It took a fiscal crisis to force the government to take a hard look at the outrageous salaries that a few public officials are getting for the privilege of serving the nation.  If the crisis had not been recognized, if the habit of taking out loans to cover recurrent deficits had not been criticized, the … Read more

Ms Arroyo’s dilemma was whether to acknowledge the full magnitude of the country’s fiscal and debt crisis, or to continue her pre-election policy of finessing it by reducing the problem to a simple budget deficit. Confronted by a paper from University of the Philippines economists, which showed that the country faced a serious fiscal and … Read more

Next to banks, telecommunication companies, and shopping malls, the most profitable business in the country today is the private security agency.  No other country in the world, except maybe unstable Iraq, hires so many private security personnel. “Blue guards,” as we call them, are everywhere, providing countless homes and neighborhoods, firms and offices that singular … Read more

Societies re-affirm their values in two ways: first, by punishing crime, and second, by recognizing good deed.  The moral crisis of today’s societies arises from the fact that they now tend to do less of the latter. Not so much for a lack of willingness to reward the good, but from a growing inability to … Read more

On August 22, 1979, exactly 25 years ago today, the government of revolutionary Nicaragua was formally established in the wake of the collapse of the regime of Anastacio Somoza Jr.  Under a revolutionary charter known as the Fundamental Statute of the Republic of Nicaragua, the new Sandinista government abolished the old constitution, dismissed the existing … Read more

On the occasion of Language Month, I received three invitations to speak on the politics of language.  Because of other commitments I was unable to accept any of them.  What I would have said at these symposia I have however tried to synthesize in today’s column written in Filipino . My thesis is that a … Read more

On April 30 this year, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order 314 creating a Presidential Commission on Values Formation (PCVF), which, we are told, she herself will head. To this new commission have been invited, as members, the leaders of the country’s various religious communities.  EO 314 is being billed as a component of Ms … Read more

Of the many problems the President ignored in her last State of the Nation Address, the most glaring perhaps is the population growth. Ms Arroyo’s silence on this issue is not unexpected.  From the moment she assumed the presidency in 2001, population growth became a non-issue.  So when Malacanang says it welcomes a debate on … Read more

The highlight of the opening of the regular session of Congress tomorrow is the President’s address to the nation.  Section 23, Art. 7 of the Constitution commands the president to perform this task.  I’ve often wondered if this speech, known as the State of the Nation Address, follows a set model.  How does the president … Read more

We can’t expect America and Australia, and all the other nations that supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to understand the full complexity of President Arroyo’s dilemma.  To them, the choice is merely between giving in to the demands of Iraqi terrorists to save one Filipino worker’s life and keeping our troops in Iraq … Read more