President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo often describes Philippine politics as if she were a detached observer analyzing its dysfunctions, rather than a key player very much implicated in the perpetuation of these dysfunctions. Consider her remarks the other day at the opening ceremonies of the 35th Top Level Management Conference of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster … Read more

What is wrong with the President’s frequent visits to her native town in Pampanga? Nothing – if they are the simple visits they are made out to be by her spokesmen: sentimental trips we all make to the communities of our childhood.  Everything – if their purpose is to single out a hometown or province … Read more

Once we reach a certain age, we find ourselves going to more funerals than weddings or baptisms.  There we meet friends and acquaintances we have not seen in a while.  After exchanging notes about family and the state of the nation, we usually end up talking about diets, doctors, and the untimely death of someone … Read more

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded not to an economist but to a political scientist who refuses to be boxed by disciplinal boundaries.  Elinor Ostrom, a professor of political science at Indiana University, is being recognized for her path-breaking research on economic governance, particularly the administration of what are called “common-pool resources,” … Read more

In our daily lives, we expect government to be the source of capabilities that are beyond the reach of individuals. We accept its enormous power over our lives, trusting implicitly in its ability to use this power for the common good. This trust, so easily given, is however also easily shaken.  It took only two … Read more

We all know by now that while typhoons and earthquakes are natural phenomena (“acts of God,” as insurance firms refer to them), the disasters they cause are largely shaped by the way we live.  Some disasters are traceable to gross negligence and ignorance, others to irresponsible risk-taking.  Some are by-products of greed and incompetence, while … Read more

Contemplating the massive devastation wrought by last week’s floods, many of us are prompted to do two things we do not ordinarily do.  One, we start to “count our blessings” and re-assess our values. Two, from our self-absorption, we slowly wake up to our responsibility to help maintain the delicate balance between our way of … Read more

Narcissus is the beautiful young man in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image.  Havelock Ellis, the British psychologist who became famous for his writings on the psychology of sex, first used the term “narcissism” to designate a condition characterized by selfobsession and an extreme thirst for attention and admiration.  Freud, who … Read more

When Marcos declared Martial Law in September 1972, my wife Karina and I were both just 26.  We were university instructors freshly embarked on an academic career. Our first-born, a boy, was barely two and had just learned to walk by himself.  The rest of our children, three girls, were born after Martial Law.  Today, … Read more

As my previous columns on politics may have shown, I am one of those who squirm each time I hear people reduce Philippine politics today into a fight between good and evil.  I view this way of thinking as a residual habit from traditional society.  And so to hear it from modern Filipinos who ought … Read more