Almost everyone recognizes the right to vote of all qualified Filipinos residing abroad. The 1987 Constitution explicitly instructs Congress to pass a law that will make absentee voting possible. Sixty-four bills have been filed to give flesh to the constitution’s mandate, and five successive congresses have intermittently debated its provisions. Yet for the last fifteen … Read more
We often hear it said that what we lack as a nation is “political will.” The term varies in meaning depending on the context in which it is used. Sometimes it simply means clarity of purpose, and therefore a lack of political will means a failure to focus on essential problems. Most of the time, … Read more
The president has explained why she is taking the initiative of personally presenting criminal suspects to the media. By her presence, she says, the apprehension of criminals is given the widest media projection. There are three reasons why this is being done, says the president. The first is to teach criminals a lesson by exposing … Read more
The meaning of a word is never fixed, philosophers tell us. Even dictionaries offer alternative meanings. We thus look for a word’s meaning in the context of its use. There we find that meanings constantly shift, expressing images, but also suppressing others. That is why texts are full of tension. In the past few days, … Read more