Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES When Romulo Neri’s appointment as Administrator of the Social Security System was reported in the early evening news, our house help, who was watching, exploded and let loose a torrent of untranslatable expletives. “Ayy p___, pera namin yan ah!” she shouted. More than the reality of rising prices, what flashed in her mind was the … Read more
At the end of their brief June 24th meeting at the White House, US President George W. Bush and his visitor from the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, faced the press for a photo opportunity. President Arroyo arrived in the US at around the same a powerful typhoon was battering her country, and a Filipino … Read more
In all the years I have traveled, I have taken planes far more often than I have taken boats. Yet, I have always believed that boats are safer than planes. If a boat catches fire, or its engine stalls, there is usually time enough to move to a safe area, or to get on a … Read more
Or, is it a colony? The question may seem preposterous to those who are content to see reality purely in legal terms. But, it is one that must be asked with all seriousness in the light of events like those triggered by the recent abduction of broadcast journalist Ces Drilon and her ABS-CBN crew by … Read more
One of my students, Arnold P. Alamon, has written a graduate thesis titled “Lives on Hold: Sons of Migrant Parents.” It is based on the retrospective accounts of the six young men he interviewed on what it was like to create their own lives while their parents worked abroad. Poignant and rich in detail, their … Read more
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo seems everywhere these days distributing rice, money, scholarships, and other forms of assistance to the poor. She calls these “katas ng VAT” (“juice from VAT”), a cynical appropriation of the phrase “katas ng Saudi” that adorns tricycles, jeepneys, and taxis bought with remittances from overseas work. But there is no similarity … Read more
It is difficult to imagine Claro M. Recto advertising a brand of soap, or Jose W. Diokno endorsing a brand of toothpaste, or Santanina Rasul lending her lovely face to a skin-whitening product. All three were once senators of the Republic to whom the serious business of deciding what directions we should pursue as a … Read more
Having seen, in the last seven years, the kind of behavior our top political leaders are capable of, what I am going to say here may sound counterintuitive if not plainly wrong. I believe that if we continue to confuse political moralizing with political analysis, we will remain blind to the systemic nature of our … Read more
This is the magic word that is carrying Barack Obama to the farthest horizon of current American politics. Merely hearing him say it drives his supporters into a state of frenzy. The word seems to sum up for them a whole agenda of what America needs to do to erase the incalculable injury that George … Read more
The price of electric power in our country (the second highest in Asia) has become so complex that even a well-informed citizen would have a hard time grasping the issues, allocating blame, and determining what should be done. This situation is susceptible to demagogic positioning and political opportunism. One can only hope that those who … Read more