When foreign visitors ask me about travel time within the Philippines, I sometimes crack a joke like, “Oh, the flight from Cebu to Manila is an hour, but to get from the airport to Quezon City it can take two.”
The McAdore Hotel is an abandoned building in Dagupan City. When it was built years ago, it was the pride of Dagupan, earning the monikers “International Palace” and “Star of the North.” The owners had such grand plans for it.
Often I am asked who among the people in Philippine history I want to interview. At the top of my list, of course, is Jose Rizal followed by Apolinario Mabini, and the hot-headed Luna brothers: Juan (the painter) and Antonio (the scientist turned military general).
The Philippines and Taiwan have agreed to avoid armed confrontations in dealing with fishing disputes. Henceforth, we will share maritime law enforcement, notifying each other posthaste whenever actions are taken against vessels and crews of one or the other.
Sixty years ago this month, a group of young American Jesuit scholastics, myself among them, sailed into Manila Bay. Fr. Francisco “Fritz” Araneta was our superior. He was home after years of study abroad, and began presenting his country. He pointed out a young woman, a legendary heroine, asleep on the mountains. He spoke of Corregidor Island, and told us of its fall. Part of the story he got from another Jesuit, Fr. Pacifico Ortiz, who had been there with President Manuel Quezon until they left with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He told us there were sharks in the waters between Corregidor and Cavite, as if he expected us to jump in if he didn’t warn us. We saw nothing but green mountains and the blue sea. It was a wonderland.
Eliminating a disease often requires solutions that rely on more than a single approach. True, many infectious diseases—such as smallpox—have been eliminated or severely limited through the use of vaccines, which protect humans against the encroachment of deadly organisms.
“A good newspaper is never nearly good enough. But a lousy newspaper is a joy forever,” an old wisecrack goes. It resonated in the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) conference: “Watching the Watchdog: Re-examining Ourselves.”
Quacquarelli Symonds, a British organization specializing in education, confirms what most of us pretty much know or suspect. The quality of our education is falling.
Marcelo del Pilar left behind dozens of letters—altogether a wonderful read for Filipinos interested in history. Many of his letters were written in Filipino, especially those he wrote to his wife and his daughters, but these also include important, indeed historical, letters to Jose Rizal.
Everybody’s talking about inclusive growth, but the latest labor and employment data suggest that the breathtaking growth our economy has been achieving lately—the fastest in all of Asia, in fact—is anything but that. The latest quarterly Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO) reports that there were actually 21,000 fewer jobs overall last April compared to a year ago.
“Dengue season” is upon us, what with the onset of the rainy season. This is because the rains and floods create stagnant pools of water where mosquitoes bearing the dengue-causing organism breed. But in truth, as the Department of Health says, dengue is a year-round threat, since many households still harbor locations and containers where water may collect—drums, pails, tires, ponds, fountains, gutters, even vases—which even at the height of summer may host mosquito populations.
I am walking one glorious day. I am walking out of our two-story rented home, sidestepping the pool of algae forming in front of our gate (a cesspool of malaria), turning right, then left, then right again, and ultimately out of the quaint suburban village.
