Some Catholic bishops “flunked” President Aquino for “failing to curb poverty” even as the Philippines’ economic growth outstripped that of other Asian countries. “Growth has not trickled down to the poor,” scoffed National Secretariat for Social Action’s Bishop Broderick Pabillo. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give Aquino a grade of three.”
Naty has not heard or read about the Marcoses, Estradas, Binays and Ampatuans wresting election victory. She is a 53-year-old beggar who looks a haggard 80. What matters is even leftover food, she shrugs.
“Ah, the chill of consciousness returns,” the poetic drunk Uncle Seamus would groan after a bender the night before. Morning after the May 13 elections, what do we wake up to?
“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war—or before an election.” Otto von Bismarck’s adage unreels with a vengeance in the homestretch of the May 13 elections.
Contrast is a compelling tutor. Compare the track records of talks for peace by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Both were intractable insurgencies.
“Hopes for calmer times under this year’s new management?” The Economist earlier tacked that keep-your-fingers-crossed title on a “leader” for a 2013 Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. Were those “hopes” partly achieved Wednesday and Thursday in Brunei?
In just over a month, after a surprise election in 28 hours to the Chair of Peter, Pope Francis jolted people with initial reforms. These were mainly by example. Are we in for more surprises?
Suddenly, it is twilight. A stoop matches our gray hair and bifocals. They say we’re the elderly folk we used to zip past unheeding. Where did those years go?
That’s shorthand for daily 30-minute “time-outs” that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority authorized Monday. Blistered by the sun, traffic cops and street sweepers may dash for the shade in shifts.
Do economics textbooks ask the right questions? Can they muster tangible measures for the desperately poor? Two Cambridge University dons debated on the issue in autumn 1953. Their chat led to the crafting of what we know today as the “Human Development Index” (HDI).
“Didn’t the dark leather shoes that Pope Francis wore at Tuesday’s installation rites remind you of Imelda Marcos?” a friend asked. No. Should they?
Bacolod’s Catholic diocese is clashing with the Commission on Elections over the display of “Patay/Buhay” tarpaulins on its cathedral. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 19 on a petition to scrap the Comelec rules on tarp size, display, etc.
