There is a view of politics that Filipino politicians have been professing lately. “Politics is a numbers game,” they love to say. And they say it as if that is all there is to politics. Of course the statement is true – in a shallow sense: If you have the numbers, you get to make … Read more
The issue of whether former President Joseph ‘Erap” Estrada should be allowed to run again for president is a legal question. Because it touches on a specific provision of the Constitution, it is bound to reach the Supreme Court the moment he files his certificate of candidacy. The high court will no doubt declare it … Read more
If you type the word “subsidiarity” on the computer, chances are it will be red-lined by the word-processor, signifying its non-recognition as a term. The word is not listed in most dictionaries. Yet, it appears extensively in the social teachings of the Catholic Church. It is also a key concept in the European Union’s draft … Read more
Often, when we demand of others that they act decently, we admonish them to rise above their animal instincts. In such mindless ways do we insult animals. Frans de Waal, a primatologist, who has observed chimpanzees for a long time thinks that animals living in groups are governed — no less than humans — by … Read more
The kindest thing one can say of the simultaneous retirement yesterday of Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander Yano and of Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna – months ahead of their due retirement dates – is that they are being exiled by a corrupt government that feels encumbered by their sturdy … Read more
Fernando Lugo’s election to the presidency of Paraguay in 2008 was nothing short of phenomenal. He had no previous experience in electoral politics. His last job, the one he gave up to run for president, was as bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro. He appeared on the political stage as a moral warrior armed … Read more
Vladimir Putin was elected to a 4-year term as President of Russia in May 2000, a few months before Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took power as Philippine president following the January 2001 civilian-military coup. He ran for re-election in May 2004, reluctantly ending his second and final term in May 2008. He said that the four-year presidential … Read more
As a motorcycle rider, I resolutely avoid riding in the city. I think one cannot find a more unsafe place for bikers than Metro Manila’s streets. That is why I can’t help being distressed by daily reports of road accidents involving motorcycles in Metro Manila. A growing number of fatal accidents seem to happen between … Read more
Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In this role, he was in charge of defending the one true meaning of the church’s doctrine against a range of other interpretations. On April 24, 2005, this chief “ideologue” of more than a billion … Read more
We sometimes believe we have seen enough of what is happening to our country to make us think of it in the worst possible way. The behavior of some people in our midst can often be so brazen that we find ourselves engulfed by a recurring sense of a society spinning out of control. We … Read more