Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES In 2000 the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation chose Naga City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo as its awardee for government service. The award citation summed up the reason for giving him the award thus: “In electing Jesse Robredo to receive the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his giving credence … Read more
As soon as I pressed the power button, the Windows logo appeared on the laptop’s screen with the familiar assurance: “Starting Windows.” But nothing else happened after that. For the first time in its brief mechanical life, my barely one-year-old computer failed to say hello. It was as if it found itself in a daze, … Read more
Human beings are not rats. And one need not be a pauper to know that it is not fun to live under bridges, inside drainage pipes, or along estero. According to government estimates, at least 125,000 Filipino families in Metro Manila live in such conditions. These families make up about 90 percent of the city … Read more
Lahar, a Javanese word for mudflow, entered the vocabulary and consciousness of Filipinos only in 1991, soon after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Geologists appropriated the term and have been using it since the early 1900s to refer, not to mudflow, but, in the words of Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo, to “rapidly flowing mixtures of rock … Read more
From the many that are mass-distributed and forwarded via the Internet, one e-mail landed in my inbox which referred to the torrential rains that fell on much of western Luzon and the Visayas in the past few days as God’s way of telling us that we are making a horrible mistake in pushing for the … Read more
A lot of people may have all the money in the world, and still feel they don’t have enough. Every asset they acquire serves as a prod to gain more. They become slaves to their possessions. Others have very much less in comparison, and yet they think it’s more than what they need. Their wants … Read more
Responding to the question I raised in this column the other day—whether Ateneo de Manila University can call itself Catholic and, at the same time, invoke academic freedom—a reader sent me an Internet link to the webpage of Neumann University (http://www.neumann.edu/mission/identity/franciscantradition.asp). This school in Pennsylvania describes itself as “a Catholic university in the Franciscan tradition.” … Read more
As Congress prepares to vote on the controversial Reproductive Health bill, all eyes are focused on the bishops of the Catholic Church. They have done everything to thwart the passage of the bill, including intense person-to-person lobbying for every legislator’s vote. There is no surprise there: the Church has taken a strong position against artificial … Read more
Over the past week, thousands of motorcycle riders throughout the country descended on the offices of the Department of Trade and Industry seeking a small sticker for their helmets. Like recruits for a ragtag army waiting to have their weapons inspected before marching to war, they waited for harried DTI personnel to paste an ICC … Read more
While visiting Singapore last week to attend the 80th birthday celebration of a dear friend, the architect and urbanist William Lim, I wondered what it was that a traveler would find most beguiling in a small city-state like this. I started to count Singapore’s ways: its orderliness, its predictability, its cleanliness, the all-round safety it … Read more