Peace follows war.  That is the logic of any peace agreement.  It comes after a period of conflict, seeking to erase the basis for war. Yet what we have in Mindanao today seems to be the exact opposite. A peace agreement has provoked renewed conflict.  What happened? What lessons might we draw from this turn … Read more

The Bangsamoro problem is entangled in so many historical, legal, cultural, and political questions that it is irresponsible to talk about it in a simplistic way.  Every attempt to capture the issues in a single frame is bound to inflame passions and exacerbate prejudices. Reason demands that we step back and attempt to sort out … Read more

He lived much longer than his contemporaries.  Born in 1898, a few months after Aguinaldo proclaimed independence from Spain, Lorenzo Tanada was 93 when he died.  Had he lived like a Japanese centenarian, he would be 110 tomorrow, August 10. The Martial Law generation referred to him as the “Grand Old Man of the Opposition.” … Read more

There are many reasons for the growing clamor to reduce the VAT on oil products. But the two most important are: first, because the VAT on fuel rises with every increase in the price of oil, the public sees it as an infinite burden; and second, because the utilization of the windfall revenue from the … Read more

On the eve of her 8th State of the Nation Address (Sona), the polling firm, Pulse Asia, sought to quantify the public attitude toward President Arroyo’s speeches before the joint session of Congress. Only 13% of the 1,200 randomly selected informants said that Ms Arroyo’s previous Sonas were “truthful,” while 40% believed they were “not … Read more

This fascinating phrase comes from the book of Frantz Fanon, “Black Skin White Masks.”  Fanon, the black psychiatrist from Martinique, and author of the classic “The Wretched of the Earth,” diagnoses the neurosis of wanting-to-be-white as a product of the internalization of colonial subjugation.  “If there is an inferiority complex,” Fanon writes, “it is the … Read more

When Romulo Neri’s appointment as Administrator of the Social Security System was reported in the early evening news, our house help, who was watching, exploded and let loose a torrent of untranslatable expletives. “Ayy p___, pera namin yan ah!” she shouted.  More than the reality of rising prices, what flashed in her mind was the … Read more

At the end of their brief June 24th meeting at the White House, US President George W. Bush and his visitor from the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, faced the press for a photo opportunity.  President Arroyo arrived in the US at around the same a powerful typhoon was battering her country, and a Filipino … Read more

In all the years I have traveled, I have taken planes far more often than I have taken boats.  Yet, I have always believed that boats are safer than planes. If a boat catches fire, or its engine stalls, there is usually time enough to move to a safe area, or to get on a … Read more

Or, is it a colony? The question may seem preposterous to those who are content to see reality purely in legal terms.  But, it is one that must be asked with all seriousness in the light of events like those triggered by the recent abduction of broadcast journalist Ces Drilon and her ABS-CBN crew by … Read more