It is difficult not to feel demoralized as a Filipino at a time like this. The country is being torn apart by war, and you wonder if our leaders care. Innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire, or maimed or killed by bombs exploded in public places. Hundreds of thousands abandon their homes and farms … Read more
Onel de Guzman, the AMA Computer College student who is being eyed as one of the authors of the ILOVEYOU virus that paralyzed at least 45 million computers worldwide, could not graduate this year because his thesis had been rejected. According to school officials, De Guzman submitted for his thesis a program which steals passwords … Read more
Most tourists avoid newspapers while on holiday. They go away precisely to escape the world rather than to wallow in its problems. But there are some who cannot begin the day without reading the papers even if they know that nothing they read will give them any assurance that the world is at peace and … Read more
Because it is Easter, my mind like everyone else’s inevitably turns to the unending project of rebirth, to the quest for a higher self, and to the possibility of self-fulfillment. I mean this in respect both to ourselves as individuals in search of perfection and as a nation in search of progress. Any day, of … Read more
Four TV broadcasters are among the top 10 senatorial preferences of the public, says the latest Asian Research Organization (ARO) based on its survey of 1200 respondents conducted in March this year. Noli de Castro of “TV Patrol” ties for 1st place with Senator Ramon Magsaysay Jr., Korina Sanchez of “Balitang K” shares 3rd place … Read more
As young boys growing up in a small town, my friends and I used to attend almost every funeral in the community. We would climb the highest tomb and from there observe the unchanging patterns of grief. We wondered who would wail the most, and who would pass out. We took note of the words … Read more
Before me is a copy of the 1999 masteral law thesis of Soliman M. Santos Jr. for the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is titled “Constitutional Accommodation of a Moro Islamic System in the Philippines.” Its specific focus is the challenge of secession from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Here is the man who … Read more
After writing an intimate political ethnography of the campaign that made Joseph Estrada the centennial president, Dr. Aprodicio Laquian came home from Canada early last year to launch the book in Malacanang. Almost a year later, to everyone’s surprise, Prod returned to Manila with his wife Eleanor (on a “buy-one-take-two” basis, he would joke) to … Read more
Having known Sr. Christine Tan and what she did during the dark Marcos years, I would be terribly disappointed if she did not speak her mind after being rudely and hastily dismissed as a director of the Philippine Charity and Sweepstakes Office. I would also feel very distressed if those of us who have known … Read more
In a futile attempt to explain the latest increase in the price of oil products, the government has said that the rise in oil prices is worldwide and that the Philippines has kept its prices lower than those for the US and much of Asia. This, I am sure, will not comfort those of us … Read more