Fire rooster

This is an obligatory column for the Chinese New Year, as people won’t believe that we, Chinese people, are good in predictions and Feng Shui (I and my family never had luck on predictions in my four decades of existence).

But we bid goodbye first to the tumultuous Year of the Monkey filled with mischief, from bombings to fake news to “hero’s burial” and to having a baboon winning the presidency of the world’s superpower country.

Now is the Year of Fire Rooster. To those who want to know what’s in store for us, I’ll try some alternative predictions. This is a lucky year for our President Rodrigo Duterte, who happens to be born in the year of the rooster in 1945. He’s got a lot to crow about for hosting the Miss Universe pageant this week and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) conference in October.

Besides that, Duterte will still be in fighting mood, with expletives spurting out like cackles against detractors, bishops, crooks in government, international journalists and human rights watchers who would raise howls against him.

And since Filipinos are fond of fighting cocks, expect more fighting in the political cockpit. We will not see the last of Sen. Antonio Trillanes or Sen. Leila de Lima in the Senate as they will make putak-putak there. Administration congressmen will also do their own putak-putak in congressional hearings. Sa pula,

sa puti, it doesn’t matter, they’re all the same. This year, a former president is going to turn chicken when asked about Mamasapano. Chicken now will be synonymous with the word yellow.

Peace talks between the government and the reds will be unpredictable. It’s an even match, and as long as there are no dirty tricks or ruffling of feathers, things would go smoothly.

On foreign shores, United States President Donald Trump will also be cocking up a lot of outrageous orders, from building border walls to oil pipelines and factories that will drive away non-Americans, choke up the environment, and poison the rivers. He will be crowing a lot, beating up media for “fake news,” environmentalists for being “out of control” and brag about “making America great again.”

Expect a colorful cockpit of American people fighting this proud neo-conservative president. If Trump is a proud rooster, then women power will claw him down from his pedestal.

For good luck, bring eggs, but don’t count them. Remember the saying, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Expect rotten eggs in police uniform hatching tokhang- for-ransom, and expect more rumors and bashing hatched by trolls in social media.

Let’s go now to Feng Shui. Feng Shui literally means wind and water, and indeed this year we will be affected by winds and water flooding our communities. But don’t blame the wrong placement of your house or direction of your door. Blame logging companies for cutting down trees, plantations for planting bananas, abaca and pineapples that won’t absorb water.

Local officials have to double time in disaster preparation. It will be a bad year for disasters as climate change is a myth, says Trump.--