Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES The idea of a humble Church—a Church that respects the authority of politics and of science while insisting on the autonomy of faith and morals—is one that fits the complexities of modern society. It carves out a continuing role for religion in a world that is becoming increasingly differentiated into separate functional spheres, where the … Read more
Last Dec. 9, my granddaughter Julia turned 12. We held off celebrating her birthday in deference to the hundreds of children in Mindanao who had perished in the wake of Typhoon “Pablo.” But hearing about the young girl, Imee Sayson, who was fished out of the mud alive after being buried for 24 hours by … Read more
The devastation caused in Mindanao by Typhoon “Pablo” is, for now, largely measured by the number of dead, injured and missing people. The number of recovered bodies has reached 714, says the NDRRMC. About 900 more are reported missing. Thousands of others suffer from wounds and various forms of injury, not to mention deep trauma, … Read more
The benign climate—that was the first thing that was pointed out to me about Mindanao in the early 1980s, when I used to go there as part of a research team studying the banana export industry. Throughout the year, its winds were steady, gentle rain irrigated its fertile soil, its mountains were lush and its … Read more
The word “ubiquity” refers to the quality of being everywhere. It captures succinctly the perception of a whole society being engulfed by crime—that is, if one goes by the early evening news on television. Crime reports bookend the rest of the news so routinely that crime is no longer “newsworthy” in the sense of being … Read more
In a speech at Far Eastern University last November 22, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago mocked the nation’s political system, in which she has played a prominent role, as one dominated by the ignorant. “Let me summarize the problem with Philippine elections,” she told her young audience. “Of the 50 million voters who will troop to the … Read more
In the wake of the shocking Nov. 23, 2009, massacre in Maguindanao, the Ampatuan patriarch and his sons, the principal suspects in this heinous crime, began a frantic search for sharp lawyers who would take up their case and defend them. One of those sounded out was my brother Dante, a litigation lawyer with many … Read more
Last Monday morning, I found myself in the basketball court of a remote village in Bataan province, quietly observing a “family development session” (FDS). The young energetic woman who was conducting the proceedings is a “Municipal Link,” one of 2,250 social workers expressly trained for the government’s greatly expanded conditional cash transfer program, known locally … Read more
The victimization of thousands of small investors by a dubious company styling itself as the “Aman Futures Group Philippines Inc.” is of great interest not only to law enforcement authorities but to students of society as well. How a business firm with no credentials or track record was able to entice thousands of people in … Read more
Scams tell us a lot about the nature of our society—more than about the gullibility, greed, or ignorance of our people. Sociologists try to understand how these criminal schemes work, not by figuring out the motives and interests of the individuals they victimize, but by determining the types of social relationships they are able to … Read more