INQ7.net, logging off

After five years, the INQ7.net as Filipinos here and abroad know it, will cease to exist. It will be a mere portal for the Inquirer and GMA Network.

I knew it was coming, but seeing my byline today for the first time as INQUIRER.net and not as INQ7.net, it finally felt real.

All I can say is this: Endangering job security is no way of thanking people who worked long and hard hours to make INQ7.net the most visited and most profitable news website in the country.

I just hope this new set-up works and the efforts of the original INQ7.net team will not go to waste. Good luck to all of us.

Here are links to all five anniversary sites of "our INQ7.net."

Year One (2002)

Year Two (2003)

Year Three (2004)

Year Four (2005)

Year Five (2006)

Shameless plug

I will be a brag this one time and make this shameless plug. Sometime before January 1, INQ7.net, the number one website in the country, will become INQUIRER.net, a 100-percent owned subsidiary of the Inquirer group of publications.

The INQ7.net editorial team, exactly 16 days before they are retrenched by INQ7 and rehired by Inquirer.net, partied from Friday evening until pan de sal is sold on the streets the next morning.

The food was fantastic, fit for the last meal of death row prisoners before they hit the electric chair. I stuffed myself sick.

One of our editors, who hosted the party, served authentic chicken inasal. I ate two quarter chicken sticks. Someone also brought dried cherries covered in bittersweet chocolate. You can never go wrong with chocolate.

Nachos with salsa and cheese was also served. You will never make me spend over 50 pesos at the mall for a handful of stale chips and diluted cheese spread.

Court martial in cool Tanay

Tempers flared at the court martial hearing of 30 military officers linked to the failed February coup d'etat in cool Camp Capinpin in the mountains of Tanay, Rizal on Thursday. Here are some snapshots.



One of the accused Scout Rangers, Captain Ruben Guinolbay, arrives under heavy guard.



A close-up shot of ex-Marine commandant Major General Renato Miranda, behind him is his former aide and only woman co-accused, First Lieutenant Belinda Ferrer. Ferrer passed out Go Nuts Donuts to her co-accused and defense lawyers during the hearing.



The three alleged coup ringleaders since failed uprising in February: (L-R) Miranda, Army Brigadier General Danilo Lim and Marine Colonel Ariel Querubin. It was the first time they were seen together since the failed coup.

Navy turnover at sunset

A photo of the famed sunset on Manila Bay taken from the Navy headquarters along Roxas boulevard, where Vice Admiral Mateo Mayuga relinquished his post to Rear Admiral Rogelio Calunsag on Friday



The same site a few hours earlier.



The outgoing Navy Flag Officer-in-Command, Vice Admiral Mateo Mayuga

Sounds bad, tastes good

I didn't even want to open the tub, it was pesto popcorn. But TV viewing on a Sunday won't be complete without junk food so I dove in. It was good. It was hard to imagine that sweet and savory go together, but in this case, it worked.

I wish I could say the same about the black forest DQ Blizzard knock-off I had earlier in the day. The brownies were stale, the cherries tasted like cough syrup, and the ice cream melted too fast my dessert turned watery minutes after I left the counter.