Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES The lead party of the Filipino peacekeeping mission to Iraq leaves today, June 15. The rest of the contingent, consisting of 75 members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, will follow at the end of the month. They are supposed to assist American and British forces in maintaining peace … Read more
Former senator Rene Saguisag, who is seeking the impeachment of eight justices of the Supreme Court, is quoted as saying that his aim is simply “to set the record straight,” and not necessarily to pave the way for the return of Joseph Estrada as president. He believes that by setting “the record straight,” we will … Read more
Lawyer Alan F. Paguia argues that the justices of the Supreme Court made a mistake on January 20, 2003 when they permitted Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to succeed to the presidency. There was no vacancy in the presidency, he insists, because the incumbent president, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, never resigned. The Supreme Court abused its authority. … Read more
“In a time of crisis,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told United States President George W. Bush, “friends do not ask why, they ask how.” That about sums up Philippine policy toward the US today, crisis or no crisis. We trust America implicitly, we will not inquire into its behavior and motives; we support it automatically in … Read more
Within a week after I wrote my column about the dangerous situation brought about by the ongoing rehabilitation of the North Luzon Expressway, small but essential changes in the management of the traffic on this highway began to be instituted. These timely measures have saved many lives. The first thing one notices is the deployment … Read more
There are things about our mothers we may never understand. Sometimes they act and manifest values so contrary to good sense that we wonder if we know them at all. In their ripe age, they may continue to be haunted by the insecurities of their time, wrapping leftover food in old newspaper and stuffing it … Read more
Last Saturday, April 26, at about 2 p.m., a Philippine Rabbit passenger bus headed for Baguio was cruising on the northbound lane of the North Luzon Expressway. Since January this year, when the road widening activities began, motorists have seen long stretches of bumper-to-bumper traffic on sections of this highway. Either the bus driver was … Read more
Because of jet travel and mass migration, the world has become quite literally a melting pot of microbes. But because of global communication, it has also accelerated the transmission of a panic more lethal in its consequences than microbes. The unprecedented movement of large numbers of people across continents has multiplied the risk of transferring … Read more
It would be a gross misrepresentation of the character and long history of the Iraqi people, I think, if our portrait of them were summed up only by images of a nation that marked its freedom by unbridled looting and lawlessness. There is surely more to Saddam’s Iraq than a people kept docile by a … Read more
That the United States would eventually subdue Iraq has never been in question. This was not a war; this was a mugging. Of the three countries that George W. Bush named as the Axis of Evil, Iraq had the weakest and most exhausted army. The 1991 Gulf War and the economic sanctions imposed by the … Read more