Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES The year 2025 will likely be remembered as a turning point in our nation’s history—a moment when corruption reached such magnitude that it could no longer be concealed or excused. Its scale and consequences became so damaging to the public good that denial itself ceased to be plausible. For decades, corruption in public office had … Read more
Today, the Catholic calendar marks the Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the slaughter of the male children of Bethlehem on the orders of Herod. It is hard not to think, on this day, of Kian delos Santos—the 17-year-old boy killed during the four-day “one-time-big-time” (OTBT) antidrug police operation in August 2017. Like the biblical … Read more
A few years ago, when the threat from COVID-19 had begun to recede, more and more elderly people reported being victimized by scams. The pandemic and the need for connection it accentuated had led many of them, for the first time, to experience the advantages of the mobile phone and the internet. But this new … Read more
In January 2023, less than a year after assuming the presidency, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. signaled his administration’s decisive pivot to America by announcing that the United States would be given access to four additional military sites on Philippine territory. This was a marked departure not only from his predecessor’s China-leaning posture, but also from … Read more
Protest movements worldwide tend to come in waves. Much of this results from the emulation of activism seen elsewhere, a tendency heightened by global media and the ubiquity of online platforms. Yet, like development models, protest movements are not portable. Conditions that make them plausible or even necessary in one society may be absent in … Read more
Today, Nov. 30, as outraged citizens once more pour into the streets to express their indignation over the Marcos administration’s failure to halt the massive looting of public funds, two calls seem to confront them. The first is for the outright removal of the present leadership, whether by forcing it to step down or to … Read more
When one or two families dominate politics, it is not only democracy that weakens. Family life itself begins to fray. We are seeing this today in the very public and increasingly ugly conflict between President Marcos Jr.’s family and his elder sister, Sen. Imee Marcos. At last week’s Iglesia ni Cristo prayer rally in Luneta, … Read more
A movement calling itself the United People’s Initiative is mobilizing for a three-day mass action beginning today, Sunday, Nov. 16. Billed as a “Rally para sa pananagutan, katarungan, at katapatan,” the gatherings at the Edsa People Power Monument and Luneta are, by the organizers’ announcement, to be spearheaded by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), Jesus … Read more
The opposite of anger is not apathy. It is moral numbness—the deadening of our capacity to respond to harm because nothing we do seems to matter in the end. It is the quiet surrender that is premised on the belief that time will heal everything. It is to prevent the onset of this numbness that … Read more
In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo refers to the in-between state after death and before rebirth. It is a time when consciousness is less fixed, open to both change and confusion. A being may linger there for a while, seemingly suspended between clarity and ignorance. It is a period of danger and opportunity. This image seems apt … Read more