Marcelo H. del Pilar once quoted Jose Rizal as saying, “Where there are two Filipinos unity is not possible.” We will never know if Rizal was misquoted, but that line should encourage us to do some soul-searching.
How did the midterm elections affect the urban poor? More than any other group, the poor need free elections to improve their lives, but the simple truth seems to be that in the last poll exercise they hardly benefited. It was partly their own doing.
In Wednesday’s column I wrote about preparing for a surgery of a family member or friend, drawing from my own experience with my daughter, who had her second open heart operation last week.
As in the poem, my heart leapt up when I beheld in Thursday’s Inquirer a report that the Metro Manila Development Authority will conduct a census of squatters to prepare for their relocation.
With the recent death of Onofre D. Corpuz, a former president of the University of the Philippines, memories of how various UP leaders shaped my life came rushing to me.
Taiwanese officials would do well to review their history, specifically their island’s relations with the Philippines, before they further ramp up their anti-Philippine rhetoric over the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman.
The British Tories are up in arms against David Cameron. One after another conservative leaders are voicing their concern over the ongoing debate and direction of the party, and squarely blame the British prime minister for opening a Pandora’s box with reference to the country’s geopolitical relationship with the European Union.
I have been monitoring the hunger incidence statistics of the Philippines as reported quarterly by SWS for over ten years, as long as I have been involved with the Gawad Kalinga movement. Because I was a late-comer in anti-poverty work at that time, I remained observant but quiet. I thought I could not speak up when I was just like most people I knew then—uninterested, uninvolved and concerned with a million other things.
To my last column on the current conflict between the Philippines and Taiwan, a country with whom, until recently, we have had only friendly relations, a reader from Canada has written a most thoughtful rejoinder. He wishes to remain anonymous, but, with his permission, I will quote from the rich account he has shared of his experience as a former official of the Canadian department of fisheries in charge of enforcing maritime fishing boundaries. His job entailed protecting his country’s fishery from poachers coming from other countries.
In 2000 I covered the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo that investigated and tried atrocities against women in countries occupied by Japan during World War II. This was some 60 years after the war crimes were committed. The trial was initiated by civil society, human rights and women’s groups from Asia, Europe and the host country, Japan.
I almost fell out of my chair when Miriam Defensor-Santiago came out with her advice to the newbies in the Senate. Would you take advice from Erap on how to live an abstemious life?
If hate is part of the curriculum of every school in the world, everyone will be astonished to find so many excelling in it. Or maybe not.
