Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

In fifteen measured sessions, the University of the Philippines last week held what it billed as an “academic congress to challenge our next leaders.” The sessions dealt with a wide range of topics – Mindanao, public health, labor export, urban policy, science and technology, public debt, foreign relations, workers’ rights, disaster risk reduction, and elections … Read more

He was only attesting to the instinct for violence of the Ampatuans — and surely had no intention of putting the latter’s political allies in a bad light – certainly not the administration presidential bet, Gilbert Teodoro, with whom he is now aligned.  But the testimony the other day of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” … Read more

Fascinated by the growing number of Filipinos who have found instant — sometimes suicidal — mobility in very affordable motorbikes from China, I recently got myself a new Chinese-made 125cc underbone for the price of a branded Japanese helmet.  Light and handy, the bike handles pretty well on short commutes.  My friends, with whom I … Read more

Most questions asked of candidates in presidential debates take the form “What will you do about” or “How do you intend to solve the problem of…?”  More often than not, such questions only elicit silly responses to what, in truth, are very complex issues.  A trained politician would resort to stock answers uttered in a … Read more

The creation of a special commission to investigate the existence of private armed groups, and to recommend ways of dismantling them, would be nothing short of revolutionary, if the commission were to seriously do its work.  Basic information alone on these private armies – for example, who maintains them, how long they have been in … Read more

After watching Avatar the film, one of my daughters remarked how she wished she could live in Pandora, the earth-sized planet inhabited by slender humanoids known as the Na’vi, who lived in harmony with Nature.  We all chimed in agreement.  In such manner do many of us project our disaffection with our own world (and … Read more

Ecological consciousness is the awareness that nearly every aspect of our way of life affects the environment so decisively that we now must choose whether to let the effects go unchecked, or we change the way we live in order to arrest the damage. It is the growing awareness that the planet Earth is a … Read more

President Macapagal Arroyo’s Proclamation 1959 is the first time the martial law provision of the 1987 Constitution has ever been used. Compared to the 1935 Constitution under which Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, the present constitution is stricter in its definition of the conditions under which the emergency powers of the state may … Read more

In June this year, I responded to an interview request from the Inquirer about an item that appeared in the column of fellow writer Bel Cunanan.  Ms Cunanan reported that if President Macapagal Arroyo ran for a congressional seat in the 2010 election, she heard that I might challenge her.  The Inquirer’s Juliet Javellana wanted … Read more

Media reports and analyses of the Nov. 23rd gruesome mass murder of 57 innocent civilians in Maguindanao have highlighted different aspects of the culture of warlordism in Muslim Mindanao.  Their common starting point is the rido, the clan wars that have persisted in many parts of Philippine society, transferring unresolved antipathies to younger generations as … Read more