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By Antonio Montalvan II
Ang Kapatiran Party’s three senatorial candidates may not win on May 13. Even if they lose, I like to think that the party will emerge as the real winner in the 2013 elections. By fielding candidates, it has already achieved part of its objective—to start the political education of Filipino voters. Fielding three candidates in a race where the name of the game is money, public visibility and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering is already an act of fortitude vis-à-vis established, present-day political norms.
Posted: May 5th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Editor's Pick,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
The list of papabiles always titillating the world’s curiosity notwithstanding, no one ever has predicted correctly who gets elected pope.
Posted: April 21st, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
Now that Kris Aquino is home, will she be true to her word that she will resign from all her ABS-CBN shows? The promise is being awaited by legions, never mind Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations surveys.
Posted: April 7th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
There she goes again, but the pattern has become familiar. It would seem that every now and then, Kris Aquino treats us to her teary spectacles. And this time, the drama was even more intense—presented on prime time TV news with an all-star supporting cast, courtesy of all three other Aquino sisters looking downcast, for a full 27 minutes and 54 seconds of airtime.
Posted: March 25th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
How copious is our understanding of the Sultanate of Sulu? If Malacañang’s statement is true, that it has only begun consulting historical documents, then that understanding is miserably wanting. Manila has always had an ambivalent appreciation of the sultanate and its rightful place as an institution in Philippine polity.
Posted: March 11th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Editor's Pick,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
It is a memory that must serve us right. During vote counting in the May 2010 elections, compact flash cards, election returns and ballots were found in a Cagayan de Oro dumpsite. Some sleuthing by Sen. Koko Pimentel led to the dump truck’s registry—it belonged to the city hall of Cagayan de Oro. Months later, the dump truck’s driver was found dead. Let us review the timeline.
Posted: February 11th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
Call it going against the grain, swimming against the current. For “popular clamor” has always been assumed to be favorable to the RH Law. “The surveys have it,” it has often been said. In a “sea of voices” in favor of the law—“objective” media included—little notice (understandably) was made of Ateneo de Manila University Theology professor Rafael Dy-Liacco. His letter of resignation from that Catholic university was drowned out even more, in fact, by the euphoria of the pro-RH advocates over the clandestine signing of the law by President Aquino. News of the secret signing broke on the same day Dy-Liacco resigned from Ateneo. That day was the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Dec. 28. Mr. Aquino, who by all indications is now a nominal Catholic, must have forgotten the meaning of that commemoration—the wholesale massacre of innocent children ordered by a tyrant in fear of losing his throne.
Posted: January 20th, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Editor's Pick,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
Sometime in the latter part of this year, our 95-year-old mother became terminally ill. She had been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease some eight years earlier. Out of respect for her privacy, I shall not mention the disease, but its common name alone is already a death sentence. At the onset of that diagnosis then, supported by a biopsy result, the medical specialist had advised me to prepare for her eventual death. “Within less than a year,” he had said. Eight years later, the medical prophecy had not happened.
Posted: December 23rd, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
That it can, after all, be amended only proves the point that there is no need whatsoever to legislate the reproductive health (RH) bill. The so-called amendment raises some interesting questions. Will it delete parts of the bill that were simply plagiarized from already existing laws? Even before there was a Tito Sotto (and Pia Cayetano, too) in the Senate, many provisions of the RH bill could be found in the already existing Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta for Women. What is the point in another redundancy?
Posted: October 22nd, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
This is probably an unthinkable framework by which to make a judgment on the Reproductive Health bill. How many of us are in awe of mathematical figures and formulas? But that is exactly what three scientists have done in a study that correlates contraceptive use and abortion rate. The study was published last March 26 only.
Posted: September 10th, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
Getting viral by the hour in cyberspace is a petition written and initiated by Dr. Ricardo B. Boncan, an alumnus and parent of the Ateneo de Manila University. The petition can be signed online at www.gopetition.com/petitions/re-claim-the-catholic-identity-of-the-ateneo-de-manila.html. I give way to Doctor Boncan’s petition, of which the publication in this space of an abridged and edited version he has so graciously permitted.
Posted: August 20th, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Antonio Montalvan II
“You must also tell it like it is,” President Aquino, in a foul mood, was heard castigating media at the recent anniversary celebration of “TV Patrol,” a prime-time news program. That’s what we think: He must tell it like it is by getting his facts right, especially in a State of the Nation Address.
Posted: July 30th, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
