Recent comments code

<?php
 // RETRIEVES n RECENT COMMENTS FOR FRONTEND DISPLAY IN WOLF CMS
global $__CMS_CONN__;
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM ".TABLE_PREFIX."comment WHERE is_approved = 1";
$stmt = $__CMS_CONN__->query($sql);
$comments_count = $stmt->fetchColumn();
$stmt->closeCursor();

$limit = 3; // SET NUMBER OF COMMENTS TO RETRIEVE

$totalrecords = $comments_count;
$sql = "SELECT comment.is_approved, comment.id, comment.page_id, comment.author_name, comment.author_link, comment.body, comment.created_on, page.title, page.id FROM " .
    TABLE_PREFIX . "comment AS comment, " . TABLE_PREFIX .
    "page AS page WHERE comment.is_approved = 1 AND comment.page_id = page.id ORDER BY comment.id DESC LIMIT " . $limit;

$stmt = $__CMS_CONN__->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute();
?>

<ul id="recent-comments">
    <?php while ($comment = $stmt->fetchObject()): ?>
    <li>
          <strong><?php if ($comment->author_link != '') {
            echo '<a href="'.$comment->author_link.'" title="'.$comment->author_name.'">'.$comment->author_name.'</a>';
        }  else { echo $comment->author_name; } ?></strong>
 <?php echo __('on'); ?> <strong><?php echo Page::linkById(intval($comment->id)); // $comment->id; ?></strong>
          <span class="comment-date">
              (<?php echo date('D, j M Y', strtotime($comment->created_on)); ?>)
          </span>
<?php /* remove PHP comments (and line-after-next) to include comment text: ?>
          <p><?php echo $comment->body; ?></p>
<?php */ ?>
      </li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>