PARAMDAM is essential for political candidates since the official campaign period doesn’t start before the filing of the certificate of candidacy — it starts way after that. Money does talk, making the real campaign period the week or even the day before Election Day.

The next presidential election will be in 2028. Ilang tulog na lang. Okay. Two and a half years of tulog.

For a while there, it seemed like the name of the country’s next president was already written in the stars. But the shocking revelations on the flood control projects made that name fade like a comet. Pfft.

The presidential race is not exactly back to square one. There are many potential candidates willing to replace the name that went pfft.

There’s the daughter of a former president. Who may pave the way for Mindanao’s major comeback.

There’s… Uh, that’s it, pancit? Kamingaw sa payag.

But surely potential presidential candidates have begun to sprout. Making preparations for Pinas’s highest throne should start early — preferably at birth.

Try listening to children’s answers to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Let’s see if they will say, “I want to be a contractor like the Discayas.” “I want to be one of the politicians involved in the controversial flood control projects.” “I want to be Janet Lim-Napoles.” “I want to be part of the pork barrel scam.”

The pork barrel scam starring Napoles happened from mid-2000s to 2013. Lessons should’ve been learned by then about stealing from the national treasury. But the ‘robbery’ continued, as shown by the 2025 flood control projects controversy. And some of the politicians in the pork barrel scam were also allegedly involved in the flood control projects? There’s no rest for the weary? Can a robber ever get tired of stealing?

Wait, it’s the first month of 2026 and here I am writing about graft and corruption. I vowed last year to never discuss the government again — so why am I back to this? Let’s talk about books instead.

Yes, the books I promised to stop buying already. I still have several boxes of books to re-read. Perhaps when I’m down to one un-reread book, I can resume hoarding them.

But there I was on Tuesday, right after my birthday lunch, shocked to see all these bookworms inside Booksale’s SM City CDO Uptown branch — a rare sight in this age of ebooks and social media. I learned later why: it’s closing shop in two days. So, it’s fallen victim to ebooks and social media after all. Tsk tsk.

Children should read books. Our generation read Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Barbara Cartland, Mills & Boon, Michael Crichton, Robert Ludlum, Sidney Sheldon, Anne Rice, Mary Higgins Clark, James Patterson, Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Jeffrey Archer, Tom Clancy, Ayn Rand. And Harold Robbins — but let’s not go there.

I have a friend who memorized the page numbers of the juiciest parts in Harold Robbins’s books. As to why that’s possible, try reading them. Ooh la la. Those books have no paramdam — instead, they’ve upped the ante on details.