Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

The Guardian, the newspaper, recently ran a fascinating series titled “The road to ruin: Twenty-five people at the heart of the meltdown.” Written by city editor Julia Finch, the series satisfies a public yearning not only to understand the causes of the global economic crisis, but more important, to know whom to blame. The list … Read more

The period of industrial boom in Europe gave rise to the welfare state. Its purpose was to extend social assistance to the many who were adversely affected by industrialization. Today’s global financial crisis, in contrast, has given us the “bailout state,” the corporate elite’s version of the welfare state.  Its purpose is to extend financial … Read more

The American people will be forgiven for pinning all their hopes for change in their new president.  Desperate times summon individuals with magical qualities.  Barack Obama is indeed a man of great talent and tremendous charisma.  But he is as well a product of circumstances.  If he did not exist, it would be necessary for … Read more

The other day, Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno jolted the nation with statements to the effect that the solutions to our country’s problems do not lie with the legal system but with the moral system. Our society, he was quoted as saying, has “too many laws but (is) lacking in morality.”  Confronted with daily … Read more

Nearly 700 Palestinians have died since Israel began its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip two weeks ago.  Of these, more than half are civilians.  Israel has reported 10 casualties on its side for the same period, three of them civilians.  The crude handmade Qassam rockets that the scrappy Palestinian forces have fired into Jewish … Read more

Because it is the beginning of the year, I am torn — I suppose like everyone else — between hope and anxiety as I look ahead to the unfolding of the rest of 2009.  Everything I have read in the last three months forecasts a far more critical year than the one that has just … Read more

For Rex and Nina Tomen, the last days of 2008 suddenly went out of kilter.  Lent came early and took the place reserved for Christmas. While the rest of the world marked the joyous day of the Nativity in homes filled with the laughter of children, they passed the day at the dimly-lit mortuary of … Read more

To equate agrarian reform with social justice in our society is to think of land distribution as the necessary starting point of the Filipino’s quest to live in freedom.  This is correct only insofar as agriculture remains the basic source of livelihood of the masses of our people. But changes in our social landscape in … Read more

The easiest thing in the world to do is to blame corruption on those institutions perceived to be primarily responsible for the morals of a society, namely, the churches and the schools.  This attitude exaggerates the role of priests and teachers as determinants of the everyday conduct of individuals in the modern world.  Why not … Read more

Any attempt to view Philippine politics through the prism of Thai politics, or vice-versa, can only produce a distorted picture of the situation in both countries. There are important parallelisms. But there are also great differences – especially in historical background and cultural context. It is tempting, no doubt, to see the disgraced former prime … Read more