Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

It’s hard to completely ignore the dominant mood of the week: Love is in the air. That’s the reason for this column’s title. It is not about romantic love, though, but about our country’s colorful relationship with an old lover, the United States of America. It’s a relationship that has been marked by alternating feelings … Read more

Cash cow, (Slang) noun—“1: a consistently profitable business, property, or product whose profits are used to finance a company’s investments in other areas; 2: one regarded or exploited as a reliable source of money.” No better example is there of an entire country’s cash cow than our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Calling them “bagong bayani” … Read more

Established in 2002 as a permanent international tribunal to promote the rule of law, ensure the protection of human rights, and punish serious offenses like genocide, aggression, and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) today is struggling to assert its role in a world that now questions the legitimacy of institutions associated with … Read more

The appearance late last year of artificial intelligence (AI) tools—that can “write” essays or stories or poems on any subject, generate artwork, and produce many other things that used to be regarded as the sole achievement of the human creative and thinking process—has caused ripples of concern in the educational world. Some schools abroad have … Read more

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos calls it a “radical move,” a “bold” and “out-of-the-box” solution for “extraordinary times.” He is referring to his and Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr.’s joint appeal to 953 senior police officers of the PNP to tender their courtesy resignations in order to pave the way for the quiet … Read more

In a world where Filipinos are better known as hardworking and caring servants and service staff, who, though well-educated and speak good English, accept low pay and work long hours far away from home because they cannot find better employment in their own mismanaged country—the news about Filipino students defeating the world’s best university debaters … Read more

When you’ve reached a certain age, you give up trying to be a different kind of person. You learn to accept who you are and stop making those yearly resolutions with which you used to start the new year. It doesn’t mean though that, henceforth, anything goes. Rather, you find yourself veering toward what Nietzsche … Read more

It’s often said that the best part of traveling is coming home to one’s family. For me, the best way to travel is to bring the family. Early this year, I decided I had had enough of pandemic confinement, and proposed to my children that we all take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe together as … Read more

Today’s column continues the discussion of the serious threat facing Filipino seafarers, who stand to lose their jobs as ship officers in European vessels if the European Commission withdraws recognition of their Philippine training certificates. I first tackled this dire prospect in Public Lives last Nov. 6. At a recent meeting in Brussels (the seat … Read more

As though our current national debt was not troubling enough, the bright boys around President Marcos Jr. are planning to set up a state investment fund that seeks to participate in the highly diversified global investment game. Dubbed the “Maharlika Investments Corp.,” the proposed entity is to be headed by Mr. Marcos as chair of … Read more