Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES We do not even know exactly how many were killed during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent drug war. Rather than treating this lack of agreement as a reason to abandon inquiry, that single unpleasant fact should be the starting point of any independent commission seeking to uncover the stories behind the killings. It was Carlos … Read more
Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former chief of the Philippine National Police under former President Rodrigo Duterte, is now a fugitive—hunted by the very institution he once commanded. He slipped out of the Senate in the early hours of the morning to evade an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, leaving behind a chamber … Read more
Some laws are ahead of their time. Their enactment may have been initially performative—intended primarily to signal adherence to international norms and thus convey a sense of belonging to the wider community of civilized nations. Such laws are typically forgotten until unforeseen events rouse them from dormancy. Like stars unexpectedly aligning, they provide the perfect … Read more
One of the startling conclusions in Senate blue ribbon committee Chair Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s report on the flood control investigations is that the corruption uncovered there was a replica, on a grander scale, of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel scam that roiled the country in 2013. That scheme, masterminded by Janet … Read more
Each time a University of the Philippines (UP) student is killed or arrested in a military encounter, I am asked why our classrooms breed radicals. There is nothing wrong with cultivating an intellectual disposition that goes into the roots of things. But academe equally obliges its participants to subject their convictions to critique and rational … Read more
Our idea of the future used to be simple. Things happen as they will, and we can only hope and pray that life will be the same, if not better. Today, in the modern world, we are told that we can do more than hope. We can act or decide now so that whatever may … Read more
In a previous column (“Exiting the trap,” Inquirer, 3/22/26), I wrote that perhaps someone like the pope could perform the vital function of moral diplomacy to stop the United States-Israeli war on Iran. I had only the vaguest idea then of how Pope Leo XIV might handle that role, or with what consequence. Now we … Read more
Anyone old enough to have stayed up watching late-night American reality TV in the early 2000s would have encountered Donald Trump before he became a politician. His NBC show, “The Apprentice,” projected him as the quintessential American CEO: imperious and blunt, but decisive and wise. He reduced complex issues to simple decision points. And, unflinching, … Read more
On this very day, Easter Sunday last year, the late Pope Francis rose from his sick bed to bless the faithful from the loggia of St. Peter’s Square. They had been praying for him throughout his five-week hospital stay, and they rejoiced when they saw him. He had been suffering from double pneumonia and had … Read more
Even wars, which imply disorder, have rules. And that’s because without shared expectations, conflict becomes unmanageable. A war where everything is allowed destroys not only its targets but eventually its authors. That basic assumption has been fatally ignored in the ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran. The violations that are being committed today by … Read more