I had a hard time following Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s recent State of the Nation Address. It wasn’t just because the indiscriminate applause that punctuated nearly every sentence was interfering with the flow of her hour-long speech. It was more because the whole speech was making no sense to me until I began to pay more … Read more
At the heart of the nation’s current crisis is the failure of its political system to put to rest persistent doubts about the right of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to continue exercising the powers of the presidency. The principal cause of this failure is the system’s inability to protect its institutions against abuse by a reckless … Read more
My brother Pablo David, better known as Father Ambo, became a bishop on the same day the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines put out a pastoral statement that puzzled many people. The statement touched on a range of issues, but it was the bishops’ position on impeachment that was eagerly awaited. Many rightly thought … Read more
In the 1880s, scores of Filipino students started to arrive in Europe to study. Many of them were sent abroad by their parents to keep them from getting into trouble with the Spanish Government in Manila that had become more repressive in its vain effort to pre-empt the revolutionary tide. Many went to Europe to … Read more