Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

After he issued Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law, Ferdinand Marcos tried to explain that martial law did not mean military rule. He assured the nation that civilian leadership remained supreme over the military. Technically, he was right. Marcos, who remained president, and Juan Ponce Enrile, who was designated martial law … Read more

The first Elizabeth, who died just the other day after a 70-year reign, was, of course, the Queen of the United Kingdom. The second Elizabeth is new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose full name is Mary Elizabeth Truss. The late British monarch’s final performance of her official function as constitutional head of state was … Read more

We who were born in the age of passbooks and real bank tellers will never feel at home in the world of digital banking and automated teller machines (ATMs). This is not a Luddite resistance to all labor-saving machinery. It proceeds rather from a general insecurity we feel when navigating the virtual space created by … Read more

Heroes are exemplary individuals who embody a community’s highest values and ideals. “Heroes” and “nation” typically go together because a country’s best-known heroes are those whose lives are intertwined with the nation’s emergence, emancipation, and transformation. Without any doubt, the Filipino people’s two greatest heroes are Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. Rizal, for offering through … Read more

Thirty-nine years ago, the opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. ended his three-year exile in the United States by coming home. Aware that a death sentence earlier issued against him by a military tribunal could still be enforced, he expected to be arrested upon his arrival in Manila. A dozen government security forces boarded his … Read more

I went to a public elementary school in Pampanga in the 1950s. As I recall, the language that all my early grade teachers used was Kapampangan. My classmates and I learned how to read and write in English and Pilipino, the term used for the national language in those years, from teachers who freely used … Read more

While President Marcos Jr. is trying hard to become the president of all Filipinos, his elder sister Sen. Imee Marcos seems bent on being this administration’s antagonist-in-chief, whose role is to continue taunting and mocking their family’s perceived political enemies. Is this a coordinated good cop/bad cop maneuver designed to maximize the returns of a … Read more

One of the most applauded moments in President Marcos Jr.’s recent State of the Nation Address (Sona) was when he announced, in reference to the health situation, that there will be no more lockdowns. This declaration resonates with the sentiment emanating from COVID burnout. But what did the President mean to say? Was he saying … Read more

As though soaring prices of daily necessities like food, petroleum products, public transport, and electricity were not troubling enough, another form of inflation is causing equal alarm in the University of the Philippines. It’s called “grade inflation,” and it is seen as the culprit behind the explosion in the number of students who are graduating with … Read more

All over the world, except in China, countries are dismantling the restrictive barriers they have put up against the COVID-19 pandemic — massive lockdowns, school and office closures, travel restrictions, etc. Even mask mandates have been lifted. Not because they believe the pandemic is over, but precisely because they expect this virus and its variants … Read more