It is quite obvious, from the way it seeks to double the magnitude of the previous administration’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, that the P-Noy government has decided this will be its immediate response to poverty.  Whether conditional cash transfers will also define its strategic approach to this nagging social problem is not yet … Read more

In a recent ponencia, Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo used citations from journal articles without attribution.  And so they appeared in the document as if they were the product of his own reflection.  Law professors from the University of the Philippines called attention to the fact that these were actually lifted from the … Read more

There was a time in the development of our society when it was not necessary to invoke written contracts and formal laws to enforce rights and obligations.  Courtesy and honor made people act according to what was generally expected of them without waiting to be prompted by anyone.  There may still be a few isolated … Read more

Two separate orders by the Supreme Court, temporarily restraining co-equal branches of government from proceeding with their actions until a judgment on pending cases challenging these has been issued, have once more raised the specter of a constitutional crisis. In the first, the high court stopped the House of Representatives from further acting on impeachment … Read more

Outside of the small group of gun lovers who had trained with him at the firing range, only a few people knew anything about interior undersecretary Rico E. Puno before he was appointed presidential liaison for the Philippine National Police.  Despite his position as the president’s alter ego on police matters, he kept a very … Read more

People who profess a religious faith but find themselves frequently at odds with the position taken by their religious leaders on matters of public concern may sometimes contemplate giving up their faith altogether. They should find comfort in William James’s notion of religion as “what you do with your own solitude.” There is in this … Read more

A year ago, my wife Karina decided we needed a new bathroom mirror.  The reflective surface of the old mirror had started to crinkle in many places, projecting images that were not exactly flattering. Coming home that day with a brand new mirror, I realized that mounting it on the wall was not as easy … Read more

A lot of confusion and recrimination has attended the discussion of vital current issues in our country. Some of it is avoidable, but a great deal of it constitutes what we may call the pains of modernity. Recent events – the controversial remarks of Bishop Nereo Odchimar, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of … Read more

We may be familiar with what academics and professors do.  They lecture, they do research, they advise students on their theses, and, hopefully, they also publish.  Some — not all — are scholars in the sense that they commit their entire lives rigorously working and writing on the same problems and questions. But, the term … Read more

In retrospect, President Benigno S. Aquino III needed to make that trip to the United States if only to give himself time to study the report of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) on the hostage-taking incident.  Time, as he is finding out for himself, is the first casualty of mass communication. The speed … Read more