Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

Bizarre as it is, politicians running for local positions have come to accept it as part of the political reality: that in some remote Philippine communities, candidates must secure a clearance from armed illegal groups before they can enter an area and campaign. The permit to campaign is normally given in exchange for a cash … Read more

I had strong reservations about going on a long motorcycle ride in this sweltering summer heat.  When you are on a bike and you are going fast, you don’t notice you are sweating. The water your body secretes to cool you down evaporates in the wind as quickly as it forms on the skin. Dehydration … Read more

It’s one of those moments in a democracy when we’re reminded that the rights of citizenship come with corresponding duties. I refer to the fact that the deadline for the filing of income tax returns this year came just a month before the midterm elections. This fortuitous sequencing of two vital events that mark our … Read more

A survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) in February this year highlights three interesting findings on the state of Catholicism in the Philippines. First, that weekly church attendance has significantly gone down from a high of 64 percent in July 1991 to a low of 37 percent in February 2013.  Second, that only … Read more

There’s no hard evidence to confirm it.  But the growing perception is that at no other time in our nation’s political history have political families become more brazen in promoting their interests than in this year’s elections.  One quickly notes this in the senatorial slates of the two dominant coalitions.  The opposition United Nationalist Alliance … Read more

For many senatorial candidates who take elections seriously and exert great effort to address the important issues of the day, it must be terribly frustrating to be confronted by the results of preelection surveys. Nothing seems to matter except sheer media exposure and possession of a familiar name in order to score high. The preference … Read more

To the generation of Filipinos who went through the horrors of World War II, the Korean War (1950-1953) signaled the advent of another global war that had to be stopped before it could spread any further. On this understanding, the Philippines sent 7,500 of its soldiers to fight in the Korean civil war on the … Read more

As a sociologist, my interest in religion does not proceed from the axioms of faith, but from an understanding of human society as a system that serves a multiplicity of functions.  Whether one is a believer or not, one cannot deny the place that religion occupies and continues to occupy in the human community.  It … Read more

The media have made much of the contrast between the shy, aristocratic aloofness of Pope Benedict XVI and the folksy approachability of his successor, Pope Francis. They point to the latter’s disregard for the trappings of authority as a refreshing departure from the stiff Vatican conventions of pontifical projection. But a more meaningful analysis of … Read more

Someone’s death is always a cause for sorrow and grieving—especially when it is unexpected and unjust. Such is the instant impact of University of the Philippines student Kristel Tejada’s death on all of us who have links with UP. Lament is our first response. We shake our heads in utter disbelief, and, even as we … Read more