Journalists are particularly vulnerable where government institutions are weak and, by default, we turn to a free press to enforce accountability or good behavior by those in power.
THE ELECTION commissioners belong to homo sapiens, yet they are so homogeneous in their homophobia that they might think I have actually insulted them by using any word that can pass for a homonym. By the Comelec’s backward logic, anything homo can’t be good.
THE BISHOPS HAVE RIGHTLY OPPOSED aerial spraying in banana farms on the basis of the ancient unassailable claim of justice: “Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you.”
When it comes to protecting human rights in the ASEAN, remember the adage: Watch what they do, not what they say. In this part of the world, words work differently. Elsewhere you must “say what you mean and mean what you say.”
Most of Southeast Asia, and especially the Philippines, used to fear China because it was communist. Today we must fear China because it is going nationalist, and in a very big way.
The Monday morning quarterbacks have spoken on Typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng,” and I’m appealing that they speak less. Surely we the public are entitled to know more about the decision to release water from the dams, and the congressional inquiries should ferret out the truth that we seek.
