Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES The crisis that has pushed the American financial system to the brink of disaster is spawning its own moral economy. The new object of fixation is blame-worthiness, rather than credit-worthiness. The high-flying executives on Wall Street who invented those ingenious financial instruments known as “derivatives” are being singled out for special flogging. Not too long … Read more
In a somewhat parallel way, though not with the same level of gravity, two of the world’s largest economies – the United States and China – are being battered by internal problems requiring swift government intervention. The US economy is struggling to get out of the quicksand of subprime loans and rotten properties, while China’s … Read more
The rise of moral symbols in politics always provides a dramatic starting point for a society’s transformation. Figures like Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, and Cory Aquino quickly come to mind. In an instant, they symbolize everything that their people aspire to … Read more
If there is a country in Southeast Asia whose politics has been as vibrant as ours, that country has to be Thailand. The parallelisms in the political saga of these two countries over the last twenty years are truly amazing. Both countries have a “Southern” problem – an Islamic secessionist movement that has waged an … Read more
The election of Catholic priest Fr. Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio in 2007 as governor of Pampanga was nothing short of phenomenal. Although “Among Ed” won only by more than a thousand votes, his triumph signified for many Filipinos a watershed in the country’s political life, a stunning breakthrough in the longstanding quest for good governance. … Read more
In 1917, the provincial board of Mindoro passed a resolution requiring all “non-Christians” belonging to the Mangyan tribes to live in a permanent settlement near Lake Naujan. They were to immediately abandon the vast forests in which they lived, and settle down in a reservation designated for their exclusive use. Failure to comply with the … Read more
Peace follows war. That is the logic of any peace agreement. It comes after a period of conflict, seeking to erase the basis for war. Yet what we have in Mindanao today seems to be the exact opposite. A peace agreement has provoked renewed conflict. What happened? What lessons might we draw from this turn … Read more
The Bangsamoro problem is entangled in so many historical, legal, cultural, and political questions that it is irresponsible to talk about it in a simplistic way. Every attempt to capture the issues in a single frame is bound to inflame passions and exacerbate prejudices. Reason demands that we step back and attempt to sort out … Read more
He lived much longer than his contemporaries. Born in 1898, a few months after Aguinaldo proclaimed independence from Spain, Lorenzo Tanada was 93 when he died. Had he lived like a Japanese centenarian, he would be 110 tomorrow, August 10. The Martial Law generation referred to him as the “Grand Old Man of the Opposition.” … Read more
There are many reasons for the growing clamor to reduce the VAT on oil products. But the two most important are: first, because the VAT on fuel rises with every increase in the price of oil, the public sees it as an infinite burden; and second, because the utilization of the windfall revenue from the … Read more