and that 57 percent still visit from time to time.

Here are some interesting trivia about Iligan City and Lanao del Sur province, which were contributed by Mr. Arnold Garbanzos.

FIRSTS

Internet connection in the Philippines and other Asia-Pacific countries has lost speed since August 12, 2009, following multiple cable faults discovered in two undersea fiber optic cable networks connecting Asia-Pacific countries.

Cuts within the 19,000-kilometer Asia Pacific Cable Network 2, which has a landing station in Batangas, affected speeds of Internet connection in the region.  The top telecom companies in the Philippines use the affected cable network.

The Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 3 also sustained multiple faults.  “These faults have been detected between Singapore and Malaysia and between China and Taiwan . The exact cause of these faults is still unknown,” Philippine Long Distance Telecom Co. (PLDT) said in an advisory.

We cannot afford to waste another six-year presidency; we need a new president who can bring us and our acts together for this nation towards real economic development. But is there someone, from the present bunch of presidentiables, who can govern well and become the good president that we need?

From the opinion of txtmania, we know about two presidential contenders who are into house-building, which should at least give them some perspective on what nation-building should be.  (You build the house to provide protection and comfort to the family.) Vice President Noli de Castro, who we heard is doing a good job as the government's housing czar, and Senator Manny Villar, a housing magnate, both own that disctinction.