The growing lines of the urban poor seeking their daily ration of rice are images suffused with political meaning.  Any regime that knows its politics cannot fail to see great danger looming ahead.  For nothing illustrates more sharply a crisis spinning out of control than angry people scrambling for food. The Arroyo government is aware … Read more

My father-in-law went through a difficult period of dialysis before he died in 1999 at the age of 80.  My 78-year-old mother suffered from the same end-stage renal disease and died the following year. Both went through the same arduous course of daily peritoneal or thriceweekly hemo-dialysis, punctuated by recurrent infections requiring hospital confinement, and … Read more

It is important to understand exactly what the recent Supreme Court decision on the Neri v Senate is all about.  The 9-6 ruling nullifies the Senate’s arrest and detention order against Romulo Neri for his failure to heed a Senate summons and answer further questions on the nature of President Arroyo’s involvement in the NBN-ZTE … Read more

Until just a couple of days ago, Eliot Spitzer was the governor of New York.  Young and adorned with Ivy League credentials (he graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School), he became one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party, widely whispered about as possible presidential timber.  Time magazine hailed him as “Crusader of … Read more

We may not always be successful in finding enduring solutions for our problems as a nation, but at least our attempts to grapple with these issues enrich our political vocabulary.  This is good for us in the long run.  An increasingly complex world requires a complex and nuanced way of talking about it.  This is … Read more

Just about everybody in our country these days is looking for the truth – senators, bishops, the media, students, professors, spin doctors, and street-corner pundits.  Truth is the most sought-after commodity, yet its nature and uses are also the least understood. But, it appears we are not alone in this sport. Vanity Fair calls 2007 … Read more

Because it is easier to imagine it, corruption has taken center stage in the public’s appreciation of the current national crisis.  Against the backdrop of mass poverty, the quantities are truly mind-boggling: $130 million in kickbacks for a government project worth $329 million, a bribe offer of P200 million for a single signature, cash gifts … Read more

Yesterday’s Inquirer editorial, titled “Checkmated bishops”, sharply rebukes the Catholic bishops for refusing to take up the activist role that the late Cardinal Sin had played in past political crises: i.e., “to make clear to the populace what should be done,” and “to lead the people.” The editorial echoes a popular, if dangerous, view. I … Read more

“You moderate their greed.” This was the instruction of Neda Director-General Romulo Neri to Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada Jr. at one point in the latter’s work as technical consultant on the NBN-ZTE project. The reference is to the scandalous “commission” that the main brokers for the project, then Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos and … Read more

AKBAYAN, one of the first left-leaning groups to take up the challenge of electoral politics through the party-list mechanism, held a forum last week to mark the tenth year of its founding.  I was one of the invited speakers.  A restrained and reflective mood pervaded the occasion. On its very first electoral bid, the group … Read more