Even at my age, I am an incurable girl-watcher and also a born flirt, but not an outrageous one.

Nothing grips my eye faster than a pretty face, and if given the chance to get together, I would like to regale her with funny stories without exactly betraying my motives.

The trouble starts if the chick turns out to be smart and quickly catches my drift, which means she will do one of two things – put me in my place, or show signs that she is interested, and daring enough to wade into the fray, only to nail me to the wall later.

In the first, you depart with a whimper and go to one corner to lick your wounds. Actually a happy ending – no foul, except for a bruised ego.

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But if the girl isn’t that smart and falls prey to your overtures – which usually happens when she is on the rebound, having just emerged from an unhappy relationship, the secret is to stifle your desires and speedily scamper for higher ground lest you drown.

A triangle is always destructive, and no one ever comes out the winner in affairs of the heart forbidden by law and God.

Nothing hurts a wife more than a philandering husband and an unfaithful wife has driven even the sturdiest of men to hang themselves from the ceiling.

In the meantime, the paramour or lover is left holding an empty bag, with nothing but bad memories – gigolos and gold diggers not included.

In most instances too, the children stick by the offended parent, and losing a family is worse than losing a life, because you end up joining the legion of the walking dead.

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As my dearly beloved dad used to say to me, “Better a henpecked husband than an unfaithful one.”

“It may not exactly be domestic bliss, but the domestic peace more than makes up for it.”

Right you are old man, and thank you for all the lessons in life that I try to pass on to my two boys, your grandsons. They are good to me, pop, not at all like I was to you.

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If you listen closely to what the presidential aspirants are saying, they are all mouthing the same thing – that all the ills of the country from poverty and unemployment to graft and corruption will be wiped out under their watch.

But none of them are telling us exactly how will they be able to do that.

And yet from Quezon to PGMA, the country remains quagmire in misery, even as the poor, the unemployed, and the corrupt, have increased multifold. Is there really any hope for the Philippines, whose cottage industry seems to be the mass production of promises that alas, never come to fulfillment.

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According to the surveys, Noynoy Aquino is the front-running candidate. How does one explain that a three-term congressman with an unimpressive record, a bachelor of 50 years, and appears not to possess qualities that we look for in a leader, might be elected as our next president? There is of course the Ninoy and Cory factor, and to some extent, the showbiz popularity of his sister, Kris. But that’s exactly what I am trying to point out.

Of the Aquino siblings, the less bright and the most talkative are basking in the limelight, while the three other sisters, certainly less controversial persons than Noynoy or Kris, are the ones in the background. Noynoy should follow their example and quit the presidential race, if only to save a gullible people from another six years of “advisers” running the country.

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Or take the other leading presidential candidate Manny Villar. Like he claims in not so many words, he was born poor and grew up poor, and if he was able to escape poverty, so he can do the same thing for the Filipino people.

So, okey, no one doubts he was poor, but why is Villar not saying that he married into money? His wife Cynthia belongs to the rich Vergel clan of Las Piñas, and that’s how Villar rose to where he is now. All the hard work came after that, and the wealth naturally multiplied. It isn’t like Villar and his wife were broke at the time they started out in life together, and became billionaires soon after.

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But even more puking is Erap bragging that everything was on the level during his administration, ending his campaign line with the catch phrase, “Kung may Erap, may ginhawa.”

So why was he convicted of plunder in the first place? And someone should ask him, whose “ginhawa” will it be, your relatives, your mistresses, and friends – no, certainly not the Filipino people.

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And think about this. The two most academically qualified to run the country – Gibo and Dick – are languishing in the cellar of the survey ratings. Why? Probably because they are lawyers, and in this country, attorneys, unhappily, are the less trusted. Tired of lawyers running everything particularly government affairs, the voters then elected a plain housewife, a retired constable general, an actor, and a professor of Economics one after the other.

Imagine that, half a century ago, the Filipino people were better off than now, and we were only thirty million then, only a third of what we are today. Can the Catholic leadership explain that to us?

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We are in the month of March, so beware the ides. The cold winds have gone back to Siberia, and after being inundated by Ondoy and Pepeng, the drought is now upon us.

Meantime, around the globe, all sorts of disasters are occurring. The gods are angry, and we need to placate them with prayers and good deeds.

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Belated birthday greetings to my beloved Minda, who turned – secret – yesterday. Live life longer sweetheart, remember you are not yet a grandma.

The best and toughest “nurse” in the world, that’s what you are to this old man now coming apart at the seams after decades of enjoying the happy life. Roses and kisses, “babes.”