A few weeks ago, I wrote about the harassment of SM Development Corp. (SMDC) and its contractor by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) led by its president, Arnel Casanova. Here are the facts. A video grab showed Casanova, accompanied by security personnel armed with high-caliber weapons (the Commission on Elections’ gun ban [...]
Prior to the shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman whose vessel was intercepted poaching in Philippine waters off the Batanes islands on May 9, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) recorded at least 19 incursions into this area since 2006. The incursions of Taiwanese vessels suspected of illegal poaching have made the northern waters a virtual [...]
KUALA LUMPUR—Health Secretary Enrique Ona had some good news to share during an informal chat on the sidelines of the “Women Deliver” conference that closed yesterday. True, the maternal mortality rate (MMR), which measures the number of women (per 100,000) who die due to causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, was reported to have [...]
Nobody ever loses in Philippine elections. Many losers claim they were cheated and file an electoral protest. This pattern goes all the way back to the founding fathers, to March 23, 1897, when Andres Bonifacio and 44 others issued a document that has come down in history as the “Acta de Tejeros.” Unfortunately, many students [...]
The Philippines is sometimes described as patriarchal but matricentric, meaning mothers can also be quite powerful in the face of male domination. But “matricentric” is not necessarily limited to mothers. In the Philippines, aunts band together to become even more powerful. “Tita,” “tiya” and “auntie” are terms that are extended broadly, to include sisters, [...]
“Having fought for our independence, we know that a price must be paid for freedom,” US President Barack Obama said in a policy speech on terrorism last May 23. “For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over $1 trillion on war, exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build here [...]
The happiest news after the elections so far: The Jalosjos clan was thrashed by the voters in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Of the 14 clan members fielded, only one made it: Councilor Rosalina Jalosjos, who was elected mayor of Dapitan City, the bailiwick of the clan. Earlier, the candidacies of patriarch Romeo Jalosjos and his brother Dominador Jr. were voided by the Commission on Elections because of their criminal convictions, Romeo for child rape and Dominador for robbery.
Last May 4, the Economist, a conservative weekly magazine in London, commented on the “Chinese dream” as articulated by China’s new president, Xi Jinping, and related it to the “American dream.”
The imperious President Charles de Gaulle of France is reported to have said, “How can anyone govern a nation that has 46 different kinds of cheeses?” Of the result of Monday’s senatorial elections, it may appropriately be asked, “How can anyone rule a nation that has a Senate composed of members of 24 different parties?”
One of the less-noted developments in the recent elections is that, with much of the counting over, the country has just doubled the number of women in the Senate. As of this writing, no one among the victorious women is in danger of being dislodged from the winners’ circle, but none of those within shot of securing a place in the two remaining slots is a woman, either.
Voting was uneventful where I voted last Monday. No election irregularities, no machine breaking down or jamming. It just took so long—a little past two hours—from the time I entered the barangay hall to the time the machine flashed the message that I had voted successfully. A drop of indelible ink applied on my finger was the last step in a process that should’ve taken just a little more than half an hour. If I were a senior citizen I would have finished in half the time, but I struggle, vainly, to keep from entering middle age. I endured a long, slowly moving line to get the ballot, a long piece of paper that reminded me of school and multiple-choice exams.
The recent bombing of the Boston Marathon that shook the world brought back a flood of sweet memories to this sentimental septuagenarian. It was in the late 1960s when I first set foot in Boston, and it was, for me, love at first sight. After my pediatric residency in New York, I had the chance of a lifetime to be selected as a Grant Foundation Fellow in adolescent medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
