Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

As young boys growing up in a small town, my friends and I used to attend almost every funeral in the community.  We would climb the highest tomb and from there observe the unchanging patterns of grief. We wondered who would wail the most, and who would pass out.  We took note of the words … Read more

Before me is a copy of the 1999 masteral law thesis of Soliman M. Santos Jr. for the University of Melbourne in Australia.  It is titled “Constitutional Accommodation of a Moro Islamic System in the Philippines.”  Its specific focus is the challenge of secession from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Here is the man who … Read more

After writing an intimate political ethnography of the campaign that made Joseph Estrada the centennial president, Dr. Aprodicio Laquian came home from Canada early last year to launch the book in Malacanang.  Almost a year later, to everyone’s surprise, Prod returned to Manila with his wife Eleanor (on a “buy-one-take-two” basis, he would joke) to … Read more

Having known Sr. Christine Tan and what she did during the dark Marcos years, I would be terribly disappointed if she did not speak her mind after being rudely and hastily dismissed as a director of the Philippine Charity and Sweepstakes Office.  I would also feel very distressed if those of us who have known … Read more

In a futile attempt to explain the latest increase in the price of oil products, the government has said that the rise in oil prices is worldwide and that the Philippines has kept its prices lower than those for the US and much of Asia.  This, I am sure, will not comfort those of us … Read more

In the telephone surveys conducted by radio and TV programs on Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor’s intervention in behalf of four young women arrested for vagrancy, majority of the callers sided with the police and labeled Defensor’s act improper.  This is distressing. The arresting policemen had asked the girls to come out of the pubrestaurant … Read more

This coming Thursday, March 2, 2000, Dr. Francisco Nemenzo Jr. will be formally installed as the 18th president of the University of the Philippines.  The investiture ceremony, by which heads of universities are given the traditional insignia of their office, is feudal and ecclesiastical in origin.  Dodong Nemenzo, the Marxist scholar and activist, is right … Read more

Every new government is a reminder of old mistakes.  We fail to retain even the plainest lessons. That a popular leader is not necessarily a good leader.  That we cannot expect honest people who join government to ultimately prevail over a corrupt system.  That there are no shortcuts to good governance; that we must work … Read more

One of the warnings that my parents drummed into my ears when I entered the University of the Philippines in the early ‘60s was to resolutely avoid the fraternities.  I took this to mean staying out of their path as a neophyte or as an unwitting target of their notoriously violent wars.  That early, UP … Read more

Everyone who is concerned about the future of the besieged Estrada presidency eagerly awaits the results of the next surveys.  Many think that if the President’s net ratings fall below zero, he may have a hard time fending off moves to remove him from office or to make him resign. If we want to know … Read more